Shepherd had never made the growl.
There was no derision, no mocking of her confusion and instant panic, only the satin movement of his hips thrusting forth until her slick passage was filled to the brim. They shared breath. Shepherd rolled his hips, watching her eyes in the dark as Claire came to terms with what had led her to tremble. Her body had broadcast the scent of slick, and he had acted instantly to fulfill something her mind would have never allowed.
She had wanted him.
His warm fingertips left her breast to trace her lips, the line of her jaw, Shepherd watching her hooded green eyes close completely.
The seduction seemed organic—missing the measured calculation he usually employed—but Claire's mind was in turmoil, and she had to do something. It was like a flash of inspiration, the only way she could fight back, because his new dominance over her body had to stop somewhere. He might be drawing soft gasps and murmurs from her lips, but she had the power to think of another. At first it was almost easy, her little mental defiance. She thought of the one person she knew Shepherd hated, his unknown nemesis—she thought of Corday.
Like the flow of a river, Shepherd turned them both until her burrow fell away and he was holding her above him. There was no dark shelter where her face and feelings could hide, he had exposed her... but so long as her eyes remained closed, she could maintain defiance and pretend.
He rolled his hips even as he commanded her, "Little one, you will look at me when I fuck you."
The weight of his gaze drew her attention, and automatically the fan of her lashes lifted. Claire looked through passion drugged eyes; green found shining silver. All thought disappeared, the image she'd tried to maintain vanished as if it had never existed. There was only Shepherd.
"Good girl."
Large hands lifted and lowered hips, the pace still slow, Claire braced on his massive chest to do as she was compelled. Leaning into his touch, caught up, she sucked his fingers. Shepherd angled to hit the place she presented, drawing out her gasps until she began to keen softly. Being pleasured by the Alpha had always been a sensation of mind-bending carnality, but at that moment all she could register was shining silver and soft touches. In combination with a long hum, her pussy twitched and clasped Shepherd's cock like a fist, drawing the Alpha deeper, enticing him to spill. He did, groaning as he yanked her writhing hips flush against his so he might knot deep in her core.
With the splash of heat in her belly she was humming, contented. Shepherd pulled her closer, chest to chest, groaning long and loudly as another wave of come shot from his cock just as her pussy clenched for more.
They were locked together, and would be so for some time by the feel of it. With her cheek to the damp skin of his chest, Claire listened to his heart. At moments like that the thread no longer seemed greasy; it seemed clean, and even when she pretended it was not there, it hummed, singing to her.
Painful self-loathing returned.
There was no comforting purr when her mind grew anxious, no pets to soothe her tension. Shepherd wanted her to recognize the quality of their exchange. Shifting as if to put distance between them, Claire felt the huge bulbous anchor hooked behind her pelvic bone reminding her resistance was pointless. Trapped, she tried to be still, to allow the waves of castigation to burn each and every vein.
In a voice almost laced with compassion, the male offered, "Your reaction was not unnatural."
It began to feel as if the whole thing had been planned, down to the very breath she drew to speak. "And your neck," she began in a voice full of self-hate, "does it still hurt?"
"Your touch eased the pain." Feeling her bury her face against him as if ashamed, he ceased the lesson and offered a purr, allowing his arms to come around her, to cradle her as she needed but could not ask for.
#
It was not much longer, perhaps only a handful of days, before Claire began to sleep less and to grow anxious when left alone. She no longer found joy in her hours of seclusion as she had before he'd infected her with poison. Instead, isolation left her edgy. When Shepherd was not present, time dragged by; she found herself longing for his return no matter how much she denied it and hid in her burrow, praying for sleep to eat up the hours as it had before.
Ashamed of herself, she tried to hide her relief when Shepherd came through the door, did her best not to look at him too long. It didn't make any difference. He knew that very first time, and it showed in the intensity of his curious expression when he smelled the air in her direction. He responded to it with a smile that crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes, and by immediately taking her body with a practiced, calculating sensuality, watching her obsessively with those all-seeing eyes. It was as if he knew what was warring inside her, knew that she was losing—grasped that Claire found it harder to hate him, and struggled even to hate herself.