Chosen Mates (Beasts of the Bay Bundle)

by Bell, Lilith T.

  His kisses kept taking him lower, until finally I felt the brush of his tongue between my lips. He had told me to keep my hands on the bed, but had said nothing about the rest of me, so I rolled my hips up to him encouragingly. I could feel the tickle of his breath as he chuckled, pushing my hips back down flat against the bed with his free hand.

  “All of you on the bed,” he amended.

  I sighed theatrically as I settled back down.

  His tongue slid along my inner folds, tasting and exploring, before it drew back up toward my clit. The tip of his tongue traced against the center of my arousal, then worked back and forth slowly in time to the thrusts of his fingers inside of me. His lips pressed to me and I tensed my body, remembering how he had suckled me so intimately at the hotel. It would be cruel to make me hold still for something like that and, oh, he was wonderfully cruel. He sucked gently to draw the tiny nub of my clit between his lips, his tongue massaging against it. I whimpered, squirming and thrashing as I fought to stay against the bed.

  Before I could be drawn over the edge, his lips released me. He kissed lightly above my clit, then returned to the light brushes of his tongue once more.

  “God, you’re sadistic,” I accused.

  He went still suddenly. Not even the fingers inside of me would move. “Should I stop?” There was amusement in his voice, as he could already guess the answer, I was sure.

  “No! You shouldn’t stop a single thing. The stopping is what makes you sadistic.”

  He laughed and circled my clit with his tongue, making me shiver again. “I think you like it,” he teased.

  I huffed, trying to find a suitable rebuttal. He pressed his lips to me to suck gently at my clit once more, nibbling it lightly with his lips, and my mind went blank. The only response he got was my moans as I fought to stay against the bed. Over and over, his lips and tongue and fingers brought me close to the edge, but he wouldn’t quite push me over. Each time I was sure I was going to orgasm he’d back off and go slower, lighter, or stop altogether for a few moments. It was the most blissful agony I could remember in my life, leaving me lost in sensations.

  Just as I was about to beg for him to please stop torturing me, his mouth left me. My eyes opened to watch as he slid up my body and settled his weight over me. The hand between my thighs withdrew, then guided his cock to my entrance. I was about whimpering with relief to finally feel him there. My legs drew up on either side of him, hips raising to welcome him within me.

  And then his other hand pushed my hips back down against the bed again.

  “Beg me,” he breathed, his lips sliding against mine. “Tell me how badly you want me inside you first.”

  I leaned up to catch him in a kiss, tasting his lips after far too long. “Please, Luke,” I whispered against his lips. “I need you inside of me, like I’ve never needed anything. I want you so badly.”

  “This is what you want?” he murmured, shifting his hips to slide his cock against my sex.

  I moaned with a shudder, nodding. “Yes. I want your cock.”

  When he finally pressed inside of me I sighed in fulfillment. Like a key sliding into its lock, everything became right when he was inside of me. I rolled up to meet him, accepting him deeper into me. The next thrust from him was deep and hard and stole my breath away, then was followed so quickly by the next I could barely gasp. Clutching him to me was all I could do, instantly lost in the perfection of the moment.

  Most of my higher thought processes were shutting down in favor of something more primal. Just this, just him, just us. I needed nothing else. In the back of my head, almost drowned out by the roar of need, there was a small rational thought still hanging on. As much as I might regret the time we wasted not being together sooner, I was relieved I hadn’t told him about the separation before I was divorced. The connection between us was too strong, barely restrained until we could finally come together. Would it have worked to try dating him while going through a divorce? Holding him at arm’s length while all the trauma and pain was so fresh? It wouldn’t have been fair to either of us. This was the right time to be together.

  His hands slid under my body to hold me to him. Blunt nails slid along my spine, assuring me that he still had control over himself. I wasn’t sure I did, but I was so much less dangerous than him.

  He breathed my name as he kissed along my cheek, then caught my earlobe between his lips to suckle at it. Shivering, I turned my face to nestle into the side of his neck. My senses were so much duller than his, but I breathed in the spicy maleness of his skin and the musk from his aftershave, committing the unique scent of him to memory. I wanted to wake up to that every morning. I wanted a pillow on my bed that was permanently claimed for him.

  Before I had thought the passion and drama with Chris was love, giving myself over to it long before I really knew him as a person. This was so much better with Luke. For years I had known him without being able to give into that passion; I’d cherished him as a person first.

  As I felt my body being drawn tighter as I came closer to the edge, I remembered he wanted me to mark him, too. I gave in to impulses I’d never thought of before and ducked down to his shoulder. His skin caught between my teeth, I bit down with a whimper. He hissed sharply and drove into my harder in response, moments before biting down on my own shoulder.

  It became a feedback loop of us both clinging and moving together, lost in pain and need and ecstasy. The orgasm that swept over me was like nothing I’d ever experienced; instead of being a sudden sharp release it was a completion. My senses had never been sharper, making me so aware of him that it was as though for a few brief shining moments our very nerves were connected. There were the vibrations of his groan of release against my shoulder, the rumble of it through his back, the force and power of his thrusts as he drove into me, filling me with the potential for new life and everything we had both wanted and denied ourselves.

  When the moment ended was difficult to say. I lost most sense of time and couldn’t have found a dividing line between orgasmic bliss and the joy of just being in Luke’s arms. Eventually I was sure it was over, though. My aching jaws released his bruised shoulder and I kissed the mark gently, cuddling in against him.

  He shifted off of me to the side, then cupped my cheek in his hand to guide me in for a kiss. When it ended, I curled in against him comfortably, my eyes still closed.

  “I’ll have to head home before work in the morning,” he said.

  I nodded sleepily. “I’ll set my alarm a little early so you have time. Just stay for now?”

  Luke kissed the top of my head. “There’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be.”

  Chapter 8

  The whining of Mr. Beetlegles in his kennel drew me out of a dead sleep. I pushed myself up on one elbow to look round my bedroom bleary eyed, trying to figure out what had upset the dog. Luke was asleep beside me with one arm stretched out so that the back of his hand just barely brushed the naked flesh of my hip, as if he couldn’t sleep without that small touch connecting us. I paused to smile at him before turning my attention back to the dog.

  “Shh. It’s okay. Go back to sleep.” My voice was as soothing as could be, since voicing my irritation at being woken up by the dog wouldn’t help calm him down at all.

  His whining continued without interruption. There was another sound as well. Footsteps in the living room.

  My heart skipped a beat, thinking over the night before. Luke had been the one to shut the apartment door. We had been a bit distracted at the time. Had he locked it? I didn’t think he had.

  There were a lot of other tenants in the building and sometimes sound carried between floors, I reminded myself to try to quell the rising panic. I couldn’t call the police because a neighbor had just returned home from working the swing shift. I slid off the bed, then padded across the floor to my bedroom door. We hadn’t shut that either so that it was still open a crack. I looked out through the crack and saw the shadowy shape of a familiar person s
tanding there.

  Instead of terror, the vision was met with a rush of rage. I grabbed my robe off the hook on the closet door and tied it closed at my waist, then slipped out of my bedroom quietly so Luke could continue sleeping.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” I hissed at Chris.

  “I saw you with him. Don’t try to deny it. I saw you slutting it up.” My ex-husband sneered at me.

  “We’re divorced.” The two words were said with quiet force. “What I do now is none of your business. Just as you getting your girlfriend pregnant is none of my business. Now get out before I call the police.”

  “You’re not going to call the police.” He grabbed onto my arms and slammed me back against the wall, making me cry out in shock. I could hear Mr. Beetlegles whine again, but there was no sound from Luke. I wasn’t sure if him not being awake was a good thing or not. The shame of Chris’s violence had always been something I wanted to hide before.

  “Do you see what you’ve pushed me to?” Chris said as he leaned in close to me. I turned my face away from his, because there had been far too many times in the past when he’d segued from throwing me into a wall to trying to kiss me. Or worse. “I was so upset seeing my wife act like a goddamn whore I had to come sneaking in here. As if I don’t have a right to be in my own wife’s home.”

  “I’m not your wife,” I said icily.

  The slap made me jerk, but I didn’t react beyond that. It had been this stupid, sick game between the two of us in the past. He’d hit me and I wouldn’t respond, then pat myself on the back over how tough and stoic I was. That wasn’t so bad, I’d told myself more times than I could count. Not many women could take it that well, I’d think. It had taken months after the separation before I could see just how horrific that thought process was. Being good at being abused wasn’t something to be proud of. It was just heartbreaking that I’d had to develop those coping skills in the first place.

  “You don’t get to decide to not be my wife anymore. I told you that you couldn’t ever run far enough from me.” He spun me around to pin me face first to the wall, twisting one of my arms behind my back. “You need to be punished now.”

  I felt his free hand on my ass through the robe and began squirming violently. I’d prided myself on my ability to shut myself down and take the abuse before, but I didn’t have to now. I kicked back with one foot, catching his knee cap and making him yelp in shocked pain. His grip loosened slightly in his surprise and I pulled myself free, scrambling for my bedroom door. My phone. I’d left my phone by the nightstand.

  Before I could get further than one step into the bedroom, I’d run into Luke’s chest.

  “What did he do to ‘punish’ you?” Luke asked in a soft, deadly voice as he gently nudged me aside and stepped through the doorway.

  “He didn’t do anything to me yet. It was just a slap. I’m fine,” I assured Luke.

  “Will you let me handle this?” Luke asked me without taking his eyes off of Chris. “Can I help you this time?”

  Chris had straightened up and looked to be favoring the leg I’d kicked, but had otherwise recovered. He rolled his eyes. “I’ve never done anything she didn’t want. Don’t believe whatever lies she’s told you.”

  I cupped my cheek, then nodded more to myself than Luke’s question. “Yes, you can,” I told him.

  Luke reached out with one hand to grab hold of the front of Chris’s shirt, then pulled him in close until their faces were inches apart. “It doesn’t sound to me like she wants you here, so I suspect you’re really good at lying to yourself about what women do and do not want.”

  “She’s my wife. This is none of your business.” Chris brought his hands up to shove at Luke’s chest and put some space between the two of them, but he couldn’t budge him.

  “When people violate the bodies of others, it is my business. It will always be my business. It should be the business of anyone with an ounce of empathy,” Luke snarled. “So I’ll ask again. How do you ‘punish’ her?”

  “I don’t have to justify myself to you.”

  Luke adjusted his grip on Chris’s shirt before turning with him to push him up against the wall. One of his hands went to my ex-husband’s throat and I could watch as wicked claws extended from Luke’s fingertips, just barely digging into Chris’s flesh. “You hit her, right? Smacked her around? Punched her?”

  “She likes it,” Chris insisted as he writhed like a worm on a hook. “If she didn’t, she would have left. Really left. Not this bullshit of just moving across town.”

  “I see. So you think a woman living in the same city as you is consenting? Is that what you’re saying? Any woman who doesn’t flee San Francisco must want you to hit her?” Luke was leaning in close to him now, his eyes changing. As his lips drew back from his teeth I could see sharp canines better suited for his tiger form.

  “Don’t try to twist my words. She knows what I mean!”

  “Luke.” I said his name as a warning, worried about what he might do. I remembered the look of rage the year before when he’d noticed the bruise on my cheek. It was back and even more intense. “Please don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

  Luke turned slightly to look at me, then gave a small nod before refocusing on Chris. “I’m going to make you a deal. You never touch another woman without her written invitation to do so and I let you go. But the second you beat or rape someone, regardless of if that person is Dawn or someone I’ve never met, I will kill you.”

  Chris stopped squirming. His chin raised defiantly, eyes narrowed. “You can’t threaten me like that.”

  Luke’s lips drew back from his fangs and he darted forward with a snarl, stopping just before touching Chris’s face. With the wall to his back there was nowhere for Chris to go, but he tried to scramble back into it all the same.

  “I will kill you.” Luke’s voice rumbled, deep and barely human. “I figure that’s fair. You might hurt people thousands of times over in your pathetic little life, but I can only kill you once. I think that one bad deed to prevent so many more is justified, don’t you?”

  Chris whimpered, shrinking in on himself. “Look! Look! I’m not going to bother Dawn ever again, okay? Never! Just let me go.”

  “You aren’t going to bother Dawn or anyone else.” The claws on Luke’s hand retracted and the beast swimming beneath the surface of his face sank away, leaving him looking perfectly normal and handsome once more. “Go get yourself counseling or something. Figure out why you’re such an asshole and work really hard on changing. Your life depends on it.”

  As soon as Luke had released his hand from around his throat, Chris ran for the door. He threw it open and dove out into the hall, not even bothering to shut it again behind him. I watched a moment in stunned silence, then turned back to look at Luke.

  “Would you really kill him?” I asked with a hushed voice.

  “If I had to.” Luke shook his head a little as he crossed the room to shut the door. This time he verified it was locked when he was done. “I’d do everything I could to avoid it, though. I’d rather the threat just push him to change. I have respect for human life, but that respect doesn’t mean I’m going to let someone hurt you and terrorize you for the rest of your life.”

  I wasn’t sure of what to say at first. Finally I walked over to slide my arms around his waist and cling to him, breathing in his scent. There was a moment of hesitation and then I felt him wrap his arms around me as well, holding me close.

  “You really want me to be your mate?” I murmured.

  “I want to be your mate,” he corrected gently, then kissed the top of my head. “I want to protect you and make life easier for you. I want to sire your cubs and provide for all of you. I want to love you. Will you let me do all of those things?”

  I smiled to myself, nodding against his chest. “Yes, but I want to do things for you, too. I want to give you a family. I want to take care of you.”

  His hand brushed my cheek gently, then t
ipped my face up so we could kiss. The words we’d shared were sweeter than any marriage vows I could imagine. It wasn’t the life I had planned, but now I knew it was the only life I had ever truly wanted.

  The Last Blue Moon

  Lilith T. Bell

  Getting over your first love can be difficult for anyone, but it’s especially hard for werewolves. Sofia Leones claimed Hunter Quezada as her mate when they were still in college. Yet when he was accused of being a man-eater, her father threw him out of the pack and she didn’t see him again for a decade. Not until bodies begin piling up and Hunter suddenly returned to her life.

  He was sure he could never convince Sofia to believe in him, but Hunter had to set his own injured pride aside when new wolves came to San Francisco and began murdering humans indiscriminately. Their blood lust put all of the paranormal community in danger, but it went far beyond that. A blue moon was coming, offering dark power to any cruel enough to claim it.

  With their lives in danger, the last thing either Sofia or Hunter need is to be distracted by their feelings for one another. But while young love might have been hard to lose, the passion they rediscover is truly irresistible.

  Prologue

  Sofia

  Ten Years Ago

  “He just took a couple bags of stuff and said to sell everything else to pay for what he owed in rent.”

  I stood there in the doorway to Hunter’s bedroom, too stunned to even respond to his roommate. My best friend Dawn and I had driven for four hours up the coast to where Hunter was going to college in Arcata, but we hadn’t arrived fast enough. He’d already made it to his apartment and then left again.