Page 18 of Love Bites (Timber Creek #2)

CHAPTER 18

SUMMER

“Well, that was exciting,” I said as we stepped out of the chapel and back onto the street, the sounds of rushing cars and street performers at odds with the seriousness of what just happened inside. I ignored the fluttery feeling in my chest at the thought I was married . “A wedding I certainly will never forget.”

“Good thing they gave us the pictures to prove it.” Max handed over a black envelope with the chapel’s name printed on the front in shiny red ink. “I don’t know that anyone would believe we were married by Jimmy, my long lost cousin.”

I stared down at the envelope, but more specifically at the Russo Wedding scrawled in the corner with the date. “We’re married.”

“I noticed.” Max grabbed my left hand as we crossed the busy street. He fiddled with the two new bands on my finger, sliding them back and forth in a circular motion as if he too couldn’t quite believe everything that had happened in the last hour.

“Well, now what?” I looked up and down the Strip towards all the colorful casinos, blinking against the dark night. “Should we go see the Eiffel Tower while we’re here?”

Max skidded to a stop, knocking the man behind us off balance as he tried to avoid crashing into him. The guy threw his arms wide and snarled, “Watch it, asshole.”

In slow motion, Max turned and glared at the man, who took no further encouragement to hurry in the opposite direction. I grinned up at what I assumed was Max’s formidable run away look, seeing right past the facade he showed everyone else.

He might scare everyone off with just a look, but this was the same male who picked out the most gorgeous rings I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t have picked better myself. The same guy who’d taken one look at my bulletin board full of dreams and immediately made them come true. This wasn’t how I’d pictured Get Married to play out, but everything about tonight had been oddly and hilariously perfect.

Tugging me out of the crowd of pedestrians on the sidewalk, Max led me towards a side street. “I have a better idea.”

My heart raced as he picked up the pace, nearly jogging as we hurried into the shadows away from the streetlamps. He stopped and spun, pushing my back against a brick wall, pressing us into the shadows as magic seeped out of him, black tracing up his arms. I sucked in a breath, not sure whether to watch the shadows grow or the way his face tipped down over mine, so close I could lean up and press my lips to his again.

That kiss at the altar had changed my brain chemistry, disassembling me and putting me back together in a way I hardly recognized. My life was now sorted into before and after. Once again, Max was never what I expected, and I craved the unpredictability.

His eyes were almost black as he looked down at me, his hands closing over both of mine. “Close your eyes, sunshine.”

Between one moment and the next, we were gone.

That same soul-sucking pressure squeezed me as we zipped through space, but the steady pressure of his hands in mine held us together until we dropped into another world.

I sucked in a dizzying breath, trying to find my center, until Max’s arms wrapped around my waist and turned me, walking me forward.

“Where are we?” I asked, opening my eyes to look around. We were in what looked like a residence, soft light drifting in from behind curtained French doors all along one wall.

He stayed behind me, his warm hand pressing gently on my lower back and sending a shiver down my spine, but reached around and opened the doors. “ Bienvenue à Paris, ma femme .”

The Eiffel Tower — the real one, not the little fake Vegas one — was framed perfectly between the doors, all of Paris spread out before us under the soft pre-dawn light. The city was still quiet, only a few pedestrians and bicyclists out on the streets, and the quintessential pale limestone buildings glowed. In the distance, the Seine glistened and flowed peacefully, and I could already scent fresh bread from somewhere close.

My hand rose to my throat as I struggled to breathe, overwhelmed by not only the view but also the gesture. Max stepped out onto the veranda, resting his elbows on the black iron rail, and I joined him, leaning my shoulder into his arm.

“Is it what you imagined?” he asked, and I had to hold in a laugh as I looked out over the City of Love. All that was missing was an accordion player to complete the image, but the day was young.

I smiled, my mind rapidly whirring through all the possibilities being in Paris opened up. “Yes, and so much more.”

“You sure? We didn’t even have the croissants yet.”

With a chuckle, I said, “I never once pictured you, my husband, here to share this with. I’d imagined a long international flight cramped among so many humans my sense of smell would never recover, and a tiny hotel somewhere wedged into a back corner of Paris with no view. And I always kind of assumed I’d be alone.”

Max raised a brow, his lip quirking at the corner. “I can leave. You can have that part of your dream, if that’s what you want. Though before you kick me out, I might mention this place is my property.”

A wave of heat washed through my body as his hand slid down my spine, nothing outrageous about the placement, but enough to have me aware of everywhere our bodies touched, standing like this. When had my entire body become plastered against his? I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t pull away now if my life depended on it. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“What do you want, then?” His eyes closed, head dropping slightly towards my neck as he pulled in a breath, like he was held by the same magnetic force. And damn, if that didn’t light a fuse in me.

“For one, I can’t wait to see your ferocious fangs biting into a delicate little macaron.”

Max hissed out a breath. “Don’t say fangs.”

I tilted my head, studying him. Was it my imagination, or were his veins flickering with his shadow magic? His eyes opened, glued to my neck again, before he moved to pull back. I gripped his arms, stopping him. “What is it?”

He cleared his throat. “Nothing.” Inky shadow flashed across his face like dark lightning as he licked his lips.

“Husband.” I tried for stern, but the way his eyes shot to mine, intense and hungry, made me think it might have had the opposite effect. “Is it possible vanishing us halfway across the globe multiple times in one night has drained your magic?”

He heaved a breath, tilting his head back as though asking the heavens for help. “It might be possible. But it’s fine. I’ll just pop out and find a quick top-up —”

A low growl hit my ears, and it took a moment for me to realize the sound was coming from my throat. “ No .”

Max blinked, as startled as I was by my response. But the thought of Max biting anyone else, anyone but me, had my wolf snarling in my mind.

Mine , she snapped, and I shook my head at the sensation. It wasn’t often I heard my wolf speak like that, so clear and strong. What the heck was that about?

Eyes crinkling with amusement, Max echoed, “No?”

“No,” I repeated, trying to come up with a plausible reason he shouldn’t go out and find someone else to bite. Something that sounded better than, My wolf says you’re mine. “We’re going to be traveling together a lot, right? So if this is something you need, we should just — get used to it. Right?”

“I’m used to fending for myself. You don’t need to do this.”

That low growl built in my throat again, but Max’s smirk was back as he leaned closer, his lips hovering over my neck. “Careful, sunshine, or I’m going to start thinking you want me to bite you.”

His teeth grazed my skin, not enough to puncture, but he knew what he was doing. It was right where a mate bite would be for a shifter, and my wolf went feral.

“Just do it,” I managed to get out, a husky quality to my voice it didn’t usually have, and Max’s chuckle said he heard it, too.

He pressed a kiss right behind my ear as one of his hands tangled in my hair, the other steadying my waist. “If you insist, wife.”

He pulled me through the doorway back into the apartment, and my heart pounded with each step. Once inside, he tilted my head, and I let out a gasp as his fangs sank into my skin. The steady sucking pull had my knees quaking, and my arms wound tight around him as I held on. Every nerve was alive and firing, making everything feel more, his fingers digging into my waist as he pinned me to him, and I was unraveling.

I didn’t know if I was supposed to enjoy this as much as I did, but something was so deeply intimate about it, I felt like a livewire. Everything he’d said as I faked it for my sister’s benefits earlier came flooding back, wanting every dirty word to come out of his mouth again. For real.

His tongue laved across my skin as he finished, the wound closing in seconds from the combination of our powers. “Max.”

He groaned, all hesitation lost. My back crashed into the wall, and I realized he’d spun us around with his supernatural speed, pinning me in place next to the open balcony doors.

Kissing my neck again, he pressed his hard length into my hip, telling me I wasn’t the only one affected by this.

“I’m not a gentleman, Summer. If you’re offering, I’m taking.”

His words might have been meant as a warning, but they only made my pulse race faster. In response, I hooked my leg around his hip, dragging him even closer.

I could have told myself we needed to do this to prove to any wolves that this was a real relationship, to scent mark and claim each other.

But the truth was I just wanted to.

“I am your wife, dear . If there’s a reason we should both be celibate for however long this marriage lasts, I can’t find it. And I’m already on birth control, so we’re good there.”

“As long as the marriage lasts,” he repeated, mouth against my jaw as the doors flew shut by his magic. “But this is only physical, sunshine. Don’t go falling in love with me.”

“You think your dick is that magical?”

He ground into me from below, the thick length of him rubbing against me in the most promising ways. “I am an angel, after all.”

Before I could respond, his lips caressed the sensitive skin of my neck again, teeth nipping and tongue laving in turns until I could barely breathe, my mind on a never ending loop of need.

His hands hooked under my thighs until I was wrapped around him like a spidermonkey, and then he propelled us into a bedroom with that same supernatural speed. He tipped us back on the bed, my hair flowing out behind me as I loosened my legs, scooting farther back onto the mattress, elbows propping me up so I could watch him.

Max put his knee on the bed, his hands dropping down on either side of me. Framing me like this, he was the predator I knew him to be. My breaths came rapidly, my chest heaving as I reached up for him, wanting more.

Unspoken desperation passed between us as he lowered his weight on me and I laid back, feeling the press of his hips against mine. One of his hands tangled in my hair at the nape of my neck, the other pressed into the mattress next to my face as he held himself aloft.

“You’re gorgeous like this, Summer.”

I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him the rest of the way down onto me. Again, his face fell away from my mouth and to my shoulder, but I was too lost in the moment, overcome with passion to think on it. Our hips moved, our hands roamed in a dance that spoke of how deeply we both felt this pull, this need.

His palm slid up the side of my thigh, hitching my knee higher up on his hip as he ground down into me, letting me feel everything I was doing to him. “More,” I moaned as he kissed along my neck, right over where he’d bitten me. “I need more.”

“Can’t deny my wife on our wedding day, can I?” Max’s hand slid further up my thigh, then traced inside, running along the seam of my underwear. My breath caught as I squirmed, needing him to touch me.

As if he’d heard my silent command, his knuckles traced over me, right where I needed him but with not nearly enough pressure.

“Oh, you’re a tease, is that it?” I tried to arch my hips up for more, but Max held me down, not allowing any more pressure than he was giving.

His smirk was all evil delight. “You have no idea. But as it’s our wedding day, I’ll go easy on you.”

My jaw dropped open at his implication, and he let out a dark chuckle. His fingers hooked inside my underwear, sliding them down and off. I grabbed the hem of my dress, pulling it over my head as Max watched, eyes hooded with want.

I allowed him a minute to take in the sight of me naked — I knew my body was magnificent — before I reached for his shirt.

He batted my hand away, and before I could blink, he had me on my back, legs bent and hips resting near the edge of the bed as he lowered to his knees on the floor beside it.

I was about to protest, but then his mouth was on me, and my head fell back. He flattened his tongue, running it over every nerve in my body until he kissed at the apex, then gently bit the inside of my thigh. My legs lifted, a full-body shiver convulsing me as he gripped my shins, draping my ankles over his shoulders, and dove back in. Licking, nipping, and sucking everywhere until I squirmed against his face, needing more.

“You like that?” Max said as he kissed along my inner thigh, his tongue tracing over the vein in my leg.

“Goddess, yes.”

He held eye contact as his fangs traced over my thigh, long enough it was a silent question, When I didn’t stop him, he bit, slow and gentle, into the vein.

Only simultaneously, he sank two fingers inside me, and my back arched at the overwhelming sensations.

“ Max —”

“Fuck.” He licked over the wound in my leg, pulling back enough to watch my face as he continued to move his fingers. “I love the way you say my name.”

A breathy chuckle left me that was quickly replaced by a moan as the heel of his hand pressed into me just right.

My hips moved in tandem with his hand, my heart racing, and everything was just the right pressure and speed that I was about to —

In a flash, everything stopped, and I whimpered. “Wha?—”

But Max was stripping, so despite the glint in his eyes that said he knew exactly what he’d just done, I let him continue.

I ogled him shamelessly, but hot damn, my husband’s body was a work of art. That olive-tan skin, all toned muscles that led down to a — my mouth actually filled with saliva as he stood, stroking himself and watching me with a smirk.

But something was missing.

I pointed at his shoulders. “Where are your wings?”

His strokes faltered, his brows furrowing slightly. “I don’t usually — you want the wings out?”

Okay, don’t be too eager, Summer.

I swallowed. “I want you. All of you.”

Max’s eyes narrowed in confusion, then he shook it off. “As you wish, sunshine.”

His black wings appeared, flexing as light glinted off the shimmering feathers, and I couldn’t hold back my smile.

They were just so beautiful.

Then he climbed on the bed, hovering over me with those wings above us, and I shivered in anticipation. He sank his hips over mine, grinding against me. Reaching up, I ran my fingertip over the arch of his wing, and a groan left him I felt straight down to my core.

Leaning up, I brought my lips close to his ear, giving it a nip with my teeth before whispering, “Fuck me, husband.”

Max swore softly, and lined himself up. “You’re no sweet summer day, are you?” He was so close to where I wanted him, but not nearly close enough. Then — “You’re a hurricane” — he slammed inside me in one thrust — “and you’re all mine .”