by Kate Rudolph
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” Cam whispered back. Her brain flailed, offering instant calculations on a dozen different options. A second to kiss him, two point three to drop to her knees, four point one to unzip his pants. Her head spun and she couldn’t focus on one action to take.
Dom placed his hand on her chin and tilted her head up. Those dark eyes of his were twin pools of warmth, and he seemed to recognize her distress. “Don’t think,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
Looking at him steadied her, and she wanted to sink deep into him and find peace and quiet from the numbers that hounded her. But not even his gaze was enough to do that. So she curled her hand into his shirt and hauled him forward, crushing her lips to his.
Chapter Nine
Yes!
The only thing keeping Dom from letting out a whoop of joy was the soft press of her kiss and the insistent swipe of her tongue. Cam’s other hand found his hair and she ran her fingers through it, keeping his head right where she wanted and petting the thick, dark strands in a way that made him want to purr. He let her lead, the uncertain strokes of her tongue more seductive than anything he could think of. She held on to him like he’d collapse into dust the moment she let go. To Dom, she was a precious treasure, someone to be treated with the utmost care, even as he did wicked things to her and brought her to the heights of pleasure.
Her scent lived in him now, on him, coating his tongue and his skin, burying deep until no one would ever catch his scent without a hint of hers. He held her closer, pressing hard against her, imprinting his scent on her. Mine, his soul demanded. All mine. He would have said it out loud, declared it for her and taken her, but his mouth was too busy dancing with hers, learning her every move. She was the only partner he wanted, the only one he’d ever need.
Dom scooped her up and she clutched his shoulders, wrapping her legs around his waist, pressing tight against the steel hard cock restrained by his jeans. It was a delicious torture, feeling her so close and yet separated by too many layers of clothing. Maybe he’d burn them all until the two of them existed in a world that was only skin to skin, the two of them forever.
Lips traced a trail from his own lips down his jaw and found his neck. She took a path up again, her teeth catching on his ear and tugging hard enough that Dom almost stumbled. He groaned and thrust his hips against her, the ache a beautiful torture he never wanted to stop.
“Upstairs,” she said right into his ear, licking the outer rim. “First door.” The stairs were right next to him, and it wasn’t that long of a trip. It might have been ten miles.
Fuck it.
Dom laid Cam down on the stairs, kneeling between her thighs and bracing both hands on either side of her head. Her blue eyes were watery and had taken on a glassy, dazed sheen, but they pierced him to the core and didn’t let up. “Am I too heavy?” she asked, reaching up and tracing her finger over the collar of his t-shirt.
Dom laughed and leaned down, placing a kiss on her nose. “Not at all.” He kissed her lips again, taking his time to play with her even as the driving beat of need threatened to overwhelm him. He needed to be inside her, needed to claim her as his own. But even more importantly, he needed to make this good—no, amazing—for her. Anything less and he wasn’t man enough for this woman.
Even as he conquered, she didn’t submit. Her hands quested as curiously as his, tracing his abs through his shirt and deviously falling lower to where she could feel his hardness prominent in his pants. Dom bit back a growl and grabbed her wrist, pulling it away and thrusting his hips back to put a little space between them. “Not yet, baby,” he said, teeth gritted as he got himself back under control. “I don’t want this night to end early.”
Her eyes widened as her cheeks tinged pink and a growing suspicion formed in Dom’s mind, that possessive feral thing howling in satisfaction. “Have you done this before?”
Cam gave a tight nod.
“More than once?”
She nodded again, but still he knew she was hiding something.
“Was it any good?”
One jerk of her head from side to side set off that grin he couldn’t suppress. He kissed his way around the collar of her shirt, cupping her breast with reverent fingers. “Just trust me, baby.”
“I do.” He felt her eyes on him as he reached low and peeled her shirt off, tossing it somewhere in the neighborhood of the living room.
When he laid a hand on her bare stomach, she flinched for a moment and Dom looked back up. “You okay?”
“Very okay,” she said, her voice taking on that husky bedroom tone he’d only begun to coax out of her.
He moved slowly now, no matter how much his own body commanded him to speed up. This first time was for her. They’d have forever to go fast. Right now she needed to know that he was here for her, here to give her pleasure. And there was no need to rush. He snaked a finger under the thin band of her bra and let it fall down her arm. Reaching blindly around, his fingers found the clasp and it gave, setting her magnificent breasts free for the taking.
This time, Cam took the initiative, plucking her bra off and throwing it towards the banister at the end of the stairs. It hooked onto the decorative knob on the end and she flashed him a triumphant smile.
“Practice much?” he teased.
She leaned back, on display like a work of art and utterly devoid of shame or shyness in her nudity. “I’m a natural,” she said.
Her smile transformed into a gasp when he took one of her plump nipples into his mouth and swirled his tongue around, bringing it to a taut point. One of her legs jerked under him and she thrust her hips close, grabbing on as he paid homage to the temple of her breasts. Her soft skin cushioned him, a pillow made only for him, and he worshiped her like the goddess she was. In this moment he knew she was his mate. Her very existence was divine, a gift from Rhen to him to cherish and hold dear.
He reached down and fumbled with the button of her jeans, blindly working to get her undone. When her hands found his shoulders, he thought she was clutching him from the pleasure, but she bunched up his sleeves and pulled, momentarily blocking his access to her body, but for something much better.
Still, Dom moved lower, pulling down her jeans until they were stuck around her ankles and she was left in nothing but a thin pair of silk panties. Little bows decorated the waistband, and he knew that these weren’t her every day underwear. He took more care than he thought possible, sliding them down instead of tearing them away. And then she was naked before him, wet and glistening. Dom put his lips on her and tasted heaven.
***
Oh god, oh god, oh god! Cam writhed under him, completely bare and at his mercy. She didn’t know what to do with her hands. She dug her fingers into the carpet under her and then forgot all about it as Dom did something with his tongue that made her eyes cross and her mouth drop open in a breathless gasp. Her entire world focused down until it was just him, just his fingers and his tongue and the sinful slide of flesh on flesh.
She’d never known that she’d been missing anything so all consuming, and she knew that it was only Dom who could make her feel this way. He was the only one she wanted to make her feel like this.
He changed his angle, and sparks exploded behind her eyes and she lost control of her body, pleasure rippling through her and tearing sounds out of her throat she’d never known that a human could make. He did it again and she forgot her name, forgot everything. Everything except him.
She couldn’t breathe, no matter how hard she wracked in sobs. But she didn’t suffocate. She became a being of pleasure, her entire system transformed into something that lived off of what her man was giving to her.
With dexterity she’d forgotten, she kicked off her jeans and the remains of her panties and thrust up towards Dom, but he kissed his way up her chest, leaving her wet and aching and empty.
“Please,” she begged, unsure of what she was asking for. “More.”
His fingers found where his mout
h had abandoned and he speared her, filling her and somehow making the empty ache even worse. Even as he moved in and out, preparing her, she grew more restless, more hungry for him.
“Are you ready?” he asked. There were no thoughts of consequences, no thoughts of anything but Dom.
Cam gripped his arms tight. “God, yes!”
A blunt pressure at her entrance and she yielded under him, groaning as he pushed himself inside. Their eyes locked, brown on blue, and something ancient and animalistic flashed in his own. Cam couldn’t look away. He pushed deeper into her, burying himself to the hilt until they were joined as one. Something seemed to shift in his mouth, and he moved his jaw like it hurt. When he came down close to her, she got the strangest idea that he was going to bite her.
But he buried his head against the stair next to her and moved.
Thoughts of weirdness fled. She clutched him tight, her legs wrapped around him, keeping him close, locked to her.
Madness whirled in her mind again and she had to close her eyes lest her senses tumble into overload. His masculine scent, the woods and sweat and something intrinsically Dominic Soto, washed over her, and she knew that every time she breathed him in, she’d remember this moment and quiver in anticipation.
There was nothing but them, no longer separate entities but one being fused together in this moment. And as Cam began to shudder around his thick cock, her orgasm rocking through her, Dom groaned, the sound muffled by the stairs as he found his release, hot liquid shooting into her, making her his.
Contentment wrapped around her as she wrapped her arms around her lover and held him close.
Cam came back to herself by degrees, breathing heavy and feeling light in a way she’d never before known. Even with Dom laying on top of her, she could have stayed where she was for an eternity, him buried deep inside and surrounding her with his warmth and protection.
He slid out of her and she moaned at the loss. But Dom captured the sound with a kiss, gently cupping her cheek like she was the most delicate prize in the world, not a woman he’d just fucked on a staircase.
“My bed is only ten yards away,” she mumbled against his lips, “fifteen tops. Think we can make it?” She was content to stay snuggled against him right here forever, but knew that eventually that might get a little uncomfortable.
With a comical groan, Dom struggled back to his feet, unconscious of his nudity. Cam’s eyes shot straight down to his cock and widened. She’d fit that inside of her. She swallowed and looked back up at him.
Dom’s eyes narrowed. “Look at me like that again and the bedroom will be too far.”
She shivered.
Instead of offering a hand, Dom scooped her up and carried her up the stairs like she was a bride on her wedding day. He found her room without any trouble and laid her down on her bed gently and climbed in beside her. The bed wasn’t made, which made it easy to burrow under the covers and snuggle close together. Dom’s arm came around her and pulled her in, his body hot and hard with muscle behind her.
Seven minutes and thirteen seconds.
Cam stiffened as the countdown in her mind intensified.
“Are you alright?” he asked, kissing her neck and up her jaw.
Don’t bring up your weirdness, the sane part of her mind urged her. You’ve got a hot guy in bed who won’t stop kissing you. Be smart! But Cam didn’t know how to be smart, not when she could actually talk about herself without needing to hide. “Remember that timing thing I told you about?”
“Mmmhmm.” The sound of assent was little more than a hum, but Cam kept talking.
“It’s telling me something really big is going to happen in less than seven minutes.” She turned over in his embrace. If he was going to think she was crazy, she wanted to see it in his eyes.
But Dom was smiling. “At least that means that I’ll be here with you when it does.” He didn’t tell her she was wrong or that her brain was broken. He just let her snuggle in closer and lay her chin against his chest. She had questions for him. What did this all mean? Were they an ‘us’ now? Would he come back tomorrow? But she let it all fade and sleep claimed her quickly, washing her away in the darkness.
Chapter Ten
He felt when she lost the battle to sleep. Drowsiness battled Dom’s own mind, but he wasn’t ready to surrender just yet. Not when he finally had Cam in his arms, safe and sound and his. The urge to claim her had come upon him so hard while he was buried to the hilt inside her that he’d actually bitten the carpet of her stairs. And even then he’d almost still done it in the last moment.
He heard his cell phone ring and looked around for a clock in the room. It had to be getting close to the start of his shift, and if Logan wasn’t covering for him, he’d have an angry call from Brenner on the line in no time. But Cam didn’t have any clock and he realized it probably had to do with her strange gift. He wanted to let the call go to voicemail, but if it was Brenner, Dom needed to manage it before something worse happened.
With regret, he disentangled himself from Cam and slid out of the bed, padding down the stairs in the dim light of the room and digging his phone out of his jeans. He almost tripped over Cam’s clothes and picked them up just as the ringing stopped. Dom checked the number and saw it wasn’t the station or anyone he recognized. A check of the time told him that he had more than an hour before he needed to report for duty.
Could he really make himself leave when she was lying all warm up there and ready for him? It wasn’t like he could just call in sick. Wolven were hardy. Brenner would know that something was up.
Absently, Dom folded Cam’s jeans. He was about to set them down when he felt something in one of the pockets. Rather than leave it to tumble out later, he stuck his hand in and pulled out a necklace. As his hand closed around a thick pendant, his heart started thudding and blood rushed to his ears. He squeezed his fist around it, scared to look and terrified to look away. He didn’t want to open his hand up in case he was wrong, in case it wasn’t anything like what he thought.
Footsteps at the top of the stairs dragged his attention away, and Dom didn’t need to have Cam’s knack for clocks to know the countdown was up. He glanced at her and saw that she’d thrown on an oversized t-shirt that hung down to mid-thigh, but the fabric was old and worn and the light from the bedroom behind her made it almost translucent. Very few things in the entire universe could have pulled his gaze away from her.
The pendant in his hand was one of the few.
He uncurled his fingers to reveal a snarling wolf with a stripe of white fur over his eyes. The angel’s wings from the other half of the pendant cast it in an eerie shadow.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” his mate said from the top of the stairs. Her fingers curled around the railing but she hadn’t stepped down yet.
“Was your father your biological father?” The pendant wasn’t enough. He needed to know, even if his heart knew what his mind was too scared to let itself grasp.
“What?” Though he’d just blurted the question out without any tact, she came down the stairs toward him and placed a hand on his naked shoulder. “Why does that matter?”
He clenched the pendant again. “Please.” Her scent was a balm, but he was torn open with hope and fear.
She moved her hand down and wrapped her arms around his chest, laying her head against his shoulder blade, against his renqua. “No, they met when Mom was already pregnant. She never told Aunt Grace who knocked her up and, well, she died before she could tell me the truth.”
“His name was Azerbaizan.” Every shiften knew the story.
Cam was still as stone against him, as if the name were one she’d heard before, as if he’d said something she knew but couldn’t believe. “How do you know that name?” Now it was an accusation and she backed away, leaving his skin cold and alone.
Dom turned around and saw disbelief and shock written plain in her eyes. She was shaking her head from side to side as if she’d just discovered something
horrible. But to normal human ears, what he said would have just sounded like nonsense. He held her pendant in his hand and he couldn’t lie to her. She’d spent her entire life not knowing the truth. Even if she wasn’t ready, she deserved to know. “We all know the story,” he said.
“What story? Who’s we?” Her legs hit the back of a chair and she stopped moving.
“You told me your secret. Can I show you mine?” Now that he knew, now that he could act, he needed her to know who he was, what he was.
“You’re kind of freaking me out.” She slid down onto the chair and her shirt slid up, barely covering anything.
Dom dropped the pendant and her jeans and shifted.
***
There was a wolf in her house. There was a freaking wolf standing where Dom had not two seconds before. And not just any wolf, but her wolf from days before. The one who’d sat with her on the porch. Dom was that wolf. That wolf was Dom.
Oh god, she’d gone off the deep end.
Those seven minutes and thirteen seconds were up now and there was no way she could have prepared for this. She expected a bomb or a fire or something believably terrible. Not for her boyfriend to shift into a freaking wolf in her living room.
Was he her boyfriend now?
Not the time!
If she’d been standing, he would have come halfway up her chest. As it was, they were practically eye to eye. If she’d been sane, Cam would have been running away. Or backing away slowly so as not to rouse his predatory instincts. But now that the initial shock had worn off, things made a certain kind of sense. Sort of. She leaned closer and reached out a hand like he was a cute dog at the park. Dom stepped forward and butted her fingers. She scratched at his fur and his tail wagged.
“Can you understand me?” she asked. She was talking to her wolf. Her boyfriend who was a wolf. And she wasn’t freaking out. It was very possible that she’d gone crazy.
He bobbed his head up and down and in her mind, she heard a whispered of course like this was the most normal thing in the world.