by M. L. Briers
Chase heard her refer to his house as home and he liked it. It gave him a sense of hope that she was coming around to the idea of them as mates on a more permanent basis. Now if he could just get her to view bonding in the same way, well, he would be a happy man.
They had been home all of half an hour and she still hadn’t told him what Nathaniel had said. First she had gone to clean up. Then she had made them tea, and now she was procrastinating by offering a snack.
Chase was all out of patience. Walking up behind her as she stood at the kitchen counter, he turned her with his hands and pinned her backside to the counter top with his hips. A hand either side of her body as he palmed the counter, and she was trapped within the confines of his body.
She looked up at him sheepishly, as he raised his brows and questioned her with his eyes alone. They both knew what he wanted and it took her mere moments to cave to his will.
“Ok, fine.” She spat out. Palming his chest and trying to ease him back from her to gain a little space. It was akin to pushing at a bolder. He refused to budge an inch.
“Nathaniel wasn’t exactly forthcoming about the white wolf, per se.” She bit her inner cheek and stared up at him. He just raised his brows, waiting for the rest.
“He said we needed to…” She stopped and pursed her lips. This was really the point of no return. Once the word left her lips she couldn’t get it back.
He waited. Not a word. Not a sigh. Not one muscle moved in his entire body that she could see. There was just this vibe from him. Like a certainty, or maybe just the expectancy that she would tell him. And she would. She’d like another few days to be able to spit out that word… but all she had was here and now.
“Bond.” There it was. That word. That word that described an action whose consequences she was unsure of. That word that fate had thrust upon her so… unexpectedly. That one word that had him grinning like a Cheshire cat. Damn, right now she wanted to zap him, and not just a little zap, she would be happy to bury his backside in the biggest snow bank she could fine.
“Bond.” He repeated, trying to withdraw the smirk from his lips and sound serious, but failing miserably.
“Yes. Bond.” If she looked even half as uncomfortable as she felt right now, then he should have known to back the hell off.
“Hmm. Bond.” He repeated, like he was rolling it around his tongue and his mind. Yep, she certainly wanted to zap the sucker.
“Oh get over yourself Chase.” She pushed at his chest again, and again he stayed steadfast.
“And how do you feel about that?” There was an underlying amusement to his tone that made her sigh. She rolled her eyes before she closed them and dropped her forehead against his chest with a small whimper of regret that she had said the word at all.
His hand ran down her arm, from her shoulder all the way up to her hand where it rested against his chest. It was a gentle touch, before he took her hand in his and whispered against her ear.
“You’re still not sure.”
“It’s not about being sure Chase. I know we’re mates. I know we are going to bond at some point. And I know that my life is here with you now. I just wanted a little more time to get used to the idea.”
His heart rallied inside him with every word that came from her lips. He palmed her cheeks and brought her eyes up to his.
“From the moment I met you, you became my heart. You became my soul. You became the reason that I breathe in and out. You and only you, have a claim on me. And I would die to protect you, as I live just for you. Never apart from this moment on. We walk together through life as one. A whole. Soul mates and lovers. If you’ll accept me as yours.” Each heartfelt word left her more in love with him. Each second that past, filled her heart so completely that she didn’t think it was big enough to hold all of her happiness. The tears that welled in her eyes contained only love for him.
He was hers and she was his. They were mates.
“Don’t cry.” He whispered as his thumb captured the tears that flowed down her cheeks and she sniffed back a small laugh that came to her lips.
“Don’t make me.”
“I didn’t want to upset you. I wanted you to know how I felt for you.” He was so gentle in that moment, so tender that she just wanted to melt into him. Capture that moment and stay in it forever.
“Happy tears.” She assured him and he raised his brows, questioning her statement.
“A female thing?” He looked for reassurance that she really was ok, and when she nodded he captured her lips with his, and he kissed her with the same tenderness and love that his words had invoked.
“You’re mine?” He asked against her lips, and she pulled back her head and smiled up at him.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?” He needed the reassurance that she wasn’t feeling pressured into this.
“Certain.”
“Then we will bond tonight. When the moon is high.”
She couldn’t help herself. He looked so self assured, so pleased with himself right in that moment that she had to give him just a little nudge of that pedestal.
“You know for such a big bad wolf. You’re just a really big softie aren’t you?” She grinned up at him and watched his ego deflate just a little.
I’ve known him for three days and I’m going to bond with him. It’s lucky I’m Fae and I know the truth about fate, otherwise I might just have to check myself into the funny farm.
Cassidy looked back at her own reflection in the bathroom mirror and sighed. The conversation she had with Chase played back through her mind in snatches.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Certain.’
Was she? Was she really certain that this should happen now? Nathaniel seemed to think so and he was Fae. Well sort of.
She was going to run into the white wolf again, Nathaniel had told her as much. So was she doing this just to save her own backside?
She loved Chase. It was as ingrained in her as her Fae blood. Even if she wanted to have a choice about it, she didn’t have that option. The Fates had made her for him and only for him. How could she not love him? She might not like him all the time, but she did love him. She felt it when he looked at her, when he stood beside her, when he touched her. That she didn’t have a doubt about.
Now here she was, standing in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror and having a conversation with herself. Maybe that meant she wasn’t ready for this. Or maybe it just meant she was as scared as hell about what was going to happen. A bite from his wolf. Did that mean he would shift into his wolf?
Did she really have to open that door and walk into the bedroom at some point before the sun came up?
She could change her mind. Play chicken and back out…
She frowned back at herself. She had never run away from anything that scared her in her life. Except that damn white wolf but that was different.
‘Oh grow a pair.’
Cassidy turned away from her reflection. She didn’t need to spend any more time debating this. It was going to happen.
She yanked open the bathroom door with a little more gusto than was entirely necessary and hesitated in her first step out of the room.
There he was, standing there staring back at her, and he looked even more nervous than she did. Crap. That wasn’t a good sign.
Chase opened his mouth to speak and stopped when she held up her index finger to silence him. She slammed the door shut again and put her back to the door. Like that would hold him out there if he wanted to get in. But it did make her feel better, if only for a moment.
She closed her eyes, took a breath to steady her nerves, and went to gently blow it back out, when he tapped on the door. That gentle tap made her propel herself away from the door, her heart skipping inside her.
“Everything ok?” Chase asked gently from the other side of the door, and she wondered at the tone of his voice. She thought she might have detected some amusement and rolled her eyes as she grimaced.
“Yes…” She pressed her lips together and let out a sigh. “No…”
“Ah, we’re back to the yes no game again. Can I come in?”
Cassidy screwed up her face and blew out a long breath. When it was all the way out then she took a slow stock take of her nerves.
“Yes.”
When the door started to open she threw herself against it, slamming it shut again. “Wait. No.” She spat out and waited for the reprimand from the other side of the door. There was just a gentle chuckle.
“Cass. I’m not the big bad wolf, and I’m not going to hurt you.”
Now she felt like a complete idiot. Rolling her eyes again, she reached for the handle and snatched the door open. He was standing here trying to look sympathetic and un-beastly, and she felt even more of a heel. Although the amusement in his eyes did make her want to hit him upside the head with something resembling a baseball bat.
“I know you’re not the big bad wolf… right now…” She added for good measure and watched the grin spread across his face. “And I don’t think you’re going to hurt me, per se…”
“But you’re worried my wolf will?” The little crinkles above his eyebrows just looked adorable, as he smiled down at her with his particular brand of gentleness that he had about him.
“Not hurt, more get carried away. Do you shift…?”
He balked at the idea. “What? No. You’re human, my wolf would never. God, Cass, is that what’s got you so worried?” He reached out his hands and dragged her towards him, pulling her into his arms and resting his head against her hair.
“I didn’t know whether…”
“If you were Lycan our wolves could… But you being human would make that impossible. My wolf knows that Cass. He also knows to be gentler with you when he comes to the surface than he would with a Lycan, and he is your mate too. He would never hurt you, no matter what.”
“So when you bite me…”
“It will be me, Cass. And I’m not going to say that it won’t hurt, because it will. I will have to sink my fangs deep into your shoulder, taste your blood as we climax, to complete the bond. But it will be me, the wolf will be at the surface, urging me to bond, demanding even, but I will not shift.” He wrapped his arms tighter about her, comforting her. But she pulled back away from him and he let her go.
“Ok.”
“Ok? You’re ready to…”
“Yes.” She said emphatically. She didn’t want to debate it already, she just wanted to get to the part where she was naked beneath him and he was inside her. The part that made her feel whole. Loved. His.
He grinned down at her and she shifted uneasily on her feet. “Oh lord, now what?” She snapped up at him and he beamed a devastatingly handsome, and annoying amused look at her.
“You’re nervous.”
“I’m not nervous, I’m…” She huffed then, she would have crossed her arms over her chest and pouted, but she didn’t think it would be a good look on her right at that moment in time. Especially when he looked so sexy, she didn’t want to look like a shrew and have him change his mind.
Oh my god, I don’t want him to change his mind. I want this. I want to be his. Bonded.
Cassidy reached up and palmed his cheeks, getting on tip toes and urging him down towards her. She kissed him. He didn’t take any coaxing to open up for her, and when she slipped her tongue against his, she started a chain reaction that had them tearing their clothes off on route to the bed, between hot devouring kisses.
When the back of her knees hit the mattress, she started to fall backwards, her hands automatically reached for him, and his arm came around her back and held her hovering in mid air, before he gently lowered her down. He didn’t follow her. With one hand braced against the mattress he started a detailed exploration of her body with his lips.
“I thought your wolf was eager?” She breathed, as his fingers ran sinful feather light touches down over her hip and up her inner thigh, while his tongue laved her nipple.
“My wolf can wait.” He said against her breast, a heartbeat before he ran blunt teeth over the pebbled bud, and her back arched up to meet his mouth, her body was eager for more.
When his fingers found the moist folds between her thighs, she dug her heels into the edge of the mattress and tried pushing up away from him. It wasn’t his fingers that she needed there, she wanted him.
“Behave…” He growled into her breast. His hand wrapped around her knee and he pulled her backside down to the edge of the bed. “You’re all mine and I want to taste you.” His words excited a passion within her that she could never deny. Her fingers fisted his hair, and she tried to coax him up the bed. But he was working his way down her body and had no intention of changing course.
Chase eased a lone finger inside her and felt her body respond to his touch. Her inner muscles tightened instinctively around his digit and he felt the ache for her at his groin. Remembering just how those inner muscles tightened around his hard shaft, had his arousal twitching with desire.
He shook off her hands and dropped to his knees before her. Lifting her legs over his broad shoulders, he nestled between her thighs and buried his tongue where his finger had been just a moment earlier. She was more than ready for him, her sweet juices rolled over his tongue and he growled his need.
His wolf grew impatient within him. He wanted to take their mate. Bond. But Chase wanted so much more. He needed to taste all of her. He would have her blood, but right now, his senses were revelling in the sweet juices that told him how much she desired him.
He speared into her core with his tongue and her body responded, the inner muscles tightening, her back arched, her soft moan left her lips and her hands reached for the covers beside her hips. Lost in the feel of him.
He used his thumbs to open her to his tongue. Running long, flat strokes from her core to her sensitive little nub, as her hips kept time with his rhythm, until the last stroke, when he closed his lips around her nub and sucked it hard into his mouth.
He locked her hips down against the bed with his hands, as he devoured that sweet spot where every nerve that sent her totally wild was centred. His blunt teeth nibbled against the flesh, his tongue swirled against the little hooded tip, and he suckled hard until her knuckles turned white, and her body tightened in anticipation of her climax.
The low deep growl he gave against her flesh rumbled through her, and her body gave itself over to the heady rush of throbbing that tore through every nerve in her body. The sound of her cry, as she was caught up in the throes of release, didn’t quench his need to bring her pleasure like this. It just spurred him on.
He gripped her hips and pulled her backside off the bed towards him. Burying his face against her, he devoured her without mercy. Even when she tried to squirm away from him, the intensity of his mouth and tongue sending her almost frantic with the sensation he was creating, he didn’t ease against her. Taking her back to the edge of the abyss before he hurled her over the edge.
His wolf was more than impatient now. The sound of his mates cry had him clawing and snarling in Chase’s mind to claim her. Chase couldn’t hold onto his wolf desires. Could not push his wolf back into the background any longer.
Getting to his feet, he wrapped his fingers around her knees and opened her wide to him. With her backside still hanging over the bed, he stepped in between her thighs and positioned his aching shaft against her core. He thrust into her in one long, deep stroke that took her to the hilt, her inner muscles convulsing around him from the aftermath of her orgasm, and he held there as long as his wolf would allow.
Cassidy saw the self control that her mate was desperately trying to hold onto and it pained her.
“Let go Chase. Let your wolf out.”
Her words broke the barrier between his self control and his wolf’s determination to bond. What started as long, slow strokes, quickly turned to long, deep thrusts. His hands lifted her hips higher, angled her body more to bury his shaft within her, as deeply
as he could go. Her satin walls stretched so tightly around him that it felt like a silken glove.
“So tight. So good.” His voice was so feral that it sent her excitement soaring within her. This was him. All of him. Wolf and man together. Claiming her. His powerful thrusts taking her to a new high. Her body had no choice but to comply.
“Chase.” His name was a plea for more. But the feral growl that left his lips as he pulled out of her caused her to mew her frustration.
His fingers dug into her hips as her world turned about her. Chase turned her on the bed; bringing her down onto her hands and knees, and forcing her thighs wide open, stretching the muscles of her inner thighs tight. His hand pushed her face down to the bed, her backside jutting up in front of him, and the opening of her core empty for only a few seconds, until he thrust back into her and she moaned her pleasure. Filled so completely by him.
His whole body seemed to encompass hers. He leaned over the top of her, his chest hot and slick against her back, as his hips slammed against her backside, a constant ferocious pounding of flesh meeting flesh. His hand fisted her hair and he held her where he wanted her, giving his mouth better access to her neck.
Chase’s jaws ached with his need to let his fangs descend. They had been pulsing against his gums for too long, when they finally pushed through, he growled against the moment’s pain and pleasure at having them out.
He could hear the roar of her heartbeat within her. His eyes had long since settled on the throbbing of her pulse, just beneath the smooth skin on her neck that drew him to that spot. He ran the razor sharp fangs over her flesh. The pure eroticism of the act made his sack tighten and he grew rock hard within her, as blood swelled his penis and stretched her even tighter than she had ever been before.
His mate was helpless beneath him. She had submitted completely to her lover. Her mate. The sounds of pleasure that came from her lips with each hard thrust inside her, spurred him on to take her. Make her his. Theirs. His wolf was demanding it. Growing and snarling at him to complete the bond.