“You can drop it now,” he murmured with a smile.
The clip fell from her hand.
“That’s good. Now kick off your boots.”
They clattered to the floor behind him.
Cade sat down on the four-poster bed, Ally in his lap. His hips shifted beneath hers as he kicked off his own boots.
Her hands slid up his arms, fingers slipping inside the sleeves of his T-shirt. He laughed softly when she batted his arms away so she could lift the shirt over his head. She pushed on his shoulders to make him lie down so she could explore his chest and his stomach, but he laughed again and didn’t budge.
“No, sweetheart. Alphas on top.”
He slipped one hand under her sundress and ran it all the way up her thigh ’til his thumb came to rest against the wet crotch of her panties, pressing against her clit.
“Cade…” she moaned.
He watched her face as he rubbed his thumb in a slow circle. When she began to thrust against him and rake his shoulders with her nails, he smiled. “There we go. You smell so sweet. I knew you’d smell this sweet. Lose the dress, Ally.”
She couldn’t do it fast enough, yanking it over her head and tossing it aside. She gasped as cool air rushed over bare skin. He cupped a breast in his free hand, rubbing his thumb across the nipple before taking it between his teeth and tugging softly while his other hand tortured her through her panties.
She’d always been too shy to make noise during sex. Tonight she heard sounds she’d never heard before, and she realized they were coming from her.
Cade stood up and laid her on the bed, removing her panties in one smooth stroke before stepping back to regard her in silence. Fighting the lifelong urge to cover up, to hide from attention, she forced herself to lie still under his gaze.
He shucked off his jeans. When he was naked she stared at him in wonder, inhibitions forgotten.
She’d become used to that face. It filled her mind nearly all the time now. But she’d relied on her imagination for the rest of him, and it wasn’t equal to the task. He was even more beautiful than she’d expected. She took in the broad shoulders and chest tapering down to hard, sharp obliques and long, powerful legs. Dark black hair on his chest narrowed to a fine, furry line running over the rippling muscles of his stomach, past his hips and down to his cock. Her mouth went dry at the sight of his erection.
She shivered at the thought of him, all of him, inside her. She’d never wanted anything so bad. She’d never thought she could have anything she wanted so bad.
And with that, just for a second, she was back in her right mind. Just for a second, she could think clearly. What the hell am I doing here? He can’t really want me. He won’t want me when it’s over, and I’ll be sorry I ever…
“Stop it, Ally. Stop thinking.”
How did he know?
Instantly, he was on top of her, pushing her back to the bed and taking her mouth. Nothing could stop her mind like his feverish body, the weight of it pressing against every inch of her skin. All the times they’d touched before had been too brief, too light, leaving her aching. Now she could finally touch him as she’d longed to do.
But when she put her hands on his shoulders, he grabbed her wrists and pinned them to the pillow while his tongue invaded. She tried to pull free. He held her fast. She whimpered with frustration, amazed at how it turned her on to be subdued like this. She quit struggling and kissed him back with an ardor as new to her as the cries of passion and the taste for submission.
Cade broke off with a groan and rested his forehead against hers. Closing his eyes, he took a few long, deep breaths. He didn’t release her hands.
“I want to touch you,” she whispered.
“Later,” he laughed shakily. “I’m barely hanging on here.” He lowered his head to her breast, bathing her nipple with his tongue and then blowing on it. It got so tight and hard she whimpered, and when he took the nipple back into his mouth and sucked, the sensation echoed between her legs. His chest hair tickled her stomach as she wriggled beneath him.
“Cade… I can’t stand it, I need…”
His breathing was as ragged as hers. “I’ll give you what you need, sweetheart. I promise I will.”
He released her hands, and when she reached for him he slid down her body, pressing her to the bed. His mouth never left her skin as he worked his way down. When he got to her stomach, the kisses and nibbles were little jolts of electricity, her hips jerking in response to every tiny shock. She loved the feel of his beard against her tender skin.
Then he stopped. He simply froze, his mouth hovering above her lower belly. His fingertips slowly skimmed her skin. And she froze as well, suddenly remembering something she’d never had to think about before, because she’d never slept with a werewolf.
They could see in the dark, of course. Even if he hadn’t touched the ridges and the bumps, he could still see them—the reason she never wore two-piece swimsuits or cropped shirts, why she always made love with the lights out and showered alone. Why she let her lovers think she was repressed rather than let them see her naked in the light.
The only spot on her body that didn’t heal itself.
Her stomach. Her scars.
She stiffened, fighting panic. Cade sensed her movement before she made it. He grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head. He lay atop her, his hair spilling across her breasts. She strained against his hands, trying in vain to buck him off.
“Stop it,” he whispered.
She tried again.
“Stop, baby—stop,” he repeated, more forcefully this time. He pulled himself up and kissed her hard, then more gently, her lips and eyes and neck, all the while murmuring sweet words she couldn’t understand but could feel, words to calm and soothe her the way she calmed and soothed panicked horses.
Soon enough, his lips and his voice and his hot, hard body were all she could focus on. The panic ebbed. Passion rushed back in. She quit struggling, parting her lips to his tongue. He cautiously released her wrists, holding himself up on his elbows and kissing her with open eyes. She didn’t move for a moment, and they stared at one another. Slowly she brought her hands up to his face and kissed him as hard as he’d kissed her, twisting her fingers in his hair and crushing his mouth against hers. She bit his lip and sucked it gently before she plundered his hot mouth with her tongue, reveling in the taste of him.
He groaned, and his hands—strong, safe, saving hands—swept back down her body. Once more his kisses followed his hands, and she gasped and squirmed at the wet heat of his tongue licking her scars.
He chuckled softly as she thrust against his head, silently urging him lower. His hands were gentle but unyielding when he pulled her legs apart and held them still. She screamed and arched off the bed as his tongue dipped into her crease and then up over her clit. His silky hair grazed the inside of her thighs and she tried to press them together, but she couldn’t. She wanted to buck her hips, but she couldn’t. His hands held her so firmly she could barely move. It was the most delicious agony she’d ever experienced, and she desperately hoped no one in the house heard her screaming.
His tongue dipped in and out, licking and swirling, his hands still firmly clamping her hips to the bed as he pulled her lips apart. He very lightly stroked her clit with his tongue. She screamed again.
“Cade! Cade, I can’t…” Her fingernails dug into his hands atop her thighs, and she pushed against him, straining to move as the tip of his tongue went ’round and ’round.
“Cade! I need…”
He knew what she needed. He sucked gently at first, then harder. When he took one hand off her thigh, she bucked wildly against his mouth.
Slowly he drove one hot finger into her, then another. He took his fingers out almost all the way and plunged them back in, deeper this time. Then he did it again, in and out, his tongue and his fingers pushing her ever further into madness.
“Cade,” she moaned, loving the sound of his name in her mouth
, “I’m coming, I’m coming so hard, I can’t…”
His fingers didn’t slow and his tongue didn’t stop as the waves got bigger and her screams got louder. The last wave crested, taking her under, and she sobbed in ecstasy as the orgasm racked her body. She was still trembling when Cade began to kiss his way back up. She’d never liked tasting herself on a man before, but she didn’t hesitate when his mouth claimed hers again.
He lifted himself up on his hands and watched her face as she parted her legs to him. His bright green eyes glittered in the dark. She sucked in her breath at his expression—hungry, possessive, wild. She cried out as he entered her, at the length and the size of him.
He startled her by shifting back on his knees and grasping her hips, pulling her butt off the bed. He began to move with hard, smooth strokes, not taking his eyes from her face. She gasped out loud, astonished at the sensations he was creating in her. She’d never known simple intercourse could feel like this.
“Harder,” she gasped.
He didn’t break his rhythm as he grunted, “I can’t, I don’t want to hurt you.”
Panting between the words as he drove into her, she whispered, “I’m stronger than you think. Please.”
“No, I won’t, you don’t know…”
“Cade,” she said sharply, in a voice she didn’t recognize as hers, “as hard as you can, now, and don’t stop ’til you come.”
A look of amazement flitted across his face, and then he groaned. He closed his eyes, threw his head back and began to thrust harder. She grabbed the headboard and watched him, enrapt at the wild beauty of his expression and the raw power of his body. He’d been so deliberate while driving her into a frenzy. Now he was loosed, uncontrolled and uncontrollable. She had done this to him. He had lost himself in her. Nothing had ever set her ablaze like that did.
“Ally. God, Allison, what’ve you…” Through half-closed eyes she watched him approach his climax. He slipped his thumb into her mouth. She bit, and she licked, and she whimpered when he withdrew it, but then he put his thumb to her clit and stroked once. She tumbled over the edge in one long, shattering release.
He took a last, deep thrust and held himself inside her, shuddering as he came, and then they collapsed, insensible. Neither could breathe, so neither spoke.
A shaft of moonlight, the sole illumination in the otherwise pitch black room, sliced across the middle of the bed, bathing Cade’s dark head and sleek torso in pale silver light. Her fingers trailed across the tattoo on his right biceps—crossed rifles over a laurel wreath—before drifting back into the disheveled curls she couldn’t stop touching.
It scared her, how much she relished laying there safe and drowsy beneath his warmth, listening to him breathe, stroking his hair as the aftershocks subsided. He kissed her palm as she ran it over his cheek. Life had assumed an air of unreality ever since she arrived at the ranch, but nothing seemed as unreal as this moment, lying in the moonlight beneath this beautiful werewolf with his head on her stomach and his hand caressing her thigh.
She wasn’t sure he’d want her to stay all night. She wasn’t sure they’d do this again, and she wasn’t sure they should’ve done it at all.
She was pretty sure she couldn’t ask for the nanny job now.
“How often do you throw yourself in front of enraged wolves?” His voice had regained its normal mellow drawl. He sounded tired and content.
“Just twice so far.” Her hand paused in his hair. “This time was a lot better.”
She felt him smile against her skin. “Smartass.” He laid his palm against her scars. “What did he do to you, baby?”
He killed me. “After I shot and missed, he started changing. Seth showed up, and I thought he’d get Guy before… But then Guy charged me. I kicked him, but I couldn’t stop him, and… His claws were so sharp, I didn’t realize he’d cut me at first.”
He was quiet for a minute. “Those were deep cuts.”
“Yes.”
“Ally…” he said softly, “Ally, y’all couldn’t just jump in the truck and run. You were bleeding, you must’ve passed out, how…”
“Yeah, I was out of it. Seth threw me in the truck and got me to a doctor, a werewolf. While he fixed me up, Seth went back and got Dylan. The doctor doped me up, told Seth to keep my bandages clean, and we were gone. We stayed at a motel in Beaumont ’til I could walk again.”
Afraid to embellish any more, she stopped. She’d spent thirteen years lying to everyone about everything that had happened. Lying had never bothered her. With Cade, she felt ashamed.
She opened her eyes. He still watched her—trying to determine if he believed her, she imagined, or if he needed to question her further.
“Are you high Fae?” he asked.
She gave a small shout of laughter. “What?”
“You heard me,” he said evenly.
She grinned at him. “You like to catch people off-guard, don’t you? It’s one of the power games you play.”
He cocked an eyebrow but didn’t return the grin. “Power is never a game. And answer the question, Allison.” The mild tone didn’t disguise his steely seriousness.
She quit laughing. “I’m not Fae.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. If I have any Fae, it isn’t much. Why?” Why would he care if she were Fae?
His eyes narrowed and he looked away, his hand still idly stroking her stomach. “Mary Ann always swore she was high Fae. Said she had a lot of Fae blood, and it came from Sarah Jane.”
How intriguing. “Sarah Jane’s got Fae blood? Huh. I’d think a rich Southern lady wouldn’t want anyone to know about that.”
“Oh, she wouldn’t. It’ll still keep you out of the best clubs. But I always believed it. Mary Ann’s gorgeous and crazy as hell.” The high Fae looked human and tended to be beautiful, creative and nuts. It was no accident that most actors and artists were largely Fae. “That’s why I figured she couldn’t get pregnant.” He laughed softly and started tracing patterns on her stomach again.
“Were you upset when she did?” She’d been curious about Becca’s mother, and she’d use anything to get him off the subject of her own weirdness.
“At first, yeah. I thought she’d pretended so I wouldn’t worry about birth control. But she went hysterical, swore up and down she was really Fae. She never quit claiming it, even though it’d be impossible if she was having my kid.”
“There’s no way Becca isn’t your daughter.”
He laughed. “I couldn’t be sure of it at the time. I figured she had other lovers, but she swore I was the father. And then a DNA test proved it.”
“How’d you get involved with her in the first place?”
He looked a little embarrassed. “We’d had a fling when I was in my thirties. I ran into her again about the time I found out Carson was dead.” He cleared his throat and looked away. “I hadn’t seen him in years. By the time the investigator I’d hired traced him to New Orleans, he’d been dead a couple of months. I didn’t take it well. I wanted a little self-destruction, and Mary Ann’s good at that.”
“You don’t seem like the self-destructive type.”
“I’m not. I had to work at it. Anyway. I went to Savannah to tell the family, and we got started again. It was all drama, all the time. Then she turned up pregnant, and the day she hit five months, she got an amnio. She wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl.”
“Oh shit,” she murmured. “You think she got pregnant hoping she’d have a wolf?”
“Maybe. Or once she found out, she just hoped it’d be a boy. She flipped out when they told her it was a girl. She wanted an abortion.” He frowned at the memory.
The idea of no Becca in the world made her want to weep.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
His bitter, brittle smile almost frightened her. “I may have threatened to kill her. Or something. I don’t remember. I’m pro-choice, as long as it’s not my kid we’re talking about, and I couldn’t be
sure it wasn’t my kid. I promised her a lot of money if she’d take care of herself and have the baby. Three weeks after Becca was born, Mary Ann dumped her on Sarah Jane and ran off to New York. I decided I didn’t want to share. I gave her a lot more money and she signed away her rights.”
“Wow. That’s kind of…you basically bought her baby.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Rebecca was my baby too, and Mary Ann didn’t have to take the money. I knew she would. Sarah Jane’s always blamed me for it, but she knows better.”
“Did you ever think about marrying her?”
“No. She wanted to get married. I said no way.”
“Why? I mean, I get that you didn’t love her, but maybe for the baby…”
“No,” he said flatly, looking straight at her. “I swore a long time ago I’d only marry my mate. If I didn’t find a mate, I’d never marry, and if I did find a mate…I’d never let her get away.”
She hoped he couldn’t tell he’d just punched her in the heart. Still stroking his hair, she gazed out the window as she fought back tears.
I can’t stay here.
She didn’t know how long he went on talking, unaware that he’d opened a vein. Eventually, though, she realized he’d asked her something and was waiting for a reply. “I’m sorry, Cade,” she said as normally as she could. “I drifted there for a second. What’d you say?”
“How many wolves have you slept with?”
What the hell? “Counting you? One.”
“Really. You ever date a wolf?”
“No.” He seemed to expect her to say more. “I already have three at home. Four wolves would feel like a pack, you know?”
“But you’ve had boyfriends.”
“A couple. Nothing that lasted.” What difference did any of this make?
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why nothing that lasted?”
“Because I lived with two adult wolves and I was raising a third. When guys find out I’m a den mother, they scram. I’m not normal.” She didn’t care that she sounded irritable and bitter. It was how she felt.
Yours, Mine and Howls: Werewolves in Love, Book 2 Page 14