Spirits Shared (10 page)

"Isn't that a lot of area for a single
sheriff?"

His finger glided to the map's eastern edge,
where Hohoq was marked within a smaller enclosure of jagged,
roughly connected red lines, though the map didn't contain the full
truth about the town that had sprung from an encampment in the days
when his ancestors had made a pact with the Creator and become
Thunderbird.

"This is my official jurisdiction. But our
people are spread out and where they are I go when called."

He tapped a spot to the south. "This is
where the bus carrying the convicts crashed. I doubt any of them
will get close to us. Criminals have a habit of returning to
familiar places."

She chewed on her bottom lip in a worried
gesture he found endearing. He caught himself before he could lean
over and kiss away her concern.

She touched a dark blue line near where his
fingers rested. "Will you have to go look for the convicts if
they're spotted on this side of the line?"

"There are others to do it, my cousin
Tenino, included. He's one of my deputies."

She glanced at him, a quick look before she
turned her head so her glorious blonde hair shielded her face. She
was nervous, aroused, shy from having made love with Clay in his
presence.

His heart turned over. Some of his resolve
to wait until she initiated physical contact melted.

She'd made the first step by coming to his
side. He wouldn't insist she do anything more, at least right
now.

He turned toward her and cupped her cheek.
"Jessica," he said, letting her hear the longing as he tipped her
face so their eyes met. "Last night was beyond any ecstasy I've
ever known. I loved every sound of pleasure. The only thing better
would have been my joining you and Clay in bed."

Not giving her time to retreat, he captured
her mouth, moaned at the softness. A thrust of his tongue parted
her lips and pleasure seized him. She was a dream come true, a
prayer answered.

She pressed against him and he could have
shouted with joy. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her
tighter, the pleasure intensifying with the press of her breasts to
his chest.

He deepened the kiss, his tongue no longer
gently exploring but claiming, and she softened, so naturally
submissive that he had to fight against freeing his cock and taking
her on the desk.

He'd waited a lifetime for her. And a
lifetime spent with her wouldn't be enough. He swept her into his
arms and carried her to the thick woven rug in front of the
fireplace.

He lay her where Clay had lain the night
before, then stretched out next to her. "You're beautiful," he
said, thinking he couldn't get any harder but her whimper proved
him wrong.

He rolled onto her, moaned when she wrapped
her legs around his waist. Crazy. He had to be crazy to torture
himself by lying between her thighs wearing clothes. "You're
testing my control."

"I don't want you to have any control."

He caught her bottom lip between his and
sucked, reveled in the tremor that went through her, in her being
as responsive to him as she was to Clay.

Her moan lit him up. He was amazed by his
own restraint.

She was telling the truth. She wanted him to
lose control of himself but take control of her. And he ached to
give her what she was asking for. His cock screamed for him to let
go and pound into her until they both cried out in release. But he
wanted more.

This was their mating day. He wanted to
savor her full surrender, not because he'd taken the control but
because she'd willingly shared her body, her heart, her soul.

"I'm not taking control today." And unable
to stop himself, he thrust against her. "Damn, you make me feel
like I'm back in high school."

Her laugh was sultry, knowing, confident and
that sent another surge of need through his cock. "Really?"

"Really, only better. I'm not a boy
anymore."

"No one could mistake you for that," she
said, hands gliding over his upper arms, caressing and admiring the
muscles beneath the flannel shirt.

He covered her mouth, rubbed his tongue
against hers and had to fight the urge to hump against her. He
cupped her cheek in a gesture of protective desire, thrust his
tongue against hers more aggressively.

Mine!
She wasn't ready to hear the
words, but that didn't make them less true.

She unbraided his hair and a tremor went
through him. His hand left her cheek, stroked down her neck and
over the flannel shirt.

"I like seeing you in my shirt." Not that he
didn't intend to strip her out of it. Not that he wouldn't prefer
her naked.

Her small smile might as well have been her
fist around his cock. His hand slid lower, to her bare thigh. He
caressed the silken skin, admiring sleek muscles by stroking down
to her knee and back to the shirt's hem.

He'd never been a leg man but she'd made him
one. The sight of hers created a constant, looping stream of
images: those legs wrapped around his waist, those legs draped over
his shoulders, those legs spread with her ass in the air and her
pussy glistening with desire.

That image had him fighting not to unzip and
plunge his cock into her. Thunderbird spirit and human body needed
to claim her, but the part of him that she'd probably laugh and
call
the big head
held out—barely—waiting for her to take
them to the next step.

Spasm after spasm rippled through Jessica's
sex. She ate at his mouth. She needed him to touch her. She needed
him to fill the aching emptiness with his cock.

Until now Clay was the only other man who'd
ever been capable of doing this to her. Until now Clay had been the
only man who could make her hunger desperately and reduce her
vocabulary to a single word. "Please."

Sliding her hand down Tekoa's arm, she
covered his hand at the edge of the borrowed shirt. "Please," she
whispered.

He moved off her, and she whimpered at the
loss of his cock pressed to her clit. Shivered, glad for the lack
of panties, as she guided his hand beneath the shirt and to her
wet, swollen sex.

He moaned and took her mouth, his kiss
dominant, possessive, his fingers gliding over her slick folds.

It felt so good. So right. It shouldn't but
it did.

He pressed her erect clit and ecstasy pulsed
into her. With each slide of his fingers over the sensitive head
she shivered and her hips arched off the thick handmade rug.

She couldn't contain the whimpers, the
tremors, the jerking movements of her body. Each one of his touches
sent pleasure burning from her swollen clit to her toes, to her
breasts and into her heart.

Need built, became a tightening ball of fire
between her thighs, a knot that would burst and become exquisite
ecstasy.

He abandoned her clit. "No," she cried.
"Please don't stop."

He pushed his fingers into her and she
clamped down, inner muscles rippling, but it wasn't enough to send
her over.

His mouth moved to her ear. "I'm not going
to rush," he said, his breathing as fast as hers.

The quick fuck of his tongue into her ear
sent shivery pleasure downward. He took the lobe between his lips
and sucked in time to the rhythmic thrust and retreat of his
fingers in her channel.

She clamped her legs together in an effort
to trap his palm against her clit so she could press into it and
gain release. He laughed, a purely masculine sound that stroked
down her spine and flooded her channel with additional arousal.

He bit down on her earlobe in warning. "If
this wasn't our first time together, I'd punish you for trying
that. You know I don't want you to come."

Heat scorched through her at his dominance.
Until Clay she hadn't known how much she'd enjoy submitting.

Tekoa's mouth returned to hover above hers.
Their eyes met and held. His palm rubbed over the head of her clit
in tiny circles that had her hips jerking and her breath coming in
small, sharp pants.

"You're so beautiful, so desirable, I bet
Clay has to punish you to remind you who you belong to and who's in
charge. Doesn't he, Jessica?"

"Yes." It came out shaky.

"Do you like it when he punishes you?"

"Yes."

"Good, because sometimes I'm going to punish
you too."

Her thighs tightened on his hand. Her
channel gripped his fingers. Her hips canted and moved.

She rubbed her clit against his palm in
blatant defiance and temptation, a thrill spiking into her at
playing this game with him. "But no punishment today?"

His smile was dark and feral. His unbound
hair fell on either side of her face. "No punishment today. Open
your legs."

There was a hard edge to his voice and
everything inside her responded to it. She parted her thighs, the
submission deepening her desire, deepening her connection to
him.

She shivered at reading the pleasure in his
eyes because of that submission. His hand move to her inner thigh.
Dark eyes silently commanded her to bare herself, offer herself.
More arousal slid from her opening. But instead of obeying, she
undid his top button.

His face tightened and the familiar rush of
feminine power coiled in her belly and spread into her pussy and
breasts. Slowly she bared his chest.

"I want you," she said.

"I'm glad."

She stroked his smooth, bronzed chest and
abdomen. Explored the tiny, dark nipples and reveled in the way he
held himself completely still though the flush across his
cheekbones and the hard line of his mouth said it was costing him
not to lose control.

She nuzzled a nipple, licked her tongue over
it and his breath caught. She took the nipple between her lips,
lightly bit then sucked.

Tekoa panted. His hips jerked and his hand
went to the front of his jeans, grasped his cock on a moan. He
didn't know how much more he could take.

She nudged him over and he rolled to his
back. She straddled him, took him prisoner with the press of her
wet pussy against the back of his hand.

The flaw in his plan became obvious. He'd
wanted her to come to him willingly and so he'd forbidden himself
from taking control, but that didn't mean she wouldn't make him
beg.

He should have factored in her relationship
with Clay. He should have realized that she'd know exactly how to
retaliate and bring a man to his knees—or put him on his back. He
should have remembered how intelligent she was and questioned the
wisdom of eliminating the threat of punishment.

Her teeth clamped down on his nipple and he
bucked as an arc of erotic pain shot straight to his cock.
"Jessica." It was a plea and a command, a helpless acknowledgment
that she had him at her mercy.

She released the tortured nipple and smiled
against his skin. Slowly she rose onto her knees.

The arrival of a hurricane wouldn't have
made him look away as she freed the buttons on the shirt he'd left
in the bathroom for her. His spirit eyes had seen her breasts the
night before but now it was his human eyes that were riveted to the
beautiful globes with their pink, pouting nipples.

His gaze traveled downward, over her sleek
belly to the small triangle of gold and the swollen, flushed folds
beneath it. His cock spasmed, leaked, the foreskin further
retracting.

His hand twitched. He couldn't stop himself
from stroking his shaft through the jeans.

She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever
seen. She was the only woman he would ever want.

Mine
. She was his, would always be
his though she didn't know it, couldn't know it. She wasn't ready
to learn the full truth of what it was to be one of The People.

She tossed the shirt aside and his eyes
jerked upward, devoured her breasts as his cock screamed for
mercy.

"Does showing you my breasts mean you'll
touch them?" she asked, confidence turning her into a wicked
temptress. "Or do I have to put your hand on them like I had to do
with my pussy?"

"Jessica," he warned. But without the threat
of punishment to back it up, the sharp-edged need in his voice
offered encouragement.

She cupped her breasts as if weighing them
to determine their value. Her thumbs brushed over the nipples
deepening in color, already like mouth-watering berries presented
to a starving man.

He groaned. If she licked them…

He tightened his grip on his cock, used pain
to chase away the overwhelming urge to come. Two could play at this
game. "Does Clay like to see you touching your breasts?"

She shuddered and the flutter of her swollen
pussy against the back of his hand was a small victory, a
short-lived victory, a victory that ended when she took her nipples
between her fingers and squeezed them. Leaned over so they were
inches away from his mouth.

"He likes watching me play with my nipples,
but he'd rather touch them himself. Do I have to ask you to touch
them? Or is this good enough?"

With a growl he pulled her to him and then
rolled so she was underneath him. His hands went to her wrists and
pinned them at her sides. He gave her a savage, punishing kiss
before he moved to her breasts and latched onto a nipple.

Jessica arched in pleasure, streaks of
ecstasy shot to her pussy with each hard, hungry pull. He ravaged
her nipples and she ground against him, each rub of her mound
against rock hard abs making her channel clench and ache with
emptiness.

"Take off your jeans," she begged.

He bit her nipple. Sucked. Turned her into a
writhing, sobbing mass of need.

Slowly he lifted his face, masculine
satisfaction stamped on his features. "Do you promise to
behave?"

She lowered her eyelashes in a show of
submission. "What do you think?"

His laugh was husky, heart-surrounding.
"That I want you more than I've ever wanted another woman."