Shifter's Lady (8 page)

Her gift was to heal and to aid in childbirth. So unless Travis decided to go into labor during the challenge, she thought bitterly, there would not be much she could offer.

A noise alerted her to movement, and she looked up to see the pride members filing out of the room, nodding as Ethan issued last-minute instructions.

“William, take a team and relieve the first watch,” Ethan said.

William nodded. “Get some rest. You'll need it. The intel says Travis is one of the most powerful alphas in the central part of the country.”

Ethan bared his teeth in a terrifying mockery of a smile. “Then maybe he'll offer some sport before he dies.”

Marie gasped at the overt ferocity in his voice, and he stood, head bowed, for a long moment before he turned to face her. As he crossed the large room toward her, she shivered at the intent plain on his face. He wanted her and was prepared to lay siege to her defenses.

She was unsure if she had any defenses left to raise against him.

He sat next to her and lifted a hand to twine in her hair. “Did you get a little rest?”

“I think I must have slept for a while. It has been a very long day, and I did not sleep well last night, with the excitement of the journey ahead of me.”

His lips tightened. “Not exactly what you thought it would be, is it? I'm really sorry, ocean girl. Once we get this little problem out of the way, I'll wine and dine you in the very best restaurants.”

She considered the leap for a moment before deciding to brave it. Life was fraught with potential danger. This courageous man would fight for his pride members, his lands, and even his life in fewer than twenty hours.

In the end, the leap was really only a very small step. She leaned her face into his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm. “I don't need the best restaurants, Ethan. Right now, I would be honored simply to be alone with you.”

A crystalline moment stretched between them, lasting so long that she was afraid her offer had been misguided. Then something in him seemed to snap, and he lifted her onto his lap, pulling her to him so tightly that she could barely take a breath.

“Are you saying what I think you're saying, Marie?” he said, rasping out the words. “That you will be mine, if only for this night?”

The moment was too huge to comprehend; too crucial to some inherent need in her soul to acknowledge. Instead, she found refuge in levity. “Well, perhaps. But only if you will respect me while I'm naked.”

He shouted out his laughter and jumped up with her still in his arms, as though she weighed nothing at all. Then he bent to kiss her and poured so much longing and hunger and need into the kiss that she was dizzy long before he released her to stand on her feet.

“I want you right now, ocean girl. But I won't take you here in my office. I want you in my bed.”

She nodded, and he caught her hand in his own and pulled her, half running, down the hallway to his rooms. When they arrived, he kicked the door shut behind him and then locked it. She caught her breath, transfixed at the predatory cast to his face as he stalked her across the room.

“Wait,” she said, breathless with anticipation, with longing,
with a trace of fear. “I want…” She ran to her bag and dug in the bottom for the colorful scarves of Atlantean silk she'd brought with her, thinking perhaps she would wear them to some event with Bastien and Kat.

She tossed the scarves, rich with gold, silver, turquoise, and so many other jewel colors, onto his bed and spread them on his stark white pillows and sheets.

“Let me bring some color to your life, Ethan of Florida, as you have brought heat and desire to mine.” Her words were brave, but she stood trembling. Afraid the flames that ignited in her body whenever he touched her would consume her.

Afraid that one night would never be enough.

Knowing that one night was very likely all they could ever have.

But desire triumphed over fear, and she held up her arms to him. “Be mine for this night, Ethan. Let Atlantis meet the dual-natured, and both be the better for it.”

He did not say a word but started toward her. Slowly, stalking her. Letting her see the full weight of his hunger on his face. He pulled his clothes off as he came, so that by the time he reached her he was entirely nude, his enormous erection jutting up between them. Her eyes widened at the sight of his powerful body sculpted into lean muscle.

“It's time, ocean girl,” he whispered. “I want to kiss every inch of your skin right this minute. In fact, I may very well die if I don't get my hands and my mouth on you in the next sixty seconds.”

She leaned forward and traced one finger down the planes of his chest and abdomen, and he shuddered. She bit her lip and took the leap over the precipice.

“Then perhaps you should remove my dress.”

Ethan stared at Marie, unable to believe his ears. Unable to believe that the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen was offering herself to him with the same courage she'd shown when she'd questioned his authority. When she'd defied him. When she'd laughed at his attempt to order her around.

Somehow, this gentle healer had displayed greater strength than the meanest and baddest of his pride-brothers. Maybe it was her gentle touch that had stolen its way into his heart.

“Your dress. Right. I might be able to manage that.” He reached out for her, hoping she didn't notice that his hands were shaking. Touched the silken folds of her dress and, underneath, the silken curves of her skin.

“I love this dress,” he said. “But it has to go.”

He bent to grasp the hem of the dress on both sides of her endless legs and then stood, pulling the fabric with him. She moved to make some adjustment, and the top of the dress fell open, helping his clumsy fingers complete the job. In seconds, the dress was up and over her head, and she stood in only a few tiny scraps of dark blue lace.

The sight of her sent all the blood in his body rushing to his cock, which jerked and strained toward her. His inner cat agreed with the sentiment, growling its hunger and need.

“Holy crap,” he said, grinning like a damn fool. “If that's the Atlantean version of ladies' underwear, I bow down to your superior race.”

She tilted her head and flashed a smile filled with the power of ages-old feminine seduction and newly discovered heat. “Do you like it?”

“It makes me want to purr.”

Marie laughed. “I'd like to make you purr, warrior. But first, I'd like to feel you touch me.”

He didn't need to be asked again. Ethan swept her up and onto the bed, rolling with her as they fell so that she landed on top of him, trapped by his arms. “I plan to touch every part of you,” he promised.

“Less talking, more touching,” she said, and then she nipped at his bottom lip. The sharp touch of her teeth ignited the flames that had been stirring in his blood, and he pulled her head down to his and took her mouth.

The predatory heat in his eyes exhilarated Marie. No gentle coupling, this—she wanted flame and fury and the sea-struck lightning of tempest-force winds. He'd torn her undergarments from her body as if he had to see her totally nude or he'd die from the wanting. Then she'd taken the aggressor's part, she who had never taken the initiative in bed sport, and actually bitten him. She felt as though the panther side of his nature had communicated itself to her soul, and she, too, wanted to snarl and bite and dig her
nails into his back, leaving no doubt in his mind that she was laying claim to him as well.

For one terrifying and thrilling moment she rose over him to conquer him, but then the predator in Ethan took command, and he growled low in his throat, then roared out a feral claim. He was alpha and master of his domain; he was fiercely primitive.

He was everything she'd never wanted and never known, and she was drowning in the sensation of him.

Ethan set his mouth on her and licked and kissed and bit her skin from her lips to her chin and then down to her neck. He bit the juncture where her neck met her shoulder, and she cried out at the electric current that sizzled down through her body. Her nipples tightened and hardened nearly to the point of pain, and then suddenly he moved down again and ran his tongue across one stiff point, and she cried out again. He lifted his head, a look of such fierce triumph on his face that the mere sight of it caused creamy heat to pool between her thighs.

“I warned you I would taste every inch of you,” he repeated, his voice so rough that the sound of it rasped across her sensitized nerve endings. “I always make good on my promises.”

He lowered his head to her breast and sucked one nipple into his mouth, licking and kissing it, then sucking it so hard that she cried out as the shock waves from the pull of his mouth sent arrows of knife-edged desire driving through her body. With his fingers, he caressed and pinched her other nipple, switching back and forth between the two until she was writhing on the bed beneath him, nearly mindless with hunger.

“Please,” she moaned. “Please, it's too much, Ethan. Please.”

“Not yet,” he said. He moved back up the bed and kissed her again, eating at her mouth until she thought he'd devour her, his hands stroking and caressing every part of her except for the center of her need. She returned the favor, frantically shaping his rock-hard biceps and the sculpted muscles of his back and bottom with her hands. Every inch of him was lean and hard and purely male.

He drove her to a fury of desire and insanity until she finally grasped his thick, glossy hair with both hands and yanked his head back from hers. “I need you now,” she said; it was her turn to issue commands.

Victory shone in his eyes, but she did not feel conquered by it. Rather, she felt herself the victor as well.

“I need you, too, ocean girl. I need to taste you and make you scream my name.”

She shook her head and tried to prevent him from moving down her body. “No, there is no…That is not necessary. Although that form of lovemaking can be pleasant, I—”

He froze, and stared at her in patent disbelief. “Pleasant?
Pleasant?
Who have you been…?”

Then his eyes darkened to the color of molten gold, and he bared his teeth in a grimace. “Never mind. I don't want to hear about any other man in your bed. Not now, not ever. Instead, I'm going to make you forget any other man ever touched you.”

In a swift motion, he settled himself between her thighs and draped them over his shoulders. Before she could say another word, he put his mouth on her.

She screamed his name when she came.

Ethan didn't give her time to float back down from the spiral. Marie's body was still spasming with aftershocks when he positioned himself between her legs and held his cock so that the thick head nudged its way into her creamy liquid heat. She tasted like spice and honey, and every muscle in his body was demanding that he drive every inch of his cock as far into her as he'd go.

But he waited, muscles trembling from the effort it took to hold back. Hunger and violent urgency raged inside him, but he refused to
take
her.

He wanted her to surrender.

“Marie? Beautiful, you need to open your eyes and tell me yes right now before the animal takes over from the man. Because I need to be inside you more than I have ever needed anything in my life.”

She opened those glorious eyes that shone like the midnight sky and, for one terrifyingly long moment, she didn't respond. When he was damn near frantic, she slowly smiled at him. “That was far more than pleasant; you spoke truly.”

He laughed, but it was wild laughter that skirted on crazed. “Marie? Honey?”

“Yes, Ethan. I say yes.”

He roared some unintelligible sound as he drove into her so far and so fast that his balls slapped against her ass when their bodies met. She bucked, arching up against him, and cried out.

But what she cried out was, “More.”

He thrust into her, desperately urgent, riding her body to the heights of an ecstasy he'd never known. Every inch of his body strained to press against her lush curves. Every inch of his cock strained to press into her welcoming sheath. He felt her body tense under his and slipped his hand between their bodies, rubbing his fingers against her slick wetness and then finding her clit and pressing it rhythmically as he continued to drive into her.

She cried out again when he touched her, and then her movements grew more and more frantic. “Ethan, Ethan, Ethan.”

He closed his eyes to focus on the feel of her, the silk of her skin against his. Her soft wetness as it welcomed his hardness. She arched into him, and he felt the orgasm wrenching through her body, and then she put her teeth on his shoulder and bit him as she came.

The feel of her teeth called to his inner panther, and it screamed its pleasure and approval. Ethan felt his body tighten and harden further than he thought possible. Then the world did bounce clear off its axis, and something inside him shattered. He exploded inside her, coming so hard that he cried out from it, shooting hot jets of his semen deep into her womb.

When he finally collapsed beside her, his softened cock still inside her body, he took a minute to try to remember how to breathe. He lay there, dazed, wanting nothing more than to fall asleep with this woman and then wake up still inside the warmth of her body. As the smile spread across his face, a gentle, cool wetness distracted him, misting across his head and body. He blinked his eyes open, and immediately regained full awareness.

Because Marie was glowing again; shimmering with that silvery blue light that had surrounded her when she'd healed herself. Except, this time, she also seemed to be making rain fall.

From his ceiling.

Marie swam up through waves of sated pleasure and contentment to the sound of her name.

“Marie? Ocean girl? We seem to be having a little unexpected weather pattern,” Ethan said. His voice was full of laughter, and she opened one eye to see what had amused him so. A drop of water splashed on her nose, and she gasped, then sat up in the bed and stared around, bewildered.