When bare cock met bare pussy, she flung her head back and a low, long moan flooded the airwaves. He nudged her clit, rocking his shaft against her, and she could feel the slippery slide of the movement and loved every moment of it. It was proof of her need for him, her honest desire to be with him could in no way be forged.
She might have made him feel lesser for being a part of an MC, unintentionally though that may have been, but there was no denying her response to him. Or that of her body. There was no way he could mistake her arousal, a sentiment he alone had crafted in her.
Annette cried out when he settled the tip against her entrance, and as he slowly surged into her, each inch burning with a brand that forever declared her his, she wished this was her first time. That he was taking her virginity. It was a crazy thought to have at that moment, but it had popped up, and it was true.
This man was her mate. The feel of him inside her was like nothing else she’d ever known. Everything about the connection felt right and true, and she knew she’d wasted her cherry on Bobby Green that night after prom.
She forced the notion away, choosing instead to concentrate on Mars. He grunted when his pelvis mashed into her pubis, meaning that every inch of him was inside her. She fluttered her internal muscles around him, claiming him in return with her very own personal moves. When he groaned, satisfaction filled her and she raked her hands over his back, digging her nails into the taut muscle there.
He flung his head back, a roar beating from him at her touch, and she made sure to cling tightly to him, holding him as close as could be. Almost as though that was what he’d been waiting for, he began to pump his hips in earnest. Taking her, claiming her, fucking her so that she didn’t know where he began and she ended, nor did she care.
A scream sounded from her as he began to move faster. His hips pistoning between her thighs, her fingers digging into his butt spurring him on.
He moved down to kiss her once more. The connection somehow all the more special now he was making her his, but his lips didn’t stay against hers for long. He let his tongue trail in a tickling caress down her cheek, before he burrowed his mouth against her throat.
A part of her knew what was about to happen. She almost tensed against it, but another part of her, that horny cave woman who had apparently taken note during all those Shifter romances Annette had read over the years, demanded her dues.
When he bit down, the scream that echoed around the room was like nothing she’d never heard before. It wasn’t fury-filled or even frightened. It was rage of a different nature. One so fueled by desire that he responded by burying his teeth deeper into her throat and fucking her harder.
She clung to him, riding out the storm, feeling the harsh pulls as he slurped up her blood while he took her. Annette knew it should have freaked her the fuck out but she was too far gone for that, too far past caring.
Almost like he could sense that, Mars burrowed a hand between them. His fingers, though awkwardly placed, slipped through their shared juices. When they came up to caress her clit, she mewled once, then screamed as pleasure filled her to overflowing.
This made every other orgasm she’d ever had seem like a tiny burst bubble. This was an avalanche. A tsunami. She drowned in sensation, then was reborn in it. It flooded her nerve endings, showered her with glory, but it was compounded by a stronger reaction when he came.
The climax that hit then was a never ending wave that sucked her under, then spat her out, only to suck her under once more.
She was tossed about on a tide of ecstasy, an ecstasy that was like nothing she’d ever known—even the legal high of the morphine she’d had in hospital. Or the illegal coke she’d once taken at a frat party.
Nothing could compare to this, and almost like her body recognized that, and like the click of a set of fingers, Annette switched off.
There wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it, nor would she have wanted to. All she knew was that she was safe, in her mate’s arms, and that was all that mattered.
Chapter Four
As his heart beat returned to normal, Mars finally shifted from atop Annette’s prone form.
She was out like a light. Her breathing steady and calm enough to stop him from fretting as he rolled over onto his back.
A myriad of aches hit him but they were ignored, passed over as his body still dealt with the memory of the glory of the moment. In his mouth was the taste of her blood and it was like the finest wine, the best beer, and the goddamn finest steak. In fact, it was incomparable, like her.
He stared up at the ceiling for a second, feeling the sweat dry on his chest as he calmed down, then turned his head to look at her. Her lips were parted, those long lashes of hers fluttered a little against her cheek. And at her throat, there was the gaping wound he’d caused. A bite that would heal as though it had never been there in the first place, that another human would never see, but one that his brothers and other members from other Clans would instantly recognize.
She was claimed.
And when they approached her, they’d sniff her and sense more than the fact she was claimed. She was his.
Satisfaction roared through him as he looked at his mate. His. God, the word wouldn’t stop ricocheting like a bullet around his brain. He even heard the popping sounds as it pinged around his skull, but then, the noise got closer somehow.
Mars blinked, then frowned at the sound. He shouldn’t have been able to hear anything, and yet he could and did. Recognizing that something wasn’t right, and needing to investigate to assure the security of his mate, he got to his feet. He strode over to the window, looked out onto the courtyard, and immediately ducked, bending over so that he could peer out of the lower half of the pane.
Two cars were outside the gates, and a dozen men were hidden behind them. They bobbed up and down, submachine guns in their hands as they sprayed the outer half of the courtyard.
His brothers returned fire, and Mars relaxed a little, knowing how this place was a fortress if the gates were closed and that his kin was protecting the clubhouse.
About to step back, his intention to get dressed and to join in the fray, he froze as glass suddenly rained down around him. The shattering sound was ignored, as were the small shards of broken glass that dug into his skin.
A bullet had hit the window, before winging its way into the room, and he looked for it, using all of his senses to find it. But it took less than half a second to figure out where it had buried itself.
When Mars saw blood blossom through Annette’s shirt, a rage beyond compare hit him, and his bear took over.
Like that, he Shifted, and the shooters didn’t realize what level of hell they’d just rained down upon themselves…
Chapter Five
The sight of blood blossoming through Annette Vogel’s shirt had Mars Donner reacting like the wounded bear he was. His woman. His mate of less than a handful of minutes… and she’d been shot. While in his care.
Rage and fear, two of the most powerful motivators in Christendom, fueled his shift. Seeing the red spread, the spidery webs of lifeblood seeping through the white cotton, made the agonizing moments of the shift seem effortless. Gone were the feelings of pain as his muscles contorted, his bones broke, his spinal cord elongated, and tufts of thick fur sprouted through each pore. He felt nothing. Not a bit of it. His bear could only roar out his fury, using the agony to fuel his roar.
The sound of an enraged beast howled through the clubhouse. It echoed and chimed down the halls, and his bear heard the cessation of gunfire even though white noise clouded his eardrums.
The ceasefire was too late though. Too late for his mate.
He scuppered over to her, lumbering from the window where the bullet had pierced the glass over to the bed where his injured mate rested. His gait was ungainly. The beast quite unaccustomed to being holed up inside, in Mars’s quarters.
He was too large for the space, too tall, too heavy. The bed groaned then caved in under his weight
as he tried to clamber closer to his injured mate. At the same time as the frame gave way, the wood splintering and spraying in all directions under him, a groan escaped Annette and the door to his bedroom slammed open.
Kiko stood there, gawking at him. Even though he was shifted, Mars could understand the gawk. Brothers weren’t allowed to shift inside the clubhouse, and yet, there he was. Fully shifted. And outsiders had heard him. Or at least, they’d heard the outraged roar of a wild animal. It had prompted the ceasefire, probably because whoever the fuck it was who’d come onto their turf were pissing themselves at the sound of a bear so near to them.
When Mars made a more subdued growl, this time beseeching rather than enraged, Kiko held up his hands then stepped into the room, apparently sensing something wasn’t right.
The instant he saw Annette’s blouse, the blood growing ever thicker and darker as it poured from the wound, he flinched. Then turned tail and ran.
Mars stood there, astonished for a second, and this time his howl was loaded with betrayal. The scent of his mate’s blood was thick and heavy in the room. Its pungency had the bear ricocheting between the need to find revenge to utter horror at the prospect of losing the woman he’d only just met. A woman he’d been seeking for two decades shy of a century.
That fear of loss was why his bear was refusing to relinquish control. Mars would have been of far more use to Annette in his human skin, but the beast was petrified and thus, was refusing to let Mars take over. Even if that meant their mate perishing because of the bear’s primitive fears, control was out of Mars’s hands.
The sound of boots clomping down the hall had his head tilting to the side. When Kiko returned with Major, their medic, Mars felt relief flood him. It took his bear out of that state of hyper awareness, enough so that he knew the bear would let the man take charge soon.
“What the fuck happened?” Major hollered as he took in the chaos of the once neat and tidy bedroom. Glass littered the back wall from the shattered window, splintered wood was strewn about the floor in nasty spears from the broken bed frame, and clothes lay in tattered rags beside the window where Mars, the man, had once stood.
Major absorbed the scene in less than thirty seconds, then immediately clambered onto the bed, getting to work on Mars’s injured mate.
The bear wanted to howl out his wrath at another male being so close to his female, but the man kept him in line. They needed Major. They needed him to save Annette.
“I don’t know what happened,” Kiko retorted, watching as Major took Annette’s pulse.
“It’s thready.” He grimaced. “Fuck.”
“You need your kit?”
At Kiko’s question, Major nodded and held out his hand for the small box-bag he carried around on long road trips when his services were almost always required.
Trouble followed all MCs on their rides, but The Nomads always attracted more trouble than most.
Major rummaged through the case, pulling out instruments that had whimpers pouring from Mars. But at the sound, Major snapped, “Stop being a wimp, Mars. Get your head out of your ass and shift back. She needs you in your skin not in your fur.”
Rage flooded him, making him roar, but Major and Kiko were bears themselves. They weren’t frightened by his beast’s display of ire. They just carried on with what they were doing.
When Major got Kiko involved, asking him to cut off Annette’s shirt, like that, Mars’s bear relinquished control.
The instant he was back in his skin, the energy in the room changed from turbocharged to one that was more ordinary. Major shuddered out a sigh of relief, because though he was quite accustomed to being around his brothers in their furs, like all of them, it was hard on the human being next to the beast.
The bear, with its magic inherent, gathered about itself a forcefield of sorts. In close quarters, it was hard to be near. Even for another shifter.
“I need to see the wound, Mars,” Major broke into his panic. “Cut off the shirt and then we can swab off the area. But from the amount of blood, I’d say…”
“No!” he cried. “We can’t lose her!” He grabbed the scissors from Kiko and started cutting off the shirt around the perimeter of the blood spatter.
“I didn’t say that,” Major spat, tone grim.
“You didn’t have to. I won’t lose her. Not when I’ve just found her.”
“You won’t lose her, but you’ll have to make a blood sacrifice. You know how that works.”
Mars grunted, uncaring as to the consequences of a blood sacrifice. What did it matter? All that counted was Annette.
Kiko shook his head, then grimly stared down at the wound on Annette’s chest. Major had swabbed the area but more blood gushed free. This wasn’t a slow, sluggish crawl, but a deadly flow. “You sure you don’t want to think about that, buddy? The Goddesses can be a bitch when it comes to paying the price for a blood sacrifice.”
Before Mars could snarl out an answer, Major snapped, “He doesn’t have time to think. We’re losing her, and newly mated males do not lose their mates. Not on my watch, at any fucking rate. Do you have a knife in here? I don’t have any scalpels.” Major was only trained in the basics. Shifters didn’t often get injured. But healing humans was another matter entirely.
Mars leaped off the bed, headed to the dresser beside the mini fridge and reached for the weapon he carried when they did their runs. Though they were shifters, and there was nothing more fucking dangerous than a man being able to shift into one-and-a-half tons of pissed off grizzly bear, that was only as a last resort. They clung to their secrets more than they clung to the power of their ancestry.
Rushing back to the bed, he passed the knife to Major and watched as he reached for Annette’s left forearm. Kiko interjected, “She might not be thrilled with the consequences of the blood sacrifice, Mars.”
“Better that she’s pissed at me than fucking dead.” His snarl had Kiko pulling a face, but he shut the fuck up. Nodding his satisfaction at his brother’s silence, Mars watched, concerned, when Major’s slicing into his mate’s arm didn’t even make her stir or cause her to whimper out in pain. He didn’t want her to suffer but her utter stillness told him how close he was to losing her, and as fear slalomed through his guts, with terror more encompassing than anything he’d ever known making him choke on each breath, Mars held out his right arm. When Major pressed the knife to his skin, he let out a long hiss as the gash grew longer, then let Major arrange them in accordance with the sacrifice rites.
Mars had to bridge his hand with Annette’s, then Major reached for a bandage. As he opened the packet, he ordered, “Lie down next to her. Get comfortable. You know how long this shit takes.”
Grimly, he obeyed. He lay down beside her then raised their joined hands aloft so Major could start to wrap the bandages around their arms. The gashes were the same length and the same thickness, and now, they were aligned so that his blood poured into her wound and vice versa. Major’s binding of the wounds was tight. Uncomfortably so. But it forged the gashes together. It took a further three packets to unite them from elbow to wrist in accordance with their lores.
Once they were bound, Major sat back on his heels, his boots dirtying the white sheets, and turned his eyes to Annette. Though his bear wanted to growl his fury at the fact his mate’s chest was on display, he knew his brothers were looking at the bullet wound.
Only when Major let out a shaky sigh of relief did Mars look up. He’d stared at the ceiling, praying to the Goddesses that they accept his sacrifice. Begging them, pleading with them to keep Annette alive.
Major’s sigh told him they were out of the woods and his voice was thick when he whispered, “Will she be okay?”
MARS (BBW Bear Shifter MC Romance) (MC Bear Mates Book 1) Page 4
