Toying with me. Why? I just needed him inside me. I wanted to claw and scream. Feel as complete as that woman I'd seen have sex so many times.
His mouth moved between both of my breasts where he shoved them together so closely that they almost touched.
Driving me insane. Sucking on the long points until one popped free of his careful bite and he could latch onto the other.
He growled the deadliest possessive gurgle and lowered his steely mass down atop my length.
My soul quaked at the weight of his hard muscle pressed against my demanding groin.
A part of my body that had taken on a mind of its own. Gods I ached so damned much down there.
He turned back to my flesh, ignoring my pathetic neediness, for some reason opting to use the moist tip of his tongue to trace a chilling line from each of my ribs.
Slowly, ever-so-damned slowly. Creeping back and forth along each rib, sliding to my midline, then back up to the side of my body, to follow the next lower rib toward my navel. Until his mouth hovered over the sensitive notch, dowsing it with scorching breath.
He gurgled a clipped Wolfen declaration of something.
Maybe he simply warned me to hang on. Must have because the damp tip of his tongue traced the rim of that Y-shaped small indentation. Made me flinch against his growling head. But my body's arching motion didn't deter him. No. He thrust that tongue into the quivering hole and lathed me senseless. I couldn't gasp for a breath fast enough. Couldn't dodge the wave of desire and desperation gripping my being. All I could do was thrash against his dipping tongue and whimper until those whimpers metamorphosed into screaming pleas.
Need crashed into me. Coursed through me. Smothered my sanity until all I thought about was the way my need smeared his chest with the dampness his relentless efforts drained out the screaming hole my body rubbed against his.
But he ignored my rucking hips.
Devouring my navel while pinning me to the very Earth that birthed me twenty-three years ago.
Life jolted through me.
Oddly confusing in I'd lived so long already.
That mouth journeyed southward.
Oh. Yes. To where I ache with dangerous emptiness. Insanely empty. Something has to drive the void away. Anything. And that glorious mouth of his certainly could the way his tongue lapped at my sex.
Dear. Gods. I couldn't stop barking his name, rubbing my throbbing sex against his face. Over and over the firm tip of that tongue mapped out my delicate flesh no one had ever touched before. And it felt so wonderful I had to shut my eyes. Clamp out the blue sky. Hold my breath for fear I'd scream and my sire would hear.
The world shook with volcanic intensity.
Rather, my body did. All the way through my core. Clutching my soul with an invisible grip that took it by the shoulders. Must have. To get its attention. But Boa didn't need to. He'd secured that years ago.
My body kept flinching with electric jolts set off by his reverent mouth.
Sucking. And sucking. On my clit. Gods. Making me writhe in the soft whispering grass. Whine. Whimper. Everything was about that place. Down there. About my neediness. I can see life is going to be all about need. Like my need to lie still and breathe.
Boa apparently thought I had other needs. He must have known something. My exhausted body caught a second wind.
A howling wind that shook the Bitterroot Forest's lofty canopy and demanded respect. Something I couldn't avoid with a second rising wall of need bearing down upon my soul. How could something as simple as teeth, lips, and tongue overwhelm a person? Answers didn't matter when he growled that satisfied gurgle of his.
Go ahead and feel pleased. I can handle your uncontrollable overpowering attention. The pleasure. No wonder Mary let the smug Wolverine ride her whenever he wanted. Even if he didn't mark her. Toss her future and life to the wind. Risk having bastard children. Especially since the odds of death during childbirth were fifty percent every time a woman birthed a child AEI. But all the risks made sense now. A man could do beautiful things to a woman with his swirling tongue. His scraping teeth. Simply suction…
My hips jerked so uncontrollably against the sharp edges of his teeth that all I could do was squeeze my eyes shut and ride the choking bliss crashing through my soul with the erratic pumping of my hips.
The need blinked, burst, smothered me, and died.
Dragged away on the second wind. But the wind didn't carry away Boa.
He rasped ragged breaths like a cross between a growl and a purr, crawling, hand-over –hand along the length of my body, his heat warming me, moving up to stare down at me with the golden eyes of his Wolf. "Mine," he managed to utter.
Yes. Yes. "Always." I nodded.
He took one of my hands, then the other, threading his fingers through each with our palms mated, locking the backs of my hands, one on each side of my head, into soft grass.
Why the shackling? I couldn't rise from the Earth if I tried after he'd ridden me breathless.
He stared into my eyes with indefinable intensity.
I'm definitely his. Always will be.
"I don't want to hurt you," he growled through gritted teeth.
The sharp fangs of his Wolf. His Wolf is close. But he's fighting. Holding Wolf back. To protect me. Why? From the pain? I'm not afraid. "It only lasts a second. A small price to pay to appease a heart." And I'd be his forever.
He groaned, tucked his nose into the crook of my neck, and shifted his hips.
The firm smooth head of his cock lodged in the opening to the Well.
The concept was kind of crazy. My vagina being the Well of Immortality--what Father had taught my Shifter brothers. I'd overheard. And the knowledge kept me sane when I cried at night when missing Boa. That within me resided immortality. The possibility of children, of course. And that's what Shifters wanted. To prevent the extinction of the human species. So, between his growling declarations, display of favoritism, and the gift, he could possess my Well.
"Mine," Boa snarled against my neck's skin and thrust his hips.
The heat of his word didn't counteract the sting of his thrust breaking through my hymen. No. And he couldn't go far. Not far enough to rub the sting into nonexistence. Or he chose not to move. To wait. To give the pain time to fade. But I wanted more. I wanted him so deeply trapped in my Well that there was no way for him to escape. "Please, Boa." I wriggled my hips against his weight.
A tiny burn stung me internally.
Nothing unbearable.
He groaned, pushing his hips, wedging himself inside me a bit. "Give it a moment to stretch," he explained.
I hope he wasn't referring to his shaft. It's big enough. But Shifter cocks expand as they shift. Would it fit at all if he didn't hurry?
His hips slowly rocked forward.
A little more with each motion. Rocking me like I sat in a saddle. With glorious pressure. Wedging himself deeply until his groin pressed completely against mine. So blessedly perfect. I wanted to move. Needed to move. Fidgeted just enough to set off the most incredible sensation deep inside the Well.
A tick. More like an itch. Whatever it was certainly explained why Mary screeched and clawed more than me with Boa nibbling on my clit.
Boa lifted his head only to rest his sweaty temple against mine. His eyes popped open. Wolf stared back with golden fire.
All I wanted to do was wrap my arms around his shoulders. Hold on. Match his every thrust.
"Wrap your legs around me, Willow. Like when you ride Bolt."
Whatever. As long as he doesn't stop moving. I slid my legs around his tight pumping ass. But nothing about the way I rode him even came close to sitting a saddle. This was a thousand times more thorough. The way things should be. Deeply internal. Undeniably astounding. Mind-numbing. Earth-shaking. Soul-quaking.
He fiddled with a spot inside me.
The one I heard all women have and now know to be true. I couldn't fight the cries welling in my chest. Squeaking through my gritted
teeth.
He squeezed my hands so hard above my head that my fingers numbed. I couldn't tell if his did. He just grunted, impaling me over and over with his engorged shaft.
Everything focused on the meeting of our groins. Where his steely rod penetrated my sensitive channel. Where he strummed a discordant tune of my indecipherable begs and pleas from me. More. Just give me more.
He snarled, thrusting faster.
Making me pinch my eyes tight. Driving me to focus on the darkness behind my eyelids. The place where there was nothing but him. The motion of our hips. My throbbing heart. Bone and muscle. Just two souls. Unification. Our desperate rush to beat the wave of mind-boggling orgasm choking the air from our lungs.
His body went rigid.
His thick hardness flinched inside me.
Dear. Gods. I screamed and squeezed my legs as tightly as possible.
He roared, peeling my legs loose from his waist with one hand before pinning my free hand back down again, pounded his iron length back and forth along my quaking channel, and watched himself claim me between our bodies.
Bite me. Mark me. But still he'd contained his Wolf. So strong, my Boa. Protecting me.
The movement of his hips became jerkier. Slowed. Shortened until the life seemed to drain out of him. Thank goodness. I don't recall when I last sucked down a breath.
"Mine," he growled.
Just to touch him but he's still got my hands clamped down. "Yes, Boa. Release my hands. Please."
His fingers slid away.
Now I could hold him. Touch him.
He rolled over my leg and onto his side in the grass, his shaved head sagging to the earth.
He hasn't marked me though.
"That, sweet kitten, was the most incredible feeling I've ever experienced," he said toward the empty sky.
Maybe so. But what about the bite? "Boa?"
He turned those green eyes to meet my gaze.
Yes. Green. Wolf had gone. So much for marking me. "What about the marking?"
His warm palm draped my cheek. "Not yet, Kitten. It isn't safe for you."
What does safety have to do with us living together like mates? Anything could happen the moment we parted. Everybody knows that things change in a heart beat AEI. Marking is all about now. A window of opportunity for the living. Why is he stalling?
Chapter Two
"I don't understand." My Boa stretched out like a lazy partially-striped snake in the sun. Warming itself as if the sun might conjure up his stripes that had washed off or smudged while he wrapped himself around me during his little mating ritual. What was that Christians said about serpents, AEI? I need to brush up on my mythology. And forget about how much I thought those stripes accentuated his muscles and made him mysterious. Not many Shifters painted on camouflage to go hunting.
My heart sank.
Yes. He'd been hunting. For what? Me?
"We have to discuss how we're going to handle the future," he said. "Where we'll live. When we'll tell your sire. Until then, I don't want anything to give us away. It's more important that your sire isn't insane with anger and trying to hunt my carcass down." He reached, the soft pad of his thumb rubbing across the apple of my cheek. "I want you safe."
What? Arguing that I had to be claimed by his Wolf now would only make me look like a weak-minded female. I'd heard stories about females all my life while growing up among males. With only one other female around, maybe two on occasion, meant I had to learn how to avoid being accused of being afflicted with this weak behavior. So, then, better to take the problem by the horns. "You're the next head of your clan. So, we'll live with your sire's clan. And we'll go now and tell our sires."
He rolled onto his side, all six-foot-something of his magnificent muscles, slid his palm down my back, and pulled my belly against the flatness of his until the swells of my breasts smashed above his nipples. Only to look me in the eye. "No, Willow. We need to think things through. Plan. We've lived apart ten years. A few more weeks won't kill us. We'll just wait until we know what's best. You go feel out your sire. I'll do the same back home."
Home. What a word. Like I had been expelled from mine by tossing my virginity to the wind with him. And he won't Gods-be-damned mark me. I'm as stupid as Mary. Used. Tossed aside when a male finished with me. Fine. I nodded anyway, shoving away from his warm skin.
"Where are you going?" He tried to hold me there with him.
I kept shoving until he released me. "Home. To do as you instructed." I got my feet beneath me.
The warmth of his arm slipped away.
Men. He's just like Wolverine who would screw Mary's brains out and stuff his dick back into his pants to go bully the other Shifters. The only reason I'm different from Mary is the fact I get a fucking necklace.
"Meet me on Saturday?" he called to me from where he obviously couldn't find the energy to rise from his sexual conquest.
Gods! The sooner I leave the better. A good lie will see me in the next valley before sunset. "Saturday." I yanked on my pants.
"Do you have to leave now?"
Sex. This was just sex. "Yes." Still, I guess Boa really didn't do anything wrong. His actions seemed to be in my best interest. I guess I'd have to just go home and try not to stew until Saturday. That's a man asking a lot of a weak-willed woman. And they call women weak. We're the ones who give birth and have our hearts ripped out so men can have someone join them while they play with their cocks. If this isn't about sex, he could prove it on Saturday. And he'd just have to wait for some smiles on Saturday. After all, I'm supposed to wait for the damned bite.
****
Boa rode his red stallion up to the long palisade encircling his sire's encampment, leading a black gelding with two young bucks tied to its saddle. Orange sunlight from the sinking sun painted the fortified wall's sharpened tree trunks, planted upright into a solid barrier, a darker brown, he thought. Nothing looked more desolate than the wall between Willow and I. Especially after she left so abruptly.
But she'd gone on her way. Although, I'd done everything in my power to make love to her. But Willow wasn't the type of woman to cling to. Or clingy herself. She's the wind. And she would work through her frustrations and come back to me. Five days from now. The wind would gust and find me.
Red's footsteps picked up a fraction and his ears cocked.
Home. Yes. We're both home. And Red doesn't need me to steer him through the open gateway. Now, to check in with my sire then hook up with a bar of soap and the spray of sun-warmed shower water. But I have to wear the camouflage home or my sire or siblings might start asking questions as to why I removed one of my best tools for hunting while in Normal form. They might go so far as to sniff with their Wolves in the noses…Ask questions about some lingering odor of Willow. What if one of them coped an attitude? She's harmless.
Mine, Wolf whined.
Quiet. She'll be with us soon enough. For now, sniffing out Falcon's slant on my choice of mates was of the utmost importance. Falcon is anything but hotheaded like Croc. But who knows what my sire would do when faced with something that could be viewed as the ultimate betrayal? I put the horses away for the night, each with a sack of oats and a pile of hay, left the deer carcasses hanging to bleed, then stepped into the fire-lit shadowy interior of Falcon's main lodge.
The savory scent of rabbit stew welcomed me. With onions. The best with onions.
My brothers and cousins sat around the central long table on two long benches, eating and chatting.
Falcon watched me from the end of the table where he always reigned over meals. "I didn't expect you until yesterday at the earliest. Hunting must have been good."
"Yes. Shot two bucks in the southern valley."
Falcon's brow furrowed. "You've been hunting near Croc's territory a lot these days. You didn't do anything to set him off again, did you?"
My sire's concern for Croc's sanity was good to see. He'd be more understanding of the match I'd made. "Didn't see a soul."
Leave it to him to strike. "I know what I'm doing." As if I'd have foolishly marked Willow. Although, she's covered in my scent until she bathes.
Falcon eyed me.
Studying me as if he knew something was up. "What's wrong, Falcon? I leave for two days and return to find the wind's shifted, trying to blow me out of here."
Falcon snorted a laugh. "Funny you put it that way. You're taking Fox to meet with the Elders tomorrow."
Holy shit. "What?" I tried to act normal, sinking onto the spot left for me at the end of the bench near my sire.
Falcon wiped his hands with an old red-and-blue dishtowel. "There's been a sudden summons. News about the aliens. Since you'll be taking over for me, you go."
But that's three days ride on motorcycle. "At Death Summit?"
Falcon nodded, his shoulder-length graying brown hair shaking with the motion. "Not far. You'll be back next month. Unless something else is going down."
No Gods-be-damned way. There isn't a way to leave Willow a message. But a son accepting the role of clan leader, the alpha position, has no choice but to do his sire's bidding. I nodded.
Just in case. To avoid risking some emotion betraying me in my voice.
****
I washed three different times with soap on the way home. Something about all that skin-to-skin contact just made me fear Croc would be sniffing me over once I walked through the door. But lathering up three times had somewhat reestablished my sense of calm before I'd blown my entire game of risk out of the water. Croc was the most volatile factor in this situation. And he'd explode, blanketing the countryside with volcanic shrapnel. All those years we learned geology didn't provide one avenue to prevent his soul's magma from reaching his human surface. Therein lies my conundrum. If only Mother were here. She had been the only one capable of stifling his anger. Not even his second mate could ease his temper like Mother. And both of his mates are gone.
So, now I must pass through the crocodile's jaws. Not good.
My eldest brother Caiman guarded the gate. He eyed me like he caught a whiff of Bitterroot scent.
Seducing Beauty Page 3
