Grave Secret (9 page)

I closed the distance between us, placing a frantic, desperate kiss on his parted lips. He let out a small moan, either a noise of surprise or pleasure, and pulled back a moment later. He looked dazed and uncertain, my chin still cupped in his palm.

“I don’t think—”

“Don’t think,” I whispered, my voice gone thick. I slid closer to him—it was easy to do with my foot already in his lap. Soon I was straddling him and his hand had slipped to the back of my neck, angling my head towards his. I thought he’d fight me, but he wasn’t. He was yielding in a way I’d only dreamed he might. It was too easy, but I didn’t care.

“Secret…”

I was unbuttoning his shirt, shushing his words with fluttery kisses every time he opened his mouth. “I love you.” Nothing I’d ever said had been as true as those words in that moment. “I need you.”

One of his big hands squeezed my thigh, making me feel small. The other hand held my head effortlessly, forcing my gaze to meet his. The same intensity flooded his eyes, but there was something hot there now. Desire eclipsed rage, turning his eyes almost solid purple. Need plucked at my insides, demanding I make this happen before anything stopped us, like common sense.

“I need you,” I repeated, sliding my hands into his unbuttoned shirt, my fingers finding the smooth circle of flesh where his chest hair no longer grew. It was the size of a quarter and felt cool to the touch in contrast to the flushed skin around its perimeter.

He growled, a sound I wasn’t used to hearing from Desmond.

“You still smell like him,” he said. He meant Lucas. The werewolf marriage ceremony left his impression all over me as a giant
Fuck off, this is mine
signal to any wolf who might think I was fair game. That mark was why Desmond had left. Basically Lucas had taken a big metaphysical whizz all over my aura, staking his claim.

Instead of letting him pull away, I twined my fingers through his short hair and clamped down, making sure he was looking at me this time.

“I’m
not
his.”

“You smell—”

It was my turn to growl, and I bit his lower lip before speaking again. “If you don’t want me to smell like him, make me smell like
you
,” I instructed.

For a moment I thought he might refuse.

Then I was on my back on the coffee table.

Chapter Twelve

Our forgotten beers flew off the table and onto the floor.

I gave up fumbling with his shirt buttons and had gone instead to the belt buckle digging into my pelvis. He shucked off my jacket and sent it flying over the couch, then pulled me abruptly into a sitting position, my ass on the edge of the low wood table.

“Take that off,” he said, his voice husky and commanding.

At first I thought he meant my shirt, but then I realized I was still wearing my holster and gun. Carefully I removed the leather straps and did a quick check to make sure the weapon was safetied before placing it on the couch rather than having it thrown somewhere. The second I had the gun out of my hands, he was untucking my shirt and pulling it over my head. I undid the last of his shirt buttons and pushed it off his shoulders before I tugged his belt free of the loops on his pants with a flourish.

With his shirt off, I could see the scar on his chest. A small, near-perfect circle slightly puckered on the edges where the silvery skin was still pink. I touched it, reaching out slowly to give him plenty of time to pull away or move my hand. He didn’t. Instead he stopped what he was doing and watched as the pad of my thumb brushed the smooth circle of flesh.

In response he touched a matching silver scar on my shoulder, making me shiver. He leaned me back onto the coffee table again, his mouth finding the scar on my stomach where I’d been run through by the katana which now hung over my fireplace. My collection of permanent scars was more impressive than his, but for some reason the little circle on his chest hurt me worse than any of my wounds had.

“I’m sorry,” I said, placing a kiss on the scar.

“I’m not.”

“You could have died.” He was busy undoing my pants, but he went still when I said it.

“I didn’t. And neither did you.” He said it in such a way that I knew we were done with this topic. I hated how he’d been hurt because of me, but he considered it worthwhile because I was alive.

I pulled him against me so his bare skin touched mine and neither of our scars was showing. For a moment I just wanted to hold him close and feel him breathe with me the way we used to when we slept in the same bed night after night. I’d missed the sex, absolutely. But I’d missed
him
more. His warm skin, his scent, the cadence of his breathing. Every tiny fiber that made him Desmond was something I had craved like oxygen since he’d left.

Finally, when I thought I might break down and cry from the overwhelming emotion of what being near him was doing to me, I bit his earlobe and whispered, “Take off your pants.”

He was up in a heartbeat, kicking off his work pants and socks, which made me chuckle warmly. He pinned me with a warning expression. “You won’t be laughing long.”

Biting my lip, I fought the urge to tease him more, but with him looming over me it was almost impossible to find anything to laugh at. His skin was olive over the perfectly toned planes of his body. His legs and arms were corded with muscle, and his abs might as well come with a
Lick Me
sign attached to them. The dark hair over his chest formed a thin trail down his stomach, begging my eyes to follow from his bellybutton to the low waist of his black boxer briefs. The cotton on his underwear was straining dramatically, and I got wetter just looking at him.

My mouth was dry and my tongue thick. I couldn’t have made fun of him if I wanted to. I didn’t want to. The only desire left in me was to have him inside me in every way imaginable, as fast as possible.

“Get up,” he said.

I did without hesitation. I thought he might take me on the coffee table, it felt sturdy enough, but he had a different idea in mind. Once I was standing, he lifted me right off the floor and slung me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Instead of being surprised—after all, he’d done this to me before—I took advantage of my position by slipping my hands into his underwear and giving his ass a squeeze while running my tongue along the beautiful toned V on his lower back above the waistband of his boxers. Before my tongue was allowed to explore anything farther south I was in the air and tumbling backwards. I landed on a soft down duvet and he was on top of me, giving me no time to have a look around his dark bedroom.

His natural scent was mingled with something headier now, a musk I recognized as desire. Instead of giving any more instructions or speaking at all, he removed my panties without hesitation and undid my bra with one looped finger, tossing both aside in turn. When he knelt over me, I slid his own underwear off, leaving him bare and hard in front of me.

My mouth wasn’t dry anymore.

Closing my lips over the head of his cock, I lowered my head with aching slowness, savoring every moment. I’d never thought I’d be able to taste him again, and I wanted to remember every second of it. My tongue caressed each curve and hollow, circling his head as I withdrew, holding suction until the end.

“Jesus,” he whispered. “I thought you didn’t want to kill me.”

I cast my eyes upwards, watching him as I lowered my head again. This time he seized my hair roughly and pulled my mouth out of reach. He couldn’t stop my hands though, and one palm cupped his balls while the other wrapped around his rigid shaft, which was still damp from my saliva. His mouth formed a thin line.

“You’re asking for trouble,” he warned.

“Then stop me,” I replied, squeezing his balls with gentle pressure.

“Turn over.” He growled the words and flipped me onto my hands and knees before I had time to comply with his instructions on my own. He placed a palm between my shoulders and gave a commanding push. I put my arms under the pillows and dropped so my upper body was pressed flush against the comforter.

My hair clung to my face from the sweat beading on my skin, so I couldn’t see him, just felt his hands grasp my hips and tug them higher until my ass was snug against his pelvis, the hard length of him nestled between my cheeks. I let out a shaky breath as he traced a path down my back and then up to my neck again. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and twisted it around his wrist, jerking my head up so I was looking over my shoulder at him.

With his other hand he guided himself to my opening, and the head of his cock slipped in easily. It had been long enough without him inside me that the size of him felt surprising. Even as wet as I was I gasped when he thrust inside me all the way on the first stroke. One hand held my head in place, and he watched me carefully as he drove into me again, waiting for me to tell him to stop or give him any instruction whatsoever.

A shudder of pleasure vibrated through me, making me tighten around him, and his eyes closed reflexively. I was usually the one taking charge in bed, but tonight he was claiming me, and I wanted to let him. He released my hair, but I kept watching him. Grabbing my hips with both hands now, he pounded into me like he was taking my challenge seriously. Whatever part of me had been marked by Lucas, Desmond was trying to fuck it out of me.

As his thrusts grew fast and frenzied, he withdrew suddenly, causing me to cry out from the unexpected emptiness, pulling me back from an edge I’d been about to plummet over. He turned me over so I was looking up at him properly, relieving the kink in my neck, and lowered his mouth, claiming my nipple with lips and teeth as he drove into me again. I moaned with the sensation of both actions at once, and he resumed his previous efforts.

When I was panting desperately and forming words that weren’t English, he released my nipple and seized my mouth in a hot, needy kiss. His tongue slid over mine, coaxing it into his mouth, and he nipped at my lips with his teeth before caressing each bite with his tongue. Each time I tried to scream out from the feeling of him inside me, he deepened the kiss, until we were reduced to frenzied mingling, parts of each other seeking ownership over bodies that weren’t our own.

He won the battle when his hand slid down my stomach and he circled my clitoris with his rough thumb, turning my whole body to liquid heat. I tried to tell him I was coming, but I simply yelped. I was melting under him, and just when I thought I might disappear completely from the intensity, he bit down on my nipple hard while his thumb continued to work me and his thrusts reached a fever pitch.

I was aflame, every part of my body too hot to touch, too burnt to be contained by skin.

I bit down on his shoulder. I had only meant to anchor myself to something solid, but when I broke skin and tasted blood, everything blew. My vision shattered in bright flashes of green, and the lost flavor of lime filled my mouth, carried on his blood. We came in the same moment, and my bite drew the orgasms out past a second or two and into several uninterrupted minutes of sensory-dulling pleasure.

When I forced myself to pull away and lick the wound to seal it, Desmond flopped down on top of me. He was breathing so hard he might as well have just finished running a marathon. I might have been breathing hard myself, but it was impossible to tell since my breath seemed mingled with his.

It took another five minutes before either of us were able to speak, and when Desmond opened his eyes, there was a ring of bright green around the outside of his iris.

“Your eyes,” I whispered.

“
Your
eyes. They’re practically gold.”

“Yours are green.”

“Is that what it’s like…? Biting?”

I tried to shake my head, but it still felt heavy. Instead I took his hand and wove my fingers between his. “Not always. But sometimes.”

“Was it like that with Lucas?” He knew I’d bitten Lucas before, but I’d never told him I’d bitten Lucas during sex. I guess it was a fair assumption for him to make.

I kissed his fingertips, and his skin burned under my lips. “No,” I replied honestly. “It’s never been like that with anyone but you.”

Chapter Thirteen

I was probably reading too much into things when I noticed Desmond’s bedroom didn’t have any windows. The pity of it all was that even without windows, I wasn’t going to be able to sleep over. I also wasn’t stupid enough to believe that one hot night would be all it took to fix our fractured relationship.

Baby steps, though. And this one had felt like it was in the right direction.

“Where are you going?” he asked, his voice still lazy and raw from our romp in the sack.

After I’d retrieved my clothes from the living room and hunted around his dark bedroom floor for my missing underpants, I sat next to him and brushed a kiss over his cheek. His skin remained hot to the touch.

“Oh, you know. Find a missing heiress. Figure out if my fairy godmother is a psycho killer. The usual.”

“Let me help.” He sat up, the sheet covering his lower body slipping away, and he swung his legs off the side of the bed. Any resolve I had to leave began to fade with every new inch of him made visible. I swallowed hard.

“Help me how?” I tore my gaze away from his crotch and looked at his face instead. It didn’t help my plans any. He could wear a parka and I’d still get woozy looking at him. Love drunk. That was the best way to describe it.