by Lora Leigh
His thumbs rubbed over her nipples, rasping the lace against the tight points and drawing an involuntary groan from her as she fought to breathe.
“You make me weak,” she whispered, trembling at the pleasure rushing through her and pushing the need higher.
“You make me strong.”
Before the surprise, the shock of his statement, could race through her, his hand cupped the back of her neck as he gripped her hip and pulled her to him.
His lips covered hers, parting them in a kiss she realized she’d been dying for. As her senses were whirling from the sudden rush of the mating hormone burning through her, he lifted her from her feet, bringing her to her back and coming over her.
Deep, drugging kisses, nips of her lips, his tongue stroking hers, hers stroking his. Fear, disquiet, dissipated beneath the extraordinary pleasure and the sense of his complete attention centered on her.
They’d battled, argued. When they’d come together, conflict and uncertainty had filled it before. There was no conflict, no uncertainty. There was just his complete attention centered on nothing but her, and hers followed suit.
He released the cups of her bra, drawing it from her, but when her hands returned to stroke his shoulders, his back, her nails flexing against the tough skin, a groan rumbled in his chest. He cupped her breast, his lips moving along her neck, burning kisses, the scrape of his teeth.
Their legs twined together, reminding her that he still wore pants. She wanted him naked against her, wanted his flesh stroking hers, the feel of his erection against her.
She pushed at the band of his pants, crying out when his lips covered the tight peak of her nipple. Arching, swamped with the sharp arcs of exquisite sensation, she was only barely aware of him releasing the pants and working them over his hips, down his thighs until he kicked them free.
His lips drew on first one sensitive nipple, then the other, drawing it in his mouth, sucking it firmly, his tongue rubbing at it, the hormone spilling from him sensitizing it further.
“I love your taste.” The guttural pleasure in his voice had her breath catching.
His kisses moved lower. Soft licks as his lips smoothed beneath the mounds of her breasts, then moving along her stomach as he slid her panties down her thighs, revealing the slick, swollen folds of her sex.
Pushing her thighs apart, he moved between them, those diabolical kisses moving to her mound.
“So fucking pretty,” he groaned, his fingers caressing her inner thighs, his breath caressing the swollen bud of her clit. “All I can think about is touching you, tasting you. From the minute I saw you on that damned balcony six years ago, Cassie. I dreamed of this.”
Her breath caught, a cry escaping as he delivered a heated kiss to her clit. Each brief, firm caress caused the bundle of nerves to swell further, to throb with overwhelming pleasure. Flares of brilliant, white-hot sensation rushed through her, clenching her muscles in desperate need.
Those kisses turned from her clit to her thigh, teeth raking, rasping her flesh. She jerked at the additional sensation, moaning, her hands locked in his hair as her hips arched.
“Don’t tease me,” she gasped, her head tossing against the mattress as those kisses moved to her other thigh.
“Not teasing, halfling,” he promised, his voice rougher, deeper with lust. “Enjoying you. Pleasuring you.”
He was killing her with pleasure.
His kisses moved to her hip, where he nipped, licked, leaving a burning brand against her flesh that had her crying in pleasure. Heat built and expanded, drawing a fine film of perspiration over her flesh. He moved her hands from his hair, pressed them to the bed, growling with erotic command when she tried to lift them to him again.
She couldn’t bear this slow, blissful pleasure. As his lips and tongue caressed her, his hands stroked her thighs, pushing them farther apart as she tried to close them to trap his touch between them.
He chuckled when his lips brushed over her clit and she arched, trying to capture a firmer touch.
“Dog, please.” She wasn’t above begging. “I can’t stand it.”
She was dying for more. The heated slide of moisture spilling from her was a tormenting caress. The involuntary clenching of her vagina only made the need deepen.
Dog was determined to love her, to touch her, to draw every nuance of her inside him.
Just in case.
Just in case he lost her. Just in case he never had the chance to touch her like this again.
He touched, stroked. He tasted.
The taste of her was exquisite. He knew no matter what tomorrow brought, the taste of her would infuse his senses as long as he lived. It would live inside him, torment him if he never tasted her again.
He could feel her losing herself in him, and he’d dreamed of it happening. Dreamed of the day when his little halfling was so lost in the pleasure he gave her she could only lie beneath him, her cries filling the air around them.
The sweet heated scent of her pussy filled his head as his kisses moved back to her thighs. Her clit peeked out from the slick folds, a moist little pearl swollen and shimmering with the need for his touch.
He was so damned hungry for her, desperate to taste the need spilling from her. Knowing once his lips returned to those wet folds he’d be lost. There would be no controlling his lust for her then, no controlling the hunger surging through his senses.
But as his lips brushed against the sweet taste of her again, he knew he was lost. He had to taste.
His tongue swiped through the narrow slit, circled the swollen bud, and he groaned in defeat. Spicy feminine need exploded through his senses, the underlying sweetness tempting his taste buds. A temptation he couldn’t fight.
The first stroke of his tongue through the sensitive folds between her thighs stole her breath. Cassie gasped, her body drawing at the agonizing pleasure that rushed through her on a sharp wave of building sensation.
He circled her clit, sucked it into his mouth and stroked it with his tongue. Pushing his hands beneath her rear he lifted her closer, that wicked tongue sliding lower once again, rimming the entrance and pushing inside her in a stroke of such pleasure she would have screamed if she’d had the breath.
Each impalement sent her senses screaming with the building sensation, drowning in the ecstasy she could almost reach, almost feel exploding through her.
“That’s it, baby,” he groaned, pulling back, his voice serrated. “Do it again, Cassie. Ride my tongue.”
The thrust inside her had her vagina tightening, rippling with a ferocity of need that had her hips arching, mindlessly doing as he demanded, riding each thrust, fighting to reach that edge of madness where only ecstasy existed.
Just as she was certain she could reach it, certain she’d explode into shards of pleasure, his head jerked back.
“No. No . . .” Reaching for him, desperate now, need whipping through her in a storm of such sensation she didn’t know if there was a way to survive it.
Her eyes came open as he jackknifed between her thighs. Pulling her up, he flipped her to her stomach, his hands gripping her hips, lifting them until her knees were beneath her as he came over her.
His teeth locked in the mark at her shoulder as the head of his cock parted the folds of her sex and began pressing inside her. The steady, stretching penetration had her back arching, whipping, agonizing pleasure radiating from the steady impalement.
A growl vibrated at her back, his teeth holding her still, keeping her in place as he worked his erection inside her. She couldn’t survive this. Her eyes closed as a smothered wail left her lips and he drove in to the hilt.
She could feel her vagina struggling to ease despite the steady throb of his cock and each pulse of pre-cum that spilled inside her. He didn’t give her a chance to catch her breath, to find herself within the storm of sensation tearing through h
er body.
Holding her to him with one hand beneath her hips, his teeth at her shoulder, he began thrusting inside her, his groans mixing with her cries as she gripped him, her muscles rippling in contracting pleasure with each stroke inside her.
It was killing her. He was killing her with the steady building sensations, pushing her higher with each thrust inside her until she was sobbing, begging.
“Please . . .” She tried to scream, but the sound was a gasp, agonized, as she shuddered, shaking with need. “Oh God, Dog, please . . . please . . .”
The snarling growl at her shoulder had her tensing. His thighs bunched and the thrusts drove inside her then. Deep, hard, penetrating her fully with each stroke and pushing her over that agonizing edge straight into rapture.
A rapture that refused to end. Hard, blinding explosions ripped through her body in an orgasm that seemed never ending. The feel of his release, the pressure of his cock swelling inside her, locking him to her, stole the last measure of reality.
The emotions that tore through her in that moment were like a kaleidoscope of color whipping through her, mixing with the blinding ecstasy, throwing her into a place that made no sense. A place filled with such love, so much love and devotion, and riding those soul-deep feelings was a pain she couldn’t define.
How long it lasted, she didn’t know. Reality was something that didn’t exist, didn’t matter, as she was rocked with ecstasy and emotion. She was aware of collapsing beneath him, his body still locked with hers.
His teeth released her shoulder as his head rested against hers, his breathing as harsh as her own.
“You carry my soul,” he whispered as she felt exhaustion dragging her down. “My sweet, beautiful little halfling, you’re all that’s good inside me.”
And she could have sworn she heard grief echo in his vow.
•CHAPTER 16•
God help him but he loved her.
As he stared down at her, memories of the battles he’d fought to claim her drifted through his head.
Hell, how many times had he nearly been caught just trying to get close to her? To hear her laughter, see her smile, to smell the unique, tempting scent of her. She’d been his dream and he’d become better for her.
A lifetime of living in the shadows, believing he lived only for the day that he’d find the man responsible for his parents’ deaths, had changed the day his gunsights had landed on her.
The little halfling the Council was willing to pay a fortune no man could spend to attain. They wanted her unmated, a virgin, her unique genetics unspoiled by the hormone that would tip the scales in either direction and allow them to use her to further experiment.
Mated, her only value was that of any other mate, unless she conceived. And having mated a Coyote, she would be of even less value to them. It was generally agreed that the Coyotes were even more of a failure than the other Breeds. Shiftless and lazy, they were called. Good only for killing, and at the end of the day, they rarely did even that as they were ordered.
More than a century and a half of genetic mutations, alterations, countless deaths and horrors, and still, they continued as though what they searched for actually existed. Though only God knew what they actually searched for.
They wouldn’t find it with his mate now. Though they’d likely never realize just what they had truly created and what her life had finally allowed to emerge. A natural female alpha. Son of a bitch, he’d mated not just the only halfling living, but the only known emerging natural female alpha.
All Breed females were strong, but just as in the wild, females normally didn’t lead, and it wasn’t just due to physical strength. They lacked the sheer cunning and ability to instantly size up the males’ weaknesses and use those against them. But it was also that unnamed something—a natural presence that radiated from the core of an alpha—that created leaders.
Cassie possessed all of the above. She would have stood at his side, never behind him. As those genetics matured and the inherent intelligence and quick wit grew within her, she’d become a force for the Breed society unlike any other.
Hell, she was already that, he admitted. They called her the Breed princess for a reason. She was the beauty, innocence, intelligence and inner strength that Breeds and humans both found impossible to resist.
And she was his mate.
For such a very short time, he’d held her.
Dog couldn’t remember a time in his life when he’d cried. He couldn’t even remember a time when he’d wanted to cry. He’d known regret, lost friends in the battle to survive, seen horrors that he still relived in his nightmares. But at no time in his life had he wanted to shed tears until he lay next to his mate and knew that when he forced himself from the bed, he was leaving her.
Staring into her delicate face, he traced the slope of her brow, the stubborn curve of her chin, that endearing tilt of her nose. The playful curve of her lips.
He’d watched her smile often, heard her laughter. She found hope in the world, in their world, despite the fact that so many would steal that hope if they could.
She fought for the Breeds with fierce determination, but as she stood in that Cabinet meeting defending him, he’d felt something reaching out from her that he’d never felt from anyone else. Determined, fierce, she’d reached out to everyone in that room with a silent declaration of loyalty. Loyalty for him.
His halfling.
What the hell was he going to do without her? Because God knew when this night was over, he’d be dead or brought up on charges for murder. And the murder of a United States senator wasn’t something that could be hidden.
It was funny. He could remember when he was ten, hours spent with his father in the mountains of Washington. Dog had never known his father’s name; he’d just been Father, a somber, hardened SEAL. But when he’d gazed at Dog, the ten-year-old he’d been had known his father’s love.
He didn’t hug the son he called Cain; he’d been damned hard on him to ensure that Dog knew how to survive during the times his father was forced to leave him for supplies. Dog hadn’t realized until he was older that his father couldn’t afford to be seen with a child, just in case he was found. Because if Dog had been found with the man he knew as his father, then the hell he faced, he might not have survived.
A hybrid Breed hadn’t been heard of then, but scientists had dreamed of overcoming the original genetic model to see one born. They hadn’t realized that Breeds needed far more than humans did to conceive. Breeds needed that one person, that one heart and soul that belonged only to them.
And Dog had thought he could finally claim his.
Now, staring at his mate, Dog found himself doing something else he’d never done. Regretting the choice he had to make.
He’d thought he could finally claim his mate, that he could finally carve out a chance at a future with this woman. He’d watched her grow from an uncertain eighteen-year-old to a strong, determined young woman. He’d watched her cry and laugh and he’d seen her play, and he’d wanted a chance to do all those things with her.
The realization that it was something he’d never have sliced through his soul with razor sharpness.
His halfling.
The inner strength and incredibly determined will rising inside her would make her a force to be reckoned with. The Wolf and Coyote genetics were fully merging as she reached maturity, at which point the aging would slow to a crawl.
She’d begin adapting, strengthening, and he’d thought he’d be there to watch it, to learn how to play with her, how to show her how he loved her.
There was so much he’d wanted to show her. Cassie had never been free. She’d never had the freedom to see the world as she should have, without a wall of bodyguards surrounding her. Not that she’d ever be able to be without security, even with him, but he could have given her a measure of freedom as well.
D
ane would take care of the Breeds that had followed him for so many years. They were natural spies, able to adapt and become who and what they needed to be. They’d survive without him. Dr. Sobolova could ease the symptoms of the Mating Heat with the treatments she’d refined for the Coyote Breeds.
Cassie wouldn’t suffer and that was all that mattered.
Touching the curls that rioted along the side of her face, he tested one, watched it spring back into place and wanted to howl in rage. His fingers fisted in the silky curls, the warmth of them like a brand against his palm.
He had to force himself to release her, and it took every ounce of strength he possessed to make himself leave the bed. To separate himself from the heat of her body and the comfort he found just lying next to her.
He’d waited six years, waited for her to grow up, until he knew she could handle her emerging strength. And he thought he’d be there to guide her through it.
Hatred welled inside him as he dressed, never taking his eyes from his sleeping mate. When he finished, he grabbed up his pack and slipped from the bedroom, then from the apartment.
Closing the door silently behind him he paused, hanging his head to stare at the floor as grief swept over him.
“Love you, halfling,” he whispered. “More than life, I love you.”
He had one more stop to make, and that one was going to suck. He might end up dead before he managed to make his own kill. And at the moment, he was highly anticipating his own kill.
* * *
• • •
Cassie, it’s time to wake up. Come on, now. You haven’t much time . . .
It was a voice from the past, one she hadn’t heard for so many years. The spirit she called her fairy.
Opening her eyes, she stared at the misty figure, watching her wavering expression, the beauty of her face, the gentleness that filled it.
Get dressed, Cassie, you don’t have much time. You have to hurry . . .
She was out of the bed, her gaze going around the room.