Wolf in Plain Sight (12 page)

She pushed back a niggling suspicion, one that would make her desire for this man a betrayal to her own kind. “Y—you must have some metabolism,” she said, dropping the gauze to the floor.

“It’s hereditary. All my line shares the same…metabolism.” His eyes glinted as he pulled her closer. His legs were a vise, holding her immobile.

Pia’s heart thundered. Her brain screamed caution, but her body melted against his.

His hands swept up her back to tangle in the hair at her nape. He jerked her head back and brought his lips to her neck.

If what her mind suspected were true, she shouldn’t trust him not to harm her when she was so vulnerable to his bite—
but she did.

“We share the same appetites.” He bit her neck, hard enough to bruise, but not break her skin.

Pia’s breath caught, and her body trembled. She was either in very deep shit here or Max had a
Psycho
fetish. Whichever didn’t matter at the moment, her mind focused on the sensual bombardment his body and mouth were delivering. She struggled to offer one last coherent response, “Do you all the share physical characteristics? Your strength? Your incredible…organs?”

“Yes.” His tongue trailed up her neck, and he licked the lobe of her ear.

Her hands clenched the tops of his shoulders. “Then your women are blessed.”

“They’re too few.”

He was telling her something here, but all she could register was the heat of his mouth, gliding back down her neck. “You only need one at a time.”

“Huh.” His breath gusted with single laugh. “You’re in denial, baby.”

“Who’s doing the denying?” She was so aroused her skin tingled everywhere they touched, and she wished he’d just stop talking. “I’m getting hornier by the second—
Max
.” She pressed her body to his, mashing her breasts against his chest and grinding her sex into his enormous erection.

He let go of her hair and gripped the neck of her shirt. “I need you naked,” he said, with a harsh edge to his voice that tightened the coil of sensual tension curling inside her belly. He ripped her shirt apart.

The bra quickly followed, and Pia reveled in the violence of his act and his hot, hungry stare. Her nipples beaded, hard as pebbles. She gasped when his hands covered her breasts and squeezed.

She shoved down her skirt past her hips, but it bunched where his thighs clasped hers together. “I want to be naked for you, Max.”

He spread his thighs, but his mouth never left her skin, sliding over her shoulders.

Pia pushed her skirt lower until it drifted down to puddle around her feet. Then she sought his zipper and opened his pants. His erection fell into her hand, and she wrapped her fingers around him and squeezed.

“Yes,” he moaned, and his chest rose and fell faster against hers, further exciting her nipples.

Pia climbed onto his strong, splayed thighs.

His hands sought her buttocks, steadying her as she straddled him.

Then she centered the blunt tip of his cock at the opening of her vagina and sank down. He felt thick as a tree trunk, stretching her inner walls. When at last her pussy met the wiry hair at the base of his cock, she groaned, letting her legs spread and dangle on either side of his widespread thighs.

She wriggled her hips, circling until every last inch of his length lodged deep inside her pussy. “We have a problem now,” she said, nuzzling his neck.

“I can’t think of one.” His hands gripped her ass and pushed her hips forward and back, creating a burning friction.

“But I can’t move.” She scraped the turgid points of her breasts across his chest. “I need to move.”

He raised his head. “But you can,” he said, his voice slightly hoarse with strain. His next kiss was straight on, noses touching. His open mouth pressed to hers, then withdrew with a suctioning smack. “Rock on me.”

Pia rolled her hips, but the movements weren’t the deep, gliding ones she needed. Without something upon which to brace her knees, she couldn’t rise. “I need more.”

“Is this what you want?” His hands pushed her hips back and forth harder, grinding her pubis into his curly nest.

Nice, but not the sort of sweet violence she needed now. “Not quite.”

“I aim to please. How about this?” He raised her by her bottom then shoved her down again.

She shuddered and moaned, “Closer.” Undulating her hips, she scraped her clit into his crisp hairs. A shock of electricity shot straight to her core, and she strained closer. “Do it again.”

“No. Too late,” he said, his voice raspy. “This isn’t about what you’re going to do now.”

Pia opened her eyes. “Not fair,” she gasped. “I’m not even close.”

The hungry, dangerous glint in Max’s eyes gave her heart a jolt. Hot arousal gushed from deep inside her while her vagina tightened its grip around his cock.

Max groaned. “
I
need more.” He pushed and shoved her hips, grinding deeper, faster. “I’ve gotta fuck you hard.”

Pia sobbed and flung her arms around his neck. “Please, Max. I need that too.”

He rose from the chair in one easy, powerful motion.

Pia wrapped her legs around his lean waist to keep him lodged inside her, but he didn’t go far. Her back met the cold wood of the door.

He pressed his forehead against hers. “Your ribs—can you take it rough?”

Pia placed her palms on his cheeks, and whispered, “Rattle the door off its hinges, baby. I can take it. I can take you.” She tilted her head and kissed him, slipping her tongue into his mouth to mate with his.

Max tasted like sin. Lusty, dirty sin.

He dipped his knees and heaved upward. His cock stroked deep inside her cunt. There wasn’t time to savor the sensations because he thrust again, hard. The kiss ended when she had to gasp for breath.

He thrust again and again, until Pia calibrated the climb to the summit by the sweat that gathered on his forehead and back, and the excess arousal smearing her thighs. He battered her body against the door, his own breaths becoming labored, harsh, grunting as he drove up inside her.

The door didn’t rattle—it thudded loudly. Almost as loudly her moans. This was what she’d needed. A hot, powerful claiming.

Then he changed the length of his thrusts. Angling side to side, pistoning his hips, until the heat deep inside her cunt burned like flickering licks of flame that spread outward, tightening her legs and belly.

“Max! I’m coming, Max!”

“Christ, don’t wait. Give it to me.”

“Fuck me!
Max!
” Her shouts echoed around the kitchen, punctuated by the pounding on the door. Pia had the fleeting thought that anyone listening might think an earthquake rumbled through the house. But that was her last lucid thought as Max drove her body to climax.

She gasped, arching her back against the door, her pussy convulsing around his cock, squeezing, milking him for the essence of his life force.

How long it lasted, she’d never be sure, for afterward she clung to him like a wilted vine, sobbing.

Max pressed her body to the door and speared his fingers through her hair, lifting her face from the crook of his neck. “Stop crying, Pia. I’m sorry. So sorry.”

But she couldn’t stop. She clutched him tightly, her legs squeezing around his waist to hold him to her, afraid to break the connection lest she lose the feeling—the glowing one that burst like the sun above the rim of the earth at morning. A sight she’d been denied for well over three quarters of a century.

“I swore I wouldn’t hurt you.” Max said, stroking her hair. “Didn’t mean to. Fuck!”

Finally, she heard what he was saying and opened her eyes. “Baby, you didn’t hurt me.” She kissed his chin, his jaw.

His eyes were filled with regret.

“I was too rough.”

She kissed the side of his mouth. “No. You were perfect. Too perfect. I didn’t know I could feel so much.”

“But—”

She pressed her lips to his—a close-mouthed blessing. “You weren’t too rough with me. I promise. Would you be standing in a puddle if I hadn’t liked it?”

He blinked and a smug smile tilted the corners of his lips. “I am? Damn, why do I still have my shoes on?”

“I needed violence every bit as much as you did,” Pia said, holding his gaze, willing him to understand she’d accept his sensual deflections—
for now
. “Remember, I’m a vamp. I’m not some frail human girl. I can take everything you give me.”

His eyelids dropped halfway. She recognized that look. He was considering what she’d just said and wondering what new limits he could push.

Pia felt a smile curve her lips. “Seeing the possibilities, now? Hmmm, lover?”

*

Max stood back
from the window. The blanket he’d hung ought to keep the sun at bay. He grunted. He didn’t miss the irony of the care he took with this vampire woman.

He turned to the bed and Pia. She slept curled on her side. Knowing what she was, he still felt uneasy at her stillness. But she definitely needed the rest—she’d fallen asleep before dawn in mid-sentence.

Equally jaded, he smirked, feeling self-satisfied. His balls were drained dry. The woman could fuck. She could take anything he gave her.

He set his alarm, crawled back beneath the covers, and pulled her into his arms, draping her just the way he wanted—her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder, her thigh nudging his spent cock. When they awoke, he wanted her to be right where he needed her to be for a little after-dusk delight.

Now that she slept and wouldn’t attempt to distract him with her sexy demands, his mind was free of the clouding lust that had driven his body the past hours. Free to contemplate the woman lying beside him and the mystery of her sudden appearance in his life.

Her arrival in his life hadn’t been a coincidence. Of that much he was sure. The male vamps knew her well. He guessed she was an enforcer of some sort, for the northern council—the one that had spawned the new community of vampire masters here. And her latest assignment had been him. But to what purpose?

His hatred for all vampires wasn’t a secret. But he’d done his job, suppressing his natural animosity for their species. If not accepting of them, he’d tolerated them.

And he didn’t think he posed any great threat to their organization. He was just one lone werewolf. Something they hadn’t been aware of.

So what had changed?

The only thing that came to mind was the woman no one spoke of in “mixed” company—Joe’s wife, Lily.

Max had seen her only once—on the day Joe returned to Vero after his “sabbatical”. Max had known instantly what she was. A breeder in heat. Her scent had been provocative, drugging—an aphrodisiac so potent he’d hardened to oak in seconds.

Others of his kind hadn’t missed her arrival either. The male wolves had caught a hint of her tantalizing scent in the air that first day, and they’d been restless ever since to discover her whereabouts.

He wished he hadn’t been in the conference room when Joe arrived, looking haunted, bitter. The woman with the brown and cinnamon-colored hair had entered behind him, her pinched, white face betraying how overwhelmed and frightened she felt.

Max’s body had stirred at her irresistible allure—but she belonged to Joe. So he fought it, tamped it down viciously. Eventually, her heat had passed and the hormonal dementia it had created dwindled.

He wished now he’d never mentioned her to Alec. Ever since, his brother had reminded him of his duty to his family. Of the possibility that Lily could breed a vampire—the likes of which would be more powerful and horrifying than the creatures born from a vampire’s bite.

The kind that had killed their mother.

Max and the other pack members had been raised on tales of the Old Wars. They’d sat fascinated as any child listening to stories of heroic deeds and mythical monsters, little realizing the truth behind the tales.

The stories bred fear of beasts that walked the night, undead bogeymen and women, who’d eat a cub if they caught one alone.

That fear became an abiding hatred, reinforced by the training wolves received as they approached their majority. Training that helped them blend among humans, so they might protect themselves and their families from detection. Training that helped them master the monster within and prepared them for mythical Final Battle for dominion over the Earth.

Max had trained and learned along with the others, but his time living a “blended” life had taught him how insular his upbringing had been—and how narrow was the clan’s vision of their future.

Now, he recognized the hatred he was taught for what it really was—prejudice. The woman beside him had changed his heart—opened his mind to the possibility that wolf and vampire could coexist. Her dark passion ignited a sensual storm that paled in comparison to the purely animalistic urges Joe’s wife had stirred. He was afraid he might be in love with Pia.

But what was he to do about his brother? And was it really possible a breeder was going to bear an abomination—a vampire/werewolf child? As far as he knew, no one in his immediate clan had ever seen one. His mother’s death had been attributed to one—but Max wondered how much truth lay in the tale. Had it been embellished to support their fears, to invigorate their fight? There was no living wolf left to corroborate the tale.