“I need to call Annie and tell her what’s going on. In the meantime, empty out the coolers and stow them for me, will you?” Annie and Bob had left earlier in the day on their weekly outing with friends and Melinda probably wanted to caution them about any stranded drivers. Before she left the kitchen though, she fixed a steely-eyed look on her son that clearly read “behave.”
Rome didn’t roll his eyes, didn’t complain or grunt in frustration, but, as he, Porter and Scott dumped the ice and dried the coolers, he did come to the conclusion that living at home sucked. He’d been looking forward to it for months, long before he decided to resign from the department. Now all he could do was suppress a groan as a jeep pulled up to the back door and James hopped out.
Great. He might have been able to get a minute alone with Gwen after he kicked Porter and Scott out, but now James would jabber and hover like a mother hen over a wounded chick for-fucking-ever if yesterday afternoon’s visit was any indication.
Sure enough, James departed only when the police arrived to take Gwen and Melinda’s report. Then Annie and Bob returned just as the two officers were leaving, and even more talking ensued. As what typically happens when a group of people get together, the subject of food came up, followed by the scurry of feet as bodies crushed into the kitchen to prepare dinner.
His haven had become grand central station, and though he knew he was glowering at everyone, he didn’t give a good damn. The mating heat was making him crazed, the fact Gwen remained unclaimed a malignant tumor that ate at his psyche. His blood was nearing the boiling point, his hunger for her increasing each minute he was denied from touching her, taking her, sinking deep into her wet and welcoming flesh.
He couldn’t even get five minutes of privacy with Gwen.
Five fucking minutes alone with his mate. Was that really too much to ask?
Apparently so. It took six excruciating long hours before he stood just inside her front door, finally and blessedly alone with Gwen. Unfortunately she didn’t seem as overjoyed at the prospect as he was.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m staying here tonight.” With proprietary boldness, he briskly strode past her and scanned the room. While the furniture was the Orchards, he could see Gwen’s personal touches here and there. Photos of people and wildlife were scattered about. He imagined the people were her family or friends, the wildlife indicative of her love of nature. A crocheted blanket in deep purple and black was draped across the back of the tan sofa. A coffee table separated the sofa from a single, overstuffed chair in earth tones.
Several toss pillows in purple, orange and yellow saved the décor from being dull. Books, movies and CDs were all tidily put away in shelves. Other than a closed laptop sitting on the small table and a mug resting in the draining tray next to the sink, everything was neatly in order.
A woman after his own heart.
Gwen slammed the door shut. “What exactly does that mean?”
Rome paced to the window, looked out into the dark night. “It means exactly that. I’m staying in this room until I’m sure of your safety.”
“Oh, really?” He turned to see she’d crossed her arms over her middle. “And what do you think gives you that right? Because I sure don’t recall asking you to come here and invade my home.”
He was pumped, primed and at the end of his tether and her resistance was only adding fuel to the fire.
“Because I’m your ma-” His mouth snapped shut.
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re my...what?”
His hands fisted in frustration. Claiming mate privileges wasn’t yet a card he could pull from his back pocket. A handy tool he’d seen his own father – as well as many other mated shifters – utilize to bypass their female’s independent nature. Always to protect and provide. And of course to procreate, but never by force. A mate’s happiness was paramount to a blissful life, and while his brain might not be functioning at optimum levels at the moment, he recognized her expression for what it was.
Annoyance.
“I’m thinking.”
One of her brows quirked. “You’re thinking?”
Or stalling for time. Either worked. He cleared his throat. “Re-evaluating.”
A second brow joined the first. “Re-evaluating what?
Your insistence on staying here without so much as asking my permission?”
There was that, too. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m being an ass, aren’t are?”
She took a step toward him. “If you’re referring to your arrogant, domineering attitude as an ass, then yes. You’re an ass.”
“I’m sorry.” He drew in air, and sweet feminine arousal, and struggled for control. “I’m upset that you’ve been hurt and frustrated that those men got away. Twice. It’s just...” he stopped, held still as she moved closer, her eyes a steady sea in the face of his mercurial emotion. “I wouldn’t be able to handle it if anything happened to you.”
Lifting her hand, she set it lightly in the center of his chest, edging ever closer until her breasts were a deep inhalation away, those incredible lips mere inches, tempting him to take a nip. “While I thank you sincerely for saving my life and deeply appreciate your desire to make sure I continue to breathe, that doesn’t mean you own me.”
“I want to own you,” he blurted out in a gruff tone, adding quickly before she could smack him or pull away, “I mean I want the rights and privileges of a true intimate relationship with you.” He lifted her hand from his chest and pressed a kiss to her palm, right over the small wound from when she’d scratched it.
A flash of need sparked in her eyes. “A
boyfriend/girlfriend type of relationship?”
Oh, the bond between them was much more powerful than that. Tenderly, he draped her hands around his neck, and then slid his own slowly up her arms, down along her ribcage, over the enticing curve of her hips, and then back to cup her sweet ass, pulling her against his hard length.
“Even more than that.”
Her tongue peeked out and she licked her lips. “That requires emotional involvement as well as physical.”
Which he was being informed of from several individuals. Unable to resist the temptation of her moist lips, he brushed them with his own. “I did tell you last night that what we had wasn’t just about sex.” He rocked his hips into the juncture of her thighs, letting her feel the full strength of his desire. “Though I can’t deny it’s my favorite part.”
To his shock and pleasure, she wrapped one leg around his waist, rolling her hips so her core slid along his pulsing erection. They both moaned at the exquisite friction.
“Obviously. But if what’s between us is more than sex as you claim,” she paused to kiss him, using a hint of tongue that caused his greedy mouth to open, ready to devour.
“Then you won’t mind sleeping on the couch.”
The hand he’d moved to unwind her braid froze. Even his lips froze, though she’d lain her own against them for another drugging kiss.
Sleep on the couch? She couldn’t be serious.
“Right?” Now she was pressing open-mouthed kisses along his throat, her fingers tangled in his hair.
He might have whimpered. Trying to be a gentleman instead of the slobbering beast he feared he was being at the moment was the definition of hell. Her arousal was a thick perfume in the air and he knew he could easily seduce her. He could have her naked, in bed and himself buried to the hilt in less than five minutes. Unfortunately, after opening his stupid mouth to say their relationship was more than physical, he really had no choice but to back that assertion up with action.
Or non-action in this particular case.
When he continued to remain a statue, too close to losing control to move so much as a muscle, she pulled back to look up at him. “Rome?”
It might kill him, but he’d do it. For her. “If that’s what you want.”
She searched his face for several moments before saying, “No.”
He blinked,
confused. “No?”
Then she had the audacity to grin. Actually grin from ear to ear while he suffocated under the heavy blanket of his hunger. “I wanted to see if you’d really heed me.”
His jaw dropped. “You were testing me?”
Unrepeated, she shrugged. “Yes.”
His temper flared to mix with blinding need. And while he might not ever understand this woman, enough was enough. “No more mister nice guy,” he said, bending down to toss her over his shoulder and stomp into her bedroom.
“Oh, so you’ve been ‘nice’ all along?” Her words ended on a breathless gasp when he dropped her sideways on the bed and came down over her.
“You have no idea.” His growl was lost in her mouth as he took her lips in a hard, possessive kiss, his tongue delving deep as he thrust his hips between her thighs. One hand was on her hair, freeing that glorious mass from its confinement while the other was busy unsnapping her bra and shoving her shirt up. Unerringly he wrapped his lips around one bared breast, suckling the creamy mound with little finesse, only knowing that he might expire if he didn’t get in her soon.
He pulled back enough to rip her shirt and bra off and then stood to rid her of the rest of her clothes, but the sight of her glistening nipple, wet from his mouth, held his gaze.
He reached up, palming her breasts with both hands, rubbing his thumbs over the tight buds. Gwen let out a soft moan and arched into his touch, her hands clamped around his wrists as he toyed and teased her. Legs still between her splayed thighs, he rocked against her core, garnering another satisfying gasp from the woman who was driving him mad with need and confusion.
“Rome.” her hands tightened on his wrists.
“Yeah?” he continued to play with her silken flesh, rub his aching cock along her jeans covered core.
She licked her lips, eyes hot on his. “Don’t you want to be inside me?”
More than his next breath. “Oh, yeah.” And with that invitation, he stripped her of her shoes, socks, shorts and panties. Then he made short work of his own and quickly put on a condom. He climbed back on the bed, knees between her open thighs, and just looked at her, with his dick sticking straight out, hard and eager.
Wrapping one hand around the base of his shaft to keep from ending this moment before he was ready, he stroked a thumb through her wet slit, up and down, from the tight band of muscles at her entrance to her swollen clit, spreading her juices.
“You’re so fucking pretty.” His eyes were glued on the sight of her, so pink and wet. He brought his thumb to his mouth and licked the delicate ambrosia with a groan.
“Rome.” It was a plea and a demand.
Wanting to tease just a little more, he slipped his thumb back through her folds, sliding easily inside her, only to pop back out and glide up in a sure stroke to her clit. Her hips undulated beneath his touch and he repeated the motion several more times, watching with slitted eyes as she fucked herself on his thumb.
“I love how wet you are. How ready you are for me.”
Her hands clenched the sheets, her breath ragged.
“Yeah? Then what are you waiting for?”
Through the thundering of his heart and the fire scorching through his veins, he said with only a hint of teasing, “For you to beg.”
Gwen stilled, then quick as a snap, rose up and grabbed his ears. “Not yet.” And with an agile move of her lower body, impaled herself on the tip of his cock.
All intentions of teasing and drawing out the sensual pleasure evaporated as he watched his cock begin to fill the velvet heat of her body. His teeth clenched as he eased into her, instinctively thrusting forward, penetrating deeper through the tender flesh surrounding him, clamping him like a vise.
She fell back on the bed with a soft moan, raising her hips up to take more, her earthy response spurring him on.
With another hard stroke he lodged his heavy erection to the hilt and groaned at the agonizing pleasure all but consuming him. “You’re so tight, bella. So damn soft and tight it’s killing me.” He could feel each tiny ripple, each spasm of those delicate inner muscles that threatened to milk him dry.
Sweat poured from his body as he fought to hold back, making her body slick as he hunched over to take a hot, pebbled nipple in his mouth. His tongue flicked, fast and furious as he began to thrust harder against her as a violent need to claim her in every way broke through the last fragment of control.
“He tried to take you from me.” Anger at what might have happened combined with the feral hunger driving him had his gums burning with the emergence of his fangs.
They scrapped over the upper curve of her breast. “No one takes you from me.”
Her hands clamped around his biceps, those short nails digging in deep, the pleasure-pain turning his blood to lava, his hunger reaching feral levels of insanity. Hard, powerful lunges buried him deep inside her wet sheath, over and over, as he lashed one pouting nipple and then the other.
Soft cries of pleasure carried to his ears. Twisting, writhing under the weight of his body, her juices spilled on his shift with impending release. She wrapped her legs around his waist, opening herself wider to the furious strokes of his cock. He plunged his hands in her hair, twining the thick strands around his fingers, holding her head in place as he licked and nipped his way to the sensitive spot at the base of her neck.
The place were a shifter claimed his mate. A deep mark made with fangs that warned all other shifters that this female belonged to another, and he would fight to the death to keep her. His jaguar was damn near delirious with ravenous need as the intoxicating scent of her filled his nostrils. With a snarling growl of hunger, he opened his mouth wide and pierced her shoulder with his fangs, his hips bucking against hers as her taste burst on his tongue.
She stiffened beneath him, her upper body arching into the unyielding press of his chest, and shuddered in hard, violent waves. At her choked scream of pleasure, Rome jerked above her, his head lifting from her shoulder with a roar of triumph as he drove his pulsing cock past the lush spasms of her pussy. His orgasm raced up from his curled toes, whipping sensations from one nerve ending to another until he poured everything he had deep inside the precious warmth of his mate.
Chapter Twenty
Peeking through her lashes, Gwen surveyed the other side of her bed in the near darkness of the room. Empty.
Reaching out, she slowly traced a hand over the still warm sheets where Rome had lain. Listening for the slightest sound, she heard nothing above the whirling of the ceiling fan and the light rain tapping outside.
Rome had left.
Forehead puckering, Gwen rolled onto her back, craning her neck to see the alarm clock click over to onefifty.
While she hadn’t thought far enough ahead about Rome remaining until morning, she wasn’t quite prepared to find herself alone, staring up at the ceiling fan and wondering why he’d gone.
The call of nature interrupted her musing and she grudgingly rose to a sitting position, the growing warmth and tinges in her body a physical reminder of Rome’s impressive skill and stamina. A spark of renewed desire began to kindle low in her belly, making her womb contract with need. “You have got to be kidding me,” she scowled down at her pebbling nipples. “There is no way I should be wanting more after last night.”
He’d all but carried her to the bathroom after the first time, where he’d proceeded to use his busy hands and clever mouth to drive her over the edge. After that, they’d gone into the living room to shovel down what food they could find, and somehow ended up on the couch, with her straddling his thighs. Sated beyond belief, she pretty much passed out after that, vaguely recalling Rome lifting her in his arms and taking her back to bed.
Where he obviously left her all alone. Now her scowl was for his disappearing act.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she rose to her feet, surmising his departure was what woke her. With the night lights to guide her way, she padded naked to the bathroom, where the bro
ken towel rack greeted her from the tile floor. Her cheeks flooded with heat at the memory, but more importantly, at the thought of telling Bob that she needed it replaced.
From the bathroom she headed to her dresser, pulling out panties and a thin tank top. She never slept naked, feeling too vulnerable, and without Rome at her side, found no reason to change her routine. It was as she was heading back to bed that she spied a dark pile on the floor, almost lost in the shadows of the room. On closer inspection she realized that though Rome had left, his shoes, socks and shirt had remained. She straightened. So he planned on coming back.
Anticipation hummed in her veins at the prospect, the heat of her body increasing until she wanted to strip off the clothes she’d just donned. The air around her felt thick, the scent of sex suddenly becoming more pronounced and affecting her like an aphrodisiac.
“This is crazy.” She muttered, walking over to open the curtains and unlock the sliding glass door. “I should be dead to the world.”
She pushed the door open and took a step out onto the balcony, far enough out to breath in the cleansing air, yet not enough to get caught in the rain. Though her brain calmed, her body continued to rage with need and she couldn’t help but be a little miffed that it was all Rome’s fault. As such, he should have manned up last night and done some explaining, but instead they’d jumped each other’s bones.
Something warm and melty spread through her body, a feeling she was beginning to associate specifically to Rome. It wasn’t as if she’d never felt desire before, but with Rome, her reaction was particularly intense; a mix of possessiveness and fierce hunger that damn near obliterated everything else. As demonstrated when she’d thrown herself at Rome with wild abandon right in front of his parents’ eyes yesterday afternoon. Gwen might not be the smartest bulb in the pack, but when she examined all the evidence, she had the ability to piece everything together on her own.
Rome was a shifter, a cat shifter – hell all the Felix men were – and she was his mate. Other than some sort of psychedelic drug that had unknowingly been slipped to her, nothing else made sense. The physical craving, the lonesomeness when he was gone, the sense of safety and rightness she felt whenever his arms were around her.
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