by Vanessa Jaye
“Then you came along. And you blew the lid off the tight little box that my world had become. What I hadn’t realized was…that box had become a coffin.” Nate clamped her head in his hands. “You made me feel alive again, Tessa.
“What do I want? I want you. I had a life with Beth. I have those memories. I want something new now. I want you.”
He’d just siphoned the breath right out of her and replaced it with fragile hope. She opened her mouth, but no words untangled themselves from the mass of thoughts and needs and wants in her head, or came to clarify the storm of emotions in her gut.
“Don’t say anything now.” He rubbed his thumbs across her mouth, before he dropped his hands and urged her forward. “Come on. The sooner we get back to my cabin, the better.”
Traveling through the public areas of the ship made Tessa feel like a moving target. It was surprising how long you could walk down a hall and never run into another living soul. She didn’t relax until they were steps from his room.
Nate opened the door and entered after her. A click of the lock shut them in and everything else out. She hadn’t thought it possible to be more aware of him, but she was.
She felt his warmth against her back, the solidness of his body. He stood between her and the rest of the ship, her and the rest of the world. He was her shield.
“Same arrangement as before.”
Was he asking?
“You take the bed. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”
“No.”
“No?”
Tessa turned to face him. “It’s time. I’m asking, Nate.”
She let that hang in the air, offering no more explanation where none was needed. A flush darkened his jaw and heat flared in his narrowed eyes.
“You’ve just had a bad scare, Tessa, but don’t think I’m not bastard enough to take advantage of that. Because I want you that badly. Don’t tempt me—”
She pressed her fingers to his mouth. “And now I want this just as bad. I think I always have,” she added quietly, lightly brushing his incredibly soft lips.
“I want your hands on me, Nate. I want to kiss every inch of you and I want you to do the same to me. I want to know how you taste, how you feel moving inside me. I want to know if you talk dirty. I want everything.”
Tessa dropped her gaze to the base of his throat, a pulse beat there, much steadier than her own. Still she managed to speak in measured tones, with the force of her emotions lending intensity to her words.
“I’m alive. I want to celebrate that, and I want to do it with you.”
He cradled her head in his hands and tilted her face up to him. “Then I will give you everything I have to give.”
Knots of anxiety unraveled inside of her and she held her breath as he lowered his head slowly, never breaking eye contact. It was she who did it, lids sliding shut as his lips touched hers. His kiss was gentle at first, then more sure, relaxing into the welcome he received.
She opened to him and he entered, tongue stroking tongue, curling around then suckling. Tessa leaned into Nate with a sigh, reveling in his hardness, his heat, his strength. He became more forceful and she more demanding as their need manifested in a whirl of glittering lights around them.
Nate broke the kiss, chest heaving. “You have to be sure, Tessa,” he rasped out. “My kind, we mate for life. If we do this, there’s no turning back. There will never be another woman for me. And there can never be another man for you.”
His canines pushed out between his lips and his eyes glittered. “It wouldn’t be safe. For him.”
Tessa trembled at the surge of violence she felt in Nate before he quickly suppressed it.
He swallowed and closed his eyes, but his thumbs continued stroking her jaw. “Maybe it’s good you’re scared of me after all.”
He would’ve dropped his hands if she’d let him. She grabbed his wrists.
“Don’t you dare push me away now. Am I afraid of you? Of course I am.”
Nate’s eyes flew open. He wasn’t quick enough to mask the hurt before she saw it.
“Even with all I’ve seen, I don’t really know what you’re capable of. But I’m not afraid that you’d hurt me physically.” Her voice softened. “How could I? When from the moment we met you’ve done everything to protect me?”
Tessa kissed his knuckles. “But I am afraid that you could hurt me emotionally,” she mumbled against his hand.
“Never. Never that.” He raked his hand through her hair, wrapped his hand around her nape.
“Tell me now, Tessa. Tell me that you want to sleep alone tonight.”
“You’re asking me to lie. I can’t do that.”
With a low groan, he pulled her closer, or maybe she went to him. Their lips met with new urgency. Nate lifted her up and took her over to the bed. When he attempted to lay her down, she dragged him down with her. No way was she letting him out of her arms. It didn’t take long for them to shed their clothing, and when her hand paused over the leather necklace hung around his neck, he was the one to remove the bundle after a hesitation of his own.
“It’s time,” he echoed her earlier words.
Then he kissed her with almost unbearable gentleness.
Tessa did a Braille reading of his body. She found joy in the line of his lips, stubbornness in the shape his chin, comfort in his arms and strength in the long broad muscles of his back. He showed equal fascination with her body, touching and teasing, his gaze filled with such intense, heated appreciation, it made her want to stretch and arch like a cat in the sun.
Just like in her dream.
Tessa recoiled as the memory of the nightmare returned.
“It’s all right. It’s okay, babes. Just relax.”
Nate let his hand rest lightly on her arm, drawing little nonsense designs on her skin with his fingertips.
“I can’t take away that memory, Tessa. I wish I could. But I can replace it with something real, and better.”
Cautiously, he leaned forward and kissed her, barely, expertly drawing out the response from her, cleverly turning her into the aggressor by slow degrees. Soon Tessa was kneading his back, her breath coming out as needy little moans.
“I’ll give you what you want,” he whispered and proceeded to lay a trail of kisses down her body, lingering over her breasts while he traced lazy circles high on her inner thighs. Tessa parted her legs farther, squirming with impatience, ready to crawl right out of her skin if he didn’t touch her where she needed him to.
“Nate?”
“Hmm?” The lazy hum plied shivery pleasure to the deep pulls he took on her nipple. She gasped as he bit down lightly, then he blew on it, sending chills across her flesh.
He came back up to plunder her mouth. “I can’t stop kissing you.”
“I’m not complaining,” she managed to get out.
At some point he broke away with a curse and skimmed his lips down her body again, neck, shoulders, ribs to stomach and lower, till her legs were stretched wide by his broad shoulders. He stopped to stare for so long Tessa tried to wiggle away.
“Don’t,” he said and held her firm and then he said, “Beautiful.”
He licked her up and down, probing into her core with each downstroke, then he spread her with his thumbs and went straight for the heart of her, latching on to the nub of nerves he’d exposed, sucking hard while he lashed it with his tongue.
Tessa fisted the sheets in both hands, heels digging into the bed, hips jerking, her head rolling from side to side. “Ooh…oh, don’t stop. Keep licking…lick it. Faster,” she urged breathlessly.
She reached down and raked his hair away from his face, holding him fast as she undulated against his mouth. Losing herself completely to his skills.
And if she harbored the tiniest suspicion this was more than just physical, and that her heart fluttered more than raced, she pushed those thoughts away. She told herself it was just mindless pleasure and nothing more.
The room rained with sparking lights that p
opped electric pinpricks across her skin as Tessa became incoherent, barely able to catch her breath, her moans melding into begging.
He opened wider, sucking as much of her flesh into his hungry mouth, his eager tongue moving with rapid broad strokes, over, around and between her swollen, slippery flesh. He released her with a sudden wet, satisfied grunt, and captured her clit again with tightly pursed lips as he slid two, then three fingers inside her soaked heat, twisting and plunging while he kept sucking and licking. Then he hooked his fingers upward, fluttering them hard over some magical spot deep inside her core. He added the slight scrape of his teeth. And it was enough.
She cried out his name as pleasure sliced through her. Her entire being clamped down on that moment, squeezing tight to hold back what felt like too much sensation, too fast, too soon, before she shattered.
Nate gathered her back together with tiny sweet kisses that melted in her veins and soft, slow caresses that left her skin aflame. From belly to breast, reversing the path he’d taken earlier, until his mouth slanted over hers and Tessa tasted the salty slickness of herself on his lips.
Nate fitted himself against her, his cock pressing in, stretching and filling her. When she moaned a little in discomfort, he paused to let her body find its ease, whispering sweet nonsense in her ear as he moved in and out in shallow strokes.
Eventually she relaxed, and then there was more of him to take. Much more. And she became wetter. Much more.
And Tessa took all of Nate. Every inch, every kiss, every touch, taste and groan. They moved slowly, almost lazily, tracing love notes with fingertips on warm, damp flesh.
Now she was on top and his hands were at her breasts, molding and shaping, pinching and plucking, urging her closer for him to suck the tender nipples.
Then his hands were at her hips, driving her up and down, then holding her still as he rocked and gyrated into her, so damn deep.
“Touch yourself,” he rasped.
She did. Rubbing frantically as Nate’s intense expression almost got her off again.
“Yeah, just like that, baby.” He licked his lips repeatedly as if he could taste her again.
Adding his hands to hers, he pulled her outer lips wide. Her clit grew more sensitized and erect. She could hardly bear to touch it anymore, but that didn’t matter, the soft brush of his hair on the exposed pink tip with each gyration and jerk of his hips, was sweet punishment enough.
Nate rolled them over and increased his thrusts, battering into her as the sound of slapping flesh raced along with their moans. Neither one of them seemed able to catch their breath as their thoughts and emotions cleaved in ways their bodies couldn’t.
Their eyes never broke contact until the end when the pinpoints of light danced in Tessa’s gaze and she spun off the edge into sweet oblivion while Nate pounded into her harder and faster, racing to catch her flight.
He captured her cries in a draining kiss, feeding her back his almost agonized groans. And he never stopped saying her name until, at last, he stopped pumping, stopped pulsing, stopped grinding.
When he slid out and shifted off her, Tessa wanted to haul him right back into her arms, already missing his weight and heat. She turned to him and he pulled her closer.
“That was incredible.”
He made a satisfied sound and kissed her brow in reply.
The dimness of the cabin danced with fluorescent threads of light, the source of which seemed to be…her and Nate.
“Is it always like this?” She idly conducted a finger in the air, causing the colorful lights to swirl and eddy.
“For some.” Nate’s voice was no more a rumble from his chest under her ear. “Each mate-bond manifests itself differently. With some it’s music, with others scent, or something else.” She felt him shrug.
“Was it like this with Beth?”
The question slipped out before she could give herself a lobotomy. Way to kill a mood, Dr. Sue Jo.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“You can ask me anything.” He lifted her chin with a finger and held her gaze. “No, it wasn’t like this.” He moved his finger to trace something in the air. The streams of light shaped themselves into a heart, which wisped away in the wake of his lowered hand.
She believed him and happiness lit up inside Tessa. No matter what the truth was about her and Beth, she was glad to know this thing was exclusively hers and Nate’s.
This mating thing isn’t so bad after all.
“About that…” Nate’s voice dropped to barely more than a rasp.
It struck a chord deep inside her and she became more alert than she’d been a second ago. She looked up at him. His eyes flashed silver from one lazy blink to the next.
“We haven’t mated yet.”
“Are you kidding me?” She attempted to laugh, but it stuck in her throat and her heart began to race. “The last hour sure as hell felt like mating to me.”
Nate shook his head slowly. “No. That was making love.”
He rolled on his side, lowered his head, took her mouth again and she forgot her questions. Beneath the springy hair on his chest, his heart beat strong and true against her palm.
She felt a sharp, slicing pain and prickly heat flashed over her entire body, then her mouth flooded with coppery warmth, which she registered seconds later as blood. But before she could break the kiss, Nate’s tongue was soothing over the hurt and the heat kept building and building in repeated flashes, till she was panting with need.
He combed one hand through her hair, massaging her scalp as he continued to kiss her roughly, tongue pairing with hers, as he ate at her mouth. His other hand stroked down her back and fitted to her ass, kneading one cheek then the other, before sliding between them to play with her still-tender folds, delving in and out of her core.
He hummed his appreciation. “You’re still wet with come. Mine and yours.” He licked along her cheek and whispered in her ear. “What a sweet little pussy you have.”
His crudeness should have shocked. Instead it sent a jolt of excitement through her. His breath was hot and heavy on her neck as he kept stroking in and out and she bore down, grinding on his hand, her face buried in his chest. She found his nipple with her tongue and circled it before she caught it delicately between her teeth.
Nate hissed out his next breath and tightened his hold on her hair. He pulled her head back, baring her neck and he licked the length in one long bold stroke from her collarbone to the tender spot just under her jaw-line where a pulse beat frantically.
He suckled on her earlobe briefly then said with soft seduction: “I’m going to fuck you now, Tessa. Hard. And for a long time. That’s what werewolves do. First we make love. Then we mate.”
She shuddered. In the blink of an eye, he had her flipped on her stomach and was hunched over her, the thick, hard length of his cock rubbing along the cleft of her ass. His chest pushed against her back with each breath he took and the wiry brush of hair that sprinkled his torso tickled shivers up her spine.
Anticipation.
Nate held her down, his excitement palpable. The vibrations of his arrhythmic growls reverberated low in her belly and her own desire liquefied, slicking over her thighs. She was pulsing and clenching and empty inside. With a drawn-out moan Tessa arched to feel more of him.
But Nate straightened up behind her. “I want you on your hands and knees.”
Even as he said it, he was guiding her into position. She’d barely braced herself before he thrust into her, right up to the hilt. Tessa forgot to breathe. He held himself there until the shock wore off and her muscles softened and unclenched. Experimentally, she wiggled a bit and he let her play, take the lead and take her pleasure, but not for long. Soon he was slamming into her like a man possessed. His hunger for her like a third entity in the bed, pushing them both into a frenzy. He grasped her hips, fingers digging into flesh and tilted her ass higher as he pounded into her body.
Suddenly he pulled out and she found herself o
n her back with Nate over her. The musk of their lovemaking filled her nostrils.
“Suck it.”
She did. Her mouth opened over the plumb shaped head, tongue wetting what was already wet, tasting the smooth velvet skin. She made a sound of deep satisfaction and that, along with the sight of her lips stretched to take him in, almost shredded what little control Nate had left. He wanted to invade every part of her, crawl up inside her and turn her inside out, make it so she could never leave and no one, and nothing, could ever take her from him.
Fear braided into his ecstasy and he closed his eyes, submerging himself in the moist warmth and hard suction of her mouth. This was all he needed. He would forget everything else that existed outside this room and just focus on the pleasure they gave each other.
She cupped his ass as he stroked in and out, and when it was just the tip in her mouth, she sucked harder, wiggling her tongue into the tiny slit, causing white hot sensation to score down his spine.
Nate spewed a string of curses, mixed with guttural moans, and pushed in so deep he touched the back of her throat, his scrotum hot, tight, nestling against the soft underside of her chin. He pulled out and pushed back in, all the way, slow and deep, over and over, until the building pressure became too much and he swiftly withdrew.
“Again,” he growled.
He brought her to her hands and knees. Again. He was inside. Again. Harder, bigger, faster. Again, and again, and again, and again. Never stopping.
Tessa arched her back—shoulders, chest and face pressed into bed, where the sheets barely muffled her breathy, “Please, please, please.”
Somehow she knew this was what he wanted, her total supplication. She would give him anything he wanted now. Anything. She was his completely.
Nate pushed in deeper than she thought possible, grounding into her with quick hard jabs, filling her drenched core.
And it wasn’t enough.
She spread her knees wider, pushed her ass higher, rolling her hips in sync with his.