“Still.” I stepped out of the room. “Here, I’m going to give you this one instead.” And so, my original noble intentions overturned, I led her to my room. Even though it was nothing special, when I opened the door to my room, I felt immeasurably more comfortable with leading her there. My bed was big and comfortable; the sheets were Egyptian cotton and thankfully clean. The room only had the faintest scent of my aftershave, otherwise nothing.
“Shower’s through there, and there should be clean towels.” I gestured to the other side of the room.
She turned to me. “But this is your room, Jackson. And truly, I do not care where I sleep.” Her big brown eyes begged me to believe her, but there was no way in hell I was leaving her in that musty room.
Probably because I was a damn fool, I reached up and ran my thumb over her chin wiping the little bit of tomato sauce that was still there.
Her eyes widened, so I held up the thumb. “Sauce.”
She looked down at my thumb, and a spark of something lit in her eyes—mischief, maybe. Going to her toes, she surprised me by taking my thumb into her mouth and sucking the sauce off.
Holy fuck.
“Tell me why you think I’m your mate,” she said as her big dark eyes looked intently into mine.
“What do you want to know?” I asked.
“I want to know so many things, Jackson Hunter,” she whispered, her voice husky.
Pulling the door closed behind me, I regarded her slowly, lazily, taking my time. I knew this wasn’t something I was ever going to truly get to have, and I wanted to memorize every single thing about this moment.
“Well,” I said as I brushed the dark curls of hair away from the side of her neck, “If we were going to become mates, first I would worship every inch of your body.” I ran my fingers slowly down the side of her arm, wrapping it around her hip. Grabbing the other side of her hip, I pulled her body into mine until she was flush against me. “And then I would take you very slowly, and gently for the first time.” I rocked against her, my length hardening between us.
She gasped ever so quietly as that same, amazing sweet smell filled the air.
“And then right as you came apart around me, a mate bond would set in, connecting us forever.”
Her breaths came in and out shakily as her hands wrapped around the back of my neck. Her lips pressed against my ear. “Do it,” she whispered.
Fuck.
I grabbed her under her thigh, scooping her up onto me. She wrapped around me automatically, molding her soft body around my hardness. I carried her over to the bed, laying us both down on the soft down duvet.
She leaned back to look at me, and man, did I want to take her up on her words. But unfortunately, I just wasn’t that big of an asshole. Crouched over a goddess with her legs still wrapped around me, I sighed and said, “Baby, I can’t. Not today.”
“Oh,” she said as heat licked up her cheeks. “Oh, of course.”
When her legs started to fall away, I quickly said, "I don’t want you to leave either, I like you here.”
A small grin crept across her lips. “Are you sure you know what you like, hunter?”
“Yes, damn sure, and that’s you. But at the same time, you’ve only known me for thirty-six hours. And, second, I’m not belittling you, but you’re a virgin—and that’s obviously been very important to you for a long time. And, last, I’m getting the feeling that you’re a bit impulsive.” I forced myself to pull away from her and regard her seriously. “Artemis, I might be dust in the wind to you, but I’ve been waiting to find you for centuries. I don’t want you to make some impulsive decision to mate with me that you’ll regret for eternity. I want real—or I want nothing at all.” The words were a blatant lie; truthfully, I wanted her any way I could get her. But I wasn’t that far gone to take her with full knowledge that she was likely to regret sleeping with me.
Her hand came up to cup my cheek. “Jackson, even if it were only one night, I would never regret it. In the past thousand years, I cannot remember a single moment of importance. But in the last thirty-six hours, as you called it, I remember every single moment. And, yes, my virginity was important—but my position and oaths have become obsolete because time moved on without me. I don’t want to go back to my old existence of just living, with never being alive.” Reaching up, she kissed me once more.
For a few seconds, I forgot everything. All I could think about was the feel of the woman who was wrapped around me, beneath my lips and against my body. Her hands came up, running under my shirt, up and down my abs and then up my back. Only half aware of what I was doing, I began rubbing my length through my jeans against her.
She pulled away just slightly and whispered against my lips, “I was scared when I felt such intense pleasure before, but—I do want to feel it with you. I want you to mate with me.”
I grinned into her mouth and pulled away a little. “Artemis, you don’t need to be my mate for that. And I don’t need to take your virginity for that either.”
Her eyes widened, and her lips parted a little, in clear interest.
Rocking back on my knees, I brought my hands to either side of her dress and inched it up her sides. “Just to warn you, I’m not going to take your virginity tonight—or anytime soon.” My hands moved slowly, slower than I wanted them to, but I wanted to give her as much time as possible to object.
She didn’t, and I confirmed something I’d been suspecting all day. She wore nothing under her dress. Bunching up the material slowly, I ran my hands up her thighs and over her stomach, before pulling it up over her full breasts and taut pink nipples. All the while she watched me, her breaths coming in broken and fast. She raised her hands up, and I lifted the dress off of her.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
“I thought you said no fuck,” she said before biting her lip.
“Yeah,” I whispered slowly. I was seriously regretting that now. I was so hard that it hurt, but I was going to hold to my words. “You’re just perfect to me.”
Truer words I had never spoken.
Leaning in, I regained her mouth. I kissed her hard, harder than I’d planned to. She responded by squeezing her legs around me, grinding up and down. My eyes rolled back, and between the taste of her on my lips and the feel of her against me, I nearly came right there in my pants. I seriously had to rein it in; this wasn’t about me. As much as I didn’t want to, I broke the kiss and reached back behind me to break her legs’ hold.
Artemis lay under me, her lips swollen and her gaze begging me to rock her world.
I ran my hands down her legs to her ankles, pulling them apart enough to give me room. Looking into her eyes, I whispered, “If you’re not comfortable with anything, just say stop, and I will right away.”
After a second, she nodded.
“Good,” I said, and then I leaned down and took one of her perfect pink nipples and sucked it into my mouth.
She gasped and whimpered. As I sucked harder, running my tongue in circles, her hips rose, seeking mine. But I wasn’t going to let that happen, I placed one hand on her pelvis and pressed her hips into the bed.
She whimpered as I pulled my head back, looking at me so vulnerably it was almost terrifying coming from such an unstoppable goddess. Her eyes begged me, and I obliged her by taking her second nipple into my mouth.
Her hips fought against the pressure of my hand, seeking some touch between her thighs, and I decided to end her suffering. I lifted my other hand to press into her center, and I used my thumb to run circles over her sweet spot.
She started to come apart then, whimpering and moaning. Fuck, she was responsive. If we ever did have sex, I knew it would be unlike anything I had ever experienced in the centuries I’d been alive.
Trailing kisses down her stomach, I replaced my thumb with my tongue.
Her moans deepened, and her body arched. I knew she was getting close and as she approached the edge, I felt my own pleasure building. Speeding up my thrusts with my tongue,
I pressed my erection into the bed and thrust against it once, twice. And then I was going over the edge and taking her with me. I felt her climax release as my seed spilled out into my pants.
Damn it, that wasn’t what I planned, but as I blinked the stars from my eyes, I couldn’t regret it either. I crawled up next to Artemis, and she moaned and stretched languidly.
Burying my face into her hair and kissing her neck, I pulled her naked body into my clothed one. “Damn, you’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen in my life. Watching you climax made me do it, too, and shit, it felt amazing.”
Leaning in, she kissed me with lazy, satisfied kisses. “I could never even imagine regretting that. I want you to mate with me.”
“Stop tempting me.” I nipped at her shoulder, making her gasp and press into me further. “But in all seriousness, Artemis, mating is more than just sex. It’s the werewolf equivalent of getting married. I don’t think I could stand mating you only for you to take off right after the hunt. Let’s just see how things go. If you want to stick around, I want you around. No matter what, we both need time to decide whether or not it’s right.”
“Mortal, all I have ever had is time, it has brought me little,” she said the words through a yawn as she curled her naked body against me. “Will you do that again tomorrow, or teach me other things that are not sex, but feel like it?”
“Definitely.” I’d do it again tonight if she weren’t already half asleep in my arms. As she fell asleep against me, I started to fear that having thirty-six hours with a true mate that I would never be able to have, may turn out to be so much worse than never having had her in my life at all.
Chapter Thirteen
Artemis
I woke naked, pressed to a hard, muscular chest. Jackson had taken off his shirt and changed into soft, crisscrossed-patterned pants. He smelled clean, and I rubbed my cheek up and down the ridges of his abs.
His wide arm snaked down, squeezing around my waist. “Luca, what the hell do you think you’re doing in my room?” As he growled the question, his chest rumbled against my cheek. And then his words registered.
I sat up and turned, ready to unleash my ire on any mortal who dared spy on me in my nakedness. But instead of seeing some voyeur, I found the hulking figure of Jackson’s brother, framed in the doorway and turned away from us.
“Both Becca and Guy are gone; they must have snuck off in the night. Their bikes aren’t in the garage; they must have pushed them out to the road—none of us heard them leave.”
“Fuck!” Jackson jumped out of bed and around me. “They’re going after Sammie.” Pacing to the side of the room, he yanked open a drawer to pull out a shirt.
“Go get everyone ready; we leave in five.”
I jumped to my feet, standing on the mattress. “It is better if only I go after the lion. Even if you all attack her at once, she will prevail. I need only someone to deliver me to the site. She has few vulnerabilities, and the more of you there are, the harder it will be to make the needed shot.”
Jackson turned around slowly to look up at me. “Baby, I’d rather you stay here.”
I glared. “Jackson Hunter, you will respect me as a goddess and a warrior, or you will never have me as a woman.”
“I respect you; it’s not about your ability. It’s just that my wolf will be so focused on protecting you that I won’t be able to do what I have to do to save my sister—”
“She’s right. We need her, Hunter,” Luca said from the door, still facing away from us. “Every time one of us goes up against that thing we die. And, she’s what that thing wants—”
“Shut up, Luca. Get out of here, and get everyone ready.”
He listened to Jackson, closing the door behind him.
“What did he mean by that?"
Crossing over to the bed, Jackson stepped up right before me, his gaze pleading. “Last night . . . we got a note from the lion. She offered to trade our submissive wolves for you.”
I drew away from him. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I know. But, I’m telling you now, and—Damn it, I don’t want to take you there.”
“But you will,” I said.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
“I’ve battled my whole life against being belittled and disparaged—considered naive and childlike.” It cost me to expose just that much vulnerability. My whole life, I could never show any glimmer of weakness to anyone—save my brother—the moment I did, women and men would assume I was less capable. I wanted to admit to Jackson that I didn’t know anything about his world; I wanted to ask a thousand questions and satisfy my every curiosity. But I could never let myself, and it was exhausting. When so many men half as capable as I inherited stone pedestals, I had to battle my way to the top of a dais of sand, and it constantly crumbled away. This was why I went into my forest one day and never left again.
“Artemis, I’m not doing that—I don’t think that. The truth is, until two days ago, I always had absolute control of the wolf side of me. He’s only been motivated by two instincts, to rule and to kill, and both of those he does with perfect calm. That is until you stepped in here—the moment you arrived, he was fighting me for control every step of the way. Consciously, I know you don’t need to be protected—that you’re a damn immortal goddess—but he’s not listening to reason. When I’m with you, protecting you will always be my first instinct, whether I like it or not. I have to go after my sister, I have to protect my wolves—and I’m terrified I can’t do either if all I can think about is protecting you when you don’t even need to be protected.”
Reaching forward, I ran my fingers through his short dark hair, scratching along his scalp. “Hunter, her golden coat will be impenetrable. The only way known to kill a Nemean Lion is to shoot straight into her mouth just as she lunges forward to attack. Can you make that shot?”
His eyes squeezed shut even tighter, and he blew out a breath. “No, and even if she wasn’t out there somewhere, Becca probably couldn’t either—not like you could.” Reaching down, he grabbed my chiton and handed it to me.
Twenty minutes later, we were descending back toward that strange building in Jackson’s truck. The city looked very different in the first light of day when its lights were lit but demising under the onslaught of the rising sun. Fewer vehicles blocked our way, and that was a good thing because Jackson and Luca drove like harpies fleeing the underworld.
Not wanting to have to battle over something so trivial at a time like this, I clicked in my seat belt the moment I entered the truck. It pressed on my shoulder, constantly reminding me that my movements were restricted, but I did my best to ignore it.
As Jackson drove, he descended further and further into that state I saw yesterday—cold, removed, intent. I’d never needed to go into a mindset to hunt, hunting was who I always was, but I recognized what he was doing now. He was letting his wolf side take over and steeling himself for the kill.
Our vehicle squealed as we took the turn onto the street where the building Guy was supposed to meet the lion sat centrally. Three buildings away, a sound whispered into my mind. It wasn’t like any animal that had ever communicated to me, it spoke in no dialect I’d ever learned—and no interpretation filled my mind. And then another sound joined it, a strange, disjointed mess of sounds.
Finally, true words mixed with the disjointed sounds, but they blended in a slurred litany. ‘Out. Hungry. Sleep. Hide. Humans. Hungry.’
I pressed my fingers into my forehead, but as we approached, the sounds only grew, overwhelming my mind. Mostly, it was nonsense, very like ravings. But animals didn’t rave; it was humans I associated with that.
We spun up a ramp and into a building, but I had a hard time sorting out where we were and what we were doing. There were so many voices now, hundreds warring for dominance in my mind.
The floor above ours wasn’t complete, and as we spun around it I knew there was some warning I needed to give, but I couldn’t form words in my mind, so crowded
it was with sounds. From the story above, a massive gold body flew down and onto us. We spun, the world blearing around us as the windshield shattered with an earsplitting boom.
The seatbelt slammed into me, and I felt my ribs and clavicle shatter at a thousand points. My mind went black with pain but none of that blocked out the deafening disjointed sounds in my mind.
We screeched to a halt, and the giant golden body on top of our vehicle rolled away, giving me a full view of the Nemean Lion.
She was as tall and long as Jackson’s vehicle, much larger than Jackson and his brothers were in werewolf form. Leaning her head in close, she stared straight at me, unmoving.
I pressed my fingers into the sides of my head, knowing I needed to act but not able to think enough to do it.
“Artemis!” Jackson yelled. My seat belt flew off of me, and he grabbed me, pulling me out of his open door. The great lion only watched us, its nose at the level of our heads.
But the voices in my head would not release me, and I fell to my knees as tears splashed down my face.
With a screech of wheels, the van sped past us and drove into the lion’s side, crumpling in on itself. Behind it ran four wolves that at once fell upon the lion’s head as it hit the concrete. Sparks glinted off of her golden coat as they tried to bite her, but their teeth only encountered metal.
She shook them off easily and got back to her feet. Lunging down, she grabbed up the largest one among them in her great maw and tossed him across the room as if he weighed nothing at all.
The familiar touch of my bow pressed to my side, and I glanced up to find Jackson, holding my bow out to me. “Artemis, please. We need you!”
I wanted to reach for it; I tried to, but only found myself blinking up at him.
He set my bow beside me and quickly undressed. Within seconds he had transformed into a wolf. A sixth werewolf emerged from the crumpled van to join the others. They worked in synchronized movements, a deadly fighting team that followed each other’s signals intuitively. And they could not manage a single blow against her.
The Virgin Goddess and the Alpha Page 12
