CHAPTER 6 #2
I focused my will and dropped the bars that caged my powers.
There was nothing left between us now, and I was thankful that he’d pinned me to the wall.
We’d only done this once before, back in the cave on my packland, and it was no less jarring the second time around.
Every sensation became magnified, every emotion amplified.
I fought a wave of vertigo, struggling to make sense of where I ended and Michael began.
He must have faced the same challenge, because he tilted sideways a few degrees before bracing his arms on the shower wall to steady himself.
The vertigo intensified with his movement.
He was pressed against me, but with the bond blown wide open like this, it also felt like I was pressed against myself, like I was the one who almost fell.
My vision blurred when our gazes caught.
One moment I was staring at Michael, the next I saw myself as he saw me, dark hair wild, eyes half-lidded with lust. He pushed against my mind, and soon his feelings supplanted my own.
Goddess, how he wanted me. He thought I was the most glorious thing he had ever seen, as beautiful as I was powerful.
Over the past day and a half, I’d somehow forgotten how simple things were for Michael when it came to our bond.
He’d accepted it so much faster than I had, and in the ensuing days, he’d been patiently waiting for me to figure out where I stood.
Deep down he was primitive and uncomplicated.
He didn’t just want to fuck me against the shower wall; he coveted me with a fierce possessiveness that should have had him snarling at any other wolf who looked at me.
“Are you close to your heat?” he asked, voice rough with lust.
I shook my head, settling back into my own body as I got used to our strange duality. “Not for another month.”
Shifters might look human most of the time, but we’re not.
Our biology is different enough that we can’t produce offspring together.
Unlike human women, female shifters are fertile only four times a year.
Michael and I had several weeks before we had to worry about some sort of birth control method, and thanks to the fact that our preternatural bodies burned through diseases, there was no risk of us catching anything from each other if we forewent condoms until then.
The thought of his heavy cock sliding into me with nothing between us was almost too much to bear, and I nearly sobbed in relief when he leaned in and pressed his full lips against mine.
I opened beneath him immediately, craving more, stroking my tongue against his.
He made a low, guttural sound and dug his fingers into my hips.
My lingering anxiety fled. My fear and worry evaporated.
Nothing else mattered but the way Michael made me feel.
The world outside this room could have ceased to exist, and I would have happily lived out my days with him here, like this, running my fingers up his blood-slicked back, lifting a foot from the floor to wrap my leg around his waist and pull him closer.
If we were human, now would be about the time one of us came back to ourselves.
Now would be when someone said something like “No. Not here. Not like this. Not with pieces of one of us piled on the floor nearby and the stench of blood thick enough to choke on.” But we weren’t human.
We were wolves. Our lives were vicious and often short.
The way we had been going the past few days, the Goddess only knew how long we had left.
We had to seize these moments for ourselves.
Grab any chance for peace or bliss with both hands and hold on tight.
Plus, unlike humans, wolves never let a little blood and gore get in their way of having a good time.
Michael broke the kiss and dropped to his knees in front of me, grabbing my raised leg and hooking it over his shoulder.
I looked down at him as he turned his head to kiss and bite his way up my thigh.
A shiver wracked my body. Even when we were suppressing, his touch nearly undid me.
Now, like this, with the bond open and the crackling heat of magic licking over me in the wake of his lips, my desire for him turned into something darker, hungrier.
“Michael,” I panted.
He turned from my thigh and pressed his forehead to my low belly, breathing deeply. “You smell amazing,” he said, nuzzling his nose against my clit.
The bonded werewolves in my pack loved to wax vainglorious about the fact that nothing rivaled the smell of one’s mate during sex.
I’d always laughed that off as exaggeration, but now I knew it to be true.
The scent of Michael’s arousal was like ambrosia.
A drop of precum beaded on the head of his cock, and I rolled the smell of it over my tongue, remembering the taste and the heat of his climax spurting into my mouth.
I wanted to reciprocate his words, but I could barely think around what the brush of his nose against my clit was doing to my body.
My breasts felt heavy, nipples aching from the lack of attention.
I lifted my hands and bumped my fingers over them, spine bowing off the wall, hips arching into Michael.
He parted his lips and slicked his tongue through my folds, groaning when he reached the evidence of how much I wanted him.
I was absolutely soaked, and he gripped my hips and drove his face against me, lapping up my arousal.
The shock of lust that ripped through me also tore through him, the bond amplifying our shared pleasure in a way that left both of us gasping.
I tugged at his shoulders. “I want you inside me.”
He pushed my thigh from his shoulder and surged to his feet. His hands landed on my ass, hoisting me clear off the ground. I wrapped my legs around his waist and reached between us, stroking his cock as I guided him to my entrance.
“Now, Michael,” I said, desperate.
With a growl, he pushed into me, bottoming out on his first thrust. For a second, I couldn’t even breathe past the feeling of him filling me up.
If the other night in the cave had been overwhelming, having him inside of me was utterly devastating.
I ceased being Layla Fitzpatrick, devolving to the fundamental core of myself, that dark, damn near malevolent creature born from generations of violence and bloodlust that would do absolutely anything to hold onto this wolf and how he made me feel when he was inside me.
Michael froze, balls deep, and dropped his head to my shoulder.
A shudder ran through him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him tight.
I could feel my inner walls clenching around his dick, begging him to move, but he stayed stock still.
A tendril of fear sighed through my mind, an echo of what he was feeling.
I sent my awareness pulsing into him, searching out the source of his mounting anxiety.
Ah. There it was. He’d just been in an excruciating amount of pain, and now he was totally unbound, with an excess of power he still wasn’t used to. His senses were overloaded, causing just enough stress to his system that he was in danger of shifting.
“You’re okay,” I said, kissing his temple.
Another shudder wracked his body, and I felt pinpricks against my ass. He was growing claws. I ran my hands over his back, reminding him that he was still in his human skin, and sent a mental pulse outward.
Stay with me, Michael, I said, speaking to him with my mind for the first time since we’d come back to the city.
Layla, he said, some of the tension melting from his body. I’m sorry if I hurt you.
He started to pull his fingertips away from me, but I reached down and grabbed his wrist.
Don’t you dare, I said. I like the feel of your claws digging into my ass.
I’d learned the other night that he liked it a little rough, and it had stirred up an answering interest in me.
With my past partners, I’d had to be so careful.
I’d neutered my strength and caged my instincts.
Michael was nearly my equal. He could take whatever I gave him, and vice versa, and the thought of letting myself go off the rails for the first time during sex was intoxicating.
He lifted his head from my shoulder and met my gaze. A small line appeared between his brows. “You like this?” he said, claws biting in just enough to pinch.
I nodded, breathless. There was something about him on the edge of losing control while buried hilt deep inside me that sent a frisson of danger coursing through my blood, and the resulting hormonal cocktail of adrenaline and desire had me panting.
I sprouted claws of my own and scraped them down his chest.
He hissed in a breath, his dick stiffening inside me, and the amber sheen faded from his eyes as the threat of wolfing out passed. “Do that again.”
I did what he said, scratching harder this time, just shy of drawing blood, and when he shuddered, I shuddered too. He really liked that, and now we were both so turned on that if he didn’t start moving soon, I was going to take him to the ground and fuck him on the gore-strewn shower floor.
I lifted my gaze from his chest and met his eyes. “I need you.”
The heavy muscles beneath my hands barely even flexed as he slid his hips back, slicking half out of me.
He supported my entire weight in his palms as if it were nothing.
Werewolf strength meant that he could hold me here for hours without breaking a sweat, and if we ever got over the fact that we both nearly came on contact, I was going to test that stamina to the max one day.