“Um, sort of. It’s more like what I guess you’d call theater. I perform cooking and crafting in front of other people and they watch me do it. And I use the mirror to make sure what I’m doing looks correct.”
“The woman’s arts are considered entertainment in this time?”
“Yeah. Cooking and making things yourself are more like hobbies and less like needed skills these days.”
“I am intrigued by your job,” he informed her. “And we shall speak more of it, but for now I think we must leave this topic. Your need has grown too great for further conversation.”
She wanted to deny his assessment of her need, except it was one hundred percent accurate. She was almost pitifully grateful when his hands found the front of her pajama top and ripped it open, sending the buttons flying across the room.
Her pajama bottoms came off next, followed by her panties, which fully unleashed the smell of her extreme arousal into the air and sent them both into a frenzy.
This wasn’t anything like the candlelit affair she’d imagined when Rafe first proposed. No, in this reality, the Viking yanked her braid to arch her head back and growled in her ear. “Watch me claim you in your wall of looking glass.”
And she couldn’t help but do just that, watching the contrast of their skin, his pale, hers dark, as he lifted her up in his lap and pushed into her wet heat. He then cupped both her breasts in his large hands and leaned back in the chair with her, before proceeding to move into her from behind, his thrusts long and deep.
To have him inside her like this felt like nothing short of heaven to Chloe. The wolf knot at the base of his penis once again found its way to the special erogenous zone inside her pussy and lodged against it, again and again, making her moan with every stimulating stroke. But there was something missing, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, until one of his hands descended from her breast, and he put two of his large fingers on the bundle of nerves at the front of her entrance.”
“Oh!” She bucked against him, her body unconsciously attempting to unseat itself, even as her mind called out for more. The only thing that kept her from completely losing it on top of him was the Viking’s strong hand cupping her in front and keeping her firmly pinned to his cock. “What are you doing? I’ve never felt anything so…”
He provided no answer to her question, merely drank in the sight of them in the mirror together as he relentlessly plundered her depths. “Watch us together, beauty. See how I claim you.”
And for a moment, she, too, became enthralled by the erotic sight of herself spread out so wantonly on the Viking’s lap, her back arched in pleasure, a look of sex-crazed abandon on her face, as each stroke sent her closer to the edge. . .
Before she finally fell over it with a long scream, and she had to close her eyes as the climax overtook her. Perhaps the sight of her coming so hard in the mirror sent him over the edge as well. He soon yelled out his own pleasure, and she felt the rush of his seed inside of her.
His forehead fell against her back. “You are my undoing, beauty.”
As if in answer, she felt the powerful clenching of her own vagina around his wolf’s knot as it continued to hungrily milk his dick.
His hands once again found her breasts. “Upon the next mating, I must put a mind to comfort. I cannot allow you to make me so mad with lust that we end up locked together in a chair.”
Chloe groaned in agreement. “Seriously, how are we going to get out of sitting like this for the next hour?”
Somehow they figured it out, negotiating themselves onto the kitchen’s braided area rug before all but passing out again. The mating frenzy, she was beginning to discover, took a lot out of both of its occupants.
Chapter 9
WHEN Chloe woke up a few hours later, having apparently released Fenris while they slept, she was beyond ravenous. Still, after she stood up, she took a few moments to ogle the Viking’s sleeping form. He lie on his side, his left arm still slung across the space she had recently abandoned. And his cock didn’t seem to be getting any rest at all. It was fully erect, the mushroom at its head looking particularly hard and swollen now that his wolf’s knot was hidden away.
She once again felt her own breasts swell and the previously low-grade fire of her heat kicked up a notch, making it so she had to turn away from him if she wanted to stay in control.
She ended up putting a plate of the chicken and fennel in her microwave, which she rarely used, preferring to heat her meals back up either in or on top of the stove. But she was in a rush to feed her human before her wolf took back over, so she made an exception.
Afterwards she took a quick shower, and slipped on the silk kimono robe she’d made for a special Asian-American History Month episode of Black Mountain Woman. She then started to fill the tub for the Viking. She wasn’t sure he’d be able to work a shower, and maybe he could manage to get a bath in before they got trapped in another mating frenzy.
“What manner of magic is this that you would be able to fill a tub of this size by yourself and in so little time?” a deep voice asked.
She nearly jumped out of her skin before turning to see Fenris standing behind her, still stark naked, and not seeming to be the least bit embarrassed about it.
“Did I frighten you?”
“Yeah, sorry, I’m not really used to having men in my home.”
He gave her a thoughtful look. “In my time, a maiden would not live on her own as you do. Where is your family?”
A pang went off in her heart, thinking about the parents who had abandoned her, and the Nightwolf family she’d been hoping to join.
“This you do not wish to talk about?” he guessed.
“No, not really,” she answered.
He gave her another long, considering look before saying, “Then tell me of your magic bath vessel.”
“Well, we have these things called pipes,” she answered, “Kind of like the Roman aqueduct system, but with hot and cold running water pushed through these metal tube thingies.”
He gave a sage nod. “Your engineers are powerful sorceresses indeed.”
“Indeed,” she agreed. She stood up and pointed at the bar of soap in the built-in dish below the shower head. “There’s the soap. I’ve got to get back to the kitchen to warm up a plate of food for you. But just holler if you need anything.”
“I shall ‘holler’ now,” he answered, capturing her hands and placing them on his bare chest. “I have need of grooming.”
“Oh, you mean like a shave?” Chloe’s eyes lit up. “Are you serious, because I found this old-fashioned straight razor at a flea market that I’ve been dying to try out for an episode of my show, but—“ She cut herself off before saying Rafe wouldn’t let her test it out on him. Instead she finished with, “—but I haven’t had the chance to use it yet.”
“In my time, it is the she-wolf who decides the grooming of her mate. If you would have me bare of face as the men in your land, I shall not argue.”
Chloe could see he was a little reluctant to part with his beard, but she was dying to see what he looked like under all that facial hair, so she didn’t do the polite thing and offer to just give him a trim. “Awesome. Just sit right here on the counter.”
Forty minutes, one towel wrapped around the Viking’s waist, and a few bumbling explanations about how a video camera worked, later, Chloe scraped away the last of the shaving cream to reveal what turned out to be a man with movie star good looks, complete with a square jaw and a strong chin that when paired with his intense grey eyes, somehow made him look even more bad-ass than he had with a sword.
“Wow, you’re really good-looking,” she told him.
“’Tis a surprise, I see,” he said, with a teasing smile.
“No, I just didn’t expect the face to match the body.”
He took the razor out of her hand and set it aside on the counter before, once again, taking her hands in his and placing them on his chest. From what Chloe could tell, this seemed
to be his favorite talking position, at least where she was concerned.
“I am glad you are well-pleased with my face as I am with yours.”
He then began to lean his face towards hers.
“Nuh-uh-uh,” she said, averting her lips. “I’ve still got to warm up your food and figure out how to wash your leather pants, and we’ve got to re-run your bath.”
“Do not hie away,” he said, rubbing his nose into the side of the face she turned away from him. “I wish to gaze upon you as I soap, and I would also have you wash my hair.”
She laughed. “I think you can handle washing your own hair.”
“Your skin is very soft. I find it hard to believe you have really passed twenty and five summers as you claim.”
“Well, we have this stuff called moisturizing lotion these days. It’s kind of like a liquid butter for your face. And it helps our skin stay softer longer—”
He took a hold of her chin and turned her face back towards him, cutting off her explanation with a firm kiss. “Your lips are also soft. Is this to be credited to your liquid butter as well?” he asked, before running his own lips down her neck.
“No, the stuff I use on my lips is more like an ointment,” she said, trying to stay firm in her resolve, even though his kisses had her heat smell filling up the small room. “I really should go.”
“And these?” he asked, reaching into her robe and palming her breasts with both hands. “What manner of butter do you use to keep them so soft?”
She bit her lip against the sweet, aching tug his playing with her breast induced. “Fenris, seriously, you need to stop.”
He untied her robe. “You are softer all over than any woman I have ever known. Mayhap even down here.” He cupped her mound, pressing the ball of his palm into her clit.
“Yea,” he said, his voice a deep whisper. “Most assuredly softer.”
And that’s how she ended up sleeping off their third mating in a drained bathtub, waiting for them to unlock.
This time when she woke up, she was starving and she knew Fenris would be too, considering he’d only had breakfast. She left him in the bathtub. Even with her extra werewolf strength, she doubted she’d be able to move someone as large as him by herself. Plus, she was finding out the hard way that when sexual heat was involved, they had a rather narrow window of time between both of them being awake and frenzied boom-chicca-wow-wow.
First she consulted the internet about how to clean his leather pants and spent half an hour gently rubbing the soft suede with white vinegar and a dry cloth. Then she tried to clean his ridiculously heavy sword, partly to be nice, but mostly because who wanted a sword coated with animal blood lying around the house? But she figured out why neither the doctor nor the professor had tried to clean the sword themselves, when her fingers came away burning, the cleaning cloth she had attempted to use on it ruined by hers body’s reaction to the blade. Apparently Fenris did not mess around when it came to getting his sword fight on. The entire blade was covered in silver. So she ended up lining the tub in the guest bathroom with aluminum foil and using baking soda, boiling water, a wooden stick, and a rag to clean the blade without burning her fingers off.
By the time she was finished she had worked up a nice appetite, so she heated up the last two plates of chicken and fennel, but frowned when she set them on the counter. She doubted this would be enough food for both her and the six foot-something werewolf who hadn’t eaten all day. And she cursed herself for not having any easy-to-make packaged food in the house, other than the one emergency microwave dinner, which was already gone.
Technically, she didn’t “believe” in food that wasn’t made completely from scratch, and on the rare occasion she didn’t feel like cooking, she either went out to eat or ordered a pizza.
But she wasn’t sure a pizza would get here in time for her to not succumb to another mating with the Viking. And even if she did call, she doubted the local pizzeria, which was owned by one of Rafe’s high school basketball teammates, would be willing to deliver.
Thinking of the other Wolf Springs residents, who were all shifted back to humans and probably fully aware of what had happened between her and the Viking by now, sent another wave of guilt through her body.
Usually, when a female went into heat and joined with her mate, the town pitched in to keep them fed. She herself had left too many stews and pasta dishes to count outside of doorways, dreaming of the day when it would be her official job to either carry out or organize others to do this duty as Rafe’s mate.
But no one had approached the house, much less left food. No one would dare cross the alpha prince in that manner, even the wolves she had left food for when they’d gone into heat.
She frowned to herself. There was nothing to be done but throw on some real clothes and make a trip out to her chicken house.
A few minutes later, she was overjoyed to find a veritable feast of eight whole eggs. That meant she wouldn’t have to work up the guts to wring a chicken’s neck for the first time by herself until the following day.
The find filled her with an unexplainable relief and for a moment, her guilt and anxiety slipped away. Maybe, just maybe, everything would be all right, she thought, putting the eggs in her basket.
Then she emerged from the chicken house and found her ex-fiancé standing in her backyard, his hair a ragged mess, and an axe in his right hand.
Chapter 10
“RAFE,” she whispered, going very still. “Put the axe down. Please.”
He looked down at the menacing tool as if just now noticing it. “I’m not going to hurt you with this. I’m giving it back to you. Remember, I borrowed it from you last month.” His eyes came back up to glare at her. “But I’m glad your opinion of me is so low now that you think I’d hurt a defenseless woman. Even one who betrayed me like you have.”
“I’m sorry, Rafe,” she said, clutching the basket of eggs to her chest. “It’s been really crazy, and I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
He leaned the axe against the tree stump she used to split logs. “Yeah well, you wouldn’t have seen me at all if you hadn’t decided to come out to your hen house at the same time I decided to return your axe.”
She looked down at her eggs. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have come out to the hen house if somebody had left us some food. The age-old tradition of helping your fellow wolf seems to have fallen by the way side since last night’s moon.”
His gaze went angry and cold. “Maybe they’re too embarrassed for you. Everybody heard you screaming last night, and this morning, and then again a couple of hours ago. You could barely bring yourself to kiss me, but apparently all you want to do with him is fuck.” He sneered. “If I’d known you had that in you, I might have taken you up on your offer to fuck me before your heat night. You know, the one you made less than forty-eight hours ago?”
Shame curdled her insides. “I’m sorry, Rafe. I don’t have the words to tell you how sorry I am.” She took a step toward him. “As cliché as this sounds, I never meant to hurt you. And I was telling the truth when I said you were my best friend. If he hadn’t been there when I went into heat—”
He cut her off with a rough shake of his head. “I don’t want to hear what happened or any of your excuses. I don’t give a damn anymore, Chloe. We are definitely no longer friends. In fact, my new number one goal in life is to try to forget I was ever stupid enough to fall in love with you.”
He looked so hurt that Chloe felt torn between begging him to forgive her and comforting him as she always did when he got angry. In the end, she reached out and took him into her arms, hugging him as tightly as she could. “I’m sorry. I’d give anything not to have hurt you this way.”
For a moment his arms wrapped around her, too, and he hugged her back, just as tight. But then he said, “I can smell your heat—and his fucking scent all over you.” Rafe’s voice cracked, and that broke her, too.
She cried into his shoulder for what they’d lost, for wh
at they could have been if Rafe had been there when she went into heat and not the Viking.
But he only let the embrace go on for a little while before pulling away from her. “I’m leaving town for a few weeks. I’m going to spend spring with my family in Alaska.”
By “family in Alaska,” he meant the king of Alaska. His father’s best friend was the alpha of Alaska. And though Rafe wasn’t actually related by blood to the king or his three daughters, they’d spent so many summers in each other homes that they referred to each other as family.
She almost told him to say hi to Alisha, her favorite of the Alaska alpha’s three daughters, but then she remembered what Rafe had said about them no longer being friends. Said and probably meant.
As if reading her thoughts, he said, “I want you both gone when I get back. Especially him. If he’s still here, I swear to God, I will ghost him, I don’t care what it fucking takes.”
Her eyes widened in alarm. “First of all, you’re not the alpha yet, and even if you were, you couldn’t just banish me. Second of all, where am I supposed to go if I don’t live in Wolf Springs? This is my home, the only one I’ve ever known.”
“Actually, it’s my home. I own the mortgage, and I never charged you rent. So you have no rights when it comes to this place,” he reminded her. “You can either move to another wolf town or go back to wherever the Viking came from. I don’t care what you do. I never want to see you again.”
“Rafe—”
He turned around and began walking away from her without another word.
“Rafe,” she called after him again.
But he just left without ever once looking back at her. She knew he didn’t, because she watched him walk away, until he disappeared into the distance.
Fenris woke up hungry and cold and slightly sore from having passed much time in a bathing tub. Yet, his body immediately craved his fated mate again. More than food, more than warmth, more than any comfort that sleeping on top of a true bed might afford him.
Her Scottish Wolf (Howls Romance): Loving World Page 18
