by Selena Blake
The heat he felt whenever he thought of her sizzled in his veins. Without his watch, he had no idea what time it was, but he knew he should get back. He needed to eat and then figure out how to win her back.
Rising to his paws he waded into the water, enjoying the coolness. He paddled toward the waterfall and turned his face up to the spray. This would be an incredible spot to bring Ceara.
He shifted back to his human form and dipped his head beneath the sheets of falling water. He ran his fingers through his wet hair, pushing it out of his face. He wanted to strip her bare and carry her beneath the spray. He’d let her body slide down his, the water making the journey extra slick. She’d gasp when he settled her on that stone over there and kiss his way down her body.
Grasping his cock he imagined it was her caressing his length. Her cool fingers wrapped around the shaft, squeezing him as she moved her hand up and down. The water would provide the perfect lubrication.
He’d lick and nip his way to her pussy, dine on her juices, watch her face as she came all over his tongue. And when he was done licking her dry, he’d flip her over, thrust into her as they watched the moon rise. He’d cup her breasts in his hands and kiss her shoulders.
He realized then that curse or no curse, pack or no pack, children or no children, he needed her. With him. Wanted to be with her. For the next week. The next month. The next year. A yearly vacation wasn’t going to be enough. He had to have her sharp wit in his life. Her random facts. The impish smile that drove him crazy. Her special brand of bold innocence and curious fire. He wanted to watch her blush, watch her learn and explore their world. He needed to protect her, shield her from the harshness of their kinds.
He wanted her by his side regardless of what his pack thought. If he was right and she truly did love him, then she was even stronger than he imagined. Pushing him away, holding strong, protecting herself even as it was killing her.
He had to be right.
He would have her. They would set an example for the rest of the world to see.
With his hand stroking his cock to a frenzy, he imagined it was her body squeezing him, milking him dry. The thought was enough to draw his balls tight. Biting his lower lip, every ounce of his concentration zeroed in on the delicious feelings tingling outward from his erection. One last pump downward and…
“Yeah…” he growled, his seed shooting into the water.
He sucked in a deep breath, hardly able to believe he’d been able to give himself an orgasm. Two in one day. It hardly seemed possible.
Shifting back to his canine form, he padded down the mountain, feeling like a hundred pounds had been lifted from his shoulders. It felt good to have a plan. Too bad he couldn’t whistle.
Ceara smoothed her hand down the back of the floral skirt as she sat. Valencia arched a perfectly tweezed brow across the table.
“New dress?”
“I wanted something a little softer. For spring.” Though it wasn’t spring on the island, she planned to once again go through her wardrobe when she returned home. Feminine spring and summer dresses were at the top of the list. No more skin-tight corsets and hip-hugging pencil skirts that left nothing to the imagination. She’d been trying too hard to emulate her friends and there was something to be said for letting a man use his imagination.
Izzy, Avery and Valencia had filled her closet with skinny jeans, bedazzled T-shirts, yoga pants and severe-but-classic suits.
A lucky find in one of the island shops, her current silk dress with small flowers on long green stems was her first step at finding the real her.
“I think it is pretty,” Izzy announced. Coco agreed.
The waiter came and offered them a menu. She had no appetite but ordered a glass anyway. Grayson paused from nuzzling Coco’s neck and asked for a dinner menu.
The two were ridiculously cozy. The sight made Ceara’s heart ache. She wanted that for herself, desperately. Had been so sure that with time she could have found her own happily ever after with Maxim. She’d been prepared to wait. To find her place in his life.
She felt a shift in the air and heard Avery’s gasp. Jerking her head left, she saw Avery’s surprised stare and dropped jaw.
“Are you okay?”
Ceara followed Avery’s gaze.
Maxim strode toward their table, handsome as ever in a dark suit. Her heart squeezed, and for a single moment, she closed her eyes so tears wouldn’t fall.
She’d made herself perfectly clear earlier this morning. Or so she’d thought. He’d left. Her heart had shattered. She’d spent the day crying. Thank goodness vamps healed so quickly. No one would ever know about the bags under her eyes or her Rudolph-red nose.
His dark eyes were locked on her. Half of her hoped that he’d keep on walking. Right out the door and out of her life. There was no need to torture her further. The other half hoped that he’d stop and tell her it was all a big misunderstanding.
He rounded the table.
“Ceara --”
She pivoted in her seat. “We have nothing left to say to each other.” She had to be strong. For herself. Her pride. Her future.
Though she spoke quietly, it would have been impossible for her covenmates not to hear.
Please.
He sounded desperate.
“Is everything all right?” Valencia asked.
Ceara glanced back and forth between them. Everyone at the table had fallen silent and she could sense their attention on her.
“Everything’s fine.” She gave them all a smile and then turned her attention back to the sinfully handsome werewolf.
“Excellent. Well then, Maxim, why don’t you join us?” Valencia waved her hand at the empty chair to Ceara’s right.
Maxim ignored the chair but knelt next to hers. “Just hear me out.” His voice was a strained whisper. “You told me we can’t always get what we want, but I refuse to believe that. You said you thought I was different and I am.”
He studied her closely, his beautiful dark eyes imploring her with every word.
“I know I told you I could only give you one night, but I’ve realized that I need you every night from now till forever.”
Ceara heard her friends’ sighs. She pursed her lips and told her heart not to get its hopes up. “Forever is a long time.”
He stared at her lips for several long seconds before meeting her gaze. “Not long enough,” he whispered.
She worried her bottom lip. “You can’t just come in here and tell me these things, Maxim. Twelve hours ago you --” She snapped her lips closed. You accused me of cursing you. You were mean and selfish and cruel. And I know you lost your Alpha.
He grabbed her hand and she squeezed, understanding his pain.
“You’re right. I can’t promise you perfection.”
She swiveled toward him. “I don’t want perfection,” she whispered. “But I don’t want a man who can’t trust me, either. Do you still believe I cursed you?”
“I know you didn’t.”
How can I believe you?
Because I’m in love with you. And if I can’t have you, my beautiful vamp, I don’t want anyone else.
The tears she’d been holding back overflowed.
Simple as that?
She felt shaky, like she might dissolve at his feet.
Simple as that. Once I wrapped my head around things.
“Oh, Max…” She leaned forward and kissed him. As apologies and declarations of devotion went, he’d nailed it. But it wasn’t just his words; it was the pain in his eyes. The vulnerability she saw in him, the fear that she would reject him in the lines bracketing his mouth.
His hands closed around her waist and she gripped the lapels of his jacket.
“I love you too,” she whispered against his lips. He smiled.
Her covenmates cheered.
“To Ceara and Maxim!”
Ceara pulled back far enough to glance over at Avery. Everyone held up their glass in salute. She laughed softly and turned ba
ck to the man who’d stolen her heart.
The smile he gave her said she’d made the right decision to give him another chance. To redeem himself. To love her. To risk his heart.
The others started chatting, turning their attention away from her and Maxim. She gave him a quick, chaste kiss, wondering how long she had to sit here when she really wanted to go back to his room.
He stared at her lips.
“Are you sure you don’t have a spell on me, sweetheart?” he teased.
She straightened his tie. “No more than you have a spell on me.”
“I can see only one solution to this problem.”
He trailed his thumbs up and down her sides, creating sparks of desire behind her belly button.
“What’s that?”
“You’ll have to spend eternity in my bed.” The corner of his mouth kicked up into a wicked grin.
The last bit of anxiety left her. They’d have things to work out. Issues with his pack, certainly. Life’s little quirks, but they could worry about all of that later.
“Starting now?”
The look he gave her made her hot. She was going to like having her own personal heater. Gathering her hair, she twisted it into one long spiral and draped it over her left shoulder.
Rising, he reached for her hand. The instant her palm slid into his, he pulled her to her feet. His gaze dropped to her naked shoulder and everything about him went perfectly still.
Chapter Thirteen
Maxim watched her rise from the table and felt the subtle shift in power. She turned atop those sexy open-toed high heels, her scent spiraling around him, almost a physical thing. And then he saw it.
At the side of her neck was a distinct mark. Invisible to the naked eye but unmistakable to his kind. A mating mark.
“You’re mated?” The words were out of his mouth, thundering toward her, before he could stop them.
Her head whipped around and she pinned him with startled silver eyes. “What?” Her fangs peeked out, pearl-white against rosy lips.
How had he not noticed before? It was right there for the entire world to see. And he’d missed it.
Ignoring the shocked looks on her friends’ faces, he wrapped an arm around her waist and propelled her toward the arched doorway. Around the corner he ushered her into the waiting elevator despite her protests.
His wolf rushed forward and it took every scrap of control to stop the shift. To retract the claws and keep his bones exactly as they were. From biting her himself.
He knew for a fact that she hadn’t been mated when he’d taken her to bed last year. Afraid of the rage boiling inside him, he stepped away from her as the doors closed. Jealousy ate at him like a cancer.
“Maxim, you’re scaring me.”
He turned back then and found her pressed into the far corner. To think he’d just professed his heart, laid it at her feet, bared his soul before her and half the restaurant. To ignore his need for a mate. And she’d already been mated.
“Who is he?” He paced like a caged tiger.
“Who is who?” She frowned up at him as he stalked closer.
“The wolf who left that mark on your neck. I’ll kill whoever dared touch you. You’re mine.” Maxim didn’t recognize his own voice. Or the overwhelming need to possess her.
She laid a hand against his chest, and the beast inside him howled. And then it quieted.
“No one touched me, Maxim. No one before you. No one since.”
“But—” His chest rose and fell as he sucked in breath after breath, trying to hold his cool. Or what was left of it.
She smiled up at him, a silly, sweet little grin. Her eyebrows rose just enough to confuse him. She obviously knew something he didn’t.
And then he remembered. The images played before his eyes like a dream. Her on the balcony. Him fighting the wave of dizziness those heights brought. Her lips beneath his. Her lush body cradling his cock. Their last night together. He’d opened his mouth, pierced her delicate skin with his razor-sharp teeth. And the climax had been so powerful that he’d almost passed out from it.
Everything had gone to hell after that.
But he’d begged her to return to him.
“No one else has gotten close enough to mark me,” she told him again.
“But—” How could a werewolf mate with a vamp?
“I can’t see it,” she said, craning her head to look in the mirrored walls.
“I can.” Cautiously, he traced the faint white scar with a fingertip.
“Maxim… you’re scaring me again.”
He could scarcely believe it. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have left.”
She cupped his jaw, further soothing the raging beast within him. “If I’d known, I would have begged you to take me with you.”
She was so earnest. So beautiful. Alive.
His mate.
“Begged, huh?” Pure happiness shot through him like one hundred proof alcohol. He had to feel her, touch her, be inside her.
Mated. He shook his head. Not just claimed but -- “You know this means I’ll never let you go.”
She stretched up, closing the distance between them. And just before she touched her lips to his, she whispered, “I don’t want you to.”
The bell chimed and the doors slid open behind him. Desire overpowered the confusion and he swung her up into his arms.
He set her down at the foot of his bed, and her hip brushed the long, hard ridge behind the fly of his slacks. She sucked in a shaky breath at the intensity in his eyes.
“Were you serious about—”
“Yes,” he answered.
She settled her hands over his biceps, studying the fabric of his suit in the lamplight. “You didn’t let me finish my question.”
“I knew what you were going to ask.” He cupped her cheek in his hand, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I was serious about you spending eternity in my bed. And that I’ll never let you go.”
Ceara closed her eyes, soaking in the moment. It was like a dream. Too perfect to be real. But it was real. He was real. His heat surrounded her, warmed her. She didn’t want anything to ruin this moment. In fact, she wanted it to go on forever.
But there were thoughts in the back of her mind, annoying little bits of uncertainty that made her open her eyes and look at the werewolf before her. “And about being mated? You don’t want me because of the mark, right?” she asked.
His gaze dropped to the spot between her neck and shoulder, the place where he’d left his mark. His nostrils flared for an instant and then he met her gaze again.
“No, love. I’d already made up my mind about you before I knew about the mark.”
“Good.” Ceara smiled and backed toward the balcony. She turned to pull the blackout curtains apart and then opened the door. Smiling at him over her shoulder, she stepped into the balmy night. A bonfire was blazing on the beach below, the sound of hundreds of couples carried upward on the breeze. “My friends warned me this might happen, you know,” she said, watching the party.
“What might happen?”
Facing him again, ready to start a party of her own, she unzipped her dress and let it slither down her body. He sucked in an anxious breath and stepped forward.
“That I would fall for you.”
The moonlight cast down on him like a spotlight. She shivered at the power she saw coiled beneath the surface.
“They warned me against it, of course. Warned me about you.”
“Why?” he asked, shucking his jacket.
“You’re a werewolf, first of all.” Big. Ridiculously strong. Cunning. Far too handsome.
He stepped toe-to-toe with her and she tipped her head back to meet his gaze. He shed the jacket, jerked the knot out of his tie and then snagged the edges of his shirt. With a quick jerk, the pearlescent buttons pinged across the cement floor.
Though the gleam in his eyes was predatory, she didn’t fear him. Didn’t shy away. One thing she was sure of, despite all their diffe
rences and the history between their races, he would never hurt her. At least, not physically.
“They said I was too stubborn for my own good. Too inexperienced to hold your attention. Setting myself up to get hurt.”
He grunted.
“They said I couldn’t trust you.”
He skimmed his thumbs along the curve of her breasts. “What did you say?”
“I told them that they were wrong. You might be a werewolf, but you still believe in chivalry. Protecting what’s yours.”
He made a sound of approval.
She pushed the shirt over his broad shoulders, down his biceps. His body was incredible, hard, defined, without being too muscular. Real man muscles her girlfriends called it. The definition caused by hours of real labor, not lifting weights. She longed to run her hands over every inch of him.
“Then they reminded me how little I know about you. Said we have nothing in common. And that the odds are against us.”
“The odds are against any couple in our situation.”
Her heartbeat accelerated when he said the word couple.
“They said you are on the hunt for a mate. To seal your new position.”
“True, again.”
Ceara ignored the rioting emotions inside her and reached for his belt. She unbuckled it and whipped the strip of supple leather through the belt loops.
“And now that you have a mate?”
He discarded his shirt and took the belt from her hands, looping it behind her hips.
“Now I hope she’ll return with me. Stand by my side. Bring peace to our people.”
“You’re not worried about what your pack will think?”
He ducked his head, and stared into her eyes. “They will love and respect you.”
“Will they not wonder why their new leader has matched himself with a vampire younger than their shoes?”
Maxim chuckled. “They will trust my judgment. They will discover your quiet strength, your quick wit, and enduring spirit.”
“You make it sound so easy.” She tilted her head back as his lips skimmed down her throat. He gave a half smile just before slanting his lips.
When Ceara was once again breathless, Maxim hugged her close. “Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, pet. But there’s no changing my mind. I decided you’re the one I want.”
