by Reina Torres
She felt it. That sensation of gravity. Pulling her not down to the earth, but to him.
The sensation of electricity. The kind that brought life with it and heat.
“Xavier?”
Was that even her voice?
That breathy, needy tone that left her bare.
“You have your panther to ask… to be sure.”
He lifted his arms and let her pull his t-shirt up and off his body. When she looked for a place to put it down, he took it from her hands and threw it off to the side.
“I know what I want,” she told him, but his eyes narrowed at her, “but can I be really sure? I mean, I look at you and I think I’m seeing you, but what if what I’m feeling is Elizabeth looking for Landon?”
His hands settled on her hips and he focused on her face, his eyes completely human again. “I don’t know. Things would be easier if you were a shifter too.”
Maybe he expected her to laugh off the idea. Or just ignore the thought.
What he didn’t expect was her taking that leap and asking him, “Could you? Change me into one?” She swallowed hard enough that he could hear it, telling him that she was scared to even suggest it. “Like they do in the movies. You know,” she tilted her head to the side offering him the graceful column of her neck, “bite me and in a few days, I’ll be one of you? Then I’d have a way to know what I really feel.”
The idea sounded like a dream. Running through the woods with her at his side, shoulders brushing in the darkness. Two sleek bodies moving with each other, against each other.
That would be so perfect if it were possible.
“What you see in the movies, read in the books, that’s not how the bite works. I can’t change you completely.” Xavier lifted a hand and placed it against her neck, enjoying the feeling of her skin against his. “When Aaron marked Celeste, her body changed. Aging slowed, and maybe reversed a little too.”
He swept his thumb against the pulse he felt just beneath her jaw and felt it jump at his touch.
“It’s probably why she’s pregnant.”
True pressed her neck against his hand, seeking more of his touch and he obliged, lifting the other hand to rub his palms against her beautiful skin.
“It’s impossible to tell what traits a human might develop when they’ve been marked. Maybe it’s that they have something in their genetics from generations back.”
She smiled and hummed silently against his gentle touch. “Like those genes that skip generations.”
He chuckled softly and saw her eyes open slowly to look at him.
“What?”
“You know more than I do, probably, but either way, there’s only one way I want to bite you and it’s not so you can make up your mind about me.” He shook his head. “If I bite you,” he splayed his hands around her neck and felt her blood flowing through her veins, “it’s going to be because you want me, want us, forever.
“I may not be the kind of man you can handle for that kind of time.”
“Longer,” she smiled leaning even deeper into his touch, “if your bite does anything to me like Aaron’s did to Celeste.”
He heard the words and he wasn’t sure if she had the same meaning behind them that was already in his head. Giving in to the belief that True was his mate had opened up futures that he’d never considered.
True, waking up beside him, her body ripe with their child, her lips parting on a breathless sigh as he showed her time and time again how much he needed her in his life.
And just that thought, the sound of her in his ears, was more a memory than a fantasy as if he’d already touched her a thousand times in his mind.
They fell into silence, his hands on her neck, their bodies breathing together, her eyes on him.
They let the world fall away and just saw each other.
True’s eyes searched his and he felt an awareness settle over him.
Xavier could hear the waterfall up along the path.
He could almost feel the cool spray of water across his skin.
The panther stirred again inside of him, but he was already moving her away, drawing her along beside him as they reached the door to his home.
Inside, he hoped, she wouldn’t be distracted by her dreams. If she didn’t hear the waterfall. Didn’t see the sharp drop over the cliff, maybe he could protect her from the horror she held in her head every night.
“Do you want to come in?” He paused at the door, his hand on the doorknob. “I can make you something to eat.”
True shook her head and then shook it again, her eyes showing her frustration. “Yes, I want to go in. No, I don’t think I could eat.”
His smile was predatory. He couldn’t help that. His panther was seeking release to get close. Close to her.
“Wow, is that really him?” He heard her soft question and he swore, he could feel his beast almost preening for her. “Is that your panther in that smile?”
Nodding, he had to fight for more control to speak to her in a language she could understand. “I’ve been fighting so long that he’s fighting for more control now that I’m letting you near. Letting you inside.”
Her cheeks pinked as she lifted her hand to touch his face. “It still feels like you, but I feel like I’m seeing… more of you.”
His smile deepened and she laughed at her herself.
“I keep saying things that sound more like double entendres.”
“We know. And we like it.” He tilted his head toward the cabin and she stepped in past him.
Once inside, she stopped a few feet in and waited for him. With the door closed and locked behind them, Xavier made his way to her side.
When he spoke, he saw the way the sound sent shivers across her skin. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
He listened to her take several breaths before she spoke. “I’m not afraid of that. Or afraid of you.”
Taking hold of her shoulders, he turned her around and enjoyed the dappled sunlight playing across her skin. “Tell me, True. What makes you shiver when you’re near me?”
Her eyes nearly drove him over the edge. She wasn’t a shifter, but the way her eyes dilated, the dark at the centers nearly filled her eyes and the soul he felt looking back at him was like his own.
“It doesn’t happen, because I’m afraid, Xavier.” She drew in another breath and he could feel the heat in the room rise as if he’d built a fire around them. “I shiver like that because I’m afraid of how much I want you.
“I wish I knew what it was like to feel that connection that you have. I wish I knew what it was like to have another soul held inside me. It would be so lovely not to feel alone ever again.”
Claim.
It was a blinding, driving need that rose up within him.
The instinct to pull her under his body and claim her flesh and her soul felt like a tidal wave rolling right through him instead of over him.
“Would you… would you give me that, Xavier?” She placed her palms flat on his abs and traced her thumbs over the contours of muscle on his body.
It was sweet torture and there was no way he could manage to focus on her words when she was playing havoc with his body.
“Keep touching me like that, and I’ll give you anything.”
Her smile was sweet, but there was also something hungry in her eyes.
She moved her hands again, sliding her palms up the wall of his chest, and skimming her delicate touch over his nipples. It took every ounce of his concentration to breathe. She smelled so sweet and her hands felt like heaven.
If she didn’t stop her games, he’d have to stop her himself. There was no way he would be able to last much longer with her tender exploration of his body.
Sure, she was only teasing the skin and muscles on his chest, but his cock didn’t know that. It wanted her hands, and yes, her mouth, on it.
Soon.
True leaned against him, bringing her nose to within an inch of his chest. So close that he could feel her breath fan o
ut across his skin.
“You smell delicious, you know that?” Her voice was slower than normal, deeper, almost… a purr. “I could smell you. All. Day. Long.”
“You’d kill me if you did that.” The words had been forced out through his clenched teeth.
“Oh? And if I did this?” She turned her head and the very tip of her nose grazed his skin. “What-”
He lifted her off her feet and had her against his wall in less than a heartbeat. He had her back pressed against it, but she bore none of his weight. He might be half-mad with desire, but he’d never hurt her.
Never.
He held her there as he pressed his face between her breasts and drew in a breath. He could drown in the scent of her skin, revel in the frantic beat of his heart. The very air came alive around him from being that close to her.
Xavier turned his head and pressed a kiss on the inner curve of her breast. The heat of her skin burned through the fabric covering the graceful curve. He moved his head a little further and opened his lips. He found her nipple, felt it graze the sensitive skin of his lips. He found it and pulled it into his mouth just a moment before he flicked his tongue across her nipple.
Even with the layers between them, he heard her gasp as he pulled her deeper.
True’s hands grasped his shoulders, her hips bucked forward as her legs wrapped around his middle.
“More, please.”
He grazed her tight peaks with his teeth and she called out.
“Please!”
He opened his lips and let the tip of her breast fall free.
“No. No, no, no!” Her fingers released his shoulders and reached for her own clothing, trying to tear it away. “I need to feel you against my skin.”
He heard the desperation in her voice and felt that her need answered his own.
“Xavier? Dammit, I-”
He pulled her away from the wall and sealed his mouth to hers. Her legs around his body made it only too easy for him. He stripped her top off, tossing it down to the floor as he walked her into his bedroom. Just inside the door his finger freed the button of her jeans and yanked down the zipper. When she loosened her hold on his waist and lowered her legs to the ground, her jeans only needed a little shove to get over the widest curve of her thighs and fall to the floor.
True hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties and started to push them to the ground.
Xavier stopped her movement and she hissed at him, her eyes dark with warning.
“Don’t you dare.”
How could he deny her? After all. He wanted her bare and if she wanted to show him her body, he was going to enjoy the view.
He gave her one in return. Reaching down, he easily opened the buttons on the front of his jeans and shoved them down off of his hips.
The look in her eyes when she saw that he was bare under his pants was worth the moments without his hands and mouth on her body.
He saw the dark in her eyes spread, the wide-eyed hunger gazing back at him wasn’t a reflection. It was True.
Her hands reached for him and he let her, because having her close enough to touch him meant he could get his longer arms around her and undo her bra.
Xavier didn’t remember what it looked like, didn’t care what color or fabric choice she liked, all that mattered was that it was on the floor near the foot of the bed.
And as her hand touched him, he lost his hold on reality.
Her skin felt like silk, pulling along the thick swell of his erection, her fingers finding every rise and fall of the veins that snaked along his shaft.
A soft, gasping sigh reached his ears the moment after she wrapped the tip of his cock in her grasp.
He wanted to be over her, in her. He wanted to brand her with his mouth and his hands. And when he saw the snap of mirth in her eyes and her almost snarling smile, he realized that he’d been talking.
Out loud.
Backing up, she crooked her finger at him, beckoning him forward.
He followed and knew the moment she realized that he was at the advantage.
That she didn’t know where the bed was or how low it sat to the ground.
True pitched back, falling toward the mattress, but when she landed, it was in his arms and he rolled her up, on top.
He liked the dark glitter of desire in her eyes and his blood quickened as she got up on her knees, her curls slick with heat as she rocked forward against him. Again and again, he felt her folds kiss the length of his cock. The hard nub of her clit bump against the smooth edge of its head. He watched her rise and fall, rocking against him, his hands holding her thighs gently in his grasp.
Xavier was so close, too damn close to his own release to trust his hands anywhere else.
True lifted her hands and pushed her thick waves back from her face and tipped her face up to the ceiling.
There was one question in the back of his head, one obstacle between them. Grinding his teeth together, he wondered aloud while his own thoughts warred with the thought.
“I don’t have… I didn’t plan-”
She dropped her hands down onto his chest and stared into his emerald green eyes. “The only thing I’ve had inside of me has been made out of plastic or my own fingers.”
Fuck. He really didn’t need to imagine either scenario as he was already hard as nails.
“And I know you’re clean,” she laughed, and he felt it through her body and against his cock, “what shifter isn’t. If you’re planning to mark me, Zay…” She bit her teeth into her bottom lip. When she released it, he could see the faint white imprints of her teeth against the plump swell of her lips. “I don’t want anything between us.”
The dam broke inside of him and he reached for her. He held her securely against him as he laid her out on the mattress.
She looked so beautiful against his sheets, her dark hair framing her flushed cheeks.
His fingers stroked between her legs and her back arched off the bed, hands grasping for purchase. Smiling to himself, he wondered how no one had ever tasted her passion like he was about to. True was made for love like this.
Leaning over her, one hand on the mattress at her side, the other found her clit and rubbed a tight, gentle circle around it.
Yes, love.
He didn’t doubt the words even though they weren’t his. Once he stopped fighting the inevitable, it all seemed to open up inside of him.
Her eyes fluttered closed as he changed the angle of his hand and slipped a single finger inside of her body. “I,” she gasped and moved restlessly against him, “I’ve never felt like this.”
“Too much?” He watched her face, enjoying the shifting moments of joy and desire that she showed him.
“Oh, no… more.”
A second finger joined the first and he felt her clamp down as he finished his thrust into her body. “Easy, True. Let it happen.”
Her eyes fixed on him, wide and open. “I can’t just lay here.”
“Oh, I didn’t say I wanted that,” He leaned further over her body and as his fingers continued moving inside of her his tongue swept over one pert nipple. She gasped and arched against him. Xavier did it again and knew from the shudder of her body that she liked the rough scratch of his tongue. When he spoke, his lips brushed the side of her breast. “I want you to move, True. Help me take you higher.”
He switched his mouth to her other breast and heard her soft, panting cries. She was so damn responsive to his touch and when he bit gently around her nipple, his tongue laving her tender skin, she almost sounded like she was in pain. Before he could pull away, her hand clasped the back of his head and held him there.
“Don’t you dare stop… I’m so… so-” True cried out as if the world had exploded into sparks around them and her body pulled and pushed at him in turn.
Xavier watched her learn to breathe again, watched as her lips parted in a languid smile, and felt her body release him so that he could taste the release he’d given her.
&nb
sp; When she turned away from the sight, he laughed gently. “You can hide all you like, but believe me, True, this will not be the last time I lick you off my fingers. You’ll want to watch me someday.”
“I want to watch you now,” her admission was almost too soft for him to hear, “but I think if you show me one more moment of desire, I may never recover from it. I don’t think my legs would hold me up right now if I tried and you haven’t even-”
She stopped short and he saw the blush on her cheeks spread down her neck to the tops of her breasts.
“I haven’t even what, True?
He watched her as she thought through the words in her head. Too much thought. At least for him. He wanted her to hunger for him, not to debate.
Well, there was only one way to stop that.
Kneeling between her legs he set one foot on the bed and then the other. With a hand on each knee he sat up and looked down at her fading blush and felt his own desire for her ignite and become red-hot with need.
“Look at me, True. I need you to look at me.”
Her eyes went to his face first and he smiled.
“Yes, just like that.”
Keeping his gentle hold on her knees, he set his palms on the inside of her thighs and gently pushed them open.
He felt her eyes drift down looking between her legs, and as he lifted his head to look into her gaze, he sat up higher on the mattress and saw her beautiful dark eyes widen. His thick cock, erect and desperate for its own taste of her body, bobbed as if it felt its own pull to her body.
Wrapping his hand around the middle of his length he felt her eyes on him like a caress.
“Don’t make me wait.”
“Impatient little minx.”
True laughed and he didn’t mind it one bit. Her laughter was full of joy and the way she eyed his dick he knew she was also looking forward to this. Up on his knees he set a hand over her shoulder and as he stared into her eyes, he let her see the shifting colors of his eyes.
He eased into her body, enjoying the stretch of her silken walls as she caressed him. Xavier pressed kisses to her chin and her cheeks, touched the tip of her nose and then as he felt her body grip him too tight, heard the soft moan that said she was on the verge of pain, he kissed her.
