by Jodi Redford
She was alone.
He took a quick scan of the dining room, not seeing the dickwad anywhere. It was almost as if the dude had vanished into thin air. Another possibility knocked against his consciousness and he grunted. Or maybe I imagined the whole thing. The idea wasn’t completely out in left field. Fuck knows this obsession with Clarissa had messed with his head on more than one occasion. Tunneling a shaky hand through his hair, he continued forward. When he was less than two table lengths away from Clarissa, she looked up and locked stares with him. Every ounce of color leeched from her face. Her gaze darted sideways, toward the back hallway, and he lengthened his stride, fully intending to tackle her if her butt so much as inched off her chair.
Apparently reading his intention, Clarissa muttered beneath her breath. He didn’t need to be a lip reader—or rely on his acute hearing—to make out the words “Fuck me.”
Her irritability, along with her choice of words, stirred the wicked beast within him. Drawing to a halt at her table, he awarded her his best wolfish smile. “Just name the time and place, shug.”
“You know damn well that isn’t what I meant.”
“No? Because I’m thinking that’s precisely what I’d like to do.”
Her cheeks bloomed with a vivid splash of red. “I’m not in the mood for this tonight.”
Clarissa’s testiness only managed to rekindle his anger. “Well, now, I’m real sorry you feel that way, shug. ’Cause the last thing I’d wanna do is piss on whatever urgent plans preempted our dinner tonight.”
“There’s no need to be a prick.” She stood, her eyes narrowing as he strategically blocked her path. “Or make a scene. Please move.”
“What are you gonna do if I don’t? Whammy me? Might be kinda hard explainin’ that one to everyone here, darlin’.”
“Logan, please.” Her voice broke on the last word, stunning him. She glanced down, but not before he caught the faint glimmer of moisture in her eyes. The sight hit him like a sucker punch in the gut, making him feel like the prick she’d accused him of being.
If there was one thing guaranteed to shred him to pieces, it was a woman’s tears. Having that woman be Clarissa only made it a thousand times more terrible. “Clarissa…”
Without saying another word, she rushed past him and hurried toward the rear hallway. Even her strongest holding spell wouldn’t have kept him from chasing after her.
He caught up with Clarissa before she could duck out the door or into the ladies’ restroom. Not that either location would have deterred him. He tugged her into his arms, the ferocity of her expression revealing just how much she hated showing the vulnerability hidden beneath that legendary icy exterior she’d perfected. Tucking her against his chest, he nuzzled her forehead. “Rissa, I’m sorry.”
She stiffened. “Please don’t call me that. I—it’s very inappropriate.”
“Hush.” Unable to help himself, he followed the delicate, silky arch of her eyebrow with his lips. She trembled and sighed, making both man and wolf silently growl in triumph at her tiny show of capitulation. Holding her this close was both heaven and hell, a heady torment that teased every single one of his heightened senses. She smelled luscious and feminine, a delicious main course he could easily feast on all day and night. His hands slid down the slopes of her shoulders, a not entirely unconscious marking of his territory.
Her breath stuttered in her throat. “This isn’t the place to be doing this.” She must have caught her slip of words because she jerked her gaze up to his. “I mean we shouldn’t be doing this at all.”
Tuning out her weak protest, he traced her mouth with the pad of his thumb. “That’s where you’re wrong. Right now, I need to kiss you more than I need to breathe. I wanna taste you. Eat you up.” Make you mine. The thought sprang full born from the most primal part of him, where wolf overruled man.
Clarissa’s eyes widened, but she didn’t draw back as his head descended. Their lips met, clung briefly, before he gave in to the fierce hunger burning low in the pit of his gut. Intent on making his possessiveness—and his desire—known, he nudged the hard ridge of his erection between her thighs. “Feel that, baby? That’s what you fuckin’ do to me.”
He filled his palms with her ass and squeezed, deliberately rolling his hips against hers. Yeah, he was dry humping her against a wall right outside the damn restrooms. But if the frequency of her gasps were any indication, she was enjoying the hell out of it just as much as he was.
His tongue slicked past the nonresistant barrier of her lips, and he relished the soft, breathy moan that escaped Clarissa. She was even more intoxicating than he remembered. Her magic shimmered around them, mingling with his energy and creating a charged buzz that tingled across his skin. He broke off the kiss, his breath ragged against her cheek. “Come home with me.”
She licked her lips. “That would be an epically bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Because we both know where it would lead.”
He ducked his head and nibbled a path along her jaw before exploring the soft hollow behind her ear with the tip of his tongue. “If you’re referrin’ to you tied to my bed, then yeah, damn straight.”
Her shallow exhale whispered against the side of his face. “Th-that’s not what I…” She swallowed. “You want to tie me to your bed?”
“More than you could imagine. God knows I’ve imagined it more often than I can count.” He released the tempting swells of her ass and glided his palms up along her hips, taking his time to properly enjoy her lush curves. “You’d be spread-eagled, your whole body tremblin’ and your nipples unbearably tight.”
“W-why would I be trembling?”
He grinned against her neck. “Don’t you also want to know why your nipples are tight?”
“I figured you’d get around to telling me, regardless.”
“Aw, shug, am I that predictable?” Yeah, he was. No way in hell he could temper the urge to tell her everything he wanted to do to her. In precise, Technicolor detail. “You’re tremblin’ because I’m eating your pussy. Lickin’ you inside and out, nice and slow. Savoring you.”
Her pulse skittered beneath his lips. “Logan, please—”
“Yeah, those are exactly the words you keep repeatin’ while my tongue is workin’ your clit and your sweet honey is filling my mouth.” He groaned and shifted, resting his forehead against hers. The fantasy had him hard as granite and desperate to sink into her softness. “Christ. Have mercy on me, Rissa. Say you’ll come home with me.”
Chapter Five
A massive, epically bad idea.
The inconvenient fact that the Miata was currently cruising toward Tybee was the only thing that stalled Clarissa from banging her forehead against the steering wheel. There could only be one explanation for why she was giving in to this insanity. Having only a week left to live was severely messing with her reasoning powers.
Then again, her shortened lifespan might have a hidden benefit. If this thing between her and Logan spiraled into an enormous disaster—as she suspected it would—she wouldn’t be around long to bemoan her stupidity.
She glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed Logan’s Harley still tailed close behind. No doubt he was afraid to let her out of sight, in case she decided to make a break for it. Thanks to the wind, his white T-shirt was plastered to his torso, which only made her all the more hyperaware of just how breathtakingly gorgeous he was. While she’d been pinned between the wall and Logan’s delectable body, she hadn’t failed to notice how unbelievably good all those rippling muscles had felt rubbing against her, everywhere. It also hadn’t passed her inspection how one particular muscle of Logan’s had been beyond raging hard and possessed a wicked talent for making her forget all else during their bump-and-grind session.
It wasn’t like she’d never seen Logan’s cock before. For goddess’s sake, the werewolf went out of his way to show off that particular pride and joy every chance he got. But seeing wasn’t the same as feeling. And
he’d definitely made sure she felt every inch of that bad boy, up close and personal.
Smothering a groan, she shifted in her seat. This is what she got for abstaining from sex the past two and a half years. Her trusty stash of vibrators was no substitute for the hot, steely length of a hard cock sliding deep inside—
A blaring horn intruded on her private fantasies, and she jumped. Jerking her gaze to the passenger-side mirror, she spied a scowling driver sitting in a white Taurus busy making obscene gestures in her direction. It took a second to realize the driver’s rudeness stemmed from the fact that she’d just blown a red light. Her heartbeat racing at the near miss, she returned her attention to the road, determined not to put her life—or anyone else’s—at risk because of her own stupidity.
The irony of that thought didn’t escape her, but she chose to ignore it in favor of staying alert for the remainder of the drive.
Five minutes later, she pulled into Logan’s driveway. She barely had time to shift into park before Logan’s Harley roared up beside her. He must have been driving like a total maniac to have caught up with her so fast. Bemused, she watched him rip his helmet off and storm to her side of the car.
“Were you tryin’ to get yourself fuckin’ killed back there?”
She should have been pissed as hell at being shouted at by her familiar, much less having him yell at her like she was no better than a child who deserved a good scolding after taking a box of crayons to the living-room walls. But the truth was she deserved his fury. “N-no. I wasn’t paying attention. It was utterly moronic of me.”
His jaw still rigid, Logan swung open her door and leaned inside the Miata. Killing the engine, he yanked the keys from the ignition and pocketed them before tossing his helmet onto the passenger seat. Giving her no time to so much as blink, he hauled her into his arms and slammed his mouth over hers. The kiss contained enough smoldering anger to set her on fire. But there was also a degree of desperation too. She sensed it in the way he tunneled his fingers in her wind-whipped hair and hugged her close.
She hadn’t been with many men, and certainly none of them came remotely close to stirring these wildly chaotic feelings inside her like Logan did. He represented everything she’d run from her whole life. Wanting something—someone—with this kind of intensity was dangerous. Destructive to her entire being.
So why was she even considering this lunacy? She should walk away right now, before she became addicted to the taste of the forbidden.
As if he sensed the indecision warring inside her, Logan cradled her cheek in one hand and pulled back slightly. He looked into her eyes, his expression both fierce and tender. “Scare me like that again, and I’ll damn well spank you.”
And just like that, the forbidden ensnared her with wicked, sensual promise. Her breath hitched. Attempting to cover the telltale sign of her arousal, she glared at him. “Excuse me?”
“You can lose the phony indignation, shug. I smell how soaked your panties are.”
One of the disadvantages of having a werewolf for a familiar—that damn nose of his. Not granting her long to stew in silence, he twined his fingers through hers and dragged her toward the entrance of his cottage. After fishing out his keys, he unlocked the door and stepped aside, allowing her to precede him inside. The overhead star-shaped chandelier clicked on, raining soft prisms of light across the entry. She managed no more than two steps before Logan’s arms encircled her from behind, stalling her short. His lips settled on the sensitive juncture where her neck and jaw met at the exact moment his prominent erection nudged her ass. She gasped at the exquisite twin sensations.
He gave a deep, rumbling growl that tickled her skin. “This is one of the reasons I’ve always loved how tall you are—how perfectly we align. I could fuck you standin’ up, just like this.” His palms coasted to her hips and held her flush against him while his cock rode the seam of her jeans.
She bit her lip in an effort to stifle her moan. “Y-you’ve thought about fucking me like that?”
“I’ve thought about fuckin’ you every way imaginable, and several that haven’t been invented yet.”
Any lingering chance she might have possessed of walking away shriveled at his words. He’d never made any bones about the fact he lusted after her, but somehow feeling the murmured breath of his admission brush along her skin made it more real. Countless times she’d lain in her bed at night, her body on fire with need while Logan brought her to indescribable heights of pleasure in her mind. And his too, from the sound of it. Tonight, she would give in to the fantasy. If a week was all she had left, she was damn well going to wallow in every sinful moment Logan could give her.
Apparently sharing a similar sentiment, Logan slipped his hands beneath the hem of her shirt and caressed her abdomen. His palms were warm and strong and just a tiny bit calloused. Her tummy quivered in response, and he grazed his forefinger in a lazy circle around her bellybutton. “Slip off your top so I have more room to work.”
She must have hesitated a fraction too long, because Logan stopped tracing his distracting patterns across her skin. “Now, Rissa.”
The unmistakable authority in his tone elicited a strange shiver of excitement. Again, she decided it was better to hide her unexpected reaction. “You’re forgetting which one of us is boss.”
“In every other way, you claim rights to that title. But not when it comes to this.”
“So you think you get to be boss in the bedroom?”
“I don’t think. I know. Now ditch that top before I spank your ass.”
She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but her pussy became even wetter. Damn. She shouldn’t like—much less be turned on by—this chauvinistic, caveman, alpha bullshit. But it didn’t stop her fingers from shaking with a forbidden thrill as they fumbled to remove her shirt.
Her disgruntled musings immediately shuffled to the back of her mind when Logan slid her bra straps down her arms. She swallowed as he unhooked the front clasp on the bra and peeled back its lacy white cups, revealing the beaded, rosy-pink tips of her breasts.
Logan stroked her nipples, earning her moan. “Tell me, darlin’, are these pretty little babies puckered because you’re anticipatin’ how warm your rump would feel after a few swats?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s chilly in here.”
“There’s nothin’ wrong with being aroused at the idea of being spanked. Christ knows, I’m hard just imaginin’ you getting wetter and wetter each time my palm lands on your ass cheeks.”
The vivid imagery instilled by his seductive words created a sharp ache that seemed to begin at her nipples and coalesced into a persistent throb in her clit. She swayed, almost lightheaded from the undiluted excitement pumping through her bloodstream. An animalistic sound broke from Logan, and he swept her up into his arms. Rather than haul her in the direction of his bedroom as she’d expected, he crossed to the leather sectional in the living room. He lowered her onto her feet so she faced the arm of the couch, away from him. A rustling noise whispered behind her. She started to turn, but firm hands settled on her hips, holding her still.
“Stay.” Judging from the location of Logan’s gruff voice, he’d dropped to his knees.
“But—”
“Rissa.” The dangerous note of warning underscoring his tone provoked another of those delicious shivers. He reached around her for the zipper tab on her jeans and tugged it down. A millisecond later, her jeans followed suit, along with her sopping-wet panties.
“Lift your foot.”
She did, and Logan freed that leg from her tangle of clothing before assisting her with the other. Leaving her strappy heels in place, he caressed the backs of her thighs before kneading the globes of her ass. She didn’t stand a prayer of curbing her moan.
“Feel good, baby?”
She barely managed to squeak a “Yes.” Sweet goddess, just the seductive glide of his hands was enough to melt her into a puddle of goo. How was she going to survive anything else he had in s
tore for her?
“I’m gonna make it even better. Lean forward, across the arm of the couch.”
She was past balking at his commands. Why should she, when his touch and his gravelly voice promised everything she had never realized she desired? Craved. Stretching across the couch’s arm, she hugged the suede sofa pillow to her chest and closed her eyes. The scent of warm leather swam in her nose, mixed with the woodsy musk she always associated with Logan. He was everywhere at once. The phantom essence of him filled her nostrils, and the very real presence of his mouth suddenly pressed between her legs. She bit her lip, her cry muffled by the pillow as his tongue burrowed between her swollen labia.
The leisurely devouring he’d spoken of back at Tatum’s was nonexistent. Instead, he ate her with enough ravenous intensity to make her head spin. There was something decadently forbidden and naughty about being bent over a couch, naked except for a pair of high heels and being gorged on with more hungry relish than if she were the prime-rib special at the Boar’s Head.
His thumbs holding her wide open, Logan probed inside her channel, fucking her with his tongue. She squirmed and gasped, her greedy pussy clenching around the intruder.
Logan’s satisfied growl vibrated through her flesh. His tongue momentarily retreated and licked the length of her slit, making her shiver. “Do you have any idea how fuckin’ delicious you are? I’m havin’ you for breakfast, lunch and dinner from here on out.” His entire mouth closed around her, and an overwhelming kaleidoscope of sensations crashed over her. That wicked tongue plying her clit in unrelenting wet sweeps and swirls. The soft scrape of his goatee abrading her sensitive tissues. His big hands constantly massaging her raised buttocks. She dug her nails into the couch cushions, her vision blurring as she struggled with the simple task of remembering to breathe.
Apparently determined to send her screaming into climax, Logan darted his tongue with concentrated flicks across her clitoris. The orgasm welled inside her, holding her suspended for one blinding moment, before she shattered with devastating impact. She cried out, her body shaking so uncontrollably she thought her knees might buckle.
