“I need,” he answered before his tongue sliced into her mouth, their tongues tangling, dueling. He was touching her with deft hands, seeming to know everywhere she wanted to be touched, and it drove her wild. She didn’t even remember shrugging out of her shirt and bra. There was just the tight pull of his mouth on one nipple and then the next, the slick heat expanding between her thighs where she wanted him.
She arched into him again, pressing her hips into the thick ridge of his erection, before her hand worked its way down his hips and between them to his zipper. She cupped him, stroked him, and traced the line of his shaft.
He growled, a sound far more primal wolf, than man, and stood to undress. Sarah pushed to her elbows, watching his jeans fall from lean hips. His cock sprung free and jutted forward. She licked her suddenly dry lips and he growled again, reaching for her. He pulled her to her feet, against him, kissing her, devouring her.
Slowly, he eased his hold on her, his stare heavy lidded, glowing yellow, as he urged her to her knees in front of him, an act of submission. Only it wasn’t wholly submissive and just the idea of controlling this wicked alpha male’s pleasure had her squeezing her thighs together, wet with wanting.
She settled beneath his cock and wrapped her hand around the base. Dampness pooled on the tip. “Lick it off,” he ordered.
She licked it, the salty tang sending a rush of sensations through her body. Her reaction was instant, the need for more too much to stand. Her tongue slid around the head of his erection.
His hand went to her head. “Take me in your mouth,”
She glanced up and licked the length of him instead. His lashes lowered, a dark, sexy look of arousal settling over his features. She licked him again, up and down, and all over until he growled.
“Suck me, Sarah, damn it. Wrap those sweet lips around me and stop teasing me or mark my words, you’re going to pay for it.”
She laughed. “Promise?” She circled his head again with her tongue.
“Sarah-” She sucked him into her mouth. His entire body tensed. Slowly, she suckled down the length of him, taking all she could, and using her hand to make up the difference before starting a pumping action.
He moved with her, slow at first, his hand still on her head, holding her against his cock. “Harder,” he murmured. “Suck me harder.”
She moved closer, settling one palm on his backside, the thick muscle there flexing beneath her touch. She could feel his urgency, the harder thrust of his hips, and it only made her want more. She sucked him harder, deeper, faster, and the salty taste of his arousal spilled into her mouth, the grip of his hand firming on her head, until he groaned and arched into her.
He shook with the force of his release and she drew on him, pulling it all from him, shocked to realize she was moaning, she was releasing with him. How was that even possible? She was shaking from it, out of control when he lifted her and settled her onto the bed, face down. He settled over her, his cock, not surprisingly for a wolf in mating heat, still hard as it wedged between her thighs.
His mouth pressed to her ear. “Are you ready to pay for teasing me?”
“I’d much rather you don’t.”
He laughed, a low, sexy, mischievous sound that made her nipples tighten and ache. “I’d much rather I do. In fact, I’m going to tease you until you tell me what I want to hear.” He slid his cock back and forth between her thighs.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know what I want you to say.” His teeth scraped her shoulder in the exact spot she’d heard males liked to mark their mates, but he didn’t bite her. “Take your time. I’m in no rush.” He slid down her body and between her legs.
“What do you want me to say?” Sarah asked, or rather panted, as Kole used one hand under her stomach to lift her hips into the air, and the other to slide into the slick, intimate heat between her legs.
His fingers sank into her and she instinctively rocked against him. “What...Kole I...” She couldn’t speak. He kept moving his fingers, stroking her and oh how perfectly he touched her, in all the right spots. “I...don’t....” No. She was.......so close. So very close. “I am...” His fingers slid away from her, and with them her orgasm. She panted and this time not with pleasure. With frustration, with need so deep it hurt. “I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Yes, you do.” He moved then, and suddenly he was on his back, between her thighs, and she was straddling his face. She’d barely comprehended what he’d done and he was already alternating between suckling her clit, and licking her up and down. She gasped from the intimate exploration, on the brink of orgasm all over again. She gripped his shoulder, barely able to stay sitting for the pleasure ripping through her body, afraid to breathe for fear he’d stop again. And he did, an instant before she came, as if he had a sixth sense for her limits. He rolled her to her back.
Sarah growled in frustration and beat the mattress, shoving him backward as he tried to mount her, and straddling his hips this time. “No more teasing,” she said, gripping his cock and sliding it inside her before he could stop her. And oh man, was he inside her, stretching her, filling her. She moaned as she settled fully down the length of him.
He, in turn, gave a sexy, evil laugh, and pulled her down on him, wrapping his hand around her neck. “Do you think that’s going to keep me from teasing you?”
“You’re inside me,” she said. “At least, stopping and starting will torture you just as much as it will me.”
“But it’ll be worth all the torture to get what I want, Sweet Pea,” he murmured, his voice raspy.
“Sweat Pea?” she laughed despite the tension curling in her body, a smile lingering as she remembered the many names he’d called her at the casino table.
“You like Sweet Cheeks better?”
“If I’m your sweet cheeks, then you’re my-”
“Mate, Sarah,” he said, all jest gone. “You’re my mate.”
Her breath lodged in her throat and goosebumps rose on her skin. She was back to dangerous territory but couldn’t seem to care. “I know,” she whispered.
For a long moment, their lips lingered close, breath mingling, sexual tension crackling in the air. Her heart thundered in her ears as she waited for his reply. But he said nothing. His grip tightened at her neck, pulling her lips to his for a brief touch, before something between them snapped. They were moving, kissing and touching, and it was as if they wanted to crawl under each other’s skin. Sarah had never felt anything like it in her life. This absolute desire, this sense of needing another wolf, the way she thought she could never need. It wasn’t enough. She couldn’t get enough, he couldn’t get deep enough.
She tore her mouth from his and leaned back, pressing her hands to his thighs. He held her waist and anchored her as he licked her nipples. She pumped against him, harder and faster. Then he was sitting up too, his arms wrapped around her. His eyes captured hers, and she felt the connection to her soul, she felt the bond that existed with, or without, a blood exchange. Somehow, they’d stopped moving, lost in each other, but still they didn’t speak. In those moments, she recognized how he filled a part of her that had always existed, that had always been empty.
“Sarah,” he murmured softly, his fingers tracing her cheek, her lips, before he kissed her, this time in a tender exploration.
Slowly, they began to move again, a sensual dance, a raw primal burn between them that had become so much more than sex. She clung to him, buried her head in his shoulder as she felt the rise of her orgasm and while she’d begged for it before, she fought it now. She didn’t want this to end. She didn’t want...but it did. She shattered without warning, her body clamping down on his as ripples of sensation actually jerked her body. He followed, wrapping her in his tight hold as the warm, wet heat of his release filled her. But any thought of a happy ending, lingering together in naked, sated bliss, ended abruptly as Kole growled low under his breath, a rou
gh, primal sound that made Sarah jerk back.
She had just enough time to see his eyes flickering to an odd orangish color before he rolled her to her back and was already on the edge of the bed. Sarah took one look at the rippling movement beneath his skin, and she knew he was fighting a shift, losing control in a way that no wolf as ancient as he ever lost control.
Chapter Eight
He wanted her blood. He wanted to claim her. His animal side demanded he make her his. So much so that it was trying to claim control, overtake the civility of his human form. He’d thought he could control this. He would control this. There was no way he would force this on her.
“Kole,” Sarah said urgently from behind him. “Are you okay?”
He shoved off the bed and reached for his pants, fighting the intense itch of his skin as he fought off a shift, knowing he had to get out of this room before he completely lost control. “Just....give me a minute.” He put distance between them and would have dressed but he wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to shift. Damn it, he didn’t lose control. What kind of leader was he going to be if he couldn’t even control his damnable hormones? He made it to the bathroom and shoved the door shut behind him, sat down on the edge of the tub and inhaled and damn it to hell, all he could smell was Sarah.
He pushed to his feet and put on his jeans, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Holy shit, his eyes. All male wolves knew of the orange haze of an incomplete mating, but few had experienced it, the risk of it turning them into a killer, the risk of it killing them. He shoved his hands to his forehead, into his hair, leaning against the wall. He wasn’t going to take her like this, with the damn rope still tied to her arm and holy hell. She could leave while he was in here, and while the building was locked down, Shi took in a batch of lethal misfits for his pack of mercenaries. He didn’t want to risk Sarah running into one of them.
He pulled the door open and she was standing right in front of him. His fingers curled around the frame, the only thing keeping him from reaching for her.
“Kole?” She wrapped her arms around him.
He moved with her, pushing her against a wall, and shoving his hands to the surface by her head, not touching her. “Don’t touch me right now or I won’t give you a choice about us and I promised you I would.” He pushed off the wall. “The building is locked down. You won’t get out, but you might meet one of Shi’s pack and you don’t want to. A few too many of them make a cobra look like a pussy cat.” He turned and stalked to the door and paused just before opening it. “I’m trying to do the right thing here, Sarah. Don’t make me sorry. Don’t run because I will catch you.”
***
Sarah stared after him, unmoving, stunned at his sudden departure. Kole not only promised her choices, he’d given her one about their mating, at the cost of his own suffering. It was a selfless act that didn’t match the picture of a Guardsman her father had painted, and that she herself had used as a foundation to judge Kole. For almost two years she’d thought of him, considered calling him, but assumed he’d force her back to the Society and completely dominate her. Then later, when Derek still lived, she doubted their mating bond. What else explained why he wouldn’t avenge her family? Now, she didn’t believe he had forgotten her or Derek. She pressed her hand to her stomach. She’d misjudged him. God, how she’d misjudged him.
She pushed away from the wall and began pacing, her mind replaying every second with Kole, now and in the past. Replaying the moment the warehouse had exploded. The moment she’d taken off running and known she had to leave. She’d cleared what cash from her bank she could get to and hit the road. By morning she was at another bank, closing her accounts, and removing the emergency fund her father, always the planner and pessimist, had set up for her as a safety net. A very large safety net that had paid the hefty price to an ancient natural-born witch her friend had taken her to. Her hand went to the sword tattooed behind her ear, where magic was etched into her skin. The one hesitation she’d had was about her conflicted emotions with Kole. She’d known he wouldn’t be able to find her.
She stopped walking, aware of what a mistake that had been. He’d saved her life. He’d deserved more than her shutting him out. She had to find him, to talk to him. Sarah grabbed her skirt and pulled it on and then reached for Kole’s shirt, not even bothering with hers since it wouldn’t button. The spicy, male scent of Kole teased her nostrils and only made her more eager to find him.
Sarah rushed to the door and jerked it open, only to find a guard in the hallway, directly in front of her.
“Hello, Sarah,” Shi said, leaning on the wall directly across from her, his long, dark hair wild around his shoulders, and she realized now that there were blue streaks mixed with the red.
“Surprise,” he murmured softly. “He told you not to-”
“Leave,” she said. “I know. I don’t want to.”
He studied her a long moment, his eyes narrowing. “No. You don’t, do you?”
“No. Where is he?”
“Locked in a room at his own request,” he said. “So he can’t get to you.”
“Take me to him,” she said. “Please.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why? Why can’t you just take me to him? I’m his mate. I don’t want him to fight this. He thinks I do but I don’t.”
His silvery eyes narrowed. “If you go near him now, you could kill him.”
“Kill him?” she asked, shocked at the unexpected words. “I won’t kill him. I’d never hurt him.”
“You don’t understand the orange haze, do you?”
“Orange haze? You mean his eyes. I saw his eyes. What does that mean?”
“The long story made short is he’s got an excess of bonding hormones making him a little crazy right now. If he doesn’t get them under control, they will poison him. He’s strong. He’ll win, but not if he is close to you.”
“I don’t want him to fight it.”
“He’s too far gone to understand that right now. He’ll fight the mating and he’ll end up dead. If you care about him, you need to let him get past this on his own.”
A million arguments came to her mind, a million commands that he do as she asked and take her to Kole. But there was steel in the silver of his eyes, unbendable steel, and beneath it, loyalty to Kole. He was Kole’s friend. He really believed he was saving Kole’s life.
She had no choice but to accept his decision. “I’ll be here, waiting on him.” She slipped back into the room and shut the door, inhaling the lingering scent of Kole, and scared to death that she’d lost him when she’d only just found him again.
Chapter Nine
Shi smashed his hand into the concrete wall outside Kole’s locked room, the frustration of being helpless, unable to do anything about his friend’s pained snarls were making him crazy. Only an hour before he’d told Sarah that Kole was fine, but he’d been wrong. Kole was getting worse and Shi knew the pain his friend was in, knew the risks because he’d lived the haze himself years before, and barely survived it. Oh yes, how he’d lived it. And he’d become living proof that just because a female was your biological mate, it didn’t make her love you or want you. It sure didn’t make her incapable of using you for no good. More pained snarls echoed through the walls, radiating down his spine, bringing back the memories of a betrayal he didn’t want to remember. Shi pressed his fists onto the wall and let his head drop forward. Sarah wasn’t the woman of his past, he reminded himself. She wasn’t trying to hurt Kole. He’d smelled her worry for Kole, her sincere need to know he was okay.
He dropped his head between his shoulders staring blankly at the floor, struggling with what he had to do, despite Kole’s wishes. Not only had Kole forbidden Shi from calling Nico, Shi himself had bad blood with the leader of the Guard. But Nico, as leader of Kole’s pack, could use pack magic to save him, just as Nico had pulled Shi back from the orange haze as well.
“Damn it to hell,” he murmured and grabbed his cell from his bel
t, punching the auto-dial button direct to Nico, tone hat he’d not touched since leaving the pack three years before.
“Hell must have frozen over for you to call me.” Nico didn’t bother with hello.
“It’s pretty damn icy,” Shi agreed. “I hear you have some freaky new mojo above and beyond your pack magic since you mated with that witch of yours. I don’t know what that entails, but I hope it works from a distance, because Kole’s here with me and he’s got the orange haze.”
Nico appeared in front of Shi, tall and dark, dressed in leather. The chin length dark hair he’d had when Shi had last seen him, now fell to his shoulders.
“I guess your witch really did give you more than the lipstick on your cheek,” Shi said dryly, referencing the confirmation of the rumors he’d heard about Nico’s obvious ability to just pop to a location at will. “I’m guessing you’re not paying the higher gas prices the rest of us are.”
“Where is he?”
A loud snarl and a crash came from inside the room. “That would be him,” Shi replied dryly.
“Who’s the woman?”
Shi held up his hands. “That’s for Kole to discuss, if he so chooses, and obviously, he hasn’t at this point.” He walked to the steel containment door and punched in a code before motioning Nico forward.
Nico didn’t move. “I have a better chance of saving him if you help. “
“I’m not pack.”
“You’re still bonded to us whether you like it or not.” Nico didn’t wait for an answer. He opened the door and walked into the room. Shi followed him and stepped to Nico’s side, a place he’d once been daily. Kole was hunched down in a corner, his hands shifted, claws extended, his head tilted down.