by Alexis Wilde
Damien grinned, but didn’t argue. “So, yes? We should?”
“That’s up to Nico.”
“That’s lame.”
Ben reached out and scruffed the other wolf by the nape, a brief flex of fingers that didn’t hitch his stride. Damien’s shoulders came up, but he dropped his arms and grumbled anyway. “Until our fearless leader comes up with a plan, you just do what you do,” Ben said over his protests. The rumble of his voice didn’t change, but Damien wasn’t stupid.
“Okay, okay,” he sighed, and kicked at a rock in the path. “But it’s still lame.”
Ben let that one slide. Personally, he kind of agreed.
Natalie deserved to know. Especially if it looked like there’d be bloodshed. So far, Ben didn’t have any reason to think Victor would want anything else.
“Hey, Ben?”
He glanced at the younger wolf.
Damien jammed his hands into his pockets, shoulders rounding. “Do you think she’ll stay?”
“We’re a barely refined bunch of savages,” Ben replied, deadpan. “Would you?”
“Not with your ugly face,” Damien shot back, but his smile faded. The line left behind looked too serious on the kid’s face. Just this side of sad.
Ben knew the feeling. They all carried those scars, in some way or another. “I hope she does,” he finally said, a low rumble acknowledging what they both understood.
It wasn’t their call to make. But God, he wished she would.
* * *
Warmth seeped into her back. Her bones felt heavy, lazy, but for the first time in a long time, Natalie didn’t wake up tired. She woke brimming with energy, simmering with the heat she was coming to understand—maybe a little. Maybe more than she ever had before.
She woke up restless but not desperate.
A large hand splayed over her hip, heavy and hot, and possessive even in sleep. She recognized it by feel—the scrape of calluses, the thick fingers, the wide palm. That was Jackson at her back, his broad chest tucked against her shoulders, his breath in her hair. The cool, dark smell of him filled the bedroom, thickened in her nose and spread like a balm through her chest.
Had he slept with her this whole time?
Something about that thought pooled in Natalie’s head, her heart—boiled like an aphrodisiac through her veins. Without warning, without so much as a touch or a word, the heat inside her bloomed to full-on hunger. Arousal flooded the sensitive, throbbing flesh between her legs. Her belly clenched, and a full shudder rolled through her—until her breath eased out on a shaking sigh and her nipples tightened.
Nobody had ever just slept with her. They’d fucked her, tried to ease her heat and stake their claim, but they’d never stayed. Never just…been there. Having Jackson beside her when she woke felt good. It felt right.
One part comfort. One part stunning awareness.
She wanted this man. This werewolf who hovered so protectively—possessively, her instincts said. As if she already belonged to him.
As if he was just waiting for her to recognize that.
Was she ready for it?
She wanted to be.
Natalie eased out from under his hand. The movement triggered a murmured sound, a shift behind her as he rolled onto his back. She hissed a wordless sound of appreciation as she realized that he was every bit as naked as she was, sprawled back into the pillows with an arm lifted above his head, the other shoved under the pillows. His big body gleamed against the crisp white sheets, dark gold and shadow cut in thick definition; hard plateaus and beautiful valleys etched between hard muscle.
There was nothing innocent about him, nothing soft. Even at rest, his dark lashes laying like a fan over his cheeks, he looked like the predator he was.
She wanted to map out the wide expanse of his chest. Taste the line carved between the muscles of his abs, trace that mouth-watering definition at his hip. And his cock, oh, God, his cock. It was gorgeous at full arousal, but here in this bed, as he slept at her side, it rested at an idle half-mast that said his body had clued into her scent even while his mind drifted in whatever dreams Jackson walked in. Dreams of her?
Her heart thundered in her chest. What would he do if she woke him like this?
What did she want him to do?
The biological need twisting her belly barely even held a candle to the hunger infecting her now—hot and sweet, desperate and deliberate.
Very cautiously, she tucked a knee between his powerful thighs, splayed comfortably wide beneath the sheet tangled low on his legs. She could barely keep herself from easing her sex against the harder planes of his thigh as she straddled it—not only would it wake him too soon, but she’d come from the friction alone. That was how close she was.
That was how much it turned her on to think she could rub herself against his leg, stroke her own wet juices into his skin until his muscles clenched against her—until she woke him up moaning his name.
Would he take her then?
Or watch her as she came apart without him ever touching her?
Either way, it wasn’t enough. Not this time.
Natalie knelt between his legs, fingers clamped into the sheets on either side of his hips as she struggled to breathe through the hunger. Her hair tumbled in dark waves over her shoulder, pooled over his hip. Brushed his half-hardened cock.
It twitched. Jackson’s stomach muscles leapt, and he eased out a low murmur that stroked like fingers over her skin.
She left her hair there, knowing it would slide over his flesh as she braced herself higher up over him. High enough that she could lower her lips to the thick muscle at his left pectoral.
His smell filled her body. Clung to her senses, left her feeling hot and dizzy and reckless.
His taste, oh, so warm. So smooth. Better than any alcohol, stronger than any drug. Her tongue flicked out over his skin.
Jackson’s breath caught. Changed.
She smiled, shifted a fraction and dragged her tongue over the flat circle of his nipple. It beaded in her mouth. He shuddered.
A hand fisted in her hair.
Everything inside her thrilled at the sudden aggression. “Natalie.” His voice rasped, half in sleep and with lust thick on his breath.
Very gently, she set her teeth around his nipple. His chest jerked, breath shuddering. “Let me,” she whispered.
“Do what?”
“Anything.”
“God,” he groaned. The hand at her hair eased away. Fell back to his side.
She could feel the change in his body, rigid where he’d been easy in sleep. His cock leapt thick and hard at his abdomen, the muscles at his arms and thighs bunched as he locked himself down so hard, she wasn’t sure he was breathing until she raked her nails down his side and heard him gasp.
Her lips followed the angry red lines. Her tongue skimmed over one side of the vee at his hips, delved into the edged valley of the muscle there.
His cock filled her vision. So close. So hard she wondered if it’d feel like marble in her hand.
If it’d throb inside her mouth.
As her hair slid over his thighs, brushed the heavy flesh of his testicles, Jackson’s head pressed back into his pillow. His eyes closed, clenched as tight as the fists he’d wrapped in the sheets. His teeth locked hard enough that it carved a pulsing echo into his jaw.
He didn’t touch her. He obeyed her, listened to her; let her explore. Let her hands map out his flat stomach, his thighs.
As she licked a path across the steely muscles of his abdomen, it vibrated under her mouth. His groan shook behind his teeth, the same way her heart did with every breath he took. Every word he locked behind the ragged pulse she could sense under his skin.
He tasted a lot like the cool forest she smelled on him, like freedom and darkness and faintly of masculine sweat. Her body remembered the way he touched her. The way his cock filled her—everywhere. Her body didn’t hurt anymore, but even flashing back to the feel of his cock filling her ass while
Nico thrust into her sex was enough to skate her perilously close to coming.
All that from a flashback alone.
Her nails flexed into his side. He hissed out a breath.
Liquid beaded at the very tip of his erection as she watched. Pre-come, the kind that told her that she didn’t even have to touch him before he was hurting for her.
That knowledge gave her power. Gave her strength.
Natalie reached down between his legs, cupped his balls in a hand that wasn’t entirely gentle. He jerked, knees cracking as he forced himself back into position. Her name graveled on his lips, a groan she cut off by squeezing gently. Rolling his testicles in her palm made his hips rise off the bed. His cock jumped, and more of the glistening fluid at the tip leaked out.
“Do you like this?” she asked, drunk with the power of it.
He barked out a short laugh that cracked on a gritted, “More, sweetheart. Harder.”
That surprised her. Her grip slackened, but he lifted his head off the pillow and caught her eyes with his own blazing hot. “Trust me.”
She did. Of course she did, but she didn’t want to hurt him.
Not that he seemed worried. His faith, his raw demand, gave her courage when maybe the old Natalie would have backed off. She was too far along for that.
So she squeezed a bit harder. Carefully, slowly, until the cords on his neck strained and the muscles in his torso locked in rigid pleasure. Just like the cock throbbing against his abdomen.
A trickle of fluid dropped to the golden skin there.
Her mouth watered. She couldn’t help it. She knew that taste on her tongue, wanted it again. Ben had taught her well in that van. Alek had only made good on the foundation.
If she flattened her tongue just under the divot at the broad head of Jackson’s cock, if she dragged the very tip of her tongue through that delicate slit, would his will fracture?
Would he seize her head and fuck her mouth or would he throw her down on this mattress and fuck her right?
How far could she push?
She bent over, sweeping her hair aside. The muscles of Jackson’s thighs were so taut, her nails barely dented the skin, but she grabbed them anyway, slid her hands up the hot flesh until she could cradle his wide hips. His erection jumped, his fists turned white as she blew hot air over him.
The first glide of her tongue along the thick, silken shaft elicited a low growl.
The second ended on a sharp curse as the tip of her tongue flicked at the sensitive ridge just under the head of his cock.
When her lips closed over it, Jackson’s hips lifted. “Yes,” he gasped.
Yes. Just one word, three little letters.
Perfection. She wrapped her hand around the base of his shaft, stroked him up and down as she sucked hard at the head. He grunted in synch with her, his breath already pushed into short pants. “Good,” he groaned. “So good. Natalie, fuck.”
She’d get to that. Just as soon as she was done sucking him off, swallowing every last bit of the come he’d give her. Like a drug, she craved it. She’d do anything for it.
Trusted him to know her limits even when she might forget.
And the thought of that—the realization that he trusted her enough to put his body in her hands, that she could give over everything to him and knew he’d be there—only ramped up her hunger.
Her body flooded with heat, with wanting so fierce that she opened her mouth wide and swallowed him down—head, shaft. As far as she could, using her hands at his hips for leverage, she widened her throat and held her breath and took him so far deep inside her mouth that all of him—the taste, the smell, the heat—filled her senses. Her thoughts.
He tasted like salt and sweat and sex. His cock throbbed inside her mouth as he threw his head back and pushed up, heels digging into the bed. It drove his cock deeper than she was ready for, harder than she’d expected; amazing in every way.
But not enough.
She wrapped her tongue around his shaft, dragged it up and down, in and out; a long, slow fucking between her lips that had him gasping. And when she very gently scraped her teeth over the delicate skin, Jackson’s heady sound of pleasure spiraled straight up into her pussy and demanded more.
Her patience snapped. Her wolf rose in her skin, nails digging into his hips and leaving bloody half moons as she threw back her head and snarled in outright challenge.
Jackson’s lips peeled back from his teeth as she pulled away form him, left his cock wet and slick with her saliva and traces of his own arousal. He wanted to grab her, to throw her down—she could read it in his face. In the savage hunger he fought so hard.
She liked that, too.
Never in her life had she prowled up a man’s body, never had she trusted in herself enough—believed in herself enough—to crawl over a man like she was starving and he was a four course dinner.
Never had she felt her wolf so close to the surface.
Her tongue slid out over her lips. Wet them.
Jackson’s breath shuddered in his chest. His eyes gleamed, hot and hungry, as he met her stare. Held it.
“Take me, Jackson.” Her knees came down on either side of his hips, centered her aching sex just over his cock. So close she could feel the heat of him seeping into her flesh. “Take me.”
“God.” Cords strained in his throat. “Do you understand—Fuck!”
The word grated as she raked both hands down his chest. Skin parted, filled the air with the coppery tang of his blood. She bent, pressed her lips to one deep line and growled, “I know what I said. Take me, Jackson King, or lose me. Right here.” Her sex dragged over his cock, and she thrilled when his nostrils flared, breath jagged. Sparklers shot through her body as he let go of the sheets to grab her waist, anchoring her in place over him.
His eyes snapped brilliant green, harsh planes carved into his features. “How?”
“All the way. Every way.”
“Fuck,” he rasped again, and with strength she didn’t sense coming, he surged upward, flattened a hand against her chest and swept her entirely off him. Only to plant her squarely on the bed, his hips nestled between her open legs, hands splayed at her thighs to force her knees up. So close she could have licked one.
It exposed everything to him. Her sex, pulsing and wet. Her ass. His to look down at, to stare at—feast with a gaze every bit as desperate as she felt.
And when he dropped his mouth to the flesh between her legs, Natalie’s cry burst from her throat as wave after wave of searing pleasure rolled through her. One arm banded over her stomach and hauled her higher against him, shoulders pinned, legs in the air; pulled her tight against his mouth. His tongue plunged inside her, speared through her flesh and set every nerve jangling. Every breath echoed with a keening sound she couldn’t believe came from her own chest, but it did.
Wanting. Needing.
Feasting.
He consumed her, lapped at her. Stroked her higher and higher. His tongue slipped away, only for his teeth to close gently around the aching pearl of her clit. At the same time, he anchored her hard against him and thrust three fingers into her sex.
She jolted, seizing handfuls of the sheets by her head as she screamed for more, begged for more.
Fingers, mouth, they weren’t enough. As if he knew, he pressed his wet thumb to her ass and laved at her clit. In and out, his fingers scraped her nerves in all the best ways, dragged her pleasure from her in razor thin spirals of desperate demand. The extra sensation from his thumb short-circuited what was left of her mind; Natalie checked out in ways she’d never allowed herself to try before.
But Jackson had her. Held her. Thrust his fingers inside her, his tongue over her clit, over and over, until Natalie screamed her ragged pleas for more—and if it sounded more like her wolf than human, she didn’t care. Desire tore through her skin, left Natalie shivering violently, gasping desperately.
The smell of her arousal, the shape of her need, pushed Jackson over an edge she didn’t
know he walked—his eyes bled to violent yellow and the snarl torn from his throat echoed hers. With inhuman strength, he rose up onto his knees, flipped her onto her stomach. He seized her hips, dragged her up onto her knees, and then flattened a hand between her shoulder blades to shove her face down onto the mattress with a low, savage sound.
Natalie struggled, but it wasn’t to escape. Fury rode her skin, her wolf howled, and she tipped her hips up for him—for Jackson to claim, to ride. To take.
Mate.
He could. She wanted him to.
Her wolf wanted him to try.
Jackson’s cock pressed against the entrance to her sex. Just long enough to make her shudder, knees wide, hips angled up. Just long enough to center himself before he thrust hard, fast, so deep pain bloomed a nanosecond before pleasure swamped her under a tide so dark and thick and heavy that she screamed into the sheets. Cotton tore under her nails as the whole bed rocked violently.
He didn’t wait.
Didn’t stop.
She wanted more. More of him, more of the wolf he unleashed beside her. Inside her.
His body curved over her back as his cock withdrew, only to pause and slam inside her again. His hands pinned her wrists to the bed, warm and large, and the weight of him, the heat of him against her back only wrapped her in the heady glory of his strength as he fucked her.
Hard. Fast.
Hungrier than she’d ever known.
Perfect.
The sounds she made weren’t human anymore. She didn’t care. Every thrust, every way his cock stroked against her inner channels, dragged perfectly against every sensitive part of her, drove her higher on a peak she’d never before climbed.
“Yes,” she panted, “yes, yes, yes, God, Jackson!”
A hand curved around her throat, pulled her bodily upright. Her back collided with his chest as he opened his mouth over the side of her neck. She grasped at his straining hips, dug her nails in as he angled himself just right and his cock dragged over a spot so perfect that she screamed.
Blood tainted the air again. Jackson snarled a savage warning, fingers sliding into her mouth, then bit hard at the curve of her neck. This time, it was her skin that parted. Her blood that mingled with the sharp, musky smell of arousal and need and mating frenzy.