Lord of the Wolfyn / Twin Targets

by Jessica Andersen

  “Let me,” he whispered again. “Let go.” And he slid two fingers deeply into her, then started thrusting with an increasing rhythm that had her arching into him and clamping around him with growing intensity.

  “Oh. Oh, Dayn, I—” She broke off with a low, vibrant cry, shuddering against him as heat and pleasure washed through her, coalescing to the point where he was touching her, working her.

  The world seemed to draw in on itself, seemed to hold its breath and go very still for…a…single…moment…and then she went over, clenching around his fingers with a strangled moan. Then she was coming, saying his name over and over as the raw, rhythmical waves suffused her, completed her…and then ebbed, leaving her limp and boneless.

  She was so boneless, in fact, that she was almost unable to support herself when he angled her into the shower stall and put her beneath the spray, but then stepped outside the bathroom for a few minutes—long enough for her to wonder where he had gone, what he was doing.

  The hot water hit her with sharp enticement, bringing her all the way back as Dayn returned to the bathroom, paused to shuck off his boots and pants and then came into the shower with her.

  Without speaking, he drew her up onto her toes for a raw, powerful kiss that said they weren’t done. Not even close.

  Her blood heated anew at the kiss and the feel of his body going wet and slick against hers as the shower spray sluiced them both. Naked, he was a dream of wide bone structure, lean, rangy muscles and an almost inhuman grace, as if he were the wolfyn-turned-man, not the others. But he was all man where she cupped him, then slid her fingers along his considerable length, very aware that her fingers couldn’t completely surround him.

  He groaned, pressing into her touch, at first trying to kiss her and touch her in return, but then simply leaning canted into the spray with one hand on her hip, the other bracing his big body against the wall. And while her first thought had been to pick up right where they had left off out in the other room, now that sharp heat mellowed to a softer, more gentle urge.

  She wanted to touch him, wanted to make him feel good.

  A small shelf within the shower stall yielded a foamy, woodsy-smelling cleansing lotion that felt cool when she first rubbed it between her palms, but then heated as if coming to life.

  When she moved around him, he shifted as if to follow, but she pressed him back to where he was, and said simply, “Let me.”

  He subsided, leaning on his braced arms so his head was beneath one of the showerheads, directly in line with the pounding spray, and closed his eyes.

  The simple act of trust fisted an ache beneath her heart. And when a shudder ran through him at the first slide of her slickened hands along the line of the claw scars, it tightened that ache even further. How long had it been since he’d been touched for the sake of touching, not as part of a transaction, but simply because the other person wanted to?

  Twenty years, logic said. And for a change there was no dissenting vote. He had been in this realm for almost as long as her mother had been gone, and he had been essentially alone that entire time, forced to hide his true nature from all but Candida, who had been a loner in her own right.

  Reda’s heart ached as she laved his broad shoulders and arms, the back of his neck and then down again to the tight muscles of his buttocks, which clenched rhythmically as she worked on him, and then as she moved lower to his thighs and calves.

  He was breathing fast, taking great, deep drafts of air that went off-rhythm when she angled one of the nozzles to rinse him, then slicked her hands down his body once more to chase the suds away.

  Done with the back of him, she moved around to his front again, thinking to repeat the process, maybe steal a kiss. But he straightened away from the wall, catching her against him with one hand on her lower back, the other at her nape. His eyes, when he looked down at her, were deep and dark with emotion. “Gods. Reda.” Dropping his head to press his forehead to hers, he inhaled as if to say something, but then let out a sigh and whispered simply, “Thank you.”

  They flowed into the kiss as naturally as breathing, and this time there wasn’t just heat and desire; there was a new give-and-take, a sense that he wasn’t solely trying to give her pleasure, he was taking some for himself, as well. One kiss turned to the next and the next, and then he was fumbling with the shower controls to turn off the water and bring up a strange, soft light that surrounded them on all sides.

  “What— Oh!” A tingle ran over her skin from head to toe. When it was gone, she was dry. Even her hair was merely damp, and the usually unruly waves were tame and soft to the touch. “Magic,” she whispered, her voice catching on the word.

  “The wolfyn have some redeeming qualities,” he said huskily, and scooped her up in his arms, so she was cradled against his chest.

  She squeaked and struggled a little, but then subsided to nibble her way up his neck as he carried her into the main room. And she gave another small, “Oh,” at the sight of thick blankets piled on the bed and a fire in the hearth. The room was warm and suddenly cheery, and the sight made her throat tighten, because he had done this for her. Even in the heat of things, he had wanted her to be comfortable.

  She swallowed past the lump of emotion. “You’re a prince.”

  “I was, once.”

  Hating the hollowness in his voice, she said, “You will be again. When we—”

  He kissed her, cutting her off. Then, still kissing her, he lowered them both to the wide mattress, so she lay beneath him with her legs alongside his, his thighs between hers and the long length of his erection pressing against her stomach, pulsing with an inner beat that resonated deep within her.

  Desire washed through her like a friend she’d only just met, feeling so much sharper and more important than ever before, building higher and higher still as they kissed and he notched one thigh between hers, creating intimate pressure as he stroked a hand from her rib cage to her knee and back again in a feather-soft caress that seared her skin and made her want to beg.

  New wetness gathered, new aches sprang to life, as he shaped her, touched her, but also arched into her touch, and paused to absorb the sensations as she licked his throat, then pushed on his shoulders to roll him onto his back so she could move lower, then lower still.

  “Wait, Reda. I— Ahh.” He gave a full-body shudder at the first touch of her tongue along the distended vein on the underside of his shaft. “Gods.”

  He made a move to touch her, but then she took another stroke with her tongue, a long lap from base to tip, and he fisted his hands in the soft, heavy bedding instead, then groaned when she did it again, finding the places where the textures changed and he was particularly sensitive. Where in the past she had been take it or leave it on oral sex, now she reveled in it, storing up his responses and glorying in the way he was submitting to her.

  Soon his body was strung tight, his hands working in the bedding, his heavy length jerking in her mouth in movements that spurred new heat inside her.

  He said her name, caught her hand, urged her up his body, and then, when they were chest to chest, rolled them so he was in charge once more, pressing her into the bedding with his good, solid weight. Both of their bodies were damp with excitement, slippery with passion, and as he settled between her thighs, his slick, hard length slid naturally into position, poised for entry.

  Reda shifted against him, teasing them both with the slide of his blunt head through her slick folds. But then she stiffened. “Wait,” she said, almost too late remembering that this might not be her reality, but it wasn’t a dream, either. “Do we need something?”

  He struggled to focus through eyes gone nearly glassy. “Something?”

  “Protection? For, um, diseases and other things.” Please don’t make me explain this.

  “Oh.” His expression cleared, turned rueful and maybe a touch sad. “No diseases for my kind, to give or get. As for the ‘other things,’ because of the way my mindspeak works, I must feed from my ma
te’s throat before a child can be made.” She wanted to ask, but didn’t. It must have shown in her eyes, though, because he shook his head slightly. “No. Never.”

  Guilty at the surge of a relief she had no right to feel, she reached up to soothe the hollow echo in his voice with a kiss that started soft and almost drowsy, and shifted something inside her. The softness gained an edge, the drowsiness fled to a demand and the guilt turned to greed, and the desire not just to have him inside her, but to have him, to belong to him and him to her.

  But knowing that was impossible, she broke the kiss, pressed her wet cheek to the faint rasp of stubble along his jaw and whispered, “Now. Please, now.”

  She closed her eyes, shutting out the daylight, the strange surroundings and the danger beyond, determined to be there, in that moment, with him. Then he growled low in his throat, and thrust home. And as he slid into her—stretching her, filling her and bringing a surge of emotion that she didn’t dare acknowledge—she didn’t need to shut out the larger world, because he did it for her. The feel of him, the perfection of the fit, eclipsed everything else in that moment.

  Her mouth went round in a voiceless O of pleasure. She dug her fingers into the heavy muscles of his shoulders as he rose above her, poised there for a breathless second of anticipation…and then began to move.

  It was gentle at first, the tempo slow, as if he, too, wanted to store up each individual sensation. She rocked with him naturally, the moves more instinct than volition because she wasn’t thinking, wasn’t planning; she was experiencing. She reveled in the liquid surge of his body against hers, the fullness between her legs, the way the pleasure ramped with each thrust, and the vibration of his groan as her hands dragged to his hips, dug in and urged him on.

  As things sped up, there was no difference between vampire or human anymore, or between a fairy-tale prince and a disgraced cop; there were only two lost souls filling in the empty spaces for each other, no longer alone. At least for now.

  Needs piled atop greed within her as the pleasure found a purchase, took root and began to grow. And where before her orgasm had been sharp and brilliant, all inner fireworks and satisfying heat, the tension that gripped her this time was deeper and more consuming, tightening her inner muscles, overtaking her senses and suddenly making the moment far more important than it was supposed to be.

  This is it, her body seemed to be saying. This is what you’ve been waiting for.

  Turning away from that danger, she buried her face against his neck and moved beneath him. The move wrung a groan from him, then a reverent whisper of, “Reda.”

  Her name had never sounded like magic before.

  Willing away the tears that prickled her eyes, she kissed his throat openmouthed as he rode her, bucked against her and drove the coiling pleasure higher and higher still.

  She tasted the faint salty tang of his skin, felt the throb of his pulse against her lips. It pounded in tempo with him, with the pulse of needs that drew tighter within her with each thrust, where he pressed into her inside and out, and hit that spot there, oh, yes, there.

  From deep within her came the urge to bite down, to take his essence within her and bind them together. Ignoring the faint itch of disquiet, she grazed her teeth along the vein that angled along the side of his throat, nipped lightly.

  He hissed, his fingers suddenly digging into her as he slammed home, setting off new sensations that carried a raw power that tempted her to shy away.

  She felt him struggle for control, felt herself hesitate, tempted to duck the intensity and the possibilities. Then, because she refused to be a coward with him, right now in this moment, she found his vein again. And bit down hard. She didn’t draw blood, but it was a near thing.

  The last remnants of Dayn’s control snapped almost audibly. He flung back his head and then bowed into her, wrapping his arms around her to anchor her body against his thrusts, which rocketed up in tempo and swing, driving them both onward.

  His hold was powerful, inexorable, and Reda reveled in it. She loved his strength and intensity, loved feeling small, feminine and overwhelmed—at least here, with him. She loved the way he pressed his jaw to her temple, a kiss to her brow and whispered her name as both their bodies went tight and tense, and the pleasure gathered inside her, waiting, waiting….

  He turned his head, softly grazed the side of her throat with a wickedly sharp canine, and whispered her name. Fear and pleasure were suddenly the same, sharp and brilliant, and she gasped and came for him.

  Pleasure lashed through her, as keen and sharp as a sword that cut through the loneliness and apprehension and left behind strength and wonder. She arched beneath him, breath sobbing, mouth shaping his name as the waves kept coming. Then he locked himself against her, hips working as he groaned long and low in a mix of words—her name, praise, pleas—and emptied himself into her.

  She imagined she felt heat warmer than her own blooming inside, caressed by her inner muscles as they pulsed, milking him of his seed. And she, who had always had a slow-ticking biological clock if at all, felt a small, wistful wish that this one could have counted that way, that they could truly be mated.

  And for a change, logic and reason didn’t have a damn thing to say.

  He stayed locked against her while the pleasure leveled off and then faded, and the world around them started to come back into focus. She heard the hiss-pop of the fire, saw the brightness of the sunny day outside through her closed lids and felt the shift of the mattress when he levered up onto his elbows, taking his weight off her.

  Though she would have liked to linger a moment more, she opened her eyes and met his emerald gaze. And for the first time since meeting him—and she didn’t for a second want to count the hours, considering what had just passed between them—his expression was open and unshadowed. It made him look younger and a little naughty, bringing to mind the kind of man who would go for a gallop to blow off some steam, little knowing that the morning would change his life forever.

  She, too, felt changed, but she didn’t want to look at it too closely. Not now. Maybe not ever.

  He cleared his throat. “I, uh, feel like I should say something. But I haven’t a clue what.”

  A tension she hadn’t even been aware of melted away, easing her neck and shoulders. “Me, too, and me, neither. So how about we say ‘thank you’ and set it aside for now?”

  His face softened. “Then I thank you, dear sweet Reda, for teaching me about showers, for taking me into your bed, for touching me and for sharing your lovely, lovely body with me.”

  Her heart shuddered in her chest, her eyes threatened to fill, her throat to lock, and she knew she didn’t dare say anything now; that if she did, she would make an idiot out of herself and make them both supremely uncomfortable. So, although it made her the coward, she just nodded jerkily and reached up to kiss his cheek.

  Dayn, bless his noble heart, seemed to understand. He brushed his fingers over her cheeks as if brushing away the tears she hadn’t let herself shed, then said, “Stay here and see if you can sleep. I’m going to double-check the wards.”

  She nodded, feeling a blush form at the strange intimacy of the moment, with the two of them strangers except in their dreams. He rose from the bed and padded, gloriously naked, to the bathroom, where he pulled on his pants and boots, then threw on his shirt without buttoning it. When he came back over to her, he had one of his short swords tucked in his belt.

  That shouldn’t have made him even more appealing than before. She was a modern woman, an evolved human being. But apparently that modern, evolved woman liked men with swords.

  Not men, she thought, just Dayn. And that wasn’t logic, reason or practicality talking. It was a fact. And if that put her on the fast track to heartache, maybe that wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to her. Because at least she wouldn’t be sleepwalking through life anymore.

  He snagged one of the waterskins as he returned to the main room, and crossed to the bed and offered
it to her first. “Thirsty?”

  “Parched.” The act of accepting water from him shouldn’t have felt profound, just as the satisfied look in his eyes as he watched her drink shouldn’t have kindled new sparks of arousal. Flustered, she handed it back. “Thank you.”

  “Rest. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Nodding, she lay back and curled onto her side with her back to the fire. With her eyes closed, the noises around her seemed amplified. She tracked Dayn’s movements by the thud of his boots, the close of the door at his back, the crunch of gravel outside and the annoyed call of a bird disturbed by his circuit of the cabin.

  He returned within a few minutes, as promised, and his clothing rustled and boots thudded as he stripped back down before sliding into the bed with her. He curled around her, his front to her back, and folded their hands together over her heart.

  And as she drifted off to sleep with his warmth surrounding her, she found herself doubly grateful that he wasn’t a wolfyn. Because if he was, she would surely be enthralled.

  DAYN AWOKE NEAR NOON, when his internal clock warned that they didn’t dare rest much longer, in case their pursuers were still on the road.

  In her sleep, Reda had turned toward him. Now, she was nestled close to his side, her head pillowed on the arm he had curled around her. Her breath was warm on his skin, tightening his nipples and sending tendrils of reaction lower down in his body. But those physical responses were tiny trickles compared to the deep wellspring of emotion that even now threatened to fill him up and spill over.

  Affection, gratitude, relief, disquiet—there was all of that and more, a complicated mix that said he probably shouldn’t have made love with her, and definitely not as intensely as things had wound up getting…but at the same time he couldn’t regret the decision, or his eventual loss of control.

  They had well and thoroughly loved each other with no pretenses, no expectations and the knowledge that they would go their separate ways at the arch, taking with them only good memories. And if that thought brought a twinge, he ignored it and focused on how damn good he felt suddenly—refreshed and recharged, and ready to take on the world.