Temptation: Reckless Desires (Blue Moon Saloon Book 2) (10 page)

He blinked a little, then grinned. “As you wish, ma’am. As you wish.”

Cole took a deep breath before Janna nodded him over to the bed, trying to keep himself under control. He’d just about slung her over his shoulder to get her up the stairs, then pulled the rip-her-shirt off stunt that shocked him. Since when did he drag women off onto his turf and tear off their clothes?

But this was one part of impending lunacy he’d be glad to run with as long as Janna was on board with the plan. And man, was she on board.

I want you to touch me. To want me. To take me.

He was a goner the minute she’d spoken the words. They’d hijacked the thinking part of his mind and let instinct take over, and now instinct was taking her to the bed. Not the floor, because somehow, it seemed very, very important to hang on to the last few threads of civilized man left in him. Critical, almost, that he not cross that invisible demarcation line.

So he backed Janna over to the bed and tilted her down, and she went willingly. Enthusiastically. Spreading her long, lean, naked body out under his hungry gaze. Trusting him completely. Which was crazy, because he didn’t even trust himself.

“Hey.” She smiled, wrapping an ankle around his calf. “Time to lose the jeans.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“I wasn’t asking, cowboy.” She grinned, making his hard-on even harder.

He slid the jeans off slowly, fighting back his darkest urges. Promising himself he’d keep control of whatever it was inside him that kept trying to grab the reins.

Take her! Claim her! Make her ours!

He almost snarled at the voice in the back of his mind. No way. No how. He would make love to Janna the way he wanted to and she agreed with, and no other way.

Show her! Take her! Now!
The voice became a roar when her eyes widened at the sight of his hard-on springing free. His nostrils widened, catching the sticky-sweet scent of her desire. The scent threw his mind into the same dizzy spin he’d experienced when he’d first tasted her. Sex used to be all about touch and feel; suddenly, smell and taste were part of it, too. Which might have made him worry if the sensations didn’t drive him so wild.

He stepped into the space between her legs, and when she wiggled back and propped her heels on the edge of he bed, exposing herself to him completely, he growled. Really growled, though Janna didn’t seem to mind.

I need you, too,
her eyes said. Eyes that were wide and wild, but a little worried, too, like they harbored some terrible secret he really, really didn’t want to know.

He stood transfixed for a moment, undecided between dropping to his knees to taste her again and prowling over her prone body to nestle his cock at the entrance to her soft folds. Or flipping her over and going at it on all fours, like the voice in the back of his mind kept voting for.

He cocked his head at her.
Lady’s choice.

He didn’t say the words aloud, but Janna seemed to know just what he meant.

What if I said all three?
her saucy grin asked.

She broke the stalemate a second later by reaching out and pulling him down for a kiss. A deep, greedy kiss she broke a second later with a barely suppressed gasp.

“God, I need you inside me. Now, Cole.”

He grinned despite the throbbing ache in his cock.

“You know how often I dreamed about you saying that to me?”

She tilted her chin up, making her hair cascade back. “Really? Dirty dreams? Why, Cole Harper, I didn’t think you were the type.”

“Then you must not know me very well,” he countered.

“No? Then let me get to know you better.”

God, it was fun, to go back to the easy banter they’d enjoyed at the start. Before his world upended and everything went askew. He finally felt whole again. Balanced. Complete.

Well, close to complete.

Janna wrapped her legs around him and whispered, “Take me.”

The rest came without thinking. He claimed her mouth with a bruising kiss and settled his weight over her body as naturally as though they’d assumed the position a thousand times before. He grabbed a condom from the bedside table, rolled it on, and let his burning cock slide a hard trail down her stomach, across her folds, and finally—

“Cole,” she moaned as he thrust in. Deep, deep in, in one hard, hungry slide.

He sucked in a lungful of air and dropped his face to her shoulder, panting there for one silent second.

Will not hurt this woman. Will not hurt her…

It became a chant as he pulled back then pushed forward again, relishing her hot, tight hold on him. Relishing the sensation of her body stretching to accommodate him and take him deeper every time.

“Yes…” she murmured dreamily. “Yes…”

The sticky-sweet scent was strongest at her neck, and he got high on it as he set into a rhythm she met with little bucks of her own.

“Yes… Please…”

His steady slide became a feverish pound, but Janna just dug her heels into his ass and spurred him on. Gripping the headboard hard, she opened her mouth in silent cries as beads of sweat appeared on her skin. She tilted her hips right and let him scrape along one side of her slick channel, then the other. She spread her legs wider and grazed his back with her nails.

The pinch in his balls became the best kind of about-to-burst agony he’d ever felt, right on the razor’s edge of pleasure and pain. He drew her knees over his shoulders, lifting her clear off the bed. Pounded harder and harder, groaning her name.

She mumbled incoherently and swung her head from side to side, drowning him with her heavenly scent. He burrowed against the skin of her neck, and everything in him screamed for him to bite. Janna’s body screamed that, too, as she exposed the soft, sinewy flesh of her neck to him.

An artery pulsed in time with his thrusts, and it mesmerized him. Hypnotized him, practically. He reached a hand to her forehead to tip her head even farther back, unable to resist.

Bite her! Claim her! Make her mine!

Temptation. Instinct. Desire. Each wrapped around the other, singing the same song.

Take her! Claim her! Bite!

“Cole,” she groaned, exactly at the same time.

He twisted his fingers in her hair and ran the other hand down the line of her neck. Sniffed and found exactly the right spot.

The right spot for what?
a distant part of his brain asked.

He had no idea, only that biting her there was what he had to do. What she wanted him to do.

“Yes…” Janna mumbled, digging her nails into his back. “Yes…”

He spread his jaws wide. Tipped Janna’s head even more, then dipped down and scraped his teeth over her throat.

God, that felt good. God, he wanted more.

“Yes…” Janna panted so hard, her chest rose and fell.

He nipped at her skin and jolted at the shot of electricity that sent through his soul. If a little nip could do that, a bite would be better, right?

Bite,
the inner voice agreed.
Bite deep.

It was all so dreamy. So intoxicating. So tempting.

“Cole…” Janna urged him on.

She was close to coming, as was he, and he wanted nothing better than to bury his cock to the hilt and bite at the same time.

Then Pip barked outside, and both their heads swiveled toward the open door. A momentary distraction that made him gulp.

Holy shit. Had he just been fantasizing about savaging Janna’s neck?

He saved the inner lecture for later and tucked his chin a safe distance from her throat. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on finishing what he’d started. Sliding in and out. Reaching deeper and deeper. Letting the windstorm of desire rise inside while he tunneled further into the heaven that was Janna.

“Janna,” he croaked. One muscle after another went stiff as he held on, milking his high as long as he could.

“Cole,” Janna breathed, shuddering at exactly the same time.

His whole body shook as he came, and a warm wave washed over him. His chin dipped, and he dropped onto her, spent and empty and yet fuller than he’d ever felt. Of love. Of belonging. Of hope.

He closed his eyes and breathed it all in. Pretended there wasn’t anything scary about the emotions she unleashed in him. He held her tight against his chest and listened to her heart pound.

“Janna,” he whispered, stroking her hair into place. He said it over and over, drowning out the sleepy voice in his head.

Mine,
the deep voice mumbled.
Mate.

Janna snuggled closer to Cole, all but purring in contentment.

Wolves don’t purr,
her inner beast hummed.

She ran a finger down Cole’s arm, tracing the cords of muscle that ran this way and that.

Purr, hum, whatever. She felt good.

Real good
, her wolf agreed.

“Can I get a rain check for sex on the floor?” she murmured.

When Cole lifted his head to look at her, a long line of muscle stood out along his abdomen. The clouds in his eyes had settled to a warm, calm gray with a golden glow around the edges, like the sun about peek out from the trailing edge of a winter storm.

“No good?”

She chuckled. “
Too
good. I think I need to spread out my guilty pleasures. You know, like eating chocolate.”

“Like what?” The look on his face said he’d never struggled with that particular sin.

She patted his chest and heaved yet another sigh. “Believe me, I want it. Soon.”

I want you, my mate.
Her wolf nodded along.

His eyes glowed a little brighter, and she wondered if he’d sensed her wolf talking to him. Which would be good, right? Maybe that meant her wolf could help him get through the worst of the Change when the time came.

She glanced at the sunlight slanting in through the open doorway as the sun dipped lower to the horizon. They’d loved their way straight through the afternoon, and night was only a few hours away. Night and the nearly full moon.

Janna opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, fishing for words. She’d come to tell Cole about the Change. To break it to him gently, if such a thing were possible. And here she was, wrapped around him like a horny python around a tree.

But he looked so peaceful, so calm. Calmer than she’d seen him in ages, so she didn’t have the heart to say it just yet.

She would, though. She’d tell him soon.

A cool wind whispered through the pines on the mountainside nearby.
Night. Moon. Coming soon.

She suppressed a shiver by snuggling closer and nuzzling his neck. Nuzzled long and hard until she’d chased the fear and worry away, at least for a little while. Nuzzling was a pleasure nearly as great as sex. Her sister and Simon did a lot of it, and she’d always rolled her eyes at them, but now she knew how they felt. She scraped up against his shoulder, then his neck, rubbing herself in his rich scent. Her wolf made happy, pig-in-mud noises as she did it, and she giggled.

“What?” Cole laughed.

“This. You. Me.” She kept right on nuzzling. “Us.”

“Us,” he echoed.

Us,
her wolf sighed, relishing the word.
Finally, we’re an us.

She let out her next breath slowly, because that was the problem. They weren’t an
us
yet. Not by a long shot. Somehow, she had to get him through the Change alive. Explain the impossible, then exchange mating bites, and then…

There were about a thousand things that could go wrong along the way, and for a moment, she despaired. But then she pushed the feeling away. Right now, she could enjoy the moment, knowing it helped Cole’s inner wolf bond with hers. That was the key.

Well, it seemed like the key. In truth, she knew precious little about what might help a human survive the Change. As a born shifter from a pack in which no one had ever taken a human mate, she really had no clue.

So she went right on nuzzling, because that seemed like the right thing to do.

“You’re a champion nuzzler,” he chuckled.

If only he knew.

“And you’re a champ when it comes to bulls,” she ventured. She’d had her heart in her throat, watching him distract the bull earlier that afternoon. The minute she’d made it to the safety of the fence with the little boy, she’d wheeled around and screamed for Cole. Watched him perform crazy, death-defying stunts, like leaping straight over the bull’s horns, then ducking under the rear legs when it kicked. He made it look so simple, as if tangling with two thousand pounds of murderous bull was nothing but a game of duck duck goose. The near misses, the instinctive reactions, the level-headed self-control. She’d seen him in action in that television replay, but to see him outfox a bull in real life… Her heart sped up just thinking about it.