Bitten & Beholden (Children of Fenrir Book 2)

by Heather McCorkle

  Thrills of an entirely different kind—yet no less powerful—raced through me at the thought of shifting. The desire to shift strengthened until I felt the vibrations begin beneath my skin. All fear of madness was gone now, leaving me feeling only free and excited. Unlike before, the vibrations now brought pleasure instead of burning, anticipation instead of fear. A quick glance around and I moved beneath the covered deck where I would be blocked from the sight of any distant neighbors who might be nosy. From deep inside I called up the wildness, and set it free. Turning back to Ty, I reached for the ground, shifting as I did so. Fur covered my nakedness but did little to banish the feeling of exposure. At eye-level to Ty’s crotch I got a perfect view of his hard-on. The attraction was still there, but it was different, subdued, as if part of me knew mating wasn’t an option with us in different forms. Mating. Oh God, had I really just thought of sex as mating?

  When I was ready to turn away, Ty’s body shimmered and flowed into that of a huge blond wolf. He seemed to smile at me, canines flashing. With a shake of my head, I took off running across the lawn. In only a few strides Ty caught up to me and we ran into the forest together, paws eating up the path in an effortless gait. Soon after entering the shade of the trees, we left the path behind for the deeper forest. After a little less than a quarter of an hour of running we came to a post and rail fence like the kind wealthy ranchers liked to put around the entrance to their driveway. The difference was, this fence was slightly taller at five feet, and went as far as I could see in both directions, stretching for acres and acres.

  Unable to speak my surprise, I looked at Ty with wide eyes. His nose lifted, gaze going to a tree not more than three feet from the fence. I followed. My ears found the device before my eyes did. A slight buzzing emitted from a little pan-tilt zoom camera mounted over twenty feet up in the tree. Impressed, I cocked my head and nodded. For a while we ran along the fence line, checking cameras that were mounted high in trees every fifty feet or so. Such a system had to have cost a small fortune, but then, if this fence surrounded Ty’s property, it seemed his family likely had much more than a small fortune.

  Soon we cut back into the heart of the property, starting back for the house. Though the trees and valleys all looked alike, I knew we were headed back toward the house as surely as I knew from which direction the sun rose. Not only could I smell the trail we had both left and the lake next to us, it was an instinctual thing. Instead of taking us back to the main pathway, Ty turned into the forest. He stopped inside a familiar ring of huge spruce trees, the very ones I had been drawn to my first day here. The ground beneath my feet pulsed ever so slightly, kind of like the air at a loud concert or movie. It didn’t smell and I couldn’t hear it, but it energized me in a way I couldn’t understand.

  The overcast day made the shadows thick beneath the boughs of so many huge trees, but it was still warm enough to be pleasant. Which was crazy considering it couldn’t be barely sixty degrees, a temperature that normally would have had me reaching for a jacket. The fur coat I now wore helped, sure, but that wasn’t it. Deep inside heat roared within from a well that felt as though it would warm me in the coldest of climates. Part of being a varúlfur, I guessed.

  A very human-sounding sigh issued from Ty. The moment I saw him in human form, naked and magnificent, I shifted on instinct. It took me until I was rising to my feet to realize I had done so because I wanted to speak to him, touch him, and so much more. Naked and not caring beyond placing a hand casually over the birthmark on my hip, I approached him. The stone altar blocked my path to him, which I took as a good thing. My long hair hung down past my breasts, covering them for the most part. Not that I wanted to hide them from his roaming eyes, but a little mystery can be a very good thing. Judging by the way he couldn’t take his eyes off me, it was working well in my favor.

  “That fence, does it go all the way around your property?” I asked.

  “It does.”

  He stalked around the stone altar until it no longer stood between us.

  His naked body called to me, driving out all other distractions until my feet moved closer to him seemingly on their own. I made one last attempt.

  “Why come here?” I indicated the rune-carved trees with a wave of my hand.

  My mind plummeted as the word come left my lips, drawing my gaze down with it. Already he stood at attention, impressive, and oh so tempting. Only a few feet from him, I forced myself to stop. Slowly, my eyes worked their way back up to his face, enjoying every hard mountain and valley of the journey. The man could have been carved from the very same steel as his Norse gods. I couldn’t imagine Thor or even Odin himself being built better. Maybe it was a sacrilege to think that, but surely they’d forgive one as naive as myself. My eyes locked onto his and in them, for a moment, I swore I could see the glaciers of his ancestral homeland.

  Moving slowly, giving me all the time in the world to pull away, he reached up and cupped my chin. But I could no more move away from him than a compass needle could move away from true north. I leaned into his hand, craving the heat, the feel of his rough palm, and something more. The splattered shadows of spruce boughs cloaked us, crisscrossing over our skin in patterns that hid much, but not enough. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to see me. No, it was more that I didn’t want to see him. He was too much of a temptation for me, especially now that I knew my desire wasn’t a result of the verða. It had been so much easier when I’d had something to blame it on. I closed my eyes to try and block out the thoughts of all the things I wanted to do to him, and let him do to me.

  “This is a mistake. I’m trouble. You shouldn’t get involved with me,” I said.

  Deep laughter rumbled from Ty. The sheer masculinity of the sound, the way it pulled at something deep inside me, forced my eyes to open, to look at him.

  “Trouble and I have been bedfellows for as long as I can remember,” he said.

  Despite my inner struggle, I smiled. “You’re my kennari. You said there is some kind of teacher/student code against having sex with me, didn’t you? I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  “I do not care, not now that we know your sanity is safe and that our mutual attraction was not caused by the verða.”

  His hand moved down my neck, around the outside of my breast, and to my waist.

  “Are you sure?” I asked in a breathy voice.

  That hand moved around to rest on the small of my back. “Very sure. If the Council disapproves that much, I will give up being a kennari to be with you.”

  The depth of commitment in his eyes frightened me a little, and excited me. “You’ve barely known me for three weeks. You can’t be serious.” Though I kept my tone light and joking, even I could hear the hope in it. Damn.

  Gentle pressure on my back moved my body against his. “Sonya, I felt something for you the first moment I saw you, and I would give up the world to be with you,” he said, lips hovering over mine.

  The emotion in both his voice and his eyes should have scared me, but it didn’t. Just under three weeks shouldn’t have been long enough. You couldn’t even really get to know a person in that short amount of time. But then I thought of our nights on the couch, laughing and jumping at horror movies, our days meditating, and the long afternoons hiking, swimming, and talking about history and Norse mythology.

  “How can you know that already?” I whispered.

  Unable to pull my eyes from his, I simply stared into their light blue depths, caught like a moth. His arms worked their way around me until he cradled me against him, secure and gentle as though he’d never let go.

  “I think you know,” he whispered.

  And I did, oh how I did. The double meaning wasn’t lost on me at all. His lips descended to mine and all resistance melted away in an inferno that ensured it would never return.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sonya

  I rose up on my toes to meet his kiss, the movement causing his long erection to rub against my bare sto
mach. The sensation made me moan as our lips met. His opened, inviting me in with a press and pull back of his soft tongue. Unrestrained, I delved into the warmth of his delicious mouth, losing myself in it, until I wasn’t sure who devoured whom. My hands ran up the taut muscles of his back to his broad shoulders. The electric feel of his bare skin against mine, running the length of my body from my breasts to my legs, carried me to a place I never wanted to return from.

  Those strong arms that I had so often admired wrapped around me, cradling me gently, and at the same time holding so securely it seemed he’d never let me go. Our kiss deepened, became something more like shared breath, as if he could breathe for me and I for him. His hands roamed down my back, cupped my butt, and lifted me off my feet. On instinct my legs wrapped around his waist, trapping his erection against my pelvis. We began to move, to where I had no idea, and didn’t care so long as he didn’t stop kissing me.

  Finally, he sat me down on something cool. Dried flowers crunched beneath my right cheek. The altar. I drew back from the kiss enough to give him a questioning look.

  “Isn’t it a sacrilege or something to do this here?” I asked through a half smile.

  Though I didn’t want to say it out loud in case it was disrespectful, I had to admit, the altar was the perfect height. Ty’s long legs were almost straight and my legs still wrapped around his waist easily. The desire to lean back on my hands and appreciate the view was so strong I almost did it, but I didn’t want to crush any more of the lavender flowers. Grinning at me, he traced my cheek and the line of my jaw.

  “Not at all. The Norse Gods appreciate offerings of all kinds, sex included,” he said.

  My tongue lashed out and caught the tip of his finger as it ran along my lips. “I think I could come to really like these Norse Gods of yours.”

  When he didn’t pull his finger away I leaned forward and sucked it into my mouth. Head falling back, he moaned. The sound made me wet and for once I didn’t care if he smelled my arousal. I moved his finger in and out of my mouth, tongue flicking along the end of it like I longed to do with other parts of his anatomy. To my dismay, he withdrew his finger and shook it at me as if I were being naughty.

  “Before this night is over, you will come to like many things about me,” he promised, his voice deep and throaty.

  He reached down and slid that finger over my mound of shortly trimmed hair, teasing the outermost folds which were already slick. That one little touch sent dozens of sparks flying through my pelvis like lightning bolts that shot their way to muscles within. My sheath clenched, drawing a moan from me. Gods, I wanted him so bad I couldn’t think. Finger poised over the folds that hid my clit, he leaned down until his lips nearly brushed my ear.

  “You are amazing, Sonya. So open to new ideas, so caring. I want you for who you are,” he whispered.

  The feel of his breath against my ear made me shiver. I giggled. “I know, Ty. You don’t have to wax poetic to me. Though it is nice.”

  A sound between a hum and a contented growl issued from him, exciting me in ways I hadn’t known was possible.

  “In that case…”

  His voice trailed off as his finger slid inside me. Our lips crashed together and we both moaned into each other’s mouths. His finger found a rhythm, pushing in and out of me in a way that left me dizzy. In my mouth his tongue did the same, breath becoming wonderfully ragged, as if pleasing me excited him. I reached down until I found his erection and squeezed the base of it. It was so long, I would need both hands to take hold of it all, and it likely still would poke out through my fists. But my second hand was busy holding the back of his neck, and I wasn’t about to let go. A gasp tore from him as I began to pump my hand slowly up and down all eight-plus inches of him.

  Shock stilled my hand as his finger slid from inside me to rub at my clit. The rhythm he picked up, steady circles around and over it, soon had my pelvis muscles fluttering. Gasps tore from me one after another as he brought me closer and closer to a crescendo I had only ever reached on my own. No man had taken the time to try and make me reach orgasm this way—or any way really for that matter. Sometime during the waves of sensation he had stopped kissing me. I only noticed when his mouth was suddenly over my right breast, his tongue teasing the hard nipple. Arching my back, I pushed my breast into his mouth. With a grunt, he sucked hard, teasing it with his teeth, rolling his tongue over it. All the while his finger worked over me in a furious rhythm that brought me closer and closer. Another of his fingers slid into me and shoved me over into orgasm. My muscles convulsed in tantalizing waves as I came so hard my eyes slammed shut.

  Ty’s mouth moved from my breast to my neck. I tensed but he only nuzzled and licked me before moving up to my ear.

  “If you do not let go of my cock with that karate grip of yours I am going to come, and I really do not want to do that yet,” he whispered.

  Dancing back from the delirious edge of bliss, I released my grip, rubbing the head of him as I did so. He moaned and muttered something dirty in Icelandic. A giggle slid from me as I realized he had called me a dirty goddess. Lips hovering above mine, he groaned.

  “Gods, I love your laugh.”

  Too choked up to respond, I pressed my lips to his in a slow, sweet kiss. One hand behind my head to cradle it, he laid me down on the altar. Lavender crushed beneath me, the slightly oily but wonderful scent wafting up around us. After a moment, Ty’s lips moved from mine. He kissed and licked my skin from my neck down to my navel, moving slow and steady. My muscles clenched and quivered as my skin ignited from the attention. Tongue flicking down my belly, he moved lower.

  Pausing at my hairline, he looked up at me. “I need to taste you,” he murmured.

  A man had never taken the time or effort to go down on me. I’d only ever seen it in porn and dreamed about it. Yes, I’d had horrible, thoughtless lovers. Rather than respond, since my voice failed me yet again, I pulled my feet up until they rested on the edge of the altar and spread my legs for him. Ice-blue eyes locked on mine, he sank down between my legs. His tongue licked over my opening, making my body buck up off the stone. The moment I settled back against it, his tongue slid inside me. That wonderful, soft probing over my most sensitive parts drew a cry from me that sent birds flying from the trees overhead in a flurry of shadows.

  Uttering a very pleased sound, his tongue withdrew and his head lifted. He took hold of my hips and gently pulled me down closer to the edge of the stone until my legs were hanging off. Licking his lips, he gave me such a pleased look that it sent a shudder through me. Poised only inches from my opening, he paused. My tolerance for waiting and resisting fled. I wrapped my legs around him and pulled him to me. He slid slowly into me, easing in until he was buried balls-deep inside. Never had I felt so full, so complete. Thoughts scattered out of my reach as he began to move in and out of me.

  At the height of every thrust his tip touched a place deep inside that felt so amazing it made my vision go white. It began to drive me wild. Unable to hold myself up any longer, I lay back on the rock, head held up enough to watch him work. Gripping my hips, he pumped in and out of me. The lengthening shadows of twilight played across his glistening chest. One of his hands moved up my body, across my stomach, to caress my left breast. His hungry eyes devoured me as if he couldn’t get enough of the sight of me. That look drove me almost as wild as the feeling of him moving inside me.

  My breath soon became ragged and I realized with a start that I was nearing orgasm again. That new spot he kept hitting deep within was about to throw me over the edge of something entirely new and powerful. I cried his name.

  Hand moving back to my hip, he growled through a smile. His thrusts sped. Gasping now, I arched my back up off the rock. Ty leaned over me, a hand going behind my back to hold me against his chest. Two more hard thrusts and the world exploded as an orgasm tore through me that started deep inside and rippled all through my sheath, pelvis, and even my abdominal muscles. In the midst of those waves, Ty foll
owed me.

  He nuzzled against my ear. “Sonya, oh Sonya.”

  We lay like that for some time, clinging to each other as if reluctant to allow the moment to pass. Impractical as it was, I didn’t want him to withdraw from me, ever. After a while, he gathered me up in his arms. I wrapped my legs tighter around him, not ready to be separated yet. Without withdrawing from me, he lay me down in the grass and nuzzled into my hair, his weight barely settling on me. The guy was freaky talented. Or maybe it was a werewolf thing. Either way, I wasn’t about to complain.

  “We will have to do that again soon, and much slower next time,” he said.

  The sound of his voice, all euphoric and spent, made me happier than I could ever remember being. Arms going around his back, I pulled him tighter against me.

  “Slower? Why, Ty, do you intend to torture me?” I teased.

  Pushing upright enough to meet my gaze, he gave me the most devilish grin I had ever seen. “I do indeed.”

  He quieted my laughter with a languid kiss. As he drew back from the kiss, his body lifted and he pulled out of me. I let him go only because my arms were too weak to hang on anymore. To my surprise, he lay down beside me, put an arm around me, and drew me in against his side. I’m not sure what I expected, but cuddling had definitely not been it. A few moments later he propped himself up on an elbow and began playing with my hair. The thoughtful look on his face worried me a little.

  “You are a wonder, and I do not just mean the amazing sex,” he said.

  “I’ve been called a lot of things, but never that.”

  He laughed as his hand began to trail down my arm. “I mean it. You captivate me, make me think and feel things I have never felt before. And you took to shifting as if you were born to it, a true natural.”