A True Alpha Christmas (9 page)

Mia hugged her hard after that, and long. Eventually Mr. Sparks, Lucas’s father, came and escorted her away. Mia watched them head back through the forest, toward the cars, and only then did she realize that most of the party was dissipating. Only not everyone was tromping through the forest in the direction of the parking lot. Couples were peeling off and disappearing into the shadows. Mia glimpsed Lev in his fur coat and Rebecca in her regular one right before they slipped into the darkness.

“Where are they going?” she asked Lucas.

His grin was filled with the kind of heat that made her body tingle under the warm blanket of fur. “There’s one last part of this ceremony. It’s an after party. Of sorts.”

He took her hand and led her across the meadow toward the trees on the far side.

“Is everyone doing this?” Mia asked as Lucas led her into the forest.

He kept marching as he spoke. “Only the couples. Mostly the mated ones, but I’m sure a few of the non-shifter dates are having a very furry Christmas.”

Mia giggled and yet still felt strangely nervous.
They were outside.
Wouldn’t the others hear them? Or maybe see? Then again, she expected they were all thinking the same thing… and preoccupied at the moment. Plus Mia and Lucas’s little corner of the forest felt like it was a thousand miles from anyone and anywhere else.

Lucas found a fern-filled clearing between the fallen logs and upright trees that hid the stars overhead. He gathered her up in his arms and tugged her to the center. The ferns were springy and came up to her knees. The ground below them was mostly clear of snow, but the myriad leaves of the ferns each had a sparkling patch of white clinging to it.

“Um…” Mia said, wondering how this was going to work.

“Yes, Ms. Fiore?” Lucas asked. He trailed a finger along her collar bone, slowly parting the fur coat she had been holding closed against the elements. A rush of winter air kissed her body through the parting of the fur, tightening her nipples and prickling out flesh all over her body.

Mia gasped in a breath, but the heat flooding between her legs kept her from feeling the cold. Lucas pulled in an appreciative breath between his teeth, cupping her breast in one hand while opening the coat farther with the other.

He bent closer and nuzzled her cheek. “Did you have something you wanted to say?” His fingers grasped her taut nipple and pinched in a way that sent streaks of fire right to her core.

“Um…” She was having a hard time forming coherent thoughts beyond the sensations racing across her body.

His chuckle was deep. “I clearly need to work a little harder if I want you to start praying my name.”

She recovered her wits enough to wind her fingers into his fur coat, which had also fallen open, given his hands were occupied with tormenting her body with pleasure: he had a hand on each breast, alternating soft and hard twists with his thumbs on her nipples. His erection bobbed tantalizingly close to her body, but not touching. And she
ached
to touch so much more. Her hands skimmed down the fur of his coat. She had every intention of making him just as breathless as she was.

He caught her wrist before she could wrap her fingers around his cock. “Not yet, Miss Mia, or the first time will go far too quick.”

“The first time?” She let him place her hand back on his shoulder then dug her fingers up into his hair. He wasn’t kissing her, and she wanted that to change.

“We’re going to be here a while.” His lips whispered against her neck. “I considered stocking with woods with provisions ahead of time.” One of his hands skimmed her stomach and slipped between her legs.

She gasped at the sudden contact, the insane mixture of heat and cold, friction and a biting draft, all right where she wanted more of everything. But she wasn’t going to make it
that
easy on him. She slipped her hand beneath his fur, tracing the hard muscled lines of his stomach with her flat palm. She could tell by the hitch in his breathing that she was affecting him with her slow traces across his skin.

“You were awfully confident I was going to say yes, weren’t you?” she whispered as she slowly wound her hand lower. Maybe this time, he wouldn’t stop her.

“I wasn’t going to stop asking until you did.” His fingers teased her entrance, promising more, then retreating. Her entire body was lighting up with the heat of it. She was already breathless, and she wasn’t interested in going slow. She wanted to close the inches that separated them and be joined together like they were meant to be.
Forever.

“Lucas, I want you.” Her breath was a tiny cloud of crystals in the air beside them.

“You can do better than that,” he chastised.

The slow dance of his fingers flirted with the wet heat between her legs. He was slipping the tips of his fingers in and out of her… but nowhere near enough for what she wanted. It was making her insane. She quickly slid her hand down and grasped hold of his cock—it was hot in her hand, silken skin over a hardness she couldn’t wait to have inside her.

He sucked in a breath. “Clearly you aren’t taking instruction well tonight.” He wrested her hand from him again and held her by both wrists away from his body. He let his gaze roam across her skin, and she felt it like a hot brush painting her—it chased away the cold and made her ache even more.

“Are you just going to look?” Mia asked, her chest heaving.

His growl was low, and she could see his cock pulse in response to her words.
Good.
Maybe she could torment him with her words, if not her hands.
All was fair…

“If you don’t want my hands on you, maybe you would like my mouth better?”

He groaned and, in one swift motion, pulled her body tight against him. She was inside the warm harbor of his coat now, hot up against his body. He gathered her hand—the one with his ring—to his lips and dropped a kiss on each finger. Then he released it and slid her fur coat from her shoulders. It fell to the ground behind her.

“On your knees, Ms. Fiore.”

She dropped to the fur blanket that was now below her, eagerly grasping his cock as she went. She took him into her mouth as deeply as she could, gripping the base and readying to have him crying out her name for all the forest to hear… but she only got to taste him for a moment before he laced fingers in her hair and pulled her head away.

None too gently, either. The pull on her scalp pulsed heat to her core.

“That wasn’t the position I was referring to.” His voice was hoarse with the lust she could feel rolling off him in waves, like the heat of his body. He released her hair and twirled her around, quickly folding her down on her hands and knees with him positioned behind her. His cock slid along her wetness, but he was still teasing, not taking her the way she wanted. He kept that position but leaned over her, his fur coat falling to either side of them, blanketing her in heat with his hot hands on her back and the warm space around them. He was taking his time, feeling every curve of her body, all while denying her what she wanted. And she was already more than hot enough to ward off the winter chill.

“Lucas,” she panted, pleading.

“Is there something you want, Ms. Fiore?” His hands found her hair again, and he was pulling her head to the side, tasting her shoulder where he had claimed her so many times since that first day he made her his.

“I want…” Her breath caught as he slid his hand around to her front, gently pinching the tight nub of her sex and momentarily obliterating all thought. When she could see straight again, she breathed out, “I want to be Mrs. Sparks.”

Lucas froze, every motion against her stilling… which was the exact opposite of what she wanted. And her heart lurched—wasn’t that what he wanted too?

Then he growled the word
mine,
low and earthy, like he was on the verge of shifting, and suddenly thrust his cock inside her so hard it rocked them both forward on the fur. He grabbed hold of her hips, drawing her back, and she could feel his claws come out, digging into her, holding her in place while he thrust fast and hard, again and again, into her. He was so large and the angle was just right for him to plunge as deep as he had ever been.

She cried out, a wordless shriek of pleasure. Then he bent over her as he continued to thrust deep inside. His hands were in her hair again, pulling to expose her neck for the bite she knew would soon come. The bite she craved. Pleasure and tension coiled low in her belly, every thrust pushing her closer to a fast-rushing peak.

“Oh god, Lucas, yes, please, yes.” She was babbling, lost in the pleasure and the fact that she had driven him to this frenzy of the claiming. Just as she thought the pleasure couldn’t ramp any higher, he sunk his canines into her shoulder, piercing her and pulsing an exquisite pain that pushed her over the edge. She cried out again and again, gasping as the waves of her orgasm and the magic of his bite pulsed throughout her body, rippling out to every throbbing nerve ending she possessed. Lucas thrust even harder and groaned through his own climax. Just as the tide of her pleasure peaked, and she started to come down, he released her with his mouth.

Gasping and panting behind her, he continued to thrust, drawing every last bit of pleasure from her. Then he slowed and urged her to turn over. She collapsed onto the fur blanket below her, and Lucas laid the length of his body along hers, hot and heaving with breath and keeping her covered with his fur coat. He kept his weight off, but she could feel the pounding of his heart through their chests, pressed skin-to-skin together.

He gazed into her eyes with his warm liquid brown ones, and she didn’t think he had ever looked at her with such love. “Mrs. Sparks, there are times when I simply can’t resist you.”

She touched his face with her fingertips, marveling at the ring on her finger and the gorgeous man who would soon be her husband. Who loved her so completely and so passionately that he’d fought to bring all the sides of her life, all the pieces of her heart, together until they were one seamless whole… and that whole heart of hers sang for him and only him.

“I hope there is never a time when you can resist me,” she said with a small smile. Then it faded with the intensity on his face. “Because I’m not whole without you, Lucas Sparks.”

“I never want to be without you, Mia Sparks.” His eyes were lit with such love, she wanted to capture the look on his face and sear it into her heart. When he finally kissed her, it was long and deep, and with a passion she knew would belong to her forever.

And for all the world to see.

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