Destiny Fulfilled

by Laire McKinney

  She rubbed his head. “You’ll still be my best guy, even if I am committed to the psych ward.”

  Duke shook his big head as if he was disagreeing with her, his velvety black ears flapping with the motion. She gave him a bone anyway, though he didn’t touch it.

  Instead of tea, Wren decided wine would work better, much better, and she poured a generous glass. Chamomile, be damned.

  Wren settled onto the sofa with a blanket pulled over her shoulders. Chatter rang in her ears like a noisy movie theater.

  With a gulp of wine, she burrowed under the worn cotton of the quilt. She took another quick swallow and tried not to retch at the burning in the back of her throat.

  Brian never made her feel the way Ray did. She had never had the urge to take their relationship further, had always assumed sex would be about procreation with her husband and never about passion. But now, the fire that had started in her lower abdomen and erupted through her body shattered every notion she'd ever possessed.

  Her eyes lost focus as she slipped into memories of how Ray’s mouth, body, heat felt. The way he moved her head to every angle he wished—altering, changing, improving his access—made her want to dart into the forest and launch herself at him like a spear.

  And that was just because of the kiss. Not to mention how his large and hard body molded against hers. How his hips moved in a rhythm that was foreign to her yet delicious and more welcome than a warm bath. How his eyes could pierce her into place with the passion that dwelled behind them.

  She took several more sips, eager for the mind-numbing effects as the heat in her body grew to uncomfortable proportions, like she was sitting in a dryer set on high. Duke was curled up on the other end of the couch, his head on his paws, his eyes, wide and alert, studying her. A few more sips and her mind quieted, her muscles relaxing like they hadn’t in weeks. Maybe she should give up the sleeping pills and just drink.

  Then, like the blast of a foghorn on a quiet lake, the doorbell trilled, and she jumped, half-asleep, half-intoxicated. Wine tipped out of the glass, spilling down the front of her shirt.

  She snatched up the quilt to wipe off her clothes, then stumbled to the door. Ray stood on the other side of the peephole, and her pulse shot into the stratosphere. In one gulp, she downed the rest of the wine, not-so-smoothly set the glass on the table, then flung open the door.

  Staring at her was six and a half feet of pure, masculine, Adonis-esque male.

  With a level of effort to rival a pro bicyclist, she tried to steady her breath, fearing her thumping heart could be heard all the way in town.

  It didn’t work.

  “Can I come in?” Ray asked.

  The sun was beginning its descent behind the mountains, casting shades of pink and purple across the mountains’ skyline. It was too early for the fog to roll in but the clouds lay low, casting a gray veil over the horizon. The shadow of a beard covered the hard lines of Ray’s jaw, and she was surprised she hadn’t noticed it earlier.

  So handsome.

  So raw.

  So turn my insides into a rich chocolate mousse.

  She motioned him in.

  Ray filled the room until she felt sure it would implode with his size, his energy. He was much larger than just his physical body should allow. He was a big man, for sure, with his great height and broad shoulders, but he also exuded so much energy, so much masculine energy, it consumed the entire trailer. Maybe they would all simply combust from the pressure.

  With a flick of his hand, he pushed the door shut. Staring at him, watching as he took one step, then another in her direction, she suddenly felt fragile, desirous, and immobile—from fear or expectation, she didn’t know.

  He looked like a warrior with bloodlust.

  She was no match for him and was not sure she wanted to be.

  As he pursued her across the room, she backed up and up until she hit the wall. She couldn’t move to the right or left. He was coming right toward her, locking her in place with such intensity behind those green eyes, she felt frozen.

  Then he stopped, inches from her body. She didn’t look up, couldn’t look up, for if she did, she knew she would give herself to him right then and there.

  He cupped her chin in his long muscular fingers and forced her head back. With his other hand, he grasped her waist. She started to protest but her words were stalled before they even left her lips. She wanted this man and wouldn’t question why.

  RIAGAN CLOSED HIS mouth over Wren’s, stifling the soft, halfhearted protest he knew lingered there. He also knew she would allow the kiss, wanted it. Desire radiated off her body like a vibration, creating a silky white aura that enveloped them both.

  He needed this woman like his mortal body needed air to breathe.

  He forced her lips to part as desire surged through him. She parted them readily, giving him the taste of sweetened wine kissed by the fresh mountain air—air that he suddenly needed more than anything else he’d ever needed in his life.

  He deepened the kiss, his tongue dancing farther into her mouth, forcing her head back as he pushed against her. Her tongue was wet, soft, and a perfect match for his.

  Did she kiss her boyfriend like this?

  The thought made him crazy, and he grabbed her wrists, pushing her hands over her head, moving his hips over hers. Even if she wanted to protest, there was nothing she could do. But the way she met his kiss told him she did not want him to stop.

  He ground against her, nearly bringing himself to the edge, but he wanted more. A woman like her deserved more than quick lovemaking. He needed to take his time.

  A lot of time.

  But then, like a bolt of lightning, he realized he didn’t have time. He had no time. The air was sucked out of him like a vacuum, leaving him withered, leathered, and sucked dry.

  He dropped her arms. “I have to talk to you.”

  He edged back. His hands tingled with desire to cup her magnificent breasts, to massage and kiss them to distraction, but the black, ominous cloud of the worlds’ fates overshadowed even the most powerful passion he felt for this woman.

  “I need your help.”

  She studied him, her back still against the wall as if seeking support. “With what?”

  As his mind fought to gather and coordinate the right words, his eyes focused on the perfect female who stood across from him. Her breasts pushed against a thin shirt, stained by what looked like wine. Her pants hung low on deliciously curvaceous hips. Her lips, red as a cherry ripe for the picking, were closed now, but moist and swollen. Her skin, alabaster. Her eyes, glassy blue. Her hair, as black as midnight.

  He could not control himself around her, and forgot all about the full moon, the Brotherhood, the Cauldron. At this moment, he knew nothing but her. A primal instinct he could not control was now controlling him.

  With one long stride, he was before her again, crushing her lips. She opened under the probing of his tongue, and he entered into her moist mouth again, this time more slowly.

  The small of her back became lost in the long expanse of his arms. Her hands thrust deep into his hair and drew his body down toward hers. Stooping his sizable frame to meet her was difficult, and he could not feel the full press of her body with her feet on the ground.

  Clutching her tight and firm buttocks, he lifted her off the ground. As her legs wrapped around his waist, he marveled that she could be so light. The muscles of her legs contracted against his torso as she squeezed, sending a rush of desire through him. His hands clasped underneath her, the expanse of his palms covering her bottom, his fingertips close to her most sensitive area.

  “Where is your bed?” His voice was hoarse and deep.

  With her head tilted back, she nodded toward the right. In a mere five strides, they were in the bedroom, and with a booted foot, he kicked the door closed. Wren’s delectable fragrance hovered everywhere inside the small space. The lamp on her nightstand cast enough light across the darkening room to make her pale skin luminous
and her eyes glow.

  She looked like a dream, a fantasy, a prayer.

  An angel.

  With a gentle, caring swoop, he laid her down on the bed. Her Aegean eyes gazed at him through half-closed lids, the dark lashes long and full and sultry. She looked so trusting, so innocent, so lusty and desirous. This woman was many things, to be certain.

  He lay down beside her, holding his weight on an elbow. The skin of her neck was warm beneath his probing tongue. He cupped one of those delicious breasts and it filled his palm. He squeezed and released each breast in turn as he licked her collarbone. Finally, he pulled up her shirt, unable to resist the sight of those precious gems any longer.

  She wore black lace undergarments that made him insane, covering her body just enough to leave him wanting. He undid the front clasp of the top piece with a single motion and murmured his approval. Staring down, drinking in their perfection, he knew already how these fabulous mounds felt in his hands. Now he wanted to know how they would taste in his mouth.

  So he took a hardened nipple between his teeth and sucked gently, her hips lifting off the bed in response. He never wanted to release these ripe peaks. Ever.

  Sharp nails dug into his shoulder as he sought the other nipple.

  “Ray.” She clawed at his shirt. “Take this off.”

  He reared back and yanked it off, grateful for his warrior physique. He wanted this woman to appreciate his body the way he appreciated hers and was glad he had much to offer.

  The light reflected off her white skin, perfectly unblemished, utterly smooth, and tantalizingly fresh. He licked her breast like he would lick an ice-cream cone.

  His fingers ran over her taut abdomen, tracing the cut of her waist, the swell of her hip. At the top of her pants, he paused for a second before easing underneath.

  She sucked in her stomach to allow him better access and his entire hand disappeared. His fingers brushed against the lace, then tickled their way underneath the fabric until he felt the encroaching heat of her. He paused, listening to her breath, gauging the tension in her body. She exuded nothing but arousal, and his hand continued its progression through the silky curls toward the wet, burning part of her body he so desperately wanted to possess.

  When his finger entered her, she cried out, and he swallowed the sound with his mouth. He licked the inside of her lips with a rhythm that matched his hand’s motion as he moved his finger, slowly…slowly. This woman deserved the most treasured lovemaking he could provide, and he savored her like a thirst-ravaged man savors a trickle of water.

  Soon her pants became too restrictive, so he stood and yanked them off. Black lace panties molded over perfectly rounded hips, and he stopped for a moment to absorb the sight of this ethereal beauty lying before him.

  He then removed his jeans, and allowed her burning gaze a moment to, hopefully, appreciate what she saw. At the edge of the bed, he paused, naked and exposed and erect.

  “Lass.” His need for her turned his voice raspy and wanting.

  Her eyes, glassy and iridescent, stared at his body as he gazed down at hers. Her body was surely molded from Venus herself. There was no flaw with this woman, and he had to have her. He had to take her.

  Now.

  Reason left her body as desire consumed it. Even without touch, as he stood staring at her and she at him, her skin became alight like a million stars were exploding over it, showering her with their burning flame.

  When he returned to his place beside her, her hands grasped him closer, as if he could float away at a moment’s notice. Every place his tongue or fingers or palm touched her pulsed with an energy she’d never experienced before.

  She was on fire, this man’s skin burning under her touch. Blood pumped through her body, swelling her lips, her nipples, the sensitive area between her legs. Physical reactions she would never have expected now consumed her as the most natural response to the most erotic moment of her life.

  The muscles in Ray’s arms were ridges of hardness beneath her fingers, and she could not resist touching them, running her fingers over the hills and crevices. When she used her nails, he moaned low in his throat.

  The urge to welcome him into her body was uncontrollable and unlike any feeling she’d ever had. Maybe that was why she was still a virgin, waiting for a moment like this, a moment when she knew without a doubt that she wanted her body merged with another’s.

  She was ready to give herself to this man, to give him her virginity, and, surprisingly, her heart. To give him everything.

  “Do you want me to make love to you, lass? To show you how it feels to have a man’s love?”

  Those sultry words, rolling off his hot tongue in his growling and strange way of speech, made her legs part as if of their own volition. She did not care how wanton she was acting, and he did not seem to care either. Rather, he stared down at her parted legs, at the exposure left in their wake, and he started to pant.

  Never could she have imagined a hunger like she had now.

  “Yes. Make love to me.”

  He lowered onto her. The muscles in her stomach knotted and tensed in delicious anticipation as he pushed her thighs farther apart with his leg. Trailing one hand from her breasts to the top of her thighs made her shudder, and when he reinserted his finger between her legs, her body rode the gentle motion. She wanted to be possessed by him, consumed by him.

  The sensation washed over her like a thousand shocks. Hot breath flowed over her neck and her skin drank it in. Silky strands of his hair tickled her face and she inhaled.

  His expert fingers explored every inch of her exposed body, finding pleasure points she never knew existed. Her body shook with the force of his touch as he brought her to the edge of what would be the first man-given orgasm she’d ever had.

  Blood pumped through her body, pooling between her legs as his relentless pursuit of her pleasure culminated in a soul-bursting orgasm that shook her to her core.

  He silenced her cries with his mouth, swallowing her ecstasy with a hot kiss. Waves rippled through her body and tears filled her eyes. Such delicious pleasure. She’d never felt anything like it in all her life.

  Then he nudged her legs farther apart, urging her to open to him, which she did willingly, begging. With his hands on either side of her face, he looked directly into her eyes. No—into her soul. She knew her expression was pleading, desperate.

  He inserted the tip of his erection into her body. Cries hovered just below the surface as he tried to fill her beyond capacity. He was too big. His body was too large, even though he’d only just begun to enter her. Involuntarily, she tried to clamp her legs together against the intrusion.

  “Relax, lass. Relax, and I will fit.”

  Before she could tense again, he pushed all the way inside her body, and she was so completely full of him, so utterly, wholly consumed by him that there was nothing left of her.

  She was his.

  WREN QUIVERED BENEATH him and Riagan inched back to see what expression her face held. The lamp’s soft glow cast shadows through the otherwise dark room and reflected off her porcelain skin. Knowing women as he did, he knew the look on her face, and it was one of complete and total satisfaction.

  He had satisfied this woman. And she had much satisfied him. Waves of contentment washed over him, and he resisted the urge to leap off the bed and dance a jig. Never had he been so affected by a partner’s pleasure.

  Instead he kissed her, relishing the chills that peppered her arms, running over her abdomen, and to the tips of her toes. He left her warm body briefly as he grabbed a blanket, heavy and soft. Then he spread the quilt around them as she snuggled into the crook of his arm. She laid her head in the middle of his chest where she fit so perfectly. The second place she fit so perfectly.

  With a wispy motion, she caressed his chest, tracing the muscles with her fingertips.

  “How fare you?” he whispered.

  Wren sighed, contentment making the sound feathery light. “You have such an odd
way of talking.”

  Smoothing the curls from her forehead, he kissed her eyes, her nose, and her mouth.

  “You are well?” he asked again.

  “I feel amazing.”

  He stared at the pattern on the ceiling. There was no way to know this woman would be untouched, a virgin. Yet, he’d seen the blood-speckled sheets when he grabbed the blanket, and he’d felt the barrier give when he’d entered her. No surprise her boyfriend would not be man enough for her, but he had not expected her to be a maiden still.

  What did this mean?

  He wasn’t sure, but his mind was fractured, full of flashes of thoughts and images that would not merge into anything comprehensible. Still basking in post-coital bliss, he forced his mind quiet. For now, at least.

  He didn’t know if it was the Earth’s oxygen that heightened the pleasure or the direness of the situation. Making love to Wren had changed something within him, but he wasn’t sure what. He felt different, altered, as if the union of their bodies had taken the chemistry of his body and rearranged it. What the result was, he knew not.

  Wren’s breathing slowed, and he thought she was asleep. But then she spoke, so softly he almost missed it. “I think I’m falling in love with you.” She giggled through a sigh. “And I don’t even know you.”

  He clutched her tight as he listened to her breath deepen in slumber.

  She loves me. Could this be real? Have I fulfilled the terms of my banishment?

  Elation did not follow this realization.

  A cold bitterness seeped into his heart and filled it to capacity.

  What does this mean for her?

  As her body relaxed into deeper sleep, he could almost feel her melting into his skin, her heat replacing the iciness that was now threatening to consume him.

  Thank the gods she was asleep because she couldn’t see the pain on his face.

  Would he return to the Brotherhood and she remain a mortal here on Earth? Would she return to Brian and try to make a life with that boring excuse of a man?

  The thought of her lying in Brian’s arms as she now lay in his made him rage.