Authors: Lauren Dane
“Don’t feel bad. You did what you had to do. She started it, you had to finish it, or you would have never been truly safe,” he whispered against her hair.
“I killed someone.”
“You killed a wolf. Wolves do that. We also kill deer. You’ll do that too. You’re no longer human, Kari. You’re a werewolf, a shapeshifter. You’re my queen and my Mate. As of tonight, you rule at my side. You are my wife. You have responsibilities on so many levels. You did what you had to do. She forced it.”
Touched, she nonetheless had to deal with what happened. “What’s going to happen to Johanna’s body?”
“She’s Pack. She died as a wolf, she’ll keep that shape. Every Pack member has contingencies in place should any of us die. To deal with our human lives. Johanna’s human life will be dealt with as she wished it to be in her will. She’ll be buried in the meadow. As Second and the healer of the Clan, Sean will conduct the burial ritual before he comes back to the house.”
“Good. I like that.”
“Part of this world is death, Kari. It’s not an everyday occurrence. But it’s there. We’re predators, not just people with fur. It sounds savage, but it’s our reality. Don’t let this mar your Ascension. As hard as it is to understand, please know that you did what you had to. She would have killed you. You defended yourself and you killed her first.”
She took a deep breath. True, she’d had no choice. She’d tried to show mercy many times but Johanna wouldn’t accept it. It truly had been a kill-or-be-killed situation. Nodding, she gave Andreas a small smile. “I know. It’s just hard.”
“Good. It should be. You shouldn’t take it lightly and you haven’t. You did your job with integrity.”
She let him hold her, let the steady rhythm of his heart calm and comfort her.
“Come, my queen. I’m now going to make love to you as a human should. And then I’m going to fuck you.”
Stifling a smile, she took the hand he held out and they started walking toward the house.
“Let’s get upstairs before they all start coming back. If we aren’t behind our locked door, everyone will want to talk to you. I’ll have to share you and I want you all to myself. And naked.”
They ran up the stairs and into the bedroom, where Anna had set up candles, chilled champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries. “Man, you’ve really charmed that woman,” he said, shaking his head in amusement.
“What can I say? I’m very charming,” she said in a haughty tone, then laughed.
He poured her a glass of champagne and she took a bite of strawberry, watching him, eyes alight with lust and mischief. So amazing, his woman. He walked toward her, holding out the glass and staring his fill down the lines of her body. Curvaceous thighs and hips, high, full breasts, softly rounded stomach. Candlelight flickered against her pale skin. His cock bobbed painfully when she licked her bottom lip, clearing a smudge of chocolate.
Taking the glass from him, she held out the other half of the strawberry in her fingers. He took it from her, licking her fingertips, making her gasp. “To forever,” he said, holding his own glass up.
She
clink
ed hers against it. “Forever,” she agreed and sipped. “Mmmm. Strawberries, chocolate, champagne and naked man. No combination can beat that.” She gave him a wicked grin.
He drained his glass in one long swallow and set it down. Grabbing her hand, he led her to the bed,
their
bed.
“I can’t think of a better way to wake each morning than with you at my side. I’ve waited so long. I was beginning to think I’d never find my true Mate, and yet, a few days after meeting you for the first time and I feel like you’ve been with me forever. You just feel so
right
.”
“You sure know your way around the love words, Andreas Phinney. I bet that got you loads of ass over the years.”
Grinning a moment, he wisely refrained from commenting. Instead he took her glass and put it down on the table next to the bed and waggled his brows at her with lascivious intent.
Kari smiled at that, shivering as he ran his tongue around the shell of her ear and down the column of her throat, stopping to nibble on her collarbone.
“When I was in high school, I read some romance novel about this couple who fell in love the first day they met. I always thought that was a load of hooey. Love was something that only happened for some people. When you brought me here... I was so scared and so pissed off! But at the same time I felt this intense draw to you. When Skye changed it gave me a lifeline, a reason to believe you and to let myself want to be here.
“This is all totally fantastical! Not just the werewolf thing, but the love-at-first-scent/sight thing. But I don’t know, when I’m with you I believe it. The fairy tale is real. Love, shapeshifters, all of it.” She gasped again as his head bent over her breast, tongue flicking out to lave a nipple. “That’s very nice.”
“In the first place, you think too much. Just accept it. In the second place, I’m here to serve you, my queen.”
Grinning, she playfully punched his arm. “Hmmm. Then you should roll over, because if you’ll remember, I’m the only one who got to come the last three times. I have a bit of catching up to do.” She raised an eyebrow and then traced the trail of blond hair from his navel to his groin. “If I recall correctly, I had plans to explore this particular trail in depth with my tongue. You stopped me last night at just a taste, but you know, a queen should not be denied her pleasure.”
“As you will it, my darling, so it shall be. I’m all yours.” Andreas let her push him to his back and she scrambled atop him. “I do like this view.”
Looking over his body, spread before her like a banquet, she laughed. “Me too!” Shimmying down, she bent to him, her hair cascading over his bare skin. She traced through the trail of downy hair with the tip of her tongue, tasting his skin underneath. His taste seduced her once more, spicy and salty. She took a deep breath and wood smoke, pine and an elemental male musk wove into her senses. Everything he was made her eyes roll back into her head.
Kissing downward, she came to his cock and stopped, looking at him with a smile. She drew her cheek over the length of him and sat back up. Running her palms over him and down to cup his balls, she went back to trace a long lick from crown to sac and back up again. She licked over his skin, soft and smooth, feeling the prominent vein on the underside throb. Unable to resist any longer, her mouth closed over his meaty cockhead. Her tongue swirled over him, tasting the salt of his pre-come. Around and down, over the prominent ridge, learning him bit by bit. He tasted so good and right, she hummed her approval. As the vibrations rolled up the flesh of his cock, he groaned.
He ran his fingers through her hair and down her neck. His legs trembled a bit as she took him as deeply as she could. She was beginning to learn the different sides of this man she loved. This encounter was so sweet and gentle, so lovely. Contrasted with the harder-edged dirty-talking Andreas of the evening before, it meant all the more. It meant they’d be learning each other for decades to come, never getting bored. Each time they’d been together had been unique and special in its own way. She was a very lucky girl indeed.
“You feel so good,” he murmured, stroking her neck and ears. She felt his climax approach. His muscles tensed and his breathing became erratic, her name a rhythmic whisper from his lips.
She got to her knees to get better leverage and to take more of him into her mouth. His balls drew tight against his body and he hissed when she drew her nails over the taut flesh there.
“Oh, little wolf, stop. I’ve got to be inside you, and right now.”
She took her mouth off him and looked up through her lashes. Gently grabbing her shoulders, he pulled her up to lie across his chest. She put her ear over his heart, listening to the thundering rhythm slow down, his warmth soothing.
His fingertips caressed the skin at her hip, swirled patterns on her ass and up her back. She arched into his touch like a cat—or perhaps like a dog. “You take my breath away.”
“That’s the point.” She grinned against his flesh and felt his chuckle vibrate through him.
“You’re right.” He picked her up and sat her astride his thighs. “Ride me, sweetheart,” he urged huskily. “I’ve been dying to be inside you for so long. And remember, the first time is making love and then we get to fucking.”
Reaching around behind herself, she grabbed his cock and rose up enough to guide him to her gate. Letting just the head of him sit there, barely inside her, she enjoyed it before slowly sinking down onto his cock. Electric shocks of pleasure played along her spine. Andreas being a big man with big equipment, Kari took it slow, letting the size of him stretch her slowly. She must have looked a bit overwhelmed because he laughed, a low, sexy growling sort of laugh. “You did say you were a size queen.” And he thrust his hips up to meet her until the last few inches were inside.
She arched with a gasp, nails digging into the muscle of his thighs. “A crown I do deserve, now that I’m with you. Not that I want to swell your head any more than it already is or anything, and not that I’ve slept with some huge stable of men, but I’ve never had anything approaching this big inside of me. It’s overwhelming but very, very nice.”
He laughed then, belly shaking and sending little shocks of pleasure through her. “Thank you for that. I do aim to please.” He put his hands on her hips and raised her up and she took over from there, slowly riding him as his hands caressed her.
Each time she relaxed her thigh muscles and slid down on him, his cock sliced through her, invading her body with his. She felt this acutely, both physically and emotionally. He resided within her in so many ways.
Candlelight flickered off his olive-toned skin, the way he looked there beneath her clutched at her gut—blond hair glinting like spun gold, lips parted, eyes glazed with desire, filled with only her. She took him in there, so large and dangerous but tamed for that one moment in time, and she continued to be amazed that anything could feel so good. Shivers worked through her as his hands palmed her nipples, pulling back, drawing fingertips over her, pulling and rolling and moving forward to palm them again.
Vaguely in the distance she heard the sound of people coming into the house but it was a million miles away from the feeling of this man buried inside of her.
“Andreas?”
“Hmmm?”
“I love you.” She bent down, placing a kiss over his heart.
His arms came up and encircled her back. Moments later he flipped her over onto the mattress, leaning over her then, so big he blocked out the light behind them, the effect like sensory deprivation. All she could see, hear, smell and feel was him.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and he slipped in another inch or so. He picked up the pace then, sliding in and out of her faster and harder but still with incredible care. “I love you too, little wolf. I want to feel your pussy come around my cock. Make that happen for me.”
After that evening in the bathtub, she was past blushing about it or playing shy. And the look in his eyes brooked no room for that even if she’d wanted to. He wanted all of her. And so she slid her hand down her belly, fingertips finding her already slippery clit. Still, reaching down farther to the place they were joined, she gathered her honey even as she caressed him each time he pushed his cock deep into her cunt.
“God, Kari,” he gasped as he fucked into her body. “You’re so sexy.”
Smiling, she moved her fingers back to her clit and stroked over it, pressing down hard until her climax approached. Between her fingers on her clit, the new position that brought his pelvic bone against her mound and the size of him, she rocketed toward orgasm with toe-curling intensity.
“Please, I’m almost there. You too.” The muscles in her forearm corded as she worked her clit, the other hand clenched his hair.
He growled in approval and began to thrust so hard the headboard began to pound into the wall. “Yes, yes, little wolf,” he murmured, body tightening.
“Mmmm. Oh, Andreas.” Their mingled climax hit with such force that the electricity, the power that was released between them built into a hot wind. Most of the candles blew out and the lights flickered.
Wave after wave of pleasure buffeted her. Back arched, a hoarse cry came from her. Their gazes locked for a moment as she saw the force of his climax come into his face. Andreas threw his head back and roared out her name as he continued to thrust and come deep within her.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour, he sighed long and hard and collapsed on her, his weight feeling so good as it anchored her to the bed.
Well, good for a moment or two and then it became hard to breathe, and she was already panting from the orgasm. She squirmed underneath him. “Andreas,” she pleaded in a gasp and he moved back at once.
“Sorry, love, are you all right?” He tenderly kissed her lips.
“Now that I can breathe I am.” Laughing, she took a few deep breaths.
He lay on his side, facing her, head resting on his hand. The other hand was tracing along her body. Her fingertips drew through his hair and down along the line of his jaw. These moments were theirs alone.
The noise from downstairs was growing. “That’s some party.” She glanced toward the door.
“Yes. We should go down soon.”
“Really?” she asked, disappointed.
He chuckled. “They got a queen tonight, a new member of the Pack. You bested one of them on your first transformation. They want to be with you.”
At the memory of Johanna, she tensed.
“Little wolf, don’t despair. It is the way of things. You did what you had to do to protect yourself and your Pack. It’s your job.”
She sat up. “I killed someone. That is not my job. I started that fight. I should have just walked away.”
He sat up, grabbing her chin and turning her to face him. “No. Damn it, Kari. Think like a wolf! She presented herself to me—to your Mate. On the night you Ascended and transformed. Not only was it bad form, it was out of line. You protected what was yours. You blooded her, as was your right and duty. She should have stopped then. She chose to attack you. Even when you had her by the throat and she surrendered, you walked away. You let her live and showed mercy. When she faked surrender and then chose to attack when your back was turned, she meant to kill you, Kari. She broke the rules of combat and you defended yourself. You did what you had to do.