Desert Fate (The Wolves of Twin Moon Ranch Book 3) (11 page)

Kyle pushed up into her, and it was like he’d take her to the stars. Once, twice, lifting her gently, then urging her back down in ever harder jerks.

“Stef…” He broke off whatever he was going to say and clamped his hands over her hips. The world tilted as he lifted and turned them both, putting her back on the ground. When they bottomed out, he pushed so deep, she cried out at the searing pleasure-pain.

Kyle threw his head back and savored whatever it was she managed to make him feel. Needed? Wanted? Or maybe just on fire?

“You like that.” It was her turn to steal that line.

The golden sparks rocketing in his eyes said,
Fuck yes, I do.

Then he fell into a rhythm he might have kept up forever. The couple of other men she’d slept with would have been long spent by now, snoring or lumbering off to the bathroom, but he was only now building to a climax.

The ground beneath her was cool; everything above was a pure, raging heat, and she arched into it. His eyes glowed as he pushed again and again. Stef wanted to stretch this exquisite high out forever, but the beast within was clawing, begging for more.

Yes, yes, yes!

She couldn’t have him fast enough, hard enough, deep enough, and she cried for more until he was hammering hard. A wave built inside, one she was desperate to hold back yet eager to release. Then she was rocking wildly, crying out when the crest broke inside. A second later, Kyle grunted and a slick inner heat engulfed her. For a moment, they paused, eyes locked; then she closed her eyes on an aftershock and clamped over him one last time. Kyle gave a choking groan and pushed back, lifting her into one final, roaring high. Then they were both limp and panting, their bodies one in the night.

“Jesus, Stef…”

Yeah, he liked it all right,
her inner voice said with a grin.

She closed her eyes to the surrounding scrub, the vastness of the desert, the glorious night sky. To everything but the feeling of belonging. Here. Now. With him.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Mate. My mate.

Kyle heard the words ring in his mind. They took on shape and weight, growing to an insistent chorus of voices that rose as one from the land.

He swore he could feel her heart beat in exact time with his.

Mate,
sang the alto of the stars.
Mate,
boomed the low bass of the hills. He imagined a wolf spirit emerging from a hollow and urging him to mark her, promising if he would, everything would be all right. Everything would fit, these scattered jigsaw pieces of his life.

He pushed back her hair, stroking her neck, and Jesus, she purred. That was him, doing that to her. That was a thrill completely unlike the hangover feeling of being with a woman who didn’t see who he really was. This was Stef, and her eyes promised him that the useless punching bag of a kid was different. Special.

Maybe even worthy.

Mate!
His wolf honed in on the exact spot on her neck.

Right there,
instinct said,
just beside the pulse in the hollow under her chin.

Right there was his ticket to escape. Hers, too, because his bite would bond them forever and sever Ron’s tenuous hold.

He had heard about mating bites for as long as he’d been in the pack, and it always sounded so risky, so gory. Now, it seemed easy. One jaw there, the other there, and a gentle push. A squeeze to maintain the seal on her artery and keep her safe while his system imprinted the essence of her. Then he’d withdraw so slowly that the wound would heal on the spot.

It didn’t seem scary. It seemed just right.

He leaned in, sniffing the spot, then warmed it with his tongue as his canines started to extend. Stef’s inner wolf gave a barely audible moan.

Take me. Have me, my mate.

He was just readying for the bite when an owl hooted, and the sound stopped him cold.

Why the hell are you stopping?
his wolf shouted in his mind.

Her wolf might want the bite, but her human side wasn’t ready.

She’s ready, man!
his wolf insisted.

Only her body.

That’s enough.

He shook his head at the beast. No, it wasn’t. Not yet. She needed to be ready with all her soul. She’d already been savaged by a stranger, and this moment was too delicate to mar with a bite. He swallowed hard, coaxing his canines back into his gums, then snuggled Stef closer. It wasn’t a night for claiming. It was a night to hold, to kiss, to comfort.

His wolf snorted.
You mean her doing that to you, or you doing that to her?

A warm, pleasant haze fell over him. Fate skipped past on a tumbleweed, unthreatening, unconcerned. He could stay wrapped in this woman’s body forever. Because Stef didn’t judge, didn’t push, didn’t demand. She was just there for him, as she always had been. And if words like love, fate, and destiny usually had him smirking—
yeah, right
—tonight he let them soak into him like a balm.

But night and bare human skin didn’t mix—not for long, anyway. When Stef shivered, he stood and offered her a hand up, quietly admiring the smooth lines of her body. It was just like seeing her come out of the house earlier that day, freshly showered. She had an air about her, a glow, like she’d shed a layer of emotional grime and brought her inner beauty closer to the surface.

Naked, side by side with her, winding home, he should have felt awkward, but it felt so right. The way was long and slow in bare human feet, but she walked silently, warm hand clasped in his. That was new. Not just walking hand in hand with a woman—because what kind of pansy-ass romantic did that?—but walking hand in hand with Stef.

His wolf seconded the sentiment with a possessive growl he couldn’t quite hold back.

She turned, eyes swirling with color. “Hmmm?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled, gripping her hand tighter and wondering why it didn’t feel weird. Shouldn’t they be kicking a ball to each other, chewing gum, comparing bubbles? He studied her profile, bathed in moonlight. No, he decided. The kids were in the past. This new and very grown-up thing was his present. Hell, maybe even his future.

Kyle sucked his lower lip, thinking that one over as he walked. There were a million complications to that scenario—starting with a shit of a wolf named Ron and his badass alpha, Greer. Too many variables he couldn’t control. Working criminal cases for the state was much easier than this. He could stay detached, cool, professional. With Stef, though…Well, the night was proof he hadn’t been anything close to detached or cool or professional.

Not detached. Attached
. His wolf grinned.
Tell me you didn’t like that?

They were a mess of sweat, burrs, and dust by the time they reached the bottom stair of his porch. They’d been ambling along like the outside world didn’t exist, but shit, there was his truck and his house, telling them it did. His chest tightened, knowing that any moment, she might pull away and end this magical night.

“Kyle,” she started.

Not a protest. A plea.

Her hand was stroking his back, and before either of them moved one inch closer to rational thought, he pulled her against his chest and claimed her mouth in a hurricane of a kiss. A triumphant flash hammered his body when her tongue reached back for his, hungering for more.

He got lost in her so quickly, so hopelessly, that when the porch step creaked under them, he wondered if it was a warning. Was he letting himself feel too much, too fast? But there was no fighting this insatiable thirst, and all he could do was quench it—or at least try. Stef tasted of everything good: like warm milk, an innocent pleasure from a long time ago, back to comfort him with its familiar flavor one more time.

They got as far as the top step before folding into each other again, letting quiet coos and gentle touches escalate into a breathless blur. For a while, she took the length of him in her hand and stroked with a rhythm no woman had ever gifted him with before. It was all he could do to hold back a tremble and eventually pull away. This night was about her, not him. He kissed her deep and long then eased her back. His heart was racing at the sight of her, laid out before him like a feast.

His wolf licked his lips.

Her, not you,
he told the beast.

Sure, man. Anything you say.

He kneeled before her and fluttered kisses down her body, all the way down to her mound. She was holding her breath, and hell, he was too, at the threshold to her private world. He spread her wide, and what was intended as a gentle kiss turned into a greedy lick when the flavor of her rocketed through his nerves. He circled the nub of her clit then sucked. Hard.

A spasm went through her, and though her eyes were shining with surprise when he glanced up, she spread her legs wider, begging for more. He wanted to freeze the moment in a mental picture, right there. Right on her needing him as badly as he needed her. No woman had ever looked at him like that. Lust, yes. Aroused, hell yeah. But need—actual life-or-death need, like he was her air, her water, her sustenance—that was a first.

Why that didn’t terrify him, he had no idea.

He pushed all thought away because this night was about instinct, after all. His tongue pushed deeper and deeper while her inner muscles tried to catch it the way she’d clamped around his cock before. It might have made him laugh if he hadn’t been so tuned in to the little noises she made, telling him he was the first to earn the privilege of such an intimate touch.

The first. The last. His wolf made an oath, there and then. No man would ever touch this woman again. No one but him. Just like he had no further need for any woman but her.

The idea drove him to take her higher, higher, before letting her erupt in pleasure around him.

“Kyle! Yes!” When she gasped and writhed in the grips of a mighty orgasm, his blood sang.

By the time he got her to his bed, the ache in his cock was a burn. She fell right into place under him, her legs wrapped high around his waist. He plunged home again and again, groaning out loud. She was just the right size: snug around his cock and deep as an ocean, or so it seemed. She was straining for something off the charts, something beyond the physical, and part of him was making crazy inner vows to chase down exactly what that was and bring it to her like a gift.

He glanced down, following the hard center line of her abs to the point where his cock was buried in her. He pulled back a little, just to remind himself they were two and not one. He watched, fascinated, until nothing registered but her nails on his back and the heat winding around the two of them, and they were both flying, flying, gone. He closed his eyes through the height of his pounding climax, wondering where it would end: a soft landing in a place called home, or a sudden crash into the briar patch of regret.

When he collapsed into the pillow and pulled Stef close, her body molded to his in slow, comfortable degrees. He wondered how—why—this could be. He’d gotten drunk around women. Gotten drunk with women. But never, ever had he gotten drunk on a woman—on her scent, her shape, her sensuality. The way she touched him, guided him, pleasured him… It was as if they’d been together many times before. He couldn’t doubt this is how they belonged: together.

And yet he knew that night had a way of playing tricks on a man, and daylight could cast an awfully harsh spotlight on mornings-after. The next time Kyle opened his eyes, the sun was peeking over the horizon. He reached an arm out to tug Stef closer, but she was gone.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Stef sat on a hilltop, picking at the fraying denim of the jeans she’d slipped on before stealing out of Kyle’s house. Shafts of pale yellow and pink slanted over the horizon. The colors of fear and regret. She hung her head in her arms and sniffed, but the sun prodded mercilessly, forcing her tear-streaked face up. God, what had she done? What was she becoming?

She’d slept with a man she had no right sleeping with. A friend.

A he-wolf. A shifter.

Just like you.

There it was again, that voice. The one that had pushed her to go much too far last night with a man whose touch was so soft, so secure, that she’d fallen under his spell. She’d wanted him with such desperation that it scared her, thinking only about how good it felt to be two and not one. So what if they’d been buddies fifteen years ago? Buddies didn’t kiss, or lick, or hump each other like a couple of wild things in the night. Right?

It was wrong. All wrong.

Then why did it feel so right?
the inner voice demanded.

The scar on her neck throbbed, and that was her answer. It was easy to believe she really felt something for Kyle, when in truth she was turning into a beast. Ron’s bite must have sparked animal urges in her. Irresistible urges. What if she started spreading her legs for any male who came along at the right place and time? Worse, what if she’d come to think of it as something good? As magic—even love?

She hugged her knees tighter and hid her face again. If this was her future, she didn’t want it. Crazed nights under the moon? Frantic fucks with strangers? She’d have no pride, no dignity.

Red desert rock heated under the rising sun as her cheeks burned with the memories. Of course Kyle had gone along with the impulse. He was a man, and not only a man, but a wolf—a beast that hid under the wounded warrior.

The same kind of beast that hid inside her now, too.

She wanted to be disgusted with herself, but a hot rush came with the memories. When he’d lowered her to the ground and hammered into her, she’d moaned loud enough to scratch her own throat. She hadn’t just enjoyed the heat of him but gloried in it. Lovemaking like she’d never experienced—

Sex, she corrected herself. That was sex, raw and unadulterated.

Love,
insisted a contralto voice she was starting to recognize as her wolf’s.