The Becoming Trilogy Box Set (Books 1-3) (70 page)

Her fingertips tentatively
touched his hair.

He shook his head slowly.
‘Those things he told you about me. It’s all true. I have blood on my hands,
Ash. So much blood. And there will be more.’

‘You blame yourself. I get
that, but you did what you had to do.'

He cradled his head in his
hands, scrubbing at his skull. 'I didn't have to bargain with the Morrígan. I
didn’t have to bite that girl.’

'So you bit her. Know what?’
Ash said.

He turned his bloodshot eyes
to her.

‘I cut her to ribbons in a
jealous rage. I kissed your brother in a moment of weakness, and I will regret
it for eternity. I almost killed that kid, Tyr. And up there in that freaky
attic, I wanted to finish the job. Somehow, I attracted those freaking bird
creatures to the contests and they decimated the wolves, ripped their heads off
and ate them alive. Hardly surprising they all want me dead, is it?'

Holy shit.
His lids flared. 'I didn't know.'

'I didn't intend it, but that
shit happened. I bit you. I coerced you into biting me against your will and it
damn near killed the only man I've ever loved. So if you're a monster, what the
hell does that make me, Connal?’ With a hitch in her voice, Ash got back to her
feet.

‘Are you going to say you
don't love me because of the bad things I've done? Tell me. Say it to my face
that you don't love me anymore, and I'll walk away.'

Connal looked up to meet the
strength burning in her sapphire eyes. He swallowed on a dry throat, aware of
each breath that marked the silence when he didn’t answer. After an eternity,
his gaze dropped back to the ground, jaw clenched.

'You can't, can you?’ she
murmured. ‘Because you do still love me.’

His head snapped back up.

‘You don't get to choose who
you love, Big Bad. You can tell me all the awful things you've done in graphic,
filthy detail, and it won't change the way I feel about you. Not one iota. You
were dragged into this, so was I. You didn’t ask for it. You did what you had
to do to survive. There is a wildness in you. I understand that now, because
ever since you bit me, I’ve been just a howl and a hairsbreadth from giving in
to it myself.’

Ash took a deep breath.

‘So here’s the thing,’ she
said. ‘You don't get the luxury of stonewalling me this time, you stubborn,
self-sacrificing pain in the ass. I’m prepared to wipe the slate. We’ve both
done things we’re not proud of, but we only lose when we stop trying. So get up
and try ... just ...'

‘Shut up.’ Connal was on his
feet and towering over her.

‘What did you say to me?’

‘You heard me. I said. Shut.
Up.’

‘Make me, Big Bad.’

And the Gods help him, but he
did.

C
onnal took possession of her mouth and kissed her with
the kind of raw desperation she could feel from the curl of her toes to the
depths of her soul. He was animal and vulnerable all at once, rough hands
framing her jaw and knotting in the fall of her hair, angling her mouth for the
fever of his kiss. His tongue invaded the parting of her lips, wet-velvet
intimacy stroking inside and reaching deep to tug at the core of her.

She was drowning in
sensation, with no desire whatsoever to come up for air. Palming the nape of
his neck, her fingers twisted into the short spikes of his hair, tugging and
clawing at his scalp, dragging him deeper. When she sucked his lower lip
between her teeth, he groaned and the sound made her clench, low in her belly.
God, compared with this, Mac had felt like kissing her granny. Dizzy and needy,
she went up on her toes to reach for him and the makeshift sarong slipped from
her breasts.

Their tongues tangled in
open-mouthed passion as she scaled his hard body, her weight carrying them over
until his back hit the bed and she was mounted across his hips. His rough hands
rode the curve of her spine to shape the naked rounds of her ass, grinding her
down the thick length of his arousal. She needed him naked, skin on skin,
buried deep and easing the furious ache inside her. His hips bucked between her
thighs and she reached blindly between them, fingers grappling with the fly of
the over-tight jeans. Her hair whipped across her shoulders as she tore herself
from his mouth.

Their gazes locked and
Connal’s expression was wild with the same lust that burned in hers. Coming
full-circle, they were back to the beginning, to the very first time he'd
intruded on her life. Electricity still crackled violently between them, only
this time the intensity was fueled by love and not adrenaline. Not a frying pan
in sight.

He lay there, watching her,
straining with desire as her eyes scrolled down his naked chest. Running her
hands over sculpted muscle and the wolf-brand in his skin, she mourned the loss
of his metal, his flat nipples scarred where the rings has been ripped from his
flesh. So many bruises, so much pain. Her heart squeezed in her chest. Close
up, the scratches and bites around his throat and ribs bore an unmistakably
female signature. Had he gone to a
thrall
, after she’d hurt him? Ash
supposed she’d lost the right to ask.

No.
The slate was wiped, she had her man back in her arms
and she was going to love him so long and hard that any trace of another would
be obliterated. She was wolf and she was going to mark her mate.

She hooked her lower lip
between her teeth and her hands moved lower, stroking the hard ridge of his
cock. He was shaped in glorious anatomical detail by denim so tight, it must
surely be painful.

She could take care of that.

Popping the button, she drew
the zipper slowly down over the tensed fabric. He moaned and her growl was all
animal satisfaction at the reveal. Even more impressive in the flesh, the rigid
girth of him pulsed in the stroke of her palm. His hips canted up off the
mattress and she peeled the jeans down his hard thighs. Her hands pushed at his
knees, making room for herself in between, nipping the sensitive inner skin.

Pleasure thrummed in her
throat, she couldn’t help it. Ash was luxuriating in the intimacy, branding him
with kisses and the threat of sharpened canines. Chancing a look from under her
lashes, she saw Connal’s face, taut with bliss and restraint, his hands clawed
into the sheets. He looked a kiss away from breaking and she had barely touched
him. She wanted him to come undone for her.
Mine!

Her mouth was merciful. She
flicked her tongue out and watched him shudder. Tremors ran through his
muscles, clenched his abs and rolled his hips in a silent plea. Torture, and
not just for him. He smelled divine; musky and raw and aroused, an aphrodisiac
she couldn’t resist. Her flattened tongue curled over the blunt head of his
erection, sleek and warm, encompassing him in the gentle suction of her mouth.
When he pushed for deeper, she slowed, punishing him with a low laugh and a
playful graze of teeth. Rolling just the tip of him between her lips, Ash
locked their gazes. His eyes had long bled from polished steel to blood
crimson, setting her heart thundering. He needed more and Ash was brutal in her
obedience. She waited for the pleading kick of his hips before she growled low
and swallowed him. Thick inches stretched her lips around his girth, and she
hollowed her cheeks in a harsh draw on his iron flesh that had him bucking into
her mouth. His groans stoked fires under her skin and she was moaning with him,
her lips sealed in a stretched kiss at his base.

Connal bowed up, all
straining muscle. Ash revelled in the sight and taste of him as he took her
mouth in a slow-rising tempo. No longer the frightened mouse, afraid of her own
shadow, Ash was a lion-tamer, and she had her beast on a short leash and
panting. For her. She was embarrassingly wet, arousal throbbing at her core as
she took him into the constriction of her throat. He was stunning in his
surrender, stomach muscles tense-relaxing a rhythmic dance with the rough beat
of his hips. It drove her crazy, made her heart soar.

His snarls, hoarse and
hungry, ignited her soul, lit her up, inside and out with animal possession.
Connal was hers, those sounds were for her.

‘Fuck, I need to come inside
you, Ash,’ his voice sounded wrecked. The
please
went unsaid, but his
hands were in her hair and his body was arched, begging.

Her satisfied laugh hummed on
the head of his cock and then she was releasing him with a parting kiss to his
pulsing erection.

He hauled her up his body,
twisting them in one ragged motion so she was breathless beneath him. Despite
his urgency, he was careful with her.

She was going to change that.

Ash scratched at his nape,
grasping at his short hair. She fed on his mouth, deep, bruising, biting her
lust at his lips. Hips winding, she was needy and hot with his weight pressing
down on her, the heavy shaft of his tongue-slick cock riding the cleft of her
sex. She jolted when he glided over her sensitive bud. Connal’s large hand
spanned her stomach, holding her down ... he did it again and her hips jumped,
a whimper falling into the air. The bastard was actually teasing
her
,
now?

‘You know, if you want to
come inside me, you have to
be
inside me ...’ She was beyond frustrated
and painfully turned-on.

His strokes quickened, his
thumb pressed to the tiny bundle of sensation and when she was a snarl away
from pulling rank and commanding him, they collided. Connal was tormenting her
one stroke and slamming inside her the next.

He stilled, his weight
settled between her thighs. Nose to nose, chests heaving, his breath warm on
her lips, they looked into each other’s eyes and she felt it deep. His hips
kicked, kissing that depth.

‘I love you Ashling DeMorgan.
I have never stopped loving you. Whatever comes to pass. Never doubt that,
never forget.’

Ash sobbed as her soul joined
her body in the reunion and emotion swept her up.

Tear-wet lashes lifting, she
spoke to the vulnerable hope laid bare in his steel grey eyes.

Her breath hitched. ‘I love
you, Connal Savage,’ she dragged her lips along the scruff of his jaw, ‘I never
stopped loving you. You’re in my bones, Big Bad, you’re part of me. No matter
what.’ Ash punctuated her last words with hard kisses, imprinting the truth to
his stubborn mouth. She hadn’t been able to breathe without him, and now she
was overdosing on his oxygen.

Sealing them together in a
kiss, Connal’s snarl was all affirmation and possessive satisfaction, rumbling
against her lips, his strong hands pushing her thighs up and angling her into
the brutal, snapping tempo of his hips.

She raked her claws over his
scalp, fisting soft, short hairs for purchase. They were animal and Ash was
going down in flames, her flushed curves arching and grinding in the cage of
his powerful form. Her teeth left shallow punctures on his throat, marking her
territory. Elongated nails hooked into his shoulders as Connal’s hips drilled
her into the mattress, his thrusts synchronised to the circling pressure of his
thumb on her clit, so she quivered around the punch of his cock on every
stroke. Sounds spilled from her lips, praises and curses spurring him on and
demanding
harder, faster, oh yes, do that again.

Ecstasy had her on edge,
nerves twitching, muscles seizing, bracing for the violent thrusts hammering
home emotions too strong to word. Neither could explain how their souls were
irrevocably bound, or how they weren’t really two people, but one. They could
only try to show it. And so they battled it out in frenzied collisions and
biting kisses.

Rough hands braced her thighs
wide as Connal went in for the kill, drilling himself so deep inside her there
could be no doubt. His tempo quickened and pleasure twisted, winding her up, tighter
and tighter until she was barrelling straight for the edge of a cliff, her
orgasm chasing every guttural moan and whimper until Connal tipped their bodies
and they fell, together.

Instinct snapped her jaws
around the straining tendons of his neck and she sank her teeth into his
heartbeat as she came apart. Connal reared up in a lightning strike that knifed
his canines through the exposed line of her throat, plugging them both into the
carnal connection that set stars behind her lids. Endless waves of ecstasy
rewired her nerves and vised her down around the punching thrusts of his girth,
rhythmically milking his release as it pulsed hot to her depths. They surged
through the crests of their pleasure, rode them beyond the shudders, and
collapsed in a tangle of limbs and shivering muscle. Sated, complete.