I arched my back, pressing myself into his embrace. “Yes. More.”
His hands roamed over my nightshirt, down to the hem, and he lifted the fabric up.
I heard a sharp intake of breath, before he kissed gently between my bare breasts. I ran my fingers through his hair, down his neck, touching his shoulders, his back. I wanted to feel every inch of him.
He squeezed one breast and teased the waistband of my underwear with a rough finger. I grabbed the sides and pulled them down, holding nothing back. I didn’t want slow and teasing. I wanted hard, fast, and mind-blowing.
I sat up and reached for his pants, finding his cock pressing hard into the soft fabric. I pulled down his sweats and grabbed his cock. It was huge, and long, and glorious. “I want this.”
I’d never been so brazen in my life. I surprised myself, and I liked it. I stroked up and down his length.
He made a low sound of approval and reached into a nearby drawer. After finding a condom, he unwrapped it and pulled it over his length. Then he lifted me onto his lap, holding me just over the tip.
“Daphne,” he growled.
I wrapped my arms around his neck. The wait was torture.
I leaned in and kissed him. His skin was rough. I’d found his cheek. I kissed again, and nipped his jaw with my teeth, encouraging him.
He gave me what I’d wanted, and then some. The pressure was intense as he pulled me down over his huge cock. My pussy stretched for him, and intensity melted into pleasure.
“So good,” I murmured. “So full.”
He kissed my mouth, then trailed his lips along my jaw to my neck. I couldn’t hold still, so I lifted up slightly. The movement caused ripples of pleasure to radiate throughout my body, so I did it again before lowering myself farther onto him than before. This time, my clit dragged against him and I gasped. “Yes.”
He bit my shoulder, teeth sharp, breath hot on my skin. I smelled that mix of hazelnut and forest that filled his bed. He was so strong, so big, and for tonight, he was so mine.
His hands were clamped on my hips and we moved together, faster, chasing the ecstasy that built and built.
This was so unexpected, so perfect, the two of us coming together in this tiny little trailer, putting aside our differences and showing each other the kind of joy we could share.
He squeezed my hips, helping to lift me up and slam me back down in a brutal yet perfect rhythm. His breath was hot on my shoulder. I could feel myself cresting, approaching that peak, my limbs tingling and going rigid.
I cried out with my orgasm as the pleasure exploded. He stroked within me through the aftershocks and I kissed his cheek, his chin, his neck, his shoulder—every bit of skin I could reach.
Continuing to thrust within me, he said, “That’s right. Good...Daphne. Fuck.”
And then he went tense, his hands still tight on my hips, and I felt him pulsing inside of me. His eyes were on mine while he came, two deep green pools of intensity. I got the strangest feeling that he could see more of me than anyone else had. Instead of feeling laid bare and embarrassed, though, I felt free.
We collapsed onto the tiny bed together, arms and legs tangled. He kissed my cheek, and I allowed sleep to take me.
Chapter 8
Declan
Daphne’s blond hair was splayed out across my pillow. I lay beside her, admiring the peaceful look on her face. Her lips were softly parted. Seeing her like this contented my wolf. Without the scowl lines, she was even more beautiful than she was when she was awake.
She’d hogged all the bedding, but I had absolutely no problem with that whatsoever. She could have my blankets and pillows, hell, she could have my damned toothbrush. She could have anything of mine she wanted after a night like that.
What was unacceptable, though, was that she’d been driven into my arms because of a shitty sleeping situation in that disgusting old asylum.
I wanted her coming to me because she wanted me, not running to me because of fear.
I pressed a kiss to her temple, but she barely stirred. My wolf wanted to howl in satisfaction—we’d worn her out last night.
After getting up, I dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and put on my boots. As I stepped out of the trailer, I looked carefully at the ground. No slugs. Awesome.
But around the edges of the salt circle I’d made were slimy trails. No actual slugs, though. I shuddered and hurried to get into my truck.
Forbidden Hardware was open early, and Pearl’s Doughnuts had their truck parked outside. I waved to Pearl, who waved back. Her hoop earrings glinted in the morning sun. Her red hair used to be long and flowing over her shoulders, but now it was trimmed short to her scalp.
“I like the hair,” I said. “Very punk.”
She snorted. “It kept getting in my way. I need a low-maintenance ’do. So, what do you want? Chocolate old-fashioned on the house?”
“I’ll pay,” I said, jogging over to her and slapping a couple of dollars on the counter.
“That’s right,” she said. “I heard the O’Malleys are no longer the charity cases we once thought—you took up that job renovating the asylum, didn’t you?”
“Yep,” I said.
“Nice. In a building with such sordid history, there are bound to be dark secrets. Use caution.”
That was so like Pearl to break into witchy advice during a random conversation. We always knew when she was in “witch” mode because her voice got a little deeper and she sounded all doom and gloom.
I didn’t know exactly what to say to her advice, so I nodded and said thank you before walking into the hardware store. There, I bought some nicer, polished wood, some slats, and placed an order for a queen-sized mattress to be delivered to Daphne’s place in the afternoon. I couldn’t make the four-poster from her scrapbook in a single day, but I could get a solid start.
Arms full of lumber and rock salt, with the doughnut from Pearl balanced on top in its white bag, I walked back out to my truck.
Finn was leaning against it, arms crossed.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Nothing, just saw your truck here, thought I’d ask how you’re surviving with Mini Martha.”
“Don’t call her that,” I said, using my power as alpha to add strength to the order.
He stood up straighter and cocked his head at me. “What? Why not?”
“It isn’t fair.” True, I’d laughed at it when Brody first told me about the nickname. But now, it didn’t feel right. It didn’t fit her. There was so much more to her than her scrapbooks and micromanagement style.
Finn peered at my face. “Huh. Interesting.”
I loaded the boards and rock salt into the bed of my truck and turned to face him, clutching the doughnut bag. “What?”
“You like her,” he said.
“So what if I do?”
“I bet you’re saving that doughnut for her, even though I can smell it’s your favorite kind.”
I looked down at the bag. I hadn’t been consciously thinking of it, really, but yeah, the doughnut was for Daphne.
“Is she your mate?” Finn asked.
She couldn’t be—she was human. I’d had a human girlfriend in high school and it had been a fucking disaster. I’d sworn I’d never make that mistake again. I shook my head in disbelief.
“Oh, good, then,” Finn said. “Caleb was asking me about her, so I can tell him she’s available?”
Somehow I managed to pin him by the throat to my truck door and not crush the doughnut bag as I did it. “You will tell him no such thing.”
Even though he could barely breathe, Finn laughed. Surprised, I let him go.
“You idiot,” Finn said. “Go back to your mate, give her your doughnut.”
He walked over to his little Datsun with a mock salute.
In a daze, I climbed into my own truck and started down the two-line highway back to Daphne’s place. It was still early, and the road was deserted. Just how I liked it, because it meant I could
drive faster.
So, Daphne was my mate, huh? I’d written off my attraction to her as purely physical. But when I really thought about it, I couldn’t deny my feelings for her, even if she was human. She’d felt right in my arms and in my bed. I wanted to do things for her, like build her a beautiful place to sleep. I wanted to shield her from fear and disappointment. Even something as small as bringing her breakfast felt good, it felt right.
Daphne was my mate. The idea felt right in my head, and it was like some pieces clicked into place in my chest. It was like framing a window without measuring anything, then bringing out the level and finding out it was a perfect job.
I drove toward the old asylum, thinking more about Daphne and mindlessly watching the scenery go by. Now that Finn had shown me the pictures of the fields around Daphne’s place, I could see it. The plants weren’t as green as they were supposed to be. Fucking slugs.
A dark shape was hunched over next to the road ahead of me, so I slowed down. Looked like an injured bear or large wolf.
Squinting to see better, I slowed even more. It was a person wearing some kind of giant black cloak. He was crawling along the shoulder.
He was obviously injured.
I slowed to a stop next to him and started opening the passenger window.
“Hey,” I said. “Do you need a ride—”
Before I could finish, he rose up from his crawl and slapped a hand against the glass of the partly-open window.
His hand wasn’t made of skin. That was the first thing I noticed. It looked slightly porous and shiny, like there was a transparent, greasy casing over gray gelatin. Whatever the fuck was wrong with this guy, I was damned glad I was a shifter, immune to human disease.
I couldn’t see his face. A hood was drawn up around him, and no matter how hard I stared, I couldn’t see any features.
He smeared his hand on the glass. It made a wet, squelching sound.
“What the fuck?” I said.
Then I got a look at the face. No nose, just a gaping mouth and protruding yellow eyes.
Oh, hell no. Putting the truck in gear, I peeled out and away.
What was it? It wasn’t a person. No human being looked like that. I checked the rearview, and watched the guy continue to make his way along the roadside.
I punched the button on my dash to call Moira. She answered immediately. “Hey, congrats on your mate!”
“Finn already told you?”
“Of course,” she said. “We just got off the phone with him. I’m here with James and Brody. You’re on speaker.”
“Well, I think I found the guy in charge of destroying all the crops,” I said.
“It’s slugs,” Brody said.
“Yeah,” I said, “but I just drove past the king of the slugs. He was walking along the highway. Well, more like crawling or sliding or something like that.”
Moira’s voice was sharp. “You left a man crawling on the side of the highway?”
“Not a man,” I said. “A slug man. The Slug King.”
“Dude, that’s cold,” James said.
“Yeah,” Brody said. “You shouldn’t talk about homeless people like that.”
“Transients,” Moira said.
“He wasn’t a transient,” I insisted. “He had a wet, sluggy hand that he slimed all over my window, and yellow eyes, and a slug face.”
Moira sighed. “I’m going to drive out there and give him a ride to town. I’ll find whoever you left there dying, don’t worry.”
“Heartless bastard,” Brody said to me, and then the call ended.
I continued driving. I couldn’t wait to hear confirmation from Moira that I’d been right about the Slug King. Then they’d all better fucking apologize to me.
Daphne was still sleeping in my trailer when I got back, so I went straight into the asylum to the room she’d chosen. She’d laid out colorful papers in the corner. Several long mucous trails led toward where she’d been sleeping. I wished I had my shoe covers on, but there were currently no slugs in sight, so I got to work. One eye on the bed I was making, one eye on the floor.
This wasn’t the most gorgeous bed ever constructed, not yet at least, but once the mattress was in place, Daphne would no longer be sleeping on the floor. Then she’d come to my bed by choice, because she wanted to. Not because she was afraid of slugs.
I’d finish this later, make it beautiful like the one in her scrapbook. I’d carve whatever decorative details she wanted.
Once the last piece of the bed was in place, I brought up the rock salt and sprinkled it all around the bed and underneath it, then at the entrance to the bedroom and along the window sill.
Daphne was my mate, and I’d do anything to make her happy and safe.
Chapter 9
Daphne
With a stretch of my arms, I realized something was off. There was a mattress beneath me instead of hard floor. My eyes shot open and I sat up. Declan’s trailer—I was in Declan’s trailer, in Declan’s bed. Like a crazy person, I’d thrown myself at him, and we’d had sex, and I’d spent the night here.
The trailer was dark, and quiet, only a stream of sunlight peeked through the slightly-open door. Part of me was glad he wasn’t here. It made the walk of shame a heck of a lot easier if I could grab a change of clothes before I had to face him. And it would be even better if his brothers hadn’t shown up for work yet.
I turned on the light, and grabbed my nightshirt from the floor. Too bad my underwear didn’t seem to be with it. I checked around on the floor, under the bed, up on the counter by the mugs and canister of instant coffee. Nothing.
Well that was going to be awkward. Maybe I’d be lucky and Declan would find them later instead of Finn or Moira.
By the door, I could hear an engine. Crap. The engine stopped, heavy doors slammed, and there were male voices. Of course the brothers were here.
All hail the slut strut.
I sucked in a deep breath, and decided that this wasn’t the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. Hell, it wasn’t even the hardest thing I’d had to do this week. I could do all the hard things. I could do this.
Footsteps came closer. My pulse raced. What was I going to say? Hello, hi, please don’t mind my underwear when you find them?
The door didn’t open. No one came in.
I waited a few beats, gathering my nerves, and stepped outside. The dirt was cold on my bare feet, and grass tickled between my toes. I wanted to hold my head high while I hurried inside, but I also had to watch the ground. Slugs had been the reason I’d run to Declan. What could be worse than having only a shirt to cover me while I walked past Declan’s brothers to my house? Having only a shirt to cover my nakedness on my slut strut, and then stepping on a slug. Nope, not letting that happen.
Watching my footing, I saw something strange—dog prints around the trailer—prints that led out to where I’d seen the wolf. I’d have to warn Declan about it, once I had clothes on. And maybe it’d be better just to tell one of his brothers. After last night, I wasn’t quite sure what I would say to Declan. What would he think of me?
There was a salt circle around the trailer, and a bit of shriveled green skin at the outer edge. Declan’s bug-phobia had come in handy, it seemed.
I looked to the house, where the sounds of power tools seemed to be. The guys were already at work. No one was yelling about slugs chasing them that I could tell, so that was a good sign.
I watched the ground the whole way up to the house, then carefully picked my way around the dried slime trails that glistened on the porch. Inside, the sounds of tools were louder, and I realized the guys had to be working in the kitchen. The kitchen happened to be right by the stairwell, the stairwell I had to climb to get to my clothes.
I ran for it, a mad dash with my eyes on the floor. I didn’t see a single slug on the way.
I also didn’t see one of the brothers step out of the kitchen until I smacked right into his chest. I quickly stepped back, knowing I was probably ten shades
of red, and looked up to see which one it was. James.
He looked at me, his perpetual frown making it hard to tell if he was pissed I’d smacked into him or if he was just his usual pissed at the world.
I cleared my throat, determined to make the most of this clearly awkward encounter. “Didn’t you get the memo? It’s pants optional day.”
His face remained still as stone. Maybe it wasn’t the best joke. It was possibly bordering on sexual harassment, if I thought about it.
“On second thought, I shouldn’t have said that. I also should put on some pants.” I sidestepped around him, pulling at the hem of my shirt to make sure I wasn’t showing anything. Two steps up the stairs and I stopped and turned back to James. He was going to smile for me, sooner or later. I’d wear him down until he snapped, hopefully in a smile and not in rage.
“What do you call a cow doing the tango?” I asked.
He said nothing.
“Mooooover and shaker.”
One of his brows ticked. I called it progress, and ran away.
When I reached the hall upstairs, I stopped outside the open door to my room. If it hadn’t been for the shimmering lines on the floor, I wouldn’t have believed there had been any slugs at all. Totally just a bad dream. But it wasn’t.
There was a sound in my room, and I imagined the hideous winged creature that had been in there with me my first morning. I steeled myself for whatever might be in there, grabbed a hammer that happened to be on the floor outside the door and jumped inside, ready for a fight.
But it wasn’t a vulture. It was a man with broad, muscular shoulders and tousled brown hair. A man who smelled like hazelnut, a man whose very presence made my insides go all warm and tingly—Declan.
He was pouring salt along the window sill. And there was a bed. My papers were neatly stacked on the desk, along with my blanket and pillow.
I gaped at the actual bed that was in my room.
“Good morning,” Declan said without turning.
Claimed in Forbidden: A Wolf Shifter Romance (Alphas & Alchemy: Fierce Mates Book 1) Page 5