“Neither can I.” She panted. “Help me bring it to an end.”
He tightened his grip on her buttocks¼her ass. The word burned through her.
They both increased the force of their movement. She tightened on him until she thought she would die with pleasure.
Duncan released one cheek, found the tightly bound nerves of her clit and rubbed his fingertip against it for a moment before he returned his hand back to her ass.
But something still rubbed her clit.
Sparks exploded all across her body. He used his Gift to tease her. Tanasha clenched around him. He groaned and his head fell back.
Then she felt a forbidden touch between her cheeks. With his power he caressed her sensitive rear entrance, something she’d secretly dreamed of but never dared to voice.
She moaned. “Duncan?” Tanasha lost all sense of time and place.
“Yes, babe. One day, when you’ve been a really, really naughty girl and I have to—fuck, Nasha, you’re killing me.”
She bit his neck. “Tell. Me. Punish?”
“Yes, I’ll have to punish you by fucking the tight little hole you’ve hidden so far. I’ll prepare you a little so it won’t hurt too badly. Then, then—” He groaned when she increased the tempo.
“Duncan, please,” she panted, could barely contain herself, but she needed to hear.
“Then I’ll thrust my big, fat cock deep into your little hole, all the way in.” The touch on her rear grew deeper. Then he thrust into that forbidden entrance and everything around her faded away.
“Let go, Nasha. Fly with me.”
And they exploded.
Once again she shattered into a million different pieces, but this time she was uncertain if she’d ever fit together again.
He bellowed as his release scorched her from the inside.
Another rush shot through her.
Unable to do anything else, she sank against his sweat-soaked chest. He curled his arms around her. She vaguely heard him give instructions to the bed and then they dropped back.
Tanasha bit her lower lip, the one he so loved to tease her with.
She was in deep, deep trouble. The connection between them, the one she’d only been able to sense, now shimmered with all colors of the rainbow.
She’d fallen. Fallen so deep she wanted to wake up to him every morning and go to sleep beside him every night.
After one day.
She had no idea who Duncan was, what he wanted from life, his goals, his fears, his needs.
The moment she’d met him she’d known he was out of her league.
And now he could tear her heart out if she let him.
Cold spread across her middle despite his arms around her.
Memories flashed through her.
The look on her parents’ faces. The doctors waltzing up to her with just one more thing that would heal her. The bullies at school laughing at her. Her first kiss she’d been so excited about only to find out he’d done it on a bet.
The more Tanasha attempted to hold back the past, the more it swallowed her whole.
Her teachers’ disinterest in her opinions. The disgust on her fellow students’ faces. The derision that surrounded her at functions. Her self-worth growing smaller and smaller despite her battle to maintain it. Her last boyfriend laughing on the comp how pitiful she was and how he’d take everything he could get from her.
She squeezed her eyes shut to push out the images. It didn’t work.
Gasping for breath, she sat up in bed.
Duncan, still asleep, tightened his grip around her, but he couldn’t chase away the cold.
Tanasha studied him, his long hair spread across the pillow. The hint of stubble decorating his cheeks. He appeared softer without his burning silver eyes.
I can’t do this.
It would break something inside her, but the risk of letting this connection between them grow was monumental.
It was too big.
Chapter Six
Duncan woke with Tanasha tangled tightly in his arms. Her head rested on his chest and the scent of her hair was the thing he registered right after the feel of her skin next to his.
By Jade, it had really happened.
Elation and worry coursed through Duncan. He’d found her. After all these decades of hoping and searching he’d found his lifemate, the other half of his soul.
He looked down on the black-haired beauty resting on his chest and nearly snorted.
She is nothing like I have ever imagined.
She was better.
Tanasha cuddled closer.
He sighed and tightened his grip. Only in her sleep did she let down her guard.
Duncan knew she’d sensed the strengthening of their bond, knew she’d realized that they grew closer during the night and not just on a sexual level, but on an emotional level.
But she’d pulled down the shutters, not allowed the link to blossom, to bring them even closer. Instead she’d blocked him, blocked their possibilities.
He rubbed his chest above his heart. But even the hurt couldn’t stop him from kissing her hair.
Going by the glimpses he caught of her past and her present, life hadn’t been easy for his little Naema. Growing up without a measurable Gift would have been difficult enough, but add to that coming from one of the highest-ranking families and not fitting into the narrow description of stick-thin beauty that reigned for more than a century now, and Tanasha had built up walls.
Walls he now needed to find a way around or through, or risk losing his lifemate.
Tanasha moved in his arms.
He didn’t let go.
“Please release me,” she asked.
Her cold tone raised the hairs on the back of his neck. “Maybe I don’t want to.”
She pushed against the arms around her. “You don’t always get what you want. Let go.”
“No, not until you explain what has turned you from warm, sexy woman into cold Guala Monster.”
She stiffened in his arms. Then she thrust her elbow into his side and threw herself to the edge of the bed.
Duncan thought about holding her despite the sharp pain in his ribs, but the flicker of panic in her black eyes persuaded him otherwise.
Tanasha stumbled out of bed as he sat up and ordered the lights on forty percent.
“Nasha, what is wrong?”
She wrapped the sheet around herself and turned her back to him. “Nothing is wrong except that we’re mucking about here while Sydney could be suffering the most horrific tortures. What kind of friend am I that I fuck while she’s in danger?”
Anger curled in his belly. He clenched his fist and watched as she stumbled around his bedroom, looking for her clothes. Most of them were no longer wearable, so she finally settled on one of his shirts.
Duncan threw back the covers and rose off the bed. She’d called their lovemaking fucking and that was something he would not permit. “We didn’t fuck, Tanasha. How can you put down what we have like that?”
She raised her hand as if to stop him from stalking closer to her. “Whatever we had last night, it won’t happen again. This thing between us is over. I hired you to find Sydney. Has your trip last night given you any ideas on what is going on?”
He couldn’t believe it when he watched her pull on the same arrogant mask she’d shown the Guard at the entrance to her District. His anger slowly burned out of control. “Do you honestly think you can stuff the last twelve hours back into the time bottle? Make them disappear and pretend we’ve not had the most amazing sex in this galaxy?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and stuck out her chin. “That is exactly what I’m planning to do. I’m paying you to find my best friend, not to fuck me.”
Direct hit.
His emotions whirled together like a black hole sucking everything into its center.
Duncan stuck out his hand and curled his fingers around the metaphysical connection that linked him to his lifemate. A lifemate he coul
dn’t tell the truth. In the state she was in she’d never allow herself to believe. The walls were up. He no longer felt her on the other side of the link. “Don’t you dare imply what happened had anything to do with your fucking credits. So far none have passed our hands and if I have anything to say about it, they never will.”
He tugged on the connection.
Her eyes widened and her breathing grew uneven.
“This,” he moved their metaphysical bond back and forth, “is not going anywhere. Why are you so determined to deny its existence?”
Tanasha swallowed. “I don’t know or understand your Vampire hocus-pocus, but whatever you think exists between us isn’t real.” She threw her hands up in the air. “For Jade’s sake, Duncan, we’ve known each other less than a day. How can you think that something lasting and important could develop between us?”
His hands turned into fists.
Fear. The full-blown panic in her eyes finally gave him a clue.
She would push him away, she would not give their bond the opportunity to develop, to bind them together, to be the two parts of a whole that lifemates were.
Because of fucking fear.
He stepped up to her and kissed her with all the anger and hurt he carried inside him. For a second she hesitated then she threw herself into the kiss with the same fervor.
He tore his shirt off her and pressed her against the wall. “If there is no future for us, I better make the most of the present.” He bit her lower lip.
Instead of being cowered by his edge, his dominance, she rose to her toes and dragged his head down for another kiss. A kiss brimming with so much desperation it crowded his heart with fear.
He couldn’t lose her.
Duncan filled his hands with her overflowing curves, her round hips, her bountiful ass and her breasts. Her gorgeous, amazing breasts. He thumbed her nipples, raising them to awareness.
Then he could no longer resist and leaned down to pull one into his mouth. Her taste exploded through him. Her groan and the giving of her knees threw even more fire onto the already exploding supernova. He thrust a leg between her thighs as support, but when her juices marked his skin he had to grab the base of his cock to keep himself from coming too early.
But her arousal also heated his fury. She said they had no bond, but her body showed the complete opposite. If she didn’t want him, if their connection wasn’t as real to her as it was to him, she wouldn’t be this wet.
Or this desperate.
Duncan rubbed his knee against her moist pussy. Her head dropped back and her fingernails dug into his shoulders. He moved to the other breast, giving it the same thorough treatment as the first.
Back and forth he went, licking, nipping, sucking, venting his anger.
And his hurt.
By Jade, she may not know what a lifemate was or how fucking precious it was to find one, but she felt the bond as deeply as he did.
And she wouldn’t give him a chance.
With a growl Duncan pulled back. He draped one of her creamy thighs around his hips and lifted her by her gorgeous ass. “Wrap your legs around me.”
She threw her arms around his shoulders, eyes wide. “Duncan, you’ll hurt yourself, put me down. I’m too heavy.”
Another growl rolled through him. “You may be too heavy for some lily-livered Naema, but for me you are just right. Now wrap your fucking legs around my waist.”
Tanasha did.
He didn’t need to test the waters to ensure she was with him all the way. He knew.
Duncan plunged inside her. The top of his head nearly exploded. “Jade, you’re so tight, Nasha. Every inch of your pussy is milking my cock, is sucking me in.” He groaned and forced strength into his knees. Each thrust was pure torture and exalted bliss.
But he couldn’t go as hard or as deep as he wanted in this position.
He turned around, walked to the other side of the room and instructed the wall to cover itself with thick fur. Each step forced him deeper and deeper inside her. He locked his lips to hers, took in her groans, her moans, her whispers for more.
Once at the soft wall he tilted her back against it and set out to work through the agony and ecstasy that was loving Tanasha. He licked his finger and put it between them, the place where they were so intimately connected. Duncan rubbed it across her clit.
She arched her back and sucked him deeper inside.
He gently freed the little nub from its protective cover and pushed his cock inside her, raking against her clit.
Tanasha screamed.
He thrust again and again, each movement sliding him across the bundle of nerves, driving them higher and higher on their road to bliss.
“Please, Duncan, harder,” she whispered. “I need you deeper.”
The last bit of control exploded at her whispered words. He drove deep enough to bump her cervix, deep enough to feel as if he would always be a part of her. But still it wasn’t deep enough.
Duncan bit her lower lip, hard enough to draw blood.
Her glazed black eyes focused on him. She narrowed her gaze and clung to him with every push, every plunge.
He would not let her go, not let her escape their bond by closing her eyes. And she knew. Her nails dug into his back, her legs locked around his waist. He rode her deep and hard, but he never looked away.
And neither did she.
Her acquiescence calmed the wound she’d scraped raw. “You’re mine, Nasha. No matter who you are, where you are, you are mine.”
For a second she looked as if she was about to answer, but then her pussy clenched around him and she groaned.
Duncan used his power to stroke her hard nipples while he continued to hold her steady for each hard thrust.
She grew more vocal. Her nails dug deep enough into his back to draw blood.
He sped up, shortening his strokes, increasing the strength, the power, the need.
Tanasha’s eyes widened more. “Duncan. Jade, Duncan, you’re killing me. It’s too much.”
When she looked as if she would fold in on herself he nipped her lip again. “It’s never too much.” His finger returned to her clit, massaging, stroking, pushing her way past her comfort zone.
Blood trickled down his back from her scratches, but the small pain thrust him higher. Her pussy locked around his hard cock as if she never wanted to let him go. His balls drew up close to his body and he knew he didn’t have much longer.
But she still fought it.
“Let go, Nasha. Just let go.”
“I can’t, Duncan. It’s too much.”
His fangs wanted to drop, but she hadn’t given her consent. A blood exchange between lifemates was sacred. Instead he moved one of his hands slightly until he rimmed the little hole between her cheeks.
Color flushed her cheeks and she pushed closer to him. “Duncan!”
“I warned you about being naughty. You lied to me, saying you didn’t want me, that we were over. I warned you what would happen.” He bit her earlobe. “Shall I pull out of your sweet little cunt and push my fat cock into this little hole? It’ll be a tight fit, but it’ll be so good. You won’t know where pleasure starts and pain ends.”
Despite her wide eyes and the small shake of her head, her juices flooded around his cock. As had happened from his touch had last night. They would come back to this. Soon. But not now. Now he needed her to come.
He pushed one finger between her lips. Automatically she sucked it into the heat of her mouth.
Duncan groaned and nearly lost his rhythm. He gently pulled it out and placed it back between her cheeks. At once he pinched her nipples with his mind, thrust deep inside her and pushed his fingertip into the small hole.
That was enough.
Tanasha screamed and convulsed around him, milking his cock, throwing him over the threshold into the abyss. He bellowed his release, falling through infinity held together by the one short, round woman.
He removed his finger and sank against her, holding h
er as if by keeping his arms around her he could stop her from leaving.
Her head dropped against his chest.
They both panted. Duncan wanted only to sink to his knees and keep her fastened to him.
At least until he felt tears trickle against his chest. Every muscle in his body tensed. “Nasha, did I hurt you?”
She shook her head and locked her arms around him but didn’t look up.
He gathered what strength he had left and stumbled to the bed. “Nasha, what’s wrong? Was I too rough?”
Tanasha’s arms remained clenched around him but her shoulders now shook. She cried in earnest.
Terror raced through Duncan. He’d been too harsh, had pushed her too far.
He’d hurt her.
Sickness curled through his stomach.
He’d hurt his lifemate.
“Baby, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Tell me where it hurts, I’ll do everything in my power to make it better. Please, baby, what hurts?”
She just shook her head and continued to cling.
Totally at a loss, Duncan rolled to his side and held her, hands stroking up and down her back, giving her his strength and support. He murmured to her, apologizing over and over.
Moments that felt like an eternity later, her sobs died down. Her death grip around him loosened. Duncan took her chin between his fingers and made her look at him. “I am sorry, baby, so sorry. Can you forgive me?”
She shook her head, stopping his world.
“There’s nothing to forgive, Duncan. You didn’t hurt me.”
His heart beat again. He leaned down and gently kissed her. She didn’t pull back, but pressed closer.
Duncan wiped a tear off her cheek. “Why this? What happened, Nasha?”
Tanasha leaned into his touch, dropping her gaze from his.
He rained kisses all over her face. With a gentle finger under her chin he asked her to look him in the eyes. “Please, tell me what happened. What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing.” She stroked shaking fingers across his cheek. “It’s silly. Put it down to too much good sex and an overly emotional woman.”
Duncan carefully curled his arms around her and slid a leg between hers. “You better tell me or be prepared to lie here until you do. You’re by no means overly emotional. Let’s just say that my preferred response to mind-blowing sex does not involve tears.”
TangledHunger Page 9
