by Roxy Mews
“You want me.” He grunted it.
This would be sexy were it another person or another circumstance. My body was responding, but my head was still in control. Thank goodness. My wolf gave me that control, so I could save us both.
I ripped my tank open. I wasn’t big on bras. My breasts hung heavy in front of him.
“Come get me, Mutt.”
I ran. He followed. The wind beat against me and trailed my scent back to him. He was fast, but he wasn’t in control, and I took a rough route. He tripped, like I knew he would, and it slowed him enough.
I needed to call and let Doc know what was coming his way, but I knew there was no way the phone would carry my call. The wind would distort it enough that even his ears wouldn’t pick it up. Thank goodness for technology—I could text while doing damn near anything. I didn’t dare look at the phone, but I’m pretty sure I got what needed to be sent out.
Alone. No one else. Just you. Need help.
I felt a tug at my blouse that was billowing behind me like a cape.
Shit.
I had slowed enough for him to get a hold of me. His claws ripped at the material and tore into it. I let my arms fall back and the fabric fluttered behind me and fell to the forest floor.
He turned to watch it fall. I took the opportunity to really distract him. I ran backwards. His eyes attached to my chest, and he followed me with a mission. I heard the growl that came from his mouth. “Mine.”
Oh boy. Was I ever.
And he was going to be pissed about this. We were on a nature preserve the environmental studies students took care of. I knew this place like the back of my hand. My wolf loved to play here. A quick sidestep to the left…and he ran smack into the cement base of the bird-watching platform. He fell back. Out cold.
That was the problem with running and not slowing down. When you hit, you hit hard. Add in the vamp factor, and I had no idea how long he would be out, but I did know that I was now topless with a vampire-wolf hybrid in the forest, and one of us was sporting a massive erection. The voice that rang in my ears next let me know Doc got my text and hadn’t been too far away.
“Well Amber, I can see why you wanted me to come alone. Are you trying to start a war? Trying to kill someone outside of Pack territory is not wise.” Doc stepped off the nearest trail.
He was even bigger than Daddy was. His heavy jeans rasped against the brush, and his hiking boots thudded against the forest floor with purpose. He wasn’t out of breath, but his heart was thudding loudly. He had been pulling from his wolf to make it to me as fast as he did. I had no doubt he had followed my scent. The trail Jake and I had trekked through the woods could have alerted the most inexperienced tracker.
“Not dead.” At least I didn’t think so. “And it might be better to kill him. Because Daddy’s going to beat both of us to death anyway.”
“Why’s that? What did you do?” Doc started moving forward. He poked Jake with a large walking stick. My mate was motionless.
“Didn’t do anything.” Yet. “Can you not poke my mate with your stick? Might make a girl angry.”
Doc stopped. The end of his walking stick was still pressing into Jake’s ribs. He turned just his head. Just enough to see me. “Say that again. He’s your what?”
“This scraggly mutt is my mate. I need your help.”
“Fuck.”
“Yup. That sums it up well.”
Chapter Four
Dragging a mammoth, six-foot-plus hybrid through the woods is not something I recommend in surface-of-the-sun temperatures. Being sweaty and topless is much less sexy than one would think. It sure didn’t feel sexy. The only hiccup was when my nipples skated across Jake’s arm as I dragged him. Then other things involving being sweaty and topless would jump into my brain.
It was too bad Jake was unconscious and Doc was with us. Or maybe that was a good thing. Either way, we were able to get Jake to a safe house. It was a small cabin surrounded by nothing. There had been a few Bigfoot sightings in the area from local hunters, but I didn’t think it was likely that Sasquatch and weres and vamps all shared this territory. Then again, I had been wrong before.
“Are you sure you didn’t kill him?” Doc asked.
“Yup.”
Doc poked him again.
I pulled a shirt out of my size bin in the safe house stash and tossed it over my head. Times like this, I envied the bra wearers of the world. My nipples were threatening to bust through my shirt and attack Jake for me if I didn’t do it myself. There was no point in covering the evidence of my arousal. Surely, Doc could smell me from the next block over.
The pheromones poured off me. That’s how I could tell Jake hadn’t gone to the big dog park in the sky. I wouldn’t have nipples of steel if he was gone. I’d have been on the floor bawling like a five-year-old who’d just watched her pony get eaten by a bear.
“So this was what the third degree was about?” Doc walked a restless circle around the small conversation area in front of the natural stone fireplace.
“Yup.” I cocked my head and watched the bundle of trouble fate had thrown at me as Doc continued his checklist of obvious.
“He’s a hybrid.”
“Yup.” I sat myself down on the chair next to where Jake dozed. Watching his chest rise and fall was better than porn. His shirt was in tatters, and I wanted to rip the remnants off his body.
“You know what will happen to you if you do what you are obviously wanting to do to that boy.”
“Not really sure what the Council would do with our internal organs. Do you think they would burn them or feed them to some stock animals to add insult to our deaths?” My sarcasm escalates with my stress level. Both were running heavy right now.
The man who long ago had come to be like a second father to me leaned against the fireplace. I could tell he was wary to let Jake leave his sight. His stance might have looked relaxed to a human, but I knew his wolf was rumbling below the surface.
“I’m glad you have a sense of humor about this, because you’ll need it when you’re running for your life.”
“I do what I can.”
A grunt from the couch set both of us in motion. Why I moved toward him, while the man I called to help protect me backed up, I couldn’t tell you. Note to self. Ask Doc for medical advice. Not protection.
“What hit me?”
“You ran into a pillar while gazing at my amazing rack.” He closed his eyes and put his hand over what had to be one hell of a headache. “Well, you were in a wolfy rage and trying to mate with me at any rate.”
“The pain should keep the wolf at bay for a bit, but I’m not sure how fast his particular hybrid mix will heal him, so if we want a rational conversation we need to have it fast.” Doc didn’t look like the almighty protector I had called for. Doc was a man ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. I was glad he had come for moral support, but I was wishing he had a bit more fight in him at the moment.
“What is our best course of action here, Doc? How can we get him under his own control the fastest?”
My traitorous hand began stroking Jake’s side, but I held my neck ramrod straight. It took effort not to lean in and cuddle with the big guy sprawled on the couch. Yummy mating pheromones were pouring off him.
“That’s not our big problem here. Jake…does she know what you are?”
“Um…he’s a vamp-wolf hybrid. Duh.” I looked down at Jake, and he was giving Doc the creepy still vampire glare.
“How do you know of me?” Good thing we all had superior hearing, because that deadly low tone might not have tripped average eardrums. I backed up a little at those words.
“I am the Pack’s source of healing and safe-keeping. I make it my business to know all that goes on around us. I’ve studied your Family, for obvious reasons. So yeah, I know who Jake Meyers is to the Meyers Family.” He was a bowstring taut with tension.
I looked back and forth between them. They were so busy giving each other the grumpy-dude glar
e that nobody seemed to feel the need to fill me in. So I did what any were-critter would do. I stood between them and stomped my foot and let loose a frustrated growl.
“Is anybody going to share with the female? Or do I get to play guess the other bad crud that I obviously don’t know about yet?”
“He’s his Family’s Protector.”
“Of course he is. Wanna clue me in on what that means?”
“Do you pay attention to anything that is discussed at Council?”
“They have cookies there! I have my priorities.”
Doc took a deep breath and rolled his eyes to the ceiling, but didn’t keep his attention off Jake long. “He’s healing. I can see the ripples under his skin of the wolf trying to claim. I don’t have time for a lesson on vamp politics. You either need to mate or one of you needs to kill the other. The call is too strong. I can barely breathe over the stink of the pheromones in this room. And the longer we stand here waiting, the more he is healing and the stronger the scent is getting. So Amber…what’s your choice?”
“Do I get no choice here?” Jake huffed at Doc.
“You’re obviously not healed enough yet if you think you have a choice in this, or you would realize that if you did kill her, I would just be waiting outside to slice you open from neck to pecker.”
Jake bent his head as another wave of wolf rippled under his skin. He would change within the hour.
“He’s going to shift. There’s no way he’s stopping it. He won’t attack me when he’s out of control, will he?” I was terrified of what was going on, but my nipples were hard and aching more with every word from my mate’s mouth.
Doc was on his way out the door as he called back. “You’ll be fine. You’re his mate. Just try and keep him corralled away from everybody else. Even if he keeps enough control to stop himself from hurting his Family, if they find him like this and see him protecting you. Well, the shit will hit the fan. And—oh, crap—there he goes.” Doc was now hiding behind the edge of the wooden door. If I hadn’t been talking to him, there was a good chance he would be half a mile away by now. “You’re his mate. Claim him or kill him. Quickly. If I try and control him now, he will see me as a threat to his claim on you. I can’t help you here. It’s up to you, Amber. Choose.”
The screen slapped against the cabin. I went and shut the heavy wood door behind it, throwing the deadbolt. Jake would do some hellacious damage to the inside of our safe house if he shifted here, but I was more worried about the damage he would do to Doc or anybody who happened by.
“Well. What’s your choice?”
“What?” I turned. And Jake was taking off his clothes.
He was down to his boxers. My tongue lolled from my mouth. I hoped I didn’t drool. I swallowed the rush of saliva flooding around my canines. The desire to taste him—to take him—stole my breath. He was mine. I was his.
My wolf beat against my skin, but for the first time, she wasn’t pushing for a change. She was giving me my body. The mating had to be in human form to bind us.
Blood. He would bite me, while we—oh wow.
“I will take you. And you will let me, because you want me to. I will make your body sing with pleasure and fill you with my cock. I will bite you. I will claim you.” He shrugged, like we were talking about what was on the menu. He licked his lips. Guess I was on the menu. “It’s happening, but I figured you could make that choice first if it makes you feel any better.”
Alpha. The word danced across my brain, and even though I was not the type to roll over belly-up to any man, I felt his pull. This mating thing sucked.
“This is not exactly the smartest thing to do. For either of us. I still have no idea what a Protector is, but I bet your Family won’t be pleased with you bringing home a member of the local Pack any more than my father will be pleased with me starting some sort of inter-species war.”
He moved closer. His cock strained against his boxers, and I caught a hint of skin and hair where the fabric stretched at the button closure. I was drunk on his scent, but I wasn’t going to roll over and beg. Well, not yet anyway.
“You locked yourself in here with me. You either plan to kill me or surrender to this connection between us. Do you think you can take me down? Or do you want me to take you?” He hooked his thumbs in his boxers and the faint noise of them falling to the floor sang like a choir of angels to my libido.
He was gorgeous. His cock was throbbing and slapped his stomach. Blood thickened his cock further as I watched. I could smell him. The scent hit me with each step he took. Every movement stirred the air, sending waves of pheromones washing over me. My own lust bloomed in my lower belly. I couldn’t drag my eyes from that veined monster.
A drop of precome leaked from the tip. The dew was my undoing. A hungry mewl escaped my throat as my knees hit the floor. This was the first time I could remember kneeling before a man and wanting it more than I wanted anything else. It wasn’t just pleasure I sought. I wasn’t just getting him ready to please me. I wanted to please him, too.
Our bodies were both so tight with the tension we had been fighting. We needed this release, but it wasn’t the end result that was on my mind as I gripped his cock with my hand. The heat flowed between us, and when my eyes hit his, the impact had us both trembling. I swallowed him.
He was mine. His cock was mine, and that precome was a tasty treat just for me. The salty tang washed over my mouth, and I was salivating for more. He was heavy against my tongue. I hollowed my cheeks and pulled back just enough to make eye contact again. The stoic man that had watched me from across the road was gone. The man who told me to “turn it off” had vanished.
This man watched me, and I felt the pulse of him against my cheeks. He struggled to maintain control of his hands. His right balled into a fist that opened and closed with each stroke I gave. The veins on his forearm popped in tension. The left hand began to pet me, and fingers ran through my hair. My tongue flicked the head, and both of his hands fisted against my scalp. He pulled tight. The tingle of pain shot to my pussy, and I felt the desire engulf my soul.
“If you are going to kill me, this is the way I want to die.” Jake’s legs adjusted into a wider stance. I gripped his legs, and his hands in my hair steadied me. The ridge of his cockhead was candy-sweet in my mouth. I licked under and around it. He hardened further. The only reason I backed off a bit was to take a breath. For a moment I wished I had his lungs and didn’t have to breathe.
He grabbed my head and pushed me back on him. “More. Suck me. Swallow me.”
My mouth ticked up at the sides. My mate liked his cock sucked. He wanted me to swallow, huh? His voice went from gravel to groan as I dug my nails into his thighs and pulled him to the back of my throat. I let my throat relax and swallowed around him.
His smooth controlled words left, and the animal I had forced out of him took over. “You’re mine.”
He began to fuck my mouth. His words floated over me, and I lost myself in the rhythm. I don’t know if it was the man, the vampire or the wolf, but I like to think each was screaming out their claim over me. “Mine, mine, mine.”
He panted the words as he thrust with increasing force. I forced my breath through my nose, and tried to keep up with my tongue. I licked the underside of his cock and felt his rhythm change, as I walked my hand up his leg and toward his heavy sac. The soft skin tightened in my hand, and I pulled it toward me. My hands claimed what he was giving me. A jagged growl and his wolf gave me what I wanted. His come filled my mouth.
Swallowing him just left me thirsty for more. This mating thing was no joke. I didn’t want to let him go and kept licking him clean until he pulled me forcibly from his cock. The softness I had rolled around in my mouth was already giving way to another hard-on that I was damn ready to take advantage of.
Right now, wasn’t fast enough to get him inside me. Considering I was still clothed and undressing would take far too long, I wanted him back in my mouth, but he yanked me up to standing.
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His eyes were golden with his impending change. He was operating on instinct. His wolf was close, but it was holding back just as mine was. We had only enough control to lose ourselves in each other.
Jake’s hands moved to my neck. With my head held still, his thumbs forced my jaw up to meet him, and his lips lowered to mine. His tongue pushed inside my lips. Mine jabbed back. His mouth was warm and sweet, and I wanted to fill him up as much as I wanted him to fill me.
My blood. I wanted him to drink from me. Wolves were no strangers to biting, but it was a hold of submission that should turn my crank. It wouldn’t be enough with Jake. I needed more than a standard mating. The thought of him drinking from my vein should have repulsed me. It didn’t. Instead, the thought of him licking his lips with a part of me no one else had ever tasted had my blood boiling to the surface with lust. My skin was hot, and I needed him to take everything from me.
My hands tore at his. His skin was solid. He was stronger than a human. His skin was tougher than mine. It was tougher than wolf, tougher than human. I would have ripped anyone else to shreds, but his vampire side held tougher stock. I felt the last of my control erode as I realized I couldn’t hurt him. My wolf rallied inside me, and I pawed at him, like the animal he made me.
Instead of grabbing my other body parts that were screaming for his attention, he grabbed hold of the neckline of my borrowed shirt. The cool air puckered my skin as he ripped the fabric from my body. Ripped. Right down the middle. Rawr.
My pants followed, before he threw me onto the sofa. When a vampire throws you, there is no delicate flop. The couch dug grooves in the wooden floors as it rocketed against the cabin wall. Plaster dusted my body as the frame of the house shook. I didn’t dare brush myself off. I couldn’t breathe.
Jake stalked toward me. This was it. My mate.