KIKO (MC Bear Mates Book 3)

by Becca Fanning

  She knew that already thanks to spying him in the bathroom, but seeing it, literally in the flesh, when it was all pointed at her? Jesus.

  Licking her lips, she trailed a finger from the tip right down to the base. It was easy as it lay flat against his belly, throbbing a little but otherwise inert. At her move, however, he sucked in a sharp breath, and the muscles in his torso shuffled again. When her gaze flashed up to his face, his features were contorted, and his eyes were closed.

  He looked like a drowning man praying for a savior.

  The notion had her hiding a grin. It was empowering to see his reaction to her. That simple touch, and he was already locking down his control as though he was inside her.

  Feeling awash with triumph, she decided to lose herself in this, to free herself to do whatever the hell she wanted. He was offering. Why shouldn’t she accept? He was her mate, after all. She could feel the clinging vines of that bond every day, had done so ever since they’d first found one another, but it was different now she was aware of the truth. The link between them was strengthening every day. In ways she couldn’t quantify, so she knew he wasn’t lying about this, he truly was at her mercy.

  That being said, she did what she’d wanted to do when she’d seen him tugging at his shaft all those days ago… She dropped her head and swirled at the head of his cock. Liquid had gathered there, and it was salty and earthy on her tongue. His groan was strangled, and with another grin, she popped him into her mouth to explore the fascinating shininess of the tip. It was smooth and soft, silky and velvety, yet with a strange hardness too. She couldn’t describe the contradiction. She was just grateful she was experiencing it.

  Beside his hips, his hands had clawed the sheets, and from her field of vision, she could see his knuckles straining as he fought his nature. She knew it was probably hard for him not to grab hold of her head and force her down onto his shaft. Men were aggressive by nature, and he shared his soul with a bear—that only doubled the risk of violence. But somehow, she knew he would never hurt her, that he would hurt himself before he ever tried to do wrong by her.

  And wasn’t that a turn on?

  This huge beast of a man was like a pussycat for her. She wasn’t sure if that made her a cat whisperer or a lion tamer. Either way, it didn’t matter. It just made her feel fearless, and after so long being scared, that was one of the best feelings in the world.

  He was too big to take deeper, but it didn’t stop her from trying, and she slurped up the copious drops of pre-ejaculate that escaped into her mouth, enjoying and testing the resilient hardness that was all hers.

  Mischa knew she needed practice—a fact that was both disappointing and enthralling. She loved that she would need to explore him more but wanted to experience it all now, wanted the thick fullness between her lips, a chance to taste all of him.

  She shuddered, aroused by her own thoughts, and moved her mouth away. She was teasing him, inadvertently, but teasing all the same, and she couldn’t repay his generosity with suffering.

  Dipping her head, she licked at the crease where groin met thigh, and inhaled sharply through her nose. God, his smell! He was like the best cookie, the best ice cream, and the best candy all wrapped into one delicious breath.

  That innocent move seemed to trigger a response in him that went farther than sucking his dick had. She heard the sound of renting fabric, and her eyes widened at the sight of huge claws lodged into the mattress.

  Mischa peered up at him, saw he still looked pained, and that tension had overtaken every bit of him. She winced a little at the blood around his claws, the spaces where skin and whatever claw was made of—were they like human nails, made out of keratin?—met. The flesh was ragged, torn, droplets of blood oozing sickeningly here and there, staining the white sheets beneath him. The sinews in his hands, the tension between his knuckles, all of it led up to arms that were straining, a body that was heaving with the pressure she was forcing him to endure.

  And it was that word that triggered it. Force. He said he wanted this, that he wanted her to explore him, but she saw his suffering and hated herself for causing it. “This isn’t fair to you.”

  He shook his head at her gentle words, long strands of beautiful silk rubbing against the pillowcase as he physically rejected her words. “I’ve endured pain; this is ecstasy.”

  She wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be reassuring or not. It didn’t go far in making her happy though. Men. Were they so different from women? She frowned, staring down at him, then sighed. She knew he wouldn’t let her stop this. She knew he wanted her to learn him, to learn to be comfortable with him.

  Truth was, she was as comfortable as she was going to get. It was a fact she’d been coming to terms with over the last few days, which meant it was a now or never moment.

  She could drag this out, be a coward, and have them both suffer, or she could try. Try to embrace a side of herself she’d been hiding from all these years. Try to explore these crazy feelings being in Kiko’s presence stirred up.

  Try was all she could do. And with him, she could do that. It no longer felt like an insurmountable task, because out of nowhere, this beacon of hope called Kiko had appeared. Though it was insane, and though his background was just as nutty, she trusted him to the core. Outside of family, she’d never had that before, but now, it enabled her to liberate herself from the shackles of her past.

  It didn’t stop her from taking a huge gulp, mind, when she decided to straddle him, but straddle him she did. Lifting her leg over him, though, frazzled her nerves. She’d taken to wearing his boxers too. They fit, but they were baggy on her and comfortable. She wasn’t sure why, because they were clean, but they smelled of him somehow, and she liked that—or at least, it was something she was growing to like. Beneath the loose fabric, however, the lips of her sex parted, and she was suddenly totally aware of what was happening down there.

  It stunned her to realize she was wet.

  The movement of shifting her leg had made the tiniest of drafts run along the length of her most intimate parts, and it was like a bolt of electricity through her body. The intensity stunned her, had her freezing in place for a handful of seconds as she got used to the notion that she was aroused.

  Expelling another shuddery breath, she stopped hovering and did what she’d been intending to do all along—straddle him properly. Only, when their sexes collided, it wasn’t what she’d been intending at all.

  If anything, it was a thousand times worse and a thousand times better.

  She’d never known anything like it. Nothing at all. A shiver raced up her spine, urging her to fling her head back as the glory of the moment flooded all her synapses.

  It came to her then that she’d been born for this.

  Born to be with this man.

  Life had gotten in the way, changed her, but her experiences had been what urged her to make the horrendous trip to America in the first place. She wouldn’t be here, with this man, if her past hadn’t panned out exactly the way it had.

  She wanted to question why it had all happened so painfully, but she couldn’t. Not now. Not when she realized what a gift she’d been presented.

  In a shaken voice, she whispered the only words that made any sense, “Claim me, Kiko.”

  His eyes flared wide at her soft declaration, and she saw the strain in those sea-green eyes of his. He was battling not only himself but the bear. The flashes of deep emerald that sparkled every few seconds were the beast, she knew, and at her words, that beautiful emerald took over.

  “Claim. You?”

  The words were said singly and on exhale.

  She felt his pain and winced at it then nodded. “I’m yours.”

  He gritted his teeth, shaking his head. “Can’t. Have to be inside you. Need you to do that.” He was gasping out the words, his throat nothing more than straining sinews that looked painful to behold. She’d never seen a man whose body was under such pressure, a pressure triggered by her. It beggared be
lief. “Can claim you once you’ve claimed me.”

  Biting her lip, she accepted his words with a slight duck of her head. But he took her acquiescence and acted on it, finally freeing the sheets from his grasp and then reaching for the boxers she wore. In less than a second, they were in shreds, baring her pussy to him, every bit of her laid out for him to see. Stunned, she sat there, the tattered fabric of her underwear still clinging to the curves of her ass and hips.

  “You could have warned me,” she grumbled, staring down at herself. But for once, when she looked at that part of her, she didn’t feel shame. The spidery vines of distress weren’t there, a nasty reminder of a vicious mental scar… It was curiously freeing.

  She frowned, wondering why shame didn’t cling to her as it always did, but when she saw the way he was looking at her, Mischa couldn’t find it in her to care.

  His response was borderline comical. If his eyes could bug out anymore, they’d be on stalks. As it was, she hadn’t thought he could look more intense, but she’d been wrong.

  Before, he’d looked close to shifting. Now, explosion seemed imminent.

  She folded her lips between her teeth, amused at the thought. Explosion? Of the best kind, she hoped, peering down at his cock and seeing the hot, throbbing monolith that burned an angry red as though the extremity itself was pissed at being denied.

  Taking pity on him and on it, Mischa reached for his shaft, freezing when he let out a hiss, his back arching at her touch, rocking his hips up and nudging against her. It was her turn to hiss, and she settled herself so that the parted lips of her sex were directly against his cock. The instant they connected there, dear God, it was like heaven on a platter. Hot, wet silk met velvet-covered steel, and sensation after sensation plunged her into a paradise of their making.

  The control was hers. She felt it flush through her as she started to, admittedly awkwardly, rock her pelvis back and forth. Each time his dick nudged her clit, she wanted to whimper, but she knew her sounds would only incite Kiko more, and she’d tortured the poor man enough. Biting her lip, clenching down on it with her teeth until the pain rivalled the pleasure, she let her body become used to the feel of his.

  And what an experience that was.

  He was thick, separating the petals of her pussy even more, until the tender inner channel was weeping at the friction of his shaft against her. He was long, rubbing her clit with each motion and pulling at the entrance to her body with hungry entreaty on every caress. He was hard, making each caress of her clit feel like heaven and hell. The sloppy, slippery slide was like nothing she’d ever imagined, had never even thought possible for her, but she wanted it. Wanted every bit of it.

  When the haziness of her pleasure started to coalesce, forming into an entity she had no idea how to handle, she slowed down. She took a second to check in with him and saw that his claws were back and were burrowed into the mattress once more. Sweat beaded at his hairline, and his body was one big mass of tension. She looked at him, really looked at him, and knew she was ready.

  This time, on the downward rock, when his cock tugged at her slit, she stayed there. Reaching to grab the base of his cock, she worked hard to fit him to her and let out an irritated hiss when she couldn’t seem to get him inside. “Help, Kiko,” she panted, feeling the flush on her face and the scorch of the heat inside her. She was aflame, and she needed him to quench the fire.

  Hunger filled her, until it was like she’d never eaten, until her entire body ached sustenance, a gift only he could provide.

  He grabbed her hand, reinforcing her grip with one of his, but then used his free fingers to torment her. They went straight to her clit before diving down to her gate. She moaned when he slid a digit inside, then let out a deeper one when he pushed another into her channel. It was tight, God, was it. The strain his fingers incited made her pussy weep in earnest, like it knew he was huge and needed all the help it could get to take all of him. He seemed to read her reaction because Kiko began a scissoring action that had her eyes opening wide and her lungs choking for air.

  What the hell was he doing to her?

  She could feel the stretch, hissed at the burn, then cried out as he thumbed her clit, teasing her—pleasuring her and preparing her in one shot. Dear Lord, it was magic.

  Then, just when she felt like she was going to scream, he did this thing with those same heavenly torturous fingers. Curling them inward, in a come-here motion. Once, twice, three times. She burst.

  There was no pleasant way to describe the ecstasy that cascaded over her.

  It was like a fireworks display, a cacophonous sound that suddenly formed into an orchestral piece fit for the angels.

  It blinded her and deafened her.

  It robbed her of her senses and fortified them so that she felt every single ounce of pleasure he gave her, and then came a heavy fullness. She was lost, but her body wasn’t, and she knew he was filling her. With each and every firework bursting overhead, he took another inch and another inch until he was all the way inside, until she was, finally, his. But the pleasure didn’t dissipate. She experienced no pain at his invasion, because each thrust took her higher, until she felt like she was drowning in the glory of what he was making her experience.

  It was then she realized the prolonged orgasm was leading up to something. The claiming.

  She tore her eyes open, forced herself to be aware at last of what was going on. She saw he’d sat up, was looming close to her, and then she saw his eyes.

  All emerald. All Bear.

  Then, she noticed his fangs, the tilt of his head as he stared at her like she was prey and he was predator, and before fear could settle in her, he struck.

  And when an agonizing pain battled with a glorious surfeit of wonder, her mind surrendered, and she didn’t remember anything after that.

  Chapter Five

  Blood had never been his vice.

  Some of his brothers got off on mock claimings. They said it helped them feel connected, reminded them of what they were striving to find. He had never been one to get off on a deep bite, because in his head, that was reserved for his mate. Only she deserved that—his cherry-popping bite. Which, admittedly, looked as if it could have done with him practicing beforehand. It was wonky, marring her satiny throat with a bright red and purple bruise adding to its gory nature.

  With humans, if a hickey went a little deeper than it should, no one was any the wiser. The spit in a Shifter’s bite healed most wounds on a human, so if the hickey was on a person not made expressly for them, a mortal lover merely had a deeper than usual bruise on their throat. But that wouldn’t happen for Mischa.

  That bite, wonky as it was, would always be there, always visible, impossible to hide. Not even the thickest of makeup would shield it. It was the magic of the claiming bond, always ensuring it was revealed to everyone and anyone. That mark was a ‘back off’ sign to a Shifter. If anyone messed with a mate, the whole community knew the Goddesses would reap vengeance on the sinner’s ass. No one touched mates. They were verboten unless you liked having pissed off Goddesses chasing you until the end of time.

  The knowledge she was safe, protected, had relief washing through him, cleansing him of the worry he’d been enduring ever since he’d met her. Knowing her circumstances, how she’d been trafficked, what she’d suffered, he’d known he could stake no claim on her. He’d had to leave her undefended, and that had killed him. But no more. She was safe, and as a result, he felt a peace that had long since deserted him fill him as he stared down at her sleeping form, smiled at the small pout on her lips as she turned onto her side, curling her hands under her head to make a pillow. She was beautiful. And she was his.

  Her blond hair made her look like an angel, but it was her nature that merely compounded that. She wasn’t angelic, but she was good. Pure.

  He didn’t deserve her, and yet, he’d spend every day trying to make himself the mate she deserved. He wouldn’t let her down on that.

  He couldn’t
.