Alaskan Fire (56 page)

“Somehow,” she said softly, “I
don’t think you’re talking about marriage.”

Jack winced.  “Uh, yeah, uh…”  It
was hard to ignore the hum of potential between them, the waiting for that
thunderclap, that surge of energy that would change everything.  Tentatively
meeting her orange-on-ruby eyes, he managed, “It’s…a connection…between
lovers.  A dragon forged the first path, when I was young, and I’ve been unable
to lock that part of me down ever since.  It’s…uh…been wanting to connect with
you ever since you stepped on my land.  You’re really…uh…ripe for it. 
Basically, I let that bond form and
boom. 
You’re mine.  For good.  I’ve
had to avoid you to keep it from happening.”  Catching the sharpening in her
gaze, he winced and dropped his head.  “Sorry.”

She gave him a long, considering
look.  “Is it safe?” she finally asked.

Jack, thinking she was going to
demand what the hell he was thinking, a hairy little wereverine thinking he
could claim a phoenix, was caught off guard.  “
Safe
?” he sputtered. 
“It’s
wonderful
…”

“Wonderful how?”  She was still
naked beneath him, still pinned to the bed, but she had all the poise and rapt
attention as a realtor negotiating a land sale, and it made him nervous as all
Hell.

Jack cleared his throat
uncomfortably.  “It, uh, opens us to each other.  Stuff is shared that can’t be
shared otherwise.  Feelings.  Uh.  Pleasure…”

She raised a single fiery eyebrow
at him.  “
Pleasure
?”

He bristled at the sarcasm in her
voice.  “The alternative, missy, is I pack up my stuff and leave.  I hang
around, I’m gonna end up doing it on accident, and it’s
not
reversible. 
Get me?  I make you mine, you’re
mine
.  There’s no going back.  I make
that connection, you can tell me to fuck off ‘til you’re blue in the face, and
I won’t budge a goddamn inch ‘cause it won’t
let
me.  I made my
claim
.”

She gave him a long, hard look,
and he saw the debate in her eyes.  Finally, she said, “You like tall chicks?”

Jack blushed.  “Might.”

“You like
this
tall
chick?”

Ducking his head, Jack muttered, “Already
told ya I did.  Long time ago.”

“Okay,” Blaze said.

Jack waited for her to finish her
sentence.

Then, as Blaze just peered up at
him, a slow smile working over her face, Jack squinted at her.  Remembering the
last time they’d had this conversation, he said, “Okay what?”

“Okay, take me,” Blaze said.  Her
gaze was smoky, full of sexual heat.  “Yes.  Mate me, claim me, whatever you
want to do with me.  Do it.”

Jack felt his heart start to
hammer violently in his chest, the undeniable desire in her eyes making his
raging hardon so painful that he had to ease the pressure between them.  He
couldn’t believe it.  He’d been ready to pack his things and head to some other
part of Alaska, unable to withstand watching some other man take his place, and
here she was
accepting
him…

All he could manage was, “Why?”

Blaze kissed his thick forearm
where it passed near her face, holding her willowy wrists down, and her voice was
silk as she said, “Not only are you the single sexiest
stud
I have ever
met, but you saved my life and helped me build a farm.  Not only that, but you
even seem to dig tall chicks.  Hell yes, I’d be honored.”

Jack’s heart was pounding at her
words.  He tried to think of something poetic to say in reply, something that
could be remembered through the ages, but all he could come up with was, “Stud,
huh?  Guess this is your first run-in with a real man, there, sister?”

She narrowed her eyes and looked
like she was going to retort, but he caught her full lips in a kiss and began
working his way across her smooth, sinuous body with his free hand, roaming,
teasing, tantalizing.  Then, shifting his weight slightly to accommodate, his
fingers found that luscious, velvety center, and she let out a long moan
underneath his lips and ground her breasts against his chest, gasping, begging
for him to release her, to let her finish before she exploded.

He didn’t, of course.  Jack,
enthralled, kept her at the very edge, soaking in her porcelain body as it
contorted under him, his own passion rising in a crescendo.

* * *

Just when Blaze thought she was
completely spent, her body devolved into a moaning, twitching, sweaty mass of
pleasure underneath the wereverine, he removed his hand from between her legs. 
As Blaze moaned and tried to reset her world, he shifted over her and his
hardness was
there
, hot against her engorged lips.  When she moaned and
gave a weak thrust, trying to meet him, Jack quickly pulled back.   “Careful,
Miss Blaze,” he whispered.  His face was covered in sweat, and he was
trembling.  “I’m gonna claim you, but I gotta do it my way, or I might just
lose it.” 

Blaze felt a spasm of fear at his
words, but she quickly brought it into check.  “How?” she whispered, imagining
some horrible, violent wereverine ritual to mark his mate.

Jack swallowed hard, sweat
standing out on his brow as he met her eyes.  “You’re sure?  I can’t take this
back, darling.”

“Tell me how,” Blaze repeated,
swallowing back dread, now.  “Are you gonna bite me or something?”

“Not a bite,” Jack replied.  His
body trembled, and she realized he was panting.  “Blaze, I can’t hold it back
much longer.  Yes or no, babe.  Hurry.”

Blaze bit her lip, looked up into
his emerald eyes, and said, “Yes.”

Jack groaned, and with no further
ado, dropped his body to hers and touched their brows together abruptly. 
Suddenly, his whole body shuddered, and Blaze felt something hit her like a
warm, electric sledge-hammer to her chest, gut, groin, and head, spreading
outward from her heart, superheating and tying those parts of her body to…what?

Then she felt him, hovering over
her.  She felt the strain in his arms as he held himself above her, felt the
throbbing heat at his groin, felt the startling softness of her skin, felt the
nagging worry that he was hurting her with his weight.

“Oh,” Blaze managed, feeling
herself breathe
under
him,
through
him.  “Oh God.”

Very slowly, Jack lifted his head
until they were eye-to-eye, and she saw his open-faced surrender, so plain on
his face it was as if he’d written it in a book.  Shyly, he smiled.  “Hey.”

Blaze stared at him, so totally
lost in the
understanding
of him that she forgot to breathe.  She knew
who he was, why he did things the way he did, how he struggled with his words,
how much he
hurt
from losing his previous mates, how worried he was that
he would accidentally hurt her…

“You’re not hurting me,” Blaze
managed, just so totally overwhelmed by that which was
Jack
, so much
depth, so much more profound than she ever could have imagined.  A living,
breathing,
thinking
being…and she was
part
of it.

Jack glanced down at where he
still held her arms above her head.  “You
like
it rough.”  He sounded
stunned.

Blaze flushed, realizing that,
apparently, the link wasn’t just one-way.  “Um,” she babbled, looking away,
trying to find a good lie.  “I don’t really know what you’re—”

But then he was lowering himself
atop her, he began suckling her nipple again, and Blaze felt both her own
racing arc of electricity shoot up from her loins, as well as his thrill of
pleasure at
her
pleasure.  The duality was so intense, so completely
foreign to her that it instantly drove her to the edge.

“Oh gaaaaaawd,” Blaze moaned,
tossing her head back and forth in panic, straining to pull her arms free
before he unmade her.  “Too much.  Can’t…”

“Oh, honey,” Jack said, grinning
around her nipple, “it’s pretty clear you
can
.”

His words, paired with her
inability to stop the sensations ripping through her body, left her body
straining against him in another long, violent orgasm.  Her speech, already
impaired, now became unintelligible.  Every one of Jack’s movements above her
wrenched a moan, a whimper, or a plea from her lips…and all of it was amplified
with the
thrill
that it gave Jack to see her writhe beneath him.

Finally, when she could stand it
no longer, Blaze felt Jack shift his weight, felt the hard heat press slightly
against the entrance to her womanhood, felt his
need
as if it were her
own.  She moaned and gave another weak pump of her hips, trying to draw him in,
trying to ease that burning heat in him.  To her desperation, he backed away,
refusing her.  Then he waited.  Blaze opened her eyes in confusion.

Jack hovered over her, sweating. 
Immediately upon meeting her eyes, Jack’s face lit up in a grin.  Holding her gaze,
he eased himself home, slowly, methodically, the dual satisfaction compounding,
multiplying, making it impossible to think, to breathe, until Blaze cried out
and wrapped her legs around his waist in an attempt to pull him inside her.

“Slowly, Miss Blaze,” Jack
whispered, trembling.  “Not too fast.  Can’t…control it…”

Blaze moaned and writhed, aching
for him to continue.

Jack did, but too slowly.  And he
kept holding her down
.  She got so frustrated she wanted to scream, but
all she could do was pant and moan and try desperately to free herself from the
maddening, slow easing of his manhood into her folds.  “Jaaack,” she whined. 
“Mercy.”  Blaze felt how much he needed it, felt it like a pain in her own
groin, and couldn’t understand why he was refusing her.

Jack hesitated above her, concern
on his face.  “It’s too much, then?”  He reached up with his free hand to
tenderly caress the hard pink tip of her nipple.

That was it.  Blaze’s brain hit
orbit, her body left cartwheeling back to earth.  “Noooo,” she moaned.  “No
more.”

Jack bit his lip.  “Sorry,
honey.  I know I’m big…”  The hot, throbbing shaft within her began to recede.

Blaze’s eyes flashed open,
pinning the wereverine with her gaze.  “You,” she bit out, lifting her head as
far as she could with him holding her arms down above her, “Had better keep
going, or I am going to
skin you alive
when I get free.” 

Jack’s mouth rounded in a little
O.  “You mean,” he said softly, “that didn’t hurt?”

A wave of frustration made Blaze slam
her head back to the mattress in despair, every nerve in her body completely on
fire, the wereverine’s manhood half-buried within her, teasing, and there was
nothing she could do about it.

The link must have done
something
right, because Jack pushed his hips the rest of the way down to meet hers. 

Blaze gasped as she felt his
curly black fuzz meet the sensitive flesh between her thighs.  When Jack gave
an experimental thrust, however, and she felt his groin grind against her clit,
her eyes again rolled into the back of her head as she felt her body spasm
around him, the sudden pressure of him moving within her triggering waves of
pleasure spreading outward around him, through her groin, coursing through
every fiber of her being, then magnifying when she felt
herself
, hot and
twitching around him, wrapping him in sweet bliss…

“Oh
Jaaack
!” Blaze cried,
as he pulled back experimentally and buried himself again, this time to the
hilt.  She began desperately rising to meet him, but again, he slowed her down,
pressing a big, callused hand against her stomach.

“Honey,” Jack whispered, looking pale,
“I can’t.”

Blaze’s eyes flashed open and
narrowed.  “Oh yes you
can
.”  She locked her legs behind him and
took
him, even with her hands pinned, even with his hand against her abdomen, trying
to stay her thrusts.  She wrapped her legs and dragged him close, forcing him
to fill her completely.

Jack shuddered, then, hunching
over her with a low groan.  “Oh, birdie,” he whispered, “Please don’t move.” 
She could feel the surge of pleasure starting within him, felt him fight it
down.

“Oh
bullshit on that
,” she
blurted, wriggling, thrashing, panting,
dying
for the need to climax.

She saw his beautiful green eyes
widen, saw him reach the tipping point, saw his back arch.  “Oh gods,” he
moaned, as he started moving, harder now, faster,
taking
her as
thoroughly as she’d ever been taken before…

…And Blaze completely lost
control of her senses.  She felt the pressure within give one final, perfect
explosion, saw him driving himself almost violently into her own body, then her
back was arcing into the bed, her chest bowing to brush her nipples against his
hard chest as he continued ramming himself home, his breath coming out in a
heated moan, filling her with each pounding thrust of his hips.  Then,
groaning, Jack threw his free hand under her arced back and drew her close, so solid
it was like iron, and the hard, steady thrusts became more desperate, more
wild, until he was shuddering and convulsing against her, his hips slamming
home with such power Blaze’s breath was taken away with each desperate plunge. 

…and Blaze felt that pleasure all
over again, from him, the exquisite rush as he buried himself within her
softness, his body reaching a tipping point and tumbling into the abyss, the
surge of pleasure within him as he took her.

“Oh…fuck…oh…
Blaze
!” Jack
roared, as he met her eyes in his final, violent throes.  He held her suspended
above the bed for a long moment, almost painfully tight and immobile against
his chest, straining against her body with enough force that Blaze once again
had that tiny nagging reminder of just how easy it would be for him to snap her
spine.

Then, groaning, Jack relaxed into
the bed, allowing Blaze’s back to return to the mattress, and settled atop her
with a long, low, contented growl.

“Wow,” was all Blaze could
manage, once she had caught her breath.  She could feel the dreamy happiness
rolling off of him, as palpable as if it were her own.

Still hovering above her, Jack’s
green eyes flickered up at her with a nervous look.  “Uh.  So, yeah.  That’s
the link.”  Even then, she was experiencing the thrilling dual sensation of his
blood rushing through his veins while she felt his heartbeat thumping against
her chest.

“It’s nice,” Blaze managed,
because words simply could not describe how
fully
she felt him,
understood him.  “How close do I have to be to feel it?”

Jack grinned down at her slowly. 
“Closer you get, stronger it is,” he said.  Very tenderly, he kissed her neck,
and she felt the tingling warmth both in her throat and in his own lips.  “But
the real question, missy, is how far I’m gonna let you get away from me. 
‘Cause, after this, I ain’t letting you outta my sight.”

And, Blaze realized, looking up
into his open surrender, feeling the fierce, protective wall of wereverine that
was perfectly willing to lay down his life to defend her, knowing, at the very
core of her being, that her every word had just become his Gospel, and knowing
that, disconcertingly, she had offered him the same, Blaze thought she could
handle that.