Mates Since Birth (Half-breed Shifter Series)

by Stowe, Miranda`

  When more blood welled from his wound and dribbled down the crack, she frowned at it. He knew the sight of his bleeding bothered her—no doubt due to their bond—when she changed only her face into her wolf and leaned over him, licking the cut, cleansing him, the shifter formula in her saliva helping him heal faster.

  Dane should’ve thanked her for her consideration, but the act reminded him too much of what he’d done for her for when she was newly born, cleaning her in his jaguar form. Plus, the feel of her tongue on his flesh—even her wolf’s tongue—drove him mad, made him want to forget what he was doing here in the first place. It made him want to roll onto his back, sling her thigh over his hip so she was straddling him and push up into her, ripping past her red panties and breaching heaven.

  He closed his eyes. “Don’t.”

  She pulled away, already apologizing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disgust you.”

  Eyes snapping open, he gaped up at her in shock. Disgust? Was she insane? His shaft was still gouging out a hole in her mattress because her action had turned him on so intensely. And he couldn’t determine whether it was her physical caress or the emotion behind that caress that made his blood pound with overripe excitement.

  Tucking a piece of inky hair behind her ear in a self-conscious gesture, she shrugged and folded her arms over her chest as if chilled. “So that’s your grand plan, then? Just ignore the urge to be with each other and move on with our own lives?” She snorted and glanced away. “Honey, you didn’t have to come halfway across the country to tell me that; you could’ve just stayed away.”

  He rolled his eyes as he pushed into a sitting position. “No, that is not my big plan. Jesus. If you’d stop making fun of me and gave me a chance to explain, I’d tell you how it’s done.” As if forgetting he was about to reveal his big plan, he went off onto a tangent. “I knew you’d grow up to be a stubborn-headed female. As soon as you learned to talk, you were always demanding your way. Pick me up, Dane. Swing me higher, Dane. Tie my shoelaces, Dane.”

  He swayed toward her as his nostrils flared and his lashes fluttered. “And I never could deny you anything. Every time you looked at me with those big blue eyes, I just wanted to give you more.”

  She must’ve forgotten to mask her scent. Or maybe she meant to drive him mad. Lust rolled off her in waves. His body tensed as he hungered for her, his abdomen knotting with excruciating pangs.

  Licking her lips, she foraged her gaze down his chest to his lap where his arousal jutted toward her, hard and thick. She studied his ready flesh a moment before lifting her eyes and staring at him with proposition. “Then I guess it wouldn’t be at all out of character all for me to demand…kiss me, Dane.”

  Denying her was more than he was capable of accomplishing. Forgetting about all that glorious freedom he so coveted, he leaned toward her, ready to capture his first taste of paradise.

  Chapter Four

  They had never kissed before, but Ari felt as if she already knew how he’d taste. When his mouth descended, she tipped her face up to meet his lips.

  “Okay, I think I have enough rags to sop up all the—” As her mother blew into the room, carrying a tin pan full of water and soaked cloths, Ari jerked guiltily away from her mate, noticing he did the same.

  Positive his blushing expression matched her own, Ari tried to ignore him as she focused on her mother.

  “—blood,” Jaycee finished lamely after she jolted to a startled halt and glanced meaningfully from her daughter to Dane and back again. “Well. Let’s see what we have here. Dane...” She motioned toward his back.

  He had scrambled to cover himself the moment she entered, but now he twisted to show her his spine as he slowly lowered the blanket off his shoulder.

  Instead of easing in closer to inspect him, Jaycee jerked her face back, then grimaced, thrusting the pan of warm water toward Ari, making suds splash over the side and spray the carpet.

  Ari barely managed to catch it. “Wha—”

  “Ugh, I can’t stand the sight of blood. Ari…” Jaycee pushed a needle and thread at her daughter next. “Could you…please?”

  Frowning in confusion, Ari set the water aside and took the needle. Then she and Dane watched her mother hurry from the room as if she were about to lose her lunch. Ari shook her head. She’d never known her mom to be squeamish over a little cut a day in her life.

  Dane turned to her, frowning. “Since when can’t she stand the sight of blood?”

  Ari grinned, tempted to reach out and run her finger along each sexy crease etching his confused scowl. “Since she walked through the doorway and saw us about to kiss, I would guess.” Leaning conspiratorially closer, she grinned and whispered, “I think this was her way of giving us a little alone time.”

  His lashes fluttered as he lowered his attention to her mouth. When she licked her lips, he groaned. “I guess she doesn’t realize how dangerous it is to leave a pair of bonded mates unaccompanied on a bed together, especially if they’ve never consummated their union before.”

  The very word consummate made her want to rip off her clothes and take him. Ari’s breasts felt heavy and achy. Her skin burned with need. Her thighs seemed to shift apart of their own accord, needing him to fill the space between. It caused her skirt to slip further up her thighs, revealing more of her creamy, long legs.

  Dane’s nostrils flared and his throat worked. Instead of moving in closer though, he pulled back and glanced at the needle in her hand. “You’re not seriously going to poke me with that thing, are you?”

  She grinned and set the needle on her old nightstand. “No. Dad and I never had the heart to tell Mom how fast we heal. She found so much joy in tending to our wounds, and since we loved her attention, we let her to do whatever she wanted.” Lifting her arm to show him a faded scar where her mother had stitched the underside of her elbow once, she pointed out the mark. “We call them love patches.”

  He smiled fondly and barely touched the scar, sending a thrill through her that shot out all her hot points. “Love patches,” he murmured, lifting his gaze to hers. His eyes lit with warmth. “I like that.”

  The intensity between them was more than she could take. She either needed to fuck him here and now in her parents’ house or put some major space between them.

  She knew the answer should be space, lots of space. She didn’t want to mate with anyone, especially some stranger—no matter how hot he was—who showed up unannounced in her yard, proclaiming he’d bonded himself to her twenty-five years ago. But the further away she told herself to move, the closer she ached to get.

  Clearing her throat, she grasped his arm, making him twist his torso so she could see his wound. The flesh had already started to knit back together. With a satisfied smile, she patted his shoulder. “Looking better already.”

  He studied her hand on him, his eyes spelling every brewing desire he felt. Swept back into the crazy maelstrom of need sizzling between them, she leaned even closer. Ari licked her lips, forgetting how she’d just been thinking to keep her distance. Her body needed release; it overrode all sense and reason.

  Dane zipped his gaze up, barely glancing into her eyes before he focused on her mouth.

  She grinned. “I believe we were about to kiss, weren’t we?”

  He swayed toward her, then pulled back with a tortured groan. “We can’t.”

  She frowned and straightened, humiliated because she knew she should’ve been the one to stop them. Not him. She hid her embarrassment with indignation. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because…” Looking harassed, he ran both hands through his hair, making the thick black locks spike up around his scalp. “With us, a kiss would lead straight to sex.”

  She shrugged. That was kind of conclusion she wanted it to lead to. Duh. “So?” Whenever she looked into his eyes and got caught in his spell, sex sounded like a fine idea to her. “We’re already mated. What would be so wrong with appeasing the craving?”

  “So?” he cried ou
t, his eyes almost bugging from his head. “So, sex is the very last thing we can do. You never let me explain the procedure we need to follow to break our bond.”

  Feeling more irritated by the moment, she waved him on. “Then…explain it now.”

  Seriously, this rejection business he kept inflicting upon her was not only hurting her ego, it hurt her feelings, which was odd because strangers never managed to hurt her feelings. Did their bond make her more sensitive to his emotions, make her want him to like her?

  “This scientist friend of mine who likes to experiment on shifters has a theory about how it’s done.”

  “A theory?” Ari repeated in horror. “Earlier, you made it sound as if you had a fool-proof plan.”

  Dane pressed a finger to her lips. “Trust me. It’s painless…for the most part.”

  She arched a skeptical brow.

  “Oh, just shut up and listen,” he muttered. “The most intense act in a shifter’s existence is bonding to a mate, right?”

  Ari shrugged. Since she didn’t remember her bonding experience, she had no idea. Though simply talking to him felt pretty damn intense; she could only imagine what getting the bonding mark had felt like.

  “Well, it is and it isn’t. Bonding and then consummating the mating rite during the female’s first heat is actually the most intense moment in a shifter’s existence, which in turn would make it stand to reason that to undo a bond, a pair would have to do the very opposite of that.”

  Grabbing his wrist and removing his finger from her mouth, she frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “If we were together, in the same room, during your first mating heat and we both reached a sexual peak, without coming, all the while denying each other any physical contact, it should technically reverse the bond.”

  She snorted. His theory sounded ridiculous. “So what, we bring another partner to the party and have sex with someone else minus the fireworks—in front of each other—and we’re home free?”

  He frowned at her suggestion. “No, we wouldn’t need others involved.” He looked jealous…as if he didn’t like the idea of another male ever touching her. Shame on her, but she like the idea of him maybe possibly being jealous. “We could bring ourselves to the peak.”

  Ari laughed. “Oh, so we’re supposed to masturbate in front of each other…during my first mating heat? Yeah, that sounds a lot better.” She rolled her eyes to show her sarcasm.

  He gave a hesitant nod. “Denying each other sexual fulfillment at the height of your need would definitely cause a cataclysmic change, you have to admit that.”

  She began to laugh harder, so hard she had to hold her stomach. “Yeah, it most certainly would…if it were possible. Which it’s not.”

  He scowled. “We could make it possible.”

  “What the fuck ever, cat boy. We can barely keep our hands off each other now. No way would we be able to resist temptation if I was in the midst of my heat.”

  She’d seen too many females during their mating heat go crazy for sex. The word restraint didn’t even faze them. She very much doubted it would faze her either, especially with this carnal hunk of masculine delights anywhere nearby.

  “I didn’t say it wouldn’t be difficult,” he grumbled with a moody frown.

  “Forget difficult. It would be impossible.”

  “But still worth the attempt.” He leaned toward her urgently, clasping her hands. “Maybe…maybe we could chain ourselves to opposite sides of the room. I don’t know. Something! As our only chance to break the bond, don’t you even want to try it?”

  Honestly, the only thing she wanted to try at the moment was different positions: missionary, doggy, ride ‘em cowgirl. The works.

  She opened her mouth, but a stab of disappointment arced through her. Shoulders slumping, she blinked at him. “Wow, you really want to be free of me that bad, don’t you?” Strange. She didn’t even know this man, and yet his rejection freaking shattered her.

  His eyes filled with sorrow. “I lost you once, Ari, and it nearly destroyed me. And that was back when I only thought of you as a little sister. Now that we’re grown, and with all this heat stacked between us…” He shook his head. “I couldn’t survive it. I refuse to ever go through that hell again. I need to be free of it.”

  His words warmed her ego back to healthy proportions, but the tortured look in his eyes woke her sympathies. “You really did miss me, didn’t you?” Unable to help herself, she lifted her hand to touch his cheek.

  He hissed but closed his eyes, making her think he found her touch to be sweet torment. “You were everything,” he confirmed, opening his lashes. “Losing you devastated me. I can’t lose anything like that again.”

  Forget resistance. Forget waiting for her mating heat. She needed to taste this man who’d missed her so dearly. Needed to consume him whole. Right this very instant.

  She pressed forward and connected her mouth to his without giving him an opportunity to escape. A mumbled sound of resistance rumbled from his throat, but it swiftly changed to a moan of surrender. Threading his fingers through her dark hair, he grasped her head tight and spiked his tongue deep between her teeth. Ari drew him in and curled her body closer.

  He shifted backward on her old childhood bed, drawing her with him, then twisted them around so he could lay her on her back. Settling himself above her, he set a hand against her knee, his hot palm scorching her skin with a delicious sting.

  When he leaned up to kiss her, his fingers skimmed up the inside of her thigh, and up her skirt until he cupped her woman’s mound. Pressing against wet silk, he rode her pussy through her panties, rubbing her clit with merciless strokes, all the while stabbing his tongue into the warm recesses of her mouth.

  Ari arched into his hand, kissing him hard and prodding his hard chest with her pearled nipples.

  “Yes,” she hissed, coiling her grasp around his shoulders and sinking her fingernails into his supple back.

  His mouth left hers to travel down her throat, while his hand ripped aside her panties and found her dripping channel. When two fingers entered her, she nearly went cross-eyed. “Ohmygod, ohmygod. Dane!”

  He pulled his digits from her body so abruptly, she cried out, her body throbbing for more. But instead of deserting her, a frantic Dane sat up on his knees. Grasping his cock, he guided himself to her entrance. Poised between her spread thighs, he glanced up at her just as his mushroomed head bumped her slick folds, begging entrance.

  When their gazes collided, she felt struck. Bonded. This was her mate and she wanted him. Nothing else mattered but the feel of him inside her, moving deep and claiming possession.

  “Hold on to something.” His gruff voice penetrated her, zinging with arousal. When he grasped her hands and manually wrapped all ten of her fingers around the bars on the headboard, she held on tight, ready.

  Sweat slithered down his brow as he gripped her hips and wedged the inflamed head of his cock in between swollen, pink lips, barely squeezing in. When he paused, she felt his body tense, building momentum for that initial deep thrust. She bit her lip, bracing for it, craving it, when—

  “Ari!” Her father’s enraged voice boomed from the other side of the house. “No sex with that cat under my roof.”

  “Shit.” With a hiss, Dane jerked his hips back and ripped his tip out of her. He rolled away and landed on his back beside her, covering his face with both hands while his chest heaved from all the winded air churning through him. “That was close. That was too fucking close.”

  Body screaming in denial, Ari’s hand fell away from the headboard. She gaped at him, wanting so badly to climb onto his lap, grasp his penis, and shove it inside her where it belonged. Her pussy throbbed, each pulse beat of pleasure pounded through her. Needing some kind of relief, she reached down and pressed her hand against plump lower lips, hard.

  Dane groaned out a sound of torment as he watched her, his chest vibrating with agony.

  “Oh, God, I can’t watch—” Squeez
ing his eyes closed, he flew off the bed and half-hobbled, half-sprinted toward the room’s private bath. Fixated on his ass as he moved, Ari grew a little lost in watching each cheek flex and bunch, the powerful, bared muscles under golden, tanned skin working in harmony with the action of his thighs. She whimpered a little as he disappeared inside, restricting her view from all that gloriously naked man.

  When she heard the shower start, she grinned. “You better make it ice cold, honey.” It was no more than he deserved, revving her up and then turning her away. Needing release, she tugged off the panties he’d shoved aside and found it by herself.

  As she slid two fingers into her swollen, aching slit, her thumb brushed her clit. The digit burrowed between two pink lips before slicking over a pearled bud that quivered under her touch. A miserable groan echoed from the bathroom.

  Needing to torment the jaguar clit-tease as much as she needed to pleasure herself, she rubbed faster. With her free hand, she tweaked her nipples, rolled the hard tips between her fingers, and writhed her hips to the mounting pressure between her legs. She spread her knees farther apart and shifted on the bed so her smell could waft toward the closed bathroom door. A muffled thump inside followed.

  She grinned until the scent of semen seeped through the cracks in the door. It coated her tongue and stuck to the insides of her nostrils until she felt like she was drowning in it. He was ejaculating, the bastard. And before she could even get herself off.

  Irrationally upset he’d finished easier than she had but sensitized by the aroma of his cum, she growled as her body bowed off the bed. Thrusting three fingers, she worked in a frenzy until, God, here it came.

  Oh, damn. It had been so long.

  So good.

  Electrocuted, her body quivered and undulated, clutching her orgasm and wringing her dry.

  Chapter Five

  Ari took a moment to let her body settle. She stretched on her mattress and stared at the ceiling until her lungs stabilized and the aching between her legs calmed to a subtle drumbeat in the base of her abdomen. Blowing out a breath, she sat up and straightened her clothes.