RawHeat (4 page)

Though she had to say, Tara would probably appreciate the
last part of that equation. Serena wondered if her friend knew she had blood in
her blonde hair. Or if she understood she was looking more and more insane
lately, like a person on the edge of doing something terrible.

Eating a werewolf, perhaps.

“Slow down then, for goodness sake! I wanted to talk to you
about this one wolf, who—”

“I really have to get to my room, Tara. I’m so tired—the big
werewolf is a lot of work, you know.”

Boy, was he ever.

“Oh my God, has he actually started reacting to stuff?
Because when I did stuff to him he barely made a sound. Kind of like he was
asleep, even when he looked awake.”

God, God, she didn’t want to hear this now. Hell, she hadn’t
wanted to hear it before, so Tara trying to tell her tales of torturing Connor
after she’d just had his mouth on hers and his hands…there…it just wasn’t
kosher. It wasn’t something her soul could reasonably take.

“Tara, seriously—I’m exhausted,” she said, as she ground to
a reluctant halt by her quarters.

“You look it. Jesus. Have you got a temperature? Because
this fortress in quadrant five got struck down by a re-emergence of bubonic
plague—did you hear? So you know, if you’re feeling sick you should really
report—”

“I will. I swear to God I will.” She opened the door to her
room, and when she stepped inside she made damn sure there was no room for Tara
to sneak in. It wasn’t really that hard to achieve, however. Her room was the
size of a shoebox. “After I’ve been asleep for a thousand years.”

And then she closed the door in Tara’s face and slumped
against the back of it.

* * * * *

“I think we should just talk,” he said, which sounded
perfectly normal and reasonable. Most girls loved to just talk, she knew. Like
Tara, who’d spent the entire day trying to talk to her about this one wolf
who’d started crying and begging for his mommy when she burned him with little
white-hot wires.

But apparently, Serena didn’t like to talk all that much.
Because when he sort of pushed her away a little and said those words, she
found several things wrong with them.

There was the fact that he’d spent the day before kissing
and touching her and enjoying all of the above. There were the words he’d
spoken, about wanting her and arousal and all of that stuff. And then there was
his big, uncomfortable-looking erection, pressing up against the sheet.

When she’d first come into the room she’d even seen him sort
of bumping his hips, as though the feel of the material all taut over his
swollen hard-on felt amazing. Or unbearable. One or the other.

“Don’t you want to feel good?”

“Of course I do. But I also…want to respect you. As a
person.”

Where was he getting this stuff from? They’d spent a year
talking and respecting each other. In fact, they’d spent a year respecting each
other so painfully that it made her wild just thinking about it. Those barriers
were gone now. They’d been blown up. He’d blown them up when he’d let her touch
him and told her how much he wanted her and Lord, had she just imagined it all?

“I thought…you wanted me.”

It sounded terrible in her head and even worse coming out.
And he just looked wretched after she said it, as though it destroyed him to
have to tell her that actually, he’d just been glad of some random female
company. He’d just been happy to get anything he could and now, in the cold
light of day, he could see she wasn’t really worthy of him.

Other girls—hell, even werewolf-hating girls—would probably
be willing, if she was. If one nurse who had problems with him calling her by
her first name was up for a fuck, then other nurses would be too. Hotter
nurses. Hotter nurses like Tara, with her wires and her little shark’s teeth
and her mean eyes.

He probably liked that kind of stuff—meanness and torture
and so on and so forth. He probably had all kinds of kinks she’d not even
considered, when she’d sat by his bed and listened to him talk and talk about
all the lovely stories he remembered, like the one about the glass slipper and
the one about the trail of breadcrumbs and the one about the girl in the red
hood…

Wait, what was he saying now?

“I don’t just want you, Serena. I love you.”

Oh. That.

“I love you.”

That.

His arms were kind of burning her hands, so she let them
drop away from him. And then she stepped back, just for good measure.

“Is that so terrible? I just thought if it was okay for us
to kiss and touch…I thought it’d be okay for me to say…”

He looked panicked, suddenly. Unbearably.

“It
is
okay. It’s really okay. I’m just…”

Shocked? Stunned?

Happy.
Happy.

“You’re sort of smiling. Is that a good sign?”

He had to know it was, even though she could feel herself
trying to hold the corners of her mouth down and her whole face seemed to be
kind of trembling and oh no, oh no, he was absolutely going to know how much
she loved him too. Had he seen it on her face, the other day? The other day
when she’d thought
love love love
a million times, like an idiot?

And did it really matter, when he apparently loved her too?

“Look, I’m completely aware of how insane this is, and I
don’t expect to run off into the sunset with you forever or anything like—”

She kissed him then. He needed kissing. She could feel his
teeth like needles beneath the press of his lips, and he made a sound too—a
little protesting sound—but she didn’t care. She didn’t care.

“I want to run off into the sunset with you,” she said,
though in truth she had little idea of what that actually meant. It just
sounded good in between kisses all over his face and throat and everywhere,
just everywhere.

“Oh God, Serena, listen…”

“I know you want me. I want you—so badly.”

“Serena, seriously, seriously—we need to talk about this. I
know I said I could control myself but the truth is, I don’t know if—”

“I don’t care. Lord, you taste so good…”

He grabbed a hold of her then. Hard.

“Please don’t kiss me there, don’t!”

And then quite suddenly she was on her back, on the bed,
pinned there like a bug. Him over her, all tense-faced and feral-eyed, hands
circling her wrists, body like an iron bar.

Jesus, he was strong all right. Had she thought he’d be
strong? Yeah, he was stronger than that. She’d barely even felt him move or
push her…or anything at all, really. He’d just done it as though she weighed
nothing and took no effort at all.

And yet weirdly, she wanted to say something no sane person
probably would.

“It’s okay. I trust you.”

His breathing slowed a little then. She could see the color
blooming in his eyes, again.

“I know you won’t hurt me. Is that what you’re worried
about? That you’ll hurt me? I know you won’t,” she said, and in response he
shuddered from head to toe. It felt sort of like she’d pressed herself up
against some heavy machinery, when he did so.

“You can’t know that. You don’t know what it’s like when you
kiss me or touch me— I thought it would make things easier, make me relaxed
around your arousal, but it doesn’t. It just makes things worse and I’m scared
I’ll do something bad if you touch me there again.”

He’d loosened his grip on her wrists, so it didn’t take much
to just pull her hand free and run it over his scar, lightly.

“You mean here?”

His eyes turned to slits and he did something both thrilling
and terrifying. He parted his lips in some kind of pretense at a bite, like an
animal showing that it could, if it wanted to—like the motion of the thing
without actually doing it.

And his eyes looked suddenly pale again. Pale and unearthly.

“Yes, there.”

“Is it sensitive?”

“God, very. Very. I think I could come just having you touch
it like that.”

“Like this?”

“Mmmm, yes.”

He made the little bite motion again, this time close to her
stroking hand. And it felt awful to be so turned-on by him moving that way, by
his body over hers and everything about him so suddenly animalistic, but it
couldn’t be denied. She wanted the very thing the rest of her race so abhorred.

“How about when I touch you here?”

It was a joy and a pleasure to run her hand down over his
body, truly it was. But God, the feeling that ran through her when she took
hold of his stiff dick…

The tip felt so slick—enough to make her wonder if maybe
he’d had one go around already. If maybe he’d spent the time before she arrived
stroking himself, or possibly rubbing himself against the mattress or his
pillow or just anything, really, anything at all to make himself spurt like a
fountain.

The way he was probably going to right now. His flesh felt
searing hot and so swollen, all the silky skin around his shaft as taut as a
drum.

And then he said, “Oh yes, fuck,
fuck
. Make me come—I
don’t care. Make me come.”

And she was lost, lost on a tide of him swearing and saying
dirty words and begging her to do bad things.

“Tell me you want me.”

“I do. I do so much. Jesus.”

“Tell me you want to be inside me,” she said, while stroking
him just right, just enough to get him into that teeth-baring, red-faced,
agonized sort of state.

“Oh no, I can’t, we can’t—what if I hurt you? What if I bite
you?”

There was a little hesitation before the word bite—she could
hear it, like the sound of someone swallowing something they didn’t want to
eat. But all she could think about was the way it would feel—to have his teeth
sinking into her flesh, and then to be electric the way he was—and none of it
seemed so bad. None of it seemed like something she shouldn’t want.

Which was how she found herself tugging him toward her
aching sex, with nothing between them and him not stopping her at all. He
didn’t seem capable of stopping her.

“You won’t hurt me. Here, here, just like this,” she said,
and then she’d gotten him right between her legs, and all she had to do was
swipe the swollen head of his cock through her slick folds to make his body go
taut all over.

As though she’d plucked a too-tight string inside him.

“That feel good?” she asked, but only because she knew it
did. It felt glorious to rub him back and forth over her straining clit, and
then back down, down—almost as though she was going to push him inside, but not
quite.

And all the while he twisted above her, face a glorious and
tortured picture, sounds coming out of him like nothing she’d ever heard
before. But he still resisted, she could see him resisting.

“Don’t you want to do this?” she asked, and watched him
wrestle with it. Sweat gleamed at his temples and it looked as though he was trying
to grind his teeth together.

“It’s not a good idea. If I come inside you it might turn
you,” he said, but she could hear the little ring of playfulness behind his
voice. A little hint of amusement—something he rarely let himself slip into.

“You’re only saying that because you know I know it’s not
true.”

“I might give you a werewolf baby,” he said, and there was
even more playfulness there, this time—and a real warring tension on his face
too, as though he couldn’t decide between delight and agony.

“Really? A werewolf baby?” she asked, then watched him bite
at her again when he recognized the pretense at worry all over her face. “Oh
no, oh no—oh
wait
. Wolves are sterile.”

“You know that one too, huh?”

“I do. You want to tell me you’re going to give me werewolf
syphilis now?”

“Oh…stop, don’t. Ohhh that’s really…this isn’t fair.
Just…slow down…”

“You told me we didn’t have much time,” she said, and he
ground his teeth together harder.

“I know what I told you.”

“So what are you waiting for?”

“My sanity to come back—ohhh, don’t do that. Just…here.
Here. Get on me.”

He moved too fast for her to check again, arm suddenly
around her waist, lifting her. She almost lost her balance when he spread her
over him. He was so big, too big really, to straddle—but he steadied her with
those huge hands. He got her legs arranged in some good, solid position
somewhere either side of him, cock so close to her cunt she could have kissed
her clit to it, and then her hands on his…wait.

Wait. What was he doing?

“Hold my wrists. Hold my wrists like this—the way I was
holding you.”

He couldn’t be serious.

“You want me to…pin you?”

“Just hold my hands to the bed. Don’t let me up.”

“Are you joking? I could be ten feet tall and six feet wide
and I’d still be unable to hold you down. If you want to go for me you’re going
to be able to go for me.”

He looked wistful then, for a second. Sad, almost.

“I know. But this at least gives me the illusion of safety.”

It made her shiver, hearing him say something like that. But
it made her shiver harder seeing him spread out beneath her, hands at the side
of his head, pinned beneath hers. That broad, lightly furred chest of his so
solid and hot and firm.

It was incredible, unbelievable. Not just his frankly
perfect body, but everything about the whole situation. She hadn’t even thought
about the door with the flimsy chair she’d once again shoved underneath it for
a whole five minutes. Nothing existed but this, and him.

“I’m going to fuck you now,” she said, and felt his hips
rock up at her. His cock slid messily between her legs, seeking heat.

It didn’t take much to just slide down on him, inch by
slick, delicious inch. And oh Lord, how it felt…how it sang through her entire
body to finally have him inside her, so thick and insistent.

She moaned aloud—couldn’t help it. But he moaned too, so
really, what did it matter? If they were going to be incinerated, at least
they’d be incinerated together. She’d have let them cut off her arms and legs
before burning her alive, for the sight of his parted lips and his widening
eyes, and those teeth flashing bright and sharp at her.