by M. L. Briers
~
Chelsea felt a strange kind of calm wash over her body. It wasn’t from the pain of his bite – the pain wasn’t even that bad and it didn’t subdue her need to get the hell away from him and never look back. It was from a strange connection that was being forged between the two of them.
Calming. How could someone chomping down on your flesh be so damn calming to your soul?
There was a rush of emotions, sort of a last gasped effort of her mind to rebel, and she wanted to lift her knee and get him right in the naked, furry balls that she knew was tempting her sense of rebellion, and yet she didn’t move. Didn’t lift her leg…
Instead she found her head wanted to turn away from him of its own volition… she knew what that meant. She was submitting to his will – like he was the alpha and she was the damn beta…
Oh, hell no.
I’m no one’s beta.
Kick him – go ahead and let him have it right in the short and curlies!
Sucker punch the shifty right into tomorrow.
You know you want to do it, right?
The trouble was that she didn’t want to do it.
The trouble was that no matter how hard that little devil on her shoulder told her to assert herself. Stick up for herself. Fight back and fight back hard… she liked the way that it felt.
For whatever reason there was to it. His bite, not hard but not gentle, soothed a part of her soul that ached, that hurt, had always hurt within her.
For whatever reason there was. His hard body pressed against hers like that warmed her bone deep, soul deep, and made her body come alive like never before.
For whatever reason there was. She felt as if her whole body was opening up to him. Body, mind, heart, and even that deep dark soul where her pain lived.
Then she heard that gentle growl as it rumbled through his chest, felt it as it rumbled through her chest, and the pressure of his teeth lifted with a ping of pain as the nerves came right back to life.
The feel of his tongue against her skin sent lightning bolts through her body and scored a direct hit each time on her womb. Heat flooded through her system, starting deep within her and spreading out like wildfire…
For the first time in her life she felt like she actually breathed.
And again.
And once more.
Not the kind of breath that kept you alive by filling your lungs with air. No, this was different. This was breathing in life itself, and it was as scary as hell and as peaceful as heaven all mixed into one confusing and yet clarifying moment in time.
Tyler brushed his cheek against hers once more. Her whole body had relaxed beneath his. Melted into a softness that he’d never have guessed that she possessed with her kickass demeanour and her hardass talking.
It felt good.
Her body fitted against the hard ridges of his and soothed the beast within him. His heart ached a little less. He felt a little less empty.
“Don’t leave.” His voice was a whispered velvety growl of pure need and she felt it brush over senses like a caress.
“I won’t leave.”
Chelsea didn’t know why she’d agreed to that. A moment ago she wanted nothing more to head out of the door, slam it behind her, and to never look back – and yet… he didn’t have a damn door, they were in a damn cave on a makeshift pile of twigs, leaves and… whatever’s… and she felt no interest in being anywhere but where she was right at that, insane, moment.
I’m losing my damn mind…
I’m cuckoo, I’m a little bird in a cave that pokes its insane head out every now and again and screams at the top of its lungs to scare the hell out people stupid enough to own one…
Cuckoo!
Cuckoo!
Goddess help me but what am I doing?
Finding him?
Finding love everlasting?
Cuckoo!
He’s a shifty shifter… admittedly, he’s a damned sexy shifty shifter with a penis the size of a cucumber… but is that the meaning of life?
Of my life?
Great sex with a hard bodied shifter with dark, sexy eyes and a penis made for a good time had by all?
Sinfully sexy body… I can go with that being the meaning of life, can’t I?
But… wait… that’s not it. Sex is not the answer…
Well, ok, don’t rush to judgement on that thought because sex is an answer, even if it’s not entirely the right one… but…
Wait, what was I saying? His damn cucumber penis has me all at sixes and sevens…
The meaning of life… forty two… nooo! Mr Douglas Adams, the answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is not forty two, at least, if it is then why did nature give men a penis? Or why was there chocolate? Or… stop!
Go back.
Consider again. Where was I? Penis, no chocolate. No. a penis covered in chocolate… goddess, that’s as close to the meaning of life if ever I heard it, thought it, tasted it, oh, tasted it… now…
I digress. But it’s not hard with his body pressed against mine like that. I need to think… of something other than his penis.
One shifter with a body made for sin. My mate. My one true love, and chocolate covered penis aside… a side order of chocolate covered penis sounds like heaven… and the answer is…
“You just scared the hell out of me and my bear,” Tyler growled.
That wasn’t the answer I was going for, but let’s go with that for now.
“You’ve been trying to scare the hell out of me since we met.” She thought it only right to register her protest.
“I thought you were going to leave and I realised that’s not what I want.” Tyler admitted. He released one of her wrists and brought his palm to her face, cupping it gently, and bring her face back towards him, so that he could see into those green eyes once more.
“You don’t want to kill me anymore?” She saw him flinch as if she’d slapped him and a pang of guilt washed through her.
“I was trying to get you to leave so that I didn’t kill you,” Tyler growled gently, but his pride had still been dented by her words.
He’d never wanted to hurt her. He’d wanted to avoid that at all cost and that was why he’d tried to run her off… How could she not see that?
Right now his bear was stilled inside of him. Like the damn thing had hibernated or something… but not, it was still growling a little, but quietly now, not so loudly that it was sending him insane.
“And now?”
“Now, I’m crapping myself that you’ll walk away.”
“That could get messy. I don’t have any big ass shifter sized nappies to hand…” She hadn’t realised how easy it was for her to fall back into that smartass routine until now. It felt like a second skin.
Tyler’s lips pulled up at the corners and he tried not to laugh, tried real hard out of the guilt that he’d felt over Mari… but there it was, rumbling within his chest and lightening his heart just a little more.
“Careful, you might crack a smile,” Chelsea warned, and he did.
Damn, he’s even got a sexy smile going on…
“You know you can let me get some blood back into my hands now,” she teased him and he shot upwards, snatching her with him. His hands had left her wrists, and that smile had left his face as he inspected first one hand, and then the other.
“Stop scowling,” she couldn’t help it when her eyes ran down over the hard muscles of his chest and found his penis looking up at her like a one eyed monster from the deep.
“My eyes are up here,” he growled out, even though his eyes had taken a detour of their own to her breasts. That shirt that she wore, the one that he’d ripped away when he needed to get to her shoulder, had fallen forwards and exposed the black lace bra that held her ample breasts in a way that his hands suddenly itched to do.
“Then put it away,” Chelsea pulled a face at him. “It’s waving at me, and my hands are fine…” she would have snatched them back had it been so
meone else playing touchy-feely with her. “I lied.”
He sat back on his heels and regarded her with suspicion.
“Do you do that a lot?”
“Lie? Noooo,” she slowly shook her head, and then she rolled her eyes to the ceiling of the cave and made a small mewing sound, “ok, so that was a lie. I guess I can’t help myself.”
“Tell me what you meant about family,” Tyler changed the conversation on her so suddenly that her brain slipped a gear and went straight to… err…
“Tell me,” he urged her and she scowled at him.
“I don’t…” she shook her head.
Now she felt closed to him, as if she’d sucked all of her emotions back inside of her again, and it left him feeling a little bereft.
“You don’t trust me?”
“I don’t know you.” She shot the words right out of her mouth before she’d even considered them. His face dropped and his head with it.
“Then we need to get to know each other,” he considered his own words.
“Great, you first.” She wasn’t a sharer.
“I… live on pack land.” He shrugged one of those broad shoulders and out of the corner of her eye she noted his length waving at her again.
“Damn it to hell,” she growled out, looking on the makeshift bed and finding a discarded shirt, she snatched it up and threw it over his length…
The damn thing came to life beneath the shirt. Twitching and swaying like it was trying to find its way out of the darkness, and she sniggered. Covered her hand over her mouth as she tried to bite back the laughter, but sniggered again, and again, and again… it was showing no signs of stopping…
“This amuses you?” Tyler asked in all seriousness.
“It’s alive!” she waved her hands and sniggered some more, her shoulders bobbing in silent laughter even when it didn’t come out of her mouth.
“Cheap date, nights in front of the fire watching my cock move under a tee.”
“Hey, that beats a puppet show any day of the damn week,” she snorted a laugh.
“Would it help if I got dressed?” Tyler asked with a small gleam of amusement in his dark eyes.
“No, it’ll probably still try making a break for freedom, but ok.”
Tyler pushed back onto the soles of his feet at the same time as he pushed up. And there it was, right in front of her face, the shirt still draped over it like a tent, and it was bobbing and weaving like a drunken boxer going ten rounds with its own shadow.
“It likes you,” Tyler grinned and she snorted another round of laughter.
“I noticed.” She offered back chuckling some more. “Maybe it will go to sleep if we hit it really hard with a brick.”
Tyler’s face was a picture of horror, and she cracked up, right there and then on his twiggy bed. She rolled back and let the whole sublime surreal situation cackle out of her as she tried to catch her breath, and she had to wipe away the tears that she’d been crying from laughing so hard.
Tyler stood with his hands on his hips in that way that men do and stared down at her. Shirt still draped over his penis… he wasn’t helping matters, and when he started to laugh too… well there was no hope left for her as she curled onto her side and laughed until she was drained.
“Feel better?” Tyler asked. Finally throwing away the shirt and stepping into a pair of faded jeans that hugged him in all the right places. He tucked his length inside and half did up the fly.
“I feel tired.” She grinned as she rolled onto her back and stared up at the dark ceiling.
“Then sleep-”
“Here?” she asked, raising her eyebrows high on her forehead and looking around at the dank surroundings.
“You’re right. I should take you home.” Tyler could have slapped himself upside the head.
What had he been thinking to not get her out of the cave sooner? She was a human female, and it was no place for her.
“I thought this was home.”
“I have a cabin in the woods…” Tyler shrugged on a shirt and reached for her hand, gently wrapping his large hand around her wrist, he pulled her up to her feet.
“So this is what? You’re bear cave?”
“It’s where I was going to hibernate through the winter.”
“Oh…” she shrugged a shoulder and then frowned. “Ohhh, you do that? That’s… not awkward.”
“No, not usually,” Tyler informed her. Taking her along with him and kicking dirt over the fire to extinguish the flames once more as he plunged them into darkness.
“Something you wanted to try, like a new diet?” she asked, blinking against the blackness and hoping that he didn’t lead her right into a wall.
“It was that or death,” Tyler said and she ground to a halt, causing him to stop in his tracks.
“D-e-a-t-h?” She asked on a whisper.
“I hurt someone.”
“By accident.”
“Still, I hurt a female.”
“It was magic, not you-”
“My bear, and I couldn’t control it.” He shot back.
“Hello, knock on wood, and I would hit you on the damn head if I knew where it was.” She hissed at the darkness of his form in the cave, and caught her breath when his hand snagged her free one and he lifted it to his face.
Her fingertips felt the prickly stubble of his cheek and the tingled rushed up her arm and across her body. It felt good. He felt good.
Usually she didn’t much care for places so dark that she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, but with him there, and close enough so that she could feel his body heat, she didn’t really mind this one.
“Hit away,” he offered. He was so close that she could feel his breath against her face.
“I’d much rather kiss you.”
~
CHAPTER NINE
~
I don’t know why I said that… of course I do. He’s a sexy shifter with a body for sin and a cucumber penis…
Chelsea felt his body all around hers. So warm, so safe, so solid, and then his arms wrapped around her and he brought his soft lips down on hers.
Darkness of the cave be damned. It only heightened the sensation so that her other senses took hold and she felt so much more…
Chelsea had never been one to shy away from anything in her life, except maybe sharing, but this felt strange, different. She wanted to jump his bones, hook her hands on his shoulders, climb up his mountainous body and wrap herself around him like a vine, a very, very tight vine… and yet, at the same time she wanted him to take the lead, run with it, show her who was boss in the bedroom department…
Then his lips broke with hers and she felt… disappointment.
“I can’t be gentle,” his voice was a mere whisper beside her ear, but it caused a shiver to run through her.
“I don’t need gentle,” she assured him, but instead of kissing her again, he released her.
“I’ll hurt you,” Tyler growled as he turned and pulled her with him out of the cave and into what felt like the brightest moonlit night that she had ever seen… her eyes blinked several times trying to adjust.
“What’s a little pain with your pleasure,” she said. Grinning to herself when his head snapped around and his eyes took her in. She cleared her throat and tried to look less guilty.
“You… like pain?”
“It’s not like I want to be stabbed or have a few bones broken or anything,” she shot back. “But, a little forceful, a little rough and ready, isn’t such a bad thing.” She shrugged her shoulders and he grunted.
“I can’t hurt my mate,” he started off on fast feet, her hand still inside of his, and she found herself having to run to keep up.
“Then slow down before I twist an ankle,” she panted.
One moment she was practically being dragged through the woods over the rough terrain and the next, he’d swung her up and into his arms, and she was being carried away like an eighteenth century damsel in distress… neither o
ne suited her personality.
“This was not what I had in mind.” She bit out.
“You don’t like to be carried?” Tyler’s mouth bowed slightly at the corners.
“Personally, I prefer the nice vibration of a Harley Davidson between my thighs, the wind in my hair, and…”
“The bugs in your teeth?” he looked amused at his own funny.
“Easy answer, don’t smile.”
“Tell me about the vibration between your thighs,” Tyler asked and she had to smile at that one.
“Which one?” She asked as she brushed her lips against his ear and whispered so very quietly, even for the exceptional ability of his hearing.
A hard shiver wracked his body as his mind went to every X-rated thought that he had ever considered in his life, and she had a starring role in all of them. The hungry growl that rippled within his chest told her that her point had hit home, and her mate was thinking the same kind of thoughts that she was.
“Have you ever…?” he bit off that thought. His length was hard enough and trapped inside his jeans, wedged against her hip. Torturing himself wasn’t the best use of his time.
“What?” she whispered again. Her fingers wrapped around his thick neck and he shivered again. “Pushed a dildo inside of myself, been so wet that it slipped all the way in, vibrating against my womb, making my inner muscles tighten hard around it…?”
That growl became a rumble, a long, hungry, almost pained rumble of desire, of lust, and she liked it.
Tyler sped up. He’d had a moment there where he’d almost tripped over his own tongue, but he was in desperate need to get back to his cabin and plunge himself into an ice cold shower, before he did something that they would both regret, before he dropped down to the wet, muddy ground of the woods and took her hard and fast - pounded into her until they were both panting and crying out…
She’s my mate…
I can’t take her like this, out here… it’s cold and wet…
A tree… I could take her up against a tree…
Have her standing facing the tree, backside out, bracing her arms as I hammered inside of her…
Thrusting, thrusting deep, hard, over and over… feeling those inner muscles of hers clamping down around me…