“I want to touch you.”
“Later,” he growled. “Get on your stomach and spread your legs.”
She rolled over and did as she was told. Sam got on his knees behind her and the head of his cock nudged her entrance and thrust forward, bottoming out with one hard push. He rested with his hips against her ass for a few seconds, tipped his body forward, gripped her neck with one hand and her hip with the other, and fucked her. Hard, like he’d promised.
Every thrust dragged her sensitive skin against the rough wool blanket, pressed her into the mattress with the force. Callie clutched the pillow and moaned as Sam fucked into her. In that position, his cock felt huge and hard, filling her pussy like nothing else, stroking that sweet spot inside her with each push, grinding her mound against the bed every time he thrust.
His grip on her neck tightened, his pace quickened, his skin slapped against hers. “Rub your clit. I want to feel you come like this.”
She snaked a hand under her belly, pressed two fingers to her clit, and held them there, the force of his strokes and her own wetness providing the rhythm and the slide. She clenched around his cock, and he let go of her neck, swept her hair out of the way, and bit down on her shoulder with a fierce growl. The surprise or the pain or the fact that she was already on the edge made her scream into the pillow as she came hard around him. Sam let go of her skin with his teeth, gave three short, sharp thrusts, and bellowed as he emptied himself.
They collapsed, both panting, the smell of sweat and sex permeating the air. Sated at last, Callie curled into Sam’s chest and fell asleep.
* * *
She woke up and stretched out on the narrow bed, alone in the gray-blue light before dawn. She’d drifted in and out of sleep since collapsing after Sam fucked her. When she’d startled awake from a nightmare of running, running, running, away from something or someone chasing her through the woods, branches whipping her face, panic making her heart pound in her ears, Sam had soothed her back to sleep with slow kisses and gentle touches. She’d tried to resist his tenderness, but he’d wrung sweet pleasure from her body in the dead of night, until her fear went quiet and she could rest again.
She lay there in the soft sheets they’d tangled around each other and marveled at how content she felt. It was easy, being with Sam. Like that’s how it’s supposed to be. She’d told him he wasn’t going to break her heart, but now she wasn’t so sure.
She froze when she heard voices outside, then relaxed; it was only Sam and his dad. What his father was doing this far up the mountain at dawn, she didn’t know.
“You slept with her.”
Callie blushed by herself in the still-dark room. Sam mumbled something on the porch. Mr. MacTire must have been able to smell the sex that still hung heavy in the air. Neither of them had bathed since yesterday, before running in the woods, before the sex and the sleeping together and the making love in the middle of the night.
“Good. You need her on your side.”
What the hell? On his side for what? And what did that have to do with sleeping with her?
“Jesus, Dad. It wasn’t like that. She was losing control.”
“I don’t want to know what it was like, son. Do whatever you have to do to keep her here and calm.”
“Yeah.” Sam’s voice was sullen.
Quick feet came up the steps. Callie didn’t dare turn over to try to peek through the screen door. She barely breathed, trying to keep the old bedsprings quiet. “Keep her calm and keep your head.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Booted feet stepped off the porch and crunched through pine needles, farther and farther down the path until she lost the sound of them amid the early-morning stirrings of the forest.
Callie pulled the blanket over her face and screwed her eyes shut, expecting Sam to walk back into the cabin any second and realize she’d heard them. Last night’s sweetness soured in her stomach. Something was going on, something had his father worried enough that he’d sent them up here to keep them away from it. Sam knew more than he had told her; she was as certain of that as she was of anything.
The screen door creaked open slowly. Callie tried desperately to slow her breathing and willed her heart to stop pounding so Sam wouldn’t know she was awake. He crossed the room and slipped into bed next to her. With an arm around her waist he nuzzled her neck with his nose, like he’d wanted nothing more in life than to wake up next to her.
“You awake?”
Callie felt his smile in the way his beard brushed against her skin. “Mmm-hmm,” she mumbled, as if she could pretend she had only just woken up.
“Callie,” he whispered and nibbled the spot right behind her ear.
She arched into the bite and hummed. Does it matter what’s happening out there? Does it matter why he’s here with you? You’ve changed, you belong here now. She had to admit the wolf had a point, even if it was only temporary, this belonging. Temporary was what she’d wanted, demanded from him. To get it out of their systems and go back to being friends. But when Sam trailed nips down her neck like that, she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to look at him again without remembering what it felt like to be in his arms in the middle of the night, full of feelings that had nothing to do with temporary.
She rolled over and kissed him to make her brain shut up. She rubbed her nose in his chin, left her own trail of bites down his neck. She wrestled him out of the shirt he’d thrown on to go outside, pulled down his shorts and tossed them over the side of the bed. She ran her hands through the hair on his chest, down over his stomach, and gave a teasing scratch through the hair at the base of his cock, rising rapidly to meet her when she wrapped her hand around it.
He hadn’t given her the chance yet, to explore his body, to tease or give pleasure; he’d been too concerned with sating her, calming and soothing her so she wouldn’t lose control of the shift. Like his dad told him to. She shut the thought out of her mind, stroking his cock, smooth skin covering hard flesh, listening for the hitch in his breath, the beat of his heart, the sound in his throat that would tell her when she’d done it right. A twist of her wrist over the smooth head, sliding her palm through the bead of precome there, made his stomach shudder.
“Fuck, Callie,” he groaned and slipped two fingers between her labia, seeking her clit. He teased around the little bundle of nerves, spreading her gathering wetness through her folds, while she kept stroking his cock. “Get on top.”
He handed her a condom from the box that had ended up on the floor at the head of the bed and lay down. She couldn’t resist the image of him stretched on his back, waiting. She leaned forward and took his cock in her mouth. The smell of him, and of her, of the past twelve hours of sex and sleep, filled her nose as her head dipped down. She swallowed as much of him as she could before she bobbed back up and swiped the flat of her tongue over the crown, teasing like she’d done with her hand. She dipped her tongue into the slit, tasting salt and musk. She bobbed her head back down and up again with a hard suck before he grabbed her arms and pulled her off him.
“Callie,” he growled, thunder in his eyes as he held her in place. “Later.”
She nodded and he let her go. She sheathed his cock and rose up on her knees. With his hands on her hips, she positioned him and sank down slowly. Her head fell back with the bliss of being filled. No time to think of anything else now, only this, only his big, rough hands on her hips and his cock inside her.
“Grab the headboard.”
She tipped her body forward and took hold of the old cast-iron rail. He tightened his grip on her waist and rocked his hips, thrusting up into her from below. Even with her on top, Sam was in control, but why fight him when it felt this good? His strokes were slow and measured, designed to prolong their joining, not to chase an orgasm. She writhed there, strung out between pleasure and completion, while Sam
took his own time.
“I don’t think I can come like this.”
“I don’t think I care right now.” He found her clit with his thumb and pressed lightly, enough to make her gasp, to make her arousal spool tighter in her belly, to make her muscles clench with it. “Let it feel good.”
He kept her hanging there, brushing her clit to bring her closer, but never giving her enough to crest that hill and tumble down the other side. She wriggled in his grip, desperate and whining until he wrapped his arms around her back and pulled her flush to his body. His chest hair tickled her nipples with every sharp, shallow thrust. He wrapped one fist in her hair and pulled, stretching her neck and forcing her back into an arch as he sped up his hips. With her back arched and her clit pressed into his pubic bone, Callie cried out in relief as she started to come.
Sam groaned as her muscles clenched around him. He scraped his teeth along her collar bone as he let go with a low moan. His hips stilled and his cock pulsed inside her, sending a rippling aftershock of pleasure shivering over her skin. He held her there, kissing her sweaty neck, hand still entwined in her hair, and Callie basked in temporary contentment. This is where you belong.
She gingerly rolled off his chest and lay next to him. “G’morning.” She kissed his biceps, and traced his tattoo with her fingers.
“Morning.” Sam sat up and got out of bed. He pulled the condom off and gathered up his clothes. With his shorts half-on he stopped at the door. “I’m going to start a fire for breakfast. You need to eat.”
Chapter Six
Sam hadn’t meant to get back into bed with her, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself, seeing her naked body stretched out under the sheets. He couldn’t get enough of the feel of her skin, her soft flesh under his hands, the taste of her sweat on his tongue. He was exhausted from staying up all night, alternately watching her sleep and burying himself inside her. In spite of his satiation, his senses had stayed on high alert, listening to every cracking twig, every small night creature that invaded their sphere. He’d long ago lost his head over Callie, but his father was right—his feelings could be a liability.
He’d been stupid to think he could sleep with her in the first place. What was one more lie about not wanting her in the face of all the lies he’d ever told to keep his family’s secrets? What was one more lie if it kept them both safe? But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t deny that he had always wanted her, had only kept his distance because she wasn’t one of them. He couldn’t lie to her when she was wound up and vulnerable and every single instinct he possessed, human and otherwise, was begging him to take her. There was only so much he could fight.
Then she’d had to poke at that damn tattoo and remind him of his father’s words, his obligations to his clan, his pack.
Sam pulled the grate off the fire pit and dumped in the handful of twigs and bits of kindling he’d been collecting while he stewed. He shook the spiders off the tarp covering the small woodpile and layered a few split logs over the kindling, lit a match, and slowly breathed life into the small fire. His father had delivered a cooler of food with his warning to keep Callie under control.
Callie emerged from inside, stretching and yawning in the same shorts and flannel shirt from yesterday. They’d both packed like it was inevitable. Why else would he bring a box of condoms and she a flannel shirt with snap buttons? He hadn’t even realized the shirt snapped until he ripped it open in his haste to bare her torso. Her arms over her head lifted the hem of her shirt, revealing a hint of her soft belly, and Sam had to consciously talk himself out of turning her right back around and throwing her into bed again.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Not for a few minutes.”
She took a seat on one of the logs that ringed the fire, arms crossed and her knees tucked up to her chest. “Did I hear your dad earlier?”
Shit. “He came up to drop off some more food, check on us.”
“Sam, what’s going on?”
“Nothing.” The less she knew, the better. “Keep her calm. Under control.”
She eyed him dubiously. “Are you sure?”
“Of course.” He ducked his head so she couldn’t see him wince with the lie. “Hey, actually, do you mind going inside and grabbing the coffeepot?”
She got up without a word. She knew he was full of shit, but what was he supposed to tell her? Some goon with a grudge against his father might have run her down to get him to do something incredibly stupid? And it had worked. Callie was collateral damage in a long-simmering struggle she didn’t know anything about, and Sam faced God-knew-what for his part in it. Knowing that wouldn’t help her. She needed time to adjust. To heal. To learn to control the wolf she was stuck with for the rest of her life. Keeping her in the dark would keep her calm. Keeping her calm would keep her safe.
She came back with the pot and a gallon of water and set them down next to him.
“Thanks.”
“Sure.” She sat on the opposite side of the fire. Maybe it was better this way, to let her put some distance between them. He ignored the voice in his gut insisting he go get her and keep her close. “After we eat, will you show me where the pool is upriver? I must smell rank by now.”
In the human world, that was probably true. To Sam, she still smelled amazing. Like sweat and animal and sex, like his. “I hadn’t noticed.” The words slipped out of his mouth before he could remind himself about letting her go. “But yeah, we can go for a swim. I probably don’t smell like roses either.”
She blushed and mumbled, “I hadn’t noticed.”
He left her there to go back into the cabin for the food and the ancient cast-iron frying pan that hung next to the door, where it made for a potentially handy weapon as well as a cooking tool. She was quiet while he fried bacon and eggs over the open fire. He fought the screaming need to uncurl her spine and soothe the furrows in her brow. The feral animal inside him wanted to shore up the fragile bond they’d made.
They ate in silence. Sam smothered the fire and rinsed the dishes and the pan. Callie curled herself smaller and smaller, her anxiety tangible in the air. He hated himself for hurting her.
“You ready to go?”
She smiled weakly. “Has it been a full half hour?”
“I think we can risk it.”
“Sam?” She looked up at him from her place on the log. “Will you please tell me what’s going on? You’re being weird.”
He sighed and scratched his jaw, prayed a half-truth would satisfy her. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on either. My dad is worried, but it might be nothing.” But it probably isn’t.
“Look, I get it. You had to lie to me before, because I wasn’t one of you, but don’t lie to me now. Please.”
She was definitely going to hate him for all of this later. “I won’t. Let’s just get through this, okay?” He could see her anxiety turning restless, the desire to run turning into the need to run away. He had to keep her close. Wolf or no, she could still get lost out here. God help them all if someone else found her.
She unwrapped her arms from her bouncing knees. On her feet, she fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, waiting for something, permission, a cue.
“If you need to shift, do it.”
She pulled off her shirt and dropped her shorts to the ground. She stood there naked, her pink-tipped breasts and soft curves golden in the dappled morning sunlight. Sam’s cock stirred in his pants at the sight of her, bare and mostly unashamed. “You’re getting the hang of this.”
She shot him a dirty look and carefully bent forward to pick up her clothes off the ground. “You next.”
Sam shucked his clothes and tossed them on the porch with hers. Her eyes on him were like the ghosts of her hands, exploring him under the sheets. The s
ense memory of her mouth on him sent blood rushing to his cock. She lifted an eyebrow, watching him stiffen, her cheeks pinked, but she didn’t hide from the sight of his arousal.
He closed his eyes, summoned the wildness, and found himself on all fours before he could move to take her right there on the ground, rolling around in the pine needles and leaf litter. He turned and took off into the woods. Callie’s laugh rang in his ears as she shifted and followed.
* * *
They ran, following the river upstream, above a set of falls to where the long-worn granite of the mountain had formed a natural pool. The river itself was swift and cold, even in midsummer, but the pool sat in the sun, warming it slightly above the temperature of the surrounding water. There were others like it sprinkled throughout the forest, and most of them were heavily trafficked swimming holes, but here they had total privacy. She shifted, the change coming more easily every time, and got to her feet.
Sam was lying to her, she was sure of it now. Everything she thought was true, that she’d been absolutely sure of, had been blown to pieces yesterday, and instead of helping her put the pieces back together, her best friend was hiding something from her. Maybe a lot of somethings.
Callie picked her way into the water over the rocks, slippery with silt and algae covering their water-smoothed surfaces. Sam ran in behind her, scrabbling across the rocks, still shifted. He dove into the cold water and dog-paddled around the pool for a minute. He hauled himself out, gave a giant shake that sent droplets flying all over her, still only up to her knees, and shifted back to himself, grinning.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“It’s fun. And the water doesn’t feel as cold.” Callie couldn’t help glancing down to see how cold he was. He cocked an eyebrow, put his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest. “You’ll learn soon enough that none of us give a shit that we’ve all seen each other naked. You see it way too many times to care.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that.” She eased farther into the water, her nipples tight with cold. And let’s face it, Sam looks like that naked. Sam, goofing around and trying to make her laugh while the world fell apart, while he was supposed to be keeping her calm; of course he was trying to make her laugh. She bristled and waded in deeper, suddenly uncomfortable being bare-ass naked in front of him.
Mated: A Paranormal Romance Shifter Anthology Page 14