Wolf's Vengeance (After the Crash) (12 page)

“This is embarrassing, Snake. Can we just get on with it?”

He leaned over her to kiss her mouth gently. “Don’t be embarrassed. I guess I shouldn’t stare, but I’ve never seen a woman’s pussy before. It’s wonderful.”

While she mouthed “Wonderful?” he scooted back down, raised her heels to his shoulders, and put his mouth against her wet crotch.
Pussy, he called it. Why he called it tha—
Her train of thought crashed when he licked her, one long hard swipe along the seam between her legs. His lips, tongue, and teeth played with her body until she couldn’t decide whether to sit up or stretch out straight. In fact, she felt like she was flopping like a landed fish under his firm hands. His teeth settled gently over her clit and bit down with delicate care. Her moan was so loud, she slapped her hand over her mouth.

“What?” Snake said, looking up at her. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, sure,” she panted. “I just don’t want Mike to hear and come rushing in to save me from an attacker.”

He grinned. “Yell my name next time, so he’ll know who’s attacking you.”

While she gaped at him, he went back to what he’d been doing. The thought of Mike racing in to find her spread naked on the bed with her husband’s face between her legs made her laugh. It felt good to laugh during sex. But her husband’s finger sliding inside her felt even better. His tongue on her clit and his finger inside her beat out a rhythm that she caught on to. Red hot need pushed its way up her legs until she was mindless in pursuit of it, shoving herself against Snake in desperate demand. She’d felt this before, in a milder version, but when his teeth and fingers pushed her over the edge, it was like nothing she’d ever experienced in her life. She screamed his name as she convulsed, clawing the sheets beneath her to avoid ripping her nails through his shoulders.

Gradually the shudders ebbed away. Her husband leaned over her on one elbow, barely discernible now that the moon had moved in the sky. “Snake,” she whispered. “That was wonderful.” Something very close to adoration crowded her heart, with only a tiny sliver of space left over for regret. “It’s your turn now, right?”

“In a minute. Let’s give you a little time to recover.” He sounded smug. “You liked that.”

“Yeah, I did.” Now he would want her to put her mouth around him. She inwardly sighed, hoping he wouldn’t be rough. Rob liked to jam himself down her throat so hard she gagged. It made him laugh. She didn’t think Snake would be like that, though. She sat up and groped in the dark for his cock. She found him hard and ready. It pleased her when he jerked in a breath as her hand squeezed him. It was good to know she could affect him the way he affected her.

“Wait!” he said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to suck on you. Isn’t that want you want?”

“Not if you don’t like it. I can tell you don’t like it.”

He kissed her, his mouth tasting hot and salty from licking her. It reminded her of how much pleasure he gave her. His generosity made her want to do something for him. She ran her hand up and down his thick cock.

“I don’t think I’d mind with you,” she told him.

He groaned. “Then next time you can do that. Right now, though, I just want to be inside you. Okay?”

In answer, she lowered herself back to the bed, legs open wide. Since she still had a grip on his penis, he had to follow her. “Come inside me, Snake.”

He fitted his cock against her opening and slid inside with one hard thrust. The power behind the move might have overwhelmed her an hour ago, but now she welcomed him moving inside her. His thrusts went from long and powerful to short and desperate. He held himself above her on his elbows, lowering his head now and then to brush his lips over hers. Every small groan he made gave her pleasure. What he did wasn’t so different than what Rob did, cock buried inside her, moving in and out, belly slapping against belly, but somehow it was unique. Mel wasn’t sure exactly why or how until he lifted his head to look down at her through the tangled curtain of his hair. Even with the moonlight merely a hint of its former brightness, she saw his eyes. What she saw on his face moved her almost to tears. He cared for her. Even in the midst of such passion, he cared for her.

In that instant, his back bowed, and he rose up above her on stiff arms, howling, “Mel!” And long moments later, when he lay in a limp sprawl on top of her, he murmured, “Mel, my sweet mate,” against her throat with such reverence she blinked tears back.

She raised a hand to smooth his tumbled waves of hair back from his sweat-covered forehead. “Wow,” she breathed. “I didn’t know it could be like that.”

He lifted his head to look down at her, still inside her. “Like what?”

Feeling awkward, she shrugged and fixed her stare on his broad, burly shoulder. “I don’t know. So nice.”

“Nice?” He sounded disbelieving, almost hurt. “Only nice?”

She fisted her hands in his hair. “Really nice.”

He managed to roll off her and kiss her gently. “We need to do that again soon, so I can improve. I thought it wasn’t bad for a first try,” he murmured, sounding sleepy. “Not for a while, though. Dawn is only two hours away. We have all our lives to get better at making love. Sleep, Mel.”

And she wondered, hearing his steady breath in her ear and feeling his comforting weight against her, if he had been a virgin. And if he had, where had he learned to lick her like that? She suppressed a giggle. He thought he needed to improve? She couldn’t imagine him getting better at it. But next time she could show him what she’d learned from Rob. With Rob she’d hated it, but she thought it might be fun to see if she could make Snake moan the way he’d made her moan.

Feeling lighthearted for the first time since her mother smashed her dreams of having her family together again, she laid her head against Snake’s shoulder and let herself fall into sleep.

Chapter 8

Mel jolted out of sleep when vigorous pounding sounded on the door. She reached automatically for her pistol and nearly poked Snake in the eye.

“We’ll be out in a few minutes, Stone,” her husband said and then smiled down at her. “Good morning.”

She was naked! The flash of awkward embarrassment dissolved in memories of last night. She stretched her naked body in a languorous yawn. “Good morning.”

“Ready to head back home?”

Home. The Flying D would always be her first home, even without the mother she expected to bring back in triumph, but her home was with Snake now. “Yeah. Let’s stop at the D for a day or two and then head up north to your place.”

His smile told her he knew what she just said. He bent his head for a quick kiss. His hair tickled her breast in the most gloriously teasing way. “As soon as some of the Pack arrive to escort us home, we’ll leave.”

That’s right. Mel remembered Quill was going to send some of his friends back for them after he and Ellie got to the den. She rose from the bed and cast around for her clothes. With only a breechcloth and moccasins to put on, Snake was dressed in no time. She had to wind her breast wrap over her chest. Normally it took only a few seconds, but with Snake watching her with possessive curiosity, it took much longer.

“Pity,” he said, “to cover them up. So pretty.”

She snorted, pulling on her jeans. “Ha! Bouncing around in the saddle with no support? No, thank you.” She grabbed her blouse and found she was missing a button. “Dammit,” she muttered, remembering her careless haste last night. Could she cover the gap with her leather vest? No, that might be too hot. She dug through her saddlebag for her dirty but whole shirt. She put it on with a face. “Sorry about the smell.”

Snake leaned forward to inhale deeply at her throat. “I love your smell.”

“You’re nutso. But I like you anyway.” She gave him a quick kiss, stamped her feet into her boots, and belted on her pistol. “I feel kinda bad about leaving a dirty bed for the people who live here.”

“We can leave money.”

“Yeah.” She stood for a moment, staring down at the bed where Snake had done such wonderful things to her. She didn’t want anyone else to lie between those sheets. “Snake, you strip the bed. I’ll see if there are any spare sheets.”

“You want to change the sheets?”

She wasn’t sure if he was surprised, appalled, or just trying to understand why she wanted to do it. “No, I want to take the sheets with us.” She tried to explain. “They’re special. They’re ours.”

“Okay.”

She found sheets in the wooden chest against the wall, and she and Snake quickly re-made the bed. She folded the soiled sheets and moved to put them in the saddlebag. Snake took them from her and held them to his nose.

“What a beautiful scent,” he said with a smile, tucking them into the saddlebag.

“Eww! Seriously nutso,” she said, but she smiled.

The smile died when they walked out of the cabin into Mike’s accusing glare. “What?” she said.

“What took you so long? We’ve been ready to go for half an hour.”

She glanced over at Snake. “Uh, sorry. We had to make the bed.”

Mike’s face went red under his dark tan. Mel flushed too at the realization of what he must be thinking.

Mike turned away. “Don’t tell me that!” he said. “I’m your brother, for God’s sake.”

Mel headed to her horse, already saddled, and began to fasten the saddlebags to the saddle. “Go leave some money on the table.”

Snake and Stone waited behind her as Mike stalked off to the cabin again. Stone spoke, his confusion evident. “Why doesn’t he want to know you made the bed? Seems like a polite thing to do.”

“I think it’s the fact we made love in the bed that bothers him.”

Even though she was pretending she wasn’t listening, Mel choked.

“Oh,” said Stone. Then, “Why would that bother him? You and Mel are mated. And married, too, so what does he expect you would do in bed?”

Mel mounted and tapped her heel into her horse’s flank. Before she was out of earshot, Snake murmured to Stone, “She said it was nice. Only nice. I think I did something wrong.”

Why would he think that?
He didn’t do a thing wrong last night. If anyone did something wrong, it was she. He lavished pleasure on her, more than she ever experienced before, but she’d done nothing for him. Tonight she would do anything he wanted. If, that is, they had privacy.

The cabin door slammed shut behind Mike, and he all but stamped his way to his horse. She cleared her throat and waited for her brother to mount up. Mike cast her a narrow-eyed glare as he did so. She knew it would annoy him, but she smiled and waved anyway, and the smile turned into a grin when he turned his horse and started off at a fast clip.

They camped outdoors that night, so there was no privacy. She and Snake lay together under a shared blanket, looking up at the stars glowing in the midnight-blue sky, fingers entwined. The scent of the doused coals lingered in the air.

Knowing Snake could hear her well enough with his wolf hearing, Mel whispered, “Last night was wonderful. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Silence, filled only with the sighing of the wind in the grass, reigned for a long minute. Just as she was about to speak again…

“I’ve been thinking about it. You came only once. I finished too quickly, and you didn’t come when I did.”

Even in the dark Mel could feel her face heat. She wasn’t a prissy lady like Ellie, but who talked about these things? Besides, if Mike heard any of this, she’d die of embarrassment. She cleared her throat. “I came before, when you were, um, you know.”

“Once isn’t enough.”

She forgot to be quiet. “What?”

“Shh.”

She lowered her voice. “Once isn’t enough? Snake, I hardly ever did that even once, and it was never like that before.”

He shifted to raise his head and look down at her. “There was a difference? Like what?”

“Before, with Danny, it was like the recoil from a popgun. With you, it was the kick from a forty-five caliber. What are you smirking for?”

He lay back down, hiding his smile against her neck. “I guess I’m glad you think I’m a big gun. What about with Rob?”

“It didn’t happen with him.” Even those first few nights, when Rob didn’t demand things she didn’t like, her body didn’t respond to him. “Maybe I was too uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, maybe. Taye says we need to be sure our mates are enjoying themselves if we want her to come.”

“That’s your boss, right?”

“My cousin, Taye. The Alpha. We call him Chief, and his mate is the Lupa.” He was quiet for a while. “Tell me more about Danny Bell. Did you love him?”

The dry grass they’d trampled to lay their blankets on poked into her shoulders and butt when she shrugged. Maybe she should feel awkward telling Snake about Danny, but last night chased her shyness away. She felt like she could talk to him about things she normally didn’t even want to think about. Why was that? Was it the expression of tenderness she saw on his face? The one that made her believe he really cared about her?

“I loved him in the beginning. I really did. We were young, and neither of us had much idea what to do in bed.” She couldn’t help but smile at the memory of their first few awkward couplings. “Everything I knew came from watching the cows and bulls. Everything Danny knew came from his father’s lecture. So we knew the basics, just not much more. We had only a month together before the accident. After that, we couldn’t do anything in bed. He never walked again. It made him angry.” She closed her eyes at the memory of Danny’s bitterness. “The accident wasn’t my fault, but Danny blamed me for everything else. When I gave him a bath, the water was too cold or too hot. When I wheeled him in his chair to sit outside on the porch, I wasn’t careful enough. If I went out to the ranch to visit my brothers, he complained about being left alone. If I stayed home, I was smothering him.”

Snake brushed his knuckles over her cheek in silent comfort.

“I know now that he was just unhappy at being crippled. He couldn’t adjust to his new life after being young and healthy. He hated being helpless. After he was better, I stopped sleeping on the couch and started sleeping in the bed with him again, but he hated that too. He told me to go get another bed. Maybe he felt bad for not being able to have sex anymore.”