by Lora Leigh
And what was it that he wasn’t going to let her do?
She stared at the house. The pretty green, well-watered lawn. The blooms that sprang in abandon through the small flower beds and abundance of shrubs.
The single-story adobe ranch house looked bright, welcoming. The windows and curtains thrown open, the sheers giving her house a slightly hazy, serene look.
She’d worked hard to make the rental a home. Of course, the owner, a good friend of her father’s, had already told her the house was hers whenever she was ready to buy.
She hadn’t bought but perhaps she should have.
“Liza.” He touched her.
The touch was as simple as the calloused pads of his fingers stroking down her arm.
A shudder rippled over her flesh, then, as she fought to steel herself against the consequences, it began to quake through her inner, hidden emotions.
“I don’t want to talk.” Maintaining the shield around her sensitive soul wasn’t easy. “I just need to think for a while.”
“You’re not thinking, you’re hiding,” he accused her again. “You’re hiding so well that even my animal senses can’t seem to find you.”
As though that was a bad thing. She was thankful for it.
The rough quality of his voice, slightly demanding and dominant, had the power to make her nervous though, to assure her he intended to drag her back from wherever she had gone to hide.
“I’m going in.” She felt a hundred years old as she gripped the door handle and moved to release it.
“No.” Just that easy, he stopped her as his fingers curled around her upper arm. “Let’s take a ride instead.”
“Where?” She didn’t really care where. It didn’t matter if she went inside. It didn’t matter if she didn’t.
“Where you and Claire were in that accident when you were fifteen.”
Panic stole her breath as it slammed into her stomach with a punch of horror. No, she couldn’t return there. She had never returned to the actual site where the accident occurred and she wasn’t going to do it now.
“No.” Shaking off the loose grip, she was out of the SUV and striding quickly to the house as she pulled her bag from her shoulder, opened it, and dug the house key from inside.
She never had a chance to use it.
The front door swung open and that damned cigar-smoking Coyote with the smug smile and knowing gray eyes leaned against her door frame with arrogant confidence.
“Hello, kids.” He grinned around the cigar clamped between his teeth before reaching up to grip it in his fingers and lower it from his lips.
“What is he doing in my house?” Turning to Stygian, Liza found herself jerked back to reality with a suddenness that had her breath heaving.
The distance was gone. The inability to feel the panic, fear, but especially the overriding hunger and desperate need for something she had no idea how to describe, came crashing inside her as the abrupt appearance of the Coyote sent a rush of adrenaline crashing through her.
Dog straightened from the door frame, his expression morphing from the smug arrogance to complete business.
“He’s merely helping his men complete the security system the Bureau ordered for backup in the house,” he told them. “I apologize for the inconvenience, ma’am.”
“Don’t call me ma’am and please get the hell out of my way.” Brushing past him, Liza entered the living room to find Chelsea, a suitcase sitting beside her as she stared around the house with a frown.
“You’re leaving?” Liza came to a stop, her emotions, already thrown into chaos with too many sensations and suspicions, rife with confusion.
“I think you know we can’t stay here, Liza.” Chelsea sighed, her brown eyes somber. “Malachi and Isabelle have offered their spare room until this is over.” Her lips tilted at the corner. “Besides, there are a few too many Breeds lounging around here.” Her eyes slid to the Breed stretched back at the bottom of the stairs, propped on his elbows and watching them with mocking silence.
Loki. He pretended and played at charm and sensual abandon, but there was something tormented and angry that drove that Breed.
She barely held back the agonized cry trapped in her throat as fear slammed inside her. How did she know that? How could she sense those emotions churning inside the Breed? And why had she sensed her father’s lies and deceits at the office? Sensed them with such strength that it was like staring inside him and seeing his hatred for Stygian and his fears for her.
“I understand.” Forcing herself to nod as though she did understand, Liza admitted she didn’t understand a damned thing anymore. “Hopefully this will all be over soon.”
“That’s what we hoped when Malachi’s crew showed up. You know, I like Ashley and the girls who visit, but these male Breeds are pricks.” Chelsea shrugged as she glanced around the room at the Coyote Breeds working there. “Oh well. I guess we have to take the good with the bad, right?”
“So we were taught,” Liza agreed, aching with the loss tearing through her.
She hated this. She hated everything she was losing and everything she could feel threatening to come alive inside her. And for a moment, she hated herself for the weakness she could feel. Fear. Panic. It was all there.
The knowledge that there was something at the edge of her mind waiting to destroy her tormented her.
The aching arousal and burning need for Stygian’s touch only seemed to make it worse. Whatever was awakening within her, it had begun with this hunger for a Breed.
“Come on, Liza, we knew this was coming when Isabelle was nearly taken.” Chelsea sighed as Liza watched her painfully. “We’ve just been fighting it, hating the fact that we’ve had to give up our freedom for a while.”
Perhaps all Chelsea was giving up was her freedom, Liza thought. Liza could sense losing so much more than her freedom though.
“Maybe.” Liza shrugged. “Tell Isabelle and Malachi I said hi.”
What more could she say? She couldn’t beg Chelsea not to leave when she knew herself that even she couldn’t stay. Not right now. Perhaps not ever.
Striding to her, Chelsea gave her a tight hug. “It won’t be too long, Liza,” she promised. “And you know we’re going to invade that hotel they’ve stuck you in and have a total girls’-night-out shindig.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” A tight, brief hug and Liza released her friend before stepping back.
“Well, come on, Loki.” Chelsea gave the Breed one of those superior, you-are-my-servant looks that she was so well known for.
Loki eased from the stairs with a lazy smile and amusement gleaming in his dark gray eyes. “‘Please’ not in your vocabulary, sweetheart?”
“Neither is ‘sweetheart,’” she assured him. “So let’s get moving. Isabelle promised me lunch.”
“Lunch sounds good.” Loki seemed a bit more energetic at the mention of food.
“You weren’t invited,” Chelsea informed him.
To that, the Breed only laughed as he picked up her suitcase and followed her to the front door as Dog, Mongrel and Mutt bid Stygian good-bye and left as well.
The house was empty but for her and Stygian now.
Turning to him, her gaze went instantly to his, the glints of blue in the night-black background more intense than before.
“You always know, don’t you?” She had to draw in a hard, deep breath at that realization. “No matter what I’m feeling. No matter how aroused or how angry I am.”
“Or how distant you are.” He inclined his head in agreement.
“Can you sense it with everyone?” Wrapping her arms across her breasts, she considered how she would feel if he could sense every woman’s arousal for him.
Because no doubt, there were quite a few women more than interested in taking him to their bed.
His lips pursed thoughtfully. “In some situations,” he finally admitted. “But our senses in regard to our mates are incredibly heightened, Liza. That’s how I know when you
’ve retreated to the point that you’re barely on the same plane with the rest of us mortals.”
She flinched, jerking her gaze from his and looking away as he moved closer to her.
“It’s how I knew the second that distance began easing and your need for me kicked in with a vengeance. The mating heat may ease when you do that, but it will also bring you back to me. You may have found a way to delay it at times, in ways no one else can, but you’ll pay for it when you return.”
“So you admit it exists?” Why wasn’t she even surprised? Or angry? “So you have to wait until you kiss your mate before you can tell them about it?”
He shook his head. “No, I have to wait to be certain you won’t reveal it to anyone, even friends or family. Because the news stories are partially true. Mating heat has the potential to destroy us, because we don’t completely understand it ourselves. How do you assure others it’s not something they should fear if you can’t explain exactly what it is?”
“So why tell me now?”
He stared back at her, his gaze somber, intense. “Because we both know where it’s going. You’ve known what was coming and you’ve still come to me. You know where it’s going. Why fight it any longer?”
“Why me?” Turning back to him, she asked the question that had plagued her since the moment she realized something wasn’t exactly right with the attraction she felt for him. That it was more intense, more primal.
“If I knew that, then I would have the single secret that could possibly save the Breeds from extinction should the world ever learn of the mating heat, Liza.” His fingers curled around her upper arm as he pulled her closer.
The heat of his body met the chill in hers before it sank to that core of lava-hot arousal simmering and growing inside her.
A hard, involuntary breath pushed her breasts against his chest while he pulled her even closer with a hand at her hip. When she was flush against his body, the length of his erection imprinting itself against her lower stomach sent a wave of furious heat washing through her.
“See?” he murmured as he laid his lips against her temple. “It’s like fire and gas. One touch is all it takes to make the arousal burn brighter, make it torment and ache until nothing helps but another, deeper touch.”
His touch firmed, gripping the silk of her shirt and pulling it from the belted band of her skirt. Pressing his hand beneath the material, the calloused palm stroked up her spine, sending a shiver raging across her flesh as pleasure flared from each point of contact.
“And it doesn’t stop?” Could that be possible? Could the tabloids have that much right? That the Breeds, like some of their animal cousins, mated for life?
“It doesn’t stop.” His breathing was heavier now, his tone rougher, rasping as his head lowered, his lips brushing down her neck, the wet heat of his tongue licking against her flesh.
Tilting her head to the side, Liza all but begged for more. Just that one careless caress against her neck was enough to send a spike of sensation racing through her nerve endings and peaking in her swollen clit and the clenched, saturated depths of her pussy.
Her hips moved involuntarily, rubbing the sensitive nub of her clit against the hard muscle of his thigh as his lips lingered at the base of her neck, his cheek rubbing against the sensitive flesh of her inner shoulder.
Each stroke of the wet heat of his tongue against her skin had her body tightening further. Pleasure and a violent need for more began to amass in her system.
“The night Isabelle met Malachi,” she whispered, the words tearing from her as her fingers moved restlessly over his shoulders, “I watched you in that bar.”
“I could smell your heat,” he growled as his teeth raked across tender nerve endings at the curve between neck and shoulder. “I waited for you, Liza. Until well after the bar had closed, still I lingered, certain you would return.”
Liza felt a rush of regret and hunger as it tore through her. Lifting his head, he met her gaze with his, the blue in his eyes like dark stars on a midnight background.
“I won’t wait any longer.” He gripping the hem of her blouse and yanked it up.
Lifting her arms, Liza forced back a whimper as the erotic intensity began to build, the heat charging nerve endings she hadn’t known her body possessed.
The blouse fluttered to the floor as his hand moved to the small button and zipper at the side of her skirt. Within seconds, it too slid to the floor, leaving her clad only in the lacy white bra, matching lace thong and nude stockings she’d worn beneath along with black, three-inch heels that she’d seen Stygian sneaking glances at earlier.
“God have mercy,” he whispered as though tortured. He stripped his shirt, his gaze never leaving the sight of her.
As he jerked the shirt over his lean, well-muscled stomach, Liza’s hands went to the belt of his jeans, fumbling, shaking as she released it and pushed it aside from the metal tab.
She felt like a schoolgirl. God, how she had longed for this feeling over the years: the excitement and fear, the anticipation and the trepidation caused by the unknown.
As the metal tab and zipper gave way beneath her fingers, Liza breathed out in shock at the heavy width and weight of the erection. Lifting her gaze to Stygian’s face, she slowly shook her head.
“There’s no way.” She had to swallow past the dryness that attacked her mouth, but her lips still twitched in a vein of amusement. “My God, Stygian, that’s simply not going to fit.” And that was not her virginity speaking.
“Oh, I don’t think we’re going to have a problem with the fit,” he assured her. “The problem will be stopping once I get inside you.” His expression was so tight, so intense that once more she felt that punch of reaction to her stomach. A tightening of her womb, the clench of her pussy and heated throb of her clit just before he swung her up into his arms.
“What are you doing?” Surprise had her locking her arms around his neck.
“You’re killing me here,” he growled as he strode to the bedroom. “If I don’t get you to the bedroom, I’m going to end up fucking you on the living room floor.”
Oh God.
She held her breath, forcing herself to hold on to her control.
But God, how she wanted him.
She could feel the inner muscles of her pussy clenching, tightening, a sense of emptiness attacking the sensitive inner core.
She could feel her juices easing along the inner walls to the swollen labia below.
Reaching the bedroom, rather than placing her on the bed, he returned her to her feet next to it, one hand cupping her cheek as his head lowered, his lips taking hers once again.
One hand slid around her hip to the curve of her rear.
She rubbed against his thigh, grinding the swollen bud of her clit against the hard muscle.
It was so good. She wanted to cry with the pleasure of it tearing through her.
The blood thundered through her body, pounding torturously at her clit, her juices gathering along the folds of her pussy, sensitizing it further. Small, mewling little cries left her lips, her arms tightened around his neck, her fingers spearing into his hair.
Suddenly each touch, each hint of a spicy taste that stroked against her tongue was hotter, the sensation amplified and so strong it would have brought her to her knees if Stygian hadn’t had one hand clamped to the curve of her rear to help her ride his thigh.
She had never known a hunger like this.
Hell, she had never known hunger for a man, period, until now.
And it was so much more than she expected.
Moving his hand from her cheek, it smoothed along her neck, her shoulder, between her breasts.
Her bra loosened, the delicate lace cups separating before he pushed one back from her swollen breast. He cupped his palm around the under curve and lifted his lips from hers.
Tipping her head back, she forced her lashes open, staring up at him with dazed pleasure as his thumb raked over a nipple and his lips moved steadily cl
oser to the rigid peak.
“Stygian.” The whimper of his name had him pausing.
It was only a pause. It only lasted long enough to find herself flat on her back across the bed, staring up at him in surprise.
In one second flat he’d shed his jeans and moved over her. Bracing himself with one hand, he hooked the fingers of the other in the band of her panties. With a quick jerk, he ripped the delicate lace from her hips.
Her gasp of shock was followed by a tumultuous cry as in the next breath Stygian had her thighs spread and his tongue raked through the swollen folds of her pussy, sliding around the tortured ache of her clit.
Her hands went to his head, sliding through his hair before clenching a handful of strands with a desperate grip. His lips capped over her clit, he sucked it inside the heat of his mouth and laid his tongue to it like a wicked whip.
“What are you doing to me?” The strangled cry was filled with an agonizing need for release. Liza’s hips lifted, grinding against his lips as her orgasm remained just out of reach.
Each fiery brush of his tongue against the oversensitized bundle of nerves had her screaming breathlessly, her hips jerking, driving the overheated flesh harder against his lips as she begged for release.
Licking, stroking, his fingers caressing from her inner thighs to the clenched entrance of her pussy, Stygian gave no quarter. Primal hunger and male dominance filled each touch, each primitive growl that rumbled in his chest.
Stroking over the narrow opening to her vagina, his fingers paused, pressed, working two of the calloused fingertips past the fluttering flesh to the inner tissue beyond.
“Please.” She tightened her fingers in his hair and lifted her hips as a strangled cry of aroused fury left her lips when his hands clamped on her thighs, holding them open, holding her still. “Damn you, Stygian, damn you. Fuck me. Oh God, please make me come, Stygian.”
What she released at that point, she wasn’t certain if she should be terrified of, or if she should revel in the primitive hunger of the animal that came over her.
His lips were drawn back, those wicked incisors were gleaming in demand. His eyes, once black with blue highlights, were now a startling, sapphire blue and gleaming with a raging hunger.
Hard hands caught her beneath her knees, bending them, pushing them back as he knelt before her.
She lifted her hips and glanced down at the dark width of the heavy erection tucking between the folds of her pussy. Slowly, her gaze lifted to his again, and she swore in his face she could see a hint of the Wolf part his genetics were taken from.
“Mate.” His gaze narrowed as the snarl lifted his lips.
At the same time, her gaze widened at the pulse of his cock against the entrance of her pussy, the feel of a heated fluid spurting against the clenched tissue inside bringing a shocked gasp from her lips.
“Stygian?” She trembled beneath him, her hands clamping to his powerful forearms as an electric tingle began to emanate through the inner flesh.
“It’s okay, baby.” The sound of his voice was a rough, sensual rasp.
Then he pressed forward.
The burn of the erotic stretch had her breath catching, because the pleasure of it was incredible. Sensual.
As the pleasure began to give way to a hint of discomfort, Stygian paused again. The width of the wide crest was barely inside her, throbbing, heated.
The inner tissue fluttered around the iron-hard flesh as she struggled to accept, to adjust to the invasion.
A heavy throb of the crest preceded another spurt of the silky fluid, as though he were already finding his release, though she knew it wasn’t possible. His body was hard and tense above her, his cock iron-hard and throbbing. And whatever release it was, like the one before it, it seemed to sink inside the inner muscles of her pussy, easing it, heating it.
“Oh God.” The involuntary clenching of her pussy around the head of his cock was followed by the most incredibly arrowing sensation as it shot straight to her clit.
Shuddering, she stared up at him, gasping, fighting to breathe as another spurt filled her again and the head of his cock sank deeper inside her.
Heat began to bloom through her body. The stretching of her inner flesh, the slow pleasure/pain of each bold inch of his cock filling her, had her body humming with such nearing ecstasy that she was crying out with the intensity of it.
Then he stopped.
Her eyes flared open.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he growled.
“I thought you would have known.” She breathed out roughly. “God, you know everything else, right?”
His cock was barely buried in past the throbbing crest, and what the hell did he want? Did she have to apologize for being a virgin?
“You’re a virgin.” It sounded like an accusation.
Liza blinked up at him, half tempted to laugh.
“What do you want, apologies?” She groaned. “I told you, you were too big.”
“It’s not too big,” he gritted out, just as another heavy spurt erupted from his cock, further sensitizing the tender depths of her pussy. “Damn it, Liza, you’re not ready for this.”
Her eyes narrowed on him. “Not ready? You have your dick halfway inside me and you think I’m not ready?”
“You’re a fucking virgin—”
“I promise it’s not contagious!” Her knees lifted, gripping his hips. “Stop making excuses, Stygian. Now finish this or I swear I’m going—”
He surged forward.
Stygian felt each pulse of the pre-seminal fluid as it spurted heavily from the head of his cock. The sensation was ecstatic, a pleasure he’d never experienced and one he knew he would never experience with another woman.
He had known she was inexperienced, but God help him, he hadn’t expected her to be a virgin.
He felt the tearing of her innocence, felt the helpless male pride rising inside him, and had a moment to feel a glimmer of amusement at it. This was his mate. His woman. She was beneath him, the grip of her pussy tightening to the point that he swore he couldn’t hold back his release another second longer. And she had waited for him.
Sensitive tissue rippled along the head of his cock, caressed the shaft then tightened
