Authors: J. Rose Allister
Her sudden odd panic at that thought was cut off entirely when his face began to elongate again. He caught her eyes, which had flown wide. “No way we’ll be able to fight the shift when I mark him, sweetheart,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m sorry.”
Then the gaps between his teeth widened, and sharp fangs descended into place over a still human, but mutated, face. His eyes flamed into black gold, and without warning, those wicked jaws clamped down onto Nash’s shoulder. Blood flowed from the wound, and Connor’s snarls turned increasingly animal. Nash reared back with an anguished-looking moan, and his eyes flooded with glowing reddish-black as the change began.
Terror should have shut her down completely, but her body had taken over with its own demands. Her hands groped feverishly at her cunt and breasts when she saw both men, who were about to lose control of their human side, lost control of their passion first. Thick, white cum spurted from the head of Nash’s cock, which Connor still held in a feral grip. Connor’s teeth were still clamped onto Nash’s shoulder, and he released it only when he reared back with a shout indicating that he, too, was coming. Waves of their eroticism washed over Terra split seconds before she exploded as well, screaming out as the wildest climax she’d ever given herself took over. She sagged helpless against the doorframe, her pussy clenching in orgasmic shudders, when she opened her eyes to find the men rapidly morphing into their animal natures.
She somehow staggered into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her, leaning her weight against it while her hands continued to rub out the remainder of her soaring peak. Finally, she managed to regain enough control of herself to react to the alarm of knowing the wolves were back.
She listened through coarse breaths and the desperate pounding of her heart for signs that a new animal challenge was underway. Silence stretched out again, along with the fresh image of Connor sinking fangs into Nash while they spent their loads.
How could she find something so primal and vicious arousing? Not just arousing, but damn fucking hot enough to send her into climax right along with them. Granted, her grip on reality was a slippery one today. Yet the crazier this fantasy played out, the more she was inclined to believe it was, in fact, all too real. Truth was stranger than fiction, right?
No snarls or crashing furniture alerted her to trouble in the front room, but she was rapidly falling prey to another problem. The internal combustion engine that had been plaguing her since she’d driven up the mountain went supernova, driving sweat from her pores until she felt prickly heat over every inch of her body. Rivulets trickled down her forehead and into the valley between her breasts.
“Fuck,” she murmured, wiping an arm across her brow. The very motion fanned the flames higher until she wanted to scream.
Turning to the sink, she twisted on the rusty faucet with a creak and splashed cold water on her face. It dribbled onto her chest and down her arms, soothing the burn momentarily but evaporating all too soon. She spun around and raced over to the shower. With as much speed as she could muster, she kicked off her sneakers and undressed, clothes flying every which way in her haste. Her skin was flushed bright pink and felt almost blistered by the time she climbed under the spray. The barely warm water eased the burn like heaven, and she gratefully dunked her hair and turned around and around to soothe her inflamed flesh. Whatever chemical changes were taking place needed to stop before she went completely mad.
Terra plugged the drain and let the tub fill up around her bare toes, flexing them happily in the lukewarm water. She stood under the pounding spray until the water level licked high around her calves, then she shut off the shower and settled herself in the tub.
“Ahh, thank God,” she said. “Much better.”
With a heavy sigh, she sank down until she was submerged to her chin in gently warmed water with just her face and knees poking out. Heat radiated from her wet scalp, but otherwise this was the most relaxed she’d felt since she’d been in this exact pose that morning, indulging in a bubble bath before the frantic party preparations her mother hadn’t let her help with.
Terra hadn’t wanted any fuss over her birthday, but she let her mother have her way. She knew why it meant so much to the woman. She was trying to make up for lost time, though Terra knew it was too late for that. One wrong glance at the wrong moment had stolen two and a half years from her forever. Awkward party conversation and helium balloon bouquets wouldn’t change that.
The throbbing in her body slowed, and a heavy exhaustion settled over her, like a weight pressing her down in the tub. The day had taken its toll, which wasn’t surprising since she’d had more excitement in the past few hours than in the last six months combined. More than her entire life, really.
She stifled a yawn that her hand felt too heavy and lazy to cover. She would only linger in the soothing water for a few minutes. After that, she had to figure out how to extricate herself from this insane adventure and get back to the parents who were no doubt ready to call out the National Guard. A plan for doing so hovered just out of her reach, and she was still considering what the hell to tell her folks when her eyelids fluttered closed.
Chapter Five
Terra felt her shoulders being shaken, followed by the sound of a man swearing. “Terra,” the voice said. “Damn it. Come on back, honey.”
The shaking, she realized, was only due in part from someone tugging at her shoulders. Her entire body was quaking, and her teeth were chattering from a bone-numbing chill that likely explained the weird dream she’d been having. She was standing in the snow outside Connor’s mountain cave, trying to yell through the storm for him to let her in. Why hadn’t she just gone inside? There was no door, just a gaping maw at the entrance. She didn’t need permission to come in from the snow. Of course, maybe rushing into a cave wasn’t the smartest way to save herself from the freezing pressure slowly circling her chest. Animals lived in caves, dangerous animals that might swallow her whole if she wasn’t careful.
“Terra, darlin’. Wake up.”
The cowboy lilt filtered through the hazy thoughts, and her eyes shot wide open. Still, it took a few moments of furious blinking through the fuzzy view to bring the man into focus.
“Connor?”
“What are you doin’, lyin’ in frigid water? You tryin’ to catch pneumonia?”
Water sloshed around her as her shaking limbs made a clumsy attempt to help her sit up. Shit, the water was cold now, and so was she. Her fever had broken big time, and she was shivering almost violently. But she was so very tired.
She frowned and let her eyes fall blissfully closed. “Leave me alone. I have to get back to the cave.”
“No, Terra. You have to wake up.” Connor dipped an arm into the water and fished out the drain plug. The low drone of water circling out echoed in the room, as did his voice. “We gotta warm you up right now.”
He rose and scooped her wet body straight up out of the tub. She cried out groggily, and although her hands grabbed around his neck of their own volition, she instinctively began wriggling to get out of his grasp.
“Connor, stop.” Her words came through choppy, considering her chattering teeth. “Don’t carry me.
Stop
.”
With a start, she realized her slippery skin was not the only bare flesh in the room. Jesus, he was naked, too. Her struggle shot maddening friction between their bodies.
“Where are we going?” she said when he turned and started for the doorway.
“To put you under the covers so Nash and I can warm you up.”
“No!” She thrashed harder. “Put me down, Connor. Let me go
now
.”
He complied, sliding her down his hot, muscled flesh inch by torturous inch. When her bare feet were more or less on the cold tile floor, he drew her against him, and she sucked in a shaky breath. His erect cock was pressed against her lower belly, sparking a warmth that thankfully wasn’t as malicious as the fever that had gripped her before. Yet this burning felt even more dangerous.
“You’re like ice,” he growled. “I take it you won’t go out there because of Nash?”
“I’m not cuddling up with him under the covers. Hell no.”
“It’s the fastest way to warm you.”
“I’d rather freeze.”
“Then I have to get you into a hot shower, at least.”
“Just let me sleep.”
He ignored her and leaned down to flip on the water, rubbing her arms vigorously when he stood up again. Concern radiated from his gold-flecked eyes, which steam soon began to obliterate. When he bent down to pick her up again, she grunted and pushed him back. “No,” she half bellowed through teeth that were chattering so hard she wondered whether they might break. “Please don’t. I have a thing about that.”
“What? Bein’ carried?”
She nodded. “And being helpless, really.”
“Just hurry and get in that shower, if you think you’re steady enough. Your lips are blue.”
As it turned out, she wasn’t steady after all, a fact she discovered the moment she tried to heft a foot over into the tub. She felt shivery and drunk at the same time. Not that she knew what being drunk felt like. Connor grabbed her when she teetered, and somehow she made it under the spray of water—another move she regretted.
She jumped back with a flinch. “Too hot!”
Connor climbed in front of her, blocking the spray with his powerful body and giving her a perfect view of his perfect ass while he bent to fiddle with the temperature knobs. “It ain’t that hot,” he said. “You’re just too cold to tolerate it.”
She flicked her gaze upward just as he turned back, gathering her in his arms. Both of their bodies were slippery and wet now, and she tingled from far more than just the needlelike ping of the spray. His arms circled her, hard and warm and strong. The sensation was much more comforting than it had any right to be in light of the things Terra had seen in their short acquaintance. Nevertheless, his touch soothed her wracking chills while sending all new ones along her spine.
“It’s not safe, you know, fallin’ asleep in a tub like that,” he said, rubbing his hands over her back. One grazed her bottom, and both of them stiffened.
“I was just trying to cool off,” she said, something that might become an issue again and forevermore with Connor’s stiff cock still pressed to her. “I was burning up with that fever. I didn’t mean to nod off.”
“You dunked yourself in chilled water? You must have been bad off.”
“The water was warm when I got in. Sort of.”
“The fever can be fierce, but it broke.” He seemed to consider that for a moment. “That’s why you passed out. It’s what happens after. You’ll be done with all this now.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s somethin’ that happens to werewolf mates when they come of age. The chemical shift can be intense, I hear, especially if you give into it the way you did last night.”
She swallowed back the embarrassing thought of masturbating right in front of him. “So, you’re saying this wasn’t some superflu.”
“No.” He lowered his head to hers. “It was your body preparin’ to be mine.”
Her nipples were rock hard when he claimed her mouth, yet somehow stiffened even further as his tongue probed the part between her lips, demanding entry. She opened for him and felt her numb body surge to life as his tongue plunged into her mouth. He growled and slid a hand into her wet hair, pulling her head back and turning his attentions to her jaw, then laving a hot tongue along her throat.
“Jesus, I want you, Terra.”
His cock throbbed against her, and her hips responded by pressing closer to his stiff length. Connor grabbed her ass and thrust his cock right between her thighs, and she cried out when the length of it rubbed back and forth along her cunt lips and clit. She whimpered in need and he pushed himself against her harder, but then he released her.
His voice sounded thick. “If you don’t stop squirmin’ and moanin’ like that, I’ll take you right here, hard, just like this.”