I didn’t get to argue further as Shaun pulled free of me, reaching for a shirt and helping clean up the mess. I just stayed where I was, on four legs rather than two, a strange echo of my beast’s form.
This is it, I thought. This is when he backs off and gets back in that truck, hightailing it back home.
No! my Tirian replied.
I heard rustling, felt him moving on the bed, and every muscle in my body clamped down, readying myself, girding my loins for rejection.
“So I guess I better set you up with that room,” I said lightly. If I was gonna take a hit, I was going to meet it head-on.
“I can,” he replied, my whole body jolting when he wrapped his arms around me, drawing me up and off the bed and against him. I blinked as I felt him hold me close, his cock still slick with me and not yet soft. “But I gotta say, I’m liking the view in here much better.” He kissed me gently. “If it’s OK with you, I’d like to stay.”
I looked at him warily, meeting those turquoise blue eyes and searching, knowing there had to be something there. Something mad, bad, or just fucking painful. Like he’d wait until I was asleep and steal all my money or something.
Well, joke was on him—I didn’t have any.
“I can’t…” He stopped himself, smiling as if he knew what he was going to say was corny, then just saying it anyway. “You’re beautiful and your body fits mine so fucking well, I can’t help but want more.” He grabbed my limp hand, kissing the back of it and looking up into my eyes. “Tell me you want the same.”
For a second, I just stared. I wanted to, my eyes ached with the need to, but it was the resulting thrill deep inside me, something that made my Tirian snicker.
This one. Mate, she said.
We don’t take humans as mates, remember, I snapped back, thinking she was just being obtuse.
Her laugh, then her silence, should have let me know what I was getting myself into, but I couldn’t put two and two together right now, even if I tried. I smiled, feeling my heart wrench at the answering response from him, like I’d somehow made him ridiculously happy.
“I want everything you’ve got to give,” I replied finally.
The smile faltered for a second, something intense shining in his eyes, making me worry that I’d come on too strong, but when that expression resolved into something dark and smouldering, I knew I was in like Flynn.
“Bathroom’s though there?” he asked with a smirk.
“Um, yeah, but—”
“I dunno about you, but I need a wash.” He stepped back slightly, and I had to clench my hands to stop from reaching for him. “Let me wash you, Bec.”
I paused for a second, this all feeling too…sweet and nice and intense and lovely, but finally, I shook my head to clear it and then took his hand. I’d let him go when the time came, but I’d be fucked if I was going to scrimp on pleasure now, just in case I might get hurt later.
“C’mon,” I replied. “So, how good are you with head massages?”
Chapter 6
Oh fuck, I was going into heat.
I’d been through this a few times, when I got close to someone, when my beast pricked up her ears and started seeing mate potential. It was my clue to get the fuck out of town, my mum having hammered the knowledge into my head from a young age.
This was why I’d been so damn clammy since Shaun arrived, and so bloody responsive. My Tirian saw his pretty and just wanted to sink her fangs into him. We’d gone to bed after the shower, tangling our limbs in each other’s, and engaged in a long, slow, sensual fuck, him staring into my eyes as I felt every flex of his hips deep inside me.
“I’ve never…” he said, looking somewhat stunned. “This has never…”
“Shh…” I’d said, reaching over and covering his mouth with mine. I couldn’t take it, the soul deep stare, the intensity there. I couldn’t deal with his words or his thoughts right now if I was to keep my cool, forcing myself to just focus on this, the way our bodies moved together. I wanted to speed things up, bring us both off to a stunning climax, and then run the fuck away.
But of course, I didn’t.
Heats came on slowly for me. One minute, I was fucking someone, then the next, it had turned into an all-nighter marathon where we broke the bed and I was lit on fire. Nothing mattered but him, me, all the pleasure, all the feelings we could wring from each other. All I wanted was more, more, more.
Which was half the reason why I lived out here in the middle of nowhere. No one came out here. Charles was my best bud. There was literally no one for me to fixate on, so I’d thought I was safe. But as Shaun’s strokes grew longer, deeper, faster, as he stared into my eyes, not letting me retreat back in my head, as he forced me to be fucking present for every single thrust, I felt like I’d reached the end of the road and somehow, that was a relief.
I stared back, feeling it, all of it, all the confusing instincts and needs and wants I’d kept stuffed down, daring him to see it, warts and all, and look away. But he didn’t, did he? He saw it, saw me, and didn’t look away for a second. Not when his hips and mine stilled, not when I clasped him tight, not when he jetted his release inside me, our gasps mingling. Instead, it was me that was forced to look down, to prise our bodies apart, the distance feeling weird and unnatural right now. I busied myself with cleaning up, anything ot