Bending Steele (10 page)

Steele made a low sound of appreciation in
her throat, her eyes intense as she looked at him, her pupils
dilated. Blood pulsing in his cock, Hexe slid his hand into her
hair, down the length of her braid and tugged it loose. He watched
as the black locks spilled out over the bed. Lifting her, he laid
them out around her head. Her pink lips were swollen from his
kisses and she quaked with desire.

He’d never seen a sexier sight in his
life.

Fucking beautiful.

And he wanted inside her, driving deep and
hard, with Steele locked around him, thrusting to meet him with
every rolling surge of their bodies. Steele reached up, wrapped her
hands in his hair and dragged him back down to her again, plunging
her tongue inside his mouth. Hexe loved the taste of her. He
couldn’t get enough of it. The sweet, lingering taste of cocoa, the
rich spice that was Steele. They blended together, making her
irresistible. He’d starve without another kiss, another taste.

His hands found the button on her pants and
he flicked it open, only to slip his hands inside and slowly draw
them down, pants and underwear alike. He left her lying there,
stretched naked over his bed and froze, his breath lodged in his
throat. One look and he couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to.

Then her body arched up, a wicked smile
flashing across her face. “Hexe.”

Her gaze dropped to his jeans, a silent
command there, and he couldn’t help but laugh. He’d never stripped
so fast in his life. Shucking his khakis aside, he slid over her
again, her legs spread to welcome him inside. His hands found her
hips as she lifted them, her head tossed back against the covers,
eyes on him.

“It’s been a little while,” she said, even as
the muscles in her thighs clenched. God, but she smelled delicious.
Ready and ripe, just for him. Hexe leaned down and nipped over her
belly, loving the involuntary shiver that coursed through her. Sexy
as hell.

Unlike other shifters, they rarely left their
mountain homes, using the magick found here naturally to light
their homes, to call the tribe, and for some, as a birth control.
Hexe watched the faint glow of the Mark lingering over her chest
ebb. He leaned down and blew across it, drawing goose bumps over
her breasts, but then an answering tingle of magick filled him,
stroking down his back, then lower.

His balls tightened, the cool touch of magick
unwelcome, but then the head of his cock slid across the slick
wetness between her thighs and he pressed slowly inside. She closed
around him. Her body hot and wet, tight as her muscles closed in
around him, dragging him in. Hexe blew out a breath, hissing
between his teeth as he filled her.

He pulled out and drove back in, slow at
first. Each stroke diving deeper, harder. Steele rocked into him,
her hands finding his shoulders as she dragged him down closer,
legs locked around his hips, making him work for every stroke. Her
nails dug little crescent moons along his skin. She surged against
him, frantic, a low mewl in her throat and Hexe felt his control
snap.

Fuck, but he couldn’t get enough. Couldn’t
move fast enough.

Her eyes met his, wide and vulnerable, and he
held her gaze as they came apart in each other’s arms. Open, there
was nothing between them. He could see everything, the raw want in
her eyes, the fear, and how damn much she really cared.

Then her hands found his hair and she dragged
his lips down to her neck, only for him to feel the snake of her
teeth slicing over his skin. Marking him back. Claiming him. An
answering need for possession stalked through him and Hexe came
then, thrusting, he dove deeper even as his mouth found the swell
of her shoulder and he bit down.

Mine.

Hers.

***

They lay there, tangled together, their
racing heartbeats a distant drum that filled the silence in the
room. Hexe lay curled around her, one hand tossed over her hip, his
head still buried in the crook of her neck. His tongue stroked over
the bite, soothing, and Steele did the same to the twin bite mark
on his shoulder.

She’d claimed him.

Mated him.

A curl of unease twisted through her stomach
as she kissed the red, puckered skin. He’d held back, he hadn’t
been going to do it, not until he’d felt the bite of her teeth
against his neck. She’d done it. Her choice. It wasn’t permanent,
not without a blood seal, but it was easier than trying to put her
feeling into words. It let him know she cared. That she didn’t want
to let him go just yet.

Hexe lifted his head, his green-gold eyes
lazy as they scanned her face. “You regret it?”

“No.”
Not yet
.

Maybe not ever
.

That last though rocked her to the core.
Could someone really feel that way after only a week? Fuck if she
knew.

Instead of saying more, she leaned forward
and nipped over the mark, drawing a soft purr from Hexe. “I think
I’ll keep you a bit longer,” she murmured.

“Good,” he said.

The wind howled outside, rattling along the
side of the house, and Steele cuddled deeper into his arms, letting
Hexe’s body wrap her in heat. Her fingers played along his chest,
tracing the ragged outline of a scar to the edge of an old bullet
wound. She toyed with the dark hair over his chest to run her
finger in a circle around one nipple. He drew in a soft breath, his
body going tense beside her. “Where’d you get the scar?”

She touched the long jagged line that wrapped
up over his shoulder.

“The accident. The one that killed my
parents.”

“I’m sorry.”

Hexe touched her chin and tilted her head
back, his eyes searching hers. “Don’t be.”

He kissed her again and the emotion in that
one kiss, the tender, gentle feel of his lips on hers tugged at her
heart. She’d fallen for him, so hard and fast it was unreal. But
anytime she looked in his eyes, especially when he kissed her like
this, there was no out running the intelligence in his eyes…or the
love there.

Hexe dragged a blanket over the pair of them,
his hand rubbing down her back, and Steele listened as he fell
asleep, the memories of their love making replaying in her memory.
With it, also the realization that she didn’t want to let him
go.

Because just maybe she was starting to love
him too.

Chapter
Nine

The bed was empty when Hexe woke, the room
still cast in darkness. Either it wasn’t morning yet, or the storm
hadn’t broken. The wind snarled outside, quieter than it had been
earlier, but it still snaked around the house in violent gusts.
Slipping out of bed, he dragged his boxers off the floor, slipped
into them, and headed out into the main part of the house. The fire
still glowed and Steele sat on the couch, curled up under one
blanket.

He stopped dead in the doorway.

She wore his shirt. She’d wrapped herself in
his scent.

His throat went dry, wishing like hell she’d
ditch the blanket so he could see those pale, long legs. She had a
coffee mug clasped in both hands, the sweet smell of cocoa thick in
the living room—she obviously liked hers with more chocolate than
he’d put in on that first day—and she stared into the fire. Her
hip-length hair still hung loose, draped out over the arm of the
couch and Hexe ached to run his hands through it. To wrap it around
his fist and tug her head back for another kiss.

He’d never get enough of her.

The thought made him smile and he took a step
towards her, the floor creaking under his weight, and her head
jerked around, startled. A smile slid over her face, swift and
reassuring. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

Hexe dropped his gaze to the shirt. “What
else are you wearing under that blanket?”

Steele tossed back her head and laughed. A
hearty, no ice, nothing held back, laugh. Fresh heat burned through
his body, his cock stirring to life. Nothing had turned him on
more. A wicked smile dashed over her face, her dark eyebrows
lifted, amused. “Wanna see?”

Oh, but he did. Hexe stalked across the room,
his eyes on the slowly lifting blanket, the tantalizing hint of
skin beneath. Steele flicked back the blanket, revealing nothing
but skin. Heart pounding, Hexe caught her face and bent to steal a
kiss. Her lips went soft beneath his. Warmed from the hot
chocolate, she seemed to melt underneath him. He dipped a finger
into the warm liquid and smeared it over her lips, only to kiss her
again, licking them clean.

Hexe leaned in to kiss her again when a soft
sound stopped him. Something solid crunched through snow, slow and
damn near silent. Hexe went still, and he could hear Steele’s
breath catch in her throat as they both froze. Silent.
There
. The barest twist of the handle on the front door.
Steele’s attention was riveted on the door, her knife drawn. She
took a cautious step around the couch and eased towards the front
door. Hexe couldn’t even hear her feet against the hardwood.

Hexe reached for a knife and for the first
time since he’d fallen into the world hidden away in the mountains,
he wished for a gun. They didn’t need them up here. The leopards
could take any prey they wanted with teeth and claws. Their knives
were simply tools, honored gifts amongst the tribe. They had no
need for guns. Until now.

It could just be their imagination, yesterday
still riding their adrenaline hard, but he didn’t think so.
Somehow, Hexe knew the man that had hunted them yesterday had
survived the night and he was just outside the door. Easing into a
crouch, Hexe swept up his second knife and edged around the couch,
moving to take the door from the opposite side. He kept low, his
thighs screaming from the low crouch.

Across from him, Steele angled around to the
other side, her eyes wicked in the dim light. Her irises looked
tinged with frost, an icy coldness that had wrapped around her,
making her almost inscrutable. If not for the flicker of rage
burning under all that ice. She wanted this bastard, even more than
he did. For her mother. The door handle twisted and Hexe leaned his
head back against the wall and took in a deep, soft breath.

With a jerk, the door lunged opened, slamming
back towards Steele, but she caught it. Hexe twisted, expecting the
man to dart inside, gun raised. Instead there was nothing. He
caught himself, staggering, trying to get out of the doorway when
the gun cracked. Pain ripped through his shoulder as he stumbled
again and at this range…this son of a bitch wasn’t going to
miss.

The rifle muzzle pressed against the back of
his head. Hexe shivered, heart pounding as he knelt on the ground,
his gaze on the hardwood floor. Wood he’d painstakingly shaved,
smoothed, and polished. He’d slaved over every inch of this house,
intending on making it a home. A place for a family again.

He could never get his parents back. He’d
once hated himself for taking them on the vacation of a lifetime…
It’d been that, at least. The vacation that had ended their lives.
But it’d started his. He’d gone from a nobody, unhappy with his
job, unhappy with his life…to someone who’d finally found where he
truly belonged. It’d changed everything about him, and when he’d
joined the tribe, he left the man that had been Drake Reardon
behind and became Hexe. A warrior. He’d found his happiness.

He’d become a King.

And now, he’d even found the one woman he
wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

“Ah, ah,” the man behind him chided, voice
soft. Almost playful. “Put down your weapons little she-cat and
shift.”

Hexe’s gaze slid to Steele. She was still
poised for attack, her knees bent slightly, her body perfectly
balanced on the balls of her feet. Her knife glittered in the light
cast off from the fire. Sleek and deadly, just like the woman who
held it. She pulled back her lips and bared teeth at him—still
human, but the gesture was all feline.

The man behind him wasn’t at all cowed. The
muzzle pressed harder into Hexe’s skull.

“Now. Or he dies.”

Chapter
Ten

It was him.

She’d never believed she’d recognize the man
who’d killed her mother, his face always marred by blurry branches
and the thick, furred hood of his parka. But she recognized his
scent. The rich cinnamon undertone of his cologne. Tears burned at
the back of her eyes, but with the grief came rage. It was
him
. The bastard was now standing in front of her, a gun to
Hexe’s head, and he expected her to shift.

To let him kill her?

A familiar coldness wrapped around her heart,
a glacial fury that poured through her. This man, he was going to
die. If it wasn’t from her blade in his heart, or her teeth in his
veins, it’d be from her claws sliced over his throat.

Steele tightened her grip on her knife as
Hexe winced. The man behind him waited, one finger over the
trigger. He was playing a risky game, thinking she cared about
Hexe. She could feel her heart in her throat. This man, he would
not win.

She forced herself to smile, a harsh baring
of teeth as she looked her mother’s killer in the eye. “That last
time you were in these mountains you killed a woman.”

Surprised flashed through his eyes and Steele
laughed. “Her mate
ran
from you.”

She stalked forward a step, her blade a
comfortable familiarity in her hand. The killer smiled then. “So
you don’t care if he dies?”

“You never saw the little girl in the tree
above you.”

He shook his head and laughed at her. “Bitch,
I don’t give a damn. That pelt was worth money and you all, you’re
not human. Not all the way. I killed an animal that day. I’ll kill
another right now.”

His finger flexed over the trigger and Steele
froze at the flash of fear in Hexe’s eyes. The soft sound of the
trigger starting to depress. Fear slammed through her, white hot,
it burned through the ice around her heart. Damn, but she wanted
revenge, wanted this son of a bitch dead for what he’d done to her
mother.