“No. You’re a natural leader, Eli. You always have been. You just never had a chance to do anything about it when you were here before.”
He shrugged, then took a bite of his pizza, looking uncomfortable with the praise as he chewed.
“So you and the guys started your new life as mercs,” she murmured, before taking another sip of her beer. “Was it hard?”
“Hell, yeah,” he said with a grin. “But there were times when we made damn good money at it. And then, if it was something we believed needed to be done, there were times when we didn’t make a penny.”
“So I was right!” She smirked in response to his curious look. “You know, the whole Merry Men thing. I had you pegged!”
He arched a brow. “You got a thing about men in tights, Rey?”
“Maybe,” she murmured, teasing him. She didn’t really, though she was fairly certain she’d find Eli hot in anything he wore, even if it was hosiery.
They shared a quiet laugh, then settled into a comfortable silence while they finished off the pizza, and he went to the fridge to get them both another beer. When he sat back down, twisted the cap off her bottle, and handed it to her, she leaned back in her chair and said, “So the guys...they’re different, aren’t they? I mean, I sense that they’re Lycans. But...there’s more, isn’t there?”
He leaned back and tilted his bottle to his lips, then gave a rough sigh. Holding her gaze, he said, “I don’t ever want to keep anything from you, Rey, but I’m afraid that’s not my secret to tell.”
She nodded, respecting that, since it meant he was a good friend. After a moment, she asked, “Were you ever close to dying? I mean, when you were out on a job?”
“Just once. Last year. We got caught up in a nasty turf war between two rival cartels, and I still can’t believe we made it out alive. James and Sam took bullets in the arms and legs, and I got caught with a god-awful machete blade across my back.”
She lurched forward in her seat so quickly she nearly spilled her beer all over the place. “Jesus Christ, Eli. Let me see.”
He pushed back from the table and turned in his chair, showing her the left side of his back. She blinked, unable to believe she hadn’t noticed it before, the long, raised scar cutting from the top of his shoulder blade down to the lower edge of his ribs. In that heartbreaking moment, she realized just how lucky she was to have found him in that shitty Texas bar that night. He could have so easily been lost to her over the past three years. Stolen away from her before she ever had the chance to get to know him again...or fall into love and lust with him even deeper than she’d been before.
There were some things she wasn’t willing to leave this world without experiencing, and having this man, taking him into her body again and feeling him become a part of her, was one of them.
He watched her with a sharp, heavy-lidded gaze as she pushed her chair back and moved to her feet, coming around the side of the table. When she knelt on the floor beside him, he inhaled with a sharp breath that turned into a raw, guttural growl the instant she leaned forward and pressed a tender kiss against the middle of the scar. “Eli?” she whispered against his hot skin.
“Yeah?” he grated, his deep voice rough and low and deliciously husky.
She pressed her lips an inch higher. “Take me to bed?”
He went so still he wasn’t even breathing. “You mean that?”
“Yes,” she told him, leaning back and looking up at his hard, beautiful face. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever meant anything more.”
Chapter 13
The next thing Carla knew, she was in Eli’s arms and his long legs were rapidly covering the distance between the kitchen and the bedroom. He kicked the bedroom door shut behind him, then quickly walked to the bed and practically tossed her into the center. She bounced with a startled gasp, glaring when she caught sight of his wicked grin. Then she realized his hot gaze had moved lower, to where her legs had parted and his shirt had ridden up, the pink, already slick folds between her legs completely exposed.
“Jesus,” he rasped, his eyes gleaming with a hot, hungry glow as he started to reach for her.
“No, wait!” she blurted, propping herself up on her elbows. “If this is gonna happen, I want to see you. All of you, Eli. I want to watch you get naked for me.”
His eyes widened a bit with surprise. “You want to watch me strip?”
When she bit her lower lip and nodded, he said, “I will if you will.”
She slowly arched her brows as she drew her knees up, but didn’t pull them together, leaving herself open to him. “I think you’re already seeing everything there is to see.”
The slow, provocative smile that curved his mouth was almost too beautiful to be real. “Lose the shirt, Rey. I don’t want a single thing covering you but me.”
Breathless with lust, she sat up and drew the shirt over her head, tossing it to the foot of the bed. Her breasts felt heavy and full, her nipples almost painfully tight, and she loved the way he consumed her with that searing, heavy-lidded gaze as he pulled in a deep, ragged breath of air.
“God, that’s beautiful,” he groaned, his breath hissing through his teeth as he exhaled.
She jerked her chin at him. “Lose the jeans, Eli.”
When he bit his lower lip and undid his top button, revealing more of the taut, hair-dusted skin of his abdomen, it was so freaking sexy she almost forgot how to breathe. She watched with rapt attention as he slowly undid the fly and started shoving the jeans down to his thighs, each glimpse of skin making it obvious he wasn’t wearing anything underneath. He shot her a smoldering look through his lashes as he pushed the jeans completely off, kicking them free. Then he stood before her completely bare, with his hands fisted at his sides, his chest rising and falling with each of his harsh, heavy breaths.
Carla had never had the chance to visually soak him in and look her fill before, so she was doing it now. “Don’t move,” she whispered, holding up her hand when he would have drawn nearer. “Stand still. Let me look at you.”
A hard tremor shot through him, and he tightened his fists until thick veins popped up beneath his skin on the backs of his wrists and his masculine forearms. “I’ll...try,” he muttered in a tone so low and rough it made her smile.
Catching her lower lip in her teeth, she swept her greedy gaze over him, undone by the broad shoulders and hard chest. The muscular arms and legs, and the ridged, mouthwatering abdomen. The dark trail of hair that swirled around his navel, then led down to that thick, beautiful, brutal-looking cock...and below that, the dusky testicles, heavy and weighted, drawn tight with need. He made a low, thick sound as she stared at them, her hot gaze sliding up again, to the broad root nestled in that dark, curling hair. She followed every heavy inch of his fully erect shaft, the width and length of him enough to make her wonder how he ever managed to get it inside a woman.
Lifting her gaze back to his dark, scorching one, she said, “Okay, you can move now,” and he was on her before she could so much as gasp, his powerful body pushing her back to the bed. His head lowered over her full breasts, his big hands holding them up in offering, and he breathed on one pink, swollen tip, the warmth of his breath making her crazy.
“I’ve needed these in my mouth again so badly,” he groaned, squeezing her breasts together, her nipples so pink they were almost red. With a guttural sound rumbling up from his chest, he closed his mouth over one, and the blistering heat and wetness, the hungry strokes of his tongue, it all made her cry out from an intense wave of pleasure. She was holding his shaggy hair so tightly it had to hurt, pulling him even harder against her, while his mouth did things to her nipple that could all too easily make her orgasm. Just from his mouth on her breast, which seemed so...impossible.
She trembled, trying to think...to reason, but she knew she couldn’t blame her stunning reaction on the partial bond that they shared. Yes, it was there, pulsing and throbbing between them like a living, breathing thing, but there was more to it than that. More
emotion...more need. Was this what the other couples in the Alley felt? If so, she was amazed they ever managed to crawl out of bed and get anything done.
When he pushed her legs wider with his knee and settled in the cradle of her thighs, rubbing that hot, textured shaft against the sensitive folds of her sex, he lifted his head, looked her right in the eye, and quietly asked, “Are you giving in because you think it will get rid of me?”
“Do you really think that?” she murmured, sinking her nails into his shoulders as she pulled him against her, wanting to feel his weight pressing down on her, surrounding her.
“No,” he rasped, bracing himself on his elbows, “but I’d take you anyway. I’ll take you any way I can—oh, hell.”
Her eyes went wide. “What? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have any condoms,” he groaned, closing his eyes as he winced. “They’re still in my bag, and I took it up to town with me. Damn thing is still out in the truck.”
A frown started to work its way onto her mouth. “You were carrying around condoms?”
His eyes snapped open at her tone, and he shook his head once, hard. “For you. It’s a new pack, Rey. Hasn’t even been opened yet.”
Her breath whooshed out of her lungs in a sharp burst of relief, and he shook his head a little again as he smirked, reading her like an open book.
“Wait right here for me, okay?” he whispered, leaning down and pressing a tender kiss to her lips. “I’ll run out to the truck and get them.”
“You don’t have to,” she said, running her fingers through his thick hair. “I’m covered as far as birth control goes. So we’re, um, good. You know, if you want to...to just—”
“Hell, yes, I want to,” he said so forcefully it made her dissolve into a girlish burst of giggles.
* * *
Eli closed his eyes again, taking a moment to simply soak in that beautiful sound. God, he hadn’t heard her laugh nearly enough in the time that he’d known her, and he vowed to himself then and there that if she would just take a chance on him, he’d spend the rest of his life doing everything in his power to make her happy. To make her smile and laugh just like this.
But right now, he needed to make her moan.
Unable to wait a second longer, he opened his eyes and reached down, positioning the head of his rigid shaft at her warm, tender entrance. Then he started to push inside, thinking he’d be able to sink in all the way, so desperate to feel her clasping him in her wet heat that he was shaking with the need. But he froze almost immediately, his body caught in the hold of a terrible tension.
“What’s wrong?” she gasped, gripping his biceps as she blinked up at him.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said in a raw voice, struggling so hard to keep control that he could barely get the words out. “Christ. You’re tighter than a virgin, Rey.”
The color in her face started to get brighter, and she wet her lips with a nervous swipe of her tongue. “It’s, um, been...a long time for me. You know...other than the one time we were together.”
He sucked in a sharp breath, his gaze locked tight on hers. “How long?”
She turned pink, her breaths quickening as she lowered her heavy gaze to his chin and whispered, “Since before that first night when we talked six years ago. The night you helped me with Nicole.”
His eyes shot wide, his pulse rocketing.
Voice as strained as her expression, she said, “I...couldn’t. There was no one...no one who...” The words trailed off, and she lifted her troubled gaze back to his. “You obviously didn’t have the same problem.”
No, he’d tried for months after that night to screw her out of his system with the pack females who were always ready to welcome him between their thighs. But he’d felt nothing with them. Not a goddamn thing.
“It didn’t work. I might have gone to bed with those other women...but I didn’t feel them, Rey. Didn’t see them.” He dropped his forehead against hers, and closed his eyes, determined to keep his focus for the moment on his words and not on how incredible she felt, her plush sheath holding the first few inches of his cock in a way that promised to blow his friggin’ mind when he was buried deep inside her. Gritting his teeth, he said, “I stopped sleeping around when I finally accepted that it didn’t matter a damn to me, who was under me. All I could see or hear or think about was you. I never touched another pack female from that night on.”
“When was that?” she asked in a voice so soft he could barely hear her.
He pulled in a deep breath, and forced himself to pull his head back and look her in the eye as he said, “Nine months before I left.”
She stiffened beneath him, the tips of her nails digging into his skin a little in her surprise. “And while you were gone?” she asked huskily.
Brushing his lips against her soft ones, he whispered, “You know the answer to that already.”
“Eli, I—”
He cut her off, saying, “I’ll answer any damn question you want, Rey. Just later, please.” A trickle of sweat slipped down the side of his face, his muscles trembling under his hot skin as he fought to keep still and not pound himself into her, deep and hard and thick. “Because if I don’t get inside you soon, I’m pretty sure my heart is gonna stop.”
“You’re the one who quit moving.” Her grip on his shoulders gentled, a deep groan vibrating in his chest when she swept those soft fingertips down his rigid arms, his biceps bulging beneath his skin. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“Trying. To be. Considerate here,” he bit out between his rough breaths, unable to hold back any longer. His hips rolled forward, pushing him another inch deeper into that hot, slick heaven, and he swore under his breath at how incredible it felt, her soft gasp making him need to thrust and thrust, working against her resistance until he’d hit the end of her. “And it isn’t easy,” he growled, fisting the sheets in his hands as he shook the sweat from his eyes, “seeing as how I was ready to lose it the second I got inside you.”
She suddenly pushed against his shoulders, her legs moving against his, and the next thing he knew he was on his back and she was straddling him, pushing down on him with steady pressure, her eyes dark and hot as she bit her lip, and he went deep...deeper, as she took him inch by inch, until not even a sliver of space existed between them. She made a soft, provocative sound that was insanely sexy, the look on her face as she leaned forward and braced her hands against his chest, her head back, nearly making him come then and there.
“Oh, Christ,” he groaned, holding her hips in a death grip. “You’re gonna turn me inside out, aren’t you?”
She stared down at him, her beautiful mouth curving with a small, sensual smile. “Could I?”
“You could do anything you wanted. Any damn thing you wanted, and I’d be at your mercy.”
With that gorgeous smile still on her lips, she held his blistering gaze and started to move, the voluptuous pulse of her hips as she rose and fell on him so good he didn’t know how he’d ever survived without it. Her mouthwatering scent was rising with the heat of her beautiful little body, her lithe muscles working beneath her silky skin as she broke him down with pleasure, taking him apart piece by piece. He felt his gums burn with heat as his fangs started to drop, his beast prowling beneath his surface. His knees drew up as his back arched off the bed, his grip on her hips so tight he worried he would leave marks, and he gnashed his teeth, determined to keep from ruining the best goddamn moment of his life.
“You’re destroying me,” he ground out, falling so completely into her shimmering gaze he didn’t think he would ever climb back out again. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold myself back, Rey.”
She gave a soft siren’s laugh that only made his blood pump harder. “Then just let go.”
“You’re already so swollen, and I don’t want to make it worse. Don’t want to make you...Damn it, I want you to love it with me, Rey.” His voice was so guttural it barely sounded human. “I want you coming back for more,
addicted to it. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t. You won’t hurt me,” she breathed out, leaning over him and nipping his lower lip with her teeth. “I’m not that breakable, Eli.”
He growled, undone, swiftly rolling until he had her trapped beneath him again, his body buried hard and thick inside her. With his damp face right over hers, he watched her eyes glitter with a dark, possessive, primitive hunger that matched his own as he drew back and then gave her a hard, hammering thrust that shoved him even deeper than he’d been before. He loved the way she held him so tightly, but he needed her soft and melting with pleasure if he wanted to be able to ride her the way he craved. And God only knew he could never get enough of her mouthwatering taste. So he forced himself to pull out, knelt between her sprawled thighs, and lifted her hips as he lowered his head between her legs.
She gasped as he shoved his face against her drenched flesh, eating at her plump sex with all the raw, gnawing hunger that was burning inside him. She was so soft and sweet and deliciously slick, the tight clench of her sheath around his tongue as it plunged inside her making him growl like an animal. He heard a throaty cry break from her throat as she crashed, coming so hard he could feel the breathtaking power of the climax as it tore through her. He pressed his face even harder against her as she pulsed and quivered, the sounds she made driving him wild, while he went at her like a man who’d been starved for her taste for a lifetime, until he couldn’t wait a moment more.
“Again,” he growled, bracing himself on his arms and slamming his cock inside her so hard it drove her up the bed. “I need you to come again, Rey. I need to feel it on me.”
She gripped his bunched shoulders and arched beneath him, pressing her breasts against his sweat-covered chest as he came down over her and started thrusting in hard, powerful lunges that were getting faster...and faster, taking her the way he’d been dying to for so many heartbreaking years.
“Oh, God, Eli. I’m there!” she cried, her silky sex clutching him like a hot, wet mouth, milking him as she came.
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