“Well, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for your death,” she teased softly. She pressed a kiss to his angular jaw. “I won’t change my mind. Make love to me.”
Chapter 8
Cullen felt like he was on the edge of a cliff, hanging by one paw. Should he let go and pray the fall didn’t kill him? Or did he hold on to what was familiar and perhaps miss out on the best thing that could have happened to him?
What choice did he have? Even if he had her for only one night, he had to love her while he could. In the act of setting her on her feet beside his bed, he stilled. Shit. He was in love with Ivy.
Mate, his bear huffed.
More than love, Cullen acknowledged. She was his fated mate.
Now what the fuck did he do?
She completed him like no other woman ever would. Now he was glad Helen had rejected him. Imagine if he’d been tied to her and then Ivy had come into his life.
Fuckin’-A. He’d have been up Shit Creek without a paddle.
“Cullen?” she asked, hesitation and self-consciousness rounding the edges of her tone. “Are we…did you change your mind?”
“Hell, no, I haven’t changed my mind,” he managed to get out. “I’m about to lose my mind if I don’t get between your thighs, and real soon.”
She pressed her lips to his pectoral muscle, just above his heart. “I need you. I need to feel like I belong somewhere, even if it’s only for one night.”
He understood that she needed to feel safe. But until he knew what frightened her, he couldn’t fix it. And the protector inside him was desperate to fix it. “Everything will change, Ivy,” he whispered. He hoped he could take her without a claiming bite, but his bear was getting antsy.
She made an impatient noise from the back of her throat. Her small hands curled around his biceps. “Nothing changes, Cullen,” she said, clear warning in her voice, in her eyes. “Come tomorrow, I leave Grayslake.” Her face softened, and she stroked her fingers through his hair. “But we have tonight.”
He nodded. Yes. Yes, they did. And he’d give her a night she’d never forget. That he’d never forget. Because if she left him, tonight was all he’d ever have. Bears mated for life, and a bear who couldn’t keep his fated mate with him deserved to be alone.
Not wanting to waste any more time, he stripped her and placed her on the big bed he’d made with a vision to the future of having a wife and cubs all piled in it with him. He came down over her, his mouth pressing against hers, demanding she open. As soon as her lips parted, he thrust his tongue inside her mouth, the action mimicking what he’d soon be doing with his cock.
Cullen trailed his lips across her jaw, down her throat, lingering on the dip at the base, before moving to one turgid nipple. When he pulled it into his mouth, her body bowed and she gasped, her hands clutching at his shoulders, digging in, holding on.
She was like warm velvet in his mouth. Groaning, he moved to her other breast, trapping the tip against the roof of his mouth for a moment, long enough to get another gasp out of her, before he sucked on it while his fingers twisted and tugged on the other nipple.
Moving down, he kissed his way across her belly and hip bone, along one inner thigh. “Open for me,” he said, nudging her knees apart. When she complied without a word, he made a space for himself and inhaled her scent. She was like spring flowers and fresh air after a rain, with a hint of cinnamon and vanilla.
Mine.
He swiped his tongue through her folds. She jumped and cried out, her hands going to his head, twining in his hair. Holding him where she wanted him. He smiled, knowing if she could see his face she’d see the expression of a satisfied predator who had his prey right where he wanted her. He put his tongue to good use, licking her sex, thrusting into her sheath. Finally, when her legs and hips twisted against the sheets, he sucked her clit into his mouth and suckled her.
She unraveled. Her scream echoed in the small space. Her nails dug into his scalp. Her body shook and bucked as she rode her orgasm. He worked her until she was a limp pile of exhausted woman beneath him. Then he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, deep and hard, letting her taste herself on his tongue. He rolled onto his back and pulled her against his side.
~ * ~
Ivy draped her arm over Cullen’s stomach and bent her leg across his thighs. The air in the room felt a little chilly, like the air conditioning was going full blast, but she wasn’t cold. Cullen emanated heat like a living electric blanket.
Her entire body seemed boneless, limp from the force of her orgasm. No man had ever made her come so hard. Hell, very few men had ever made her come, period. She’d lay here for just a minute, recuperate, then she’d reciprocate.
In just a minute…
When Ivy woke, she was alone, curled on her side, covered by a sheet and light blanket. She wasn’t sure how long she’d slept, but it was still daylight outside, so probably not that long. She turned to her back and stretched, listening for movement inside the small cabin. The tinkling of silverware came to her, and in just another minute Cullen came through the bedroom door carrying two mugs.
The smell of coffee wafted through the air but her gaze was caught on him. Still naked. Still—or again—aroused.
“Doesn’t that ever go down?” she asked as she took one of the mugs from him. She took a sip and gave him a nod of approval.
“Not around you, it doesn’t.” He stood by the bed, sipping coffee, and stared down at her. His thoughts must have been weighty, because the bear kept bleeding into the blue-gray of his irises, turning them black, and then receding so show his human eyes once more.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, setting her coffee mug on the small end table by the bed.
“We don’t have enough time,” he muttered. His mug joined hers with a crash, coffee spilling out onto the wooden surface of the table. When she went to get up, thinking to grab a towel or some toilet paper to sop up the spill, he told her to leave it. “We have a lot of loving to fit into the next twelve hours or so.”
She blinked. “Twelve?”
“You think once I get you in this bed I’m gonna let you leave it anytime soon? I already checked with your sister,” he went on. “She said she and Bella are getting along famously and for you to take all the time you need.” He crawled onto the bed, caging her between his arms. “So, you’re mine. For at least twelve hours.”
Twelve hours wasn’t long enough. Not nearly. Her bear agreed, practically purring and twisting in circles inside her mind. Mine! The greedy sow growled. Forever mine.
Not forever mine, Ivy thought, sadness filling her. Not while she had to protect Bella from Garland Scott and the Itan of Lookout Mountain. But she’d take what she could get, which was for-right-now mine.
Ivy pushed him onto his back and pressed her lips to his breastbone, then worked her way down his sculpted abdomen to his rigid cock. On her knees between his spread thighs, she took him deep, without warning.
He shouted and bucked his hips, ramming his shaft deeper and hitting the back of her throat, triggering her gag reflex. She shot up, coughing and gagging, tears streaming from her eyes.
“God, oh, God. Ivy, I’m so sorry. Are you all right? I’m so sorry,” he repeated, his big hands fluttering in the air near her like he was afraid to touch her.
When she got her breath back, she said, “I’m okay. Just don’t do that again.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to just go down on me,” he explained. “I thought I’d get a little foreplay or something.”
She sighed. Great. Now she’d screwed it up. Figures. “I thought that was what guys want. For the woman to just get on with it and get them off.”
“Maybe some guys. Maybe some guys with random women.” He leaned forward and cupped her jaw. “But not me with you, li’l bear. Never me with you.” He swiped the remaining moisture from her face with his thumbs. “Now, shall we begin again?”
“Y-you still want to?” Ivy felt like an ignoramus and as unsexy as she
’d ever felt in her life. While Cullen, with that gorgeous, mussed hair and blue-gray eyes, was walking, talking temptation. And she wasn’t woman, or bear, enough to resist.
“With you? Absolutely.” He pressed a kiss to one corner of her mouth. “This is part of us getting to know each other.” His breath warm against her face, he traced the seam of her lips with his tongue. She opened her mouth, and he delved deep.
Lust danced down her spine, sent a heated rush of arousal to her slick core. Ivy pulled away from him. Kissing a path down the strong column of his throat, she lingered in the dip at the base.
With a groan, he tipped his head back. “Touch me,” he demanded.
She eagerly complied, running her hands over his biceps, down his corded forearms and back up. When she swiped her thumbs across firm male nipples, his hips bucked and a throaty growl left him. He wet his lips, eyes dark, desire and need stark and pleading in their depths. The musk of his arousal hung heavy in the air, as did the sharp tang of excitement.
She reached again for his cock, but he grabbed her hands. “I thought you wanted me to touch you,” she whispered with a frown.
“I’d love for you to touch me again.” He lifted her hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “But I don’t have enough control right now.” Eyes gleaming, he placed her hands over her head, wrapping her fingers around the spindles of the wooden headboard. “Keep your hands right where they are, until I say different.”
“Bossy.” Ivy’s heart started banging behind her ribs. Her breath quickened.
“Don’t you forget it.” Cullen bent and tongued her nipples, bringing them to stiffness and sending little electric shocks straight to her core. His fingers delved between her legs, brushing across the fleshy lips of her sex, coming close to her swelling clit, but not touching it.
Ivy writhed beneath him. “Cullen,” she moaned, lifting her hips, swiveling, trying to get his fingers on the spot she needed stroked the most.
The sound that left him was something between a chuckle and a groan. He lifted his head and stared down at her. His eyes gleamed with the black of his bear, and in his arousal, his canine teeth had lengthened to fangs. Deep-cut muscles flexed in his neck, his arms.
Her gaze tracked the line of hair on his lower abdomen to the treasure beneath. His rigid cock curved into his stomach, a vein pulsing along the hard flesh. She lifted her eyes to his face to see lust in his eyes, but also an underlying tenderness that was mirrored in his touch.
He closed his eyes a moment, and his fangs retracted. Then he lowered his head and kissed her again, lips open and searching. His mouth moved along the angle of her chin, down her throat to skitter over her collarbone. Then down. She felt the warmth of his mouth just before he latched onto her nipple and began to suckle. He rolled and tugged her other nipple between fingers and thumb, driving spikes of heat straight to her pussy.
Ivy clenched her fists around the spokes in the headboard. She wanted to touch Cullen. Needed to touch him, to smooth her palms over hot, silken skin. She closed her eyes and bit her lip, determined to show him she could do as he asked.
He moved down her belly, hands feathering over her thighs to part the soft folds of her sex. She tensed in anticipation, and when his mouth finally, finally! found her clit, her legs fell apart and she jolted at the sensual caress. He sucked hard, tongue circling and flicking. His fangs scraped across the sensitive nubbin, heightening her arousal.
She moaned and jerked beneath him, her entire being reaching toward ecstasy. Then he slid two long fingers deep, thrusting in and out, and she plummeted over the edge. She bucked and writhed, coming again and again, until the tremors stopped, and she lay limp beneath him.
Chapter Nine
Cullen crawled up her body to place another kiss on Ivy’s lips. After a few seconds, she pushed at his shoulders, urging him onto his back. “It’s my turn,” she whispered. He obligingly laid down.
At the touch of her hands, he thought he’d jump out of his skin. When she mouthed kisses along the cord in his neck, he groaned and cupped her head to bring her face up to his. She let him control the kiss for a few seconds, then she broke away to swipe her tongue across his throat. “It’s my turn,” she said again.
She made her way leisurely over his body, fingers and mouth caressing, stroking the flames of his arousal ever higher. His cock was as stiff as an iron pike and throbbed like the devil. When her tongue flicked into his navel, he jerked at the unexpected touch and let out a low curse. She laughed, the sound light and carefree. The laughter was at his expense, but to hear her sound so happy, he didn’t care. If it gave her joy she could tease and torment him all she liked.
As long as she finished what she’d started.
Her cool, slender fingers wrapped around his cock, thumb swiping over the tip. He threw back his head and gritted his teeth, fangs slicing into his lower lip.
He had the fleeting thought that she might kill him. When she took him in her mouth again…fuck. He knew she was going to be the death of him. He clenched his fists, turning his formidable self-discipline inward to keep his body still. He would not give her a repeat performance of his earlier lack of control. She suckled him, mouth drawing strongly while her fingers stroked up and down. After a few seconds, though, he had to gently pull her off him.
“When I come, I want to come inside you.” His bear at the forefront, Cullen’s voice came out in a low rumble.
Ivy’s smile came slow. Sultry. Full of feminine mystique. She licked the tip of his dick, then swung a leg over him. Bracing herself with palms flat on his chest, she lowered onto his shaft, inch by agonizing inch until her buttocks rested against his thighs. She drew up just as slowly, then slammed back down.
Cullen reached up and cupped her breasts. He swept his thumbs over the hard tips, eliciting a gasp from her. She rode him, her skin covered in a fine sheen of moisture, her eyes shining with carnal excitement.
The snug clasp of her body drove him closer and closer to orgasm. With a growl, he flipped her over and took control of the rhythm. His body hummed with lust as he pounded into her again and again.
Her scent made him crazy with need. His bear urged him to claim her, to give her his bite, to mark her so all would know she was his mate. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. There were too many things he didn’t know about her.
And, besides, she planned to leave. Marking her as his wouldn’t necessarily change her plans.
Her tight sheath rippled around him in the beginning of another climax, and it triggered his own. He threw back his head with a loud shout and heard Ivy’s cry, felt her pulsing around his cock, milking him, and knew she’d joined him. His release shattered him, leaving him gasping for breath.
When Cullen came back to himself he realized he’d collapsed on top of Ivy. Wanting to make sure she could breathe, he moved to one side, giving a disappointed grunt when his sated dick slid from her slick depths.
She sighed and turned into his embrace. Content for the first time in a long time, he closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek against her hair, the stubble on his cheek catching the fine strands.
~ * ~
Sometime later, Cullen became aware of someone knocking at his door. Easing away from Ivy, he sat up and pulled on his jeans, fastening them as he walked out of the room. He pulled the bedroom door closed behind him and headed to the front of the house.
Through the glass insert in the front door he could see Helen Vanderpool on the porch. “What the fuck,” he muttered. He yanked the door open with a scowl. “Helen, I don’t mean to be harsh, but I’ve told you—”
“I’m not here for that,” she said, pushing her way past him.
He turned but didn’t move out of the open doorway. “Then what do you want?”
She crossed her arms, her back to him a moment before she twisted to face him. “Ivy’s been lying to you. That baby isn’t hers.”
Cullen scowled. Fucking bitch. She didn’t want him for herself, yet she also didn�
�t want him to find happiness with someone else. Well, that was just too damned bad. She’d made her choice. Now it was his turn. “Helen—”
She slashed her hand through the air. “Cullen, for fuck’s sake, just listen to me.” She paused. When he motioned her to go on, she wet her lips and said, “I took a room at Lucy’s—”
“Outwore your welcome at Lenny’s, eh?”
After she’d broken things off with Cullen, she’d moved on to another bear by the name of Leonard Carbone, who had a successful dental practice in town. He made more money than a man who made his living being a part-time deputy and a part-time carpenter, though Cullen certainly wasn’t hurting. He’d been testing Helen, to see if she was with him for him, or for what he could give her. He had no doubt in his mind if he’d told her he had nearly a million dollars in the bank, and even more than that in a retirement account, she’d still be dating him. Hell, they’d probably be mated already.
His furniture business did just that good.
Thinking about the woman in his bed, he knew Helen being so materialistic had been a lucky break for him.
She shot him a glower. “Can it, funny man. As I was saying, I took a room at the bed and breakfast, and I passed by Ivy’s little girl with her aunt at dinner.” She leaned forward. “Little Bella did not scent of her mother, Cullen. At all.”
Cullen went still. All cubs carried the scent of both parents. That was one way that mothers could pick out their babies in bear form, because of their scent. For Bella to not carry her mother’s scent was unheard of.
Unless her mother wasn’t her mother after all.
“Apparently the so-called aunt had given her a bath.” Helen paused, staring at him with speculation creasing her face. “There’s more,” she finally added.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Go on.”
“Her so-called sister doesn’t smell like her, either.”
Cullen and his siblings had their own scent, but it was partly made up of the scents of their parents. In bear form, others could smell that Liam and Bode were his brothers and Shelby his sister. For Ivy’s “sister” to not scent of her meant the sister wasn’t a sister after all.
Grayslake: More than Mated: Bear My Heart (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 6
