by Selena Scott
She handed him half a peeled orange and they ate in silence. After a minute, she rose up and set the tray on the floor. She turned back to him, a dark, contemplative look in her eye. He tried not to fidget as she studied him.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s wrong. That’s not what I want to do to you.”
“Hmm?”
She started to crawl across the bed to him. “I don’t want to hate-fuck you.”
She was in his lap then, rearing up over him, speaking down to him, her lips a half an inch from him. She smelled like oranges.
“Oh yeah?” His breath was in his throat, warring for space with his heart.
“Quill,” she whispered. “I don’t hate you.”
Later, he’d reflect on how sad a state of affairs it was that that was all it took to have him melting into a puddle for this woman. Such a tepid declaration. And yet it was probably the sweetest, most welcome words he’d ever heard from a woman.
“I should probably talk you out of this, shouldn’t I?” he murmured, scratching at the back of his head.
“Take off your underwear,” she demanded.
He laughed and let her topple him backward. But when she moved to straddle him, he rolled them and laid his weight out over top of her. “Dawn, are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.”
He searched her gaze and found not even a hint of hesitation. He had no idea what was making her want him like this, but he didn’t have the juice to talk her out of it. He was waltzing toward his probable death in just a few days. This would be his last chance at human intimacy. And his only chance at it with Dawn. Who, let’s face it, was the only woman he’d ever had this feeling for. This feeling, whatever it was, that made his stomach go tight and his breath go loose and his hand tremble when he tangled it in her hair.
“Because,” he said, wetting his lips, “fair warning, but I’m not the easiest guy to sleep with.”
“What do you mean?”
He searched her eyes again. “I mean that I can be intense, Dawn. And I’ve wanted you for a long, long time at this point. I don’t know what you and Lover Boy had going, but I can promise you that I’m a different sort of lover than he is. Are you ready for that?”
She was nodding her head yes before he even finished asking the question. “Quill. Stop talking.”
Something flashed across her expression and it reminded him of the wolf who lived within her. She was known to be quiet, sure, but once you got to know her, there was a fierceness that defined her. An instinctual confidence that was surprising only because she didn’t always lead with it.
Quill pinned one of her hands to the bed. With the other, he took her cheek against his palm and leaned down to speak against her mouth. “You know how to hide in plain sight, don’t you.”
Her body moved in a wave, down to her hips, which jutted up to press into him, made him grunt. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you give off this sweet, little, innocent vibe. But you’re about to wreck me, aren’t you.”
She planted the flat of her foot against his knee and kicked his supporting leg out from under him, rolling them over and letting her hair fall over one eye. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He would have laughed but his arms and legs were still heavy from the tranquilizer and he wasn’t about to waste energy on anything that wasn’t having sex. Because for some reason, the universe had decided that he deserved to have this gorgeously warm, pouty-lipped, raspy-voiced slice of heaven in his lap. And he was not going to give the universe the opportunity to second-guess itself.
He reared up and pulled her down on top of him. Her body was a wave against him and he gave back the same pushing pull. They melted against each other, their mouths open against one another, him biting against her collarbone, her eyes blind as she gasped and shivered. He threaded their fingers, got a thigh between her legs, and cursed when she twisted her hand free and grabbed at the waistband of his briefs.
She got them pulled a few inches down, baring his hips and happy trail and the base of his dick before he’d had enough. He pushed her back on the bed, panting hard, stripped her shirt off in one smooth motion, and tossed it over his shoulder. Her stretchy pants came next, joining her shirt in oblivion. And then there she was in a sports bra and plain, cotton underwear. He wanted to lap her up like cream.
Her body was a collection of pale, graceful curves. He pinned her hands again and dropped his hips to hers, kissing up her neck, making her gasp his name, her head thrown back.
“Yes,” he growled, energy surging through him like gasoline burning through an engine. Hearing her call his name while he had her flavor on his tongue was more than he’d ever dared hope for. More than he’d ever believed he deserved.
One of his hands slicked down her body and her skin was heated silk. He couldn’t stop touching her. She arched into his touch, shivered when his thumb traced a circle over her hipbone. Gasping when he took a handful of her ass. Yelping when he brushed the backs of his knuckles over her armpit. She tried to wiggle away from his touch but he merely growled and laced their fingers again.
He took deep drinks of her mouth. He was unleashed and he knew it, but there was nothing for him to do in the face of this newfound, terrifying freedom. All he could do was drown in it. Her tongue chased his and again she twisted a hand free to shove at his waistband. He reached down too and together, they shoved his briefs to mid-thigh, his dick heavy between his legs. He braced on his elbows and ducked his head, couldn’t look away from the sight of his cock against her soft thigh, against the plush curve of her stomach. Everywhere he dragged himself, he painted her in stripes of precome.
He lifted the seam of her underwear cutting across her hip and slid his dick against her there, letting the seam come down and trap him against her.
“Fuck.” Her fingernails cut into his shoulders and to his surprise, a slow tremble started up in his arms.
He reared back from her, sitting on his heels. Grabbing her around the backs of her knees, he slid her suddenly toward him, spreading her legs, opening her up. He pressed his cock into the warm, wet fabric between her legs and had to close his eyes for a second, just to better experience the moment.
He opened his eyes as she pulled back from him, scrambling up, grabbing the base of his cock, and leaning forward.
“Dawn,” he choked as she open-mouth kissed the head, sucking him deeper into her mouth. His hands gripped his hair hard, yanking on the roots.
She pulled off of him, bracing herself back on the bed with one hand and leaving the other wrapped around his base. Her lips were swollen and that freaking hair was over one eye again. He felt like screaming, like running flat out for as long and far as he could, like he’d breathed up all the available oxygen and now all that there was left to do was say his prayers and expire.
“I’m not an expert at this,” she whispered, dragging her fist up and down as she spoke.
“You’re—oh fuck—you’re doing just fine.”
She studied his face for a moment and, apparently observing his state of utter wreckage, let her face sink into a satisfied smirk. She bent forward and took him into her mouth again. This time, he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. His fingers found her shoulders, then the back of her neck. He held her there while he traced the outline of her lips with his thumb.
She suddenly looked up, pinning him with her eyes, and he nearly came right then and there.
It was too much, it was all too much. His hands were still trembling. Christ, she could probably feel it. He’d never felt like this before. He no doubt had more sexual experience than she did, but she was stripping him bare. He felt brand-new. Like a fumbling kid. This wasn’t just some random hookup. This was Dawn. This was Dawn.
The woman who’d destroyed the life he’d so carefully built for himself after the camps. The woman he’d already decided he was ready to sacrifice his life for.
She took him even deeper,
watching him with those eyes that saw so much, and he broke.
He pulled back from her and toppled her back, flipping her over so that she lay on her stomach.
There, that was better. This way she couldn’t read every vulnerable emotion that flitted across his face. This way he wouldn’t have to concentrate on hiding anything from her. She wouldn’t see it anyways.
He told himself that if she was facing the bed, it was less personal. He told himself that this way he could concentrate on the curve of her ass, the slide of her hair against her shoulders, the dip of her waist. He wouldn’t have to think about the woman who inhabited this body so gracefully.
But if that were true, he likely would have suited up and pushed inside. Instead, he found himself getting lost in the shifting continent of her shoulder blade. He kissed down the back of her arm, into the shadow of her elbow. His lips found her spine, biting at the seam of her bra, letting it snap lightly against her skin. She gasped and the jig was up. He couldn’t fool himself anymore. This woman was not interchangeable with anyone else. She was gasping his name in that voice of hers. The voice that just wrecked him. And this, lying across her while he kissed at her lower back, was more intimate than any sex he’d had with any other woman.
Even with her facing away from him, he was baring everything to her, telling her everything with each swipe of his tongue against her skin.
He’d wanted her for months. She was beautiful and interesting and captivating. She was a puzzle he’d never solve and he liked it that way. Also, her ass was testing the limits of her underwear. She was perfection. Sent to this green earth to torture him.
He went back on his knees again and slipped his fingers into the waistband of her underwear. “Yes?” he asked, his voice like sandpaper.
“God, yes,” she gasped, flattening her cheek against the bed, her fingers twisting in the blankets.
He slicked her underwear off, tossing them away as if they’d never existed. His eyes bottomed out on the rosy, slick place between her legs.
Jeezusssss, she was just so… “Juicy,” he muttered, leaning down and giving one of her ass cheeks a bite.
She jolted and gasped and laughed, pushing back toward him.
On his knees still, his cock hard against his stomach, briefs halfway down his thighs, his mouth open and panting, he stared down at that ass as she pushed back again, toward him, tempting him.
His palm cracked down over one cheek, smoothing away the sting, turning her gasp into a moan. She glared at him over her shoulder, her eyes lit with lust, her bottom lip between her teeth. “You trying to fight?”
He spared her a quick smile, took her by the hips, and flipped her back over onto her back. “Nah,” he said, flattening himself against the bed and lowering his mouth between her legs, his eyes holding hers. “I’m trying to make you beg for it.”
“Quill!” she shouted, her back arching off the bed as his mouth closed over her. He intended to play, to languish in her. But as soon as he got his first taste, he found himself as desperate for her orgasm as she was. He sucked on her clit, his tongue working in light, urgent circles. She was a string pulled tight and then even tighter when he worked his middle and ring fingers deep inside her, petting her from the inside.
She was completely silent when she came, it was just the tremble of her thighs at his ears, the rhythmic pulsing of her pussy, and then her hand on his forehead, bluntly pushing him away that told him she’d come.
“Too. Sensitive,” she gasped, her body trembling with aftershocks. He huffed air against her inner thigh, kissing down toward her knee.
He sat up, gently yanking her down toward him again so that he was kneeling over her, her body spread open and bared to him.
She breathed hard, her eyes lit and burning, her arms flung over her head. Her hair was a dark splash all around her. Without breaking eye contact, he took the base of his dick in one hand and traced her seam with the head. “I’m clean.”
“Me too.” Her words were a breathy plea.
“You gonna let me in like this?” he asked, drawing another line through her wet heat. The head of his cock pressed in half an inch. “You gonna let me in raw?”
“Yeah. Yes. Yes. Please-yes.” Her knees spread even wider and kneeling between her legs, Quill hitched one of her knees over his hip.
He eased into her, giving it to her nice and slow. He wasn’t a small man and he watched in fascination as her mouth fell open, her head rocking back and forth on the bed as she struggled to take him. But she didn’t break eye contact. When he had only an inch left to give her, he couldn’t help but kick his hips forward and hold himself inside her, as deep as she could take him, as deep as he could go.
She wasn’t silent this time, but she wasn’t loud either. The soft, breathless noise she made as she took him inside had Quill slamming his eyes closed for a moment. He tipped his head back, eyes closed, mouth slack, his hands opening and closing around her knees. He dropped his head down and finally got that eyeful he hadn’t been sure he could handle. She was splayed and lovely, her head tipped to one side, as if she, too, was scared of the intensity between them.
She’d been so confident, so aggressive, so sure, but when she turned to look up at him now, her eyes were bright with emotion, softness. He immediately bent forward, covering her, his arms sliding around her back, his face nuzzling against hers. Her legs clamped high around his hips and he grunted as the move pulled him even deeper. He started up a rhythm, slow but demanding.
Quill couldn’t help but slide his mouth against hers. He wanted nothing more than to swallow her air. Their fingers found one another again and laced. He held her hands against the bed as he ground himself into her. She started bucking her hips underneath him, taking him deep but also working herself up and down against his pubic bone, searching for friction. After a moment, he just held still.
“That’s right. Just use me,” he whispered. “Use me to get off. Anything you want. Take it. Just take it.”
He couldn’t decide whether to watch where their bodies were joined or to look in her eyes.
Her hand was warm and firm on his cheek as she guided his lips to hers. He could have died in her mouth. He realized, as she opened herself to him, dug her heels into his back, licked against his tongue, that he called it taking, but really it was giving. She was giving him everything.
He rocked his hips against her, dropping his forehead to the mattress over her shoulder. He was gasping for air, rutting against her. Wrecked and wreckage. The air was closing in on him, the room was too hot, all he could see was the dark behind his eyelids, all he could taste was her, all he could hear was his blood racing through his veins.
“Hey,” she whispered, her hands suddenly gentle on his back, her lips at his ear. “Hey.”
When he didn’t turn, didn’t stop, didn’t catch his breath, she planted a hand on his shoulder and shoved. He let her turn him onto his side, both of them panting for air.
Her eyes were the only thing he could see; it burned to look. They disconnected and lay on their sides, desire chasing itself through his veins.
“This is where I want to be right now,” she whispered. “You know that, right?”
“Dawn,” he rasped.
“I’m serious. Even as screwed up as this whole situation is, this is exactly what I want.” She lifted her hand and pressed it to his cheek, his forehead, his hair, his shoulder. “Is this where you want to be?”
“Nowhere else,” he choked out.
“Good. Then be here with me. Just you and me.”
And he understood what she was telling him. There was no room for their pasts here. No room for their demons. There was no world outside of that door. It was just them, right here.
She pushed him onto his back and slid down his shaft, hissing, her teeth catching on her lip. And this time he was completely with her.
His fingers gripped her hips before sliding up her spine. He knifed upward and caught her mouth in a kiss. He caught he
r rhythm and rode her from below, her body in a wave, her face tipped toward the ceiling.
She whispered his name while his lips found the heartbeat in her chest and his life was complete.
He’d never given much thought to when he might die, considering himself to have already cheated death in the camps. But right now, he knew he could go tomorrow and he’d have no regrets. This was easily the best moment of his life.
He braced her and tipped them so that she was on her back again. This time his hands were threaded into her hair, his mouth against hers, their heartbeats smashed together.
The ecstasy was almost too potent. Too close. He refused to go without her and pulled back just enough to press a thumb between them. He pushed deep and held still, held her eyes, worked her patiently while he took drugging sips from her mouth.
When she tensed, her eyes going blurry, her hands tightening hard at his back, he gave in and cut himself loose. He was unmoored, a ship lost at sea, spinning into a storm, never going home. And he didn’t care, he didn’t care, he didn’t care. He was never going back. That much he knew. He was never going back.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jesse needed a break. This was… a lot of socializing for him. Usually he was pretty much a lone wolf. In a manner of speaking. Because in reality, he was actually a lone polar bear. Either way, he hadn’t done this much talking in years. It was overwhelming.
He closed his eyes for a second, raked a big hand over his face, and took a deep breath. Unfortunately, when he opened his eyes, the huge group of people all staring at him and awaiting his answer were still present and accounted for.
Why, oh, why had he opened his big mouth again? Oh. Yeah. Because there were lives on the line here. The girl’s, Dawn. And probably the guy’s, Quill.
It was apparently not a popular opinion to care about the fate of this dude, Quill, but Jesse couldn’t help himself. He didn’t turn his back on other shifters, no matter how shitty they were.
