Ember fought her body, battled the instincts he roused as she stared into his eyes, swept up in the banked heat in them, the denied need that echoed within her too, needed an outlet and soon.
Being alone with him only gave it more power over her, constantly pushed her to do something about it, to seize the moment without fear. She wouldn’t regret it if she could have just one taste of his lips, could feel his hands on her for just one heartbeat.
Even if he pushed her away.
His grey eyes narrowed further, a hint of blue to them as the sun sank lower.
Her courage faltered as she looked down at herself, as she saw her figure and imagined what she looked like to him compared with the other females at the creek—females who were trim and toned, and far more beautiful.
She took a step back and turned away.
Froze in place as anger blazed in her veins to burn the fear and the doubts away, to crush that voice at the back of her mind that whispered that Cobalt would never want her.
When she found the strength to look back at him, he was stood at the railing, his large hands grasping the wooden beam, holding it so tightly his knuckles blazed white in the fading light as he leaned towards her. Was he holding himself back? Had he wanted to come after her?
Did the thought of parting from her make him ache as fiercely as the thought of parting from him?
“Are you alright?” Her voice only wobbled slightly as she slowly eased back to face him, her eyebrows furrowing as she stared deep into his eyes, seeking the answer in them.
He leaned back, a flicker of surprise crossing his face as his eyebrows briefly dipped and he blinked at her.
“I wanted to ask you that…” She pushed the words out, determined to get the truth out there now that she had started. “Back when Rath had to… I was worried.”
His nostrils flared as his jaw set. “For yourself?”
Her heart went out to him as she felt the fear that arrowed through him and knew the source of it. He thought she was going to say yes to that question and admit that she had been afraid of him.
Ember shook her head and braved a step towards him. “I was worried about you.”
He pushed back from the railing, his demeanour changing instantly, a wall coming up between them as he scowled at her.
“I’m fine,” he gruffly bit out. “I don’t need your worry… your pity.”
The wealth of feelings in that word, the anger and the hurt, the shame and the fear, stilled her tongue, and when he continued, it hit her that he wouldn’t believe a word she had to say, not today.
“Everyone is pitying me, right?” he scoffed, snorted and shoved away from her, sank into his chair and then pushed back onto his feet, his restlessness returning.
She cursed herself. She hadn’t meant to upset him all over again when he had found a sliver of calm. She had wanted to soothe him, had wanted to make him see that she was on his side, and nothing could ever change that.
He growled, pivoted on his heel and stormed down the steps, and she tensed as he approached, but not because he was angry, his eyes flashing gold as he fixed them on her.
A hot wave of tingles rolled through her, that need cranking tighter as he prowled towards her, exuding danger and power, strength that called to her base instincts and roused fierce needs in her, ones that threatened to master her.
Gods, she needed him to kiss her.
Felt as if she might die if he didn’t sweep her up into his arms and just do it, just kiss her like he meant it, like he wanted her as desperately as she wanted him.
Craved him.
Just as he was about to close the distance between them down to under a metre, he inhaled deeply, his eyes narrowed and blazed gold, and his face twisted to echo the anguish she sensed in him.
He snarled and whirled away from her, distanced himself and stood with his back to her. His muscles strained with each hard breath he sucked down, his feelings growing more turbulent as he clenched his fists at his hips.
He was fighting himself.
He wanted her, and he was fighting himself.
Damn him.
Why?
“Can’t keep a business afloat…” he muttered and growled low. “Can’t even keep my own damned head. I’m a fuck up… I get that.”
He turned on her, the agony in his eyes hitting her hard.
“Is that why you came to ask about the roofs?” he snapped, but there was despair in his words, fear that looked as if it was tearing him apart. Because he thought she was like the others? Because he didn’t want her to be? He raked trembling fingers through his hair and clamped his hands down on his head. “Because you don’t want a screw up like me fucking up that work too?”
Hurt flashed in his eyes, lanced her heart and made it more than ache for him. It bled. It bled as she looked at her beautiful male, as she saw the pain in his eyes and felt it in him, and realised how deeply he believed that everyone was talking about him, viewing him as a failure.
Gods, she could see how wounded his pride was, and that it was tearing at him, tormenting him, and she couldn’t do a damned thing about it even when she wanted to steal that pain away and calm him, to make him see it wasn’t the case at all and he was being too hard on himself.
He wasn’t going to listen to her.
He wouldn’t believe her if she confessed she hadn’t known about his business, and she doubted anyone else did either, except for his family.
Ember stared at him, on the verge of weathering the storm that would hit her if she asked him about it. She couldn’t. He was hurting enough, and while he needed to talk to someone about it, he would only snap at her if she dared, and that would only make him feel worse.
As much as it pained her to leave him, he needed space, time to calm down so his eyes and heart would clear and he would see he was mistaken. The creek didn’t know about his business, and not everyone in it viewed him as a failure or a fuck up. His family didn’t.
She didn’t.
She never had and she never would.
When he stalked back up onto the deck and poured himself another whisky, she forced herself to turn and leave.
His eyes landed on her, but he didn’t say a word, and her heart grew heavy, a hope she hadn’t realised it held weighing it down when it didn’t happen. She had wanted him to stop her, had secretly ached for him to say something, anything, to make her stay a little longer.
As she reached the woods, she found a sliver of courage, just enough to have her feet slowing and words rising up to her tongue. She couldn’t leave him suffering, hurting, when she had the power to do something to alleviate it. She hoped it would help him anyway.
It was a small confession, but one that would come from her heart.
She whispered, “Pity didn’t bring me here, Cobalt.”
Flinched when he snapped, “What did bring you here, Ember?”
She shivered as her name on his tongue sent a thrill chasing through her and she knew it would fill her dreams tonight, would become part of the fantasy that tormented her whenever she slept, a vision of something she was beginning to believe she would never have.
Fear held her tongue again, not fear of him, but fear of what he might say if she turned and told him everything that was in her heart—that she had truly been worried about him, that she thought about him all the time and not because she viewed him as a failure or some sort of freak.
It was because he was raw and masculine, handsome and maybe a dash of dangerous, and gods, because she had spent the past few decades slowly falling for him.
Hopelessly in love with him.
CHAPTER 5
Cobalt dug his claws into the railing around the raised deck of his cabin as he watched Ember walking away, the need to go after her and catch her before she reached the main area of the creek blasting through him like a tornado. He shook with it, entire body quaking as he held himself back, forced himself to let her go.
It was one of the hardest things he had ever do
ne.
He needed her.
Gods, he needed her.
He just wanted to wrap her in his arms and hold her until he found his feet again, ached to cling to her and drown in her scent as the ground beneath him bucked and swayed, threatening to send him to his knees.
He needed to believe that she had come here because she had honestly been worried for him, that the look he had caught in her eyes when his brother had hauled him off Ben hadn’t been born of a fear of him.
Fuck, he needed to believe that, but no matter how many times he told himself it was the truth, he couldn’t make it stick.
Pity had brought her to him.
She pitied him because he was a mess. She pitied him because he had lost everything. She pitied him because the whole damned creek did.
Her words rang in his ears, softly spoken in that sweet voice of hers, in a way that was his new drug and had him desperate to hear it in his ears again, to have her breathe against his skin, his lips, that it wasn’t pity that had brought her to him.
If it hadn’t been pity, what had it been?
He wasn’t fool enough to believe it was the same thing he was feeling.
Not even when his body had come alive the moment he had sensed her nearby, his heart racing like a wild thing in his chest at just the sight of her as she had emerged from the woods and his hunger for her rising swiftly as she had stood close to him, the hints of blue in her beautiful eyes bright as she stared at him.
Those eyes had revealed a hunger of her own, a need he had instantly sensed in her as she had lingered near him, had spoken with him and had come close to calming him and helping him push away from the dark voice in his heart that mocked him with his failings.
Cobalt dragged a hand down over his mouth.
Fuck, she had been a vision to behold, a tempting and terrifyingly devastating vision of perfection that had drawn him to her, had replaced his restlessness born of what had happened with one born of a need to rise to his feet and go to her.
To sweep her into his arms and kiss her until she knew that she was his and that he would never let her go.
Her scent lingered in the still air, tormenting him, keeping him primed for her and on the edge, aroused to the point of pain and filled with a driving need to claim her as his female.
To ease her needs.
They had hit him hard as she had stared at him, had wreaked havoc on his control and pushed him close to surrendering to them. He had been a hair’s breadth from throwing caution to the wind, from risking everything for just one shot at winning her. His every instinct screamed that she wanted him, ached for him and needed him.
Fool.
It was the mating heat. Ember had only just matured, and it would be years before she learned to control it enough that she wasn’t broadcasting every need that rang in her body, sang in her bones.
He tried not to think about that, about the fact that she had little control over her body at times right now, was in danger of being swept up in the need to mate and might do something with another male because of it.
He should have done something.
A dark snarl tore from his lips, his fangs elongating as hunger ripped through him.
He shouldn’t have let her leave without tending to her. She needed a male to take care of her, to ease her, and he should have done it.
He should have let the insanity that constantly threatened to overcome him take him rather than fighting it with all of his will, should have stepped off the fucking razor’s edge and done something about the need pounding inside him.
And the needs beating inside her.
Cobalt growled and slapped himself, trying to purge that need with pain by giving himself something else to focus on, something other than the damned temptation that was Ember.
When it didn’t go away, he struck himself again, harder this time, until his flesh stung and teeth ached. It was better he hurt himself than others.
If he let himself fall, if he gave up the fight against his instincts, he would turn dangerous again, and this time he might kill any one of the males in the vicinity.
Or worse.
He might hurt Ember in an attempt to force her to submit to him.
If he did that, she would be lost to him forever.
Cold swept through him, ice that froze his heart in his chest and made his lungs seize.
He couldn’t let that happen.
But how was he meant to stop himself when just being near her was enough to have him on the edge, tore his strength from him and filled him with needs so powerful they were becoming impossible to deny?
She was his female.
She needed, and she wasn’t the only one being driven by her instincts. She wasn’t the only one who ached inside, constantly vibrated with a need that was only growing stronger each day that it was denied.
Cobalt growled and palmed his aching shaft, grimacing as it throbbed, so hard that just brushing it sent a bolt of pain through him. He needed release as much as she did, and gods, he could satisfy them both if she just gave him the chance, and if he gave up the last remnants of his pride and dignity.
Everyone already viewed him as an outcast.
Giving in to his needs and making Ember aware of them, taking a shot at winning her, would only complete a fall from grace that had been a slow and torturous descent for the past three decades.
Hitting rock bottom might not hurt so much if Ember was there waiting for him.
In the end, all he needed was her.
He didn’t need the pride. Might be fine without his brothers.
As long as he had Ember.
But would she want him if she knew the thought that had crossed his mind, the urge that had struck him when she had been alone with him?
He had wanted to kiss her, had wanted to stake a claim on her, and he hadn’t cared whether she had wanted it or not.
It had shocked him, hitting him hard enough that it was a revelation that still had him reeling.
That need to force her to submit to him, to make her belong to him, wasn’t him.
His hormones were to blame, the heat of the gathering pushing him to his limit, and it didn’t help that her mother had offered her to his own fucking brother. It was Ben’s fault too, for daring to look at Ember as if he might take what he had been denied.
Cobalt went in circles, desperately trying to blame everyone else. Everything else.
But with each cycle, a feeling grew stronger, rose inside him until it sat in the centre of his mind and wouldn’t be ignored.
It had been none of those things that had stirred a need to kiss Ember whether she wanted it or not.
It had been want, pure and simple. Need. No, it was stronger than both of those things. There wasn’t a word for what he was feeling. It was compelling. Consuming.
Dangerous.
So dangerous that he was glad she had left.
The distance between them hadn’t released him from her hold though. She was all he could focus on as her scent hung in the air, laced with need that drove him wild, had him constantly battling the urge to stalk after her and catch her in the woods, and do something to ease both of their needs.
Would she welcome him?
Gods, just the image in his head of how she might respond to him, how she might arch into his touch, her supple body pressing against the hardness of his, as he kissed her, claiming her lips as his, had him growing even harder in his sweatpants.
He stroked himself through the soft material, grunting as pleasure quickly built, had his hips rocking forwards and a desperate need for more mounting inside him.
He shuddered as bliss tripped through him, closed his eyes and slipped his hand beneath the elastic of his pants. He hissed in a breath as he gripped his shaft and leaned forwards, braced himself against the railing with his free hand as his legs weakened.
Fuck, he needed release.
He needed to work off some steam somehow or he was going to go mad.
Or crack
.
Cobalt squeezed his eyes shut and pictured Ember as he stroked himself, working his hand up and down, his grip merciless as he saw her in his mind, her hand on his cock, gliding up and down it.
He groaned and shoved his pants down when the need became too much, hissed in another breath as air washed over his straining cock, and built the fantasy in his mind.
Ember stroking him, her small hand teasing him, holding him firmly as she moved to kneel before him.
Another shudder wracked him and he gritted his teeth as she stroked her tongue over the sensitive head and her grey eyes, flooded with blue and hints of gold now, lifted to lock with his.
A moan tore from his lips as she wrapped hers around the blunt crown, taking him into her heat, scalding him with it and sending him out of his mind. Her eyes held his as she worked her mouth and hand on him in unison, ripped restraint from him as she pushed him to the edge, sucking and stroking him.
He fisted her black locks, gripping them tightly as he thrust into her mouth, her moans sweet music to his ears as she swallowed his cock and the bliss in her eyes, the desire he could scent on her, demanding he give her what she wanted.
He bucked, entire body trembling from the force of his release as it blasted through him and his seed burst from him, flooding her mouth. She groaned and stroked him harder, wrung every damned drop from him as she suckled and licked him, her eyes still holding his.
Beckoning him.
Calling to him to ease her too.
He reached for her, and growled when his hand passed straight through her, shattering the illusion.
Cobalt breathed hard as he stared down at the railings, at his hand on his cock and the seed he had spilled all over his deck. His heart hammered against his ribs, refusing to settle as pleasure washed through him, taking the edge off and leaving him sedated.
For now.
He shoved his softening cock away and stalked into his cabin, found a cloth and wetted it, and walked back to the deck. He sank to his haunches and scrubbed away the evidence, and when it was gone, he lingered, his ragged breaths filling the silence.
Shit.
The hunger came back almost instantly, rose swiftly to a raging boil inside him as he sucked down the traces of her scent, as his mind filled with how she had looked at him when she had come to him, how need had shown in her eyes and had drummed inside him.
Craved by her Cougar (Cougar Creek Mates Shifter Romance Series Book 4) Page 6