Primal

by Lora Leigh; Ava Gray; Jory Strong; Michelle Rowen

  It was impossible.

  For the first time since he had become her bodyguard, Creed could not tell, by her expression alone, what she was thinking. But there was enough emotion rolling off her for him to guess by scent alone. And there wasn’t enough anger to save her.

  She should be furious. Ahead of the subtle scent of arousal still coursing through her, she should be raging at him. Which would only make the arousal hotter, build higher.

  Instead, she was, first and foremost, aroused; behind that, he sensed irritation and confusion.

  The confused part, he shared. Because all things considered, she was truly rather rational. Especially considering the fact that she was now in mating heat.

  Just as he was. He’d had her kiss, he’d had her orgasm, but he was still vicious hard, his dick throbbing with furious hunger. It was the most intense need he had ever known. Since the moment his lips had touched her, since he had felt the warmth of her inner lips, the mating hormone had begun to build in the glands beneath his tongue.

  It was more than an itch now. It was a burn, an arousal far deeper than it had been before the mating heat had kicked in.

  “I don’t like that look on your face,” she muttered as he continued to watch her silently, to draw in the unique scents of her.

  He arched his brow, unwilling to allow her into his thoughts just yet. To give her a chance to learn how deep his need for her went when he was beginning to grow very concerned over what the next few days would bring.

  “And what do you mean, we’re not going back just yet? That’s why Dad sent you after me, correct?”

  She wasn’t calling her father “Daddy” any longer. And each time she said “Dad” instead, the scent of disillusionment drifted toward him.

  Every emotion had a scent, and to the Breed senses, they were easily detectable.

  Disillusionment was a scent that clashed with her innocence, her compassion. It was a dark scent of sulfur subtly underlying the sweetest, softest scent of a spring rain, the scent of her arousal. It was there, though, and it pissed him off.

  “Cabin fever does crazy things to a person.” He shrugged as he watched her carefully. “It’s my opinion that perhaps you need a few days’ vacation. A chance to relieve some tension.”

  It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth either. But he wasn’t about to tell her that he and his boss were leading her father to believe she’d been kidnapped.

  “He doesn’t know you’re a Breed, does he?” Her lips pursed mockingly.

  Amusement joined the other scents, just the slightest hint of it.

  “No, he wasn’t aware of it.”

  “What about the men you were working with?”

  His brow arched. “I didn’t tell them.”

  He hadn’t had to tell them. They were part of the Bureau of Breed Affairs; Jonas had likely told them. If not, then it wouldn’t have been hard for them to guess simply because Creed had been working with them for so damned long.

  Kita shook her head in amusement, an amusement he could easily read on her expression this time.

  “You don’t hate Breeds,” he commented.

  She rose from her chair and moved languidly across the room before turning and leaning against the door frame and staring back at him. “I never hated Breeds, Creed. They didn’t ask for what was done to them. They were born into it.”

  Created into it, Creed corrected her silently. They had been created into this world, and trained rather than raised, to be killers.

  He nodded slowly. Over the year he’d been in her home, he had seen that in her. She’d been waiting, watching, neither trusting nor distrusting the Breeds. She had paid careful attention to news stories and discussions, and at odd times had seemed to be studying her father, essentially observing him in the act of just being a father.

  “And now you’ve kissed one,” he said softly. “Come in the arms of one. What do you think now?”

  “I think you’re just as savage and as determined as every report I’ve ever read says you are. And I highly doubt you’ve been in my home to protect me, no matter the danger. So why not tell me exactly why you were there.”

  “That was why I was there, Kita.” It just wasn’t the only reason he was there.

  She nodded again, her expression, her gaze thoughtful. It was then the scent of her reached him. The increased feminine heat. The arousal burning hotter, burning brighter inside her.

  “Time will tell why you’re here then, won’t it?” she whispered, breathing out deeply.

  “Will it?” He rose to his feet himself then, moving toward her slowly, feeling the hunger rising inside him as well. “Perhaps it’s an answer we should find now, Kita.”

  Her heat wasn’t as intense as it would be once he’d spilled his seed inside her, but the arousal was high enough to slowly become uncomfortable.

  Advances into the mating phenomena were coming in slowly, being researched to damned death, and only then was certain information being shared with the Breeds.

  It was still a subject considered NTK, Need To Know. And only Breeds showing visible signs of mating, or those involved in highly sensitive operations, were given the information.

  Creed had been given the information. He knew the suppositions, the small advances that had been made, the research the Breed scientists had done. And he knew the heat hadn’t reach its full pitch yet. And it wouldn’t until he released his seed inside her.

  Until then, the hormone he had released so far would irritate more than anything else.

  Unless he kissed her again.

  It was a one-kiss gig unless he wanted her to hate him.

  Condoms required.

  There were still the tiny hairs along his visibly hairless body that carried the hormone, but the quantities were so minute that as long as he didn’t kiss her again, then he could control it.

  As long as he didn’t fuck her without a condom, it would be a while before the ramifications were apparent.

  At least, to Kita. He, on the other hand, was already feeling the ramifications. He’d kissed her, and so the hormone was now infused with the genetic impulse to increase the heat and torture their bodies until conception occurred. To mutate the genetics in his sperm to be more compatible with her ova even as any hormone shared with her would make her likewise more compatible with him.

  Stopping in front of her, his hand reached out and gently lifted a heavy lock of hair. He felt almost mesmerized by that hair. So many shades of natural blonde shimmering against his fingers.

  He could feel the rumble of a growl in his throat.

  He could smell her arousal, her interest. He could smell emotion, tenderness, and yet a rising need for confrontation. A scent reminiscent of that detected within both mates and human couples alike. A scent that came close to love.

  Forcing his gaze from the heavy lock of hair he held, he took in the slumberous passion outlining Kita’s face.

  “You’ve entranced me, Kita Claire,” he whispered as he turned his head slightly, the need to kiss her barely held in restraint by the knowledge of the consequences.

  “Have I really?” A trace of breathlessness infused her tone. “Maybe you’ve done the same to me, Creed, even if you are being rather arrogant about it.”

  “It’s part of our genetics.” His gaze centered on her lips.

  No kiss, he told himself. He couldn’t kiss her, he couldn’t lick her, he couldn’t bite her. His eyes closed as he leaned his forehead against hers. He couldn’t taste the silken, saturated folds of her pussy no matter how his mouth watered for it.

  He had to keep his tongue in his mouth, his lips closed.

  He had to protect her, at least until he could tell her the truth.

  But that didn’t mean there weren’t other ways to play.

  There were many ways to play. Ways that would leave them both gasping, their bodies perspiring in release.

  He would make certain she didn’t miss the kiss. But he would. God help him
, he would miss the taste of her wicked little tongue, the feel of her lips beneath his. And the taste of her soft pussy. That he was truly going to regret missing out on.

  “Promise me something, Creed,” she said.

  His lashes lifted to stare down at her as the hunger ate at him.

  “If I can,” he answered.

  “Promise me you aren’t doing this for some sort of Breed revenge. That you’re not sleeping with me in some attempt to make my father pay for whatever he and Uncle Phillip have done.”

  Uncle Phillip. Phillip Brandenmore was her uncle through Horace’s marriage to Phillip’s younger sister.

  “I can swear to you that I’m not going to sleep with you to make your father or your uncle pay for whatever crimes they committed against the Breeds.” That was easy enough. It was the truth.

  Her hand lifted, the tips of her fingers smoothing over his cheek as he watched her soft brown eyes melt with emotion.

  He’d encouraged emotion in her from that first day, from the first itch he’d felt beneath his tongue. He’d teased, flirted.

  “Kiss me, Creed,” she whispered the one plea he couldn’t satisfy. “Like you did earlier.”

  His head lowered. A little. God help him, let him be able to stop when he needed to.

  As his closed lips smoothed across her forehead to her temple, he let his hands drift up her hips, pushing beneath her light sweater to find her breasts.

  Smooth, firm globes fit his palms as her tight hard nipples met the pads of his fingers. He could survive without her kiss, he told himself. He could survive without releasing inside her. It wouldn’t kill him. Hell, other Breeds had gone without their mates for years before, and they had lived.

  He would live as well.

  But first, he would have to distract her. He would have to give her so much pleasure that she didn’t realize the kiss wasn’t there.

  Bending, he put his arms behind her knees and her back, lifting her against his chest as he carried her quickly to the bedroom he had found earlier.

  The bed was already turned down. She’d let someone know she was coming because the pantry as well as the refrigerator and bathroom were stocked with new items. Nothing had been used before.

  Laying her on the bed, Creed moved to her feet and carefully pulled off her sneakers, then the soft cotton socks. Undressing her became one of the most sensual chores he had ever undertaken.

  She arched to him as he pulled her jeans from her body. Free of those, she began to fumble with the buttons of her sweater.

  He watched. Watched those graceful fingers release each button as he hurriedly tore his own clothes from his body, carefully laying a condom aside.

  This would be agony. Agony and ecstasy. It would be the heights of rapture, and it would be the further depths of pain if what he’d heard was true.

  And it would be worth it.

  It would be worth every second of agony to feel her clenching and coming around his dick.

  As she tossed her sweater aside, Creed tossed aside his own shirt.

  Naked, so fucking hard each pulse of blood pounding through his cock was a pleasure so intense it was painful.

  Sitting up in the bed, her hair falling around her face in sunlit and shadowed blonde waves, she looked like a damned temptress come to haunt his fantasies.

  That was exactly what she was. His fantasy. That nameless woman he had dreamt of for years before Jonas had sent him to the Engalls estate.

  She was his mate.

  And she was reaching for him.

  SIX

  Arousal, that hunger, unsated desire, the desperate longings and pulse-pounding aches. It was the need for touch, the body so hypersensitive, each nerve ending rising in attention as pleasure became the focal point of reality.

  It was also the need to touch, though.

  Rising to her knees, she flattened her palms against the hard muscles of his abdomen, feeling them flex in response to her touch, heated, alive. At first glance, the hard, bronzed flesh seemed completely free of male hair. But beneath her sensitive hands, she felt the ultrasoft down, almost like a pelt, smooth, warm, invisible to the eye, but detectable to the skin.

  Resting on her knees, the object of twelve months’ obsession right before her eyes, completely naked, completely aroused, the hard length of his cock jutting forward, she couldn’t help but compare it to her fantasies.

  And the fantasies paled in comparison.

  Nothing could have prepared her for the highly conditioned, fully aroused, steel-hard body of a male Breed in his prime.

  Her fingers curled against the flexing abs, nails rasping against his flesh as she felt his muscles harden further beneath her touch. The head of his cock was sheened with moisture, engorged and flushed dark with extreme arousal.

  Dragging her nails down his abs, she gloried in the hard male groan that met the caress as well as the visible throbbing in the heavy veins of the powerful, thick shaft.

  As her hands moved down, caressing, stroking to his thighs, his fingers buried in her hair. Blunt male nails scraped across her scalp, sending trails of exquisite sensation tearing down her spine.

  She needed to touch him, to taste him, to experience every sensual pleasure to be had in his arms. Every sensual, erotic touch, taste, and sound.

  Her head lowered, her lips moving to his chest, her tongue licking over a hard, flat male nipple as she heard the smothered groan vibrate in his chest.

  Part moan, part growl, the sound wrapped around her senses, stoked the sensations rising inside her as her teeth gripped the disk and she allowed her tongue to worry it with sharp little flicks.

  The taste of male desire and a hint of cinnamon hit her senses hard and burned through her veins. Between her thighs, her clit throbbed and ached, the need for touch riding her like a fever as her hands moved to his heavy, muscled legs.

  She felt as though she were growing drunk, intoxicated on the sheer wicked excitement. Fascination had followed her since the day she had met him, fantasy flowing through her mind as she fought to bring herself to relief when the need for his touch, his kiss, had grown out of control.

  And now, he was here. So obviously aroused, his hands in her hair, the pads of his fingers rubbing against her scalp as she began to lick her way down his torso.

  She had never touched a man as she was now touching Creed, with such freedom. There had always been hesitation, a sense of something just not quite right. The two men she had been with before had each been a disappointment, making her fear she would never realize the pleasure she sensed could be had in a man’s touch.

  In this man’s touch.

  In a Breed’s arms.

  A moan tore from her throat.

  Her Breed. The human species that had been a fascination for her since the day they had revealed themselves, and tonight, she would claim one for her own.

  Her lips moved down his abdomen, her tongue licked, stroked, until she came to the brutally hard length of his heavy cock.

  One hand curved around the base of it, the feel of the heavy pulse beneath sending the blood crashing through her veins. Pulling her head back, she moved to lick, to taste the engorged head when she suddenly found herself pushed back to the bed, and a second later, rolled to her stomach as Creed came behind her.

  “Oh God, Creed,” she cried out, her back arching as his arm curved beneath her hips, jerking them up and back until he pulled her to her knees.

  “Stay still.” Hard legs gripped her thighs as she felt him moving behind her, one hand smoothing over the curve of her rear. “Just like that, Kita. So sweet and ready for me. Trusting me. Do you trust me, sweetheart?”

  Did she trust him?

  Only with her life.

  “I trust you,” she cried out as his finger eased between her thighs, pressing against the entrance to her pussy, easing inside as the calloused tip rasped against oversensitive nerve endings.

  It was a fury of hunger. A craving. A need she didn’t know how to bear as her h
ips jerked back, desperate for more.

  “I need you,” she demanded, her voice ragged now. “Please, Creed. Please need me.”

  She hadn’t meant to sound so needy, so aching. She hadn’t meant to beg, but the yearning inside her refused to remain silent. She had waited too long for this, waited too long for him. God, he had to ache just as deeply for her.

  “I need you more than you know, Kita.” He came over her, his lips pressing against her shoulder, the heat of him like a fire at her back as she felt the thick width of his cock slide along the slick folds of her pussy.

  The pulsing flesh raked across her engorged clit, sent fire and ice rushing through her body as pleasure exploded at the back of her skull and sizzled through her brain.

  With trembling fingers, she pushed her hand between her thighs, gripping the hard strength of his cock as the sound of his harsh growl rumbled at her back.

  Her fingers stroked the length, lubricated by the heavy juices that eased from her pussy.

  The muscles of her vagina convulsed as her womb tightened. His cock throbbed in her hand, and the need to have him inside her was like a fever she couldn’t bear any longer.

  A distant part of her realized that somehow, as he’d paused behind her, he’d donned a condom. For a second, confusion filled her mind. It was so rare for a Breed to be able to impregnate a woman. They were genetically coded against it. A few had defied that rule, but only a very few.

  Then he was shifting, moving, following her grip as she tucked the thick head of his erection against the clenched, snug entrance to her body.

  “I need you,” she whispered, desperate for him now. “Oh God, Creed, I need you so desperately.”

  “Then take me, Kita,” he groaned, his lips moving to her ear, a warm breath of air stroking over the tender shell a second before his rough cheek caressed it. “Take me how you need me, baby. Every inch.”

  Every inch. Every steel-hard inch pulsing against her pussy as she began to press backward, feeling the flared head slowly part the tender opening.

  She was shaking, hard tremors racing through her body as she felt the entrance stretching, burning as she backed into his cock. Her head fell to the bed, pressing into the pillows, her fingers clenching into the blankets beneath her as she pushed back. Each thick, throbbing inch easing inside her made her feel taken, almost to the point of bruising, pleasure and pain combining until she was whimpering, smothered cries leaving her lips as he began to fill her.