Satisfying Extortion (9 page)

Suzette blushed and dropped her head.

Ever since the walls had started coming down, Kurt had been as horny as a young man in a house of prostitutes.

“Don’t hold back on my account,” Bart said.

“Like. I. Said. Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?”

Bart exited the office and Blaine followed him, shooting Blaez and Randon a glare before he walked out. Even with her ex out of the room, Suzette still acted nervous. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

After a moment of silence, Pageant said, “It’s not as bad as they make it sound.”

“She knows,” Blaez said, giving Suzette a heated look.

“No. I don’t think she fully understands,” Randon said, pointing at her neck. “You didn’t bite her.”

“What?” Her voice hit a high octave and she stared at Kurt as if he held and guarded all the answers. “No one mentioned anything about biting. I thought you were werewolves, not vampires.”

“We are,” Kurt said, thinking if he’d been the one behind the closed door, he would’ve finished the mating. He wouldn’t have let time pass without mating properly with the woman he was meant to share, love, and protect.

“There’s only one way they can be assured of your safety,” Pageant explained.

“And even that isn’t guaranteed,” Randon said, glancing at Pageant and then refocusing on Suzette. “You have three mates and you must complete the mating in order to be linked or tied to them forever and yes, that includes accepting the werewolf’s bite.”

“Are we talking a nibble here or a real blood gusher?”

“I’ll nibble,” Kurt said, gnashing his teeth and then shooting her a wink.

“And you?” She directed the question to Marcus.

Marcus crossed his arms. “We’ll discuss it in private.”

Kurt rolled his eyes. They probably wouldn’t discuss much more than Marcus telling her to drop her pants and bend the hell over.

“So what happened while we were in there?” Blaez directed the question to the men but sidled up to Suzette and draped his arm around her shoulders. “Do you think Suzette’s plan worked?”

“Suzette’s?” Kurt held his heart. “Really? All that racket was your idea?’

“Yes.” She smiled sweetly. “Did it work?”

“Yes,” Kurt said, stalking her. “Now let’s you and I go somewhere private and see if we can come up with some creative ideas for the two of us.”

As soon as Suzette unlocked the door of her two-story colonial home, Kurt felt a sense of belonging. He didn’t know if it was the assortment of cake candles cluttering the credenza or the variety of toys scattered across the foyer and up the stairs, but it felt like home. It felt familiar and comfortable.

Kurt eyed the family pictures lining the hallways as he followed her to the kitchen. Yes, this was where he belonged—here with this woman. He wanted a glimpse of this kind of life, this kind of future. He longed for something real, something meaningful—family and friends, real love. That’s what mattered.

“Are you hungry?”

He eyed her shapely bottom and made no attempt to hide the fact when she turned around and caught him. “Starved.”

She moistened her lips and planted a quick kiss on his. Before she could get away, he gave her a sharp pull and she landed against his chest.

“I think you can do a little better than that.”

She stood on her tiptoes and brushed his mouth with gentle kisses. A combination of love and lust, want and need, struck at the base of his cock and made him uncomfortable as hell. He bracketed his arm around her waist and pulled her against him, loving the full swell of her breasts against his hard chest.

He bunched her hair in his hands and kissed her completely, driving inside her mouth with a forceful tongue. “God you make me crazy.”

She backed away then and sashayed ahead of him. He watched the gentle sway of her hips until she disappeared and then turned to the photographs, noticing immediately there were…
Gulp.

Kurt came to a dead stop.

Apparently sensing something wasn’t quite right, Suzette peered around the kitchen wall. “What is it?”

He gaped at the stair-stepped children. All of them must’ve been under the age of nine. “Where did all these rugrats come from?”

She struck a pose by sliding her arm up the doorframe. “You’re looking at the rug.”

* * * *

Kurt had been positively tongue-tied when he’d discovered she had four children, but when she entered the dining room to announce she’d put a casserole in the oven, he wasn’t just tongue-tied. He was awestruck.

She’d showered soon after they’d arrived there and before she’d whipped up dinner. As he’d stood guard, looking out over the lawn, he’d resented the fact that he couldn’t go upstairs with his mate. He’d been too paranoid, too concerned for her safety.

If the extortionist came to her home, he wanted to see him coming.

Just like he saw Suzette coming for him then.

Suzette didn’t look like a mother of four. She looked like his sexy and sensual mate, the woman who was meant for him, the woman he would soon share with two other mates as well. As he considered the possibility of sharing her, he slowly came to terms with the reasons why she’d been chosen for them. They were trackers with responsibilities to their pack and country. With three mates, Suzette would never be left alone.

“You’re thinking too hard over there.”

“My thinking isn’t the problem,” he promised her.

“Tell me.” Her damp hair fell like ringlets over her shoulders and her lips curved in a knowing smile as she cocked her head and shot him a teasing wink. He stared at the crease down the middle of her shirt. The casually opened button-down top was enough to make him rigid upon sighting.

He moistened his lips as he watched her from across the room, afraid to move, afraid if he went to her then, he wouldn’t approach her as a man. He’d unleash that rabid beast living inside him, the wolf that hadn’t given him a moment’s peace since his arrival there in Satisfying.

“Are you just going to stand there now? After all this talk? After all the interesting promises, the illicit comments?” She slowly caressed her breasts, dipping her hand between her cleavage and then sliding downward. She paused at her bellybutton and whispered, “Now what, Kurt? What’s next?”

Kurt nearly released his zipper and lost his jeans when she slid curved fingers over the swell of her breast. Her eyes glistened with a woman’s lust, a woman who had just enough knowledge to make her dangerous, but not quite enough to make her the kind of seductress she wanted him to believe she could be.

He took a seat at her dining room table. Unable to take his eyes off her then, he gripped the chair’s arms and splayed his legs. This was her show, her idea. If she wanted to tempt the devil out of a man, he wouldn’t stop her. Who was he to interrupt the show when she’d obviously set the perfect stage with full intentions of gaining admiration from her lone audience?

Suzette sauntered forward. She stopped at the other end of the table, making him all too aware of the long stretch of wood separating them. “You’re just full of surprises. Aren’t you?”

“How’s that?” Kurt’s face tensed. His jeans pinched the ever-loving hell out of his balls as his cock stretched the length of his denim, butting up against the material with prodding need. He was uncomfortable but tolerating the physical discomfort.

He could sweat it for a minute because he wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what to do next. Suzette shot him a sultry smile and crooked her finger back and forth.

Then again, maybe the little vixen was a little more experienced than he’d first assumed.

“No way. You want it?” He tossed his head back to indicate she should pursue him. “Come and get it, darlin’.”

She planted her palms on the table and as soon as she hauled her body forward, that shirt of hers fanned open, showcasing her high breasts and hard nipples.

“Hell have mercy.” Guttural longing fell from his lips like a gavel striking the table. Still, he somehow remained seated, gripping the furniture in an effort to stay where he was and let her come to him. “You gonna put on a show for me, honey?”

“Is that what you want?” She tilted her head to the side and her hip seemingly swung to the left at the same time.

“We’re both adults here. I think you know what I want.”

“So all you want is a show?”

He chuckled. “Give me the show first and I’ll treat you right when the time comes.” Kurt had enjoyed his share of brassy broads. He’d gone to bed with a few of them, too, but he wouldn’t have pegged Suzette for the kind of woman who flaunted her body in front of a new potential lover, a man she’d yet to take to bed.

A new lover destined to be her mate.

He bit back the surge of ownership threatening to break down his defenses. Instead of rising from his chair, he held fast to the wooden frame, trying to steady the wolf threatening to rear its cocky head, the one that still tried to deny a woman like Suzette, or any woman for that matter, had the ability to tame him, owned the right to make him loyal to one woman for the rest of his days.

“Dance for me,” he said, barely aware of the music in the background. He would see her dance, watch her every move, but he’d never remember a word of the song. Maybe a better man would memorize the lyrics, perhaps even later recall a verse. But Kurt wasn’t the better man.

He noticed her open shirt again.

Ah yes. He was a man who now had a close and personal relationship with immeasurable lust.

She stopped crawling and licked her lips. Her fingers trailed between her breasts then rolled around one extended nipple.

“God bless, woman. Are you going to slide on down this way or do I need to come over there and show you how to set those hips in motion?”

“Now that sounds like a real plan.”

He was going to play her like a fiddle and she was ready and willing to hand him the bow. Kurt Dandridge wasn’t an ordinary man. She’d known it since the day they’d met. It had been a brief introduction. Her then husband—her children’s father—had been fighting for his life, but she’d still noticed Kurt and admired that unique raw quality of true masculine hunger.

At that time in her life she hadn’t thought that he had looked at her specifically with need or lust in his eyes. Instead, he’d looked at the world with mysterious wonder, raw and passionate longing.

Kurt was an eager man, a shifter who undoubtedly wanted revenge with a wolf living inside him, an animal just spiteful enough to look at the outside world with enough scrutiny to question anyone and everyone who stepped in his way to prevent him from taking what he wanted. At that time, he’d clearly wanted to stop a killer.

He was there to put the bullet in a murderer’s skull.

His passion had been remarkable, just as it was extraordinary now. He’d kill for those he loved. And when he wasn’t chasing the devil or trying to capture the extortionist or anyone else who threatened to destroy them, he’d love his woman like there was no tomorrow and nothing to stand in their way today.

Kurt had easily slipped into the small town of Pleasant and made friends in their community. Later the residents of Pleasant had discovered putting down the extortionist wouldn’t be as simple as firing a gun or swinging any other significant weapon. The extortionist was a supernatural, an entity they couldn’t fight like an ordinary enemy.

And Kurt wasn’t a man a woman could handle like any other man.

His eyes held fire as she crawled across the smooth tabletop surface. She took one painstakingly inch at a time, certain her knees would be raw by the time she reached him.

The lust in his eyes drove her motivation. Her hips swayed to the music as she traveled to the other end of the table. As if she’d rehearsed this seduction a thousand times in her mind, she thrust one arm in front of her and flattened her hand on the table before hauling her body closer to her finish line—Kurt.

His expression was priceless, hardcore yearning lived in his eyes, in the tight definition of his boxed jaw. A few times he released this carnal noise, a masculine sound too wrought with need, too thick with male hunger.

“Stop.” His voice was deep, raspy.

She wasn’t about to stop. She kept her pace. One arm out in front, then the slow drag of her body as she pushed her hips up and back, pursuing him. She might as well have been swimming toward him, nice and easy, taking her own sweet time with slow, manipulated strokes.

As if he had every intention of scolding her then, his gaze darkened. Thick lids lingered over his pupils and the shaded circles underneath his eyes appeared grey.

In that moment, she owned him. He was all but curved around her body and he probably suspected as much.

“You want me.” She needed to hear him say it. She longed to hear him tell her exactly what was on his mind.

He held up his hand then and cocked his head with a sudden jolt. “Shh.” Obviously startled, he leapt from his chair and went to the window.

So much for whispered passionate sentiments.