Dark Wolf Rising (Bloodrunners) (9 page)

So going to hell for this. So going to hell...

“Eric?”

“Please, don’t...don’t say anything,” he rasped, rubbing his tongue over his teeth as he crawled onto the foot of the bed. A second later, he had his fingers shoved back inside that sweet, pink opening, his face pressed against her stomach, the low, animal sounds he was making muffled against her smooth, warm skin as the hem of her shirt bunched up beneath her breasts. He’d pushed his other arm beneath her, trapping her against him as he thrust his fingers into that plush, clenching sheath, spurring her into another one of those deliciously tight orgasms that made her scream. Her pleasure surged through him like a blistering rush of heat, a muscle pulsing in the side of his jaw as he gritted his teeth and tried like hell not to follow her over, spilling in his jeans.

When she finally quieted, Eric lifted his head, his body hard and burning as his heavy-lidded gaze instantly locked with hers. She was looking
right
at him, her blue eyes dark with passion, her lips swollen from the biting pressure of her teeth. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, her unique scent heady and rich, and he couldn’t fight the need to have her intoxicating taste in his mouth again.

Holding that passion-wrecked gaze, Eric pulled his drenched fingers from the greedy clasp of her sex and brought them to his mouth, hungrily sucking them past his lips. Her eyes went wide with shock, as if she’d never seen a man do such a thing, and he growled low in his throat.

“You taste so damn good.” The words were rough and raw. “I could happily keep my tongue buried in you for days, Chelsea. Weeks...months...and it still wouldn’t be enough.”

“Eric.”
She arched beneath him as if she’d suddenly been struck by lightning, her nipples pressing thick and tight against the front of her shirt, blue eyes glazed with need as she sank her teeth into her lower lip.
“Again!”
she cried, the next wave hitting even faster than he’d expected. Her body writhed beneath him as he caught the sudden head-spinning surge of her scent, and he quickly plunged his fingers back into that tight, slick heaven, giving her something hard and thick to break against.

But she wanted more. “I need you inside me,” she moaned, her short nails digging into his sweat-slicked shoulders as she tried to pull him up her body. “Need you to make love to me.
Now.
”

“Goddamn it, Chelsea.” His voice was little more than a guttural snarl as he shoved his fingers deep and held them there, letting her clench around him. “Don’t do this to me,” he choked out, squeezing his eyes shut as he lowered his head. “I’m trying to help you, baby, but I’m not... Damn it, I’m
not
raping you!”

She grabbed his head between her soft palms, tilting his face up. As he lifted his lashes, she whispered, “It’s not rape when I’m begging you for it.” She looked like she was burning with fever, her eyes bright, cheeks flushed with color. “Please, Eric.”

His throat felt like he’d tried to swallow a boulder. “That’s the drug talking. It’s not you.”

Red-tinged fury swiftly built to an inferno behind that sky-blue gaze, as if hell itself were burning in the heavens. “Damn you,” she seethed. “This is
my
choice! Not yours! You don’t get to tell me what I want.”

“Damn me all you like,” he grunted. “I’m still not taking you like that. Not for our first time.”

She sobbed with defeat, her head falling back to the bed as she brought her arms up, curling them over her face. They were both hot and sweaty when she came for the fourth time, her arms falling limply to the bedspread, her body finally quieting as Eric crawled higher onto the bed and stretched out beside her. He lay on his side, facing her, memorizing the way she looked lying there all flushed and pink, her long eyelashes casting shadows over her cheeks as her breathing slowly mellowed.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when she started to stir again, her dark gaze filled with determination as she lifted those long eyelashes and looked right at him.

“You’ve been so incredible,” she whispered, rolling toward him and pressing her palm against the center of his chest, right over the heavy beat of his heart. Then her hand slowly started to make its way downward.

“It’s okay, Chelse. You don’t owe me anything,” he groaned, catching her hand before she reached his navel.

A small frown settled between her brows. “But it hardly seems fair.”

It was the hardest damn thing he’d ever had to do, but he somehow found the strength to say, “Let’s just worry about you for right now, okay?”

As the night deepened outside the motel walls, Eric lost count of how many times he had to ease her through the pain. The drug kept mounting, each rise exhausting Chelsea...and taking him that much closer to the edge. Using one of the washcloths from the bathroom, he applied cool compresses to her sore flesh, making her drink countless bottles of water that he had delivered to the room. He even managed to get some crackers into her, though food wasn’t what she ached for.

Just as Jillian had predicted, her body craved release, again and again, forging a level of intimacy between them that, despite all his years of sexual experience, Eric had never shared with another woman. He could say, without arrogance, that he was a good lover—but he’d never come close to focusing on a woman the way he focused on the intoxicating Chelsea Smart. His night became a lush, sensual tapestry of feminine textures and scents, his body attuned to the minute rhythms of her heartbeat, the quickening of her breath. He memorized her with the touch of his hands—knew the tight, cushiony feel of her sex and the slick heat of her pleasure by heart, imprinting the evocative details upon his mind the way a scientist soaked in data.

And yet, no matter how lost he was in her, the struggle never left him. Eric battled through the endless hours with nothing but sheer determination, never allowing the man or the beast to take more than was necessary. He wanted her so badly it was like a physical ache in his bones, breaking him down—but he never touched her with his lips...his tongue. Never took that slippery, melting sex into his mouth and drank his fill, though he was ravenous for that decadent, mouthwatering flavor that threatened to short-circuit his brain.

And he somehow found the strength to keep his jeans completely buttoned, no matter how many times she begged him to give her more. For that, Eric was fairly certain he deserved some kind of bloody sainthood.

The closest he came to losing control was when she became too sore for the touch of his fingers. Rolling to his back, he lifted her astride him, gripping her hips, and let her grind herself to completion against the thick, jutting ridge of his cock. She’d come so hard she nearly passed out...

And so had he.

“Shh. Just let me hold you,” he murmured afterward, his arms wrapping around her in an unusually possessive hold as he pulled her down to his chest, her cheek resting above the heavy beat of his heart, her long hair streaming over his shoulder and arm. Her body was deliciously soft against his, her warm scent filling his head, giving him an unfamiliar sense of peace, despite the animal hunger still twisting and burning beneath his skin.

He was in a world of hurt, but he didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to leave her. Strange, considering how much he disliked cuddling with his bed partners. But he liked having Chelsea’s curvaceous little body wrapped up in his arms, even when it was making him sweat. It felt...comfortable. Warm and soft and sweet, and though he hadn’t thought he’d be able to relax, he felt his eyes growing heavy...the tension leaving his muscles in a slow, mellow slide. It was so easy. So right.

For what felt like the first time in years, Eric surrendered to the moment...and slipped into the soothing darkness of sleep.

* * *

Opening her eyes to the bright morning sunlight, Chelsea said the first words that came to mind. “Oh. My. God.”

“It’s okay,” Eric rasped from the other side of the bed. “Don’t be scared.”

Painfully aware of the fact that she was naked from the waist down under the sheet, she clutched the white cotton in a deathly grip and stammered, “I...I...”

“Take a deep breath, Chelsea. There’s no need to panic.”

From the corner of her eye, she watched as he stretched that long, muscular body, then lazily scratched at his chest and the dark shadow on his jaw.

What the hell have I done?

She stared at his hands, at those long, rugged fingers, and could remember the
exact
feel of them inside her. Could remember the harsh look of hunger on his face when he’d pulled them out, shiny and wet, and sucked them between his lips. He’d been greedy, softly growling, as if he couldn’t get enough of the way she tasted.

He’d done it more than once—and yet, he’d done his best to keep things from going too far. Not that she’d been much help.

Now that the drug had worn off, he was probably worried she was going to accuse him of taking advantage of her, but she could remember enough from the night before to know that wasn’t the case. If anything,
she
was the one who’d taken advantage of him. She’d played on his sympathy, begging him to help her.

God, if the bed could just swallow her whole, she’d have been eternally grateful. She had no idea what to say to him. How to apologize. The guy had saved her from heaven only knew what back at that club, had given of himself again and again to make sure she wasn’t in pain, and she’d never even been nice to him. Had acted like a bitch most of the time she’d spent with him. Just because her emotions had been wrapped up in worry and fear during the short time that she’d known him didn’t excuse her.

And even with everything that had happened, she didn’t know if she could act any differently. Her wariness was a part of who she was, of how she’d been shaped. But she could start by at least telling him how sorry she was.

With a hard swallow, she tried again to force out some words. “I—”

“I didn’t attack you,” he said, cutting her off, his voice gruff.

She covered her face with the sheet. “I know you didn’t. I...remember what happened,” she choked out. In fact, she couldn’t stop the images from flashing through her mind. Carnal. Intimate. Explicit. Her body shivered with remembered sensation, the tender flesh between her thighs sore from the endless hours of stimulation. He hadn’t used her roughly—but she’d been insatiable, begging him to keep going...to keep making her climax, again and again and again, long into the early hours of the morning.

Her blood chilled as she caught a particular flash of memory—Eric above her, his handsome face darkened by an intimidating scowl as he’d made her come. He’d looked so...unhappy, and she cringed, unable to forget the rather important fact that he didn’t like her.

Though he couldn’t see her face, he must have sensed that she was crying. “Damn it, Chelsea. Don’t be upset. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m so embarrassed,” she said, sniffing. “I can’t believe I begged you...
Oh, God.
You should have just left me here!”

He gave a masculine snort that normally would have set her teeth on edge, but seemed somehow sexy to her when he did it. Then again, she pretty much thought everything he did was sexy. “You really think I would have just taken off and left you here in pain?” he asked, an edge of anger creeping into his voice for the first time that morning. “Christ, woman. I’m not
that
much of a bastard.”

She peeked over the edge of the sheet. “Eric, you don’t even like me. This—what happened last night—it couldn’t have been pleasant for you.”

He had the heels of his palms pressed against his eyes, but he lowered his arms and slowly turned his head to the side, locking that beautiful gray gaze with hers. “You’re upset because you think I didn’t enjoy it?” With each word, his eyebrows arched a little higher.

“I’m upset about a lot of things.”

“Well, you can ease your mind on that score.” He swung his long legs over the side of the bed as he sat up, one hand lifting to the back of his neck and rubbing at the tense muscles there. Her gaze moved appreciatively over his powerful shoulders and arms, before snagging on the dark, intricate tattoo that wrapped his right shoulder and biceps. She’d never thought of tattoos as all that sexy before, but she’d been wrong. Eric’s tat was sexy as hell.

Blowing out a rough breath, he looked back over his shoulder, sliding her a heavy-lidded look from under his lashes. “It’s obviously not the way I would have chosen to get a taste of you, but I enjoyed it,” he said in a low, kinda gravelly rumble. “More than I should have, considering the circumstances.”

“You can’t have enjoyed it that much,” she pointed out in a dubious tone, careful to keep her lower half covered with the sheet as she finally sat up. “You kept your jeans on the entire time.” Even though she could remember repeatedly begging him to take them off.

“Yeah,” he muttered under his breath, his tone dry as he turned his head forward again. “And now I need clean ones.”

Color burned in her face at his meaning, making her want to duck back under the covers, but she couldn’t manage to rip her gaze away from the beautiful, flexing muscles in his back and shoulders as he moved to his feet. He reached for the T-shirt that was lying over the room’s lone chair, pulled it over his head, then cut her a wry look over his shoulder again.

“I haven’t done that since I was...” He looked forward and scrubbed both hands over his face, his harsh sigh loud enough for her to hear. “Hell, I don’t think I’ve
ever
done anything like that.”

A soft burst of laughter slipped past her lips, catching her by surprise, and Chelsea quickly covered her mouth, mortified. “I’m so sorry.”

She could only blink in astonishment as he turned around and slid her another one of those sexy smirks, before sitting in the chair and pulling on his socks. “It’s okay,” he told her, reaching for his battered hiking boots. “You can laugh if it makes you feel better. I’m tough enough to take it.”

Watching him sitting there with the late-morning sunlight creeping around the edges of the cheap motel blinds behind him, Chelsea suddenly realized that her guilt was getting worse. She’d misjudged this man. Perhaps not completely, since he was, after all, a man. But enough to make her feel ashamed.