by M. L. Briers
“Close your eyes.”He instructed her again and she complied, unable not too for some dumb reason that she wanted an answer for after he’d stopped stroking her…everywhere… She shivered, it wasn’t just that somebody walking over her grave type of shiver, it was somebody doing a bloody jig on her grave type of shiver that rattled through her and probably dislodged some brain cells, because her hands came up and she palmed his chest, more than ready to push him back away from her.
But when push came to shoving him away, she couldn’t do it. Why couldn’t she do it? It was as if someone had taken over her bodily functions and instead of pushing she wanted to pull…
“Why can’t I push him away?”She snapped her eyes open and looked at Link, desperation enveloping her.
“I guess you’re at the no going back stage of mating.”Link offered and she hissed at him.
“There was a going back stage?”
“Not for him, but for you…”
“And now?”She almost growled down at him.
“Whoops…”Link offered with a shrug off his shoulders and she bit down hard on every obscene word that travelled through her brain.
“Whoops?”She sounded quite rational to her own ears, surprisingly, although there was a touch of sarcasm in there somewhere, and she might have been a little more shrew than she’d like.
“My bad.”Link offered. She’d get over it. Once she was mated she’d understand, until then he might just hide the sharp objects.
“As for you…”She turned her attention back to Rudd, even though her eyes felt as if they were climbing a bloody mountain over his chest just to get a look at those puppy dogs… wow, wolfie pups…? “I get that you have a mate and you’re looking for her, and it’s going to be an epic thing and all, but it’s not me. I don’t even like you…”
“The lady doth protest too much…”Link started and her head snapped around on her neck, little crunches of vertebrae and all, and she hissed at Link.
“Can it or lose a damn fang…”
“There’s an easy way to disprove your theory…”Rudd offered and her head snapped back again.
“I’m not having sex with you. I told you, I’ve already fallen for the pull my finger routine…”
“Not sex…”His growl sent a shiver clean down to her toes again. The look in his eye was totally predatory, and boy did she feel that deep inside her.
“Then how?”She knew she shouldn’t have asked the moment the words popped out of her mouth, it was basically akin to an invite and he took it as such. His lips touched hers as his hand slipped around her hip and palmed the small of her back, bringing her hips against his, bringing his hardness against her stomach, and then his other hand touched her neck, his fingers lost in her hair, the jolt of excitement hit her womb and her stomach flipped.
Everything together had her brain trying to latch on to each different sensation that was so overwhelming that her brain held up its hands in surrender and took sides. One half was doing celebratory cartwheels and high fiving, while the other half was folding its proverbial arms and berating her for walking into that one…
Now there were first kisses, and then there were first kisses, and then there was the kiss to end all kisses, the kiss that spoke to every inch of your body and soul, swept through you on the wings of fire and emotion and melted your bones until you were nothing but mush, and this was one of those kisses… and he hadn’t even gotten to the kissing part yet, not really. Lips on lips wasn’t kissing, although for him it was, because she felt as if she’d been thoroughly kissed…
Right up until the time when he ran his tongue over her lips, demanding entry, and there wasn’t a thought in her head to deny him. He swept his tongue over hers, and it took every ounce of willpower he could spare to stifle the urge to growl long and hard for fear she would pull away. But she tasted like heaven, his heaven made just for him and he would be eternally grateful to The Fates for this gift.
He didn’t want to set her away from him, he wanted nothing more than to take her upstairs and show her in very fine detail, all over her body, exactly what he meant by disproving her theory… But he couldn’t, not yet. He was sure that in some part of her mind there was a great big neon sign flashing the word ‘wolf’.
It would have amused him on just how slow she was on the uptake to come back to the real world, if his body didn’t ache with the need for her, a need he could see mirrored on her face.
“Macy kissed the wolfman…”Link knew he shouldn’t of done it, especially when two sets of black eyes turned towards him, each with their own distinctive glare, but he couldn’t help himself, and he grinned devilishly back at them.
“At least he doesn’t eat people.”Macy rushed to her mates defence and then almost swallowed her tongue in disbelief, firstly for doing it and secondly, because she had no idea if he did or not. “D-do you?”She swung her eyes back up to him and he twisted his head on his neck the way animals do and looked at her in disbelief.
“No!” He growled out, and then with a well timed clearing of the throat from Link he conceded, “not unless I have too.”
Macy gave the smallest squeak and forced herself to step backwards from him, but he reached for her wrist and kept her from moving any further away.
“I swear to you they deserved it…”His eyes flashed with sincerity and she squeaked again. She wasn’t sure if the fact that he’d admitted killing human’s was as bad as the fact that he believed he did it righteously… Hello! Psycho…
Link snorted a chuckle and watched the Alpha quickly back peddle from that argument as her eyes widened in horror.
“Not so much deserved it…” She squeaked again and he waved his free hand dismissively in the air between them in an effort to clarify his mind and get her to scratch everything she had just heard from hers. “Ok, look. Some people are just bad…”He offered and she swallowed again. The deep creases on her brow signifying that he wasn’t handling this as well as he could have, and it was that vampire’s damned fault…
“So you’re what? Judge and jury at the all you can eat buffet?”She demanded and he took a moment to consider her words. They’d kind of knocked him for six and his mouth hung open as he considered her words, his eyes narrowing as he fought to get his brain in gear.
CHAPTER NINE
“He eats people all the time.”Rudd pointed an accusing finger at the Vampire in the hopes of deflecting her wrath and making himself feel better in the process. If she was looking at Link’s crimes, she wasn’t looking at his…
“He’s a vampire.”She reasoned as if Rudd was insane, and to her, he just might be.
Rudd balked at the very idea of letting Link off the hook. “And I’m a wolf.”He exclaimed as if that answered all of her questions. She thought he might even be pouting slightly, or maybe it from the kisses they had shared, but his lips sure seemed a little bit puffier.
“Stop pouting because you lost the argument.”She berated him. She might as well have been scolding a dog the way she said it, all she needed was a wagging finger and… There it was, aimed at him. “You should know better than to eat people…”
“I don’t eat people…”Rudd growled back.
“No he just rips their throat out, there’s very little chewing.”Link couldn’t help but stir the pot, it was just such an amusing pot to watch coming to the boil. And somehow a little humour always made a situation better, easier to take, and with this she needed all the help she could get.
Macy gasped in a breath. Her eyes took in the man who was supposed to be her mate. How could someone so gorgeous, so sexy, so… not the point she was trying to make…
“At least I don’t suck them dry while they are still alive.”Rudd growled at Link over the top of May’s head and she turned on her heels to give Link that look of horror she had not long ago bestowed on her mate. Link didn’t like it, seeing himself through Macy’s eyes, he didn’t like it one bit.
“It’s been a while since I completely sucked anyone dry
, I have control of my feeding habits, otherwise I’d just be another animal…”Link smirked back at the Alpha. If the Alpha wanted to cast aspirations he’d willingly play along. “And Macy wouldn’t be here.” He knew he’d gone a step too far when both the Alpha and Macy growled at him. “And that’s my queue to leave.”
Link was gone in a heartbeat. Just the sound of the backdoor closing and the breeze that greeted her was all that remained to show he had been there.
“Macy…” Rudd wanted to assure her, but she’d growled again and he couldn’t even assure himself right then and there that he wouldn’t turn her to the wall and take her, claim her…
“I get it. You eat people, he drinks them, and I’m… people.”Macy snapped back and that just about slammed his libido down on the floor and jumped all over it.
She went to move away from him when he didn’t answer, but his fingers tightened on her wrist and he kept her in place. The worst thing was, she couldn’t or wouldn’t look up at him. He wanted to see her eyes, but she wouldn’t lift them of her own free will, so he guessed he really didn’t want to know what was there after all.
“I would never hurt you.”His gentle growl rumbled through his chest and filled the air between them, and that wasn’t something her body would let her ignore.
“You say that now, but one well placed knee in the groin and I’m sure the claws come out…”She bit down on her lower lip and he wanted to growl away the ache within him. “You have claws right?”
“I have everything a wolf has…”He assured her, not really seeing his transformation through her eyes, which was another mistake.
“Those big arsed teeth, or fangs… razor blades…”She shivered from head to toe and this time it had little to do with his proximity and more to do with what her mind was imagining.
“Macy, calm down. I can hear your heart racing…”His gentle growl pulled her from the images of a savage beast ripping and tearing at flesh that were in her mind, back to him, back to here and now.
“You can hear my heart? What do you have satellite dishes for ears?”He couldn’t help but chuckle when she actually looked, her eyes flicking to both sides of his head in case she missed a really big one…
“Wolves have good hearing…”He informed her on another chuckle.
“But you’re a man…”She declared and he tipped his head to the side and regarded her again. She thought of him as a man, that was a good sign, he thought with a small smile.
“Yes, but I get to keep some of my wolf traits even when I’m human…”
“Not exactly human…”She offered on a small shrug of her shoulders and he sighed inwardly, back to not seeing him as a man. She saw the look of disappointment on his face and felt a wave of guilt wash through her, why she didn’t know, after all, he was a killer. He killed people, he admitted that, how could you feel sympathy for someone like that?
How the hell could you be attracted to someone like that? She berated herself, and yet she was, so damn attracted to him that she wanted to curl up around him and… She shook her head, trying to clear thoughts and feelings that were now deeply rooted within her.
“But there’s no fur…”She offered and then frowned, looking down at his legs. Half man, half beast? “That I’m aware of…”
“You’ve seen me naked, Macy…”He offered, crinkling his brow in such a cute way that his dark eyebrows looked like caterpillars walking across his forehead, and he questioned her reasoning with those sexy eyes, sexy brows, and the small lopsided smile that cracked his lips and let her see those perfect white teeth…
Images of him naked flashed in her mind. Yes she had, she had seen him naked, and what a glorious sight it had been to behold. Tanned, muscled flesh, and who could forget that large, hard…. Macy gave a slight whimper and he responded by twisting his head again.
She wasn’t sure if she was trying to force those images out of her mind and berate herself for them, or if she wanted to rip his clothes off and get another eyeful of the man candy and his goodies that were good enough to eat… Sod it, again? She cursed.
Rudd saw the way her eyes flashed with desire, saw the look she gave him, as if he was standing naked in front of her and she wanted to sample everything he had to offer, and boy did he have a lot to offer her… The point was, he’d found a way to change the subject and get her mind onto a more important topic, sex…
“Tell me, did you see any fur on my body?”He gave her another wolfish grin and she was certain that her panties had just dropped off all on their own, at least, she kind of hoped they had.
“I’d need a closer inspection just to be certain…”The moment her brain kicked those words out of her mouth she almost died of heart failure. It was kind of lucky that he acted so quickly to scare the hell out of her heart into beating a thousand times faster, by yanking her body towards him and claiming her mouth in a kiss that practically blew her clothes from her body, or was that his hands?
The point was she was getting naked… How was she getting naked…? Did she want to be naked...? Wait, that was a stupid question, too damn right she wanted to be naked, she’d never wanted to be more naked at any other time in her damn life… But she wanted him to be naked too…
“Wait…”She tore her mouth from his, but his lips just travelled down her neck and started working their magic over the soft skin, and she tensed for a second… Not a Vampire… The words flashed big and bold within her mind and her body unclenched, not that it had a lot of choice, not with what his hands and mouth were doing…
Rudd stroked his fingers over her skin, everywhere he uncovered, her breasts, her stomach, her hip, down her thighs, back up her inner thighs, and God it felt like heaven…
“Naked…”She breathed against his shoulder.
“Very nearly, sweetheart…”He growled gently against her neck as his fingertips skirted over her spine, upwards, downwards, upwards… her brain didn’t know if it was coming or going, but her body knew what it wanted, and that was him, stark naked and pressed against her…
“You naked…”She ran her fingertips under his shirt and found the warmth of his skin, satin soft and with downy hair that teased her way to his erogenous zones, including a damn runway that disappeared inside the waistband of his jeans, and she wanted to get to the end of that air strip… strip… God, she wished he would…
It felt like a fever within her blood, but she wanted him more than she wanted… chocolate cake. That very thought hit her hard. Him or chocolate cake? How could she want him more than cake? That was unreasonable, unheard of, and downright telling. There had never been anything in her life before that she would value higher on the gorging scale than chocolate cake. Hell she’d even do a straight trade for her grandmother to get some in times of need, but right now he was her need, and she was in the kitchen, not ten feet away from cake… Kitchen… Damn it to hell, she was in the damn kitchen…
“We’re in the kitchen…”She gave a little squeak of dismay, but in the grand scheme of things, she didn’t really give a damn in they were in the middle of senior bingo, she was naked and he was touching her…
“That I can do something about…”He growled against her ear. His hands palmed her naked backside and he lifted her against his still dressed body and she groaned twofold. Firstly the hardness of his erection under denim rubbed against her sex and it felt good, and secondly, because he was still covered in denim and not naked…
Her mind didn’t have time to think about that as the world whizzed by around her and she did squeal then, with a high pitched vengeance that caused him to wince in pain.
He had her pinned up against the back of his closed bedroom door in a few heartbeats, her legs still wrapped around his hips and he rubbed himself against her.
“Don’t do that…”She gasped out, caught between berating him and revelling in the feeling of him rubbing over her sex.
Rudd pulled back from nuzzling her neck to look down on her, a questioning quirk of just one brow. “No rubbings
good, or it would be if you were naked…”Her feet found the floor in a heartbeat and he steadied her with one large hand against her hip as his other hand wrenched off his shirt, tearing the fabric without a care, as she panted, trying to regain some semblance of control…
“Then what are you objecting to, sweetheart?”His jeans were around his ankles in a heartbeat. Her eyes feasted on him, all of him, every delicious looking inch, and then some more… Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew the answer to that question, it was the speed of getting up the damn stairs, and yet all she could do was to stare at him and lick her lips…
“No objections…”She shook her head, but her eyes were fixed on his erection that was standing tall and proud, and she was sure the damn thing winked at her.
When she licked her lips again he growled long and hard. He reached out a hand and wrapped it around her back, hoisting her against his hard body, and the sound that came from her lips was like a caress to his manhood, the same manhood that twitched with the feel of being sandwiched between their bodies, desperate for a home to sink into…
His other hand circled the back of her neck and he tasted her mouth again. This was no slow burn of a kiss, this was a full on tactical assault that curled her toes against the plush carpeting and her fingers against the skin of his chest, her nails raking against his flesh and catching his hard nipple.
In a flash he had her on the bed, her back against the mattress as he came down over her. He would have taken her there up against the wall, or on the floor, but something within his mind was still aware of her being human, and he needed to do this right…
“Wolf…”She breathed against his lips when he let her up for air and he took a moment to pull back and gaze down at her. His eyes devoured her, but his smile was heartfelt and his growl was so gentle that it rolled over her skin.
“No, just us…”His fingertips brushed down her cheek and he felt the flutter of her heartbeat.
