Now he was pissing her off. “When. I’m. Done.”
And that’s when the insane hybrid bellowed, “Too long!” from the other side of the shower door. Blayne spun around when the door slammed open and watched through the one eye that didn’t have honey-infused conditioner in it as Bold Novikov stepped into the shower with her.
“Have you lost your mind?” she screamed, trying to get the conditioner out of her eyes and cover her naked body at the same time.
“You’re taking too long!”‘
“Too long for what? Did we have plans I’m not aware of?”
The shower, an exquisite bit of bathroom engineering, had five showerheads that could be individually adjusted by temperature and water pressure. Yet Blayne only had three going at the moment, each adjusted to what she—and her hair—needed. And the shower that was so wonderful and big was now way too small since it not only had a seven-one cranky polar-lion hybrid in it but his big dick, too!
“Look—” she began.
“Don’t ‘look’ me. I’ve been standing out there for a good fifteen minutes. More than enough time for a normal human being to shower—”
“Normal?”
“—but instead of getting in and out you stay in here and abuse the Ursus County water supply!”
“First off”—she yelled over the now five pumping showerheads and her exploding rage, busy trying to get all the conditioner out of her hair—“I am as normal as anyone else who can shift into a half African wild dog and half wolf! And second, I wasn’t abusing anything! I’m a girl! A girl with a lot of hair that likes to be pampered and loved!”
“Are you giving your hair its own personality?”
“Yessss,” she hissed at him as he scrubbed himself clean, attempting to prove how fast he could do it. Goddamn show off. “Because my hair is that amazing! And third, don’t blame me for your obsessive compulsive disorder! You have a schedule to keep—that’s on you. Not me! So suck it up, Genghis! This is one peasant who’s not running from your OCD boar-rage!” She turned away from him and then spun back. “And use some goddamn conditioner on that mop!”
And to help him with that, she threw one of her new and industrial-size, thirty-two-ounce bottles of conditioner at him. The one with the wheat protein added. She had good aim, too. Hit him right in the face.
Blayne knew, too, that if she’d seen anger or rage, she would have run. But there was none of that. No. Instead, she saw that he had the same expression he’d had right before he cross-checked a rookie who’d been moving up behind him during his last game.
She saw determination.
Blayne took a step back and she knew instantly that had been the wrong move. His gaze narrowed, watching her close, his eyes turning from bright, light blue to gold in a split second.
Lion-male gold.
She was no longer Blayne. She was prey. And they both knew it.
Bo watched Blayne’s claws unleash from her hands while fangs extended from her gums. She braced her legs apart and waited for him to move first. He liked that. It was bold. Like his name.
In the thirty seconds since that bottle of product slammed into his face with the power of a baseball thrown by a major league pitcher, Bo’s mane had grown until it practically covered his eyes and tumbled past his shoulders and to his pecks in an unruly mass of light and dark browns.
Knowing she’d wait, he made a classic hockey move by dropping his head as if he was going to move to his left to circle around her. Blayne saw it and went for the shower door to his right. He caught her there, as he knew he would since no one in the game was as good at “deking” or head-faking, as he was. But he forgot he wasn’t dealing with some nonplayer. She may not play hockey, but she was a derby girl. When he had her around the waist, Blayne let her weight come back on him, surprising him. In the process, she brought her elbow down and slammed it into his collar bone. Bo slipped backward and into the opposite wall, Blayne still in his arms, but she twisted and head-butted him. True, she only got him in the jaw, but it rang his bell. Then she was out of his arms and gone.
Slipping and sliding through water and suds, he followed after her. He saw that perfect ass hard-charge into the living room, and he went right for it and her. So focused on his prize, he didn’t know she was crouching by that entrance until his brand-new hockey stick slammed into his shins, flipping him head over ass. He landed so hard he took his uncle’s prized, handmade coffee table out in the process.
In that second they both froze.
Oh, shit, he thought.
“Oh, shit,” Blayne whispered.
He went up on his hands and knees, and Blayne crouched by him, the hockey stick still in her hands.
“He’s gonna kill me,” Bo whispered.
“He’s gonna kill us both!”
Bo looked down at the table. “There’s gotta be a way we can fix it.”
“How? We just threw four hundred pounds of rampaging male at it. This table is done.”
She was right. He knew she was right. And all Bo could do was laugh.
“Bo! It’s not funny!”
Yeah. It was. But he couldn’t even tell her it was because he was laughing too hard. So instead he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in close, the hockey stick still between them. She had to move it, though, when he pressed his head against her shoulder.
“I hope this isn’t nervous-breakdown laughter.”
When he snorted, she laughed with him, dropping the stick and putting her arms around his shoulders.
It was the best end he’d ever had to a weird day.
They sat next to each other on the couch. They hadn’t bothered to get dressed yet. Instead they sat and they stared at that completely destroyed coffee table. According to Bo, the table had been handmade by some master wood guy, and Grigori had only paid a few hundred for it. Of course now it was worth several thousand. Or, ya know… it had been.
She could imagine how bad it would be had this happened with her dad.
“Should we clean it up?” she finally asked. “Or let him see the devastation?”
“I don’t know. He’ll be home in a few minutes so—”
The phone rang, and they both looked over at it. When it rang for a third time, Blayne nudged him and Bo reached over and picked up the receiver. “Hello?” He looked at Blayne and nodded. “Okay. Sure. No problem. See you later.” Bo hung up the phone. “That wind we’ve been ignoring, coming from outside, is the storm. It’s bad and Grigori is going to crash on Dr. Luntz’s couch for the night.”
Blayne snorted. “Yeah. Right.”
“What?”
“Yeah. On her couch. Right.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You can’t be that naive.”
“Naive about what?”
“Bo, they’re sleeping together. For a while, from what I can tell.”
“Dr. Luntz and Grigori? No.”
“Yes. He’s crazy about her. Can’t you tell?”
“No. I can’t. And I’m not comfortable with this conversation.”
“I think it’s sweet. They argue to hide how they feel about each other.”
“Since I was brought here those two have been arguing.”
“She doesn’t want anybody to know.” Blayne cringed. “She’s not married, is she?”
“Her husband passed away a few years back.”
“There you go. She’s not ready to deal with a real relationship. But Grigori is waiting for her. It’s so sweet.”
“Where are you getting this from?” he demanded.
“Instinct. You can’t tell when people are madly in love?”
“Apparently not.”
“She probably has kids, right?”
“Grown children. One of them is a physician at the hospital.”
“Doesn’t matter. They still love their father, and I’m sure she thinks this will hurt them. But they’re such a cute couple. I bet he’s loved her for years,” Blayne sighed. “That’s
so romantic.”
“You bruised my shins.”
Blayne sighed again, but this time she was annoyed. “Is that all you’ve got to say?”
“Yes! Because I don’t want to talk about this anymore!”
“Fine. We’ll both pretend your uncle is an untouched schoolboy and Dr. Luntz is the Virgin Marci and they’re not at her house, right now… gettin’ it on. Bow-chica-bow-wow.”
“Okay,” Bo said. “Prove it.”
“Prove it? You want me to prove fucking?”
“I want you to prove that my uncle and Dr. Luntz are being inappropriate with each other.”
“Oh, my God! Is that what you call it?”
“When it involves my uncle and Dr. Luntz, yes! Now prove it!”
“Fine!” Blayne stood up and marched into the hallway. She headed right for Grigori’s room. Unlike his nephew, Grigori was neat but not obsessively so, which she was glad to see. She went right to his side table and opened the drawer. Smiling triumphantly, she held up the opened and extremely large box of condoms. “Proving not only that Grigori Novikov is far from an innocent schoolboy but that safe sex is important at any age!”
“Aaah!” Bo turned from her and marched back out of the room. “I can’t handle this!”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, following after him. She gasped, stopping in her tracks. “Are you in love with Dr. Luntz?”
Bo spun around to face her. “What? Eew. No! She’s…she’s like…”
“Your mother. Oh, how sweet! You don’t want him defiling the woman who’s been like a mother to you.”
“Why are we having this conversation?”
“Because you freaked out over a half-used box of condoms.”
“Because you didn’t get out of the shower.”
“Are we back here again?”
“Yes!” he yelled. “We are!”
“Fine,” she said calmly. “Ignore the reality of your situation.”
“And what reality is that?”
“That we’re alone, naked, and with a half box of condoms.” She stood by him now and turned the box over, dumping the condoms at his big, bare feet. “See what you miss when you obsess over bullshit?”
Bo watched Blayne’s naked ass walk away. “Don’t sashay away from me,” he murmured, enjoying the view.
She gasped, stopped. “I do not sashay anywhere.” She talked with both hands now without facing him. “I may saunter. Even glide. But I do not sashay. That is for ladies of the night.”
He liked how she couldn’t—or maybe it was she simply wouldn’t—say “hookers.” Too demeaning for women probably. Too rude. Blayne hated rude.
“I don’t know,” he said, walking up to her. “Looked like a sashay to me.”
Bo brushed his fingers down her back. The damage from the accident was still there. Not nearly as healed up as his wounds were, but they were all superficial. Overall Blayne was healthy and strong, an athlete whose only limits were her own. She talked about his skills, but did she realize what she had?
He moved around her, his fingers sliding over smooth flesh. “So we have a storm outside, a house full of food, and half a box of condoms. What would you suggest we do with our time, Blayne Thorpe?”
“That’s easy. We paint each other’s toenails while talking about boys and watching John Hughes movies. If we’re feeling really adventurous we play the ‘stiff as a board, light as a feather’ game and then pray we haven’t woken up the undead.”
“I’m almost positive my uncle doesn’t have toenail polish or John Hughes movies and I don’t like talking about boys because they use me to do their homework, unaware how gorgeous I am until I take off my glasses and get that complete makeover set to a thumping eighties soundtrack.”
Her grin was wide. “Then I’m completely out of ideas.”
Bo stepped into her, nudging her back until she was plastered against the wall. “Then goddamnit, Blayne Thorpe, just fucking kiss me.”
She squinted up at him as if she were trying to see Jupiter. “I’ll need a ladder to make that happen.”
He grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up, enjoying her squealed giggles; her arms looping around his neck, her legs around his waist.
“And now?” he demanded.
“And now, I’d have to say, you have me where you want me, Marauder. Genghis would be proud.”
“Then you better kiss me quick before I burn your peasant village to the ground and take all your women as my concubines.”
“Oh, no,” she whispered, staring at his mouth. “I’m trapped between wanting to help my people and keep my innocence. What will I do?”
“What you always do, Blayne,” he told her honestly while pressing his body into hers. “Help everyone else.”
She leaned in, her hands moving from his shoulders to his face, her fingers stroking his jaw. “My God,” she whispered, her sweet breath brushing against his mouth, “the sacrifices I’m forced to make for my people.”
Blayne pressed her mouth against his, her lips parting, allowing him to slide his tongue inside and taste her. Their playful teasing stopped, both of them groaning, their hands clutching. Their heads tilting to opposite sides, allowing them to delve deeper inside the other.
Bo’s physical reaction to Blayne was immediate and powerful, instantly telling him that the best thing she’d done for either of them that first time they’d met was run from him. Because this feeling was as addictive as it could be destructive when first starting out in life. He’d have ignored everything around him simply so he could enjoy this woman’s taste and feel, again and again.
But, ten years later, there’d be no walking away. There’d be no worrying about the what ifs and the if onlys.
He finally had her, and the Marauder had no intention of ever letting her go.
Oh, man, was she in trouble. Huge trouble. “Call the priest for an exorcism, get the pope on the phone, have the police on standby” trouble.
Because this was not the sweet, patient kiss of a gentleman caller. Nor was this the more typical horny gropings of a guy she knew she’d be done with when the sun came up.
In fact, Blayne didn’t know what the hell this was, but she did know that “it” and Bo “The Marauder” Novikov were nothing but trouble. The best kind of trouble but trouble nonetheless.
Yet knowing that didn’t stop her from gripping him tighter with her legs while digging her hands into his hair. His mane had come back, tumbling down around his shoulders and to his back, and she knew the reappearance of that mane was because of her. And what red-blooded, all-American shifter girl could walk away from that? Not her that was for sure. And why should she? She was no longer the easily panicked seventeen-year-old who saw a lust-filled gaze as an unprovoked serial killer attack. No, this was something Blayne had been waiting for, for a very long time. Maybe even forever. And now that she had it in her hands, she wouldn’t turn away. She wouldn’t run.
Bo leaned back a bit and those sweet blue eyes were gone, replaced by what she liked to call calculating feline gold eyes.
“Bed,” he growled, staring down at her.
Blayne shook her head. “Here.” She pulled her arms away and pressed them high up on the wall, giving him a good look at what she was offering him—which was everything. “I want you to fuck me right here.”
He hiked her up higher until her breasts were right by his mouth. Closing his lips around one hard nipple, he began playing with her in a way that had Blayne panting and her claws digging into his shoulder. She writhed against the wall, but Bo’s big hands had her pinned there, making her crazier. He switched to her other breast and did the same, pulling a choked cry from Blayne. He was doing something to her with his lips that had her confused and turned on so much she could barely think straight. Her body began to shake hard, and she thought he was going to bring her off right then, but he lowered her again and with his grip tight on her with one arm, Bo leaned over and swiped up one of the condoms that had scattered on the f
loor. He tore the packet open, and she watched him slide the latex over his hard, straining cock, the pre-come leaking from the head. Once he had it on, his hands slid under her ass and he moved back a bit from the wall. He lowered her so her pussy lined up with his cock and he pressed the tip against her.
“Look at me,” he ordered her, and taking her time, she tore her gaze away from his cock and moved it up to his face. “You sure about this, Blayne?” And she saw the tips of his fangs peek out from under his top lip. She hoped they didn’t grow to the full-size versions he had when shifted, because that would be awkward. “There’ll be no going back after this,” he warned her. “So you need to be sure.”
She didn’t know what he was trying to tell her, and she wasn’t in the mood to waste time trying to find out. So she said, “If I wasn’t sure, I’d be fighting you off and screaming for help.” She gripped his shoulders with her fingers and leaned in until she could use the tip of her tongue to lick a line across his chest. “Trust me, Novikov,” she said, feeling her own fangs sliding from her gums. “I’m sure.”
She grinned, shocking herself that she was still able to tease him. “Although I do think it was very polite of you to ask.”
His answering smile was beyond wicked, and he pressed forward, the head of his cock pushing inside her. Blayne’s first thought was, “Huh. That feels bigger than it looked.” Then Bo rammed it in the rest of the way, and Blayne didn’t have any additional thoughts for several long moments. His cock filled her too much. Too much for her to have a cohesive thought. Too much for her to temporarily have any thought. Panting, she gripped him tighter and raised herself up a bit until she could press her mouth against his chest.
“Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move,” she managed to desperately think.
He moved.
And she had no idea how it went from Good God! This is too much! Take it out, take it out! Straight into Oh, God! I’m coming! I’m coming! But she was. She was coming hard and fast, and absolutely nothing could stop her.
Claws dug into his shoulders, and he heard a muffled scream against his chest. He could only pray she was coming because he wasn’t really sure he could stop. He never thought it would feel this good. Sure. He’d imagined it would, but he also imagined he’d like bacon-flavored ice cream because he liked bacon so much. He’d been horribly wrong about the bacon-flavored ice cream. But he hadn’t been wrong about Blayne.
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