She turned her face and reached up to rub her lips on his chin. “Don’t be. I’m glad we learned you could do that. Still, can’t you just request more time off? I don’t want you to cut ties with-”
“I don’t care about cutting ties, Thalia. Don’t you understand, I only ever became a surgeon because I had no place in this world. I had to become a part of human society to do something with myself, to find a niche. Now, with you, you’re changing that. You’re bringing me home, bringing me back to exactly where I want to be.”
She swallowed and her light blue eyes turned stormy at his words. “I need you.”
He smiled gently. “I need you too.”
Thalia’s hand reached for his, she pulled it from her calf and dragged it up to her thigh. “I need you inside me.”
He frowned. “Are you sure?”
As he started to turn back toward the door, she stilled him. “He went out for a run. I told you.”
“Funny time to go for a run. It’s damn hot out there.” And it was. It was summer and just past two in the afternoon—it would be molten.
“I guess it’s cooler than Afghanistan. Either that, or he was BSing me and just wanted some space.”
“He’s overwhelmed.”
“Can’t blame him.”
“I can,” Rafe said darkly. “He’s being a douche.”
She snorted. “He’s entitled. He’s known about this less than a day.”
“I know, but what I don’t is how he’s kept his hands off you.” He shook his head. “Braver man than me.”
She cocked a brow at him. “Brave?”
He grinned. “Yeah. Brave.”
“Not sure that’s the right word, babe.”
Something inside him perked up at her endearment. “You think I’m a babe?”
Flinging her head back with her laughter, she tightened her arms around his neck and squeezed him. “I think you’re gorgeous.”
“Yeah? The feeling’s mutual,” he murmured huskily, his hands reaching for her ass as his lips sought hers.
They supped from one another for what felt like endless moments. Licking and tasting, exploring and learning. It was a revelation. But then, each time with her was.
She savored him like he was a chocolate truffle, he thought amusedly. She lapped him up like he was whipped cream, and then, she managed to set him alight with the way she was both submissive and dominant, bringing his Wolf to life in ways he’d never known before.
The way she flung her head back?
That meant nothing to a human. It meant everything to a Lyken. She submitted to him, bared her throat for his attack, and she did it with more and more frequency. She let him kiss her there, her most vulnerable spot. Let him suck down and mark her, with his lips and with his teeth.
She submitted in the most basic way of their kind, and it was like being given the keys to a damn city every time she did it.
Then, there was the way she’d take charge. Not afraid to entice him into fucking her mouth with his tongue, totally willing to grab a hold of his hands and drag them to her breasts, to make him touch her exactly where she needed to be touched.
The contrasting sides were delicious and delightful, and all the more reason to spend hours upon hours in bed.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
While his body wept with frustration, his mind was focused on the here and now.
He could have his mate, could give her the pleasure she needed. And his Wolf suddenly needed that very badly.
He grabbed her ass and tucked her tighter against him, and as he did, his hands slid over her hips. Her line-free hips. A groan escaped him and he pulled his mouth from hers, pressed his forehead to her own, then whispered, “You’re killing me.”
She giggled, the sound soft and youthful, and completely uncharacteristic of her. Sometimes, it was hard to remember how young she was. Impossible in the face of her maturity. That little sound made his damn heart melt and simultaneously expand with feeling for her.
“When did you take them off?”
“The minute he went out,” she told him, peppering his lips with little kisses, dotting them around his mouth, wherever she could reach without breaking the connection.
“Minx. You planned this?”
“What do you think?” she said with a little snort. “I knew you wouldn’t want him to hear us.”
He winced. “Was I that obvious?”
“When you didn’t make a move this morning?” She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah. I saw that morning wood you were packing, felt it too.” When she licked her lips, as though remembering his taste, as though wanting to savor it further, he felt everything in him tighten with desire. “When you didn’t try anything, I knew it was because of Mikkel.”
He sighed. “I just need time.”
“And you can have as much as you need, my love,” she informed him, but it wasn’t a grand gesture on her part. She didn’t say it like she was making a major concession. She gave the words with that side of her nature he was coming to learn—the generous part that would give her life to protect and serve the people she’d been born to rule.
Then, she spoiled the grandiose thoughts he was having about her by grinning wickedly at him. “That just means we have to find sneaky moments.”
That excited her, he realized. His eyes darkened as he studied her flushed features, the peachy blossoms on her cheeks where arousal had stained them, the ice bright eyes that flashed with arousal and flickered slightly—telling him her She-Wolf was as in control as ever.
That was a concern, but the beast was as much his mate as this armful on his lap.
Taking advantage of that, he reached forward and lunged upward with her in his arms. She squeaked, clung to his neck, then let out a grunt when he pushed her into the wall of windows behind his desk.
When he worked from home, he liked to look out onto the pool, to take in the view of Austin, to watch over his domain that had been a lifetime in the making.
Now?
Now he wanted to see the fire in Thalia’s eyes, the sun bleaching her hair white as he fucked her with that view. She was a part of his domain now, and he wanted this memory lasered onto his retinas.
Her thighs tightened about his hips as she arched her back, rippling like a cat as she whispered, “Mm, the glass is warm.”
“Too warm?” he asked, concerned enough to drag her back against his chest.
“No. It’s nice,” she said with a purr, her grin wicked as she reached between them and began to unfasten the shirt buttons.
“Can you wear my shirts every day, please?” he asked a touch hoarsely as he watched her reveal, inch by inch, skin that reminded him of vanilla ice cream—the kind he wanted to eat by the gallon.
“Of course,” she said on a chuckle. “For bed or around the house?”
“Either answer is acceptable,” he told her on a grunt as she revealed her flushed tits with the cherry nipples.
Nostrils flaring, he bowed his head and pressed his lips to each peak in a kiss. Her hands came to run through his hair, and he groaned as her nails dragged over the sensitive skin of his scalp. He pounced then, sucked one nubbin into his mouth with a harsh touch that dragged a moan from her. Then, he did the same with the second one.
Using his weight to hold her up, he reached between them to free his cock from his pants, and with the other, cupped the breast he wasn’t teasing with his mouth.
Her hips were low, so low that his cock brushed the curve of her ass when he freed it. She stilled at the wet kiss then let out a deep, guttural moan that set his Wolf to pacing in his very soul. Unaccustomed to that restless agitation, he froze a second, uncertain of what to do.
No woman had ever awoken his Wolf, and the creature rarely stirred even with the full moon. To feel him now?
Was this what Thalia had to endure?
This strange sense of feeling flustered? Like you weren’t alone? The very real proof that you were sharing your so
ul with someone else, a someone else that didn’t understand human rules and etiquette?
He panted hard enough to release her nipple and pressed his forehead between her breasts to catch his breath as the Wolf seemed to explore the limitations of the cage it was in.
“Rafe?” she asked, hoarsely. “What’s wrong?”
For a second, he couldn’t speak. Then, in a broken voice, he whispered, “You woke my Wolf.”
Silence fell. “Has that never happened before?”
Her tone was curiously blank. “No,” he admitted.
“Oh,” she whispered, but he could hear the lazy satisfaction that made a sudden appearance in her words.
He sucked down air like there was an oxygen shortage as the Wolf started to butt the cage he was kept in while Rafe was in his human form. The sharp gasp that fled from his lips had her hands coming up to his jaw. She forced him to look at her, moving against the pressure he exerted to keep his head resting between her breasts, so she could look him in the eye.
She hummed. “It’s normal between mates, love,” she said in a low tone, that hum seeming to vibrate through the words in a way that was pitched for both man and beast.
He felt the Wolf’s ears prick, felt the creature still, his attention on their female.
“My She-Wolf wants your Wolf as badly as I want you.”
He licked his lips. “My Wolf’s small.” He ignored the beast’s outraged snarl.
“Your Wolf’s perfect.”
“He’s weak,” he whispered, shaking his head as much as he could in the tight clasp she had on his jaw.
“He’s made for me. My soft to your hard.”
“It’s the other way around,” he gritted out. “I’m soft. You’re hard.”
“You’re perfect,” she countered easily, the words throbbing with sincerity. “You’re what I need. You make me normal, Rafe. You bring me peace. You bring her peace. I can breathe around you; did you know that?”
He blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” She paused to lick her lips, her eyes flashing in a way that said the She-Wolf was coming to the fore. “Before you, my She-Wolf was always there. The way your Wolf has awoken? Mine never sleeps. With you, she rests. She only flares to life if she thinks you’re in danger.”
“That’s not right, Thalia. I’m supposed to protect you,” he ground out, and making to pull away, found he couldn’t when her legs clamped around his hips with a power that made him grit his teeth.
“You do protect me,” she stated, her calm tone starting to fray slightly. “You think I need you to protect me with your fists?” Thalia snarled at that. “My She-Wolf doesn’t need that. She needs you. I need you. Didn’t you hear me? You bring me peace. Do you know how safe that makes me feel? Do you know what that does to me?”
He stilled, the words penetrating the shame that was bone deep. The ingrained humiliation that had been instilled from the very moment he’d realized he was different to his sisters, when he’d learned his father hated him. Not for what he did, not for misbehaving or anything like that, but for what he was.
“What? What does it do?” he asked, desperate to hear her answer.
“You know how close to the edge I am, Rafe,” she admitted, beginning to stroke his jaw with her thumb. “You drag me back from the precipice. You make me feel human again. You make my She-Wolf less restless. You bring me something nobody ever has.
“I don’t need your claws. I don’t need your fangs. You’re my haven, baby. Can’t you understand that?”
A shaky sigh escaped him and he pulled away from her touch on his jaw but only because he wasn’t pulling free of her hold, but leaning into it. He rested against her breast once more and sucked in a shaky breath. “I need to get over this, don’t I?” he admitted gruffly.
Her small laugh made his lips twitch, then shivers ran down his spine as she played with the ends of his hair. “You do. But these insecurities are a lifetime in the making. We have all the time in the world to make you realize you’re not my inferior, Rafe. You’re my equal.”
The words would stick with him like the best glue in the universe. He made a vow that, no matter what they faced, no matter what happened, he’d hold them up like a talisman to ward off the feelings of inferiority that plagued him.
She was right.
She didn’t need his fangs or his claws. She needed the part of him that was a healer. She needed his Wolf’s talents that weren’t sourced in brawn or might, but that were mystical and Goddess-granted.
He was strong, Rafe realized. Just not in the way that was cherished by their people. But different didn’t mean wrong, and it was time he started climbing that particular learning curve.
Turning his head to the side, he reached for her nipple. She froze for a second as he sucked the cherry-tip into his mouth, and then, just like he’d flicked a switch, the inferno raged between them once more like they’d never had that conversation, like they hadn’t just had an erection-draining discussion about his inadequacies.
Shuddering, he palmed her ass with one hand and grabbed his cock with the other. He slipped the tip between them, loving how she arched her spine, and spread her legs wider so she could accommodate him.
He pulled back once he’d raked his teeth down a sensitive nub, and collecting her weight on one hand, stared down between them to see the tip of his cock running through her hot, slick folds.
They both shuddered at the visual. The crest of his sex was slick with both his juices and hers, and it was a ruddy purple from the need he felt.
“My softness to your hardness,” she whispered, and the words broke him.
They fucking annihilated him.
With a snarl, he tensed his ass and arched up onto tiptoe. Using that momentum, he found her entrance and pushed home.
She resisted at first, she was still so small. But her pussy conceded to him as it always would, he knew. She enfolded him in her scorching hot depths, searing him with the fire that burned for him.
When he hit home, she moaned, her body close to vibrating against the wall of glass that supported her. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted back against the windows. He watched her for a second, saw her process what he was doing to her, and knew he had to mark her.
She was already covered in love bites. They dotted her throat, her chest. Her breastbone and belly. Even between her thighs, there were the marks of his touch. Just like his body was equally as claimed. But at that moment, in that singular moment where they were together as true equals, he needed his teeth on her.
Shifting forward changed the angle of his cock, and another guttural groan escaped her. His Wolf, still restless, keened at that, and knowing what the man wanted, the beast urged him on. With both sides of his nature in accord for once, there was no way Rafe could stop himself from pouncing.
When his teeth clamped around her throat, hard enough to make her squeak a little in protest, the inevitable happened.
He knotted inside her.
She tensed in his arms and with zero thrusting on his part, she blew apart too.
It was crazy, it was insane. It was impossible. But it wasn’t. It was happening. Now.
Her nails dug into his back, and he felt the shirt shred under her touch. He felt blood prickle to the surface, staining the air with a metallic scent that his Wolf reacted to.
He felt his cum damn near boil in his balls, spurting free with the need to overwhelm her with his scent, to make her smell of him wherever they went today. For all males to know she was claimed and that she was his.
The sounds of her orgasm, the way she clutched down on him, made him feel like he was about to go crazy. His beast was no longer restless but that pacing was incessant, endless.
In self-defense, Rafe rocked his hips, tugging at the knot in a way that had keening cries escaping them both. And then, just when his orgasm started to die down, it was her turn to stun him.
Though she was pinned to the wall with his weight on hers, his cock
inside her, and his teeth at her throat, somehow, she angled her head so that she could bite him too.
As her teeth sank into his throat, as she clamped a hold on him once more, he felt it again.
The soaring whirlwind that morphed into a hurricane that decimated his defenses, that made his cock hard and his soul weak, a storm of sensation that roared into power.
Her cries flooded his ears, the rhythmic pulsing of her cunt around his shaft as she exploded into orgasm, made his sensitive dick rage into life once more.
As lights began to prickle behind his eyes, as his ears rushed with the sound of his pulse, he knew, in his hearts of hearts, that this had been their second claiming.
Only that of their Wolves truly counted, but this? It was in their skin.
She was his, and he was hers.
And while he’d never doubted that, while he’d only feared that he’d never be good enough for her, this eradicated any concerns.
They were made for each other.
He was born to be inside her, and she had been born to shelter him.
The Goddess had willed it, and Rafe would spend the rest of his life on his knees in thanks for her gift.
6
Thalia
Though Sara had suggested meeting with the Alpha of the Summerford Pack was unnecessary, Thalia knew that it was exactly the nail in Alpha Stevenson’s coffin that the bastard deserved.
It also cemented her position in place.
She was Triskele. She would seek out justice, mete it, and then ensure the aftermath of her actions were carried out to perfection.
Cutting and running wasn’t what this new phase of her life was about.
“Triskele,” Stevenson stated, but there was a definite chill to his voice. Not that she couldn’t empathize. Overnight, she’d brought chaos to his previously organized world.
Who wouldn’t be pissed about that?
Then, throw in the fact Stevenson was a sexist prick, and she was most definitely female?
Yeah, she was lucky he wasn’t outright glowering at her.
“Alpha.” Her smile was sweet, especially as she took in the men in his office.
Triskele (The TriAlpha Chronicles Book 2) Page 8