by Marie Harte
“I need you to pass the info on to Keiser while I stay with her. I don’t want Ali left alone,” Gray sent him.
“I agree. But shouldn’t you talk to Keiser? He’s your guy. Ali’s not sure of you.” To his surprise, Bas didn’t feel a hint of jealousy at the thought of leaving Ali with Gray. He just wanted to make sure his mates would feel comfortable with one another.
“She needs to know me. And you need to know you can handle the PWP in any of its forms.”
Gray’s mild rebuke annoyed him. “I don’t need therapy, you jackass.”
“And I don’t need to be sensing your fear anytime we have to deal with psychics. Deal with it, Bas. Ali needs us now, and she needs us strong. Trenton won’t be easy to kill, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he has more rogues out in the forest. You need to watch your ass out there.”
Gray’s poorly concealed worry both pleased and annoyed him. “I’m glad you care, but I’m good. I can handle that fuckwad Keiser.”
“Then prove it.”
Bas scowled but took a step back from their group hug. “Ali, I’ll be back. I need to pass on some info. I’ll be fine. And I swear, I’ll cover my tracks. Don’t let Gray boss you around.”
Her brown eyes no longer flashed with red. The woman had yet to shed one of the tears pooling in her beautiful eyes. Trying to be so damn strong. He ached to hold her again but knew Gray was right. Gray had to earn her trust. And his senses were keener than Bas’s. He’d hear a threat before they attacked, no problem.
“Nobody bosses me around.” She huffed at Gray and put a measure of distance between them, reestablishing control.
Bas wondered how his mate, the ultimate control freak, would respond. Especially because Gray would do nothing to hurt Ali, which meant not scaring her with anything too rough. Bas wanted to be around to watch, but this wasn’t the time.
“Yeah, so take your laughing ass out of here. And like I said, keep your mind open to me. I mean it.” The snarl in Gray’s command amused him.
He left with a wave and a grin.
The moment Bas left, Ali felt the whole of Gray’s formidable presence. Without Bas’s easy nature to lighten the mood, Gray’s essence filled the room with intensity.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said softly.
“I won’t let you,” she replied, tired of feeling out of sorts. She didn’t like her vulnerability around these men. Bas had at least proven a measure of trust. Knowing he could have escaped before but that he’d allowed her to set the pace of their pleasure satisfied her beast. He was an amazing lover, a skilled yet tender partner. She had every intention of having sex with him again.
Gray would be a problem. He seemed too sure of himself. Too in command of the situation. She didn’t like that. Time to show him where he belonged in the grand scheme of things. And the sooner the better, because her blood seethed with a new need for violence. The urge to see and taste Gray’s blood continued to grow.
She kept the distance between them, conscious of the gun at her back. If she intended to use it, she’d have to be fast, because as quick as he’d moved, he’d be on her before she could fire if she wasn’t careful.
“About Trenton,” she began, keeping the kitchen table between herself and Gray. “If you want to help me kill him, I’ll show you where to go. It’s easy enough to avoid the Circs—”
“Rogues.”
She rolled her eyes. “Rogues out in the woods. But Trenton is mine to deal with.”
“And the rogues who hurt you?”
He seemed fixated on what she’d told him. Her beast couldn’t have been more pleased. The woman in Ali was mortified. She’d never wanted anyone to know what they’d done to her. “It was just one guy. I killed him, remember? Forget I mentioned it. I don’t like thinking about it,” she said gruffly.
He nodded. “Fine. But I won’t forget.” The dangerous gleam in his gaze tempted her to take a step closer. Her beast liked nothing more than a challenge.
She stood firm. “Look. I’m tired. You can sit out here and read or something. I need a break.”
She took two steps toward the door in the floor when Gray spoke.
“Does sex bother you?”
She stopped and turned to face him. “What?”
“Sex. Your beast craves it. Perpetuation of the species is a natural requirement of our kind. It’s also built into Circ programming. But the human part of you. Does it dislike sex?”
She blushed, not used to talking about it. Annoyed to have let him embarrass her, she answered in a growl. “No. It’s just fine. I fuck when I feel the need. Men are good for something at least. Other than that, I hate ’em. Is that okay?”
He smiled, showing a good deal of fang. “Works for me, so long as Bas and I aren’t in that category. We’re not men, though, are we?”
He moved like lightning, but she’d been prepared. She released a waft of pheromones when he reached her, and he slowed considerably, enough for her to put her hand on her pistol.
But Gray jerked it away from her and tossed it across the room. “No need for that. Not when I have some good, satisfying sexual therapy in mind.”
“Fuck you. I don’t need therapy.” She squirmed, alarmed to feel his thick cock through his pants against her belly.
He pushed her up against the wall. “Yeah, you do. But problem is, sweetheart, you don’t realize yet where you fit in.” He sniffed her neck and pushed her hair out of the way, using only one hand and his body weight to hold her in place. “Tell me to leave you alone, and I will. But the truth is, you want this. You need this.” Then he licked her.
She felt the fire all the way to her toes. “I’m fine by myself,” she shouted and yanked her head away when he moved to kiss her on the mouth. But she couldn’t make herself give him the words to let her go.
“Tell me no, baby. Just one little word, and I’m gone.” Gray nibbled his way along her neck. “I’ll never hurt you, not unless you need it. I’ll protect you, baby. I swear. But soft won’t work for you. I can feel it.”
Unlike in the past, when she’d been held down, Gray’s forcefulness didn’t imply anything more than rough, needed sex. He smelled so good, and his beast tangled with hers. Not hurting, not raping, but dominating with her traitorous beast’s consent.
He sucked hard on her neck and bit her, then licked her blood.
“Yes.” She arched into him, so lost in sexual need, she couldn’t see straight. Finally. Here was a strong, worthy male she could submit to. A male to whom she might yield all and find pleasure and satisfaction in the release. But she wouldn’t make it easy for him. She yanked her head back when his fangs slid out of her neck, and head-butted him right in the face.
His nose cracked, but he didn’t let go of her. With one hand, he pressed his nose back into place, and she watched as the swelling eased and the fracture healed right in front of her. Then his eyes changed, his round pupils becoming slits. His skin darkened; his hair lengthened. He hadn’t yet put on a shirt, and his chest stretched and grew into hard-packed muscle.
Gray ripped open the tab of his pants and let them drop to his feet. He stepped out of them and pressed his body against hers.
Chapter Eight
“Feel what you do to me. That scent is so ripe. I want to fuck you so hard.” Gray kissed away her protest, sucking her breath into his lungs before giving it back. He tasted wild, like jungle and sun and beast.
Ali wanted him the way she’d wanted Bas, but she couldn’t take. She could only wait for him to control her. She shivered but lay passive as he stripped her naked.
But her beast would be content with only so much compliance. Her mutant cells woke as well, needing to feel blood and sex as they coupled.
Ali changed between one heartbeat and the next. She grew, but still he dwarfed her. Yet she didn’t care. Her fangs and claws knew no bounds. She tore into his Circ flesh and moaned into his mouth as the sweet scent of his blood filled her head.
“So hot,” he murmured and
nipped her tongue when she nicked his, allowing her to taste her own blood and his. A mixture of the mating taking form. “Now open for me, sweetheart. Give your master his due.”
She didn’t like hearing that and immediately rebelled.
“Oh yeah, that’s it.” Gray’s thick voice showed her he liked her defiance. The manipulator intended for her to fight back.
She gave him as good as she got, struggling not to be free but to show him she could take his roughness, even needed it.
He kissed her again and cupped her breast. His claws pricked her nipple, and she gasped. His tongue invaded. In the next breath, so did his cock. He hefted her up against the wall and held her ass with one palm. She opened her legs to wrap around his waist, to find purchase so as not to fall.
“Gray, please.”
And he speared her in one long, deep thrust.
So far inside her, he sank into her heat. And then he fucked her. Hard. Brutally. Without mercy, giving her exactly what her beast desired.
A true dominant, he mastered her body and then her mind. Whispers and pleas went directly into her head as he plunged faster. Sensation rebounded, her desire exponentially fierce as Gray took her. He rained kisses over her lips, her cheeks, and sucked again at her throat, biting, then licking the sting away. The rasp of his tongue made her crazed, evidence of his beast there in every swipe over her bloodied wound that healed in seconds.
The climax caught her by surprise, and she cried out and tightened around him, coaxing his pleasure. Still shuddering around him, she felt the hot rush of his seed as he jerked and ground against her. Her clit spasmed, and she came again, relishing the Circ who held her so tightly.
“Oh fuck. Oh yeah, that’s it. So good.” He pulled out, then slammed home again, leaving more of himself inside her. “All of me. That’s a good girl.” He blinked down at her, his gaze replete, his smile wide. “You are one sexy, bad-ass Circ.” He let go of the hip he’d been clenching to run his clawed hand over her hair. “I never thought I’d say this, but I like the red in your eyes and the black lines in your skin. That danger is sexy. Makes you wild, Ali. A woman who can handle me.” He seemed more than pleased with himself.
“Yeah, well, it’s nice to see you’re not as meek as you first looked.” She hooked her arms around his shoulders and pulled him in for another kiss, muffling his chuckles.
His laughter turned to a groan, and he carried her, still joined, into the bathroom. Inside, he withdrew from her and turned on the shower. Then he dragged her in with him. “Change back.”
The order implicit in his tone she could have done without. But she had a feeling he wanted to continue their play. Watching him change while she remained her beast, she felt an odd snap inside her, as if a part of the shield holding her safe from the world had fallen. That a man as powerful as Gray would let his guard down enough to be so vulnerable while she held the upper hand stunned her.
“Well? I’m waiting.” He stood under the spray of warm water. But he didn’t do more than wait for her as he looked into her eyes.
She changed back and looked up at him once more.
“So sexy. No wonder Bas was loving his time as a captive.” Gray washed her thoroughly, his touch curiously gentle as he caressed her from her neck to her shoulders and lower. He paid a lot of attention to her breasts and between her legs. When he was done, he refused to hand her the bar of soap.
She watched him clean himself. When he moved to his cock, his shaft thickened, and he quickly let go.
“You’re always hard. You and Bas.”
He smiled, and the beauty in his expression took her aback. “Only around people I really like.”
She blushed again.
“God, you’re beautiful. Do you know that?”
She didn’t know what to say. And then she couldn’t have spoken if she’d wanted to.
Gray put the soap in the holder and kissed her. But this kiss was soft, gentle, exploring, with a wicked laziness as if he had all the time in the world.
She groaned and clutched his shoulders. But his kiss lingered until she grew light-headed, short of breath. He left her mouth and kissed her throat, her collarbone. Down the slopes of her sensitive breasts to her nipples. He sucked one, then the other, hard pulls that made her clit throb.
“I didn’t pay these enough attention, did I?” he rasped as he pulled back to look at her. “Oh yeah. She’s always there, your beast. I love that.” He returned to her breasts, laving them until she wanted to scream in frustration. As if she hadn’t had sex just a few moments ago, she needed to come again. And come hard.
Gray must have sensed she’d reached her limit, because he trailed his kisses down and sank to his knees.
“Gray?”
“Grayson Belle. At your service.” He winked at her before putting his face into her mound. He nuzzled her folds and spread her thighs wider.
She’d read about this, even had a few dreams about it. But she’d never experienced a man’s mouth on her. And oh God, what she’d been missing.
Gray licked and sucked her clit, sending her into a world of pleasure from which she never wanted to leave. She gripped his wet hair, immersed in him, his scent, his mouth.
“Gray, please.” She felt so empty, so needy.
“Come over my tongue,” he murmured and sucked harder. Then he shoved a finger inside her and pumped it in time with his magical lips.
“Oh yes. Oh yes,” she whispered and came, gushing into his mouth as he refused to ease off.
When she trembled on the point of pain, oversensitized, he let her go. But she didn’t like the thought of her mate hard and hungering.
She questioned her own choice of words when Gray distracted her. He stood, and his cock brushed her thigh. Up close, she could see his size, the thick stalk veined and wet with water. His slit filled with cream, the moisture there for her, because she made him want.
“Suck me.” He gritted his teeth when she circled his flesh with her hand.
This close, touching him, she felt small. Feminine. Desired. Not lusted after, an object of male need, but wanted as a lover, a woman Gray not only admired, but liked. She softened, her heart beating just for him.
“On your knees. I want to watch you suck me off,” he growled.
More than willing to obey for the first time in her life, she knelt before him and took him in her mouth. The foreign taste tantalized and thrilled her.
When he pushed more of himself between her lips, she opened to receive him.
“Fuck. Oh yeah, Ali. To the back of your throat, baby. So good. Take me inside you. All the way,” he said, breathless.
Overcome with emotion, Ali accepted the powerful male. She wanted to give back all the pleasure she’d received. She continued to catch snippets in her mind, his enjoyment, his affection for her, his complete enthrallment with Ali’s entire being—beast, woman, and wild mutant.
The discomfort she would have imagined she’d feel when he hit the back of her throat didn’t come, aided by her beast. She automatically changed just enough to enlarge her mouth and throat, and she licked and swallowed Gray’s small bursts of semen with eagerness.
“Here it comes. Just for you. All for you,” he said on a groan as a jet of cum filled her mouth and trickled down her throat.
She continued to suck and swallow him while he emptied himself inside her. To her shock, she purred, and he cried out as he came again, another burst of release she’d given him.
When he’d finished and his erection finally flagged, she pulled away.
Gray hauled her to her feet and kissed her. Then he hugged her tight, and they shivered together in the cooling water. “That was amazing. Thank you, baby. You were absolutely incredible. Damn. I can’t wait to do that all over again.”
When she just hugged him tight and said nothing, he pulled back to look down at her. “You okay? It felt good, right?” His gaze was searching.
She nodded. “More than good. I’ve never done that before. With m
y mouth, or yours, I mean.”
His frown eased into a smile. “You’re an innocent little thing, aren’t you?”
“I’m not that little.”
“You are compared to me. And Bas.” His smile remained, but she could feel him reach out to Bas with his mind, that surge of power impossible to ignore. “He’s okay. Bastard likes to think he’s better at people skills than I am, but he’s still unsure of himself when it comes to dealing with other psychics.”