Wild Instinct (27 page)

“You’re relying on sex to hold me.”

She was sharp as a tack. Smiling, he circled her ankle with his palm and moved her leg to the side, improving his view. His tongue tingled as he crawled up her body, kissing her hard. He told her, “Yes, I am.”

On the way back down, he stopped at her breasts, kissing one hard peak and then the other before moving his mouth to the hollow between, breathing deeply of her scent. Feeling drunk on the pleasure, he ordered, “So just lie back and enjoy it.”

“Is that an order?”

Nibbling and kissing his way down her belly, he laughed at the bite of indignation. “Of course.”

The next kiss landed on the top of her mound. She arched up. “I should rebel on principle.”

“You should.” The crevice beckoned. He probed lightly with his tongue. The inner lips were silky smooth, fragrant with her juices. Delicious. She moaned and gasped. Her fingers knotted in his hair. Another invitation. He didn’t hesitate, just settled, sampling lightly at first, lapping gently at the delicate folds until she was pulling him in rather than holding him away. With the next flick he found her clit. Hard and distended, it accepted his caress with a little flex of joy. Teri cried out. He settled in to enjoy, cupping her buttocks in his palms as he propped her up for his pleasure, loving the taste of her on his tongue, her scent in his nostrils, her cries in his ears. Tension in her thighs told him she was close. He held her balanced on the edge, resting his tongue flat against her straining clit while she twisted and bucked, striving for the pressure she needed.

“Daire, please.”

It was what he’d been waiting for. Closing his lips around the tender bud, he bit down and drew it out, shaking his head as he did, letting the vibrations spread the tension, biting harder when she screamed, licking and lapping as she came, prolonging the moment until she moaned and dropped back onto the bed, thighs quivering.

His cock full to bursting, he rasped, “I love giving you that.”

Her “what” held only a shadow of her previous vehemence. She was only half with him, which was fine. He wanted her in a haze of pleasure when he took her. He’d rather have her focused on the pleasure he’d just given her than on the past.

Walling his hands up the mattress on either side of her body, he confessed, “I love making you come. You make such sweet sounds.”

“Oh, God!” She covered her face with her hands.

Her nipples were berry red and distended, too tempting to pass up. The right received the first nip, the left the second. While she soothed the sting with her hands, he kissed her mouth. “You are a very sexy woman, Teri.”

Her lips parted at the pressure of his. “I have to be to keep up with you.”

He liked the thought of that, the two of them feeding each other’s desires. “Good.”

He moved between her legs. His cock fell heavy and hungry against her clit. He watched closely, looking for distaste. Instead, he felt the bolt of pure lust that went through her. With small pulses, he made love to her center, letting her juices ease the friction, increasing the pressure gradually until her heels dug into the mattress and she arched up. “Daire, please. I need you.”

He needed her, too. Needed his cock in her body, needed to feel her pussy clasp him hard as his aching balls gave her what they both needed. An end to the uncertainty.

Tucking his cock along her clit, he rubbed it back and forth as he ordered, “Put your arm around me, Teri.”

As soon as she did, he pulled back, letting his cock slide down the slick channel until it tucked into the well of her vagina. So hot, so wet. He wasn’t going to last long. Replacing his cock with his thumb, he rubbed her clit in slow circles as his cock pressed in, parting her tender muscles. He went slowly because she was right—he was big, thick, too, and she wasn’t going to take him easily. She twisted and cried out. He pumped and rubbed. Her muscles gave and his cock slid in. He felt the shock wave go through her as her muscles spread over the head of his cock. Felt the bite of pain with her pleasure. His claws dug into the mattress as the urge to thrust, to claim, welled.

“Easy.”

“You’re so big.”

“And you’re going to enjoy every inch.”

She shook her head. He didn’t know whether it was in denial of his size or her ability to take the pleasure he intended to deliver. In the end, it didn’t matter. He was past the point of stopping. His balls were full, his patience shot. She was his. Only his.

He pushed in. Her pussy clenched around his cock in a velvet fist rippling with the impact on her senses, drawing him further into the maelstrom of her passion.

More.
The order, feminine and strong, slid along his desire.

Yes, he needed more. Pulling out, he thrust back in, winning another inch, another cry. The hot sting of Teri’s nails on his back drove him on, thrust after thrust, always deeper, always harder, seeking that perfect point where it would all come together. Teri leaned up and sank her teeth into his shoulder. The pain rode the fine edge of lust, driving deep to his core, and suddenly he was there. Grabbing Teri’s hips, he arched her up, driving into her, grinding his groin against hers until she had all of him, groaning as her climax slammed through her mind, her body. Her channel milked his cock, taking his seed from him in a mind-blowing explosion that left him mentally limp, but physically ready to go again.

Pumping slowly, Daire dragged out both their pleasure, kissing her eyes, her nose, her chin and finally her mouth before asking, “Think you might want to stay?”

Her right eyelid cracked open. He could see the glitter of her iris behind. God, she was beautiful with her swollen lips and passion-heavy eyes. “Maybe.”

“Damn, woman, what’s it going to take to convince you?”

“A repeat performance?”

Peace flowed over him. “I can probably manage that.”

Her other eye opened. Tenderness infused her expression. “Maybe more than one.”

“You’ve got me confused with Superman.”

Her hands cupped his cheeks as her thumbs stroked over the ridge of his cheekbones. “Then I guess you’ll have to work up your stamina.”

“How long are you giving me?”

“How about the next sixty years?” Her calf slid up his thigh. “We’ll renegotiate then.”

“Renegotiate.”

She shrugged. “If necessary.”

His breath caught in his lungs. “What are you saying?”

Her thumbs tucked into the corner of his mouth in an imitation of the pre-kiss caress he’d given her. “You want me to spell it out?”

He turned his head, catching her thumb between his teeth. Yes, he did. This was too important to leave to chance. “Yes.”

Her fingers pressed into the back of his neck, pulling his mouth to hers, his heart to hers. For the rest of his life he’d remember how she looked in that moment as she put her mark on his soul with four little words.

“I’ve made my choice.”

Curran

One

HE
was out there.

The superhuman someone that had cut through her evasive tactics with the smooth slide of a hot knife through butter. The someone that had dogged their footsteps with tireless determination. The someone who chased them, defended them, wouldn’t give up on them.

Rachel grabbed Josiah and shoved him behind the boxes in the corner of the small storeroom in which they were hiding. It was a dead end, nowhere to hide.
He
never would have found her if she hadn’t overslept. But she was so tired and her dreams were so vivid, portraying the inevitability of this moment in staccato bursts of events, not telling her if it was good or bad, not letting her see the ending, just telling her he was coming.

Rachel glanced at the door, feeling the stranger’s energy as tangible as any touch. He knew they were there. He was playing with them. A devilish game of cat and mouse. She slipped into the small space behind the boxes.

Josiah’s eyes gleamed up at her. As her night vision kicked in in response to the darkness, she could see the stress on his face, the quiver in his lips, but he didn’t cry out. She put her hand on his shoulder, smiling at him with a confidence she didn’t feel. As silly as it was to think that hiding behind boxes in the corner of a storeroom was going to fool whatever had been tracking them for the last two weeks, she had to try. She couldn’t give Josiah up without a fight.

“It’ll be okay,” she mouthed.

Josiah’s lips firmed and he nodded at her.

She wanted to cry right there. He believed in her, trusted her, and she couldn’t tell him that it was over. She couldn’t look away from the door, watching the handle with a morbid fascination, waiting for the slight rattle that would tell her that his hand was upon it, that the moment was here. She hated her gift, part prophecy, part torment. Her dreams last night had revealed to her that this dead end would come. And they told her that whatever came through that door was going to be big, bigger than anything she had met to date. But they didn’t say it was good and they didn’t say it was evil. She just knew, the minute that door opened, nothing was going to be the same again.

Josiah opened his mouth. She slipped her hand over his lips, sealing off any whisper of noise. She heard, or maybe she just sensed, the footfall outside the door. Whoever had been chasing them, he wasn’t one of the rogues. The rogues had been easy to evade. This man was something else, something more, and he scared the hell out of her. The doorknob rattled as
he
tested it to see if it was locked. It was. She’d done that when she walked in. She motioned to Josiah to turn his head a little bit.

He did.

She leaned down and put her lips against his ear. “If I tell you to run,” she whispered, “you run and you don’t look back.”

His eyes flashed to hers in the dark, wide, terrified. A five-year-old was too young for the burden they were putting on him. But he had a Protector’s instincts, and after that flash of fear, his shoulders squared. He mouthed, “What about you?”

She shook her head and put her lips back to his ear. “Don’t worry about me. You run,” she ordered in a voice barely above the whisper. “You find Haven. Travel by day; hide at night.”

The door rattled again, harder this time.

She looked around. In her normal frame of mind, she never would have chosen a dead end as a place to rest, but her dreams had led her here. Dreams that promised safety until last night, when they’d changed after it was too late to move. Then they’d turned into nightmares. That delay had been happening more and more often of late. She bit her lip as she acknowledged the reality. Her gift was out of control. When she’d moved to the humans because she couldn’t hide it from the wolves anymore, she’d been able to control it. But every year it had grown stronger, calling to her, driving her down paths she didn’t want to go, evolving into a curse. She’d thought when she’d found Sarah Anne that she’d been where she was supposed to be. But that promise had turned out to be false, too.

Closing her eyes, Rachel felt along her inner mind, trying to find the remnant of a dream, looking for a sign that Josiah would be all right, if his wild bolt in the few seconds she’d be able to buy him would get him anywhere. But the dreams weren’t talking and the remnants were empty. The same couldn’t be said for her instincts. There was a wolf’s cry of danger. Of futility. She pushed Josiah a little farther back in the corner. No. She wouldn’t let that be the truth. When the time came, she’d come up with something. She always did.

Hearing the slide of a foot across the floor, knowing without a doubt whatever was on the other side of the door was about to kick it open, Rachel knew the moment was at hand. She caught Josiah’s head in her hands, gave a little press in lieu of a hug, kissed his temple and whispered, “I love you.”

This time the tears hovered in his eyes.

She shook her head at him. “You’re Protector. Remember that.”

He nodded. “And a Stone?” he murmured.

It was unwise to talk—they could give away their location within the room—but how could she send him out in the world alone without hope? “Yes. Josiah Stone, Protector of Pack Haven.”

In reality, she didn’t know if the pack would accept him. A Protector—half wolf, half human? There would be prejudice. But, if anyone with any gift touched his energy, they would know the truth. In Josiah’s case, the mixing of blood had enhanced his Protector abilities, rather than diluting them. He was going to grow up big, he was going to grow up strong and he was going to grow up scary. If Haven’s Alpha had any sense, he’d want that truth on his side.

She didn’t want him to turn rogue, so she gave him the only thing she could—a pack of his own. “Josiah Stone of Pack Haven,” she repeated. “You remember who you protect.”

He nodded.

The door crashed open.

She absorbed his start into her palms, holding him still through pressure from her hands and the force of her will.