by Elsa Jade
But he’d somehow become a mind reader. “Don’t touch me, Joy. Not yet.”
“I…okay. When?” When he didn’t respond, she released a deep sigh and rubbed at her face. “Gabriel, I need you to talk to me.”
His throat clicked as he swallowed. “With human females. We’re each of us connected to a human female. Just one. She’s known as a True Mate. One half of a pair of True Mates.”
Blinking, Joy covered her mouth and backed several steps into the bedroom. So many racing thoughts, but the two most important… “‘We’ means you, doesn’t it?”
Gabriel slowly lifted his head and opened his eyes. She gasped at the unnatural light rimming his dilated pupils. There was no way she could dismiss the yellow glow as imagination.
She backed up sat down hard on the edge of his bed. Gabriel’s features seemed to sharpen and a low growl rumbled in his chest right before he jerkily turned and paced into the hall.
“I need you to talk,” she said after a minute. “Maybe use short, simple words. I’m having a little trouble here.”
“Do you believe me?” he asked the wall on the other side of the corridor.
Tucking her hands beneath her thighs, she stared at her knees while considering his question. Did she believe him?
“Werewolf” wasn’t a word people just tossed around like popcorn. There was a weight to it. Consequences that began with ridicule and ended with padded rooms…or worse. Darkness and fire. Silver bullets and blood.
As she cycled through her store of pop-culture imagery, a heavy weight settled on her chest. She didn’t want to believe him. Losing Gabriel to any of those things would destroy her.
But did she believe him?
Lifting her gaze, she caught him watching her. The otherworldly glow in his eyes ensnared her.
She’d lived through eighteen years of Michigan winters, had known the relief and rightness of feeling the warmth of the sun on her face at the end of all those long, dark months, and she felt that rightness again now as she memorized the striations in his irises.
Slowly, because this felt like stepping out onto a bridge she wouldn’t be able to un-cross, she nodded. “Yes. I believe you.”
“Just like that? Without any proof?” His voice held a wary note, one she recognized as a mirror to her own insecurities where he was concerned.
Needing to reassure him, she nodded. “It explains…a lot. You being a werewolf, I mean. Mostly it explains the way I feel about you, which, really, is pretty ridiculous if you think about it outside the framework of this True Mates thing. You’ve rejected me, pulled me close, pushed me away, pulled me back again—if I had even an ounce of self-respect I would have walked away or moved on ages ago. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t tried. Sex—”
“Don’t talk to me about being with other men, Joy. I can’t handle it and still hold on to enough control to give you a choice.”
“But that’s what I mean. I haven’t—wait. Give me a choice in what?”
“In becoming like me.”
Longing arced through her. “I can do that? And be with you?”
“Yes. I can turn you into a werewolf. But, Joy, it’s not a condition. You have to understand that.”
“Not a condition, meaning what? You’ll make love to me as I am? Squishy human and all?”
He half-turned and looked at her with hollow eyes. “I’ll find a way to control myself if you don’t want to turn, but I can’t stay away from you anymore.”
Gazing at him, all the power and ferocity vibrating in his muscles—the wildness—she swallowed and shook her head. “If controlling yourself means changing who you are, I don’t want you to do that. I don’t want that at all. Do it. Turn me.”
Gabriel’s eyes flared. “Don’t decide now. You have time to think about this. Time to ask more questions.”
“But not much time, right? I mean, it’s been six years. Six years since you told Forrest and Zev that I’m yours. That’s what you said, isn’t it? Not ‘she’ll be fine’ but ‘she’ll be mine’. Something like that.”
At his questioning look, she smiled and shook her head. “Don’t worry if you forgot. I didn’t, and that’s enough.”
“I’m sorry.” He lifted his shoulders uncomfortably.
“Really, it’s okay. You might be a werewolf but you’re still a guy,” she teased.
Gabriel huffed a laugh. Sensing his strain, she shoved her giddy, inappropriate humor aside and bent to unzip one of her boots. As the tab slid down to her ankle, her fingers started to shake.
Gabriel took another step. He was almost across the threshold. “Joy, you don’t have to do anything now.”
As she peeled the soft leather from her foot and placed her boot off to the side, she looked up at him. “Another day or week or decade isn’t going to change how much I want you. I know you think I’m some innocent…something—and, yeah, maybe I haven’t ever been with a man before—but innocent and confused aren’t the same things. I’m not confused. I’m not blindly infatuated. I’m not missing out on some kind of a normal life or opportunity. I’ve only ever wanted is the opportunity to be with you.
“So please, for the love of God, come here. Kiss me. Make love to me. Say a spell or bite me or—whatever. Whatever you have to do, turn me, so if you ever think about pushing me away or running from me, I’ll be fast enough to chase you and bring you back.”
His lips quirked. “You’re not a girl anymore, are you?”
Joy grinned and removed her other boot. “I don’t know why you seem so surprised by that. You’ve seen these curves. They’re not the kind you usually find on a girl.”
“I haven’t seen anything, beautiful.” He pulled the door shut decisively and leaned his shoulder against the wall beside it. “Stand up and show me how much of a girl you aren’t.”
Chapter Four
‡
Baring her feet was one thing, but what Gabriel wanted now…
Wings of apprehension fluttered in her less-than-flat belly, belying the eager heat pulsing in her core. Wringing her hands nervously, she hid behind a wall of wry humor. “I’m not sure I need to do anything. If you stare at me any harder, you’re going to incinerate my clothes on your own.”
“I’m not looking at your clothes, Joy.” And he wasn’t. The full intensity of his gaze was trained above her neck, flicking between her eyes and lips, which she couldn’t seem to stop chewing.
“I…” Flushing, she swallowed her mortifying confession of body-consciousness. “I guess if I’m brave enough to ask you into my bed, I can be brave enough to take off my jacket.”
“That’s my bed. And I want to see a lot more than your bare arms tonight.” Straightening, he prowled toward her like a…well, like a wolf. “Do you need help? I’ve been fantasizing about eating that bra so you won’t be able to hide your nipples from me again.”
“What? No! This was expensive. It does amazing things for my waistline.” She folded her arms across her chest protectively.
“Your waist doesn’t need any help.” Taking her hands, he peeled her arms away from her body and gently pushed them out to her sides. With her arms outspread, he released her wrists and grasped the sides of her jacket. “Are you going to try to hide from me again?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “As it turns out, this is a little hard from me.”
“Wait, and I’ll show you how hard it is for me.”
There was no way to mistake his meaning and her ears burned as her imagination snapped to attention.
Gabriel flashed a wicked smile right before he shoved her jacket off her shoulders, forcing her elbows against her sides.
His smile fell away as he gazed down at her breasts, which he’d positioned up and out when he’d pinned her arms. Whatever he saw in her brought the feral light back to his eyes. Joy hardly dared to breathe even though her lungs felt ready to burst.
“Waiting for you has been the worst kind of torture.” He spread his fingers over the skin bared by he
r low-cut shirt. “Like dying of thirst while standing knee-deep in the ocean. I’ve imagined the way you taste. Wondered whether you’re salty or sweet. Now I know that your kiss is sweet, I’m going to find out about the rest of you.”
Mouth dry, Joy trembled as he stroked the warm, sensitive line of her cleavage. His words were raw and seductive at once, explicit without being lewd, and she knew exactly—exactly—where he would take her before he finished.
“I don’t know if I’m prepared for this,” she whispered.
“I don’t want you prepared, Joy. I want to shock you with everything new.” With no warning, he hooked both hands inside the neck of her shirt and ripped the thin cotton right down the middle.
Her eyes flew wide at the quick, violent show of his strength. Somehow it had never occurred to her that Gabriel was a man who possessed so much capacity for destruction. He was so easy with her, so reserved; but tonight, as he tore through the dainty lace that held the cups of her bra together, he was so not the man she thought she knew.
“I’m undone.” His words were rough and thick as he pushed away the ruined layers of cotton and lace, exposing her to his heated gaze. Without the support of the bra, her breasts were—
“So fucking lush.” Gabriel gathered her in his large hands and lifted, pressing the globes together while lowering his mouth to find one of her pebbled nipples.
At the first wet caress of his tongue, her head fell back. She was searching desperately for words to express how good it felt, his lips on her skin, but when he rolled the sensitive peak into his mouth and sucked, the only thing she managed to articulate was a high, helpless mewl of pleasure.
“Yes,” he praised, shifting his focus to her other breast. “Yeah, beautiful. Keep telling me what you like. Just like that.”
As he lavished attention on her breasts, licking and suckling and abrading her sensitive skin with the rough growth of his beard, sensation deafened her. She had no idea how—or if—she expressed anything at all, but Gabriel seemed to know without her help. It felt like forever that he tortured her with his mouth, never lingering too long on any one spot.
Twisting her hands restlessly, aching for something, she finally found her voice and gasped, “Suck them. Please, just suck. I can feel it—oh, God.”
She could feel the deep, hard suction down between her legs. When he held her nipple in his mouth and focused, it felt as if he forged a direct connection with her core. If she’d been free to do it, she would have grabbed his head and held him there, forcing him to take from her forever.
But Gabriel wanted more; seemed to know more about her body than she knew herself. His mouth gentled and released her throbbing flesh. As his palms cruised down her ribs, his lips traveled up to her neck.
“So sweet,” he whispered, teasing her ear with the tip of his tongue. “You’re so fucking sweet, you make me ache. But there’s more than this, Joy. More of you for me to taste.”
As he spoke, he searched out the snap of her jeans and lowered the zipper. He didn’t bother with trying to peel the close-fitting denim over her hips. No, he dove straight in, pushing his hands right into her panties.
With a rough curse, he sank his teeth into her shoulder.
Joy locked up, tensed for the agony of a werewolf’s bite.
When, after several seconds, all she felt was a deep, aching pressure and the heat of his harsh breath, she started to soften. If his shuddering body was any clue, the only one of them in pain was him.
“Gabriel.” Turning her head, she rubbed her cheek against his raspy jaw. “Help me finish getting undressed and let go of my arms. They hurt without you in them.”
He opened his mouth and released her shoulder but didn’t lift his head. “I need a minute.”
A soft laugh bubbled up through the tension. “I can feel you,” she murmured, rocking her hips a little, loving the hard press of his erection. “I’m not sure if you really have a minute.”
One last shudder, then he tightened his grip on her bottom and pulled her hard against his bulging jeans. “Don’t underestimate my self-control. I still have enough left to make you beg.”
But he released her a moment later and turned her to face the bed. Within seconds, he’d freed her arms. Pushing her hair over one shoulder, he nipped at the base of her neck.
“I’m taking it all off now, Joy. Are you ready for that?”
“Y-yes…” Eep! No. Definitely no.
With a deep breath, she slapped a strip of mental duct tape over the voice of self-consciousness. She was an idiot if she couldn’t tell how much Gabriel wanted her, cushy hips and all.
Proving his desire, he dug his fingers into her hips with enough force to bruise, then jerked his hands back with a curse.
“I kind of like that you can barely contain yourself,” she confessed, taking over where he’d left off. With her thumbs hooked in her pants, she shimmied and peeled until both jeans and panties were at her knees. She had to bend over to get her clothes the rest of the way off.
As she stepped free of the material, Gabriel clasped her hips again. “Put your elbows on the bed, Joy. Don’t stand up.”
Her pulse leapt. Doing her best to ignore the feeling of exposure, she leaned forward until the bed supported her upper body. Gabriel’s musky scent enveloped her at once, strong and drugging. Hungry for the smell of him, she finally gave in to her earlier desire and rubbed her face in his blankets.
“Do that,” he said roughly. “Mark your territory.”
Under any other circumstances, his command would have seemed ludicrous. Now, it only filled her with a sense of primitive rightness. She wanted to mark more than his bed. She wanted to mark him.
Behind her, he went down to his knees. “Ah, Joy. Look at this pussy.”
She gasped in startled pleasure as he thumbed apart her folds and licked her from behind. Heat spread through her so fast, every nerve ending in her body tingled. Clutching the comforter, she stretched up onto her toes and angled her hips, instinctively trying to draw him deeper into her wet, needy body.
“Yeah, like that. Put your knee up on the bed. Let me see how pink and wet you are.” He manipulated her leg as he spoke, urging her knee wide and high onto the mattress.
Her face felt as though it would burst into flames as cool air chilled the wetness slicking her inner thighs. Gabriel stroked her petals gently, exploring every nook and crease while she shook in his hands.
“So you’re sweet here, too,” he said, circling her nub with one broad fingertip.
Joy wasn’t sure whether he meant the way she tasted or the way she tensed with anxious anticipation, and she didn’t much care as long as he kept touching.
But he didn’t. With no warning, he took his touch away. Joy groaned and lifted her head, craning her neck to look back at him. Her protest died on her lips as she took in the rapid rise and fall of his chest and his flexing, releasing biceps, which jumped with each clench of his fists.
The shadows in the room did nothing to disguise the hunger carved on his face.
“Gabriel,” she whispered, unable to look away from the gleam of his bared teeth.
“I think you were right.” His voice sounded more and more like a growl with each harsh word. “I don’t have a minute.”
Fear shimmered through her. Drawing upon some deeply instinctual knowledge, she carefully eased around until she was kneeling on his bed, facing him and watching his eyes but not forcing eye contact. “Will it hurt when you turn me? I guess you do it by biting?”
“It will hurt but you won’t care. Not if I do it right.”
“Then let’s do it right, and right now. Tell me…show me what…” She trailed off as he moved, reaching up to fist the back of his shirt and drag it over his head.
In all the years she’d known Gabriel, she’d only ever seen him fully clothed. As he bared his chest, her mental processes stalled. Dark hair dusted the skin between his nipples and arrowed directly down his stomach, highlighting the ridges of m
uscle etched across his chest and abdomen.
Her belly hollowed, contracting around a core-deep desire to follow that dark trail with her tongue. The thin line of hair vanished behind his jeans, pointing right at the huge, hard proof of his need.
He flicked open the snap of his jeans and her mouth went desert-dry. Pressing her thighs together around a sudden, unexpected flood, she watched with hunger and uncertainty as he freed his cock.
Because her first question—will that even fit?—was stupid even to her, she squeaked out her second question. “Where do you get condoms big enough?”
Gabriel froze, utterly silent.
“I’m not on birth control,” she whispered, looking up into his burning eyes. “I haven’t…there was just no need for it. I’m sorry.”
“Pregnancy isn’t something my kind tries to prevent,” Gabriel said after a painfully long silence. “There aren’t enough of us left that we can afford to artificially limit our numbers. And we’re not susceptible disease.”
“Okay…well. Okay.” She blinked rapidly, trying to rearrange all the socially correct ideas she’d been handed ever since she’d learned babies didn’t just drop out of the sky.
“This doesn’t have to happen tonight.” Gabriel spun away from her and adjusted his jeans.
Joy stared at his back, flinching at the sound of his zipper hissing into place. “Are you telling me to leave?”
“We’re in the last week of the Mating Season. It’s a short window that’s only open once each year, but it isn’t over yet. You could go, and we’ll talk—”
“No. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to wait another day for you, let alone give you the chance to cool down and be noble and put us off another year. I want you now. And if you don’t come here and bite me, I’m going to get up and bite you.”
He lowered his arms and faced her. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” Years of being pushed away, of Gabriel holding the power in their non-relationship, suddenly stacked up on her shoulders. Frustration stung her eyes. “Of course I don’t have the power to make anything happen here. I don’t know why I ever thought I did.”