The second he was within a few feet of her, he reached for her.
But she was the one who grabbed hold of him.
Kissed him so hard he saw stars.
CHAPTER 8
The fact she was kissing a man who could shift into a wild animal, someone who wasn’t human like her, didn’t even cross her mind as Gabi seized Storm by his jumper, twisting the thick black wool into her fists. The fact that she was kissing a man who had taken her captive, a dangerous man she had witnessed fighting and killing, didn’t even register as Storm swept her up into his strong arms, banding them around her waist as he lifted her and started to kiss her back, claiming control of it.
All she knew was a desperate, burning need.
A need that refused to relent, kept driving her forwards, cranking ever tighter inside her until she was wild with it, lost all control and gave herself over to it.
Sweet God.
She couldn’t stop her hands from roaming over his powerful shoulders, or the groan that curled from her lips as she dropped them to his chest and felt hard muscles beneath her palms. She couldn’t stop herself from pushing back and seizing his sweater, pulling it off him so fast he staggered backwards and was forced to drop her as his back hit the door frame.
The low, oh-so-masculine groan that rumbled through his chest as she tossed his jumper aside and went to work on the next damned obstruction between her and her goal had the need cranking even tighter, had her trembling with anticipation, excitement that flooded her and had her tearing at his black t-shirt.
“Easy, Little Bird,” he rumbled, a slight chuckle in his voice, as if her desperation amused him.
Gabi raised her eyes to his, ready to berate him for teasing her.
But the way his eyes glowed gold stole her voice.
Together with the intensity of them.
It was as if she was staring into a mirror, seeing all the frantic need that was building inside her rising inside him too, pushing him to act.
But there was something else in his eyes too.
Fear.
It was barely a trickle, but it was there. He was nervous. Why? If anyone should be nervous, it should be her. She was swept up in the man who was holding her prisoner for God’s sake. A man who wasn’t human.
Yet neither of those things bothered her in the slightest.
She didn’t see a jailer before her.
Didn’t see a monster.
She saw Storm, gazing at her as if he would die if she didn’t keep touching him, keep kissing him, keep pushing him forwards.
She had accused him of running from her, and it had struck a nerve in him, had had him coming back to her. Why did he run from people?
Gabi pulled his t-shirt up and he raised his arms above his head as she revealed a torso packed with muscle, powerful and honed, deliciously tempting.
But the desire to run her hands over every inch of him, to savour the feel of his hard muscles beneath his soft golden skin, was overshadowed by another need as her eyes fell.
Landed on his right hip.
And the thick scar that ran across it, down into the waist of his black jeans.
Storm tossed his t-shirt and reached for her, but he froze as his eyes landed on her face and she knew why. Because she was looking at the scar that cut through the arch of muscle above his right hip, distorting it.
“Don’t,” he husked and caught her cheek in his palm, lifted her chin and her eyes away from his scar. He shook his head, his golden eyes serious, and pleading. His sandy eyebrows knitted hard above those eyes, his nostrils flaring as he stared down at her and his kiss-blushed lips flattening. “Just… don’t.”
He lowered his head, pressed his forehead to hers and said the one thing guaranteed to make her do as he asked, to push aside her curiosity and forget about it.
“Please?”
It came out strained, his deep voice trembling a touch.
Gabi nodded.
He slid his hand to her nape, pressed his thumb to her jaw and pushed her head up, and seized her lips in another mind-blowing kiss that made it easy for her to forget his scar. She sank into it, let him sweep her up again and lost herself in him.
He fisted the hem of her dark green t-shirt and she waited for him to tug it off her. When he didn’t, she reached down and pulled it up, broke the kiss and yanked it over her head. The feel of Storm’s eyes on her scalded her, had her heart pounding faster as she lowered her hands to her sides and let the t-shirt drop from her right one.
His golden eyes blazed in the low light as he raked them over her, lingering on her breasts. He bit his lower lip and shifted his hands to her stomach and pushed them up, teasing her skin with a light touch as he edged them towards her breasts. She trembled as he cupped them, brushing his thumbs over the white lace of her bra.
His throat worked on a hard swallow.
Before she could say anything, could ask what was going through his mind when he looked at her like that, in a way no other man had looked at her before—as if he needed her more than anything, might honestly die if he didn’t keep touching and kissing her—his mouth was on hers again, setting her back on fire.
She moaned into his mouth as he palmed her breasts, slid his arms around her back and fumbled with the fastenings of her bra. She sighed as they gave, as he pulled the garment down her arms and cast it aside, and moaned as his palms covered her breasts, teasing her nipples.
Gabi gave as good as she got, landing her hands on his chest and stroking them over the broad expanse of it, savouring the feel of his body as it cranked that need blazing in her blood even hotter, had her itching and restless with a need for more.
But she couldn’t bring herself to rush this moment.
It seemed Storm couldn’t either, because he swept her back up into his arms, so her breasts pressed against his chest, and kissed her again, deep and slow this time. She shuddered as he palmed her nape beneath her hair, a hot shiver tripping down her back and over her arms, making her nipples tighten and the apex of her thighs tingle.
He groaned as he stroked it, sending another wicked wave of shivers through her, and then another, until she was writhing in his arms and couldn’t stop herself from seizing his shoulders, raising herself up and looping her legs around his waist.
Storm growled and dropped his hands to her backside, clutched it hard as he kissed her deeper, his tongue tangling with hers. She pushed her fingers through his sandy hair, up to the top of his head, and smiled as she gripped the longer lengths and he grunted.
Snarled.
Her back hit the mattress, his weight pressing down on her in the most delicious way, and she moaned as he went to war on her, kissed her so deep and so hard she forgot her own name. She pressed her heels into his backside, spurring him on, and he growled again, rocked his hips forwards and ground against her. Damn, that had her hungry for more, had those tingles and that need flaring hotter, pushing her right to the edge.
Gabi slid her hands down his back, moaned at the feel of his muscles shifting in powerful waves beneath his skin as he rocked against her. She needed to feel them doing that when he was inside her, satisfying this bloody itch for him that had been building from the moment she had set eyes on him. She pushed her left hand beneath the waist of his jeans and moaned into his mouth as she clutched his backside.
Was every inch of this man made of steel?
She wasn’t sure she had ever felt a backside like his, and now she had felt it, she needed to see it.
Storm seemed happy to oblige.
He pushed off her, rising to his knees between hers, giving her a mouth-watering view of his chiselled abs and the flat slabs of his pectorals.
Only it wasn’t his trousers he targeted.
It was hers.
Impatience shot through her as he tackled her button and zipper, and it flashed across his face as he tugged her trousers down, as she lifted her feet to help him and he pulled them off and chucked them over his shoulder.
He
at bloomed between her thighs as he caught her ankles and stared down at her like a man starved, one who needed her more than anything. He slowed, bringing the raging boil in her blood down again as he slid his hands up her calves, as he gently coaxed her legs apart and gazed down at her while he skimmed his palms over the inside of her thighs, edging them lower, towards where she needed him.
She moaned, her hips jacking up off the bed at his first touch, an almost innocent brush of his fingers over her mound. His own groan joined it as he stroked her through her panties, his golden eyes brightening as his pupils dilated.
A shiver went through her.
A sensation that lit her up inside.
It was ridiculous, but she couldn’t shake it, or the devastating effect it had on her, the way it had her trembling with need, aching and hot for him, on the verge of begging him to touch her, to take her and sate the need he had created in her.
He was hunting her.
Storm loomed over her, pupils blown, still as a statue except for his hands as they caressed her inner thighs, slipped lower from time to time to brush across her mound, teasing her with a barely-there touch.
His eyes locked with hers the entire time.
Her breathing came quicker as she fell into them, as that sensation that he was hunting her grew stronger, making her aware of him on some base level where she wasn’t master. Rather than fearing him as he stared at her, a predator who wanted to devour her, she found herself reaching for him, stroking her palms up his forearms.
Luring him to her.
His hands dropped to her waist and she lowered her feet to the mattress and pushed her hips up as he tugged at her panties, slipped them down her legs and off her feet one by one.
He turned and tossed them with the rest of their clothes, and she parted her knees for him. When he twisted back towards her, he froze, his eyes on the apex of her thighs.
A low growl rumbled through his chest.
Gabi shrieked as he caught her hips and pushed her up the bed so quickly her hands flew above her head to brace for impact in case she collided with the headboard. That shriek became a cry of bliss as he dropped between her thighs and his tongue speared her folds, teasing her sensitive nub and sending stars shooting through her.
She clutched the pillows above her head and raised her hips, moaned as he stroked and swirled his tongue, hit every spot to perfection so she never had a moment to recover or fall, kept flying upwards into the stratosphere.
“Storm,” she murmured, squeezed her eyes shut and held on to the pillows for dear life as her body came alive, every stroke of his tongue over her flesh sending a wave of hot tingles spreading over her thighs.
Damn.
He gripped her thighs and his own moan rumbled through her as he suckled her nub, as he laved it and shifted lower and swirled his tongue around her entrance.
That moan became a low growl as he probed her.
She gasped as he suddenly rose off her, caught barely a flash of his rigid length as he tore his jeans open, popping all the buttons in one tug, and then moaned as he covered her with his big body and filled her in one thrust.
He buried his face in her neck, every inch of him tensed.
Gabi wasn’t sure she could function either.
She trembled at the feel of him inside her, stretching her, buried deep, joining them in a way that felt different to every man she had been with in the past. There was something about Storm, something that fired her up on a whole new level she had never realised existed, made everything feel so intense.
So perfect.
He pushed a little deeper and groaned against her neck, his breath hot on it. “Fuck, Gabi.”
She twined the fingers of her right hand in his hair, skimmed it down his neck and moaned as he tensed when she brushed his nape, his cock pushing deeper. He shook as she swept her fingers across his shoulder, nuzzled her neck and chuckled.
“I should move… right… but I’m not sure I can convince my body to do it.” He peppered her throat with kisses. “Just being inside you feels so fucking good.”
She wasn’t going to complain, because she was right there with him, savoured the way he filled her up and how good it felt to be joined with him, as if he had just completed her.
Gabi stroked her hand back towards his neck, caught his jaw in both hands and made him lift his head. When he looked at her, she captured his lips and swallowed his moan. He shifted, stole her breath as he seized control of the kiss and drove into her, setting a slow steady pace that felt far too intimate.
Had her falling.
She tried to keep the fire, stoked it in an effort to make this about a physical need rather than an emotional one, but damn him, he made it impossible as he filled her with long, unhurried, deep strokes of his cock as he kissed her softly, almost reverently.
She kissed him harder, tangling her tongue with his in the hope it would stir the fire in him again, would make him wild with need once more and bring this back to being purely an outpouring of the desire that had been mounting between them since they had met.
Storm groaned and clutched her shoulders, curling his hands over them. He kissed her deeper as he drove into her, filling her with every delicious thrust. A trickle of panic went through her as she found herself falling into the easy rhythm with him, as it filled her with warmth that felt dangerous to her, placed her on uneven ground where she was liable to fall in a way that might prove fatal to her heart.
Desperate to make him wild again, she did the one thing that had catapulted him into action before.
She stroked the nape of his neck with her fingers.
Storm growled, dropped one hand to her hip and gripped it hard as he drove into her. She moaned, fire sweeping through her as he kissed her hard and thrust deeper, faster, igniting the inferno in her blood again. He lifted her hip and she arched her back, thrusting her breasts against his chest as tingles swept through her with each meeting of their hips, every deep plunge of his cock and brush of his pelvis across her sensitive flesh.
It still wasn’t enough.
She pushed at his shoulder, once, twice, a harder third time, and managed to roll with him. He groaned and shuddered as he landed on his back and she rose off him, riding his cock faster, moaning as she planted her hands on his stomach and slid them up to his chest. He seized her hips, moved her on him as she quickened their pace, his eyes locked on her face as she stared down at him, lost herself in the sensations building inside her like a wave that would crash over her at any moment and sweep her away.
“Storm,” she husked and dug her nails into his pectorals, anchored herself to him as she moved faster, bouncing on his cock, loving the way it stretched her every time she plunged down onto it and how he would lift his hips, pushing up to meet her.
She trembled as the pressure mounted, shook as he began thrusting into her as he pressed her down onto him and withdrew.
This was the wildness she had needed. This madness.
Not the other sort—the emotional insanity that terrified her in a way.
She couldn’t fall for him.
Wouldn’t.
She told herself that on repeat as she rode his cock, as he stared up at her with his eyes blazing gold and every inch of him taut, every powerful muscle straining as she pushed them both closer to the edge.
She told herself it even as she feared it was too late to save herself.
Storm’s savage expression softened as she faltered, as if he had picked up her shifting emotions, and he wanted to do something. Reassure her? She almost laughed at that. She wasn’t sure Storm knew how to be gentle.
She wasn’t sure it was wise of her to want to know if he could be that way with her.
She squeezed her eyes shut and focused on the feeling building inside her, a physical need that she could control, one she could satisfy.
She wasn’t going to travel down any other path with Storm.
Because she felt sure he would break her heart.
He groaned, the sound low and pure male, and lifted her as he curled his hips, filling her and making her forget her worries, bringing her back to the moment and away from her fears. She opened her eyes again, focused on his as she moved on him, as that pressure that had threatened to fade kept building inside her, and she edged closer to release.
Storm’s golden eyes held hers, grew hooded as she rode him harder, faster, lost control and herself with it. He tipped his head back and thrust deeper, his pace quickening to surpass hers, driving her wild as tingles swept through her every time he filled her, every time his body brushed her bead.
She threw her head back and cried out as those tingles suddenly detonated, exploding in a haze of stars inside her, and her entire body quivered, her breath stuttering from her lips as the world fell away and only feeling remained, a bliss so powerful she could only surrender to it.
Storm growled and brought her down hard on his cock, and she trembled in time with him as he found release with her, his seed scalding her as he spent himself, cock throbbing and sending waves of tingles spreading through her with each one.
She froze in place as she let it all crash over her, as she clung to Storm and basked in the heat suffusing every inch of her.
When he finally relaxed beneath her, she sagged, her breath leaving her on a sigh.
Before she could open her eyes and say something to ease the awkwardness building inside her, Storm had his hand on her nape and had pulled her down to him. She settled her cheek on his chest, listening to his heart pounding discordantly to hers as he held her, drumming against her palms where they pressed to his pectorals.
As the heat began to dissipate, cold swept in on its heels.
She felt too comfortable.
Normally she wasn’t one for cuddling after sex, had little interest in that sort of thing, and she had the feeling Storm was the same way.
But she couldn’t bring herself to move.
And the way his hand tensed against her nape said he couldn’t bring himself to release her.
They were on dangerous ground.
Dangerous new ground.
It drummed in her blood, in her heart—her soul.
Captured by her Cougar (Cougar Creek Mates Shifter Romance Series Book 2) Page 7
