by Wilde, Kati
He groans deep. “Your little pussy is so damn pretty, baby. And you smell so fucking sweet.” On a long inhalation, his eyes close in an expression of tortured bliss. “Even sweeter after coming on my cock. I bet you’ll taste like melted sugar after coming on my tongue.”
I don’t know what I’ll be. I don’t know anything after his first slow lick that culminates in a suckling kiss around my clit. I cry out, my back arching high, my coquettish posture forgotten, everything swept away but the way Ranger devours my pussy as if he’s starving for me and my pleasure is the only sustenance he’ll ever need.
And as if he’ll never get enough. His mouth is all over me, licking, tasting, teasing, then on a guttural moan he drags me even closer, his shoulders forcing my knees upward toward my chest. His thick finger sinks into me. His knuckle finds the spot that makes my thighs begin to shake, and he begins alternating between licking and sucking my clit, the sound so wet and hot and dirty that every taste, every touch is magnified, as I feel and hear it all at once.
An orgasm plows into me on one of those licks, knocking the breath from my lungs as I helplessly shudder and writhe beneath his tongue. A gasping scream leaves me when the explosion of ecstasy releases my convulsing flesh, and I collapse back, looking down between my thighs to where Ranger watches me with burning eyes.
“So fucking sweet,” he growls—then bends his head to do it again.
I’m a mindless, boneless wreck when he finally prowls up over my quivering form, his lips and tongue and hands worshipping more of my skin as he makes a slow pilgrimage to my mouth. His swollen length pushes into me again, claiming my body at the same moment his lips claim mine in a soul-shattering kiss. Because this, too, he does as if my kiss is the only kiss he’ll ever need. As if my lips are the only lips he’ll ever want. As if I’m the only one he’ll ever fuck as his thick erection moves within me in long, unhurried strokes.
I lock my ankles behind his back, our open mouths slanting together again and again—already addicted to the possessive thrust of his tongue, to the breathtaking intensity of his kiss. My fingers buried in his hair, I rock with him, loving every sultry taste past his lips, every endless slide of his cock. Loving how he makes me feel.
It’s so dangerous, what he’s doing to me. I know it.
And this isn’t at all what I expected.
My lips curve under his then. As if feeling my smile, Ranger lifts his head slightly—just enough that we don’t have to look at each other cross-eyed.
His voice is all heat and smoke. “What is it?”
I shrug a little, my fingers drifting down his beard. “I just thought…after waiting so long, that you’d use my pussy like a fuck toy.”
He rumbles out a short laugh. “I’ll do that, too.” Eyes searching mine, he cups my cheek in his big hand, his thumb slipping over my parted lips. “But as you say, it’s been a long time waiting. So I’m going to savor every sweet inch of you first. That all right?”
Yes. No.
He’s going to wreck my heart when I let him go.
But I don’t see any way to stop it. With a nod, I draw him down into another kiss. A moan builds in my throat as he fills me again, so big and so thick that there’s no escaping the pleasure that radiates through my body, the exquisite intimacy of it. He’s braced over me with his forearm beside my shoulder, his crisp chest hair lightly rasping my nipples with every leisurely thrust.
And savor me he does, holding me close as he fucks me sweet and slow, until I’m quaking beneath him and muffling my cries against the strong column of his throat. Only then does he break, plunging into me hard and deep, devouring my mouth with a scorching kiss. He shoves my knees up to my shoulders on a final pump of his hips, throws back his head and grinds his cock into my yielding flesh. Suddenly every muscle in his big body clenches, sinews and tendons corded with strain, and the hot flood of his release inside me sends my body reeling into another orgasm, coming helplessly on his pulsating shaft.
His chest heaves as he bends his head to take my mouth in another hot kiss that gradually becomes softer, slower—until finally he rolls over onto the bed and brings me with him.
Utterly sated, I sprawl over his torso, my legs still straddling his hips and his thickness still heavy within me. He holds me close as I pillow my head on his pectoral, listening to the thunder of his heartbeat, absently trailing my fingers through the short hairs. Then even that movement seems too much.
Not just sated. Still exhausted.
“I might fall asleep,” I tell him drowsily.
A deep chuckle rumbles through him, and his big hand caresses the length of my hair. Almost like he’s petting me. And it’s so comforting, so relaxing. “Long night last night?”
Almost too fatigued to speak, I move my head against his chest in a nod. Such a long night. Running miles and miles, searching for him. Needing him. Not finding him.
A painful lump in my throat pierces the fatigue. “Ranger?”
His hand sweeps down my hair again. “Hmm?”
“Promise me something.”
“I’ll give you anything you need, baby.”
And that’s the problem. How giving he is. How wonderful he is. In a raw whisper, I tell him, “Please don’t make me fall in love with you.”
His hand stops. For an instant there’s nothing, only the drumming of his heart. Then his big body moves slightly beneath mine, his muscles flexing, and I feel the kiss he presses to the top of my head. The slow caress over my hair resumes.
My eyes close. The thrum of his heartbeat lulls me deeper.
“I’ll give you anything, Alicia.” The quiet rasp of Ranger’s reply comes from a long way off. “Except for that.”
I can’t even remember what I asked.
5
Ranger
“What happened to her?” Brandon asks, his voice low.
Hell if I know. “We didn’t exactly get around to talking yet.”
His shoulders shake with silent laughter. He’s in the hall just outside my room, with me standing in the open doorway. Alicia’s still out cold on the bed. Being quiet won’t really make a difference to her—she could hear us, easy—but I don’t think there’s much that could wake her now, anyway. About three hours ago, I called down for food, and she slept through both the delivery and the scent of grilled steak filling the room. Her dinner’s sitting in the mini-fridge now. I suspect it might stay there for a while longer.
Still, it’s a habit to lower our voices when we’re talking about anything involving fur or fangs. And no one appreciates two loud motherfuckers conversing in a hotel hallway at midnight.
“Someone must have bit her, though,” he says. “You want me to go sniffing around tonight, try to find who did it?”
“Have you smelled anyone else since we’ve been in town?” All that I’ve noticed was Alicia—whose scent is a lot like ours, but just a bit different. A little eerie.
That’s the curse in her. Something I haven’t smelled in years, since our great grandfather was still alive. But we aren’t necessarily looking for someone who was cursed, too. It might have been another wolf like me—born instead of bit.
“No one else,” he confirms. “Could be a nearby town, though.”
That it could. “Go looking if you like. Or wait until she’s awake to tell us.”
Brandon stifles another laugh. “And when you get around to it again?”
I’ll get around to it. Because I’ve got a feeling it’s a conversation Alicia and I need to have first thing. Probably should have already had.
But she was so fucking hot. And so damn sweet. When she walked through that restaurant door, looking like she did and hurting so bad for release, as if she needed my cock more than anything, talking was the last thing in my head.
Now I know what put all those shadows in her eyes, though. She’s not sick. She’s been dealing with a curse.
I should have come sooner. “If you find this fucker—”
“I’ll leave hi
m to you,” Brandon says, reading me so easily.
“Be careful with your own scent. Don’t spook him and give him a chance to run.” Not that it’d help him escape me. But I don’t want to waste time chasing the bastard. Not time that I could be spending with Alicia.
“You think this is my first time hunting some asshole?” A cold, dangerous look hardens my brother’s face—and is not an expression I see him wearing often. “The motherfucker won’t know I was there. You just work on helping your woman.”
There’s only one way to do that. And it’s the one thing Alicia asked me not to do.
I ease the door closed after he heads out. All the lights are off, but I can see just fine on the way to the bed—I could even without the moonshine spilling through the curtains, the moon still looking full and round against the night sky. But not completely full, like it was last night.
And I was in town last night, godfuckingdammit. If I’d had any inkling, I could have been with her. I’ve never met an untamed beast before, don’t know how she would have reacted to me. But I could have made sure Alicia was safe while she wasn’t in control.
It kills my heart that she was out there alone. That she probably woke up not knowing where she’d been or what she’d done. But it’ll never happen again.
And she’ll never be alone again.
Lying on her belly with all that gorgeous red hair in a tumble down her back, Alicia doesn’t stir when I climb into the bed beside her, just like she didn’t stir when I first left the bed or when I slid those dead sexy heels off her dainty little feet. She’s sleeping so damn hard that I keep stopping to listen and make sure she’s still breathing, that her heart’s still beating. Now I pull her against my chest so that I can feel her breaths and heartbeat, too, then drag a lungful of her scent into me, until my heart’s surrounded by the fragrance of her.
Don’t make me fall in love with you.
But that’s exactly what I intend to do. There’s a good chance she asked that without knowing how love could tame her beast—yet even if she wasn’t a werewolf, I’d do the same damn thing.
Until she asked, though, it never occurred to me that she didn’t know what I was, too. I assumed that the second she stepped into the restaurant, she must have smelled the difference in me and recognized what it meant. Just like I did her. But I’ve been a wolf all my life. I’ve had decades to learn scents. I figure she’s had about six months…in a town where there’s no one else like her, nothing to tell her what that scent means.
Right now, she’s probably afraid that her beast might tear me apart. But the only danger Alicia poses to me is the damage she might do to my heart if she doesn’t let herself fall in love.
So the talk we put off—we’ll be having that first thing.
* * *
I wake to the sensation of a slight weight straddling my hips and sharp claws skimming down my chest. The sultry perfume of Alicia’s arousal fills the air, but that soft growl isn’t hers.
Not exactly hers. Because I’ve heard Alicia make that same sound. Yet I don’t think she’s the one making it now.
Her beast is. Not fully transformed, but with fangs and claws and her eyes glowing green. Night still fills the sky outside, the moon low and shining straight through the sliding doors that lead out onto the small balcony. Maybe that’s how the beast took over. Or maybe she can while Alicia’s sleeping. I don’t know exactly how all that works.
But I know that I need this beast to love me. And I need her to believe that I’ll accept and love everything about her in return.
“You’re fucking beautiful,” I tell her hoarsely, because she is—and make my own eyes glow, show her my own fangs and claws. “I bet you are in your other form, too. So you don’t ever need to hide yourself from me.”
She smiles but ducks her face behind her curtain of red hair, as if pleased but also shy. Just like Alicia seemed the first couple of times we talked. But as soon as she opened up…holy fuck, she was the sweetest, funniest, sexiest little thing. And after a while, I figured out it wasn’t all shyness. Some of it was. But there was wariness there, too. Like maybe she didn’t trust people not to hurt her. And I suppose me being so far away made it easier for her to accept that I wouldn’t.
This beast is Alicia, too. They share a heart and soul…and probably the same fears.
“I’ll never hurt you,” I tell her now, and her eyes flare a brighter green. With a snarl, she lunges for my throat but I don’t flinch. Her teeth snap together a millimeter from my skin.
Testing me.
“I’m not afraid of you, either.” I take the back of her neck in a tight grip, telling her without words to settle down a bit. “I’ll never run scared, you understand me? And I’ll never hurt you, never let you be hurt. I’ll be everything you need.”
She lifts her head and I allow it, my hand still cupping her nape. Her narrowed green eyes stare down into mine, then she dips her mouth closer, tongue flicking out over my lips. With a roll of her hips, she rubs her wet pussy into my stomach, then gives me a look rife with challenge. As if demanding me to prove that I’ll be what she needs.
I recognize Alicia here, too. This sexy and playful side. And my cock’s a solid aching stone, but I shake my head. “Not without all of you here, baby.”
She snarls and tries to scoot back onto my dick, as if intending to take what she wants. I tighten my grip on her neck again, let her struggle—my heart hurting the whole damn time I’m denying her.
But although she fights me, not once does she scratch me or bite me. Finally she stops, lying defeated on my chest with a heartbroken whimper, her face buried in the crook of my neck and shoulder.
My throat raw, I wrap my arm around the beast’s shaking form, holding her closer. “Don’t you ever think that I don’t want you. Because you’re all hunger and heat, and so fucking sexy—but I need more than that from you. And you need more than that from me, too.”
Alicia’s beast doesn’t respond, but I can smell the hurt pouring off her. Can feel her uncertainty.
Hurting with her, I press a kiss into her silky hair. “That curse tore you up good, didn’t it? But I’ll help make you whole again. I swear it to you now. So that you’ll know it deep down when you’re fully awake, even when you’re scared and doubting. I want every part of you, I love every part of you.”
She turns her head and bites into my neck then—hard, so fucking hard, but nothing ever hurt so good. Ecstasy jolts through my veins like lightning, electrifying every muscle in an erotic shock that jags straight to my cock. My hips punch upward, cum erupting in violent spurts.
Holy fuck. Holy fuck.
Heart pounding, I ease back to the bed, still holding her slight figure against my chest. If I were human, I’d be cursed now, too. But I’m not. And she knows it. So there’s no mistaking what that was.
A claim.
“You’re right,” I reassure her, laughing hoarsely. “I’m all yours, baby.”
I feel her smile against my neck before she licks the bite. Then she snuggles in closer.
A few minutes later, she’s asleep again.
6
Alicia
The familiar buzz of an incoming message on my phone wakes me. Probably Sam checking in before she goes home. I need to answer her soon or she’ll start worrying.
But I take a minute first to luxuriate in the delicious sensation of waking up with Ranger’s massive body serving as both my pillow and my bed. The heavy weight of one of his arms is slung across my back, the fingers of his opposite hand curled around my thigh—as if he fell asleep while holding me close and simply never let me go.
And he smells so good. Last night his scent seemed strange. Not like any other man’s at all. But now the only association I have with his unique odor is warmth and pleasure.
So much pleasure. And judging by the sunlight coming through the balcony doors, after he blew off the top of my head with all those orgasms, I completely conked out on him.
The way Ran
ger’s holding me now, though, he must not have minded. And hopefully he hasn’t noticed that I drooled on his shoulder a little.
Another buzz from my phone. Okay, okay. I surreptitiously swipe the drool from the corner of my mouth, then turn my face against his throat to draw in a deep breath through my nose—oh my god, so good. There’s another scent mingling with his, a familiar metallic odor that niggles at the back of my head, but that worry vanishes when Ranger’s arm suddenly tightens around me and a wordless denial rumbles through his broad chest.
“I’m coming right back,” I breathe against his lips. “Sleep some more. And I’ll order breakfast.”
Because I should probably eat something soon. I’m starving.
Without opening his eyes, Ranger makes a deep humming sound in his throat. His big hand smooths up my leg and his fingertips skim over the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, telling me without words the breakfast he intends on having, then gives my ass a squeeze and lets me go.
With sheer happiness bubbling through me, I toss my dress on over my head. I dig my phone out of my tote and grab the room service menu before heading out to the balcony. There’s not much of a view—just the hotel’s parking lot—but the early morning air is cool and fresh, and out here I’m less likely to disturb Ranger while I’m putting in the breakfast order. I slide the balcony door closed. My sister’s message is exactly what I expected.
Sam: Shift’s almost over. Heading home soon. All good?
Alicia: All good.
She replies with a thumbs-up while I eagerly look through the menu—then I pause, frowning down at my forefinger. At the smear of blood there. But where did it…?
Heart stilling, I touch my mouth, then frantically wipe at my lips. There’s more blood. Not much. But it’s there. Muffling my sudden, terrified whimpers with the back of my hand, I haul open the balcony door.
And my heart dies.