She wet her lips and his cock jumped right up to answer, pressing uncomfortably against his zipper. “Kole-”
“You can’t leave the room. The door locks from the outside.” He turned to exit.
She moved quickly and inserted herself in the small space between him and the door, her back to the surface, her hand flattening on his chest, wicked heat spreading through his body. “Damn you, Kole Smith,” she ground out between her teeth, “you will not leave me locked in here. I have to go. I have to get Derek.”
“He’s turned the table, Sarah. Tonight proves that. He’s outsmarted your magic just as I did. He’s coming for you. You’ve become the hunted.”
“All the more reason for me to get him first.”
“I’ll get him.”
“You deal with the rogues and the rebels,” she said, her lips tight where they’d been soft and yielding only a few minutes before. She dropped her hand and hugged herself. “I’ll do it myself.”
He shoved his hand to the wall next to her.“And no. You won’t.” She was his mate and he would protect her. It was an instinct so powerful, so part of a wolf, that fighting it was impossible. She needed to fully understand that, she needed to know just what he would do to save her, and to get Derek for her. “Derek isn’t some random rebel like those kids in the bar who don’t know their fangs from their two left feet. He’s a part of something much bigger.”
“I don’t understand why me killing the rebels is a problem. You want them gone. I want them gone.”
“Exposing us to the humans is only going to start a civil war and create more blood loss,” he said. “You need to come home where you belong.”
“In jail? Thanks, but no thanks, Kole.” She tried to turn away.
Kole shackled her arm. “I told you. I’m not taking you to jail.”
“I’m not going back to the Society. Not now. Not ever. If you try to take me there, I’ll fight you. I’ll fight you with everything I have inside me.” Her lashes lowered, and she seemed to struggle with emotion, before they lifted again. “I can’t be there, Kole.”
“I’m not taking you to jail. I won’t let that happen. You have my word.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Make me understand.”
She cut her gaze. “I can’t.”
“Try.”
She looked at him, shadows swimming in the depths of her eyes. “They won’t be there so I can’t be there.”
Her family. Kole felt her pain like a punch in the gut and he understood now. She wasn’t running from him. She was running from the reality he’d become a part of, not dealing with it at all, and it had left her alone and desperate. Only she wasn’t alone.
Kole scooped her up into his arms and headed into the room.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“What I should have done a long time ago. I’m taking you to bed.”
Chapter Seven
Dangerous. That was the word playing in her mind as Kole went down on the bed, on top of her, his mouth slanting over hers, hot with demand. She tried to resist and failed. Dangerous and delicious and everything Sarah needed and didn’t need, all at once. In an instant, she was lost in the hot strokes of his tongue, her hands tracing hard muscle and broad shoulders.
“I never stopped looking for you,” he said, tearing his mouth from hers. “I never would have stopped. ” His hand stroked hair from her face. “I’m not losing you again.”
Her throat tightened. “Kole-”
His mouth came down on hers, his tongue pressing deep and stroking against hers, caressing her into the submission she gave far too easily. Some part of her mind said to fight the delicious heat sliding through her limbs. He was Royal Guard, trouble to her in every possible way. He would steal her control, he was stealing her control, so why did she yearn to hand it over to him? It was confusing and wonderful. But still, dangerous. So very dangerous. And apparently dangerous aroused her beyond belief, because she found herself tugging up his t-shirt, desperate to feel his skin, to feel him close.
He pulled the tee over his head, and she pressed her lips to his chest, her hands exploring sleek muscle beneath taut skin. His hand slid into her hair, tangling there and forcing her gaze to his. “Do you know why it drives me wild to think of another man or wolf touching you?”
Her heart thundered in her chest, and heat pooled low in her belly. “Because you don’t like to share?” she asked, knowing that wasn’t the real answer, sensing their bond more now than ever. Wanting it and fearing it at the same time.
“You,” he said, his free hand shoving down her bra and caressing her breast. “I won’t share you.”
She moaned and bit her lip as he teased her nipple. “Good,” she whispered before she could stop herself, because she didn’t want him to share any more than she wanted to share him. But as surely as the word escaped, she knew it was an admission far more dangerous than this wolf, because you never tempted a wolf to stake a claim unless you wanted him to do it, and she quickly added, “You feel good.” And that was true, so very true.
“Why do I feel good?”
She laughed and tried to kiss him but he held steady, denying her. “Tease.”
“I’m not a tease, sweetheart, and I think we both know that,” he said before repeating, “Why do I feel good, Sarah? Say it.”
“Because you’re a hot alpha werewolf, I suspect,” she said, “which is great in bed, but it sucks in real life.”
He growled low in his throat and nipped her lip roughly before soothing it with his tongue, letting her know that her avoidance of the ‘mate’ word didn’t please him. “You know what I want to hear.”
Her fingers curled on his jaw. “I want you because outside of the last few intense hours excluded, you’re funny and sweet and sexy and...and you saved my life and tried to save my family.”
He inhaled sharply on those words, his entire body going stiff before he settled his forehead to hers. He buried his face in her neck, and she could feel the waves of torment in him.
“Kole?” she asked, feeling tension ripple through the muscles of his body, and concluding the only thing she could. “Do you....you think I blame you for their deaths?”
He rolled off of her, onto his back, his arm going across to cover his face “I didn’t save them. I should have saved them.”
“You tried,” she whispered, crawling to his side, settling one hand on his chest and using the other to pull his arm down to see his face. “I don’t blame you. I didn’t leave because I blame you.”
“I blame me.”
“Don’t. Please don’t. I don’t want you to feel that way. I don’t blame anyone but Derek.” She reached out to touch his face.
He shackled her wrist, his eyes glowing the yellow of male mating heat. “If you keep touching me, Sarah, I can’t promise you I won’t do something you’ll hate me for later.” He tried to move away.
The need to stop him was instant and intense. Without a conscious decision to do so, Sarah pressed his shoulder to the mattress and then climbed on top of him, straddling his hip. “I can’t. I can’t let you go.” She knew that truth clear to her soul.
His eyes darkened to a deep amber. “But you want me to let you go?”
She was confused. So very confused. “It’s not about what I want.”
She had barely spoken the words before he rolled her to her back, his big body framing hers again. “It absolutely is about what you want,” he murmured a moment before he kissed her.
The taste of him exploded on her tongue, the scent of him and of his desire, tantalizingly male, uniquely Kole. Her desire to resist was nowhere to be found or maybe she wasn’t looking. Her arms wrapped around his neck. She was done fighting. She wanted him. She wanted him so badly it hurt. She wasn’t going to think about the rest.
He seemed to sense the change in her and deepened the kiss, raw, masculine power and energy, crackling off of him, and consuming her. His hands were already moving ov
er her body, driving her wild, and she arched into him, trying desperately to get closer.
“Stop trying to save the world,” he murmured against her lips, “and let me save you.”
“I don’t-” His mouth closed down on her nipple, stealing her objection, her claim she didn’t need to be saved. Oh sweet bliss, she thought as her fingers twined into his long hair, and silently begged him not to stop. He was suckling her just right, tweaking the other nipple at the same time. His hands, his mouth, his teeth....she lost all sense of time and place.
When her skirt came sliding down her waist and his mouth pressed to her stomach, she tried for one brief moment to remember why this was bad, why being with him was dangerous. But then her shirt and bra were gone and she had no idea how, nor did she care when he began pulling her skirt down her hips.
His teeth scraped her shoulder and need curled and uncurled inside her. She tunneled her fingers into his hair. “Kole,” she whispered, a plea, though she didn’t know for what. Him. Kissing her, inside her. The darker side of her wolf, the sexual side awakened in a way it never had before. “I need-”
“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 hi
m, 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 rough, 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.