“Are you all right to drive?” he asked as she wobbled in her high heels once he released her.
“Uh huh,” she said, turning toward the driver’s door. She stumbled, but he caught her before she could fall.
“Right,” he said, swinging her up into his arms and carrying her around to the passenger’s door.
Before she could fight him, he had her strapped in with the door closed. She closed her eyes for a moment, intending to just gather her strength so she could drive. The next thing she knew, he was gently stroking her cheek with the back of two fingers. “I need directions, sweet mate of mine.”
She looked around, surprised to find they were sitting beside the road at the entrance to the airport parking lot. She opened her mouth to argue he shouldn’t be driving, but her insides shook so badly she knew she wasn’t safe to drive either.
“Go straight on this road and take a right onto the highway. Go to the third light and take another right. Follow that road for two miles then turn left into the driveway with the purple mailbox.”
He repeated the directions back to her, then leaned over and kissed her gently. “Sleep, sweet Angel. I’ll get you home safely.”
Angel nodded and laid her head back, relaxation outweighing the uncertainty about letting someone else drive her car. She didn’t sleep, but sat and stared at this man she’d given her heart to even before they’d met.
“Tell me what you’ve been doing these past few days. I’ve missed our chats,” he said as he put the car in gear and drove.
The rest of the drive, Angel filled him in on her week. She lived a small life, her days were filled with her job as an assistant in the payroll department of Thomasson Enterprises and her volunteer work, but Nick always seemed fascinated by her daily activities.
His hand eased over the center island, coming to rest so the back of his fingers brushed against her thigh just above her knee. She didn’t push him away, though his touch sent renewed electrical pulses of sexual need through her.
Long minutes later, he parked in front of her house. “This is it. Welcome to my home,” she said.
She turned to gauge his response, but he wasn’t looking across the yard toward her small house. His eyes were on her. They contained a wildness and hunger that reached inside and fed her lust. All at once she didn’t care what he thought of her house. She didn’t care that they were still in the car and that Mrs. Burns across the road was bound to be watching them through her binoculars.
“I want you again,” she said as her cheeks began to burn with renewed desire. “Correction, I need you again.”
One eyebrow raised as he smiled. “You have about one minute to get us inside.” His words came out in a deep, raspy growl.
“Or what?”
“Or your neighbors are going to get a free show because we’re going to be naked about ten seconds after that.”
“Oh,” was all Angel could say in response.
All thought, except that of getting inside and naked, flew from her head. Reaching to the steering column, she pulled the key from the ignition, released her seatbelt and opened her door. All the while she counted silently, “One hippopotamus, two hippopotamus…”
At twenty-seven hippopotamus she turned the key, pushed open the front door and stepped inside. Nick was so close behind her his pants brushed against her calves. After dropping her purse on the small table inside the door, she stepped out of her high heels with an audible sigh. The door clicked closed behind her and was followed a second later by the snick of the deadbolt being secured.
Hunger flaring like a wildfire in a high wind, she faced him and pushed him back until his back was to the door. Reaching up, she wrapped one hand around his neck and pulled him down to her level for a deep kiss. At the same time she felt his hands run down her back to squeeze her bare ass through the thin cotton fabric of her dress.
When his fingers traced down the hollow between her cheeks, she broke the kiss and took two steps back so he was out of arm’s reach. “Your minute is up. Get naked,” she said.
“Is it?” he asked after blinking and swallowing hard.
“I think so, but I lost count at forty-seven,” Angel admitted. “So get that uniform off, soldier.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Nick said with a grin and a snappy salute. A heartbeat later, the buttons of his shirt went flying across the room. Seconds after that, shirt, shoes, and socks followed. He paused with a hand on his belt buckle. “Aren’t you getting naked, too?”
Angel nodded as she reached for the hem of her dress. “I was just waiting for you to catch up.”
A few moments later, her dress hit the floor just seconds before his pants and boxers. Then they came together, skin against skin, for the first time.
“Oh my God, you feel so good,” Angel groaned as Nick wrapped his arms around her back to snuggle her even closer to his chest.
His response was a deep moan of agreement that reverberated through every nerve in Angel’s body and tickled the ear pressed against his chest.
Lifting her head, she met his lips and lost herself as their tongues danced together from her mouth to his and back again. She shifted her hips side to side against him. His long, thick cock rubbed against her belly, sending her need to an even higher, more demanding level. Her hands began to sweep up and down his sides and back in long exploratory strokes.
All at once he lifted his head and looked down at her. She grew so mesmerized by his brown eyes glowing golden with his arousal that he had to repeat his words a second time before she made sense of them. “Wrap your arms around my neck and hang on tight.”
Once she did as he instructed, he bent down and wrapped his arms around her upper thighs. When he straightened to full height again, she dangled several inches off the ground, but their bodies were perfectly aligned. His cock found the furrow containing her clit. With a shift of his hips, he began to rub the head of his shaft through her folds. Her eyes drifted shut with the pleasure that small touch sent ripping through her. She lifted her legs and wrapped them around his body.
A moment later she shivered as the cool wood of the door pressed against her back, and the hot flesh of the man settled against her front. When he shifted her higher, and she felt the head of his cock at the open entrance to her cunt, everything in her tensed with sudden nervousness. She’d never had sex twice in one day before.
“Shhh, baby, it’s okay. We’ll take it slow and easy,” he said, brushing kisses along the line of her jaw then down the side of her neck.
Holding him tighter, she shook her head in denial. If he went slowly she would explode before he could slide halfway home. As it was, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold off her orgasm long enough for him to find his own pleasure. “Not slow. Take. Me. Now.”
When the head of his shaft entered, Angel stopped breathing. He was so big. It had been so long. It felt so damn good.
As she expected, her orgasm rippled and threatened to explode long before he was fully seated within her. She fought it off as long as she could, but was powerless to stop from riding the wave as it washed over her.
“Oh my God!” she screamed as the ripples turned into a tidal wave that washed over her as soon as his pelvis pressed tight against hers.
He held her easily as every muscle in her body convulsed with pleasure. When she finally came down from the most intense orgasm she’d ever experienced, she felt so weak she couldn’t move, even if someone told her the house was on fire. Her head rested on his shoulder, and his entire body seemed tense. From holding her up or from holding back his own orgasm?
“Nick?” She asked as she lifted her head.
“Feel better, baby?” His voice was as tight as the rest of him. Deep, rough, growly, it expressed the need that still held him tight in its grip.
“Yes, but you…”
“Shhh.” He leaned close and brushed a kiss over her lips. “Now we are going to take it slow and easy, and you will come again while I claim you as my very own.”
>
Though skeptical, Angel didn’t have the energy to argue. Instead she licked a line up the side of Nick’s neck. “Mmmm.” She took his earlobe between her teeth and worked it gently.
A moment later, Nick began to move, easing his shaft in and out, his pace slow and easy, though that didn’t last very long. Angel tried to help but, pressed against the door with her arms and legs holding onto him, she couldn’t move more than to arch her back and hips against him.
As he thrust high and hard, he bent his head to her breast. “I’m close baby. Come again for me.” He growled as he nipped at her erect nipple, then latched on and suckled hard.
“Oh, oh, oooooh,” Angel cried as another orgasm roared out of nowhere to surround her, surround them and join them as one in the vortex of their climax.
As she whirled and spun with the wild energy that seemed to rock from him to her, she heard what sounded like a wolf howling. Then she felt twin sharp pains where her neck and shoulder joined. Before she could fully identify its source, the blackness of full completion rolled over and dragged her under.
* * * *
Nick drank deeply of his mate’s sweet blood, feeling bad for only a short moment that he had not told her of his true nature, his dual nature, before claiming her. But she was so beautiful and sexy, and her scent so enticing, he could barely think beyond his need to claim her.
After licking the bite mark closed, he lifted his head to check on his mate. He wasn’t surprised to find her unconscious, though she continued to cling tight to his body.
Gathering her even closer, he turned from the door and staggered across the room to the couch. Once there, he leaned over the couch to lay her down. Problem was she wouldn’t let go of him.
“Angel, baby, you can let go now. I won’t drop you.” He brushed kisses over her face.
“Nick?”
“Yes, baby. Relax and rest a while.”
Once she released him, he pulled the back cushions off the couch, then rearranged their bodies on the couch so they lay spooned together, her back to his front. Only then did he allow himself to relax. He’d found his mate, claimed her, and for the first time in his life all was right with his world. Now that he was retired, he had no idea what he would do with his life, but it didn’t matter. He had claimed his mate, and with Angel by his side, he didn’t care what else might happen in the future. As long as they were together, he could face anything. With a deep breath he allowed sleep to carry him off, truly content for the first time in his life.
Chapter 4
Angel drifted awake slowly, for a few moments unsure of anything beyond the fact that she was alive. It was another moment before she felt heat behind her, a weight resting over her middle, and warm breath brushing over her neck and shoulder. Opening her eyes, she blinked and found herself looking at the pattern on the back of the couch.
“Angel?” Nick asked as his arm around her middle tightened, pulling her back more securely against him. “You okay?”
“Hmmm.” She moaned, not sure how else to answer his question.
When he licked at the place on her shoulder, a shiver of electrical fire shot from that spot straight down her body to her clit. His action reminded her that he’d done more than just kiss that spot earlier.
Clearing her throat, she did not move otherwise. “Did you bite me?”
“Umm hmm,” he answered as he licked that spot again, and another bolt of lightening exploded in her core.
“Why?”
“To claim you as my mate,” he said in a deep and gentle voice that stroked her nerves like a feather.
“Your mate?” Angel tried to turn around to face the man behind her, but there was no room between the back of the couch and his body. ”What do you mean by mate?”
“Shhh, baby.” Nick lifted his arm, his fingers brushing over her skin, leaving a trail of tingling in their wake.
Before he could derail her thoughts with more sex, Angel grabbed the top of the couch and pulled her body up. Throwing a leg over the couch, she pushed herself up and over the back of the couch, landing on the floor with a thud.
“Angel? Baby? What are you doing?” Nick sat up as she scrambled to her feet.
“Tell me again why you bit my shoulder,” she demanded, as she backed across the room until she stood well out of arm’s reach.
“You told me you read a lot of paranormal romance, right?”
“Yes.”
“So you know what a shape shifter is?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Did you know that shape shifters are not a figment of some author’s mind?” Nick stood and slowly came around the couch toward her.
“But I thought you didn’t believe in vampires and werewolves and life on other planets?”
Angel’s gaze dropped from his face. For the first time, she got to see Nick’s entire body, and what she saw she liked. A lot. He was muscular, but too thin. His olive-toned skin was pale, despite his time in the desert. She tried not to look below his waist, but found her gaze dropped there anyway. His cock was long and thick even in its current relaxed state.
“Oh my.” She breathed as it twitched and began to lengthen as she watched. Jerking her eyes back up to his face, she found him grinning with lecherous delight.
“I don’t believe in those other things, but shape shifters are different. Shape shifters are real. Here, I’ll prove it.”
As soon as he finished speaking, Nick the man disappeared. In his place stood a large wolf with Nick’s gentle brown eyes, his fur the same mahogany as Nick’s too-short hair.
Angel retreated until her backside was pressed against the wall. When her knees gave out from the shock, she slid down the wall, landing hard on her ass. Her breath caught when the wolf took several steps toward her. The animal looked worried.
“Oh my God, you are a shape shifter?”
The wolf nodded as he slowly closed the distance between them. He didn’t stop until he bumped her chin with his nose. Then he licked her chin twice before backing up a step and sitting down in the space between her calves.
“Why didn’t you tell me before now?” Angel asked, one hand reaching out to stroke the fur of his neck then around and down the center of his chest.
The wolf made what sounded like a happy groan as he leaned into her touch.
Standing, he stepped forward again and brushed his furry cheek against hers. When she tried to push him away, he stood his ground then inched even closer making a chuffing sound in his throat.
Angel’s breath caught as a childhood memory sprang forward and overwhelmed her. She had been a little girl playing behind her house when a big black dog came into the yard. He’d been friendly enough until Angel’s mother stepped onto the back porch and yelled for Angel to get away from the dog and come inside. Something about the dog didn’t like that. The dog knocked Angel to the ground then stood over her as if protecting her from her mother.
The animal would not let her move away from him nor could anyone else come close to them. She laid in the grass for more than an hour with the dog standing over her, snarling at anyone who approached. It took two police officers, an animal control officer, and three tranquilizer darts before the dog finally fell asleep, his body dropping straight down so he lay on top of Angel, still trying to protect the child even in sleep.
Suddenly fear exploded in her chest, and she shoved the wolf aside. Scrambling to her feet, she backed to the other side of the room, panicked eyes glued to the wolf that followed her.
“Please, don’t hurt me!” she cried.
Closing her eyes, she waited for the beast to attack. Instead, strong, warm, human arms wrapped around her, pulling her against a long, lean, naked human body.
“Shhh, baby. No one’s going to hurt you.” Nick’s deep voice reassured her.
“Nick?”
Feeling his solid form against her own, she wrapped her arms around him and held on tight. She was breathing so fast, and her heart was pounding so hard, she wondered if
she could be having a heart attack.
“Yes, sweet Angel, it’s me. It’s Nick. Shhh, deep breathes. Slow deep breaths. Can you tell me what happened to make you afraid? I thought you said you liked dogs.”
Angel opened her eyes and was surprised to find they were on the couch. At least Nick was. She was curled up on his lap. His naked lap. How had they gotten here? She wanted to lift her head and ask, but Nick had one hand cradling her skull, his fingers threaded through her hair as he held her cheek against his chest. The warmth of his skin and the strong, steady heartbeat under her ear, along with the slow rise and fall of his chest, helped to slowly calm her.
After several minutes, Angel told the story of the big dog that had haunted her dreams for most of her life. While she liked little dogs and puppies, she still avoided large canines whenever possible. When she finished speaking, she lay quietly against Nick, absorbing the long gentle strokes of his hand up and down her back.
“When I am in wolf form, I am still me,” he finally said softly. “I would never hurt you. I would rather die myself than hurt my mate.”
“Why did you bite me?”
“My mark will tell other shape shifters you are mated to one of their kind.”
“And non-shape shifters?”
“They’ll just think you have a kinky side they didn’t know about.” His voice grew deeper as his hands began to rub more than just her back.
Angel was shocked that her lust roared back to life. Nick lowered his head as she raised hers to look at him. She met him in a deep open-mouthed kiss that sent electrical current straight to her clit.
“Oh sweet Angel, you are so beautiful,” he murmured. Before she could turn away, he took her hands in his and held them behind her back. “Beautiful, absolutely gorgeous.”
Angel dropped her chin, unable to meet his hungry gaze. “You don’t have to say that. I know I’m not beautiful,” she whispered, her gaze going to the fingers she’d knotted together in her lap “Ouch!” she cried when he swatted her sharply on the left ass cheek.
“You are a beautiful woman and if I have to, I will put mirrors up on every wall in this house and make you walk around naked until you believe it.” He frowned down at her.
McKenzie, Cooper - The Soldier's Mate [Prequel to The Billionaire's Mate] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 3
