Beast Denied (16 page)

He groaned when she freed one hand to cup his balls. Fuck it to hell. The woman was killing him.

The pressure eased, and he opened his eyes. Naomi scrambled back, a silent invitation for him to join her on the bed.

“Lie down,” she instructed.

When he did, she moved between his legs and lowered her head until her mouth was an inch from his dick. He held his breath, his hands wanting to reach out, grab her head and bring her mouth to his pulsing cock.

Before he could move, she leaned forward and touched her tongue to his tip. Shit. He nearly shot through the ceiling. He arched his head back, cursed mentally and looked down again. Naomi had hold of his thighs, and her mouth was closing around his girth.

Ever since he’d known what sex was, he’d had frigging wet dreams about this very moment. Naomi sucking him off.

She took him in, inch by devastating inch, her teeth grazing along his length. The pressure began to build to unmanageable limits, and he had to fight hard to keep from climaxing.

“Shit, baby.” His voice was hoarse, barely understandable even to himself. “You’d better stop right now.”

She didn’t, appearing not to have heard him. Or if she did, had decided to ignore his warning.

He made a grab for her, but she kept right on pumping him. “Naomi…sweetheart…”

She took him deep, not easing up on the pressure or the speed. His balls tightened, the pull deepening at the center of his groin, his whole body in a state of rabid need.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he dragged in deep breaths and barely held on to the control she was stripping away. He opened his eyes and shoved off his back. With his hands either side of her head, he eased her mouth from his cock.

Naomi sat back on her heels and pushed her hair from her shoulders. Her mouth was full and ripe, her cheeks speared with color. “I obviously wasn’t doing it right.”

He was about to laugh at the absurdity of her comment, but noticed she wasn’t meeting his gaze. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

She pushed her fingers through her hair again, and her chin came up. “I’ve never had any complaints before.”

Anger whiplashed through him, but he banked it down. Now wasn’t the time to get green-eyed over what she’d done in the past. And with whom. “You’re not getting any complaints now.”

“Then why did you push me away?”

He sat, deliberately crowding her. She scrambled back. “Why did I pull away? Because if I’d let you finish what you were doing, we’d need a while for things to get back in working order.”

“So?”

He eased her onto her back, noting the tension in her body. Nestling between her legs, he braced his hands either side of her shoulders. “So, let’s say I’m eager to get inside you again.” He bent his head and kissed her. “After which, I’d like nothing better than for you to pick up where you left off.”

When he felt her relax, he reached across to the cabinet drawer. “I’d ask you to put this on for me, but I don’t trust myself. One touch of your hand to my cock and I’m set to explode again.”

She smiled, relaxing more. “Then it makes sense that you do the necessary yourself. Because I want you inside me too.”

He sheathed himself, coaxed her right leg wider, and with his free hand guided his cock to her opening. She was warm and wet, and he slid in easily. He pushed firmly, and they both groaned. He wanted it slow, but her muscles clenched around him, weakening his already tenuous grip on control.

He pumped hard, fast. Naomi’s breathless urging and the way her nails dug into his back intensified the need raging through him. With each frenzied pump of his hips, he shoved her higher up the bed. The bedsprings clunked and protested, but he tuned out the sound. All that existed for him right then was having her. Making her his.

The room filled with their frantic breathing, with their mutual cries of pleasure. Naomi arched her neck, throwing her head back, prompting him to bite into the succulent flesh that presented itself to him. He could smell the ripeness of her flesh, feel the softness of her skin beneath his fangs, taste her essence on his tongue.

“Tynan…Tynan…please…”

The sound of his name on her lips snapped him back. With one final thrust, he came, emptying himself into the condom and catching Naomi’s erotic pleas with a blistering kiss while she contracted around him.

He held himself braced above her, their lungs heaving in oxygen, the silky sheen of exertion slick on their skin, and the scent of her filling his senses. “Okay?”

Releasing her grip on his back, she smiled. “I think I might have drawn blood.”

“Huh?”

“Your back.” She took in a deep breath, then relaxed. “I was digging in so hard, I think I’ve probably done some damage.”

He grinned. “I nailed you pretty hard.”

“No complaints from me.”

“Then it seems we’re both being very amiable tonight.”

She laughed, the sound tinkling through him like magic, then frowned when he began to withdraw. “Now I think I might start complaining.”

“Plenty more where this came from, sweetheart.” He planted a kiss on her sulky mouth. “We need to work up an appetite to best appreciate my gastronomic efforts.”

Naomi stretched her arms back toward the bed head. “In which case, we’d better do something more than put the potatoes in.”

Tynan grinned. “My thoughts exactly. Be right back.”

With which he headed to the en suite bathroom, sporting a huge smile on his face and already planning his next moves.

Chapter Ten

A little after midnight, Naomi threw her legs over the side of the bed and reached for her cell. A couple of hours ago, they had finally made it to the kitchen and had snacked on the dried out offering that masqueraded as dinner. It wasn’t long before they gave up on the slim pickings and headed back to Tynan’s room for something far more appetizing and fulfilling.

Finding no messages from the surgery, she placed the phone back on the table and started to stand. She was hardly surprised at the hands that shot around her waist, seeing as for the last few hours, those very hands had been doing the most amazing things to her body.

“Going somewhere?”

She glanced back over her shoulder. He was all rumpled and lethargic from a very active evening. Her heart stumbled the way it always did when she looked at him. But she wasn’t about to be distracted by that predatory look in his eyes and the way his fingers stroked over her skin.

“I’m getting some water. Want some?”

“Nope.” He lay back down and tucked his folded arms beneath his head. “Just get back here, pronto.”

Had his firm demand not been offset by a cocky grin, she might have told him where to go, but she always found it hard to resist that grin. “I thought I might go to my own room now,” she said, deliberately provoking him. “I need some sleep. It’s been a busy night.”

Her own smile obviously alerted him to her teasing, and like a flash, she was on her back beneath him again.

“A few minutes ago, you told me you weren’t tired,” he reminded her with a very wicked gleam in his eye. “I think your words were ‘sex usually makes me tired, but I’m feeling buzzed tonight’.”

Yes, she had said that, and had immediately regretted it. It wouldn’t do to let him think he was different from any other man. Despite how amazing they were together, things could never progress any further. There was too much at stake. “I told the surgery to call me if they needed extra help. That’s probably why I’m a bit hyper. You know, waiting for the call.”

His grin widened. “You don’t fool me, Doc. It has nothing to do with your job, and everything to do with me. With us.”

Her system went on high alert. This was exactly what she’d been worried about. “Don’t go getting any ideas, Tynan.”

A dark look flashed across his face, but he gave an easy shrug. “Up to now, you’ve been pretty happy with my ideas. And I’m not about to start another pissing match when I’ve got you warm and accommodating beneath me.”

She placed her hand over his, currently making delicious little stroking movements along her inner thigh. She really should make it clear that this was a one-off thing between them, but right then she didn’t feel much like arguing either.

With her hand still over his, he moved to her mound and stroked slowly along her slit. Naomi jerked a little, the push of his finger finding a sore spot.

“You okay?”

“Fine. Just a bit tender.”

He withdrew his finger and palmed her mound. “Then let’s take a breather.” He hiked himself up higher onto his elbow. “Seeing as how we’re both feeling buzzed, a run might work off some of the excess energy.”

Shockwaves of alarm pulsed through her body. “I’m not feeling
that
energetic.”

A slight frown was his only reaction. “Come on. We haven’t shifted and run together since…in more than a decade.”

“I prefer to run alone.” She eased his hand away and pushed up to sit back against the pillows.

“You prefer to run alone? Or you just don’t want to run with me?”

Although it wasn’t a hard and fast rule among shifters, most couples after having sex tended to enjoy a run together. Some saw it as an extension of sex. Naomi knew that Tynan would likely take her refusal as an insult, but she’d simply have to ride out that problem.

One more reason she preferred not to get too involved with shifter males. One reason she could
never
get too involved with them.

“Or maybe you had a run last night,” Tynan pressed, undisguised sarcasm thick in his tone. “And now you don’t feel the need for another.”

Naomi knew he was suggesting she’d shifted with Nathan. As far as he knew, she and Nathan had had sex after he’d stormed off, and it was perfectly feasible for him to assume they’d finished off the evening on the moor together.

“What’s your problem?” Wanting to take the focus off the troubling topic, Naomi shook her head. “Can’t you just take a simple
I don’t feel like it
?”

With a long fulminating look, he got off the bed. “I’ll get you that water.”

While Naomi hated that they were at loggerheads again, there was no way on God’s earth she could run with him. She couldn’t run with anyone. Since that day ten years ago when everything had changed for her, she had never been able to shift. She knew the problem was psychological, she’d even had it confirmed by a psychiatrist from the East London pack, but there was nothing she could do about it. She simply couldn’t shift.

She laid a hand over her stomach, circling it tenderly around her pelvis, and thought of the child she had lost so cruelly. Before she began torturing herself by imagining what her little boy or girl may have looked like, she got off the bed. Over the years, she had become fairly adept at blocking out the agonizing thoughts that had plagued her after she had miscarried. But she had never quite mastered a way to stop from blaming herself. Perhaps she never would.

Slipping on her blouse, she went in search of Tynan. She found him in the kitchen, looking out through the patio doors, a glass of water in his hand. He looked so amazing. His long lean body was washed by the glow of the moon, his powerful shoulders drawn back, his hair sexily tousled.

Obviously sensing her standing in the doorway, he turned. Their gazes clashed for long moments during which she wished things could be different. That there was no history between them, that she hadn’t lost a baby that had changed everything for her. For them.

Without saying anything, he held out the glass. She moved forward to take it, keeping her eyes on his. “Thanks.”

Turning back, he continued his survey of the moor beyond the patio doors. “Did you run with him?”

Naomi sighed. It seemed this particular topic wasn’t about to go away any time soon.

While she refused to play games by questioning him as to his meaning, she took a moment to consider how to respond. Her initial instinct was to tell him that she hadn’t run with Nathan last night, and neither had she had sex with him. But if she did, it could set up all manner of problems. For one, Tynan might think she had refused to have sex with Nathan because sex between her and Tynan had been so amazingly special. Which it had. For two, he would press her about her refusal to run.

It was best all round to let him think everything was as he believed it was. That sex with him was nothing more to her than sex with Nathan, a mutual satisfying of sexual need with no emotional attachment beyond friendship.

“Like I said, I prefer to run alone.” She folded her arms across her chest. “And I don’t feel the need to do so after sex.”

The hidden message being that she didn’t feel close enough to either man to feel the need to shift and run with him.

Tynan turned from the window, his jaw tight. “You look tired,” he said suddenly. “Maybe you should get some sleep.”

He walked past her, and she felt her mouth drop open. That was it? She hadn’t done what he expected of her, given him what he wanted from her, and he simply walked away?

Well, he could go screw himself. Damned if she was going to go running after him or explain herself further in any way.

Taking her water, Naomi went back upstairs. She went into Tynan’s room to get her clothes, bag and cell phone, thankful to hear the shower running because she was in no mood for further discussion. She made her way to her own room at the end of the landing and barely resisted slamming the door behind her.

Sliding between the cold sheets of her own bed, she tried to get comfortable. Hell, but the bed seemed ridiculously big and…empty. She punched the pillow a few times and closed her eyes. Sleep didn’t come, only more tossing and turning while she played over the gist of their argument. Had she grossly misplayed the whole thing? Should she have told him she hadn’t slept with Nathan last night after he’d left? If she had, it might have placated him into letting the subject of shifting drop.

She was helped from brooding over the whole thing when her cell vibrated. She switched on the light and grabbed up her phone from where she’d placed it on the bedside table. Since nobody but the surgery emergency line would call at this time of night, she stabbed the answer button without checking the caller display.

“Doctor Flynn?”

“Yes.” Naomi was already pulling on slacks. “What’s the problem?”

“This is the hospital. Mr. Lox has taken a turn and is very distressed. He’s asking for you.”

“I’ll be right there. Be sure to tell him I’m on my way.”

She finished dressing, snatched up her phone and bag and headed out. Passing Tynan’s door, she briefly considered knocking and telling him. No doubt he would insist on accompanying her. But she really didn’t feel like picking up that argument where they’d left off or enduring his brooding silence. And he’d bugged her car anyway, so what harm could come to her?

In the kitchen, she went to disengage the security system but realized they had yet to arm it. She went outside, manually unlocked her car door and slipped inside. Being at Nathan’s house meant she was well over an hour’s drive from the hospital, but it didn’t worry her driving alone across the moor at night. She loved the solitude, the quiet. In fact, she wondered why she didn’t do it more often. In the absence of being able to shift and feel the wind against her fur, the thunder of the earth beneath her paws, driving across the moor’s wide expanse was the next best thing.

As a strange longing pushed through her, Naomi wound down the window and let the wind blow through her hair. It was freezing cold, but she didn’t mind. With nobody else around, she put her foot down on the accelerator and reveled in the feeling of speed and sensation.

Yes, she thought, pushing her little car beyond its comfort zone, she really should do this more often. The car spluttered and jumped a little, and Naomi eased back on the gas. Being comfortable on the moor was one thing; getting stuck out here in the middle of the night was another. It wouldn’t have mattered had she been able to shift, but that was not an option.

When the longing deepened, she made herself think of Mr. Lox, going over his patient notes in her head and wondering what was the best course of action for him in the future.

It was evident he couldn’t continue living alone. Maybe it was time for him to move from his little terraced cottage into housing for the elderly, but she knew how fiercely independent he was and how his tiny house held so many memories of his beloved late wife and the family they had raised there.

Despite his frailty and current predicament, Naomi felt a pang of envy for the man. All those wonderful years of contentment. All those memories. What would she have to look back on? She could never really marry a human, and a shifter mate was out of the question for so many reasons. Or rather, one very painful reason. She could not imagine that in sixty years’ time she might be desperate to hold on to a home that held so many wonderful family memories.

Tynan’s image flashed through her mind, but she quickly dismissed it. She already felt miserable enough, without compounding it with thoughts of what could never be. She had a patient to worry about. A lovely man who deserved better than living out the rest of his days frightened and alone. There had to be something she could do for him.

She thought of the hospitable little house, where the walls seemed infiltrated by the love and joy that had filled it for so many years. The old man’s family was now scattered across the globe, but from what she knew of him, the last thing he would want was to make them aware of his problems. He would do what he always did and pretend that everything was just fine. Well, it wasn’t fine, and it was time his children knew the extent of his difficulties.

Her eyes filled. She knew it wasn’t professional, but some people just got a hold of your heart and tugged.

She thought of her grandfather and how vital and purposeful he was. Enoch was an elder, an influential and important member of the Council of Principals, and commanded great respect from everyone. Naomi knew that if the time came when he could no longer live alone, she would move in with him in a heartbeat. Which gave her no doubt she would be doing the right thing by contacting Mr. Lox’s family.

With a glance at the clock on her dashboard, she noticed the time was edging toward two in the morning. She had an image of Tynan fast asleep and unaware that she had slipped out without telling him. Hopefully, she would be back before he even realized she was gone.

She looked down at the dashboard again. Despite her foot was steady on the gas, she seemed to be losing speed. Her car shuddered…jerked. She
was
losing speed. Fast.

“Please, no. Don’t do this to me now.” But the vehicle didn’t respond and kept slowing until it came to a halt amid much spluttering and jumping.

She tried the ignition, but she already knew it was dead as a doorknocker. Why had she pushed it so hard while she’d driven across the moor? The poor thing obviously hadn’t been able to handle it.

Reception was patchy out on the moor, and sure enough, when she tried her cell she had no signal. Clutching the phone, she got out of the car and glanced up and down the dark road. No lights shone, and only the cloud-covered moon stopped it from being pitch black. There were no houses around this part, so the only thing she could do was start walking until she found a signal. She returned to the car, gave the ignition another try, then grabbed her bag and the torch she kept for emergencies.

The distant rumble of an engine snapped her attention back along the road she’d been traveling on, and she sighed with relief at the two headlights heading in her direction. She only hoped the occupant was friendly and not some undesirable out looking for trouble.