by Aja James
For a quiet, reserved, calm and patient male, he took to command like nobody’s business. And she fucking loved it!
Most of all, she loved that she brought out the wildness in him. He never let himself lose control of any situation, but he let go with her.
He could be free with her.
“I like your bristles,” she murmured now, glancing her fingertips across his beard-shadowed jaw.
As Simca, she’d often lounged around in his bathroom while he shaved, the humanoid male ritual fascinating to her. (Well, if she was being honest, the accidental nicks he gave himself sometimes fascinated her even more. The sight of his blood did strange things to her. Made her lick her chops and drool.)
Some Dark Ones were hairless everywhere except on their heads. She didn’t know what made one vampire hairy and not the next. But Maximus grew hair on his body like humans did—on his chest, his arms and legs, under and between them, and of course, on his face. So he shaved.
She didn’t understand back then why he bothered doing it. Let the hair grow where it would. Why bother slicing it away?
But as a woman, she could see it both ways.
After he shaved, his face was revealed in all its masculine lines, sharp angles and intriguing hollows. Now that she no longer thought his looks were only a notch above that of a mole-rat, she very much appreciated the unhindered view of his face.
She thought she might like him with a beard too, if he grew it thicker so that it could get softer. When he’d used his mouth on her pussy earlier, she’d wondered how it would feel if he had a mustache and a beard. She’d have to try it with him just for research purposes.
“I like your hair,” she mused, moving from his jaw to his scalp and combing her fingers through the thick, short waves.
Then, she dragged her hand through the light dusting of dark hairs on his chest, just enough to add texture over the smooth, broad expanse of his taut, honey-toned skin.
She traced a finger down the thin line that started from his navel to his groin, tangling her fingers in his rougher pubic hair while lightly skimming the contours of the root of him and the heavy sacs below.
He shifted restlessly and pushed up into her touch, encouraging her to pet him more.
She leaned down to kiss his cock, suckling the crown of him leisurely just to taste, not to inflame. Just for her own pleasure of learning him.
But of course, everything she did inflamed him. These gentle caresses only made him desperate for more.
He ground his erection further into her mouth, seeking that tight friction, that luscious wetness.
She wouldn’t take his hint to turn up the heat, however. Not just yet. She meandered fleeting butterfly kisses back up his abdomen and chest, up his throat and jaw, where she paused to ponder some more.
“I like your mouth,” she said, tracing his full, generous lips with her thumb. “I never gave it much notice before. I’d always liked your eyes and your hands best.”
He was lying on his back like a great slain beast with her draped half on top of him, half on her side. His eyes were closed as she explored him, as if he were totally relaxed, almost asleep.
But she knew better.
His skin was hot from unabated desire. His musky scent enveloped them in a sexual haze, fusing with her own. And his thick cock was pulsing against his stomach, his balls full and heavy at the juncture of his slightly spread thighs.
“What do you like best now?” he rasped low, a distant rumble of thunder.
“This,” she answered by tracing his lips, then poked her index finger just slightly inside to tease his soft wet heat.
He was so hard everywhere, all unyielding muscle and strong, sturdy bones. But he was soft in this one place. Soft and tender.
And, she’d learned to her infinite delight—she was the only female to know it. To receive and take his kisses.
“And this.”
She reached down the same hand to grasp his sex, squeezing him hard enough to make him hiss.
She grinned a feral, toothsome grin, even though his eyes were still closed and didn’t see it.
He was sore too, just like she promised. Sore, but always ready for more.
Oh, she’d give him more all right.
But not just yet. Right now, she wanted to taste his lips again.
Keeping a firm grasp of her favorite toy, she leaned more fully over him and cupped his jaw with her other hand, angling him just the way she wanted before fucking his mouth with her tongue without preamble.
He breathed deeply through his nose at her unrestrained aggression, devouring her back the way she devoured him, sucking her tongue into his mouth and thrusting his own into hers, tangling together, rubbing against each other, until their bodies began to imitate the erotic dance of their mouths.
He cupped the back of her head to bring her closer, growling deep in his throat when she bit down on his lower lip and drew blood, then licked it up and sucked on it, before plundering the depth of his mouth once more.
She lifted her head and he pursued her, arching up to keep their mouths fused. But at the slightest pressure from her hand on his chest to push him back, he stilled.
His body always knew when to obey her commands, and when she wanted to be pushed to her limits. Sometimes, even beyond.
She leaned back slightly as she looked down at him, her golden green eyes glittering.
He wondered what she saw when she stared so intently. He didn’t have to ask to find out.
“You look well and truly fucked, Mad Max,” she gloated with a cat-got-the-cream grin.
His cock leapt in her tight little fist at her provocative words.
“So do you, my female,” he returned with the exact same possessive, triumphant smile.
She tilted her head at him.
“Is this where you start calling me ‘woman’ instead of my name? All cave-man-like?”
His gaze softened even as it grew serious, a strange, beguiling combination.
“Ariel,” he rasped in that husky baritone. “I know your name.”
What she heard was, I know who you are. The female I have Claimed.
“Maximus,” she whispered, sinking into his icy blue depths.
What he heard was, you’re mine. Only mine. Always mine.
This was the difference in her mind between fucking and loving. The tenderness and emotion that all but overwhelmed her.
One was a release of passion and lust, primal need and instinctual possession. It was about dominance and acquiescence, conquering and surrendering, ownership and enslavement.
And a hell of a good time!
The other was trickier to define, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to pin it down. She simply felt a connection to him that she felt with no one else in the entire world. They expressed and deepened that connection with their bodies, their mingled breaths, their shared sighs and moans.
She loved the process of learning to love him.
With the same thought, same breath, she brought his sex to the entrance of her own as he pushed upwards and inside of her in one sure stroke.
They gasped at the incredible fullness and pressure and began to move at the same time.
She rode him slowly, almost gently, feeling every push and pull of him against her inner walls with concentrated awareness. He rolled his hips in time with her undulations upon him, magnifying the exquisite friction of his hardness plunging through her silk. Her silken vice, clenching his maleness, loathe to let go every time he pulled back.
Together, they reached for that blinding ecstasy beyond pleasure and pain. Beyond the soreness of their sex, the tension in their muscles, the churning in their blood.
They reached for something beyond this moment, beyond time itself, with their gazes locked, their fingers laced, then fisted together beside his head.
She rode him harder, faster, deeper, as they reached even higher. To the place where their bodies shattered and their souls soared. Where there was only each o
ther, inextricably intertwined.
At she climbed to the precipice of her climax, she took his mouth again, her guttural groan of completion swallowed by his own. He kept pumping into her relentlessly as she came, his buttocks straining, his hard thighs locking.
She rode her orgasm long and hard, never coming down from the breath-stealing high, his maleness continuing to stoke her pleasure, taking her beyond bliss and into a whole new dimension of heaven.
And when he finally shuddered beneath her, his seed flooding her womb, she threw her head back and roared.
*** *** *** ***
She roared.
But it was not a human sound.
It was pure animal. Pure feline.
One moment Ariel was sitting on his cock coming so hard he felt like he’d sport bruises for days from the way her body clenched him so relentlessly, and the next she staggered off of him, shaking uncontrollably as if in the throes of a seizure.
Maximus got to his feet in an instant, reaching out instinctively to steady her.
She jerked back, intentionally or unconsciously avoiding his grasp.
She jabbed her hands into her short, choppy black hair and squeezed her skull between them, as if trying to forcibly shut down her mind. Or her head was splintering with the mother of all migraines.
She gasped for breath, her chest inflating and depressing on long, desperate draws of air, her ribcage starkly delineated against her skin.
He tried to hold her again but she held out a hand and shook her head frantically, keeping him back.
Whatever she was dealing with, she needed to do it alone, he understood through their connection.
But Dark Goddess! It was hell to watch her suffer like this.
She was seething with agony, and he didn’t know why. He’d never felt so helpless and useless in the millennia of his existence.
She went down on all fours, no longer able to stand. He could hear her bones cracking, her joints snapping, her skin breaking.
And yet there was no blood, no sign of damage to her body. Only her face and the heart-shredding sounds she made told of the torture she was enduring.
What was happening?!
Maximus went down on his knees facing her, trying to hold her gaze at least, trying to channel his strength and a calmness he didn’t feel into her.
They’d get through this together. He’d take all of her pain unto himself if he could.
She was his Mate. If anything happened to her…
Suddenly, Ariel arched back and let out an earsplitting howl, a contorted mix between a growl, a roar and keening wail.
Tears flowed unchecked down her cheeks, and her body was flushed a deep, scalding pink, as if she was on fire inside.
Maximus couldn’t stand it anymore. No matter what she communicated to him, he couldn’t hold back.
He took her roughly into his arms and held her close, enfolding her everywhere with his much bigger frame, a protective cocoon of muscle and heat.
She didn’t struggle this time. Didn’t push him away.
She simply flowed out of his grasp like the sleekest silk.
And took form two feet away as a giant black panther.
“Simca,” he whispered, seeing his familiar exactly as she was, just magnified to a much larger size.
The great beast slowly shook her head, golden green eyes glittering.
He stepped up to her and held out his hand.
She didn’t hesitate to nuzzle it with her satiny nose and licked him gently with her sandpaper tongue.
“Ariel,” he corrected himself, realizing the truth.
She was not simply his partner. She was his Mate. His lover.
She was Ariel.
Involuntarily, he shifted as well into the giant white tiger and nuzzled her back. They butted heads and rubbed each other’s faces and necks with their scent glands, purring so loudly, the very air around them shook with the force of their joy.
Playfully, she stood up a bit and swatted him with her paws, claws retracted. Then, she nudged him with her hind quarters and curled her tail under his nose, making him sneeze.
He bumped her back with his side and mock growled at her, something along the lines of, “little female, you better behave or I’m going to teach you a lesson you won’t soon forget” in feline speak.
She chuffed back at him and bared her teeth in the semblance of a grin, then leapt away in one giant bound, her curling tail high up behind her, like the starting flag raised at a NASCAR race.
He grinned too and gave her two leaps head start before going after her like a rocket. He let her keep a bit of lead, but he was bigger, more powerful, and could easily catch her if he exerted himself.
He knew she wanted him to chase her though.
She wanted to play.
Together, on this isolated plateau, they were free.
Finally, they were utterly, wildly free.
She wanted him to revel in the carefree joy and abandonment with her, and so he did.
They each stretched themselves to see what they could do in their feline forms. How high they could jump and how far. How fast they could sprint and pivot. How strong were their claws and teeth, how tough their hides.
They wrestled and ran and climbed the rocky slopes. He always let her win, but only just barely. She was no lightweight in human form, and she was a force to be reckoned with in feline form.
If he were being absolutely honest, one out of three, he wondered if she’s the one who let him win.
What she was exceptionally good at was the art of pouncing. Panthers were natural stalkers, stealth warriors. He always knew exactly where she was, but he couldn’t predict when she’d make her move.
Like now, when she leapt on top of him from behind a boulder, with enough momentum to tumble both of them into the patchy ground in a tangle of limbs.
Simultaneously, they shifted back to humanoid form, both on their sides, holding each other as they laughed, breathless with happiness and adrenaline.
And then, they were simply breathless for each other, azure blue and golden green melding together in wordless wonder.
“How…” He started to ask, then shook his head.
It didn’t matter the how. He was just happy that it was.
That she could be his Mate in every way, in every form. That she understood him and shared his Gift—the animal spirit that was infused into their souls.
“It’s you,” she answered, sheer awe resplendent on her face. “I think you changed me. Our mating changed me.”
Concern and apprehension entered his eyes, thinking back to when he’d first discovered what he was, the beast inside of him, as a boy.
“Are you…pleased? Is this what you wa—”
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed the rest of his query away.
When she pulled back for breath she said, “Pleased! Of course I’m thrilled! Finally, I feel whole and complete. Everything clicks. Everything’s natural. My body’s not fighting my mind, my emotions and thoughts merge. I finally know who I am. I’m finally free!”
She stilled for a moment and gave him a considering look.
“But one thing hasn’t changed. In each and every one of my forms—as Agent Kyles, Simca, and now your Ariel.”
He liked the sound of that extremely well.
His Ariel.
“What is that?” he asked.
“My obsession,” she told him, her voice turning husky, her nipples beading against his chest.
“I’ve always been obsessed with you, Mad Max. And I always will be.”
And then she took him inside her body once more and showed him exactly what she meant.
*** *** *** ***
The Creature returned to its lair as evening descended in New York City.
It’d had a productive day, all told.
Given that it suffered not even a little of the sun’s inducement to sleep that was the anathema of being a vampire, it, along with the Pure traitor-researcher, was
indispensable for carrying out Medusa’s schemes.
It never really knew whether Medusa herself suffered the sun’s effects. She was very, very old after all. At least as long as it itself had been around, which would be over four thousand years. So, at a minimum, Medusa should be able to operate normally during daytime if she were at full strength.
But when one was the numero uno evil dictator in the world, one had minions to do one’s dirty work.
That was the Creature’s role. And it was exceptionally proficient at Machiavellian schemes.
It shut itself in its vault of an inner chamber, where it kept the husk of the Pure warrior.
Whose life and death was essentially the trigger for whether the Destroyer would bring the next Apocalypse upon the natural world.
Well, at least the husk was glowing in good health again, even if nobody was home. Or, more accurately, the soul of the Pure Ones’ Paladin was frozen so deeply inside his physical shell, that not even his ghost haunted this empty house.
The “house” itself was better than new. Ten times stronger and faster than before. Even without the upgrade, the Paladin had never been a lightweight. He’d led armies and conquered kingdoms, after all.
How else would he have earned the title of “Paladin”? A warrior of extraordinary heroism and chivalry. And that was before he became a Pure One and was bequeathed the Gift of hyper-developed senses.
All in all, not a bad catch for Medusa’s ever-expanding army.
“I loved you, you know,” the Creature murmured, taking one of the Paladin’s hands in both its own.
The hand was warm, given the strong Pure blood coursing through it. But it felt like heated marble.
Lifeless.
Rarely did the Creature remove its mask of cavalier psychopathy. Pretending to feel nothing, care about nothing—pretending that everything that had happened in its too-long existence happened to someone else—that was the only way it could compartmentalize the indescribable agony of being alive. Of being what it was. Of being reviled and rejected and used and hurt.
But it was feeling savage tonight, and it couldn’t keep the lid on its pain.
It had stopped by Dark Dreams in the hopes of seeing Benji again. And if not Benji, then Mama Bear.
