Chapter 21 #2
He turned to his mate then, and pulled her into his arms, kissing her deeply. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Fender took my hand, leading me away as Warrick and Willow said their goodbyes. We carried on across the clubhouse, through the door, and down to the dens.
“Where are we going?” I asked, my heart racing faster.
My emotions were frayed after everything that had happened tonight, breaking into the Stonebridge cemetery, talking to the priestesses, coming back here and relaying it all to Warrick and Willow. I was overwhelmed and overstimulated. I needed to go home. I needed time alone.
“Tonight was a lot, and I can feel how it’s affecting you,” he said. “I’m taking you to my den, where it’s quiet and you can rest.”
How did he know? How could he feel that? “I need to go home.”
He stopped suddenly, and a moment later, I was enveloped in his strong, muscled arms, my body pressed to his. His mouth went to the top of my head. “Nah, peaches. Being alone is what you’re used to, but that’s not what you need.”
My breath caught in my throat as it tightened. “No, I should—”
“You should sleep, and I’ll make sure nothing disturbs you.”
“I need to be available. Someone might text or call…the clinic,” I choked out, but it wasn’t the clinic I was worried about. It was getting a call or text from someone else in need that had me most concerned.
“Then I’ll wake you. You need this, and you’ve got me to watch over you now. Let me carry things for a while. I’ll carry all your worries. I’ll hold them for you while you rest.”
My eyes started to sting. I was so tired. I’d expended so much of my magic tonight, I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stand.
“Will you rest here for me, baby?”
I bit my lip at the sound of his soft, rumbling voice.
What was he doing to me? How did he see inside me so easily?
I should say no, I should pull away and go back to my cottage, to Manny and Glinda.
I should end this now before it got too complicated, but I didn’t want to.
I wanted to let Fender carry everything for me for a while, because I’d been carrying so much for so long all by myself and I wasn’t just exhausted, I was weary to my bones, to my soul.
So instead of doing the right thing, I nodded against his huge, hard chest. “I just want to sleep,” I choked out as my knees buckled.
Fender scooped me off my feet then, lifting me with ease, his limp subtle as he carried me into his quarters and down the short hall to his bedroom. He laid me on the bed, then took off my shoes, and pulled a quilt over me.
Leaning in, he kissed me softly. “Sleep, peaches.”
I grabbed his arm with the last of my strength. “Don’t leave me.”
“Not going anywhere, Temp. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
Then I passed out.
My eyelids were heavy, and I still felt drowsy when I woke.
I’d expended too much magic, and I’d slept like the dead all night to recharge because of it.
Allowing myself to get in this state was something I actively tried to avoid.
If someone needed me in the middle of the night, I had to be there to answer their cry for help.
Struggling to open my lids, I blindly reached for my phone on the bedside table.
“Relax. You didn’t get any texts or calls,” Fender said.
My eyes snapped open.
Fender was in the bed beside me.
I was in Fender’s bed.
It all came rushing back to me then, that he’d brought me here to his quarters last night, that he’d told me to let go, that he’d carry it all for me. His warm gaze looked a little tired. “You stayed awake all night in case someone tried to get hold of me, didn’t you?”
“I told you I would. You passed out. You needed the sleep more than I do.”
He had rolled to his side, facing me. His muscled chest and arms were out of the covers, his auburn hair was down around his strong shoulders, and tattoos swirled over his deeply tanned skin. He was beautiful. Breathtaking in fact. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me, but I wouldn’t say no to a good-morning kiss.”
His voice was so rough and low that his words melted over me like warm honey sliding down my belly and curling between my thighs.
Yes, I wanted to kiss him, badly. Lifting to my elbows, I leaned forward.
Fender fell back, while his fingers curled around the nape of my neck and up into my hair.
He smiled up at me, flashing his white teeth and pointed fangs, and I shivered, then closed the space between us.
As soon as our mouths touched, my pulse exploded into a rapid beat. His other arm slid around my waist, and he applied a little pressure. I dropped down on top of him with a gasp when my softer body mashed against his much hotter and harder one.
The kiss quickly grew deeper, wilder. I didn’t want it to stop. Before Fender, I’d never done anything like this. Without a frame of reference, I couldn’t definitively say if this was the best kiss that anyone had ever had in the history of kisses, but it certainly felt like it.
Fender’s body was beneath me, but somehow he cocooned me, his strong arms were holding me in place, one hand sliding up and down my back while the other drifted into my hair.
One of his legs had hooked over one of mine, and he’d eased my legs apart.
For some reason, that just made my core ache all the more.
I was on top, but he was in control. I was the one who kissed him, but his mouth was owning mine.
Should I love this as much as I did? Again, I had no way of knowing if this was what usually happened, but I liked it, so very much.
I slid my hands up his sides, over his ribs, moaning at the feel of his scaldingly hot, smooth skin, then higher over his chest where it wasn’t smooth but covered in a dusting of hair, and I loved the feel of that as well.
Oh goddess, I wanted more. I wanted what he’d done to me on his couch the last time I was in his quarters.
“Fender, please, I need…I need…” Before I finished searching for the right thing to say, his hand slid down over my butt.
Then around to undo my pants. I shoved them down frantically.
Lust had taken hold of me and I didn’t even try to be coy. Why would I, when this felt so good?
“You wanna come, peaches?”
I panted, nodding as he slid his hand inside my underwear. “Yes, I want that. I want…I need your fingers inside me, Fender. I need it.”
“Then you got it,” he growled.
I gasped again as he parted my folds with sure, thick fingers and slid one inside me. I cried out, my hips rocking forward on their own. It felt so good, so incredibly good.
“That’s it, ride my fingers,” Fender said as he slid in a second.
That felt even better. I’d never ridden anyone’s fingers before, but I was pretty sure this was what he meant, going by the rumbling vibrations rolling through his chest and the growls of approval that seemed to make me want him even more.
Somehow, he was inside me, while his thumb applied pressure to my clitoris, and the combination was bone-meltingly good.
The intense feeling grew hot like wildfire through my body.
I spread my legs wider, rocking my hips faster, and held my breath.
A cry of surprise burst free, and my inner muscles clutched and released frantically around his fingers, wringing a scream of pure joyful pleasure from me.
“Up,” Fender growled, his hand lightly tapping my butt. “On my face,” he said, a note to his voice I’d never heard before. Gods, it was so deep with lust, he barely sounded like himself.
Panting, I looked down at him. “I don’t…what do you want me to do?”
He squeezed my bottom and flared his nostrils. “I want you to sit on my face, peaches, now.”
“What?” I burst out. “Why would you want that?”
He laughed, rough and sexy. “I want to taste that pussy, Tempest.”
“How can that be enjoyable?” I shook my head. “If you’re just doing it because you think—”