She growled, writhing in Marshall’s hold in an attempt to impale herself, but he wouldn’t let her. He took one nipple into his mouth and rolled the tip between his teeth, nipping and flicking at it with the end of his tongue before moving to the other breast. Jackie moaned and pulled her legs closer to her body, desperate to have his cock stretch her fully. Impatient greed boiled her blood when he straightened away from her body.
“No!” She glared up at him. How could he deny her—himself—any longer?
“Trust me, Jackie,” he whispered, piercing blue gaze holding hers. His hands smoothed down her ribcage, over the curve of her hips to her thighs. “Trust.” His fingers curled under her arse, squeezed her cheeks. “Trust…” His long fingers spread them wider and she felt a teasing pressure circle the tight, puckered hole of her anus.
“Oh.”
Her soft gasp stilled Marshall’s hand. Eyes ablaze with raw passion, he gazed down at her. Slowly, gently, silently, he pushed at her hole a little harder.
A choked cry burst from Jackie’s mouth and she clenched her fists, wet electricity surging through her from the delicious contact. She’d never let a living soul touch her in such an intimate way and the unadulterated pleasure consuming her body told her why. This was a sublime experience to be shared only with one in her heart. It was exquisite. It was powerful. It was frightening. Adrenaline heated her blood. She whimpered, wanting to pull away, wanting to impale herself on his hand.
“Trust me,” Marshall murmured, somehow sensing the fear in her rapture. “I will never hurt you.”
His words caressed her soul. His breath caressed her flesh seconds before Marshall lowered his head between her thighs and plunged his tongue into her pussy.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Jackie cried out, rolling waves of wet heat crashing through her. She bucked into his mouth, whimpering with barely contained pleasure when he drew the tiny tip of her clit between his teeth. Shots of raw pleasure stabbed into her cunt, electrical pulses that made her heart hammer and her juices flow. Marshall lapped at them, the sound of his appreciation, soft moans and low groans filling the light-diffused air.
His tongue laved her spread sex. Tasting and delving between her folds in a mind-blowing pace that made Jackie squirm. She lifted her hips, giving herself to him completely, wanting to be devoured by his mouth.
He feasted on her folds, her clit, pushing her closer, closer to the precipice, until she felt the first wall of concentrated bliss crash through her being.
“Oh, God, I’m coming!”
In a blur of preternatural speed, Marshall rose up from between her thighs and aligned his turgid shaft to her wet, glistening pussy. “Then let me come with you,” he said, and plunged his cock into her sex.
Jackie’s scream rent the air. A kaleidoscope of blinding colours erupted in her vision, radiating out to infinity like a shockwave.
Marshall thrust into her, his balls slapping her arse cheeks. His free hand palmed her breast, pinched her nipple. His mouth found her neck and sucked.
Another wall crashed through Jackie. Indescribable. Consuming. She clenched her fists, tumbling over the edge as one orgasm after another claimed her. “Yes. Don’t stop. God, please don’t ever stop.”
Marshall’s divine rhythm accelerated. He raised his head from her neck and looked down at her with burning eyes, lips parted, chest heaving. “I’m yours, Jackie,” he ground out. “Never forget that.” His thrusts grew wild, his breathing wilder. “No matter what happens after this, never forget I am yours.”
Fresh waves of molten lava welled up in Jackie at his words. Building, building. She looked up into Marshall’s face, her mind roaring, her brain fogged with pleasure. She watched him close his eyes as, with a shudder she felt deep in her being, he finally gave himself over to his own orgasm. She watched his nostrils flare as it scorched through his body and pumped into hers.
Two people joined together, their hearts beating in unison, beating against each other. Two people unable to deny what they wanted anymore.
“Trust,” Jackie whispered, gazing into Marshall’s euphoric face. “Trust.”
The single, powerful word resounded in Jackie’s mind just as she closed her eyes and surrendered willingly and completely to the power of her orgasm.
And the power of her desire for Marshall Rourke.
Chapter Eleven
“Why do you wriggle your fingers?”
The question slipped from Marshall before he could stop it, and he bit back a silent curse, smoothing his hand up Jackie’s back to hold her closer to his chest just in case she was thinking of pulling away from him.
They lay on the hotel room’s sagging bed, their legs entwined, the perspiration from their lovemaking still slicking their skin, their hearts beating in unison. He’d never felt more content. And then he had to go and open his big, Texan mouth.
Smooth, Rourke. Real smooth.
Jackie didn’t say a word for a long moment. Her body was still, her hand resting loosely on his chest. He moved his head slightly, trying to see her face without disturbing her position. Two hours of complete and utter bliss and he’d asked a question about something he knew she tried to hide. Damn, he was an idiot.
“It’s a control method,” Jackie finally answered, the words low and measured. “When I was younger, I had difficulty restraining the transformation into my thylacine form. Stress, anger, almost any negative emotion would push me close to shifting. If I concentrated on the movement of my fingers, how the air flowed around them, how the muscles in each finger flexed and coiled, I could suppress the need to transform.”
He ran his hand up and down her back, studying the top of her head. “How often did you shift in front of humans?”
Silence stretched, the hand on his chest remaining motionless, as if Jackie consciously fought to stay calm. “When I was young, very young, often. But only in front of one person. I don’t really remember much about my childhood. The earliest thing I can remember is a woman—possibly my mother—telling me to run. Run fast. I don’t know what I was running to or from, nor how old I was, but I was little. Very little. Too little for a child to be running through the bush on her own. The next thing I remember is the cage.”
Her fingers moved slightly on Marshall’s chest, flexing once before she pressed her palm to his chest once more.
“I woke up one day in a cage, in my thylacine form,” she continued, voice flat. “I don’t know if the farmer caught me in that form, but I can only assume he did. What kind of person cages a little girl who looks barely older than eight?”
Marshall could provide an answer—a sick, perverted, deranged person deserving to be beaten to a bloody pulp—but he didn’t. He couldn’t. His throat was too thick.
“He kept me caged for a long time. I escaped one day—in human form—and he found me running naked away from his shed. I still think he had no idea the petrified girl on his property was the Tasmanian tiger he’d tormented for so long, until he yelled at me to stop and I transformed mid-stride. He caught me and caged me again. After that, I think he took great delight in seeing how often he could provoke me into shifting. Which, I’m ashamed to say, was often.” The fingers on Marshall’s chest moved—slightly—and he felt Jackie’s heartbeat quicken.
Marshall clenched his jaw, dark anger heating his blood. “Why didn’t he turn you in? Tell anyone about you?”
Jackie shook her head, her soft hair tickling underneath his chin. “I wondered that myself for a very long time. There’s been a reward for any proven sightings of a Tasmanian tiger since the nineteen-thirties. Every day I waited for people to arrive, to take me away, but they never did.” She paused, her fingers moving again. “My first year in the police academy, I ran a complete check on the man. I didn’t know his name, but I knew where his farm was. It took me a while, but I discovered everything I could about him. Turns out, he was a wanted criminal. The New South Wales police force had an arrest warrant issued for him. He’d been the main suspect in a
n assault where the victim, the mayor of Sydney’s teenage daughter, had died. Tasmania was the ideal place to hide out, I guess.” Her fingers moved again, a soft sigh fanning his chest. “So, he got to play with his little freak of nature undisturbed until she was big enough to...”
Jackie’s words faded away, her fingers finally curling into a fist. A hot ball of furious disgust rolled through Marshall and he closed his eyes, thinking of the scared little girl, of the petrified pup. “What happened to him?”
“I escaped the cage one day and killed him.”
The simple statement filled him with more joy than it should. He wanted to fold her closer into his body and hold her forever. She didn’t say what form she’d been in when the deed was done, nor what transpired to allow her to escape, and it didn’t matter to him. Thylacine or human, the farmer got what he deserved.
Marshall pressed his lips to her forehead, breathing her delicate scent into his body. She was a contradiction, Jacqueline Huddart. One part hard-arse cop, one part secretive shape-shifter, one part deeply loyal and emotional friend, one part sensual lover.
She was his life mate and he couldn’t be happier.
Then shouldn’t you tell her what you’ve been doing? What you started out doing? Using her as bait?
He closed his eyes, a lump filling his throat. Yes, he should. He had to. It wasn’t going to be pretty, but he had to. After everything he’d put her through, he owed her the truth. “Did you ever find your parents?”
The question wasn’t what he’d intended to ask, but the truth of what he’d been doing, what he’d initially used her for still refused to come.
Coward.
She shook her head. “If they are alive, I don’t know it. It’s possible, I guess, with the way time is suspended while transformed but I doubt it. The only sighting of a Tasmanian tiger in the last few decades was when I’d foolishly shifted into my thylacine form as a teenager.” She shrugged. “But who knows. You’ve seen the Tassie bush. You know how dense it is. An animal could live forever in that bush and never be seen by a human.” Her eyebrows dipped and she paused, a disgusted expression flickering across her face. “A smart animal, that is.”
He gave her a soft smile. “You are a smart animal, Detective Huddart. You discovered Einar was a dark elf, something all the geeks and suits at P.A.C. hadn’t.”
She let out a snort, and Marshall suspected his attempt at easing the pain he felt in her heart had failed.
“How did you cure me? If you didn’t know Einar was a dark elf, how did you cure me of his dark-elf poison?”
Jackie’s unexpected question took Marshall by surprise. He pulled away from her, gazing into her upturned face. “Fae blood.”
She frowned. “Fae blood?”
He let his fingers slip from her shoulder to the small wound at the base of Jackie’s throat, studying the still-angry, red flesh. His stomach knotted. “The poison of Einar’s blade can only be dissolved from the system by fae blood. It’s what is being used to treat Del, and Hillerman provided me enough to treat you. Fae blood, particularly virgin fae blood has a multitude of reactions on foreign bodies. P.A.C. knows the exact way every non-human being will react to it.” He stopped, not sure how to continue.
Jackie tilted her head, her eyes narrowing. “Every non-human being except a shape-shifting thylacine, that is?”
He shifted on the mattress, clenching his jaw. Jesus, how did he go on? “Yes.” He nodded, his gaze returning to the hole in her neck for a quick second. “Except a shape-shifting thylacine.”
She gave him a level look. “You took a gamble?”
He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “I couldn’t lose you.”
The raw truth behind Marshall’s answer brought a lump to Jackie’s throat. “How did I react?” It wasn’t the question she wanted to ask, but it was the only one she would allow.
A slight grin pulled at the edges of his mouth, and he ran his hand back over her shoulder and down to the curve of her hip. “You threw up. A lot.”
Hot embarrassment flooded Jackie’s cheeks and she rolled away from him, pressing her palms to her mouth. She groaned. Oh, God.
Scrambling from the bed, she bolted into the bathroom, swinging the door shut behind her. She dropped onto the closed toilet and stared at her feet. How embarrassing.
A soft knock rapped on the door and she looked up, her cheeks burning hotter still. She threw up? She hadn’t thrown up since the farmer had electrocuted her non-stop one day until she transformed.
“Jackie?”
She heard the laughter in Marshall’s voice and pulled a face. “Did I make much mess?”
“Not a bit,” his answer came through the door, muffled by the wood. “For someone all but delusional, you have remarkable aim. It all went in the toilet bowl.”
Jackie dropped her gaze to the white toilet seat lid visible between her thighs and groaned again. “How could I...” she faltered, “...if I was...” She bit at her lip, and deep within her thylacine snarled with disgust.
“I held your hair from your face, helped you rinse your mouth after each time and made sure you didn’t collapse into the bowl. Getting you to spit out the mouthwash was…interesting I have to say. You seem to be a bit partial to its taste. And when I gave you a toothbrush you seemed to think it was a bone and growled at me when I tried to take it away.”
Jackie didn’t think she could be more embarrassed. She squeezed her eyes shut, hands pressed to her lips again.
“I would do it again, darlin’.”
Marshall’s voice reverberated in the small room and Jackie jerked her head up to find him standing in the open doorway. He stared at her, one broad shoulder leaning against the doorjamb, his arms loosely crossed over his chest, that lop-sided grin she knew so well curling one side of his mouth. “All of it, including the rather surreal toothbrush wrestling, and still love everything about you.”
Love.
The word slipped through Jackie’s mind and she stared at him, unable to say a thing.
Love.
His blue eyes sparkled and his grin stretched wider. “Now I would like to make love to you again, my gorgeous Tasmanian tiger and if you don’t leave the bathroom I shall do so right where you sit.” He pushed himself straight from the doorjamb. “Never made love to someone on a toilet before, but when it comes to you, Detective Huddart, I’m willing to try anything n—”
She didn’t let him finish.
Love.
She leapt from the seat and threw herself against his hard body, silencing his chuckled words with a kiss so deep she felt his growl rumble in his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, lifting her from the floor, his tongue mating with her in fierce hunger.
Love.
Jackie’s head swam and she broke the kiss, pulling away from him as far as his arms would allow her. I love you too. The declaration formed in her head, its truth potent and undeniable. She did love him, more than she believed possible, but she would not let herself say the words. They were too foreign, too vulnerable. Instead, she said, “Will you shower with me?”
His eyes flared blue desire. “Hmm, let me think about that.” Before she could laugh—or slap him—he carried her across the small bathroom, stepped into the bathtub and kicked the mixer on. Icy water spurted from the showerhead and Jackie gasped, the sound becoming a moan when Marshall pressed her against the tiled wall away from the water spray and kissed her until she trembled all over.
His hands cupped her arse, squeezing each cheek as his cock grew long and thick against her belly. Cold drips of water splashed onto her legs and feet, sending little chills through her body, emphasizing the rising heat of her desire. God, she could spend the rest of eternity in the man’s arms and never want for anything more.
Marshall’s lips dragged from hers, following the line of her jaw, her throat. He growled, squeezing her arse again, and she whimpered, eyelids fluttering closed. “This is not getting us clean.”
He chuckled, lifting his mo
uth from her throat to smile down at her. “I’m rather enjoying getting dirty with you.”
Jackie’s sex contracted. She rolled her hips against his, the solid length of his enjoyment nudging her mons a testament to his words. “I can tell.”
Marshall’s eyes flared with desire and he pressed his lips to her temple. “There’s a small toiletry kit in my backpack,” he murmured. “Let me wash your hair and scrub your back before I dirty you up again.”
Jackie’s pulse quickened at his request, her breath hitching in her throat. Why did the notion of Marshall washing her hair arouse her so much?
Because it friggen’ does, Huddart. Stop trying to find answers in everything and just accept the truth. You’ve fallen head over heels for the guy and it scares the hell out of you.
It did scare her. And yet it felt wonderful, so damn wonderful at the same time. Her sex contracted again, stronger, more forcefully. Eager. With a simple nod, she stepped from his embrace and climbed from the bathtub.
Marshall’s heady gaze raked her naked body and she hurried from the small room, the promise in his eyes making her mouth dry and her thighs wet. The sooner she found his backpack, the sooner she was back in the shower with him.
His cell phone vibrated into silent life on the lamp table and Jackie jumped, shooting the bathroom door behind her a quick look. “Your phone is ringing, Marshall.”
“Damn,” he called back, voice a touch gargled by water. “It’s probably Hillerman.”
Del.
Pulse leaping into thumping strength, Jackie crossed the room in two steps, snatching up the phone and pressing it against her ear. “Agent Rourke’s phone.”
“You stabbed me, Jacqueline.” Einar’s rasping drawl slid into her ear through the connection and Jackie’s throat squeezed shut. “I look forward to returning the favour in kind.”
Her grip on Marshall’s phone tightened and she stiffened. Red rage prickled behind her eyes. Her heart leapt into her throat. “I am going to hunt you down and kill you, Einar.”
Savage Transformation Page 17