A Taste of Honey (9 page)

The simplicity of his admission raced down her spine and warmed her from the inside. “I want you too.”

Chapter 5

He reached below, his knuckles brushing the inside of her thigh, and then the tip of his cock met her pussy.

Her channel tightened so instantly and dramatically that for a moment she could nearly feel the hot rain of water coursing down her back, could almost hear the shower flow and feel the slippery tub floor beneath her feet as pleasure gripped her.

 She tightened her hold on Ronnie’s shoulder as he guided his stiff flesh against her soft folds, tracing the seam of her sex with the rounded tip of his erection and letting it glide against the slickness that dampened her skin. Another bolt of sensation struck her core as she remembered the caress and press of his tongue, how he’d pushed it inside her until she’d felt as if something deep within her had shattered, leaving everything she’d thought she’d known about pleasure in little pieces.

He pushed past her folds and the hard rod he guided inside her was a marked, if not unexpected, contrast to his tongue. Where his tongue had softened and conformed to her body, his cock remained hard, parting her flesh and forcing it to yield to his. A moan escaped her as he pushed the head of it inside her.

“Are you all right?” He brushed her jaw with his fingertips again, pushing away a strand of hair that might not have even been there for all she cared – the way her pussy was already stretching to accommodate him demanded all of her attention.

“Yes,” she breathed, gripping his shoulder a little more tightly.

He exhaled too, as if relieved by her answer, and rocked his hips.

He might have intended for the motion to be gentle, and in comparison to what she imagined his powerful body being capable of, it was, but there was no taking the edge off of the feeling of being opened and filled for the first time. For a moment she held her breath and then she released it in a rush, raking her fingernails across his shoulders. He was so deep inside her, hard where she was so soft and steady where she was throbbing, aching. It hurt in a way that was primal and even satisfying. Releasing a soft moan, she met his eyes.

Then he pushed deeper and she realized that he hadn’t gone all the way during the first stroke – not even close.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked when she gasped, arching a little against him because she couldn’t help it.

“I’m sure.” She didn’t have to stop to think about it. The pain took her breath away but so did the feeling and sheer exhilaration of being filled by him.

He thrust, gently, until his groin was pressed flush against hers, his cock buried to the root inside her. “Ahh, Violet.” His breath rushed hot against her forehead and sent a few strands of her hair streaming. The slight pant that affected his breathing for a few short seconds was the only wolf-like thing she’d ever observed about him. “It feels so good.”

There was as much tension in his voice as there was in his muscles, which were hard as a rock beneath the hand she kept on his shoulder, her nails anchoring her touch to him. She laid her other hand on his back, flattening her palm over the firm plane of it and letting her fingers curl.

 It was a good thing he’d given her all of his length, because her pussy throbbed around his shaft, stretched tight, and it just didn’t feel like it would’ve been possible for her body to accommodate any more. He filled all of her – not just her body, but every corner of her mind, too. As he rocked his hips, pulling back and burying himself inside her again, her every thought was held captive by him – the way he moved, the way he breathed, the way his pupils had dilated, causing his eyes to appear darker, and the way his cock stretched her, making her pussy yield to him all over again.

He settled into a rhythm that was slow but just hard enough to take her breath away. Each stroke brought another surge of dull pain, but he pressed his lips against hers and kissed her so deeply that eventually, she stopped noticing. By the time their lips parted, the pain was faint and pleasure dominated.

 She breathed a sigh that was born as much from bliss as relief. Each thrust was still just as deep, just as filling, but now that the worst of the pain was past, the best aspects of those sensations were intensified. Still, she clung to him with her nails denting his skin. It hadn’t really been the pain that had made her want to do so in the first place, but the passion he stirred inside her as he drove her down into the mattress, and that was still there.

When he’d made love to her with his mouth in the shower, a delicious sort of tension had mounted inside of her, intensifying and expanding until she’d climaxed. Now, with pain almost gone, it began again. She dug her nails a little deeper into his skin and he groaned, rocking his hips a little more quickly, sending pussy-tightening bolts of sensation through her with each stroke. As the mattress shook beneath them, she took an extra-deep breath of his scent and pressed her lips against his neck, letting the heat of his skin sizzle across hers.

Coming with him inside her was different than the first climax he’d pushed her to. When her channel tightened it clenched around the hard length of his shaft and the feeling of being wrapped so tightly around him took her breath away. Each of his thrusts sent her a little higher until a gasp – or maybe it was more of a shout – escaped her, followed by several more.

As pleasure swept through her in waves, driven by his motions, she was vaguely aware that she’d raked her nails from his shoulders to the middle of his back. She arched against him and drew a deep breath. As his scent rushed into her lungs, the intensity began to ebb.

She never sank all the way back down against the mattress; Ronnie had gathered her in his arms and held her tight as a last frisson of ecstasy shot through her, making her tremble against him. He covered her mouth with his and kissed her deeply as he thrust harder – his hardest yet. Her climax had left her spent, and yet, she was more sensitive than ever in its wake. She gasped and their lips came apart as he drove his cock into her, his brow furrowing as he made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a growl.

The muscles in his back shifted and flexed smoothly beneath her palms and his skin radiated heat. She clung to him, little thrills going through her every time he thrust or moaned or even drew a breath. It all felt so good – every motion and sound sent pleasure rippling through her. The sensations weren’t as strong as when she’d climaxed, but they were breathtaking nonetheless.

He came with a ragged moan that reminded her of his wilder side. It was her first time being with anybody, but it was impossible to imagine that anyone other than a bear shifter could’ve made such a deep, feral sound. And she didn’t need to be a bear to appreciate it – hearing him lose himself made her pussy tighten around his cock.

She gasped, startled, as he held her tight and poured himself into her. Several powerful strokes later he stopped, sighing as he bowed his head, still inside her, his cock throbbing in the tight embrace of her aching pussy.

“Ronnie…” It wasn’t really a question, or the beginning of anything – she just wanted to say his name as she finally removed a hand from his back and swept her fingers across his forehead, where a light sheen of sweat had appeared. His hair was way too short to fall into his eyes, but she brushed the short black fringe of it aside anyway, surprised at its softness.

He withdrew slowly from her body, pulling his hips back and then settling on the mattress beside her. For a moment they lay shoulder-to-shoulder and hip-to-hip, then he wrapped his arms around her again and rolled onto his back, lying with her sprawled on top of his chest.

His skin was hot and his cock still hard, damp against her thigh. His heart beat against her breast as he kissed her, mumbling something under his breath about honey as their lips met. “My mate,” he said when their lips parted.

His words stirred something within her. As she breathed his scent seemed even sweeter, even richer. “Yeah,” she said, lowering her head and letting it rest on his chest so that his collarbone pressed against her temple. “That’s me.” After what they’d just done, she felt as if she were glowing, both inside and out. Did he feel the same sense of wonder she did every time she heard or thought of the word ‘mate’ now?

Autumn sunlight filtered through the bedroom windows, casting the room in a golden tint that intensified the air of coziness the log walls and simple earth-toned decorations had already given it. The room was like Ronnie – solid, definitely on the rugged side and irresistibly inviting. “What next?” she asked eventually, her thoughts wandering back to the day’s previous events. She could have lain there on his chest until nightfall, content to let her pulse and breathing slow to match his, but she had a pack and he had a tribe.

“Time for me to get to the bottom of this trouble with the trigger-happy tourist,” he said, his voice edged with concern. “Then, if everything’s safe, the tribe has a gathering planned for this evening.”

“Oh.” Disappointment tinged her newfound bliss. She didn’t want to leave his side – not ever, really, and certainly not today. “Is it something you plan to attend?”

“Yeah. As the war chief, it’s my responsibility to attend these sorts of things.”

“War chief?” Violet lifted her head, surprise and even a little alarm zinging through her veins, zapping her out of her post-coital state of lazy contentment.

His dark brows rose a fraction of an inch. “You didn’t know?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t even know your community – your tribe –
had
a war chief.”

“It’s not as dramatic as it sounds. Basically, it means I’m in charge of security and all matters related to safety. Generations ago, the Cherokee people who originally inhabited these mountains utilized a governmental system that included war chiefs. My role stems from that tradition.”

“So you’re in charge of the entire tribe?” Which would make him the equivalent of an alpha wolf. How could she not have known?

“No. At least, not unless something dangerous or potentially dangerous is going on. The Roaring Water Tribe has two chiefs – a peace chief and a war chief. The peace chief – my grandfather, Charles – handles the day-to-day affairs of our community. I only step up when there’s a threat to the tribe. And believe it or not, dangerous things don’t happen all that often in these mountains, despite the impression your first few weeks here must have given you.”

“Oh.” Well, that made her feel a little less ridiculous. Still, she wanted to know everything about him – the big things and the little things … everything. “Does your tribe uphold a lot of Cherokee traditions?” If that was the case, he’d have a lot to fill her in on. Of course she’d been aware of his Native American heritage, but she knew little about how the original inhabitants of the Great Smoky Mountains had lived.

“As bear shifters, our way of life has always been somewhat different, even before Europeans arrived here and things began to change drastically. We’ve maintained our presence in these mountains through it all, though our numbers have varied throughout history, and have developed our own culture that’s unique in many aspects. It’s probably not as unfamiliar to you as you might imagine – after all, you’re a shifter, and that’s at the core of our lifestyle.”

Despite her lack of knowledge when it came to the Cherokee people’s history, Violet did know that most had been driven from their homes and had had to travel the infamous Trail of Tears. But despite all that, Ronnie was here, generations later, and the Great Smoky Mountains were truly in his blood. It must have seemed personal to him that a bear had been shot and killed, even if it hadn’t been a shifter. “Still, you’ll have to fill me in on the tribe’s traditions as we go along. I want to know all about … well, everything.”

“I’ll have to take you to Roaring Fork soon then.”

“What’s Roaring Fork?”

“It’s a stream. Didn’t you wonder what the Roaring Water Tribe was named after?” A small, teasing smile tugged at one corner of Ronnie’s mouth.

“I think I was too busy wondering about you to give the tribe’s name a great deal of thought. Where’s this Roaring Fork, then?”

“On national park land, not far from here. We’ll have to go on a rainy day.”

“Why?”

“When it rains, the water rises and the sound of it rushing echoes off the surrounding mountain ridges and makes a sound like a bear roaring. Hence why it’s our tribe’s namesake. You’ll like it – there’s a waterfall.”

“Okay, it’s a date. We’ll go next time it rains.” Violet smiled at the notion of hiking to the tribe’s namesake stream and a waterfall with Ronnie. “As for today, you have to take care of the tribe, right?”

“Until I can confirm that the tribe isn’t in danger.”

“Am I keeping you?”

He smoothed a hand over the small of her back and let it settle on one half of her bottom, cupping one ass cheek and squeezing lightly. “No. I have a few things to do before I can give the tribe permission to continue with plans for the gathering, but I have time for my mate too. I’m going to keep you by my side as I figure this out, and if it’s safe, we can go to the gathering.”

“We? I didn’t know you wanted me to come. I mean, since I’m not a part of the tribe.” Not only was she not a member of the tribe, but she wasn’t a bear either.