The Alpha's Mate (18 page)

Her blush deepened. He would have to keep on
wondering. “What did I miss?”

“I said you’re tired and you need some rest.
Why don’t you take the dishes back to the kitchen while I fix our
bed?”

“Our bed?”

Chapter 18

Okay, what was it I said to myself about
not being nervous?
Elizabeth looked down at her flannel boxers
and orange tee as if they were armor that had somehow failed her.
The silky white nightgown with the rosebuds around the neck was at
least sexy by its sheerness if not by its design. She plucked at
the orange tee.

‘Librarians Do It By The Book.’ Well yes, as
a matter of fact, she did. She mentally went over the list of
Things To Do Before Making Love:

Candles. She didn’t have any. She’d been
determined to let the fresh scents of the mountains influence her
work. She was leaving the artificiality of her life behind. Stupid
woman!

Clean, crisp sheets. Who knew? She only
brought one set and they were on the bed. Otherwise she would have
washed and ironed them and sprayed them with lavender. She took a
deep breath. Marshall was taking care of that. He wouldn’t expect
her to roll around on the living room floor, would he? Surely when
he said ‘bed’ he meant one of those camp things on legs with the
inflatable mattress. Move on, move on!

Wine and her grandmother’s crystal
wineglasses. The glasses she could do without, but the wine was
gone and she couldn’t very well offer him Ruby’s white lightening.
Or could she? She could certainly use a snort right about now.

Clean and sexy nightgown. Well, she’d already
blown that one. The white one was the only nice gown she’d brought
and the yellow one was in the wash. After all, she wasn’t planning
on any lovemaking when she came up here. She was looking at comfort
and writing a book. She looked once again at the orange tee. There
was a spot on her left breast where the meat juice had dripped. She
couldn’t even check off clean.

Bathe, oil, powder and shave. She’d showered.
It wasn’t a long luxurious bath with fragrant oil, but at least she
was clean and she vaguely remembered swiping deodorant under her
arms. Shave? Oh, no! Did she? She reached down with hands soapy
from dishwater and felt her legs. They were smooth. Huh. She didn’t
remember shaving. Perhaps the habit had become so ingrained that it
had become… Stop analyzing!

Hair. After her shower, she pulled it up,
still wet, into a ponytail. She took a quick look at her reflection
in the kitchen window. Yep. There it was, sticking up like a broken
fan on top of her head and if she pulled it out now, she’d have
that silly little dent running all around her head. This whole
thing was turning into one disaster after another.

Condoms. She was an informed and
conscientious woman and while she was protected from pregnancy,
there were other things out there that were so much worse. Every
responsible, modern woman should carry her own supply. So why were
hers still in the nightstand in storage?

Someone help me! The situation was bleak and
getting bleaker by the moment and she hadn’t touched the big stuff
yet. What if she couldn’t…?

“You’re wool gathering again.”

Elizabeth shrieked and threw up her hands.
Suds went flying. She whirled to face Marshall. He was laughing and
wiping a splatter of soap from his cheek.

“Okay, next time I’ll call ahead.” He stopped
laughing and his face became serious. “Lizzie, what’s the matter?
You look like a treed coon. What happened?”

She flapped her hands at the side of her
face. Another stupid gesture her mother didn’t approve of. Suds and
water splattered her tee.

“I’m not ready for this.”

He stepped up, wrapped his arms around her
and pulled her to his chest. He shushed her while he stroked her
hair. “It’s catching up with you, isn’t it? This wolver business.
You’ve had no time to digest it, analyze it, and now that you have,
it’s too fantastical for that orderly mind of yours to fit into
place. That’s okay, Lizzie. It’s expected. I’m grateful you’re not
afraid of us, afraid of me.”

She shook her head against his chest. “It
isn’t that.” She was a little surprised herself. Maybe because
everything happened so fast leaving no room for
this-can’t-be-happenings or that-simply-isn’t-possibles. “It isn’t
the Wolvers or you. It’s me,” she mumbled, “And what’s going to
happen in there.”

She heard the breath ease out of him and felt
his relief.

“Ah, my sweet Lizzie.” He stroked her hair
and held her tighter to him. “Nothing’s going to happen that you
don’t want.”

“But I do want.”

“Then…?”

How could she explain to him that she needed
the props; the lists that told her how to act and what to do? This
was a test she desperately didn’t want to fail.

“I don’t have a pretty nightgown,” she said
stupidly.

He took a step back and grasped her
shoulders. “Neither do I,” he said in mock panic. “No one told me
there was a dress code.” He leaned down and looked at her face.
“There. I see a smile, so it’s going to be okay. It’s also okay to
be nervous, Lizzie.”

“I’m not a virgin,” she blurted.

“That’s good to know,” he nodded. “Neither am
I.”

She rested her forehead on his chest and
looked at the floor. “But I’m not very experienced either.”

A thundering silence filled the kitchen.
Elizabeth waited and waited for some response. When it didn’t look
like one was coming, she muttered, “It would be helpful if you
answered that confession with, ‘Neither am I, Lizzie.’” She
mimicked his deep voice. She felt the rumble of laughter in his
chest before she heard it.

“So you’d want to begin our relationship on a
lie,” he said and she could tell he was trying not to laugh.

“Yes,” she said seriously. “About this and
only about this, I think I would be much more comfortable with an
outright, blatant lie.” She stepped back, looked him up and down
and started to laugh at her own foolishness. “And can you add a few
dirty spots to that t-shirt and maybe mess up your hair a bit…”

He kissed her then, before she could finish
her list of Things That Would Make Elizabeth Comfortable, and the
room began to spin as she kissed him back. Not only because of the
heady kiss, but because he’d lifted her off her feet and was
twirling her in circles as he danced her to bed.

It wasn’t crisp sheets on an inflatable camp
bed. It was two sleeping bags zipped together for a mattress with
two blankets spread on top. She didn’t have much time to notice
anything else because his hands were sliding over her hips and
under the tee. Her hands weren’t idle. They were busy pulling his
shirt from his jeans. They were searching for skin and when they
found it, she heard herself give a satisfied mewl in answer to his
growl.

His tongue continued to explore her mouth, in
and out, in and out in a prelude of things to come. And when his
mouth left hers, she moaned and tried to follow it. But she was too
late. He’d already found the pulse of her neck and was beginning to
worry it with nibbles and kisses that made her heart beat faster
and harder to keep up with the wild sensations that were coursing
through her body.

This wasn’t the sedate and orderly lovemaking
she was used to. There was no gentle building of the heat of
passion. This was fire touched to dry tinder and when he pulled her
shirt over her head and peeled away her bra, she thought she would
burst into flame.

His hands played over her breasts, gently at
first. He sighed as if in wonder at her softness. His fingers began
to play and the fine sandpaper of his calluses brought her a new
awareness of body parts she’d previously thought of as only
something men liked to play with. Someplace deep inside where her
mind was still functioning, she felt she should be doing something,
reciprocating in some way, but her body was on sensory overload,
zooming along on a roller coaster and she could only hang on for
the ride.

Somewhere along the way, she’d lost her
shorts and he hoisted her to his waist. She wrapped her legs around
him, felt the cold of his buckle against the silk of her panties
and wanted them both gone. She wanted to feel him next to her,
around her, inside her. She tried to tell him but her words came
out as a moan.

He tilted her back and began to work on her
breasts again, this time with his teeth and tongue. He suckled her
like he could swallow her whole and she felt an electrifying zing
of sensation travel from her breast to the juncture of her legs. He
moved to her other breast, nipped her with his teeth hard enough to
make her jump then laved away the small hurt with his tongue. She
could only push her breast forward, begging him to do it again.

He brought her gently to the floor, half
senseless with desire. He knelt between her legs and loomed above
her. He tore off his shirt. Yes, yes, this is what she wanted, to
feel his skin on hers, to touch him as he was touching her. But
when she reached for him, he pulled away.

“Not yet, my lovely Lizzie,” he chuckled a
little breathlessly. “No distractions until I finish my work.” He
placed her hands to either side of her head despite her whimpering
protests and took a time out to kiss her eyelids and her nose. I
could spend a lifetime exploring you,” he whispered and then he
smiled with a devilish grin. “No moving now.” He tapped her pebbled
nipple as if it were the end of her nose.

The pause and hearing his voice gave her time
to gather her wits. As wonderful as it all felt, she wasn’t sure
she should lose control like this. The thought lasted all of a
second and was already too late. Her control had gone the way of
her clothes, flying off to who knew where.

He tasted each rib on his way down her belly.
The man certainly knew how to use his tongue. She heard him chuckle
as she wiggled and squirmed against his tongue as it danced in and
around her navel. The roller coaster was beginning to pick up speed
again when she felt his lips move to her hipbone and begin to work
their way toward her center.

“No, no, no,” she whispered. This was a place
no man had ever gone and that was fine with her. She was sopping.
It would be embarrassing.

“Trust me, Lizzie.” He wasn’t asking. He was
telling.

She watched him slide her panties down over
her hips, past her thighs and knees. She gasped when he pulled them
over her feet and brought them to his nose.

His eyes had turned dark and deeply blue.
“They smell like you, Lizzie. They smell like a beautiful,
beautiful woman.”

He began to kiss his way back up her legs to
the spot where she was afraid to let him go. She couldn’t close
them completely together because he was between them, but she kept
them stiff.

“No, no, no,” she whispered again. “You said
you wouldn’t do anything I didn’t like.”

Marshall was having none of it. “No, I said
nothing’s going to happen that you don’t want.” He wiped his finger
through her woman’s slit and showed her the moisture he had
gathered. “I think you want this.”

His fingers began to dance. She was already
aroused, tender even, when he began to play. He drove her mad with
his teasing, bringing her to the edge over and over but never quite
letting her fall. She moaned and moved her hips against his hand
wanting more. Her legs were splayed open in complete abandon. She
no longer cared. All she wanted was that sweet release she had
always been denied. She felt her panic begin to rise along with the
roller coaster.

“Please, please, please,” she begged.
Don’t let it happen again. Not with him, not now.

Those long, beautiful fingers plunged within
her and his mouth came down. His tongue tortured her until she was
sure she would scream. And then she did.

His mouth came down on hers to swallow the
scream as the world exploded with a force she never thought
possible. Her insides quaked. Her breasts became taut and her back
arched into his still thrusting hand.

She was shaking, trembling as he gathered her
into his arms. She snuggled up against him, clung to him to keep
her body anchored to the earth. She felt as if she could float
away.

“You are beautiful and I can’t believe you’re
mine,” he whispered hoarsely into her hair.

And at that moment, with her ponytail gone
and her hair clinging to a face covered with a fine sheen of sweat,
she felt beautiful for the first time in her life.

He held her for a few moments more until her
breathing was normal and then he stood and she heard him slip off
his jeans. She flopped back spread eagle on the sleeping bags. She
was a wonton, a hussy, a loose woman. She hadn’t an inhibition left
to contend with. All were replaced by a consuming desire to please
and be pleased by the man waiting above her.

“Lizzie?”

“Mmmm?”

“Open your eyes.”

“I can’t. I’m afraid they’re permanently
crossed and you’d be disappointed in a cross-eyed lover.”

She could hear the smile in his voice. “Open
your eyes, Lizzie.”

She obeyed. “Wow!” she breathed. It wasn’t
enough, but Marshall seemed to understand.

He laughed a little smugly. “No double
vision?”

“No,” she said, “But something else must be
wrong with my eyes. Everything seems to be a little bit larger than
it ought to be.”

“A little bit!” he laughed as he dove down
beside her and rolled her onto his stomach. “Now that I’ve got you
properly warmed up, I’ll show you what can be done with this little
bit.”

Elizabeth sat astride him and leaned down to
kiss him thoroughly on the lips. “Bring it on wolf.” She returned
his devilish grin. “You have no idea what kind of beast you’ve
created here nor how much it’s going to take to keep her
satisfied.”