She recoiled from the very idea, but she couldn’t divide her time between two males, even if both of them were willing.
And one of them hadn’t tried to kill her.
“Your heartbeat is thudding a million miles a minute, cara. You’re making my wolf angrier. He wants you to be calm and feel safe. I’m already having a hard enough time keeping him caged. So can you do that for me? Can you try to be calm?”
She took a long, shaky breath and nodded. At least he felt it too, the bond between them. He’d accepted it.
That calmed and soothed her.
He rewarded her with a smile. “That’s better for all of us, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He led her in through a set of double doors and the bellhop seemed to recognize him.
Antony spoke to him in Spanish and soon, they were shooting up to the top floor, the penthouse suite.
“To the bath with you, woman.” He grinned as he issued the order.
Not that she was going to argue.
As soon as she oriented herself, she figured out which way the bath was and found it wasn’t just a bath—it was a full on wet room. A shower that had fifty showerheads, and a waterfall. A fireplace by a Roman bath, and the bath itself could double as a small swimming pool.
She was more than happy to peel off her grimy tattered clothes and rinse off in the shower before running herself a bath. She didn’t want to sit and soak in her own filth, after all.
When she emerged from the quick shower, she saw that while she’d been washing her hair, that someone had slipped a bottle of chilled champagne, chocolate truffles, and candles around the tub.
Marchessa slipped into the hot water with a glee-filled sigh. “So nice.”
“Eat a truffle,” Antony’s voice in the doorway startled her.
“I really couldn’t.”
“Sugar after trauma will help keep you from going into shock. You may not realize it, but you’ve been through something serious. They’re bringing up some raw steaks as well. You will eat every bite, my dear.”
Her first instinct was to rebel, but she realized that this was what she wanted. She wanted to be taken care of. Valued. This was how he did it. She wouldn’t shove that back in his face with defiance. It wasn’t as if his commands were unreasonable in any event.
“If I must.” She sighed and popped one in her mouth.
“Yes, Marchessa. It’s a hard life,” he said in a conspiratorial tone.
She saw from the corner of her eye that he stripped off his clothes and headed to the shower.
Sweet Christ.
She shoved two more truffles in her mouth and gulped the champagne.
He was just as magnificent as she thought he’d be.
He was like some kind of Greek statue, an homage to a god.
No, he was the god.
His lines just seemed to draw her gaze. She couldn’t stop looking at him. Especially his taut, perfectly formed ass. She’d be fantasizing later about what it would be like to get her hands on it.
Shit. She’d just been through hell. He’d knocked her out for half of it so she wouldn’t hurt, and here she was trying to get the one thing he said he couldn’t give her. After all of this.
She was officially an ass.
Ass… she found herself entranced once more.
“If you stare at me any harder, Marchessa, I’m going to burst into flame. Your eyes are like a magnifying glass in the sun.”
He finished rinsing off and came to stand before her in all of his Alpha glory.
“I’m not magnifying anything.” Her breath caught in her throat as her gaze came to rest on the length of his cock. Even flaccid, he was huge.
“Am I acceptable?” He cocked his head to the side. “Well-made enough for you?”
“You’re beautiful.” He was so golden, tan… his whole body, exactly as she imagined it would be.
“Then may I join you?”
“Yes.” She definitely wasn’t going to be able to keep her hands to herself. Nor should she have to.
“Eat another truffle.”
She obediently popped one in her mouth, letting the bitter dark chocolate melt on her tongue as it gave way to the warm, sweet milky insides. There was a touch of salt to the flavor, a bit of maple.
Bacon chocolate truffles.
Her favorite.
She hadn’t even tasted the others as she’d scarfed them down. Marchessa was suddenly very aware of the heavy weight of the aquamarine necklace that still hung around her throat and nestled between her breasts.
He sank down into the hot water next to her, spread his arms out on the edges of the bricked tiles behind him and leaned back.
“I delivered on my promise, didn’t I?”
“You most certainly did.” She offered him the bottle of champagne. “Do you want some?”
“Maybe a sip.”
She glided over to him, bottle in hand and held it up to his lips. He took the drink, his mouth working the opening of that bottle in such a way as she’d like to know what it was like to have his mouth on her.
Marchessa took another gulp.
“Easy, sweetheart. I don’t want you drunk. We need to finish your healing.”
“I’m healed.” But she was still achy and uncomfortable. Unsettled.
“I think you know better than that.” He eyed her knowingly.
“I don’t want to be a bother.”
He snorted. “You’ve already bothered me to the point of perdition. No reason to stop now.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you make me break all my rules. Even when I know they’re there for a reason.”
She bit her lip. “Sometimes, there are rules that are made just to be broken.”
“Not these.”
“Don’t you know that making rules and resolutions is a dare to the universe to make you do otherwise?”
He arched a brow. “Come here.”
“What?”
“Come. Here.” He reiterated. “Skin to skin is what felt good, right? It’s what made you heal so quickly. So come, let me touch you.”
“We’re naked.”
“That’s generally how this works.”
She crept over to him slowly, putting the champagne bottle back down at the edge of the tub.
The water glistened on the fine pelt of his chest. She wanted to touch it, so she did.
His hands slid down her spine, slippery and warm in the rose-scented bubbles. She giggled. “We’re going to smell like roses.”
“Better than shit and jet fuel.”
“So, we just… touch? Hold hands? What are we doing?”
“I’m reassuring you that you’re safe. That everything is alright and that I will protect you.”
“All of that in a single caress?”
“Yes.” He pulled her closer. “I know you felt it while we were running. I sensed the pull.”
“Why do you know everything?”
He laughed. “I don’t. There are a lot of things I don’t know. Like if you’ll stay with me after you know all of my secrets.”
“I don’t want to know all of your secrets. Some things are secret because they need to be. Some things are just yours and some things are just mine.”
“Too bad it doesn’t work that way.”
“For wolves in general or for us?”
“Both.” He tucked her against his chest.
Marchessa could admit, she’d never felt safer or more content than where she was at that exact moment. Her wolf purred. It was a damn canine, not a feline. It shouldn’t be purring. But it was.
Stupid beast.
“There now. Take all the energy you want from me. I can spare it.”
“How is it that you can do all of these things that none of our other people can do?”
“It comes with age. There are some that have other strange gifts. No doubt you’ll find yours soon.”
He
kept stroking lazy circles down her spine, every touch was pure heaven.
“I have to ask why Cassius wasn’t on the plane,” she blurted.
“Of course you do. You’re a smart wolf.”
She waited for him to elaborate, but when he didn’t, she continued, “You said that you wanted me to calm. That your wolf needed that from me. I can’t let go until I get an answer.”
“Trust me when I say that it was not Cassius.”
“How do you know?” Even if they had some kind of blood brother pact, people had all kinds of reasons for betrayal. People and wolves.
“Why do you suspect him?”
“Why don’t you?” She pulled back so she could look at his face. “I can’t see the pilot doing it. He’d have to die to accomplish his end. I’m not saying that wolves and people don’t do that. They do. But if he was, there are other ways that would’ve assured our deaths as well. Who else had access?”
“Cassius is closer to me than my own brother. I swear on my life and yours, it wasn’t Cassius.”
“Where is he?” She just wanted proof.
“Are you so eager to be with him, then?”
“No. I just want an explanation.”
“I gave you the only one I can give you. I swear, I’ll tell you everything on Roluscany. Cassius will too.”
“You’re asking me to trust you an awful lot on nothing.”
“Is this right here between us nothing? Is offering you your freedom nothing?” He scowled.
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just…” she exhaled heavily. He’d given her a lot, she knew that. But this one thing.
“And I’m trusting you on nothing. I’m taking you to the seat of my power. To Roluscany where no wolves from other packs are welcome. Not even the Remus. To come to Roluscany is to be Rommulus. But if you wish to leave, I would permit it.”
“I guess I feel like I don’t have any of the power in this dynamic.”
“You have all of the power in this dynamic.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
“I could say the same for myself, Marchessa. You make me crazy.”
“Will you kiss me? Please? It doesn’t have to be—”
He touched her cheek. “You shouldn’t have to ask for that reassurance. I’m breaking all my protocols. But I know you need this right now. Will you allow me?”
“To kiss me?”
“To heal you.”
She didn’t know exactly what he meant, but she’d allow him whatever he wanted with her body.
He tilted her head to the side and kissed her oh-so gently. The sparks that coursed through her were different than they’d been before. This time, it was soothing, soft, and calm. It was almost as if she could feel the healing energy flowing through her and making her whole.
Her body aches didn’t twinge as hard, her pain was almost non-existent. The more he kissed her, the better she felt.
“There is no more powerful energy than this.”
Only the soothing sensation became something else. Something that burned hot inside of her. She’d only just been with Cassius the night before. She wondered if there was something wrong with her that she wanted sex this much.
Or maybe it was just the strange taboo of the whole situation. She’d spent so much time chasing rebellion that she didn’t know any other way.
“Your body knows what it needs,” he whispered in her ear.
Antony lifted her easily onto the edge of the tub and braced her feet on his shoulders.
“And I’m going to give it to you.”
He splayed her wide and she felt so decadent, but so exposed. So bare. She’d never felt like that before.
Both he and Cassius made her feel such different things, all of them new, most of them good. If she could just have them in the same wolf, her life would be perfect. But life didn’t work like that.
God, she could feel her heartbeat in parts of her body that had no business thudding—throbbing. She always thought that words like that were for trite novels and dirty magazines—both of which she enjoyed. Marchessa just never thought she’d use the world in relation so herself or something that was actually happening to her.
He leaned in close to her, his warm breath ghosted across her flesh.
Sweet hell, she was going to die.
Then, he touched his mouth to her and not only did she die, but she was reborn.
She moaned softly.
He kissed her there, as if it were her mouth. Kissed her so gently, just enough to make that ache, that throb burn. She spread her legs wider, and wanted to grab him, angle his head just as she wished, but she had to hold on for balance. His way of effectively tying her hands, but she couldn’t say that she didn’t like it.
He licked the seam of her, his tongue slipping inside and sliding up to where it flicked at her engorged clit.
“Please,” she begged.
“How hard do you want to come?” His breath was still a ghost-like whisper across the quivering cleft.
“So hard.”
“Then you won’t be getting this fast.” He delved back into his work, his fingers worked up inside of her while he licked and laved at her as if they had all the time in the universe. As if he’d been doing this since the beginning of time and at the end, when all the stars were gone, he’d still be on his knees bringing her pleasure.
The concept thrilled her.
She arched forward, pressing herself as close as she could to him. Marchessa liked seeing him between her legs, and liked feeling him even more. He poured his energy into her and she greedily absorbed it all.
His fingers moved faster, pushing deeper and his tongue kept the same staccato rhythm.
Marchessa was already so close, but he knew she was on the verge and he wouldn’t allow it. He pulled his mouth away and kissed her inner thigh instead while his fingers did their work.
She gave a cry of frustration, but she liked it. She wasn’t ready to come yet, wasn’t ready for this to be over. When it was over, he’d act like it never happened and this was too wonderful a thing to be shoved back into the old trunks of memories she wasn’t supposed to keep.
Antony pulled his fingers out of her and teased her clit with his thumb so gently as to keep her hot, but not enough to bring her off.
“You’re a bastard,” she hissed, working herself forward, desperately seeking the culmination she wanted to drag out.
“And you love it.”
She did. Marchessa rewarded him with a groan.
“I love how hot and wet you are. So ready. You always smell like you want this.”
“I always do,” she managed.
“Such is the pleasure of being mated to an Alpha female coming into her prime.” His fingers entered her again, plunging in and out, fucking her good and proper as his mouth descended once again on her clit.
Her orgasm hit her hard and fast, washing over her like a hurricane. She shuddered against his fingers and lips, bliss spiraling out in concentric circles through her flesh.
Antony tsked. “A naughty wolf, you are. No one was ready for you to come.”
“Least of all me,” she gasped as the world stopped spinning.
He pulled her back down into the water and she buried her face in his neck, but something was wrong.
His body was so taut, strung tight like a bow.
Marchessa looked up at him and his wolf again hovered just under the surface. His face changed, and molded, and reformed back between wolf and man. His control slipped.
“You should run,” he growled, his voice several octaves deeper than it had been before. He sounded like every old school werewolf movie she’d ever seen.
“As if I would. Give me whatever else you have, grey-tail,” she challenged him.
“What I have is a mouth full of poison.” He turned to her as his face elongated into a maw and he wasn’t a beautiful, primal wolf. He was something dark, something terrible.
But she wouldn’t turn her face awa
y.
His wolf had become what he thought of it. Something dark, something poisonous.
“No.”
“Goddamn you,” he snarled and leapt from the water.
He bounded toward the open window, his body changing into some bipedal beast as he roared out into the night.
The thing that burned the brightest in her mind wasn’t what he’d changed into. She’d known of several cases where a wolf’s psyche had damaged his form, changed it into a terrible monster rather the sleek, noble animals that they were.
It was his erection.
Before he changed, he’d been hard.
For her.
He wasn’t impotent. Thinking he’d murdered someone with his lust hadn’t made him that way.
She understood everything now.
He thought his bite was poison and they couldn’t resist that primal urge, it was hard-wired into their DNA to bite as they mated. So he was going to marry her with no mating.
To keep her safe.
Well damn safe all to hell.
Life was too short and ugly to bother with safe.
She lifted her nose and scented the air, and realizing he’d gone east, she leapt out of the window after him.
Damn, but he could run fast.
He covered so much ground, she was sure he’d make it to Roluscany before she caught up with him.
But it felt good to run. Good to feel the night wind in her fur, and against her face. Good to be out in the night, run as if it belonged to her and she to the night. Good to be free.
She’d never go back to a caged life after this.
In these few short days, she’d realized what it was to really be free.
Marchessa had shed so many of the chains that held her down.
She wanted that for Antony, too. He deserved to be free. Deserved to know that what happened to Carolina hadn’t been his fault.
And even if it had been, it was survival of the fittest among their kind and as cruel as it was to say it, she must not have been fit.
That wouldn’t ease his heart any, but maybe the wolf would see the logic and begin healing himself. Then maybe he wouldn’t feel so twisted.
The beast had run so far away from people. How could he doubt himself? If he’d been the monster he thought he was, he’d have headed for the town. For people.
For meat.
But he hadn’t.
Princess of the Pack Page 6