When Thariff bit my neck lightly, I shuddered and groaned with a frankness that surprised me and excited him. He got bolder, pushed his hand into my pants, gripped my shaft. And as he got bolder squeezing and stroking, I lost more of myself to wantonness.
So it was someone else, not me, letting a strange wolf take liberties with his body. Someone else moaning and sighing as a stranger licked and bit at his nipples. Someone else wiggling against the stones of a public bridge to help a wolf pull down his trousers. Someone else digging his fingers into a man’s hair and pushing him to his knees.
But it was definitely Thariff kneeling. Definitely Thariff gripping my ass possessively, kneading the muscles, spreading my cheeks. Definitely, his gold-green eyes smiling at me when he licked at the head of my cock, rolling his tongue around my foreskin until my shaft swelled to fill his mouth. I was so lost in the pleasure of his mouth that I sank my head back and, most unlike me, I shut my eyes.
Before long, I was close to orgasm. That stranger within me, someone else so lost in sex he was about to come with his trousers around his ankles and his lover fully clothed kneeling in the grass under a bridge.
Even my voice sounded strange to me. “Thariff, stop.”
His green-gold eyes flashed up, but his mouth was too occupied with my aching shaft for him to speak.
“I want it to happen while you…” I couldn’t make myself speak the undignified words, but he got the gist.
His growl of delight rumbled around my cock and I leaned against the marble to hold myself together.
He rose like a tower into my vision, too close and too strong. Grinning because he knew he owned me. “Can you be more specific in your orders, sir?”
The son of a whore.
He yanked me against him, feasted on my shoulder. He wanted me to beg. “While I do what, Master Crow?”
I shuddered as he licked my throat in a combination of arousal and disgust. It was almost enough to make me recover my dignity and walk away. Almost. I glared at him and summoned all my courage and self-loathing and leveled them against him. “Don’t be precious, wolf. Do what I asked. Fuck me until I come.”
He expected me to stammer and be weak, but I’d met and returned his challenge with arrogance. His turn to ripple with the unsettling feeling of someone exerting control.
Thariff put me back in my place by grabbing my hips. At first, I thought he’d turn me, bend me over, and stab into me with the force I needed to keep me submissive. Instead, he lifted me into the air, slammed my shoulders into the stones, left my feet searching madly for the absent ground. The wolf pressed close, crushed me in a kiss, and pulled my thighs until I had no choice but to wiggle one leg free of my trousers so I could tangle them both behind his back to fight the falling sensation. I clung to him with my calves and to the marble with my fingers, while he pinned my chest and shoulders to the stone. One hand wrapped around my back and the other—
He pushed his cock inside.
Maybe I blacked out from the shock, because it never hurt. No, it was the orgasm blinding me, forcing everything—shame, fear, pain—out of my body in an explosion so sudden I didn’t even realize it until my cum covered his chest. So much for discipline, self-control, dignity…
“Sweet, shit…”
As the wolf fucked me under the bridge, I wallowed in bliss and his frantic energy. It was wildly freeing, to be pinned to smooth stone, to have a wolf anchored inside me, thrusting hard enough to rattle the rings and ribbons about my neck, but to be mentally floating away. His teeth in my shoulder and his growls in my ear, but my lusts satisfied.
I got to enjoy him, as a spectator, as he demolished my body. To observe his muscles and his hunger, while he battered me against the stone. He really was god-like, powerful and handsome. And for some reason, he wanted me.
Even when he came, erupting with a soft, whimpering howl, he continued pumping into me. After the initial pulses were finished, slower now, as if he needed to ease away from the sex. He leaned heavily on me and the stone, held my legs around him and kept me trapped as he caught his breath. His cock shuddered now and then inside me.
There was nothing in the world but the whine of summer insects, the hiss of the wind in the grass, and the faintness of his voice in his shallow breathing. Then I came down from my sexual high, returned to my senses. I had … responsibilities and … this business under the bridge was all too … well, it wasn’t like me.
“That was … intense.”
When I pushed his chest, he lifted his head and smiled with a kind of dream haze that frightened me. He should not be looking that affectionately. Not at me. Not at a stranger he’d just fucked in public under a bridge.
“Yeah.” He shifted to cradle my back and keep me tight to his body. He pulled me away from the bridge, kept his cock firmly lodged inside me, and separated me from the support of the smooth stone. I thrashed to maintain my hold, but I was falling.
Of course, the wolf held me. He wouldn’t let me fall. But he wasn’t above teasing, tipping me closer to the ground as he knelt with me beside the river.
“What are you doing?” I pushed at his shoulders, trying to break free as he poured himself over top of me. “Let go—”
“I’m not finished with you yet.” Thariff kissed my shoulder.
I pushed his face away. “Yes. You are. This entire affair was—”
“Too fast, I agree.” Thariff seized my wrists and pinned them over my head. He sank his hips deeper into me and I stared at him helplessly, completely dominated by the man. He smiled warmly at me. “I plan on remedying that.”
I glanced over at my rumpled pants. I gave another helpless arch, but it was truly useless. Thariff kissed me, mastering my attention, because when he kissed me, I couldn’t think of anything but him.
His mouth wandered over my face, my neck, my arms. His little caresses, the way he rubbed his body over mine, the way his cock steadily hardened, reignited the passion in me. He stirred a well so deep in me that I’d never dared to so much as peek inside. Reaching within me to light a darkness I’d rather left unexplored. This tenderness, this murmuring of affection…
Was he making love to me?
The idea frankly terrified me, but I was helpless to my own lust and powerless before his strength. Even when he released my hands, when I could conceivably escape, I didn’t have the will to try.
And even when he let me go, I came back.
Chapter Five
“What the hell is he thinking about?” Keldrith scoffs. “Parks and bridges and stars?”
Thariff’s lips tremble, half-parted with his stunned silence. He understands the mingling in the smoke, the meaning behind the shadows of my mind. He knows now what he never knew before. Just how much that moment in the park meant to me.
I smile at him sadly. Still partly in the park, shaking into pieces as he makes love to me.
“What do you make of it, wolf?” The witch turns to him.
He shrugs, suddenly appearing unspeakably bored. “Madame, I’ve given him up for mad.”
And he’s right. I am utterly mad. It gives me comfort, clarity. I could chatter all I wanted and it would mean—
Thariff shakes his head slowly, warning me.
“Tell me in words about the book.” She takes my face in her hand. A cold wind rustles through her tower and her hair. But the flash of lightning in her eyes fails to stir the proper reaction in me. “Or I’ll teach you fear.”
I’d spit at her, but such vulgarities are beneath me. So instead I smile. “Madame will be happy to show it to you in her library during business hours. Shall I make an appointment?”
The witch looks confused, then laughs.
“Did you forget?” She turns me.
The glass podium, broken on the floor. Madame’s grimoire. Here.
She hisses in my ear. “My wolf stole it for me.”
And I remember.
****
Madame Lamrow stood in the library with her coven, in her
full glory, a regal silver lace gown with her hair bound in silver and piled high on her head. She conducted their meeting behind her glass podium and the grimoire. The glass reflected the polished brown of her skin. The sight of me—little black splotch on the spotless white marble floor and amid the sepia-toned books—made her stop speaking and beckon me nearer. “My dear, is everything all right?”
I didn’t waste her time. “Madame, something has agitated the wolves.”
“Something? You don’t know what?”
The heat rose in my cheeks. “No, Madame. We are not sure. There’s a strange smell.”
Madame looked at her guests and at her books. Her most priceless possessions and people. “Indeed. But they can’t find anyone?”
“No, Madame.”
I couldn’t stand the concern on her face, the nervous tap of her finger on the glass. I hated the other witches for bearing witness to this momentary uncertainty in my witch.
“The wolves assure me nothing is amiss. We’re following all precautions, but I wanted to make Madame and her esteemed guests aware.”
“Oh.” Madame laughed. “You’re being paranoid, again, dear.”
And, because it would be ungraceful to contradict her in front of her company, I nodded. “Paranoia an excellent preoccupation for a steward. It accounts for every worst-case scenario. Coltheart will divert more of his guards to protect Madame and her treasures.”
I bowed and left.
I never turned my eyes from their focus on the door. Not even when some apprentice witches whispered, “How does Lamrow get a crow to behave so stately?”
Later, I circled the tower in my crow wings, feeling distinctly un-stately. Flight was a nervous tic, too animal and unbefitting Madame’s trust in me.
The witches left. Earlier, than usual. Though time never passed the same when I was in my wings. The wolves prowled the walls in their stern formations and pristine uniforms. No room for a breach. No danger. Nothing out of place.
Then at last, I spied Madame Lamrow in the highest tower. She waved to me and I settled on her balcony.
I perched there, half between forms to listen to her orders. “I’ve instructed Coltheart to sleep in the library. I hope I didn’t embarrass you, Madame.”
She ruffled my hair. “Never, darling. I did a bit of scrying, though. Sought out anyone with ignoble intentions.”
I lifted my eyes because her pause scared me. Then she laughed, amused by her joke. “One of the young wolves snuck in a lover. There’s a stranger, but there’s no harm in whoever it is.”
“Very good.” I frowned, but my mind whirred with alternatives. Could someone fake good intentions? What if one of our guards was moved to disloyalty by a lover? What if Coltheart—
“Azatio.”
I jolted when she said my full name, hating myself for disappointing her.
“Go to sleep,” she ordered. “If I see you before lunchtime, I’ll send you on vacation, Aza. For a week.”
It hit me like a threat. “Madame, I shall sequester myself until noon.”
“Oh, you’re incorrigible.” She gave me a little push to upset my balance.
I flapped fully into my wings and cawed at her. I perched out of her sight on the roof until the light in her room went dark.
One final circle around the tower, to see which wolves were alert on their watch and which stirred only slightly when they saw my slow spiral. Satisfied there was nothing amiss, I landed in the gatehouse.
The exhaustion staggered me as soon as I shut the window. I maneuvered through my routines in total darkness, dropping my cloak onto its hook, stripping out of my elegant clothes, and leaving my rings and ribbons on the bedside table.
Naked and half-asleep, I dropped into my nest. The feathers and soft blankets made a little puff of air when I sank into them. There was something heavy in my nest. Something large because the mattress had sunk under its weight. Something hard and hot and—
Before I could shout, he’d rolled me onto my front and covered my mouth. Muffled by the sheets, the pillows, the thick fingers, and the walls, I doubted even the wolves could hear. And I’d stationed them far away, around the library. I screamed a raw, terrified sound, half-shriek, half-word.
“Shh, it’s me.”
Thariff?
I stilled at once. He laughed as he shifted further on top of me, pressing his body along my back. He kissed my neck and the little gesture filled me with a throb of lust.
“You keep long hours,” he said.
I elbowed him, mostly missing. He sat back and let me chastise him. “What the hell are you doing?”
Thariff chuckled and fluttered his hands over my naked back, anchoring me to the mattress as I tried to turn. “I wanted to see you. Can I light the hearth or—”
“No!” I tried to leave the bed and he grasped my shoulder and pinned me again. “You shouldn’t be here. How long have you—”
“I snuck into the tower when there were still people in and out of the library and other witches’ wolves milling around.”
When I continued to fight, he straddled my back, sitting on my thighs. Then because I was utterly immobilized, he gently rubbed my shoulders, an ironically tender massage.
“I marked some windows, dumped a few potions and perfumes around the place to unsettle your guards, and uh … showed myself in your little nest. Why? Did I cause trouble?”
I could hear his mischievous grin and it made me weak. I fought to keep the harshness in my voice. “Don’t sound so pleased with yourself. The captain of our wolves—”
“You think I’m afraid of him?” He grabbed me by the neck and pushed my face into the pillows. “Stop fighting me.”
I sank deep into the pillows and lost a bit of my desire to escape as he growled and groped at my naked ass. “I’m not one of your bottle cap lovers. Not someone to fuck and forget about, Aza.”
The possessiveness of it, the jealousy startled me.
“If I want you, I’m going to have you.”
It thrilled me on a primal level. For months, I’d pined for him and now there he was. Inescapable. In my bed. He invaded this tower, to be close to me, to catch me and pin me down.
But there was a lie in him. Not just in the words which seemed forced. Like he’d rehearsed them, like he knew he was meant to say them and sound threatening. The harshness was undercut by the way he hesitated, by the realness of his sad sigh, by the gentle brush of his lips over my ear. He wanted to kiss me. He wanted to caress me and he fought that instinct so he could hurt me.
He stroked my ass, then with hesitant force, thrust his finger inside. I gave a little cry and he receded, accidentally holding me tenderly, kissing my hair. He squeezed my neck harder, but not convincingly.
I smiled in the darkness. He wasn’t one of my bottle cap lovers. But he was trying to be.
Because he thought that was what I wanted. Because he didn’t know how I lingered over the memories of his gentleness.
He rubbed his cock between my thighs. His finger slipped in again, more tentatively than before, but more intrusive. He pushed deeper and I realized I wasn’t protesting.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“Thariff.” I tried to buck him and get to my knees. But it was far too late. His fingers were deep and his hand was stern on my neck. I shuddered with the desire, with my fear. “If Coltheart or his pack catches you, they might kill you.”
He kissed my cheek. His voice was sad. “Have they been commanded to kill or do you assume the worst about wolves?”
It made me smirk. “Wolves aren’t special. I assume the worst about everything.”
Thariff nibbled a trail down my back. I trembled, rocking back into the pressure when he added another finger. I relished the way he crooked and twisted them. Took too much delight in the way he kissed my side and shoulder, the firm grip he had on my neck.
I stilled my hips. “You ought to go away.”
“I will, when I’m finished with you.” He releas
ed my neck and rose in the darkness. His weight settled more fully on my legs. He stroked his cock. “But I meant what I said. I want you and I … I’m going to take what I want.”
By all means, darling. Take all you want.
I bit my mouth to keep silent.
Thariff pulled my cheeks apart and pressed the head against my entrance.
I braced myself for his lust, for his unleashed strength. I’d take it in silence, aching for his tenderness, but settling for his lust.
Then he pushed in. It was his whimper that undid me, the soft swirl of his thumbs on my skin, the slowness of his invasion. Because he was afraid to hurt me, because he moved slow, because he pushed his cock deep and waited, and my body twitched with need. The lust shuddered through me and escaped as a moan.
Thariff forgot his violent intent and kissed my back, stroked my skin. He wasn’t supposed to linger lovingly. He was supposed to take what he wanted and give nothing back. He was supposed to use me.
“Will you fuck me, wolf?” I hissed at him. “And get it over with?”
He snarled and pressed me into the pillow, but he obliged me. Fucking me hard. Deep, fast thrusts, punching into me with his cock. That was better. It burned, it ached, it hurt and that would make him mundane. Every slam of his hips erased a bit of the magic of memory. Replaced our sweet days in the park with this force, this darkness.
He panted over me, working hard, running toward his orgasm. Growling low, an unseen presence of violence and hunger.
This was a good thing. He was treating me like what I was. Giving me the cruelty I deserved. Using my body for his release. Then he’d leave me alone.
And everything would be back to normal. I’d be myself again. Liberated from this wolf’s affections.
Thariff stopped suddenly. I listened to him pant as he remained perfectly still, with his cock buried, twitching, hot and wanting. He wasn’t coming. Why would he—
His great body shifted, as he held himself up on an elbow. Less pinning me down, more … caressing me with his belly and chest. The wolf kissed me between the shoulder blades. A shudder radiated through me.
Denying the Alpha: Manlove Edition Page 4