Page 29

Kieran

I needed to get up, put my damn clothes on, and head for the door. After making sure it was firmly locked, then I’d call Mack and get him and Tor to circle the wagons, because we had a problem

And what was that, exactly?

I couldn’t think, focus on anything that happened, not when she was right here with me.

Harper’s scent was heady, sweet, sweeter with every kiss, and I couldn’t help but go back for more.

The slope of her throat, her heartbeat fluttering like a moth’s wings.

The hollow at the base, her scent deepening.

The curve of her clavicle, then the swell of her breast. The softness there nearly undid me.

My cock slid against the smooth cotton of her sheets, a poor approximation of how it would feel when I finally pushed myself inside her, yet almost more than I could take.

Her, I thought frantically, it was like a lifeline in a thrashing sea. Focus on her.

That had me propping myself up on my arms, staring down at her long enough to see her eyes crack open for a second, a lazy smile following shortly afterwards.

I kissed that off her mouth and then moved downward.

She needed me to drive all thoughts of what happened tonight out of her head? Well, I’d do my level best.

So why was I glorying in the way her breasts gave under my fingers, licking, then sucking that hard point of her nipple, trying to make it pull tighter? Anything to make her moan, squirm, get caught up in a sensual undertow that was already threatening to drown me.

“Kieran… Kieran…”

As her back arched, pushing her breasts into my face, her hand slid down. Slow, meandering steps, down my abs and lower, I knew what she was after. Sure enough, those little fingers wrapped around my shaft, forcing me to pull free and pant through the feeling.

I wanted to rut into her palm, thrusting over and over until everything that was boiling inside me burst free. Marking her with my seed, splattering her stomach with it, then rubbing it in before she could wipe it free.

Yes, that.

I rose up, casting a dark shadow over her, it all making sense. The scent of another shifter on a human woman was enough to deter most other males. I could do that, temporarily claiming Harper until we sorted this mess out. Then her thumb had to press hard on the underside of my cock.

“I’ve seen Tor’s… extras.” Her voice was low and throaty, her hair a messy tumble over her shoulders, but that hungry look in her eyes was everything I didn’t know I needed. “Felt Mack’s. Don’t you think it’s time to show me what you’ve got, Bear Boy?”

For a second I just breathed, through the impulse to impale her on my cock, force her to feel every damn inch of me, right before my baculum jutted out. Through the impulse to rush everything.

Then ruin it.

I sat back on my heels, pulling free of her grasp and temptation, but right as disappointment registered in her expression, I spread her thighs wide, revealing the wet little secret between her legs.

“When you’re ready,” I replied.

“I’m ready.” She huffed that out. “Can’t you smell that?”

I could, her scent complex. Sweet, so sweet, but with a faint acrid undertone. Was that from fear, frustration, or reluctance? I didn’t know, but I wouldn’t make the mistake of mating her until I did.

“I smell this,” I said, right as my thumbs brushed her external labia. As I stared down, it was like watching a tight bulb slowly open into a flower. My fingers slipped through her slick, then used that lubrication to slide one thumb over the hood of her clit. “That you need a release.”

“Uh huh…”

Some savage part of me was pleased that she could barely breathe that out, so I moved my thumb faster.

“Let all the tension inside you go.”

“Mm hmm…”

When her hips started to move in time with my strokes, I knew I had it right.

My other hand moved, sliding between her folds, then finding the core of her, tracing the shape of that opening I longed to shove myself inside.

Instead, my fingers eased in, the process made so much easier by her copious slick.

“I want to pull my fingers free.”

She made a frantic sound, reaching to stop me, but I rewarded her by pushing them in deeper, then crooking them upwards. When I raked over that sensitive spot inside her, her hips bucked up off the bed.

“I want to replace them with my cock.”

“Yes…” she panted. “Yes…”

“You’d be full of me.” I pulled my fingers free just long enough to push another in, forcing her to stretch around me.

A little mewl made clear how she felt about that.

“More than just my dick. Harper.” I growled her name and her eyes met mine, all hazy.

“You can’t just have my baculum.” I was raking across that spot with every thrust, my thumb stroking her clit faster and faster now.

“There’s no way to have only a part of me.

If I locked down inside you, I wouldn’t be able to stop. ”

“Don’t stop…” she whined, her breaths coming faster and faster.

“My teeth will be in your neck, marking you as mine for now and forever.”

Her eyes went wide, focussing for a moment, right as I felt her clamp down.

I wanted to tell myself that her body knew.

That I was endgame for her, me and my sleuth.

That she’d never want another man after us, but she wasn’t there yet.

I couldn’t mate Harper when she was scared, angry, or just trying to pretend really hard she didn’t feel anything other than lust. I wanted, needed, all of her and wouldn’t be satisfied until I had it.

“You’re not ready,” I growled, my hands moving faster and faster, using shifter strength to pull feelings out of her no human could match.

Her cunt fluttered around my fingers, searching for what she needed and forced to be satisfied with what I gave her.

“Not yet, but right now, you’re going to come for me. Come, Harper.”

“Uh…!”

There was something almost sad about the sound, as if she’d lost something, right before realising what she’d gained.

Her ragged sounds of ecstasy were the only song I wanted to hear going forward, music to my ears.

I pushed through every wave of ecstasy, provoking more and more until finally she fell still.

I eased my fingers free, feeling her shudder, then sat there, licking them clean, relishing the tangy sweetness, expecting her to collapse onto the bed with relief.

Instead, she rolled into a seated position, moving towards me.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten what I promised you,” she said in a fair approximation of a growl. That’s when I remembered the stakes of the race.

“Harper, you don’t…”

Whatever noble feelings I had were driven out of me the moment her lips touched the crown of my dick.

“Oh fuck… You don’t…” Words failed me as that golden pleasure I’d replayed over and over in my head since the night we all ended up in bed happened again. “OK, yes, you do.”

My hand went to the back of her head as if scared she’d pull off, but my mate needed no guiding.

I heard her muffled gag, felt a pang of concern, right before her throat closed around me.

This, I’d never forget this. If she rejected me, decided that becoming my mate wasn’t what she wanted, I’d remember this moment until I was old and ready to join the ancestors on the other side of the veil.

Pleasure, indescribable, had every muscle locking down, right as I panted like a cub.

“Fuck, love…” My brows screwed up as my mouth fell open. “I’ve waited my whole fucking life for this and…” Her hand wrapped around the base, the firm pressure threatening to unravel me. “Still nothing prepared me for it. Making me… feel so… good…”

Her hand swivelled, following the path of her mouth as she pulled back, and right when I feared she was done, she’d swallow me back down again.

Then her thumb had to move and press down on the baculum.

The elders said we couldn’t eject it during a blow job, but right now, I was beginning to wonder.

It ached, throbbed in time with my heartbeat, dying to jut out.

Only the knowledge of how much it would hurt Harper kept it back.

“Harper…!”

I wanted to warn her, to protect her, and yet my hips moved in time with her bobbing head, matching her every thrust. My hands caressed her head, combed through her hair, trying my best to give her a tiny bit of the pleasure she was making me feel.

My throat went dry as I felt it. Pleasure prickling in every cell as it felt like my whole body came alive.

The way it felt when I took fur and went loping across the plains in bear form.

“Fuck, Harper, I’m gonna come.”

She could pull off if she wanted to, stop herself from copping a mouthful of this, but some part of me turned to gold when she didn’t. Forcing my cock to lodge in her throat, her swallows massaging my load out of me until my roar filled the air.

Mack was right, that was the realisation that hit me as I rode the waves of ecstasy.

Before, we barely knew each other, just three strangers drawn together by strange instincts, but this, this was the way it was supposed to be.

Feeling her swallow every drop of me had me feeling a bone deep kind of satisfaction that stayed with me as I pulled her free, then cradled her against my chest. It had me buzzing as we laid down on the bed, cuddled into each other.

“You ruined my plan…” I mumbled into her hair.

“What? Did you have some kinky scenario involving the tentacle dildo?” she asked, only her tone betraying her exhaustion. “Because that’s still on the table. For you or me, I’m OK with sharing.”

I couldn’t help but snort, then press a kiss to her forehead.

“No, I was going to mark you.”

“What?” Her head popped off the pillow as she stared down at me.

“Not permanently.” I fought back a yawn. “My cum, if I rub it on your skin, it's a pretty good shifter deterrent. It declares who you belong to.”

“So it would keep creepers like those idiots away?” She pushed me onto my back, that beautiful body sliding over mine as she straddled my hips.

My balls had just been drained, but my dick didn’t seem to get the message.

It was still half hard, and at the wet kiss of her cunt, it was moving towards full mast. I forced my eyes open, rewarded by the sight of her beautiful breasts.

“Why didn’t you lead with that?” Her hips moved in a sensuous pass, rousing me with every thrust. “What’s the refractory time of a bear like? ”

“Really fucking short, apparently,” I said, throwing her on her back and then moving between her legs. Rubbing my cock on her wet cunt had my fangs grinding together because it took every bit of my control to stop from thrusting inside her. “Ready for round two?”

I lost count of the rounds as we very dutifully applied my cum and hers all over her body. Harper had wrinkled her nose when I said she couldn’t have a shower the next morning, but a kiss and a promise one or more of us would be back to pick her up from work to reapply more had her smiling.

“Don’t leave work unless it’s with one of us,” I told her as I dropped her off at the front of her workplace. “Not for anything.”

“How am I leaving?” she said with a smile, wrapping her arms around my neck. “You didn’t let me take my car and Ubers are expensive. So your boss will be OK with you guys being my personal bodyguards?”

“We work for the family company and my dads wouldn’t expect anything less.”

I moved in, unable to keep my mouth off hers for long, especially when she let out a pleased little hum with each kiss. It threatened to go on and on until her boss came out the front.

“You starting your shift any time soon there, lover girl?” The woman nodded to me. “You can come back later and mop the floors, but right now I need your girl.”

Me too, I wanted to say. Me too.

We ended up pulling apart, but the warm haze Harper left stayed with me, right up until I arrived on the work site.

“Evening,” one of my dads said with a smirk as he passed by, but Mack and Tor pushed forward.

“Where the hell have you been?” Tor snapped.

“And more importantly, why didn’t you come home?” Mack shook his head, his disappointment plain. “I thought we talked about this. Tell me you didn’t mate Harper.”

“I didn’t.” This was when the afterglow started to fade, because reality insisted on reasserting itself.

“Though it might’ve been better if I did.

We’ve got a problem.” Mack’s brows jerked down into a deeper frown.

“There were some wolf shifters at the carnival last night.” It looked like we were going to get some rain later in the day, but the heavy clouds had nothing on Mack, his expression thunderous.

“We ran into Joker, Vinnie, and Gray last night.”

“You…” Mack jerked back, hands balled into fists, grey fur prickling across his skin. When he looked back at me, his eyes were silvery. “Fuck!”