by Tessa Clarke
She shifted, her human form suddenly icy in the snow, Flynn’s furred form still on top of her. He shifted immediately too, and their naked bodies were entwined in the snow, skin against skin, need against need. He pressed against her, his hard cock heavy against her inner thigh, against her wet pussy that ached for him, and his lips automatically sought hers in a kiss that was almost a bite.
“Flynn, no,” she gasped against the fireworks of desire that exploded through every part of her body.
This seemed to bring him back to his human senses. He pulled back and stared at her with those grey eyes. Eyes so much like hers.
“Let’s go inside,” he said brusquely.
He rose to his feet, his body stunning in its ripped perfection, a black tattoo of a stylized tree tracing the crevices of the muscles of his back. He held out his hand and pulled her up to him, his eyes never leaving hers. Together they made their way through the snow, their movements seeming sluggish after being in their lynx forms. At the threshold, Flynn reached up and removed a key from the top of the doorframe and unlocked the door.
He flicked on a few dim lights, and Zoey saw to her amazement that the cabin, far from being rustic, was a sizable, well-furnished little four-room cottage with a full country kitchen and a river rock fireplace. Flynn proceeded into the living room to the fireplace, threw a few logs and some kindling on the grate, and lit a fire. The room immediately sprang to life with dancing flames and warmth.
He turned and looked her up and down, his eyes bold and blatantly hungry, his shaft still erect and ready. Zoey wondered what if he liked what he saw. Her curvy little body did well enough on the gymnastics floor, but would it be to Flynn’s tastes? But she was bold herself and still more than a little angry. She didn’t need him, this shifter, this ladies man.
But she wanted him, and she didn’t shrink away from his gaze. Instead she moved towards him, her slit wet and aching. If she let him inside of her, would she ever be able to walk away, would she ever be able to be with another man?
They met in the middle of the room, and his lips fell on hers. He forced his tongue into her mouth and his hand rose to her breast, tweaking her nipple into a hard nub, while his cock leaned heavy against her inner thigh.
She yelped and bit his lip, but then opened her mouth and let his tongue invade her, the knob of his cock rubbing tantalizingly against her clit. Desire washed over in waves. She wanted to just lean back and thrust him inside of her here and now, to feel him explode and to jerk herself to an exquisite orgasm.
She pressed her hips to his and grabbed his rock hard ass and pulled him into her harder.
“We shouldn’t do this,” she moaned. Her body howled in disagreement. What was she saying?
In response, he took both of her wrists and backed her into the living room wall, pinning her wrists above her head, and pressing his hard muscled body into hers, so close to being inside of her. His kisses became more intense, more demanding. If she angled her hips up a bit and wrapped her legs around his waist, she could ride that giant cock.
“We are doing this,” he said.
Her body was already doing this, as much as she was denying it.
“The wedding,” she said. Was it really the wedding? Or was it that she didn’t trust him? Was it Renate? Or Astrid? She could already feel the tip of his cock at the entrance to her cunt, his wetness meeting hers. She jerked her pelvis so that he was almost inside her. Her brain seemed to be full of fireworks and stars. No rational thought, other than that she had to fuck this man, this shifter, her mate.
“I’ve done enough for the wedding,” he growled. “I’m going to fuck you now, if that’s okay. You tell me if it’s not.”
He was almost holding her in the air by her wrists, and she rode the tip of his shaft on autopilot with her eyes closed, feeling wave after wave of pleasure.
“Zoey,” he said, his lips on her neck and the curve of her shoulder. “My love, my mate, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and chased. Tell me it’s okay now, or my cock is going to explode.”
Her eyes snapped open. His grey eyes were only inches from hers, and she saw no sign of deceit, only truth, and love. “Yes, fuck me… please fuck me.”
Flynn thrust his hips forward, and suddenly he was inside of her fully and completely. He was so big. She jerked against him with relief, her pussy pulsing with need. He drove into her, filling her again and again as he pressed her against the wall, his powerful thighs flexing as she lifted her legs to wrap them around his waist, pleasure expanding in her, consuming her.
“You are so wet and tight, so hot,” he murmured. “So hot.”
He released her hands and dropped his to her ass, holding her up as he fucked her, his lips sucking first one nipple then the other as she wrapped her arms around his neck, riding his shaft.
He carried her to the dining room table and placed her gently on the edge. She lay back and raised her hips to meet his, while he rocked into her first slowly, almost tormenting her, and then faster and faster, his thumb playing with her clit and ass. The felt like she was riding a building wave, each thrust carrying her to a thundering release. He drove her closer and closer to the edge until her muscles tensed, and she arched her back and filled the cabin with her cries as her pussy clenched around his cock, and she was transported into a world of utter euphoria.
He gave a wolfish grin and pressed his lips to hers. “You are so beautiful when you come.”
He started driving into her with an even greater intensity, lost in his own rhythm, and she was swept along a plain of extended pleasure watching him, feeling him ready to come. He let himself go with one last thrust and groaned as his cock pulsed into her, filling her channel with his seed.
They stayed there in the flickering light for a few seconds moving slowly together, reveling in the aftermath of their orgasms. Then Zoey pushed herself up, and Flynn wrapped his arms around her and dropped a kiss on her head.
“I’ve waited so long to share this place with someone,” he murmured.
“You don’t bring all the girls here,” she said. It was part joke, part serious.
Flynn stiffened a bit, but he didn’t pull away. He reached down and placed his finger under her chin and tipped her face to his.
“Never,” he said.
“What about Renate?” Zoey said. Now that her hormones were no longer driving her actions quite so much, her jealousy had returned. She knew the scent of intimacy, and now she knew Flynn’s scent of intimacy. And there was no doubt that it had been all over Renate earlier in the day.
“Renate is nothing to me,” Flynn said.
“Do you just cast aside your women like that?” Zoey replied, her hurt and concern that Flynn had far too many women clamoring after him bubbling to the surface.
Flynn’s eyes hardened. “No,” he said abruptly. He let go of her and pushed away, regarding her anew, the fire highlighting the breadth of his shoulders and his washboard abs. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Maybe we should get back to the wedding,” he said.
Zoey’s heart started to pound painfully. She’d ruined this. This perfect, sweet thing. Except, was it perfect? A lot would depend on the next few minutes.
“Yes, we should,” she said carefully. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. But I saw you and Renate and I smelled you, all of you, on her earlier. Can you just explain to me what’s going on?”
Flynn had turned away, but he looked back now, his face a curious mix of defiance and remorse.
“Please,” she said, raising her arms as if to reach for him.
He walked back to her and took her hands in his, his thighs grazing hers, his gaze level, and she wanted to melt into him. “Sorry. I guess I should have thought of how it looked. Nothing happened between Renate and I. She… she managed to surprise me a couple of times, and I had to extract myself from some situations. She’s lonely. I’ve humored her a bit, probably too much.” His voice grew more emphatic. �
�But I don’t, and have not ever, just cast women aside.”
“And what about all the panties?” Zoey said.
Flynn gave her a comical eyebrow raise and laced his fingers back through hers. “I don’t have a panty collection if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Zoey snorted faintly. “Dylan says women are pretty much throwing their panties at you nonstop.”
Flynn drew her arms around him, kissing each of her hands before he placed them on his shoulders.
“There may be some metaphorical panty throwing in my line of work. But I assure you I won’t catch any of the panties.”
“You’ve caught panties in the past though.”
Flynn dropped a kiss on her nose and tightened his grip on her. “Not as many as you might think.”
Zoey let him hold her, feeling his heat and listening to the beat of his heart. Even though they’d just been together, she still burned for him. She would always burn for him. She couldn’t imagine not being able to touch him every day. But could she be with a man who would be so desired by other women?
“So there’s nothing between you and Renate?” she said.
He was a bit fierce when he took her head in his hands and tilted her face to his. “There’s nothing between Renate and I. I haven’t touched her, ever. Not in that way. You are my mate. We both know that.” He paused. “But Zoey, I need you to trust me and believe that now that we’ve found each other, I’ll never be with anyone other than you.”
She gave him a bright smile, wanting so much to believe his words, to give herself utterly to him. “I guess we should get back to the wedding,” she said.
He nodded, but she could see a questioning in his eyes, an uncertainty. He’d wanted her to answer that differently. She’d wanted to answer that differently. But they didn’t have the time or the means to resolve it now, unless she could hole up with him forever alone in this cabin—which, she had to admit, wasn’t totally without appeal—because that was the only way she could stop the hordes of women from wanting him.
Like she wanted him. She wanted him so much.
Flynn spread the burning logs apart on the grate, turned off the lights, and locked the door. They shifted together then bounded across the snow in tandem, heading for the tiny speck of light in the distance.
The reception was a madhouse of voices by the time they returned. Everyone was sitting at their tables, and wait staff were clearing the empty plates and drink glasses from the appetizer table. Zoey’s stomach growled with hunger. Alissa rose partway from her seat when she saw Zoey and Flynn. Zoey could only imagine how many strands of her long hair had escaped her chignon, how she must look. Her face felt flushed and chill from the run. On the edge of the room, Flynn squeezed her hand, and she paused and closed her eyes for a second, her emotions so on high. They parted and silently took their seats on either end of the head table. Astrid, her face blotchy, looked attentively at Flynn. In fact, Flynn’s arrival seemed to pique the interest of multiple women in the room, and Zoey found herself the subject of many assessing stares.
Zoey guzzled the glass of white wine that sat before her. Running with Flynn in their lynx forms had been exhilarating, and she already wanted Flynn back inside of her, his naked body moving with hers. But there were so many other women who wanted the same thing.
Chapter Eight: Flynn
Flynn ignored the grin that Dylan shot him when he sat down. He could sense the eyes of Astrid, Renate, and some of the other local women on him, and he almost scowled back at them. Having his mate back at his cabin, spending the night making love to her, touching every last inch of that shapely little body, was all that mattered now.
But he could see that Zoey had doubts. Not in her physical response to him. She’d been more than suitably passionate, delightfully perfect actually, with her enthusiasm, soft moans, and wild cries. His shaft was hard again already thinking about her glorious pussy and the sweetness of their sex.
How could he prove to her that she would be his one and only?
“Out for a little run, then? Or were you engaged in other pursuits?” Dylan said, his eyebrow elevated.
“None of your business,” Flynn said. Even though Dylan and Cade were his best friends, he kept his personal life and his relations with women private.
Dylan was unperturbed. “There was a bit of an altercation while you were gone,” he murmured, while Cade rose to thank everyone for coming and introduce Elijah Cooke, a bear shifter and friend of theirs, who was going to be the master of ceremonies.
Flynn narrowed his eyes in Dylan’s direction.
“Renate and Astrid,” Dylan said. “We broke them up and nobody got hurt, but there was some yelling, and now Cade is wondering if you’ve been sleeping with his mother.”
Flynn shifted his eyes to his six foot three friend who was now clapping Elijah on the back with one of his long arms. Even though Flynn was trained in martial arts, Cade outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. In a fight, in their animal or human forms, Cade would probably win.
“And how does he feel about that?” Flynn responded.
“Unclear,” Dylan said.
Elijah started his speech, welcoming everyone to the event and talking about love and commitment. Flynn glanced down the table at Zoey. She had her fingers wrapped around the stem of her wineglass and stared out at the crowd.
“Do you think you’ve found your mate?” Dylan said.
Flynn studied the angle of Zoey’s jaw, and the curve of her lip. “I know I have,” he said.
Dylan seemed taken aback. “All right, well, that’s great. Congratulations.”
Flynn thought Dylan could seem a little more enthusiastic, but he let it pass.
Dinner passed in a whirl of speeches, glass clinking, and toasts. Cade seemed to be acting totally normally although Flynn wondered if he detected hint of frost in his friend’s glances. The resort’s personal banker, Jeff, caught Flynn on the way to the can after dinner and indicated that the financing for the resort expansion had been approved. Flynn tried to be happy about this. He’d been working for it for a long time. But now it seemed almost unimportant. Without Zoey, none of it would matter.
When Cade got up to make a speech of his own, he made some comments about true friends and mates being the people who always had your back. Flynn spun his desert fork on his knuckle.
After they cut the cake, Alissa and Cade stepped out on the floor for their first dance. They made a magnificent couple, and Flynn couldn’t wait until the day he could escort Zoey onto the floor in the same way, as his mate, his one. It would happen. Flynn had always been able to make everything he wanted happen.
The wedding party was to join Alissa and Cade on the floor, and it was with great relief that Flynn swept Zoey back into his arms. Electricity crackled between them and to his sharp senses, she still smelled of their sex, and the absolute freshness of a winter night.
She watched him like an animal, her hunger for him as raw and feral as his was for her. Their bodies fit and moved together in an impossibly perfect dance. He wanted everyone to disappear, but he was acutely aware now that Cade was watching him.
“How many dances until we can slip away, do you think?” he asked.
She smiled at him. “Hard to say. Where are we going?”
“Back to my cabin.” To our forever, he didn’t add.
“I don’t know, Flynn. If I get in too deep, I won’t ever be able to get out.”
That’s the point, he almost growled. Instead he let go of one of her hands and whirled her out away from him. She followed his lead almost effortlessly, her skirt flaring, and her arm extended in a beautiful arc that bespoke training. He pulled her back into him.
“You’re a dancer?” he said.
“Gymnast,” she said. “I have a school, in Denver.”
Flynn was contemplating all of the wonderful things that having a gymnast as a mate might mean when the song ended, and as per the wedding plan
, they were to switch partners. Flynn just wanted to gather Zoey to him and never let her go.
But Zoey was to dance with Cade’s younger brother, and Flynn was to dance with Alissa’s mother—part of Renate’s scheme to get people dancing. Then Flynn was to dance with Renate himself, while Zoey danced with someone else. Cade’s sister was up next. But since Cade had more female relatives than male relatives, Flynn’s dance card was relatively more full than Zoey’s.
He pulled Zoey back tight into his arms, feeling the swell of her breasts, smelling her sweet scent. His groin pressed ever so faintly against hers and he contemplated the utter eroticism of knowing the curves and heat that lay beneath her dress. She tipped her lips up to his, and he almost bent automatically to kiss them. But he saw Cade watching him and paused. He needed to sort that out first.
“Promise me you’ll come with me later,” he said.
Zoey hesitated, and a guarded look returned to her eyes. “I want to, Flynn, more than anything. But I’m not used to playing games. I tend to wear my emotions on my sleeve. I’m afraid I’d get hurt.”
Flynn almost swore. The last notes of the song were playing.
“Meet me on the side deck after the next three songs,” he said. “And I’ll prove to you that you don’t have to worry. That you’re mine and I’m yours. Forever.”
He had no idea exactly how he was going to do this, but he had three songs to figure it out. He was a problem solver. That’s what he did. If anyone had a problem at the resort, he was the one that fixed it. If it were any other woman that he wanted, he would ask her to come back to his bed for one night, knowing that one night would be all he needed to make her fall for him. Not that he seemed to have a lot of trouble making women fall for him. But he didn’t want Zoey to come to his cabin with any doubts. He didn’t want her to come for one night. He wanted her to come for forever.
Zoey’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Okay, I’ll meet you on the deck.” She backed away, her eyes on his, and she held onto his fingers for as long as she could, before letting go and approaching Cade’s brother.
