A Mate For Orion (Forbidden Shifters Series Book 5)
Page 14
Orion was as still as stone where he sat on the closed toilet. He stared at her as if her words were written across her face and he was trying like hell to decipher them. Her sentence hung in the air between them, echoing like a voice in a well. Get in the tub with me. Get in the tub with me. Get in the tub with me.
Would he refuse? Had he already made up his mind to court her properly? Was he determined to do this thing the right way?
He came to life all at once, wordlessly rising to his feet and yanking his shirt off over his head. In the time it took for the shirt to fall to the floor, he’d already wrestled the zipper of his pants down, and then they too were on the floor. His socks came next and then he was skinning out of his underwear and Diana could feel her eyes turn into full moons as she took in the gorgeous landscape of his body. Rugged as the mountains he’d grown up in, scarred, muscular, sinuous strength and aggressively shadowed, he yanked back the shower curtain and for a long second just stood right over her.
Her eyes dropped to his cock hanging heavily between his legs.
Mamma Mia.
That… yeah… um… holy…
Okay.
Get it together, Diana!
Her mouth hung open but she didn’t stay immobile for long because Orion was practically falling into the tub with her. Her legs shot out flat and she slid down as he laid himself over her, growling happily and settling himself into the water.
With his added mass, the water rose precariously high, drawing almost perfectly level with the edge of the tub. Diana couldn’t help but laugh in delight at the absurd weight of him, the almost puppyish clumsiness with which he’d thrown himself into her suggestion. Their bodies were completely cinched together, just by dint of the size of the tub, their clasp almost friendly in nature, like two people on a crowded train who found themselves pressed in by the passengers on either side of them.
But things didn’t stay friendly for long. Orion growled happily again and then clasped her around the waist and rolled them so that she was on top and he was flat on his back. Water slopped over the side of the tub, slapping the bathroom floor. The shower curtain, still halfway pulled closed, hid them from the world, from any and all consequences. The heat of the water was a cocoon that justified this closeness with him. She was never leaving.
His hands slid down to her ass and he took two handfuls, scooting her up his body so that her face was level with his.
Diana turned back and saw that his feet were up out of the water, long as he was, planted flat against the tile wall. Something about that was just unbelievably hot to her. His humongous feet, his hairy legs, the fact that he didn’t remotely fit into this tub.
When she turned back around he was grinning at her. If she’d been standing she would have gone weak in the knees. The man was so gorgeous. And uncomplicated. And hot.
“This was a much better idea than mine,” he told her, that smile just widening even further.
Diana laughed but her laughter died the longer she looked into his eyes. Their bodies were wet and pressed together, his dick firmly jammed into her thigh, her breasts smashed against his chest. It was the most intimate position she’d maybe ever been in with a man and yet she pretty much completely forgot about her entire body except for her lips, which were on fire for him. Her eyes dropped to his mouth. They hadn’t had sex yet, but somehow, his mouth felt inexplicably like the final frontier. She knew, without a doubt, that when she kissed his mouth, she’d lose something that she could never, ever get back. But it didn’t scare her. She didn’t want it back. She wanted to toss that thing away from her like a diamond ring into the ocean. Whatever it was that she was about to lose, well, Diana figured it had probably belonged to the world in the first place. It had only been hers to safekeep for a while, and now it was time to give it back.
The scent of lavender and rose water became intoxicatingly strong as steam from the bath swirled around them. She was drawn forward, toward this man, on a rope made of desire and rightness. He was drawn toward her as well. There was no pulling away, no arguing with a moment like this.
Their lips met through the steam. She tasted the essential oils on his skin. The sweat of him. The man of him. She tasted everything. The sound of his voice, his wildness, his wolf, his hunt. She tasted the pines he’d grown up amongst, the sunrise over the mountains, the ice in his paws every winter, the sunshine on his back. She tasted the shifter in him, knowing in her soul that it didn’t lend him a duality, no, it made him wholly who he was. One being. One wolf. One man.
She pulled back slowly and her lungs begged for air. She felt the moon out the window, the swirl of the water. For the first time since her mother died, Diana wondered, truly wondered, if magic was real, if this was what it felt like.
Orion’s eyes searched hers. It had been barely more than a peck, that kiss. Just lips on lips and then the barest hint of her tongue against him. He watched her patiently, almost gently, though his grip on her ass had tightened a few turns of the screw. He wouldn’t pull her back into the kiss, she knew.
She pushed back into the kiss just as slowly as she’d pulled out of it. He made a noise when her mouth came open against his. She knew, all at once, just how ravenous he was for her. She could taste his desire for her, how lonely his bed had been without her. How much he’d wanted her and for exactly how long. Her senses sparked with magic, with electricity, as their tongues slid decadently against one another. He was dying without her but still, the sweet stubborn man was not going to rush this.
Their kiss was drawn out and slow. They took deep, luscious tastes of one another, their heads moving in slow motion, the water swirling lazily against their bodies, their tongues living in one another’s mouths.
Diana tipped her head to one side so that she could finally get a good breath but the air felt as hot as the water did. Her wet hair was everywhere. She was deliciously dizzy. She fell back onto his mouth and this time she was the one who was moaning, long and helplessly, she tongued against the inner slick of his lips like she was tasting ripe fruit.
His hips kicked upwards involuntarily, once, twice, and -oh- a very yummy third time. Diana’s skin slid against his and she moaned at the sensation of his solid strength, his body hair, the all-encompassing presence of him. She heard more water spill over the side of the tub and it intoxicated her. They were making a mess. They were stroking along one another’s tongues, rubbing their bodies against one another, grabbing handfuls wherever they could and making an awful mess.
“I never make messes,” she panted, pulling away from the kiss for a moment to stare into the face of the man who was wrecking her.
“Why not?” he panted back, his eyes dilating and shrinking, trying like hell to focus on her face, on her words.
“I’ve never had anyone worth making a mess over before,” she said, the truth tumbling out of her before she had a chance to edit it, alter it, even consider it.
The corners of his lips kicked up as he, hands on her ass, pressed her down against the length of his cock. “Are you saying that I'm worth making a mess over?”
Diana spread her legs and let him slip between her thighs. “God, yes,” she gasped against his lips, her lower body grinding forward, looking for friction of any kind. Everything was too wet. Too sweet. She needed rough. She didn’t want to turn back now. She reared back up to straddle him and, hands around the back of his head, took him with her. He grunted and sat up and banded his arms around her waist as another two inches of water slopped out of the tub, shampoo bottles and a bar of soap knocked asunder by one of his elbows.
She didn’t care. She speared her fingers into his hair and kissed him savagely, fiercely. The long, slow slide of their mouths became aggressive, needy. Her teeth sank into his lip and he reared up to his feet, holding her against him. Water fell off their bodies in sheets as he pressed her back to the cold tile of her shower wall and rubbed himself against her hot, slick center. The hair at the base of his dick was almost, almost enough frictio
n, but in her eyes, the bath had softened them too much. She didn’t want a slow, romantic roll. She wanted primitive biting and scratching and no-holds-barred. She pushed off from the wall and he stumbled backward, catching himself on the shower curtain and making the rod separate from the wall. The curtain hung lamely, like a broken wing, pooling into the remaining six inches of bath water at the bottom of the tub.
Orion laughed and stepped them out of the tub, looking like he was going to set her ass down on the counter, but she wasn’t settling for that. He moved her there and she fought against him. Shoving forward, practically climbing up his body. She heard her toothbrush hit the floor, her soap dispenser clattered into the sink, her foot kicked the toilet paper off its spool.
He laughed again, seeming to understand inherently her need to make this feral. Still clinging to her ass, her hands making marks against his shoulders, her heels digging into his back, he shouldered past the door and into the hallway, obviously making for her bedroom. She bit his lip again, rubbed her wetness against the thick stalk of his cock and clawed at the walls as they passed by. Picture frames fell in their wake, he stumbled and jammed her a little too hard against the wall. She gasped with the raw-hot pleasure of it, dropping her mouth to his neck and licking her way up one tight tendon. He groaned and kept going.
Finally, they were in her bedroom and she was scrambling down from his arms. He set her down, a question in his eyes that was immediately answered when she planted her palms on his shoulders and shoved him backwards onto the bed. He laughed again, this time with a pained desire laced through it, and reached for her. She let herself be looped around the waist and hoisted against him as he fell back, their bodies still slippery with water, they doused the sheets and blanket underneath them. His cock found its way between her legs again and Diana moaned, pinning her thighs around his length and rubbing shamelessly against him.
She pressed to the side, he rolled them and speared forward, slicking himself against her wetness. She grabbed at the sheets beneath her, seeing stars, and felt the bed come unmade, the corners of the sheets popping off, pillows knocking to the floor.
“Fuck!” Diana shouted, thoroughly enjoying every single moment of this. She’d never in her life made love like this. There was absolutely nothing civilized about the way he was scraping his stubble against her collarbones, marking her intentionally, she was sure of it. There was nothing civilized about the handful of his hair that she grabbed, yanking him to kiss her so deeply it was almost pornographic.
Diana gripped him with her legs as he humped against her wetness, grinding his pubic bone against her clit but not penetrating her. She tried to leverage her weight to get on top again, but only managed to turn them to one side. They were hanging half on the bed and half off, tipped to one side, no clear position, her legs around him, his cock between her legs.
His hips worked against hers and Diana knew she was maybe a minute away from exploding for him. Her fingers clawed into his back and it seemed only to spur him on. He ground against her and they slid further off the bed. The bathwater mixed with their sweat and she could feel her hair sticking to her forehead and back, soaking her bed, but she didn’t care. She worked her hips against his and chased a pleasure she hadn’t even know was a possibility.
“Oh God, Orion,” she moaned, and looked up at him, the moon rising in the window behind his head, crowning him. And for a moment he did look like a god. An ancient being taking and giving pleasure that no mortal could even conceive of. He seemed to shimmer with determination, with desire. She could have sworn that the stars in the sky were reflecting off his wet skin.
He took her by the hips reared up and ground down against her clit in small, rhythmic circles. He leaned forward, gave her his weight, so much weight, crushing her deliciously.
“Give it to me, Diana,” he whispered harshly in her ear. “You don’t want to keep it for your own. You want to give it up. You want to give it to me.”
He could have been talking about any number of things. Her power, her heart, her pleasure. But Diana knew inherently that he wasn’t talking about taking something from her. No, he was one of those rare men who understood that a gift could only be given and never taken.
“I want it, Diana,” he said, his voice even rougher than before. He licked up the side of her neck, pinned her earlobe between his teeth, roped a hand through her hair and pulled her head back, his teeth needling her throat. His lips found hers and he said more and more into her mouth that she didn’t even hear, she was too busy tangling her tongue with his, grinding her hips against him, and then, finally, going electrically rigid when her pleasure took hold, peaking and tossing itself headlong over the breakwall.
She screamed his name and probably bruised his back with her heels she dug into him so tightly. They slid part of the way further down the bed and rainbows pinwheeled across the ceiling as her climax opened and accelerated and plummeted upward at the speed of light.
She fell back limp against the bed and let her eyes focus on Orion as he reared up over her, still grinding against her, his eyes lost and fuzzy and somehow still focused on her.
“God. So beautiful,” he panted, his hips grinding into hers. “Diana.”
His movements went sharp and choppy as he propped himself up on fists on either side of her, losing himself in the pleasure.
“Diana, where…” he trailed off, shaking his head against the incoming pleasure. “Where,” he tried again and failed, his teeth baring and his head tipping toward the ceiling.
She got the general gist of the question though, being the bright woman that she was.
“On me,” she panted back to him. She slicked a hand up her midsection. “Here. Here.”
Grinning in a mask of pleasured pain, Orion’s hips pulled back from hers, he gripped himself in one hand and gave three rough tugs to his cock before he painted her stomach and cleavage, landing exactly where her own hand had just shown him. He came with a gruff roar. Animalistic, involuntary, his body clenching against it and racing toward it at the exact same time.
Every single muscle was shadowed and standing out in darkened relief as he gave a last sensitive twitch against his orgasm and collapsed forward, sandwiching her to the bed, trapping the mess between them, laughing into the crook of her neck, petting her hips and ribs and sides, telling her how perfect and pretty and sexy and lovely she was.
“Oh my god,” she groaned, digging the heels of her hands into her eye sockets and fighting back the hysterical laughter that threatened to erupt out of her.
She figured she had a choice here. She could A) revert back into known territory. Which would mean that she’d shove Orion off of her, probably feed him some food, and then kick him out of her house. She could be halfway down Freak Out Highway in less than thirty minutes. She’d walk listlessly through her house and survey the shameful damage her lust had brought down on her life. Her broken shower curtain pooling in the tepid bathwater would instantly become a symbol for the way she’d just massively screwed up.
Or.
Or option B) she could instead walk -as calmly as possible- into the land of the unknown. Where instead of protecting herself, hating herself, chastizing herself, witholding every good thing she’d ever wanted, she could walk headlong into a world where she deserved these pretty words from this hunk of a man. Where she deserved the kind of pleasure he’d just given her. Where, the best gift of all, she deserved to give the kind of pleasure and affection that was swelling up between them. She didn’t have to pull it out at the root. She could actually foster what was growing here.
What a thought.
For a long moment, Diana teetered on the edge between the two options. Her self preservation instincts almost winning out. Because what would the neighbors think?
But then a voice in her head, which sounded unmistakably like her mother, spoke loud and clear.
Fuck the neighbors, Diana.
“Yeah,” she said out loud. “Fuck the neighbors.”
“Nothing,” she told him, smoothing his messy waves, thrilled and terrified to be making the choice she’d just made.
Option B. The scariest road she’d ever walked down. Option B. Where the potential for happiness wasn’t automatically weed-whacked. Option B. The world where Orion patiently waited for her to join him.
***
Well, he hadn’t expected this. But then, Orion had found it best to stop expecting anything when it came to Diana. Nothing turned out the way he ever thought it might where she was concerned. He had no idea if that was because the human world was confusing or if it was because Diana was confusing.
As he chewed and swallowed the apple slice she’d just popped into his mouth, Orion reflected that it might just be a case of both/and.
Because if he’d had to guess what might happen after they trashed her house by humping each other into oblivion, Orion would have put money on Diana kicking him out of her house. In fact, after the blissful post-orgasm moment, when his brain had fought its way back online, Orion forced himself to start preemptively figuring out a way back into her good graces.
But then she’d shocked him. “Oh my god,” she’d said, lying there underneath him, the evidence of his pleasure slick and hot between their chests. He could clearly hear the thinly veiled panic in her tone. But instead of shoving him off of her, she’d waited a long second and then turned her face toward his neck. She’d kissed a slow line up to his ear and nuzzled there.
“You’re perfect and pretty and sexy and lovely too,” she’d told him, repeating back the words he’d been saying to her. Her hands had traced over his back, soothing the sharp bites her fingernails had left there in the throes of passion.
“Come on,” she’d told him, slapping his ass and pushing him up. She’d gotten them a warm washcloth and washed them both off before she’d dragged him into the kitchen and started feeding him. First it was ice cream out of the carton, and then it was the room temperature noodles he’d brought over and left on the counter. And now it was apple slices for dessert.