Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
RUTH
T here was that smug-as-fuck smile again, oozing confidence and audacity. My thighs clenched again as a rush of warmth swept through my center.
Damn it. If he kept talking like that, he'd trigger another heat cycle.
His nostrils flared, and he opened his mouth, probably to comment on my body's reaction to him.
In a sad and juvenile attempt to distract him, I flipped him off with a grin. "Can you taste this?"
He moved so fast thatthere was no time to react. On one breath, I was spearing a piece of pancake and the next, I was being pulled from my chair, my plate crashing to the ground. By the time my brain caught up with what happened, I was already flat on my back against the table.
The male arched over me, his teeth and bright eyes an intense contrast with the shadows wrapping his face.
"Try that again, Ruthless…" He dropped lower to feather his lips over the new scar on my throat. "And you'll find yourself screaming on my middle finger."
The space between us was electric, with world-obliterating sexual tension andlust. "I think I'd prefer to finish breakfast with your other form. Something tells me the literal animal has better table manners."
"Careful, Ruthless." He dragged his tongue over the tender mark on my throat and chuckled roughly at the way I gasped at the sensation. It was like he'd created a whole new erogenous zone on my body, one that would only respond to him. "That part of me never wants to let you out of my sight again."
How would he react if I told him there was a part of me that wanted the same thing?
My eyes pinged between his, searching for more of that side of him that screamed for me to stay. "What's going to happen when it wakes up?"
"I might hunt you down," he answered candidly.
I glanced at the stuffed buck's head in his living room. "Like one of your hunting trophies?"
Something in his gaze softened. He stroked one of my bunny ears with strange reverence. "No. Not like one of them."
My need for him exploded tenfold, my legs parting wider for him in a silent invitation.
His thick tongue sunk inside me, and he swore when my walls fluttered around his invasion.
He feasted on me like a starving animal, lapping and sucking and thrusting into me with frantic motions. The wet, sloppy noises he made—like he didn't have a single fuck about how obscene of a show he was putting on between my legs.
I squirmed against the table, and a hand flattened over my belly to pin me down.
He lifted his face, licking his arousal-soaked lips. "Be still while I fucking eat."
My head fell back onto the table with a wisp of a groan as my goddamn soul left my body. His tongue felt so good. The pleasure drowned out the instinctual voice in my head, telling me it was wrong for prey to mate with its predator.
"Oh!" My back arched off the table as his tongue left me, only to be replaced with two fingers. His lips encircled my clit, his tongue flicking the tender bud.
"You squeeze me so tightly, Ruthless." The male's brow twisted as if he was drawing as much enjoyment from this as I was. "You're so fucking sexy. I want to have you for breakfast every morning."
The confession was the final push into mind-shattering ecstasy. I wanted to scream his name, but it dawned on me...
I still didn't know it.
"What's your name?"
The silver wolf stared at me for a tense moment before a smile broke out on his face. "It's Carver."
Carver? That name rang a bell somewhere in my head.
Why was it so familiar?
The thought fell away to the back of my mind as Carver's fingers curled inside me, pressing that deep place inside me that had me falling apart around him with a cry. "Oh, fuck ."
My world spun again as he flipped me so I was on my stomach, bent over the table. His fingers plunged into my pussy and scooped my arousal out, smearing it over my asshole. His index finger circled the tight hole a few times before plunging one in. I gripped the edge of the table and gasped in shock.
"What? You didn't think I could leave this ass untouched for long, did you? All your holes are mine."
He withdrew his finger, and his cock pushed against the ring of muscle on the next breath. "Relax, baby…" he huffed, his face so close to my shoulder blades I could feel the caress of his breath. "You're choking my cock so fucking tight I can barely breathe."
"It hurts—" I was enjoying the way he was stretching me and the pain that came with it, but the edge in my tone had him softening.
Things really had shifted between us. Was his wolf whispering into his ear and changing his mind about me?
"You're doing so well, my dirty little bunny. Your little holes are so pretty when they stretch to take me."
He pulled out and plunged in again with a moan."What a tight, slutty little body you have. The perfect cocksleeve."
His hands came to rest on either side of my head, his sharp nails digging marks into the wood.
"Oh, Carver. It feels so?—"
His hand slapped over my mouth. "Shut up. Someone's coming."
The crunch of gravel crystalized the breath in my lungs. Oh no.
I expected Carver to pull out, but he kept pounding into me, chasing his release even as the truck engine was cut and the sound of footsteps came up the porch steps.
"Shit. It's my brother's mate."
My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. I tried to get up, and the werewolf pushed me back down, whispering in my ear, "I'm not done with your cunt yet."
My heart slammed against the tabletop when a knock at the front door sounded.
Oh gods, oh gods. Would she hear us? The table creaked with Carver's movements, and his balls smacked against my pussy, loud enough for me to wonder if she'd hear it through the door.
"See what you're doing to me?" he hissed against the shell of my ear. "I can't stop fucking you. Not even when my brother's mourning mate is at my door, wondering if I've hunted you down yet. She asked me to avenge Casey, and look what I'm doing instead… I'm balls deep in his killer, with my mating claim on her whore throat."
I bit the inside of my arm to keep myself from crying out as his thrusts turned punishing.
"And you know the craziest thing?" he continued through his labored breaths. "I don't give a fuck. All I care about is easing this ache in my chest. It only goes away when I'm inside you."
I angled my head to watch him as he came. His face contorted with a silent cry, the devotion in his eyes completely unguarded.
His cock pulsed, and a wash of fluid filled me. I shivered, his cum spreading through me, thick and molten like honey.
"Carver!" Another series of heavy knocks. "Open the fucking door!"
It wasn't until he'd emptied his last drop into me that he pulled out and quickly stuffed himself back into his pants. Then he bent, swept my hair out of the way and planted a kiss so sweet to my nape that it left me boneless against the table.
"Hide. In my bedroom. And be quiet, please. I don't want to hurt her, but my wolf will do whatever it takes to protect you. So, please, for the sake of my unborn nephew."
I gaped at him, my head bobbing in a shocked and silent nod.
The urgency in his voice had my legs moving for the bedroom. The woman's muffled voice called for Carver again.
Then, it hit me like a brick of dynamite. I'd heard her say that name before when the black she-wolf and Casey found me in the woods.
We should give her to Carver, he likes the sassy ones. Like the purple-haired girl from last year. Called her tasty.
My knees nearly buckled, and my hand flung out to catch myself on the dresser. Was Carver the one who killed my sister? Had he torn her to shreds?
The scene I'd been suppressing… of watching my cousin be torn apart by wolves as I watched helplessly from the bushes forced itself into my mind. Only instead of Hope's face, it was Sarah's.
No. Carver said he never participated in the Hunt. But what else could Lila have meant?
…called her tasty.
That. Mother. Fucker.
The silver wolf—the male I'd be mated to until the day I died—was the wolf responsible for Sarah's death.