by Hettie Ivers
“It’s not my first time.”
It was hardly a surprise, but it was also something I didn’t care to think too much about, let alone discuss with her.
“I need your name, honey.”
“Okay,” she acceded at last, her lips turning up in a shy smile. “It’s A—Cynthia.”
Huh. That smelled … exactly like a lie.
While the notion of true mates lying to one another wasn’t inconceivable, it was a prospect I’d never contemplated in my own mate-bond scenario.
“What?” Her forehead wrinkled as she looked at me, and I realized my own brow had furrowed.
“Nothing,” I muttered. Then I shook my head. This was no way to start off a relationship. “It smelled like you lied to me just now,” I told her truthfully.
Her jaw unhinged slightly. Her eyes were suddenly wary as she clarified, “It sounded like I lied to you?”
“Sure. Sounded like it, too. But mostly it smelled like you lied.”
Her throat worked. Her frown deepened. “When you say smelled, do you mean … figuratively?”
“No. I mean literally it smelled like you lied to me.” It came out harsher than I wanted it to, but I didn’t like it that she seemed eager to hide things from me.
Apprehension filtered into her scent, compounding my frustration.
“Hey, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” I reassured her, cupping her cheek. “If you’re not ready to tell me your name, that’s okay.” For now. “Just … don’t lie, all right? It’s a scent worse than your fear, and that’s killing me already.”
Her pupils narrowed, and she visibly paled before my eyes. Her head shook minutely from side to side. “You don’t … can’t … I’m not—”
“Whoa—easy, there, sweetheart.” Damnit. The scent of her panic flooded the bathroom. Her pulse beat wildly in her neck. “It’s okay; you have nothing to be afraid of. I’m your mate. I didn’t mean to embarrass or upset you.”
She kept shaking her head. “I’m already mated.” The lie rolled off her lips far too easily. And smelled just as bad.
She was absolutely not mated. She didn’t smell as if she’d been with a man in a very long time, in fact. It was a ridiculous bluff that further showcased how young and strangely unversed she was in the ways of her own species if she thought I would buy it.
Still, it called to my predator instinct to claim her—now—so that there’d never again be any doubt.
Avery
I realized it was the wrong lie to tell when any shred of hazel that had been left in his irises succumbed to his wolf’s bright golden hue. I’d been too flustered by his assertion that he could scent me to handle the mate bomb he’d laid on me next.
“I mean I was mated,” I clarified quickly, when in one swift lunge, he’d hauled me up by my ass against the door and was fitting his hips between my spread thighs—positioning the head of his cock to enter me. “Was—” I gasped as he thrust forward, penetrating me halfway.
An inhuman sound escaped me as my inner bitch howled in ecstasy. Oh, God, he was a tight fit.
I was dripping wet, but it’d been so damn long.
Far, far too long.
I dug my stiletto-heeled ankle boots into his muscled ass, demanding more. With a grunt, he delivered, pushing into me until the base of his cock pressed against my clit.
For a moment, I saw stars. The good kind.
I felt him everywhere.
His forehead touched mine and our panted breaths mingled as I reveled in the sensation of his thick mushroom head seated so deep inside, pulsing against my cervix; his hard, long shaft swelling and straining against my fluttering walls.
He squeezed my ass and ground his pelvis into me, and my body was primed for orgasm already.
“Oh, yes, please,” I heard myself pant.
“Mine,” he growled back.
My eyelids opened half-mast to see his inner wolf staring back at me. Something passed—clicked—into place between his inner animal and my own then: A silent communion that supplanted human thought and emotion. It was deeper than the recognition of ownership he’d claimed using human words. It was something far more tender. Sweet. My she-wolf was already convinced she knew his wolf, that he was trustworthy. She would’ve followed him anywhere.
I steadied my gun against his temple.
I knew enough about the werewolf concept of true mates to believe I’d never have one. Certainly, I had never wanted one. Werewolf mates were a two-for-one kill in my book. Being bonded with a stranger whose death would theoretically get me killed as well didn’t top my bucket list.
No matter how right he felt inside me.
And boy, did he feel right. Dangerously, sinfully so. Like no man had ever felt before.
“Always mine,” he rumbled, his low, throaty voice taking me closer to the edge.
We held eye contact as he began to rock into me, pulling out just a fraction at first. He looked as if it pained him to do it—as if it required all his focus and willpower to take small, measured strokes rather than drive into me with abandon and fuck me to completion the way my gripping channel was begging him to do.
Slick fluid rushed from my center to lubricate the thick organ penetrating me as he circled his hips and ground the root of his cock hard into my clit.
“Oh, fuck,” I moaned. I dug my heels into his ass and tightened my thighs around his waist, arching my upper back against the door to gain the leverage I needed to take him deeper.
“That’s it.” His hard eyes were as hypnotic as his voice. “Open for me.”
He looked less like the sweet, gentlemanly wolf who’d professed a moment ago not to want to rush things or take advantage, and every bit like a caveman on a mission to prove his mate-worthiness.
He was the first werewolf I’d ever been with. I wondered now why I’d waited so long.
Mesmerized, I began to raise and lower myself on his steel shaft, meeting his shallow, rolling thrusts with increasingly jerky, frantic motions.
His jaw tightened and his expression darkened the faster and more feverish my movements became as I worked myself on his length, grunting and panting unabashedly in my efforts.
Big hands groped and spread my ass cheeks. Exploring fingers gathered and distributed my wetness to places it didn’t belong.
I could feel how tightly his balls were drawn up each time they rubbed against my slippery folds.
His words of encouragement became garbled, crass demands as he helped raise and lower me by my ass, telling me to fill my cunt and cream on his cock.
And I did.
I so did.
Swept up amid the insanity of an assassination tryst gone far awry, and in our connection that never should have been, I came like a wild thing—clawing at his shoulder as I jerked and writhed and mewled against him.
Fuck, it’d been too long. And my time as an outcast within werewolf society these past ten years had been too intense, apparently, because amid my orgasm an emotional response rushed forth from my wolf that I hadn’t counted on.
An overwhelming sense of belonging—of finally finding safety and acceptance with my own kind—ripped a strangled cry from my throat before I could suppress it.
“It’s okay. Everything’s okay.” He was kissing my face. His lips brushed the dampness from my eyes. “I’ve got you. You’re okay now.”
Oh, crap. I was crying?
He was still hard. Still rocking into me. But his strokes were slower, gentler, as he cooed words of comfort.
“I’m sorry you’ve felt alone for so long.”
How the fuck—?
“You’ll never be alone again. I promise.”
Hellfire. I didn’t need some big, bad, sexy werelock shoulder to cry on. I was just reacting to a really great fuck after an extended dry spell. Plus, all the stress I’d been under—for a decade.
But my wolf was eating his promises up like candy, and my body was climbing toward another release, my inner muscles bearing down on him wit
h every stroke. One more orgasm and then I’d bail, I promised myself, as his mouth reclaimed mine, his tongue stroking a compelling, hedonistic rhythm that once again scuttled my common sense.
His movements, though gentle still, were becoming faster, his hands groping and gripping the flesh of my ass a little more urgently as he pulled me tightly against him, away from the wall, lifting and lowering me on his erection.
I felt every stiff ridge of muscle covering his lower abdomen and groin against my sensitized clit, stimulating me to the brink of unbearable pleasure.
It was too much.
He was too much.
He was too big and too powerful to be fucking me so gently. So perfectly. He was too much my mortal enemy to be treating me so sweetly—after I’d tried to kill him. Something had to be wrong. The whole scenario was starting to feel like a bizarre dream that I was bound to wake up from, but didn’t want to.
“You feel so good,” he groaned against my mouth. “Can’t hold—fuck …”
He fucked hard into me, releasing his load impossibly deep as my muscles clenched and I reached the precipice of my own explosion.
I’d felt men come inside of me before, but never like this. The sensation of him losing control, of feeling him convulse in orgasm deep within me was so … authentic. It felt so raw and erotic and primal as his hot cum filled me.
And I lost it. Muttering senseless profanity, my eyes watered again with emotion from how good it felt to come with him coming inside of me. At the same time, my face momentarily heated with embarrassment and confusion at how profoundly I’d been moved by the whole experience—with a stranger who was my enemy.
Yet there was no room for those emotions as my ears rang, my canines extended, and I suddenly felt starved for something I couldn’t define as an aching need for this man—superbeast—arose from someplace beyond myself … beyond my wolf. I felt possessed by some innate madness to hold this connection I felt to him forever.
The taste of skin on my tongue was followed by the taste of blood filling my mouth as my canines pierced flesh. Vaguely, it registered that I was biting him, and that I ought to stop.
But I didn’t want to.
Beyond blood and flesh, a foreign taste pervaded my mouth. It felt like it came from my canines. The huge cock still jerking within me felt like it got harder the farther I sank my teeth, the muscled arms around me squeezed tighter, the big hands stroking me gripped and soothed everywhere they touched, and a deep voice egged me on and told me to bite deeper when I hesitated, telling me it was okay, this was the right thing to do.
But then another male voice interrupted my bliss, telling me to stop, shouting, “Alcaeus, what the fuck are you doing?”
Alcaeus
“You do realize what a hypocrite this makes you,” Kai’s aghast voice reverberated off the tiled walls as my perfect, beautiful mate startled in my arms and hastily withdrew her mouth from my neck, sending the single greatest moment of my life screeching to a disastrous halt.
Christ, did no one knock anymore?
Words failed me. I could only growl at my best friend as my wolf eyes promised murder.
“Throughout our four-hundred-year friendship, you’ve acted like I was the one afflicted with unhealthy fetishes,” Kai’s patronizing voice persisted, utterly obliterating the brief taste of heaven I’d basked in just seconds before as the scent of my mate’s anxiety filled my nostrils and she scrambled to at once conceal her nudity and climb off of me.
I turned my back to Kai, partially blocking her from his view as I helped her off my painfully stiff cock. I conjured a towel for her to clean up with along with new jeans for her to wear and handed them to her once her heeled boots seemed steady on the floor. Then I conjured a new pair of jeans onto myself, followed by a T-shirt.
A dozen apologies and explanations formed on my tongue, but I was too afraid to speak—for fear of how angry my words might emerge. I needed to calm down. I didn’t want to risk making her more distressed than she already was.
“And here I find you … fornicating with a perfect stranger whose got her canines lodged dangerously deep in your trapezius and a useless gun to your idiot head. Interesting role-play fantasy, Al, I must say.”
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I turned and raged at him.
“What am I doing here? Let’s start with what you’re doing here. We’re supposed to be on a mission. You’re supposed to be upstairs gathering information about the woman who survived a rogue attack. I’ve tolerated your endless cavorting for the past decade, turned a blind eye to your insatiable need for meaningless casual sex with random human partners in nightclubs, parked cars, and alleyways. But skipping out on a meeting—a meeting that you insisted I needn’t attend—in order to play a kinky game of mate-bond Russian roulette in a basement bar bathroom with some she-werewolf you just met, is a little too irresponsible—even for you.”
“Not now, Kai. I’m ordering you to leave. How did you get here anyway? I ordered you to stay at the hotel. Fuck, never mind; just go.”
“Not leaving. Milena sent me.”
“What?”
“Milena sensed heightened emotions from you and was worried. She called and asked me to find you and make sure you were okay—overriding your order.” His slight smile was smug.
Milena could do that? Sense my emotions? She could override my orders to Kai? Not great news. I didn’t have time to dwell on it, though. My mate’s increasing sense of panic was my current most pressing priority. Her heartbeat had skyrocketed at Kai’s mention of Milena sending him to find me. She smelled terribly upset now.
“Milena’s not my girlfriend,” I projected over my shoulder to reassure her, lest she mistake the situation or my intentions toward her. Kai had done enough damage already by making it sound as if I hooked up with random women in bathrooms every day. “Milena’s my sister-in-law. She’s just one of those worrying types,” I rambled, willing her to scent the truth of my words.
“It’s fine,” she spoke up from behind me, her voice coming out high-pitched. Nervous. I caught the sound of her jeans zipping up. “Hey, we both got carried away. You don’t need to explain anything. I had fun. But I gotta run now, too.”
Damnit, she was embarrassed and trying to save face. I glared at my Beta. “Kai, get out of here. Now.”
I sensed Alessandra trying to tap my mind to reach me. Jesus, everyone had the worst timing today. I blocked Lessa out.
“Oh, but I’m rather enjoying this,” Kai replied, his harassed expression conveying otherwise as a phone vibrated in his pocket. As he fished it out to check it, I turned around to try and calm my mate’s growing scent of alarm.
She was fully dressed—albeit looking a disheveled, shell-shocked wreck—and was just strapping on her backpack and adjusting her beanie with trembling fingers. I noticed she was wearing a bulky sweatshirt over her tank top that she hadn’t been wearing before. I assumed she’d pulled it from her bag. I was a little disappointed to see her looking so covered up—hiding herself from me.
“I’m really sorry about this,” I apologized. “Kai’s my Beta. He’s also our pack doctor and interminably celibate, so there’s no need to be embarrassed about anything he saw. He’s not normally this much of an ass. Please don’t go, all right? We need to talk.” I wasn’t about to let her out of my sight. But it was best to phrase it as a request.
“Lessa just texted me,” Kai announced to my back, grating on my last nerve. “Have you seen Al?” he read aloud, his speech stilted. “He’s blocking me. Is he back from his meeting yet?”
“Tell her I’m busy,” I growled over my shoulder. “I’ll call her later.”
My chest clenched painfully as I watched my mate’s gorgeous face go ashen at the mention of yet another woman looking for me. “Lessa’s my sister,” I quickly explained, forcing my voice to be far gentler than I felt, given my pressing desire to strangle the life from Kai. But my explanation about Lessa only seemed to spike the scent of her panic fu
rther.
“It’s all good,” she said as she gave me a shaky, phony smile. Her heart was racing, her chest heaving up and down like she was struggling for air. “Have to go. My friends are upstairs. Waiting at the bar for me.”
She looked so small and fragile. I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and never let go. Her hand reached for the lock on the door. I stopped it, capturing it in my own. “I can’t let you go, sweetheart.”
“Finally, a shred of common sense prevails. I was waiting to make sure you wouldn’t forget to erase her mind of this encounter.”
Her eyes widened at Kai’s words. I was a breath away from ripping his limbs off.
“Hey, hey—it’s okay.” I cupped her face in my hand. “He’s only joking,” I told her, and hoped that I’d adequately masked the scent of that lie. “You’re completely safe with me. And that safety extends to my pack. I promise.” I raised her hand in mine to my mouth and kissed it.
“Guess I spoke too soon,” Kai muttered to himself in that droll tone of his from behind me. “They’re waiting upstairs, Al. Just go. I’ll handle this.”
“You’ll handle nothing to do with her.” I pulled my mate into my side and turned around to find Kai staring at her with a strangely puzzled expression.
“You put a shield on her?”
“What?”
“Her mind’s blocked, Al.”
“How—wait, what are you doing? Stay out of her head!”
“Al, are you listening? I can’t access it. Did you cast a shield? That’s a really good one. It doesn’t even feel like a shield. How’d you do that?”
“What? No. No, I haven’t touched her mind.”
“Well, someone’s blocked it.” Kai’s eyes on my mate were accusing. “If it wasn’t you, then we may have a more serious problem on our hands.”
“Don’t look at my mate like that.”
“Your mate?” His brow rose in disbelief.
I saw red as he eyed my mate up and down like she was something foul. “You don’t want to cross this line with me,” I warned him.
