Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
The heavy oak doors swung open, revealing an entry foyer more magnificent and lavish than any Regan had seen. Declan’s grey eyes flashed silver, an unreadable expression flicking across his face before he waved his arm wide. “Your castle awaits, my fair abductee.”
Regan took a step in to the foyer, the gleaming white marble floor stretching before her, the cool, dim silence beyond beckoning. She hesitated, ready for the Klaxon squeal of a security system.
“I’ve disengaged it.”
She gave Declan a quick look, doing her best to keep her eyes on his. It was difficult, knowing, as she did, how completely naked he was. “How do you know how to break into a house?”
He raised a straight, black eyebrow. “I’m not always a wolf, Regan. My ‘day’ job required I knew how to get in—and out—of locked premises.”
“What is your day job, exactly?”
“Journalist.”
“And journalists break into mansions often, do they?”
He gave her one of those wolfish grins she was already getting to know well. “I’m from Ireland, love. Remember? I didn’t write articles on what to wear to Bondi Beach.”
A frown pulled at Regan’s forehead. “Didn’t? What do you mean, ‘didn’t’?”
Declan ignored the question. “I’ve hidden our tracks. McCoy won’t be able to find us here.” He moved past her, striding deeper into the silent mansion.
A shiver raced up Regan’s spine and she closed her eyes. Immediately an image of Declan’s tight, naked ass filled her head and her stomach fluttered, a delicious, little dance worming its way down to the damp junction of her thighs. “I’m losing my mind,” she mumbled.
Declan chuckled. “No you’re not.”
She opened her eyes, ready to give him a piece of her mind.
But the foyer stood empty before her.
Pulling in a slow, steadying breath, Regan moved into the house. So, abduction, car theft and now breaking and entering. Not the day you had planned, is it?
She looked around herself. She should find a phone. Let Peter know she was okay.
Are you okay? Are you?
A tremble began in her stomach, a soft, rapid spasm like a million butterflies beating their wings in blind panic.
God. She’d just witnessed two—damn it—two werewolves fighting.
How did one’s brain deal with that? Especially when she now stood in someone else’s home with one of them.
She frowned, rubbing her palms up and down her suddenly cold arms. And why wasn’t she trying to get away?
Well?
She didn’t have an answer, only the weird trembling sensation in her gut well on its way to consuming her whole body.
Hugging herself, she walked across the expansive foyer, looking for somewhere to sit.
Her legs felt wobbly. Twin, marble columns caught her eye and, shaking, she walked toward them, staring in stunned amazement at what lay beyond them, a room so large it could only be described as an exorbitant ballroom.
“Bit over the top, isn’t it?”
She jumped, spinning about to glare at Declan who, at some stage, had silently joined her between the columns. “Don’t do that.”
He dropped her a wink, walking backward into the extravagant room, bare feet silent on the white marble floor. “Care to dance?”
Regan’s heart leapt up into her throat and she swallowed. It seemed he’d found himself something to wear.
Black, silk boxers hung low on his hips, leaving his lean but finely muscled, upper body bare, drawing her eyes to its untamed perfection.
She pulled in a steadying breath, the tremble in her stomach gaining in strength.
Unable not to, she gazed at him, at his smooth, defined shoulders, chiseled chest, sculpted stomach…
“Shit, Declan. Your wound.” She ran to him, heart leaping into her throat.
She touched the flesh around the bleeding gash in his side, feeling sick.
The skin was ragged, torn open again by his battle with McCoy, an angry laceration burning with obvious infection.
Fine, grey hairs matted in blood circled the wound, as if the injury had trapped the animal part of Declan, preventing his complete transformation.
“I need to clean this, sterilize it before it—”
His hands closed around hers, soft yet commanding. “It’s fine.”
She looked up at him. Stared into his eyes. Her heart clenched. So did her pussy. “What if the owners come home?”
“They won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I can smell it.” A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Plus I checked their answering machine. They’re in New York. Not expected back for another week.”
A frown dipped Regan’s eyebrows. “How can you joke?”
The smile on his lips vanished and he gazed down at her, face an unreadable mask of intensity. “I’m alive, Regan. You’re alive. Is there any better reason to laugh at danger?”
Her chest tightened. “Let me help you,” she murmured.
He didn’t reply. Just stared back at her, devouring her face with his eyes as though her very countenance was his only nourishment.
Her breath quickened and she dropped her head, turning her attention back to his side.
The trembling in her stomach, her limbs, was now a shudder, a bone-rattling shake threatening to rob her of her strength.
Sightlessly, she stared at the bloody gash on Declan’s side, trembling fingers wavering above its raw surface.
Oh, God. What was happening to her? A violent sob burst from her, and she fell to her knees, pressing her feverish forehead to Declan’s strong, hard thigh.
“Wh-what’s wrong w-wi-with me? I can’t st-stop sh-sh-shaking.
” The words were almost inaudible, a stuttered, choked breath. “I’m c-cold.”
Warm hands ran down her arms, under her knees and back, and suddenly she was lifted from the floor, held firmly against Declan’s chest. He gazed into her face, his heat folding around her like a velvet blanket.
“It’s shock, love. That’s all.” He gave her a gentle smile.
“You’ve had a wild day. You’re allowed to be a little shaken. ”
They didn’t move for a long moment; Regan’s body shaking, Declan’s as still and solid as a statue. Until, heart pounding, Regan leant forward and placed her trembling, parted lips on his mouth.
Their tongues met. Slowly at first, each tasting the other with tender flicks and stabs.
Regan traced the soft line of Declan’s bottom lip, drawing it into her mouth.
He moaned his appreciation, crushing her closer to his chest. She placed her palm to his jaw, loving its angular strength, its stubbled texture on her skin.
A slight tremble shook her body and Declan pulled her tighter to his, as though willing to absorb the shock coursing through her. His tongue mated with hers, seeking, growing fierce with each penetrating caress. Demanding hers to be the same.
A wild beat erupted in her sex and she whimpered, tangling her fingers in his hair, tugging on the silken strands until his head lifted. “Your side,” she murmured, gazing into his smoldering eyes.
“My side is already healing,” he murmured back, brushing her lips with a feather-light kiss. “You are what counts now.”
“Warm me, Declan,” she whispered. “Make me burn.”
Desire flared in his eyes. He crushed her mouth with his, dragged his lips along her jaw line, up to her ear.
“And burn…” In three strides he crossed the room, lowering her onto a golden, velvet chaise covered in over-sized, plush cushions.
For a moment he did nothing but stare at her, smooth, broad chest rising and falling in ragged rhythm, muscles coiled, nostrils flaring.
She couldn’t take it. She lifted her hand—a wordless plea.
He took it, placed the soft flesh of her palm to his mouth, touching the tip of his tongue to the faint crease of her lifeline.
Her eyelids wanted to flutter closed but she kept them open. How could she close them? What would she do if, on closing them, she woke to discover it was all a dream?
She watched his mouth worship her palm, her fingers. Watched him linger over the sensitive, almost ticklish underside of each knuckle, her pussy clenching with each nip and nibble. A hitching moan caught in her throat. Lord, just her hand…just her hand and she was liquid heat!
Blunt, even teeth worked a delicious path to the tip of her middle finger and, eyes still holding hers, he drew the long digit into his warm, wet mouth and sucked on its length in gentle pulses of pressure.
Sending shards of electricity into her sex.
She gasped, eyelids fluttering at the sublime pleasure engulfing her.
Lips circling that one finger, he curled his tongue around its base, flicking at the slight hollow between it and her index finger. Again, scorching jolts shot into Regan’s pussy. Again, she gasped. “Declan…” His name fell from her dry, parted lips in a hoarse breath. “Please…”
The word ignited silver fire in his grey eyes.
He withdrew her finger from his mouth, the tiny nip he gave its tip filling her sex with sodden rapture.
With slow and ever-so-steady intent, he lowered her hand to his chest. The hard pebble of his nipple rubbed against her palm and the overwhelming desire to trace its puckered form crashed over Regan.
Yet before she spread her fingers to capture it, he slid her hand lower, down the flat curves of his stomach, along the jagged ridge of his scar, to the waistband of his boxers.
Regan’s heart froze.
The jutting head of his turgid shaft tenting the stolen boxers nudged her wrist. The contact sent her pulse flying.
Declan sucked in a sharp breath, the connection obviously affecting him equally.
The reaction shifted his body slightly, but it was enough.
The bulbous dome of his cock head pressed to her wrist again and she sucked in her own swift breath.
It was too much. Such a simple caress, but it was too much.