"Shhh," he said, one hand stroking at my hair as the other found the button on my jeans. "I won't hurt you. Won't hurt him either even though I want to rip his head off."
I pushed at Braeden's hips, my attempt to move him away ineffectual with the way the coat was halfway down my arms and I couldn't maneuver it up or down.
"I want to go inside," I pleaded.
He was trying to seduce me for all the wrong reasons -- to make his sister safe, to make her happy by keeping me alive.
My body didn't know the difference.
My brain did.
"Please," I begged. "I want to go inside. I'm done talking."
A harsh laugh blew hot against my neck and then he nipped softly at the skin.
"Baby, so am I."
His hand stopped stroking my hair. The fingers threaded through the strands and then closed in a tight fist to control the tilt of my head. His mouth covered mine, his tongue bossing its way past my lips as a moan gurgled up my throat.
With the button on my jeans unthreaded, he slid the zipper down. I squirmed, wet for what came next but with some small, sane part of my brain rebelling against his touch.
One hand still knotted in my hair, he curled the other around my throat, his touch light and warm. His tongue probed deeper, sound vibrating through him. I didn't know if it was a groan or another growl, but I vibrated with it.
Braeden broke the hypnotic kiss to draw air.
I strained against the grip in my hair. I needed to talk sense into him, into both of us.
"What are you d-doing?"
I choked on the last word as his hand slid inside my panties to grip my mound. Squeezing roughly at my flesh, he answered.
"Courting."
Tears flushed my eyes. I wanted to shake my head but he held me too tightly.
"You hate me," I accused as the last sensations of his kiss dissolved.
He had dodged an outright admission just minutes ago, telling me his feelings didn't matter. I wouldn't let him dodge it again.
"You hate me. It's in the way you look at me, your tone of voice, the way you've handed anything to do with me off to someone else for the last five years--"
He cut me off with a snarl and another rough squeeze to my mound.
"If you really think that," he rasped, finally sliding one of his fingers between my labia to break the wet seal of my pussy, "you must be one hell of a masochist to be this ready for my cock."
How could I respond to his accusation? How could I tell Braeden I'd fallen in love with him long before he fell in hate with me? That wanting him was a habit I couldn't break?
Limp with defeat, I sagged against him.
"Heartless bastard," I whispered as Braeden lifted me off my feet, my body half slung over his shoulder as he carried me out of the stall and deeper into the barn, the animals quiet despite all our arguing.
"You're absolutely right, baby girl," he said, laying me on a fresh pile of straw and covering my body with his. Dipping his head, he glossed his lips along my neck before planting a kiss at the hollow below my ear.
"I lost my heart a long time ago."
I hated Braeden Hughes right then. Only, my body didn't care. My body ached with need.
His hands worked to soothe the ache. He stripped my coat off and placed it beneath me. My boots and jeans came off next, my hands clutching uncertainly at his shoulders as he removed the clothing.
I wanted control, but I didn't know if I wanted it over my own body or his.
"Tears aren't going to stop me," he warned, pausing for a few seconds in undressing me to cover my shaking body once more. "Tell me you don't want me in you."
Smoothing a hand between us, he parted my labia again, his fingers rubbing between their slick folds. "Say it's not me you're wet for."
The more he talked and touched, the harder I shook.
"I didn't think so," he murmured, surfing down my body to my bare lower half.
Face between my parted thighs, he inhaled deeply. "Just you baby, just the smell of your sweet pussy filling my senses."
Damn, he was slaying me, the catch in his voice making my imagination run wild. At last I was glad we were in the dark where I couldn't see him, even if he could see me. It had been his hard stares, gruff tones and pulling away that had bloodied my heart the last five years.
In the dark, all I had to judge by was his touch and scratchy voice.
Right then, both were telling me he was aroused. I didn't care why, was too far gone from his touch to remember my objections.
My hips lifted as his nose skimmed the fur of my sex. His beard roughly tickled my thighs. I jerked with fresh need at the sensation it produced. I moaned, pushed higher. His hands slid along my legs. Reaching my thighs, he pressed them further apart, splaying my pussy open. His mouth moved lower, covering what he had just exposed with his firm, pouty lips and warm tongue.
Groaning need bubbled in my throat. I wrapped my hands around his head, the hair too short to fist. My thighs pressed inward. He stopped holding them open, freeing his fingers to tease the hole his tongue had been busy exploring.
Jerking with need, I let go of his head and wrapped my arms around my chest, hugging myself tight to keep from screaming out his name or how I wanted his cock in me, fucking me, filling me with his come as I contracted around him, my own release raging through me.
"First this," he murmured, licking a hard line up my clit as if he'd been reading my mind. Pushing two thick fingers into my clutching pussy, he growled his next warning. "Then this."
Yeah, I thought, forcing myself to take a deep breath. I was good with that plan. Exhaling, I reached down and smoothed one palm against the crown of his head as my other hand reached up and fisted my own hair. His tongue repeated the line he had just stroked, freeing the whimper stuck in my throat.
His fingers retreated from my pussy then slid back in, three thick and twisting. I started to quake. This was exactly what it was supposed to feel like, this chipping away of muscle and bone until his fingers and tongue took that final stroke and I disintegrated all at once.
"Braeden..." I whispered, his name turning into a moan when I repeated it a second later.
He moaned with me, the sound vibrating against the sensitive, swollen clit as he buried his fingers all the way down to their base and began to shake them furiously inside of me. I screamed out. A whole body contraction cut the scream in half as my climax slammed through me. I seized, my body rocking from the force of his mouth and fingers, the butting of his shoulders against the back of my thighs as he drove me harder, whipping the cresting waves of my release higher.
My clit danced with the same contractions that had my pussy sucking rhythmically around his vibrating fingers. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, my mind so blank I was starting to see things that weren't there, like the night sky shining above the barn roof.
Body crashing from an overload of pleasure, I collapsed deeper into the straw, incoherent words sliding off my tongue. Braeden darted up, his lips wet with my juices as he claimed my mouth and his tongue began to wrestle with mine.
He slid a hand between us, my brain taking a few seconds to realize he was freeing his cock from his jeans. Trying to help him, I pushed at the fabric hugging his hips as I spread my thighs further apart.
"Fuck, I can't think," he said, breaking the kiss. "Can't breathe...can't do anything but feel you..."
Together, we wrestled his jeans past the curve of his muscular ass. My nails sank into the firm skin and urged him to enter me.
"Slow, baby," he murmured against my neck, his teeth pinching at the skin in warning.
I didn't want slow. I wanted him in me, coming, claiming me before whatever it was that had separated us the last five years reared its ugly head once more.
"Baby, I just tested how tight you are," he warned, his voice a spine tingling mix of rasp and growl. "We can't rush this part."
Frustrated, I drew my hands up and wrapped my arms around my head, my
face turning so I could bite at my fleshy bicep. Feeling the tentative push of his cock against my opening, I bit harder.
Damn, he was big.
Body curling to open space between us, I reached down and wrapped my hands around the thick shaft. I sucked in a lungful of air and held it.
"Yeah," he rasped, licking at my throat. "And you're going to take every last inch of it.'
The air left me in a racing whoosh. My thighs melted to the side and my hands smoothed their way up to rest lightly against the small of his back. He pushed again, slow and steady as the big head force the muscles gating my pussy to submit.
Braeden bit along my jaw, the short bursts of pain distracting me from the relentless stretching of my sex as the head of his cock finally breached my entrance. Gingerly pushing forward and up, he strained me wider while his lips ghosted across my shut eyelids.
Stuffed full of the man I'd been fantasizing about almost half my life, I brought my arms up and draped them around his shoulders. I was almost sad that he was in me because that meant the act was nearly done.
Sensing the change in me, his lips caressed my ear as he shushed my thoughts.
"Just feel me in you, Paisley," he urged. "Feel your body molding around me, stroking me, enjoying me inside you."
Fuck, yes. My body -- my pussy -- was enjoying the hell out of him. But that didn't stop a fresh stream of tears from trailing down the sides of my face.
He kissed at them, his tender admonishments to stay with him, to be present in the moment, fading as I started to tremble. He pulled back, the fat crown tugging painfully at my gate as he sought to pull out entirely.
"No," I begged, apologizing for my tears.
Braeden shook his head but didn't finish his retreat.
"I shouldn't have brought you out here..."
My chest seized, nothing physical about the pain that drew the muscles tight.
"You can't stop," I cried. "If you ever cared the least little bit about me, you can't stop."
Growling, he buried his face against my neck. There were no nibbling bites to distract me when he pushed back in, burying his cock deep inside. No licks warmed my flesh and no lips ghosted across my skin.
Each stroke wrecked me anew, the fat head both a battering ram and an anchor that kept him from slipping out. My pussy coiled around the thick shaft, my muscles sucking and tugging. He breathed harsh against my neck, his fingers coiled in my hair and pulling my head back with each thrust until my throat was fully exposed.
His teeth grazed over the flesh, the threat of him rending my throat open only making my body wind tighter around his cock. I had no doubt his size and relentless fury would leave me sore for days, but the burn that ignited my pussy was too sweet to regret.
Even the sinking of his teeth into the top curve of my shoulder couldn't stop my cresting passion. Groaning, I wrapped my legs around his strong hips, one ankle hooking the heel of my other foot so I had him trapped inside me.
He bit harder, the skin threatening to break. It didn't stop my squirming, didn't keep me from moving with him, deepening his thrusts as I ground against his shaft until his balls slapped heavily against my ass.
"Don't stop," I whimpered, eyes threatening to roll back and stare at my brain as my entire body condensed into one small pocket of flesh riding his cock.
Jerking my head toward his, Braeden devoured my mouth with a kiss, his growling rumbling down my throat as his hands moved wildly through my hair. Our flesh slapped at one another and then I stopped and just squeezed, my arms holding onto him for dear life as the first wave of my climax pounded against me, pushed me under and held me there in darkness with an unquenchable need.
I shuddered, shook, felt his cock jerk inside me and then the sticky warmth of his come filling me. Another jerk, my pussy holding him so snugly I could feel his climax roll through his cock before another thick spurt entered me and then another.
A few seconds later, our bodies drained, I unlocked my limbs from him. Still on top of me, he tried to brush at my hair and kiss at my cheek. I burrowed against the straw until it was his body sinking and I was on my knees, pawing around me.
"Thank you," I whispered, dragging my clothes and boots back on while I evaded his outstretched hand. I couldn't forget him saying he shouldn't have brought me out here, couldn't unhear the tone of mistake and regret he had used.
"That was all I needed to be through with you forever."
********************
Paisley
I retreated to the house, Braeden calling after me but not giving chase. Clumsy in getting dressed, I clutched at the edges of my coat and blasted through the front room and down the basement stairs.
If Clark or Rooster were on the first floor, I didn't see or hear them. The basement was empty except for Clover. But someone had brought a folding screen down, allowing her privacy where she recuperated on the foldout bed.
I didn't want to see her, at least not until I had scrubbed her brother's scent from my body, but my bag was on the other side of the screen. I whipped past the partition, mumbling something about a shower as I refused to look at her. Seeing my bag, I scooped it up and retreated to the far side of the basement where the brothers had added a bathroom.
As I locked the door behind me, some primitive part of my brain scanned the room for another way out. But I was underground and, unless the shower curtain pulled back to reveal a staircase, I was little better than a caged rat.
I stripped, wishing I could incinerate the clothes. Pulling the sweater up over my head, I caught a whiff of the very reason why I wanted to burn everything. Salt and earth mixed with pine cones so freshly sprouted I could imagine my fingers sticky from touching them.
Damn it, I cursed. Why was I still in love with the bastard? Especially when practically everything I knew about him was a lie?
Pulling back the curtain, I kicked my clothes into a pile and cranked the hot water on. I stepped in, drew the curtain shut and reached for the body wash. I needed to erase him, to scrub and scald his presence from my flesh. My nails raked my skin, the hot water turning me pink.
Shoving a hand between my thighs, I winced. I was sore, the labia still plumped from the punishing thrusts we had made against one another. I tried to wash gently, but the skin was too sensitive, the pain threatening to flash over to pleasure with the smallest change in pressure.
I twisted the hot water off and the cold water on.
Braeden and the memory of his touching me would not rule my body. I didn't care if I turned into an ice cube from my efforts to erase him.
Hair washed and every limb shaking from the cold, I finished the shower and toweled off. I sat on the toilet, still shivering. I didn't need to pee, just needed to prolong my time in the tiled sanctuary away from the shifters on the other side of the door.
I didn't think I could bear to see even Clover, the one person I'd poured my heart out to growing up. There had been no real secrets between us -- at least on my part. Obviously she'd been holding a big one back.
Now I hated her brother -- or was trying hard to make myself feel that way. And I hated that the secret she'd been hiding all these years was putting my life at risk.
But I loved her. That wasn't going to change.
Hands closed in fists, I rapped the back of my fingers hard against my forehead, beating back the threat of another emotional meltdown. Everything was fucked. I was supposed to be mourning my grandmother and selling off her livestock, not wondering if I would be dead in thirty days or married off to someone I didn't love.
No -- that was the one thing I was certain of. I'd rather die than marry someone I didn't love.
Grumbling, I picked through the bag and pulled out a long flannel nightgown and fresh panties. I put everything on slowly and squeezed as much moisture as I could from my hair, stalling my exit from the bathroom as long as possible.
Teeth polished to a pearly shine, I finally opened the door. Only pride kept me from slamming it shut as I saw
Braeden sitting in a recliner, his hard stare boring into me. Lifting my chin, I hugged my bag tight against my chest and walked to the other side of the partition without looking at him a second time.
As soon as I rounded the screen, I saw Clover's hands moving in a flurry. With her brother in the room and able to hear every last sound, she was signing. I put my bag down, my gaze averted as I struggled with a fresh pain.
We had been fourteen when she first suggested we learn how to sign. I had spent the night at her house three times before, gran allowing it despite my already obvious crush on Braeden who, at twenty, was the only adult in the Hughes household.
Now I knew why she had suggested we take up signing -- there was no privacy around shifters, not within a football field of them and probably not even then.
Her fist hit the mattress on the sofa bed and she grunted at me. Huffing, I looked at her, turned my palms up and away from my body, my face corkscrewing in a question.
"What?" I signed.
Now that she had my attention, she didn't seem to know what she wanted to say. Her hands retreated to her lap and primly folded around one another. A full minute or more passed, each of us studying the other's face, and then she brought one hand up in a fist, pressed it center of her chest and rubbed a circle twice like a second hand chasing its way around the face of a clock.
"Sorry," she signed.
I shook my head, angry at myself for being angry at her. Moving toward the side of the bed, I signed the query of whether I could sleep next to her. She nodded, her green gaze soulful as she helped me pull back the blankets.
On the other side of screen, Braeden cleared his throat. The sound was distant and I figured he hadn't moved from the recliner. I huffed in response anyway. I didn't care how he felt about what had happened in the barn. That little throat clearing was a direct intrusion I didn't want to deal with.
I wanted to forget him completely.
"Do you know what they want me to do?" I signed.
Dropping her gaze, Clover nodded. Her head tilted slightly toward the screen in reference to her brother. Reaching out, I curled a finger under her chin and drew her gaze back to me. I brought my index and middle finger down to touch my thumb while I shook my head.
Comes Now the Wicked Woodsman (A Night Falls Alpha Wolf BBW Shapeshifter Romance) Page 6