Rhyannon Byrd - Primal Instinct 04 (42 page)

And in so many ways that was true. Yeah, she could
have walked away, and she would have survived. She would have woken up each
day, gone to bed each night. But she wouldn’t have been whole. She would, in
fact, have been only half alive.

“Does this mean I get that chance to prove myself?”
she asked unsteadily.

“You don’t need a chance. What you get is me. That is,
if you still want me.”

She blinked, trying not to cry as she said, “You trust
me not to hurt you?”

“How could I not trust you, Liv? Right from the start
you took everything I always thought I knew about humans and turned it on its
head.” He lifted his hand, hooking her hair behind her ear. “So yeah, you have
my complete and total trust. But what about you? Do you trust me not to break
your heart?”

“I trust you,” she whispered. “And I love you, too.”

“God, woman. You don’t know how good it feels to hear
you say that.” And then his mouth was on hers and he was lifting her into his
arms…carrying her to the bed. Excitement shivered along her nerve endings as he
laid her down on the cold sheets and started stripping off her clothes, then
his own, the wicked glint in his eyes warning her that she was going to be in
for one hell of a night.

“Are you still leaving?” she asked, the words turning
into a shivery moan as he pressed a hot kiss against one sensitive nipple, and
then the other.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he rasped, bracing himself
over her so that he could look into her eyes. “I talked about it with Kellan
before I came up here. He’s going to take Noah with him to Finland, and I’m
going to stay here with you and Jamie.”

“Thank God,” she whispered, curling her hands over his
hard, muscular shoulders. “I mean, I know you still have a job to do, but I
couldn’t stand it if you had to leave us. Not this soon.”

He leaned down and claimed her mouth with a long,
ravenous kiss that made her head spin, a rush of sweet, shivering chills
spreading over her body as he pressed himself between her legs. His breathing
was ragged as he worked his way back down to her breasts with slow, openmouthed
kisses, his tongue lapping with savoring, deliberate strokes, as if he found
pleasure in the simple taste of her skin. He took his time, sucking and nipping
and licking until she was writhing from the pleasure…from the biting
anticipation, her nails digging into his muscled backside as he rubbed the
heavy length of his erection against her slick, sensitive folds.

“I need to get a condom,” he said in a raw voice when
he finally pulled himself away from her breasts, his heavy-lidded eyes smoldering
with a sharp, feral glow. “I didn’t want to jinx myself by coming in here
prepared. I need…I gotta go grab a rubber from my bag. I left it out in the
hall, by the door.”

“Leave it,” she whispered, stroking her palms up the
length of his back, loving the feel of all those bunched muscles beneath his
sleek, fever-warm skin. “You don’t need a condom, Aiden. We’re in love and I’m
on the pill. So just take me already.”

“Are you sure? I mean…” He swallowed, his breath
rushing in hard, ragged bursts as he shifted his gaze to the side. “There are
things…that will happen if I come inside you. And once I start, I won’t be able
to stop. Are you sure that’s what you want, Liv?”

Her answer was to reach down and eagerly take him in
her hand, fitting the swollen, heavy head of his cock against the damp opening
of her body. “Don’t make me get rough with you,” she teased him, arching her
hips, a smile on her lips as the first few inches slipped inside her.

“Wait!” he growled, his body shaking as he
straightened his arms, his biceps bulging beneath his dark golden skin. “I
haven’t…haven’t even told you exactly what will—”

“I don’t care,” she whispered, cutting him off.
“Whatever it is, I’ll love it, Aiden. If it’s a part of you, I’ll love it.”

He squeezed his eyes closed, his nostrils flaring as
he obviously tried to keep himself under control.

“Look at me, Ade.” She waited until he’d opened his
eyes, then reached up and held his beautiful face in her hands as she said, “I
love you. Every part of you. They’re mine, and I want them—”

Her words broke off with a thick gasp as he suddenly
drove her against the mattress, shoving hard and deep, a rough, guttural growl
tearing from his throat as he pumped his hips, working against the tightness of
her body until he’d buried every inch inside her. “Oh, God. I didn’t think it
could feel any better, being inside you,” he groaned, lowering his face close
to hers. “But it does.”

“I know,” she whispered, loving the wild, animal
intensity of him as he moved inside her. She couldn’t get enough of the way he
stared down at her as if she was the most gorgeous woman in the world. She knew
she wasn’t. That she was just plain, average Olivia. But in Aiden’s eyes she
was beautiful, and that was all that mattered.

“It’s gonna happen,” he growled, his lips pulling back
over his teeth as his back arched, and she felt his cock give a hard pulse,
almost as if he’d had some preliminary kind of orgasm. She’d felt the sensation
the other times they’d made love—only this time there wasn’t anything
separating them, and the hard, thick pulse was immediately followed by a hot,
molten heat that felt indescribably good as it spread through her body, and
Olivia could feel herself tightening around him even more. With a low growl
vibrating in his chest, Aiden rode her with hard, heavy lunges, thrusting
against some deep, impossibly wonderful spot that damn near stopped her heart.
Her head shot back, her mouth open for the silent screams pouring up from her
throat as a voluptuous wave of pleasure rolled through her, her body convulsing
around him as he began to make raw, thick noises in the back of his throat. It
took a moment for her to focus through the blinding, piercing ecstasy, but she
finally realized he was asking her the same question, over and over again.

“Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?”

Knowing exactly what he was talking about, Olivia
reached up and wrapped her arms around his strong neck, pulling him down to her
as she turned her head to the side, revealing the vulnerable curve of her
throat. “Do it, Aiden. Please. I love you so much. Just do it.”

He shuddered, his hips slamming against her, powering
his body into hers, and then she felt his warm lips brushing against the tender
skin just beneath her ear. “You don’t know how close I came to biting you
before,” he said in a dark, velvety voice that was roughened by need. “Every
time we made love, it was so hard not to mark you, Liv. To hold myself back.”

“You don’t have to fight it anymore.”

Groaning, he buried his face in the curve of her
shoulder, and she dug her nails into his biceps. She felt the scrape of his
lengthening incisors against her flesh, and then a thick cry of shock was
ripped up out of her as he drove his fangs deep. She could feel his cock
growing harder…thicker, her body stretched around him to the point that it was
a crazy blend of both pleasure and pain as he growled against her shoulder.
Then he pulled back his fangs, licking the wound with slow, provocative strokes
of his tongue. For a moment Olivia was almost frightened, as he became even
thicker, his body driving into her with a visceral, savage intensity—but then
the pleasure won out over the fear and she gave herself up to it, falling into
a crushing wave of ecstasy with him that was so violent, so extreme, she knew
she’d never be the same.

She lay there, panting and wrecked, for a long time
after, loving the heavy weight of his body draped over hers. Loving his warm
breath in her ear. The lingering pulses that twitched from that powerful part
of him that was still packed deep inside her.

She thought she’d known what pleasure was, but she’d
been wrong.

She thought she’d been prepared for how this moment
would feel, but she hadn’t had a clue.

With his hot face pressed close to hers, he finally
managed to say, “Damn, woman, I think you killed me.”

She smiled and stretched beneath him. “You stole the
words right out of my mouth.”

Bracing himself on one elbow, he stared down at her
flushed face as he lifted his hand and pushed back the damp strands of her hair
from her cheek. “I thought I knew how it would be, but I wasn’t even close.”

“Better?” she asked, thinking that she’d never known a
more sinfully, impossibly sexy man.

He lowered his head and kissed her deeply…hungrily,
his lips moving against hers as he said, “There’s nothing in the world that
could compare.”

With the tips of her fingers she touched the bite mark
Aiden had made, a strange warmth still pulsing beneath her skin that felt
unbelievably wonderful. “Does this mean that I’m your mate now?” she whispered,
filled with a powerful, stunning surge of pride.

His eyes tightened as he threaded his fingers through
the hair at her temple. “You’re more than my damn mate, Liv. You’re my
everything.”

“So what now?” she asked, knowing without any doubt
that she was the luckiest woman in the world.

His mouth curled with a boyish, lopsided smile as he said,
“Now we go downstairs and get Jamie. We bring her up here and tuck her into the
little bed that’s set up in the connecting room. Then I carry you back in here
and lay you down. Make love to you again…and again, until our bodies are too
exhausted to move. And after that, I want to sleep with you, Liv. Hold you in
my arms through the night, just watching over you…listening to you breathe.” He
shook his head a little, saying, “God, there are so many things that I want
from you.”

“You can have them all, Aiden. Just name them, and
they’re yours.”

“Good,” he rasped. “Because I know just what to start
with.”

“And what would that be?”

“A baby, so that Jamie can have a little brother or
sister. For you to marry me, so that I can call you my wife. But most of all,”
he whispered, brushing his lips against hers, “I want forever with you, Liv.
One lifetime just isn’t going to be enough.”

The tender words melted into her heart, stunning her
with their beauty, her happiness so powerful and vast and intense, she didn’t
know how she kept it all inside. Somehow, in the midst of the nightmare
surrounding them, Olivia had managed to find her version of heaven, and now
this gorgeous, loving, incredible man was hers.

She didn’t know what she’d done to deserve it. To
deserve him.

But she had a tiger by his tail, and she was never
letting him go.