Hunger's Mate (23 page)

She was leaving him, just as he'd tried to leave Acacia. He should let her go. It was safer that way, he knew. Yet, the sight of her back to him had something inside snapping. He was moving before he even knew it, catching up with her before she could even turn the knob, slapping his palm on the door above her head.

“This is not a fucking game!” Ezra roared. “You don't get to play your hand and then walk away while I deal with all this … this … shit inside!”

His teeth chattered as he finished, his eyes closing, burning.

She used that moment to slip around him, going back into the room. Ezra stood absolutely still, holding his head down, wondering when one of them was going to win and the other surrender. They'd gone to Dagar to prevent this from happening. The possession had been just a myth. He and Eli had laughed at the bent-over old man that always lay across the way from Acacia's cottage. He'd tried to warn them after their first night in there with her, tried to tell them what would happen.
“She's evil, that one. You think her body is all there is.”
He'd shaken his head, the thinning strands of hair dangling down the sides of his dirt-riddled face.
“But there is more. So much more and it is evil, deep down to the root, evil.”

They'd laughed at him, called him jealous because Acacia wasn't inviting him inside and having wild, crazy sex with his old ass. But they'd been wrong, they'd been so wrong.

And the old man had been absolutely right. Acacia had done so much more than control their bodies, she'd made certain they were addicted, craving all the sadistic pleasures she so enjoyed until they were hard-pressed to do anything else. It was that addiction that ultimately led them to Dagar, begging for any type of freedom from what felt like a horrific spell. What they received in return was an implosion of every part of themselves, good, bad, and totally fucked up.

The deepest, darkest part of Ezra, which came from his Shadow Shifter genetics combined with the anger he'd had for Acacia at the time of inhaling the shaman's drug, was free. It was horny and wanted desperately to fuck Jewel again. The human part of him, on the other hand, was confused, but not so much that he couldn't see what was about to happen.

Unfortunately, Jewel had no idea what was going on inside him. All she saw was the man that now threatened her, and her reaction was swift and astonishing.

Ezra felt something pelt him against his back, a bunch of tiny somethings that slapped against the door with a click, then fell to the floor. He looked down, focusing on the glint coming from the puke-green carpet. They sparkled like glittering raindrops around him.

“I know it's not a fucking game, you moron!” she screamed.

Still reeling from the inside out, Ezra turned slowly, looking at her as she stood with a black velvet bag in hand before tossing it onto the floor. He inhaled deeply of her scent, letting it wash through his system, once again tempering the turmoil inside.

“Do you think I didn't consider every possible way there was to escape his clutches? I'm not a thief, I'm a survivor! I did what I did to save myself, to save…” She hesitated. “I had to get out and I needed a safety net. I needed something to hold over his head should he ever come back for me.”

“You needed insurance,” Ezra said, hearing a semblance of control return to his voice. “You took these diamonds so that if he came looking for you, you could tell the world where he got them. He's a commander in the United States Marine Corps. There's no legal way he would come to own this many diamonds.”

She was biting her lower lip again and when she looked away, Ezra knew what he'd just said to her was right on point.

“I need you to trust me, Jewel. Trust me with the whole truth and trust that I will protect you from him.” The words “trust that I will not kill you” echoed in his head like they were being shouted through a bullhorn.

“Trust you?” she yelled back. “Trust you, the man who's been lying to me since day one? The one who is a part of a group of people that lie for a living? Why the hell should I trust you, or any of your kind?”

Ezra hesitated only a second before crossing the room and lifting her off her feet. He tucked her legs behind him so that her pussy was flush against his throbbing dick. When she tried to swing on him, he grabbed her wrists and when she opened her mouth to say something, he stuck his tongue inside. Stroking hers once, twice, then suckling it into his mouth, he felt her moan and groaned in return.

Tearing his lips away momentarily, he murmured, “You should trust me because I'm the only one that can make you feel like this.” Not waiting for another reply, his lips crashed down on hers again.

He was trying to devour her, to capture every nuance of her taste, her scent, anything he could grasp, before it was too late. Inside was like a vicious storm, twisting and turning, sending mixed signals and some that were loud and clear. Those, the ones that blasted in his mind, repeatedly pushing, urging, were the ones he had no choice but to act on right now.

His hands cupped her ass, palming and squeezing the generous globes tightly. She gasped and arched her back and struggled with the urge to rip off the clothes she'd just put back on. Instead, he continued kissing her, running his tongue and teeth along the fresh-scented skin down her neck. At some point she'd pulled her arms from his grasp, lifting them to wrap around his neck tightly. She held on as he took the first steps that would end when he had her back against the wall. Her hungry mouth found his and once more their tongues dueled, reuniting in a connection that threatened to scorch his very being. Slipping a hand around to the front of her pants he unbuttoned them, urgently pressing his hand down, past her panties until her warmth and dampness greeted him.

Ezra growled as his fingers slid through the drenched lips of her pussy, loving the feel of her tightened bud beneath his fingers. But he needed more and he needed it now. He pressed farther until two of his fingers sank into her waiting heat. Farther and farther he inserted his fingers, until her essence dripped down onto his hands. She'd bucked in his arms, rotating her hips as if sending him a message. But there had been no need, Ezra and his cat knew exactly what she wanted. The darkness within him, the part of him that Ezra wanted to stay far away from her, also knew what she wanted and planned on being the first to take her there this go-around.

He wasn't about to let that happen.

He pumped his fingers inside her faster, deeper, loving the little jerks of her body at the motion, the sound of his name so quiet on her lips. Damn, but he loved the feel of her so tight and hot, sucking his fingers inside hungrily. Her legs were clasped around him, his other hand still cupping her delicious ass. His teeth chattered with his need for her and in the next instant he'd pulled his hand from between her legs, pushing them down so that her feet now touched the floor. He didn't waste a second but pushed her pants and those cute little shoes off her feet. Freeing his rigid cock, Ezra had her legs around his waist once more as he slid his dick into her slickness.

She accepted him without qualm, her blunt nails digging into his shoulders. Ezra pumped and pumped, pressing deeper inside of her and trying to go farther still, to thrust until their bodies were as one. He realized in that moment how much he needed the connection.

“When it begins to awake again, which it will, there's only one thing that can quiet that hunger,”
Dagar had told Ezra and Eli as they'd both knelt before him that long-ago night in the forest. At the time they'd had no idea what the old shaman was telling them, how genuine the warning would turn out to be.

That night their chests heaved, palms splayed flat on their naked thighs. They'd both decided that they needed this relief. In order to stay and complete their training after Acacia's betrayal was known and their grandfather had been thoroughly embarrassed by their actions, they'd had to find a way to stop the desire and the pain that denial ultimately caused them.

Despite the warning they'd decided anything was better than this sexual hell that kept them from focusing totally on their training and their future. They'd been so young and so caught in Acacia's web of desire that they had almost lost track of their true purpose. Angry and embarrassed by her debauchery and determined to make amends to their grandfather, they knew Dagar was the only option.

The shaman's potion had helped, the heavy smoke they'd inhaled had given them instant relief, but at what cost?

For years it had lain dormant, but the darkness that had dwelled within Ezra during their stay in the jungle had been steadily rising within from the moment he'd decided to come to Sedona. It had been growing more restless, taking Ezra from the well-trained guard that he was, to a volatile shifter, disrespecting his commanding officers and capable of viciously killing anything or anyone that got in his way. As scenes from the night Acacia was killed flashed through his mind, Ezra knew he could not mate Jewel, he could not put her in harm's way.

At the same time he could not walk away. Everything about her called to him—her strength, her resiliency, her scent that permeated every crevice of his being, filtering through his body like a drug.

Thoughts volleying back and forth in his mind, Ezra pulled out of Jewel's sweet clutches. He set her on her feet, then ushered her over to the bed where he attempted to lower her down onto it, to lift her hips and enter her from behind. He could do this. He'd done it before with other females that he desired. He could fuck them and keep all the emotional crap wrapped securely in a bundle that nobody would ever touch.

Ezra couldn't mate her if he couldn't look into her eyes, those damning eyes that belonged to her, not the contacts she'd worn since the first day he met her. That's where it was for him, he'd known that all his life, the eyes were gateways to the soul and mating, for Ezra, mating was all about claiming the other person's soul as your own. Being a total part of them and giving the same of yourself in return.

He couldn't, no he wouldn't, do that to Jewel, no matter how much his cat disagreed.

She went totally still standing next to the bed, shaking her head adamantly.

“No,” she said licking her lips and looking up to him defiantly. “Not like that.”

“I want you like that,” was his desperate reply, his dick pulsating with the building need for release.

“I won't,” she told him, backing away.

She looked so vulnerable in her wrinkled shirt and nothing else. Her nipples were hard, poking through the cotton material and the thin wisp of satin that was her bra. Her legs were slightly parted, thick thighs that he knew were soft and pliant when rubbing against his, leading to a neatly shaved patch of curls at her juncture.

Ezra's mouth watered, his hand instantly going to his dick, still damp from her thick juices.

“Let me see you,” he said, his voice gruff, his hand jerking the length of his cock, rubbing his thumb over the bulbous head.

The temperature in the room had skyrocketed, sweat now beading his forehead as his breathing came in quick pants. The scent of her essence, the thought of what it would look like, drops of dew on the plump folds of her pussy, had him licking his lips. The hunger increased, the cat roared angrily, and the man reached helplessly for a lifeline.

“No,” was her slow, soft reply.

“Lie down on the bed, spread your legs, and let me see you,” he stated, that dark part of him ignoring her answer. “I need to see you, now!”

Jewel shook her head. She pulled at the hem of her shirt, trying ineffectively to cover her nakedness. “No! I don't take commands from your or any other man!”

She moved then, kneeling on the floor to grab her pants and underwear while Ezra swayed on his feet, still jerking himself off. “Jewel,” the man called to her, his voice sounding as if he were in pain. “Please, I … need … you.”

She'd just pulled on her panties when he said those last words. Pausing, she looked at him, coming closer to stare into his eyes.

“What's the matter with you?” she asked. “What? Oh my god, no.”

She backed away and Ezra panicked. “Please, don't … go,” he whispered, his throat dry, his tongue ready to loll at its need to touch her skin, to lick her release until she screamed.

“No,” she whispered, her head shaking, her hands trembling as one came to her neck, fluttering down to where her heart would be. “Not here, not now,” she continued.

“Please,” he begged.

“Don't,” she replied. “Please, don't.”

Ezra was losing the battle, he knew it without doubt. The dark part of him wanted to fuck her. It wanted to lick her pussy from top to bottom, then sink deep inside her and thrust until it roared with pleasure. And then it would want to do it again, and again.

The man wanted to protect her, to keep her safe from Crowe and all that he would do to obtain her. He wanted to keep her from having to use a phony name and to live in hiding for the rest of her life.

As for the cat, it wanted to claim its mate. Plain and simple.

And that was what finally won out, the plain and the simple. The need to claim over all the other superficial issues. Ezra's bones cracked, fur rippling over the surface of his bare skin so fast it felt like thousands of tiny bugs covering him at once. His head widened, nose and mouth forming just as he fell to his knees, the cat's back arching as its front paws fell to the floor. Its mouth opened wide, the roar of dominance, of victory, of anger, echoing through the room.

Jewel screamed and then fainted.

 

Chapter 16

Havenway
Washington, D.C.

“I'm a shifter, just like you,” Rayna Corpeta said, letting her long legs uncurl to stand in front of Eli.

He knew that, could tell by the graceful way she moved, her long legs, toned and tanned as she approached him. Her hair was dark and long, twisted into some type of messy braid and hanging over her left shoulder. Long-lashed eyes blinked slowly as she watched him, hips swaying until she came to a stop just two feet away. She carried the scent of the jungle, primitive, yet arousing, clearly identifiable by another shifter.