Authors: Jacqueline Rhoades
Tags: #romance, #paranormal romance, #shifters, #paranormal adventure romance, #wolvers, #wolves shifting, #paranormal shifter series, #paranormal wolf romance, #wolves romance
This time when he drew her into his embrace,
his kiss had more urgency to it. She could feel his heart pounding
against the hand held to his chest and her heart matched its beat.
They drew apart and as they came back together, his hands slid over
her back to her bottom and he lifted her. She knew what he wanted
of her and she wrapped her legs around his waist, centering their
apex over the bulge in his jeans. This placed her head above his
and when he groaned with the pressure her locked ankles applied,
Tommie kissed him.
There was no gentleness to it. Her hands
gripped his shoulders and her mouth descended on his. There was a
moment’s hesitation on his part and then he responded with all the
aggression she’d first expected. One hand was left supporting her
rear while the other gripped the hair at the back of her head and
forced her mouth onto his. The fire of his hunger fed hers and the
flames of desire engulfed them both. He snarled against her lips.
She took his lower lip between her teeth and pulled. Tongues
touched, licked and fought for control. Teeth clashed. Mouths
devoured.
Tommie couldn’t get enough of him; the feel
of him, the scent of him, the taste of him. He was hers. She kissed
his eyes and felt the flutter of his lashes against her tongue. Her
eyes, her lashes. She nuzzled him nose to nose, tasted his cheeks,
felt the roughness of his day old beard against her chin, ran a
line of sweet kisses across his brow. Her hands gripped the sides
of his head, forcing his mouth back to hers. Her body trembled with
excitement. Her breath came in hot, heavy pants.
“
Mine. Mine.
Mine.
”
The hand gripping her hair pulled back,
forcing her chin up and her mouth away from where she wanted it to
be. She made a sound of protest, but Bull ignored it. His mouth
devoured her throat, sucking, nibbling, teasing her with his
tongue. He worked his way from the underside of her chin, along her
jaw to the lobe of her ear, leaving a tendril of fire in his wake.
The tendril burst into a streak of hot lightning when he nuzzled
the neck of her sweater aside and bit down on the crook of her
neck.
It wasn’t painful, just a light nip, but the
sizzle of heat it produced ran through her body straight to her
core. A sound like a growl rumbled deep in her throat.
Bull stopped, pulled away from her, and
angled her head to look at her with eyes that weren’t quite human.
The pupil had lengthened, no longer rounded but oval. The iris
expanded, glowing eerily in the darkness. She was looking into the
eyes of his wolf and she liked what she saw.
In a blink, Bull’s eyes became human again,
but lost none of their intensity. “Here or the tent?” he asked, his
whisper loud in the stillness of the night.
She released her legs from his waist and slid
down his body until her feet touched the ground. Placing her hands
against his chest, she rolled her eyes heavenward as if deciding,
then grinned as she pushed off and ran.
He was right behind her when she reached the
tent. When she dropped to her knees to crawl inside, his hand
cracked her ass with a thump. The force of it sent her flying onto
the bed of blankets thrown over a thin foam mat. The door was
zipped and he was on her before she had a chance to fully turn.
His hands ran up her sides, taking her
sweater with them. She was blinded for a moment as he peeled it up
over her head. He left it on the arms she’d raised to aid in its
removal. While she struggled to remove the tangled sweater from her
arms, Bull struggled with her jeans, tugging and pulling them over
her hips.
“
You’ve put on weight
already.”
“
Is that a compliment or
complaint.” Her laugh was a whisper of air.
“
Both,” he said.
The jeans came free. Boots were tossed, along
with the jeans, socks and panties. Straddling her legs, he kissed
her mound, then drew a line with the tip of his tongue to her
navel. At her sharp intake of breath, he immediately stopped.
“
If I hurt you, you’ll tell
me, right? It’s only been a couple of days.”
“
I’m a wolver, remember? I
heal fast and the only thing that’s hurting is you in those tight
jeans.” She curled forward and grabbed his belt buckle. “We need to
fix that.” She shoved him back and he let her.
She had his shirt off and tugged at his
jeans. When he tried to help, she slapped at his hands. “My
present, I get to unwrap it.”
“
You’re a pushy
woman.”
“
I’m a hungry woman,” she
laughed as his erection bobbed out in front of her nose. A whiff of
something else caught her attention; corned beef, cheese,
sauerkraut, rye. “Do I smell a Rueben?” Her eyes searched the
tent.
“
Damn, spitfire, you sure
know how to burst a guy’s bubble. Thrown over for a corned beef
sandwich.”
“
Not just any corned beef
sandwich, a Rueben. We all have our favorites,” she laughed.
“Hey!”
Tommie found herself in the same position
she’d been in a moment before. Only this time her legs were thrown
over his shoulders and his face was buried between them.
“
Mine’s chocolate,” he said
as his tongue started its search.
“
Well, you won’t find any
down there,” she giggled before she gasped.
“
I know. I’m working my way
up to it.”
He worked her, ye gods, how he worked her.
Fingers and tongue, the man knew what he was doing and he did it
well. He tormented. He teased. He found every spot that made her
gasp, pant, or beg for more and the wolfy bastard enjoyed it. He
laughed when she swore at him for bringing her up, up and up and
then withdrawing until she fell back to earth only to bring her up
until she was begging once again.
“
Please, please,
please.”
“
Is this what you want?” he
snickered as his fingers pumped in and out, in and out, unerringly
massaging the sweet spot inside her that most men never
found.
“
Yes, yes, yes!” The current
of her orgasm traveled out through her body in waves. Her head went
back, her body arched, and for a moment, sight and sound
vanished.
And then she was in his arms and he was
kissing her eyes and cheeks and brow and whispering in his deep,
deep voice.
“
Beautiful, so
beautiful.”
“
Me? The skinny assed
wolver?”
He laughed again, though she hadn’t meant to
be funny.
“
Yes, you. My beautiful
skinny assed wolver.”
He kissed her lips, her neck. He suckled her
breasts, gently giving her time to recover, but not to relax. And
when her hands began to roam over his body, exploring the mountains
of muscle and the valleys between them, he entered her slowly with
a sigh of satisfaction.
He began to move within her and just as with
his kisses, he was slow and gentle until he felt her rise to meet
him. At her whimper of need, he increased his pace little by little
until he was pounding into her. With feet planted firmly, hips
rising and falling, she met him thrust for thrust. Once again her
body tensed and shivered with the rising tide of her orgasm. He
rode the wave with her, forcing himself deeper and deeper, taking
her measure and filling her with his own.
He groaned his pleasure, gave one last
thrust, and as his own wave crested and fell, he collapsed onto
her, bracing himself on his forearms to protect her from his
crushing weight. He buried his face in the crook of her neck.
“
That was,” he panted, “That
was...”
“
The bomb. When can we do it
again?”
He turned round three over to her and all he
had to do was lay back and enjoy it. Tommie certainly did.
Tommie was smiling when Bull rolled off of
her and onto his back with a contented look on his face. A fine
sheen of sweat glistened on his body and he felt as if he’d run a
marathon.
“
Damn, spitfire, and here I
thought you were one of those cool and quiet types.”
“
I was quiet,” Tommie
giggled.
Bull shook his head. “I’m too tired to
laugh.”
Tommie, too, was exhausted, but energized as
well. Making love, having sex, whatever you wanted to call it with
Bull had freed something in her. She knew her wolf was partly
responsible, but it was more than that.
For the first time in her life, she felt
comfortable with who she was. She knew where she wanted to go and
knew who she wanted to go there with. She was wolver and she
belonged with Bull.
“
Mate
,” her wolf sighed contentedly and Tommie understood now what
she hadn’t before. To her wolf, mate was more than a word. It was
more than a word to her now, too.
“
Yeah,” she said in
agreement and that added to her happiness. After years of fighting
the creature inside her, they were finally on the same
wavelength.
“
Yeah?” Bull asked sleepily
and sounding like he thought he’d missed something.
She couldn’t tell him. He’d think her a fool
for being so sure of such of thing after so short a time.
“
It surprised me, too. It
must be my wolf,” she said since their wolves seemed to be at the
core of everything wolvers did. “You have no idea what being locked
in that cage did to her.”
A stillness came over Bull that had nothing
to do with a lack of movement.
“
Yeah, I do.”
His voice was so low even her wolf’s ears had
a hard time hearing him. Those three words were so filled with pain
and regret, she knew he wasn’t speaking of himself.
Tommie rolled from her position on her back
beside him to one where she could mold herself to his side. She
placed her hand on his chest, over his heart, and her head on his
shoulder where her mouth would be close to his ear.
“
Who?” she whispered,
because instinct told her he needed to say it.
“
I watched my mother die in
one.”
~*~
“
Oh, Bull.”
Her voice, so soft and filled with sorrow,
touched him in a way he couldn’t explain.
Most women would want to know the details.
They’d press him to talk about his feelings. What good would that
do? It sure as hell wouldn’t bring his parents or the others
back.
Bull waited for Tommie to ask so he could
make it clear that this slip of the tongue didn’t mean he wanted to
‘share’. She didn’t ask and he wondered why he should be surprised.
Tommie wasn’t like most women. She understood about keeping some
secrets to yourself.
She pressed her body closer as if that little
body could keep his big one warm. The amazing thing was that it
did. There was a softness to her, a kindness that had nothing to do
with her shape or size. Amidst her own personal problems, she’d
chosen a career where she took on others’ problems, too. Well, she
didn’t need to take on his.
“
It was a long time ago,” he
told her. He ran his hand along her back to let her know he was
okay. “It doesn’t matter.”
She inched her way across his chest until her
lips touched his chin. Her kiss was like the flutter of butterfly
wings. Her breath was warm as she spoke against his skin.
“
Of course it matters. You
loved her and time doesn’t change that. She was a good woman who
didn’t deserve to die that way and it hurts.”
Bull changed his mind about her not being
like other women. “Here it comes,” he thought. “Tell me about her.”
But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He lifted his head and looked down at
the little wolver lying across his chest and waited for it. When it
didn’t come, he tried to make light of her concern.
“
You wouldn’t know if she
was good or not. She could have been a thief and a
murderer.”
“
If she was, she had her
reasons.” Tommie shrugged and Bull felt the pleasure of her small
breasts moving against his chest. “It doesn’t matter. She was still
a good woman. I know. I’ve met her son.”
Bull snorted a little laugh. “If you think
I’m a good man, you really are crazy, spitfire.”
Another shrug. “Maybe I am, but in my line of
work, I’ve seen both sides of the coin when it comes to men. You
can’t fool me, Bull. You’re one of the good guys.”
~*~
Cora nodded her head at Bull and the five
little boys who were working together to bring him to the ground.
The play looked pretty rough, but no one else seemed to mind so
Tommie kept her thoughts to herself.
“
Can’t figure why he hasn’t
settled with a family of his own,” Cora said along with the nod.
“Look how he is with them pups, organizing, teaching, and having a
whale of a good time doing it. Now you tell me, what’s a man like
that doing with a pack of males? No females, no pups, it’s not
natural. I can tell you that.
Tommie stirred the buttons in the tin box
beside her, searching for one that would match the shirt on her
lap. Everyone in the camp was busy and when Cora asked if she could
help with the mending, Tommie volunteered to sew buttons since she
wasn’t much of a seamstress. Now, it was a good excuse to keep her
head down and her face hidden by a curtain of hair so her new
friend wouldn’t see her smile.
The woman had been going on about Bull for
the last twenty minutes. By adding up the few facts she’d gleaned
from the man and a few more of her own that came largely from
speculation, Cora had arrived at a conclusion. The man suited her
requirements perfectly.