by Zoe Chant
"Tell me if this is too tight, okay?"
"I'll let you know."
She was still wet for him, her body thrumming each time he touched her; she was acutely aware of the solidity of his thigh under her head, and the musky, masculine smell of him. But being taken care of like this felt so good, in a different way, that she didn't want it to stop.
When was the last time she'd let someone do something like this for her? She was always the one who took care of other people. She had forgotten how nice it was to lie back and let someone else do things for her instead.
Alec finished wrapping her wrist, securing the bandage around her palm and tucking in the ends. He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the palm above the bandage, a light brush of his lips on her skin. "How does it feel?"
"It feels good," she sighed. She'd closed her eyes; now she opened them and looked up at him. "Everything feels good."
Alec smiled and touched his lips to her palm again. This time, there was a quick wet flick of his tongue. "I can smell that you want me."
This stirred a primal quiver of desire through the pit of her belly. "I do," she said huskily.
"Good." He kissed each of her fingers in turn, then drew two of them into his mouth. The sudden, unexpected wetness made her gasp.
Alec pulled her fingers out of his mouth with a wet pop. "Anything else need to be kissed better?" he asked in a low, rough voice.
"I can think of a few places," she managed.
It was, in part, the awareness of their narrow escape that lit a fire in her. Since time out of mind, men and women had affirmed life with sex. It meant You are alive, you survived, you are here and safe.
You are loved.
And she had never felt so cherished as she did now, with Alec kissing his way down the soft inside skin of her arm. She stretched her other arm up to caress his bare chest, and he caught that hand as well, kissing the palm and nibbling at the fingers.
"Not bossy today?" he murmured, and kissed the back of her hand, then her wrist. "No orders for me? Nothing I'm doing wrong you need to point out?"
"Just keep doing what you're doing, and don't stop."
"Yes, ma'am," he murmured.
He grasped her gently and pulled her into his lap. Now her body was braced against his broad chest, and her hips were pressed into his groin. His erection ground into her bare ass, but his hands were slow and gentle as he caressed her breasts, thumbing her turgid nipples. Her hips jerked involuntarily. Alec's hand slid across her stomach to brush lightly, teasingly, across her damp mound.
It was warm enough now in front of the stove that she was entirely comfortable. Or maybe it was just the heat of his body and her own arousal, driving away the winter chill. As he curled his fingers over her mound, working them between her folds, she arched back against him. With his other hand, he continued to play with her breasts, rubbing and working her nipples.
"Alec," she murmured. She turned her head to the side, rubbing her cheek against the coarse down of hair on his chest. Her skin was so sensitive now that every touch was heightened. The fire's warmth, the rasp of his hair against her softer skin, and of course the careful touches to the quivering nub of her clit.
"Just can't stop looking at you," Alec whispered into her hair. "So gorgeous. The way the firelight brings out the gold and red in your beautiful skin. Your perfect breasts." His finger dipped into her dripping entrance, making her hips rise. "Everything about you is incredible."
Her breath stuttered as he pushed one finger inside her, joined by a second. It made her think of what it had felt like, their first time, to have him fill her. The sensation of his erection pressing against her was sweet torment, making her hips writhe.
"I want you in me," she gasped.
Alec's chest vibrated with a low groan of arousal. He flipped her over, and she was putty in his hands, loose and wobbly with the heat thrumming in her. Lying on the blankets, she looked up at him, glorious and muscular in the warm light of the fire and the candles. He skinned out of his jeans and looked down at her, teeth flashing in a fierce grin.
"My mate," he murmured, and something in her chest clenched with ecstasy so great it was almost pain. It was more than "girlfriend", more even than "wife"; she understood that instinctively. What the great bears of the mountains gave, they would never take back.
"Charmian ..." Alec knelt over her, his erection jutting between his legs, but made no move to enter her, leaving her shivering with desire. "I want to claim you, as my kind do. Once I put my mark on you, every other shifter will see it and know you're mine. But I won't do it without your permission."
His. Once, she would have recoiled from allowing any man to claim her as his own. But Alec was different.
And as she looked up at him, into the blue eyes melting for love of her, she understood suddenly that it was not possessiveness that she saw, but vulnerability. Putting his claiming mark on her would also make him hers. He needed her as much as she needed him. For Alec to put aside his pride and accept that ... It was not a prison he offered to her, but an open door, leading to their shared future.
And neither of them could walk through it if both of them weren't willing.
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I want it."
She raised her hips, inviting him in.
Alec pushed into her waiting heat and groaned with pleasure. Charmian threw her head back as he filled her. Anticipation only made it more glorious; she was fully aroused, her sensitive tissues at the height of their receptivity. With each thrust, he drove her higher. She hadn't known it was possible to feel this good.
His thrusts matched her rhythm, as if he could sense what she needed—could make it faster or slower, deeper or shallower depending on her desire in the moment. And maybe he could sense it. She didn't know how strong their bond was.
Stronger, in a moment.
But she wasn't afraid. Whatever it meant for Alec to claim her as his mate, all she knew was that she had never wanted anything more.
His breath came in shallow gasps, and sweat glistened on his body in the firelight. Charmian's back arched. She was incoherent with the rush of pleasure filling her. She could feel it mounting in her, could feel herself approaching the point of no return—
Alec's head dipped forward and his teeth closed on her neck.
In her current state, she felt no pain, nothing but a rush of orgasmic pleasure so intense that it brought her actual orgasm crashing down on her. Alec jerked, rising to his own climax while his teeth remained latched into the soft skin at the top of her shoulder.
A wordless cry was torn from her throat, a primal expression of pleasure.
Alec relaxed atop her, and released the bite. She felt him let go with a shiver of mingled pain and pleasure. It didn't hurt a lot; it was more like the pleasant burn during hard sex. He settled onto his elbow, with his softening cock still buried in her, and looked down at her with a gentle, warm smile.
"Is that it?" she asked, raising a hand to touch her neck.
Alec huffed a mock-offended laugh. "Is that it? I don't know what that says about my technique."
"No, the sex was amazing. It felt better than I would have believed possible. I was just curious if there's more to be done to ... to bond us."
"Nope," he said, smiling gently. "That's all there is to it."
Charmian felt cautiously around the bitten area. She'd treated human bites in her capacity as a medical professional, but this felt nothing at all like a human bite. It had broken the skin—she felt the stickiness of blood—but, impossibly, seemed to already be healing, exactly as if she were a shifter herself.
"Er, I guess now is really not the time to ask, but this isn't going to turn me into a bear or something, is it?"
This made him laugh—and not one of his quiet little breathy laughs, but a true, full belly laugh. She'd never seen him laugh like that, had never even imagined that he could. She wondered if anyone had ever seen him do that before.
"What, like a movie
werewolf?" he asked when he could speak. "No, no. It doesn't work like that. You have to be born a shifter. It's the only way."
"Mmm. Well, that's a relief. I'd make a pretty scrawny bear."
Alec laughed softly and touched the side of her face. "You'd make an absolutely perfect bear."
"You charmer."
She fingered the claiming mark again. It was sensitive to the touch in an oddly pleasant way. She imagined Alec touching it during sex, licking and mouthing at it, and shivered, her nipples stiffening.
"What, ready to go again?" he asked, nuzzling at her forehead. "My insatiable little she-bear."
"Really, I wouldn't call me that if you want to—" Charmian raised her head, almost bashing her forehead on his chin. "Do you smell something burning?"
Alec scrambled to his feet and rescued the pan of soup from the back of the stove. "I'd say it's definitely hot."
Most of the contents of the pan were salvageable. Charmian found some plastic bowls on a shelf, and they ate sitting by the stove, naked with blankets wrapped around them. It was finally warm enough to be comfortable, although the cabin remained chilly around the edges, some of the winter's cold lurking in the corners and around the door.
"We definitely owe the owners of this place," she said, chasing the last of her soup around the bowl with her spoon.
"I know. I'll leave a note and some cash, but I'm also planning to come back pretty soon with my clan brothers. We'll fix the door and cut some more wood. I also noticed the pump squeaks. We can fix that too, while we're at it, and maybe that loose board in front of the door."
Charmian smiled. "You like fixing things, don't you?"
"Heck, a big part of running a ranch is fixing things."
"In a way, I guess that's what I do, too. Except mostly I just let my patients do what feels natural to them. In most cases, their bodies know what to do. I'm there to fix it if things go wrong." She frowned. "I hope Mary Lambert and her baby are okay."
Alec reached out to press his hand reassuringly on her shoulder. "I'm sure she is. Tough farm lady, right?"
"Right." And there wasn't anything she could do about it if not.
"In the meantime, all we can really do is wait out the storm. No reception on our phones, it's dark as the inside of a black cat out there, and snowing like blazes. May as well spend the night in here, and figure out in the morning how to let people know we're not dead in a ditch somewhere."
"Mmmm." The combination of food, sex, and getting warm after fighting her way through the storm was leaving her sleepy. She leaned into Alec, resting her head against his chest. "How soon do you think your brother and cousins will miss you?"
Alec sighed. "Not for hours yet. I left a message for Cody telling him I might be gone overnight. Even if I don't show up tomorrow, he might not get worried. He'll just assume things went well."
"I guess he's not entirely wrong. As much as I wouldn't call this going well, we're at least warm and dry, and we have food and a place to sleep. And speaking of sleeping," Charmian murmured, pressing against him, "I might investigate the upstairs beds. It's been a long day."
Alec's hand brushed across her shoulder and neck, not-so-incidentally sending a silvery shiver through the half-healed claiming mark. "Are you sure sleeping is all you want to do?"
She smiled, and stretched into his kiss.
Chapter Twelve
Charmian woke disoriented. She was so comfortable that she could not immediately figure out what had awakened her. She had her head resting on Alec's broad chest, his arm tucked around her. She'd never felt so safe and warm and cozy.
Engine, she thought blearily, and raised her head. Wan gray daylight filled the cabin. Outside, it sounded like someone was driving into the yard.
"Alec," she said, prodding him. "I think someone's here. Is that a car?"
Alec woke fast, going from deep asleep to wide awake in an instant. He propped himself up on his elbow. "There's no way anyone could drive up that driveway, not without plowing it. And our tracks would've been covered up by the storm." He cocked his head, listening. "That's not a car. It's a snowmobile."
Charmian scrambled down the ladder, naked, and grabbed an armful of her clothing off the hooks behind the stove. "Here," she called, tossing Alec's jeans toward the loft.
He appeared over the railing to grab them. "If it's the owners, we'll just explain. No big deal."
"I don't care if it's a big deal," Charmian retorted, stamping her legs into her slightly stiff jeans. "I still don't want to have to explain while naked."
Dressing at lightning speed, she managed to get all her clothes on by the time someone knocked on the door. Alec, wearing his jeans but bare-chested, was climbing down the ladder. Charmian went and opened the door.
The man on the other side was wearing a snowmobile suit with his helmet tucked under his arm. At the sight of Charmian, he broke into a grin. "Miss Russell. Glad to see you."
It took her a moment to recognize him, seeing him out of context like this. "Bill Lambert," she said. "How are Mary and the baby?"
"Mary's doing fine, and ..." His grin turned proud and embarrassed at once. "So is little Emma. Beautiful baby, no problems. But we were pretty busy last night. Didn't even notice you never showed up 'til this morning."
He came in, stamping the snow off his boots, and exchanged hellos with Alec. If he seemed surprised to find Charmian in the cabin with a half-naked guy, he didn't show it, although she'd learned from experience that the local ranchers were too phlegmatic to show visible surprise at anything short of a UFO landing in the cattle pasture.
"I'm glad you came out to look for us, but what made you look here?" Charmian asked. "Did you find our note?"
"Didn't see a note. Did see your car in the ditch, though. Since you weren't there, I started checking all the local cabins and houses." His clear-eyed gaze flicked back and forth between them. "Anybody hurt?"
"Her wrist," Alec said.
"It isn't bad," she retorted, glaring at him. The fact that he was currently wearing nothing above the waist made it abundantly clear that the injuries to his torso had healed completely, leaving no mark. Stupid shifters with their stupid fast healing. Her wrist felt a little better today, but it still ached.
"Real sorry for not comin' out to find you earlier," Mr. Lambert said, running a hand through his sweat-damp hair. "We knew you meant to come up and help Mary with the baby, but things were a little hectic last night. Wasn't 'til this morning that Mary thought you might'a had problems on the road and I came out on the snowmobile to make sure everything was okay. Gave me a turn when I saw your car in the ditch, that's for sure."
"It's all right," Charmian reassured him. "Don't feel bad. By the way, I think we have one of your steers in the shed."
She pulled on her coat and boots. Alec filled a bucket at the pump, and followed along as she went around the corner to show Mr. Lambert the animal.
"Yep, that's one of ours, all right." Bill Lambert expertly fended off the steer's attempts to nuzzle at him. It was hungry, and looking for food. Alec put the bucket under its nose and it was temporarily distracted by thirst.
Charmian tucked her hands under her arms—she'd forgotten her gloves—and looked around. The snow had stopped sometime during the night and the wind had died, leaving the world frozen in still, white crystalline glory.
It was austere and a little frightening. It could easily have killed them last night. But it was also breathtakingly beautiful, a reminder of why she lived here. She wondered when she'd last stopped long enough to just look around her and notice how beautiful the world was.
"I ought to take you up to our house," Bill Lambert was saying. "Can't just leave a lady out here. Don't like taking you on the machine if you're not properly dressed for it, though."
"I'm fine here," she said politely but firmly.
Alec put an arm around her. "You heard the lady. Er, if your arm is all right?" He looked down at Charmian.
"My arm's fine." Throbbi
ng, but probably not broken, just bruised. She'd have to take some Tylenol when they went inside. "Really, Mr. Lambert, we'll be just fine in the cabin until the road can be plowed out and someone can come get us. We're warm, and we have food."
"You could do something for me, though," Alec said. "Call my cousin, when you get back to your house. Let him know where we are." He hesitated briefly, then took his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Bill Lambert. "His number's in here."
Bill nodded. "I'll get help out to you."
"Thanks." Charmian smiled. "And congratulations on your new daughter."
She and Alec walked back to the porch of the cabin with his arm around her, and watched as Bill Lambert drove out of the yard on his snowmobile, throwing up a rooster tail of powdery snow.
"How are we going to get out of here?" Charmian wondered aloud. "We're pretty snowed in, and my car's totaled."
"My clan can come get us," Alec said. "I doubt if the county snowplows come out this far, but we have a plow truck. I'm sure Axl and Cody would be happy to bring it down."
She leaned into his warmth. "You guys are pretty close, huh? You and your, uh, clan."
"We are. But I don't think it's that different from how human families are. That's what we are, really. A family." He nuzzled against the top of her head. "And you're part of that, now. If you ever need help, all you need to do is call anyone in the clan and they'll come."
Charmian loved her family, but she'd never really depended on them that much. She talked to her parents on the phone ever week, but otherwise, having them in Florida wasn't that different from having them in the same county. Ever since she'd been a kid, she'd never wanted to rely on anyone but herself. It was simply how she was, by nature.
But sometimes you needed other people. She thought about last night, in the storm, with Alec's great shaggy bulk breaking trail for her. If she'd gone off the road by herself, what would have happened? She wondered if she would ever have made it to the cabin in the storm and the dark.