He looked up at her. “Do you want me to? I thought maybe…”
She grabbed his hands and guided them back to her body. “Of course, I want it. Can’t you tell?”
A light came on in his face. “Okay. I thought…”
“Don’t think.” Briar grabbed him and kissed him again. “Just… just keep going.”
He surrounded her with his big arms, and his heat enveloped her in that lavender bubble of delicious delight.
He cradled her head in one hand, and the other rubbed her back warm and relaxed and supple. He held her against his kiss, and his tongue explored her thoughts. He drew her between his knees until her body rippled against his massive bulk to excite her frayed nerves.
Before she could get worked up again, he pulled back once more. “Wait a minute.”
Briar sobbed in aching agony. “Wait! What are you waiting for? Can’t you see I’m dying for you over here?”
He kissed her hand. “Not like this. I don’t want to make you mine like this, on the ground in the middle of nowhere. Come with me to my den. We can be together there, and we don’t have anything to worry about.”
She looked around. Nothing but the stream and the swimming hole saw them. The birds fluttered overhead through the broad sky. “What do we have to worry about here?”
He stood up. For just a moment, he towered over her. He gazed down on her from high above where she knelt at his feet. In that moment, she beheld all his overpowering dominance written on his face. He had her. He could do what he wanted with her. He could take all the time in the world to make sure he took her in just the right way, the way he wanted to.
She almost broke down crying then and there. Dear God, how she wanted him! She wanted him right now. She would beg and kiss his feet if he asked her to, but he only lifted her to her feet with a gentle kiss on the lips. “Come with me. It’s not far.”
She could only let him lead her away, through the woods. He crossed into Dodd territory. She noted landmarks, but she could only guess where he was taking her. At long last, she spotted a clearing ahead with a tiny house tucked under the trees.
He paused at the treeline and pushed her forward. “Take a look.”
She didn’t know what to think. She pushed the door open and surveyed the little shingle cabin. “What is this place?”
“I told you. This is my den.”
She looked over the whole thing. She looked over the bed made up with clean wool blankets. She looked over the stone hearth swept clear of ash and cinders. She swept her eye over the butcher-block kitchen counter hung with shining copper pots.
Two chairs flanked a scrubbed wooden table under the window. A hope chest stood at the foot of the bed. Ropes of garlic hung from the rafters.
She turned all the way around to look at Riskin standing in the door. Already he looked different. He stood taller. His shoulders jutted out from his body at a sharper angle. His eyes registered everything with quick understanding. The fog of confusion and animal instinct drifted away and left him crisp and clear and sharp as a razor. “Did you build this house?”
He stepped in to her side. “Actually, I found it like this when I was about fifteen, and I made it my den. I came to live here after I left the Mackenzies. I kept it up for a few weeks, but after a while, I just stopped shifting back into a man so I sort of let it go. I'm sorry it's not as clean as it could be.”
“It's clean, all right. Where did you sleep when you came here as a bear?”
“On the hearth. For some reason, it made me more comfortable than sleeping in a cave.”
She looked all around in wonder. So, he wanted some semblance of home. He didn’t go completely wild. Even as a bear, he wanted a house. He wanted people. He just never wanted to go near them. That hurt too much. “But where did this cabin come from? If you didn't build it, someone else must have.”
“It's Vaughn's. I think he built it for Scotia. He never told anyone it was here. No one knew about it until I found it.”
Vaughn's? That name drifted to Briar out of the distant past. Vaughn? Vaughn Dodd was Riskin's uncle, his father Addison's older brother. Vaughn fell in love with Scotia Kerr, but he died suddenly and Scotia disappeared. She tried to kill herself so she wouldn't have to live without her mate.
So, Vaughn planned to bring Scotia here. He planned to live here with her, but he died instead and his younger brother took over as Alpha of the Dodd tribe.
That old story brought Briar back to the present. History didn't repeat, but it rhymed. Right now, Rhys thought Riskin was dead, or as good as. He planned to make Riskin just as dead as Vaughn so he could take over as Alpha in Riskin's place. He wouldn't rest until he made sure that happened.
Briar traced her finger over the table. “This place is amazing.”
“It sure is nice. You can see how much attention he put into every detail.”
“Did you think about bringing your mate back here?”
“I never planned to bring anyone here. I never thought I'd leave Mackenzie Homestead. That just goes to show what happens when you make plans. I haven't given a second thought to finding a mate since I left.”
“Did you ever bring Lyric here?”
“Are you kidding? We worked day and night for ten years keeping the Mackenzie ranch going. I never even told her about this place. I would have been ashamed to bring her here.”
“Ashamed? Why?”
“I always wanted everything to be perfect for her. I never thought she wanted to see a place like this, much less sleep in one. She worked from before dawn until late at night keeping her father's house in order while Azer and I ran the ranch. She never had time for anything else. I wanted to give her everything—luxury and an expensive wedding and all the trimmings. I never wanted her to soil herself in some cabin in the woods.”
“What about me?”
“You're different.”
“How?”
He turned around, and the light coming through the window caught his eyes. “You belong to the woods. You're a bear. I could never imagine Lyric as a bear.”
“She is one.”
“Do you know something? I never saw her shift in the whole time we were together. We never went out to the woods together. We were both too busy. Somehow, it just didn't seem right.”
She drew close to him and threaded her arms around his waist. She inhaled his woodsy smell. It fit so perfectly in a place like this. “I like you as a bear.”
He bent down to kiss her. “I like you as a bear, too, but I like you in this cabin just as much—maybe better.”
“We could be bears in this cabin.”
He shook his head. “We'll be bears outside. I'll take you to a nice cave I know if you want to be bears. If we're here, I want us like this, like…”
“Like what?”
He drew her toward the bed. “Like man and wife.”
Chapter 11
Riskin’s words sizzled through Briar’s being. He sat down on the blanket and pulled her between his knees. Molten fire burned up her thighs to the hidden garden between her legs. His fingers scorched her hand.
She knew exactly what he would do to her on that bed, but his eyes held her so she couldn't get away. She tumbled toward her destiny. Her body responded to him in ways she couldn't believe. Her whole skin burst into furious passion at the thought of touching him.
Like man and wife. Those words said everything she needed to know. They were man and wife already. Their fate brought them together at the swimming hole. They belonged together when she brought him food and medicine. They both should have known that when they went for that first walk in the woods as bears.
Part of her knew. Part of her had to come and find him. Silas and her father and everybody else could order her not to. They couldn't order her not to be his mate. They couldn't order Briar and Riskin to separate their lives after Fate decreed them together.
He towed her closer until her chest rested under his chin. He gazed up into her eyes, but the war
y uncertainty vanished from his eyes. They pierced her heart in all their Bruin intensity. This was his moment. He came back. He came back from the brink to claim her.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and raised his lips to kiss her. Oh, those delightful little kisses! They did nothing to hide the roiling passion underneath. They couldn't hide the thunder building to a climax in his eyes and in his seething chest.
Briar's knees buckled, but she could only sag against him in delicious ecstasy. Nothing held her back from him. Her flesh married with his to become a single person. Their fate and their destiny and their future became one.
He wouldn't release her with those all-consuming eyes. He held her captive even when he dropped his arms. He ran his fingertips up and down behind her knees until she wept and sobbed in aching need. Her thighs evaporated in steamy vapors, and the condensed liquor distilled out of her flower opening to sprinkle her petals.
She panted for breath against his intruding tongue. He tickled her brain with little love-lashes. Her vision swam, but she couldn't escape his smoldering eyes in front of her face. Try as she might, he occupied her mind. He occupied her very soul.
Those maddening fingertips worked their magic on her legs, up and down, up and down. They crept a little higher each time. They swirled behind her knees now. They dashed behind, between her thighs now and went back to their non-stop circling, up and down and down and around until she couldn’t keep track of them anymore.
What was he doing to her? He might as well be swinging a pendulum in front of her eyes, and her body and soul submitted to his hypnotic movements.
She prepared herself to curl up with him in a Bruin bundle in some rocky cave. She could sleep with him and wrestle with him as a bear—but this? In a house on an immaculately made bed with a fire burning on the hearth?
Okay, so there wasn’t a fire burning there now, but there might as well be. This place screamed people. So he slept on the hearth as a bear? He might as well have slept in the bed. He was a man. Dear God, he was a man! And she was the woman he wanted. He wanted her, and he got her.
His fingers lingered a little longer each time between her thighs until eventually they didn’t come out anymore. They made their wicked strokes up and down inside instead of behind. He traced all the way up the inside line, but he always stopped short of touching her…right there…in that most mysterious spot she craved his touch most.
She panted and sobbed for it, but he wouldn’t cross that threshold. His lips kept her immobile while he drove her out of her mind with those cruel fingers. Her thighs melted in saturated marshmallows under his touch, but he held her still so she had to submit.
In the end, she couldn’t bear the anticipation anymore. She broke her lips away with a ragged moan. She lifted her head and rested her cheek against his hair. She hugged his head to her breast in desperate longing.
He caved before her deepest desires, but he never gave an inch. He never showed he desired her as much in return. He kept an iron grip on everything they did. He buckled her to his will.
He pillowed his head on her breasts. He blew his warm breath through her shirt to stimulate her nipples, but he didn’t bite or maul them the way he did by the swimming hole. He let her cradle his head and whimper in his ear in sodden desire. He inhaled her desire into himself. It fed him and nurtured him and gave him the strength he needed to dominate her.
She moaned into his hair. He wrapped his beefy fingers around her thighs and massaged up their insides, from her knees all the way up…She sagged into his hands. Oh, dear God, if he would only squeeze a little higher…a little harder…God, she needed this! Didn’t he know how much she needed it?
He already knew. His hands told her that. He heard her sighing and moaning for it. Her juices trickled down her thighs to sting his fingers. He must know. How could he not know? Was he too far gone to know what he did to her?
He pulled his head back and locked his eyes on her. In that look, she saw her destiny written. He knew. He knew he turned her on. He knew he ignited forgotten desires she never released on anyone or with anyone before. How could she? She never mated with anyone before.
She studied his intense gaze burning into her. He never experienced anything like this with anyone else, either. He couldn’t. He never mated with anyone, either. He might have made out with Lyric. He might have touched her and wanted her, but he couldn’t experience this intense desire and fulfillment.
Briar was his mate—for life. They fit together like perfect puzzle pieces. No one could complete him the way she did any more than anyone could complete her the way he did.
He whispered up into her face, “Does that feel good?”
Her eyes drifted half-closed. “Oh, yes! Oh, yes!”
“Are you happy? Are you happy with this? Are you happy to be here?”
“Oh, yes!” she cried. How could she make him understand the happiness rushing through her at every second? How could she make him feel the pleasure springing from his every touch?
Did he feel the same way? Would he feel it if she touched him?
She tightened her hands on his shoulders. Straps of solid muscle rippled under his shirt. She ran her fingers down his shoulders to his chest. Where would she stop? Touch him…like that? Could she?
Maybe he didn’t want her touching him like that. Maybe he wanted to do the touching. Her soul ached to touch him, to explore every cubic inch of him in minute detail. She wanted to study him under a microscope, to learn how every fold and nerve ending reacted to this or that stroke or tug.
To her surprise, he moved back to give her room. He eased his head away from her chest so she could touch him down his chest to his stomach. She checked his expression, but he never tried to stop her. He leaned back with his hands on the bed.
With his hands off her legs, she found herself free and alert enough to check him over the way she wanted to. She unbuttoned the first button of his old shirt. She glanced up and found his eyes fixed on her face. She unbuttoned another one, and another.
The shirt dropped aside, and her hands came to rest on his broad warm chest. He leaned farther back. He let her stroke down his chest to the rough undulations of his stomach.
She bent down and kissed his stomach. He sucked his breath through his teeth and let out a subtle growl. Mercy, he tasted like pure heaven! She took a deep breath of his earthy, pungent scent. At the same time, her lips and tongue and mouth sucked the essence from his perfect skin. She snuck another inch lower and listened to the telltale groan rise out of his chest when she took a bite of his side.
His big hand fell on her neck. He followed her down to his navel. The taste got stronger. Her mouth watered for him. She wanted him in her mouth. She nudged his waistband with her chin, and his stomach contracted all the way down inside his pants. Everything about him excited her until she couldn’t keep her hands off him.
She grabbed his pants, but at that moment, his hand clenched her neck. He picked her up and dragged her mouth away from him. He kissed her hard, and his tongue whispered into her fevered brain. “Not yet. Not yet, like that.”
He grappled her close to him again, but she already knew what part of him hid down there for her. She already knew how tight and hot he was inside his pants. That hidden part of him belonged to her. She could excite him with one well-placed kiss, one wicked love bite. She could make him pant and groan the same way he did her.
She didn’t have to explore him anymore. He was hers. She sank her being into his flesh and tied him to her by the small hairs down his legs. Whatever he did to her, she did back to him.
He rested his chin on her chest and sipped her kisses off her lips, but he didn’t go back to his maddening circles or his innocent up and down. He squeezed inside her thighs once. Before she could register the intoxicating pleasure of that squeeze, he slid his hands all the way up under her skirt, inside her panties to her ass. He surrounded her curvaceous ass with both hands.
He clenched both cheeks in his granite g
rip. He pressed her belly against his chest. “This is mine. You’re mine, aren’t you?”
She could only moan into his mouth. She was his. She swooned at his manhandling treatment. She would let him do a lot worse than that if he wanted. She didn’t have to beg, though. He slid his fingers down along her thigh crease to that sacred pool of wet heaven. He touched her blazing flesh with sensitive fingers, and the nectar drooled onto his hands.
“Baby!” he murmured. “Oh, baby!”
Those fingers started their rotten swirling again, this time in her luscious opening. He spread the pretty frills aside and discovered the secret honey oozing from her flower. His humming voice purred into her mouth. “Feels good, doesn’t it? Does that feel good?”
She rocked on her heels. Feels good? She never felt anything so good. Her mouth caved open. She couldn’t kiss him anymore. She stared into his eyes. He swirled wider until he found a tender nub waiting for him. He tightened his circles to drill down hard on it. “Hmm. Yeah. That feels so good, doesn’t it?”
She wept and whimpered. She couldn’t stop those circles winding her tighter than a spring. Tension racked her nerves. She contorted on those fingers, but she couldn’t stop the gush running into his hands to lubricate his fingers. They quickened around her sweet spot and darted into her fissure.
She teetered and almost fell, but when she caught her balance, she found herself rocking to his rhythm. She had to catch up with those endless circles, but she always fell just a fraction of a second behind. She hurried, but he only moved faster, harder.
When she bothered to check, she found him staring deep into her eyes. He watched every quiver of her lips, every flush of blood flashing over her cheeks. He checked every crinkle around her eyes to make sure she liked it, that it really felt good.
She wanted to kiss him. She really did, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t get her mouth to move out of that frozen O of astonished rapture. Good night! That felt so good. Silvery shimmers shivered all down her body. Pins and needles spread over her cheeks and mouth and eyes. Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!
Briar on Bruins' Peak (Bruins' Peak Bears Book 7) Page 7
