by Leigh, Lora
“What are you waiting on?” She’d waited for what seemed a lifetime for this, and he seemed too determined to make her wait that much longer.
“How bad do you want it?” His husky question was breathed against the swollen bud of her clit.
How bad did she want it? She was ready to die for need of it. Her pussy pulsed in demand, her clit was throbbing in an agony of need. She wanted to grip his hair and jerk him in place.
“Would it matter how bad I wanted it?” Her heart was racing in anticipation. She wanted this touch so bad she was ready to scream for it.
Her fingers dug into the blankets, her nails curling into the material as she fought to keep from begging.
“Does it matter to you?” he responded. “Tell me what you want, Cassa. Tell me how bad you want it.”
The hell she would. Her hips arched though as he blew a subtle breath over the curls between her thighs once again. One hand lifted from the blankets, her fingers latching in his hair as the heated air stroked across her sensitized clit. Her head tossed against the pillow and she had to fight back a moaning plea.
“Damn you,” she cried out furiously as a rumbled growl vibrated in his chest. “Do it.”
“That doesn’t answer the question, mate.” The backs of his fingers ruffled over the curls. “How bad do you want it?”
Bad enough. Bad enough that her fingers tightened in his hair, her hips arched and a strangled cry tore from her throat.
“Do it,” she demanded. “Damn you, eat me.”
As though it were a trigger, a fuse to a detonation, a half snarl, half growl left his lips an instant before they covered the saturated folds of her pussy and sucked her clit into his mouth.
His tongue flickered over the tortured little bud as he drew on it. One hand pressed her thighs apart, the fingers of the other caressed through the narrow slit and found the tender entrance to the needy tissue beyond.
Cassa felt herself shaking, shuddering as pleasure gripped her, tore through her nerve endings and left her trembling with the need for climax.
“Oh God!” She nearly screamed out the prayer as she felt two fingers press inside her, stretching apart the tight flesh.
Calloused fingers worked inside her pussy, caressed and stroked the inner muscles until she writhed beneath him and nearly screamed out his name.
She was going to come. She couldn’t hold back, she didn’t want to hold back. She felt the vibrations of the inner explosions building inside her, tightening her muscles, wetting her vagina. Her juices flowed around his fingers, easing his way and sensitizing her further as he began to fuck inside her, slow and easy, then fast and hard, then slow and easy again, until she felt as though every sense she possessed was careening out of control.
“Not enough,” she gasped, the raging need building inside her until she wondered if she could breathe through it. “More, Cabal. Please. Please. More.”
She felt him growl, the sound vibrating around her clit as his fingers thrust hard and deep inside the trembling grip of inner tissue. Waves of sensation built inside her, exploded through her system and sent ecstasy breaking over her, until she was arched hard and tight into his grip, her fingers latching onto his hair as she fought to scream through the most incredible pleasure she thought she could experience.
Until seconds later. Until she learned there was more. There was Cabal coming over her, fitting the wide crest of his cock into the spasming entrance and working inside with quick, deliberate thrusts. There were his teeth raking her shoulder. There were the pinpoints of pleasure-pain as his thighs pushed hers farther apart, his hips rocked powerfully against her and the heated length of his cock filled her, overfilled her, until the sensations had her seeing stars with the pleasure detonating in her body.
She was at a loss to understand it, at a loss to process her body’s reaction to Cabal’s touch. Each stroke of his fingers, each caress of his lips, oh God, the rasp of his teeth and tongue against her neck, the strokes of his cock inside her overly sensitive pussy were too much. She felt as though she were burning, as though each touch was too painful to bear and yet too much pleasure to ever escape.
“Help me,” she cried out, as she arched closer, begged for something she didn’t understand.
It wasn’t enough, and yet it was too much. Tears filled her eyes as her hips arched closer, the muscles of her vagina clamping down on his cock.
Powerful shuttling thrusts filled her, stroked her until she felt the stars, the moon explode inside her. Sensation became rapture, it became ecstasy as her orgasm rushed through her.
Cassa’s nails bit into his shoulders, her lips opened on a soundless cry. Bucking against him, she fought for a control that didn’t exist, and one she didn’t want. She felt his thrusts increase as the first wave of pleasure tore through her. She felt his teeth rake her neck, heard his growl, felt the bite that pierced her shoulder. Inside, held within the tight grip of her vaginal muscles, his cock began to pulse, thicken, a second before she felt the hardened thrust of the Feline Breed barb become erect beneath the mushroomed head of his cock. It thickened, locked into place inside her, stroked hidden nerves and sent her careening into another harder, more heated orgasm. Crying out his name, Cassa felt herself melting, burning inside with each pulse of his semen as it filled her. She felt her muscles tightening to the point of pain, and yet pleasure rushed through her in waves.
Her head lowered to his bare shoulder. As his teeth pierced her flesh, she raked her teeth against his skin and bit down. Hard. She didn’t tear the skin, didn’t pierce it, but the very act was enough to send them both racing higher, farther, crashing into a sea of exquisite ecstasy before sinking into a pleasure as deep and as dark as the night itself.
She was possessed.
She was taken.
She was mated.
Now, she wondered, would she survive the fallout?
◆ CHAPTER 7 ◆
The fallout was always sure to suck. Cassa had learned that years ago, the morning after the rescue and the deaths at the German facility where Cabal and his pride had been held.
The fallout was slipping from the hotel room while he showered and trying to run, to hide, not just from Cabal, but from herself.
What the hell had she done? She had all but dared him, all but begged him to mate her, even knowing what she would be facing. What she was facing now. The sensitivity of her flesh, the emotions that roiled within her, the need that attacked her clitoris, that kept her nipples tight and hard.
She wandered through town until she found herself once again on the bank of the river where the missing former mayor had last been seen, staring across the distance at the old water management plant once again.
The place looked dark, sinister. Like some specter of death that overlooked the small lagoon and falls before the water spilled back into the main river.
Its appearance suited her morbid turn of mood.
She may as well be contemplating a prison sentence, she told herself. Or remarriage. Hell, this was going to be worse than remarriage, because you didn’t divorce your mate. There was no cure for mating heat. Too bad, so sad, she thought sarcastically.
Crouching at the water’s edge, she stared into the cold ripples of water swishing back and forth against the sand and frowned at her own thoughts.
She was doing what she had sworn she would never do again; she was tying herself to another man. And this time, she was doing it in a way she couldn’t escape.
She had allowed Cabal to mate her. He had taken her, not just once through the night, but almost continually. Tirelessly.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe through the ripples of remembered pleasure. She could almost see him as he had been the night before, his body sheened with sweat, his muscles rippling in his chest and arms as he rode her with a strength that still amazed her.
God, she was insane. She had lost her ever lovin’ mind somewhere, and evidently she wasn’t about to find it anytime soon.
She was demented.
She almost smiled at the thought as she shook her head and picked up a small, mineral-stained pebble, wishing the chill in her hand would extend to other parts of her body. Like the flesh aching between her thighs, dammit. And even worse, and this truly was the worst part, the incredible need just to be held. Something he hadn’t given her.
She threw the pebble and watched the ever widening ripples as it hit the water.
Damn him.
She tried to fight back the emotions tearing at her. She hated it when she allowed herself to be hurt. When she let her expectations build despite her efforts not to.
And that was exactly what she had done. Over the past years she had watched the Breeds and their mates. She had seen their devotion to each other, the silent though passionate and emotional air that surrounded each couple.
She had allowed herself to dream. She hadn’t thought she had; she had thought she was controlling it. She had been wrong. This morning she had learned exactly how wrong she had been. When she had turned to him, half-asleep, wanting his arms around her, he had turned away instead.
She rose quickly to her feet, blinking back her tears as she turned and stared around the forested little park once again.
Why the hell had she come back here anyway? Why hadn’t she just packed her shit and returned home once she realized the problems she was going to have with the story she was investigating?
It wasn’t as though she was actually going to report the damned murder anyway, unless someone else did. Her loyalty to the Breeds was so well known that it had begun affecting her professional standing.
It sucked to be an unwanted mate. But it just might suck worse to be an unloved mate.
Her teeth snapped together at the thought of love. She had never allowed herself to think of Cabal in terms of love. She had deliberately forced herself to never think in those terms. Unconsciously though, perhaps she had thought in those terms anyway. After all, she knew how mated couples loved, she had seen it, envied it over the years.
What had made her think that simply mating her would make Cabal love her?
Because she loved him?
She shook her head and turned around to stalk back to the parking lot. As she neared the pavement, her gaze was caught by the car pulling into the entrance to the park and the curly red hair of the man driving.
She almost smiled.
She had left a message on the reporter’s cell phone as she left the hotel earlier, though she hadn’t expected him to show up rather than calling her back.
“Look what the cat dragged in.” A quiet smile crossed Myron’s freckled face as he opened the car door and stepped out of the car. “I heard you were in town before you called. Heard you were being shadowed by some Bengal with an attitude too.”
“News travels fast.” Cassa shoved her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket as a capricious wind tugged at her hair and whipped it across her face. “Is the Bengal why you haven’t checked out the rumor?”
She had expected to hear from Myron earlier. She hadn’t called before now because she knew his wife, Patricia, could be a jealous little shrew. She liked Patricia, but she didn’t want to be the cause of yet another fight that Myron had to deal with because she had called.
“The Bengal might have had something to do with it.” A rueful grin tugged at his lips as he pulled his denim jacket closer and gazed around the park rather than meeting her eyes. “This place has been getting a lot of attention lately. Ever since Banks’s disappearance, you can count on seeing at least a couple of Breeds a week here. Not to mention the government types that have made an appearance.”
“Government types?” Cassa tilted her head to the side as she stared back at him, noting the somber sadness in his pale blue eyes.
Myron shrugged at the question. “There was a government agent roaming around a few days before your Bengal showed up. Just after he arrived, a team of Coyotes showed up. I didn’t know Banks was that damned popular. Personally, I think the world is a better place without him.”
Cassa watched him in surprise. “What did you know about Banks that no one’s telling me?”
Myron snorted at that. “Plenty. You don’t live here, Cass. I’ve tried to tell you about small towns and you never want to listen.”
Myron had always said they were a law unto themselves, and that it was that simple. That they band together to protect themselves or fight the enemy. They were independent and head-strong.
“So what are the good citizens of Glen Ferris banding together to hide?”
He shook his head before plowing his large hands through the shaggy, fiery curls that covered his head.
“Banks was a bastard.” He breathed out roughly. “He and his buddies got together around here about once a year. Brandenmore and Engalls and a bunch of others. They liked to hunt.” A shadow passed across his expression for a brief second.
“I’ve heard they liked to hunt two-legged prey more often than four-legged,” she guessed. “Banks was rumored to be a part of a group of men that hunted Breeds.”
Myron’s nostrils flared as a cold breeze whipped around the lot.
“A lot of Breeds were hunted in a lot of places,” he snapped out. “Not just here.”
He knew more than he was telling, Cassa could feel it. She knew Myron. They’d worked together before her marriage, and after Douglas’s death, it had been Myron who helped her through the first bitter months of realization. She knew him as well as she could know anyone.
“What’s going on, Myron?” She pushed her hair back from her face, her gaze turning to the entrance of the park, where several cars pulled out and another pulled in.
“You should go home, Cassa.”
She was getting really tired of being told to go home.
“Rather than what?” she asked quietly. “I’m here to find out what happened to Banks, not to turn tail and run because no one wants to talk.”
“There’s no fucking story,” Myron bit out angrily. “Banks was a crazy bastard that liked to drink. He’s probably drifting in the current of that damned river somewhere and just has yet to surface. Give the fucker time, he’ll show up.”
The wealth of hatred in Myron’s tone had Cassa staring back at him, more than surprised now. She was shocked at the fury that brightened his gaze and flushed his face.
“He was mayor here for eight years,” she said quietly. “Voted in and supposedly loved by all the citizens of the county. Then he just disappears and the sheriff can’t get so much as a dozen citizens together to search for him.”
“ ‘Good riddance’ is pretty much what we thought about it,” Myron grimaced. “Cassa, dammit. No one cares if he’s dead or not. No one cares and you shouldn’t either.”
“Why shouldn’t I? He’s not the first casuality here, Myron, and you know it. People are dying in the mountains here and no one seems to care.”
Myron stared at her silently for long moments. His expression flashed with such bitter pain that Cassa actually felt the hurt herself for a moment.
“People have always died in these mountains,” he finally said softly. “No one cared then either.”
Breeds had died here. The information she had stated, more than one had died here, and many had suffered at the hands of the Deadly Dozen, once they were captured.
“Why did Banks stay here?” she asked. “If what you say is true, then he couldn’t have had much peace.”
“He had what he wanted.” Myron shrugged. “His nice house on the hill, his guns and his hunting buddies. Banks didn’t give a damn about much else.
”
“Did his hunting buddies give a damn about him?” Cassa moved closer to the warm car. The engine was still running; the warmth flowing from it eased the chill that raced over her on the outside.
Myron leaned against the car door as he turned to look at her.
“You’re not going to let it go, are you?” he asked.
Cassa grinned back at him. “You know better than that, Myron. Might as well help me.”
“You lost your senses somewhere,” he accused her. “Even I’m not following up on this story, Cassa. As much as I hated Banks, I’d still like the answers to what happened to him. But things happen here in these mountains, and a smart man knows when to back off.”
That internal reporter radar went off like a siren. The blood was suddenly pumping through her veins and curiosity was slamming in her head. Of course, that surge of adrenaline was causing other, less comforting sensations as well, but she could handle those for the time being.
“I don’t know of anyone who knows you that’s accused you of being smart when it came to backing off on a story, Myron,” she reminded him.
“Naw, Cassa, that was you,” he sighed.
Her lips parted to ask more questions when a black-and-white sheriff’s cruiser pulled into the parking lot on the other side of Myron’s car.
Cassa lifted her brows as Myron’s head lowered and another rough breath passed his lips.
What the hell was going on here and just how many people were involved in it?
She watched as the sheriff, an older female, stepped out of the cruiser and settled her official hat on her head.
Danna Lacey. At forty-five years old, her short black and gray hair framed her slender face and emphasized her dark green eyes.
“Myron, how are you doing?” The sheriff’s eyes were curious as her gaze went between Myron and Cassa.
“I’m doing fine, Danna,” he stated with a tinge of mockery as the sheriff moved around the car. “You?”
She nodded slowly, her gaze staying on Cassa now.
“Doin’ good. I noticed your car over here and thought I’d stop by and let you know that Patty was looking for you earlier.”