“No, they’re from Sapphric. He keeps extra clothes stocked for his patients.” He set the glass on the table beside the bed. “He stepped out to collect more herbs, but should be back in about an hour if you wanted to thank him personally.”
She did want to thank him for healing her, but she had to get back before Ryder went after the Mer stone. Though she couldn’t leave yet. She had to know if Timber knew about Ryder’s plans....
“You don’t have to take me back to the bay. I can find the way back myself,” she said, facing Timber as he rose off the bed. “Won’t Ryder be expecting you back at the lair?”
“Let me worry about Ryder.”
“And what about Slater?” Mindlessly, she rubbed the mark on her neck. “What will you say happened to him?”
“Let me worry about all of it.” He closed the distance between them, making Marian hyperaware of how alone they were. Heat flowed from Timber’s body, evaporating all the breathable air from the den. The look in his eyes was electric. “The most important thing is getting you back to your territory safely. Since the storm has ended, we’ll be easier to track, so it won’t be long before Ryder sends other rogues to look for you. We’re ahead of them, probably only by about half a day, but there’s no telling how quickly they’ll move.” He paused, and something possessive ignited behind his dark eyes. “Let me escort you safely back to your territory.”
He wouldn’t answer a damn question directly, though it was clear Timber wanted her out of werewolf territory. Was it because he was genuinely worried about her safety or because he didn’t want her around when Ryder exposed him as a thief, equally to blame for the plot to steal the Mer stone? She hated that she doubted him—hated that he made her do it. But if Timber wasn’t involved in Ryder’s plan, then why was he a part of the rogue pack in the first place? Why didn’t he just go back home, to the heart of Were Mountain with the rest of the Alpha’s loyal pack mates? He might not have been guilty, but he sure as hell wasn’t innocent.
“So what will you do when we reach the bay? You’ll just turn around and show up in the rogue lair? No explanation about where you’ve been or what’s happened?” She poked his bare chest teasingly, wanting to create some kind of rise of out him, and watched the golden muscles twitch beneath her finger. “I’m surprised you don’t have a better plan than that.”
“I had a better plan, but it’s gone to hell now.” He encircled her wrist, then turned her hand away from them, stroking her palm with his thumb. “I’d planned on letting you leave Were territory. I thought I’d go back to the lair and take the heat for Slater’s death—say we got into it over a female and he slipped off the rocks into the river. I’d have to pay for what happened, but I’m already indebted to Ryder anyhow. Though now things have changed. I can’t let you leave. Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m an ignorant ass.”
She laughed. “I can’t go home because you’re an ass?”
“You can’t go home...not until you know how sorry I am for not believing you. You weren’t the one who told the Emperor about Ryder’s lair. At the time, it was easier to jump to conclusions than to trust you.”
Her gaze flicked to the full glass of water by the bed—the one she hadn’t touched.
“After all this time,” she asked softly, “what makes you believe me?”
“My heart.”
As Marian’s own heart lurched, Timber bent her against him and caught her mouth. The kiss was sensual and powerful, making every other kiss they’d had pale in comparison. Threading his fingers through her hair, Timber pulled her face to his, his thumbs on her cheeks, his palms cupping her chin. His tongue danced with hers in an erotic caress that made her legs tremble and her stomach wrench.
Finally, after all this time, he believed her. It was all she’d ever wanted: this man, his trust and his heart.
Marian’s hands found Timber’s shoulders, and gripped them tightly. She pulled him down over her, drawing him closer, until there was no air between them.
Groaning, Timber skated his hands down her back, stirring something primal inside her. She wanted—needed—his hands covering her body, roaming up her shirt and flattening over her stomach before cupping her breasts. She craved his touch, his mouth.
“You make me so dizzy.” He pulled back, resting his forehead against hers. “Is this a part of the seductress’s spell?”
Marian bit her lip, causing another groan to slip from Timber’s throat. “I thought you were the one who was seducing me.”
“No, you seduced me the first moment I met you, and I haven’t been the same since.” He kissed her, then sucked at her bottom lip. “You seduced my mind until I couldn’t think of anything but the softness in your eyes and the gentle call of your laugh. You seduced my body—it aches for you as if you’re an integral part that’s gone missing. And now you’ve managed to seduce me into feeling something for you that I’ve never felt for anyone else.”
It was too much. Everything she’d wanted to hear. Her heart hurt, burning with the need to tell him that she loved him right back. That she always had and always will. But her mouth wouldn’t move and the words wouldn’t come.
“I never wanted to send you away,” he said, brushing his hands over her cheeks. “I wanted to see you every day for the rest of my life. It nearly killed me to watch you swim away, knowing you’d never come back.”
“How could I return when I believed there was nothing waiting for me here?” Marian got the feeling she was falling. She slid her hands up Timber’s neck and pulled his mouth down over hers. She’d always dreamed he’d say these things to her and hold her like he never wanted to let her go. “All that matters is that I’m here now. But I have to know what you expect from this...what you want from me. Is this a one-night stand, a fling—what? I have to hear you say the words to replace the ones that still swim in my head.”
“I don’t want much.” He swept her into his arms and tossed her onto the bed. “Only everything.”
He was on her before she caught her breath, his hands on either side of her shoulders, his hips pressed against hers. His body was heavy, giving the pressure her body craved. She gasped, laughing as her head hit the pillows and her body stilled beneath his.
She stroked the dark stubble on his head. “I don’t know if I can give everything.”
He rose up, the candlelight on the armoire making his skin glow and the angles of his face shadow over. “Then I’ll have to convince you otherwise.”
She laughed into a kiss that blazed a trail of molten heat down her body. He assaulted her lips, feasted on her mouth and devoured her tongue with more passion than she could handle. Warm wetness pooled in her center as Timber’s hands became needy, palming the flat of her stomach, then sliding around to her backside. He smudged kisses down her neck, her collarbone, and jerked the shirt aside to reveal her shoulder.
“You can—” her breath hitched as he ripped her shirt from top to bottom, then tossed the shreds aside “—take this off.”
“Sorry.” He spread her legs open and wedged himself between them. Even through his leather pants and the sweat pants she’d borrowed, Marian could feel the strength of Timber’s arousal. He pressed it against her, his head at the entrance to her core, and ground his hips in a gentle, swirling rhythm. “You make me want to rip all your clothes off. You take me to the very edge—you make me feel like I’m losing my mind. Jesus, I could bite you.”
As both of his large hands cupped her breasts, he dropped his head to her stomach. He licked from her breasts to her belly button, little sucks and nibbles and kisses that made Marian’s hips squirm. He hadn’t even touched her center yet, and she could feel a familiar pressure rising inside her.
“Then do it,” she said. “Bite me.”
He stilled, and looked up, catching her gaze. He looked hungry, a man starved.
“You can’t say those things.” He lightly pinched her nipple, then rolled the aching nub between h
is fingers. “You have no idea the things I want to do to you.”
“Show me.”
With a throaty moan that vibrated from his chest to hers, Timber slinked up Marian’s body and sucked one of her nipples into his mouth. The heat from his lips and the wetness of his tongue drove her wild. She gripped his head, scraped her hands over his stubble and lifted her hips in subtle invitation.
He didn’t need another invite.
Keeping his mouth on her breast, Timber rose to all fours and unzipped his pants, then jerked them down and kicked them off. He tugged at her pants impatiently. She slinked out of them and sucked in a clip breath when he settled between her hips.
He was large. Larger than any other man she’d been with.
“I won’t bite you, and I won’t hurt you,” he said, lifting his head to meet her eye to heavy-lidded eye. “And if you let me, I’ll make up for the time we lost.”
Marian gasped for air as he waited, inches above her, hovering on the brink of their joining. She drank him in, from his massive chest and shoulders to his sublimely grooved abs. He was a warrior, strong and cunning, someone who men feared and women wanted to bed. His scent was masculine, spicy. It floated around her, drugging her. He was danger personified, wrapped in the body of a sex god.
Desperate to touch him, Marian reached between their bodies and gripped Timber’s shaft. She stroked the long, hard length of him. He was firm, yet covered in a smooth sheath of skin. Silk over steel. He twitched in her hand, and when she squeezed harder, his dark eyes hazed over.
Marian had a vision of them together. An image that shot through her mind—she and Timber building a life together in a den off the coast, somewhere close enough to both of their territories for their relationship to work. They could be this way every night....
But when his hand trailed from her breast down the span of her stomach and dipped between her legs, all of her thoughts vanished. He palmed her mound and slid his fingers between her soft folds of flesh, causing her back to arch and the air to whoosh out of her lungs. He moved his fingers slowly. Teasingly. She twisted her hips, writhing beneath the skill of his hand.
“Baby, you’re so wet.” He sucked in a breath so tightly, he nearly hissed. “You’re so wet for me.”
Racing toward a climax she couldn’t fight, Marian pulled her hips back. She didn’t want this to end. Didn’t want to stop what they’d just started. “Wait.”
“No waiting.”
Timber sucked her nipple into his mouth while his hand went to work driving her wild. Between the wet heat of his mouth on her breast and the skill of his fingers swirling against her, Marian lost herself. Molten ecstasy lurched through her veins as tingly sensations gathered in her center, building to a violent crest. And when Timber slid his fingers into her core, she lost it all, crying out his name as a rush of white-hot heat flushed through her body and bloomed over her skin.
Her body sagged, spent and boneless, her hand still on Timber’s cock.
“You’re delicious,” Timber said, drawing his fingers into his mouth. “I wish we had more time, I could pleasure you all night.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
He kissed her tenderly, silencing her. “Believe me when I say that there is absolutely nothing you should be apologizing for when we’re in bed. You’re more perfect than I could’ve dreamed...we’re perfect together.”
As she caught her breath, Timber poised his erection at her center. She could feel his tip, the hard, thick head of him, push against her tingling flesh. And as Timber leaned down to kiss her once more, she lifted her hips. He took what she offered, sheathing himself completely in a single stroke. He moaned as their mouths collided and he slid his tongue past her lips.
There was nothing but this moment and this man.
He thrust into her again. And again. His body was taut, glistening with sweat—a vision Marian branded into her memory. They moved as one, the sound of flesh meeting flesh and heavy breathing canceling out every other sound in the world. She whimpered as he dove deep, pounding against her hips.
When he propped himself up on one arm and used his other hand to massage her engorged clit, Marian cried out. Timber went rigid, and the intensity of her orgasm heightened. He plunged into her one last time, pitching them both over the edge.
Chapter Eight
When Marian came to, she hadn’t even realized she’d fallen asleep. She was tucked in the nook between Timber’s arm and shoulder, her head on his chest. They were naked, their arms and legs tangled together, nothing but the sound of their breathing filling the den. She craned her head to look at him—his eyes were closed and his mouth had fallen open slightly, letting the soft sound of sleep escape his lips.
She loved this moment and wanted to capture it. She loved Timber. She hadn’t told him so, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel it.
As the urge to sigh and nuzzle against him hit her, Marian flinched.
The only reason Timber made love to her was because he finally trusted her. Now she had to leave his bed and finish her mission, betraying him the way she hadn’t two years ago.
But Timber had to understand that Marian wasn’t betraying him to fulfill a mission from her Emperor. Well, she was obeying an order, but her sense of duty stemmed from more than that. She was saving the Mer people. Without the largest chunk of Mer stone in close vicinity to their home, they would weaken. Their ability to shift into mermaids might be slowed, muddled, or might not happen at all. They wouldn’t be able to access their home beneath the waves. And if Ryder planned to negotiate the terms of the release of the stone back into her Emperor’s hands, what would he ask for? More land? Treasure that had been passed down along family lines for centuries? Her people could be reduced to nothing—no home, no wealth, with no ability to shift.
She had to save her colony.
Moving slowly so she wouldn’t wake him, Marian slinked out of bed and scrounged around for her pants and shirt. She shoved them on, her gaze fixed on Timber. He looked so content—his skin was nearly glowing bronze, and a smile had quirked the corners of his full lips. The sheet was draped over his hips, his arms still reaching to the side as if she were still there, cradled against him. He had no idea what was about to happen to him.
Stalling is only going to make it worse.
As Marian dressed quietly and tiptoed through Sapphric’s den, she got the feeling there was no turning back. Timber had been angry the last time when he assumed she’d betrayed him. Now that she was really going to do it...he’d be livid when he found out.
What else could she do? She couldn’t stand back and let that Ryder steal their stone. If Timber took the fall with him, she’d be heartbroken...but it couldn’t be avoided.
“Forgive me, Timber,” she whispered, lifting the fur hanging over the entry. She stopped and looked back, saying the things she didn’t have the courage to say to his face. “You’ve got your duty and I’ve got mine. Unfortunately, my loyalty doesn’t align with my heart.” She steeled herself for the agony she’d feel when she turned her back on him. “My loyalty lies with my people and protecting our stone.”
* * *
Timber reached out for Marian and brushed his hands across a cold sheet. She must’ve sneaked out to find Sapphric and thank him for healing her. If she hurried back, they might be able to have another few moments alone together before they left for Mer territory.
“Where is she?” a scratchy voice asked from behind him.
Jerking upright, Timber set his sights on Ryder. The bastard was dressed head to toe in combat gear: black leather pants, matching shirt and coat, thick-soled boots and knives on his belt.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Timber stood, searching over Ryder’s shoulder to the fur blocking the entry. Ryder should’ve been back at the lair—he and Marian hadn’t been gone that long.
Marian.
“I asked you a very simple question,” Ryder said, striding closer. “Where. Is. She?”
Timber
was asking himself the same thing.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Timber felt his shoulders hunch as the instinct to shift into wolf form nearly overtook him. “But since you’re here, you’ll save me the trouble of tracking you down—I was about to head back to the lair to report that there’s been a death.”
“Your mermaid?”
“No.” Shaking his head, Timber snatched the sheet off the bed and clutched it against his loin. “Slater. He slipped off the rocks near the southern edge of the mountain and fell into the river.”
“That so?” Ryder scrubbed his hands over his head and exhaled heavily. “Well, we’ve got about a dozen trackers on your mermaid’s tail, so I guess we can afford to lose one. Sapphric sent one of his scouts to let me know you were here. Good thing he did. I was starting to wonder about you.”
“I don’t have time for this shit.” After snatching his pants off the floor, Timber shoved his legs into them, zipped up and brushed past Ryder, giving him a shove with his shoulder as he went. “I’m going back to the lair to call it a night.”
He had no intention of going back, but Ryder didn’t have to know that. Timber would make sure Marian got out of Were territory and back to her home in one piece. Only then would he return.
“You’re so full of shit, I can smell you from here,” Ryder hollered after him. Ryder followed Timber into a dimly lit antechamber that separated Sapphric’s main quarters from the ones designated for his patients. “I command you to tell me where I can find your mermaid friend.”
Timber stopped in his tracks, blood beginning to boil. Being that Ryder was his Delta, his superior, commands were followed under penalty of death.
“You can find her where you find the other mermaids. In her colony.” Timber listened carefully for whispers or the quiet thump of a foot on hardwood. Any indication of where Marian and Sapphric might’ve gone. They weren’t hiding out in the patients’ den. They weren’t in here and he couldn’t sense them anywhere close.
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