The Strip (29 page)

Malcolm had stopped in his tracks and his expression was now unreadable. However, his gaze continued to burn, and the pupils at the centers of his stark eyes were expanding. It made him look hungry. Almost mean.

Charlie shifted under the intense, nearly painful scrutiny of those darkening green eyes. And when the silence stretched, she began to wish that she’d never spoken, or that she’d asked him to leave after all.

But when she brought her arms up to hug herself in her discomfort, his voice cut through the space between them and once more froze her in place.

“Stop.” He had spoken very softly, and yet she jerked a little with the force of the command. “Don’t hide yourself from me, Charlie,” he told her, his low tone a touch beseeching. “Not from me.”

Charlie swallowed hard. She was beginning to ever so slightly tremble, but he continued to run her through with his piercing gaze, offering no respite. And then he spoke again, and his next soft command snaked around her like a vice, a coil of steel wrapped in plush velvet. “Take off your clothes.”

Charlie couldn’t move. A very big part of her wanted to do what he said. But another part of her was afraid of the exposure, on so many levels. He had yet to see her without her clothes. What if he didn’t like what he saw? She was very fair; what if pale skin wasn’t his thing?

“I believe they are new, Charlie, and I doubt that you wish to see them destroyed,” he told her, his tone decidedly, expertly calm, even as the air around them nearly crackled with his presence. “So, take them off.” The order was crisp and simple and it made Charlie’s panties stick to her body with warm, wet anticipation. This was what she had always dreamed of. Malcolm Cole and his eyes had invaded her sleep for so long. He was the one she was meant to be with. He was also a perfectly dominant male who cared for her, would protect her, and who knew what she needed and could give it to her. He was her intended, and she had been born to do this.

It was surreal. It was too perfect. And it was turning her insides to molten magma.

Charlie closed her eyes and drew in a shaky breath. As she let it out, she curled her fingers under the hem of her t-shirt and pulled it up over her stomach, her breasts, and then her head. With her eyes still shut, she took it in one hand and let it drop to the floor.

She could hear herself swallow past the lump that had formed in her throat and she wasn’t surprised to open her eyes and look down and find that sweat had pooled between her breasts and dampened the lace of her new bra.

Without glancing back up at him, she began to unbutton the front of her jeans. She tried not to think about what she was doing. She tried not to think about the way her skin felt chilled in the air conditioned room and the way her nipples were so dark and visible against the fabric of her bra. If she stopped to consider her actions, if she dared to look up and once more get caught in the heat of his gaze, she would falter.

So, she finished unbuttoning the jeans and then curled her thumbs over the waist band on either side of her hips. Slowly, she pushed the jeans down over her hips, over the swell of her bottom, and then let them pool at her Ed Hardy Converses.

As she stepped out of them, she slipped her feet out of her shoes, and touched her bare toes to the thick, plush carpet behind them.

She desperately wanted to hug herself then. She wanted to hide, and she felt both unbelievably hot and cold at the same time. Tremors of anticipation and apprehension racked through her tall, lithe body, and the tension coiling in her stomach forced her muscles to contract.

She would never know the effect that the sight of her standing there, all lean muscle and soft, damp, glowing skin had on the alpha werewolf before her. She would never be quite fully aware. But she could sense a change in the air. It made her dizzy. She thought she might faint, so in an effort to obey his order not to cover herself, she backed up toward the window and pressed her palms against it for support.

A low, barely audible growl reverberated from across the room and Charlie’s eyes flew open. The planes of Malcolm’s face were sharp and shadowed, his visage the very essence of animalistic need. Still, his tone was soft when he spoke to her. “Come here,” he quietly commanded.

Charlie’s eyes widened. Her breathing sped up, and her natural defiance rose to the occasion, forever wanting to play the game. She shook her head, a small movement, and that dark emerald gaze narrowed.

“Charlie,” he repeated, his rich accented tone the essence of calm authority and control. “Come. Here.”

The air in the room seemed to heat up, becoming electric and muggy. Cole’s domination coursed through the space between them, an unbearable heaviness that achieved so much more with mere words than most men could ever hope to accomplish with ropes or chains. It brooked no further resistance.

Charlie closed her eyes and forced her body to move. One step. Another. She opened her eyes again and her stomach clenched, her nipples hardening into painful nubs against the now-scratchy lace of her bra. Her skin felt flushed, her nerve endings raw against what little scraps of clothing were left on her body.

Cole’s eyes continued to claim her, never wavering, never letting up, and heat routed its way through her body, carving a path of ruthless need across her chest, her abdomen, and between her legs. Moisture continued to gather there, soaking her new lace panties.

She stopped a few feet from him, utterly unable to go any further.

The world was suddenly blurring around her as one of his hands fisted in her hair and the other firmly wrapped around her neck and her body was shoved up against the nearest wall, his tall, hard form pressing her into the paint and plaster behind her.

She gasped in painful surprise and then failed in suppressing a moan of unadaltered need and pleasure as his grip around her neck tightened and his knee forced her legs apart until her wetness was resting on the long, hard muscle of his thigh.

He lowered his lips to her ear and the words he whispered sent shivers shock-waving through her trapped body. “Get ready, luv,” he told her as his thumb let up on its pressure so that he could gently rub it along the line of her chin. “Because before the night is through, I’m going to have you in every way imaginable, in every room in this suite, and then Charlie,” he hissed as he tugged her head back, forcing her neck to arch, “when you can’t take any more, I’m going to sink my teeth into you and drink you in.”

Malcolm’s hand slid up her neck and over her chin. His thumb forced itself between her lips, prying her mouth open. He ran it along the tops of her teeth and she shuddered under the new violation. He lowered his lips to within an inch of her own and whispered across them, all the while gazing deeply into her ice-blue eyes, trapping her in too many ways to count. “Do you have
any
idea how breathtaking you are, Charlie?” he asked her softly, his tone laced with urgency and desperation. His hand dropped from her mouth to once more gently encircle her throat and she suppressed a moan at the contact. “I suspect not,” he went on, his own breath shaking now as he seemed to fight with something inside of him; something he was barely able to control.

When his fingers released her throat to graze across her nipple and slide slowly toward her waiting, dripping heat, Charlie felt as if she were lost within some wonderful erotic dream. But there was something he’d said… something he’d just whispered… about teeth? A warning bell was trying to ring within her mind, but she couldn’t hear it. She couldn’t acknowledge it. Cole was too big, too strong, and he was filling her world.

At once, he released her and pulled away just enough for her to move. “Turn around and put your hands on the wall,” he commanded.

She stared at him for a moment, stunned at the sudden absence of his body pressed against hers. But the heat of his gaze still seared and her body was screaming for his.

His command waited to be obeyed.

She was game. And she could give as good as she could get.

With a raw, avid look that she knew spoke volumes of how much she wanted him, Charlie slowly turned around, keeping eye contact with him over her shoulder as she did so. Then she tossed her hair over her shoulder, looked away, and leaned over. She pressed her palms to the wall, arching her back to allow the long, curved line of her body to present itself to him at its best.

The silence stretched. A heartbeat. Two.

And then she was shoved roughly into the wall, her breasts pressed flat against its cool surface, her wrists caught in his steel-hard grips. “I’m not human, Charlie,” he told her, his lips brushing softly against her ear as his body pressed so roughly against hers. “I’m a wolf and you’re my mate.” He let the warning sink in. That was what it was – a warning. He would not be gentle. He
couldn’t
be gentle. Not now. “This is your last chance. If you tell me to leave now, I will.”

“If you leave now,” she told him, gasping the words through bared teeth as she pressed back against him to urge him on, “
I
will hunt
you
down.”

Malcolm laughed, low and long, and the sound snaked through her consciousness. He lowered his head until his lips brushed the taut skin of her neck. And then he smiled, and Charlie felt his elongated fangs graze her flesh.

She hissed at the contact, a quick intake of breath, and fresh fear uncoiled within her. Somewhere deep inside, a red warning light began to flash. She ignored it, hazy and incomprehensible as it was, and instead listened as he spoke once more.

“I can’t always control the wolf, Charlie,” he said. “Move your hands from that wall and I won’t even try.” Cole kicked her feet apart with his shoes and eased his grip on her wrists to run his hands down her arms.

She was still wearing her bra, but it was no armor against his touch, the lace only scratching and rubbing enticingly as his warm palms grazed over the curve of her breasts and cupped them gently. When his thumbs flicked the hardened nipples underneath, Charlie once more jerked in his arms, and then she bucked again as he repeated the movement, sending rivulets of electricity through her body.

She kept her hands where they were. She’d felt his fangs. Adrenaline piggy-backed the craven desire coursing through her veins. Fear was ever the handmaiden to real pleasure.

Cole’s fingers deftly curved over the lace edge of the material that was pressed so tight against her creamy flesh. And then, in one vicious move that elicited a cry of both surprise and pain from Charlie, he ripped the lace downward, rending the garment in two.

Charlie came away from the wall and whirled around to face him, but Cole’s hand found her neck once more and squeezed, this time hard enough to still the breath in her lungs. Her fingers wrapped around the wrist of the hand that held her and her eyes closed of their own volition.

Cole bent to whisper across her lips. “You moved your hands.”

With that, he was spinning around and tossing her roughly toward the nearby couch. A brief flash of panicked terror ripped through Charlie’s consciousness as her body went flying through the air, and then she was landing on the leather of the sofa and relief flooded her system. But it was temporary.

Because once she got her bearings, she looked up at Malcolm to find that his green eyes had gone completely pitch, his pupils having swallowed his irises in their inhuman darkness. Long, sharp white fangs punctuated his cruel, promising grin, and his chest rose and fell with the deep, fast breaths of a man on the edge.

He looked like a monster. A beautiful, dangerous, oversexed monster who was going to literally eat her up, bit by bit, and make her enjoy it.

The defiant, sexually charged part of Charlie’s brain was sparking with electric overload. It was in control now. There was no conscious predetermination when she suddenly jumped up and vaulted herself over the back of the couch to take off at a fast sprint toward the nearest doorway. She knew he would give chase. That was the point.

She was very fast – but Malcolm Cole was a lot faster. And the doorway she’d escaped through led to his bedroom.

His body slammed into hers without warning, and she was once more sent flying through the air, this time to land roughly on the bed. Cole gave her no chance to catch her bearings this time, instead flipping her over with little to no effort, and then securing her wrists to the mattress above her. His strong body straddled her waist, preventing her long, lean legs from doing any damage.

She stared up at him with wide eyes as he continued to grin down at her, all hunger and basic instinct. What little there was left of the man who was Malcolm Cole had stepped away and allowed the wolf within him to take over.

Charlie tensed her muscles against his strength, but she was no match for him. A fact that he more than adequately demonstrated as he released one of her wrists in order to grab the metal railing of the head board above her.

With one hand, he tore the end of the metal loose from its soldering and lifted her right wrist to literally wrap the metal pipe around it in a make-shift vice. Charlie cried out in shock and instinctively jerked against the steel binding. A little bondage was one thing, but this was mind-blowing.

Her resistance was an utterly useless gesture. It was solid metal. She was flesh and bone. And Cole had wrapped it around her wrist just tight enough that it didn’t hurt, but secured her effectively, rendering that arm useless.

Charlie’s breathing was now coming very short and fast. She could only lay beneath Cole, in staggered amazement, as he took hold of her other wrist and proceeded to do the same thing once more. The metal headboard made horrible sounds as he ripped an end of it loose and then wrapped it around her slim left wrist as if it were rope or cloth.

She was restrained. There was no way in hell she was getting out of this one.

Game over.

Cole wasted no time. He slid down her body and, with not a shred of gentleness, he curled his fingers around the thin lace material of her panties and ripped them from her body. Charlie was too stunned to cry out at the brief pain, but her body reacted and she rose off of the mattress, arching her back and forcing a growl to escape Cole’s throat.