With that firmly in mind, I take the DVD from him and put it inside the player before getting comfortable beside Arawl on the couch. He finds it highly entertaining and scoffs frequently when not outright laughing. Sometimes I’m not entirely sure what exactly he finds funny about it since it isn’t a particularly humorous part, but I enjoy his open amusement in the movie too much to think hard about it.
About halfway through the movie, the pizza arrives, and by the time the movie ends we have nearly consumed the entire pie—or rather he ate most of it—and washed it down with beer.
The last twenty minutes of the movie are a blur as his light touches turn into heavy petting, his fingers stroking over my hips and down my thighs before sweeping back up, sliding over my belly to my breasts and down again. My entire body is hyperaware of his every touch and I lean into him as my fingers do their own exploration. I pull his shirt over his head so I can smooth my hands down his chest and abs, and up over his muscular shoulders to trail over his back. His entire body is fine, sculpted of hot living flesh that I writhe against in my need as his strokes become more intimate, focusing on his fingers plucking my nipples through my shirt and bra, or the way they slide down and caress my mound over my clothes.
I moan and squirm closer and a low growl rattles from him as he hitches me higher against him. My world temporarily reels as he stands up, but he steadies me in his arms before striding down the narrow hallway leading to my bedroom. He finds it without directions—which makes me hopeful that he’ll be as apt in his other pursuits—and drops me lightly on the bed. My breath leaves me in a rush as I stare up at him, his erection jutting out impressively against the strain of his pants. It looks almost painful to me, but he doesn’t seem to give it any notice.
I am not left to languish alone for long. He eyes me heatedly as he strips off his clothes to reveal a long, thick cock, heavily veined and almost ruddy in color with his arousal. The shape of the head looks a bit peculiar to me, but I don’t have long to admire it before he is crawling up over me, his fingers deftly removing my clothes, his lips kissing every inch of exposed skin as he works my body into a fervor.
I reach for him but he pins my arms over my head with a feral grin before dropping hot kisses over my breasts and neck as he works his way up. When he finally takes my mouth with his, he swallows my moans of pleasure as he grinds his sex against mine. We kiss, his tongue stabbing deep within the recesses of my mouth to twine and dance with mine and pet each other as our bodies slide against each other, my arousal coating us more and more on each pass.
Everything dissolves into pure sensation. I desperately need every touch, every taste of his lips that he offers. The rough scrape of his nails feels sharper than expected but it sends me into new levels of pleasure. His voice is almost lost to my senses except I can feel his lips moving against my skin and they draw my attention to his words.
“—can’t wait any longer. I need more!” The last words end on a growl.
My breath explodes out of me in a long moan as he pushes fully into me with a single deep thrust. My body parts fluidly around him as if made for the girth of his cock. He is a tight fit, filling me up exquisitely, but the feeling inspires something wild within me.
I arch up into him, my body driving into him eagerly and he snarls in elation as he drops into an eager rut. His body curves over me in his passion as his pelvis slaps against mine in a frenzy that hits every intimate point within me. I whimper and cry out, impaled on his engorged length, my climax pushing to punishing heights that I can’t seem to crest. I feel him swelling inside me, something thick lodging inside that keeps his thrusts contained within me, increasing my own building pressure.
As if sensing my need, he drops a hand between us and drags a clawed finger lightly over my clit without interrupting his brutal pace and I careen over the edge, my legs and belly spasming violently with every squeeze of my pussy around his length. I scream out my pleasure to the gods as his cock jerks within me, releasing its hot seed into my depths. He bellows, his body jerking against me as if possessed before he drops his face into the crook of my neck.
I am not prepared for the sharp pain that follows, but it is quickly chased away by another orgasm, ripping through my mind and fragmenting my mind and soul. I am only barely aware enough to know when his body, after several minutes, separates from mine and he drops wearily to my side to curl almost completely around me as his arms tuck around my side, his breath fanning the tender skin on my neck. Everything about it is so comforting and protective that I fade into the darkness of contented slumber.
Chapter 5
Ana
I wake, my neck stinging like a son of a bitch. Groaning, I reach up to rub the ache away. The skin is rough like something wet the side of my neck and dried there. It flakes off beneath my fingertips as I massage the aching spot.
What the fuck happened? The last thing I remember is having the best sex of my life, his lips on my neck... and then nothing except the vaguest impression of pain before I drowned in pleasure. I bring my hand in front of my face and squint at my fingers where dark flakes cling to them.
They smell strongly of blood.
There is no doubt about it... The bastard bit me!
I grumble and prod the achy spot gently, relieved to feel it’s healed over from what I can tell. A good thing nature equipped a bitey sort of fae with healing saliva. Or that’s my guess. I feel like I have been punched in the side of the neck rather than chewed on. That is a marginal improvement, though it would have been excellent if it hadn’t ached at all.
Stretching languidly beneath the covers, I grin. Aside from my neck, my entire body feels wonderful. Feeling this relaxed is more than worth a bit of unauthorized nibbling as far as I am concerned. The only drawback is that now I’m going to have to concede to Jinx that he had a point about adventurous sex. I can’t give him shit about the harpy anymore after this.
As for Jinx... I should be giving him a call. The way the sun streams through the window, I can tell that the morning has long since gone. Knowing him, he is probably halfway to my place by now. Even knowing that, it’s hard to convince my body to move. A couple more hours beneath the covers would be delightful. I let out a huge, jaw-popping yawn and wonder what time Arawl ducked out of my apartment. Probably not early enough to avoid scandalous looks from my neighbors. Some of them wake at the most obscene hours of the morning. There are no keeping secrets from them, and naturally they feel it’s their moral duty to inform everyone else that Ana Perez is entertaining demons... or some other such nonsense.
I feel something warm and fuzzy press up against me and I smile into my pillow.
“You are in a particularly affectionate mood this morning,” I say to my cuddle-happy cat as I turn in the bed to haul him up in my arms. As I get settled, I open my eyes again, expecting to see my oversized orange ball of love, but to my horror they fall upon a lupine face attached to an enormous bipedal wolfish body. The pale silver fur is ridiculously luxurious, but my eyes widen as they trail down the muscular length to the blatantly obvious sex on display.
What the hell is this?
All thoughts are instantly interrupted when two very thick arms suddenly come around me, hauling me close into the crook of his body. I let out a shrill squeak and a change comes over him immediately. He stiffens and his eyes slowly peel open to stare down at me with bright emerald eyes. My breath pants in and out—I’m pretty sure that I am beginning to hyperventilate because I’m getting light-headed—but I can’t seem to regulate my terror-filled breathing.
I’m in bed with a giant predator, and he’s staring down at me. Possibly sizing me up to see if I would make a filling meal. But how in the name of the gods did he end up in my bed?
I recoil as his snout comes close to my face, his eyes narrowed on me in confusion, his nostrils flaring. Those green eyes are so gemlike in color that I feel as if I may be cut or pierced by their intense focus. Something about them rings a bell, and I frown as I
attempt to duck out of his embrace. His lip curls with displeasure and his arms tighten around me even tighter so that I’m held helplessly against him as his nose trails down the side of my neck to the tender spot where I’d been nipped. He pauses, his tongue slipping out to stroke over the flesh there. I want to punch him in the nose, but that’s a little hard to do with my arms restrained.
I twist in his grasp with all my strength, but more than I need apparently because at the same moment he releases me as he recoils and pushes me away from him. Between his shove and my pull, I fall over the side of the bed with a shriek. That and the loud thump as my posterior hits the pitiful excuse for carpeting following directly after bruises my ego as much as my ass. I let out a muffled curse and push myself to my feet, untangling myself from the sheet as I stand, my glare hot with ire as it fastens on my unexpected bed buddy.
“What the fuck?” I shout.
He is already off the bed, his head dropped forward as he shakes it sharply from side-to-side. The fur trailing from ear to shoulder hangs considerably longer and is so pale of a shade of silver that it nearly looks white. It is woven into braids, the beaded ends clanking together with every jerk of his head in accompaniment to his snarl. When he finally meets my eyes, he looks pissed.
Wait one fucking moment. He’s pissed? He is in my bed... completely uninvited and probably shedding all over my sheets... and he’s looking at me as if it is all my fault. If anyone has the right to be angry, it’s me.
“What have you done?” he snarls.
For a heartbeat, I am at a complete loss. It’s not often that I am shocked not only speechless but also beyond rationalization, but I am, and I can only stare at him with my mouth hanging open. Eventually, my wits return to me and I close my mouth with an audible snap.
“What have I done?” I return just as loudly. I am not, by nature, a quiet person. I’m passionate. I talk loudly, love loud, and have a tendency to shout... especially when I’m riled up. This whole situation is so insane that it is subconsciously provided full volume clearances in my brain. “Look, fuzzy, you need to check your attitude. I don’t know what you are doing here or what crawled up your ass, but I think you need to leave.”
He stills and has the nerve to look at me like I’ve lost my mind. Then he’s talking to himself, raking his enormous clawed hands through his... I guess I would call it his mane.
“This should not have happened,” he growls.
“What exactly happened?” I press on against my better judgment. My common sense says to leave it alone and let him vent, but a larger part of myself really wants to know.
His head snaps up and those vivid green eyes glower at me.
Hold up a sec... Glowing green eyes....
For the second time that morning, my jaw drops.
“Arawl?”
He snorts at my disbelieving tone. Who would blame me though? I have seen a lot of weird shit since the portals opened, but I’ve never seen a shapeshifter.
“What are you?” I ask bluntly, showing exactly how much tact I possess. Close to none.
He holds his arms out from his side and I think he rolls his eyes at me. “I am a werewolf, obviously.”
“Obviously,” I repeat in a blank tone.
No, it is not obvious. Isn’t this a little backward according to werewolf lore? I pinch my lips together and look over him, trying to determine if anything at all resembles the insanely hot man who I took to bed last night. Other than the muscles having a passing resemblance to all that yumminess, I can say quite assuredly that nothing is measuring up. He has all the fitness of a bodybuilder and natural athlete paired with all the fur and imposing predatory features of monstrous bipedal wolf-like being who’d eat a 5’5” woman as an appetizer.
“If you are a werewolf, isn’t your whole gimmick a bit... reversed?” I say as I gesture to his body with a broad sweep. “Insanely hot man at night of the full moon and wolf beast in the morning is like a bad script written ass-backward.”
Now he definitely rolls his eyes at me.
“Humans,” he mutters. I narrow my eyes at him so that he has no doubt that I heard him. I have a sneaking suspicion that was intentional when he bares his teeth at me in a devilish grin.
A devilish grin on a wolfman is nothing like a happy puppy smile on your favorite golden retriever. It’s like taking a jackal warrior from The Mummy and making it smile horribly at you all fangs and sharp angles. Just minus the half-mummified appearance. Gods, I love that movie. Those jackals were freaking awesome. In the flesh, and in wolfish form, which is a bit more intimidating than I would have guessed.
He crosses his arms over his wide chest and sneers down at me. “I suppose you think that a werewolf is a human then?”
“Well, yeah,” I reply. “It’s part of the whole ‘even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright’ shtick.” He gives me such an incredulous look that I feel I have to defend my obsession with monster movies. “The Wolfman is a classic. In any case, in all the lore on record it’s always a human taking the form of a wolf on the night of a full moon,” I snap.
“I do not know if there are any humans who are capable of taking on the form of a wolf or not, but my people are among the species of fae. This is how we appear normally. It is only during the three days of the full moon that we are capable of making ourselves appear something akin to human by the grace of the light of the moon.”
“If that is the case, why are you wolfing out now? You still have two more active days of active full moon energy since today is the actual full moon. Then there is tomorrow.”
“There can be only one reason. Chemical alteration in my body would trigger my return to my natural form. Sealing a mating bond would have provided enough catalyst on a hormonal level to do just that.” The growl in his voice is noticeably deeper and fiercer.
I frown at him as everything in my mind begins to shift until it fits together in a clearer picture. “Wait, so that means...”
He bares his teeth at me in a terrible grimace. “That, somehow, something about you surpassed my control and I gave you my bite. In all my lifespan, it has never happened, not with a werewolf nor human who I’ve taken to my bed. It is something that I have successfully avoided despite all pressure that is placed upon me to take a mate. This is more of my freedom taken away from me! It means that we are mated.”
Mated. As in this is your life forever.
“Fuck!” he growls as he sinks down onto the bed to cradle his massive head in his palms as if his life just ended.
This is going to be my life from here on out... stuck with a male who doesn’t want a mate or commitment with anyone. Once again, I’m an unwanted inconvenience, but this time there’s no escape.
I am shackled to him permanently because of a fucking... accident!
“No. Fucking. Way,” I groan as I sink down onto the other side of the bed opposite of him. We sit back to back, neither of us having anything more to say.
Chapter 6
Arawl
How the fuck could this have happened? I know how it happened, but I just don’t understand how my luck could run so incredibly bad that I ended up giving the elders exactly what they wanted: me tied down with a mate.
Just like that, I’ve become a settled male. I can feel it as assuredly in my bones as I can that the erotic lunacy that has plagued me since the onset of the full moon is now satiated. The thought of it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I now belong to the tribe in entirety with a responsibility to not only guard and protect but also to provide a new generation of kits into the noble line.
There will be no more new adventures. I will be tied to a den with my mate for the rest of my life.
I chance a glance at my mate and can scent her bitter disappointment on the air. What does she have to be disappointed about? She now has what females want: a strong mate who will guard her den and provide for her. Although she doesn’t know th
at she got the youngest son of the alpha for her mate, those points alone should have had her ecstatic. There were a number of females who would have enjoyed being in her place. Yet she is acting as if it were her life being upended, instead of mine.
I want to be angry at her, but it is impossible.
Even now, she pulls at me, regardless of her smell and my ire. I still want her. It is alarming in its intensity and alone fills me with dread. An incompatible mating can sometimes be severed with powerful magic when the bond is made in error, but this is far more potent.
My stomach drops as all the cues come together that I had ignored. The indescribable pull to her that brought me to her, not once, but twice. The insatiable need that plagued me since we met. My territorial response every time I was near her, and even when we were apart when I nearly felt maddened not knowing where she was. I should have put it together earlier and run in the other direction, but in my defense, there haven’t been fated mates in the tribes for generations. I don’t want this coveted bond, but to break it may take stronger magic that only the greatest sages possess.
“So, what now?” Ana asked, her voice breaking the silence.
“What do you mean?” I grumble back. “You have a mate. Congratulations.”
She turns around to glower at me. “What do you mean congratulations? I didn’t win any kind of prize here. If you think I want to be saddled with you, you need to think again. What I mean is how do we fix this... You know, unmate?”
“Not typical for a situation such as ours,” I return sourly. “We would have to find a wizard of reputable power to be able to even have a chance at breaking the bonds between us.”
The Accidental Werewolf's Mate: A Monsterly Yours Romance (Monstery Yours Book 3) Page 4