Claimed by the Mate, Volume 1

by Kate Douglas

  Kira had immediately bristled at his words because being claimed wasn’t something she had been looking for, especially if he was talking about her being claimed by one of the members of his pack. There was nothing attractive to her about Dallas, Cody, Milo, or Kev. Each of them was just as ignorant as the other. But one was clearly meaner and more determined than the others to rule. Kira had found that out the hard way.

  “Look, my mother was great. She did everything she was supposed to do.” And yet she’d been gunned down like a rabid animal, Kira thought with a pang to the center of her chest that almost took her breath away. “Besides, I’m almost positive that a workout is not going to keep you out of my head,” she said, still looking around, searching for a possible exit.

  There was none, she realized after a full survey. There were four of everything in here, treadmills, ellipticals, weight benches. Mirrors lined one full wall, while tinted windows filled the other right across. The two smaller walls housed shelves with towels and hand weights, tension bands, and more gym paraphernalia; two rows of drawers were at the bottom of the each set of shelves.

  That’s where Blaez was standing. All the way toward the back of the gym, staring down at one of the drawers he’d opened. Kira walked that way passing several pieces of equipment, her feet silent on the carpeted floor.

  “You’re right; a simple workout is not what you need. This is a more serious lesson, one of many that you’ll need to enter this next phase of your life. Take a seat,” he told her, still in that restrained and authoritative tone. Only this time it was tinged with what she thought might be a touch of agitation.

  He acted as if she’d done something to him, not the other way around, which was simply ridiculous. After all, he’d gotten her to stay the night here and if she was being totally realistic it looked as if this was where she would be for the foreseeable future. In addition, he’d had the pleasure of knowing all he had to do was say some dirty words and she’d masturbate for him on command. Remembering that moment caused her cheeks to warm, humiliation bubbling inside of her. And he hadn’t mentioned last night at all, making her even more embarrassed by the arousal she still felt when he was around. All of which, combined with her obstinate nature, had her remaining perfectly still where she stood.

  When Blaez turned to her, his eyes flashed the mystical blue glare of the lycan and she took a quick, defensive step back. It was only a flash of light, perhaps meant to do exactly what it had done, put a bolt of fear inside of her. Now she was pissed. “I’m not afraid of you,” she told him.

  “Good!” he snapped. “Now, I want you right there, on that bench. Sit.”

  His muscles looked even more pronounced, the dark slashes of his eyebrows above his now-normal eyes giving him a wicked aura. Suddenly his words didn’t just seem like words anymore; they raked over her body like the softest of fingers even though they were spoken in the harshest of tones. She should just leave. Kira knew when to cut her losses; she wasn’t a total idiot. And yet again she did not move.

  “How does taking orders from you help me gain control?” she asked.

  This time, he came to her. His arms down by his sides, his gaze locked on hers as he approached.

  “An alpha, whether male or female, needs to have complete control over their own mind, their thoughts and their needs.” He spoke slowly, as if he were reading from a manual but believing wholeheartedly every word that he said. “Emotion drives you, Kira. Every thought you have, every step you take, is guided by your emotions. I’ve been told by some that’s not a bad thing. As long as you have control. Not having that is going to slow you down. It’s going to prevent you from becoming what and who you really are.”

  He continued moving toward her, with every step Kira moving back, until the weight bench bumped the backs of her legs.

  “If you want to learn, you will take a seat,” he said to her, his warm breath fanning over her forehead as she looked up at him.

  She felt flush all over, just as she did each time he came close to her, each time he looked at her. Dammit, she wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him down for a kiss. A greedy, hot kiss, the kind she’d dreamed about but never really experienced. Then she’d wrap her legs around his waist and sigh heavily as he thrust deep into her waiting pussy.

  “Why do you care if I learn this control or not? And why should you be the one to teach me?” she asked, her chin tilted in defiance.

  He looked as if he could not believe she was, one, still standing and, two, questioning him as if she had some authority.

  “You will never be safe from what or who you are running from without the ability to control the situation. I have that control. It’s what I do and who I am. Which makes me the best teacher you could ever find.”

  “Confident, are we?” she quipped.

  “Most definitely,” was his immediate reply. “And soon you will be too.”

  He’d been standing so close, smelling so delicious, that Kira had forgotten what the hell they were discussing. Her gaze had fallen to his lips, watching as he spoke how they moved, the quick peak of his tongue, and her breathing increased, her nipples tightened, breasts growing fuller with need.

  What she really wanted right now was for him to fuck her. It was that simple and at the same time that strange. Sex with a partner had never been high on her list of priorities. She’d learned how to bring her own pleasure a long time ago. But that pleasure had paled in comparison to what she’d felt last night with Blaez’s voice in her head, her fingers firmly ensconced in her pussy. That was a dangerous realization she knew but could not deny. He said she needed to learn control, and since her thighs were now quaking, her pussy throbbing with need, she agreed that he might be right. Blinking slowly, feeling as if she’d been drugged, Kira felt her legs bending, her body lowering to the bench until she was sitting.

  “Lie back,” Blaez continued.

  Kira hesitated only a second before doing as he said, lying back on the bench so that her upper body was reclined, her feet still flat on the floor, legs bent at the knees as the bench ended there.

  He moved quickly then, taking one of her wrists and lifting it upward. She turned, only to frown as she saw him using a stress band to bind her wrist to the weight holder beside the bench.

  “Wait? What are you doing?” This wasn’t what she’d thought would happen next. How would she have control if she was tied down?

  “Trust me,” he said as if that task were as simple as night and day.

  “Are you kidding me?” she snapped back, yanking at her arm.

  Blaez was fast; he had that band secured in seconds. It was tight but not painful.

  “That’s not how I work,” he replied firmly.

  “Well, I’m not your job,” she continued her protest as he reached for the other arm.

  Kira moved futilely, yanking so hard this time her shoulder screamed in pain.

  He’d already tied her by then, so he rested a hand over her shoulder, heat pooling in that spot immediately.

  “Relax,” he said, staring down at her.

  He was so close and yet, she sensed, so damned far away. His eyes were growing dark again, his jaw firm, his lips barely parted. He smelled like man and beast and everything in between. His power surrounding him like a cloak and thus pulling at her, wrapping around her body and her mind as well. Her legs shook the second she thought about kicking at him as if in warning for her not to even try it.

  “If I tell you to do something you do not want to do, you tell me to stop. But do not deny what you know deep down that you want simply out of fear of the unknown. Embrace the courageousness of your alpha spirit. It’s the most powerful part of you.”

  And most likely the craziest thing Kira had ever heard, but her body was already making its own decisions, leaving the questions whirling around in her mind in the dark. She didn’t give any sign of acquiescence, but she did not resist again. Not when that hand slid from her shoulder, down to cup her breast. His hand re
mained still, not groping or grabbing, simply holding as if it might have been a prized possession.

  Up and down her chest moved, her other breast aching to be touched like its partner. He wasn’t in her mind, she knew, because she felt totally alone there but for her own thoughts. But his other hand moved to the twin orb as if he’d heard her speaking of its need. He held both her breasts, squeezing lightly this time. When she looked down it was to see his light-complexioned hands in stark contrast to the hot pink of her shirt, overflowing with the weight of her breasts.

  For one instant, a quick pang in her senses, she felt like it was too much, like she was too much, physically, that is. Old doubts breaking through the dark like beacons. What if he didn’t like what he was feeling? What if her size disgusted him?

  No, she thought as he grunted, his face twisting as if he was confused. He wasn’t disgusted. What if he was aroused?

  Blaez pulled his hands slowly away from her, not as if he’d been burned and hated the sensation, but slowly, almost reluctantly. He moved quickly again, this time tying her ankles to the legs of the bench. Kira was shaking now, wondering what would happen next, wondering if she’d actually be able to find part of what she’d been looking for all her life.

  When she felt his hands at her waist, pulling down her pants and panties, she stiffened. He did not stop, simply kept pulling the garments down her legs until they were at her ankles, similar to the way she was last night. Only then she’d been in the privacy of that room, alone, but for Blaez’s words in her mind.

  “How is this … what are you going to do … I mean, I don’t understand,” she spoke quickly, the words tripping and tumbling from her lips.

  “Trust me,” he told her once more.

  Kira didn’t know trust. She thought she had, when her mother had been alive, but Penn and his pack had taken all that away from her. She trembled with that memory, with the darkest one of all, biting on her bottom lip to keep from screaming that she wanted Blaez to stop whatever he was doing, to get the hell off of her and let her go. That was the fear clawing at her, that dark ban of betrayal that had so recently ascended over her life. She didn’t want to feel that again. Didn’t want to put herself in the position to be so egregiously let down. But, she realized, she needed to see where this lesson would lead so much more than she wanted to protect herself. She wanted to know if there truly was a power inside of her that would keep her safe.

  Blaez’s hands were warm as he slowly pushed them up her legs, over her calves, cupping her knees, along her thighs. Kira shivered, her body tingling with heat that traveled like sparks throughout her entire body.

  “The moment I do something that you do not want or that hurts you, all you have to do is say, ‘Please.’ That’s your safe word, Kira. Just say it and I will stop,” he told her. “You can control every bit of this moment.”

  She wasn’t so sure about that.

  Kira couldn’t control the excited thumping of her heart or the involuntary quivering of her thighs as his hands had moved upward, his thumbs just whispering along the crease of her legs. When he applied the barest but most titillating pressure she opened her legs wider, as if knowing that’s exactly what he wanted her to do.

  “That’s a good little lýkaina,” he whispered.

  She clenched and unclenched her fingers, taking a deeper breath, closing and reopening her eyes. When she looked at him this time and saw the hungry way in which he was looking down at her, Kira wanted to come right then and there.

  “So pretty,” he was saying as he continued to stare at her pussy. “So pretty and so wet because you want to fuck.”

  It was an unpretentious statement, a candid and lurid one that had her pussy pulsating, dripping with even more desire, embarrassing her just a smidgen more. She felt her cheeks warming and shifted slightly, not used to being so totally open to anyone’s perusal—and ultimate scrutiny—before.

  “Ah, that’s not nice. Don’t try to hide from me. This is exactly what I want to see,” Blaez continued, this time using his thumbs to separate the plump lips of her vagina until she could hear the slickness of her own desire.

  “Just relax and let me see. Let me see how good you’re going to be.”

  He stroked his fingers up and down her slit and she trembled, gasping at how hot the fact that he was touching and watching her so intently made her feel. It was all about sensation at that moment. The tendrils of heat spreading throughout her body with the gentle touch of his fingers. He said he wanted to explore and yet she was the one feeling as if she was on some type of journey. As he circled around her clit, not touching the tight nub, but spreading her slickness all around it, she’d hissed in a breath, her eyes closing momentarily with how good that very simple motion felt. Around and around his fingers went, as if he was not only stirring her rapidly producing juices but also churning something else deep inside her. She felt it approaching like a door had just been opened, the first tentative rays of light just able to seep through. When he slipped a finger deep inside her pussy, Kira bucked up off the table, the sensations having quickly grown intense. Used to only having her smaller fingers there, she was tight, and she gasped when another of Blaez’s fingers slid alongside the first.

  “That’s right, open for me, my lýkaina. Stretch around my fingers, so hot and so tight,” he whispered. “All that sweet nectar,” he continued. “All that loveliness you have to give.”

  Kira’s head moved frantically from side to side. On instinct her arms yanked at the restraints as she desperately wanted to grab the back of Blaez’s head and push his mouth down over her waiting mound. She’d seen the act done and had often wondered how it felt, but she’d never had a man eat her pussy before. Never thought she would crave it like air, until this very moment.

  So when Blaez abruptly pulled his fingers from her she wanted to cry, which made the sob that escaped her only natural and mortifying at the same time.

  Shhhh. I won’t leave you like this, sweetheart. I won’t let you go.

  His words were spoken so softy, just along the edges of her mind where the intense desire had already begun to take over. It was like last night, but stronger. He hadn’t commanded this reaction as he seemed so eager to direct everything else, but his words, his voice alone, had changed something in this moment, something Kira couldn’t quite explain.

  Take me slowly, he continued. So slowly.

  He was inserting two fingers inside her now, two thick and powerful fingers that filled her so completely she wanted to melt right there in his hands. In response her muscles clenched tighter, gripping his fingers as if trying to lock him inside. To hold on to this full and completely delectable feeling for as long as she possibly could.

  Do you feel me inside you, Kira? Do you feel me filling you?

  Yes! she replied immediately. Yes!

  With the pad of his thumb he touched her ultrasensitive clit and immediately jerked upward against him. Her body hummed with sensation now, her arms and legs shaking as quick breaths slipped through her lips. Tension spread quickly, the need to find her release of upmost importance.

  Do you want me to stop? he asked abruptly, his fingers still strumming her like a master guitarist.

  No! she yelled. Hell no!

  You want me to keep on until you come, don’t you?Yes! Please!He stopped then, pulling his hand out of her immediately, and Kira’s eyes flew open, waves of panic surfacing the second that connection was broken. “What … what are you doing?”

  “I told you that ‘please’ was your safe word. You said it, so I stopped,” he stated as plainly as if he were giving her the time of day.

  She gulped, letting his words register. “No. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Say what you mean, lýkaina. Mean it with everything in your heart and soul. If you want me or anyone else out of your head, you shut us out. You give the command and it will be so. Take the control of all aspects of your life in the same manner,” he instructed her.

  Do you und
erstand? he asked after endless seconds of her breathing heavily, trying desperately to figure out what the hell was going on.

  Answer me, lýkaina. Tell me—

  His words were cut off, just as quickly and succinctly as the pleasure he’d taken from her when he removed his masterful fingers from her pussy.

  Kira held his gaze then, feeling triumphant at the immediate silence in her head.

  “Good girl,” Blaez said. “Good job, my hot little lycan. Now tell me what you want. Tell me what I can give to you.”

  “I want to come,” she immediately admitted in a breathy whisper. Then with more strength and clarity she added, “Can you make me come, Blaez?”

  He shook his head and Kira sucked in a breath.

  “Ask me can you come,” he told her. “Ask me and wait for my permission to do so.”

  Kira immediately chafed at his words. She was an adult, one who was capable of bringing herself to climax—when she wasn’t tied down and thus rendered virtually helpless.

  “Ask me?” he prompted.

  “How am I learning control, if that control only comes at your command?”

  He didn’t immediately reply but brought his fingers to his lips, licking each one from the base to its tip.

  “Sweet and satisfying,” he said, and she realized with a rush of moisture between her legs that he was tasting her.

  Her thighs trembled and she licked her lips.

  “I know that it’s burning inside you. The need so strong and potent sometimes you can barely think straight. You will not be able to deny it much longer, nor will you be able to slake it on your own as you tried to last night. It is in your control to quench your tremendous thirst, Kira. All you have to do is ask.”

  Kira didn’t know what to say or how to say it. How did she ask a man she’d just met for permission to do something with her own body? Was this who she really was in the end? And if so, why hadn’t she been able to submit to the will of what Penn and his beta had planned for her?

  Blaez remained silent, his gaze going back to her pussy causing more ripples of desire to fill her body until she thought she might actually combust from this need.