by V. Vaughn
Silence hung in the air between them.
“I hated you,” Krista said. The words were like vicious jaws tearing his heart open. “I didn’t know where you were. I waited for you—for days and weeks and months. I called your parents, and they refused to talk to me. I called the local hospitals. I called poor Anna a thousand times a day.”
“I’m so sorry,” Bran said, but Krista silenced him with a glare.
“Don’t. Just . . . don’t. I was beyond distraught. The world didn’t make sense to me at all, for years. I was in love with you. I would have done anything for you. And you just vanished without a trace. And no one would talk about it. No one would even acknowledge that you had even existed. They made me think I was crazy for even bringing you up, as if gorgeous boys vanishing overnight was just a thing that happened.”
Bran rubbed a hand over the stubble on his jaw. “I never imagined that they lied to you, Krista,” he said. Her name felt forbidden on his tongue. “When I shipped off to Afghanistan, all the other guys used to get these care packages from home. They had books and photos of their loved ones and sometimes homemade brownies. Every time we had a parcel drop, it was like Christmas. I kept hoping I’d get one from you. But I never did.”
“Bran,” Krista began, but he waved her off.
“It’s fine. I’m over it now. But at the time, it hurt. Here I was, risking my life, getting shot at daily, and no one loved me enough to send me even a letter, not even the girl I wanted to marry.”
Krista squeaked and pressed a pillow to her face.
“But really,” Bran continued, “as angry as I was at you and my parents and my cousins for not writing, I was angrier at myself.”
“For falling for me?” Krista said, peeking out from behind her pillow.
Bran frowned at her. “Of course not. I have never once wished that I never met you or that I never fell in love with you. No, I was angry at myself for buying that necklace. It was such a dumb mistake to make. Of course my father would be watching the credit card statements. Of course he’d find out that I wanted to marry you. But I couldn’t resist trying to be a big shot. I wanted to impress you so bad, to convince you of my love. That’s why I bought the necklace. That’s how my father found out. And that’s how I ruined everything between us.”
Bran stood up, clutching the towel around himself.
“I’ve said my piece,” he said. “I’ve been waiting years to get that off my chest. So thanks for that. I’ll be going now, though. I won’t ruin your life again.”
“Wait,” Krista said. “Just wait.”
7
Her heart was beating too fast and she couldn’t find a breath. He had been about to marry her. He’d loved her that much. And all this time, she’d never expected military exile. Krista’s mind swam as she tried to take in this new information and incorporate it into her don’t trust dudes philosophy.
Bran rose to his feet.
“I’ve said my piece,” he said. “I’ve been waiting years to get that off my chest. So thanks for that. I’ll be going now, though. I won’t ruin your life again.”
“Wait,” Krista said. “Just wait.”
Bran froze and watched her carefully.
“Did you really mean that? You wanted to marry me?”
Bran nodded slowly.
“I want you to kiss me, Bran,” Krista said. “But I can’t let you. You broke me the last time when you left. And even though I know now that it wasn’t your choice, the pain was still real. And if you kiss me now, I’ll fall in love with you again. I know it. And if you leave me again I’ll die. I will literally die.”
Bran stepped closer to her. “I’ll never leave you again. Not for a second. Not if my Alpha ordered it, not if the armies of hell themselves came for me. I’ll stand by your side, forever.”
He was too close again and his scent was strong. Krista’s blood felt like it was carbonated. She was full of fizzy bubbles that were making it so very hard to think. All she wanted was to kiss Bran, to hold him close, to spread her thighs wide for him and take him in.
Krista looked into his eyes. “Promise?” she said.
Bran drew nearer. His gray eyes burned golden with shifter magic. He took her face in his hands and brought his lips near hers. “You’re mine,” he growled.
His breath was hot on her lips and his growl reverberated down her spine as if she was a cello and his voice was the bow.
“Yes,” Krista whimpered.
“You’ve always been mine.” His growl was deeper now and it resonated with something deep inside her. Her pussy flooded with slick juices.
Krista whispered into Bran’s mouth, “I’ve always been yours.” As soon as she said it, she knew it was true. Being with Bran didn’t just feel like the right thing, it felt like fate. It felt like happiness.
Bran smiled at her and she watched his sexy mouth in amazement. He was going to put that mouth all over her. He was going to make her writhe with that mouth. His mouth was so obscene, it should have come with a warning label that prevented anyone with a heart condition from looking at it.
Krista watched as Bran’s hands left her face and traced a path down her neck, before seizing her blouse and ripping it open roughly. He reached out again and with a flick of his finger, his claw cut through the material of her bra, releasing her full breasts in an instant. Before they could even bounce, Bran had them in hand. He took one nipple into his mouth and seized it in his teeth while his fingers pinched the other one.
“Oh fuck,” Krista groaned. It was all happening so fast. Bran’s hands were all over her, moving with a confident grace over the swell of her belly or tracing a path up her spine with the tip of a claw.
“You’re gorgeous,” Bran said while sucking a nipple between his teeth. Each ragged lick of his tongue on her breast stoked liquid fire in her cunt. She needed to have him. Waiting was simply out of the question. Her pussy spasmed, as if impatient to be filled.
But Bran was not in a hurry. Krista wanted to struggle out of her leggings and leap onto his hard cock, but Bran kept licking and sucking at her nipples. He was forcing her to be patient. He was taking his time, the bastard. Each swirl of his tongue spun her around inside, drawing something up from deep within her. Before long, she realized he was going to make her cum just from sucking her tits. His hot mouth worked her rhythmically until Krista clutched his head as if trying to stuff her whole tit into his mouth, and screamed out in pleasure.
Her orgasm ripped through her almost violently, taking the last of her reservations with it. She wanted to return the favor, to make him feel what she felt, but before she could do anything, Bran was on his knees in front of her, burying his human nose between her thighs.
“You smell incredible,” he growled and the vibrations of the growl stirred that liquid fire in her pussy. Bran reached up and with his clawed fingers split her leggings in two and then her panties, too. Within seconds, his mouth was pressed against her pussy, licking and sucking with abandon.
Krista opened her mouth to say something funny, but at that moment Bran found her clit and sucked it between his lips and all that came out of her mouth was the word please repeated over and over. Her world went rosy-red at the edges as another orgasm rose out of her depths. She needed more, just a bit more, something more to tip her over the edge and Bran knew it, because the cocky shifter slowed down. He drew out that moment where she teetered on the razor’s edge, sucking just enough on her clit to make time stop and her pleasure stretch out into infinity.
“You bastard,” Krista whimpered. “Make me cum. Make me cum. Oh god, please make me cum.”
Bran laughed lightly into her cunt and then boldly slid two fingers into her boldly, stroking the slick walls of her pussy until that second orgasm finally broke free and rippled through her.
Krista toppled backwards, still holding Bran’s head, as the waves of pleasure took her. Bran’s tongue followed his head, continuing to lick and suck her clit, making the orgasm roll on and on im
possibly long. He only stopped when she shoved his head back and scooted away from him.
Bran clambered up on to the couch and held himself over her on his thickly muscled arms. His enormous cock hung from him like a promise of fuckings to come. His eyes though, they burned with a golden fire that transfixed Krista. His expression was so focused, so intense.
“Bran?” Krista asked.
When he spoke, it was a growl more deep and primal than she’d ever heard before.
“You’re mine, Krista,” he said.
“I know.”
“And I am going to take you now. I’m going to fuck you in all the ways I’ve dreamed of for the last five years.”
“Oh,” Krista gasped. “Yes. Do that. I’d like that, please.” She giggled as she talked, half-drunk on orgasms. Her skin tingled all over. Would it always be like this? Or was this just the reconnection?
Bran sat back and repositioned himself. They were on her wide sofa and he used his strong thighs to part hers. He took his cock in his fist and brought the head of it to her yearning cunt before pausing.
“What? Why are you stopping?”
Bran frowned. “Do you have a condom? I sort of left mine in my human clothes.”
Krista shook her head.
Bran started to stand up. “I can go get some. There’s a store not far from here.”
“Bran,” Krista said, with a seriousness in her voice that was new. “Come here. Come fuck me.”
His hands stroked her thighs, squeezing the muscles rhythmically. “Are you sure?”
Krista bit her lip and nodded.
His eyes burned even brighter.
She needed this.
Bran pushed her thighs apart and then slipped the head of his cock into her wet and ready sex. Krista’s eyes rolled back in her head and her spine arched. It was as if an electric circuit had been completed between them and some strange energy was pulsing through her.
And that was just the head.
Bran’s breathing was ragged as he fought to maintain control. His beast was clearly just beneath his surface and it wanted her now. He wanted to slam into her, to fuck her as hard and fast as he possibly could. Krista didn’t know how she knew, but she did.
In a series of thrusts Bran opened her slick passage with his iron hard cock, each motion driving him a little bit deeper and spreading her a little bit wider. Until finally he was balls deep inside her, with every inch of her cunt being filled and fulfilled by him. It drove Krista insane, and then Bran began to move for real.
He withdrew his cock all the way in one quick motion that dragged the air from her lungs and left her with a hungry sort of emptiness. And right then she knew that she’d been marked by him, and that for every second of every day that followed, if his cock wasn’t in her she’d feel a great need for him.
And then Bran surged into her, slamming his pelvis into hers, and then pulled out again. He fucked her like that with long quick strokes until she felt another orgasm about to blast off out of her.
Bran slowed then, burying his cock deeply inside her.
“You’re mine,” he growled.
“Yes,” Krista nodded. “Yes.”
“Forever.”
“Oh, fuck yes,” Krista sobbed. “Fuck me forever. Never stop fucking me.”
“Krista Foster,” Bran growled, “I claim you as my mate.”
Her cousin Anna had always been coy when describing the official mating process of shifters. She knew from innuendo that it was more than just saying “I do.” There was magic and ritual and more involved but it was all super secret shifter stuff. Krista had pumped her for information, but she’d never got more out of her cousin that knowing glances and blushes.
Bran snarled then and bared his fangs. Before Krista could say anything, he sank his teeth into the soft flesh of her shoulder, marking her forever as his. It should have been painful. He was biting her! But it was anything but.
The orgasm that she’d been reaching for punched her hard, driving all of her breath out in an ecstatic scream. Bran gripped her waist tightly and pistoned into her, hard and ragged and raw.
There was nothing else in the world but the two of them and the beautifully messy way they fit together.
Krista’s world crumbled and fell away. Was Bran’s bite drugged? Was this shifter magic? It didn’t matter, all that mattered was the man’s rock hard cock, stretching her and filling her, faster and faster.
Bran let go of her shoulder and kissed her deeply. “Mine,” he whispered into her mouth.
His cock grew larger inside her, swelling and getting almost uncomfortably hot.
“Do it,” Krista begged. “Cum inside me. Fill me.”
It was all the encouragement Bran needed. Still kissing her, he slammed himself into her harder and faster than ever before, like there was some sweet spot inside of her that he couldn’t quite reach, but bless his heart for trying.
And then it happened, he buried himself as deep as he could and the head of his cock swelled even larger and then pulsed as he filled Krista’s pussy with his burning hot seed. Bran’s orgasm triggered another for her, that seemed to stretch out in a string of ever smaller orgasmic echoes.
He collapsed hard on top of her, his heart pounding fast.
With previous lovers, this was when she would have napped or gotten up to shower. But not with him.
Her body was feeling greedy. A dam had broke inside her and she wanted more orgasms and after that, more orgasms. And maybe for dessert, she could have even more orgasms.
After a brief respectful rest, and with a few strokes of her hands, she brought Bran back to his full rock hard state.
Krista rolled over under him, pressing her ass against his cock.
“You said you’d dreamed about this?” she whispered. “About fucking me?”
“Every night,” Bran growled. His cock rested on the crack of her ass.
“In those dirty dreams,” Krista said. “Did you ever fuck my ass?”
“Yes,” Bran growled.
“Then show me,” Krista said.
8
Krista murmured against him arm. “I have one question for you though?”
“Yes?” Bran asked. The whole world was bright now and full of wonders.
“Whatever happened to that necklace?”
“The opal necklace?”
Krista nodded. Her breath tickled his arm.
“I threw it into a volcano, so its evil wouldn’t ruin anyone else’s relationship,” Bran said matter-of-factly.
“You did not,” Krista laughed.
“No, of course I didn’t,” he said. “I still have it. It’s in my house. It’s the one souvenir I have from back home.”
“You’ve been holding onto it all this time? Even while you were in Afghanistan?”
Bran smiled. “Well, see, the problem is that it doesn’t belong to me. So I had to hold onto it until I found the rightful owner.”
“And who is that?” Krista asked.
“She’s beautiful and kind. Much smarter than me. She makes life worth living.”
“Sounds like quite a girl,” Krista said, trying to fight back a blush.
“Oh, and when she comes she screams like a lion.”
“What?” Krista said, slapping Bran lightly. “I do not! I have very ladylike orgasms.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Bran said. “But perhaps this calls for more research.” He kissed his way down her body again before spreading open her pussy with both hands and licking her clit with long slow strokes.
Krista moaned loudly and gripped his head with both hands.
“Mine,” Bran said.
“Yours,” Krista agreed. “Now and forever, yours.”
She snuggled against him—now on the floor—and listened as ten thousands voices outside sang as one.
Also by Jacqueline Sweet
The Bearfield Books
Strong Bears, Curvy Heroines, a Sleepy Town Full of Magic and Mysteries and Good Food
A Slice of Honeybear Pie
A Taste of Honeybear Wine
Honeybear Halloween
A Honeybear Christmas
Fake It Til You Mate It
The Penrose University of Magic books
Stand-alone stories set at a magical university full of witches and wizards and shifters and sex. Co-written with Devon March.
Schooling the Wolf
School of Ice & Whispers
Turn on the Night
Hold Back the Night
About the Author
Jacqueline Sweet is the USA Today bestselling author of the sexy and hilarious Bearfield paranormal romances, and the urban fantasies set at the wizarding school of the Penrose University of Magic.
She lives in Oakland, California with her fated mate and their family.
Join her mailing list for free books and sneak previews.
Website | Mailing list | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
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