He pulled her to him and kissed her naked breast. The sensation was sweet and wondrous, not demanding enough to frighten her, just to leave her wanting more. Lying back down on the picnic blanket, Riley took her hand and placed it flat over his heart. Beneath her palm, his heart thundered.
“See what you do to me?” An erection strained against the fly of his jeans.
“I see,” she agreed, focusing on the large bulge. “What does that feel like?”
“Touch it and find out.”
She froze. “No, I meant…what does it feel like to you?”
“It’s great. It’s what makes me male. When I get hard, it’s kind of a throbbing pressure. But when I’m close to you like this, it hurts, too. There’s a needy kind of ache. It craves release. I hunger for release.”
“It’s the same for me. With you.”
Cautiously, she slid his zipper down. She gasped when his cock sprang free but she did not draw away. At Magnum’s secret compound, where she’d been imprisoned, she’d been sodomized. Against her will, the evil bastard had shoved his dick down her throat, causing her to gag and retch. But this was different. She wanted to taste Riley. To taste him all over.
She leaned down and stroked his hard length with her tongue, closing her eyes to savor the tangy male goodness of him. He moaned his delight. She took the head of his cock into her mouth, swirling her tongue over him, swallowing the pearly salt bead that appeared at the slit. Another grunt of satisfaction issued from him. But, with gentle hands, he pushed her away.
“No, baby.” He raised her up again and stared into her eyes.
Anxiety seized her. “Didn’t I do it right?” Before, if she hadn’t, she’d been whipped.
“Goddess, sweetheart, better than all right. Love you exploring me. Love what you do to me. And there’ll be time for that, Amber. But first, I want to pleasure you. Treat you like my adored mate. Like you should be treated. Erase everything before me.”
His deep voice soothed and warmed her, his words comforting. Riley made her feel so safe, so secure. So loved.
“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way,” she ventured. He raised a dark eyebrow. “When I’m with you, I’m more comfortable than I am with anyone else…except my twin sister.”
“That pleases me,” he said. “But I hope I don’t feel like one of your siblings.”
“Not. At. All.” She grinned at him. Even the teasing seemed comfortable. She could grow to like this. She did already.
His scent tantalized her. The feel of his flesh beneath her questing fingers, his tempting taste on her tongue, all of it relaxed and readied her. Her breasts grew fuller, the nipples harder, waiting for his hands, his lips. Between her legs, she melted, her panties and jeans growing damper by the second. Her whole body ripened, waiting to be plucked.
“I’m ready, Riley.”
“Are you sure, angel?”
“Yes. More than sure.”
Her big, gorgeous mate needed nothing more by way of invitation. He rolled toward her, his broad shoulders pressing her back against the blanket. “You stop me whenever you need to, Amber.”
Careful not to cover her with his full weight, he leaned in, bathing her in sweet, gentle kisses, from the edge of her jaw, to the indentation of her collarbone, down her cleavage.
“Oh, Goddess.” His lips on her breast were sublime, teasing, tantalizing, making her squirm with need. “That feels so good. It’s never felt good before.”
“You have no idea how you taste to me,” he whispered against her wet flesh. “Like….” He shook his head, his hair a teasing silken spray at her throat. “I don’t have words. I’m a big, dumb athlete, and there’s nothing in my vocabulary to describe what you’re like.”
He savored each breast in turn, spending so long nibbling and licking, swirling his tongue around each pebbled nipple, she thought she might die. So different than what she’d experienced before, when Magnum took pleasure in hurting her. Riley lavished his full attention on her, admiring her, worshipping her, adoring her. The sexual tension mounted within her, reaching so intense a fever she thought she might come from his enjoyment of her breasts alone. Each nibble, each caress, each stroke of his tongue shot straight through, making her writhe, making her crave, making the ache between her legs, a bittersweet palette of pleasure and pain. So different. Her wolf danced in ecstatic rapture, howling her joy.
“Go lower, Riley,” Amber moaned. “I need more. And I need you there.”
He lifted his head and winked at her. “Your wish, my sexy mate, is my command.”
Holding her loosely by the shoulders, he wandered lower down her body, his sensual mouth leaving a trail of hot, erotic kisses. He nipped her navel playfully and continued to meander. She fumbled with the button of her jeans to let him at the place she most needed him to be. He released her shoulders, and his hands gripped her hips to yank away her jeans, her wet panties.
First, he rested his head against her belly, as if he needed to catch his breath. He inhaled deeply.
“I am totally drunk on your scent,” he told her.
“That’s how yours is to me,” she agreed. “Like nothing in this world. I want to wrap your scent around me, to swim in it, to bathe, to get so blitzed I can’t see straight.”
“You’ll be wearing it,” he said. “Forever.”
“Forever,” she echoed. As he’d bear hers. The thought made her wolf preen like a Hollywood starlet on a photo shoot at poolside.
And then her mate licked her between her legs, his hot mouth driving all thoughts from her head...except how much she wanted him. Would always want him. Riley, her mate. Riley, her lover. Riley, the male who had captured her heart and her soul.
She gasped. He paused instantly. She clutched his hair, her thumbs massaging his ears. “I don’t want this ever to end,” she said, pressing him against her.
He worked her over with his skillful mouth and lips, kissing, suckling, nibbling, his talented tongue delving between her swollen folds to penetrate deep inside her core. She twisted and writhed beneath him, and he held her by the knees, spreading her legs wider to give him greater access. As he stroked in and out with his tongue, he caressed her hard bundle of swollen flesh with his thumb, back and forth in a circular pattern that blew her mind. She reached a spectacular peak, and he pushed her over the edge, blinding light exploding behind her eyes, sending her to a heaven she’d never visited before.
“I’ve got you, angel,” Riley assured her. “Fly where you will, baby.”
He held her as she drifted, eyes closed, on a hazy cloud of pleasure. Her wolf flipped over on her back, belly up, completely surrendering to the male who brought her such joy.
“More, Riley,” Amber breathed when she was able to catch her breath.
He grinned up at her from his resting place between her legs, his fabulous mouth still slick with her. “Glutton.”
“If I am, it’s all your fault.”
“Okay. I can live with that.” He released her to shuck off his jeans and then lay on his back next to her.
“Too tired?” she teased.
“Hell, no.” In the next instant, he plucked her up as if she were a twig and held her over his erection until she straddled him. He placed his hands over hers, and, together, they guided him inside. His cock throbbed against her inner walls, filling her with pleasure and a sense of completion she’d never experienced before. He gave her a moment to accustom herself to him.
“Oh,” she gasped. “Oh, that feels so good.”
“Let’s see if we can make it better,” he grunted, and she realized how much he’d been holding himself back, the extraordinary amount of control it must have taken for him to do so.
He began to move inside her, his thrusts long and deep, the friction of their bodies rubbing together erotic and carnal. Nothing less than sublime paradise. She tugged on him, urging him to move faster, deeper. He slid into her up to his balls then withdrew so exc
ruciatingly slowly, she thought she would scream. When he withdrew, she felt empty and clutched her muscles tighter around his cock.
“Faster, Riley,” she demanded. “Stay inside me.”
Their rhythm matched and soared, and once more he took her to places she’d never been. Their tiny patch of South Dakota might as well have exploded around them. Planets might have collided. Amber no longer knew or cared. Because Riley fucking her was pure, unadulterated bliss.
Once more he brought her to the brink and took her over, holding her tightly to his chest, and pumping into her madly, his cock spurting hot and hard as he howled his own release to the stars. Her fangs descended, and she bit his neck. His blood, warm, rich, spicy, and delicious, dripped onto her tongue, and she came a third time. He was hers. Riley Morgan was all hers.
Rapture. Complete.
Maybe she was an angel. Because she definitely was in heaven.
***
When Riley returned to his senses, Amber lay curled against his side, playing with the fingers of his gnarled left hand. He tried to yank it from her grasp, but she held it firm.
“Does it disgust you?” he growled.
“Nothing about you disgusts me,” she told him. “You’re my mate. You’re a beautiful man. The best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Everything was okay?”
“Okay? So far beyond ‘okay’ I still can’t breathe. I adore you, Riley Morgan, if you haven’t guessed yet. I want to do that again. And again. And again. As soon and as often as possible.” She licked the healing wound on his neck where her teeth had penetrated the skin.
“Claimed.” He grinned and kissed her bare shoulder. “You really claimed me. And about how good it was…I feel the same.”
“So…?” She glided her fingertips over his sweat-slicked torso, reaching for his cock. Even her light touch made it twitch and harden.
“Wait.” He stilled her hand with his own. He held out his injured limb, studying it. “My broken paw really doesn’t bother you?”
“No way, no how. It brought you back to South Dakota, didn’t it? It brought you to me.”
He shook his head. “You brought me, Amber.”
“What?”
He hesitated. “I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, but I didn’t want to mess things up between us when we were just getting started. When everything was all new and shiny.”
Amber stiffened, her golden eyes growing cautious. “Tell me what? You know everything about me, Riley. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”
“I didn’t want you taking on any more guilt. Any more responsibility for things you don’t own.”
“What do you mean? You’re frightening me.”
“No, don’t be. It’s nothing like that.” He sighed. “Gee told me about the day you were found and released. How you were watching me on TV during the baseball game when I got hurt.”
“Yes. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. I felt something the moment I saw your image. Something extraordinary. Something I’d never felt for anyone before. But you were only a ballplayer on TV. An image. Nothing more to me.”
“No, I was more to you, even then.”
“I felt we had a connection, but then you got hurt and my brothers and Drew, Ryker, Gee, and everyone burst into the prison compound to rescue us. They dragged me away from the scene on the TV.”
“We had a connection, Amber. I felt it, too, even though I couldn’t see you. I heard you. I heard your mate call in my head, like you were right next to me, not thousands of miles away on the other side of a TV. ‘Mate.’ Knocked me for a loop and then knocked me on my ass. Literally.”
“No, Riley.” She recoiled from him in horror, amber eyes wide as she placed her hands over her mouth. “I didn’t. I couldn’t have.”
“Yes.” He tugged her hands away and kissed her, a kiss of passion and a kiss of bonding, cementing them together for all time. “Gee says it’s possible. That it’s how my grandfather claimed my grandmother. I think I sensed you needed me, needed my help and my protection. That I’d done an awful job of being your mate.”
“Oh, no, Riley. You can’t take on any guilt for what happened to me.”
“And you can’t take on any for what happened to me.”
They stared at each other for long moments then he wrapped her securely in his arms, cuddling her, worshipping her.
“I love you, Amber Northridge,” he growled. “I don’t give a fat flying damn how I got here to you. I only regret I didn’t get here sooner.”
“And I love you, Riley Morgan, my magnificent mate. I’m sorry about your career, but I’m glad you’ve returned to Los Lobos. And I have you in my arms.”
“Where I’ll stay, happy, forever.”
“Both of us. At last. Safe at home.”
Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make them a match…
With Drew’s reign settling the hills, wolves are returning to the Black Hills. Wolves who need mates. The pack needs to grow, right?
So four of the surviving matrons take it upon themselves to set up couples. Question is, how do these ladies decide who to match? Whichever unattached wolf they see first, from a list, or do they just draw a name from a bag?
Their method doesn’t matter, but you can bet they’ll call in favors, make behind-the-scenes plans, and pull whatever strings or stunts required to put wolves together in the name of furthering the pack. And who knows? They might even set their sights on the cantankerous lone bear, Gee….
Black Hills Wolves Matchmaker Subseries
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Another Chance by Taryn Kincaid
Chapter One
“Brick.”
Summer repeated her mate’s name three times, each utterance a little louder. Hard to compete with the noise level rising from the soft rag rug she’d braided and knotted herself during her pregnancy, while enduring all the jokes the Tao pack—and the occasional member of the Goldspark feline clan—flung at her about “rug rats.”
Brick lay flat on his back, the rug bunched beneath him on the polished, hardwood floor of the log cabin he’d turned into a luxurious forest lodge during his ten years of banishment from Los Lobos and the Black Hills Wolves. Clay and Autumn, their young pup and cub, sprawled across his muscular chest, having crazy fun practicing roaring and howling—and generally wrestling and roughhousing—with their dad. With every squeak and growl, the little ones got more insanely hysterical, their laughter so wild they shifted in and out of their animal forms like blinking neon signs.
Bending down, Summer snatched up her squirming pup and plopped him naked into his playpen. The pen couldn’t hold either of her mischievous offspring, but she needed to grab her mate’s attention. He remained, as always, enthralled with their tiny family pack. Although he’d always protect them with his life, all hell could break loose around them before he’d forego the pleasure of playing with his kids. Touchy-feely as his pack and her clan could be at times, she’d never seen an adult male who doted on his babies the way her mate did.
“We’ve got a situation, Brick.”
“What?” her wolf asked, his smile contented and lazy. Life was good for them now. The clamoring voices of his packmates and the unwanted visions of their deaths no longer haunted him, befuddling his mind. It’d take an exploding stack of dynamite to move him from his zone of comfort at the center of his little family. He tickled the padded paws and soft underbelly of the small kitten cub trying to climb his torso to nip at his solid chin until Autumn shrieked.
Unfor
tunately, Summer was about to let loose just such a bombshell on him.
“My Uncle Cal’s got your brother in his jail in Shady Heart.”
“My what? Your what?” Brick scrambled to his feet, clutching the cub to his heart and nuzzling the top of her furry head before releasing her into the pen with her sibling. He stared at Summer, his brandy-bright eyes wide with shock. “My brother? In the Shady Heart jail?”
“Yeah, Chance Northridge, Cal said. I didn’t even know you had a brother. Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Jesus.” He brushed a hand through his dark, coffee-colored hair. “I haven’t seen or heard from Chance in more than ten years. Bastard fled Los Lobos before I did. Left us to rot there. Didn’t care what the hell happened, what insane cruelty Magnum could devise.”
“Yeah, well. Looks like he needs you now. It appears he’s back. Or in Shady Heart, anyway. The jail to be precise. Cal, um, suggests, you come spring him ASAP. He says to bring cash. A lot of cash.”
“Holy Hunter’s Moon. Chance has always been hotheaded and reckless. Goddess only knows what kind of trouble he got up to in Shady Heart.”
Her uncle’s town, the stronghold of the feline shifter clan to which as half cougar and half skinwalker she’d once belonged, beckoned shifter adventure-seekers and tourists and a few feckless humans to its mecca of mischief and more sordid delights. Especially those indulgent pleasures available in and around Calhoun Bartholomew Seven’s Graymarket Trading Company Saloon and Casino. Like Los Lobos, Shady Heart couldn’t be found on any map. Unlike Los Lobos, its rumored existence spread through a certain class, and Cal encouraged them to empty their wallets to fill the cats’ coffers.
Brick should know. Before they’d mated, he’d occasionally sampled the decadence Shady Heart had to offer during the ten years when he’d been banished from the Black Hills Wolves pack for challenging the crazed former Alpha, Magnum Tao. Brick had been a beaten and bloodied eighteen-year-old when the giant Werebear Gee, Los Lobos’ historian and keeper of its secrets, had taken pity on him, scraping him off the floor of Gee’s Bar and bringing him out here to what was then a deserted cabin in the glade deep within the woods between Los Lobos territory and Goldspark land. An isolated lone wolf with little interest in anything aside from his beautifully intricate carvings, he’d lived without companionship, rattling around the cabin he’d rebuilt and renovated, until Summer had befriended him in her raven form. Now the place of his former exile from Los Lobos was home, glowing with the warmth of family.
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