Page 21

Chapter Twenty-One

Gram clenched his fists, willing his beast to calm itself and give him this moment with Amelia. He’d spent his entire life thinking he’d never know love with a true mate. Then, the little niche of happiness he’d carved out for himself with Brooke and Bethany had been ripped away. He understood now that everything happened for a reason, that everything had led him to this town, this resort, this woman. And he wasn’t about to let his wolf fuck it all up for him.

Not when his future was so close at hand.

Let me do this , he said to his wolf. Give me this time with her.

His wolf snarled at him, warning him that it wasn’t going to back down and take a backseat to their destiny. The wolf wanted him to claim her, to sink its teeth into her, forever marking her. He was all for the idea of claiming her, but she wasn’t ready for that.

Not yet anyway.

With time she would be. Such was the ways of things between mates and he knew she was meant for him. No one would be able to tell him different. He felt it in his bones.

He could still smell the small amount of blood that had come from her losing her maidenhood to him. It excited his wolf even more. Not that the asshole beast needed any help to be motivated when it came to Amelia.

His jaw began to change shapes and his teeth lengthened. Such a thing had never happened to him before during sex and he knew why—he’d never been with his mate before. If he kept going, he’d end up claiming her when she wasn’t ready for that step yet and all it would entail.

Forever with him.

Gram wasn’t an easy man to live with. No alpha male really was. They were never exactly easygoing when it came to their mates. Often, their need to protect their women outweighed their better judgment.

Gram had always found it amusing when his friends suffered from the issue. Now that he was in their shoes, the humor had faded. All he wanted to do was turn around, drive himself into Amelia, and sink his teeth into her tender flesh. He wanted to make her his wife. To forge an unbreakable bond between them.

“No, do nae harm her,” he said, as best as he could to his wolf considering his mouth was no longer quite human. The words were there but low, deep, partially garbled.

The dick of a beast in him ignored his command. It kept pushing at him, wanting free. If it was able to separate itself from him, he knew it would just as soon tear his throat out than let him captain the ship any further.

To be fair, Gram had done a great job of fucking things up in his life to date. Maybe the wolf had a point. Maybe it should be left in charge. Running on instinct might be better than overthinking every single tiny detail—like he’d been doing since the attack.

But letting the wolf loose right now would put Amelia at risk. That wasn’t acceptable. She was to be protected at all costs. Even from himself.

Swaying, he grabbed for anything he could to hold himself up. His hand connected with the side table and he drew in long, deep breaths, trying to gain some semblance of control again. His body spasmed and he knocked a candle off the table and onto the floor. By the grace of the gods, the flame went out before anything caught on fire. He jerked more and inadvertently bumped a small jar of something that smelled a lot like whatever Amelia had been rubbing on his scars. It too hit the floor.

“Gram,” said Amelia, her soft voice easing over him like silk. He heard her sliding off the table and hoped beyond hopes that she was going to flee, to run far and fast from him. If she was smart, she’d go and not look back.

He couldn’t blame her.

Who would want him?

He was damaged goods. His spirit was as broken as his body.

She could be my salvation.

“Gram, look at me. Please,” she pleaded. The smell of her cream still coated his mouth and chin, making it impossible for him to concentrate. All he wanted to do was bury his head back between her legs and watch her reach culmination again. The sight had almost done him in. He licked his lips and all that did was make him hornier and set his wolf even more on edge.

“Trust yourself with me, Gram,” she said in a barely there voice. “I do. Everything in me is screaming at the top of its lungs for me to put all my trust in you.”

Her words helped him gain control of his mouth once more. It returned to human form but the threat of it changing once more was there, just below the surface. “I’m sorry. I thought I could do this. That I could control my beast.”

“You’re doing just fine.”

Clearly, they had very different definitions of fine.

There was no way he could face her. Not unless he was fine with descending upon her and ravishing her. Which he was not. “Lass, I’ll nae break my promise to you. I told you that I’d nae hurt you.”

As her cool hand touched his back, he jerked away, terrified he’d harm her without meaning to. Gram expected her to misread his attempts at keeping her safe as rejection. He was prepared for her to storm off, angry with him. That would be for the best. At least she’d be safe from him then.

Instead, she traced her way over his back and eased up next to him, doing the exact opposite of running in the other direction. “I can feel you struggling with what’s inside you. It’s breaking my heart. I don’t want you to fight with your inner nature.”

“Lass, my inner nature is close to fucking you senseless.”

“I know,” she said, and those two little words sent additional need spiraling through him. “Let go. Trust yourself. You won’t hurt me.”

It was painfully clear her father’s lift didn’t stop on all floors, but he hadn’t thought she took after him in any way. Hearing her ask him to stop fighting his wolf and what it wanted to do to her made Gram second-guess her level of sanity.

His mate was batshit crazy.

And hot as hell.

Fuck.

He growled.

Her fingers moved sensually over his bare, feverish skin. Pinning his gaze on her, he shot her a look that more than questioned if she’d lost her mind.

The temptress had the nerve to return his stare, her expression one of reverence.

He was well and thoroughly screwed.

And so would she be very soon if she didn’t wise up and run from him.

She slinked her body closer to his. He shut his eyes, trying to get the image of her spread open before him out of his mind. The more he tried to stop thinking about her pussy—how tight, warm, and sweet it was—the more it consumed his every thought.

He slammed his palms down on the side table and claws sprang forth from the tips of his fingers.

Not an ounce of fear radiated from his mate. The woman, who he was fast beginning to think might be certifiably insane, had the audacity to slide her hand down his arm and over his hand. She then bent and planted a tender kiss to the back of his hand like him partially shifting in front of her was no big deal.

Yep.

Batshit crazy.

One flew over the cuckoo’s…

The sight of her pert nipples under the sheer fabric of her dress killed his train of thought. Instantly, he was hit with thoughts of holding the glorious globes in his hands before placing his cock between them and doing very, very naughty things. For half a second, he was fairly sure he’d been wrong about the candle falling and the flame going out. How else could he explain the spike in the room’s temperature?

“Gram, what’s wrong? You have a strange look on your face. Are you okay?”

Hyper-focusing on her breasts, he nodded. “Aye, I’m thinking of how guid it would feel to rub my cock between yer tits right before I come all over yer…erm…now would be a guid time to get as far from me as you can.”

She ran her fingers up his arm, her expression innocent, yet tempting all in one. “I didn’t train for you doing that to my breasts, but I’m game.”

Groaning, he shook his head. She was destroying his self-control. “Lass, being blown up hurt less than trying to restrain my wolf right now. If you understood that, you’d nae joke.”

Tipping her head, Amelia licked her lower lip and ran her hand higher up his arm. “Who said I was joking?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, lass! Help a wolf out here.”

“I may not have been shown how to do that, but I did learn some other things.” She leaned and kissed his upper arm before grabbing him and trying to turn him. He faced her slowly, still unsure of himself. Amelia kissed his right pec and then moved to his left. She then shocked the hell out of him by slinking down quickly and going to her knees before him.

His jaw dropped.

She couldn’t possibly be thinking of sucking him off when he was on the verge of a shift and claiming her. Could she?

She took hold of his hot, turgid shaft and licked the end of it.

He shuddered and looked down more to be sure his legs hadn’t actually begun to sprout fur on their way to turning into a wolf. “Amelia!”

A sly, sultry smile touched her lips a moment before she licked a line from the base of his cock to the tip, making him quake. She pinched the loose skin at his base, exposing his cock head even more. The next he knew, she had her mouth wrapped around the head of his cock. Pure ecstasy engulfed him.

Gram whispered a prayer to the gods he’d believed heavily in back when he was just a young man. The prayer was in Gaelic and it was one that asked for strength in the trials ahead.

His entire body trembled, and he fought to stay vertical as Amelia artfully worked his dick. He knew he was on his own—forsaken by the gods—and about to be done in by a virgin.

Not just any virgin.

My mate.

With a hesitant movement, he touched her cheek as she took him deeper into her mouth. She added her hands to the mix, using one to cup his balls and the other to stroke his exposed shaft.

Gram’s hands went back, and he grabbed the side table again, using it to hold himself up as the wanton vixen on her knees before him continued to work her magik. The air began to thicken, and it took him a second to realize it was buzzing with power. Her power.

His magik flared to the surface, having a mind of its own as it merged with hers. It had been unpredictable since he’d been injured and for a fleeting second, he worried it would harm her.

When the room seemed to burst with nothing but sexual energy, he realized she’d be just fine.

Well and thoroughly fucked soon, but fine.

She sucked on him, increasing her hand actions. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know more about the training she’d mentioned, but he strongly suspected he was deeply in debt to whomever had shown her what to do because it felt fucking amazing.

Gram was delirious as pleasure assailed him and magik moved all around them. When Amelia moved her mouth off his cock, the action made a popping sound and he instantly mourned the loss. She lifted his long shaft, moving it sideways slightly as she buried her face against the base of his cock. The blasted woman had the audacity to take one of his balls into her mouth with great care. She sucked on it and he nearly came then and there.

She was going to do what The Corporation and the explosion failed to do.

She was going to kill him.

He was sure of it.

“Sweet mother of…lass…I cannae… fuck .” His eyes widened as she jerked on his cock, using her mouth to toy with his ball sac more. Looking upward, he did his best to gather his wits.

Too bad he didn’t have any common sense left to speak of.

The best he could do was cling to the table to stay upright as he tried hard to think about anything other than how good her mouth felt around his dick. Gram began to recite poems from his younger years in his head before moving to thinking of every mission he’d gone on over the past decade. Anything he could do to shift his focus from her gifted mouth. For a fleeting moment, he even thought of Bill down the hall getting his pipes cleaned.

Nothing worked.

Her mouth and her touch felt too good. Too right.

His hips took over his thought process since it was clear he couldn’t handle the task himself. They moved all on their own, as if they were no longer controlled by him, thrusting slightly at first, causing his cock to go deeper into Amelia’s mouth.

She adjusted, accommodating him as best she could.

Gram increased his pace.

Their magik thickened around him and his incisors exploded in his mouth. Straining to keep from shifting fully, Gram tossed his head back, the muscles in his neck drawing tight. He pumped faster into her mouth and his balls drew up, tightening in anticipation of his orgasm.

Amelia splayed her hands on his thighs and held her head to his body just as his cock exploded, jetting seed into her mouth. Small jerks rushed through his hips as he emptied himself fully. She swallowed and then eased off his shaft, licking her lips as she did.

“Hmm, it’s saltier than I thought it would be. But not bad,” she said as if it were no big deal that she’d nearly unmanned him, and he was extremely close to walking on all fours with the ability to lick his own fucking balls.

She tugged at her lower lip, a pensive expression covering her face. “Gram? I did it wrong, didn’t I? I hurt you. I didn’t mean to. I tried to be gentle.”

“L-lass,” he managed, his teeth still that of the wolf.

Her eyes widened as she lifted a hand, feeling the air around them. “What is that? Is that our power?”

All he could do was nod as his legs felt as if they’d turned to rubber. On a good note, there was no longer any pain in his injured leg. On a not-so-great note, he was fairly sure he’d never walk straight again regardless because of how good his body still felt after climaxing.

Amelia stared harder at him and lowered her gaze. She sighed. “I knew I shouldn’t have given in to the pull to you. It’s what Cal wanted and that alone made it wrong. Seeing how you’re acting right now, it’s clear this was a mistake. I’m sorry. I thought, well, I thought it would make you happy. That it would make you feel good. Like how you made me feel. I’ll go.”

Go?

“No,” he ground out, reaching for her only to find his hands had started to shift once again as well. He stiffened and hated how weak he was being.

Amelia backed up more, heading in the direction of the door.

Gram wanted to charge after her and explain that she’d done nothing wrong. In fact, she’d done every single thing right. Beyond right even. But he wasn’t in control of himself.

Don’t go thinking this was a mistake, lass. Please. It was anything but a mistake.

Stiffening, she looked over her shoulder at him, her brows meeting. “Your hands and teeth…is that something you can’t control right now?”

He nodded.

“Are you staying away from me because of that?” she asked, her eyes growing moist. “Because you’re still worried that you’ll hurt me?”

Again, he nodded.

A partial laugh broke free from her. “So, you don’t think this was a mistake and I didn’t hurt you?”

“Not. A. Mistake.” The words were hard to get out, but he managed, just barely.

“Can I do anything to help?” she asked, the sincerity in her voice moving him.

Unless she was willing to be mounted and claimed, there wasn’t much she could do beyond keeping her distance from him. Their joint power continued to fill the room and he wondered how long it would remain.

Amelia drew in a large breath and he watched as she straightened her shoulders. “Gram, when you’re like this, do you have intercourse a special way? I’ve seen the shifter males when they’re partially shifted, bending their women over and taking them from behind. Is that something you need right now?”

Was she serious?

He blinked, his eyes wide, his body burning with the need to shift fully and do just as she’d suggested.