When he pulled her into his mouth and sucked, she arched up and gasped, fingers tensing against his head. He sucked hard at her breast, greedily, pulling her deeply into his mouth, pulling more of her, than she thought was earthly possible.
Something broke in her, and she arched her back, hips pulling down, and then rocking back up fast, forcing him into her, forcing him to move faster - harder. Forcing him to give her exactly what she wanted, to fuck her as wild as the beast within would want him to.
The idea of this gorgeous man with the steel-grey eyes, buried deep inside of her, bucking furiously against her, his muscular frame pressing down on her, his sexy mouth desperate to taste her – it was almost too much. She had never felt so hot, so passionate, for a man before, and despite her need for control, she found herself letting go, and letting him lead the way.
And he did lead her, breaking away from her abruptly, leaving her nipple wet and hard, aching in a strange way she’d never felt before. With sudden sharpness, he thrust into her once again, spearing her with something that felt like revenge almost, for moving without his permission. But she heard the smile in his voice, as he lowered his head to her ear.
“Impatient?”
She didn’t answer with words, but rocked her hips against him, as she tightened her grip around his hips, with her legs. He breathed a laugh against her neck.
“I’d like to see you ride a horse, woman. I bet they’re just putty in your hands.”
If she had something to say about that, some reply, he took it away from her, with his body, moving hard and fast now, his hand coming up to knead one breast, his lips working over her ear and neck, teeth grazing the skin of her shoulder. She slipped her arms beneath his, running her hands down his back, over the taut muscles of his shoulders, down to his waist, and with a little stretch; to the rise of his ass. His muscles bunching, as he flexed and tensed, drove himself into her, and pulled back.
Finally, she gave up trying to hang on to him, and just let her hands roam over his gorgeous body, down his narrow hips, to the place where that certain muscle, used only for this particular activity, made little hollows. For one wild moment, she wanted a mirrored ceiling, so she could watch him from all angles, watch that tight ass, and the flex and release of his body.
But all that movement, the expert way he seemed to be guiding her, claiming her as his own, without overpowering her, was driving her toward something that felt like the thunder of horses’ hooves, on the hard pack. Her body thrummed, and sang, and shuddered, well before she reached the point, where she was one mass of wanton woman, and she cried out beneath him, said his name more than once, just like he promised that she would, and then she finally let herself go. Her body shook violently, as an intense orgasm rushed through her, leaving her breathless, her head spinning. She let him lead her over the edge of that cliff, into oblivion, to a place she wasn’t sure she had ever been before. Unfamiliar territory, with a gorgeous drifter, a stranger, a man who was capable of making her feel things she had never felt before. A very dangerous man that she couldn’t seem to get enough of.
And with the next breath he took, he was right alongside her, head arched back, mouth open, his body suddenly hot beneath her hands. She blinked up at him, marveling through her own orgasm, at the sounds he made, each one setting off another wave of release in her. The sounds were harsh, primitive, just this side of the animal within. He growled out his desire for her, his eyes wild with passion. They were the most beautiful sounds she’d ever heard, and he was making them for her.
The world outside was crashing all around them, a mix of howling wind and rain, the air filled with the sounds of thunder, the very air, alive with electricity. And for a minute, she felt like she was in the middle of that raging storm with Jericho, and they’d either drown in the rain and wind, or be struck down by lightning. But she didn’t care.
As far as she was concerned, she was, at the moment, in the only place she wanted to be.
Chapter Three
They sat on her bed, her wrapped in a blanket, him with a towel around his waist, already sliding down his narrow hips, and one in his hand, as he ran it through her hair, trying to help dry it. He’d wanted a shower, and she didn’t argue, and they’d taken that shower together, struggling to focus on actually getting clean, as their bodies mashed against one another, and he kissed her passionately, up against the shower wall. Then he’d taken the soap, and massaged her body with it, washing away the scent of their sex, as he soaped her curves, squeezing them in his hands.
She wanted to ask him where he was headed tomorrow, but that tomorrow was coming fast, as the night turned into dawn. And even though she was curious to know, asking that question felt as though she were putting an end to all they felt for each other in this moment, putting a period at the end of the sentence, instead of a comma. The British called a period a full stop, and she didn’t want the finality of a British full stop. She wanted the pause of a comma, the space and time, to write another clause in their sentence. Perhaps even another chapter to their story. So she stayed quiet.
“The rain’s stopped.”
She looked out the window, surprised to discover that he was right. Moonlight played hide and seek with the last of the storm clouds, making silver squares appear on the bed beside her.
“I would think it’s cool enough now, to sleep with the windows open.”
“Might be an idea.”
She felt his fingers through the towel, strong and patient. Then he stopped, and the towel dropped to the bed beside her. But his fingers were still in her hair, working through the tangles. There was a comb in the bathroom, but the thought of him leaving her, even just to go get it, seemed like another full stop.
“I’d like to see you in the sunlight.”
That wasn’t the words she expected to hear. “Why?”
“I’ve seen you in the neon light of the bar, under fluorescent light, moonlight. But I bet this hair flashes like fire in the sun.”
She giggled. No guy had ever said anything like that to her before.
“It has its moments. Mostly, it just gets tied up in knots, and runs wild the rest of the time.”
He moved her hair aside, and kissed the back of her neck in that sensitive place, that sends waves of fire up your back. “Wild is worth the trouble, sometimes.”
“You mean to take the time to tame it?” She was thinking of horses. “To break them to a saddle, and keep them under control?”
His breath slid around to the back of her ear. “Not to tame. Only to know when to keep it under control.” Lips followed breath, and she tilted her head, not wanting to miss a second of the touch of him against her. Whatever part of him was touching her, seemed like an addiction, something she craved, but didn’t think she should.
“You know I’m a shifter.”
It wasn’t a question, exactly, but she knew he was looking for an answer.
“From the minute you walked through the door. I can smell it on you...”
He breathed out a laugh. “Under all that road dust, you picked that out? You’re a pretty amazing woman, Harley.” With patience or self-control, she wasn’t sure which, his lips moved down to the curve where her neck met her shoulder, fingers tugging the blanket away from her, exposing more of her to the moonlight coming through the window.
“It’s not always easy to tell. It just depends. I know the scent of my regulars… could follow them in the dark. But when someone new comes in... well...” She shrugged, just to push her shoulder closer to him. He gave her another kiss, his lips pressing softly against her neck.
“Your scent was different, but I knew, yeah. You stood out to me… like the smell of a cold beer in church.”
That made him laugh, and she liked the deep sound, and the way his face lit up. The blanket had somehow moved lower, sliding down her arm, and over her breast, and she didn’t do anything to stop it, until it lay in a pool on her lap. This time, after she’d shown him she wasn’t passive, now
she wanted his control, wanted him to tame her, just a little. Just enough to know she wouldn’t fight him, and maybe that would be a reason for him to stay.
His hands came down to her waist, pulling her up. She went with his movement, as he lifted, and turned her at the same time, pulled her up and back, as subtle and complex as ballet. As one hand went to the small of her back, pressed, held, and pressed again, she went forward, hands resting on the ridges and valleys of the jumbled blanket, that had somehow gotten from around her hips, to being underneath her. That one hand stayed there on her back, but the other went to the inside of her right thigh, pushing out, switching to the other leg, pushing out again.
Then she felt him move, his weight shifting on the bed, and she heard the sound of the night table drawer sliding open, the ripping sound of the condom package, and she knew what was coming next. It took him a minute, but then he was back on the bed.
His hips, and cock, touched her at the same time, hips against her ass, cock sliding between the curves of the cheeks of her ass. The hand was taken away from her back, and between her legs, and went to her hips, moving back slowly.
“You have the most beautiful ass I have ever seen, Harley.”
She breathed out a smile, not sure how to respond to that compliment. But then her breath came out in a whistling moan, as he pushed into her. She was tender and felt used, in such a good way, and didn’t anticipate how the touch of him would bring everything back to the surface, as if the shower and the talking had just been the intermission between acts, and her body had been waiting for this, for the next, for the rest.
And so she bucked and arched against him, from the start, and everything was different. He was hard and fast, like he had been, but rougher, coarser, and breathing out masculine sounds, that she’d have given anything to watch, as if the sounds would have been visible.
Everything spiraled up and around, and became more than the sum of its parts. If what they’d done before was sex, this was sex on steroids, on some cosmic level. And if this was letting him have control, then she’d gladly turn over the reins, or the key to her bike, or her body, to let him do what he wanted.
It seemed very bright in the room, as he pushed her down, from the weight of him behind, and from that insistent hand, that was now on her shoulder. It was bright; as she bent her arms, then stretched them out, she turned her head and saw the sky outside was bright, the bright gray of dawn. So she closed her eyes to let it still be night, to control the time, by blocking out the dawn.
He pushed into her deeper, her legs now spread out to the side, and she felt as ripe and wet as a split ripe peach. With a deep growl, his chest came down on her back, and she’d have given anything to see the curve of his back, the tensing and relaxing of the muscles in his hips and ass, as he drove into her, over and over. She was his, pure and simple, this time, and he took her fully, completely, the weight of him even controlling when she could take a breath in, and blow that breath out.
She let herself get lost, swept up in the powerful wave of desire that this man brought out in her. Her body reacted to him like a well-oiled machine, like a bike responds to the shift of the weight of the rider, and she let go, let the orgasm tearing through her, take control, take over. Everything inside her felt fluid and free, and gloriously alive. She felt her body buzz with energy, and a high that left her breathless, and she closed her eyes as she climaxed, her pussy humming in pleasure, as this beautiful man gave her exactly what she needed.
Jericho suddenly wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest, rolling to the side, as he shook with the power of whatever the hell was happening in his body. She went limp in his arms, letting him move her against like he wanted, however he needed to finish what he’d started.
With a low moan, that she felt against her back, he shuddered one last time, thighs banging against the backs of hers, his hips hitting her ass. His breath was heavy, coming out in growls, his body continuing to thrust against her, until he fell over the edge, into the same wondrous place he had driven her to, just seconds before.
Then, something in him suddenly relaxed, even though his arms were still like bands of iron around her, and his body was curled around her, his head buried in her hair. He held her, like the light coming in the window, was going to pull them apart.
“I can close the curtains.”
“Don’t move. Not a muscle. Ever.”
So she stayed still, and she felt him relax, until she knew he was sound asleep, his arms wrapped around her possessively, his face still hidden from the light.
Chapter Four
Harley sat by the open window, legs over the arm of the chair, drinking black coffee as always, and watching the horses in the pasture across the road, running in a circle. Even though it was probably past noon, the breeze coming in, fluttering the curtain, was fresh, and almost cool. It felt good against her skin, made her want to breathe in deeply, clear her lungs, and somehow, try and relax.
She took another sip of coffee, and then from behind, she heard the soft clink of metal against metal. Then the sound of bedsprings, experimental sounds, sounds of someone waking up in a strange bed, and a strange room.
And waking up, handcuffed to the bed.
“Hey…what the hell is this? Harley?”
She brought her feet down to the floor, tucking the big white shirt she had on, under her thighs.
“Morning, Jericho. If that’s really your name.”
He was lying on his back, his body a slash of tanned skin, against the white sheets. The top sheet was crumpled across his hips, but low, uncovering that beautiful stretch of skin that resided below his navel, ending just where the thin line of hair that ran down from his chest, widened out. She knew what was under the edge of that sheet; she could never forget it after the night they had together, and for a minute, she thought maybe the handcuffs were too much, and she had jumped the gun, ruined everything with her skepticism. Jericho waited until her eyes came back to his face before he said anything.
“It is.” He shifted again, probably looking for a comfortable spot. That was probably going to be a little hard, with both arms stretched over his head, cuffed to the first horizontal bar on the frame.
“What’s going on, Harley?”
She set the empty cup on the windowsill, and stood up. The shirt fluttered down, ending just above her knees. God, he looked good laid out on that bed. But that warning bell had blasted her awake in the middle of the night, and she couldn’t figure out why. And when she finally did, she’d slipped out of bed, and immediately gotten the cuffs.
“You said you’re from Kentucky, taking a road trip to the Pacific, right? Your All American road trip, or whatever.”
He nodded, watching her, his eyes following her, as she came toward the bed. There wasn’t any panic in his expression, just that calm, patient look of a man with all the time in the world.
“But the license plate on your bike is a Montana plate, a new one, with more than one registration sticker. So I think somewhere along the line, you lied to me, about who you are, where you’re from.”
“I’ve never lied to you about who I am, Harley. I’m Jericho Steele. If you took the trouble to do this...” He rattled the cuffs. “Then I’m pretty sure you went through my wallet already, and you know that what I’m telling you is the truth.”
She had, but that didn’t mean much. She’d seen enough fake IDs in her time behind the bar, to know that if someone had connections, they could easily get one made.
“Then the only thing you could have lied about, is the reason you’re here, in Jenner’s Falls. In the middle of nowhere.”
He shifted on the bed again, bending one knee, and then straightening his leg, so that the damned sheet slid to the side, slid down, and showed her enough to let her know what was on his mind. Besides being handcuffed to her bed.
“If I told you the reason wasn’t anything that would have changed what happened last night, would you believe me?”
She thought about that, had thought about that, the baggage he might be carrying, besides the pack on the floor. And she’d decided that until she got some answers from him, this way, while extreme, might be the safest.
“You know the saying, keep your friends close, your enemies closer? I’m just trying to figure out which category you fall into.”
“I’d like to think we’re on the way to being friends, Harley. I think you feel the same way.”
“If I asked you straight out why you lied, would you tell me?”
“I’ll admit; I haven’t told you very much. But you haven’t told me much about yourself either.” His voice was low, and if she hadn’t been so crazy in love last night with the sound of that velvet coated whiskey, she might have missed the tightness in it now.
She shrugged, and sat down at the foot of the bed. “Well, it’s a little different, right? I live here, this is my bar, this is my bike club. You know who I am, could come back and find me, if you had reason to. You could find out everything you wanted to know about me just from sitting at the bar, or listening to the chatter. But you, I have no idea who you really are, or what you’re here for.”
Something had changed in his expression, some of that calm coolness, going out of his eyes.
“I wasn’t really listening to what anyone was saying. I was focused on watching you, walking up and down behind the bar.” He gave her a slow smile, his expression softening, some of the tension ebbing out of his body, the expression on his face headed back to that look of calm. “It was pretty distracting…watching you.”
That made her blush, because she’d known that, without even having paid attention. Oh, but she had paid attention to him, following pretty much every move he made, sitting there at the end of the bar. The soft rattle of the cuffs brought her wandering mind back to the Drifter in her bed.
“I’ll tell you what you want to know then, why I’m out in the middle of nowhere. If you’re still interested.”
Run Fur Love (BBW Tiger Shifter Romance) Page 4
