Covert Desires

by Sondae Bennett

  Trapped in his embrace, she could do nothing but hang on as he drove her to the peak of passion. His fingers thrust in and out, ruthless in their demand. She cried out as they pushed her over the edge, twitching in his arms as the climax hit her in force.

  But Danny didn’t stop. His hands continued to drive into her, until one wave of passion gave way to another, building even higher than the last.

  Just when she felt herself perched on the precipice of desire, he stopped and swept her into his arms. The corded muscles of his neck beckoned her as he carried her into the bedroom, until she couldn’t resist wrapping her arms around and playing with the hair at his nape.

  A shudder ran through him when she leaned up and bit his ear lobe. Evidence of how much he burned for her. It made her feel powerful.

  He placed her on the bed and began to remove his clothing. But when she leaned up to help, he threw her a commanding look. The message rang out loud and clear: stay still. Amber leaned back against the pillows and watched as each delicious inch of flesh was revealed.

  The sight of his cock standing at full attention was almost her undoing. Mesmerized, she stared at it, absently running her tongue over her lips. It jerked while she watched.

  A growl had her gaze rising to meet Danny’s.

  “Keep looking at it like that, and this won’t last nearly long enough.”

  “Like what?” she asked even though she already knew.

  “Like it’s a juicy steak and you haven’t eaten in weeks.”

  Amber let loose a breathy laugh before glancing back down.

  “Well, you didn’t let me finish breakfast. Only fair to share your sausage with me.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she cringed. How unoriginal. But his shocked burst of laughter told her he enjoyed the corniness of the sentiment if nothing else.

  “Oh, we’ll get there, but not before I’ve tasted every inch of you.”

  Lust rushed through her until she was flush with it. The truth of what he said shone from his eyes.

  Deliberately, she reached up and slid her sleep shirt over her head, then leaned back against the pillows as his eyes darkened. His gaze ran down her form with such heat, she felt the caress of it. She arched up as his eyes traveled over her breasts, her nipples puckering in desire.

  “God, you are beautiful.”

  She flushed under the praise. She knew she wasn’t really beautiful. Passably pretty maybe, or had been before the bastards had broken her nose and left slice marks across her belly that had turned into ugly pink scars. But the way Danny’s eyes lit with passion whenever he looked at her made her feel stunning. And to her that was all that mattered.

  The bed dipped as he joined her, but he held her back when she started to roll toward him. His hands were gentle but firm as they brushed down her body reverently. Still he didn’t move forward as his hands swept over her, igniting every nerve ending until her body was a raging inferno. Her sighs and moans filled the room until she was a writhing pile of need.

  His hot mouth clasped around one nipple, sucking with such force she screamed in agonized pleasure. Still he refused to touch her sex. She tried to rub her legs together, desperate for friction of any kind. His hands merely held them apart. Her nails dug into his back. The effort proved futile as he continued to suck, lick, and nibble her breast.

  When she was mindless, her only thoughts focused on the flesh he continued to torment with his mouth, he released her and nibbled a trail to the other side. She thrust her breast up expectantly, but he’d changed tactics. Just as she was sure he’d take the peak into his mouth, he veered away, kissing a wide circle around the tip. He teased her, working his lips, tongue, and teeth around the edge of her nipple, never closing over it.

  His arm still held her legs apart, but Amber struggled against them. Her clit felt swollen with the need to come.

  Just as she thought she’d go insane from the torment, he caught her nipple, sucking it deep into the warmth of his mouth and circling the tip with his tongue. She writhed against him, her need a sea of agonizing pleasure.

  Amber cried out when he moved away. The sound of a condom wrapper reassured her. He’d released her legs, but she opened them expectantly as he came between them. She felt the head of his shaft against her opening, and raised her hips to take him inside.

  The feel of him stretching her was pure bliss. A sigh slipped past her lips as nerve endings deep inside her came alive. Then he was pulling out, setting a gentle pace that had her scratching his back in a frustrated need for more. She wanted it faster, harder, but Danny seemed determined to take his time. She dug her nails into his butt cheeks and felt him jerk forward. He wasn’t nearly as cool and collected as he appeared to be.

  Smirking, Amber leaned up and bit down on his shoulder. Hard. With a shout, his control shattered and he plunged into her, deeper and faster with each thrust. Amber clutched his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his waist, gasping as he sank deeper inside her. She thrust her head back, exposing her neck to his wandering mouth. The coarse hair on his chest scraped her sensitive nipples.

  Pressure built inside her, spiraling downward with each thrust. Need growing higher and higher until it broke, shattering into a million pieces that echoed in the pulsing clench of muscles. Above her, Danny shouted as his own climax overcame him. Then he leaned down and bit her shoulder in the same place as the night before.

  Without warning, Amber was thrust into another climax, stronger than the last. Flashes of color danced in front of her eyes as her cries filled the air. She twitched in Danny’s embrace, mindless to all but the pleasure coursing through her in an endless wave. Reality fractured until all that existed from one wave to the next was the feel of Danny wrapped around her.

  She lay gasping in his arms when thought returned, their bodies cooling as the sweat dried in the open air. Amber couldn’t quite grasp what had happened. Not one, not two, but three orgasms. It was practically unheard of. And she’d never come close to that before.

  More proof of just how right they were together. So what if he wasn’t quite what he seemed? She hadn’t been, either.

  She still had questions. Undoubtedly would have more once she fully wrapped her brain around it. But she wasn’t about to give up something so right just because she didn’t understand all the details.

  She turned to her side and snuggled against Danny, feeling his heart beat against her ear. Who would have thought she’d found someone so perfect for her on this assignment? Someone who fit together with her like two jigsaw pieces clicking into place.

  They lay like that for long minutes, his hand running idly up and down her back. Sunlight streamed over the bed, warming their naked flesh. She’d be content to lie here, just like this, all day, caught in his embrace.

  “Can I ask you a question? About your job?”

  Her eyes drifted open as she struggled to wake up from the doze she’d drifted into. “Mmm-hmm,” she managed.

  “The story you told me about your boyfriend, the one who kidnapped you…”

  Amber struggled not to push away, not to tighten her muscles against the pain the memories always evoked. “What about it?”

  He deserved to know whatever he wanted. After all, he’d given her his secrets and answered her questions. But it wasn’t easy to dredge up the past.

  “That was an assignment, right?”

  She nodded against his chest, swallowing against the lump in her throat.

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  She almost jerked in his embrace, but stopped herself in time. Instead, she held still, listening to the pounding of his heart beneath her head. Of all the questions he might have asked, why this? She weighed the truth in her mind.

  Would he think her a whore? After all, she had slept with a man, multiple men, for jobs. Hadn’t cared for Vasquez as a person. At least not at first. And certainly not in the end, after he’d found her out. A level of affection had built between them, but nothing like what she now shared wi
th Danny.

  “I pretended to be his girlfriend for three years.” She left the rest unsaid, but implied. She’d done what she needed to do. And had taken down a lot of bad guys as a result. People were safer because of her. She wasn’t ashamed of it, no matter what he thought.

  The growl built in his chest beneath her hand. “Where is he now?”

  “Behind bars. I’ll worry about it in eighty years when he’s up for parole.”

  “His friends?” Anger bled through his voice.

  Amber shrugged. “Some in prison. Some dead.”

  She waited, muscles tense, for his rejection. But it never came. His hand continued to rub her back in lazy strokes. Then he pulled her close, his lips brushing the top of her head.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She waited for more, but nothing seemed forthcoming. “For what?”

  “That you went through that alone. For not being there to protect you. If I could, I’d slay them all for you.”

  Laughter bubbled up, tension dissolving with the comfort he offered. “You didn’t even know me then.”

  “I feel like I’ve known you forever.”

  Amber bit her tongue to keep from echoing the thought. Then she clutched him tight, resting her forehead in the crook of his neck and breathing in his scent. She knew the feeling. Finding Danny had been like finding home. And now that she’d found him, she vowed nothing would take him away.

  Chapter 15

  Would she ever get used to how perfect it felt just to touch the man? To feel his arms surrounding her, or his chest rise and fall against her back as she lounged against him?

  “Look, an elephant.” Amber glanced over to the cloud he was pointing at and stared at it with a critical eye.

  “It looks nothing like an elephant. Maybe a beaver.” She could kind of see its tail, if she looked closely enough.

  “A beaver? No, it’s clearly an elephant.”

  Happier than she could ever remember being, Amber laughed at the absurdity of the argument. “You’re right. I see it now.” Not really, she but wasn’t about to spoil the day over a cloud. It was too nice for something so silly.

  Danny had taken her back to the brook in the woods behind her cottage, the one they’d gone to on their second date. They’d brought peanut butter sandwiches,, since that was all she had at the house besides frozen meals. When she saw Danny slip the whole jar in the bag with the rest of the lunch, he’d thrown her a wicked smile and muttered something about peanut butter breasts. Her muscles clenched at the memory. The man had made her into a total hedonist. All she could think about was stripping him down and having her way with him.

  Danny groaned and hardened against her back. “If you don’t stop thinking about it, I’m going to take you again.”

  The statement startled her. “How do you know I was thinking about it?” she asked, turning to face him.

  “Our bond. I can’t hear your thoughts, but I can sense the emotion. Believe me, baby, I’m reading that emotion loud and clear.”

  From the heat in her cheeks, she knew she must be blushing. This bond thing was more complicated than she’d thought, but it did explain why she’d been so horny whenever he walked into the room. Between the two of them, they must be feeding off each other’s lust.

  She turned around and lay back against him, smiling at his groan of mock pain. She wasn’t ready for playtime quite yet. First, she wanted to work through the problem on her mind.

  A solution was there. She just had to think on it a little more. Because the sooner she got the FBI off their backs, the sooner she could get started spending the rest of her life with Danny.

  First, she had to convince the Bureau there was no threat here. She couldn’t risk the Bureau sending someone else once she quit. Couldn’t risk another agent finding out what she had, and using it against the shifters. And the only way to be sure that didn’t happen was to somehow show her boss that nothing here threatened the country.

  Since she’d been here, there hadn’t been any signs of unrest or the riots that had originally cast suspicion on the area. After talking with Danny, she understood why. The threat was gone. More than that, the threat had never been against the country, or any humans for that matter. A shifter concern through and through.

  So how could she convince her boss that the riots had nothing to do with them, without revealing the existence of shifters? It would have been easier all around if the protests and riots had been about a race issue, or something else human related. At least then she could get the proof to get the director off her back.

  “That’s it!” she shouted, knocking Danny on the chin as she rose.

  * * * *

  “What’s it?” Danny asked, rubbing his chin where Amber’s head had hit.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, massaging her head. Her grimace told him she hurt as much as he did, so he leaned up and kissed her forehead.

  “What’s it?” he asked again, not certain she’d heard him the first time. He only hoped it had something to do with copious amounts of sex.

  “We stage a riot.”

  The look on her face was pure glee. But…

  “A riot? What are you upset about?” Damned if he knew what she was talking about.

  “Nothing, silly. A fake riot.” She raised her eyebrows expectantly, but Danny still wasn’t getting it. He thought back to the conversation they’d been having right before her exclamation, and drew a blank.

  Amber blew out an exasperated breath. “The FBI sent me here to investigate a string of unknown riots. We know those are the result of hybrids protesting, but I can’t exactly go back and tell my boss that, without causing a wider and more dangerous investigation into shifters. Right? So, we stage a fake riot for something harmless. Something the government won’t concern themselves with at the federal level, but will leave to local law enforcement. I take some pictures, maybe even a video, to send to my boss, and voila! No more investigation.”

  Danny’s chest had swelled with hope as Amber laid out her plan. It could work. No, it would work. He could see it now. The whole town could help. Maybe they’d get Cody to gather the foxes as well. Sure, it would take some organizing, but it was brilliant.

  Leaning forward, he placed an intense kiss against her lips. Her fingers dug into his shoulders and he leaned back, pulling her down with him.

  A stick snapped behind them and Danny broke the kiss, putting himself between Amber and the sound. He waited, his ear twitching to catch the noise again. The air around them felt charged with the promise of danger, but he couldn’t detect anything out of sorts. Birds still chirped above and the only noise was the rustle of leaves as a breeze blew through the trees.

  “Danny?” Amber questioned.

  He held up a hand to stay her.

  An angry growl came from the woods to their left, and Danny pulled Amber to her feet, once again shielding her from any supposed threats. A dark gray timber wolf stepped boldly out of the tree line, lips pulled back in a silent snarl. It lowered its head to the ground and growled again.

  A furious rumble erupted from Danny’s own throat. Oh, he recognized the wolves’ markings. He should have beaten Drake and his lackeys into the ground the first time they’d assaulted the cottage. But now, the wolf wouldn’t escape his wrath.

  That one of his own pack mates would dare threaten his mate in such an open way was too much. This wasn’t petty vandalism, but so much more. Danny was going to teach this wolf a lesson once and for all.

  “Danny–” Amber whispered, tugging on his shirt sleeve.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him.” His voice was more animal than man’s, but still understandable.

  “What about them?”

  Danny glanced over, not wanting to take his eyes off Drake for long, but needing to know what he was up against. Two more wolves were making their way out of the clearing.

  Shit. Things were about to get rough.

  “Leave now, and you won’t be punished. Stay, and I won’t
be held responsible for what happens here. Threaten my mate again, and God help the lot of you, because I’ll tear you to pieces.” Danny hoped at least one would see reason and back off. Two he could take, three would be rough–but none of the three left.

  Drake’s wolf eyes gleamed as he watched Danny.

  Running out of time, his mind screamed. If Drake attacked while Danny was still human, he’d never be able to take him down. Shedding off his clothes as quickly as he could, Danny threw himself into the shift, wincing as the normally pleasant stretching feeling was rushed. Sharp pricks of pain ran up and down his body.

  He glanced over as his nose and mouth lengthened to his wolf snout, and was grateful none of the wolves had attacked yet. But they didn’t wait long. He’d barely gotten to his feet when Drake jumped him.

  He heard Amber’s scream of surprise, but the fight held him captive. His teeth clashed with his attacker’s as their mouths snared each other’s. Snarls filled the clearing as they fought. He pushed Drake back and managed to break away. Danny bit down on his shoulder with enough force to taste blood. The wolf howled in rage. One of the other wolves dashed forward, scraping his claw down Danny’s side.

  Fur flew as he attacked the other wolves with claws and teeth. But between the two of them, they gave as good as they got, and before long Danny was panting with the effort of the fight. His side burned where the other wolf had swiped him, and blood poured onto the ground from one leg.

  A sharp cry from Amber had him looking over. The third wolf was circling her.

  As he watched, the wolf attacked. Danny’s heart leaped into his throat, terrified at the sight. He wasn’t close enough, and he knew the other wolf would rip out her throat, or gut her, before he could reach them. Just as he also knew, if that happened, he would lie down and let the other wolves have at him. Because nothing mattered if they killed Amber.