She's No Faerie Princess

by Christine Warren

  "Just trying to clarify."

  She watched him carefully through narrowed violet eyes, but all he could think about was making them go misty and unfocused in pleasure. He shifted his weight, settling himself more solidly over her, just in case she got it into her head to try to get away. One denim-covered knee forced its way between hers, levering her thighs apart to let his hips nestle snugly against her heat. He rocked there just a little. Just enough to drive himself crazy and to feel her soften involuntarily beneath him. That was all the encouragement he needed. Growling, he set his lips to her throat and let her feel the edges of his teeth against her skin. They closed delicately over the pale, tender flesh, and he savored the taste of her heartbeat on his tongue.

  "Clear," he grunted.

  He felt a shiver chase across her skin and his heart jumped in satisfaction.

  "So can I take that to mean you're not going to turn around in fifteen minutes or so and claim that this is all my fault?"

  Ignoring the stinging in his scalp from her fingers still trying—unsuccessfully now—to pull him away from her, he ran his tongue over her skin and felt her shudder. Encouraged, his hands glided up her hips and under the baggy fabric of her torn shirt, brushing the two sides away until he could feel the warm silk of her skin under his fingers. As far as he was concerned, in fifteen minutes he planned to be balls deep inside her and very happy about it, so he managed another grunt to signify agreement.

  "You won't accuse me of assaulting you or violating you or using you or anything along those lines?"

  He could hear her getting breathless and almost purred in satisfaction. Sliding his hands up the ladder of her rib cage, he nearly wept in relief when his palms covered the soft swells of her breasts. He registered her involuntary gasp of pleasure and firmed his grip, gently kneading. Christ, she felt better than anything he'd ever touched in his entire life. He became convinced she felt better than anything any man had ever felt in all of recorded tactile history.

  "You're not going to… oh!"

  Figuring it couldn't be so bad to go bald, he moved his mouth lower, taking her clenched hands with him, and skimmed over the curve of her throat, the gentle rampart of her collarbone, and down the center of her chest. His tongue couldn't resist darting out to sample the flavors of her varied terrain.

  "—to change your… mind?"

  Her unsteady question had his beast beating its breast in pure male arrogance. Knowing his touch could affect her, excite her, bring her somewhere even close to the fever pitch of lust she had stirred in him, had him growling in triumph. Now that he had given himself permission to want her, the desire hit him like a tsunami, dragging him under and washing away every thought and every urge except for the need to get inside her.

  "Because I'm not… going through that… again… Walker!"

  He dragged his mouth over the valley of her breastbone and raced up toward her nipple, closing over it just in time to have her shouting his name.

  God. He needed to hear that again. Now.

  He felt another growl rumbling up in his chest and freed her nipple only to attack its twin with equal fervor. He drew on it strongly, tongue lashing, teeth scraping. He suckled her as if she gave him vital sustenance and he would die without this nourishment.

  Her nipple had already drawn into a tight bead before he even touched it, and he could smell her desire, hot and female and potent. He knew she wanted as badly as he did. What he didn't know was how or why she kept talking when he could barely understand the English language, much less speak it. Clearly she needed to play a little catch-up. Scraping his teeth over the sensitive peak of her breast, he slid one hand down the gently curved plane of her stomach and beneath the elastic of her waistband.

  "Because," she panted, persistent and breathless, now trembling from head to toe with need. "Because if you pull that shit one… more… time… I won't…" She whimpered. "I can't…" Moaned. "Can't…"

  She broke off again on a shudder, and ruthless, Walker moved his hand the last critical inch, sliding over the smooth, bare skin of her mound, parting her tender flesh with long, eager fingers, and entering her on a swell of triumph and greed.

  "Walker!"

  Her body arched beneath him in a glorious bow of quivering woman. She poured into his palm, all sweet liquid fire and want. The desire fisting in his belly suddenly grew claws and dug in hard. Urgency turned into emergency and he ripped her last garment away, leaving it shredded on the wooden floor. Tearing his mouth from her breast, he reared up over her and hooked his hands under her knees, drawing them up and apart until she lay before him completely open. Completely female. Completely his.

  He saw need on her face, felt it in the way her legs wrapped eagerly around his hips, and her hands slid over his chest to the fly of his jeans, fumbling it open and tugging impatiently at the stiff fabric.

  He could give lessons in both stiff and impatient.

  Snarling, he shoved her hands away and dealt with the final barrier himself, biting back a howl at the relief and torment of bare skin against bare skin.

  He felt his lips pull back from his teeth, felt the ache of teeth giving way to fangs, and knew his eyes would be glowing a bright, inhuman amber.

  "Now!" he bit out, not knowing if the words emerged in English or in Lupine and not able to care. "Mine! Now."

  Fiona opened her mouth, but whether she meant to agree or protest, Walker never found out. With a feral sound of possession he fit himself against her snug, slick entrance and thrust home, the dim echo of his triumphant howl ringing in his ears.

  Fiona screamed.

  At least, she thought she screamed, but it was hard to tell over the ringing in her ears and the eerie, Lupine howl of the man above her. Around her. Inside her.

  Lady, he felt huge, stretching her, filling forgotten corners of her body and her soul until she thought she could feel her seams unraveling. It was glorious and enthralling and exciting and terrifying. Beyond any experience of her long, pleasure-filled life.

  And if he ruined it later by accusing her of something devious, she might have to castrate him.

  That was her last rational thought. After that, all she could do was feel. Feel the width of his body stretching hers, the pounding impact of his thrusts, the heat of his hard, masculine form moving powerfully over her.

  Her head fell back, too heavy to support. Her hands gripped his shoulders, desperate to find a purchase in the madly spinning universe she had entered. He represented the only stable thing left, and she clung with all her might, twining her legs about his hips, locking her ankles together for better purchase. Her hips cradled his thrusts for a few short, mind-blowing seconds before her control snapped. She went wild beneath him, writhing and bucking, desperate to have him harder, deeper, faster, more. She wanted everything he could give her, and then she wanted him to give more.

  He didn't seem to have any problem with that. His big, hard body vibrated with tension and excitement, propped up on the hands he had planted beside her shoulders. Less to spare her his weight, she thought, and more to give him leverage to thrust. If she'd been able to pull her nails out of his back, she'd have applauded the decision. Instead, she just pulled him closer and whimpered her approval.

  Goddess, would she ever have enough of him? She couldn't imagine it, couldn't summon up the memory of what it had felt like not to have him inside her. Everything past, everything future, everything around had ceased to exist, and there was only Fiona and Walker and the ferociously building tension coiling inside them both.

  She struggled for air, struggled for breath, struggled for leverage to lift her hips harder against him, to take him deeper. On a strangled growl, she felt his muscles tighten further, felt him shifting, reaching down to grasp her hips and lift her higher. He inched forward, reset his knees against the floorboards, and braced her against his thighs, taking away the last of her leverage.

  She lay there, spread before him like a banquet. Her hands slipped from his shoulder
s to flop uselessly to the floor. Air eluded her lungs. He had her completely at his mercy, until it seemed that even her ability to draw breath, to move, to live, to be, depended on her lover's whim.

  He shifted, the hands on her hips pushing her away with aching slowness. She felt him slipping away, sliding from her body, and made a noise of panic and distress. Her hands reached out, slapping at his, fighting to stop his retreat and keep him inside her. He ignored the mild annoyance and slid out, out, out, until only the tip remained, hugged tight by her liquid warmth.

  She heard a pitiful mewing sound and wondered vaguely if it could have come from her. It wouldn't matter if it had. She needed this man more than she needed her next breath, needed the filling, stretching presence of his body inside her. Completing her. She would beg if that was what it took. Pride didn't matter compared to the heat and wonder and glory of mating her body with his.

  She shuddered, wound tight and frantic. Forcing her eyes open, she gazed hazily up at him, righting to focus. His face was set in hard lines, all planes and angles etched by control and power and lust. In that harsh frame, his eyes blazed so brightly she could have sworn she felt the flames licking her skin. The light in them burned gold, tipped with red, inhuman and unholy and beautiful. She wanted to drown in them, to burn in them and rise again like a phoenix.

  "Walker," she gasped, desperate and trembling, "please! Stars! Please!"

  He made her wait, one breathless, aching moment that felt like eternity with his body poised at her entrance and the fire of his eyes consuming her. His fingers tightened, digging into the flesh of her hips, biting and bruising and claiming. Slowly, deliberately, his head lowered, moving closer until his blinding eyes hovered just inches from hers. She felt his breath hot and moist against her skin, and she shook with need and passion.

  His lips curled back, exposing a glistening length of fang, and when he spoke, his voice sounded rough and feral, rumbling with aggression and wild with magic. His one word marked her as surely as a brand, and she welcomed it with dizzy relief.

  "Mine."

  He thrust home, deep and hard. Fiona's entire body arched like a drawn bow and she screamed, a high, keening wail that shook her and threatened the glass in the windows. Her whole world exploded, a detonation that reverberated the heavens and left her limp, drained, and shaking. She had no strength left, could only watch while the man above her threw back his head and howled. She felt him pouring into her, filling her with heat and magic as his ancient, primitive cry of life and claiming echoed to the ends of the universe.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 14

  If Walker found the guy who'd snuck up behind him and whacked him with a slab of marble, he'd give him a talking-to. Just as soon as he remembered how to speak. Or move. And just as soon as he managed to figure out how it had happened.

  He'd just taken a Faerie princess as his mate.

  Just thinking it made his stomach sink and his heart rise. His mind… he didn't know what it was doing. It had to realize how ridiculous it sounded, the idea of a beta werewolf with a royal sidhe for a mate. It made about as much sense as a beta fish mated to a bald eagle. Unfortunately, Fate didn't seem inclined to care.

  Swallowing a groan, Walker turned his head to bury his face in his mate's slick, bare neck. The scent that had tortured him the first time he'd seen her filled his head with exotic spices and flowers. Now it smelled less like torment and more like home. Unable to resist, he parted his lips and nibbled the sweet, salty skin.

  She twitched, skin jumping and heating at his lightest touch. Maybe this mate thing really did offer some advantages.

  Fiona groaned and let her heels thump to the floor. "Are we dead?"

  Walker rocked his hips, savoring the feel of her lingering quivers around his still-erect cock. "Doesn't seem like it."

  She didn't open her eyes, but her brows furrowed. "You sure? What about rigor mortis?"

  Walker's head shot up and he stared down at her, aghast.

  The laughter started somewhere in the vicinity of her belly and boiled to the surface like a geyser until he couldn't do anything else but join in. He collapsed back on top of her in a big, boneless heap of satisfied Lupine and savored the feel of her pressed skin to skin against him. Well, against all of him above the line of his jeans, which still hugged his thighs. That was as far down as he'd gotten them before he'd fallen on her like a slavering beast.

  Grumbling, he tried to maneuver his hands down far enough to get rid of the offending fabric, but he kept getting distracted somehow. The feel of her damp, flushed skin and the curves and valleys of her limp body seemed a lot more interesting than a pair of stubborn jeans.

  "Okay, so maybe we're not dead," Fiona managed. She sounded breathless, but he wasn't sure if that was because of what he was doing to her or because she hadn't gotten her breath back yet from what they'd already done. "But I'm still pretty sure that all my nerve endings below the neck are at least comatose."

  He grinned. "Let's just check and see."

  "Whoa there, Silver Chief." She planted her hands against his shoulders and pushed, trying to dislodge his mouth from the sensitive underside of her breast. "Even the first string gets to take a breather when the buzzer rings."

  His tongue slid up the plump curve and circled her niched nipple, leaving a trail of heat and moisture. "I think I felt the earth move, but I don't remember hearing any bells, Princess. I'd say we've still got some game to play before halftime."

  "I should have known better than to try a sports metaphor with a man." She pushed harder, and he just ignored her harder. Yet more proof that they were meant for each other. Fate knew its stuff on this mating business.

  "Walker, come on. Reality is beginning to intrude here. My butt is getting cold."

  Sighing, Walker released her nipple with a pop and gave it one last affectionate lick. "All right. I'll get us to the bedroom, but it's going to take me a minute. My legs have to grow back first. And once they do, I'll have to get these damned jeans all the way off."

  She opened her eyes, violet gems sparkling at him through the inky veil of lashes. "I could make a suggestion," she said slowly, "but it's the kind of thing that would have made you accuse me of treachery, murder, and abusing kittens a few hours ago."

  He winced, and she could have sworn she saw him blushing again. "Okay, I should probably apologize for the way I acted earlier. But in my defense, I never actually accused you of abusing kittens."

  Fiona paused and searched his expression. "True, but I figured you'd forgotten that one."

  Walker sighed. "You're not making this apology thing easy for me, Princess."

  "As far as I can tell, you haven't done it yet."

  "I was hoping you wouldn't notice that," he quipped, but when he looked at her, his golden eyes were warm and sincere and his expression was open and serious. "I'm sorry I acted like a wolf with a sore paw earlier," he said quietly. "And I'm sorry I was a jerk when we met. It's just… you scared me, Princess, barreling into my life with a demon on your tail like that. And you keep scaring me every time you use that courage of yours to put yourself at risk, whether it's at the hands of a demon, or your uncle, or even a stubbed toe."

  She felt her heart flutter, but that didn't mean she was going to let him off the hook so easily. "I don't recall deliberately putting myself in any danger, Tobias. The demon came after me, not the other way around. And I'm perfectly capable of handling my uncle. Probably more capable than you."

  "I know that." Walker made a face. "But knowing it doesn't make me happy about it. I'm Lupine, Princess. That means I can get a little protective sometimes. Not because I don't think you can take care of yourself, but because I want to do it for you."

  "I never asked you to protect me."

  He snorted a laugh. "Neither did my sister, but that didn't stop me from scaring off a couple of her dates when she was a teenager."

  "Oh, I'm sure you were just charming." Fiona rolled her eyes and gave him a suitably
dirty look, but she could feel her muscles relaxing. It might not be the prettiest apology she'd ever received, but it would do. For now.

  "I thought so."

  She looked up into his grinning face and laughed.

  "Does that mean I'm forgiven?"

  "That depends. Do you still think I was trying to suck out your soul in front of my uncle's apartment building?"

  This time Walker rolled his eyes. "Of course not. That's the reason I was apologizing."

  "Well, in that case…" Fiona freed one hand from his shoulder, bringing her fingers into view for them both and watching as sparks danced from tip to tip. "My battery seems to be holding a decent charge for the moment. I could take care of those jeans for you. But you'd have to promise not to yell at me about it afterward."

  He raised an eyebrow and met her challenging gaze. "Me? Yell? Surely you jest."

  Fiona snorted. "Oh, sure. What could I possibly have been thinking? You're so even tempered and restrained."

  He rocked his hips against her, his grin wicked. "Well, maybe not restrained."

  "Watch it. I'm armed, buddy. I can always forget the jeans and turn you into a toad."

  "I don't know. That sounds pretty kinky. You really into the amphibian thing?"

  It was the wriggling eyebrows that had her laughing and smacking him lightly on the shoulder. "Jerk."

  He ducked and chuckled, "Hey, sounds to me like I'm the vanilla one in this relationship. I wouldn't go casting stones if I were you. One might come back and nick you somewhere tender." He pinched a fingerful of her waist, then soothed the sting with a tickle.

  Fiona giggled and squirmed. "Okay, fleabag! You asked for it."

  Pulling her arms into her sides to protect her most vulnerable spots, she tucked her chin into her chest and flicked her fingers down the length of their joined bodies.