by Litte, Jane
They stood facing each other, both dressed in the same dark-colored military-issue fatigues. Nora’s chest heaved with deep, ragged breaths that made a mockery of her pretense of control, especially when the wolf’s knowing gaze narrowed. “It’s not enough for you anymore, is it?”
She glared back at him, even as pulsing white-hot embarrassment mingled with the erratic beat of need in her belly.
“Be honest with yourself for once and admit the real reason you come here. The real reason for this weekly dance of ours.”
“Don’t bother talking, asshole.” She spat a mouthful of saliva mixed with blood into the dirt at her feet. “You can’t worm your way into my head, and you’re not getting out of here no matter what you say or do.”
His bark of laughter ended on a rough cough and he braced the flat of one hand high on his torso. Nora eyed the dusty, smudged boot print she’d made in the chest of his plain black T-shirt and smiled at the thought that she might have cracked a couple of his ribs, even while her own side ached and blood trickled down her arm from a nasty gash in the muscles of her biceps.
Before he could recover and lunge for her again, she beat him to the punch, literally, and then watched him fall to one knee, a satisfied sneer twisting her lips. She kneed him in the face, took a shaky step back. Even as the skin of her knuckles cracked and bled, the rest of her body sighed and begged for more, begged for a release she had never quite been able to reach before.
Nora knew how sick she was. She knew something had warped inside her when she’d lost her husband to the werewolves, and almost lost her own life as well. Because yeah, taking pleasure from kicking the crap out of anyone—even the wolf—that was not fucking normal. It was the stuff of sociopaths . . . and it made her a very bad person.
But how much worse was it that she also needed to be hurt in return? That getting beat black and blue by this particular beast every week was the only thing that made her feel alive?
When he rushed her she sidestepped and kicked out, but they were too well-matched for this to be easy. He bounced back quickly, advancing on her again. The light in his eyes promised more. More of a challenge, more of the wolf... more pain.
Nora sucked in a sharp breath, trying once again to convince herself this was all about training.
She was strong, but the wolf had the added dynamic of the imminent full moon going for him and it was making a difference today. Nora felt the delicious power behind each hit he landed, as if he was closer to the beast and therefore less inclined to hold back—something she suspected he still did even though she’d ordered him repeatedly to cut that shit out.
“I’m already in your head, Nora,” he said. Was he going to try double-teaming her by adding taunting mind games between every blow? “And it’s a pretty fucked-up, dark place to be if you ask me—which is saying a lot, considering which one of us is supposed to be the monster.”
“Nobody asked you,” she snapped.
“Didn’t you?”
A veil of red slid down over her vision as she kicked and clawed, fought to make him shut his damn mouth. But her pussy throbbed insistently, the wet heat distracting.
Anger and frustration were her undoing. Her coordination finally slipped.
He seemed to draw confidence and strength by watching her fumble, his retaliation taking on a brutal bite with harder blows and quicker moves that she was barely able to block.
“How far are you going to let this go, Nora?” He slammed an elbow into her gut and she gasped. “How much blood do you have to shed? How much does it have to hurt before you get to come?”
“Fuck you,” she muttered, tongue thick inside her shredded mouth.
She took another shot to the face, the wave of pain spiking all the way to her pulsing, wet core. Oh, hell yeah.
He was right, damn him. She swallowed hard, feeling the heavy bruise that would color her cheek and eye black and blue tomorrow settling in nicely. He had her all figured out. Agent Nora Donnelly was fucked up. A sick freak who needed the pain and violence to feel . . . anything.
And she was using the wolf like her dealer, to get what she needed.
Three
Nora went for the wolf’s throat but he spun her around and shoved her forward, slamming her face-first against the wall. The bridge of her nose scraped the stone. She turned her head to the side to sneer back at him.
“Do you think I want to do this?” he said into her ear, a ferocious growl that made her want to spit in his face and purr in response, both at the same time.
With his body plastered to her back, including the thick evidence of his serious erection, now she was the one to laugh. “Yeah, I do. In fact, I think you love this.”
His fingers curled into the short strands of her hair, pulling until her neck was bared to him. “Maybe you’re right,” he admitted in a harsh whisper, ducking closer until his lips glanced across the bottom of her jaw. “And whose fault is that?”
Nora hissed, but her body stilled. No matter how much she hated him—what he’d become and what he’d done—the two of them were tied together. Always would be. Caught up in an ever-growing cycle of violence, anger, and pain, which only fed the raging fire of passion that had already been there from another lifetime. Nora had a sinking suspicion nothing would break it. This thing wasn’t going to end between them until someone died.
And despite her predilection for pain and self-loathing these days...
. . . She vowed it wasn’t going to be her.
He pressed her into the wall until she groaned, breasts smashed and aching beneath the layers of her clothing and gear. “Nora, Jesus. It doesn’t have to be this way,” he urged. “Can’t we—”
“Don’t. Fuck, don’t you dare.” Desperate to make him shut up, she shoved him, jabbing her elbow into his abdomen. This wasn’t what she wanted. No amount of pain or pleasure was worth being forced to endure his sick pretense of concern. “You think I don’t see through your pathetic attempt at—”
“So, then what?” His breath on her skin raised the fine hairs at the back of her neck. “You think you can keep coming here like this without consequence? Without it destroying the both of us?”
What did it matter? He was already a monster, and most of the time Nora wasn’t any better.
She tried shrugging him off, but he wasn’t moving, and then his tongue was on her skin, tracing a wet path down the column of her neck, from beneath her ear to just above her collarbone. Goddamn. Too gentle. Reminding her too much of the human lover who was gone forever. The man this wolf had killed just by being bitten into existence.
“Bite me,” she muttered, tilting her head toward him at a deeper angle.
“What was that?” His hands tightened around her forearms. She felt the pinch of his claws and stifled a shudder as the sensation sent little shocks of pleasure straight to her already diamond-hard nipples.
“You heard me, wolf,” she bit out. “Don’t bother trying to hide the animal you really are behind some useless attempt at fake human sympathy. Use. Your. Fucking. Teeth.”
She felt the need gripping him, the gathering tension of the beast. “You’ve had the shot,” he said. It wasn’t a question. He knew very well she’d been inoculated against the poison racing through his system. It was the only reason they had agreed to start letting her into his cell three months ago. In fact, Nora had been one of the first to receive it. She would have volunteered to be the guinea pig for the drug’s trial if it meant getting into the field earlier, but that hadn’t been necessary.
“Do it,” she demanded.
Behind her, his hips bucked, the hard ridge of his cock beneath the denim of his pants an impressive presence against her ass. “Your elaborate game goes out the window then, Nora,” he warned, his breaths coming as quickly as her own.
Oh, yeah, he was going to do it. Her pulse hammered fast and hard beneath her jaw, threatening to explode out the side of her neck.
“You think you’ve been living dangerously, Ag
ent Donnelly? You haven’t seen anything yet. Let me loose on you and there’ll be no reining in later what you can’t control. You’ll get everything you’ve been asking for . . . and a shitload that you didn’t.”
Good. As long as he made it hurt. Hurt to drown out the nothingness she lived with every day. “Are you going to shoot your mouth off, or are you going to—”
“And they’ll all know,” he continued. “Everyone on the other side of that door is going to know what we’ve done in here. What you let me—not any better than an animal—do to you. What you asked for.”
She didn’t care. Nothing could touch her. Nothing but him. “Just. Do. It.”
Despite her urgent demand, he remained motionless behind her as if he might actually be trying to pretend he had some human decency, that he was still a man and not a wolf . . . but she knew better than that. Nora had no more illusions left to her, not about him, not about herself.
She shifted slightly, but before she could turn he struck hard, his mouth hot on her skin, teeth sinking into the vulnerable flesh where her neck met her shoulder. Her mouth clamped shut as her body jerked involuntarily and a harsh gasp burst from her lips.
The burn was deep and immediate, better than she could have hoped.
“Oh, fuck. Yes.” Her desperate moan echoed in the cavern, but Nora was beyond embarrassment or denial. She planted both hands on the gritty wall, curling her fingers into the rock and pushing back into his equally hard body for a stronger connection, telling him without words that she wanted more.
Nora moaned again at the stinging drag of his teeth withdrawing from her shoulder, only to clench her jaw when he nipped the skin over the pulse pounding in her throat, and then again at her earlobe.
Not enough. She was the one growling now, struggling in an attempt to turn around and face him. When she did it was to be confronted with the one thing she hadn’t planned on.
Tenderness. Shining from those silver wolf eyes.
Bastard.
She hit him hard, satisfied when his head snapped to the side. He swung back and the look on his face had been replaced by a wicked snarl that sent a shiver of anticipation through her.
He blocked her jabbing knee with his thigh but she was already moving on, going for that lying face with her nails. She scored a dark line of red across his cheek before he grabbed her wrist and yanked her forward. He dragged her off balance so she couldn’t avoid the shot to her midsection, a more than appropriate retaliation for what she’d dealt him.
The breath whooshed out of her. She doubled over and would have fallen to her knees, but his fist buried itself in her hair again, pulling her back up until she cried out. Tears stung her eyes as she gazed into a snarling, wild-eyed face covered in blood, bruises, and streaks of dirt.
Nora knew she didn’t look any better, probably worse in fact.
Dear God. What have we become?
Four
Too much. All of it was suddenly too . . .
She slashed at his arm and kicked his shin. He let go of her hair.
A growl.
From him . . . or from her?
He might be a wolf, but Nora felt like the wild one, the one locked up in a cage of ice with only despair, anger, and hopelessness as her constant companions. For the first time in months she felt a glimmer of something brighter, and it didn’t matter if it was born of agony, if it couldn’t last. She needed to hold onto it for as long as possible.
She reached for him. Their mouths met in a furious explosion of pain and passion, but for once the passion was stronger, hotter.
They tore at each other’s clothes. Nora’s pullover was shredded in seconds and he moved on to the straps of her vest as she threw his dirty T-shirt to the ground. She felt a momentary twinge of self-preservation when the protection of her Kevlar was gone, but not enough to put a stop to the madness.
Especially when he was kissing her again, pulling her bottom lip between his sharp teeth, thrusting his tongue into her mouth when she gasped from the sweet sting.
Her bra was history, sliced apart and discarded without another thought by either of them. He cupped her breasts, pinched her nipples, and flicked them with his sharp claws until they were hard, aching points that could have cut glass.
Nora didn’t even notice that he had guided the two of them back across the width of the cell until her shoulder blades hit the wall again with a thud that knocked a grunt from them both.
She helped him strip her boots and the rest of her clothes, but once naked, Nora couldn’t be bothered waiting for him to take off his own. It was good enough that she got his belt unbuckled and his pants shoved low over his hips before digging her nails into his shoulders and climbing him like a fucking mountain.
“This is what you need,” he rasped into her mouth, wrapping his arms around her and pushing inside of her in one strong glide.
Nora groaned, lifting her hips to meet him, tightening her legs around his waist. “Yes.”
“Not the violence and the pain.”
Her head thrashed back and forth. “Yes,” she repeated, mindless to the pulsing of her pussy around the thick length stretching her, filling her. “Yes, I need it.”
“No.” He slid right out of her, his hard, wet cock throbbing between her thighs. “It’s me,” he insisted. “I’m what you need.”
Her eyes flew open. He watched her, an expression of lust mingled with triumph. She shook her head.
“Yes.” He marked his insistence with a savage thrust, making sure she felt the reality of every long, wide inch of his cock sliding into her again. And then again. “It’s always going to be me for you.” His voice had devolved to a guttural growl, thick with feeling. Nora tried to block it out, but her desperate body wouldn’t let her. “It doesn’t matter who we were, or what we’ve become. It always comes down to the two of us together in the dark.”
With the slippery glide of his shaft and every word that speared her soul, Nora wound higher and tighter. Denial and rejection sat on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t speak them. Pulling his head down, she kissed him.
“Nora, see the real me,” he murmured against her lips. “I’m the one fucking you, and I’ll always be the one to make you come alive.”
“Shut up,” she moaned. “Please shut up.”
“And do what?” He reached between them, twisting her nipple between his thumb and finger until she cried out and nipped at his chin.
“Do it, wolf,” she whispered, arching to fill his hand with her breast, moving her hips to urge him faster. “Finish this.” Part of her admitted she might be asking for something other than the oblivion of orgasm, but it was a small, weak part she would continue to smother for as long as she could.
Her spine scraped rock and her cuts and bruises burned as he fucked her, but she barely felt any of it anymore. As much as she hated to admit it, he was right that this wasn’t about the pain. The only thing she felt now was him.
“Say my name.” A harsh demand at her ear.
Surprised, she closed her eyes. “No.”
“Say it. Give me that much after all that’s happened.”
She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to give him anything else when he’d already taken so much from her.
Insistent, he ground into her again and again until she was panting, her thigh muscles strained and her pussy coiled so tight she shouted for more, begged him for release. Looking up into his fiery expression, it wasn’t the first time their gazes had clashed—wolf and woman—but it was the first time Nora let herself acknowledge the spark of humanity that lingered in the depths of his silver eyes.
Lifting a hand to his face, she hesitated before touching him. It would be the first time she’d willingly done so without the intention of hurting or using him.
“My name,” he repeated.
The orgasm continued to build, spreading heat from her wet core through her whole body. Her fingers traced his brow and down his angular cheekbone to lips drawn back in a harsh
groan. Was it pleasure he felt now, or had Nora’s continued, violent rejection of what he was caused him as much pain as her fists and her boot?
Remaining silent, reveling in each of the wolf’s quickening thrusts, she saw in his face the moment when he couldn’t hold out any longer and she had won their stubborn stand-off, but Nora realized maybe she wasn’t as cold inside as she’d thought. The word he waited to hear shot out of her with a fervent, honest cry.
“Marcus!”
His name. The name of her enemy, and of the man who had been her only love. Her husband, before being bitten by the wolf who had taken him over and ripped out her heart.
His hips jerked as he dropped his head into the cradle of her shoulder, biting down hard as he came inside her and set off her own orgasm. It crested again and again with pulsing colors and shattering lights to match the intensity of her explosion.
When she finally came down, Nora opened her eyes to find him staring at her, and reality rushed back in a potent wave of shame and disgust. Whether it was the moon itself or the ferocity of their fucking, his monthly transformation had begun. She could see it in the glow of his eyes, the curl of his lip. He was already bigger, hairier. The wolf was coming on strong. Fast.
“Let me go.” She shoved him until he withdrew and let her legs fall from his waist. She cursed herself for being such a fool as she hurried to dress in what was left of her clothes, pulling on her pants and her boots, scrabbling for her vest and the long-forgotten stun gun that had been thrown into the shadows a few feet away. She drew it and trained the sight on his forehead. God, the tears were so close. She couldn’t let him see . . .
She made a break for the exit without looking back, punching in her code with quick, hard jabs of the keys.
“Nora, wait.” His voice was rougher, making it even clearer that she had committed a colossal, epic mistake. “Don’t leave!”