Dark Wolf Running (Bloodrunners)

by Rhyannon Byrd

  “That should do it,” she murmured a few minutes later, carefully covering the raw wounds with ointment and then adding a little to the cut on his cheek. None of the wounds were still bleeding, thanks to his rapid healing abilities, so she didn’t bother covering them with bandages, knowing the fresh air would do them good. But they were probably going to scar.

  When she said as much to Wyatt, he lifted one of his dark brows, no doubt thinking she was being ridiculous, seeing as how his muscular torso was littered with battle scars. “If they do, then they’ll be in good company,” he offered with a smirk.

  “At least scars look good on a man,” she murmured. “Not so much on a woman.”

  She watched the muscles in his gorgeous face tighten, his dark brows pulling together as he mulled over her words. “El, you—”

  “I should get to bed,” she blurted, interrupting him. If she didn’t put some space between them now, she wouldn’t be able to keep her hands off him...and it would only end in disaster. Nothing had changed since the last time he’d touched her. Not a single goddamn thing.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” Reaching out, Wyatt brought her face back toward him with a grasp on her chin. “Are you scarred from the rape? From what they did to you?”

  She swallowed thickly and somehow managed a jerky nod, her face feeling as if it were on fire.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said in a gentle voice that was brimming with emotion. “They might have scarred you, sweetheart, but they sure as hell didn’t break you. I think you’re the—”

  “Wyatt, just stop.” The sharp laugh that came from her lips was brittle. “God, this is a such a bad id—”

  He cut her off again. “There’s no way you can doubt how much I want you,” he argued, the gentle tone suddenly replaced by one that was rough and clipped as he moved back to his feet. “I hate the pain that caused them, but I don’t give a shit about your scars, Elise. They’re a part of you and I think you’re fucking perfect.” He drew in a ragged breath, pulling his hand down his face, then dropped it to his side. The stare he locked her in was deep and measuring, as if he were trying to see beneath her skin, burrowing his way into her secrets. Quietly, he asked, “But that’s not what this is really about, is it? This isn’t just about your scars. What else aren’t you telling me?”

  “Drop it, Wyatt.”

  “No.” She watched the muscle that started to pulse in his jaw, mesmerized by its rhythm. “I’m sorry, but that’s not an option, baby. I’m not backing down. Push me. Scream at me. Cut me down if you have to. But I’m not walking away this time.”

  Frustration sharpened her words, her voice caustic with fear. “I’m not one of those women who feels the need to pour all my bullshit out for everyone to listen to. Not even to my friends.”

  “That’s bullshit.” He vibrated with a raw, sexual frequency that pulled on her and was so damn hard to resist. “We’re a hell of a lot more than friends, El.”

  She took a quick breath, reeling. “I...I don’t let my lovers get this involved in my life, either.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You don’t have lovers,” he corrected her, the guttural words reeking of possession. “You have me.”

  “For what? An affair? You said you wanted to sleep with me. That you wanted us to fuck, Wyatt. That’s it!”

  The scowl that hardened his face would have made a weaker woman cower in fear. “Yeah, well, I’ve been known to say a lot of shit. You should ignore most of it.”

  “I think you’re just prevaricating.”

  “Damn it, El. Don’t you get it? It’s not that I don’t want to give you more. It’s the goddamn irrefutable fact that you deserve more. You deserve a man who can give you everything.”

  “And that man isn’t you?” she asked through trembling lips, feeling as if something were breaking apart inside her that couldn’t ever be put back together.

  He shook his head, his mouth a hard, flat line. “No, baby, it isn’t. No matter how badly I wish that it was.”

  Her breath hitched, tears burning at the backs of her eyes. “Then what are you willing to offer me?”

  “My body,” he rasped, his deep voice stripped down to raw, blistering emotion. “Whatever you want from it. It’s not enough, but it’s yours.”

  Elise stared deep inside him, using every ounce of female intuition she possessed, and realized with a jolt that she wasn’t the only one hiding things beneath the skin. Not just secrets, but an actual history that left you broken and raw. God, they were more alike than she’d realized. Not that she thought he’d suffered from the same kind of violation that she had. But there was something there. Something that had made him bleed emotion and left an internal scar. It shadowed the way he saw himself, just like her past shadowed her. Affected what he thought he could have. What he thought he deserved. She wanted to ask him what it was, but knew without any doubt that he wouldn’t tell her, just like she wouldn’t open her veins and spill her blood secrets to him.

  “Wyatt,” she whispered, just as her tear-drenched eyes went hot with longing. He groaned in response, pulling her close, the determined look in his own eyes stealing her breath. He ripped her shirt off over her head, tossing it to the floor while those dark, beautiful eyes stayed locked with her wide ones. Then he yanked her close again, crushing her against his chest, and his lips touched hers. Possessed them. He claimed her mouth with a kiss that was raw and hungry and flavored with lust, his body communicating its need through the feverish heat of his skin, making her burn. She loved it. Couldn’t get enough of it. The lifesaving heat was staving off the cold that tried so hard to freeze her down as he unhooked the front clasp on her bra, his big, callused hands shaking as he pushed aside the cups.

  “Christ, you are so beautiful,” he groaned, lowering his head. His breath was warm and damp as he nuzzled his face between her quivering breasts, then licked her, the seductive rasp of his tongue painting sensation across her scarred skin as he lapped his way to her nipple. He wasn’t necessarily gentle as he took the tight tip between his lips and sucked, working it against the roof of his mouth, but she didn’t want him to be. This, the way he was touching her, tasting her, was too perfect to want it to be anything other than the way that it was.

  “You like that?” he asked, his soft lips moving against the silvery scars that marred her flesh.

  “Yes. Do you?”

  Breathing against her damp nipple, he rasped, “Oh, yeah. If I liked it any more, it would kill me, El.”

  “Mmm,” she moaned, gasping as he pulled her back into the searing heat of his mouth. “I know the feeling.”

  Wyatt growled deep in his chest, wanting to fucking consume her. Her nipples, so sweet and swollen, were like little berries on his tongue. He couldn’t get enough of the lush, intoxicating flavor. The soft, silken texture. But there were other places he needed to kiss and taste, so that she would know exactly how beautiful he found her. Every part of her.

  With his hands under her ass, Wyatt lifted her against the front of his body and carried her back to his bedroom, the pain in his shoulder nothing but a distant blur at the edge of his consciousness, crushed by his need. He wasn’t anywhere near gentle as he tossed her back onto the bed and stripped off the rest of her clothes, until she was lying before him in nothing but skin.

  Without giving her time to panic, he crawled onto the bed and spread her legs, crouching between them as he smoothed the pad of his thumb over the worst of the scars he could see. It was so close to her pink, beautiful sex, high on the tender flesh of her inner thigh, and he locked his jaw against the blistering burn of rage that seared through his veins like an acid. It was pure, gut-wrenching horror to realize how close he’d come to losing her before he’d ever even found her.

  He knew, from his talk with Jeremy, that even though Elise could remember very little of the rape, she had been conscious of it happening, and he couldn’t even begin to imagine how terrified she must have been. Tears of anger and grief burned at the
backs of his eyes, his heart climbing into his throat as he tried to swallow down his fury. He had to shove the acidic thoughts away, knowing they were dangerous to his sanity. When he allowed himself to think about it, about what those bastards had done to her, the intensity of his hatred became such a violent, destructive force that it threatened to consume him. But it didn’t belong here in this moment with them. No, this was meant to be about nothing but pleasure—Elise’s pleasure—and Wyatt was going to use every goddamn ounce of experience he’d gained over the years to ensure that he blew her mind.

  Breathing in rough, uneven bursts, he lowered his head and nuzzled his face against the velvety softness of her belly, just beneath her navel, the evocative scent of her arousal making his mouth water. He pressed his lips to her scars, one by one, touching the silvery lines with his tongue, while his heart beat out a hard, painful rhythm in his chest. Keeping his touch light, he drifted the fingers of one hand up the inside of her leg, then higher, until he was coasting them over her silken folds. His jaw clenched at the feel of her, so slippery and soft and delicate. She was melting into a hot, slick honey, and he could not bloody wait to get his mouth on her.

  “I want to taste you, El. Make you come in my mouth. Do all the things I’ve told you about.” She gasped, then moaned, her beautiful body twisting beneath him as she clutched at the bedding with her hands. “You okay with that, sweetheart?”

  “Um...yes. No. I don’t know, because I’ve never tried it. And you might not like it. I mean, with me,” Elise whispered, more than a little shocked by how innocent she sounded. Or was uncertain the word she was searching for? She wanted to be bold and seductive for him so that this would be something he enjoyed and remembered. Something that rocked his world as strongly as it would impact hers. But she couldn’t. It was too intimate. Too real. He was talking about putting that wicked mouth of his on the most private, sexual part of her body, and she—

  “You’re thinking too hard, baby. And there’s no need.” He took a deep breath, then pressed his lips to her hip bone. “You’ve got to trust me on this, El. I doubt there’s anything in the world I’ll have ever enjoyed more. Christ, if you taste even half as good as you smell, you might never get my head out from between your legs.”

  She giggled as her fears started to ease, then slapped her hand over her mouth, embarrassed to have made such a girly sound.

  Wyatt lifted his dark head and smirked. “Just trust me, okay?”

  She nodded, still covering her mouth, which meant the cry she gave a moment later was muffled by her fingers. He’d leaned down and licked her, right over the opening of her body, where she was the slickest, and it had felt... God, she didn’t have words. Incredible wasn’t strong enough. Neither were amazing, marvelous, outstanding or any other freaking superlative meant to describe how mind-shatteringly awesome it felt to have the rugged, insanely gorgeous, sexy-as-sin Wyatt Pallaton going down on her.

  Holding her open with his thumbs, he licked between her folds again, hungrily lapping as if he’d found something sweet that he needed more of, a visceral sound of pleasure rumbling deep in his chest. A moment later, he lifted his head a fraction and looked up at her, then licked her taste off his slick bottom lip. “You know what? I don’t like it, El—I fucking love it,” he rasped, and before she could respond, he’d lowered his head again, sucking on her swollen, softly pulsing clit in a way that was so damn wonderful it made her scream. Then he went a little lower and thrust his tongue deep inside her.

  “God, Wyatt. It’s so good,” she moaned, breathless and unable to stop from pushing her needy sex harder against his mouth, her fingers digging into his thick hair, holding him to her.

  After that, anything slow and easy about the outrageously erotic act was over. He went at her like a man starved for the taste of her body, his hands shoving her thighs even wider apart as he moved his tongue in and out of her, eating at her with a purely raw, primitive hunger. He kept going until she was writhing and sobbing from shocking bursts of pleasure as a dark, explosive orgasm tore its way through her, devastating her from the top of her head down to her pointed toes. And even then he stayed with her, his damp mouth closing over her and greedily sucking, swallowing every drop of her release in the most carnal way she could have imagined.

  “You are so damn addictive,” he panted, suddenly looming over her, his face close to hers. She could see her moisture glistening on his mouth and chin, his sensual lips slightly parted for his ragged breaths. “And you taste so sweet, El.”

  His strong, muscular body was wedged between her legs now, the towel he’d been wearing no longer around his hips, and she could feel him against her thigh, brutally rigid and thick, burning with heat. She was breathing so fast she sounded like a percolator, but she wasn’t ready to run. She wanted every part of him on her, in her. His long fingers. His clever tongue. And that hard, pulsing, magnificent cock.

  Then he leaned down and touched his lips to hers, rubbing across them as they shared their breaths. She could taste herself on him and loved it, the explicit intimacy making her gasp. Needing to touch him, she rubbed her hands against the sinewy tension in his neck and shoulders, trying to draw him closer, climb inside him, wanting to immerse herself in him so completely she could read him like a book. Know his secrets and his history. Feel his pleasure. Hold his heart.

  He was so damn tender with her it brought tears to her eyes. But his tenderness was underlined by something hot and rough and powerful. Elise could taste it in the deepening kiss, his breaths becoming jagged, the grip of his hands tightening as he fell to his side and locked her against him.

  “More?” he asked when he pulled his head back to drag in air.

  She nodded and bit her lip, needing a distraction from the dangerous path of her thoughts. And needing more of him. More of that erotic, bone-melting pleasure. She had a feeling that no matter how much he gave her, she would never get enough of it.

  “More of my mouth?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, sifting her fingers through his silken hair. “I want everything.”

  He sucked in a sharp breath, then slowly exhaled as his eyes got darker, the primal hunger glittering in their depths becoming even sharper. “Trust me?”

  Despite the predatory, almost possessive way he was staring at her, Elise didn’t even have to think about her response. “Of course.”

  He fisted one hand in her hair as he kissed the hell out of her again, his tongue stroking and thrusting with skillful aggression while his other hand settled behind her knee, bringing it to his hip. When he finally pulled his mouth from hers, they were both breathing hard. “I won’t hurt you, I swear. You want to stop, just say stop. Okay?”

  Elise nodded, unable to get any words past her trembling lips. But she wasn’t afraid. She was so freaking turned on she couldn’t stand it.

  Sliding his hand from her hip to the fiery curls on her mound, Wyatt slipped his hand lower, stroking her slick, petal-soft folds with his callused fingertips. Then he pushed two big fingers into her snug depths, hooking them so that he could hit that sweet spot deep inside her, and growled at the way her body clamped down on him, greedy for his touch. “I want in here, El. I want to be buried hard and thick and deep. Right here.”

  “Yes. God, yes.”

  He slowly pulled his hand from between her legs. “El?”

  She moved onto her knees, the look in her eyes making his heart pound even harder—a deep, endless blue glowing with hunger, and beyond beautiful. Then she shocked the hell out of him by placing her hands against his stomach and pushing him to his back. Before he could ask her what she was doing, she leaned over him, her hot mouth covering the head of his cock, and he nearly died. Christ, he couldn’t even remember his damn name. He was too long and thick for that perfect mouth of hers, but just like the night before, she somehow made it work. Somehow pulled him in deep into all that wet, luscious warmth, sucking and licking, and managed to reduce his higher brain functions into a grunting, gasping
pile of primitive instinct.

  “Fuck, El. You’re gonna make me come.”

  “Good!” she breathed against his blunt tip as she stroked him with both hands, his body straining.

  “Damn it, I want to come inside you,” he growled.

  He could just make out her sexy smile through the fiery veil of her hair. “Coming in my mouth is coming inside me, Wyatt.”

  “You know what I mean!”

  She laughed as she sat up beside him, blue eyes bright and excited, that plush lower lip caught in her teeth, and there was something beyond breathtaking in her expression, thank God, that told him she was ready. That she wanted him. All of him. So out of his mind with need he was shaking, Wyatt quickly grabbed her and twisted her beneath him, his mouth hungrily latching on to a beautiful breast when someone started pounding the hell out of his front door.

  “Ignore it,” he muttered, wanting to kill whoever was out there as he dragged his mouth to her other breast, ravenously licking the sweet, puckered nipple.

  “Open the hell up, Pallaton!”

  “That was Eric!” she gasped, shoving against his shoulders with enough strength that it surprised him. Scrambling out from beneath him, she snatched up one of the pillows and held it against the front of her gorgeous body, as if she needed to shield her nudity from her brother.

  Braced on his knees in the middle of the bed, Wyatt fisted his hands at his sides and fought for control. No one had seen Eric or his little wife for days—but then Wyatt could hardly blame the guy for spending his time with his new bride. What he blamed him for was the shittiest timing in the world.

  He wanted to beg Elise to ignore Eric’s pounding at the door but could see that it was already too late. She was searching in the tangled bedding for her discarded clothing, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. Shit.

  “Wyatt! I know you’re in there, so open the damn door!” Eric shouted. “We have an emergency!”