Chapter 19 #2
“You did well today,” I murmur, keeping my voice low and intimate. “Fucking impressive how fast you’ve progressed.” I lean down until my mouth brushes the shell of her ear. “Such a good girl.”
Her reaction is instant. Her breath catches. Her pulse kicks. And through the bond, I feel the flood of arousal that hits her. My cock twitches in my pants, thick and eager.
Her scent sharpens—sweet and slick and fucking mine.
Whatever plans I had for tonight? Gone. Erased by the way she shifts just slightly toward me, like her body’s already answering mine.
“I have a good teacher,” she replies, and there’s a new confidence in the way she holds my gaze that makes my wolf surge with approval.
“And I have a dedicated student.” I let my gaze hold hers with an intensity I no longer try to temper. “I think you deserve a reward.”
I can almost taste her arousal in the air between us—the sweet musk of it calling to the predator in me, urging me to chase, to claim, to take.
We’ve had so little time together since the training began.
Each day filled with preparations for war, each night collapsing into exhausted sleep.
But right now, she’s here and alive and mine.
“Zella will be expecting me,” she says weakly, but her body betrays her, leaning into my space rather than toward the door.
“Zella can wait.” My hand comes up to cup her face, thumb brushing her lower lip in a gesture that’s become achingly familiar. The softness of her skin, the slight tremble beneath my touch—it drives my wolf wild. “There are other forms of training equally as important.”
“What kind of training?” she asks, and there’s a new tease in her tone that makes my cock stiffen painfully against the constraint of my pants.
I don’t answer with words. Instead, my fingers trail from her face down the elegant line of her throat to the claiming mark, sending a surge of power through the bond.
Her gasp and the way her pupils blow wide with desire tell me she feels it too—this connection that grows stronger each day, demanding completion.
My wolf is frantic with need by now, pawing at the boundaries of my control. It’s been too long since I’ve properly claimed her, since I’ve reminded her—reminded us both—who she belongs to. Who I belong to.
My arm slides around her waist, pulling her flush against me with a suddenness that makes her gasp. “Come, little wolf,” I murmur, letting the hunger show plainly in my voice. “It’s time for you to teach me all the ways in which to please you.”
Her scent spikes with arousal as I claim her mouth, my lips demanding, my tongue seeking entrance.
She yields beautifully, melting against me with a soft moan that vibrates through my chest. Heat floods through our bond, and I feel her desire mirroring mine, amplifying it until it becomes impossible to tell where my need ends and hers begins.
She responds instinctively, arms winding around my neck, body arching into mine. Through our bond, her surrender pulses—rich and heady—encouraging me to take more, claim deeper.
You own me, her thoughts brush against mine, an intimate confession that makes my control fray further.
And you me, I respond, the truth of it resonating through my bones.
I’ve had countless females in my long life—temporary distractions, fleeting pleasures that meant nothing once the night ended. None of them prepared me for this—this bone-deep need to possess and be possessed, to mark and be marked. To belong.
I lift her effortlessly, carrying her toward our bed with strides made long by impatience. Her weight is nothing in my arms, her curves fitting perfectly against my harder planes. She belongs here, against me, with me. Every instinct I possess screams it.
Setting her down with more gentleness than my trembling muscles want to allow, I stand back to look at her—really look at her.
Those eyes that see too much, both with her gift and without it.
The face that’s gradually losing the haunted, hunted look it wore when she first came to me.
The body that was always meant to fit against mine.
“Tell me what you want, Kitara,” I say, needing to hear it from her lips.
Instead of answering with words, she reaches for the hem of her shirt, pulling it over her head and tossing it aside with newfound confidence. The sight of her—skin flushed with desire, breasts heavy and perfect—drives the air from my lungs. My cock throbs painfully, demanding release.
She cups her breasts, offering them to me like some pagan sacrifice, and it takes everything in me not to fall to my knees before her.
“I want you to touch me again,” she says, voice husky with need. “Like before. I want to feel...” Her breath hitches deliciously. “I want to feel you inside me.”
The growl that tears from my throat is barely human. “You say things like that and expect me to go slow?”
“No,” she admits, lifting her chin with that defiance that makes my wolf howl. “I want you to lose control.”
“Kitara, I—“ I start to warn her that she doesn’t know what she’s asking for, that the beast she’s provoking has teeth and claws and no mercy—but she cuts me off, moving toward me with purpose.
Her hands brush mine aside, fingers finding the clasp of my belt, dragging it slowly from the loops. Each movement is deliberate, exploratory—as if she’s learning how to be bold, how to take what she wants instead of waiting for it to be given.
She leans forward, pressing those soft lips to the hard plane of my stomach, just above the waistband of my pants. The touch is fire, sending jolts of electricity straight to my already aching cock. I exhale through my nose, fighting for control that’s slipping with every second.
“I’ve been patient,” she murmurs, each word a hot breath against my skin as she kisses lower, her fingers teasing at my waistband.
“We’ve both been exhausted, but you can’t promise me something then not deliver, Ryker.
” She looks up at me, and the sight of her like this—on her knees, eyes dark with want—nearly undoes me. “Make love to me.”
“Kitara—“ I try once more to warn her, to give her an out before the beast breaks its chains—but then she’s tugging my fly down, and my cock springs free, hard and aching and so ready for her it’s nearly purple with need.
The moan she makes at the sight of me is enough to shatter what’s left of my restraint.
“Can I taste?” she asks, her small hand wrapping around my length, and gods help me, but the image of those perfect lips stretched around my cock makes my head spin.
“You can do whatever the fuck you want to me,” I tell her through gritted teeth, knowing it’s the absolute truth. There’s nothing I would deny her, nothing I wouldn’t give if she asked. “But know you’re playing a dangerous game, little wolf.”
“Good,” she whispers, her hand giving my length a slow, experimental pump that has me seeing stars.
My control snaps at her response, at the teasing smile playing at the corners of her mouth. I fist one hand in her hair, dragging her head back so our eyes meet. I need her to see what she’s unleashed, what’s coming for her.
“You want to act like a little tease?” I growl, nostrils flaring as I inhale the rich scent of her arousal. “Fine. But you’re not getting out of this bed until I’ve knotted you so deep you forget your own damn name.”
A devil dances in her eyes as she meets my gaze. “Promise?”
The challenge in that single word is the final straw.
With a snarl that’s pure alpha, I yank her up to me, claiming her mouth in a kiss that’s all teeth and tongue and primal need.
There’s no gentleness in it, no restraint, just raw hunger that’s been building since the moment I first scented her in that clearing.
She meets me with equal fervor, clawing at my shirt, biting my bottom lip in a way that makes my cock throb with anticipation. I push her back onto the bed, pinning her with my weight, reveling in the way she yields and challenges all at once.
“You think you’re in charge?” I rasp against her mouth as my hands shred what’s left of her clothes, needing her bare beneath me now. “You think you can just touch me and I won’t lose control?”
She gasps as I press one thick thigh between her legs, forcing her to grind against the hard muscle. The heat of her, the slick evidence of her desire, makes my mouth water with the need to taste her again.
“I was trying to be polite,” she pants, rubbing herself shamelessly against my thigh. “But if you want to throw me down and fuck me—gods, Ryker, please—”
I grab her thighs, my hands digging into their fleshy fullness with a strength that will leave marks tomorrow—marks that satisfy some primitive part of me. “Oh, I’m going to ruin you.”
“You already did,” she pants, the words half challenge, half surrender as she licks up to my jaw. “And I want more.”
I’m panting like a beast in rut as I leave her to drop down between those soft thighs, one broad palm splaying over her belly to hold her in place. The scent of her arousal is intoxicating—sweet musk and heat that calls to my wolf.
“I need to taste you,” I tell her, my voice barely recognizable even to my own ears. “Need to see how wet you’ve been for me, how aching and unsatisfied.”
I force her legs open wider and dive in without preamble, my tongue flicking over her clit once, twice, before I begin to feast like a starving man.
The taste of her—gods, the taste—is better than anything I’ve ever known.
Rich and complex and addictive. I could spend hours worshipping her like this, learning every fold and secret place, cataloging each sound she makes as I draw her pleasure higher.
She arches off the bed, thighs trembling on either side of my head, her moans a symphony that drives me wild. I suck and lick, teasing her clit with slow, deliberate circles that have her writhing beneath my mouth.