Merrick's Destiny (6 page)

For one tense moment he held her, her back pinned to his heaving chest, his hand splayed on her abdomen. He nipped her ear with a low chuckle. “I could make you come, standing right here.”

She slid her fingers into his hair. “I’d let you.”

“That’s what I want.” His fingers crept lower. “You, coming. Just like last night.” His fingertip brushed her clit again, worked in a slow, taunting circle. “Only this time, maybe around my cock too.”

Her head hit his shoulder. She tried to lift it, but she had no control left over her body as she strained toward his touch. “You could have had me then.”

“That was exploration.” He made another lazy circle, pressing harder this time. “A taste. This is the fucking feast.”

“I want—” A wave of sheer pleasure swept through her, left her whimpering. “I want your tongue too. Everything else you promised me.”

He worked his fingers lower, pushed one into her with a slow thrust. “Fingers first. Come once, and I’ll let you have my tongue.”

She knew better than to trust the words. She’d give him one orgasm and he’d demand another, wrench more pleasure from her body with breathtaking hunger. The thought alone spun her higher, and she pulled his hair and bucked her hips.

A second finger joined the first, and he curled them inside her as his mouth brushed her ear again. “So close, sweet girl. Give me what I want. Give me this.”

“Everything.” She barely managed the whisper before the rising heat burned away her reserve and loosed the hard knot of tension his touch had built. She rocked harder, then came with a sharp cry, shuddering helplessly.

His touch melted away, and he lifted her with a groan. The world tilted sideways, spinning with the waves of release, and he dropped her to the bed before the last one had crested.

He got one suspender off his shoulder before her pants distracted him. He dragged them from her body as Paralee yanked off her shirt and accidentally ripped her chemise.

She fell back to the bed with a laugh. “I’m useless. You broke me.”

“What a pity.” Merrick sank to his knees and dragged her ass to the edge of the mattress. “Now you’ll just have to let me enjoy myself.”

As if that didn’t mean hours of desperate, mindless pleasure. “Tease.”

That made him smile. She didn’t realize the expression had taken a wicked edge until he slid his hands down her bare thighs and pushed them wide, only to lean in and feather his breath over her cunt. “I can tease.”

She tried to arch up, but he held her pinned against the mattress. “You can,” she agreed hoarsely. “Or you can make me come in your mouth.”

“Wicked woman.” He pressed a kiss to her thigh, then traced her skin with his tongue. When he looked up, his eyes almost seemed to glow. “Hold yourself open for me.”

It was nothing less than a command. Paralee started to slide her hands down her body, then paused to pinch her already-hard nipples.

His nostrils flared, and his gaze snapped from her fingers to her face. “Is that what you want me sucking on? I can do that too.”

“I know.” She slipped her hands between her thighs, parting herself for him, and Christ, her legs were already shaking. “I just can’t have you thinking I’m easy to order around, because I’m not. I’m bull-headed, honey, the stubbornest woman you’ve ever met.”

“Stubborn’s perfect.” He licked her fingers one at a time, then licked his lips. “You’re perfect. Sweet and luscious and mine.”

And as if that settled it, he dragged his tongue over her clit, lighting all of her senses on fire. There was nothing teasing or soft about it, and she arched her back and breathed his name.

Another lick, and another. He licked her as if he meant to possess her, as if he was branding her with his mouth, and he left no part of her untouched. He flicked the tip of his tongue over her clit in between long, meandering laps, keeping her riding the edge without pushing her over.

Paralee struggled to draw a deep breath, to center herself instead of spinning away in dizziness. She rubbed her heels over his back and choked on a laugh when her toes tangled in his suspenders.

Merrick closed his teeth on the inside of her thigh. “Laughing’s rude.”

He must have thought her unaffected by his touch, giggling her way through his attentions with distracted humor. She clenched her fingers in his hair and forced his gaze up to hers. “You don’t understand. I’m happy.”

He crawled up her body to loom over her. With his glazed eyes and heaving chest, he looked more beast than man, but he touched the corner of her mouth and slowly smiled. “You’re not afraid.”

Paralee wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer. “No. But you’d better kiss me, just to be sure.”

He hauled her up and covered her mouth with his in a kiss so deep she didn’t realize he’d moved them until her back hit the bed again and his hand slipped between their bodies to pull at his pants.

She wanted to help—
tried
to, even—but her hands wouldn’t cooperate. She fumbled with the buttons and finally gave up, trailing a line of kisses across his shoulder as he opened his pants and tore his suspenders free with a frustrated snarl.

“Too much damn clothing,” he muttered, pulling off her ripped chemise. “I want you naked. I need you naked.”

I need you.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “Hurry.”

He did, somehow, even though he seemed no steadier than she. His pants hit the floor and in the next moment he was on her—
in
her—cock pushing deep as he buried his face in her neck and groaned her name.

“
Oh.
” He’d brought her so close to the edge already, and she was unprepared for the hard thrust of his body in hers, for the sheer sensual shock of it.

Merrick laughed against her cheek and flexed his hips. “Make that noise again.”

Anything, so long as he didn’t stop. She gripped his hips with her thighs and muffled her whimper against his shoulder.

Another rock, harder this time. He caught one of her hands, pushed it above her head and wove his fingers together with hers. “That’s right, sweet girl. Let go. Let me have everything.”

He wouldn’t be satisfied with less.

The thought rocked her, but not as much as the realization that neither would she. She needed all of him, every bit of the pleasure he would not only give but take, as well.

His entire body moved as he pulled back, rubbing over her. Every thrust was agonizingly slow, but he drove deep with every return, his chest vibrating with his pleased groans.

There was no part of her he didn’t touch. He explored her mouth and throat with kisses even as his whole body caressed hers with each thrust. Slower than she’d imagined, but that didn’t stop the ecstasy from mounting. If anything, it made their union that much more intense, that he couldn’t bear not to have as much of his skin as possible touching hers with every heartbeat.

“Merrick.” Her voice was barely audible, nearly lost to the fever that held her spellbound. “More—”

His fingers tightened on hers as his pace shifted. His hips snapped forward hard enough to drive her up the bed. “More?” he growled.

Paralee shuddered through a rough surge of pleasure. “Yes.”

He slid his other hand under her shoulder to brace her and thrust again. “Yes.” Again. “Yes?”

She managed only a frantic nod before the pleasure crested. She clung to his shoulders, desperate to hang on to something solid, safe, with the world spinning away. Her nails pierced his skin, and she knew it must hurt, but she couldn’t loosen her hold. “Oh
fuck
!”

He covered her mouth, swallowing her cry as he rode her orgasm. No mercy, no respite, just his body in and over hers as he licked her tongue and rasped crude, hungry commands.

Again.
His words ran together, lost in the roaring of blood in her ears, but she knew what they meant, what he wanted. Her, coming again. More.

This time, she bit his neck and let go, trusting that he would hold her even if she lost control.

“Paralee…” It didn’t stop. Not the roaring, not the pleasure, not his voice in her ear. Not until she was shaking and limp, and even then he stroked her cheeks and hair, bringing her down to find herself pinned beneath him, his cock still hot and hard inside her.

His chest heaved as he stared down at her. Tense muscles trembled under her clutching hands, but he didn’t move. “Still want me?”

It was so like him, stopping to ask for confirmation even though every fiber of her being screamed submission. “Don’t you know?” she whispered, laying her hand on his cheek. “I want you. Always.”

He shuddered. Bucked. That fierce concentration broke, and he surged forward in an unsteady thrust. “Always.” He licked her lips with a groan. “
Always.
”

She wrapped her arms around him. “I need you.”

“Mine.” It sounded like a claim and a question.

“Yours.” It was easy to fantasize, to imagine that when he said
mine
and
always
, he truly meant both. Even easier as he seized her lips in a possessive kiss and let go. Three smooth thrusts and he whispered her name into her mouth and came, body shaking above her.

So much, and it was just the beginning. She had three days to shut out the world, to indulge herself. To unleash his locked-away desires, the ones he perhaps barely knew he had.

To drown in him.

Chapter Five

In six decades, Merrick had never faced a new moon he couldn’t manage.

In all those decades, he’d never had a mate.

Paralee made him burn. Made him wild. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t think of anything but touching her. Touching her, taking her, holding her, fucking her, petting her,
loving her
—

It was like being newly made. A young hound in the grip of confusing lust, and he couldn’t stop marking her. Little bites and bruises, soothed by his lips and tongue, but over and over, because she was his, his—

Mine.

She sighed and shifted under his hands. “If you keep petting me and mumbling, I won’t get any sleep. If I don’t sleep, I’ll be cranky. Do you know what happens when I’m cranky?”

The last time he’d irritated her by being too solicitous, she’d shoved him on his back for a hard ride, proof that she could take the brunt of his lust.

Proof enough for her. Not for him, when that hunger had burned through an entire day, growing stronger with every touch. She was human. He was…

Starving. He kissed the back of her shoulder, scraped it with his teeth and barely avoided biting her. “Sleep. You should sleep.”

“Mmm.” She rolled in his arms and trailed her hand down his chest. “You’re very gentle with me, you know. Even when you’re rough.”

Touch. Take. Heat throbbed in his blood, in his damn cock, which was always ready. “Don’t want to hurt you,” he muttered, focusing on her lips. He couldn’t resist the urge to lick the corner of her mouth.

“You haven’t.” Her hand slipped lower, barely grazing the base of his cock.

He thrust against her hand. “Good,” he groaned, and didn’t know if he was replying to her words or her touch.

A sleepy smile curved her lips as she fisted her hand around him. “So intense. Do I look this delicious when you touch me?”

“Yes.” Thought was fracturing, slipping away. He caught her wrist and stilled her hand as fire licked at the edge of his mind. “Do you need sleep?”

“No. I need this.” She squeezed his shaft with a moan, and he seized her mouth and gave in to the beast as the last bits of reason melted into possession.

She was his mate. Claiming her was his destiny.

#

Paralee pushed off the floor with her toes, but she barely had the leverage to rock, much less ride him the way she’d promised.

Still, the gentle motion sparked fire, and she let her head fall back on a moan. “Like this?”

“Just like this.” His beard scraped her cheek as he dropped kisses down the line of her jaw. Slow, easy, as if he could sit with her in his lap all day.

And he likely
could
. There seemed no end to Merrick’s lust, and no limit to his stamina. She’d be lucky to be able to walk by the time the moon began to show herself in the sky again, and as much as she fought to care…

Not a chance. Not when she had him like this, sweet and hot in turn, cradling her like something precious.

He splayed one hand across her lower back and nuzzled his way to the hollow of her throat. “Lean back. I want your breasts under my mouth.”

Arching left her in an even more precarious position, but Paralee did it gladly. “I’ve heard most men hold a particular fondness for one part of a woman’s body or another. Is this your favorite?”

“Your glorious tits?” He chuckled against her nipple. “For the moment. Maybe I’ll suck on them until you come.”

Oh, sweet Jesus. “I know which part of you I like best,” she whispered, then squeezed her muscles teasingly around his cock—just for a moment, just to make him wonder. “Your eyes. The way you look at me.”

His lips tickled her skin as he smiled. “Can’t stop looking at you. Can’t stop touching you.”

Paralee scratched her nails down his arm as heat shivered through her. “I’m glad.”

He didn’t respond. His tongue lashed over her nipple, followed by an insistent tug as he sucked. He guided her hips in a grinding rock that blurred her vision, made her shake. Familiar and yet still so new, the way he touched her, and she couldn’t get enough.

She braced her heels on the cool wooden rungs of the chair and
moved
, turning the smooth rock into a concert of thrusts that drove her beyond words and thought. There was nothing but their rasping breaths, the pounding of her heart in her ears, and finally her own voice rising in a scream as he wrapped her in ecstasy and swept her away.

#

Seventy-two hours of fucking, and he still wanted her.

The worst of the fever had faded, but it hadn’t taken need with it. He woke hard and hungry, grateful when she welcomed his kisses with sleepy pleasure and rolled willingly to her side.

So easy to enter her from behind. He liked it like this, with her back against his chest. He was touching her from head to toe, surrounding her as he rocked and kissed and stroked and touched.