Chapter 31
Elodie
“Valens…” I had no idea what he had in mind, but it wasn’t the mission.
He grabbed me by the waist and picked me up, chuckling at my surprised squeak when my butt left the leather.
Shutting the door behind me, he pressed me back against it, taking a fistful of my hair and tilting my head back. “If you really don’t want to, I’ll stop. But I think you need it. You need to clear your head, hit the reset button. Let me help you.”
“How do you propose we do that on the side of the road, hmm?” I was still feeling saucy, but I couldn’t deny the heat and excitement simmering just below the surface. The anger had gone, replaced with curiosity and need. Maybe he was right and a reset was exactly what I needed.
He glanced around, considering. “Hood of the car, or forest?”
I blinked a couple of times. “Hood of the car sounds uncomfortable.”
“Forest it is.” His lips were on mine a heartbeat later, his hands coming up under my thighs to lift me, and I wrapped my arms and legs around him on instinct.
Valens devoured me with lips and tongue and gentle nips of teeth as he carried me into the shady forest, but we didn’t have to go far.
He stopped at the base of a massive oak tree. It was so big, I couldn’t have put my arms around the trunk and touched my fingers on the other side. He backed me up against it gently, so nothing bit into my skin, and set me on my feet.
Then his hands were back in my hair, his lips trailing down my neck with renewed vigor. When he reached the collar of my shirt, his hands skated slowly down, caressing me all the way to the hem.
He didn’t hesitate as he peeled it off me, and, a second later, my bra.
“Put this behind your back so you don’t get scratched up,” he ordered, handing over the shirt.
I did as he asked. All the while, he gazed at me hungrily.
Satisfied that my skin was protected, he cupped my breasts in both hands with a groan.
“You’re sheer perfection, you know that, Firecracker?
” He started kissing his way back up from my navel without waiting for an answer.
Which was good, because my tongue was tied, and my attention was fixated on how fucking amazing his lips and hands felt on my skin.
By the time he was teasing my nipples with his tongue, I was already on the edge and needing him like oxygen.
“Brute, I need more. Faster,” I all but begged, not caring how desperate I sounded. I was desperate, for every little bit of heat building between us like the first sparks of a wildfire, heat I’d been ignoring until it was practically an unstoppable blaze.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, grinning against my skin as he looked up at my face. His fingers went to the waistband of my pants, and then they were gone, shucked off at lightning speed and forgotten somewhere among the leaves.
He didn’t hesitate as he dropped to his knees in front of me, urging me to a wider stance with his hands on the inside of my thighs. I complied, and he groaned, dropped his forehead to my stomach, inhaling harshly.
“Do you know how tempting you are? You look like a damn goddess of the forest, wild and free and perfect, like every dream I’ve ever had come to life.
And your scent…” He inhaled again, trailing his nose down, down, down, until his face was even with my folds.
One soft, tentative lick up my seam, and when he made eye contact this time, his eyes were glowing with his wolf.
His voice was all gravel when he said, “Mine.”
The way everything inside me reacted to that one word was practically criminal. Never had I been more aroused by a male laying his claim on me, until Valens. Everything was different with him.
He urged my legs wider still, and then he fastened his mouth to my pussy with the devotion of a drowning man given a life raft.
The pleasure intensified inside me, building like tension on a spring. Stronger and stronger, until my thighs began to shake and I had to grab his shoulders for support.
He hummed happily against my flesh and gripped my hips tighter, never pulling back as he devoured me. Licking and sucking, he worked my clit in faster circles, as if he could tell I was close.
Something, though, wouldn’t quite let me fall over the edge, no matter how desperately I wanted to.
“V, I… I can’t. I don’t know—”
His eyes met mine, piercing in their intensity. And then I heard it. A soft rumble started in his chest, that soothing sound alphas made just for their mates. Meant to calm and reassure, no matter the situation. And he would only do it for me. Because I was his, and he was mine too.
It was like a dam burst. All the emotions I’d been holding back by sheer force of will since he claimed me as his mate broke free, welling up in an unstoppable wave.
My heart seemed to skip a beat as it sank in, the gravity of the moment.
While I was melting, the rumble kept growing in intensity until it vibrated through his entire body, including his tongue, still swirling and teasing and—my head fell back as the sparks burst into flame, pleasure ripping through every part of me from the inside out, raging with an intensity I’d never felt before. Not with a lover, not alone.
Valens switched to pressing tender kisses against my skin as I shook and trembled my way through the pleasure, and when I tugged on his shoulders, he rose, wrapping me up in the best hug of my life.
Because for the very first time, all the walls I’d so carefully erected between us were gone.
Destroyed under the force of his touch, his kiss.
He’d rebuilt me, even as he worshipped me.
“You rumbled for me,” I murmured, hiding my face against his neck. I felt too vulnerable, too raw to do anything else yet.
“I did. Was it too much?” His hands stroked lazily over the bare skin of my back, as if he wanted nothing more than to hold me, even though I could feel the hot line of his cock pressed against me through his clothing. Because, yeah, he’d completely unraveled me without even taking off his shirt.
I couldn’t be bothered with embarrassment, not after what we’d just shared.
“No, never. It was incredible. You were incredible. I’ve never…” I trailed off, embarrassed to admit we hadn’t even had sex yet, and he was already better than any other lover.
He pulled back just enough to look down at my face. “You’ve never had oral sex before?”
I whacked him on the shoulder, hiding my face again. “Of course I have, just… not that good.”
“Ahh. Well, much as I’d love to take all the credit for that, you’ve also never been with your mate before. Things between us are always going to be on a different level. Even just a simple kiss,” he whispered against my ear, then ducked to press a kiss to the tender spot just below it.
“Let me get your clothes. I don’t want you to get cold, and the temperature is dropping now that the sun’s gone.” He kept one hand on mine as he bent down and gathered up my clothes, but I stopped him before he could slip the bra over my head.
“What about you? Don’t you want me to return the favor? I’m not selfish.”
He chuckled, hauling me against his chest again.
“Oh, I want you to. But that’s not what this was about.
It was about what you needed. And now… you need to get where we’re going, so I can den up with you in our room, and you can get a good night’s sleep before our meeting with the IGC tomorrow morning.
” He held up the bra again, gesturing for me to lift my arms so he could slip it over my head.
I glared up at him, not convinced.
“You’re not selfish, because your body, your pleasure, is my gift too. I enjoy making you feel good, and you’re just going to have to be okay with that. Now, arms up.” He nipped my bottom lip, eyes glowing again with his wolf’s demand for my obedience.
With a sigh, I let him help me get dressed again, and the stubborn man picked me right back up and carried me to the SUV. He wouldn’t even let me buckle my own seat belt. If any other man had tried that kind of power move with me, I’d have wanted to rip his head off and stuff it up his ass.
But Valens? He wasn’t arrogant or domineering about it. He was caring and kind and… tender. He treated me softly, but not as if he found me weak. It was because he wanted me to experience letting go, letting him in.
Damn if a girl couldn’t get addicted to being treated like that.