Becoming Red (The Becoming Novels)

by Black, Paula

  A feral noise escaped his throat, and he tore open the fly of his jeans, springing free the heavy, iron length of his arousal. He ground hard against the small of her back as his knees kicked her thighs apart, her hair fisted, pinning her cheek down in the mossy earth. The thick head of his cock was a brutal invasion, driven in to the hilt in a single powerful stroke, plundering the drenched silk sheath of her pulsing core on a snarled growl of possession.

  Crying out, his mouth was at her throat, possession on his lips, his erection buried to the hilt in a single merciless penetration, filling her so completely with the hunger raging through their bodies. All hard, animal male, out of control and taking what was his, and screw it if she didn’t love it like this. Feminine fear coiled down a spine that spoke in arching undulations, primal desire ground along the shaft of his cock, hot, iron arousal on her skin, begging in the lines of her body. A predator, there was a danger in being so close to the edge as ecstasy rose up in a violent storm. The air was heavy with whimpering purrs, pulled from panting lips that inhaled the scent of the night, the sweet grass blended with the dark musk of sex and sweat. Sultry, seductive, tendrils of male scent bloomed on still air, covered her skin in the fragrance of their vicious collision.

  So far beyond sane thought, Connal was possessed by the primal fucking instinct that responded to the backward grinding demand of her ass with hammering thrusts, a powerhouse of bestial need drilling her deep. Hard and fast, flesh slapping, spine-arching, whimper-growl fucking. Jaws locked, he fought against the violent urge to sink his teeth deep into her. Savage lust and a frisson of fear distilled into a potency that surrounded and consumed him. His free hand dipped into the space between her stomach and the earth, seeking out the slick, swollen bud that was the nerve-centre of her pleasure, and he circled it in a rough grind, keeping tempo with the repeated punches of his cock into that pleasure spot deep inside of her. Mounting orgasmic tension set his body to humming, a tuning fork of sexual energy channeled into muscles clenched on the brink of explosive release.

  She surrendered, she fought, she no longer knew, her body bowed to his demands, battling back in harsh, relentless undulations, she slammed her hips along the pistoning length of his cock in a gripping twist of drenched inner muscles. His hips pounded ruthlessly against the soft rounds of her ass while fingers found the throb of her desire. Rough friction on the tiny bead rocketed up the wild grind of her body, curves fluid, lithe, feline wound down the thick steel of his arousal, kicking him into her spot on every powerful stroke.

  She trembled, stretched to the most exquisite pain, such raw emotion, such soul-deep fucking she could feel nothing but him, his breath on her neck ... too much ... Anything but graceful, she careened over the edge, hurtling into the erotic oblivion that tortured her with the most primitive of pleasures. Pounded raw, tender, she shattered into shards of hypersensitive female desire on howls. ‘Connal!!!’

  ‘Ash!!!’ His bellowed roar sent birds fluttering up through the trees and small animals scurrying for the undergrowth. A tornado of ecstasy unleashed, his muscles quaked, possessive instincts roaring, all male power, he was over her, in her, on her, his hips hammering home his release in punctuated jerks of thigh-trembling climax, filling her with bursts of white-hot, molten passion. The rhythmic clench of her core wrung out every last drop of liquid ecstasy from his body and he shivered with the intensity of his orgasm.

  Dazed, her body in chaos, euphoria dictated the melting of muscle, the staccato breaths, the rapid fluttering hammer of her heart, quivering under the assault. The curved arch of her spine seized, hips rolling, taking every inch of him as he drilled his release into the molten well of her soul.

  Raggedly panting, his breath was sawing foggy plumes into the darkness. His tongue rasped over the flushed column of her neck. She made him lose control. He opened his throat on a howl of pure, unadulterated ecstasy. And a wall of red slammed down on his vision ...

  Her body seized in a twitch of confusion as fur rode up her spine and razor tipped teeth were hard bitten into the curve of her neck, a vice, brief and sharp threatening to pierce through to the heartbeat galloping up into that brutal grip.

  And then it was gone, a dream on the tails of her bliss, no pelt covering her shivering curves, no masculine weight settled across her back ... nothing, just cool air licking across sweat-glistening skin.

  Something crashed through the undergrowth, large and heavy, cracking branches and barrelling away from the clearing at a tremendous speed. Ash spun, landing awkwardly in the trap of her sweats, eyes scanning the fallen dark and creeping shadows that clung to the trees and finding nothing. No one. The fur may have been a dream, a nightmare caught on the end of her pleasure, but she was pretty sure Connal had been larger than life and very real.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  He’d left her!! For the third time since meeting him, the giant wall of growls had upped and left her!! The first time, yeah, she’d screamed at him to. The second, Ash figured that had probably been for the best. Otherwise her knee may have crushed what had just brought her to quivering screams. But now?!! He left her now? Trembling and thumbing a smudge of dirt from her cheek, she wormed her way into her sweats, grateful the material hadn’t been torn in their ... collision, though her panties were gonners. The forest resumed its night time soundtrack, the volume turned up as creatures came out of hiding and she took the noise as a signal to look around. There was no trace of him left behind but the scuff of footprints that left large indents in the soft ground. He must have pushed off hard, leverage to get as far away from her as possible. Shit. What had she done? Ash replayed the entire encounter, from when her knees had hit the leafy dirt to when she’d cried out his name and felt him climax inside her. She found no trigger for his freak out. Maybe she’d screamed too loud and scared him off? Or he just found her ... oh God ... easy ... She’d gone down willingly before him, so very female under his growling possession. Had she lost his attention when she’d let him into her body?

  Her legs were quivering, her core in flux, resonating with the heavy, pounding drive that had torn her muscles to shudders of liquid strength. She felt like spaghetti, limp and floppy and in no way able to get up just yet. How he had managed to tear himself away from her was beyond her fathoming, and she let herself hate him just a little more. Obviously she hadn’t rendered him immobile with her incredible sexual prowess. Ash huffed a breath, a soft breeze dispelling the heavy-scented musk that had been her blanket since they’d crashed to the ground. She could still smell him on her, a wildness that had nothing to do with the forest around her, permeating down into her skin and itching the receding heat back into bloom with every movement.

  She was ... addicted ... yeah, addicted. It was as good a word as any and it fit the feeling of being pulled apart she seemed to get whenever he left her vicinity, as though her body tugged to follow after his presence while her brain shut down all notion of it. She was taffy. It had never been this way before. Ash couldn’t understand it. The nerd guys that got her mental motors revving enough to kinda get her body on board had never made her scream down a goddamned forest, and as her head dropped into her hands, she figured there were a few blind animals stumbling through the undergrowth, flashed by her total lack of inhibitions and bare body parts. God, had she really just let a near stranger bring her to a trembling howl of orgasmic pleasure. Judging by the tight ache still clenched in her lower body ... yeah, she had.

  Her palms rubbed at her inner thighs, a hard pressure kneading through her sweats, taming back the ache and forcing herself to gather will enough to move. Out in the goddamn middle of a forest with a dead body in some direction she couldn’t quite remember, with slow panic creeping its tendrils through the embers of a fire not quite cold.

  ‘Connal?’ Hair whipping up a storm of leaves as she jerked upright, head snapped in the direction of the faintest rustle, too big to be woodland furries, she watched the shadows part in the soft gloom of a descending evening. Definitely n
ot a deer.

  ‘Miss DeMorgan?’

  And definitely not Connal.

  ‘Doc ...’ She smoothed a hand through her hair, worried her cheeks were still a tad too flushed to indicate anything other than one hell of a ride. Ash fumbled to get her senses in order, her tongue refusing to voice what her mind tried to say. Being casual when she was wet with passion wasn’t computing too clearly to her vocal chords.

  He saved her the effort, bought her a few more minutes to find an excuse. ‘Are you well?’ She looked disoriented, glassy-eyed and feverish. ‘Did he hurt you?’ Too late he had come upon them, to see only the fleeing surge of the Savage as he left the young woman in the middle of a darkening forest. He needed her alone, yes, but what had the bastard done to her?

  ‘I ... I’m fine. No one hurt me, I ...’ Her brow furrowed as she looked up at him and the hand he extended in aid. She regarded it warily. ‘What are you doing here, Doc?’ Ash tilted her head, hands brushing down her jacket, securing the zip to her chin before she teetered to her feet and set herself before him, as eye-level as she could get with another man who out-heighted her.

  ‘I was worried. You left before I could give you your antibiotics.’ Not the whole truth, but wariness was written all over her face, and he couldn’t afford to have her distrusting him. ‘Might I ask what brings you to such an isolated spot, and so late?’

  ‘Research.’ Ash frowned, clothing herself in the lie. ‘I was meeting with someone who had information, he was helping me with field work for my thesis.’ He’d certainly worked her into the field. Mentally shaking her head, she dragged her gaze to the Doc’s with a scowl.

  ‘You are associating with a very dangerous man. When I saw you drive by, following him ...’ Madden shook his head, shoving his hair back from his face, a frown of frustration etching itself into his features. ‘I couldn’t very well leave you to him.’ God, it was no wonder MacTire wanted her. She looked so soft and feminine with her flushed cheeks and languid eyes, trying to fight through whatever thrall had her body so pliant and relaxed. Memories flooded back to him unbidden. That dreamy look she wore the duplicate of his sister’s, when she returned from one of her clandestine visits. Aoife had concealed Madden’s impure blood from MacTire for as long as she could, and Madden, in turn, had kept his sister’s secrets. As it turned out, MacTire’s anger was the least of their worries. Not that any of it mattered now. They were intrigues long ago buried in the bone sands of Fomor. His sister was beyond saving, but this girl? She had no idea of the evil she’d just brushed up against.

  A stronger bout of wind threaded midnight curls to fan out into shadow, Ash’s fingers working the leaf ribboned strands into a messy braid, a nervous tremor rising through the heat under her skin. Doc Rob was nice, he was hot, she could acknowledge that, but the flames licked for more of Connal and the man before her was not the one she craved. Wait ... ‘Dangerous? Anyone can be dangerous, Doc. You’re the one that followed me here. Shouldn’t I be more worried about your intentions?’ God, was she even making sense? She had fluff in her brain and noodles for legs.

  Ash swayed a little and strong fingers wrapped her upper arm in support, Madden heaving a sigh. The bastard had drugged her, he was pretty sure. The early effects of the Thrall, possibly, the sickening submission and weak-kneed docile acceptance of his touch, as she leant against him, indicative of something more than trust. MacTire would have his balls for breakfast if she’d been tainted by anyone other than him. ‘We need to get you home, Miss DeMorgan, and I do not recommend driving in your state.’ He was already steering her downhill, through the wooded path snaking off from the clearing. She followed, watching the tree line for any sign of the man who had sent her body into meltdown. Nothing. He really had left her. The fucking bastard.

  Stumbling a little, she pushed off from the Doc’s arm and attempted an adult walk. It worked. Ish. ‘Tell me something,’ she waited until his face turned to hers, fixed her gaze on his, ‘what is it about Connal that made you worry? You said he was dangerous. I shouldn’t trust him?’

  Scoffing, Madden scrubbed at his face, watching her steps get stronger and setting his sights towards the forest and its growing shadows. On guard against the beast who had left her drugged and vulnerable. ‘The man is as safe as a minefield. One wrong step and he’ll kill you. Or he’ll simply explode at will and take you with him.’ Ash’s face flamed up. He was kidding right? He didn’t mean ... what her head was so happily interpreting his words to mean. But her body blissfully warmed, rolling in the memory of such dangerous explosions. A quick glance told her the doctor was very serious, his brows pulled down over his eyes, mouth set in a thin line of anger and concern. He did not like Connal.

  The trees cleared up, and gave way to open space once more, a patch of dirt ground, slightly damp from a light splattering of rain in the early morning, covered by the shining, silver beast of a car. Shit. Wandering through the woods with him may not have freaked her too much, she figured she could probably run if she had to, but sealing herself in a vehicle with him suddenly seemed all kinds of horror movie. Something inside Ash stirred with warning and halted her footsteps under the branches of a huge tree.

  ‘You know, I have my car. I walked this far, I’m pretty sure I can ...’ Drive ... oh hell ... Even if she managed to convince the good doctor that she was fit to drive, he’d still insist on walking her back to her Minor. And there lay the problem. Because next to the Minor was a giant hole and a body in a tarpaulin that would smell just ripe enough to destroy any notion that it could be a tree being planted.

  ‘No.’ A single word as he unlocked the car with a robotic bleep and held the door open for her, no space for argument, he was all quiet authority as he waited. Doc Madden wasn’t going to take any other answer but yes, his foot tapping fancy loafers to the dirt floor in an impatient pattern that set her teeth on edge. ‘It’s getting late, Miss DeMorgan, we can come back and find your car in the morning. You may enjoy tangling with scum like Savage, but I don’t. Besides, I have no desire to wind up the victim to a pack of wild dogs. Please. Let me take you home.’

  And that’s how, a ridiculous amount of awkwardness and dozing later, they wound up in front of Ash’s house with only the streetlamps and moon for lighting. Full dark had descended, the shadows alive on the path to her door, the tree a solid soldier watching out for the hulking Georgian house ... and for her. She was late coming home and her sleepy brain felt sorry for the lone guardian set to oversee her comings and goings. She was glad the ancient blossoms had been spared her recent ... comings ... Some things an old tree didn’t need to see.

  Madden cut the engine as her head lifted from its lean against the window, the interior lights flickering on as he stepped from the car. Ash cranked her lids open, lashes weighing a ton as she followed his silhouette path to her side. She sat up straighter and her neck twinged in protest. Crooked at an unnatural angle for the entire drive, she’d chosen to ignore the good doctor and his orders, maintained a stony silence as he tried to engage her in talk of ‘The Savage’. He had spoken with a familiarity that unnerved her.

  ‘He’s not someone you want as your friend, Miss DeMorgan. He’s a wanted man. A known sociopath.’

  She’d looked at him then, her eyes shocked blue.

  ‘Yes, you were incredibly lucky. He’s suspected of committing a lot more serious crimes than just taking girls into the woods. Heinous atrocities. Your injuries aren’t the worst I’ve ever seen come through my emergency room. Things people wouldn’t believe.’ His tone caught her curiosity and pulled its tail until her interest came peeking out. It must have shown on her face, the open surprise she wasn’t careful enough to hide. ‘Yes, I know about them, more than I wish I did.’ At his pointed look, confusion disappeared to a light of recollection. She’d told him, of her thesis, it’s unconventional subject matter. Pretty sure the painkillers he’d been pumping her with at the time had been the cause of her loose lips.

  Ash didn’t know what to
do with that, her brain was already having a hard time merging the Connal who had talked with her of monsters she couldn’t dare believe existed, who had stroked her to volatile rapture, with this sociopath that Doc Madden painted. But after what Connal had told her himself, Ash wasn’t sure the truth didn’t lie somewhere in the middle. Too many versions of monsters, who did she believe? Doc Rob was certain Connal wasn’t ‘a good man’. To be honest, Ash would have been surprised if he was. But if what the Doc said was to be believed, she’d just fucked a serial killer, willing or not.

  She’d let it all roll over her, caught snippets of his suspicion as she’d lazed in a half dream world, conscious, but not, in the sleepy, purring rhythm of the car. Her body was on fire, every muscle taut, images flickering through her mind like a high-speed chase on fast-forward. With every ‘Are you alright? Did he make you take something?’ from Doc Madden, Ash thought a little harder through the fog in her head. When had she decided that needing him to fuck her was a major priority? Had he given her anything? She couldn’t rememb ... er ... Fuuuckkk ... Ash jolted at the brainstorm and the doc regarded her warily as her door clicked open and she half fell against the support of her belt, legs asleep, arms leaden, aching and raw in places she’d forgotten she could ache. She was exhausted and while she would have loved to peg it all down on the fact that Connal had made her orgasm so hard she’d seen stars, she knew owing her complete lack of strength entirely to him would have been feeding desires that stirred to be fucked just as hard again and again ... to see how far he could really push her exhaustion. No, she was damn sure something else was at play, maybe the itch humming under her skin, or she truly had been drugged. Maybe something in the flask, a fast-working aphrodisiac and a slow-working sedative rendering her sleepy and lolling her in the posh leather interior of the doctor’s car. Yes. Madden had told her of Connal’s violent couplings, his womanising. Made sense he’d fuck before he killed. Except she’d got away. The good doctor had arrived in time to interrupt. Oh God.