Page 19

Chapter 18

Lit

CHARLIE

I drive us to the nearest motel, a seedy establishment on the outskirts of the city surrounded by an equally seedy strip mall and acres of scrub brush. It’ll have to do. I can’t drive any further. My brain is fried from exhaustion.

“Only one room available. Queen bed. You’ll have to be out by morning,” the desk clerk says without looking up from his computer.

Looking at Lennox, I say, “It’s the one-bed romance trope.” I start giggling, finding everything about our situation hilarious. My hot and cold semi-boyfriend is going to be forced to share a room with me. Not just a room, but a bed too!

The line between his eyes draws down, and I know he heard my thought, which only serves to make me laugh harder.

“We’ll take the room,” he tells the clerk, pulling a credit card from his wallet and handing it over.

“Don’t forget to get the receipt,” I gasp, unable to contain my giggles. “You know, because we’re here for work. Wouldn’t want to accidentally use the royal coffers for this.”

He grips my arm and leads me out the front door. “You need sleep. You’re not making any sense.”

“No, you’re not making any sense.” Am I slurring? I pull my arm away and grab my bag from the car while he does the same.

I’m overtaken by the giggles again when he opens the door to our room and I’m confronted by every horror movie that ever featured a room exactly like this. I glance around for the dead body, but there’s none.

“What kind of movies are you watching?” Lennox asks, dropping his leather bag next to a chair.

“There you go, reading my mind again.” I struggle out of my jacket, dropping it on the floor before falling face first onto the hard mattress with a groan. I turn my head toward him. “I’m gonna fall asleep now.” I roll onto my side and pat the bed next to me. “You can sleep here.”

“I’ll take the chair,” Lennox says.

“Suit your…” My eyes drift shut of their own volition and the last thing I feel is Lennox pulling my shoes off and tossing a blanket over me.

I don’t know how long I sleep but it’s pitch black in the room when I wake. I sit up, squinting into the darkness. Lennox’s deep even breaths are coming from the direction of the chair, which seems to be near the door. He must’ve moved it.

I slide off the bed, trying not to wake him as I make my way to the washroom. After emptying my bladder, I turn on the shower, doing my best to ignore the bathtub stains and shoddy curtain. I’m no princess (unless I marry Lennox, which is a hard pass until he admits we’re mates), but this place is not going to be a future favourite vacation haunt.

At least the water is hot and the pressure isn’t terrible. When I finish, I wrap a thin, scratchy towel around myself and brush my teeth and hair. Picking up my travel-worn clothes, I wrinkle my nose. Nope, can’t do it.

I turn off the bathroom light before stepping into the room, not wanting to wake Lennox. He’s already up, lamplight illuminating his big form slouched in the chair which he placed directly in front of the door.

“Are we expecting trouble?” I ask, trying to ignore the fact that I’m still dripping, wearing a flimsy towel.

“I always expect trouble, it’s how I’ve stayed alive this long.”

I try to imagine 700 years of this type of vigilance. “You must be exhausted.”

His eyes move up and down me, glinting with need. An answering throb starts deep inside my core.

“You need to put something on.”

I lift my chin. “I wasn’t exactly planning on wearing this.”

“Now, Charlie,” he snaps, gnashing his teeth.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m working on it.” I bend over, reaching for my bag, but he leaps to his feet tearing it away from me. I turn to him, hands on my hips. “What is your problem?”

“You’re teasing me,” he accuses, towering over me.

When I try to take a step back, he grips my arms, stopping me.

“I’m not teasing you,” I snap, leaning back so I can look up into his face. It looks strained with longing. “I didn’t ask for the one-bed trope, but here we are. We can both act like adults and – “

He cuts me off by lowering his head and taking my mouth in a kiss. Not just a kiss, but an open mouth ravaging of the senses. My nipples peak and my lady bits flood as he tongues me like a prospector digging for gold.

I wrench back, breaking his hold, though I’m under no illusion I could have done it if he hadn’t allowed it. As much as he’s struggling to control himself, the superior iron control of Lennox Wolven-North never fails.

“Why are you so angry at me?” he demands. “Is that why you insist on testing me?”

“I’m not testing you!” I shout. “I needed a shower, I took a shower, I chose not to put dirty panties back on. That’s all. If you can’t keep it in your pants, that’s on you.”

He lets out a long groan that turns into a growl. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Don’t I?” I really don’t, but I’m not going to let him win whatever this is. Something inside me is telling me I’m fighting for a happy ever after and the consequences of not winning are too high. “You know why I’m mad?” I stalk toward him, poking my finger into his chest and marvelling at the rock-hard flesh beneath the tip. I stroke him as I continue, “You deny being my mate, yet you won’t let me out of your sight. I see you sitting on my fire escape every night. I feel your presence when we’re not together. You infiltrate my mind, but tell me we can’t be together, push me away when I try to comfort you.” I glare, razing him with my inner fire. “I don’t like being jerked around by a hot and cold wolf. You’re either in this game or you’re out, but you need to stop telling me what to do.”

Guilt twists his expression. “Look, Charlie, I’m…”

Hating that he’s about to ruin our fiery moment with an apology I grip him around the neck, going up on my toes to kiss him. I land a sloppy one on his jaw. “Damn it,” I mutter, my breath raising gooseflesh on his throat.

“What?”

“That was supposed to be my dramatic way of saying make love to me, you beast, but it didn’t work. I’m too short. Or you’re too tall.”

His hands are shaking as they land on my waist, gripping me. I feel his determination to push me away, but he doesn’t. “Be serious, Charlie. You can’t say shit like that to me unless you mean it. I might appear be civilized, but I’m still a shifter.”

“I mean it.”

“But…” Wasn’t she just pissed at me?

Catching his thought, I counter, “Have you heard of hate sex?”

“I don’t hate you.”

I run my finger up his chest and wrap my arm around his neck, leveraging myself further up his body, the peaks of my nipples scraping him through the damp towel. “Have you heard of make-up sex, Lennox?”

Fuck it, I can’t take any more.

Heat sizzles through me as I hear his surrender.

He tears the towel away, throwing it behind him, then picks me up and drops both of us onto the bed, crushing my lips beneath his, taking my mouth with more passion than I’ve ever experienced.

I cling to him because it’s all I can do to ride out the storm of his passionate longing, digging my nails into his shirt to anchor myself as his tongue battles with mine, his teeth forcing my mouth wider. When I’m not fast enough to give him what he wants, he grips my wet hair at the back of my neck and drags my head back.

The gentleman is gone, replaced by an untamed beast.

His lips trail down my throat, licking and biting, and his hands are on my skin and hair, his tongue on every inch of skin he can reach. It feels like he’s everywhere at once.

Wanting some control, I wiggle my hands between us and try to unbutton his shirt, but my shaking fingers refuse to comply. Lennox pushes my hands aside, grips his shirt and tears. Buttons fly everywhere and I let out a breathless laugh.

He slams his mouth over mine, swallowing my laughter.

I moan, clinging to him as he takes my mouth on another fierce journey, sweeping his tongue against mine, taking everything.

For the first time, I willingly delve into his head, instinctively seeking the part of him that wants me with such unparalleled passion. I find it easily as that part of his brain is lit up like a fourth of July fireworks parade.

I don’t have time to marvel at my burgeoning telepathic abilities though as he soon distracts me from my thoughts with stinging bites trailing from my lips down my neck to my breasts.

He returns again and again to ravage my mouth like a starving man might fall upon a plate piled high with all of his favourite foods.

His hands capture mine and he drags them over my head, pinning me down to give him better access.

He pulls a nipple into his scorching hot mouth, dragging a shriek from me as he sucks so hard I wonder if he’ll leave a bruise. He bites down, pulling another shout from me, before moving to my other nipple.

I can’t work out if he’s worshipping me or torturing me. It’s too much, but not enough either. My body is restless as he releases a river of fire beneath my skin and refuses to quench it.

“I will,” he growls against my breast.

He drags his lips down my torso, delving into my bellybutton, licking and biting the skin of my belly, mapping everything as he moves, as if he knows this is it. This is the only time he’ll have complete and unfettered access to my body and he has to make the most of it.

I push the thought away, refusing to examine whose brain it came from.

As if echoing my thoughts, he mutters, “Stay with me, love.”

Love.

Love!

The word lights up in my brain and I’m consumed by flames once more.

As he explores my pelvic region with his mouth, his fingers bite into the flesh of my hips. He settles between my thighs and I only have a split second to register what he’s about to do as he attacks with his tongue in the same way he attacked my mouth, sweeping through my folds in a frantic tasting.

“Oh… god!” I gasp, bucking my hips and clinging to the blankets beneath me.

He wraps his hands around my thighs, digging his fingers into the muscle, anchoring me while he lavishes my pussy.

Then he takes it to the next level, replacing his tongue with his fingers, shoving them deep inside me, slamming them home, then pulling out and doing the same thing over and over. Every time he bottoms out, he presses his fingertips hard against my g-spot, scraping his knuckles against my inner walls until I’m nearly insane need.

I shout my agonized pleasure and grip his hair in both fists, holding him in place, silently demanding he give me the thing I need most in the world right this instant. He drives me closer and closer to the edge of a monumental orgasm, then pulls back from it each time.

I know he’s in my brain, using my frantic thoughts to fuel the fire of my own desires. I want to murder him, I want to fuck him, I want… then he’s over top of me, his lips finding mine, his cock seeking entrance.

He thrusts into me with enough force to elicit a scream from me, but he swallows it in a surprisingly gentle kiss considering the assault he’s launched on my body.

I haven’t had a sexual partner in years, not since Ramón, so my body resists at first, but he forges his way through the fires he’s ignited until he’s buried deep inside me.

Neither of us move as our eyes meet and something inside both of us unfurls, reaching for the other. Before the connection can be made though, he pulls back, his cock releasing from my body. I reach for him, sinking my fingernails into his ass, trying to pull him back to me.

He does, slamming into me, but he doesn’t stay, doesn’t allow the connection, instead he takes us on a journey of hedonistic pleasure as he pushes me once more toward that glorious peak.

As the orgasm quakes through me, I let out a keening cry, tipping my head back against the pillow, screaming my ecstasy to the world as a tsunami of pure pleasure crests over me again and again, finally quenching the inferno.

Lennox follows me over the abyss, buried deep inside me, his fingers biting into my hips, holding me to him as the hot gush of his seed washes through me.

I close my eyes, savouring the sensations. A ball of light appears behind my eyelids and I instinctively reach for it, but Lennox’s voice drags me back to reality before I can touch it.

“Look at me,” his harsh voice demands.

Helpless to resist his command, my eyes flutter open and I’m lost in the deep blue sea of his fierce gaze. We stare at each other for what feels like hours but is probably less than ten seconds, then he tips sideways with a satisfied groan, landing on his side next to me.

My gaze wanders over his body and I smile. His shirt is hanging off his arms in tatters and his jeans are shoved down his ass. With his wildly disheveled hair, he looks like a different man from the one I’ve come to know.

After a moment, he tucks himself into his jeans and sits up.

I sit up too, worried he’ll go cold on me after such a passionately satisfying encounter.

He doesn’t. He lifts me, tugging the blanket out from underneath me and throwing it over both of us before tucking me into his side, pillowing my head with his chest.

“Go to sleep,” he murmurs.

I’m afraid if I close my eyes, he’ll disappear.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Tell me a bedtime story?” I ask, tucking my hand against his side, feeling the solid bones of his ribcage. It amazes me, the ease in which he can shift these bones into another species entirely.

“What kind of bedtime story?” His voice is deep and methodical, lulling me toward the sleep he suggested I seek.

“The assassination attempt you told me about after we dropped the kids off at school.” I yawn and allow my eyes to drift shut, wiggling until I’m comfortable.

He chuckles but complies with my request. “It was 1934. I was working for Scotland Yard, investigating a shifter branch of the IRA…”