She dragged in a slow breath, a frown pulling at her eyebrows. “The bank foreclosed on Dad’s bridging loan and we were forced off our farm. Forced out by city money. Dad went to work in the local abattoir, slaughtering sheep and cattle almost starved, to feed the country’s population—the majority of which complained because the cost of milk had gone up, meat was becoming too expensive and farmers were just winging for a government hand-out. He came home every night stinking of blood and offal. Emotionally he died the day we had to leave the farm, but the abattoir killed his spirit. The only thing that pulled us through it all—living in Dad’s old work truck, surviving on stale bread and food-coupons—was our love for each other.”
She sighed, raking her hands through her hair before continuing, each word she spoke making Declan’s gut wrench. “Mum did everything she could to make the nightmare an adventure, but I’ll never forget those months. They were the worst of my life. And the best. It showed me who I was, who my family was, and I was proud of those revelations. But I couldn’t have walked away the person I am now if it wasn’t for my brother—Peter. He was my rock. Is my rock.”
She stopped, the calmly delivered account both horrific and moving for the simplicity of her words. Declan stared at her. He’d wondered when he first met her what type of person risked their life for animals incapable of defending themselves and now he knew.
“Regan…”
She shook her head, leaning forward to place the ends of her fingers on his lips. “What I’m saying, Declan, is this. I know how strong the love of family is. I know what heartache is.” Her eyes held his for a long moment. Declan’s breath caught in his throat and his heart pounded in his chest, an increasing rhythm so strong he felt his body quake under its beat.
“I know,” she said. Before leaning closer still and replacing her fingers on his lips with hers.
The kiss was gentle. Almost hesitant. He felt the apprehension still holding her, but he felt something else. Something more powerful. A longing to be released of the memory. A desire to create a new one. A smoldering passion surging through her blood. As it did his.
He opened his mouth, the touch of her tongue against his teeth like a surge of raw energy, charging his body with concentrated need. He buried his hands in the tumble of her hair, pulled their bodies together. She fit so well between his legs, her hips pressed to his inner thighs, her soft mound brushing his stiffening shaft. He took her tongue deeper into his mouth, reveling in the way she tasted, the way she felt.
Her hands smoothed up his back, her palms like mist on his fevered flesh. She traced his spine down, fluttered her fingertips along the waistband of his borrowed boxers. Hot blood flooded his groin at the contact, his cock growing full and heavy. Its stiff length nudged the warm junction of her thighs and a deep moan sounded in her throat.
Nails scoring a wickedly delicious path back up to his shoulders, as if to hold him a prisoner in her embrace, she broke the kiss, green eyes heady as she looked into his. “You scare the shit out of me, Declan O’Connell.”
“You scare the shit out of me, Regan Thomas.”
Regan chuckled, dragging her hands from his shoulders, under his armpits to flatten her palms on his chest. She captured his nipples, rolling them gently between her fingers as she pushed her sex closer to his. “Well, at least we’re even then.”
He shook his head slightly. “Oh, no, Regan. There’s nothing remotely ‘even’ about this relationship. When it comes to the balance of power, you have me firmly in the palm of your hand.”
One of Regan’s eyebrows arched and her lips—those extremely kissable lips—twitched. Eyes holding his, she shifted slightly, sliding one hand down his torso, past the elastic band of his boxers to enclose his rigid cock in a snug grip. “This hand?”
He sucked in a sharp breath. “That would be the one.”
“Hmmmm.” Her thumb rolled over the head of his cock and he pulled in another breath, heartbeat tripling. “Best not be letting my power go to waste then.”
She pushed him backward, her other hand smoothing over his stomach as he stretched out on the chaise. With almost tender fingers, she traced the line of his scar, the hideous mark left by Epoc almost two years ago. He closed his eyes, her touch like a feather on the violent path. It soothed him. Dulled the angry burn of his side. When her lips brushed the white, jagged line of scar tissue, when she touched it with the tip of her tongue, his breath caught in his throat and his hands fisted the cushions.
So much of his life was about pain, and here was a creature wanting to take it away. The pain, the heartache. With a kiss…
Her tongue traced the scar. From its knotted starting point in the dip of his navel, to where its ragged path disappeared behind the thick thatch of his pubic hair. And still she didn’t stop. Her lips continued their journey, nibbling a steady trail over the black curls, the hand gripping his cock slowly pumping up and down as her tongue flicked at its wide, swollen base before moving on to his balls. She licked one then the other, drawing his right nut into the wet, warm well of her mouth.
A rolling tsunami of searing heat spread through his body, stealing his breath and making his heart pound. “Jesus, Mary!”
Regan’s tongue curled and flicked and licked at his balls. Her fingers stroked his cock, the organ so hard he felt its veins coursing with eager blood. Damn, it felt good. So good he thought sure he was going to come. Or transform.
Control it, Dec. If you change now…
The beast roared. Denied. Hungry for the pleasure Regan would bring.
He dug his nails into the softness of the cushions, wishing—wanting—them to be the softness of Regan’s breasts or thighs or butt, but knowing if he so much as touched her he would come. Fuck, he was going insane. Driving mad with desire, lust and agony. His side burned like fire, his blood sang like demons. His cock felt like a pillar of steel…
… and then Regan’s lips closed over its tip and it felt nothing like steel. It felt like existence. Scorching, consuming existence surrounded by Heaven. Hot, wet, sucking Heaven.
She slid her tongue up and down the underside, teased the web of skin below its head, circled the distended edge, all the while massaging and fondling his balls with a hand both gentle and aggressive. Every inch of his body quivered, every fiber of his being—both the man and the wolf—trembled, like the note held by a maestro, played by her amazing tongue and hands. He arched his back, drove his shoulders harder into the chaise and his shaft harder into her taking mouth. Praise Mary, he couldn’t hold on much longer.
The hands on his balls skimmed down to his ass cheeks, squeezing each as her mouth plundered his cock. He bucked, feeling an exquisite tingle begin in the soles of his feet, the base of his spine…
Hold it, Dec. Hold it.
“Fuck, Regan,” he ground out, gripping at the cushions, knowing he punctured the fabric with claws, not human fingernails. Knowing, but incapable of retracting them. “I’m going to come if you don’t stop.”
The suction on his cock lessened, the hands on his ass stilled. Before, as though weighing up his raw statement and deciding her course of action, she plunged her mouth savagely down his shaft. So deep her lips pressed against his balls and he felt his cock-head press the back of her throat. “Jesus.”
Blistering pleasure ripped through him. He threw back his head and howled, the sound purely wolf, purely wild. Crushing heat possessed his sac, smashed up into his cock, making his body buck in violent spasms. He thrashed his head from side to side, fighting to stay a man, fighting to stay alive. Fighting to stay on his back when what he wanted to do more than anything was leap to his feet, throw Regan to the floor and fuck her until they both were drained beyond movement, his cock locked in her tight sex, his scent forever on her flesh. Marking her his forever. “Yes, Regan. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
His cock was a rod of burning steel. His body a building crescendo of rapturous tension. “Fuck,” he cried out, claws shredding the cushions as her teeth sank into his s
haft. “Holy fucking Christ.”
The hands on his ass moved back to his balls, squeezed them. A steady finger pressed his perineum in perfect rhythm with the ruptures of heat consuming him and he snapped into an arc, explosion after explosion of pleasure detonating in his balls. Cohesive thought deserted him. The wolf and the man blurred. He had no idea which he was.
And then Regan’s mouth slid from his cock.
He flung open his eyes. Stared at her as she suddenly rose to her feet, stepped out of her shorts and—green stare holding him frozen—impaled herself on his throbbing length. “Jesus Christ.”
Her slick folds engulfed him, an exquisite sheath of tight, wet muscles. Fluid filled his balls, pleasure pulsated through his being. Christ, how could she be doing this to him? How could he not being coming now? Unbelievable bliss pressed against his prostate, his cock, his scrotum. He gazed into her face, sweat stinging his eyes. “Jesus.” His voice was choked. Hoarse.
Her lids fluttered closed, a soft moan fell from her lips. She rocked against him in gentle rhythm, taking him deeper into her pussy with each slight move, grinding her clit against his pelvic bone. Her hands stole to her breasts, cupping them, mauling them.
Another wave of throbbing heat crashed through Declan at the sight. Another and another. Pre-cum spurt from his cock, sucked away by Regan’s pussy. He felt it. Felt it leave his slit. Fuck. He felt everything. He felt the tension in her thighs as she undulated over him. Felt her clit swell full. Hard. The wolf howled again—but in his mind or from his throat, Declan didn’t know. Or care.
He reared up, dragging his hands up her back as his mouth claimed one perfect, puckered nipple.
“Oh.” Regan’s gasp lit a fire in his already burning blood. As did the feel of the rock-hard tip of flesh between his lips. He rolled it between his teeth, suckled it deeper into his mouth. She hissed, arching into him, her hands burying in his hair as she ground her clit against the root of his thrusting cock. “Oh, yes.”
He pulled back, sucking on her nipple as he did so, taking her down with him. Her pussy rode up his cock and for a moment he felt sure he would slip from her creamy channel, but Regan shoved her hips backward and he filled her again, her ass cheeks slapping against his balls in frenzied strikes both exquisitely painful and blissful at once.
“Fuck, that feels so good,” Regan moaned, arching her back, dragging one hand from his hair to score five lines of heat down his torso. She flattened her palm on his wounded side, the heat of his hidden injury a glacier compared to the heat of her hand. He felt like she was branding him—with her hand and her sex. “Bite it,” she growled, shoving her breast harder to his suckling mouth. “Bite it now.”
He did as she commanded, her pussy clamping on his pulsating shaft each time he closed his teeth down on her nipple.
“Oh, fuck. Yes,” she called, riding his cock in unison.
He flicked at her nipple with his tongue, wild pleasure tearing through him when she closed her fingers around his nipple and pinched. Delicious pain shot through his chest, straight down to his balls. Heat detonated in his sac, an eruption of pure sensations making his head swim and his cock swell harder. He thrust up into her, taking total and complete possession of her pussy.
His cock throbbed and ached with an inexplicable response. It grew longer, stiffer with each punching thrust into the sweetness of her sex. With each groan and whimper and cry falling from her parted lips.
As if sex was just a thing of his imagination until he’d filled her.
Sucking and gnawing and flicking on her nipple, he grabbed her ass. He was about to explode. There was nothing for it. Every time the velvet-wet walls of Regan’s pussy slid up and down his cock, he felt the tension build. Felt his essence flood to his balls, ready to burst forth in a forceful gush so powerful he feared he would pass out.
He dragged his mouth from her breast, replacing it with his hand and pushing her straighter. “Jesus, Regan,” he ground out on a ragged breath. “I can’t hold on much longer.”
Eyes smoldering, breath shallow, Regan gazed down at him. “I’m so close…”
“I’ve been so close from the moment your tongue touched my flesh,” he growled, muscles quivering as another molten wave of tension surged through him. He thrust into her, ramming his cock deeper and deeper, explosion after explosion of agonizing bliss detonating through him.
She moaned, eyes closing, hands sliding to his stomach, up to his chest. She pressed her palms flat over his nipples, shifted her hips slightly, drew up and down his rigid shaft in deepening penetrations.
He couldn’t take anymore. He sank his nails into her hips, his side screaming in agony as his whole being screamed in rapture. “I can’t—”
“Now,” she cried out. “Oh, yes. Now.”
A slight shudder wracked her body. Her sex closed around him—squeeze, squeeze, squeeze—and, as a raw, keening noise tore from her lips, he finally came, powerful eruptions of come that left him gasping and holding on to her, never wanting it to end, never wanting to let her go.
Never.
Declan’s heart beat gently against her cheek, a steady, slow rhythm that had returned almost immediately after their twin climaxes. Eyes closed, Regan lay beside him, their legs entwined, her head resting on his chest. The fact his body seemed to recover so quickly from not only the terrible wound in his side, but the most mind-blowing sex she’d imagined, niggled at her. It was easy to forget what he was, until an animalistic growl rumbled in his throat, or a wild howl filled the air, or claws not nails pressed to her skin. And then it crashed over her again—a frightening surreal realization she was falling for a man not really a man but a creature she’d always believed fictitious.
She pulled in a silent breath, wishing her own heart would ease its rapid beat as quickly as Declan’s had. But then, she was just a normal human, wasn’t she? It would take quite some time for her body to recover from what they’d shared, no matter how fit she was. Sliding her palm over his stomach, she traced the twisted line of scar tissue along its path. He truly was a mystery. Yes, he’d shared so much with her. Yes, her heart wept whenever she let her mind turn to the horrific tale of his sister. Yes, she knew he was from Dublin, was once a reporter. But how could a simple human such as herself ever truly understand a being such as he? Even with all her animal training?
She trailed her nails up to his chest, drawing distracted circles on the hard planes.
“Hmmmm, that’s nice.” Declan’s murmur tickled the top of her head and he smoothed his own palm up and down her back, following the curve of her hip until his hand rested on the dip of waist. “Have I told you you have the most amazing hands I know?”
The proclamation made Regan’s lips curl into a soft smile. “No.”
He chuckled, low and sleepy. Well, you do.
Regan opened her eyes, staring sightlessly at the enormous oil painting of a reclining nude on the far wall. Her heartbeat quickened. Again. It had happened again. Declan’s words—or his thoughts—sounding directly in her mind, just as they had on the street when McCoy attacked them. On the street it had been a screamed order to flee, now it was a languid declaration of admiration, but still…
He’s in your head. In your head as well as your heart.
Declan stirred underneath her, muscles lax and fluid. “Did you say something?” he asked, rapidly descending sleep slurring his words.
Regan shook her head against his chest. “No.” She forced her muscles to mirror his. “Sleep. You need it.”
A drowsy, almost inaudible “yes, ma’am” followed and soon, within one beat of his heart, Declan’s body relaxed.
She lay there for a while, listening to his heart, his ever-so-soft snoring. Conflict and confusion churned through her stomach and up into her chest, not quite chilling the warmth of their love making but making her skin prickle all the same. With infinite care, she disengaged herself from his embrace and placed the hand once cupping her waist on to his flat stomach. A snorting inta
ke of breath made her freeze, but all he did was wriggle deeper into the cushions of the chaise and throw his other arm up over his head, the perfect picture of complete slumber.
She stood beside him for a while, watching him sleep. He was gorgeous. Not metro-sexual gorgeous, not Hollywood gorgeous. Just gorgeous. Edgy, rugged and brooding. Her pussy constricted with desire and the urge to drop to her knees and press her body to his again was so powerful she almost did. Her heart clenched, wanting it as much as her sex did. Maybe more.
Shaking her head, she turned and padded across the ballroom floor on silent, bare feet. She needed to think. She needed to clear her head of Declan’s voice, of the memory of his taste, his touch. Falling in lust with a werewolf was one thing, falling in love with them was a…
She froze, barely a step into the foyer. In love?
Her heart leapt up into her throat and she swallowed it down in a painful gulp. Fuck. How could she be falling in love with Declan when what he was still scared the crap out of her?
Her pussy fluttered. Her palms grew sweaty, her skin clammy.
Running up the massive central staircase, she headed in the direction she hoped would be a bathroom, pulse hammering in her temples and throat. She needed a clear head, a composed state of mind. She needed a shower. A cold one. A very cold one.
And afterward, she needed to see a psychiatrist.
Falling in love with an Irish werewolf? She’d definitely lost the plot.
Declan listened to her go. The faint vibrations of her feet on the staircase pounded through the wooden floorboards up into the chaise, like a nail driving into his being. He didn’t move. The pain in his side engulfed him, made him grit his teeth and curse Epoc a million times over, but he lay still, eyes closed, breath even, throwing in the odd soft snore here and there.
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