by M. L. Briers
“Maybe Marmaduke put the witch in the book and that’s why Margo didn’t like him.” Hawk offered.
“But she had all of those years to kill him, why would she wait so long?” Scott offered.
“Sometimes revenge tastes so much better when it marinates.” I offered up to him with a look that could have killed him had I put any damn magic behind it and he wasn’t a vampire.
“Ouch. Harsh.” Scott grinned at me and got a growl from Hawk for his trouble. I kept forgetting that his wolf wouldn’t settle until we were mated and other men were no longer seen as a threat.
“Relax, wolf. I don’t gazump mates.” Scott whipped the book out from under Hawk’s nose and the Lycan jumped to his feet.
“Put it back.” Hawk demanded.
“It’s going to be locked safely in my care.” Scott assured him. I would have stood up but my legs still felt like damn lead.
“Scott.” I offered him a look of disbelief but his attention was firmly on my mate.
“Do you really want this kind of temptation around the nosey one?” His eyes flicked towards me. Cheeky…
“Hey!” I was flabbergasted. How the hell did he figure out my weakness for knowing other people’s business?
“Oh please, deny it.” He challenged me and I felt the heat rush to my cheeks.
“Meh.” I offered with a small shrug. There was little point when I had the equivalent of the supernatural barometer of bullshit beside me. He could scent my deceit from a mile away.
“Take the book.” Hawk offered and I tossed him a glare of his very own.
“Way to cave.” I muttered. This time I did push up to my very sore feet and felt the muscles in my legs, thighs, and hips groan under my own weight. Wonderful…
“I didn’t cave. It makes perfect sense.” Hawk offered and I snorted my contempt back to him.
“Sure it does…” Scott headed for the door. “Give the book to someone who is less than honest. Smart move.” I berated him. I saw his head snap around to find that Scott had already disappeared. He groaned as he turned back towards me. “Genius.” I tossed up a shoulder of rebuke.
“I didn’t think…”
“Exactly.” I cut him off right where I could make my point. “The vampire hung out the bait, namely me, and you caved.” I put one foot in front of the other and groaned in my misery. A moment later I felt Hawk’s strong arms come about me as he scooped me up into his arms.
“I can walk.” I scowled up at him and he gave me a knowing look to go with that sexy, but annoying grin of his.
“No you can’t.” He chuckled and I sighed.
“True, but not the bloody point.”
~
“Err?” It was all that came out of my mouth as my mate stood in my bedroom and did a strange kind of striptease that involved him practically peeling Marmaduke’s tight clothes from his body.
“Relax, you are in no condition to mate tonight.” Hawk offered with something of a growl at what I was certain were very dirty images of us in extremely erotic positions going through his mind. Or maybe that was just me?
It got very hot inside my skin right then. I had to admit I felt the bitter sting of disappointment go through me. No good deed went unpunished, and this was my punishment for helping to save the cove from zombie sailors arising from the past. I could look, but I wasn’t going to be able to touch… big time bummer.
I guess I was eating him up with my eyes because the growl that rumbled through his chest was akin to pained. Then he turned on his heels and left me sitting on the damn bed as he stalked out of the room. What the hell?
That was it? That was all I was going to get? One, almost perfect floor show, and then not even a goodnight? That didn’t seem right…
The sound of the pipes knocking signalled that he’d turned the water on in the bathroom. I guessed he was going to clean up. I considered just sitting here twiddling my thumbs, but I wasn’t that kind of girl, so I pooped all over that idea, because if he was going to get all soapy and wet, well, I wanted to witness that floor show as well.
I found my legs worked just fine for my needs as I wobbled and groaned a little making my way down the hall to the bathroom and wondering when the damn hallway had turned into a landing strip. My short marathon ended the moment I pushed open the door and was greeted with the sight of his naked backside as he leaned over the bathtub, and every muscle and sinew down his back moved under the skin and made my heart gallop to the finish line without the aid of my damn legs. If fate just had to give me a mate, well call me a sexist, objectifying, old fashioned fool, but I was damn glad he looked like that…
I must have had one hell of a goofy smile on my face when he turned around because the sound of his deep chuckle echoed off the tiled walls and rolled across my body like a vibrator. Not that I had one… well, I did, but looking at him I wouldn’t need the stupid thing anymore, because hello, my mate was hot. He turned off the taps and gave me his full attention, and when I say full, even his thick length was waving hello as he made a slow, predatory walk towards me…
I don’t think I knew what true excitement was until that very moment in time… My heart raced. I had sweaty palms, and there was a heat that started deep within me and spread out on a thunderbolt that made me shiver.
“Still cold?” He grinned down at me like the cat that got the kippers.
“Sure, we’ll go with that.” I offered back.
I wanted to reach out and touch his body. Those muscles practically screamed at me to trace the landscape, and he was my mate I did have a right to stake my damn claim on him. It wasn’t a case of looky-looky don’t touch, but more of an all you can eat buffet and I was feeling decidedly hungry all of a sudden.
He reached out and whipped my shirt off before I even had time to consider what he was doing. I wasn’t opposed to it, but it did take me by surprise. Standing in front of a naked God with my girls only covered by a thin lace bra was slightly disconcerting for a moment…
“I ran you a bath…” Hawk growled when he spoke and I knew that meant that his beast was close to the surface and wanted more than to undress me. “I thought we could take it together.”
“I thought you said we weren’t going to mate…” I liked the idea, don’t get me wrong. Me naked and wet, him naked and wet against me, what wasn’t to like?
“We’re not.” Hawk was still undressing me and while it felt kind of odd, it also felt very right.
“If we’re in that bath together, we’re gonna mate.” I couldn’t bite down on the amusement in my voice, not until he took a big step closer and the heat from his body reached out to mine. His nostrils flared… bum, busted.
“You have a need for me.”
I had a need for something and if he wasn’t going to play ball then I guessed it would be that damn vibrator. When his hard length twitched I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. If only my body healed as damn quickly as a shifter. Sod it all, I wasn’t about playing hard to get.
“Define need.” I reached up and stroked my fingertips down the hard ridge of his pec and the damn thing did a dance for me under his skin. There was a low, deep growl that rumbled through his chest, and I have to say, I was in heaven as I traced my fingertips down over the ridges of muscles packed into his abdomen…
He moved fast. Certainly faster than my brain could comprehend, especially when it was taking in the sights and feel of his body. A heartbeat later and I was turned to face the door with his hard body pressed up against my naked back. My poor brain registered the feel of his length as it nestled in the crack of my backside and I wanted to melt right there and then.
Hawk’s hot breath against my ear was the least of my worries, sure it felt good, but there was so much more that felt decidedly better. His strong arms had me caged against him and his thumb was moving against one nipple, making the other ache with need as it shot jolts of electric into my womb. His growl was like thunder…
“There are no words for this, just actio
ns…” That was a pretty picture to draw inside of my mind and my pulse raced as his other hand traced down over my stomach and he cupped my mound as his thick fingers slide between my wet folds.
“I like actions, actions are good…” I was so damn breathless it sounded as if I was having an asthma attack.
When he slid two thick digits inside me, I swear they were bigger than some men I’d known, and I clenched my inner muscles around them hoping to keep them right where they were while his thumb played over my clit and made my legs shake. A moment later with his fingers still inside me, he lifted me up against his body and just as my mind questioned what the hell? So I found that we were moving down into the hot water of the tub together…
Hawk used his feet around my ankles to hook my legs over his and he brought them upwards, opening my sex wider for his large hand to be able to move between my inner thighs. The water felt so damn good against my aching body, but not as good as lying back against his chest with his fingers touching me in ways I’d only been fantasising about since I’d met the man. My mate.
“Need…” He growled against my ear, sounding very self-satisfied.
“Now that you mention it…”
I wanted to give him a smart arse reply to cover the fact that I was starting to pant like a bloody dog as his fingers curled upwards and found the sister to my clit inside of me. Nobody had ever managed to uncover just where the hell that thing had been hiding all of these years… Including me.
“You want me inside you.” He growled as his fingers stroked faster and his thumb made all the right moves. I closed my eyes and went with pure touch alone…
“Yes…” I admitted it. Why not? He was my mate, this was how it was supposed to be, how it was between us, and with his length twitching like that at my lower back, as if it was knocking on the wrong damn door to come in, I didn’t see why I should be playing coy.
“Not yet.” He teased me. Those weren’t the damn words that I wanted to hear. I was locked against his body by two arms the size of most men’s legs and even if I’d wanted to escape, which, believe you me, I didn’t, there was no way I was getting away from him.
My body was tightening inside and out as that knot within me became the damn focus of everything in my mind. I felt his tongue against my neck, down over my shoulder, and there was a part of me that knew what was coming and I didn’t care. His fingers stroked in and out at a speed that I could never have matched, his thumb played under the tiny hood of my clit and took me up, further and further, until everything exploded into the most intense orgasm that I had ever experienced in my life…
The sharp pain of his fangs against my skin distracted my body for only a second from the throbbing pulses that breathed new life into every inch of me. The deep groan of pure satisfaction as he tasted my blood on his tongue turned into a rumbling growl of his own desire and echoed through my limp body as I lay against him, revealing in the aftershocks that pulsed through me… I felt as if I was floating on some erotic cloud with the warmth of the sun bathing my naked body as his tongue sealed his claim into my skin.
“Mine.” He growled gently against my ear.
“Ten out of ten for stating the obvious.” I chuckled. His hands might have left my sex to recover, but they were roaming my body and bringing it back to life again.
Damn it wasn’t fair. Earlier I had the use of every inch of my body and muscles and there was no time and a small amount of inclination to get intimate with him. Now I’d climbed a mountain, literally, and I wanted to get down and dirty with him but there were no damn muscles to do it with…
“You’re very responsive. I’m going to enjoy tasting and teasing your body until…”
“Stop right there.” I blurted it out. His words were drawing pictures in my mind that was making me so damn horny for his length inside of me that if he kept going I might just have taken matters into my own hands, although how the hell I would accomplish that in a bathtub that barely had room for two when one was built like a brick outhouse was beyond me.
“Do I really need my damn legs to feel you inside me…?” I tried to sound as convincing as I could, but all I could hear was a slightly gravelly, very breathless tone to my voice.
It did the damn trick though. His arms came about my body in a whole new way, locking me against him as he pushed us up and out of the water on muscled legs that did work. I felt the rush of excitement tear through me and it was a heady thing as we headed down the hallway, dripping water in our wake, towards my bedroom… I don’t believe I’d been so glad to see my bed in my whole life before.
CHAPTER TEN
Turned in his arms and held against his hard body as he crawled us up and over the mattress, he laid me down in the middle of the bed and held above me for what felt like forever. His dark eyes were taking me in. Not the naked me, but my eyes, gazing back into them as if he was looking into my very soul. That was sexier than hell.
“Are you sure you want me now, Joss? I can wait until…”
“My legs are gonna hurt like I’ve been riding a horse for a week by tomorrow, and I for one don’t have the willpower to wait for you.” It was the truth as I saw it. He was my mate, and while I might not have been consulted by fate on having one, I was damn well going to make the most of it now that I’d had that split second of nearly losing him jar what little opposition I had left inside of me to oblivion.
He was mine. Not just for tonight, but forever, and forever should start as soon as possible.
He gave me one of those dazzlingly sexy damn smiles that made my toes curl with excitement and my womb do a kind of jig within me. They say anticipation is half the battle, but damn it to hell, I just wanted the war to start. I went to reach up for him and his hands came down on my wrists, pressing them back into the bed as another predatory growl rolled through him. There was half the damn battle won right there. Mr Wolf was taking charge and I liked it.
“I’m going to make sure that all other men, including that damn vampire are burned from your memory…”
“Scott? I never did…” I hotly denied his accusation.
“Good, and you never will.” His smile went from damn sexy to smugly damn sexy as he moved down my body and I had the urge to yank him back up. He released my wrists and just as I went to reach for him again he thrust my legs wide open with his hands on my inner thighs and dived right in…
Holy hell! To say that the man was devouring me would have been an understatement. His tongue went between thrusting inside of my slick channel, to snaking over my folds and finding that sensitive clit that had already been teased into action once. I wanted to protest. I wanted to feel him inside of me, and yet when your body is enjoying something so damn much, who wants to mess with perfection?
He growled and grunted and generally enjoyed every bit of what he was doing, and trust me when I say, that sucking, nibbling, and licking, all at once, whoa… multitask master. I knew I wasn’t going to last long.
I felt his fingers slide back into me and I was all but done. All I needed was the flashing lights, the music of my heart beating in my ears, and the rush of pure pleasure… and there it was, one moment of anticipation when everything stopped around me and then that twister that snatches you up and tosses you to the four winds… perfect.
What wasn’t perfect was that he was like a dog with a damn bone when I came back down to earth, and I had to fist his hair and yank him away from me before it all started over again. I wanted more. I wanted him, all of him, every damn inch…
Be careful what you wish for… His head came up and his eyes were as black as jet. He looked every inch the predator as he climbed up over my body with his muscles working under the skin and his eyes fixed on me like I was his prey.
“I’m barely holding on here, Joss…” His growl was electric as he held onto his beast just under the surface.
“Then don’t…” He had my wrists in his hands again before I could even think about it. He caught them up over my head with one lar
ge hand, and with the other he reached in against the small of my back and lifted my hips from the bed.
I felt the heat of his legs against my inner thighs as he settled down against me, and then there was the nudge of his hard length against my sex as it slid against my wet folds, searching for a home. The head of his cock push inside and my tight walls protested the intrusion, even as my body revealed in it. The thickness of his length stretched me around him as his hips made a slow push towards mine, and for one long moment I felt as if I couldn’t take another centimetre…
I gasped in a breath and pushed my head back into the mattress as he dipped his head, and his tongue ran over the mark he’d placed in my skin. My whole body tingled from that mark outwards, relaxing me, opening my body to the hard press of his cock, until every inch of his length was seated within me to the hilt. I felt his breath against my ear…
“You can take me, Joss, relax sweetheart, you were made for me.” The beast in his voice called to me. I wanted more. I wanted him. I wanted to feel his strength, his power, and his bite as he made me his forever.
I think I might have made a sound, might have uttered a word, because he moved then, pulling back out on a slow slide that dragged his flesh back through mine, and it felt so damn good. Back and forth, over and over, my body taking every inch of his cock until I felt that damn knot fit to explode within me again.
Faster, deeper, harder. He took me to the very limit of my sanity, and then he eased back, allowed my fever to cool, until I wanted to scream with the frustration that was swelling inside me. His beast wanted out, I know it did, I could see it in his face, and he looked strained, barely holding onto that side of himself that I was desperate to know.
“Bite, Hawk. Bond with me…” I tried to free my hands from his tight grip so that I could dig my nails into his flesh and make his beast roar within him, but he held me firmly…
I saw that tight hold slip from him. Saw his beast rise up inside a moment before his hips started to pound against mine and everything froze for the briefest moment in time, and then the orgasm that tore through me ripped into my very soul and laid it bare. I felt the screaming pain of his fangs as they sliced through the flesh of my shoulder and my body tried to get away, but his hold on me was absolute…