But Dakota must have sensed their return because as they approached the clearing, the door opened and she walked onto the porch carrying their clothes in a folded pile. They stood there, still in their wolf form, and she smiled at them.
“I’ll leave these right here on the chair,” she called. “Although I think it might be fun to sleep between two such handsome wolves.
The moment she was back inside, both men shifted and began to dress.
“That’s some woman you found,” Mark commented.
“Yes.
I
found her.” Jonah’s answer was short and curt. He didn’t need Mark getting ideas about making a move on Dakota.
“She digs me,” Mark teased.
“She’s polite to you,” Jonah corrected. “That’s forbidden territory for you.”
Mark raised an eyebrow. “Already? I thought you swore you’d never have anything resembling a relationship again. Fuck ’em and leave ’em was your motto.”
Jonah shrugged. “Shit happens. We don’t always choose who our mates are.”
“Mate?” Mark stared at him. “Now I’m sure you’re crazy. Have you lost your mind?”
“I think maybe I’ve found it. Again.” He huffed a sigh. “Listen, Mark. I can’t explain it but you know how it is. You don’t choose it. It chooses you. I never thought I’d find it again after Jenna. Especially with a human who might be revolted by the whole shapeshifter thing.” He spread his hands out, palms up. “But there it is.”
Mark studied his face and then gave a brief nod. “Well, then. I’ll trust your judgment. But what happens when we finish here and have to leave?”
“I plan to figure out a way to take her with me. And that’s all I’m going to say for now. Let’s go inside and get some coffee.”
Dakota had made a fresh pot of coffee and she had filled mugs waiting for them when the two men entered the cabin. Mark picked his up and locked his gaze on her over the rim.
“Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” She gave the look right back to him.
“Relax, Dakota.” His mouth curved in a half-smile. “I’m a real hard-ass but Jonah wouldn’t feel the way he does if we couldn’t trust you.”
She relaxed, the tension easing from her body. “Thank you. I won’t betray that trust.” She turned and picked up the old book,
Legend of the Pack
, that Jonah had left out for her to read. “I looked at the herbs listed in here. I grow all of them in one form or another in my herb garden. We need to look at the ones that might be a little different and see if they work.”
“That would be really good,” Mark told her. “We need someone who can provide these for us.”
Her smile was still tentative. “Well, maybe we can work something out. Did you find anything?” she asked.
Jonah told her about the strange scent and their exploration of the farm, leaving out the detail of the coyotes. “It’s the damnedest thing. The scent isn’t like any other I’ve ever found, animal or human. And it just reaches a certain point and then disappears.”
“Do think it’s still around here?”
“I’m not sure. If it is we’re looking at one more kill before it moves on. It always creates three episodes before leaving for a different place.”
“How far can an animal travel like that?” Dakota asked.
“You’d be amazed.” Mark refilled his mug. “Lost dogs and cats have traveled hundreds of miles to find their owners. And they’re just domestic animals. A creature in the wild? And one like this?” He shrugged. “Who knows?”
“So what happens now?”
Jonah came to stand beside her, draping his arm possessively around her shoulders. “Now Mark goes back to the motel. In the morning when he comes back we connect with the team. Look at all the maps and satellite views of the area. Try to figure out where and how we can lay a trap. And then get it set.”
“That’s my cue to leave.” Mark gave them his little half-smile again. “Thanks for dinner, Dakota. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Come for breakfast,” she offered. “That way you can get started earlier.”
They walked Mark out to the porch and stood arms around each other as they watched him drive off.
“Let’s go to bed,” Jonah urged, guiding her back inside. “I have a lot of excess nervous energy to work off.”
* * * * *
The beast sniffed the air, scenting for danger but found none. Night would be here soon. It knew it should leave this area. Even a rat knows when it’s cornered. But something was keeping it here. Stirring its blood. Riling its lust to an almost unquenchable point.
Two rewarding kills should have been enough to slake the blood lust for some time, but somehow that third kill always fed its energy. Slaked its raging internal need for human blood and flesh. The heart-stopping thrill of the kill. Until the next time.
It sensed danger everywhere. Not a new feeling and one it should heed, but something was keeping it here. Anchoring it to this place. That third attack. Three was the beast’s lucky number.
The beast raised its head and sniffed again. The soft breeze brought with it the scent of the human prey. The beast could always tell when the prey was vulnerable.
It should have kept going. Too many times the beast had nearly been caught. Trapped. But each time there had been an unexpected heady pull of danger, a feeling that ramped up the internal drive.
But the pattern was hard to break. Three was its lucky number.
Careful. That was the watchword. Careful.
One more. Already staked out.
Then it would head to a new killing ground.
Chapter Ten
Jonah undressed Dakota with infinite care, slowly revealing every inch of her body, kissing each place as he exposed it until she was trembling with anticipation. The touch of his mouth on her skin was like a whisk of fire, searing her every place it brushed. Her blood was liquid heat, racing through her veins.
“I love getting you naked,” he murmured as he peeled away each layer of clothing. “Your skin is so smooth, like silk. Running my fingers over it is like touching magic.”
His words were like arrows of lust jolting straight to her cunt. There was nothing erotic about them, but the reverence in them was in itself erotic. Sensual. The need coiling low in her belly spiraled up through her, her pussy flooding with her cream.
Jonah nudged her backward until the backs of her knees hit the bed and she tumbled onto it, arms wide and legs outspread. He stood there looking at her, eyes feasting on her with intense hunger. Deliberately she wet the tip of one finger and rolled it around her left nipple. His eyes flared and a muscle twitched in his cheek.
“Like that, do you?” she asked in a husky voice.
“Yes.” His voice was as thick as hers.
Jonah pulled his t-shirt over his head and tossed it onto the nearby chair. His eyes never left her as he toed off his boots, unsnapped his jeans and slowly lowered the zipper. Dakota wet her finger again and moved to the other nipple, circling it slowly, over and over. The surface of them was so sensitive she was sure if Jonah just put his mouth over one of them and pulled she would come instantly.
“Touch your clit.” His voice was almost a whisper. “Let me see you play with your clit.”
Dakota licked her finger once more and lowered her hand. Her pulse was hammering in her throat with anticipation and her breathing was choppy. And she’d hardly done anything yet! But this man made her body feel things it had never felt before. Want things.
Need
things.
She widened her thighs and found the swollen heat of her clit with the tip of her moistened finger. Very slowly, deliberately, she moved it in circles, jolting waves of pleasure washing over her and coalescing in the heat of her cunt.
“Bend your knees,” he commanded.
Dakota bent her knees and placed her feet flat on the bed. She knew it gave him a totally unobstructed view of her cunt, her trimmed curls and hot pink flesh now glistening with her juices. It also gave him a view of her ass and the flange of the butt plug she’d had in there all day. His eyes widened when he saw it and his fingers tightened on the waistband of his jeans.
“I’m going to fuck you with that plug in there,” he growled. “And then I’m going to take it out and fuck you in the ass. Long and slow. Hard and fast. You ready for that, darlin’?”
“Yesss.” The word hissed from her mouth.
Jonah pushed his jeans over his hips, letting them drop to his ankles and then stepped out of them. Picking them up, he tossed them on top of his discarded t-shirt. He was naked beneath the denim, having gone commando in preparation for his run earlier.
His cock jutted out proudly from its thick nest of dark curls, long and swollen, the broad head a dark purple as blood pounded through his veins to suffuse it. He wrapped his long fingers around it and stroked it from root to tip as he watched her stimulate her clit.
“Inside, darlin’,” he urged. “Slide your fingers inside. Let me see you do it.”
Reaching down into the wetness of her pussy she obediently slid two fingers inside and began the slow dance in and out. Her other hand moved to a breast, pinching the nipple and tugging on it.
Jonah’s eyes were darker than night, the silver reflecting the golden flames dancing in them. He squeezed his erection and a tiny pearlescent drop of cum seeped from the slit. Dakota opened her mouth invitingly and he braced one knee on the bed, bending close to her. When the plum-colored, velvety head touched her lips she opened them and licked the surface with the tip of her tongue.
He brushed away the fingers at her nipple and replaced them with his own, lightly pinching and tugging and scraping his fingernail over the pebbled surface. Electricity sizzled through her, the gush of cream in her cunt pouring over her fingers, the inner muscles fluttering, fluttering, fluttering.
Teasingly she swiped her tongue over the head of his shaft, her eyes locked on his. The air around them was charged with sexual energy, crackling with it, and the scent of their musk filled the air. Dakota dipped the tip of her tongue into the slit and closed her lips over the skin around it, tugging it into her mouth.
“Jesus!” The word exploded from Jonah’s mouth and his entire body tightened like a giant fist.
The feeling of sexual power over this pure alpha male was such a heady sensation it dusted waves of pleasure through Dakota’s body. She began to ride the fingers in her pussy, slipping a third one in to fill the space.
“Enough.” Jonah pulled away from her, grabbed her wrist and stilled her hand from its motion. Walking the three steps to where he’d left his duffel bag, he unzipped it and brought out a large box of condoms.
Dakota’s eyes widened. “Did you come to Maverick County with some kind of plan in mind?”
“Actually I use them to cover gun barrels to keep them dry, if I know I’m going to have to submerge to stake out a suspect. I got caught once when I had to hide myself in a creek and my gun misfired.” His mouth curved in a sensual grin. “Isn’t it nice that they have so many uses?”
He dropped the box onto the nightstand and climbed onto the bed, straddling her. One finger slid inside her heated channel to test her readiness.
“You are so wet for me.” He brought the finger out and deliberately licked its entire surface.
Dakota’s stomach muscles clenched watching him. She spread her thighs wider and plucked at her nipples.
Jonah knelt between her legs, slid his hands beneath the cheeks of her buttocks and lifted her to him. Bending his head, he took one long savory swipe of her slit with his tongue. “I had to have a taste, Dakota. My god, I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so good.”
She watched him tear open the foil packet, pull out the condom and slowly sheath himself, his gaze boring into her the entire time. Dakota felt as if she’d been transported to another plane, as if her body somehow didn’t belong to her anymore. As if Jonah had taken possession of it and plucked every nerve ending into vibrant life.
“I’ll go as slow as I can,” he told her in a low, hoarse voice. “You’ll be extra tight with the plug inside you. But sugar, I don’t know how much control I’ll have. You just do it to me every time. All I have to do is look at you and I’m hard. And when I see you naked, I could come like a geyser just by touching you.”
She bit her lower lip. “It’s okay. Really. Go ahead. I can take you.” She hoped they weren’t empty words.
Jonah positioned the head of his erection at the opening of her vagina, then shifted his fingers to open her labia wide, preparing her for his intrusion. Moving in tiny, tiny increments he slowly penetrated her, the huge thickness of him stretching her inner muscles. She forced herself to relax as he inched farther inside, pressing deeper. Sweat popped out on his face from the effort to maintain control. She wanted to tell him to just
do it
! Just push all the way in, but she knew he wouldn’t do it.
It was a tight fit, just as he predicted, the plug in her ass taking away the normal elasticity of her tissues. But he kept thrusting forward, deeper and deeper until, at last…
there
! He was in, all the way to the balls. She had never felt so totally full in her entire life. There wasn’t an inch of space unoccupied and her pussy wept with the hunger of it.
“Can you take it, Dakota?” Strain etched lines in his face. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” She breathed out slowly. “Yes, I am.”
“All right, then.”
He leaned forward and took her mouth, wisping his tongue over her lips as his hips began a slow, steady thrust into her body. Forward. Retreat. Forward. Retreat. And with each tight rasp of his cock over her sensitive flesh more nerve endings fired and that coil unwinding inside her spiraled faster and faster. He pumped into her, the inner thrust becoming easier as he moved faster.
Her world spun out until there was nothing but her and this incredible man, this half wolf who had completely taken possession of her life. She was whirling in a vortex of sensation, his tongue moving in and out of her mouth in the same cadence as his cock moved in and out of her body. Forward. Retreat. Forward. Retreat.
Dakota lifted her legs and wrapped them around his slim waist, locking her ankles at his spine and digging her heels into him. Drawing him closer. Deeper.
Faster. Faster.
She wanted to shout it, yet at the same time she never wanted it to end.
The climax grabbed her like a giant fist, shaking her, roaring through her like a cyclone, her pussy muscles clutching, clutching, milking as spasms gripped her inner muscles. Gasping for breath, trying to calm her racketing heart, one fact penetrated through the fog surrounding her brain.
He hadn’t come. Jonah had ridden her through her climax but held back in his own. Her eyes popped open and she started to say something but he shook his head, slid carefully from her body and flipped her over, pulling her up to her hands and knees.
“Deep breath.”
She barely recognized his voice, but she obediently sucked in air. As she let it out, she felt the plug slide reluctantly from its snug fit in her rectum. He reached down to scoop the cream from her cunt and paint it around her anus, sliding his fingers into her to lubricate her tight tissues.
“Another breath, darlin’.”
His thighs pressed against hers and she felt the head of his sheathed cock probing at her entrance. She drew in another huge gulp of air. As she very slowly let it out, Jonah pushed forward into the dark warmth of her rectum, his passage eased by the lubrication of her cream and the stretching by the butt plug.
The intrusion was slow but steady and in less time than she would have expected his entire erection was encased in her dark rear channel. He leaned forward, pressing his hard-walled chest against her back and his hand reached around to find her clit.
“Hang on for the ride, darlin’. Hold on tight.”
He withdrew until just the tip was inside her, then slammed forward. Again. Again. With each thrust her spent body revived itself. With each rub of his fingers on her very sensitive clit fresh cream drenched her tissues. He rode her with a hard, driving speed, his other hand gripping her waist. She couldn’t believe it when a second climax rose up and twisted through her. It was almost too much. When his release came, thick, hot jets of semen scorching her tissues through the latex, she exploded again, an icy hot feeling that stole what little breath she had left. She shook beneath him, his own body shaking with violent tremors as he came and came and came.
When she could bear it no more she collapsed forward, taking him with her. The air, redolent of sex, was slashed by the rasping of their breaths as they dragged air into oxygen-deprived lungs. Dakota’s heart thumped erratically. She felt plundered, drained, but eminently satisfied.
Jonah’s lips tailed a path across her shoulders and up to her nape, his tongue flicking out to catch the salty taste of her.
“Are you all right?” he asked at last.
“Yes.” She managed the one word, every ounce of energy drained from her.
He nipped her ear. “We are mated, Dakota. Your scent calls to me, just as I know mine does to you. And our minds connect on a plane where no one else’s thoughts can interfere. When a male shifter finds the scent of the woman he knows to be his wife, he draws it into his body. Just as I did with you. We belong to each other now. For life.”
A thrill raced through her body. Mated? He hadn’t said
love
but wasn’t this the same?
“Yes,” he said, as if he could read her thoughts. “We are one. Forever.”
A feeling of peace stole over her, a sense of safety. Of protection. As if everything in her life had been pointing to this one moment in time.
Slowly Jonah slid from the clutch of her body and moved from the bed. She heard him in the bathroom disposing of the condom and running water. Then he was back with a warm, damp cloth to soothe the ache between her legs and at the entrance to her ass. At last he slid into bed beside her, cradling her against him, his lips brushing lightly against her temple and her cheek. One warm hand reached up to cup a breast.
“Mine,” he repeated.
“Yours,” she agreed, and tumbled into sleep.