by Snow, Nicole
“Not coordinates. Not this time,” he muses before sucking in a breath. “Oh. Oh, shit.”
I perk, something bright and hopeful flaring through me. “Oh?”
“These are stars. Old star designations. Hardly anyone knows the Yale Bright Star Catalog anymore, but hell.” His eyes tick back and forth rapidly. He drags his free hand through his wild, shaggy hair. “I know it. This one’s Sirius, the Dog Star. This one’s Adhara, Wezen, Mirham, and here’s Canis Major. The Greater Dog.”
“Um, how do you know that?” I ask, blinking.
He smiles a bit grimly, almost embarrassed. “You’d be surprised at the weird shit stuffed in my head. Had to entertain myself some way growing up like I did.” He shakes his head. “It’s a constellation, but that doesn’t lead us anywhere. You need more than just one to navigate. You need latitude or longitude, angle of degrees to the constellation...”
“So maybe it’s not supposed to be a map,” I say. “Maybe it’s a message.”
“For what?”
“The password on the drive?” Am I totally off my rocker here? I’m smart, but not the kind of uncanny genius Leo is. But I venture slowly, “Kids play word games all the time. We did. So maybe we need a word or a phrase associated with the stars.”
His shoulders go stiff, and he looks at me oddly. It’s like he’s seeing me for the first time. Then that fierce, determined smile of his that I’ve always loved curls his lips. “Let’s give it a shot.”
We’re at the laptop in seconds. Him settled in front of it, me bending over him, watching over his shoulder as he brings up the program he’s been trying to use to crack the code.
“Try CanisMajor,” I say, and he taps it in quickly, then hits Enter. The password field starts flashing through letters and numbers, upper and lowercase versions of the letters, plus a few numbers. I frown. “What’s it doing?”
“Trying variants,” he says. “If I input a phrase, in a matter of seconds, the program can test tons of variations that randomize upper and lower case, punctuation, and numbers.”
Soon it’s done.
Nada.
It beeps a big red error. So we try DogStar, we try GreaterDog, we try DogConstellation, we even try BigDog and get back nothing.
Crap. It’s not working.
“Maybe it’s not a password,” he says, huffing out a frustrated breath. “Maybe it’s something else.”
“No—no, she left the paper where I’d look for it. She had to know what I’d guess if this really was Deanna.” I chew my lower lip, pacing back and forth behind his chair. Think, think. “She left that Nighthawks message about Nash in the same code we used as kids. She hid the note in the same place we hid. So it’s got to be something we’d think of as children, but not as adults.”
“Largest breed of dog,” Leo says.
I stop pacing, staring at him. “Uh, what?”
“Canis Major. Greater dog. What’s the largest breed of dog in the world?”
“I have no idea.”
He smirks. “For once, neither do I, but that’s what Mr. Google’s for.”
He’s quick on the keys, but I’m faster on my phone, whipping it out and tapping away in a quick search. “English Mastiff! Also known as the Old English Mastiff.”
“Let’s give it a shot,” he tells me.
He taps it in fast and lets it run—nothing on English Mastiff. Nothing on Old English Mastiff.
Just a big fat red nothing.
Crud.
I’m about to give up when something hits me. “Wait. Wait, the constellation names are in Latin, what about the Latin name for dog?”
Leo rubs at his chin again. “Dogs don’t really have individual Latin names for the breeds. They’re all just canis lupus familiaris.”
“Try it,” I urge. There’s a hunch running through me like a high-voltage current. I don’t want to quit now, so I lean over him, his body heat soaking into me as I stare at the screen. “Maybe it’s not about the big dog, maybe it’s just that we needed the big dog idea to lead us on a U-turn back to this.”
He looks skeptical but amused. “This shit’s next level, Rissa. You and your sis should’ve been cryptographers,” he says, typing it in. CanisLupusFamiliaris.
Enter.
Numbers flash by, and then...
Password Accepted.
My heart stops just long enough to hear the complete and utter silence that settles over the cabin.
I let out a triumphant squeal that startles even me, flinging myself at Leo in a bear hug. “Oh my God, we did it!”
He lets out a stunned laugh, rising to catch me, meeting me like we’re on the same wavelength. His strong arms bundle around me, turning us around in a wild, sweet spin that lifts me off my feet and makes my heart soar.
“We did,” he gasps, burying his face in my hair. “We figured it out. Don’t know what we’ll find, but I know it’s going to lead us to Deanna.”
Maybe it’s joy.
Maybe it’s his confidence.
Maybe it’s the first real feeling like something might go right, and I’ve actually done something to help save my sister instead of just sitting back and passively waiting.
But the feeling that surges through me can’t be contained.
Before I can even think, second-guess myself, I kiss him like mad.
I half expect him to push me away. Everything’s been so strange between us since the last kiss, those wounded words, the way we pulled away.
Not this time.
When my mouth crashes against his, he collides back.
If I’m kindling, he’s all fire.
Leo growls, claiming my mouth, and it feels perfect and right and fantabulous in a way I haven’t felt in years.
It’s how we used to be.
Pure, scorching inferno, consuming every spare inch of skin.
We’d tear each other apart, twined into a mess of need and rolling bodies and clinging hands.
And then we’d be so soft in the afterglow.
The calm after the storm, when the night goes clear and quiet and the thunder is just a rumble on the distant horizon.
But right now, that thunder grinds out scalding hot between us, roaring and crashing in the heat of our breaths and the tangling of our bodies as we crush against each other, holding on like starving animals given the one thing we’ve needed for years.
And God, do I need Leo.
There’s never been another man.
Never anyone else.
Never another beast who can sate me like he does. So thick, so hot, so wild.
Filling me until my entire world centers on his wall of a body and his cock takes me completely. I remember like it was yesterday and want it right now, even as my hands slip under his clothes to find ridged scars, hard muscle, the perfect rippling cords of his power under his animal skin.
We don’t need words.
We never have.
We know each other too well, and we speak in moving hands and gasping sighs and biting teeth and twining tongues. We tuck in and tear each other to pieces.
He hoists me up with those huge arms I’ve missed. So perfect, so powerful. I wrap my legs around his waist, digging my fingers into his hair, sealing his mouth to mine with a moan.
Holy Toledo.
But he’s always done this to me.
Made me forget the scared, shy Clarissa who crept around like a mouse, afraid of making too much noise.
I’m not that girl anymore. I’m a woman who stands on her own two feet, made stronger by the years apart.
But he still finds something inside me, some core wildness I’d never show anyone but him.
“Fuck,” he grunts into my mouth, his huge hands winding to my ass. Then his fingers push between my legs, cupping my throbbing mound, and squeeze.
Oh, he makes me howl.
Clothing tears away as we fumble to the bedroom together. First, it’s clutched in his hands, then it’s thrown to the floor as he tumbles me down on my bed in
nothing but my panties and bra and slick, needy heat.
I don’t even know when I tore through his shirt. Don’t know how his desire gave me strength, but it hangs off him with a huge gash across it. I’m so shocked by how bad I want him I just flush.
Leo smiles darkly, rips it away, and covers my body with his.
The tight, bulky taper of his torso crushes my breasts. He’s sculpted so gorgeously that the tattoos and scars stamped across his body are more like living art, a firestorm taming the skin that just accents the sensual, bestial shape of his body.
His weight is almost crushing. Hot. Frantic.
Divine.
And even if it’s been years, I still know him.
Know this is where I’ve ached to be for eight flipping years, buried under this mountain of his body in a wall of protection, desire, love.
God, I’ve never stopped loving him.
And it’s that fueling my fire so raw, making me burn so fiercely.
He looks down at me, his eyes wide and wicked. It’s the gaze of a lion before it devours.
I know that look.
Just like I know what he’ll do to me. My pussy aches with the anticipation tingling through me as he smiles slowly, devilishly, baring his teeth in the shadows.
And they feel devilish too as they descend on my body, leaving me writhing.
Soon, molten points of pleasure and painful teasing leave my whole body trembling as he leaves marks.
My neck. My shoulders. The upper curve of my breasts, the vulnerable crook of my elbow, the soft expanse of my belly, my calves, my inner thighs. Oh, hell!
There’s no denying it. He knows every forbidden place because he’s the one who taught me how sensitive they were in the first place.
And he knows how to make me beg for him, reminding me what it’s like to be his.
There’s possession in every love bite.
Every nip of his teeth brands me in terrible, wonderful ways, leaving behind spots that throb and burn on their own. Then his sinful mouth presses on another place, and another, and I’m just gone.
Lost. So wet and tingling, my nipples peaked and hot, and yet he touches me everywhere but there.
Everywhere but those sweet, sweet points that can hurl me over the edge.
“Leo!” I hiss, dragging my nails through his hair, over his back, his shoulders. “Don’t.”
Don’t tease me, I think.
I’ve waited so long. Even another minute is too freaking much.
We can play later—because I already know I can’t let go of this again. Another time, we’ll slowly rediscover each other’s bodies and relish skin like fine wine.
Right now, I just want what I’ve been missing.
I want it as fast, as hard, and as savage as he’ll bring it.
And understanding flickers in his violet eyes as he presses a searing, sucking kiss below my navel, making me whimper because the meaning is crystal clear.
It’s so on.
Leo pushes himself up and kisses me harder. His big, rough hands engulf me, making me feel fragile and protected and so wanted as he takes control.
He knows my breasts. Every knead, every stroke, every flick of his tongue sends raw lightning through my blood. His fingertips play at my nipples, smoothing the marks he’d left earlier.
This man is too good.
Every bit of me feels riled. Then his tongue delves into my mouth in hot, rhythmic, teasing flicks. It’s almost mocking as he mimics the rhythm of my want, the soft murmurs I can’t hold in.
My needy body grinds against him, my pussy against his huge thigh, begging please, please, please with every movement. He pushes a growl down my throat, his cock rubbing hard.
Bastard.
He’s a beautiful, savage bastard, keying me up until he knows I’m on the verge of losing my mind.
“Leo,” I whimper. He looks at me through narrow eyes, amusement and lust fencing in his eyes. They’re almost the shade of purple lightning right now.
Mercy.
He’s reduced me to this. No pride, no dignity, just animal wanting.
And the worst part? I kinda like it.
There’s never been a need for games with him. I know when I give him all of me, he’ll handle it as preciously as my heart.
Maybe it’s missing him that makes it more powerful.
Maybe it’s how long my body’s been deprived.
Maybe it’s just his cock’s friction coming harder, and I swear he feels bigger than I remember.
But when he draws my lower lip into his mouth to suck at the exact same moment when his hand slips down between us and two thick, heavy fingers part my pussy folds and dart inside with wild familiarity, I can’t.
I break.
Shatter in this clutching, gasping, slick, and oh-so-spontaneous release. My cunt pinches tight around his fingers and I throw my hips into him, taking his fingers, grinding out an O that hits like a fever storm.
Coming!
And that storm has so much heat, ripping right through me, reducing me to a sizzling mess.
“Shit, Rissa,” he growls against my mouth, his deep-rumbling voice doing terrible things to me, all part of that wave that crashes over me and doesn’t let me go. “Still so tight, so damned ready, aren’t you? Tell me since your pussy can’t lie.”
I almost can’t answer—because he won’t let me come down.
I’m just caught in this trembling high, trapped in the moment of coming undone, throbbing everywhere. Legs thrashing, toes curled, raking the sheets with my nails as my blood rushes through me in one loud sensuous scream.
And he pins me there with those devious fingers, strumming my clenching heat with twisted thrusts and strokes that ride the waves of an endless orgasm.
I can’t flipping breathe!
He’s too good, too hot, and he knows exactly how to drive me into ecstasy. How to leave me gushing, flooding, mindless, shrieking my pleasure to the rafters.
I hate-love every second of this.
It’s torture and pleasure all at once, but it’s still not what I want.
It’s still not him in all his beastly, intimate fullness.
Just when I think I’ll die, he stops.
But only long enough for the rasp of a zipper, a crinkle of a condom wrapper.
A kiss, so tender, so right, our lips wet and swollen and slick. I sink my teeth into his bottom lip, panting, begging.
“Leo, please,” I whisper.
I don’t know how I’m holding back from just mounting myself on him. I feel his cock pressed against me, a wickedly familiar sensation my body remembers like the sound of my own voice.
But he doesn’t make me wait anymore.
His fingers dig into my hips in that rough way I love, he pins me down with a reckless strength I crave, and then—oh, yeah—then he fills me.
For just a second, the sensation blinds me.
His cock sinks deep, stretching me apart. All eight lonely, sexless years go up in a blaze of Leo’s beast-sized glory returning home.
I’m not used to it anymore.
Not ready for how it feels to be split open by his thickness, his sheer size. My own fingers and every battery-operated plaything I’ve had are a joke compared to his cock-head stretching me open, his flared edge rooted deep inside, the ridges of his dick branding themselves on my inner walls.
“Fuck!” he snarls, like the memory of how it used to be hits him too. “Need this, Rissa. Need every tight inch of you. Need it more than I need goddamn air.”
My pussy clenches around him, one mind to our own lust.
My whimpering peaks, breaks off, turns into shuddering gasps as the initial shock of him lances through me. Then it melts in the pit of my stomach, reforges itself into a spear of the most divine pleasure ever.
I don’t know how I hold all of him.
It’s like he never ends, going deeper and deeper, conquering places inside of me no other man ever could, filling me in ways that border on rampage.
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He’s holding me the entire time, those huge, inked, roughed up hands locked on my hips.
Leo pulls me into every thrust, wringing his pleasure from my body, using me so hard and so sweet I never want him to stop.
He grunts louder, showering my face in hot kisses, his breath panting and raspy and harsh. “There’s my Rissa. There’s my girl. Never gonna miss you again. Never, ever gonna miss this.”
Then his mouth rules mine, stealing the sound of lusty, conflicted heartbreak in the back of my throat.
Rock-hard muscle falls around me, crushing my breasts, my body, the softness of me into the bed.
And I’m trying not to cry when I wrap my arms and legs around him, pulling him into me, bringing him home as deep as I can.
We’re two crashing plates then. Human tectonics. Lovers prodded into the wildest, most emotional horizontal tango of our lives because we’re sharing every last freaking feel in the book.
His cock comes faster, harder, pushing me past oh my God and into oh hell. It’s perfect velvet on iron, rough friction building like a static charge, two hips and tongues locked and loaded.
And the pace just ticks faster, until we’re frantic, wild, crazed.
We’re burning each other down, and I know it’s worth it when my first O hits on his cock.
Snarling, he buries himself deep, lifting me up and throwing me back into the mattress. His hips crash into mine so hard it almost hurts, but it’s the delicious kind of ache.
My vision goes white and my mouth opens to scream, but I’m too breathless.
Coming!
His pubic bone grinds into my clit. Every stroke is a fresh new hit of this man, an avalanche of fire, a heaping slice of sweet, feral lion-man.
Before, with him, I thought I knew good sex.
But this? What he’s doing to me tonight with his teeth pulling at my lip, growling with every thrust, grinding himself into me like I’m marked forever?
This is next freaking level.
And I can’t think anymore. Can’t do anything but feel in the maelstrom of his ink and muscle and swearing strokes, and it feels glorious.
Cataclysmic, maybe.
There’s no question he’s a beast, my lion, and he mauls me with his love. He turns me over when I’m done coming, shifts back inside me, and delivers a crisp smack to one side of my butt. Then those manic thrusts of his drive home, drive higher, and push me dangerously close to another sheet-clenching finish.