Birthright (Pale Moonlight Book 1)

by Marie Johnston

  She didn’t close her eyes, drop her head back, and use him for her pleasure. Riding him without mercy, she explored his body. Hands raked up and down his torso, drifting over his nipples, up his arms—that was his favorite. Her breasts threatened to spill out of their cups, and if he lifted his head an inch, he’d catch one between his teeth.

  Getting her off in her pants wasn’t what he intended for their first experience. An orgasm was not just another orgasm. She deserved to know what he could do for her. Be fully informed about their mating compatibility.

  Until then, he waited, gritting his teeth, fingernails drawing blood to keep his hands off her.

  Maggie’s eyes glazed, her body melting into the impending climax. Porter flipped her onto her back, snapping her pants clasp and dragging them off her.

  “What are you—” She sounded like a pissed female who’d been denied her happy ending, about to attack him, barely noticing he was between her legs, pushing them to the sides.

  “Showing you what a real orgasm is,” he growled. He could come from the sight. A flushed, furious Maggie, legs spread, her wet, pink center throbbing for him.

  He descended. The first swipe of his tongue, Maggie collapsed back with a cry. The second swipe, she raised her knees higher, threading her hands into his hair.

  “Porter!” She pressed him closer, undulating her hips.

  The third swipe, she jacked her hips up. She was so wet, he made it his goal to lick her up, everything she had. As he tongued her again, he inserted a finger.

  “Oh my—” Curled around his face, her entire concentration rested on his tongue and finger like she depended on them to finish her pleasure. “More.”

  A second finger slid inside her sweltering sex. She convulsed around him, her first orgasm kicking off. He’d find out how many she could tolerate. And increase it from there.

  She shook and cried, he raised his eyes to her chest. Across the expanse of her flat belly was her jiggling breasts, defying odds still bound by the weak bra.

  Porter ground his erection into the sheets, desperately seeking release when all he wanted to do was bury himself to the hilt and feel his balls smack against her ass.

  Her walls eased around his fingers. Dipping his chin down, he firmed his tongue and speared her.

  “Porter,” she gasped, “I can’t.”

  He withdrew only to say, “I’ll show how much you can,” and went back to tasting her, rolling his tongue, flicking it to feel her body jump. He returned to her swollen clit, his fingers setting a lazy thrusting rhythm.

  Maggie sagged into the mattress, her grip leaving his hair to twist the sheets.

  God, she was amazing. Her sweet taste provoked his wild side. How he wasn’t frantically humping her he didn’t know, but he wouldn’t. He’d pushed her farther than she’d planned—ever. Tonight was about her pleasure and what he could do for her.

  But fuck, he needed something. It wasn’t easy palming himself, but propped on one elbow and his knees, he jerked himself off, timing her release with his.

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Maggie came a second time.

  He wasn’t done.

  “Porter,” Maggie pushed at his head, “seriously, I can’t.”

  He raised his head enough to stab her with a dominating stare. “You can. Your body was made to orgasm for me—over and over again.”

  Her eyes widened at the reminder that they were destined. To distract her, he sucked on her clit and quirked his fingers inside.

  Instant orgasm.

  Like the starved male he was, he lapped her up. Every time she released, it was his. When the pressure almost drove him to claim her the way they were meant to, he used his hand on himself.

  He didn’t know how long they were at it. Her voice was hoarse, he was having the time of his life, but the pounding on the door stalled them both.

  A growl escaped Porter, but Maggie’s startled “down boy” silenced him.

  “Uh…” a nervous voice called from the hallway, “I’ve been getting some noise complaints…”

  “We’re done.” Maggie slid back and tried to sit up, but flopped back down. Her breasts jiggled with movement.

  “Next time,” he crawled up her body, slick with her desire, and sucked in a nipple through the material, releasing it to say, “I’m going to give these the attention they deserve.”

  She slid her legs together like they weighed a metric ton each. “You’re so confident there’s going to be a next time.”

  Gazing down at her, his erection heavy between them, he glanced between it and her until she looked at his shaft.

  “Don’t tell me you aren’t a little curious how earth shattering it’d be between us.”

  Mesmerized, she didn’t take her eyes off it. He knew he was well-endowed among his kind. Among humans…the answer read clearly in her face. Like comparing a brick to a cinder block. A two-by-four to a railroad tie.

  “It would be just like between me and other shifters.” Maybe she was going for boasting, but the quiver in her voice negated it. “I don’t have a shifter partner comparison.”

  “I’d be better than your human sex,” he admitted, “but there’s a reason shifters remain mated for years, and it’s not because females like to fake orgasms for centuries.”

  “Centuries?” she echoed.

  With a sigh, he rolled to the side, dragging her into him. Surprisingly, she didn’t resist. A bonus to his cunnilingus.

  “I’m not kidding, Maggie. We’re made for each other. Give us a chance.”

  “I want to make sure my mom is safe first.” She settled into his arms. “Then we’ll talk about this mating business and what it means,” she murmured, before falling into a deep sleep.

  Porter’s crazed hard-on didn’t let him drift off so quickly; he had to wait until the throbbing subsided. She wanted her mom safe first. Fair enough. Lobo Springs was his first priority, until he found his mate. Now settling her fears took precedence, but his home was a close second.

  So be it. They’d find Armana after he got some sleep.

  Chapter Six

  Maggie woke to muted sunlight streaming through the threadbare curtains. No blankets clung to her body, but she was hot. The delicious sensation of a hard body pressed against her back with a steel band wrapped around her waist threatened to lull her back to sleep.

  With a deep inhale to help wake herself completely, her senses flooded with the masculine smell of freshly sawed lumber.

  Her eyes flew open.

  Holy smokes, she was in bed with Porter! Mortification wiped away the cozy feeling of security. Sweet Mother Earth, he’d played with her body, stringing out more orgasms than she’d had in the last year. Absolutely she knew shifters liked sex and a lot of it. Her mother hadn’t smothered her entirely. Maggie had gotten “the talk” and for weeks afterward died of embarrassment around her mother.

  What Armana failed to educate Maggie on was how sexual they were and how drastically different shifter males were from human men. Everything from anatomy to the ability to wring out orgasms in the double digits—without penetration. Night and day.

  To think she almost scoffed at Porter when he said he was going to show her a real orgasm. Her original thought had been puh-lease. In the years she’d been sexually active, she’d developed her routine for picking up bed partners. Her choices weren’t the boastful guys who trolled for women to prove the virtues of sleeping with them. She chose the men with quiet confidence who genuinely cared about what a girl wanted, what she did for a living. It translated to dedication to mutual pleasure in the bedroom. They didn’t need the biggest package or the best body, all they needed was laser focus on what made the girl’s body sing.

  Porter was more than well-endowed, bordered on arrogant in bed, and lacked any doubts that sex with him would be amazing. From what she experienced, he was right—one orgasm was not like another. Then there was his body. She’d nearly choked on lust when she discovered he’d come to bed naked and found herself un
derneath a wall of solid muscle and virile male.

  Very virile.

  He’d released himself several times during their tryst and he’d still been long and hard when she succumbed to her exhausted post-coital state.

  Most of all, he’d respected her wishes to refrain from full blown sex. He could’ve impaled her and had his way with her for hours after the first flick of his tongue. Arguing had plummeted far on her priority list.

  Just like extracting herself from the cocoon of his body bottomed out on her must-do list.

  Mate.

  Did that mean she wouldn’t feel this intense attraction with other males? Not many other shifters had crossed her path in the past, and they never seemed to realize she was one of them. Their scent was so obvious; hers must be subdued. From the human world?

  Asking Porter was an option. So was cringing at his reaction. She would not be ashamed for not knowing about Porter’s world. Did he know about the ins and outs of the college financial aid system with the added level of fake documents and an apparently fake name?

  Mage Troye.

  Porter had called her Mage.

  She had liked it.

  At the time, he could’ve called her Sex Bunny Sixty-nine and she would’ve purred.

  “What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?” his baritone rumbled into her ear.

  Instantly, it was like none of the orgasms had happened. Her body became primed and ready for him.

  He nuzzled the back of her neck, his arm closing tighter around her.

  Her first instinct was to wiggle her butt back into the solid line of cock pressing into it. Suppressing it was—pathetically—very difficult. Instead, she rolled out, his arm going lax to let her escape.

  The only clothing that survived the night was her bra, which showed as much as it covered. Her pants and sweatshirt lay strewn around the room.

  Porter’s gaze heated, his demeanor predatory. She wanted to be his prey. His body was on full display and she couldn’t rip her gaze away from him.

  Look away. Look away. LOOK AWAY.

  “We need to find Ma.” Her breathless voice conflicted with her words.

  “What’s really going on, Mage?” Proving he was yet again stronger than her, his eyes stared solidly into hers. The raging erection and tensed muscles her only indication he yearned to drag her back under him.

  “You need to get dressed.”

  “Nudity doesn’t bother shifters,” he said archly.

  An image of a village of nude males as stunning as Porter, and females just as gorgeous, hit Maggie. “Do shifters wander around naked all day?” The idea of Porter surrounded by buck naked females caused Maggie’s fangs to throb, yearning to rip imagined females’ throats out.

  Porter chuckled, the low sound rumbling between them. “It’s not unusual to pass someone on our runs, whether we’re heading out or coming back.”

  Whatever that meant. She heard, we walk around naked and enjoy it, and she wasn’t going to ask if it was accurate.

  “I need your phone to call Ma again.” Her eyes widened. “They can’t track us through the phones can they?”

  “The colony doesn’t have the technology. Even with what Seamus has pirated from humans, I doubt he can afford it.”

  “Sounds like a real nice guy.”

  Porter’s expression turned serious. “He’s why we need you.”

  Not that again. Maggie didn’t know what she’d have to do to dissuade him from continuing down the you’re-Lobo-Springs-savior path. Becoming head of a town, pack, or whatever Porter called it, caused her to feel just as restless as punching in for a shift at the daycare.

  “My mother first.”

  Porter considered her for a moment. “You can use the bathroom first.”

  Relieved she started for the bathroom, then recalled her clothing situation. Locating her sweatshirt, she grabbed it off the floor and found her pants—inside out—lying nearby. Porter tracked her the entire time. She managed to bend over without flashing him a close-up of a full moon. From the spike of lust in the room, she figured he wouldn’t have minded, probably hoped for it.

  Scurrying into the bathroom, she was closing the door when she noticed his pants and shirt hanging up. She tossed them outside the door. “You can dress while I’m in here.” Please. Teasing her with his body was cruel and unusual.

  Maggie jumped in the shower, scrubbing off quickly. The loss of Porter’s scent covering her skin registered as undesirable. She felt stripped without his scent enveloping her.

  Mates.

  Like, the rest of her life mate.

  Using the blow dryer was a delay tactic. She could fan her hair and dry it faster than the ancient piece of crap dryer, but then she’d have to leave the bathroom. It’s not like she could linger, styling her hair and putting on makeup. She was lucky there was the square inch soap bar.

  Finger combing through the long, damp strands, she rescued the hair tie and secured her mane back in a haphazard bun.

  Once dressed, she faced the door, took a deep breath, and firmly told her body not to go crazy around the male.

  She pulled the door open and determined it was useless. Porter’s scent surrounded her once again and her body reacted.

  Ugh. Was she in heat, or it was it always like this around shifter males?

  Porter sat on the edge of the disheveled bed. The bedspread rested half on, half off the bed, the sheets twisted. Her cheeks burned seeing the evidence while Porter casually flipped through an old yellow pages.

  He glanced back at her. “It’s all right, Mage. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  That was the benefit to dating humans. She could lie through her sharp teeth and they were clueless.

  “I suppose you do this all the time?” No, that wasn’t jealousy, just defensiveness.

  “Not as much as you’d think. Some males do, but once Seamus took over…” Porter slammed the book down. “I didn’t want his castaways, couldn’t trust ’em. My pack is like family so that rules them out. When the urge struck, I came here to Freemont.”

  He stood, stalking toward her. The plaid button up hung in his hand, his snug t-shirt tantalizing her because now she knew what was underneath. The jeans hung on his lean waist and knowing he went commando would’ve dampened her panties—if she wore any.

  Handing her the phone, he towered over her. “What about you Mage?” He cocked his head, a teasing tilt to his lips. “Did you have to find more than one bedmate for the night to satisfy you, or did you go home and finish for yourself what the human boys couldn’t?”

  Oh no he didn’t…didn’t guess that’s exactly what she’d done. Her experiences had been pleasurable enough, they just weren’t enough.

  “Yeah,” he drawled, “thought so. You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

  Snatching the phone, she ignored him, and dialed her mom.

  Both of them turned somber as it rang and rang.

  “Shit,” Maggie said, on the verge of tears.

  “Hey.” Porter caressed her face with the back of his hand. “She’s been through worse than this. She’s a fighter and survivor. We’ll find her.”

  Shakily, Maggie nodded, turning into his hand.

  Gently, he took the phone from her and pocketed it. “We’ll grab something to eat first. Down the street there’s a used car shop. I’ll buy a cheap beater to take us to the Guardians.”

  “What if she’s—”

  “She’s not.” He rested his hands on her shoulders until she looked up at him. “You didn’t know about mates, so you don’t know what’s it’s like to lose one, right? It’s the worst thing that can happen to a shifter. Very few survive the death of a mate, and those who do have children to keep them going. Armana survived the attack, her mate and a son getting killed, and raised two kids alone in basically a whole new world. She’s tougher than you think.”

  “She’s all I have.”

  “Not anymore. You have me and your brother
now, too.”

  If he had just said Jace, she’d still be uneasy, but comforted. Adding himself complicated her situation further. Tall, dark, and sexy stormed into her life when it had been completely unsettled, and as much as he claimed it should reassure her, it didn’t. Her emotional state requested handling one situation at a time.

  “There’s a fast food place a couple blocks from here. We’ll function better on a full stomach.” He grabbed her hand; she ambled along behind him.

  Hunger gnawed at her. Shifter appetites required meat and more meat. She hadn’t eaten since the meal with her mom and her purse was probably getting pawed through—pun intended—by Seamus’ lackeys, who probably had killer headaches, hell bent on revenge.

  Porter planned to feed two shifters on the run and buy a POS. She examined his back pocket. Gawd, the male had an ass. Forcing herself to stay on the wallet outline, she noticed it wasn’t terribly thick. No wad of cash, but maybe he had electronic funds?

  The closer they got to food, the stronger the smells became. Her stomach rumbled. Porter threw an amused glance over his shoulder. She glared back, on the verge of hangry. He couldn’t have eaten any more than she had, but he didn’t seem to suffer.

  Entering the eatery, she had two orders mentally tallied. One option that would get her by, and one just in case Porter had a credit card with no limit.

  He inclined his head toward the cashier who looked barely old enough to be out of elementary school. “Go ahead.”

  “Can I order what I want?”

  The pubescent cashier raised an eyebrow at Porter.

  “Knock yourself out,” Porter answered.

  “Are you serving lunch yet?” The boy nodded. “Four double cheeseburgers, two large fries, and…oh, and the monster burger with the bacon. And a chocolate milkshake.”

  Usually Maggie took her order to-go and said things like “they want” and “she said to get her this” to pretend it all wasn’t for her. Today, the cashier’s eyes remained wide as he waited for Porter’s order.

  “The same,” he said.

  The cashier paused like he was waiting for Porter to say he was joking before he punched it in. “Uh…is it for here?”