The Strip

by Heather Killough-Walden

  She was game. And she could give as good as she could get.

  With a raw, avid look that she knew spoke volumes of how much she wanted him, Charlie slowly turned around, keeping eye contact with him over her shoulder as she did so. Then she tossed her hair over her shoulder, looked away, and leaned over. She pressed her palms to the wall, arching her back to allow the long, curved line of her body to present itself to him at its best.

  The silence stretched. A heartbeat. Two.

  And then she was shoved roughly into the wall, her breasts pressed flat against its cool surface, her wrists caught in his steel-hard grips. “I’m not human, Charlie,” he told her, his lips brushing softly against her ear as his body pressed so roughly against hers. “I’m a wolf and you’re my mate.” He let the warning sink in. That was what it was – a warning. He would not be gentle. He couldn’t be gentle. Not now. “This is your last chance. If you tell me to leave now, I will.”

  “If you leave now,” she told him, gasping the words through bared teeth as she pressed back against him to urge him on, “I will hunt you down.”

  Malcolm laughed, low and long, and the sound snaked through her consciousness. He lowered his head until his lips brushed the taut skin of her neck. And then he smiled, and Charlie felt his elongated fangs graze her flesh.

  She hissed at the contact, a quick intake of breath, and fresh fear uncoiled within her. Somewhere deep inside, a red warning light began to flash. She ignored it, hazy and incomprehensible as it was, and instead listened as he spoke once more.

  “I can’t always control the wolf, Charlie,” he said. “Move your hands from that wall and I won’t even try.” Cole kicked her feet apart with his shoes and eased his grip on her wrists to run his hands down her arms.

  She was still wearing her bra, but it was no armor against his touch, the lace only scratching and rubbing enticingly as his warm palms grazed over the curve of her breasts and cupped them gently. When his thumbs flicked the hardened nipples underneath, Charlie once more jerked in his arms, and then she bucked again as he repeated the movement, sending rivulets of electricity through her body.

  She kept her hands where they were. She’d felt his fangs. Adrenaline piggy-backed the craven desire coursing through her veins. Fear was ever the handmaiden to real pleasure.

  Cole’s fingers deftly curved over the lace edge of the material that was pressed so tight against her creamy flesh. And then, in one vicious move that elicited a cry of both surprise and pain from Charlie, he ripped the lace downward, rending the garment in two.

  Charlie came away from the wall and whirled around to face him, but Cole’s hand found her neck once more and squeezed, this time hard enough to still the breath in her lungs. Her fingers wrapped around the wrist of the hand that held her and her eyes closed of their own volition.

  Cole bent to whisper across her lips. “You moved your hands.”

  With that, he was spinning around and tossing her roughly toward the nearby couch. A brief flash of panicked terror ripped through Charlie’s consciousness as her body went flying through the air, and then she was landing on the leather of the sofa and relief flooded her system. But it was temporary.

  Because once she got her bearings, she looked up at Malcolm to find that his green eyes had gone completely pitch, his pupils having swallowed his irises in their inhuman darkness. Long, sharp white fangs punctuated his cruel, promising grin, and his chest rose and fell with the deep, fast breaths of a man on the edge.

  He looked like a monster. A beautiful, dangerous, oversexed monster who was going to literally eat her up, bit by bit, and make her enjoy it.

  The defiant, sexually charged part of Charlie’s brain was sparking with electric overload. It was in control now. There was no conscious predetermination when she suddenly jumped up and vaulted herself over the back of the couch to take off at a fast sprint toward the nearest doorway. She knew he would give chase. That was the point.

  She was very fast – but Malcolm Cole was a lot faster. And the doorway she’d escaped through led to his bedroom.

  His body slammed into hers without warning, and she was once more sent flying through the air, this time to land roughly on the bed. Cole gave her no chance to catch her bearings this time, instead flipping her over with little to no effort, and then securing her wrists to the mattress above her. His strong body straddled her waist, preventing her long, lean legs from doing any damage.

  She stared up at him with wide eyes as he continued to grin down at her, all hunger and basic instinct. What little there was left of the man who was Malcolm Cole had stepped away and allowed the wolf within him to take over.

  Charlie tensed her muscles against his strength, but she was no match for him. A fact that he more than adequately demonstrated as he released one of her wrists in order to grab the metal railing of the head board above her.

  With one hand, he tore the end of the metal loose from its soldering and lifted her right wrist to literally wrap the metal pipe around it in a make-shift vice. Charlie cried out in shock and instinctively jerked against the steel binding. A little bondage was one thing, but this was mind-blowing.

  Her resistance was an utterly useless gesture. It was solid metal. She was flesh and bone. And Cole had wrapped it around her wrist just tight enough that it didn’t hurt, but secured her effectively, rendering that arm useless.

  Charlie’s breathing was now coming very short and fast. She could only lay beneath Cole, in staggered amazement, as he took hold of her other wrist and proceeded to do the same thing once more. The metal headboard made horrible sounds as he ripped an end of it loose and then wrapped it around her slim left wrist as if it were rope or cloth.

  She was restrained. There was no way in hell she was getting out of this one.

  Game over.

  Cole wasted no time. He slid down her body and, with not a shred of gentleness, he curled his fingers around the thin lace material of her panties and ripped them from her body. Charlie was too stunned to cry out at the brief pain, but her body reacted and she rose off of the mattress, arching her back and forcing a growl to escape Cole’s throat.

  She stilled at the sound, resting back against the bed. But her aroused scent and racing pulse belied the fear in her eyes, and she knew it. She knew he could feel, smell, and hear her desire. She was burning up beneath him, and his fierceness was only making her want him more.

  She didn’t bother fighting him when he roughly pressed his hands on the insides of her thighs and pushed them far apart, opening her to him in a way that she had never been opened before. When he lowered his head to her taut stomach, gently kissed her, and then sank his fangs part way into the slim curve of skin over her hip bone, she cried out in painful ecstasy and rose once more off of the mattress.

  Cole gazed at her through the tops of his green eyes, spearing her with promise. And then his fingers were shoving inside of her and she was screaming once more. The feel of him, diving deep into her most sensitive parts was almost too much for Charlie. On top of everything else, it nearly drove her over some sort of precipice. Her core clutched at him, milking his fingers, urging him on. She closed her eyes and moaned, unable to stop the sounds escaping from her throat.

  She wanted more. She needed more. She was on fire with it. She almost felt that she might die – and was too lost in her own spinning, red world of sensation to notice when Malcolm ripped his other hand across his pants, freeing the engorged erection underneath.

  And then he was pulling his fingers away and his body was looming above hers. Waves of his power rolled over her and she nearly came right then and there. How could he do that to her? How could one man have so much power? Surely it would kill her?

  Yet her body opened for him and her legs remained where they were, spread and willing, as she waited for him to take her.

  “Tell me that you’re mine, Charlie,” he told her, the black pools of his eyes drowning her beneath their midnight, velvet weight.

  She opened
her mouth, her lips parting as if she would speak, but no sound came out. She would fight him yet, in this one tiny way. It was all she had left, and she was defiant to the end.

  Undaunted, and as if he had been expecting her rebelliousness, Cole shook his head in admonishment. But his smile, cruel and cold, was still there as the tip of his hard member threatened the entrance of Charlie’s wet slit.

  Charlie arched against the contact, suddenly and desperately wanting him inside of her. She almost lost the fight then. She almost cried out and begged.

  But he gave her what she wanted, if only a little, and as the tip of his thick shaft pierced her, he cupped her slim throat with one hand and her breast with the other. A swift, hard pinch of her nipple was followed by his hand squeezing the air from her windpipe and Charlie was sent reeling end over end into erotic bliss.

  It was too much. She was being tortured. She wanted all of him and she wanted it fast and hard and now.

  “Tell me you’re mine, Charlie. Tell me you belong to me,” he commanded once more, his fingers deftly torturing her hard nipples and the heat of him searing her, teasing her from the inside. Charlie was lost in bliss. She fought every instinct she had to give him what he asked for. In the effort to keep her tongue from speaking the words he wanted to hear, she sank her teeth into her bottom lip, and drew blood.

  Above her, there was a sharp intake of breath and, a nanosecond later, Cole’s mouth was slanting over hers in harsh possession, his tongue prying her teeth apart and tasting her freely. She moaned against his lips, once more arching her lean body off of the bed, and Cole sank a little deeper into her.

  She could feel him drinking her in; could taste her blood across his tongue, and knew that he was sucking the red liquid from her wound. Something heavy was building inside of her, ebbing further and further in, circling down to some secret spot within her that would cause it to crash outward and explode like an expanding star.

  Cole’s kiss deepened, and Charlie moaned again. This time it was accompanied with Malcolm’s low growl-like groan of need as his grip around her throat tightened to the point of danger and her blood rushed in her ears.

  Just as she thought she might pass out, her body convulsed in intense, tight ecstasy, the walls of her passage contracting over and over again as she orgasmed like she never had before.

  She rode the waves of slowly receding pleasure and let the world blur around her. It was several seconds before it began to solidify again. Cole had relinquished the hold he had on her throat, but his kiss remained, and unfeasibly – unbelievably – Charlie felt herself begin to heat up once more. It was as if she’d never climaxed. Need built up again within her with impossible speed. As she came close to her second orgasm, Cole broke the kiss.

  Charlie growled in frustration, stalled there beneath him, her breathing ragged, her body shaking, her mind utterly and completely out of control. It was his kiss. The werewolf had brought her to orgasm with nothing more than a kiss. And now he’d brought her to the edge again – and left her teetering, craving, yearning.

  “Tell me, Charlie. Tell me that you belong to me.”

  Oh God, just take me! a voice within her screamed. He still wouldn’t slide completely into her and all she wanted in the world at that moment was for Malcolm Cole to plunge into her and fuck her like there was no tomorrow.

  Out of desperation and rage, she began to pull against the thick metal restraints he’d wrapped around her wrists. She arched against him in the hopes of taking in more of him. But he was good, and he was fast and he could read her like a book.

  Another pinch and pull and twist of her nipple and she was screaming into the back of his hand as he covered her mouth and shook his head.

  “I love your screams, Charlie, but that isn’t what I most want to hear.”

  He moved his hand and she shuddered. His fingers grazed over the now sore breast once more, eliciting a low, hopeless moan. As he lowered his fanged mouth to her throat, Charlie felt the tips of his fingernails – his claws – dig into the sides of her nipple. It hurt. Deliciously so. It was a sweet, merciless pain that expertly tore down the last of her resistance.

  “I’m yours,” she whispered, her words ragged with need. “I belong to you.”

  Cole shoved into her with everything he had and Charlie again screamed, this time to be silenced by his soul-searing kiss. He filled her up completely, to the point of pain, and she wondered if she were splitting inside. She wondered – but she didn’t care. It felt too good.

  When he drew out of her, just a little, and rammed himself back into her, she couldn’t help the next shriek of agonizing bliss. And the next. And the next.

  Without mercy and without tenderness, Malcolm drove into Charlie, thrusting harder and deeper and faster, until there was nothing in the world but the sensation of his body claiming hers.

  She was his.

  She truly did belong to him.

  When he pulled his lips away from hers and fisted his hand in her hair to yank her head back, there was a part of her that knew what was coming. It was natural. It needed to be done. She wanted it.

  “That’s right, Charlie. You’re mine,” he whispered in her ear, not slowing in his assault on her trembling, quaking form. He rammed into her again and his grip tightened in her hair. “Always.”

  And then his teeth were sinking into the taut skin of her neck and her body exploded beneath him. He clamped his mouth tightly over the wound, sucking hard against her flesh until the mingling pain and pleasure became literally unbearable for Charlie and she climaxed once more, screaming as it ripped through her, and jerking violently against her bonds. This time, there was nothing to stop the cry torn from her throat and it echoed throughout the room, a testament and tribute to the natural Change that Cole was forcing upon her.

  He continued to take all of her, forcing her to cum beneath him again and again as he drew her blood from her veins and her body slowly began to grow weak. Languid.

  At last, Cole thrust into her one final time, more deeply than it seemed possible, and his entire, hard body went rigid above her. As his seed spilled forth inside her, Cole ripped his teeth free of her neck and threw his head back in a harsh cry of violent, perfect satisfaction, his blood-soaked fangs glistening in the moonlight that shafted through the curtains above them.

  Charlie saw and heard the image through a blurry haze. Her body felt well and truly used. Her toes tingled; her arms were heavy where they hung in the thick metal vices over her head. She floated, in a calm sea of sated joy, as her blood cells morphed within her, painlessly, beautifully, ushering her into the next chapter of her life.

  As she closed her eyes, at last surrendering to everything that Malcolm Cole had done to her, she felt him bend the metal around her wrists and draw her into his arms. The last thing she heard before the deep, healing slumber of her Change claimed her was Cole’s whispered promise. “I’ve got you, luv. Trust me.”

  Chapter Sixteen, The Kicker

  It was sound that first made it through the blanket over Charlie’s awareness. Sonic booms that sounded like fire crackers on the fourth of July. Sirens wailing in the not-too-far distance. The gentle hum of an air conditioner. The sound of a man breathing. And then….

  A heartbeat. At first, it was a soft, steady rhythm. But as she continued to listen, it became stronger. It was Malcolm’s heart beating. She knew it without knowing how she knew.

  Charlie opened her eyes and blinked at the stark contrasts around her. She saw the window as a stream of yellow moonlight slicing at a horizontal angle through the room and carving its way into the carpet. The edge of the bed was a cliff’s precipice, delving off into darkness far below. The mirror in the bathroom across the room reflected a backwards world, but one that was outlined as clearly now as it was at high noon.

  There was a woman in that reflection. It took a precious moment for the realization to solidify within her brain, but when it did, Charlie stilled where she sat on the bed.

 
And stared at the woman with glowing ice blue eyes.

  Her scream was strangled at first, but then it set itself free from her throat to pierce the night air and fill the gaps of silence in the large suite.

  Half a second later, Cole’s arm flexed where it was wrapped around her waist like an iron band. In one swift move, he was rising over her and shoving her down into the mattress, his green eyes glowing like flame-lit emeralds, his fangs fully extended, every muscled ounce of him in fight mode.

  He seemed to search the shadows of the room around them and then, when he realized there was no danger, he gazed down at Charlie. She gasped and panted beneath him, her expression one of stark confusion and fear.

  “My eyes!” she finally told him. “They’re – they’re glowing!”

  Above her, Malcolm stared down for a moment more – and then, much to Charlie’s befuddled surprise, he broke out laughing. The sound was intoxicating; a deep, rumbling belly laugh, laced with a touch of that resonating British tone that instantly managed to quell the worst of Charlie’s anxieties and bring her nerve endings to anticipatory life. As he laughed, his fangs retracted and the glow in his eyes died down to its normal light green.

  “What the hell?” She gazed up at him, wondering why on earth he would think this was funny. Obviously, he did something to her – it was the only logical explanation. Because normal sex with normal men didn’t leave you with glowing eyes.

  Cole’s laughter died to a soft chuckle and he rolled off of her to lay beside her, propped up on one elbow. He was still fully dressed and that realization reminded Charlie that she, in fact, wore not a single scrap of clothing.

  Self-consciously, she pulled the pillow from the top of the bed and held it in front of herself. “Why are my eyes glowing?” she demanded, narrowing that glowing gaze so that he knew she meant business.

  His smile was truly beautiful. It was disarming. She wanted to be alarmed and a part of her ought to have been terrified, but laying there beside him, beneath the comforting weight of that perfect, white smile and those glittering, mischievous green eyes filled her with a sense of comfort that could not be denied or fought off. It was like an opiate. It just felt really good.