Saving the Beast (10 page)

He nodded and relief seemed to fill him before the burn of unsated lust intensified and consumed him. His cockhead brushed along her sex, rubbing against the wet seam and bumping her clit.

“Say it again,” he commanded.

She knew just what he wanted to hear. “Fuck me.”

He growled, the sexy rumble sending a fresh coat of desire through her channel just before he entered and claimed her fully.

“Diane,” he groaned and began a punishing rhythm.

Each thrust was hard and deep, penetrating and stretching her to accommodate his girth. It should have been uncomfortable. Hell, it should have hurt. He was so much more than any toy she’d used. But it wasn’t. It was perfect. He was perfect, and her body took him as if they’d been designed for one another.

He used one hand to hold himself above her so her nipples rubbed against the sparse black hair that covered his chest. His other hand gripped her thigh, urging her leg up along his side as he fucked her mercilessly. She clutched his biceps, digging her fingers in and clenching on tightly.

“Mine,” he grunted, his gorgeous golden gaze clashing with hers. “You are mine.” He arched his neck and growled, his canines flashing white against his ebony skin.

She felt an answering call deep within herself and refused to hold it back. She used her grasp on his arms to lift her mouth to his skin. She sank her teeth into the hard muscle on his chest and bit down, not breaking skin but leaving her mark none-the-less.

“Mine,” she said when he glanced at her. “You are mine, Zane, and I will kill any woman who tries to say otherwise.”

“No one but you,” he swore and bent to claim her lips as he claimed her sex.

His tongue fucked in and out of her mouth just as his cock took her pussy. She felt the wildness in him and answered it with her own. She met him on every level. Taking as he took, giving as he gave, fucking as he fucked.

Her hips met his thrust for thrust. Her tongue countered his every forage and retreat. Sweat coated them both from the frantic pace he set, and she kept time with it. He broke the kiss and dropped his lips to the spot where he’d bitten her, licking over the wound. Each pass of his tongue seemed to send a surge of fire into her, edging the flames of desire higher and higher instead of sating them.

“I want to feel you come around my dick,” he told her. “Want to feel you milking every drop of seed from me.”

“Ahhh,” she cried as he fucked her even faster, pounding into her and drawing cries of pleasure from her lips. “Yes! Yes! Oh, God, yes!” She moaned as she came again, her pussy rippling and pulsing around his thrusting cock.

He threw his head back, slammed deep into her and growled her name as she felt the first pulse of cum leave his cock. He eased back and plunged deep again, letting another jet of semen fill her. Then again and again until they were both finally sated and spent. He collapsed beside her, pulling her against his chest as he did, wrapping her in his arms and warmth.

She was content to be held by him, especially when so recently she’d been afraid she’d never see him again.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

Overwhelmed by all the emotions and sensations he’d brought to life within her, she couldn’t answer him immediately.

“Diane.” He turned toward her, shifting them until she lay flat again and he rose over her. “I hurt you!” he exclaimed, wiping a thumb across her cheek and coming away with moisture.

Tears. She hadn’t even realized she was shedding them.

“I’m fine,” she said, rubbing trembling fingers over her face. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”

“You’re not the type of woman men fuck.”

“Why the hell not?” she demanded, getting angry. “What’s wrong with me?”

He chuckled. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” He ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “You’re the type of woman a man makes love to.”

She shook her head. “Only you.”

He smiled then her words seemed to sink in. “I wasn’t… You weren’t…” He swallowed, seemingly unable to finish either question.

She nodded her head. “You’re the only man I’ve ever been with, Zane.”

“Jesus! And I took you like the animal I am. I should have made love to you,” he whispered with remorse.

“You did,” she replied. “With your mouth,” she added.

He shook his head.

“Then you fucked me,” she said. “And I enjoyed every moment of it. I like the animal you are. I like it very much. So much so that I’m anticipating you doing it again.”

“I think I can manage that,” he vowed, rolling them until she was beneath him again. “After.”

“After what?”

“We make love,” he answered. “I think the beast is sated enough I can manage to hold myself in check.”

“What if I don’t want you to?” Diane asked.

“I want to,” he said softly. He reached down between them, bringing his cock once more to her opening. This time he entered slow and easy, gliding into her sheath and stilling when he was deep within her. “I wanted to seduce you. To take my time and win you over.”

“You did.” She sighed as he pulled back again until just the crown remained inside. “I’m seduced. I’m won over.”

“How did you know?” he asked.

“That I was your mate?”

He nodded.

“I didn’t.”

“What?” He stilled inside her again. “Why would you come after me if you weren’t sure? My beast is primal. He, no we, could kill anyone who isn’t our mate right now. Why would you chance that? Don’t you know what it would do to me if I hurt you?”

“Because I’d rather cease to exist than to keep living in a world where I can’t see you,” she whispered. “I didn’t realize how much you did mean to me until you were no longer there.”

“I tried to protect you.”

“By staying away from me? Why?”

“My life isn’t an easy one.”

“I’m already so immersed in your world that I fail to see the significance of trying to protect me,” Diane told him.

“You weren’t mated before. Everything will change, now. Even now a link is growing between us, one that will allow us to know where the other is, to know how the other is feeling.”

“I want that. Why would you try to keep me from that?”

“Because if anything happens to me, you’ll be left alone. Mates only love once in their lifetime. Once we bond, there will never be another for either of us, even if death separates us. But that wouldn’t occur if I could keep from mating you. If I kept myself away from you then you could love many times.”

“Wrong,” she countered. “I could have had sex maybe, but I’d never know what it was like to be with a man like you.”

He growled at her words and thrust harder into her, making them both moan.

“It doesn’t matter now. I’m here, and we’re mated. There’s no going back,” Diane whispered.

“There’s no going back ever,” he agreed and bent to her mouth.

His kiss was gentle, offering instead of taking. A soft caress of lips followed by teasing flicks of his tongue against hers. Their hands met, fingers lacing and landing beside her head. He broke the kiss and traced her face with soft butterfly caresses. He made love to her as if she were the only woman in the world, as if she were his whole world. It brought fresh tears to her eyes as she realized again that she’d almost lost him.

“What’s this?” Zane asked, tasting her tears with his lips.

“I almost lost you,” she said.

“Diane.” He sighed and brushed her lips with his. “Do you know how hard it was to stay away from you?”

“Didn’t look hard at all to me.”

“It was. Hell, I didn’t even have to see you. All it took was a whiff of your scent and I wanted to find you and take you, claim you as mine and only mine.” He bared his teeth and that sexy rumble came out again. “Do you know the amount of effort it took when one of the others walked out with your scent all over them? I wanted to tear them apart limb by limb.”

“That’s not going to change when we go back,” she warned then moaned as he did something with his hips that had his cock hitting her sweet spot.

“Yes, it will,” he informed her.

“I can’t walk away from them.” Saying it out loud made her realize just how true the words had been all along. She couldn’t walk away. Her disquiet had little to do with not feeling adequately trained for the job she was doing and everything to do with Zane not being there.

“No, you won’t. But now that I’ve claimed you, my scent will mark you.”

“What does that mean? I’ll smell like you?”

He nodded. “More importantly, so will anyone you come in contact with, which means they all get to live.”

She giggled and loved the look he gave her at her girlish sound. “I don’t remember any of the others saying that.”

“Believe me, they felt it.” His gaze became more heated, more intense. He reached up and gripped her braid, pulling the band out of her hair and tossing it aside. He braced his weight on his elbows and used both hands to free her hair until it fanned out around her. “You are mine now, and everyone will know it.”

“I like the sound of that,” she murmured and leaned up to nip his jaw with her teeth.

“I wanted to make love to you.”

“You have. You are,” she assured him.

He flashed another heated look at her, and she saw the dark flush under his skin, saw the darker glow of his eyes. Was it the fever pushing the animal closer to the surface?

“I need you,” he gritted out between teeth clenched tight.

“Take me,” she offered. “Any way you need to.”

He glared down at her for a moment then jerked back. Before she could voice her displeasure at the loss of him buried inside her, he had her rolled over onto her stomach.

“Hands and knees,” he commanded. “Don’t make me wait.”

She rose as quickly as her shaking limbs allowed. His hands gripped her hips and pulled her against him. She waited for his hard thrust, but he surprised her with the caress of his fingers over her ass cheeks. He squeezed and fondled the globes then parted them. She glanced back over her shoulder at him and caught the direction of his gaze, looking at her in a way no other person ever had.

“Eventually, I’m going to want to take you here,” he grunted, the tip of his finger tapping against her anus. “I’ll make sure you’re completely lubed and stretched, so ready for me you’ll be begging for it. You’ll feel a little burn as I stretch your sweet ass to fit my cock. All those nerves that have never known what it feels like to be fucked will come alive with a scream. There’ll be pain, just a touch.” He came over her, cocooning her with his body, his chest covering her back. One hand gripped his dick and ran it through the folds of her sex, which dripped from the promise of his words. The other hand braced on the tent floor beside hers. He nuzzled her hair aside and skimmed his lips over the mark he’d left at the base of her neck. “But if I do it right, if I make you hot enough, wet enough, flame the edges of your desire high enough…” His tongue traced the mark then trailed up her neck to her earlobe where he caught and tugged it with his teeth. “Then the pleasure will be like nothing you’ve ever felt before. And I will,” he whispered. “I’ll do it so right, you’ll be begging me to fuck your sweet ass every day.”

She whimpered, her craving so heightened she felt as if she might come just from his words alone.

“But I won’t, Diane. I’ll make you wait. I’ll make you beg. I’ll make you weak with the need.” His teeth scraped a path back down her neck. His cock lodged at her opening and pressed just deep enough to have her stretching around him. “Then I’ll fuck you until you scream my name as if I’m the god you worship.”

He plunged into her, spearing her on his shaft and making her cry out as she clenched around him and came.

His chest rumbled with that sexy growl of his, and he fucked her hard and fast, claiming her orgasm and forcing her to ride it higher and higher until she saw starbursts at the edges of her vision. She dropped her head to the floor between her hands and moaned as he kept fucking.

“Mine,” he growled at her again as if he couldn’t hold back the word. Was it the fever bringing the animal to the surface again or would it always be like this with him? Would he always take her in a way that was sure to brand her body as his and only his? God, she hoped so. She’d gladly worship him in bed, as long as he understood the playing field leveled when they were out of it, sort of, anyway.

“Mine,” he grunted the claim this time and the sound of slapping flesh filled her ears as he pounded his cock in and out of her. “Say it!” he demanded.

She was lost in the sensations, trying to keep from passing out from the pleasure tearing through her. She heard his words but was too busy sucking in air to comply immediately. She felt the crack of his palm against her ass and cried out.

“Say it!” he commanded and smacked her other cheek.

Oh, God! Her pleasure shouldn’t be able to go any higher. He smacked her again, lower, and the burn sank beneath the skin and flamed to life in her clitoris. How was that even possible?

“Say it!”

“Yours!” she screamed as she came, the stars becoming black dots. “Yours! Always yours! Always!”

“Mine,” he rumbled. His teeth scraped over her mark, and he struck deep, biting into her flesh as the first heated splash of his cum filled her channel.

She went impossibly higher and felt the dark edges closing in around her. She was going to pass out, from pleasure.

The last thing she heard was his contented growl as he licked over the bite mark at the base of her neck and the softly whispered word that was becoming both a claim and an endearment.

“Mine.”

Chapter Seven

Zane softly shook awake his mate, covering her mouth to keep the sleepy grumble as silent as he could. He prayed he hadn’t worn her out too badly over the course of the night. She was in full heat now, and it was all he could do to keep his hands off her or his dick out of her. When the fever had quickened in his blood, he’d reached for her, taking her a half a dozen times at least. He’d stopped counting. Each instant he’d turned to her, she’d been wet and ready for him. He knew that’s how it was with mates but appreciated it from a different level with what they were dealing with now.