Wolf on a Leash

by Virginia Nelson

  “Assuming this isn’t a dream and we’re having this conversation, will your claiming make me a wolf, too?” He heard the ridiculousness of the question, his mind seeking to find a rational explanation while his heart knew what she was, what she meant.

  She shook her head, daring a peek at him. The sheer beauty of her face hit him like a fist to the gut. Unable to resist any longer, he stood and caught her hair in his fist. Using the rough grip, he angled her head so she couldn’t avoid his eyes anymore. “Will it hurt? If you claim me?”

  She blinked, seeming shocked at his question. “I could never hur— No, but it is kind of a forever thing. I know of people who died when their mate passed. It is a rather unbreakable bond. I can’t unclaim you. We’d be mates for the rest of our lives. And you can’t tell anyone, not about me or my kind.”

  “Does it mean I can fuck you every day until your legs won’t hold you when you try to stand? Does it mean I can wake to your arms, get to know you, taste you, spank you, and otherwise do my damnedest to fuck us both into our graves early?” He hadn’t meant his list of demands to come out quite so crass, but he’d been honest, so he didn’t retract his words, even if they weren’t overly romantic or sentimental.

  Her laugh came out on a shudder, and the heat of her nakedness inched a bit closer to him. As if she was called to touch him as much as he strived to feel her. “Sure, all of that,” she whispered, the whiskey-drenched temptation of her voice a Siren’s call to his overheated body.

  “Then claim me, my little wolf, because I’ve got nothing else in this world I want more than you. If this is madness? I’m glad to be crazy in your arms. If it is a dream, I hope I never wake up.”

  With those words, he slanted his mouth across hers, dragging her by the waist into his arms. Her teeth grazed his lip, and he shuddered, needing to find some kind of sanity in the whirl of emotions swamping him. He craved her, never wanted anything as much as he needed the bite of her nails and the sound of her release. He streaked his hands up her sides, some instinctive push driving him to cover her in his touch, in his scent, in his possession.

  Glad they were a distance from the dungeon and well off any commonly used path, he backed away from her, regret holding up his hand to keep her from following. In a flash, he shed his clothes, wanting to be naked with her. Her hungry eyes watched, seeming to take in every inch of skin he revealed and claiming it with her gaze, if not her touch. He stood before her, for once proud of himself and his body, his dick twitching and bumping his belly in his lust for her and only her. It seemed the war hadn’t scraped away every ounce of confidence he’d had before he served after all, and he was glad to offer his body to her if it made her eyes take on a gleam of promise.

  When her eyes met his, he stared her down, waiting for her gaze to drop. She did, pleasing him on some primal level with her continued compliance and acceptance of his will. “So, if you are a wolf, are you still my naughty little submissive, willing to let me dominate and take care of her? Or does our planning all go out the window because you go furry?”

  She bowed her head, accepting his mastery, but the corners of her mouth turned up. His tiny rebellious lady pleased him and vice versa. A surge of something like joy sang through his blood.

  “If you think you can control me, Minotaur, bring it,” she offered, opening her arms to him.

  Always a blend of perfect submission and sneaky disobedience, his little wolf. Capturing her hair again, he wound it around his wrist before he used the silky hold to force her to her knees. She went with a sigh, curling into instead of away from his touch. “Kennedy or Sir. We’re done with the Minotaur moniker unless we’re at the club. When we’re there, you’re still mine and we’ll still have to go by club rules.”

  Yellow eyes peeked up at him, more Wolf than woman. He could almost see the questions there—she’d thought he might order her away from their playhouse of pleasures, something far from his mind when he’d just begun to explore her and see what made her scream for him.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Ever testing my dominance. I think you should take me in your mouth to pay for looking at me when I’d not yet granted you the right. Perhaps I’ll forgive your mistake if you do a good enough job pleasing me.”

  Since Patch couldn’t think of anything she desired more than the taste of him on her lips, she licked them at the offer to take him in her mouth. Some men might be afraid of a Wolf putting their most sensitive organ between canine teeth….

  Not her soldier. Bending to her task, the taste of his skin burst across her taste buds. Mate, she acknowledged, and her Wolf almost groaned at the pleasure of being so near him. The Wolf longed to rub all over him, to bite and claim him, but the woman reveled in her power over the man. So long as she hollowed out her cheeks to pull him deep into the cavern of her mouth, she held the reins and she was going to drive him to his limits. Sucking and rubbing her tongue along the line of his hot cock, she closed her eyes to better focus on the task at hand. Humming, she rolled her gaze upward, over the golden length of his muscled chest, until she saw his jaw tighten against the onslaught of her constant attack on his senses. Fisting the base of his dick, she focused on the head, moving fast until his hands shook. One palm dug into her hair, scraping her scalp, and she gasped before redoubling her efforts to please him.

  As she sucked the thick length of him, she rolled his tight balls in her fingertips, amused when his thighs clenched and his breathing went ragged. Then he dragged her head away, shoving her backward. Rough, just how she liked it. Her breasts swung as she shifted, heavy with her passion for him, and she could scent her own arousal, twined with his, on the pine-scented night breeze.

  But then he changed things. The same breeze tickled across her skin, cooling the sweat sheening her from both the change and her passion. His fingertips traced over her, further accelerating the sensation of his whisper-soft touch. One hand braceletted her wrists together on the forest floor above her head, pulling her breasts up high and tight for his intent focus. He straddled her, using his free hand to begin exploring. He seemed content to discover the topography of her flesh, tracing dips and gliding over planes with such intense attention to detail it bottomed out her stomach and left her legs shaking with unquenched desires. The tenderness in his touch was foreign, unexpected, and yet so good. For a moment, it seemed he would remain unsatisfied until he’d skimmed those clever fingers over every inch of her, claiming the flesh as his own as he continued his teasing foray.

  When he laved her breast and sucked the nipple between his lips, she braced for the bite of his teeth on the sensitive flesh. Instead, he suckled, pulling the nipple taut before ducking and kissing the tip.

  His hand went lower, sliding between their bodies to find her clit and circle it in an almost feather light touch. “I’ve never wanted something as much as I want to hear you roar for me right now, little wolf. I’m a man used to getting what I want, just so we’re clear before you claim me.”

  The words were his solitary warning before he pinched the sensitive bundle of nerves between his knuckle and thumb. The quick and unrelenting pressure on her clit should have hurt, should have been this side of agony, but it rocketed her up and over the edge of amazing. Shocked by the sudden and overwhelming orgasm raking through her like a forest fire, she tried to buck against him, her legs clenching and her channel almost painfully empty. He held her in place by sitting on her and continuing to hold her wrists in one hand, whispering soothing things while her body threatened to splinter into a thousand fragments of light. When she was left shaking in aftershocks, legs quaking, she blinked her eyes open to see his pleased face hovering over hers. “Welcome back, my little wolf.”

  Her wrists were going numb, so she wiggled them, and he freed her. Using both hands, he cupped the weight of her breasts, seeming fascinated by her body. “You do know I can’t get the sound of your voice, the taste of your sweet cum, or the thought of you out of my head. Is it part of the mating thing?” />
  She nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat. She hadn’t yet given him the bite, but she felt closer to him than she’d ever felt to anyone else. She felt attuned, as if their bodies were meant for this.

  “So, how do you do it?” It took her a second to realize he’d asked a question, so fascinated she’d become with gazing on his face and trembling away the last shards of the orgasm.

  He looked curious, so she shrugged, which seemed to make him notice her collarbone. He traced the thinly covered bone with infinite patience, seeming suddenly lazy even though her body burned for him and his dick was hard and hot against her belly.

  “A bite,” she managed, wanting more of him and done with talking about it.

  Flipping them in one move, he switched their positions, situating her above him. He leaned her against his knees, legs spread so he could see her pussy, then returned to his lazy stroking of her over-sensitized skin. Her nerves clamored, almost desperate to finish what they’d started.

  “Then claim me, little wolf, for I have many things I’m planning to do to you before the night is done.”

  Opening and closing her mouth, she floundered. While her Wolf had no compunctions whatsoever about the position—bite, claim, his belly is exposed—the woman in her didn’t know what to do with her newfound power. Seeming to sense her struggle, Kennedy’s wandering hands found her slit and began to torturously tease her. In moments, fire again licked at her limbs, rising and falling in time with his touch. He gripped her mound, rocking his palm against her clit once before retreating. When his fingertips slid inside her, she began to ride him in earnest, nails digging into his chest to seek purchase as she fought for more contact.

  “Now fuck me, little wolf, not my hand.” Without another word, he lifted her and impaled her with his thick, hard member. He might be on the bottom, but he’d not ceded control. As his hand slowed and steadied her pace by guiding her urgent, humping hips, he plucked at her nipples, pulling them away from her body before letting them snap back into place.

  She moaned for him, working to move faster, past his controlling hands which set their pace at a rhythm too slow for her hungers. So close to coming again, she tugged at his arms until he sat up, bringing them eye to eye. Her movements lost pace, wavering as the closeness of him took her breath away. So he gripped her hips, lifting her as if she were weightless to slam her harder into his cock. She groaned at the feel of him, both grazing her clit and filling her with his thickness to bump at the nerves inside.

  “Yes, my wolf, ride me.” His husky command spurred her Wolf, all the more willing to obey her mate and spiral toward the glittering finish.

  So close…. Perhaps it was instinctive, perhaps he moved at the pleasure of their bodies grinding together, but he bared his neck and she struck without further hesitation. When her teeth sank into the hard, salty place between his neck and shoulder, fireworks danced behind her eyelids and she teetered on the brittle edge of shattering.

  Then he echoed her movement, biting on her shoulder as hard as she’d bitten him. Unable to ride him connected so closely, the sharp coppery taste of his blood coated her tongue, and she orgasmed at the flavor alone. Her muscles clenched around him, and he grunted, the sound coming through his nose as he shoved deeper inside her before his whole body stiffened. She could sense, through the newly formed bond between them, his pleasure as her pussy milked him dry.

  He released her neck, licking at the spot he’d bitten with care and tenderness. She echoed his movements, her body trapped in lethargy and contentment as she lapped at the mark, which would linger on his golden, muscular body. The Wolf hungered to leave more marks—to prove to one and all she’d found her mate and not to trespass, but the animal found satisfaction with the one bite for now. It seemed his heart beat inside her chest, and her breath wobbled at the sense of completeness she’d never dreamed of experiencing.

  “I can feel you inside me,” she whispered, curling into his neck and kissing it once. The smell of him had taken on hints of her own scent, and the combination brought her peace.

  “Me, too. In my heart, where I’ll keep you safe.”

  The romantic words left her smiling. Her dominant soldier was a sweet guy, apparently, and she satisfied herself by rubbing their faces together to further mark him with her musk. She’d found her mate, and they’d claimed each other.

  Epilogue

  “The prices in here are ridiculous. Only a fool would give you half the price you have marked for this shoddy workmanship and over-washed junk.” The old woman sniffed, her nose up in the air. She tugged at the sweater she held in her arthritis-gnarled fingers as if planning to rip the seams.

  Patch resisted—barely—the urge to ask her why she kept coming into a consignment shop if she didn’t want old things. Lord knew, there were drones delivering things to the remotest spots in the mountains, so the old bat could shop online. Not to mention she could shop elsewhere, and Patch wouldn’t mind the lack of her companionship once or twice a month. It wasn’t as if she ever bought anything, and besides, an hour drive would put the old fuddy-duddy in a mall somewhere or another, where she’d be surrounded by new things. Instead, the old crone repeated her less-than-fruitful visits into Patch’s secondhand shop and complained things were secondhand. I can’t fix stupid, Patch reminded herself, but she didn’t find solace in the obvious any more than the woman found pleasure in her shopping expedition.

  “This is used and should be given away as charity, not sold as if it is worth something. Why, you pay to have someone pick up your garbage. Which is what, I ask you? Yes, things you’ve already used. Really, if we agree to take anything home from this shop of yours, you should pay us for the service, not to mention the gas we used to drive down the mountain to this monstrosity of a shop to dispose of the rubbish.”

  Either because of the excellence of workmanship in the name-brand garment or because the old woman was weak as a kitten, the fabric didn’t rip even as she did her damnedest with her thick, yellowed nails to prove otherwise. When the shirt didn’t cooperate, not shredding at the seam to prove her point, it earned yet another disdainful snort from the disapproving elder.

  Before Patch could begin to control her annoyance, a hand landed on the back of her neck, soothing her. Though their mating bond was new, the connection smoothed her ruffled nerves. She sighed and leaned into his touch. His smell surrounded her, and she rubbed her hand on his arm, rejuvenated by the skin-to-skin contact. Her kind thrived on touch, and it seemed her lover was also driven by the need to embrace her, if the past day was a sampling of their future together. They’d both gone without for so long….

  When he’d told her of his nightmares, of his constant moving, a part of her wondered if he’d been looking for her. Since he found her, he’d shown no inclination to return to his restless wandering, never straying far from her side—much to her pleasure and relief.

  The old woman, determined to get a deal even if it meant haggling down to a dime, glanced up and her face went white as the orthopedic shoes on her tiny feet. Whatever words she’d planned to throw out as darts died on her tongue as she gaped openmouthed at Kennedy. “My….” Her old gnarled hand fluttered at her throat before she clutched her oversized bag and tugged at her friend’s arm. “Come on, we need to get out of here. He’s one of them.”

  A glance back showed her mate had done nothing aggressive. He just stood there looking giant and, perhaps to an outsider, threatening in his unflappable confidence. The brazen sexuality which seemed to throb off him in waves certainly didn’t make her want to flee the store.

  Rather, it made her want to purr before she humped him like a bitch in heat.

  The way she’d said them made Patch swallow down a laugh as she traced the outline of her mate’s jaw. The bell jangled behind her, but she ignored it. She was far more interested in the man than any pittance of money she might make selling her random treasures and antique finds.

  Patch placed both hands on his thi
ck and tempting chest, pleased when the heat of him soaked through the fabric and into her palms. Although she couldn’t see it, she knew the solid muscle beneath his white button-down shirt was marked by her claws, not to mention the bite on his nipple and her first bite on his shoulder. The knowledge she’d marked him, claimed him, gave both her and her Wolf unabashed pleasure.

  “I’m the Wolf, but they’re afraid of you.” She smirked at the situation.

  He didn’t return her amusement, but then again, his gaze was focused over her shoulder and into the store proper. A growl rumbled up from his throat, sounding more wolfish than any sound she’d ever heard him make, and she froze as the scent of bear burned her nostrils. Shocked she’d missed it initially, so wrapped up in the pleasure of her mate, her senses ratcheted up to high alert in seconds. Tensing because she had her back to him, she took three deep breaths before she could remove the automatic tension of the Wolf, threaded with the need to protect their mate.

  Once she’d schooled her features enough to avoid presenting an overt challenge she’d never be able to win, she faced Gee. “Not a good idea to sneak up on a Wolf, Bear,” she reminded him.

  Gee laughed, the sound so jubilant and unexpected, she couldn’t resist her lips twitching up in answer. “She found her claws.” He smacked a hand down on the counter, seeming beyond pleased with her and the universe at large.

  “And her pack.” Drew’s voice, grumbling behind Kennedy, had her spinning, not sure which threat to protect her mate from. The Wolf clawed inside her, making tears prick her eyes, as the animal demanded freedom to face the men.