Something surged inside of her—maybe something the meds suppressed, or maybe they weren’t out of her system yet. Or maybe it was simply being anywhere in Rifter’s presence.
Because she’d smelled him on the towels, the sheets, the shirt she wore. She smelled him on her when she was naked and just out of the shower, which made no sense. And she scented him now without question.
She wondered if she was supposed to be here, but there was no way to make herself invisible—men especially noticed her. Vice looked her way, bared his teeth even though he looked relaxed. Jinx was standing with his back to the wall, a woman trapping him in place, looking like she was prepared to kneel between his legs.
There were weapons everywhere she looked—knives and guns—and none of the women seemed as worried as she felt. As it was, she was slightly terrified but way more fascinated. Because, along with the weapons of destruction, there were flowers and drinks and beads, like it was Mardi Gras. Someone put a few strands around her neck from behind, but when she turned she saw no one. She fingered the silver and pink beads and breathed it all in.
It was a party made of magic. Even now, standing at the threshold, she couldn’t be sure if it was merely a dream. And she wasn’t sure if she wanted it to be so or not.
As someone brushed by her, she felt a prickle on her skin. Saw Vice’s easy smile again, this time directed to the man and woman standing with him. Heard him ask if they were afraid of the big bad wolf.
“I’m guessing you do more than huff and puff,” the woman said, and the man moved behind Vice, laughed before kissing his way down the big man’s spine. Vice pulled the woman in close and kissed her, and Gwen looked up and saw Rifter similarly surrounded by two women, but he wasn’t kissing anyone.
He was staring straight at her.
Her skin prickled, tight and warm, like she had a fever. Maybe she did. She was light-headed, dreamy. Couldn’t be sure this was reality and didn’t care.
The women next to Rifter touched his bare chest, his back, stared up at him longingly, and she let the growl rip from her throat without care. They turned to her and Rifter smiled.
God, it was really the first time she’d seen that. It was beautiful.
The music was pounding, the air smelled heavy with perfume and musk and she wanted to dance. The women moved away from Rifter as she walked over to him and tugged against him, their bodies melding in time to the beat.
“What’s the celebration for?” she asked him.
“The moon.” He looked up at the sky and she saw it, nearly full and luminous.
“Everyone’s looking at me,” she said.
“Let them. As long as no one touches you.”
“As long as no one touches you either.”
“Feeling protective?” he asked.
“Why didn’t you invite me?”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
She got up on tiptoes as he bent his head to hers, and she kissed him—or he kissed her, tongue exploring, his erection pressing her belly. His hands splayed along her back and his posturing was nothing short of possessive—and protective.
All around them, it was half-naked bodies rubbing together under a nearly full moon, like a midsummer’s night party except there was snow on the ground and the steam rose off the bodies.
“What are we celebrating?”
“Being alive,” he murmured against her neck, then licked his way along her jawbone until she shivered. “Dancing with our inner beasts.”
“I don’t think I have one.”
He spoke languidly. “Sure you do. I feel it.” His hand strayed between her legs, her sex naked to his touch. “Your heart’s beating down here. I feel it.”
She flushed, rubbed herself on his hand. Might have been embarrassed, but everyone seemed too caught up in their own frenzy to notice.
Still, she wanted him alone. In his big bed with the dark sheets. His hand was getting bolder.
“Come on—need you naked,” he murmured.
Yes, she wanted that, and he picked her up, carried her like she weighed nothing. He cut through the crowds, went up the stairs and into his room. Put her down in front of the bed and skimmed her T-shirt off and stared languidly at her nakedness. Took his time, ran a hand down her shoulder, stopping at her breast. She gasped when he thumbed a nipple and still didn’t take his eyes from her face.
The doors to the balcony were open behind the filmy curtains, and this all felt both illicit and romantic. Dirty hot, she thought as he flicked her nipple hard. That sent a shiver that shot straight through to her core like nothing she’d ever felt before.
She reached forward and undid the button on his black leather pants, and he rewarded her with another smile. Fingers on her other nipple as she ran a teasing finger of her own across the hard ripple of his abs, wondering why she had the sudden urge to nip her way down his broad body.
His hand moved between her legs and stroked slowly—she needed more. “Faster.”
He complied, brought his mouth down on hers, his tongue mimicking what his two fingers were doing inside of her. Her hands ran along his shoulders—his skin was so hot, almost electric, and she wrapped a leg around his to give him more access to her. Loved the feeling of his rough hands on her… in her.
She moaned against his mouth, his name at first and then just incoherent things as his fingers took her more intensely. She was going to come—wanted to. Needed to, and the orgasm rocked her so intensely she wouldn’t have been able to stay on her feet if he hadn’t been holding her.
After a few long minutes, her head pressed to his shoulder, her body trembling, he picked her up and laid her on the bed. And then he stripped off his jeans, and she heard herself sigh appreciatively.
Everything about him was big, exactly the way he’d looked in her dream. He was extremely proportionate, built like he could take on the world. He was meant to pleasure a woman, from his looks to his hands… to his thick, jutting cock, and she spread her legs wantonly while she waited for him to cover her.
Finally, he moved forward onto her. She slid along the sheets, the material silky along the back of her thighs. His skin was rougher on the front, the crisp hairs tickling her. His mouth lowered to hers again; his arousal pressed her sex.
She wondered if she should mention her virginity, having nearly forgotten about it as her body took over. But then Rifter pulled away and murmured, “Make me forget,” and she had no idea who or what he was talking about, but all she wanted to do was comply. Didn’t want anyone or anything on his mind but her, wanted that with a possessiveness that was all-consuming.
Chapter 15
“My, what a big dick you have,” the female Were named Chloe—or Carol or maybe her name didn’t even begin with a C—told Vice, but when she started going down on him, who the hell cared.
Sex was an obvious pleasure. Wolves were primal creatures. Vice got to double his fun thanks to his bisexuality. Man, woman… it didn’t much matter as long as he got off.
He was probably the only one of the Dires who didn’t exactly hate the pain after orgasm.
The male Were he’d brought to his room hadn’t even introduced himself—not formally, anyway, and he remained with his mouth pressed to the back of Vice’s neck, sucking on the spot the Dire liked, alternately biting, and Vice’s body was strung far too tight not to come immediately.
Since his Brother Wolf had missed his run last night, the wolf was restless, and a restless, irritable wolf living inside a volatile human body was a bad sitch altogether.
Vice had jerked himself off several times before the party in hopes of some relief—short-lived as it might be. Afterward, the ache made him nearly double over, even as his body asked for more.
It would never be enough, which was why, most of the time, Vice didn’t give a fuck.
Which wasn’t to say he didn’t have fun. Even if he didn’t want to, he couldn’t help it; it was a built-in piece of the Dire nature—primal and strong. To ignore it was fu
tile—Brother Wolf wouldn’t allow it anyway.
No, being a Dire was all about finding balance, and when his needs were called out, they responded in kind. Vice let those needs course through his body—they were never far from the surface, but tonight they pulled him taut, a bow ready to snap, and he knew once the frenzy took him over, it wouldn’t stop. And he was more than ready to throw himself into it.
The woman straddled him and writhed as she rode his cock. Vice lost any last semblance of control. Safe within the confines of his house and the moon celebration, he let himself revel in the blatantly carnal display.
Beautiful bodies, hot mouths, everything he wanted—and by morning, none of it would have mattered.
It never did.
Now the two Weres were fighting for his attention, which was exactly the way Vice liked it. The male Were tugged his nipple piercing, and Vice welcomed the pain. The Were ran his nail down Vice’s back and he shuddered. Even now, as the pain surged after the orgasm waned, the new sensations built, tightening his balls. He closed his eyes and let the two bodies work on him, mouths and teeth and tongues, and they’d just moved to the bed when he heard someone at his door.
The knocking made him want to kill. Anything. The two Weres were fair game and they knew it, so they stilled.
Vice rolled out of bed naked and growled softly. He’d planned on using them all night, kicking them out before dawn and sleeping alone for the rest of the day.
Obviously, Jinx had other plans. “You in there, Vice?”
“Coming. Literally.”
“Get them the fuck out of there.”
“Taking your life in your hands,” Vice called back, but Jinx opened the door anyway. Vice didn’t bother to dress, stretched his arms out wide when Jinx rolled his eyes.
“You gonna huff and puff?” Jinx asked.
“Is he joining us?” the male Were purred.
“Fuck off. Vice, get dressed.”
“Turning you on?” Vice asked. Jinx snorted and threw pants at him.
“We’re missing a young one,” he said, and Vice had no doubt whom Jinx referred to. Reluctantly, he pulled the female up and tossed both her and the male their clothes. They were obviously disappointed, and yeah, join the goddamned club.
When they left, escorted downstairs and out by Cain, who waited in the hallway, Jinx said, “We need to get him before Rifter kills him.”
“Or me,” Vice added, and Jinx nodded. The little fucker was out of the house and ruining Vice’s moon celebration, blowing it to hell. Vice yanked on jeans and boots and a black T, satisfied that at least Jinx was coming with him. Because if his night was ruined, so was the man who suggested he be in charge of Liam, the little boy who cried wolf king. “Where’s he headed?”
“He took Stray’s Harley—Cain tracked him to the cemetery.”
“Didn’t know he was a ghost hunter.”
“Cain’s heard rumors that’s where the outlaws are taking meetings. He’s watching Liam, but I told him not to get too close,” Jinx said, and Vice grabbed his jacket and followed his fellow Dire down the stairs and into the truck.
The Weres in New York had all been trying to join with the Dires for years.
“Why bother with the young and inexperienced when you could have us?” Vice had heard Teague demand of Rifter last year. Unrepentant and untamed, he was someone the Dires could respect if he’d controlled his part of the pack better.
Linus had kicked him and several others out when he’d discovered they’d been undermining him.
Now the outlaw pack was out for blood.
“You know, we should let them kill one another,” Vice said as Jinx pulled out of the driveway, and he readied the rifle in case they ran into any trouble along the way. “None of them have the self-control they need.”
“Funny, you talking about self-control. Besides, that’s why we exist,” Jinx reminded him, and Vice began cursing a diatribe about the fucking Elders, knowing full well he’d pay for it.
“How much worse can it get?” he’d ask, because his body was always strumming with want and need, no way to ever fully burn them off.
The pentagram tattooed on the front of his throat was a direct parody of the wolf-man movies. He touched it now and let the semirational part of his brain come into focus.
The packs were in ruins. Without their solidarity, it made them all easy fodder for the weretrappers.
The weretrappers would use them and eventually wolves would be outed, and then humans would freak the fuck out for sure. They’d have a Were army coming after them—one the witches would help to control through black magic.
Their great white wolf hope was twenty-two and recovering nicely from his near-death experience… and putting himself in goddamned danger.
He lit up a rolled cigarette, the blue smoke drifting around him, clinging to him like a lover and illuminating his illicit beauty, which had gotten him out of trouble for centuries.
Vice’s old Marine sarge used to remind them that, in order to get out of a jam, they should confess to something illegal, immoral or embarrassing.
Vice took it a step further and would actually commit the illegal, immoral, embarrassing act and then confess to it. Because hell, if you were going to confess to the crime, what was the point if you didn’t get the enjoyment from it?
When vice was in your nature—when vice was your nature—it wasn’t hard to be a part of the pack lifestyle he’d grown up in. From the time Vice was born, he’d fit right into the Viking mold. Had been accepted, so the Running for him had been more of an annoyance than anything.
Today the story on the Vikings was that they weren’t crazy or barbaric or pillaging, but the reality was that they had been. And Vice had reveled in that, so much so that the Running gave him less freedom than he’d had within the pack that lived among the Viking humans.
Their Dire culture had trained the young men and women as warriors from the time they were born, knowing that they would need physical strength if they had any hope of surviving their first several shifts into wolf form. Once those shifts were completed, the young males were allowed to run free in the world, to try on their independence and see how well they could blend in with the humans around them. It also marked them entering adulthood and enjoying more of the primal nature their wolves insisted on.
During his Running, Vice had been with humans who were far gentler, and he’d had to be careful. He’d been relieved when the time was over and he could return to his pack, only to find that, while he’d been on his Running, the packs had defied orders from the Elders and had in fact massacred humans in direct opposition to the beings put in charge of them by their creator, Hati, son of a Norse god who chased the moon.
Vice had been the most devastated by the Extinction of his Dire kind the Elders had wrought. How could you discover that your kind had been annihilated for the very excesses that your entire being was built upon and be all right? And one that you could do nothing to modify, no matter how hard you tried?
There was no answer to that for him other than to live forever.
Chapter 16
S he can’t handle you.
But Rifter’s body didn’t care. Gwen’s skin tasted like black cherry, fizzing under his tongue as he licked along her neck like an explosion, and everything else melted away.
Only a dream.
But it felt far more real than it should. She was splayed under him, begging for more with every touch, every moan. And he was still too far under the pull of the moon to be this damned close to a human, but she was so willing… and he wasn’t made of stone, no matter how much he’d tried to be.
His body longed for hers—there was no other way to describe it. He’d always been sexual—primal—but he’d never, ever wanted like this. It scared and excited him at once.
She ripped his shirt off and went for his nipples, suckling them, biting his pecs, taking his hand and putting it between her legs. “Please, Rifter.”
“Gwen—”
“You don’t know what you’re telling me.”
But he took her anyway. Before he could stop himself, he was pushing inside of her. Her sex opened slowly for him—she was tight and hot, but welcoming as hell. He held her hips and thrust hard, once, twice, and she groaned, called his name and began to work into a rhythm with him.
So tight… this couldn’t be her first time, though. She was getting too much pleasure from it, and from what he knew of virgins, that didn’t often happen.
She was at his mercy, pinned beneath his big body, and she wasn’t scared at all. “Now, Rifter.”
He was no longer dreamwalking. He didn’t know when they’d crashed back to reality, but he was fully inside of her and there was no way he was pulling out now.
She wouldn’t have let him, clenched around him, her legs wrapped around him, heels digging his back hard.
Don’t hurt her.
“Harder, Rifter,” she begged. God, if he complied…
But her nails raked his back and for a second, he swore he saw wolf’s eyes.
He must be seeing his own eyes reflected in hers, so he squeezed them tightly shut before she noticed, buried his head along her neck.
He forced back a growl. The air changed, and he took her then, plunged into her, stretching her, taking her with the ferocity he craved. Speared her with his cock, her wet heat sucking him in, and he took her hard, rode her until she came with a shudder and a cry, and then it happened.
If she noticed she didn’t let on. Rifter thought she was too deep in the throes of the orgasm… but he was locked inside of her. Mating with her.
Up until this point, the mating was only something he’d heard described, but he’d certainly never experienced it firsthand. That was impossible.
All of this was fucking impossible.
But he couldn’t have pulled out of Gwen if he’d wanted it. And he didn’t want to.
You can’t mate with a human. A dying one at that, and maybe it was the meds she was on or maybe he was for sure losing his goddamned mind, but he continued thrusting and they both had multiple orgasms that lasted longer than he’d thought possible.
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