ARINA'S MATE (Shifters of the Bulgarian Bloodline Book 2)

by Dalia Wright

  Thaddeus laughed. “Why not?” he repeated.

  She looked down, embarrassed, confused, and becoming more and more aroused by his big hands on her small waist. He was holding her so close that she could feel him starting to press against her. Plainly, he had no trouble with the idea of taking her to bed before noon. “I...I don’t know...”

  Thad tilted Molly’s chin up. “If you really don’t want to, we won’t,” he said sincerely. “I can wait until nightfall.”

  “Kiss me again,” she said, a little shyly. “Maybe...in the bedroom?”

  He took her hand and they walked to their bedroom. It had been set up and ready for about a week now. She stopped beside the bed, looking up at him. He bent his head and kissed her again, lifting her up this time. She was more than a foot shorter than him and he loved the difference in their height. She tightened her arms around him as he kissed her breathless.

  When he dropped her to the bed, she was ready and willing. It took both of them some time to figure out all of the buttons and hooks and snaps for each other’s clothes, but the first time he cupped her breasts in his hands and she gasped, he knew he was going to be able to please her. When her hands skimmed over his chest and down, he caught his breath as well. The first time she brushed him, he closed his eyes.

  “Am I...is this right?” she asked. He’d grown bigger than he had that day in the hospital and she understood now that he’d been holding back as best he could.

  “Close your fingers around it,” he said roughly. “And then move up.”

  Molly did, feeling his rigid shaft pulse in her hand when she got to the crown. Thaddeus buried his face in her hair.

  “Now, back down,” he said. “Ah, God, that feels so good.”

  She stroked her thumb across the head when she pumped her fist back up and he went tense. When she pulled back to look at him, his eyes were closed and his brows were drawn. Almost as if he was in pain, but she knew that wasn’t the case.

  She leaned forward and began kissing his chest as she stroked his shaft. His hands swept down her back to cup her hips. She teased him, playing, learning the right way to touch him, until he groaned raggedly.

  “Molly, this is torture.”

  He’d never been with anyone; he’d told her that. Neither had she and now she found that she was nervous. With his leg as it was, she’d have to straddle him. The idea of being that exposed to him made her feel self conscious. Molly realized that she wasn’t quite ready yet. Especially seeing how well endowed her new husband was.

  Thaddeus pulled her close and kissed her, his tongue dancing with hers as his hands moved up her stomach lazily. He pinched her nipple and she nearly arched off of the bed, squealing against his mouth.

  “Was that too hard?” he asked. “I’m--”

  “No, please, do it again!” she gasped. Arousal like electric shock had flooded her at that simple squeeze of his fingertips.

  Thad ducked his head, rolling one of her eager nipples between his fingers while he sucked the other between his lips using his tongue to tease it until she cried out. He watched her clap her hand to her mouth to muffle the sound, but he tugged it away.

  “I want to hear you,” he said. “I’ve waited so long to give you pleasure, Molly.”

  She moaned as one of his hands slid down between her legs, sending tingles through every nerve in her body on the way down. When he cupped her, she froze up.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said, propping up on his elbow and looking at her. “Do you trust me?”

  Molly nodded, her blonde hair spilling across the pillow as he slowly began to rub her, tracing the lips of her pussy, pushing the tip of one finger just inside her. She felt herself growing wet. It would be much easier to take him now.

  Then a bolt of pleasure hit her and she arched up off of the bed. His rough thumb had found her clitoris and he’d begun rubbing in a tight circle. As he rubbed, he watched her breasts. Her nipples were still stiff, still damp from his mouth and he pointed up as she pressed her body down against his hand. He slowly began sliding his finger back into her channel as he rubbed her clit. She was so tight that he had no idea how he was going to get inside her without hurting her.

  This seemed like a good idea. She was steadily getting wetter and wetter. Her head tossed on the pillow, causing those lovely breasts to bounce and he felt himself jerk, beginning to throb, so hard that it was painful. When he’d managed to work one finger all the way inside her, he knew that he couldn’t wait any longer.

  Thad rolled over onto his back and pulled Molly on top of him. By this point, she was too aroused to care that she was fully exposed to him. He loved the shape of her body, her small, firm breasts and the flare of her hips from her trim waist. He gripped the base of his shaft with one hand and her hip with the other. His chest was covered in a fine sheen of sweat and he was nearly panting.

  “I need you, Molly.”

  She needed him too. Molly carefully lowered herself onto him, feeling him breech her. She bit her lower lip when he strained her body to its limits. Thaddeus choked back a groan when she stopped, getting used to him. His fists clenched on the sheets and he closed his eyes again, his brows drawn once more.

  Molly looked down at him, then looked at his straining shaft, buried half inside her now. He was an astoundingly sexy man with those broad shoulders and his flat stomach. Every part of him was mouthwateringly attractive. And he wanted her!

  His hands flew back to her hips when she flexed them, taking him an inch deeper. Then another inch, and another, and another. Finally, he was seated deep within her.

  His melted chocolate eyes met her wide hazel ones. His firm jaw was clenched with the effort not to move.

  “How does it feel?” he asked tightly.

  She flexed her hips, wringing a groan from him. “I think it’s going to be perfect. What about you? How does it feel for you?”

  He moved her up a few inches and then back down. “Like heaven,” he grated out. “Ah, Molly, you have to know that you’re perfect.”

  She smiled and braced her hands on his muscular chest, riding him slowly at first and then with more confidence. It didn’t hurt anymore. Rather, the opposite. She was getting closer and closer to a sensation she’d only had by herself before.

  If the expression on his face was any indication, he was getting closer too. So Molly rode him faster, feeling him thrust up to meet her, the two of them moving so hard that the bed creaked.

  “Harder,” she gasped, desperate to ease the tension that had built insider. “Harder, Thaddeus, please!”

  He tightened his grip on her hips and slammed her down onto him again and again. Suddenly her eyes flew open and met his. She looked shocked.

  “Oh!” she cried. “Oh, Thaddeus, yes!”

  He felt her get even tighter around him, clenching, clenching, as she called his name. That was all he could take. He’d never imagined anything like the tight, wet, heat that she’d shown him and he’d been at the edge of an orgasm since the first time she’d flexed her hips.

  He groaned as he began to spill inside her. She gasped and moved even faster.

  “I can feel you,” she said in amazement. “I can feel it. Oh, you feel so good!”

  Another wave of pleasure drowned the first and he groaned helplessly as she rode out both of their orgasms. This was nothing like spilling over his on fingers. Even heaven wasn’t the right word for the sensations she wrung from him.

  When she finally stopped, they were both panting. Her sweat slicked skin slid against his as she curled up against his side. He wrapped his arms around her, kissing her on top of the head.

  “I love you,” he murmured.

  “I love you too” she whispered, pulling the blankets over them as her eyes began to close in exhaustion.

  “Good night, Mrs. Bennett,” he said, a hint of teasing in his voice.

  “I believe that you mean good day,” Molly corrected with a tired grin.

  He kissed the top of her hea
d. “It has been that. And it’s only going to get better from here.”

  The war had taken half his leg, but it had given him a full heart for the first time in his twenty five years. Thaddeus pulled his wife a little closer, kissed her once more on her crown of fair hair, and considered it a fair trade.

  *** THE END ***

  Rich Love

  By: Stephanie Hunt

  Chapter One:

  “I thought I asked you to plant those last week.”

  Aiden listened to his mother’s voice transition from pleasant to a dangerous drawl that really brought out her Charleston accent. He couldn’t see her; she was in the front room and he was in the library, but he could imagine her face. The same one he’d seen when his grades weren’t A’s or when he’d let his tie hang a little askew. He straightened it reflexively as the gardener spoke.

  “Yes ma’am,” he said. “You did. And I told you that this soil won’t take them and that, even if it did, the sun and heat would kill them.”

  “The Parker family has a whole bed of them.”

  His mother sounded triumphant now, as if the gardener had been put so firmly in his place that no response was possible. Aiden heard her begin to walk away, her heels sharp on the hardwood.

  “In a raised bed, with special soil, in the shadiest corner of the yard. They won’t grow where you want them, in full sun in that side yard.”

  Aiden felt his eyebrows shoot up. Patrick Gilmore’s voice had remained respectful, but it had also been very firm. The staccato stab of the high heels stopped.

  “Maybe I’ll find a gardener who can,” Savannah Cross snapped.

  “That’s up to you, ma’am.” The low voice was still respectful. “But the most you’ll find is a gardener willing to give you a bed of dead flowers.”

  A long silence stretched out. Aiden bit his lower lip as a sudden desire to laugh rose in his throat.

  “Fine,” his mother said, biting off the word. “Then get something else in that bed. Right now!” She walked away, sighing loudly as if she’d wasted her time.

  “How hard can it be?”

  Aiden turned away from the window with a start. He’d forgotten that Victoria was there. Gorgeous Victoria Caine. She’d hardly looked away from the screen of her cell phone, where she was texting busily, no doubt arranging a night out with her bevy of friends. Everyone loved Victoria. She was spoiled by her father, careless with her money, and pretty enough to draw a crowd.

  He looked at her as she smirked at him, laughing at the gardener. He forced his mouth to tip into a smile as he walked over and sat down beside her. Her golden blonde head didn’t even reach his shoulder. In addition to being pretty, she was perfectly shaped, a petite hourglass. Men stopped and stared at her whenever they were out together. He thought briefly that he really couldn’t stand her.

  They’d been seeing each other for a few months, ever since his mother had introduced them at a charity event she’d been overseeing. Aiden thought back, but he really couldn’t remember what charity the event had been for. He doubted that his parents did either. It had been a flurry of catering and harassed maids for weeks up until the event and when it was over, his mother hadn’t even known how much money they’d raised.

  His father had, but all he’d said was that they’d spent twice that and that he hoped to God it could all be written off on their taxes.

  Aiden looked around the room. It was huge. Floor to ceiling bookshelves looked back at him, hundreds of volumes that no one ever touched except when the maids dusted. The big bay window let in the sunlight that poured over the beautiful garden that no one bothered to look at unless there was a party being hosted there. The whole house was like that. A pool no one swam in, a home gym no one touched, rooms and rooms of collectibles and art that no one even looked at.

  “What?” he asked, realizing that Victoria had spoken.

  She tossed her blonde hair over her shoulders and said, “Maybe I should just go home if you’re not going to pay attention to me.”

  The way you’ve been paying attention to me? With your eyes glued to your phone? He didn’t bother to speak up in his defense. Instead he tightened his arm around her and said, “I’m sorry, Victoria. I was in my own little world.”

  “I asked if you’d like to go out with me tonight,” she said, her tone still a little chilly. “But if you’d rather be in your own little world, maybe I’ll take someone else.”

  Aiden wasn’t stupid. His parents hadn’t had to spell out the reasons for their enthusiastic support of Victoria Caine. She could have been a known arsonist and they would have loved her just as much. The dollar signs dancing around her and her father were all they needed.

  The Cross family fortune had dwindled so much that fortune really wasn’t the right word for it. William Cross, Aiden’s father, had made a lot of investments that hadn’t really paid off, failing to realize that this wasn’t his father’s world anymore. He hadn’t wanted to invest in any of that “newfangled technology” or “wave of the future” stuff. His stubbornness had cost him millions. Which wouldn’t have been too painful if they weren’t spending those millions regularly in a desperate attempt to make people think they were still as wealthy as they’d been before.

  In other words, if this didn’t work out his parents might just murder him and claim the insurance money.

  Aiden turned on his most charming smile. He knew he was good looking and he looked rich and confident.

  “Come on, Victoria,” he said, letting his Charleston drawl come through. “You know I don’t want to sit around this place when I could be with you.”

  Mollified, she smiled back at him. “All right.”

  He put his fingers under her chin and tilted her lovely heart shaped face up, kissing her gently.

  She returned the kiss, but only for a moment. She pushed him back, giving him a coy smile. “You’ll mess up my lipstick.”

  He doubted it. That probably took some form of passion. Their kisses were chaste and brief enough for a church service greeting. He smiled again.

  “I’ll walk you out.”

  He couldn’t think of anything he wanted less than to spend an evening with her friends and their significant others, but what could he have done? His mother beamed at him as he walked Victoria to the door where their car was waiting to take her home. At least he was making someone happy.

  Chapter Two:

  Saige Gilmore looked up at the huge house. It was tall, white, and almost blindingly bright under the summer sun. There were two porches, one ground level and one on the upper level. Both were furnished with impeccable elegance. She glanced around for her father, but didn’t see him.

  He’d said he’d be waiting out front. She chewed her thumbnail, wondering if she should just go in. There was an iron gate with a fancy scrolled C at the top. The Cross family, she remembered. Her father had taken this job right before she’d headed off to college and, now that she was celebrating her graduation, she realized he’d been there for 4 years. He hadn’t really told her much about the place, or the people.

  She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. The gate was open. Her father wasn’t where he’d said he’d be. The hot June sun was on the verge of baking her brain. She went in.

  She was promptly nearly run down by an approaching car. It beeped at her and she put her hands into the pockets of her shorts to keep from making a rude gesture. She didn’t want to endanger her dad’s job by flipping the jerk of a driver off.

  Saige jogged toward the huge front steps and then realized that she was following the car. It parked at the steps and she skirted the bumper to go in as the driver got out. She’d just raised her hand to knock when the big red door opened. She nearly hit the man in the chest.

  “Sorry!” she said quickly, looking up, and up, at him.

  He was so tall! She wasn’t a short girl, but he had to be a foot taller than she was. He made the woman he was with look like a child. A particularly lovely child. The man wasn’t ba
d himself. His brown hair was just long enough to suggest that he needed a haircut, but his jaw line was closely shaved. His eyes were dark blue, like an ocean just before a storm, and there was a cleft in his chin. All in all, a pretty good looking guy.

  “It’s okay,” he said after a moment. “What can I do for you?”

  He had no idea who she was, and for a second he hadn’t cared. The woman on his porch was dressed casually, in shorts and a white cotton tee shirt. Her brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Her build was athletic, like a swimmer or a runner and those legs went on for miles. Her smile had been slightly embarrassed but totally genuine.

  “I’m Patrick’s daughter,” she said brightly, putting her hand out. “Saige. It’s nice to meet you...” she trailed off so that he could fill in his name.

  “Aiden,” he said, shaking her hand. He wondered who Patrick was. Aiden felt dazed, off balance.

  “The gardener’s daughter?” His mother’s voice asked from the hallway just behind him.

  “That’s right,” Saige said, stepping over so that she could see the speaker. “Do you know where he is?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  Aiden glanced at his mother’s face. She didn’t look pleased.

  “I assume he’s working,” she went on. “He hasn’t done much of that lately.”

  Saige frowned slightly. “Has he been sick?”

  Savannah smiled sarcastically. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  Victoria giggled. Aiden knew that there was only one way to get Saige out of the situation without his mother and his girlfriend ripping her to figurative shreds. He’d been an idiotic to look even mildly interested in her.

  Feigning indifference, he said, “I’m sure he’s around in the side yard, Mother. You did tell him he needed to get something done there today.” He pointed carelessly. “It’s over there. I’d show you, but I’ve got to get Victoria to her car.”