by Naima Simone
His lips grazed a path along her jaw even as he stalked toward a door off the kitchen. Setting her down in front of it, he twisted the knob and, with a palm to her lower back, ushered her inside. A flick of a switch revealed a mudroom with several hooks, coats, hats and boots along one of the walls. A bench lined another, and Wolf guided her there, gently pushing her down, and then lowering to his knees in front of her.
Cool air whispered over her, but she barely noticed as he cupped her knees and nudged them apart, wedging his big body between her thighs. He sent her free-falling even as he anchored her in this erotic storm. Digging her fingernails into his wide shoulders, she tipped her head back, clinging to him and pressing her aching, wet core to his ridged abdomen. Shameless, she bucked against him, seeking that delicious friction that had her trembling like a wind-tossed leaf. Abandoning a shoulder and leaning a hand behind her, she sought and found leverage to roll and grind, pursuing a release that should’ve been far away but loomed much too close.
Wolf gripped the back of her neck, his favorite hold with her, and tugged her closer, but not stopping her from working him. He nipped her bottom lip, then sucked the kiss-swollen flesh, flicking his tongue over it.
“Are you going to use me to get there, baby?” he breathed against her lips. “I want you to.” Another small bite. Another long suck. “Do it.”
He cradled her hip, pulling her closer to the edge of the bench. Granting her a better angle to writhe against him. Her cotton pajama bottoms and his thin shirt didn’t present any kind of barrier. And she chose not to dwell on what kind of mess she could possibly leave behind on him. Not when she trembled on the very edge of orgasm. So close. So close.
Wolf shifted again, moving closer, tipping her lower. And oh God. A whimper clawed its way free of her throat. His cock pressed against her sex, the long thick column a hot brand even through denim. The breath punched from her lungs, and before she could identify that short, animalistic cry as her own, pleasure swelled harder, higher, and broke over her. The pleasure had a tight, almost too tight, quality to it that hovered in an odd space between ecstasy and pain. But it didn’t stop her from chasing it.
Of their own volition, her hips continued to work, to rub her cotton-covered sex over his dick, until the last wave eased, and she collapsed. Or she would’ve if not for that hand at the nape of her neck.
“That better?” Wolf took her mouth, his tongue plunging inside, tangling, dueling, leaving her scorched and panting. “Now that you have the edge off...”
He dipped his head, and before she could demand he return and kiss her or guess his intentions, he sucked her nipple between his lips. Right through her T-shirt. Shock and lust snapped and sizzled through her veins, lighting her up, seizing her body.
Oh God. Ohhhh God.
His rumble of pleasure vibrated through her, connecting them. She trembled, the shock wearing off to leave her a conduit for the sharp-edged ecstasy that gripped her in its teeth and shook her like a boneless, weightless thing. And as he grazed the peak with his teeth, then pulled her deeper, drawing harder, swirling and flicking, torturing her, she lost all rational thought. Just became this carnal creature that growled and pleaded for more.
As he switched to the other breast, she clutched his head, holding him to her, nonsensical words tumbling from her lips amid whimpers. Pleasure had her in its hold as surely as Wolf did. She brushed her lips over his damp forehead, urging him to suck harder, to please don’t stop.
And he didn’t.
Cupping both breasts in his big palms, he lifted her to him like a fine feast that he had no intention of missing out on. Hungry. No, ravenous.
She couldn’t have trapped her cry inside any more than she could’ve pushed him away. Like that first kiss, he didn’t ease her into passion. He consumed her, damn near threatening her with it. He didn’t treat her as if she were breakable.
Take it, I’m not holding back.
Wolf didn’t utter those words, but they were there. Along with his silent insistence that she could take it.
A fever raged through her, born of lust. Desperate to feel him skin to skin, she dropped her arms to his waist, her hands skimming around his back and burrowing under his shirt. She’d never keened before—didn’t think she’d actually even heard one—but was pretty sure she did it when her palms slid over his taut, hot flesh. The contact burned through her, and she dug her nails into him. Needing to hold tight? Needing to mark him?
Maybe both.
Right now, with his mouth on her, with him arching into her touch, she didn’t dwell too long on the why. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the pleasure he gifted her with and that he didn’t stop.
Wolf lifted his head, crushing his lips to hers, his thumbs whisking around and around her wet, beaded nipples. Her belly clenched, pulling so hard, the ache reverberated in her sex, in her clit. She squirmed, hurting with the lust that swirled and churned within her as if she’d come years ago instead of minutes.
“Wolf,” she breathed, gripping the dense muscles of his shoulder blades underneath his shirt. “Please.”
Please make it better. Please give me what only you can. Please fuck me.
She twisted her head away from Wolf, burying her face into the crook of his neck, pressing her mouth to the base of his throat to trap those words inside her.
But it didn’t make a difference. Wolf understood—as he always did.
In a swift and seamless motion, he stood, picked her up, switched places with her and set her on his lap. His hands arranged her legs so she straddled his thighs, her back pressed to his chest. Circling her wrists, he lifted her arms, linking them behind his neck. She obeyed the silent command, and kept them there, her fingers sinking into the thick, cool strands of his hair.
His hands stroked down her arms and the sides of her torso, one molding to her breast and the other trailing lower, over her belly, and lower still...until his fingertips slipped beneath the waistband of her pajama bottoms.
Anticipation and desire raced through her, and her breath soughed in and out of her lungs, echoing in her ears. Had she ever wanted, needed anything this much? Possibly. But at this moment, with his fingers only inches from her wet and aching sex, she couldn’t think of anything. Hell, she just couldn’t think.
“Wolf.” She tried to squeeze her thighs but couldn’t. Not spread over him as she was.
“Tell me I can, baby.” He feathered a caress over the tender, sensitive skin below her navel. “Give me permission to go here.”
Because this touch would be different, more intimate than his tongue dancing with hers or his mouth on her breasts. They would cross a line here, and it was one they couldn’t come back from. Couldn’t deny.
She didn’t want to deny it.
“Touch me.”
He didn’t make her wait. With one stroke, those long, beautiful fingers swept through her folds, parting her, stoking the flames inside her from hot to incineration. Groaning, she turned her face into her arm, biting the soft skin as if the hint of pain could counteract the fiery pleasure he hurled her in like a virgin sacrifice. It didn’t; it only served to heighten it.
“Fuck, how do you feel so good?” He punctuated the question with a firm rub of the bundle of nerves cresting her sex. Sizzling bolts slammed into her, and her hips jerked into his touch, demanding more. Demanding he not ever stop or else she’d lose what little mind she clung to. “Kiss me.”
She surrendered to that command, offering him her mouth. And as his tongue plunged between her lips, two fingers speared low and thrust inside her. He swallowed her small, high scream, giving her back his hum of approval. Gifting her with a roll of her nipple.
So full. She was so full. Tearing her mouth free, she tipped her head back on his shoulder, blinking and staring blindly at the blurred ceiling. She’d known pleasure before. Believed she had. But this... What Wolf sti
rred within her with his fingers driving in and out of her, the heel of his palm grinding over her clit and the erotic play on her breast... This detonated and shattered that idea. He’d set a new precedent and she hadn’t even had his cock yet.
Fear spiked within her fast and furious.
Wolf could change her. Irrevocably. Irreversibly. In ways her mother’s announcement and Isaac’s letter hadn’t.
For a second, she stiffened in his arms. And beneath her, inside her, Wolf stilled.
“Where’d you go, Nessie?” he murmured, planting a soft kiss to her temple. “Your pace. Your choice. Do we stop?”
Jesus. This man. His fingers were buried in her vagina, and he offered to stop. God, yes, he was going to change her. But she couldn’t bring a halt to this. That chance had come and gone about the time he’d called her a street fighter. About the time he called her out and claimed to see her as no one else did.
That kind of careful observation in a man was an aphrodisiac to the body and soul.
“I’m right here.” She lowered an arm and slid a palm beneath her pajamas to cover his hand with hers. Pressed it. “Don’t stop.”
Slowly, he withdrew his fingers then, twisting his wrist, drove back inside her. She arched against him, thrusting her breast into his palm, grinding the back of her head to his shoulder. Over and over, he propelled her closer to the crumbling edge of release. With his fingers inside her, his palm on that pulsing, aching nub of her sex, his hoarse whispers of praise at her ear. She writhed on his lap, danced for him, shook for him, cried for him.
And when he curled his fingers over a spot high inside her, firmly petting it, she broke for him.
She came hard, flying into pieces. A tiny part of her shouted in worry, in fear. But the larger part... The larger part exulted in the freedom, the abandon of pleasure, of soaring with no strings even for these few seconds. Wolf held her through it, anchoring her, even as he continued to drive into her, ensuring she wrung dry every ounce of ecstasy.
Finally, moments—a millennium—later, she slumped against him, air whistling from her lungs. Pleasure flickered and sparked in her veins, aftershocks of a cataclysmic orgasm that left her pleasantly empty of thought. Of sorrow. Of anxiety.
Just at peace.
Yet, as exhausted as she might be, she couldn’t ignore the thick, hard length of his cock underneath her. Unable to stop herself, she undulated against it, earning a dark growl that vibrated against her back. Gooseflesh erupted over her skin, and her breath hitched. Damn, she’d just had a brain-melting orgasm, and her sex quivered at that sound, spasming.
She hadn’t even realized she’d reached behind her until his fingers cuffed her wrist, preventing her from wrapping her fingers around his erection.
“No, Nessa.”
She twisted around so she could fully look at him. “What? Why? You don’t want me—”
He shut her up with an almost bruising crush of his lips to hers. “Does this—” he pressed her palm to his cock “—feel like I don’t want you? Want your hands on me?” He huffed out a serrated laugh. “If I were only thinking with my dick, I’d already have you turned around, on your knees and sinking down on my cock, giving me what you just had.”
As if he couldn’t say those words and not kiss her, he took her mouth again, stroking his tongue inside her, licking and sucking. But in the next instant, she stood on her feet, his hands cradling her hips, his forehead nestled against her belly.
They didn’t move for several moments, the only sound in the mudroom their sharp, staccato breaths. Finally, he stood, towering over her.
Those beautiful green eyes studied her, touching her as surely as his hands and his lips had only moments ago. Lifting his hand from her hip, he traced the curve of her cheekbone, trailing a path down to her jaw. He cradled it, brushing the pad of his thumb back and forth just under her bottom lip.
“If I didn’t suspect you’d resent both me and yourself in the morning, I’d finish what we started.”
She frowned. “No, I wouldn’t.” Irritated, she pushed his hand away from her face. “And it might surprise you, but I know my own mind and am fully capable of owning my decisions.”
He did that Wolf thing where he didn’t immediately respond, but scrutinized her, analyzed her to the point where she barely resisted fidgeting. And protesting.
“I’m not being condescending or trying to tell you what you’re feeling or thinking, Nessa. But I also know last night you jumped out of my car like you were on fire after a kiss.”
He shook his head, turning away from her. A muscle ticked along his jawline, his beard not hiding the telltale sign of agitation. If she’d had any doubts about this conversation affecting him as it did her, that relieved her of them. His voice might be gentle, but Wolf was most definitely...affected.
“I’m going to walk out of here, and with each step, I will call myself all kinds of idiots for letting you go back up those stairs. But that regret is nothing to what I would feel if after the orgasms fade and the sweat dries, you looked at me like you did last night. Or worse, you don’t look at me, like you haven’t been able to all day.”
He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair, the muscles in his arms flexing in a sensual dance that shouldn’t have held her spellbound. But did.
“Nessa.” He cupped her cheek, stared down at her, those mesmerizing eyes entrapping her. Enthralling her. “Tomorrow, or the day after that. Or the day after that. Whenever you decide you’re exhausted of hiding and want to let the walls down for just a little while without fear of judgment, drive past the inn to the first corner and make a right. My cottage is at the end of the road. Or just take the path past my workshop and follow it until you come to my house. Either way, you need me, come to me.”
Dropping his hand from her, he stepped back but didn’t release her from his gaze.
“We can be each other’s comfort while you’re here in Rose Bend. No questions. No expectations. No tomorrows. No disappointments. Nothing but comfort and pleasure. I want to give you so much pleasure, Nessa. And yeah, take some for myself. Your choice.”
After throwing down that sensual gauntlet, he brushed a kiss over her cheek and walked past her, leaving her in the mudroom. Without his presence, the cool air rushed in, prickling her skin. The muted warmth of the kitchen beckoned her, but she didn’t move, Wolf’s words swirling around her head like the snowflakes that fell beyond the inn’s walls.
He’d bounced the ball in her court and challenged her to make the next move.
A move that required her to trust in him.
In herself.
She shook her head, turning on her heel and returning to the kitchen.
That might be the line she couldn’t cross.
Fifteen
WOLF STARED DOWN into his cup of coffee, but he didn’t see the dark brew. With Eva Wright’s voice in his ear through the cell phone, an image of a beautiful face replaced it.
“I’m sorry, Wolf,” Eva said, her regret clear. “I spoke with both Martha and Roy. And like I remembered, they don’t have a son. And Roy is an only child so no nephew on his side. Martha has a brother, but he also only has daughters. So she has nieces, no nephews that would’ve visited with the last name Summers.”
Shit.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, then tunneled his fingers through his hair, fisting the strands. Nessa was going to be so damn disappointed.
“Thank you, Ms. Eva. I really appreciate you calling the Summerses and checking on this. I’ll let Nessa know what you found out.”
“It wasn’t a problem at all. I just wish I had better news for her.” Eva sighed. “If there’s anything else I can do, please don’t hesitate to ask, okay?”
“I promise. Thanks again, Ms. Eva.”
Wolf ended the call, setting the cell on the table, coffee forgotten. How did he tell Nessa this? Regar
dless of what she’d said after they’d left Eva’s house three nights ago, he knew she’d set her hopes on this lead. Hell, he had, too. But now...
“Damn,” he growled, knocking his fist on the small dining room table.
Wheeling around on his heel, he stalked to the hall closet and snatched his coat off the hanger. After locating his keys on the bar separating the kitchen from the living room, he headed toward the front door.
It’d been two days since he’d left the inn and Nessa. Two days since she’d shattered in his arms, his name the sweetest cry on her lips. Two days since he’d offered her...him.
Two days since he’d heard a word from her.
This was what he got for being so damn noble. For once, for just fucking once, he really should’ve thought with his dick.
That was a lie. He couldn’t have dealt with seeing remorse in her eyes when she looked at him. Couldn’t bear being one more regret for Nessa. But that didn’t change the fact that his body had been in a perpetual state of hardness for the last couple of days.
In hindsight, touching her had probably been a mistake. Because that kiss had shown him once he started, stopping would be like accomplishing a Herculean labor. But he had. Yeah, it’d been after he’d had his tongue and mouth wrapped around her nipple and his fingers buried inside the liquid heat of her sex, but he had.
Shit. Chivalry shouldn’t just die; it should be impaled, set on fire and the ashes scattered on barren ground.
But could it really be called selfish when his motives for calling a halt to what would’ve ended up in them fucking in his mother’s mudroom weren’t exactly pure? He hadn’t let her unzip him, stroke his cock, take him inside her, because he wanted more. Maybe it made him a selfish, greedy bastard but there it was. He wanted more than a quick screw on a bench.
Because once wouldn’t be enough.
Not with her.
Yeah, it could be called selfish. He fisted the keys, the ridges biting into the flesh of his fingers. Because if he was really fucking chivalrous, he wouldn’t touch her at all. Doing so was setting them both up for something that had the potential for an epic fallout. Where was that fucking savior complex now when he should be saving them from each other? Saving them from themselves?