Beastly Passions (20 page)

His chest bulked and an unearthly noise left him. His hands began to tremble while the teeth of his zipper became undone and he sensed his wife swaying closer. Taras slit his stare and enjoyed the view of her when he freed his cock from the confines of his underthings. Her eyes immediately left his face to drift lower and when her lashes fanned, his lips curled at the edges. The smile instantly faded at the way she latched onto the bottom rim of her mouth and sucked, her tongue flashing at him.

He fisted himself and stroked from root to tip and her chest shuddered out her next inhale. “I find myself debating between if I want to stuff your mouth or your cunt first.”

A sound between a squeak and a purr left her at the crude words and he knew he had her full attention. Taras curled a finger in her direction. She followed the silent demand and walked forward until she stood between his spread legs. He placed a palm at the dip in her spine over the rise of her ass and pressed his nose to her tummy, nuzzling the warm, fragrant flesh there. Asha’s fingers tangled in his hair and her nails lightly raked over his scalp. He released his dick to hold her with both hands as he kissed just over her panty line.

“The way you smell is distracting.” He nipped her belly and felt it contract. “The way you taste even more so.” His tongue laved the spot. She gasped above him, sending his prey drive into a tailspin. Leaning backwards again, Taras yanked her down to straddle him and groaned low when his member found a home pressed against her mons through the thin fabric covering it.

Asha rocked forward and he bit down on his tongue. What remained between them in clothing mattered not because the lips of her sex were soaked and warm. He fisted her hair at the root the way she liked and drew her head down. Their lips fused together, tongues dueled and the mutual release of fangs clattered. Taras grasped a handful of her ass with his free palm and squeezed, taking pleasure in her low growl. He moved her against him until he could literally
feel
the orgasm beginning to stumble up her spine in a rise that made her hips jerky and forceful. That was when he stopped, ignored her whimpers of protest, pulled the seat of her panties to the side and thrust into her with all the finesse of a nail driving through wood. Asha released a short roar into his mouth and her arms became constricting as they wrapped about his shoulders to clasp him in tight. He unwrapped her limbs from him to position her so that he could curl his fingers about her throat.

His wife’s eyes brightened considerably under the firm clutch and she held his hand to her neck, pressing so that he exerted a bit more pressure. Her lids closed and he allowed it, enjoying the way her lips parted to reveal the pearly color of her fangs as they clenched in satisfaction. He kept his feet firmly planted to stop the chair from moving as she rode him harder and faster, her tits bouncing in the lace cupping them so lovingly. The soft, wet, undulating muscles of her pussy feathered down his cock in a steadfast clamp that made him buck up to meet her strokes. She suckled at the inches of his length as though she never planned to release it and with the fire building in his scrotum, he didn’t feel the least bit concerned.

With both of her hands clutching his wrist now she huffed, “Taras,”

He didn’t take his eyes away from the protrusion of her swollen nipples. “Yes, wife?”

“Finish it,” Asha demanded. “
Please.”

The plea, as usual, was enough. Angling towards her, he captured a hardened tip with his mouth, fastened his teeth around the surrounding flesh and bit down just shy of breaking the skin.

A hum built from her belly and then filtered from her mouth as the circling of her hips suddenly became unyielding. Scalding heat greeted his cock and her pussy throttled the organ mercilessly. Taras swallowed down an animalistic bellow and came with no more than a groan as he spilled into her convulsing sheath. Heart hammering and his lungs burning, he loosened his hold on Asha’s throat and gently rubbed where he’d previously held it. He fanned his lips down her jaw and captured her mouth again for a kiss that was no less lusty than the ones they’d shared moments ago but softer in its approach.

“Gods,” she murmured when he pulled back, falling against his chest. “I can’t feel my legs. Is that normal? Shouldn’t I be able to feel my legs?”

“When this is done correctly?” he volunteered. “No. Legs, and all else should be distant memory.”

“I want to believe you, but I think you’re lying to stop my inherent need to scrutinize things that make me uncomfortable.”

Taras swept his hands down her back and kissed her temple. “Bask in afterglow now, scrutinize later.”

And for the first time in what he was sure to be
ever,
his wife didn’t argue. She only nodded and breathed, “All right.”

So he
had
done it right.

***

“I want
him brought to me.
”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

Grigoriy halted in moving about the chess piece between his fingertips and looked up at the men surrounding him. “I said,
‘I want him brought to me.’”

Nervous gazes flitted about and then one bold enough to do so, stepped forward and questioned, “Would that not be breaking both alliance and obligation to the Shankurs?”

Mildly interested in why this whelp had such a query, he sat back and traded an amused glance with the man seated across from him; the same man who had tangled him in a rather frustrating game. “You are concerned about alliance and obligation?”

The boy looked back at his pride members, but their focus seemed to be solely on Grigoriy. As it should have been. The majority had been with him for a while now. They’d split off from Taras’ majority when he’d decided that his father would no longer rule and they were well acquainted with his…qualities. But this one, he was new. Grigoriy could still scent the smell of tit milk on his palette.

“
I
asked you the question,” Grigoriy said now. “Not the ones standing at your back.”

“I mean no disrespect; I just have to wonder why you would make such abrupt choices when you seemed so fine just days ago.”

“You have to wonder…” he repeated, cocking his head at an angle. “Why is this?”

“You don’t share plans often,” the boy retorted. “You operate differently.”

Grigoriy leaned forward. “Oh?” he prodded. “And who is it that I operate differently than?”

The younger tiger lifted his chin and took a step back. “No one in particular.”

“No, no, no, you have someone in mind. I can see it written all over the face that you try so hard to keep expressionless. Who do I operate differently than? My son?”

The others broke away to fan apart.

He put his eyes on the floor. “What your son does is not my concern.”

“And yet you compare the way I move to the way he moves.” Grigoriy hefted himself out of his chair and walked towards the whelp. “Left your head, boy,” he ordered, waiting for the command to be followed. It was. “Why are we here?”

“Sir?”

“Why are we here as opposed to on the land that I inherited from my father? Land that he inherited from his own and so on and so on. Why are we in this home miles and miles away like abandoned pets who have been found and shown mercy?”

“Because of your son,” the boy answered in a sotto voice.

“Yes,” Grigoriy confirmed. “Because of my son. And what is it that I am trying to do now?”

“Get that land back.”

Grigoriy nodded. “Correct. And do you know of how I am going to accomplish such a feat?”

The younger tiger shook his head.

“Why?”

“Sir?”

“Why is it that you do not know?” Grigoriy urged. “Why is it that you do not know
how?”

“I am not sure of the answer to this.”

“Because I. Am. Not. My. Son,” he volunteered just before he took the .45 from the holster about the boy’s waist, flicked off the safety and blew out his knee. He went down roaring and Grigoriy turned about, ensuring that he was the only thing all stares were on currently.
“I am not my son!”
he thundered. “I tell you what I want you to know
when
I want you to know it and nothing else. Do any of you truly believe we’re comrades? Friends? That is what the boy has.
Friends,”
he snarled in disgust. “He wants to delight in happiness and comfort, forgetting that we came from Cossacks! We delighted in nothing but fights and the ability to move under the command of someone strong enough to lead us. We were wanderers, roaming about the Steppes until called for war. My son is soft unless confronted with interference in his peace. He will get no peace from me.
No one
will get any peace from me until I have what I want. Which is to hear cries much like this,”—he gestured to the still yelping pride member on the floor—“careening from those who have dismissed me the way that he did when he misplaced me from everything I have ever worked to build behind my name.”

Grigoriy looked around. “Does anyone else want to inquire as to why I would like to have Nirav Shankur on my doorstep by the end of this week?”

Silence.

“Excellent.” He replaced the safety on the gun and dropped it on top of the boy’s head. “Get him out of my sight.”

The whelp was drug off and he retook his seat, annoyed that he’d forgotten his next strategic move on the board.

“You never fail to entertain, Verochka.”

He cast his gaze towards the scarred son of his once sworn enemy and smiled. “I enjoy a bit of theatrics occasionally. It is good for general morale and reminds others of why I should not be approached with such recklessness.”

Artur Matveev grunted, scratching at the long healed scars of his clawed up face. “I would expect nothing less from the father of the man who did
this
.”

“Despite my initial doubts that he belonged to me, it was not hard to discover that the bastard does have my sense for retaliation,” he rejoined. “But I wouldn’t worry too much. Before long you will have your chance to return his gift.”

“What
do
you intend to do to your in-law exactly?”

Grigoriy mulled it over before responding, “I would have him disposed of, but I need him to sign over his port if I am to continue my new endeavors. I was going to allow him to maintain control, however, with his recent reaction to an unfortunate event I think that he is meditating on the foolish idea of disengaging from our agreement.”

Artur gave a sharp nod in understanding. “And then?”

Picking up one of the pieces from the board, he held found the weakness in his opponent’s defense and moved against it, listening to Artur curse lowly when he realized he’d just lost. “And then I swipe the board clean and begin the game again.”

Thirteen

“
What
are you doing?” Asha demanded of her husband from where she stood, knowing and not caring that her tone was annoyed beyond all reason.

He shot her a glance over his shoulder as he undressed. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

She glared at him and took in their surroundings to make sure they were as alone as he’d claimed. “It looks as though you’re getting naked.”

“Which is something you have seen many times,” he replied serenely as he walked barefoot around the cab of the truck he’d kidnapped her in and threw his clothes onto the seat. “Therefore, your shock should be very little.”

“You’ve drug me out into the wilderness—”

“I love how haughty and high your voice is currently.”

“—Involuntarily, I might add—”

“Did not think it possibly but, yes, the haughtiness grew.”

“—And now you’re 
flashing 
me?”

Taras stopped before her, placing his hands on his hips as he braced his legs a shoulder width a part. She refused to allow her eyes to drop. Then they would get absolutely nowhere and he’d only flex out his chest in satisfaction that he’d sufficiently distracted her with that thing he called a cock swaying between his oversized thighs.

“I came to bedroom door and asked if you would like lunch. To this you answered, ‘Yes. Food. Now.’ And so,”—he swept his arm out as though presenting a buffet as opposed to a lake embankment—“here we are for food.”

Asha stared at him blankly. “Is there a metal plate in your head that I should be made aware of?”

“No,” he answered mildly before bending his left leg and tapping at his knee. “However there is one here. It is long, arduous story, but I will say this—avoid the antlers of Sika bucks because they charge head on and will gore you without remorse.”

“I’m going home,” Asha announced, turning to walk away.

“We are at least an hour out,” Taras decided to inform her. “And that is only because the truck was used. How do you think you will fare attempting to walk back?”

She halted and balled her fists at her sides. “For fuck’s sake, Taras I—”

“
You
are moody, temperamental and difficult,” he interrupted. “Because you have begun to work too much and have allowed yourself too little freedom. Your tigress moves just beneath your skin as opposed to returning to designated black box because she is restless and edgy. Your dedication to your new career is admirable but draining you. This stops today and fun begins.”

Biting the inside of her cheek, she rounded to face him but stubbornly remained where she was. “I am not fishing.
You
can fish, but I will do no more than watch from here until you have finished.”

He stood there momentarily, regarding her before he seemed to come to the conclusion that she’d meant every word and then he shifted. Standing as regally as he could manage on paws, Taras lifted his chin arrogantly, tossed a low snorting noise in her direction and made a beeline for the embankment. Without so much as another glance at her, he belly flopped underwater.

Sitting in stunned silence, she impatiently waited for him to reappear and when the incredibly impetuous annoyance that was her husband resurfaced, he did so with a humpback salmon in his maw. Asha had no choice but to witness him imitating a cub in his first transition, splashing about and behaving bizarrely.