by Moira Rogers
She burned with magic. Burned so, so bright. Dumbing themselves down with human lives and human urges might have worked for the Todds, but they were idiots for thinking it would work for their daughter. Blake could feel her wolf from here, a wild, hungry creature determined to break free.
He wondered if she’d ever changed. Most of the wolves who lived along humans didn’t. They forgot what they were, where they came from. They forgot how to be anything but helpless sheep, and they raised their offspring to be ashamed and controlled.
If you stifled magic long enough, it died like a flame deprived of oxygen.
Usually.
Ashley finished her burger. He dragged her empty plate toward him and pushed his own into its place. "Eat that, too."
Her dark brows drew together over darker eyes. "No, thank you."
The defiance grated. He could only handle so much, and he’d been choking down his instincts since setting foot in that basement. She was in pain. So many different kinds of pain, and the worst—
Even here, in the restaurant, surrounded by sleepy waitresses and even sleepier truckers, she was turned on. He could smell her arousal. He could damn near taste it. He wanted to slide under the table and shove her thighs wide. Then he could taste her for real, feel that sweet wetness on his tongue. Make her come hard enough to ease the fever.
Or maybe getting off without getting fucked would just make it worse. Maybe the only way to ease it was to work his cock into her. He didn’t know. Most wolves wouldn’t. That had been the first sign of the failing bloodlines—fewer and fewer females going into heat. Fewer and fewer wolves finding mates.
She had an ache he couldn’t fix, but there was one hunger he could cure. Meeting her gaze, he leaned across the table and put the harsh edge of command in his voice. "Eat the burger, Ashley. You need it."
Fire sparked in her eyes, and the faintest growl formed low in her throat. She broke the spell a moment later by looking away. "I haven’t had a meal in days. If I eat too much, too fast, I’ll be sick. Trust me."
Rage spiked again, not at the words but at the resigned experience behind them. She knew. She knew because it wasn’t the first time she’d been starved.
He wanted to drive back to her house and kill her worthless father a second time.
"Fine." He was too pissed off to mess with the waitress. Some of the others in the pack could pass, even when they were angry, but Blake wasn’t one of them. Humans sensed the predator in him, and had a tendency to get nervous, even call the cops.
He couldn’t afford that hassle, not tonight. So he dug too many bills out of his wallet and dumped them on the table. That was the useful thing about humans—they ignored their survival instincts when you waved enough money under their noses.
The room wasn’t far. The motel was a dump, but dumps were useful for the same reason—a lot of cash up front and no one spared you a second glance. Blake steered Ashley toward their room and didn’t relax until they were both locked on the other side. "I’ll pick us up something else to eat in a few hours."
"Okay." She nodded too fast. She was breathing too fast.
Her arousal was inescapable. Her flushed cheeks, her tight nipples, the unsteady gulps of air that lifted those full, beautiful breasts. Somewhere, lost under his rage and the hunger triggered by her own, he knew it was wrong. She was on shaky ground, weakened by the mistreatment and neglect of a father she was probably still mourning. Those were excellent reasons not to put his hands on her.
But she’d like having his hands on her, and that was one reason to do it anyway.
Groaning, he shoved his hand into his pocket and rescued his phone. He hated the fucking thing, so he only kept one number programmed into it. The only person he was willing to call.
"Stay here," he ground out as he dialed. He didn’t wait for her reply, whatever mouthy thing it would undoubtedly be. If she backtalked him right now, he’d start having fantasies that went far past getting his tongue in her cunt. Fantasies that involved that ass he’d seen while she was changing, and spanking it pink until she squealed and promised to behave.
The call connected with a click, and Lucas’s slow drawl spilled through the speaker. "Not having trouble, are you, Blake?"
Werewolves had good hearing. She could listen through the door if she pressed up close to it, so Blake paced a few feet away. Only a few—he couldn’t make himself go farther. "She’s in heat, Lucas. Already."
"Kind of a one-in-four shot, wasn’t it?"
"I don’t mean she’s fertile. I mean she’s in heat. Primed to mate." Past primed, by the state of her.
Lucas cursed savagely. "Do you have time to get her back here tonight?"
"We’re clear of her house, but…" It took a deep, calming breath, but he managed to relay the circumstances without crushing his phone in frustration. He finished with, "I don’t think I can put her back on my bike. Not like this."
"What does she smell like?"
Sweet. Tempting. Ready. "Wet," he snapped. "She doesn’t know what’s going on or who I am, but she’s ready to ride my leg—or anything else I’ll let her climb on."
Lucas barked out a laugh. "If she’s creaming her panties already, you’re gonna have to take care of her. Now."
"It’s not funny," Blake snarled. "She’s been through too much. If I can get her through the night—"
"You’ve been fucking human women too long," Lucas cut in. "If she’s in heat like you say? That’s not the same goddamn thing as being hot and bothered, man. It’s a biological drive, like food and sleep. If she doesn’t get it, she’ll be hurting."
Not giving it to her was hurting him. He could weather a little pain, but he didn’t want to force the same thing on her. Though if she’d been locked up in the cellar every time she got horny, he doubted she’d ever touched a man, much less another wolf.
"What will ease it?" he asked, striding back to the door.
"I’ve got a revolutionary idea," Lucas replied. "Ask her." Then the phone clicked, and the line went dead.
Sometimes his alpha could be a real fucking asshole…but maybe he had a point.
Gritting his teeth, Blake stepped back into the room and engaged all the locks. Her scent curled around him, shooting straight to his cock, and Lucas was right. Even in just a few minutes, it was so much worse.
When he turned, she was sitting on the edge of one bed, bouncing one leg. She’d taken her hair down, and the strands framing her face were damp, as if she’d splashed herself with water. But she was still flushed, her cheeks rosy.
She looked up, her eyes glazed. "I thought it would get better," she whispered. "When you went outside, I mean. Distance. But it got—" Her voice broke, and she fidgeted on the bed with a moan. "It got hotter."
He couldn’t turn away from her. Not like this. He tossed his phone on the ancient, wobbly table and draped his jacket over the chair. But he didn’t go to her. Instead, he sat on the opposite bed and held open his arms, silently inviting her to come to him.
Ashley trembled. "You don’t want this. I can tell."
"Shh." He crooked two fingers. "If you want this, come here. And I’ll show you what I want. As much of it as you can handle."
She rose. She was still shaking, but there was an animal grace in the steps that brought her in front of him, so close she was standing between his knees. In his space, filling his senses. "I don’t just want," she confessed. "I need."
"I know." He gripped the curve of her hips and gave in, lowering his face to drag the scent of her deep into his lungs. She was everything he’d told Lucas she was—tempting, ready to be filled. By his tongue and his fingers and his cock and his seed.
She needed. And if he never did anything else right in his life, Blake wanted to be the first to give sweet little Ashley Todd everything she needed.
Chapter Three
He was sniffing her, his face pillowed against her belly, and it felt right. So right that Ashley responded through instinct, weaving her shaking fingers
through his short, short hair.
She began to push Blake’s head lower before catching herself, and she froze with a moan. "I don’t know what to do," she confessed.
"Yes, you do." He nuzzled closer, edging her shirt up. "Your wolf knows. What does she want?"
Everything. She dropped her hands to shoulders and sucked in a breath when she encountered the unyielding muscle beneath his shirt.
Christ, he was solid everywhere. Even the huge hands that held her so carefully were steely, full of barely leashed strength. She was already so aroused that it hurt, and thinking about his hands—and everything he might do with them—just kicked it all that much higher.
"She wants..." Words couldn’t encompass it, so she curved her fingers, digging her nails into his shoulders. Hard.
His hands tightened, urging her up onto her toes. Then he dragged her forward so that she straddled his lap, her knees on the mattress. "How sheltered are you, Ashley? Do you know the words?"
It made her want to scratch him again. "Which ones?"
"For what you need." He slid his hands up, up her back, up her shoulders, until they tangled in her hair. "Your pussy’s wet, isn’t it?"
Ashley waited for self-consciousness to close tight around her—but it never came. Instead, her body moved of its own volition. She shifted on his lap, grinding against him, and whimpered when the movement rubbed her slick flesh against the soaked fabric of her underwear.
"Yes," she heard herself say. "But you knew that, didn’t you? That’s why you keep licking your lips."
"Is that what you want?" He used his grip on her hair to pull her closer, so close her lips almost brushed his. He licked her mouth, slow and hot, and exhaled shakily. "My tongue in your pussy?"
His tongue was maybe the only part of him that wasn’t hard, and the thought of him teasing it over her nipples or flicking it over her swollen, aching clit left her dizzy. She rubbed her thumb over his lower lip, imagining the soft scratch of his beard over her belly or between her thighs.
Yes.
She pushed inside his mouth to press her thumb to his tongue. "I want it all over me."
His teeth scraped the pad of her thumb. He bit down softly, holding her in place as he licked a slow circle around the tip, his gaze never leaving hers.
When he did it a second time, his hands slid down—and under her shirt.
Not enough. Impatient, Ashley dragged her T-shirt over her head and tossed it on the floor. Her skin burned, and the unlined white lace of her bra chafed her nipples to painful points with the slightest motion.
"Help me," she begged as she reached for the button on her jeans.
He didn’t even seem to hear her. His gaze had locked on her breasts. His hands followed, nearly big enough to cover them as he centered his thumbs over the tight peaks and rubbed in soothing circles. "You ache all over, don’t you, sweetheart?"
Ache was a weak word that couldn’t begin to describe her torment. She was aflame, dying, and only Blake could save her.
She could feel his cock through his jeans. The rigid length nestled between her thighs, nudging her core through her clothes. Rocking against him both relieved and intensified her agony, and she knew only one thing.
She wanted more.
Ashley rocked harder, but she was desperate for more contact, so she dragged one bra strap off her shoulder. Her breast spilled out into his hand, and she cried out as his thumbnail grazed her nipple.
"Shh," he whispered again, but that was an impossible request, because his mouth closed over the tip of her breast, hot and wet. He suckled her nipple, hard, and even driving her teeth into her lower lip couldn’t stop the rough, needy noise that escaped her.
It was more than flesh on flesh. She’d touched herself before, explored and enjoyed her body, but licking her own fingers and toying with her nipples had never felt like this. Even during the darker, more inescapable moments of arousal, when she’d have done anything—anything—just to get off, she’d never been this frantic. There was a thread of something electric underscoring it all, something that tugged at her every time he made an utterly masculine sound in the back of his throat, every time she pulled in an eager breath and found it redolent with their mingled scents.
It was magic.
Ashley clutched the back of his head, just in case he ever thought about pulling that gorgeous mouth away from her skin, and ground against him. A familiar bolt of heat shot through her, and she shuddered. "Help me," she begged again, past caring how hopeless she sounded. "Make me come."
He gripped her hips again and moved her. No hesitation or slow buildup, just a firm, commanding rock, forcing her to rub herself back and forth over the denim-encased steel of his erection.
It couldn’t get better, Ashley knew that much, and she moaned when she hovered just shy of that elusive peak, aching to tumble over it. Then she felt the rough edge of Blake’s teeth scrape her nipple, and the world fell away.
She exploded with a scream, scratching his shoulders, his neck, every part of him she could reach. Riding the waves of pleasure was a natural as breathing, and she took over the rhythm of their movements as he groaned and twisted.
The world upended in a whirl. Her back hit the mattress, but nothing else changed. Not the sweet pressure between her thighs or the hot, hungry movement of his mouth. He closed his teeth again—more sharply this time, skirting the dangerous edge of pain—and his hips surged powerfully against hers.
Giving herself an orgasm had always been sufficient to ease her ardor, at least temporarily, but she realized with a start that she was just as eager now as she had been before. Not just eager, but hurting, as if the pleasure had only reminded her how very empty she was.
Ashley groaned and smacked her head against the mattress before closing her fingers tight in his hair and hauling his head up. "It’s not working."
"I’ll take care of you." His eyes, less blue now than gold, seemed to glow in the darkness of the room. He propped himself up above her, his chest heaving with his ragged breaths, his erection still hot and hard between her legs. "But you need to tell me if this is the first time."
In spite of the aftershocks still pulsing through her, her traitorous body arched up to his. "Yes," she whispered. "I’ve never."
"Never what?"
"Never been with a man." God, she sounded drunk. "Or a wolf. Never had sex."
"I’ll take care of you," he repeated, soft and intent. He lowered himself slowly, until his chest crushed against her breasts. "Help me get us naked. Clothes just annoy the wolf."
They annoyed her, too, especially when he was pressed up against her like this. She wanted to feel bare skin, not cotton. But one small problem remained. "I can’t move."
He nuzzled his way to her ear. "You’re stronger than you think. If you don’t like my shirt, rip it off me."
The thought of using her own hands to uncover his body made her shudder again. That was a sort of power she’d never even considered, but now she craved it. She didn’t have to be strong in her loneliness, her solitude. She could be strong like this, too. Uninhibited.
Wild.
Ashley pushed him up far enough to twist her fingers in the front of his shirt. It tore easily, like tissue paper, baring his chest, and her breath caught as she stared at him.
It wasn’t fair. It really wasn’t fair. His chest looked like it had been carved out of rock, all powerful planes and flexing muscle. A light dusting of dark hair tinged with gold covered his chest and angled down his rippling stomach to disappear beneath his belt.
"Oh, fuck me." She meant it metaphorically, a helpless commentary on the sheer, painful perfection of his body, but it came out sounding more like a plea.
When she looked up, their eyes locked, and her heart thumped faster. He rose up on his knees, his hands sliding down her body and over her hips. He popped open the button on her jeans and dragged down the zipper. "Take off your bra."
To reach the hooks, she had to arch off the bed, thrusting h
er breasts up. Lust flashed in his eyes, and as she drank it in, she understood the truth. The hunger twisting her up wasn’t just for her own pleasure, but for his, as well.
He proved it a moment later with a low growl that tingled through her. "You are so fucking gorgeous. So perfect."
What could she even say to something like that? Her mind was still reeling, casting about for a response, when he lifted her hips and legs and dragged off her jeans and panties at the same time.
Then there wasn’t anything to say, because her legs fell apart, and she was completely open to him. The scent of her arousal filled the room, a thousand times stronger than before.
Blake stroked the backs of his fingers down over her trembling abdomen. "So sweet. So wet." His thumb delved deep, parting her before sliding up to gently rub her clit. "Show me with your fingers. Show me just how you like it."
Her hand moved before she even thought about obeying, and she stopped just as her fingers grazed his. "Not until you’re naked, too," she whispered, nodding to the rest of his clothes.
Blake huffed and shook his head. "Not until you’ve come around at least two of my fingers. Maybe three. If I take out my cock, it’ll be inside you before you’re ready."
His fingers were so much bigger than hers that it was hard to imagine she’d be able to take them at all. Then again… She let her gaze drift down his body to the straining denim at his fly.
"That’s right." He pressed her fingertips to her clit, sparking a fresh wave of wet heat low in her belly. "I’m big, and I’m hard, and I want to fuck you more than anything. That’s what you want, too, isn’t it?"
Before she could reply, he pushed one blunt finger lower, inside her. Ashley bucked instinctively, then moaned when the movement increased the pressure on her clit.
He moaned, too, curling his free hand under one thigh to hold her legs wide. "Fuck, you’re tight. Does this hurt?"
The only thing that hurt was not having more. All of him. "Don’t stop." She moved her hand hesitantly, circling her clit. The slick, delicious friction made her clench around his finger, her pussy drawing him deeper.
