Mind Mates (Pull of the Moon Book 2) (18 page)

“You don’t have to mouth-fuck me for me to mouth-fuck you—”

“
Argh!
You are so single-minded. Well, I have news for you. I’m stubborn too.” She jammed a hand between them, grabbed his cock, and levered the first two inches inside.

He sucked in a breath.

The moment stretched, pulsing, heavy with anticipation. He groaned, “Emma…”

“That’s my name,” she said sweetly as she slowly, inexorably, pushed her hips onto him. “Say it again.”

“Emma. Oh, my beautiful Emma.”

Her name, coming so reverently from his lips, sent a sweet thrill cascading through her. Inch by thick inch, she took him inside. Inch by thick inch, he spread her, filled her.

“Emma,” he whispered the whole time. “Emma, Emma.”

She could only groan. He was so huge that, by the time she hit bottom, she felt as if he filled her all the way to her throat. Or maybe that was simply every bit of flesh she possessed tightening around him, swollen with need.

She began to move, awkwardly, hooking a single heel into the mattress as leverage—more a billowing of her pelvis than actual pumping.

His hands came to help, gripping her hips hard, denting them. His purchase against the bed was better, because he filled her over and over in strong undulating waves, tugging her labia against her clit, again and again until she rose in a great crescendo of thundering excitement. Her heart pounded in her ears and her breath rasped in her throat.

He whispered her name like a chant.

The storm swelled heavy and hot inside her, pre-lightning jagging through her as she writhed and arched against him, until she was about to break. “Gabriel…I can’t wait. Come with me.”

He pumped harder into her. “You first.”

She howled. “Us,
together.
” She clenched her inner muscles with everything she had.

He thrust hard, deeper than ever before, and shouted, “Emma, love, now.”

Love.
Her wings spread, and she flew over the edge the same instant his balls tugged in their first hard spurt. Climax hit her as his hot orgasm filled her, ramping her shuddering pleasure into earthquake contractions. She clutched him, damp flesh trembling against damp flesh. Her mouth, open on a gasp, found the muscle from his shoulder to neck, and the taste of male skin and salt lifted her to a keening cry.

As his body wracked with climax, he clutched her every bit as hard. His cock geysered inside her, buffeting updrafts to her own orgasm, kicking her higher, again and again until pleasure burst in a thousand colors behind her closed lids.

Gradually her contractions eased. His breath slowed. She cooled, except where she was crushed against him. She slowly became aware of her surroundings, her position. On her side, legs folded in odd directions around his body. Actually, both of them were wound around each other as if they’d played a particularly sadistic game of Twister. She thought about laughing, decided it was too much trouble. This was too nice. She drifted.

He moved. A tiny
thwuck
half-woke her when his chest separated from one of her breasts. Their damp skin had almost fused. She never wanted to separate from him again.

She sighed. If good sex led to pregnancy, she’d started her first litter.

Gabriel surfaced from the most amazing climax of his life and opened his eyes on the woman he realized could be the love of his life.

He’d once teased his sister that the female who enjoyed his weird sense of humor would be his true love. She’d responded, “You mean the one who loves you
in spite
of your humor.” In other words, the female who loved
him,
flaws and all.

The truth smacked him between the eyes. Emma was that woman.

Focusing his gaze on her, on her beautiful, sleepy face, he opened his mouth to say something mushy. Her lids were heavy, eyes barely slits. But it was unmistakable.

Her irises were no longer brown. They were emerald green.

Mated.

She was mated to him. Deep inside him, something feral growled in triumph. Not quite an inner wolf, but the promise of one.

He shivered in shock. He had the potential for an inner wolf? How…? Had he always had one or had the magic swirling around their passionate sex created one, or had their coupling actually been magical, creating it or…?

Didn’t matter. Whether he had the potential to mate with her in return someday or not, whether he wanted it or not, she was mated to him now, both the woman and her beast.

No, that wasn’t quite right. He definitely wanted it.

The question was, whether
she
wanted it too.

And then his brain finally grabbed some blood away from his groin and a more pressing concern clamored through the mush of his mind.

If Ryder had jailed her simply for unconsummated lust, what would he do now that she was mated to a wizard prince?

Chapter Sixteen

“Emma.”

Gabriel’s tone brought her back from the brink of sleep. She’d heard the full range of his inflections, from calm to crisis, and knew every shading. This didn’t sound loving or happy or any of the things she’d expect after satisfying sex.

No, this tone sounded like he was determined to get to the bottom of something. Not good news for her.

“What?” She cracked her eyes cautiously.

“Why?”

She clenched her lids as if that would make the question go away. “Why what?”

“I know why I wanted to go to bed with you. I have since I met you. But we hadn’t cleared the air, and you made a big deal about getting your father’s journal and leaving town.”

“Well…I didn’t want to go yet, after learning the journal might be dangerous.”

“You could have left it with my aunt, knowing she’d keep it safe. But instead you stopped for sex. Why?”

“Because I needed the rest—”

“We didn’t get any rest. And you knew we wouldn’t. You
hoped
we wouldn’t. So again I ask—why?”

Damn it, she did
not
want to do this, didn’t want to tell him the real reasons. He was a true friend to her, to the point that he’d taken the time to rescue her from Bruiser despite having his own, more pressing problems.

And now that her brain had cleared—satisfaction having finally muted the burning need driving her—she saw she’d blundered badly. Making babies was deeply personal. A minefield even for committed couples.

How would he take her one-sided decision to try to have his child?

No matter that it really meant more to her, meant a deep, lasting connection to him. He’d feel used. The thought nearly broke her heart.

But she couldn’t lie. Though she couldn’t quite bring herself to blurt the whole truth either. She started with a half-truth, her gaze over his shoulder. “Your aunt left us together, and I simply couldn’t stop myself—”

“No. Sorry, but that’s not it.”

She peeked at his face. Certainty lit his naked gaze, as if he already knew what the answer was and was only waiting for her to own up to it. Damn, he was scary smart, but even he couldn’t know what she’d been thinking, what she’d been wanting. Could he? “It’s not?”

“Much as I’d like to believe I’m simply that attractive, I know you. You were scared. Staying with me, having sex with me, has something to do with that.” His blue-green eyes narrowed and silvered on her. Unimpeded by his glasses, his gaze cut like a laser scalpel into her brain.

She flinched. “You make me feel safe?”

“From whom? You were visiting your mother. Is it her? Did she do something to you?”

That was his nobody-hurts-my-employees voice again.

“No, of course not. My mother…” She glanced away. “She sold my stuff, but she needed the money. My brother, though… I’m afraid he’s going to find me and ship me back to Scottville.”

“So you said.” Gabriel’s eyes went so narrowed and killing-silver it looked like he’d pith Edge with his gaze alone. “That explains your hurry to get out of town, but not…” He waved at his naked, luscious torso. “This.”

She swallowed a lump, equal parts lust and nerves. The more she thought about telling him, the more she realized how belittling it was.
I wanted to take your sperm to keep me safe. I wanted to
use
you.

How badly would it hurt him? The last thing in the world she wanted to do, but exactly the thing she’d done.

She huffed a breath. Maybe just blurt it out and rely on their friendship to keep him from walking away from her in a fury and horror?
I need you, badly. Need your help in a very elemental way…

She laughed, without humor. Elemental, basic. She needed him for the most basic thing there was. Not simply making a baby, but everything that went along with it.

She opened her mouth to lay her hidden feelings for him absolutely bare, to blurt that she wanted to make a family with him. Wanted a future with him.

And if he didn’t feel the same way, the damage would be done.

Her mouth froze, open. Flash-frying him with forever, she’d never have the chance to gradually warm him up to the idea. She’d never have the chance to romance him, to blow on the tinder of their friendship and ignite his love.

That woodpile would be ashes, gone forever.

Oh God. She’d never felt so vulnerable.

“Emma. Why?”

She swallowed hard. Too soon, too fast, but she didn’t have the space, the resources to wait for the right time. Two alphas against her, her brother wanting to sell her, her mother’s protective instinct possibly short-circuited by a necklace—Emma’s natural support structure was badly broken.

The only friend she had left was Gabriel.

If it hurt him, her only consolation was that it would probably hurt her more.

“Emma? What’s going on? Please, tell me. I can help.”

“I know.” She heaved a shuddering breath. “I know you can help. You’re the smartest, the strongest, the best person I know. And I’m so very sorry…” She clenched her eyes against the pain of what she was about to inflict on him. “Please know I wouldn’t have done it if I weren’t desperate.”

He gave an uncertain laugh. “You make it sound like sex is a horrible crime.”

In a way, it was. “Gabriel, the only way to be absolutely free of Bruiser is to be mated. I-I thought if you could make me pregnant, I could pretend…” She opened pleading eyes on him.

His were narrowed, his face shuttered. Turning his back, tightly wound, on her, he got off the bed and retrieved his glasses.

Cold shafted her. “I don’t just want your sperm as a shield. There’s more to it than that. Please believe me. Please say you understand?”

“Oh, I understand.” He settled the frames on his face, and only then did he turn his narrowed gaze on her. “If you’re mated, Bruiser can’t annex you. But mating shows in the eyes. Isn’t your mother’s mated color green?”

Implying Bruiser would see Emma’s brown irises and know she was lying, although it was an odd way to say it. “I’d use colored contacts. There are places that deliver them quickly.”

“You’d need to smell mated too.”

“Smelling pregnant would be close enough, until I could figure something else out. But if you and I…if
we…
” She took a deep breath. “Gabriel, what I’m trying to say—”

“Not now. It’s been a long couple days. Get some sleep.” He began to dress.

She blinked. “What about you?”

“The workout mat will be comfortable enough.”

“But there’s plenty of room here—”

“Emma.” His eyes swung to hers and stuck. “If I lay down next to you, we’re not getting any sleep. And we need to have our brains fully functional to deal with both your brother and the Enforcer.”

“Oh. Right.”

He finished dressing and walked with lithe grace to the door where he paused.

“By the way. You won’t need contacts.” He left.

She frowned at the empty doorway. What had he meant by that last comment?

Her wolf gave a happy little yip.

Her stomach jolted as a possibility occurred to her. No. Couldn’t be. She tiptoed to the door and peeked out. The hallway was empty, though it smelled of him, of her, of their desperate need, almost as heavily as the bed smelled of sex and satisfaction.

With a deep breath for courage, she crept across to the bathroom, shuffling in with her head down until she stood in front of the sink and medicine cabinet mirror.

You’re no coward. Look.

Eyes rose in the reflection.

Emerald eyes.

Joy surged through her. She was mated to the man of her dreams. To the male who made her laugh, brought her whole-body orgasms, to the man who was first her friend.

Maybe this was the real reason she hadn’t been able to run away from Matinsfield. Not the journal, but her subconscious recognizing Gabriel as her mate, their bond already forming long ago.

She shivered in happiness. She’d always dreamed of a mating bond that went beyond sex, to something deeper.

Gabriel Light was the kind of man who was all about deeper.

Picking up her shoes and the pile of clothes and journal, she hugged them to her chest and danced back to the bedroom, her feet floating. She’d always said to him, “I’m fine.” Now she wasn’t fine, she was better than fine.

I’m happy.

She passed through the doorway where he’d stood, telling her to get some sleep…telling her she wouldn’t need contacts, his last expression almost embarrassed.

He knew. He knew she was mated to him. But he wasn’t overjoyed at all.

Gravity reasserted itself. Her heels touched the ground, and her shoulders slumped. Yes,
her
eyes were emerald, but his were the same star-shot blue-green as before.

Because he wasn’t a wolf? Or because she’d mated with him, but he hadn’t mated with her in return?

If she’d been ritually mated to Bruiser, it would have been a loveless match, but at least it would have been loveless on both sides. Now…?

Cold seeped into her veins. She shuffled to the bed and sank onto it, eyes seeing nothing but a terrible future. Her things tumbled from nerveless arms to the floor. Old molly tales whispered in her ears, about one-sided matings, about the sad horror, the shame. Trapped in a loveless marriage was bad enough. Trapped in love with a man, him not loving her in return—or worse, watching as he fell in love with another woman…?

Ice skewered her stomach.
I’m not fine. I’ll never be fine again.