CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER TEN

Blair clung to Luke’s shoulders as he mule-kicked the front door closed. He was feasting on her mouth, licking and nibbling. He kept her plastered against him, as if he couldn’t bear the thought of there being even an inch of space between them. That was fine with her.

It couldn’t have been more than half an hour after the incident that he unapologetically ushered her out of the Tavern. It had come as no surprise to her. Not when she’d been able to feel pure male need humming along their bond. It had built in intensity with every minute that passed and caused sexual tension to wind her tighter and tighter.

The moment his mouth had taken hers, the sexual tension had all but exploded. Now a maddeningly feverish need was rampant in her system. Her inner walls pulsed like a heartbeat, damp and achy.

He broke the kiss with a growl, his eyes twin pools of glittering heat. “I’m going to fuck you so hard. And you’re going to take it.” He sank his teeth into her neck, wrenching a gasp from her. Then his mouth was on hers again.

Angling his head, he drove his tongue deeper, kissed her harder. Wilder. Hungrier. The nips to her lips became rougher. Her female totally got off on how he couldn’t seem to get enough.

Blair thrust her hand into his hair and scratched at his scalp, tugging on the soft strands in feminine demand. He poured a growl down her throat, making her nipples pebble and her lower stomach clench. His hands roamed over her skin, the pads of his fingers pressing deep; screaming mine.

At this point, her body … it was a mess. Hot and restless and over-sensitized. Anticipation clawed at her insides and fed her desperation to assuage the throbbing ache in her core.

She had to tear her mouth free, so starved for breath she was surprised little white dots weren’t obscuring her vision. Snarling, he claimed her mouth again, fisting her hair tight to hold her head in place so she couldn’t escape him.

The dark edge to his touch fired her need. He never held back from her in bed dominance-wise—he was always every inch the alpha. But, physically, he’d so far been careful with her, ensuring he was never too rough. That he clearly wasn’t taking such care with her tonight … yeah, she dug it.

He backed her through the apartment, stripping her along the way, tossing clothes everywhere. Naked, she whipped off his shirt—

He spun her so that she faced the sofa. “Kneel,” he ordered, his voice deep and jagged and vibrating with an authority she felt in her bones.

Licking her lips, she knelt on the plush cushion and rested her hands on the back of the sofa. Her female’s legs quivered, her anticipation as electric as Blair’s.

“So much soft, pretty skin to brand.” He traced the bumps of her spine. “I want you fucking covered in my marks.”

Yeah, she got that. He bit her a lot. Clawed her often, too. And he wasn’t gentle about it. Her female loved the sheer savagery of each territorial act.

He dipped his fingers inside her and groaned. “Soaked. You know what I most want right now?”

“What?” she rasped.

He replaced his fingers with the thick head of his cock. “I want to plant my cock so deep inside my baby I never find my way out.” He slammed home, burying every inch in her pussy, causing fire to streak up her inner walls at how abruptly he stretched them.

Her head shot up, and her breath snagged in her throat. “Jesus.”

He growled. “Yeah, feel me.”

A furious need battering at him, Luke pounded into his mate. There was not one thing better than being inside her. It was like being surrounded by a slick, spasming, scorching hot fist.

He kept a harsh grip on her hips as he jacked his own forward again and again. Physically, he’d gone easy on her in bed up until now, conscious of her inexperience; not wanting to scare or hurt her. But after watching her ruthless display of dominance earlier, the drive to reclaim and own and possess became a haunting beat in his blood.

His cat had urged him to answer that drive, sure she could handle it. Luke didn’t need to monitor her through their bond to be certain she wanted this. Arching and moaning, she pushed back to meet every thrust, practically bouncing on his cock.

He loved taking her from behind, loved that he could plunge so much deeper. He wanted to go impossibly deep. Wanted to tunnel so far inside her she’d feel him everywhere—her pussy, her womb, her fucking throat.

Maybe once their bond was complete and he felt more secure in their mating, this taunting need to consumingly possess every part of her would ease off. Or maybe he’d always be so savagely territorial when it came to Blair. He didn’t know.

He also couldn’t find it in him to care right then.

He was swept away by the moment, drowning in the sensual overload. Her scent, her taste, the feel of her skin, the viselike grip of her pussy—she assaulted and delighted his every sense.

Draping himself over her, Luke planted one palm on the back of the sofa and slid the other beneath her to fill his hand with her breast. The soft globe bounced in his grip with every slam of his cock, her hard little nipple grazing his palm. “You’re close,” he gritted out. “Get there. I want you to come all over my cock, I want you to drench it.”

She moaned, her pussy fluttering around him. “Luke …”

“Get there,” he repeated, sliding his hand down her body. He rolled her clit once, twice, and she came with a broken scream. Growling, he pounded into her harder and faster. “That’s my fucking girl, keep coming, let … fuck.” White light flashed behind his eyes as his release slammed into him. Biting into her nape, he rammed his hips forward, locking his cock deep inside her, pumping hot streams of come into her body.

Jesus Christ.

For long moments, they stayed there just like that, struggling to catch their breath. Once their orgasms finally subsided, Luke pressed a kiss to the fresh bite on her nape. His cat curled up in a ball, satisfied now that she’d been claimed all over again. “You all right?”

“If what you’re really asking is did I mind that you were rough, no.”

“Oh, I don’t need to ask that, baby. Your pussy squeezed my cock so tight when you came that I’ll be surprised if it ain’t bruised.”

She only snorted.

He carried her to the bathroom, where he cleaned them both up. He waited for her to slip on a long tee and then led her to bed. He settled her down beside him, keeping her front plastered to his.

Luke palmed the side of her face as he drank in every bewitchingly exquisite feature. People often did a double-take when they first met her, struck by just how utterly stunning she was. He could look at her for hours, soaking in the sight of her, submerged in bone-deep satisfaction at how this magnificent creature belonged to him.

He swept his thumb along the apple of her cheek. “Beautiful. Perfect. Mine.”

“You use that word a lot.”

“What?”

She coasted the tips of her fingers over his chest. “‘Mine.’”

“Yeah, because that’s what you are. Mine.”

“Which you’ve had, like, six years to get used to. Doesn’t seem like something you need to keep marveling over. But you say it as if you can’t quite believe it.”

He twisted his lips, sliding his hand from her cheek to her hair. “I hadn’t expected to find you that day at the restaurant. It caught me off-guard—something that doesn’t happen often. My priorities reshuffled in a millisecond. You became the focal point of my life. My own personal sun. I orbited around you for years, waiting for the moment when I could finally close that distance between us. After so long of having you right there yet never feeling close enough to you, it’s sometimes hard to believe that I’ve finally solidified my claim to you.”

“Never feeling close enough to me? What do you mean by that?”

“I ensured I was a huge part of your life, but I would have been far more up in your business if Noelle hadn’t been so difficult. In never welcoming me into your life and your family, she was a constant bump in the road that made the entire ride feel like it could take a wrong turn if I wasn’t careful. I wanted it to be a smooth ride for you, but I could never quite manage it. I guess there were times when it felt like we’d never get here; that she’d succeed in pressuring you to drag things out.”

Biting her lip, Blair smoothed her hand over his solid shoulder, skimming over a fading bite mark she’d need to renew sometime soon. “I get it. The foundations for what we have now began to form years ago. But until we mated, I didn’t feel as secure in our connection as I should have, because even though I knew down to my soul how important I was to you, Noelle was like a threat that hovered around our unborn mating bond.” It had made her female constantly antsy.

He nodded. “She would never have succeeded in making me walk away from you. She was a fool to have tried. Before I found you, I was … lost. Then I heard your voice tell me I’d dropped my wallet, and everything changed.” He leaned his forehead against hers, gently combing his fingers through her hair. “Thank God I dropped it.”

Her chest squeezed at the mere thought of how they might not have realized who they were to each other that day if it hadn’t been for the wallet incident. But the twinge of discomfort she felt at that was nothing compared to the ache she felt in her heart at how much anguish had coated the word “lost.”

She played with the short strands of hair at the back of his head. “You’ll have to tell me about that at some point, you know.”

“What?”

“Why you were lost.”

He drew in a sharp breath through his nose. “I know. And I will. Not tonight, though, yeah? Tonight is a night for celebrations only. A night I want you to remember for good reasons. I don’t want anything marring it. Hence why I want to rip Rhonda and Lucille new assholes.”

“Don’t bother; I rather enjoyed myself.” So had her female.

His lips twitched. “I noticed.”

“You enjoyed it as well.”

“I enjoyed watching you own your strength and slap them with the weight of your dominance, yeah. It made my cock hard.”

“I noticed.” She stroked his chest, smiling when he purred. “You’re such a cat. My cat.”

“Yours.” He caught her face between his hands, raking his gaze over every feature. “I love you, Blair. You can feel it through our bond, I know, so this isn’t fresh news. But I’m giving you the words because it’s selfish of me to leave our connection to say it for me.”

Her chest tightening, she swallowed. “I love you, too. I honestly don’t remember a time when I didn’t.”

His mouth hitched up. “Then kiss me.”

She did.

Sitting at the table across from his mate the next morning, Luke flexed his grip on his coffee mug, irritation a buzz in his blood. Blair was a smart woman. Wiser than her years. She would often see elements to a situation that no one else had considered. But there was really nothing smart about the request she made half an hour ago. A request that, in truth, was a declaration of intent. And he’d so far had no success in talking her out of it.

“Surely you can hold off for another day or so.” Or even ten. A few weeks would be better.

Her brow pinching, Blair sipped her vanilla latte. “I could, but why would I?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because the person stalking you may well live in the very place you want to go.” Something he should not have to point out.

“They don’t live in my old cabin.”

“But unless the stalker is Gabriel, they probably live on Sylvan territory. It isn’t the safest place for you to go.” His pacing cat growled, backing him up on that.

“It’s not like I’m suggesting that I go alone. I already said I’d like you and a few others to accompany me, just to be on the safe side. Though I don’t envision being attacked. Our boy operates from the shadows. He wouldn’t launch a full-on attack on a cluster of people in broad daylight. Tell me I’m wrong. You’d be lying if you did. Be honest, you’re simply being your usual overprotective self,” she accused, though there was no judgement in her tone.

“It’s not simply that—”

“Sure it is.” Her chin inched up. “I need to pick up the rest of my stuff, Luke. I don’t trust that someone—whether it be my mother or whoever’s harassing me—won’t spitefully wreck it all. The longer all my things are at the cabin, the more of a chance that could happen to them.”

True enough, but … “The key word is ‘stuff.’ That’s all it is. Things can be replaced. You can’t be.”

“A lot of those things are important to me, including all the gifts you gave me over the years.”

He snapped his mouth shut. His stomach churned at the ideas of said gifts being destroyed. He’d given her so many over the years—spoiling her, taking care of her in whatever ways he could, cheering her up when her mother made things difficult. “I don’t want them to be trashed either, but I’m more concerned about you.”

“Naturally. But I won’t be there long. Kiesha and Mitch have already packed up everything. It’s just a case of me collecting it all.”

“They could drop the boxes here for you.”

“I would have asked them to do exactly that, but …” She leaned forward, bracing her elbows on the table, careful not to spill her drink. “I think it would be a good thing for you and me to go Sylvan territory.”

He frowned, and his equally frustrated cat stilled in surprise. “I’m not understanding how.” At all.

“Because you’re not bothering to think past your overprotective instincts. It can’t have escaped your notice that our boy has been real quiet. Now, granted, we’ve made it impossible for him to contact me. But he knows where I am, he knows that I now live with you. Yet, there’ve been no more gifts or anything. Maybe he’s decided to lay low. Maybe he’s waiting for me to lower my guard. Whatever the case, his silence doesn’t work for me. I want him identified. I want him gone.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed as he sensed, “You want to provoke him.”

“If he’s part of the pack and we go there, he’ll see you and me together, happy and claimed. It will do him the world of good to be reminded that I don’t belong to him at all. It will also piss him off. And yes, I’m aware he could react seriously badly, but at least he’ll have done something. While he’s lying low, we can’t catch him at anything.”

No, they couldn’t. And taunting the asshole wasn’t a bad idea. But it would be Blair who said asshole would punish, and Luke was not whatsoever good with that.

“Another reason we need to go to the cabin is that we might just find something there that will help us ID him.” She placed down her cup. “Aspen asked me if it ever seemed like anyone had broken into my cabin. It hadn’t. But that didn’t mean they didn’t. And you know exactly what a shifter would do to the home of a person they believed belonged to them.”

Luke nodded as realization settled in. “Mark it.”

“Mark it,” she agreed. “You marked mine in various ways—clawed doorways, left items of clothing behind, touched my things to scent them. Just maybe he did the same. And just maybe we’d be able to tell who exactly did it.”

Blair watched him digest that. A surge of agitation rippled down their bond. An agitation she sensed stemmed from the fact that he knew she was right but wished she wasn’t because to argue would be to lie.

She wasn’t mad at him for so badly wanting to shield her from all harm, sensing it wasn’t that he didn’t believe she couldn’t protect herself. It was that it went against everything in him to place her in a situation that carried even a modicum of danger. “It’s worth checking, Luke. My female is all for being proactive in getting rid of this son of a bitch. Surely you and your cat are, too.”

Glaring down at his mug, Luke ground his teeth.

“We can take some people with us. They can act as an extra set of eyes while we search the cabin, and they’ll be back up should we need it. Come on, Luke, you know I’m talking sense.”

He scraped a hand over his jaw. “I don’t like it. And not just because to go there could potentially place you in the sights of a sick ass motherfucker who has the insane idea that not only do you belong to him but that you’d consider a corpse a gift.”

“Why else don’t you like it?”

“It’s highly likely that Noelle will take the opportunity to come at us. I don’t care if she spouts shit at me, but I won’t have her do it to you.”

There was indeed a possibility that Noelle would give them grief, but it wouldn’t be anything that they hadn’t handled before. “Did she try to gatecrash last night’s party?”

“No. But according to the enforcer who texted me earlier, she parked her car fairly close to the Tavern and sat there a while. She never once exited it. It wouldn’t have spoiled our night if she had tried causing a scene outside, though, as we’d left by then. The party continued without us.” He chugged back the last of his coffee and placed the mug on the table. “I think the only reason she hasn’t sent you shitty texts is that she wants to offload all she’s feeling in person.”

He was probably right, but … “I have to face her sometime. I’m not afraid to. Much as it pains her, she doesn’t intimidate me.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“Then what is?”

“Look, I know she’s not some mega villain. She’s your mom, she loves you, she wants you to be happy. But she hurts you, Blair. She doesn’t set out to do it. She just doesn’t mind her words or allow herself to see that she doesn’t put your wants before her own. In being the way she is, in saying the things she does about me, she hurts you.”

“Luke—”

“I couldn’t fully protect you from her bullshit all these years. It gutted me. I’m your mate, it’s my job—one I treasure—to act as a shield between you and anything that would cause you harm. But I couldn’t afford to get into full-blown arguments with her because that only made things worse for you.”

Melting inside at not only his words but the sheer torment echoing down their bond, Blair swallowed hard.

“I swore to myself that things would be different when I claimed you. I swore I wouldn’t let her hurt you again. I’m not saying I intend to stop you from seeing her. I want you to have her in your life. But right now, she is pissed. She’ll be looking to vent. So I’m not comfortable with you being near her at this time.”

Blair pushed out of her chair, rounded the table, and perched herself on his lap. She expected him to be stiff and aloof in silent protest, but he curled his arms around her with a deep sigh.

“I get it,” she said. “I do. And I adore you for it. But she doesn’t get to control my actions, Luke. That’s what I’ll be letting her do if I tip toe around her mood. I’d say you and I have done enough of that over the years to keep the peace.”

He muttered something beneath his breath.

She looped her arms around his neck. “I want to bring my stuff here. I want to fully move in. It will help my female settle—switching territories is a major adjustment even when you’re happy to make the transfer.”

“Blair …”

“You’ll be there to protect me. From our boy, from Noelle, from anything. We’ll take backup, and we’ll call for more if necessary. Also, there’ll be people in the pack who’ll come if we need them—Mitch, Kiesha, even Embry.” She paused. “Be honest with yourself, you don’t truly believe there’ll be an attack. Noelle might get vocal, but that’ll be the most drama we can expect.”

Seconds ticked by as he said nothing, his eyes unfocused. Finally, he exhaled long and loud and met her gaze. “All right. We’ll go pick up your stuff. But I won’t stay silent if your mother appears and starts mouthing off. I won’t leave you to deal with it alone even though I know you can.”

Blair lifted her shoulders. “Hey, you want to give her a piece of your mind, I’m not going to stop you. It won’t be anything she doesn’t need or deserve to hear. But with any luck, she’ll keep on sulking and leave us be.”

He snorted. “There is no such luck.”

Hell if she could argue that.