Authors: Lora Leigh
“What you’re likely to get is one of your Enforcers killed,” she hissed. “They are using the trees, Jacob. And they’ve breached your defenses once. What if they figure out where the alarms are, now that they know there are alarms?”
“You think I am not considering this?” he asked her impatiently as he stood to his full height, towering over her as he stepped closer. “You think I have fought these bastards for six years without learning anything, Faith?”
“Well, evidently you didn’t learn anything about using the trees for cover, or you would have thought about it,” she retorted. “I’ve been out here half an hour and I figured it out.”
“What does this make you, a damned cat?” he growled, his voice rumbling now.
“What is this thing you have against cats, Jacob?” She rolled her eyes mockingly. “Learn from them. Felines can be your friends, baby.”
She heard a round of snickers below. Evidently Jacob did too, if the volcanic look on his face was anything to go by.
“Styx, he who laughs hardest can spend his night in the damned trees waiting on the bastards,” he bit out coldly. “Get some rest and see if you can’t make like a cat tonight.”
Faith glanced down at the huge redhead. If a wolf could pout, then he was doing a fair imitation of it if his expression was anything to go by.
“Hell, boss. She’s cute. You can’t blame us.” Stygian was openly laughing now. “Has you by your balls and you know it.”
“Want to join Styx tonight, Stygian?” Jacob snapped, his eyes still on Faith.
Faith restrained her own grin as Stygian immediately cleared his expression.
“No way, boss,” he answered quickly. “Never did care much for the feline way. Keep my feet on the ground if it’s all the same to you.”
“What is it with you people and the Felines?” she asked with exaggerated patience. “They are really very nice people, you know.”
“And you would know this how?” Jacob snarled.
Faith’s eyes widened. “I keep telling you, mate.” She spoke clearly, hoping he would understand this time. “I am Liaison to the Pack between all informers. This includes members of the Feline Breeds. I deal directly with their Liaison, Tanner.”
A real growl erupted from his throat now.
“Don’t you start, Jacob,” she warned him firmly. “There is nothing at all wrong with Tanner.”
“He’s a pervert,” he snarled. “His mating affirms this. You have no reason to be around this person.”
“He has a perfectly nice mate. She gave birth to twins last year. Perfectly adorable babies.” She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes. “Has a Wolfe Breed sired a child yet? Not that I’ve heard of.
“This is beside the point. When a Wolf Breed does sire a child, he will need no help from others, I can you assure you of this.”
Faith drew in a hard, patience-restoring breath. “You have lost your mind. Is this an Alpha thing that comes with a male’s mating cycle? Thank God all I have to deal with is perpetual horniness. And let me assure you, you are not keeping up today. Perhaps you need help after all.”
Below, Enforcers scattered amid helpless laughter as she faced a more than enraged mate.
“I promise you, mate,” he snarled as he came slowly forward, backing her into the thick trunk of the tree, his body aggressive, his voice dangerously sensual. “I need no help keeping you fucked. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. All I need to do is get rid of the damned coffee that turns you into a nymphomaniac with more attitude than a rabid Coyote.”
Her eyes narrowed on him as his hips pressed into hers, driving his cock against the softness of her lower belly.
“We have a deal,” she reminded him heatedly. “You have to leave my coffee alone and keep me fucked. Not snipe at me, or take it out on me because I figured out something you hadn’t thought of.”
Her hands gripped the limbs above her to steady herself. She watched his eyes heat, his cheeks darkening with sensual awareness as her breasts brushed his chest.
Jacob’s hands went to her waist as he lifted her just enough to grind his cock between her thighs suggestively.
“Mmm.” She licked her lips again as she lifted her legs, allowing them to bend and grip his thighs. “Wild monkey sex. Sounds like fun to me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“It would serve you right if I fucked you in front of the entire Pack,” he growled as his lips went to her neck, his tongue stroking her skin.
“Exhibitionism? Sounds kinky, Jacob. I’m game if you are.” Her head tilted back, her eyes closing as pleasure washed over her, heating the core of her body further, and leaving her longing for his touch, his taste.
There, in the shade of the huge trees, sheltered by the jungle, the mists of night still clinging to the air around them as the sun blazed in the morning sky, she wanted his touch, his heat.
Her hands tightened on the limbs of the tree as Jacob moved closer to her, his feet braced on two closely spaced limbs, his hips pressing tight against hers as his lips caressed her neck, and one hand delved beneath her shirt to the bare, swollen breasts awaiting him.
At the first touch, Faith felt ripples of sensation streaking through her body, caressing her womb and her vagina. She whispered a needy moan of arousal, desperate for more.
“Oh, you are hot,” he nipped her ear as his fingers tweaked her breast. “Does it turn you on, Faith, sparring with me? Pushing me?”
It did. She knew it did. Pitting herself against him, watching his eyes flame, seeing emotion transform his face, the confused anger, the heated desire. The need to make her submit. It fired her blood as nothing else could, seeing that dominance rising to the surface. She had no desire to best him. Faith fully admitted she wanted to be bested.
“Does it turn you on?” she asked him, rather than revealing her feelings, her weakness for his emotions.
His growl was surprisingly strong as he jerked her shirt above her breasts and stared down at the bounty now offered up to him.
“Turn me on?” he said roughly. “Damn you, Faith, you make me so hot I expect to disintegrate every time I touch you.”
She expected his mouth to ravish her breasts. To take what he was staring at so greedily. Instead, he took her lips in a kiss that destroyed her. His tongue swept into her mouth, conquering her, weakening her and yet filling her with a power she could have never imagined.
“Then take me, Jacob,” she whispered beseechingly as his lips lifted. “We can burn together.”
She needed him, needed him as she had never needed anything in her life.
“I won’t take you where my men can see your lush body, or hear your cries,” he bit out. “You are mine, Faith. Know this now. Mine.”
“Yours,” she cried out breathlessly as his hands cupped her breasts, fingers plucking at her nipples as he stared down at her in heated desperation. “If I am yours, Jacob, then prove it. Take me.”
He stepped away from her, breathing in quick, hard breaths, his hands rough, shaking as he jerked her T-shirt back over her bare breasts.
“Go. Now.” His voice was raspy, as dark and graveled as any she had ever heard. “I’ll be in our bedroom in five minutes, and by God, you better be ready for me.”
* * * * *
Ready for him didn’t come close to describing how eagerly she awaited him, Jacob thought as he entered the bedroom to find her sleek, perfect body laying back on the bed.
She stared up at him, her eyes so black and hot they seared him further. His whole body throbbed. Not just his cock, not just his tongue. He watched as she licked her lips with a lazy, moist movement of her tongue. They glistened now, making him hunger with his need to taste them.
There was knowledge in her eyes. A burning satisfaction that confused him. As though some need in her were suddenly fulfilled. A need that did not involve his touch, merely whatever she was seeing in his expression, in his desire for her.
“What do you think I’ve done to you?” she asked with him a purely female smile of mystery. Damn her, it only made him want her more.
“Drove me insane,” he suggested with a measure of amusement at his desires. He was nearly at the edge of his control, and he had yet to even kiss her.
Jacob lowered himself to the bed, coming over her, needing her. His mate. Her hands rose, flattening on his abdomen as the muscles there clenched at the agonizing pleasure of her touch. Jacob drew in a hard, deep breath as his cock twitched in reaction. Her touch smoothed from his abdomen to his chest, then back again, igniting a fire of need that tore a ragged groan from his chest. He wanted to eat her alive. He wanted to fuck her until she screamed. He wanted to love her, touch her with all the tenderness, all the heat that rose inside him for her.
The scent of her need enfolded him, infused his system now, just as she did. Just, he realized, as she always had. Had he ever been free of Faith? Free of the need, in some form, for her?
“You are so soft.” He brushed his jaw, rough from the stubble that had grown there overnight, across her bare shoulder. “Your skin amazes me.”
And it did. It glowed with the depth of a rare, perfect pearl. The sheen of satin, the warmth of life, that passion of a rising lust that amazed him. He brushed his lips over the curved area, loving the taste of heat and woman, the dewy drops of perspiration that began to cover her body.
She shifted beneath him, her back arching, her nipples hard and fiery brushing his chest. He grimaced, burying his lips in her neck, his tongue stroking the mark he had left on her as he settled cautiously beside her. He pulled her into his arms, fighting the overpowering need to take her quickly, urgently. His body, his mind was conflicted. He wanted her soft and easy, hard and fast, screaming in orgasm, crying out his name in release.
“Yours is warm, and strong,” she whispered with a breathless arousal that strained his control as her hands whispered over his abdomen. “You make me feel warm and hungry, Jacob.”
Jacob couldn’t stop the need to press her closer, to feel her breasts with their fiery tips burning into his chest, the way her thigh lifted over his, the humid heat of her pussy burning into his skin. Damn her, he felt like a ravenous animal in his need. It was all he could do to keep from throwing her to her back. Instead, his lips took hers possessively. She was his woman. His mate. He would prove this to her this day. Before she left his bed, she would know she was his, heart and soul, body and life.
He caught her cry in his mouth as his tongue thrust past her petal soft lips, sweeping over hers, encouraging her to take him, to draw the pulse of his passion from the swollen glands there.
She didn’t hesitate. Her lips and tongue twisted against his, then she closed over it, drawing it into her, relieving the minute pain of his need. Her tongue slid past his lips, a cry escaping her as her own need became paramount. Jacob’s lips twisted against hers, taking possession of her, drawing the sweetness of her passion into him.
Her kiss was silken heat, satin lust, and a core of such vibrant emotion he wanted to shy away from it in self-defense. He, the lone wolf, the Enforcer that all Packs and humans who knew of him feared. With only her kiss, this woman stole his strength, his breath, his will to live without her. As though recognizing the dark needs he had refused to confront, and admitting they all stemmed from his need for her, suddenly made the difference in his very survival.
God help him, she had possessed his very soul. The more he tasted of her, the more he needed.
They fought each other for domination of the kiss; lips, tongues, muted moans of desperation as their arousal began to flame out of control. Jacob could feel his control fraying, just as it had the night in the Lab, when his desperation, his animal instinct pushed him past the edge.
He fought those same needs now. As though the first pulse of her heated, arousal laced kiss was just entering his system. His hand tightened at her hip, his lips drawing a desperate line of kisses over her jaw, her neck. He licked at the mark there, drew it into his mouth, laved it roughly. He wanted her as hot, as out of control as he was. He wanted her screaming. Or did he want her soft and pulsing? Hard and exploding? He wanted it all, and he needed it now. It made no difference that one contradicted the other. All that mattered was the need.
* * * * *
Faith couldn’t help but plaster her body as close to Jacob as possible. She could feel her needs building inside her. They vibrated through her, setting up a steady palpitation in her cunt, her womb, beneath her skin as his kiss fired her body more heatedly than ever before. She strained to him, wanting every inch of their bodies to touch, to mate. One hand gripped his hair, fighting to hold him to her as he turned her to her back, rising over her. The other curved over his shoulder to his back, feeling the muscles there bunch, clench.
“The taste of you makes me crazy.” There was that heated rumble, rough and sexy that growled from his chest as he spoke.
Faith shivered, her head tilting to give him better access to her neck as she licked over the wound at his shoulder. He tasted just a bit salty, very dark, and very male as his mouth left her neck, then traveled a heated path to her breasts.
She groaned, feeling his breath waft over a nipple, tightening it further, heating it until she felt her flesh burning from her needs. She arched to him, whispering her plea as her nipple raked his lips.
Eyes half open, drowning in sensation, Faith watched as his mouth opened then covered the stiff peak. Faith felt her breath catch for long moments as pleasure tore from her nipple to her womb, contracting the muscles of her abdomen. Her hips jerked, her cunt rippling beneath the onslaught of ecstasy that fired through her body. Her eyes closed as a tremulous moan whispered past her lips.
Her hands roamed over his sweat-dampened shoulders, into his hair, holding him closer, pleading as the deep suckling motion of his mouth had her burning alive. Her thighs tightened as she fought the demand in her vagina. Her body tried to turn, to find the ease of the hard male thighs that pushed between her softer ones as he came further over her.