He caught his name with a kiss. Their tongues met and tasted and licked and savoured as he guided them down onto the bed. She slid back until they rested in full moonlight. It called to her wolf and stirred it under the surface. Malcolm gritted his teeth against the same compulsion.
It would be easy for a man of his height and length of limb to be ungainly, but he was surprisingly graceful, delicate, gentle. He traced too-soft lines down her stomach to the juncture of her legs, and when he spread her to his gaze, his hands shook at the sight of her.
“I need to be inside you,” he murmured.
“Now,” she said.
He took himself in hand and positioned himself at her slick entrance. She expected him to finally lose control, that after all this torturous tenderness he would finally take her, pound into her with his not inconsiderable strength. But he didn’t. Instead, he coated his cock with her juices, lifting her up so that he could pass his cock through her folds until his then soaking cockhead stroked her clit. His breath escaped his throat with harsh, caught pants. Sweat dripped over his forehead and down his chest.
They both cried out when he finally sank into her. God, it felt so fucking good to have him inside where she was wet and soft and swollen for him, nothing but his own will holding him back from slamming home.
“Move,” she said, rubbing her calves over his soft, lightly furred thighs.
And he did, thrusting into her until he was completely sheathed. But when he withdrew, he was still slow, still maddeningly deliberate, his cock inside her like a deep massage.
Their mouths met again. He drank every cry he wrought from her. Tears dripped down her temples and into her hair. She wanted to kick and thrash and scream at him to just fuck her already, but his cock filling her and his shivery kisses were too sweet for her to make him stop. Her feelings at that moment were as unintelligible as her prophecy.
“I can’t…” She clutched the headboard of the bed, using it as leverage to push herself down over his cock.
“No, don’t hold onto that,” he said, sliding his hand up her arms to meet at her wrists. He kissed her deeply then murmured, “Hold onto me. Hold on.”
She released the headboard and clung to him, one hand on his shoulder—where the muscle flexed with each measured, rhythmic penetration—and grasping his ass with the other, rocking him in with each thrust. Pleasure was building and building and building, but it just couldn’t reach the crest where she needed it to be so badly.
“Kelly,” he gasped.
She about burst into tears when his hips jerked, breaking the rhythm and filling her. He clenched his eyes shut through his orgasm and bared his teeth, briefly sharp.
Then he slumped over her, his weight hot and heavy over her hypersensitised body. But he didn’t stay there. His mouth found the juncture of her neck and shoulder then he pushed himself down her body, reacquainting himself with her nipple and tugging lightly at the piercing to make her moan. He kissed down her stomach to her navel and dipped his tongue in, over and over and over in simulation of what she really wanted until her eyes rolled back. She spread her legs farther apart to accommodate his broad shoulders in a silent plea for him to fulfil her where arousal heated her pink and wet, needing something, anything—she would use her claws if that would take away the ache.
“Don’t worry,” he said, his voice tinged with a growl as he stared up her body.
He gently stroked his thumbs over her inner thighs. A small sound escaped from her mouth just from that touch.
“I’ll take care of you. Hold on a little longer.”
What came from her mouth now sounded suspiciously like sobs. The flowing river of hot tears into her hair only confirmed it for her. Yet as he moved his tongue in a slow exploration of the folds of her labia, she thought she was going to explode… And still it was not enough.
He glided his tongue in unhurried torture over her clit. But then, he had already come. Any urgency he might have had was gone. He slipped one finger inside her, and her back arched, her fingers curling in the bed sheets. He growled at her reaction, sending vibrations through the piercing in her clitoral hood. She moaned again, this time clenching her fist in his hair. He continued to growl into her as he pressed his tongue flat against her clit. The large finger inside her was joined by another. Already she felt full.
He focused his attention on the hood, the thick flesh she’d had pierced three years ago along with the peaks of her breasts. She remembered how good it had felt, that stab of scorpion sting pain when the needle had gone through, then the bar.
Another finger. He stretched her now. Her body trembled as the orgasm began its climb.
“Not yet,” he murmured, nudging the soft curly hair that framed her folds. “I think you can manage a fourth.”
She wanted to tell him she could take his fist inside her right now if he so desired, but he pushed a fourth finger in with the others and thrust into her firmly enough to pull her hips up off the bed and send all words flying out of her mind. She keened at the ceiling with each thrust.
Kelly was falling back into the blackness, the blackout. She fought to stay out of it, fought to keep the burning in her core contained before it overtook her completely. Then the tension snapped, stopping the fall. Her thighs shook and her cunt clamped down around his fingers. That was when he finally closed his mouth over her clit and sucked and licked in tandem to the pulse of her blood against his tongue. The sound of ripping cloth filled her ears after she released Malcolm for fear of hurting him too badly—instead, she clawed at the sheets. Then she shattered with cascades of hot pleasure that reached every inch of her body, sweet and powerful in its leisurely but persistent swells.
And when it was finally finished, she cried.
Malcolm eased off her clit with one last kiss to the piercing there and pulled his fingers gently from her cunt. He sucked most of the juices from his fingers, one by one, before applying himself to her cunt and her folds, as tenderly as a wolf cleaning his mate. His satisfied growls made her twitch inside, but her thighs were relaxed on either side of his head. Kelly buried part of her face in the pillow and covered the rest with her hand, wiping the tears and trying to stop crying.
He kissed his way up her body, following the path that he had taken when he’d made his way down. He guided her hand back and licked her tears then gently kissed her on her lips.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked, his expression twisted with concern. His eyes were still white hot with the wolf inside, but his face was smooth, the skin around the eyes surprisingly youthful after the harshness of the last few months.
Kelly turned on her side and pressed her face more deeply into the space between the two pillows on her bed. It wasn’t that she was ashamed or in pain or sad, although that was probably what Malcolm thought. She was just so overwhelmed by the fact that he hadn’t hurt her and how different it was to have sex like that. No, what Malcolm had just done was what people called making love, what he called making love. She wrapped her arms around herself and scratched at her ribs to feel something sharp and familiar.
She had only ever had sex two ways. The first was back in her teens before the magic had made it too difficult to have sex with normals, and that had been so supremely awkward that she hadn’t regretted leaving it behind.
Then there was the sex that ripped through her, tore at her skin and made her feel alive and powerful—sex that either let the magic release or allowed the wolf out and made everything else go blissfully quiet. Kelly had never sought anything else because she liked it that way so much.
No man had ever made love to her before. She didn’t know what to do with it, what to do with herself or that sensation of falling, swelling, exploding like sweet champagne, everything smooth, slick, soft, gentle and tender.
Malcolm ghosted his fingers over her shoulder, as though afraid to touch her. Kelly sniffed and rubbed her nose against the sheets under the pillows then turned back around so that he could gradually bring his arms aroun
d her as she held herself as well.
“No, you didn’t hurt me at all,” Kelly said. “It’s just never been like that for me before.”
Malcolm’s laugh fluttered her hair. “Sounds vaguely familiar. I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was going to bother you so much.”
“It’s not that it wasn’t good,” Kelly said, peering up at him. “I’ve just never had pleasure without some pain before. I wasn’t prepared for it, and it kind of… I didn’t mean to alarm you.”
“Is that a werewolf thing?” Malcolm asked. “I never used to like it like that, the biting and the claws and everything. I mean, you showed me that I do now, but…”
“It usually is,” Kelly said. “Most werewolves learn the beauty of pain after they turn, that primal urge to bite, fuck, tear, consume in the act of mating. Werewolves have a much higher tolerance for pain than people, as you’ve discovered, not to mention accelerated healing. But for me, it’s always been that way. I’ve always liked pain, before I even knew it could be used in sex.”
“Looking at you, I’d never have guessed you have a thing for pain,” Malcolm said with a grin. He ran his hand down her spine, over her left thigh, stroking at least three giant tattoos in the process.
“And these,” he added, bringing his hand between them, travelling the hills and valleys of her ribs before cupping her breast. Her nipple piercing pressed into one of the creases in his palm. “They can’t be silver.”
She rubbed around her eyes again to smooth the tears back into her hair where it had become stiff from salt.
“They’re titanium,” she replied. “Most of this was done after I turned, but the one on my thigh here”—she covered his hand on her breast and brought it down to her dark fairy—“was before the bite. That was my first clue that I had a thing for pain. I fell asleep during most of my sessions.”
“I’d say you were joking, but I can’t imagine you are,” Malcolm said. “What does it mean?” he asked, stroking it.
“I know what it means now,” Kelly said. “I think I was acknowledging my magic before I knew what it was. The design came to me in a prophetic dream. Thankfully not in a blackout. The image was much kinder than that, no headache.”
“It suits you,” Malcolm said. “They all do. I never thought much of tattoos, but on you it’s like they’re part of your skin. They don’t even look like they’ve faded.”
He stroked the scrollwork that began a few inches above her navel and curled up her breastbone in delicate black filigree, separating at the top to brush under her collarbone.
“Another dream,” she said, “but this time during a blackout. It’s more complicated than it looks. The tattoo artist was thankful he didn’t have to create it from scratch. I think there are words in it, if you look at it just the right way. It’s a puzzle of a riddle. I’ll figure it out one day.”
“The snake?” he asked. He traced the thick, beautiful body of the giant albino python that began on her left hip and reached all the way down her left thigh. Its sleek head rested calmly above her knee.
“The serpent means understanding. Wisdom and life and sexual power,” Kelly replied.
She was unsurprised when Malcolm’s partially erect cock twitched against it, nor was she surprised when he pressed a kiss to her shoulder where the roses tangled down her arms and over her shoulder blades.
“The flowers?”
“Someone once called me a child of the earth,” Kelly said, lightly touching the place where Malcolm had kissed her. “The idea stuck with me.”
Their lips met, and this time their leisurely kiss didn’t ignite anything too much for Kelly to bear. Malcolm reluctantly broke the kiss to roll an obliging Kelly onto her stomach. He kissed down her spine, where she had an illusion tattoo of corset ties over her vertebrae, black leather woven through thick, silver rings in her skin.
“That, perhaps, needs no explanation,” Kelly said, her cheek resting on her arms to look back at him.
“And the ones on your feet?” Malcolm asked.
“Tarot moon on my right foot,” she replied, wiggling it but not making him move from rubbing the muscles of her shoulders and kissing her spine. “Wolf skull silhouette on my left. I don’t need too much to remind me what I am. I’m not likely to forget. But I wanted some representation of them once I’d accepted what they allow me to be.”
“You missed a few spots,” Malcolm said.
This time she didn’t have to see the grin to know that it was there.
“I didn’t want it done all at once,” Kelly said. She closed her eyes and saw the tattoo parlour against her eyelids, bright, glaring and garish, yet her own private sanctuary, as much a place of peace for her as this land was for Renee. “I still have a lot of life left. You never know when I might need the pain again or when the magic might tell me something new.”
She spread her legs obediently for Malcolm as he covered her. She smiled into the crook of her elbow, because this time he bit her shoulder.
After they had both finished their second climax—Kelly first because he didn’t stop himself from hurting her this time—he stayed above her, moving only slightly to the side so that she had some breathing room.
“I’ve seen tattoos like these before, but never with this detail,” Malcolm said, panting heavily but still curious now that his arousal was finally sated. “It’s like they’re real.”
“You have to pay through the nose for that kind of dimensionality,” Kelly said. “It was worth it for what they mean to me.”
“But it’s so vivid. And it’s intact. With all the fighting…”
“Magic,” Kelly replied. “The same magic that makes them disappear into my wolf skin and reappear unmarred in my human skin. You say they look like they were meant for me. They were.”
“Why the piercings?” he asked.
“Because I knew they’d hurt,” Kelly said, turning over underneath him and running the smooth backs of her wolf claws over his cheek and down his neck before retracting them once more. “It was perfect. Didn’t last long enough.”
“I apologise for taking you in a way you didn’t like,” Malcolm said. He arranged the wild length of her hair over her and stroked it contemplatively from the crown of her head down to where it ended near her waist.
“I liked it,” Kelly said. “I’m just not used to it.”
“That was how I used to be with Ki,” he said. “And if I want to be with her again, if I want to be with the shapeshifters again, I wanted to know if I could control myself enough to be that man. If I even still want to be.”
“And?” Kelly asked.
“And I think I can,” Malcolm said.
“I’d let the wolf out first,” Kelly said. “Like you did tonight. Get as much of it out of your system as possible. But even so, it’ll be different with her than it is with me.”
“Why?” Malcolm asked, pulling back a little.
Kelly patted his arm. “I’m not attacking her, honey, saying that you’ll never have better than me. She puts up with you and she still wants you, so she’s a special kind of woman. But the difference is that if you get close enough to her, she’ll start to smell like prey. I’m confident that you can handle it.”
She pulled him back against her and tucked his head against her shoulder. His breath brushed over her breast.
“In such a short time, you’ve shown resilience for a new werewolf, probably because of your experience as a shapeshifter. But forewarned is forearmed. If you know what to expect, you won’t be caught off guard by your appetite.”
After a while, she thought he’d gone to sleep, but he asked, “Have you ever been?”
“Once,” Kelly replied quietly. “Don’t underestimate the wolf, Malcolm. You don’t want to live with blood on your hands.”
Although his breathing became slow and even, the moonbeams had moved to pour through the skylight by the time he finally slipped away. Kelly was still awake, and she stared up into the night sky.
It had taken
the murder of one human being, one kill, for her to develop a taste for it. And for her to decide that she wanted no part of it, in spite of her nature and the nature of all the wolves around her. They’d eventually decided they didn’t care if she didn’t indulge as long as she didn’t stop them.
Kelly still wasn’t sure whether maybe she was the one who was in the wrong, denying herself the satisfaction of fulfilling her deepest, darkest desires, denying what she was made for.
She finally drifted into a dreamscape in which the taste of blood and flesh flooded her mouth, a completely different urge from her compulsion to mate. This was just the simple, powerful, carnal need to feed.
Kelly remembered the screams of the young man whose body she had consumed. And in her dreams, as in those moments before the horror had set in, she liked it.
Chapter Five
The next morning, Malcolm helped Ki clear up after breakfast and gently ousted her from the sink area so that he could clean the dishes.
This was clearly code of some kind, because Ki leaned against the counter and Malcolm kept glancing over at her as he worked, lathering up the soap bubbles and scrubbing with the same methodological diligence Kelly now recognised as part of Malcolm’s old personality.
Observing them from her place at the table, amused and wistful in turns, was a bit like watching a wildlife documentary—the mating habits of the shapeshifter and the solitary werewolf. Kelly could practically hear David Attenborough now— ‘The female shows her availability with her elbows against the counter to display her breasts, hips thrust forward. Her demeanour is casual, but her eye contact suggests otherwise. Her pupils are dilated, her lips slightly parted. The male initiates the exchange by offering to alleviate the female’s workload. Doing the chore makes him seem dependable, prime mating material amongst the competition. His gaze smoulders between them. Although the male is already aroused, he must be patient if he is going to win the female over and succeed in his endeavour to copulate with her.’
She smothered a grin, sipped at her hot chocolate and silently wished them well.
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