by Amy Green
She slammed her door and looked straight ahead, thinking hard. “Okay,” she said finally.
He looked at her. She was trusting him. Again. She had nowhere to go, no belongings, but she was sitting here, ready to go where he would take her. He leaned over, cupped a hand over the back of her head, and kissed her.
He tried to take it slow, but it was getting difficult. His wolf was impatient. She melted into him and kissed him back, her hands tangling in his hair again, and he could smell the sweet rise of her arousal, a little higher, then higher still.
When he broke the kiss, she panted, “Finally.”
“You’re not the one who’s been waiting,” he growled, and he kissed her again. He tasted her, tangled with her, nipped her lip and made her gasp. Then he leaned down to her neck and set the tip of his tongue beneath her jaw, lightly tasting her skin, feeling her pulse.
Her voice was strangled with desire. “We need to talk,” she said.
“The drive will take fifteen minutes,” he said into her skin. “Talk fast.”
So she talked as they pulled out onto Howell Street and he headed toward Nat and Lisa’s old place. He listened as she told him about the phone call she’d made while he was in the office with Sheriff Walker, how she’d talked to her birth father for the first time. She told him what Christian Martell had said about Xander, how he’d been disowned, how Tessa was the only other with Martell’s blood.
“He knew who you were?” Heath asked her. “Christian? He knew you?”
“He denied at first that he had a daughter,” she replied, “but he gave in pretty quickly. He used my name like he said it a lot. I got the impression he knew me.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s been keeping tabs on you from afar,” Heath said, thinking. “He’d give you up, but he wouldn’t just forget about you.”
“I’m insurance,” she said, “in case Xander dies, or he doesn’t work out. He’s the kind of cold-hearted asshole who would see it that way.”
Heath glanced at her. He didn’t know Christian Martell at all—they had no reason to deal with the California pack, and neither had Charlie—but she didn’t seem impressed with her birth father. “Sometimes an alpha has to be hard,” he said. “He has to make the tough decisions without second-guessing them.”
“Brody would never give up his daughter,” she said staunchly.
He didn’t have anything to say about that, because she was right. If Brody had been in that situation, he would have treated her like blood. The fact that she knew that, that she defended Brody like it was second nature, was more telling than she knew.
“There’s more,” Tessa said.
He listened, and she told him about the Silverman.
“I’ve never heard of this piece of shit,” he said when she finished. “I’ll tell Brody, but there isn’t much different that we can do. We already knew we were looking for a human armed with silver bullets. I just hope Devon can track him and take him down.”
They pulled up to the cabin, and when Tessa got out and slammed the door, he watched her as the thought hit him. All of these years, his reputation was as a man who knew how to do only one thing—fuck. It was known as his only skill, while his brothers were the fighters, the killers, the thinkers.
Now they had a fight on their hands, and while his brothers did battle, Heath was going to do what he did best. Only this time, he was going to take the Martell heir as his mate.
Which meant that by taking Tessa to bed, without a bullet fired or a drop of blood, he might just end the war.
“Why are you smiling?” she asked when he got out of the truck.
“Why do you think?” he asked her.
She frowned. “It doesn’t look like a happy smile. You look sort of pissed off.”
He put a hand behind her head and kissed her, again, right there on the front walk. “No more talking,” he said. “We’re done.”
The house was small, clean, and cozy, out of the way of the neighbors and the main street—just what he needed. Lisa had taken all of her personal belongings, but the furniture was still there, and there were dishes in the kitchen and linens in the linen closet.
There was a lovely view out the back windows, too. It was all very nice. Heath saw none of it. He locked the front door behind him, dropped his bag in the front hall, and kicked off his boots as he followed her into the house. “Come here,” he said.
Tessa turned and watched him come toward her, her eyes going wide. “Heath—”
“Come here.” He came close and put his hands on her hips. She smelled just as he expected—part of her resisted being bossed around, but another, stronger part of her found it arousing. She didn’t move away, so he lifted her, slung her over his shoulder, and carried her to the bedroom, where he put her on her back on the bed.
“Heath, this is—”
He silenced her by crawling onto the bed with her, sliding her shirt up her stomach so it pressed just beneath her breasts, and pressing his lips to her belly.
She gasped, and he felt her stomach muscles clench against his mouth. But she pressed up into him, and he kissed her harder, moving his lips to the side of her waist. In a deft movement, he undid the button of her pants and slid the loosened fabric just down the bone of her hip, exposing it and nothing more. Then he put his mouth there, too.
God, her skin tasted sweet. It was starting to come over him, how different it was with the woman who was your mate. Her body tasted different, felt different. He was so attuned to her he felt every twitch and skipped heartbeat.
She squirmed when he spent extra time on her hipbone, memorizing its lines with his mouth. “Are we—”
“Eventually,” he said. “When I decide to. I’m going to torture you first. Undo your bra, Tessa.”
Her eyes were starting to go soft and lazy, and she reached behind her back on his command without thinking. When the bra was undone, Heath pushed her shirt up slowly, taking the bra with it and revealing her breasts, and then he pulled the tangle of both garments up off over her head and threw it away.
She was breathing shallow now, and he caught a whiff of apprehension. She wasn’t sure about showing him her breasts, which was insane, because they were the most beautiful breasts he’d ever seen. He lavished attention on them, gently at first, then more harshly as she started to squirm again. She was impatient, his Tessa, almost as impatient as Heath’s wolf. But both of them would have to wait.
He finished with her breasts—for the moment—and kissed her mouth again, long and deep. By the time he finished she was pressing her hips up from the bed, rubbing against him, which was pure, unadulterated agony.
“Take your clothes off,” she said into his mouth.
He smiled against her. “With pleasure.”
He got off the bed and pulled everything off while she watched. Werewolves were comfortable with nudity—they got naked regularly to change, and they were part animal, after all. Heath’s human side wore clothes, but his wolf was always happier naked. He stripped down to nothing but the jewelry he wore and knelt on the bed between her legs, undoing her pants and sliding them off her hips with her panties.
Her eyes were on his body, crawling it up and down, over and over. “Oh, my God,” she moaned softly.
“Try not to go blind,” he said. “I know it’s a lot to take in.”
Since he had her legs up, she poked his chest with her toe. “Get over yourself,” she said weakly, but they both knew she was lying.
Then he was distracted, because he was sliding her pants and panties off, revealing her slim, sexy legs, her perfect ankles, her soft thighs. He tossed the clothes away and kissed the inside of her knee, and then up, up.
God, this had always been his favorite part. The smell of a woman, open and ready for him, could make everything go away—his fucked-up family, his fucked-up past, his fucked-up choices, his regrets. The blood and the death he’d seen. It all disappeared when he was between a woman’s legs, and he expected the same hi
t now, that short-term high of forgetfulness.
But this was different. This was totally different.
“Why are you stopping?” Tessa panted, her hands reaching down to tangle in his hair.
The scent… it was different. It wasn’t just a scent. It was doing something to him, making shivers run down his back, making his head spin, making his cock go even harder. He pressed his lips to her inner thigh and closed his eyes.
“Heath,” she said, nearly begging.
He ran his fingers over her, feeling her, and she bucked off the bed, pressing into his hand. He kept his eyes closed, his lips against her inner thigh. “Are you on the pill?” he murmured into her skin.
“Yes.”
He opened his eyes and looked at her hazily. “We can’t get diseases, and we can’t give them,” he said. “Do you understand?”
She nodded, her eyes half lidded and sexy. “Yes,” she breathed.
There was nothing else to do. He set her legs on the bed, braced himself over her, and slid into her.
It was heaven.
He dropped his face into the crook of her neck and pressed deeper as she made a sexy sound in her throat. She was hot, responsive, utterly in tune with him. She shifted beneath him and her legs wrapped around his hips, tight. Her arms wrapped around his neck. She wanted a ride, so he gave her one, slow and deep at first, feeling every inch of her, of the two of them together.
“God, oh God,” she said, holding on to him so tight it made his shoulder hurt. He didn’t care.
The words slipped out before he could stop them, words he’d never said before. “You are fucking incredible,” he said reverently in her ear. “Fucking incredible, Tessa.”
“Don’t stop,” she said as he rocked into her again and again.
He didn’t stop. He moved harder, every muscle straining to keep control as she spiraled higher. He pressed her deeper, harder still, her nails digging into his back, and then he felt her go over the edge, almost slowly at first, and then squeezing him, her body bucking as she cried out, and he let himself go, gave her everything he had inside himself, his body, his soul, every worthless piece of him, even his dark, scarred heart.
They came down slowly, but he didn’t let her go. He couldn’t. He needed her skin against his, the vibration of her heartbeat, the sound of her breathing. He needed it as much as he needed his next breath.
He was undone.
She slid her hands off his back. “I hurt your shoulder,” she said, her voice shaky. “Are you okay?”
No. He was not okay. He would never quite be okay again, maybe. But he lifted himself off her and kissed her long and slow before looking down into her beautiful face.
“I have news for you,” he said.
She blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“That wasn’t the mating,” he said, and he couldn’t help smiling at her shocked expression. “That was just the warmup.”
17
Tessa had expected certain things. She had expected that Heath would be good. Expert, even. That he would make sure she got what she wanted. That he would be beautiful naked—though she’d underestimated just how beautiful he was naked. Heath Donovan should never, ever wear clothes.
She’d expected all of that, to a certain extent. She hadn’t expected him to be affectionate.
But he was. He ran his hands over her, his warm palms tracing her skin, even after they were finished. He kissed her, touched her belly, her hips. It was sexual, because they were naked and they’d just had sex, but it was more than that. It seemed like actual affection.
She’d never had a man be affectionate after sex before. It was… sexy. And sweet.
He rolled her to her side without a word and spooned behind her back, his knees behind hers, his hand trailing gently up and down her spine, her shoulders. His scent surrounded her now, all over her skin, the taste of him in her mouth. She felt her body relax into his, as if they’d done this dozens of times. She was satisfied, her body humming, but she wasn’t sleepy. He wasn’t either, she could tell. He put one big, muscled arm over her, his wolf tattoo visible on the shoulder, and sighed softly into the back of her neck.
They lay in comfortable silence for a while. She listened to him breathe, felt his chest move against her back. Then she said, “Are you like this with all your women?”
Heath went very still. She felt his breath stop. “What?”
“I’m just curious,” she said. “If this is… I mean, it’s fine. You’ve been with a lot of women. I get that. I was just… I suppose I just wondered…” She sighed. It was hopeless. “Forget I asked.”
He was silent for a long minute, his muscles tense. Then he said in a low voice, “How many did you see?”
Tessa cleared her throat. This was an awkward conversation to have when you were naked in bed with the man who had just rocked your world. “Two. Coming downstairs in the morning… after.”
Anger radiated from him, and it wasn’t until his next words that she realized it was anger at himself, not her. “You should never have seen that,” he said with bitterness in his voice. “Never. I should never have let it happen.”
She opened her mouth by instinct to say It’s okay, but then she realized it wasn’t. With him here in bed with her now, it wasn’t.
“It was disrespectful to you,” he said softly. His hand touched her hair, traced the strands. “I owe you an apology.”
She rolled onto her back and looked at him. “You didn’t owe me anything.” She forced the words out. “Not then. I was your employee.”
He shook his head, his eyes dark. “You never were just my employee, Tessa. Not from the first minute. Even before my wolf chose you, you were the manager of my bar, my friend, a woman deserving of respect.” He sighed. “I normally don’t make such stupid, hurtful moves around women. The only excuse I have is that during that time right after Charlie died, everything was in chaos, including me. I stopped listening to my wolf for a while.”
Though she’d worked with shifters for months now, it never ceased to surprise her how completely candid they could be. They didn’t play games or talk around emotions—they just laid it out. It made you want to lay things bare to them in return. “It hurt my feelings,” she said. “I didn’t know why, but it did.”
He touched her cheek. “I have a lot to atone for,” he said.
“Don’t,” she said. “I don’t want you guilt-ridden. Just tell me—how long?”
He blinked, but he understood the question. She wanted to know how long since the last one. “Months,” he said. “At least six. Seven, I think. Maybe longer.”
“Since your wolf chose me?”
He smiled. “I told you, I wasn’t listening. All I knew at first was that I lost my taste for random women in my bed. I thought maybe I was distracted. Then one day you came in to work and told me we had no olives to use in martinis, and when I told you werewolves never drink martinis, you tore a strip off me.”
Her mouth dropped open. She remembered that day, perfectly clearly. “I told you that didn’t matter, we should be able to make a martini anyway.”
“It was the principle of the thing, you said.” He was grinning now. Then he quoted her. “‘It doesn’t matter that no one has ever ordered one. What if someone walks in and wants a martini, Heath? What are we going to say? No? What kind of bar says no when a customer asks for a martini? A shitty one.’”
She put a hand over her eyes, embarrassed. She’d been in a terrible mood that day, and she’d taken it out on him. She’d actually felt bad about it afterward, but had no idea how to apologize. “I am such a bitch,” she said.
He was laughing softly now. “It was funny,” he said. “You were right, any bar worth its salt should be able to serve a proper martini. You told me off and stomped away, and right then my wolf spoke up, and I heard him. And I knew.” He shook his head. “What a terrible moment that was. The worst.”
She punched his arm lightly, making sure it was his uninjured o
ne first. “Why was it terrible?”
“Because the woman my wolf chose for his mate couldn’t stand me. And if I were to try to convince her otherwise, she’d probably knee me in the balls before quitting and walking out.” He scratched his nose, remembering. “Awful,” he said again.
She was staring at him. She couldn’t seem to stop. He was so beautiful, so fascinating, even when he was beating himself up. The soft light in the bedroom played over the lines of his face, made his gray eyes look darker. He still wore his rings, and she felt them every time he ran his hands over her. I know what those hands feel like, she thought to herself, and no other woman will again. “You didn’t answer my question,” she said.
He rolled on his back and looked at the ceiling. “No,” he said. “What it’s like with you is nothing like anything else I’ve ever experienced. Does that answer your question?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “That could be good or bad.” She lay her head on her outstretched arm, still watching him in fascination. “I haven’t done this as much as you have.”
“Tessa.” His voice was darker now. “That’s the first and last time you’re ever going to say that.”
“But—”
He rolled over her in one smooth movement and pinned her on her back, his hands on her wrists. Her heart sped up so fast she felt her skin flush. “It has nothing to do with fancy moves or tricks,” he said, hovering over her, his eyes on hers. “It has to do with you. Is that clear?”
She took a breath. He was pinning her arms, and the feel of it was making her start to throb. “Yes,” she said.
“What a wolf does with his mate is nothing like what he does with anyone else,” he said. “Ever. Those women wanted something from me.” A flash of anger crossed his gaze, deep and a little terrifying. “A night with the lover wolf. Well, they got what they wanted, but nothing more. You get more. You will always get more. You get all of me, Tessa, worthless as it is. And once you have it, you cannot throw it away.”
She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to grab him, but her hands were pinned. “Kiss me,” she said.