Missy lifted her head and frowned up at him. “What?”
“It’s actually lucky that we share enough common DNA with humans to make reproducing fertile offspring possible,” he continued, ignoring her question. “A few more separations in our genetic code and we’d be like oil and water. We’re really lucky.”
She pushed away from his chest to stare at him in confusion. “What are you yammering on about?”
Again he ignored her. “Because some people just sort of assume that because we’re both different, werewolves and vampires must have a lot in common. But it’s just not true. Other than being faster and stronger and those kinds of surface things, vampires and Lupines are as different as night and day.”
“And your point is?” By now, Missy’s spine had straightened like a poker and her arms rested in a fold against her chest.
“I just made it. My point is that Lupines and vampires are really very different from each other.”
“Well, I knew that,” she said, exasperated. “What I want to know is why you’re bringing this up now.”
He gave her an entirely, suspiciously innocent look. “Well, I just thought that since you’re such good friends with Regina, and you know Dmitri and all, that you might be a little confused.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, I think that even with my human senses, I can tell the difference between fangy and furry, Einstein. You can relax.”
His green eyes opened wide, and she could swear he actually batted his eyelashes at her. “Oh, so then you haven’t assumed I can read your mind?”
His sledgehammer subtlety finally got his meaning across, and Missy groaned. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Yes, I love you! Are you happy now? I really don’t think that elaborate torture session was quite necessary.”
Graham shrugged, grinning his wicked grin. “Maybe not. But it was fun.” She reached out to thump him in the chest, but he caught her hand easily and brought it to his lips. “I need the words just as much as you do, honey.”
Missy humphed, but she knew he was right, and frankly, she was still in a fairly charitable mood after hearing him declare himself. Blame it on the hormones.
Letting her head drop back to his shoulder, she rested a hand on her unchanged tummy and sighed.
“It doesn’t seem quite real,” she murmured. “What if we’re wrong and I’m not really pregnant?”
“Well, I certainly would be willing to put my all into trying again,” Graham said with a grin, “but we’re not wrong. He’s in there, honey, growing up quick.”
She looked up at Graham. “Do Lupines grow that much faster than humans?”
“Not once they’re born, but a standard Lupine pregnancy is only about five months.”
Missy’s eyebrows shot up and her lips parted in surprise. “Five months? I’ll only be pregnant for five months?”
“More like six, in your case,” he said. “I called an obstetrician—a Lupine—to ask her if she knew anything about mixed pregnancies, and she said when a human woman has a Lupine baby, her pregnancy is usually about six months long. Longer than Lupine, shorter than human.”
“Usually? I thought this didn’t happen a lot. Lupines and humans together.”
Graham shook his head and shifted his grip, one arm still supporting her back with his hand resting on her bare hip. The other reached out to tug away her sheet and bare her to his appreciative gaze. “Not often, but it’s not entirely unheard of, either. Dr. Howell knows enough about it to take good care of you. In fact, she told me to bring you to her office this week for an exam, just to make sure everything’s normal with you and the pup.”
Missy gave up the sheet after a brief struggle. Graham was simply too strong, and she was simply too easy. He traced little circles around her nipples to watch them pucker. She shivered. Then she registered what he said, and she tensed.
“The pup?” She swallowed hard. “Um, Graham, Annie and Samantha told me I wasn’t going to have a puppy. Please don’t tell me our baby will be born with a tail.”
He laughed out loud and hugged her. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. ‘Pup’ is just an expression. We tend to call our children ‘pups’ or ‘cubs,’ but they’re normal babies. Unless you were Lupine, which you’re not, and you happened to be in wolf form when you went into labor, which you won’t be, you don’t have to worry about whelping anything but a normal baby.”
She gave a sigh of relief. “Maybe I should make an appointment to see that doctor. I think I’ll have a lot of questions to ask her.”
“We’ll call tomorrow. I’d like to go with you, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” she assured him, shifting in his arms and pressing the breasts he’d been teasing against his broad chest. “I’d like to have my mate with me. After all, this is your baby, too.”
He smiled and leaned down to kiss her. It started out as a sweet, affectionate gesture, but Missy took care of that by reaching down between them and unfastening his jeans. When she slipped her hands inside to curl around his already erect cock, he groaned into her mouth. Smiling against his lips, she freed one hand to yank his T-shirt up over his taut stomach.
He took the hint, jerking his T-shirt over his head and tossing it to the floor before returning to devour her mouth in a deep, hungry kiss. She matched him for a moment before pulling away and pressing a hand to his chest to urge him back onto the mattress. He got rid of the tray first, then stretched out on the cool silk sheet and opened his arms as if to offer himself to her. Missy was not about to refuse.
Smiling a smile that even felt wicked on her lips, she reached for the waistband of his jeans and tugged them off. Dropping them on the floor, or maybe on top of the breakfast tray, she knelt astride his thighs and leaned back to get a good look.
Lordy, but the man got her hot every time she looked at him, and when he was naked, looking at him got her wet, too. As if her body were drooling for him. Heaven knew her mouth was.
She watched him run his gaze over her and blushed but didn’t make a move to cover herself. An entire weekend with him convinced her that Graham really did love the way she looked, which made the feeling mutual. She certainly had a hard time resisting the lure of his beautifully muscled chest.
“You’re gorgeous,” he growled, reaching up to cup her breasts in his large hands, cuddling their petite curves and rubbing the nipples with callused thumbs. “I love you, baby.”
The words felt even better than his hands and made Missy shiver. Smiling, she leaned down and set her mouth against the hot, steady pulse at the base of his throat. Her tongue dipped out to taste the salty, musky flavor of his skin, lapping at the small hollow before beginning a slow, teasing descent.
She worked her way down his body with an excruciating lack of haste, pausing for long moments at each of his nipples, tracing the contours of his muscles, the crisp hair and smooth silk of his skin. She spent a few tense minutes investigating his belly button just so she could savor the rough, purring sound of his moans, but when he rolled his hips against her, she took pity on him and resumed her trek south.
His body rose to greet her, his erection already thick and hard and begging for attention. How could a girl resist? Missy didn’t even put up a fight. She leaned down, rubbing her cheek against the surprisingly smooth flesh like a kitten begging to be stroked. She felt his hands bury themselves in her hair and his fingers massage her scalp as she parted her lips and drew him in.
He slid easily past her lips, a warm, welcome presence that filled her mouth and made her hum with pleasure. She swirled her tongue around the head and heard him moan. The sound did as much for her as a well-placed caress, sending warmth shooting through her body to pool as moisture between her legs. Loving him was almost as good as being loved by him, and it gave her a sense of power and control that she relished. Especially after last night.
His hands continued to cup the back of her head, cradling it gently as she settled into a lazy rhythm of licks, nibbles, and gentle pul
ls that made him harden even further in her warm mouth. Her fingers rubbed the tender skin at the crease of his hips while she sucked him, one straying farther and farther toward the inside of his thigh with every caress. When it finally reached its destination, it feathered lightly across the drawn skin before curving to cup the weight in her palm. Softly she kneaded the sensitive globes, timing her squeeze and release to coincide with her suckling.
In minutes his hips began to rock gently, sending his cock gliding between her lips in a restless motion.
Missy drew back, placing a soft kiss on his thigh before she crawled up to kneel, straddling his hips with her palms braced flat against his chest. She felt his thick length pressing against her inner thigh and smiled.
“I love you, too,” she murmured, then slowly began to join their bodies together.
Graham growled, the sound familiar and exciting, softer than the growls of last night but sounding no less aroused for coming from a human throat. It still made Missy shiver, which made her muscles clench tight around his shaft, which made him growl again. Life couldn’t get any better.
She let gravity pull her slowly down his length until her bottom rested against his hips and his arousal rested to the hilt inside her. The feel of him made her want to howl, but she restrained herself. Not out of embarrassment, but because she wanted to conserve her breath for better things. Like a hard, fast ride to the edge.
Dragging her hips up, she pulled almost entirely free of him before plunging back, savoring the feel of him stretching her and filling her and making her burn. She settled into a rapid rhythm of lift and fall that he echoed with powerful upward thrusts.
Within minutes, Missy was panting, her lungs straining to grab enough oxygen while her body strained to keep Graham lodged deep inside her. She felt torn, wanting to continue making love with him forever but needing the intense climax she could sense building on the horizon. She slowed her movements, unable to choose, until Graham took the decision out of her hands.
Strong fingers closed around her hips, anchoring her in place while he flipped their bodies, settling her on her back and himself firmly between her thighs.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he growled, and she complied, lifting them high to curl around his waist and locking her ankles together in the small of his back.
The move seemed to drive him deeper, and she cried out, “Now. More.”
He gave her more. Bracing his hands against the mattress, he bowed his back to press deeper inside her, pausing as if he were savoring the fullness of their connection. Then he drew back and began a hard driving rhythm that had her clutching at his shoulders and digging her heels into his spine to try to pull him deeper. He filled her until she wasn’t sure she could take any more, but she wanted more and demanded it.
His thrusts became shorter, harder, digging inside her with frantic force. She welcomed every second of it, letting him drive her higher and higher up the peak until he sent her hurtling over the edge in a climax that curled her toes and clamped her internal muscles around him with enough force to drag him along with her. He emptied himself with a roar before collapsing in a hot, boneless heap on top of her.
He must have dredged up a last little bit of energy from somewhere, because he had enough to nuzzle her neck and plant a soft kiss on the damp skin there. Missy couldn’t offer much more than a breathless sigh in return, but she felt his lips curve in what she was sure would be a self-satisfied grin, if she had enough energy to turn her head and look. Which she didn’t.
“I’ve changed my mind about using earth-shattering sex to convince you to move in with me,” he murmured after a brief pause, presumably to work up the energy for speech.
“Hmm?” Missy hadn’t built up enough reserve yet for anything so complex.
“I’m not going to do it. I’ve got another plan.”
Her eyelids felt weighted down with lead as she drifted in a state of utterly sated contentment, but she managed to work up a burst of energy to communicate, “Huh?”
“It still involves plenty of sex,” he assured her, and she smiled through her haze, “but this time I’m going to use it to convince you to marry me. What do you think?”
The smile that lit Missy’s face didn’t require energy. It was the kind that came from her soul, and she couldn’t have stopped it if she’d tried. That left her one last thread of energy, which she used to give the only answer that mattered.
“Yes.”
Visit stmartins.com/ChristineWarren and sign up to receive
HEART OF THE SEA—
a never-before-released FREE short story from Christine Warren’s The Others series.
BIG BAD WOLFCOVER
TITLE
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Big Bad Wolf Page 23
