Chapter 16
Ford
Every time Georgia had searched for me on the ice, it had felt as if my entire soul was shifting. The bond we already shared didn’t just pull, it roared, my wolf enraged I’d yet to mate with her.
The thought had lingered in my mind from the second my father had mentioned the reason for my condition.
After that, I’d been unable to concentrate.
Could I blame the fight with Jack for losing the game?
Sure, I could, but I’d be lying to myself all over again.
The reason was clear. When she was in the same room or even in same area, she shattered all the carefully placed barriers keeping my wolf hidden and locked away.
Even in the massive arena, when I’d skated near the player’s area, the surrounding air had made it difficult to breathe. I wanted to cover her with my scent, removing the stench of the bastards who’d touched her. And their stench lingered without her being able to catch even a hint of them.
I twisted the scarf around her neck, still in the throes of tasting her sweet cream. She was even more delicious than before, and I hadn’t believed that possible.
There was something profound about being offered the opportunity to claim her, not only marking her with my scent but making our connection permanent by mating. However, if I chose to ignore the rules of both common sense and even basic human romance, there could be a heavy price to pay.
This wasn’t the stone age and she wasn’t a shifter, born and bred to accept an alpha mate without question. The fact that she was one hundred percent human remained a heavy burden, more so because we knew nothing about each other. Not a damn thing.
Plus, we were both keeping secrets, haunting memories too difficult to divulge to the other. Contrary to what humans believed, I could not read her mind.
I rubbed the fingertips of my other hand down her spine, marveling in how her muscles surrounding them rippled from my touch. She shuddered from the light contact and tiny prickles of heat warmed her skin.
Searing my fingertips.
The strange reality that our meeting had created was an interference than I hadn’t wanted but feared I couldn’t live without. And I continued to ask myself the same damn question.
What the hell was I supposed to do now? One taste had nearly driven me mad with need for more. Two nights spent away and I’d completely lost my ability to concentrate. Three times being together and I had a sense soon losing control with her wouldn’t be a question of if but when.
And I knew instinctively after that, I’d lose her forever.
With my eyes closed, I tried to pull myself away even now, fighting urges I’d only experienced as a teenager. I even attempted to block the hunger by going over the night’s game and horrific loss.
But the vivid images faded, replaced by ones of her.
My body began to shake as the desire swept into an even more irrational state of being. The placement of the ruler caught my eye, a devious moment replacing my carnal needs. She’d started this game of power. Well, I guess I had no one to blame but myself given what I’d said on the plane.
Every ragged sound she made continually pulled me back and forth from some primal fantasy to reality. In hearing she’d had a dream about us, I was beginning to believe she felt the pull as much as I did.
Such intense yearning.
Unbridled need.
Every muscle tense.
Every breath caught in a vacuum.
That’s what being with her did to me.
Before I even knew what I was doing, the sound of my wrist snapping was following by a similar one when the plastic implement was smacked against her right butt cheek.
“Hey,” she moaned. “That’s not fair.”
As I rubbed her buttocks, marveling in the light strip of color already forming, I leaned in. “I’m surprised a smart woman like yourself hasn’t figured out nothing about or around me will be considered fair.” To prove my point, I cracked the ruler against her left cheek.
Enjoying the sound a little too much, I repeated my actions four more times, moving from one side to the other. The action was a little like playing drums, her resulting moans the perfect accompaniment.
She shifted her bottom back and forth, somehow managing to steal a couple of glances over her shoulder even with me holding the scarf. I quite liked having her on a leash. Did that make me a terrible person or just an alpha wolf afraid of losing a perfect possession?
Grinning, I continued spanking her for no other reason than I could. And perhaps to teach her a lesson about teasing a beast lying in wait. Even a locked door and purposeful avoidance hadn’t worked.
My instincts were honed and I cracked the cheap plastic against her heated skin several more times before losing my patience. That didn’t mean I was no longer interested in taunting the savvy therapist who’d surprised everyone with her chutzpa.
Very few humans stood up for shifters, fear keeping them in the shadows.
There was very much a team concept regarding the subject.
Team Human or Team Shifter with very little in between.
My teammates remained that way and the two other shifters on the roster had done everything in their power to pretend they didn’t have wolves lurking below the surface.
I doubted they even acknowledged their urges while I was now exploiting mine.
Damn it. Why couldn’t I control myself?
She hadn’t cared that she was possibly fighting a losing battle. She had no idea how legalities and fear mongering were being used to try to keep shifters in line. My dad had spelled it all out to everyone at the meeting, which I’d only hung around for a portion of it.
Additional bad news wasn’t on my bucket list at this point in my life. I’d worked too hard to be derailed by some nutso organization determined to hunt down ‘bloodsucking beasts.’ Did the assholes not know they were describing vampires?
“You underestimate me, Wolfman.” Her voice rang loud and clear, echoing sharply in my ears. She was in the type of playful mood that had already dragged me from my pity party. I had every intention of enjoying the moment to the fullest.
“I do, huh?” I smacked her five more times with the ruler, hitting her directly on her sit spots.
Then I upped the ante on the game by sliding it between her legs, watching her eyes half close as I pressed the plastic against her swollen pussy lips.
Her sweet scent kept the wolf under a thin skin easily shredded with his claws.
Yet he knew better than to try to come out to play.
I was a tough taskmaster like the coach. I rubbed the ruler back and forth, creating a hint of the type of friction she’d done with her fingers wrapped around my dick. There was something entirely too delicious about being a little kinky and lot rough with her.
And I was just getting started.
“Uh-huh,” she breathed, her lips parted in the most provocative way.
With her hips moving in time to my hand gestures, I enjoyed the time to build on the dark cravings. She could make a man go insane before he drove his cock inside.
My focus began to wane, a light fog wrapping around my focal point. She had a way of doing that to me. My muscles were too tense, my bones too intent on shifting and that just couldn’t happen.
I chose something less caustic, tossing the ruler to the side. When her breath hitched, I dug the fingers of one hand into her hip, not caring if I marked her. At least I’d know she belonged to me. As I rubbed the tip of my cock up and down her slickened pussy, a sense of calm washed over me.
There’d been no lie about her ability to help heal me, much like my father had been right about shifting and how that would cure what ailed me. Only now that we’d been intimate, things had changed. No longer would doing nothing more than shifting provide the relief I needed.
Unless Georgia was in the scenario.
As much as I hated the old legends, stories I’d thought based on campfire mumbo-jumbo, my body’s condition told me otherwise.
Every sound she made sparked the carnal needs swelling within me, leaving me no choice but to fuck her.
Her fingers were wrapped around the comforter, yanking it away from the edge even before I thrust my cock inside. Once I had, all bets were off that I could control the needs of my wolf. I’d need to do everything possible to keep from exposing the darkest side of me.
Georgia shuddered audibly, arching her back while she took several shallow breaths. I was completely electrified, incapable of offering any sound other than deep growls. They should terrify her, but she didn’t succumb to fear so easily.
I pulled out, the air hitting my shaft and stealing my breath. As soon as I plunged into her again, I wanted more. It took seconds for my actions to close in on being brutal. Even though I developed a rhythm, pacing myself, that wasn’t helping curtail the raw, almost painful intensity.
So I fucked her even harder.
The sound of her skin slapping against mine echoed in the room mixing with her raucous scattered breaths.
She met every savage thrust even as I tightened the scarf to the point I feared cutting off her oxygen.
But I was so intent, the need increasing until I couldn’t see straight if I tried.
With every plunge making it more difficult to keep some sense of sanity let alone control around her, I had two choices.
Walk away and keep my blue balls, or fuck her elsewhere.
There was one chance I had enough humanity left in me to back away completely. A change in plans was required.
Once more, I rolled my hand down her back, this time cracking the palm against her bottom before pressing my thumb into her very tight dark hole.
She tossed her head back immediately, providing a beautiful view of her neck. I took a deep whiff, my entire body shaking as soon as I did. Relief needed to come soon, or I’d no longer recognize myself.