When Angels Fall (8 page)

A satisfied smile curved his lips, and it matched the possessive gleam in his gaze. The man and leopard now one.
“
Good.
You
’
re
mine.
”

Proving his words, he pounded into her at a speed not quite human. Their flesh, slick with sweat, slapped together. He let go of her hair only to draw her legs up until the backs of her thighs pressed against the coiling muscles of his stomach and chest. Cupping her ass in one hand, he pressed in deeper than she
’
d
thought possible
,
as if this was the only time she
’
d been fucked like she was meant to be. The pleasure honed, zeroing in and then sending out the first tremors of orgasm.

He thrust again, and again. When something brushed against her clit, she realized he held the base of his cock, his hand measuring each thrust. Was this another punishment to keep her from climax or was he holding back? She glanced away from their joined bodies to look at him.
Tension held his shoulders stiff. The same tension clenched his jaw and sealed his eyes shut.

She wanted more, wanted all of him.

“
Don
’
t you dare hold back,
”
she said, the fierce growl in her voice surprising them both.

His lids snapped open. Iridescent eyes the same shade as a glittering emerald stared down at her. Every single leopard she knew had icy blue eyes; everyone except Peter.

“
You have no idea what you
’
re asking for.
”
He let go of his cock,
plunged
just a little deeper.

Her breath caught at the immediate pierce of pleasurable pain. He pushed the thick length of his erection all the way in again, slow and deep. She opened for him. Internal contractions milked his cock, pulling him in and seating him so deep he became part of her.

“
Oh fuck,
”
he cursed
.
“
Are you absolutely sure about this, Eva? I don
’
t want to hurt you.
”

She bit her lip, debated on how much to tell him. How could she when she herself wasn
’
t even sure?
“
I
’
m not human. You won
’
t hurt me. Fuck me, Peter.
”

He growled, lifted his lip enough that she could see the sharp point of his feline canines.
“
For that, I
’
m not untying you.
”

No longer restrained, tension left his body and smoothed the lines on his chiseled face. Immediately she sensed the calming of his beast. He
’
d been holding back the entire time. This time, when he pounded inside, the heavy weight of his balls slapped her ass. The tip of his cock hit the mouth of her cervix, pressed deeper.

An unexpected climax stole her breath and blackened her vision. Her body
heated,
tensed,
and muscles spasmed
. Wave after wave of pleasure rocketed through her entire being. Peter
’
s hands tightened on her thighs. He let loose with a feral growl, the sound sending shivers across her arms.

He pushed forward, quickening his thrusts
, the glide of his cock in and out seamless
. The headboard slammed against the wall. Shuddering, his body tensed. His cock
grew impossibly larger, as if the head expanded to n
otch inside
. Like a true feline penis. Shit, was he shifting forms?

Fear capturing her breath, she looked up at him, her panic quickly banished at the sight of his manly face made ten times more handsome in the midst of his climax. The hard ridge of enlarged cock pressed against a spot untouched, rubbed, triggered an orgasm with the force of a tsunami.

Looking in each other
’
s eyes, t
hey became one, connected on a level that should have scared the hell out of her.
Swollen and n
ot able to pull out, Peter kept on fucking her. His shallow thrusts
forced
her from one orgasm to the next. He threw his head back, exposed the line of his throat and
the bulge of his Adam
’
s apple.

Never had any male specimen been sexier than this stranger
.

The tips of his fingers lengthened into claws where he held her hips. Her excitement rocketed. The pleasure was too much, her breath too uneven. Darkness danced in her eyes. Peter had been true to his word. He
’
d fucked her unconscious. She came one final time, hugging euphoria while oblivion claimed her.

* * * * *

Peter didn
’
t sleep. Nothing unusual there. Bouts of insomnia
had
hit at the age of five
:
the day a hunter had taken one look at his mother in her leopard form and shot her in the head. His nightmares were vicious. The splashes of blood against his cheeks were as warm in memory as
they
had been on that dark, snowy night. The sound his father made, the noise of a soul tearing apart, was as jarring in his dreams.

Even as a boy, he
’
d understood the unique connection between his parents. They were bonded, two souls woven together. He would never forget the way the beast had ripped from within his father
’
s human skin to get free and avenge his mate. Clothes tore. Bones popped.
The result hadn
’
t left him leopard, but a feral combination of both animal and man.
As if it
had
happened yesterday, the nightmares forced Peter to live through the wet noises of the hunter
’
s flesh ripping apart.

Thirty years later the dreams came just as frequently, just as clear. The resulting restlessness often left him wide-awake and jittery. After the marathon sex he
’
d just had with Eva, he
’
d
figured unconsciousness would hav
e kicked his ass.
Instead, he sat naked in the dark, quiet room with his shoulders pressed against the headboard.

He
’
d been watching
Eva sleep for a few hours now, contemplating how horribly wrong things had gone. He
’
d knotted inside her, something he
’
d never done before, had thought only a fairy tale to entice males into mating. Whatever gratification he
’
d had with other women didn
’
t even blip on his pleasure meter, not after Eva.

The swelling kept him inside her hot pussy, allowed him a rare shot at multiple orgasms, one after the other tearing through him. He drew a hand down his unshaven face and beat back the encroaching panic. The condom, no match for a mating leopard, had broken. When he came, it was inside her.

After he
’
d roused her awake and they
’
d had the awkward
“
oh shit
”
moment, she
’
d assured him she was on birth control pills and he
’
d alleviated her worries about diseases. Eva was the first woman he
’
d ridden bareback. And, after the second and third condom broke, they
’
d agreed not to use them.

What in the fuck had he been thinking?

He hadn
’
t. He looked at Eva anew.
Face
-
first in the pillow, the only sign the woman beside him lived was the sporadic twitch of her foot. His gaze raked over the arch of her delicate toes and the line of her calf. Higher, he admired the back of the knees, her smooth thighs and the curve of her hips. He paused when he got to the swell of her gorgeous heart
-
shaped ass. She had a rear end he could sink his teeth into, and had
,
actually, several times throughout the night and morning.

Biting his lower lip, Peter rolled to his side and gath
ered his courage to lean close.
He lifted the golden curls blanketing her face and peered at the one closed eye he could see to make sure she still slept. A hurricane probably wouldn
’
t wake her at this point.

Do it.

She
’
ll never know.

Hesitantly, heart hammering stupidly, he allowed his gaze to move past her ass. In one glance, he took in the golden, shimmering tattoo covering her back
, something he hadn
’
t allowed himself to dwell on
before
. From
her
shoulders to the base of her spine, delicately textured feathers colored her skin in iridescent shades of gold. It was as if the ink had flecks of real gold and glitter in it. From a distance, the pattern of dark to light on the outer layers of feathers formed a heart with two points where wings folded together at the small of her back.

The artistry was impeccable and intricate. Each feather shimmered as if kissed by fairy dust. If he touched the image would he feel skin, or the soft silk of a feather? His hand hovered over her back, hesitated, and then lowered to caress the delicate markings. Skin. Only smooth, warm skin. He
’
d been staring so long he wasn
’
t sure what was real anymore.

Last night he
’
d seen the tattoo, but was too caught up in the pleasure of her body, of purging her from his system
,
to admire anything besides her tight, wet, gloriously hot pussy.
Without a condom, the feel of her had been better than any fantasy.
Now, in the quiet hours of the morning, in the dark of the room, Peter gazed at the wings and stroked them almost reverently. Maybe it was sleep deprivation, or maybe he
’
d actually fucked himself stupid, but at any moment he expected the wings to spread and rise from her skin.

She
’
d said she wasn
’
t human.

Angel.

No. No, fucking way was Eva an angel. Angels didn
’
t beg to be fucked. Angels wouldn
’
t suck the cum from your cock, swallow, and then lick their lips as if asking for more.

The artwork was merely an illusion. A mind trick like one of those three
-
dimensional
“
mind
’
s eye
”
puzzles with the dots merging to form a picture you could almost reach out and touch. Curving a finger down the line of her spine, he traced over the
arch
of one wing to the nape of her neck. His hand told him he stroked the smooth skin on her back, but his eyes told him she had downy feathers that spread into wings.

His cock stirred, the bastard too arrogant to admit when enough was enough. Throughout the night and into the morning, he and Eva had fucked too many times to count. Using every dominant position he knew, he took what she offered, and then demanded more. He came between her thighs, on her stomach, and between her breasts. He
’
d come in her mouth at the back of her throat. He
’
d flipped her over and come on the small of her back below her wings.

She had barely been able to walk when led to the shower. Lifting her into his arms, he
’
d looked down at her and reciprocated her sex-drunken smile with one of his own.

He
’
d been
struck by how much he
’
d
wanted to fuck her, still. A dozen times should be enough, was a record, yet the need to shove her onto her knees and plunge overrode everything else.

By the time they made it into the bathroom, the anger at how easily she
’
d gotten under his skin took hold.
Fucking her without protection was stupid, yet he
’
d been almost compelled to fill her with his seed. Facing
the counter, he pulled out her hips and stuck her ass into the air. Her long, lean legs were the perfect height
for him to take something she
’
d admitted she didn
’
t really want to do
.

The look on her face when she glanced over her shoulder, liquid brown eyes glassy with the lingering effects of orgasm overdose, destroyed the man and ensnared the beast. Forcing her head straight, he ordered her not to talk.
He lifted her hips, bringing her onto the tips of her toes. He used
a travel-sized bottle of baby oil,
and
ignored the tight, sudden tensing of her muscles when the cool oil leaked down the crack of her ass.

She protested,
as she
’
d had earlier in the night when he
’
d shoved a finger inside her dark hole. This time he was going to make her want it. She
’
d whimpered,
but he hadn
’
t much cared, not when he
ringed his finger around the hole, massaging and preparing her.

Teasing the entrance, he played with her pussy until she writhed and begged, until she reared back, seeking penetration. He wasn
’
t going to let her come again until he had her the way he wanted her. Slowly, he
’
d pushed h
is finger past the tight ring of muscles at her anus.

From one to two, two to three, he
’
d gotten her nice and ready. She
’
d told him to stop. Three times. He
’
d replied with the simple truth, stop wasn
’
t their safe word. Peter wouldn
’
t have forced her, but he wasn
’
t above manipulating her. By the time he
’
d p
ressed his cock into her virgin hole,
she had been begging for him to fill her.

Slow at first, he
’
d intended to take it easy. And he had. Until he
’
d lost control.
He closed his eyes, gripped her hips and pounded into her. She pushed her ass against him, anticipating the thrusts, egging him on
, God damn her.
Ten minutes in her dark passage had him unloading in her ass and crying out like a bitch.

Pulling out of her ravished passage, watching the cum leak down her trembling thigh as she collapsed against the counter in front of her, had made him feel like an asshole.
Despite his internal promise to stay detached and in charge,
he
’
d gathered her in his arms. T
he apology he murmured against her sweat-slicked throat was sincere.
She
’
d trusted him and he
’
d lost control.
If she cared, she was too far gone to voice it. The shower was hot, the spray a thousand needles on his sensitive skin.

He soaped her skin to ease her soreness, hoped it would wash away his guilt. He kissed each mark he
’
d
left on her body in silent apology. From that point forward
, as if they hadn
’
t been bad already,
things went to hell. Damn her. He blamed her silent tears, the breathless way she gasped his name when his hand unerringly found her swollen sex. Ridden hard and thoroughly abused she spread her legs, silently
asking
for more.

She grazed her nails up his water
-
slicked back, coaxing a line of goose bumps in her wake. Lifting on the tips of her toes, her hard-tipped breasts pressed against his chest. Between them, his cock jerked. The tables turned. From his shoulder to his neck, she trailed a path of pure fire
with her mouth
. No one touched the Alpha
’
s neck. No one, except Eva. Her first kiss was tentative, as if she knew the rules and decided to break them anyway. The second was harder and sped his heart. She nipped his throat, the sweet bite more erotic then if she
’
d palmed his erection.

He should have pushed her away. He should have spun her around, pressed her face to the slick wall and shown her what it meant to be his submissive
all over again
. Instead, he threaded his hand through her sopping wet hair and clutched her closer. As if encouraged, her tongue traced his jugular before her teeth closed down.

His
words,
“
I can
’
t get enough of you,
”
had been innocent enough, excusable, but he hadn
’
t stopped there.

“
You
’
re the most beautiful creature I
’
ve ever seen.
”

“
I need you.
”

“
Please.
”

Peter Marx had res
ort
ed to begging.

One last time, up against the slick wall with the steam billowing around them, he entered her. The entire scene had been romantic and tender. Two things he didn
’
t want or need. He didn
’
t know how long they stayed joined, but he hadn
’
t wanted it to end. After he pumped what was sur
e
ly the very last drop of s
e
men in his body into her, he carried her to the bed. She rolled onto her stomach, murmured something that wasn
’
t human language before dropping off into no man
’
s land.