by Kit Tunstall
They clung to each other for a few moments, and his arms clamped around her when Lex tried to pull away. It was an instinctive reaction to keep her near, though his cock was only semi-hard at the place where their bodies were still fused.
She brushed strands of hair off his face and smiled down at him. She had clearly already regained control, while he struggled to do so. It made sense though. She had been a shifter all her life, and he’d been one for less than two days. When she pulled away with a small kiss to his nose, he had to let her despite his instincts to cling to her.
“We should go before they find us here.” She leaned closer. “Can you smell him on me at all anymore?”
Aidan growled at the idea of someone else having marked his mate, but he inhaled as deeply as he could and detected nothing besides her own pheromone signature mingled with his. “I don’t detect him.” There was still a hint of a growl to his voice, but as she moved away from him, he found it easier to reassert control over the newly born animalistic side of himself.
By the time she was dressed, he was able to stand up and mimic her motions without surrendering to the urge to pounce on her and take her again. There would be time for that later, when they were in a secure location, but they had to reach that first. He wouldn’t risk letting his newly claimed mate fall into Caswell’s hands again. He was convinced that would kill him, and whether it was a reaction to their newly bonded state, or hyperbole on the part of his lion-shifter side didn’t matter. It felt like the truth, and he had no intention of finding out how the reality would be. He wasn’t going to lose her now.
Chapter Eleven
It took almost three days to reach Sanctuary, because they had gone such a circuitous route. Thanks to a radio he’d stashed in the safe house, Lex had been able to make and maintain contact with Malcolm off and on throughout, and he had been the one to guide them, set up transportation, and ease their passage whenever possible.
As Lex led Aidan through the entrance that led to the underground bunker, it was like coming home. She’d always planned to buy a place in the desert when she retired from the military, somewhere where her coyote would feel most at home, but she appreciated the snug security of Sanctuary, with its den-like feel and protection from the prying eyes of the group chasing them.
The others came to meet them as they stepped into the main living area. She grinned when she saw her teammates cast suspicious glances at Aidan. She had already told them his history, and why he might smell wrong to them, so it was no surprise to see them all on edge. She put her arm around his waist and drew him closer in a clear sign of approval and reminding them he was hers as much as she was his. “Relax. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Aidan, as you all know.”
As one, the shifters in the room let out a long breath, and the tension faded away.
Gillian came forward first, hand on her rounded stomach as she extended the other in Aidan’s direction. “I’m Gillian Stone, and we owe you a debt of gratitude, Mr.…?”
Lex let out a startled laugh when she realized she didn’t know his last name either.
“Tyler, ma’am.” He held out his hand and shook hers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Wyatt came forth next, putting his arm around Gillian’s waist in much the same way Lex held her mate. He didn’t shake hands with Aidan, but he did nod at him before turning concerned eyes on her. “How are you doing?”
“I’m all right. It’s good to be home.” It certainly was, because she felt like she could relax at least a little now. She was certain Caswell could no longer track her, and she could finally afford to lower her guard fractionally.
She could also completely consummate her mating with Aidan—something she looked forward to with eager anticipation. During their traveling, there had been little opportunity to explore the bond between them in a physical way. There had been a couple of quickies, squeezed in as they waited for transportation or some other connection on the route home, but she had yet to have the opportunity for a leisurely session to learn everything about his body and allow him the same opportunity.
By the time her teammates had all greeted Aidan and debriefed them, she was almost physically aching for him. It was late in the evening, so they could excuse themselves without being terribly rude, and she did so as soon as possible. Keeping Aidan’s hand in hers, she practically dragged him away from the living room area and down one of two hallways. The other led to the maintenance system that kept their sanctuary not only habitable, but also comfortable.
This side was living quarters, and her room was the third on the right. She kicked open the door with her foot and pulled him across the threshold, barely managing to close it behind him and engage the lock before she launched herself into his arms.
He caught her weight with only a slight grunt and a stumble backward before he quickly righted himself. He seemed to be more comfortable with his shifter senses now, though she was certain he would still struggle in the coming days to reconcile both halves of himself. It was something every shifter went through, though most learned to control it in puberty. She anticipated Aidan would gain control faster simply because he was an adult and more able to control his emotions and impulses.
Not that she wanted him to control himself too much at the moment. She wanted him to keep the lion locked tightly inside during their lovemaking, but she was fine with glimpses of it peeking through in his passion and attitude, if not physically.
His hands supported her buttocks as he held her against him. She had her arms twined around his shoulders and her thighs locked around his waist. He was several inches taller than her, so the position aided in bringing them to the same level.
She threaded her fingers through his hair, urging his mouth closer to hers in a gentle kiss. She wanted to be slow and tender, but the passion between them soon ramped up. If she didn’t pull away, it would be another quick, frantic coupling, but she craved something more, something that would lead to a deeper connection between them.
He grunted his disapproval when she pulled away, wriggling out of his arms, and her own stifled moan of frustration revealed how she felt at the separation too. When he took a step closer, trying to lift her again, she held up a hand and took a step back. “Slow down there, Aidan. I want to take my time.”
His blue eyes flashed for a moment, and she could almost see the lion behind the man, but with a deep breath that he released in a shuddering fashion, he had clearly regained control. He nodded at her just once, but stopped trying to close the distance between them.
She blew him a kiss, and as a reward for his controlled state, she slowly unbuttoned her sweater. Her bra had been ruined at their last prolong stop, where they’d engaged in another quick fusing of their bodies, so when the sweater opened, it revealed nothing but bare skin underneath. His gaze fastened on her small breasts, and his respiration increased, but he seemed like he was forcing himself to stand still.
She smiled at him, pleased by the show of control, because she was having a hard time holding on to her own. Coyote-shifters weren’t gifted with knowing their mates immediately, but she couldn’t imagine ever meeting anyone who felt more right for her than Aidan.
Their experience might have introduced a false sense of intimacy, but she didn’t really believe that. She was certain that no matter how they’d met, they would have been drawn to each other. His transition to a lion-shifter had simply hastened the process and exacerbated his need for her, which she fully responded to on an instinctive level.
By the time she stood fully nude before him, he was a rigid statue a few feet from her. Aidan hadn’t moved forward, and other than clenching his hands into fists, he hadn’t moved at all, but his gaze darted up and down her form, betraying his hunger for her.
She stepped closer to him, stretching on her tiptoes to brush a kiss against the section of flesh revealed by the V-neck of his flannel shirt before she flicked open the button. Her mouth followed the path her fingers made as each button reve
aled another section of his flesh, until she’d run out of buttons, and her mouth had reached the waistband of his jeans.
He was trembling slightly on a continuous basis, and she shot a glance up at him to confirm it was simply passion and not a resurgence of the side effects that had plagued him for the first few days after taking the injection of the DNA modifier. Now, he seemed fine and perfectly healthy, other than he was clearly on the edge of losing control. She didn’t think that had anything to do with lingering illness from the injection and had everything to do with the slow, careful way she had undressed herself and started undressing him, peppered amid teasing kisses.
His slight tremor turned to a full body shudder when her fingers moved to the snap and zipper of his jeans. He moaned when she slid them down his hips, peeling away his briefs at the same time. He lifted one foot and then the other to allow her to slide them off the rest of the way, and then he stood naked before her.
Lex dropped to her knees in a pseudo-submissive gesture, though she was the one who held the power to reduce him to nothing but sensation. Aidan let out a choked gasp when she wrapped her hand around the root of his shaft, directing the head toward her mouth. She swirled her tongue around the end of him, both to ease the passage of her mouth and to tease him. He moaned and arched his hips forward, but made no other move to force her to progress more rapidly, or try to push her to take more of his length than she wanted to at the time.
She moved slowly, enveloping his heat with her lips at a maddening pace that was testing her own limits of control too. When his head reached the back of her throat, she swallowed and made him groan again. There was still a slight gap between what her hand covered and what her mouth could take, but he didn’t seem to mind. When she started twirling her tongue and hollowing her cheeks while moving her head back and forth, he certainly didn’t mind that.
Aidan bucked his hips against her face, his hand buried in her hair, though he didn’t attempt to force her face closer or try to hold her in a way that restricted her movements. He was simply anchoring himself by holding on to her, and he was obviously at her mercy.
She had planned to draw it out more, but she found herself impatient for his release, wanting to witness the moment when his face tightened before his expression morphed into one of complete ecstasy. She kept her gaze upward, doing her best to see his face at all times as her mouth worked his length until he was groaning and gasping.
When he hardened inside her mouth before he started twitching, she was rewarded with that change of expression, where agony transformed into pleasure in a millisecond. He started to come, and she didn’t think she would ever get tired of seeing that look on his face.
When he was spent, she leaned back and discreetly wiped her mouth before sitting on her calves and looking up at him expectantly.
“My turn,” he said with more than a hint of growl to his words. He bent down and lifted her into his arms, making her squeal at the sudden change of position as he moved her from the floor to the bed. He came down with her, splaying her thighs wide to expose her dripping core.
Unlike her, he didn’t seem motivated by the need to go in a slow and leisurely fashion. Instead, his mouth fastened over her folds, and his tongue squirmed in between her lips to alternate between a stabbing motion and a swirling flick of his tongue. Her thighs trembled, and heat originated from her abdomen as Aidan feasted on her slick flesh, quickly bringing her to the cusp of orgasm. She curled her fingers into the bedding, needing the support, as she prepared to sail over the edge.
Instead, he eased away from her clit, his mouth gentling as he placed kisses along her plump lips and into her slit. He moved his head and began to nibble on her thigh, and while it was erotic, it wasn’t enough stimulation to make her come. She arched her hips impatiently, and he simply laughed against her skin, ignoring her unspoken demands for him to continue.
When the urge to come had receded slightly, he seemed to realize that, and his mouth returned to the heart of her, his lips gently squeezing her clit before his mouth darted away to trace an invisible trail up her right thigh that he followed with his tongue, pausing occasionally to kiss or bite her.
Finally, when she was practically a sobbing, pleading mess, he summoned a measure of compassion and must have chosen to put her out of her misery, because his mouth returned to her pussy to work in earnest. Using his tongue, alternating between light strokes and forceful thrusts, interspersed with forceful suction alternated with light kisses, he soon made her come, and then come again.
She was still shaking from the aftereffects of her third orgasm when he shifted position to align his hips with hers. He drove inside her, and she curled her fingers into his buttocks to hold him tightly against her as they began to thrust against one another. She gave up on slow and leisurely, deciding fast and forceful was better. Being with Aidan might always culminate like this, or maybe they would eventually slake some of their hunger for each other and be able to enjoy slower, more drawn-out rounds of lovemaking. That should only take forty or fifty years.
As another release swept over her, and she curled against Aidan, clinging tightly to him, Lex decided that was fine. She was okay with spending the next fifty years trying to satisfy her craving for the man who was still buried inside her. She was certain it would take even longer than that to satisfy her need for him.
Lying against him, she was content to devote how many ever years it required until they reached a less fervid state of need. Staring into his eyes, with her arms around his shoulders, fingers in his hair, she was struck with a deep sense of just knowing he was her mate. Was this how it was for bears? They just looked at someone and knew? It didn’t matter how it was for any other person or shifter. It just felt right to her on every level. “I think I could spend the rest of my life with you, Aidan.”
He gave her a small smile before tipping his head forward, resting against her forehead. “I’m not sure that will be long enough, Lex.”
She trembled slightly at the words, realizing with Caswell and the black ops group still after them that their lifetime could be far shorter than average. With that being the case, no wonder she was so driven to be with him and so consumed by thoughts of him. The knowledge that they might not have long together must be what drove them together so frantically.
She was going to cling to her mate, enjoy every second with him that they had, and fight like hell to ensure that encompassed years and years, rather than a brief span of time. Caswell could do his worst, and she’d be ready. She had too much to fight for, and too much to live for, to let him or his group win.
******
Look for the rest of the stories in the series, available to buy or borrow with Kindle Unlimited:
“Running Bear”: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LYANZQL
“Relentless Tiger”: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M757ZYK
“Jaguar Justice” should be available by early 2017.
Bonus Excerpt
Here’s a (unedited) sneak peek from “Jaguar Justice,” the fourth and final story in the Wounded Warriors series. It should be available by early 2017.
Malcolm’s heart skipped a beat, and he frowned at Lex. “Could you say that part again?” He was certain he had heard what she had said, but he just needed to hear it another time.
“I said Caswell told me Loris hadn't completed all of the reprogramming they subject super soldiers to before we rescued her. He switched her on to acquire me, but maybe—”
“There's still Loris somewhere in there," said Malcolm. A surge of hope tried to rise, and he quickly stifled it. It wasn't in his nature to be too optimistic, especially against such grim odds. Still, if there was a chance to recover their lost teammate’s personality, they had to try.
He looked at Tianna and then moved his gaze to Aidan, the newest member of their team. He didn't know the man well yet, but Lex had silently vouched for him simply by being his mate, and he'd heard enough from the other man during the debriefing to know he knew
his way around computers. "Tianna and Aiden, I want you to see if you can find out who the lead scientist is on their Frankenstein project. We’re particularly interested in knowing who designed their A.I. system, and who oversees that program."
With their assent, that concluded the debriefing and he nodded toward the door. Wyatt and Jillian were the last ones to leave, since it took Gillian an extra moment to get up out of her seat. Wyatt put a protective arm around her, one of his hands cupping her burgeoning stomach as they left the conference room.
It sent a wave of longing through Malcolm that he quickly stifled. As much as his jaguar longed to find their mate, the human side of him knew it was completely the wrong time. He wouldn't risk dragging a woman he loved into the situation in which they were mired. There would be no mate for him until he had destroyed all components of Project Shift and Enhanced and removed the threat to himself and his teammates.
***
When his burner phone rang hours later, Malcolm groaned and reached for it. Rest hadn't come easily, and he'd only been asleep a couple of hours. By the time he’d picked up the phone and answered it, his head was clear though. Only one person called him on this number, and generally it wasn't just to chat. Now that all of his teammates were accounted for, with most of them dead, it was impossible that El Jefe was calling him to get clearance for another arrival at Sanctuary. "Hello?"
"There's a man and many of those things in the area. My men heard the chopper hours ago, and they alerted me. I went out to meet with them and make it clear they shouldn't be here without my permission, but this Caswell had no respect for the way things should be done."
Malcolm cursed softly before asking, "Are they near Sanctuary?"
"They’re still in the mid-mountain range at the moment, but if we don't deal with them now, they will find you."