Mated for Keeps Boxed Set: a BBW Werewolf Shifter Romance (The Lost River Pack) (14 page)

And she. Wanted.
More.

She forced herself upright, bracing her hands on Nico’s chest and rammed back into Jackson. He caught her, steadied her, and his teeth clamped down on the muscle between neck and shoulder. Ripples of sensation—of raw, violent delight—radiated from the pain, and she drove herself down again on Nico so hard that he grunted from the impact, twisted his hips up to meet her.

Just as Jackson’s hips slapped into the flesh of her backside.

In and out, out and in, they staggered their thrusts so that she was always full, always desperately aware that the thinnest of membrane was all that separated their cocks from each other. The very thought was enough to spike her higher, drive her harder. Her nails drove into Nico’s chest, dragged bloody furrows that had him throwing back his head and driving his hips higher into her, cursing in pleasure and pain and encouragement.

The smell of his blood, hot and metallic, scored the air, forced a strangled sound from Jackson. “Christ,” he managed. “I can’t—She’s too fucking tight…”

But it didn’t matter. As his body went rigid behind her, as his hips drove against hers and ground his cock deep into her, her orgasm rippled out from the core of her own body, rolled over her overheated skin and forced her back to arch as she threw back her head and screamed. She trembled, rigid with effort as everything inside her turned to heat and wild release and endless waves of pleasure.

Her sex clamped on Nico’s cock, muscles rippling. He grabbed her thighs in each hand and forced her down harder as he thrust into her fast and hard, riding her climax until his own snarl echoed on the heels of her voice.

As both men released inside her, as the semen her biological urge craved filled her, Natalie’s body gave out. It didn’t even occur to her that she’d fall—Jackson’s arm around her waist, Nico’s effortless strength beneath her, would be enough to keep her safe. Protect her.

She wasn’t alone. She’d never be alone again. All she had to do was understand that she was more than just a female to mate with. She was the female that could take them both. Ease them all. Provide something they didn’t have.

She could make this pack of strays into a family.

All she had to do was accept it. Accept
them
.

Like they had accepted her.

A cool breeze rolled through the forest, danced over the three werewolves panting in a loose pile on the earthen floor beside a babbling creek. Natalie’s cheek pillowed against Nico’s chest, beside wounds already closing. Jackson’s hips cradled hers, his arm loosely around her waist. Nico’s hand stroked gently through her hair as she listened to all of their heartbeats hammer in the ambient hush of the woods.

It was almost as good as a lullaby. Slowly, as her pulse eased to match theirs, exhaustion pulled at her senses. The wolf who had so fiercely challenged two males rumbled inside her skin, content for the time being.

But unmated.

Disappointment battled with the heady bliss that filled her.

Under her cheek, Nico took a slow, steady breath. “That was everything I’d hoped and more.”

Natalie couldn’t open her eyes. “Mm.”

At her back, Jackson pushed himself up, bracing his head on one hand. “For the record,” he pointed out, but with humor shaping his voice, “I was
trying
not to be greedy.”

“Noted,” Nico replied. His fingers eased through Natalie’s hair, lulling her deeper into safety. Into sleep. “But I think it’s okay, now.”

Jackson went still. “You mean—”

“Mmhm.” The sound was simple, but enough to cut off Jackson’s question.

Natalie wanted to ask why he meant, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Her muscles ached. Her body felt used in all the best ways, satiated and thrumming. After a good meal, a hard run, and incredible sex, all she wanted to do was sleep.

Nico smoothed her hair back from her cheek. “She’ll rest for a while, I think. Come on.”

They eased out from either side of her, but the chill of the day barely managed to creep in before Jackson gathered her up into his arms. His naked skin was like a furnace. She sighed, nuzzling into it.

“We have a plan?” Jackson asked over her head.

Nico’s lips pressed against her shoulder, affection she could feel clear to her soul. “For now, let’s take her home.”

B
en cut the engine
, stepped out of the truck and slammed the creaking door behind him. He just rounded the fender when Damien loped out of the woods with his typical long-legged stride. The brothers had the same gait, but Damien was faster. He’d seen the two race before. Alek had a lot going for him, but his brother smoked him every time on the hunt.

Too bad speed didn’t count for much in pack politics. Things might’ve been different if the brothers’ old pack hadn’t been such shortsighted dicks.

Then again, after the meeting he’d just had with a similar pack of shortsighted dicks, he wasn’t so sure there was any other kind these days.

“What’s the word?” Damien called, lifting a gangly hand over his head. “How’d the meeting go?”

“About what you’d think,” Ben replied. He pocketed his keys in his brown leather jacket, very carefully making sure they didn’t jingle. It gave him something to focus on that wasn’t driving his fist into the nearest post. “Alek’s on his way, he wanted to make sure nobody got any cute ideas about tailing me in.”

“No problem, I got Alek on feed about ten minutes ago.”

With five members of the Yellow Canyon Pack camping an inch from territory lines, Ben was damn glad Nico had listened to the younger wolf and allowed him the resources to install his security grid. It wasn’t airtight, but it gave them a bird’s eye view of the woods they protected. “Anyone else?” he asked, making his way back up the trails to the cabin.

Damien settled into an easy stride beside him. “Two of the bastards figured they’d sniff around, but they crossed the wolf trails and decided to back out.”

“Smart.”

“I’ll keep an eye on them tonight.” Damien rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “We think they’ll play nice while you ferry messages between them?”

Ben thought about it for a moment.
Nice
wasn’t the word he’d use, but there was tradition to these things. Technically, the Yellow Canyon Pack didn’t have to afford a bunch of strays anything. The fact Victor showed up in person
and
treated Ben like the second-in-command of a legitimate pack suggested one of those things: either they’d heard of Nico and were concerned about what kind of firepower his mercenaries wielded, or it was all a front to keep them occupied while Victor’s boys pulled some bullshit behind the scenes.

He clicked his tongue. “Not sure.” But he gave the wolf a long appraisal. “Which means don’t mess with them, Damien.”

The younger wolf huffed a laugh, lacing his hands behind his head. “I wouldn’t.”

An outright lie. The younger man was not exactly the calmest of the bunch, and his footsteps echoed with a prickly kind of energy. He’d spoil for a fight before he settled for negotiations.

Which was why Ben handled the politics.

They walked in silence for a while, and the birdsong around them did a lot to reassure Ben’s ruffled nerves. If foreign wolves entered the place, the ambience would change. He was secure enough in his senses to know that.

The question was whether Victor’s efforts to politic would mess with those senses.

Sometimes, being human just fucked everything up.

Natalie was the target, the reason for the visit,
and
the weakness. The only good thing here was that she’d be a weakness for Victor and his wolves, too.

“Natalie’s still sleeping,” Damien volunteered, as if reading his mind. His pale, pale eyes roamed the trail, but flicked sidelong to him when Ben scowled. “She’s going on sixteen hours now. “

“Straight?”

“She woke up about nine hours ago to eat something, but crashed right after.”

“Mating is tough.”

Damien made a sound caught between a sigh and a growl. “I guess.”

Ben’s lips twitched into a smile, but he didn’t comment. Things were prickly enough with the brothers that he couldn’t imagine a woman making it worse. “Well, good. That’ll let me report to Nico without worrying her.”

“Yeah,” the other man drawled, “no. I think it’s too late for that.”

Yeah. Ben did, too. As far as he could tell, sweet Natalie had been worrying since she arrived.

“Should we tell her?” Damien asked thoughtfully. “I mean, I’d want to know.”

“You’d want to kick their asses,” Ben replied dryly.

Damien grinned, but didn’t argue. “So, yes? We should?”

“That’s up to Nico.”

“That’s lame.”

Ben reached out and scruffed the other wolf by the nape, a brief flex of fingers that didn’t hitch his stride. Damien’s shoulders came up, but he dropped his arms and grumbled anyway. “Until our fearless leader comes up with a plan, you just do what you do,” Ben said over his protests. The rumble of his voice didn’t change, but Damien wasn’t stupid.

“Okay, okay,” he sighed, and kicked at a rock in the path. “But it’s still lame.”

Ben let that one slide. Personally, he kind of agreed.

Natalie deserved to know. Especially if it looked like there’d be bloodshed. So far, Ben didn’t have any reason to think Victor would want anything else.

“Hey, Ben?”

He glanced at the younger wolf.

Damien jammed his hands into his pockets, shoulders rounding. “Do you think she’ll stay?”

“We’re a barely refined bunch of savages,” Ben replied, deadpan. “Would you?”

“Not with your ugly face,” Damien shot back, but his smile faded. The line left behind looked too serious on the kid’s face. Just this side of sad.

Ben knew the feeling. They all carried those scars, in some way or another. “I hope she does,” he finally said, a low rumble acknowledging what they both understood.

It wasn’t their call to make. But God, he wished she would.

W
armth seeped into her back
. Her bones felt heavy, lazy, but for the first time in a long time, Natalie didn’t wake up tired. She woke brimming with energy, simmering with the heat she was coming to understand—maybe a little. Maybe more than she ever had before.

She woke up restless but not desperate.

A large hand splayed over her hip, heavy and hot, and possessive even in sleep. She recognized it by feel—the scrape of calluses, the thick fingers, the wide palm. That was Jackson at her back, his broad chest tucked against her shoulders, his breath in her hair. The cool, dark smell of him filled the bedroom, thickened in her nose and spread like a balm through her chest.

Had he slept with her this whole time?

Something about that thought pooled in Natalie’s head, her heart—boiled like an aphrodisiac through her veins. Without warning, without so much as a touch or a word, the heat inside her bloomed to full-on hunger. Arousal flooded the sensitive, throbbing flesh between her legs. Her belly clenched, and a full shudder rolled through her—until her breath eased out on a shaking sigh and her nipples tightened.

Nobody had ever just
slept
with her. They’d fucked her, tried to ease her heat and stake their claim, but they’d never stayed. Never just…been there. Having Jackson beside her when she woke felt good. It felt right.

One part comfort. One part stunning awareness.

She wanted this man. This werewolf who hovered so protectively—
possessively
, her instincts said. As if she already belonged to him.

As if he was just waiting for her to recognize that.

Was she ready for it?

She wanted to be.

Natalie eased out from under his hand. The movement triggered a murmured sound, a shift behind her as he rolled onto his back. She hissed a wordless sound of appreciation as she realized that he was every bit as naked as she was, sprawled back into the pillows with an arm lifted above his head, the other shoved under the pillows. His big body gleamed against the crisp white sheets, dark gold and shadow cut in thick definition; hard plateaus and beautiful valleys etched between hard muscle.

There was nothing innocent about him, nothing soft. Even at rest, his dark lashes laying like a fan over his cheeks, he looked like the predator he was.

She wanted to map out the wide expanse of his chest. Taste the line carved between the muscles of his abs, trace that mouth-watering definition at his hip. And his cock, oh, God, his cock. It was gorgeous at full arousal, but here in this bed, as he slept at her side, it rested at an idle half-mast that said his body had clued into her scent even while his mind drifted in whatever dreams Jackson walked in. Dreams of her?

Her heart thundered in her chest. What would he do if she woke him like this?

What did she want him to do?

The biological need twisting her belly barely even held a candle to the hunger infecting her now—hot and sweet, desperate and deliberate.

Very cautiously, she tucked a knee between his powerful thighs, splayed comfortably wide beneath the sheet tangled low on his legs. She could barely keep herself from easing her sex against the harder planes of his thigh as she straddled it—not only would it wake him too soon, but she’d come from the friction alone. That was how close she was.

That was how much it turned her on to think she could rub herself against his leg, stroke her own wet juices into his skin until his muscles clenched against her—until she woke him up moaning his name.

Would he take her then?

Or watch her as she came apart without him ever touching her?

Either way, it wasn’t enough. Not this time.

Natalie knelt between his legs, fingers clamped into the sheets on either side of his hips as she struggled to breathe through the hunger. Her hair tumbled in dark waves over her shoulder, pooled over his hip. Brushed his half-hardened cock.

It twitched. Jackson’s stomach muscles leapt, and he eased out a low murmur that stroked like fingers over her skin.

She left her hair there, knowing it would slide over his flesh as she braced herself higher up over him. High enough that she could lower her lips to the thick muscle at his left pectoral.

His smell filled her body. Clung to her senses, left her feeling hot and dizzy and reckless.

His taste, oh, so warm. So smooth. Better than any alcohol, stronger than any drug. Her tongue flicked out over his skin.

Jackson’s breath caught. Changed.

She smiled, shifted a fraction and dragged her tongue over the flat circle of his nipple. It beaded in her mouth. He shuddered.

A hand fisted in her hair.

Everything inside her thrilled at the sudden aggression. “Natalie.” His voice rasped, half in sleep and with lust thick on his breath.

Very gently, she set her teeth around his nipple. His chest jerked, breath shuddering. “Let me,” she whispered.

“Do what?”

“Anything.”

“God,” he groaned. The hand at her hair eased away. Fell back to his side.

She could feel the change in his body, rigid where he’d been easy in sleep. His cock leapt thick and hard at his abdomen, the muscles at his arms and thighs bunched as he locked himself down so hard, she wasn’t sure he was breathing until she raked her nails down his side and heard him gasp.

Her lips followed the angry red lines. Her tongue skimmed over one side of the vee at his hips, delved into the edged valley of the muscle there.

His cock filled her vision. So close. So hard she wondered if it’d feel like marble in her hand.

If it’d throb inside her mouth.

As her hair slid over his thighs, brushed the heavy flesh of his testicles, Jackson’s head pressed back into his pillow. His eyes closed, clenched as tight as the fists he’d wrapped in the sheets. His teeth locked hard enough that it carved a pulsing echo into his jaw.

He didn’t touch her. He obeyed her, listened to her;
let
her explore. Let her hands map out his flat stomach, his thighs.

As she licked a path across the steely muscles of his abdomen, it vibrated under her mouth. His groan shook behind his teeth, the same way her heart did with every breath he took. Every word he locked behind the ragged pulse she could sense under his skin.

He tasted a lot like the cool forest she smelled on him, like freedom and darkness and faintly of masculine sweat. Her body remembered the way he touched her. The way his cock filled her—
everywhere
. Her body didn’t hurt anymore, but even flashing back to the feel of his cock filling her ass while Nico thrust into her sex was enough to skate her perilously close to coming.

All that from a flashback alone.

Her nails flexed into his side. He hissed out a breath.

Liquid beaded at the very tip of his erection as she watched. Pre-come, the kind that told her that she didn’t even have to touch him before he was hurting for her.

That knowledge gave her power. Gave her strength.

Natalie reached down between his legs, cupped his balls in a hand that wasn’t entirely gentle. He jerked, knees cracking as he forced himself back into position. Her name graveled on his lips, a groan she cut off by squeezing gently. Rolling his testicles in her palm made his hips rise off the bed. His cock jumped, and more of the glistening fluid at the tip leaked out.

“Do you like this?” she asked, drunk with the power of it.

He barked out a short laugh that cracked on a gritted, “More, sweetheart. Harder.”

That surprised her. Her grip slackened, but he lifted his head off the pillow and caught her eyes with his own blazing hot. “Trust me.”

She did. Of course she did, but she didn’t want to hurt him.

Not that he seemed worried. His faith, his raw demand, gave her courage when maybe the old Natalie would have backed off. She was too far along for that.

So she squeezed a bit harder. Carefully, slowly, until the cords on his neck strained and the muscles in his torso locked in rigid pleasure. Just like the cock throbbing against his abdomen.

A trickle of fluid dropped to the golden skin there.

Her mouth watered. She couldn’t help it. She knew that taste on her tongue, wanted it again. Ben had taught her well in that van. Alek had only made good on the foundation.

If she flattened her tongue just under the divot at the broad head of Jackson’s cock, if she dragged the very tip of her tongue through that delicate slit, would his will fracture?