Adam & Eve (A.D.2203, #1) (2 page)

No matter where she ran or how far, he’d find her. Wolves mated for life. And as dear old grandfather had proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, they had one genetic fuck-buddy. The law and God were on the wolf’s side.

Eve had never been a coward. Well, not really. She didn’t consider bolting herself into an airtight room 36 or more days a year, cowardice. It had been lifestyle survival, her own brand of manifest destiny...destiny that appeared to be shot to hell with the appearance of the large lupine on her front porch. She was royally pissed off about this. She didn’t need or want some alpha male in her life. Her heart slammed in her chest and her nostrils flared in anger.

The only question now was did she let him sit there, wait to see if he’d break the gorgeous 22
^nd
century antique steel door down in his hurry to make his claim? Or maybe he’d wait there for days until she needed to leave for supplies or her own sanity? Or did she open the door and begin to make his life miserable?

No way was she going to make this easy on him! Eve Longtree had no Domestic Goddess hidden within. The big bad wolf was going to have a fight on his hands. She was not her mother!

Eve took a deep breath and tried to find some semblance of calm. Okay, it was decided. Sniveling coward—not in this life. Take no prisoners, Red Riding Hood—yes. She just wished she had the man with the ax from the story at her beck and call.

Striding determinedly to the door, Eve unlocked it and swung it open. She swore the damned wolf grinned at her.

“My, what big teeth you have...” she muttered under her breath.

E
ve slammed the door behind the wolf. He turned to look at her with what appeared to be a patient gaze. She glared at him. She didn’t want patience. She knew he could understand both her body language and anything she said to him. Living with her stepfather and brother had taught her that. He would remember everything she said to him tomorrow.

Well, she wouldn’t waste time...

The wolf listened to his mate, watched her as she paced and ranted. She didn’t want a husband, lupine or otherwise. He got that from the first few sentences. He also got the point that she thought he wanted nothing from her but a house slave and a warm, breeding body. Well, they’d get to that. He couldn’t talk back in this form, reassure or fight her out of this mood. He would just have to be patient.

Hours later, she finally wound down enough to sit in one place for at least a moment. He had wandered around the comfortably decorated living area, wallowing in her scent while she raved. He had decided that he couldn’t just jump her and clamp his teeth on her shoulder to mark her, as the wolf wanted him to do.

It could be gently done. The mark didn’t have to be forced or brutal. He only needed to break the skin and mingle her blood with his saliva to ensure their joining and make it impossible for her to denounce him. But for his sanity and territorial needs it would have to be done tonight. After waiting this long there was no way he could postpone the claiming. His eager body painfully tightened at the thought.

She settled on the white nuleather couch. Perfect. The sofa was situated with the back to the entrance hall, facing what had once been a fireplace. Years ago the office of Airquality had banned the use of the smog-causing instruments. Now, in his mate’s home it served as a decorative display of candles and antique woven baskets.

Her shoulders were above the back of the couch. It would be easy to let her rest, then casually stroll behind, quickly moving up to graze his teeth across her shoulder. The shirt fabric wouldn’t stop him. All that was required was her blood and his saliva mixed even minutely.

Eve was so tired. The fear and anger-laced adrenaline that had fueled her ranting drained way, leaving her emotionally exhausted. She just wanted to sit on the couch and doze off. She had been afraid he would pounce on her immediately, dragging her to the floor to sink his teeth in her shoulder. He hadn’t. He watched her and moved around whatever room she paced in, not letting her out of his sight to explore further than a few feet away. But he’d left her to her lecture. Now what? She just knew she wouldn’t be able to keep her eyes open much longer. And it was still hours to sunrise.

She watched woodenly as the wolf moved around the room. Sniffing here, wallowing there. Yeah. She was well and truly scented. He walked around the couch and she turned her head to track his movement over her left shoulder.

She had to admit he was a gorgeous specimen for a werewolf. His thick gray coat had black highlights with an almost white strip going from between his eyes, over his head and stopping about midway down his back. She idly wondered if that meant he had gray in his hair when he was in human shape.

He was huge. Almost twice the size of any werewolf she’d seen. He had to be a very large man. Well, she was about 5’8” herself. No shrinking violet here. Err...
what was he doing?

Adam paused behind the couch, and then rose up to rest his front paws on the back. He did it slowly, carefully. He didn’t want to scare her away. That would force him to wait, possibly, until she was asleep before he claimed her.

He wanted her awake so that she would experience the binding and there would be no question from her later that she was his.

Eve quickly realized what the wolf was trying to do. Her mother hadn’t raised an idiot. He had waited for her to sit, so that he didn’t need to knock her to the ground in order to mark her. How chivalrous! She knew she could move, delay it for another hour or so until she fell into complete exhaustion, or he decided not to be patient.

Why bother? She’d rather be awake for this, there was no way she’d let him put those teeth to her throat while she was sleeping.

“Might as well do it right the first time,” she grumbled. She did not want her favorite comfort shirt ruined.

Turning her head forward, she raised her right hand up to the sweatshirt’s neck. She stretched it out and pulled it off her right shoulder. In her left hand she gathered back, and in seeming indifference she cocked her head to the left side. This exposed the area on her right side from neck to mid shoulder...to his teeth.

As she did it, her mind flashed to the current lupine fashion craze and she wrinkled her nose. Shirts and dresses with cutouts to either show off mating marks or bare the area for marking. Some even came with fancy writing that said “bite me.” She swore right then that she’d deck the first person that bought her one.

Adam could not believe she was making this easy for him after everything she’d said. Knowing that he would not understand this woman anytime soon, he internally shrugged and bent to take what was offered to him. The reason didn’t matter.

Very carefully he opened his jaws and spread them over his mate’s shoulder. A few inches away from her neck he rested his teeth on her sensitive flesh. He felt her shudder.

Gently he bit down, breaking the skin enough that she bled; he then drew his teeth in a scraping motion as he closed his mouth. His saliva mingled with her blood, and she was marked forever.

His. She was his, now and forever.
The relief and overwhelming sense of rightness washed over him. It was such an incredible feeling to know he had found his mate. Those feelings immediately turned to lust.

Eve closed her eyes. She’d felt the hot breath of the wolf at her neck. Felt his teeth press together on her skin and the piercing sensation when he’d drawn blood. She’d been somewhat prepared for that. What she hadn’t been prepared for was the way she’d felt. She was hot, sensitive, turned on, and her body was telling her it had craved this claiming her entire life. She felt as if a shimmering cord had been stretched between her body and the wolf’s. The binding.

Well, she was more than just her body. Shaking herself out of the haze she’d fallen into, she stood up, pointedly ignoring the wolf that kept pace at her side, and went to the kitchen to run water over a clean rag.

It was done. Their genetic codes had been joined and Eve refused to give in to feeling sorry for her self or anger at the world in general. Nothing could be done about it now. She was tired and knew she would need to be rested for the morning. She had a few more things she wanted to say to him and she needed some rest if she was going to make any sense at all. Nothing more could happen while he was in wolf form and he wouldn’t change until daylight. She was getting some sleep.

Eve wrung out the cool cloth and set it on her bleeding shoulder. She was going to ignore what would happen when he shape-shifted. She didn’t even know what he looked like. Tomorrow was soon enough to worry about the rest.

S
ometime during the night Adam had stretched out on the floor beside the couch and his sleeping mate. He woke as he changed. Every nerve ending screamed at him to posses her now. He glanced down at his naked body as he moved gracefully to his feet. He was certainly ready. The wolf saw things in black and white with strangely distorted vision. He knew his mate was tall, with short, wild hair that had appeared to be black. More than that he hadn’t been able to see as a wolf, but he would be able to find her in a room filled with hundreds of people, just from her unique fragrance. He was anxious to view his mate through human eyes.

Adam turned to glance down at her and quietly sighed. She was lovely. He’d been right about the hair, it was black. The silken gleam of polished black opals tempted him to bury his hands in the sleek mass and never let go. Her facial structure was strong, yet feminine. Her eyes were closed of course. He wanted them to stay that way.

Once she was awake, they would have to talk.

Her body structure was hard to distinguish in the oversized sweat suit she was wearing. But he would bet on soft curves. She didn’t move like a muscled athlete and he remembered her saying something last night of refusing to give up her genetic research. She was a scientist. Developing the mind would come before developing the body. He could help her balance both. Right now it was her body he craved.

How to go about this? If she woke up before she was caught in passion, she would try and stop him. And he wouldn’t be able to stop. His body burned and throbbed with insistence, needing to possess her. His cock jumped with a life of its own, aching and straining to bring attention to its requirements. He wasn’t about to disappoint it. If he carried her to bed, where he would prefer to love her, she would wake. So it had to be the couch, maybe moving to the floor once they’d started.

He knew that her body would be perfectly tuned to his. As his bonded mate, her arousal would come hard and fast this first time, in perfect concert with his needs and all senses heightened by the binding.

The muscles in his neck corded with anticipation. Throwing his head back he closed his eyes for a second and clenched his jaw. He needed some control or it would be over the minute he slipped into her. His cock hardened even further at this thought. Dropping to his knees on the floor, he bent his mouth to the skin at her neck.

Eve sighed in her sleep. She was having the most wonderful dream. Never had she been touched like this, never could she remember being so hungry for a lover’s touch. And her dream lover was fantastic. His lips and tongue seemed to taste every inch of her, his hands gently moving to caress her breasts, teasing them as he licked a path down her naked stomach. She felt as if she was burning inside. Moisture collected on her upper lip, she moaned and moved to provide better access to those hands, that mouth. She shuddered. Oh, God. How could a dream feel like this?

She swore she could feel wetness as the tongue laved her navel, she could feel the pressure so acutely on her nipples as the dream fingers plucked them, sending heat straight to her core. She moved again, her hips desperately shifting to allow her clothing to be stripped off her body and to entice her dream lover to pay attention where it was so urgently needed.

She was boldly picked up and laid out on a hard surface, one that didn’t restrict her legs from being spread wide. Shocked with the movement, her eyes flew open. Only to see a man’s head descend, flashing silver eyes meeting hers just before his tongue flicked out to torment her clit. She gasped, drawing in air before shifting her knees further apart to give him unrestricted access to the pulsating nub that demanded her submission.

Eve’s mind was screaming at her to stop.

Her body told it to shut up.

She watched between lowered eyelids as the man put one hand under her hips and pulled her to him, while he used the other hand to separate her labia, exposing her swollen nubbin to the rasp of his tongue. He created his own rhythm, forcing her body to respond first to the long licks across her clitoris and then to the rigid tongue thrusting deep into her core.

She came quickly on a loud scream, and just as fast found that he would give her no mercy. He continued to suckle and probe, adding the torment of his fingers pushing within her.

He finally stopped when she was delirious with the pleasure. Setting her hips gently to the floor he moved over her, nudging her cunt with the hot, velvet tip of his erection. She opened her eyes and her body to this man she’d never seen before, a man she’d not spoken one word with. Moaning, she greedily took him in.

Eve’s eager body welcomed his cock, as her mind vaguely noticed that the gorgeous dark haired, silver-eyed man did have a little gray mixed in his hair. It was the last coherent thought she managed.

She felt every unyielding inch of him as he pushed into her. And there seemed to be a lot of inches. God that felt good. He stopped. “No,” she groaned. “Don’t stop, please...”

“Look at me, my mate,” he demanded.

Eve raised her lashes at growling baritone. She met his gaze, looked at the intensity and the fire in the depths of silver eyes. Her inner muscles clamped tightly around him. He hissed, his face contorted in ecstasy. She could see him struggle for control. Well good. She didn’t think she wanted him in control.

He rocked urgently inside her, then stilled again. “I am Adam. And I claim you for my own.”