Nina stopped to take it all in. It was a good feeling to see all the people who’d once suffered so severely smiling and laughing as they enjoyed the music and the company of their friends. But the smile she wore slowly dropped from her face when she spied Lethal in the middle of it. Standing with Brutal and Law as he watched the dancing going on around him. All she wanted to do was knock his drink out of his hand and punch him. She started forward and had actually set foot on the lush, green grass of the park when she suddenly jerked to a stop.
Athena had walked out of the crowd and right up to Lethal. She leaned close to Lethal and spoke directly in his ear. Then she placed her hand on Lethal’s chest.
Nina couldn’t see Lethal's reaction because his head was lowered to listen to what Athena was telling him. But her blood was boiling. “Don’t do it,” Nina said aloud. “Just… don’t do it.” Nina stood where she was watching, begging the fates to not let happen what she thought she was seeing happen.
But then Athena stepped closer to Lethal and ran her hand down his body, rubbing his cock through his pants. “Oh, fuck no!” Nina exclaimed and dropped her pack where she was, breaking into a full out run straight at Athena and Lethal. She watched as Athena reached up and took hold of Lethal’s head, bringing his face to hers, and then Nina’s world came to a stop.
The music stopped playing, the voices, the laughter, all of it went silent. Everything she saw, everything she thought, everything she felt was in slow motion as she ran full speed at Athena. At the last moment, she launched herself into the air and swung her lower body out in front of her so her feet would connect with Athena’s knees.
Lethal glanced up and saw her in the air with Athena as her target. His eyes widened and Athena started to turn around to see what Lethal was looking at, but it was too late. Nina had already made contact, kicking Athena’s knees out from beneath her.
Athena gave a cry of pain and went to the ground, with Nina landing on top of her, attacking her with everything she’d been taught over the last few months. As they rolled on the ground, Nina reached into the sheath she wore at her side and extracted her hunting knife, pressing the blade against Athena’s throat hard enough to draw blood.
Athena froze in the midst of battle, even raising her hands up and away from where they’d just been beating at Nina in self-defense. She’d never thought Nina would go this far, but at the moment Nina could very easily slit her throat. “Nina, it’s not what you think,” Athena said.
“Shut the fuck up!” Nina screeched. “Do not ever fucking touch my male! Do. Not. Touch. Him! I will cut your fucking throat!” Nina screamed.
“Okay,” Athena answered. “Okay.”
“Nina, honey, get off her. It’s okay, nothing was going to happen. When I saw you coming, I was already telling her to back off before I hit her myself,” Lethal said, worried that Nina would in fact cut Athena’s throat.
Nina glared at Athena and allowed herself to press the knife just a touch more into Athena’s flesh. A trickle of blood ran from where the knife was pressed, and Nina smiled coldly when Athena gave a squeak of fear. “You’ve been warned. Next time I’ll fucking kill you,” Nina said. She spat on the ground and got to her feet with her knife still drawn, kicking the hell out of Athena’s hip for good measure as she stepped away from her. Then she turned to face Lethal.
He was standing right behind her watching every move she made. She slipped her knife into her sheath, then took the one step toward Lethal. He smiled as she came to him, proud that she’d just claimed him in front of everyone. But she surprised him. Instead of happily claiming her male, she reared back and punched him square in the jaw just as hard she could, so hard in fact that her feet came up off the ground as she threw her body weight into the punch.
Lethal’s head snapped back and his hand came up to hold his jaw where she’d punched him. His eyes were black when he glared at her.
“Looked to me like you were all too fucking happy to have her attention. Dick!” she said, glaring right back at him. “You didn’t even make an attempt to stop her from touching you!” She held his gaze until she decided if she didn’t leave, she’d hit him again, so she stepped over Athena where she still lay with one of the medics examining her knee, and started for the house. But she wasn’t finished making her displeasure known. “You ever fucking leave me again without a goodbye after promising you’ll never leave, I’ll break your fucking knee, too,” she promised Lethal without even turning around.
Lethal stood where he was and watched her go. The moment the front door was slammed behind her so hard it might have damaged the hinges, he looked over at Scorn who was standing just a few feet away and laughing his ass off. “I guess she’s got it in her!” Scorn managed to get out between guffaws.
“You have created a monster,” Brutal said with a grin on his face.
Lethal looked at Brutal and slowly his own smile began to grow. He gave a single nod of agreement before turning his attention to Athena who was just being helped off the ground. “I told you not to fucking touch me,” he said.
“Yeah, you did,” Athena answered, gritting her teeth when the medic pressed on the outside of her knee.
Lethal watched the pain flit across Athena’s face. “You good?” he asked.
Athena chuckled. “She surprised me. She’s one of us now. I’ll be proud to have her on my squad any time she’s ready.”
“Over my dead fucking body. She’s part of our squad,” Lethal said.
“Yeah, she is!” Scorn agreed.
“Tell her I said she did good,” Athena said as the medics started to help her hobble toward the clinic to be treated.
“Fuck no!” Lethal said. “I’m not mentioning you to her. You tell her,” he said, rubbing his jaw.
Athena was still chuckling as the crowd parted for her to pass, and Lethal went over to where Nina had dropped her pack. He picked it up and started for the house. He had a female to claim. She’d just made it known she considered him hers, so there was no reason to wait any longer. She was finally his.
“Alright, that’s over. Let’s get back to the party, people. Where’s the music?” Law called out.
Chapter 51
Lethal opened the front door and looked around the living room. The house was silent except for the sound of the water from the shower in his bedroom. He leaned over and placed Nina’s pack beside the front door and walked through the house to his bedroom. His heart pounded in his chest. Though he’d had her many times, and from the moment he’d seen her, considered her his, he’d not asked her to accept him. He’d demanded it, but he’d never asked it. Today was the turning point in their relationship. She’d already called him hers, in front of all of Alliance no less. But sometimes things were said in the heat of the moment that maybe you hadn’t meant to admit out loud. And he was about to call her on it. She could refuse him, and if she did, he had no idea how he’d handle it. He needed her like he needed the air he breathed, and until now, he’d been able to control it, but no more. This day would tell how their future would play out.
He walked into the bedroom, and saw her clothes dropped on the floor where she must have peeled them off. The bathroom door was closed and he could still hear the shower through it. Shoring up his courage in the face of the tiny she-devil that was no doubt standing beneath a hot shower, he reached out and opened the door.
“Nina?” he growled from just on the other side of the shower curtain.
She didn’t answer.
“We need to talk,” Lethal said, his voice still growly from all that had happened and the thought of having her naked body beneath him again.
“Go away,” she ordered.
Though she couldn’t see it, Lethal shook his head. Then he reached up and snatched the shower curtain from the rings holding it in place.
Nina didn’t flinch at all. She very calmly turned to look at him as she rinsed soap off her body. “I’m not fixing that,” she said, daring him to contradict her.
&nbs
p; “What was that all about?” he said.
“She pissed me off,” Nina answered, turning off the water and reaching for a towel. She stepped out onto the bathmat while drying her body and pretending he was just part of the fixtures.
“It’s more than that. You called me your male,” he grumbled.
“I say a lot of things when I’m angry,” Nina snapped, walking past him and into the bedroom to get dressed.
Lethal followed her. “It was more than that, Nina. You almost cut her fucking throat!” Lethal shouted.
Nina ignored him as she pulled open a drawer and chose a pair of panties.
“You broke her fucking knee, you threatened to break mine. Why, Nina? Why?” he shouted, pushing her relentlessly to speak to him.
It worked. Nina spun on him and stalked toward him as she threw the pair of panties she held in her hand to the floor. “You want to know why? Because she has no right to fucking touch you! None! I was locked in that fucking cell with you. Me! Not her! And it was me you chose for yours, not the others! It was me that spent every fucking waking minute praying for you to come for me, and it’s me that will touch you. Nobody else! No fucking body else! Do you understand me? Is there a part of that you don’t understand? You said I was yours! You said it, all those fucking years ago you said it! You called yourself my male! You’d walk into the cell block and bellow ‘Female, your male needs!’ and I’d respond every single time!” she screamed at him as with every sentence she backed him across the bedroom. “I earned the right to be at your side. Not her! And you let her touch you!” Nina shrieked, throwing herself toward Lethal with her fist drawn to punch him again.
But this time he was prepared. He caught her as her body made contact with his and pulled her lower body in close to his stomach, causing her legs to wrap around him while he held her fist in his grip with one hand while supporting her body against him with the other. His eyes were still black as he watched her.
“She did touch me. But I bent her wrist back so far it almost broke. I forced her to stop just before you got there.”
“Why?” Nina asked, her chest heaving with her emotions.
“Because no one but my female touches me,” he answered.
Nina stared into his eyes. She didn’t have the luxury of a heightened sense of smell like he did. She had no way of knowing the arousal that rode him so hard made it all he could do to control himself. All she knew was that the black of his eyes hinted at how close he was to actually losing control. She didn’t know why. It could have been anger at her striking him, could have been the fact that she embarrassed him in front of all of Alliance by attacking him. Could have been any number of things. So she didn’t react, instead, she stayed where she was, just inches above him looking down into his face as he held her against him.
“Do it, Nina,” Lethal growled.
Nina watched him, but didn’t make a move.
“You’ve just proven it’s in you. Do it,” he instructed, lifting his chin up and away from her to expose his neck. “Take it. Take what you want, what you need. Claim your male, female,” he snarled.
Nina heard his words and the blood started rushing in her ears. His words, his need, put her right back where she’d first accepted his claim. Only this was better. She had a choice this time. Nina leaned forward and used her free hand to slide into the hair at the base of his skull, then she wrapped her hand around it holding him still.
“Yesss!” he hissed.
Nina forced his face to her and she stared into his eyes. She was no longer thinking, simply acting on instinct when she slowly leaned toward his mouth and licked his lips.
Lethal moaned and tried to catch her mouth for a deep kiss.
Instead she pulled away at the same time she used her grip on his hair to force his head back away from her.
Lethal let out a rumble, his chest vibrating against her body where he held her to him.
Before he realized what she was doing, she leaned in to him again, sucked his lower lip into her mouth and bit down just hard enough to draw blood.
Lethal growled at her bite, but he didn’t pull away.
Nina licked the blood away from the small wound she’d made before leaning back to look into his eyes again. “You’re mine,” she said. “You are my male.”
Lethal smiled at her, his pointed canines on display. “Your male needs, female,” he said on a snarl.
“I’ll give you what you need,” she said. “Because I want to, not because I have to.”
Lethal gave her a single nod. “As it should be,” he said as he gently placed her on her feet.
Nina held his gaze as she went to her knees while at the same time unbuckling his belt.
Lethal watched her as she unfastened his belt and pants, and worked them down his thighs. He heard her sharp intake of breath when she first saw him after freeing his rock-hard cock.
Nina wrapped her hand around his base and looked up at him. “Mine,” she said. It was not a question.
“Yours,” he echoed.
Nina leaned forward and ran her tongue up the length of his shaft. The familiar taste of her male bringing her a sense of peace she didn’t realize she’d missed until just this second. She closed her eyes, getting lost in the taste of him, the feel of him, the scent that permeated him every time she touched him. Eagerly she took him into her mouth, using her hands and the movement of her head, lips, tongue and teeth to bring him right to the edge of completion. She let her mouth slide off his swollen head and swiped the precum from the head of his cock. “Only mine!” she growled at him.
Lethal was nearly crazed with the need to touch her, taste her, fuck her. It was his chest that heaved now as his female, the only one he’d touched since claiming her in captivity knelt before him and willingly took him into her mouth. Suddenly he knew that fact would matter to her. “There has been no other since you shared my cell. I told you — only my female touches me,” his gruff voice growled at her.
Nina smiled up at him and slid her mouth down over his cock again, quickly bringing him to orgasm.
Lethal snarled when her hot, wet mouth engulfed his cock again. And when she rushed him into an orgasm, he held her head still with both hands as he thrust into her mouth and shot down her throat with a roar.
Nina swallowed everything he gave her while his thrusts gradually slowed. She let him fall from her mouth and swiped at him with her tongue again, then she was suddenly up off the floor and in his arms.
“Mine!” he growled, his voice deep and broken as he carried her toward the bed. He dropped her to the bed and literally tore his shirt off his body before roaring his frustration that he couldn’t kick out of his jeans because his boots were still on. The more he tried to force it, the more frustrated he got.
Nina slid off the bed and to the floor at his feet. She untied first one boot, then the other and pulled them off him before being yanked up off the floor again and deposited on the bed once more as he finally managed to kick his jeans and socks that were caught up in them to the floor.
Nina watched as Lethal stalked toward her, grabbed her legs and pulled her to the edge of the bed. “Open,” he ordered.
Nina let her legs fall apart. He wasted no time, he buried his face between her legs, feasting on her like a dying man. Nina cried out, lowering her hands to hold his head to her. He licked and nipped her into a frenzy, only stopping when she was almost ready to come.
“No!” Nina cried when he pulled his mouth off her body.
Lethal was poised above her, smiling down at her, and she realized he’d stopped just before she came because she’d done the same thing to him.
“Please,” she begged.
Lethal placed a knee on the bed against her ass, and used it to nudge her further up the bed, then placed the other knee on the bed and pushed her forward again. When he was satisfied with where she lay, he adjusted his hips to allow his heavy, swollen cock to ride along her slit. He rubbed himself back and forth, slowly coating himself in
her juices while he watched her squirm beneath him, trying to adjust herself to have his cock slide over her clit.
“You need?” he rumbled at her.
“Yes!” she answered.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
“I need you,” she said.
Lethal shook his head. “Tell me!” he growled.
Nina realized what he wanted to hear. Her eyes hooded with arousal when she realized he was giving her control though he was the more dominant of the two. Something about that had her desire for him rising even more than she’d thought possible. “Male,” she said, her voice strained and needy, “your female needs.”
Lethal pulled back his hips and slammed into her.
Nina screamed, and Lethal snarled, but neither one of them stopped grasping at the other. He fucked her harder and faster than he ever had, and Nina met him thrust for thrust. They pounded into each so hard the bed was driven into the sheetrock so many times, it actually cracked the surface of the wall. And when finally Lethal realized his female was nearing completion, he looked down at her breast where she still wore his mark and ran his fingers across it.
“Bite me,” she panted.
Lethal raised his eyes to hers, while still pounding into her, refusing to break the frenzied rhythm they’d fallen into.
“Bite me again, mark me as yours because I choose it this time,” she said between pants.
Lethal adjusted his grip on her thigh and picked up the pace fucking her faster and harder. When she screamed his name and her body seized in ecstasy, he slammed into her again and again as he roared his satisfaction, leaned over her, curling his upper body to be able to reach the spot he’d decided to mark her again. He sank his fangs into her breast, perfectly placed at the top of her cleavage so that it would easily show every day even with most clothing she wore. She’d have no choice but to wear his mark proudly for all the world to see and respect, for the rest of their lives.
Beginnings Page 44
