Avoiding her neck, he feathered moist kisses over her face, touching down on arched brows, the ridge of one cheekbone, the corner of her lips. His lips outlined the shape of her rosebud mouth, nibbling on the full lower lip. Sorcha tangled a hand in his hair and opened for him. He swept in to taste her essence. Her hips arched off the bed when he tickled the roof of her mouth, when his tongue teased hers into a pulsing tango.
Her musk giddied his senses.
He couldn't think.
“Breasts. Give one to me.”
Startled azure irises, tiny circles around dilated pupils, met his. She cupped her right breast and offered the globe to him.
Gray had to suckle the whole areola in, had to lap and lick and gnaw until she whimpered those little moans again. He knew the other mound needed him, ached for his mouth, so he let his hand torture the wet one while he persecuted the other rosy peak with his tongue and teeth.
A looong series of double moans.
His balls suffered unbearable cruelty with each cry.
He had to get to pussy.
Had to taste first.
His gaze fixated on her glistening reddish brown curls, trailed succulent, creamy pink folds, and his mouth watered. He'd never seen anything so beautiful. Rational thought vanished. His number one goal—savoring the tang of her cream, imprinting the scent of her musk in his brain forever.
Gray burrowed between her thighs and held them apart, balancing her knees in the crook of his elbows. Prettiest sight he'd ever seen. He buried his nose in her pussy lips, his tongue in her vagina.
She was drenched.
He was so ready.
A stamp of possessiveness rung through him.
Mine.
He lapped at her clit. Sweet honey, so thick, coating his nose, his mouth, his chin, glazing his face in her scent. He slipped a finger inside her clenching muscles, and she moaned his name—“Gray”—in a quivering voice, over and over, as if she knew she belonged to him.
So close, so close.
He bent to her nubbin and suckled and sawed, all the while thrusting in and out with his finger, increasing the pace, his cock twitching and mimicking the movements he craved. Her hips came off the bed; she clamped down hard on his fingers and yelped, “Gray, Gray, Gray.”
Now.
Gray knelt, skittered up the bed until the head of his cock tipped her entrance, holding her thighs apart with his arms.
Slow, slow, savor.
The visual—his reddened bulb, her slick folds, his prick disappearing—blew his control.
When her internal muscles contracted and vacuumed the whole head in, he lost it. Charging in as far as he could, pulling out, feeling her sweet reluctance as she fastened around him, her channel begging and pleading, more, more, more.
On the second thrust, his cock hit her womb, and he surrendered to dominatrix pussy.
Sorcha's nails raked his back; she shrieked, “Gray!”
Her walls constricted, and he pumped and pumped, shooting hot jets over and over. Her internal muscles locked onto his prick, milking more and more cum than he'd ever ejaculated before. Her tight hold kept him erect, his throbbing cock fucked her through another orgasm, and he came again in short, sharp spurts.
“Gray,” she mewled, her voice a throaty, low rumble, like a kitten's loud purring after feeding.
He collapsed, burying his nose against one breast, his eyes closed, his mind insolvent, every nerve howling its pleasure. He couldn't move, couldn't withdraw, didn't want to lose her tightness, her heat.
Gradually, his breathing slowed, his heartbeat stopped drowning all external sound, and he grew aware of slight nuances.
A thin film of perspiration on the cusp of her shoulder proved irresistible. Of its own volition, his tongue tasted the slight saltiness of her spent passion. Musk and semen and sweat perfumed the room.
She shifted her legs.
Gray tested her pussy's hold on him; he had to go easy, not scare her away. The lock formed by his cock's swelling and her vagina constricting in response had loosened, and he stifled a sigh, relieved and disappointed and grateful he didn't have to break the wolf news to her right away, but he really didn't want to leave her now.
He lifted his head, released his grasp on her thighs, and eased his prick free. “Sorry, honey. That couldn't have been comfortable.”
Her half-shuttered blue eyes appeared a tad out of focus. Sorcha's lips had curved into a sleepy version of her perfect smile, and a long, indrawn breath elevated her generous breasts.
“Mmm,” she murmured, eyelids fluttering.
Lying on his back, he fitted her cheek to his chest and arranged her leg, curving her bent knee over his pelvis. She sighed, and her minty exhale cooled the sweat on his skin.
“Gray?”
“Yes, honey.”
“That was everything I'd dreamed.” Her lips moved on his chest, her breath tickling the fine hairs around his nipple. She squirmed, doing this snuggling move with her shoulders, and burrowed into his embrace. Almost immediately her breathing slowed and evened, and her muscles lost all tension.
She'd fallen asleep.
Unable to resist, he kissed her temple.
One hand cradling his head, Gray stared at the ceiling fan, his mind whirring in time to the whizzing mahogany blades.
Crapola.
What a mess. What the hell had gotten into him? He never lost control, never. Yeah, nothing like being proved wrong in the biggest way. He'd never had such a sexual connection with a woman before. Her scent had devoured him, made him giddy. He'd acted on pure wolf instinct.
Satisfaction had never reigned so high on his senses.
Sorcha McFadden, go figure.
His baby sister's best friend had wrung him inside out.
Why had she done this to him?
His arm tightened around her waist. There was no way he'd let her go.
She was his.
All his.
What did it mean, the fact that he'd come more than once? Had it been an aftershock? A reaction to the way she'd milked him?
He knew better.
It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Finding your mate was a magical event. Cinderella-like.
Wasn't it?
So his sisters had claimed.
No, this wasn't mate-recognition.
He had overreacted. It'd been months since he'd had a woman. He was horny, and the first naked woman he'd seen had sent him over the edge. That was it. Gray pursed his lips in agreement with his rationalization.
Crap.
Who was he fooling?
He'd come twice, and he was still hard, still needy. His gaze traced her profile but didn't even make it to her bountiful breasts or her tiny waist or her wet curls. No, his stare stayed glued to her face, to the way her eyelids flickered as she entered REM, to the trusting way she rested her cheek on his chest.
Sometime in the last couple of years, he'd accepted the fact that he wouldn't find a mate.
Absently, he toyed with a strand of her hair, winding the lock around his forefinger. Attention meandering to her nape, he brushed her auburn tresses onto the pillow.
What next?
Have dinner, get out, make sure Sorcha realizes tonight never happened.
No, have dinner, fuck, maybe skinny-dip, with another fuck thrown in, then make sure she realizes tonight never happened.
Never happened.
Who the hell was he fooling?
He'd just jumped into a fucking tornado.
Chapter Two
Sorcha stilled all movements, playing possum and listening to Gray's heartbeat, savoring the moment she'd fantasized about most of her adult life. Under her lowered lids, she studied his chest, itching to tweak a dark nipple, brush her fingers over his taut belly. He smelled exactly the way she remembered, dangerous and dark and smoky.
Wow.
When he'd started undressing and talking, she'd almost said forget it.
He'd been so intense with those one-word
orders and staccato sentences that her lungs had stopped functioning and the room had spun a couple of times.
Her stomach gurgled; she sucked in her belly, hoping to muffle the low rumble. Truly, she'd forgotten to eat lunch, but she'd been so afraid he wouldn't make love to her later, she'd told a small white one. A really, really tiny white one.
All of a sudden she couldn't draw oxygen into her lungs, yet at the same time blood crashed through her veins so fast she couldn't hear but for the roaring in her ears.
Holy moley.
What had she done?
She'd done the one thing she had yearned to do since watching him screw Tonya Fields from the loft of an abandoned barn some seventeen years ago. She'd hopped into bed with Gray Theodore White within a few hours of returning to live in her old hometown.
What now?
“Stop playing possum.” He nudged her shoulder.
Her tummy let out a growl that rivaled any dog's. She peeped up at him.
“I thought you had a big lunch?” He ran his fingers through her hair, and she wanted to purr. “Not that I'm complaining.”
“I fibbed,” she said. “I didn't want you to stop and think.”
“Honey, the only brain that'll be functioning for a while is that one.” He jutted a chin at his turgid cock.
“Oh.” Whoa. Obviously penises came in varied sizes, and in Gray's case—she swallowed—the word “ginormous” didn't come close to describing his thick, glistening cock. Sorcha hadn't seen his organ all those years ago, as she had been too busy trying to remain concealed.
Her stomach rumbled in the silence.
“Food first.” He kneaded her butt. “Then we talk.”
Talk never meant anything good. Dread had her belly churning like a washing machine on spin.
So be it.
No matter what angle she viewed the situation from, ending their relationship before it began worked for the best for everyone concerned, especially her.
One quick cut.
Decision made, she sat up, snatching the sheet with her hands and covering her breasts. “You can just walk out of here. No worries. We can forget this ever happened.”
“One thing wrong with that plan, Sorcha.” He smiled, a lazy kind of one-sided curl of his mouth that did fluttery things to her insides. “This is going to happen a lot more times tonight.”
Her pussy clenched, her face flushed warmer than Hades at the sexual intensity in his words, in his blazing black eyes, which remained manacled onto hers. Uncertain what to say, Sorcha clamped her lips together.
He reached out, and his thumb stroked her jaw and coaxed her to bend to him. Soft lips brushed hers; a tongue licked the seam of her mouth. She sighed.
Gray broke the kiss, shot her a grin full of the promise of more, and chucked her chin.
“Food first, honey. You shower. I'll check out the kitchen.”
He rolled off the bed, rummaged in a black gym bag, and pulled out a pair of gray sweatpants. Where had the bag come from?
Fascinated, she stared as he adjusted himself and swept the sweats up his thighs and over his pelvis. He caught her gawking and winked. “Your turn.”
“What?” Wanting to share his cheekiness yet unable to because this was Gray, after all, her first, most enduring fantasy lover, Sorcha chewed on her lower lip.
“Walk to bathroom. My turn to watch.”
Heat scaled her neck and mushroomed up her cheeks. “Not on your life. A girl needs some privacy.”
Sorcha bounded out of the bed the minute he disappeared from view and had the quickest shower on record. What did he want to talk about? God. What a major mistake. She thunked her head on the bathroom door. Her second start on life had just become very complicated. “God, please don't let me fall in love with him all over again.”
A moist nose nudged her palm.
Sorcha stared at White, the abandoned pup she'd adopted two years earlier. Reflexively, she scratched the Labrador's head.
“I messed things up, boy.” The dog tilted his head to one side and his tail swirled a vague question mark, as if prompting her to continue. “But God, it was a fantastic mess-up.”
She didn't want to face Gray, didn't want to have the “talk.”
“I might as well get this over and done with,” Sorcha muttered as she finished dressing.
White slurped her big toe in agreement.
The smell of fresh-brewed coffee made her eyes close, and she followed her nose to the spitting appliance. White trailed by her side, going straight to his dog dish and sitting, his ears twitching.
“Ah, the protector,” Gray quipped, waggling his eyebrows. “What's his name?”
She swallowed. “White.”
I named him after you. I figured he was as close as I'd ever get to having a part of you.
“Ah, honey, not a nice thing to do to a black Lab. Think of his machismo.” Gray stooped and scratched White under his chin. The canine's tail did a rapid side-to-side flick.
“I adopted him from the pound,” she said, telling the absolute truth but knowing what conclusion he'd reach.
“So you had no choice. A dog like this deserves a rugged name like Thor or Mars.” Gray flashed her a crooked grin as he levered to his feet, then picked up the glass coffee carafe and poured the fragrant liquid into a mug.
He sure knew his way around a kitchen. Sorcha's lips pursed. How many kitchens were familiar territory to him?
“Coffee, or would you prefer the wine?” he asked as he pulled another cup out of the cabinet and set the hand-wrought piece on the counter. He brought the mug in his hand to his lips and sipped.
She glanced at the open wine bottle breathing on the counter. “You're not having any?”
“Both my mother and father were alcoholics,” he replied. “They sobered up eventually. But I found out in college that, like them, I like alcohol way too much. One drink was never enough. I haven't had a drink in almost a decade.”
“Oh.” Sorcha didn't know how to respond to his admission. Vague memories of his father unshaven, unwashed, and asleep on a front porch swing flitted through her brain. “Coffee, please.”
“First things first,” he said and hauled her into his arms.
Pure magic, his mouth. His tongue explored her teeth, grazed the roof of her mouth, stroked her cheeks. She melted, knees buckling, pussy creaming.
Sorcha had to grab the counter when he released her.
A blush roasted her flesh.
What he must think of her. What kind of woman slept with a man within—What? Half an hour of meeting him? She focused on the sink's white faucet and hunted her mind for the next appropriate move.
“Milk? Sugar?”
Whaaaat?
“How do you take your coffee, honey?”
“Um, I'll get it.” She edged the mug over and picked up the shaker container of Splenda.
He handed her a teaspoon. “You should try honey instead of that manufactured crap.”
Two hours together, and he wanted to change how she drank her coffee? Sorcha stirred the liquid hard, and the spoon tinkled against the porcelain.
A finger tipped her chin to him. “What's wrong?”
Pasting a smile on her face, she replied, “Nothing,” and gulped a mouthful of too-hot coffee.
“We're not going there. Now tell me exactly what's on your mind.”
Those black eyes of his roamed over her features. She had to tilt her head back to see him properly. Sorcha guessed his height to be around six-four; her head didn't quite reach the middle of his chest. He had a football player's build, broad shoulders leading to a muscled neck on one end and a tapered waist on the other. Like most Native Americans, his bronzed chest was devoid of hair save for a few strands punctuating dark chocolate areolae.
“Sorcha?”
Fighting the sudden urge to lick the tight points of his small nipples, she murmured, “Mmm.”
“Honey, look at me,” he ordered as he curled an arm around her waist, took the cup
out of her hand, and set it on the granite countertop.
Why did her mind go blank the minute he touched her? What was it about Gray that made her chest ache, made her yearn to curl into him, delve into his mind?
Their eyes bumped and bolted.
Her lungs stopped functioning, her heart rolled over, and her pulse broke the record for an Indy 500 lap.
Gray swore.
She flinched.
“Sorry, honey.” His lips brushed hers. “I'm used to being with the boys.”
“It's okay. I've heard the word before.” Thank God her mouth still worked, because her brain had gone on vacation the minute he'd pulled her into his arms. A sudden hardness made her eyes drop to the bulge at her belly.
Whoa.
Hadn't they just finished?
He wanted a second round?
She peeped up and found him grinning down at her.
“Did you think what just happened was a one-and-done?”
Not capable of restraint at that moment, she blurted, “I wasn't sure.”
“I'm not going anywhere, honey. Now, let's focus on dinner and then we'll talk.”
A ring sounded. Sorcha glanced to the phone hanging on the wall above the open counter that divided the dining and living room areas from the kitchen.
“That's me,” Gray said, and he reached over and grabbed a mobile phone from where it vibrated on the granite. “Sheriff White,” he snapped into the receiver.
Deciding to give him privacy, she ambled over to the corner and loaded two cups of hard brown pellets from a Purina bag into the dog's bowl. The Lab's tail swooshed the ground, and he shoved his nose into the chunks of chow.
By the time she'd finished filling White's water dish, Gray had ended his phone call.
“I hate to do this,” he said as he dragged both hands through his thick hair. “I have to go in. I don't know how long I'll be. And I just trashed your hamburger and fries. Sorry, honey. I'll order you a pizza on the way in to the precinct.”
An original exit line, she had to give him that much. Shame and humiliation seemed to shrink every body part. Determined he, of all people, would never know how much his rejection hurt, Sorcha jabbed her hands on her hips, surveyed the twin scarlet stains on his high cheekbones, and projected a nonchalance worthy of an Oscar. “Don't worry. White and I will manage. I'm probably the only woman in North America who really doesn't like pizza.”
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