14 Tommy #3
Mine, the wolf snarled back, throwing itself against the bars of my ribs.
I ignored the beast. I had to. The air in the tent hung thick with the medicinal stench of the Verdant Order camp and the faint, bruising scent of the hex-fire burning outside, but beneath it all, the raw, blistering heat of my mate’s fever radiated upward.
She was burning alive from the inside out, the suppressed magic boiling in her veins, and the only cure was the absolute, total surrender of her body to mine.
Except I couldn’t take her.
The ancient, unyielding law of our kind demanded penetration, the bite, the final sealing of the bond.
But doing that would shatter the fragile mask of the potions we’d both taken.
It would broadcast the magic of our mating across the entire valley, bringing every Verdant Order mercenary down on this tent in seconds.
I had to bring her to the edge of the sun and leave myself entirely in the dark.
I knelt beside the cot, the cold metal of the hex-cuff biting into my wrist.
“Quiet, baby,” I breathed, the words barely a vibration in the bruised green light of the tent. “I got you. You don’t have to be quiet for them anymore, you just have to be quiet for me, and I’ll be quiet right back. Deal?”
Her gold eyes, lucid and bright with fever, searched my face. She gave me a single, jerky nod.
I went to work. My fingers trembling with the violent effort it took to keep my own feral instincts caged. I popped the buttons of her gray Steward’s tunic, pushing the fabric aside, beneath it she was completely naked.
I drew in a sharp breath. My cock immediately stiffened.
The heat coming off her skin was a physical pressure.
I didn’t remove the tunic completely—the risk of the guard walking in, of the illusion shattering, was too high.
Instead, I gathered the hem in my large hands and pushed the fabric upward, exposing the pale, fever-flushed expanse of her stomach and the heavy, perfect swell of her breasts.
My breath stopped in my throat.
The wolf slammed against my skull. Claim. Mark. Mate.
A violent, painful pressure surged directly to my groin. My cock went iron-hard in an instant, a heavy, thick ache straining brutally against my pants. The need to drag down my zipper, to bury myself completely in the slick, scalding heat of her, was an agony that threatened to rip my mind in half.
Hold, I told myself. The word was a prayer. An anchor. Hold.
I lowered my head. The first contact of my mouth against her bare skin wrung a tiny, astonished gasp from her lips.
I traced the damp curve of her collarbone with my tongue, dragging my mouth lower, mapping the frantic, jumping rhythm of her heart against her ribs.
I took my time. I worshipped her with the deliberate, agonizing patience of a starving man sitting down at a banquet he wasn’t allowed to eat.
When my mouth finally closed over the tight, flushed peak of her nipple, Kaia’s entire body arched off the canvas.
I caught her hips with my free hand, pinning her to the cot before the frame could squeal. I rolled the sensitive flesh against the roof of my mouth, pulling hard, using the flat of my tongue to tease the nerve endings to a screaming pitch.
Her hands flew up, tangling in my dark hair.
Her nails dug into my scalp, a desperate, anchoring grip.
The silence she maintained was its own kind of devastation.
Her mouth was open, her chest heaving, but the only sound in the tent was the wet slide of my mouth against her breast and the heavy thud of the guard’s boots outside.
I gave her my hand, splaying my calloused fingers across the smooth, quivering muscles of her lower belly. The contrast of my rough skin against hers sent a violent shiver through her frame.
I shifted my weight, bringing my free hand down to the waistband of her uniform trousers. I popped the clasp and slid the zipper down, slipping my hand beneath the heavy fabric and the thin cotton of her underwear.
The moment my fingers brushed the slick, swollen folds of her core, a jolt of pure electricity arched down the tether connecting us. She was completely drenched, hot and weeping, her body aggressively demanding the completion the wolf was screaming for.
I groaned, the sound trapped low and ragged in the back of my throat. I wanted her so badly my vision literally blurred.
Hold.
I slid a single, thick finger inside her.
The tight, scalding grip of her inner muscles clamped down around me instantly, a welcome so profound it felt like coming home after a lifetime of wandering.
I pressed deeper, testing the slick heat of her, and her spine bowed so hard her shoulder blades left the cot.
“Look at me,” I commanded, my voice a shredded rasp.
Her golden eyes fluttered open. The fever was peaking, the banked poison of the Verdant Order surging toward release.
I withdrew my finger slowly, drawing a silent, agonized tremor from her, before plunging back in, this time adding a second finger. I stretched her, working the swollen bundle of nerves with my thumb, setting a driving rhythm that mimicked the exact pace my hips wanted to take.
She writhed beneath me, a bowstring drawn past its breaking point. The urge to flip her, to pin her wrists and take the final plunge, clawed at the inside of my skin. My cock throbbed, weeping a single drop that soaked into my pants, the hollow ache of denial a physical torture.
The guard’s boots scuffed the dirt outside. He cleared his throat.
My wolf’s ears snapped back. Threat.
I didn’t break the rhythm. I kept my hand moving, tracking the subtle shifts in her breathing, the way her inner walls fluttered and seized around my fingers. The fever was draining, pouring down the tether into me, grounding out in the steady, immovable earth of my bloodline.