by Holley Trent
When he didn’t move, she moved his hand for him. “I don’t know what to tell you to do.”
She straddled his waist, sat primly on his belly, and picked up his other hand. She placed that on her other breast and looked down at his inelegant fondling.
He swallowed and closed his eyes. The dog in him was doing the psychic equivalent of nudging his arm and going, “Huh? Huh? Get some of that, man,” but the human part of him cautioned a more measured approach.
The naked woman atop him was Willa. She may have been his mate, but he’d been around long enough to know that the shit didn’t always work both ways. They weren’t the same kind of people. Their pulls to each other weren’t equivalent.
He didn’t know if she felt any pull to him all, beyond her need for quelling that only a person with enough of the right kind of energy could provide.
“Why are you ignoring me?” she whispered.
“Sweetheart, I couldn’t ignore you even if I tried. I guarantee if you were to look behind you and down, you’d see some pretty compelling evidence of that.”
He opened his eyes.
She didn’t look back. Just blinked at him, still gripping his wrists.
“Christ, I don’t understand how anyone could mistake you for a teenaged boy.” She had childbearing hips. A woman’s cinched waist and shapely thighs and calves. A woman’s measured movements because she was too used to not taking up space—too used to trying not to offend people with her presence.
“Sometimes, people see what they want to see, in spite of the evidence that’s right there.” She let her hands fall down, and so did he. Not because he didn’t want to touch her, but because he wanted too much to.
Attachment led to neediness, and with his family life being an epic shit show, he wasn’t sure of the wisdom of putting himself on the fast track to unbreakable attachment. All he knew was that nothing had ever felt righter.
She breathed out a quiet scoff and loosely clawed at his shirt, balling it into her fists.
Whatever you want.
“You said there’d be kissing,” she said. “Did I miss it? Or are you already done?”
“If you want me to be.”
She seemed to need to ponder that. She kneaded his shirt like a cat on his chest, gnawing at her lower lip.
“I won’t say no to you,” he said. “If there’s something you want and I can give it to you, I will.”
Even if I shouldn’t.
“You don’t really mean that,” she said hoarsely.
“Have I ever lied to you?”
She shook her head.
“Not gonna start now.”
She leaned down slowly and put her weight onto her forearms. She was within kissing distance—a pucker away—but couldn’t seem to commit. She’d actually started to sit up, and Blue was through with the ridiculousness, his and hers.
He pulled her down to him and made sure their lips collided in a way she couldn’t construe as just friendly. He poured every ounce of frustration he’d had at her into that kiss. All the months of undermining and second-guessing him. All the misplaced mistrust. She hadn’t even given him a chance, and knowing what he knew, maybe she’d been right not to.
Her lips parted slowly, tongue teasing against his and fingers digging into his shoulders for balance.
She wasn’t good at kissing, couldn’t seem to grasp the mechanics of it, which somehow made her all the more charming.
And all the more frightening.
He pulled her head back, breaking the kiss and shaking his head. “I should get the hell out of your bed. You can find some other asshole to debauch you.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Are you kidding me?” he asked with a frustrated shake of his head. “Absolutely not.”
“So let me worry about whether or not my virtue is worth clinging to.”
He led her back down to him, helped her tilt her head, teased her tongue into a rhythm that was just right before he tugged at her bottom lip with his teeth and smoothed his hands down her back.
No one had seen her in the way he was. Nudity wasn’t a big deal for shapeshifters. Most of the time, he blocked it out if he didn’t need to pay attention, but Willa wasn’t someone he could ignore. She was giving him an experience she hadn’t shared with anyone else before. That required his full consideration and concentration.
He notched his fingers into the meat of her ass, and she pulled back, startled, before settling back down, digging her knees into his sides and lacing her fingers through his hair.
“Trust me?” he whispered as she peppered kisses along his jaw and then bit. Maybe she lacked experience, but most people let instincts take over when they were comfortable enough. He was glad she was comfortable.
“Not usually.”
He laughed. “Right now, then?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s see how much fun we can have without making a run toward home plate, then.”
“Huh?” Her nose crinkled.
He probably wasn’t making a hell of a lot of sense, but she was smart. She’d catch on.
Chapter Twenty
Before Willa could hash out what Blue had meant by that odd statement, he’d hauled her up, scooted down, and dropped her on his face.
“Wait, I—”
“Hmm?” He was pressing his lips against her body, nuzzling against her opening, and making a rumbling sound in his chest she decided was chuckling.
And she couldn’t move, at least not without some awkwardness. He had his arms wound around her thighs and she was no match against a Coyote dominant’s strength.
“Sometimes, I wonder who invented this move.” His facial scruff tickled hidden, soft flesh and a squeaking noise fell out of her mouth. “I mean, how’d that come about? Couple of bored folks laying around face-to-crotch and one decides, hey, that looks like it’d be fun to tickle with my tongue?”
“I really don’t want to be ti—”
He wasn’t tickling.
Willa would have launched herself off the bed if it weren’t for her hasty grip of the headboard.
Blue was making long, slow strokes of his tongue against her crease, teasing her open without use of his hands, and she was glad he didn’t have his hands. There was only so much sensation she could tolerate at once.
“Oh my.” She leaned her head against the cool headboard and closed her eyes.
He was teasing beneath the hood, every graze of his tongue making her belly contract and breath catch. Every soft press made her body clench.
Felt amazing, though, once she could compartmentalize the sensations from her nervousness. She didn’t like being so nervous, but at least he knew.
At least he understood.
He pulled the whole bud into his mouth and sucked, lightly at first, and then harder.
“Oh my goodness.”
She realized she was edging away when the dull ache of his fingertips into her thighs registered. He was pulling her against his face and drumming his tongue against the little bundle of nerves she’d always explored with such tentativeness. There was nothing tentative about Blue Shapely. He knew what he wanted and apparently knew what she needed, too.
When he broke his rhythm, perhaps to catch a breath, she didn’t want the sensation to go away, so she rocked against his tongue, keeping up the delicious pressure—striving for that bright burst of sensation she always shied away from. But if it was happening with him, maybe she’d been doing it right. Maybe she should have trusted what she was feeling all along. There was no shame in self-pleasuring, and she’d been far too old before she’d realized that.
“Is that what you like?” he murmured against her without missing a beat, and neither did she. Holding a rhythm was one of the few things she was good at and kept grinding against his mouth, swallowing down her moans again and again so King didn’t hear and run to the door, barking and scratching. “Is that how I’ll be getting you to sleep every night from here on out?”
“Yes!”
<
br /> She didn’t immediately realize the ramifications of her response, but let the worry quickly fall away. She was surfing on a wave of pleasure unlike anything she’d ever felt before and wanted to ride it all the way to the end.
She sank her teeth into her lip, curled her toes into the bed, and held on to the headboard as Blue licked, probed, and sucked, and she ground against him.
She felt as though something hot and nutritive unfurled in her belly, lashing much-needed heat into her shaking legs and making her heart rush faster.
There was clarity in her brain as her moan fell out of her mouth. Clear thoughts of purpose and routine and partnership, and an underlying sense of victory.
She could sleep. She could rest.
“My.” Panting, and with shaking arms, she pushed slowly away from the headboard and dragged her tongue across her dry lips.
Blue unwound his arms from her legs and settled her next to him. She was on the wrong side of the bed, but that didn’t matter.
She was naked and the covers weren’t within easy reach, but that didn’t matter, either.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, and let her head loll toward him. “Should I say something? What’s the protocol?”
“The best compliment is a repeat invitation.”
“Oh. Well, that’s fine, then.”
Her consciousness drifted away on the sounds of his deep chuckle.
• • •
“Willa. Sweetheart.”
Willa groaned and burrowed closer against the warm obstacle beside her. She hated that—how whenever she’d just started experiencing the kind of orgiastic sleep that put smiles on people’s faces all day long, something woke her up.
“Go away,” she murmured.
A chuckle.
A male chuckle.
“I’m not dreaming, am I?” she asked with a scowl.
“You could be. What are you seeing?”
“Blue in my bed.”
“That’s right. Fortunately, that old saying about sleeping with dogs will get you fleas isn’t always true.”
Sitting up slowly, she rubbed her eyes. He wound an arm around her hips.
Her naked hips.
“Oh no.”
He could see more in the light, but a glance back at him revealed he wasn’t even looking. He was holding his phone up to his face, swiping across the screen with his thumb. Hair ruffled. Scruff dark and sexy. T-shirt sullied with a wet spot on his chest that she suspected she’d made with her mouth.
“Oh no,” she repeated.
“It’s six now,” he said levelly. “Didn’t know what time you needed to leave for work.”
An unbidden sigh escaped her lips. “I want to sleep.”
“And I want you to sleep. I suspect you need a lot more of it, but you’ll have to catch up over the weekend.”
The statement was so matter of fact that she didn’t doubt that he’d personally facilitate the rejuvenation.
She waited for the lash of panic to coil through her, but she didn’t feel one. Just certainty. An unfamiliar feeling for her.
Groaning, she nudged the covers down, sneaking a peek at Blue’s partially uncovered abs. His shirt had ridden up. That wasn’t the only thing that was up. He was shamelessly erect beneath the covers and making no effort to shift his maleness into a more discreet position.
She could have looked away, but she was too curious—wondering what he looked like with the covers pulled away.
“Side effect of cuddling,” he muttered.
He’d set down his phone, and she hadn’t noticed because she was too busy ogling his crotch, apparently.
Busted.
She pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned again.
“You can look if you want,” he said.
“I’m fine. Thank you.”
“Offer stands if you change your mind later.”
“Brazen, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess I am sometimes. Helps me help others get shit done.”
“And what should I be doing?”
He shrugged and put on that crooked grin that was all trouble. “Getting ready for work. Get something to eat first. I’ll walk King for you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I choose to.” He pulled her in for a kiss on the cheek that managed to be both sweet and then unexpectedly salacious when he swiped his tongue across her skin.
Then he got up and sauntered to the door, cocky and confident, and curiously at-home.
King, at attention in the hallway, let out an indignant woof when Blue opened the door.
“Same to you, jerk,” Blue told him and disappeared to the hall with King at his heels.
“Be nice to my dog,” she called after him.
“Anything you want, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart.
The endearment had always seemed so condescending when men used it on her. For some reason, not anymore. Not from Blue.
Chapter Twenty-One
“I’m getting the impression you’re stalking me,” Willa said later that day with a giggle and batted Blue’s hand away from the bottom of her shirt.
“Not stalking.” Chastened, though, he leaned against the photocopier in the workspace in the arts building corridor and folded his arms over his chest. “I figured you could use a lunchtime pick-me-up.”
Mission accomplished, in his opinion. He’d put some pink in Willa’s cheeks and a smile on her face, and he hadn’t even had to grope her that much. She’d even smiled at him when he’d walked in after the last of her second period class had made egress for lunch.
A spontaneous smile.
He had to be doing something right in his life. Her smile was happiness encapsulated. It was infectious, and he was damned pleased he didn’t have to share the warmth of it with anyone. He wanted her joy all to himself.
“I’ve got to run to the cafeteria and get something,” she said. “I was so distracted this morning, I forgot to pack lunch.”
“I can’t imagine what could have possibly been so distracting.”
What had definitely been distracting was her standing on the bottom rung of her step stool, grabbing him by the sides of his head, and saying, “Wait. I’m going to get this right,” before laying a kiss on him that’d left him listing. Not so much from the skill of it but the earnestness—that she actually wanted to kiss him.
The woman didn’t like to fail, that was for sure. He shared that feeling.
“I won’t bother you for long,” he said, righting himself and pulling the collar of her shirt over the edge of her scar. “Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine.” She watched him smooth a couple of “wrinkles” over her breasts, and shook her head. “Diana was wondering why I suddenly seemed so spirited this morning. I changed the subject.”
“Tell her. I don’t care.”
“So, you’ll leave the kissing and telling up to me, then.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t want to have your name spoken in the same breath with mine. I’m not so rigid.” He “helped” her retuck her shirt, sliding his hands down her waistband at the back, “smoothing” her shirttail over her panties.
“Blue.” She laughed, though, as she wriggled his hands out of her khakis. “You’re gropey. Use your company manners.”
“If you insist,” he grumbled. He was using Coyote manners, more instinct than home training. Touching his mate was his prime directive, and the fact that she needed to have her energy manipulated was the ultimate coincidence. Because she needed him for a specific purpose, he actually didn’t see the point of telling her that the coyote in him had made his choice. He didn’t have to tell her what she was to him, and that made things easier for him. He had a sneaking suspicion she was going to give him a firm “nuh-uh” if he pulled that line of “mate” crap on her.
Letting things flow organically seemed best. She was basically immortal. It wasn’t like she was in a rush to settle down. If he played his car
ds right, she wouldn’t even notice they were a couple until it was too late for her to want to change that. Wouldn’t matter then how precarious the situation in Sparks was. She’d be too invested in him to get rid of him.
He hoped.
“I don’t plan on doing any kissing and telling. I worry that if word spreads, my father will catch wind that I made a friend.”
Blue narrowed his eyes at her. “A friend, huh?”
Smiling, Willa bent and straightened the tassel on her loafer, and apparently he had a mate who wore loafers. Evidently, he’d been wrong about his type all along.
“Where’d you go after shooing the raccoons out from under my Jeep?” she asked.
“Home to shower and change. Then I had to go fetch some things from the plane that I left in there yesterday.”
“Are you . . . working more like that soon? You know, away.” Her attempt at nonchalance fell short. She’d turned her focus to the stack of laminated motivational posters on the worktable, but he knew her scents, and there was worry in hers.
She didn’t need to worry. He wasn’t going anywhere unless he had to. “Had to” dangled at the back of his mind. There was a likelier than average chance he’d have to deal with fallout in Sparks.
“Am I going away?” he asked. “Is that what you’re asking?”
She shrugged. “It’s none of my business. I remember you telling me that six months ago when I asked about your disruptive comings and goings.”
He sucked in some air through his teeth and shifted his weight. He didn’t think that was exactly how the conversation had gone, though he could understand how she’d get that impression. She’d accused him of staging a parade every time he returned to town from a trip. An exaggeration, of course. The Coyotes tended to swarm. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Them all being in one place was helpful when he, Lance, and Kenny were all on hand to push some dominant magic into them.
“Come here,” he whispered.
She held firm, glancing at him over her shoulder, still smoothing the corners of those goofy posters.
“Come here, woman.” He pulled her to him and chafed her arms. One more opportunity for touch, one more chance to quell that storm that lived in her. “I thought we made peace last night.”