Every part of him—including his most important part—hardened as Sophie’s panties dampened, as if he could sense it.
The laces at the front of her pants suffered the same fate as those of her boots. She didn’t even find it in her to complain. Especially since he peeled them over her hipbones, kneeling as he did so, his face almost buried in the lace of her panties.
Another guttural growl. His desire seeped into her skin, fueling her own, weakening her knees and building a climax that didn’t even need his touch to stoke.
His breath was hot through the thin lace of her panties, and she let out a low moan as the air teased her sensitive flesh, crying out for his touch. He didn’t give it to her, the thing every one of her cells was aching for. She knew he was aching for it too, every emotion flowing through him stark, etched in his features, in the energy surrounding him.
His lips pressed into her panties and he sucked in a breath through his nose, smelling her. She should have been embarrassed at such an intimate gesture but it only made her crazier with need, especially when the growl of appreciation in his throat warmed her to her very bones.
Then he moved lower, her pants moving down her legs with agonizing slowness. He took his time, tracing the skin of her thighs with his eyes, staring at the tattoos that snaked upward and downward, the snake that curled up the side of her thigh, its scales intricate ancient runes, flowers tangling around its body.
The journey to her ankles was the most frustrating and erotic-filled moments Sophie had ever experienced. The experience itself was in direct conflict with everything she’d thought the wolf to be. The need barely restrained in his body—plus her previous knowledge of wolves—told her that he should’ve been wildly taking her, brutally, with absolute ferocity, with no control, much like he had before.
Her panties dampened at the mere thought of it. The flex of his hands against her ankles told her he noticed.
But he did not move. She could almost feel the beast tearing at her; she couldn’t even imagine the battle for him. Never in her life did she think she’d actually want a werewolf to lose control, but now she wanted nothing more than that. But her limbs were lead, her power sinking at the bottom of her stomach, and she was unable to lift it to make something happen, to wrench control into her hands.
Again the wolf had bewitched her when it was meant to be the other way around. She should’ve cared. By gods, she should’ve cared.
But then he stood and took his shirt off. And she found she didn’t care.
Whatsoever.
His female was paralyzed in front of him. Trembling with a need so intense it brought him to his knees, because she deserved to be worshipped, and because he didn’t trust himself if he moved toward her magnificent breasts or perfect cunt.
The beast inside him roared at such a thought. It scraped at the sides of his mind, drawing blood, tearing at his skull with the insane need to claim her. Sink his cock inside her, spill his seed, claim her forever, imprint his scent into her so deeply so she wore it like the ink that covered her body.
So no other wolf would dare touch her.
Unless they wanted to die.
But he did not do so.
Memories of her bruised and broken body lying before him after surrendering to his beast last time haunted him. He knew they would haunt him for every day that he walked this earth. And he planned on walking all those days with her.
So he had time to take her brutally as both man and the beast ached to.
But she was hurt.
Again.
The bones inside her chest—the ones protecting her fucking heart—had been shattered by that cumbersome witch. The one who would be getting the skin ripped from her bones. Slowly. He cared not that she was a woman. Nothing mattered when she’d harmed his mate. That was the ultimate sin, and he would have no mercy.
But first he’d take care of his witch. Of her body. Then he’d take care of that feral need that near matched his own.
Yes, this little kitten was perfect for him, even if he hadn’t understood it at first. He’d always thought his mate would be another wolf, bring him back into the world he’d shunned for all these centuries, the world he’d despised. She’d give him someone to run with. Someone to shift with. Have children with.
Never would he have imagined a foulmouthed, short-haired, tattooed, and feisty witch.
But she was fucking perfect.
Her eyes ate up every inch of his torso when he ripped his shirt off. Her arousal sang in his nostrils as he scented her, getting even wetter at the sight of his body. Warmth spread through his bones, his cock hardening further. His female found him pleasing, did not shy away from his skin that was covered in scars. Her eyes glowed as power shot through them, mingling with the effects of the considerable amount of alcohol he still scented in her system.
It was enough to fell a wolf, yet she not only walked in that state—and talked in complete sentences—she had bested a witch, and she had done it without his help.
“Wolf,” she hissed, her voice thick with need. Her black-tipped hands reached out for his jeans, and despite his determination not to unleash himself on her, he leaned forward so she could unzip him, free him.
The beast shook inside his bones as her small hands gripped his cock, her eyes glued to it in wonder.
“Gods,” he ground out as she moved up and down, milking his throbbing cock. The pressure building at the base of his spine told him he’d explode if he didn’t stop her. Fuck, he did not want to stop her, not right now. But he would not spend his seed in her hand. Not when she stood in front of him injured and inebriated.
He’d take her drunk, though. Another time, many times. He liked his little witch sans inhibitions. She seemed to forget she was meant to be fighting this. He liked fighting with his witch, but he reveled in her surrender.
The moment her touch became too much to bear, he circled her wrists with his hands, painfully taking them off him.
She hissed out a protest, and fuck, did he feel that in his cock too. But he made himself focus on the purple of her chest. He transferred both of her wrists to one of his hands, easily holding her in place as he kicked off his boots and yanked down his jeans.
In one swift movement, he immersed them both in the warm water, splashing liquid onto the floor. He made sure she landed between his legs, though her hot little body against his aching shaft was the perfect kind of agony. He gritted his teeth through it as he laid her against his chest, reveling in having the wet and naked skin of his female against him.
His female.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” she spat, trying for irritated, but her voice still had that hypnotized dream quality to it. “You need to let me up and out of here,” she demanded. “I cannot be bathing with a werewolf.”
He grinned against her hair. She’d been fucking a werewolf not two nights before. And she’d have let that same werewolf fuck her against the wall if he hadn’t stopped himself—and his beast—from doing so.
Instead, he said nothing, as he was used to. Speaking with her wasn’t as painful as it was with everyone else. It was almost natural. He still had to yank the words out, but he wanted to, for her.
He didn’t yank them that time because, despite her demand, she made no move to struggle from the bath. She could’ve done so. He also knew she could’ve commanded her considerable power to magic herself—or him—out if she so wished.
She was not a helpless female, his mate. She was not going to be somewhere she did not want to be. The sheer fact that her smooth back rubbed against his hard cock told him she was exactly where she wanted to be.
“A bath with a werewolf,” she muttered to herself. “This isn’t what badass witches like me do. This is what idiotic romantics who watch The Notebook and go to book clubs do,” she ranted. “Imagine would Isla would say if she could see me now. At least there’s no candles. That’s where I’d draw the line.” There was a pause. “Though candles are a good conductor for
my power,” she mused. “It’s not like they wouldn’t be here for a purpose….”
He felt the air move on her command, and the candles surrounding the surfaces in the large bathroom suddenly alighted.
He grinned even more, the expression foreign on his face, but he couldn’t help doing so, listening to the little witch mutter to herself in such a way that enchanted him without any use of her magic.
“Don’t get any ideas,” she hissed, turning her head slightly so she could glare at him over her shoulder. His cock twitched again, and with the way her entire body shuddered, he knew she felt it. “This is, uh… just for power conductors. The candles,” she said, voice not as sharp as before.
He didn’t reply, didn’t need to, because she turned back around and sank into his chest with a long sigh. He sensed that his woman had gone almost as long as he had without moments like this. Which was good, because he was planning on hunting down every male who had touched her and systematically executing him. He hoped there would not be a lot.
He glanced to the shelf beside the bath, snatching a shampoo bottle and squeezing its contents into his hands. Most of her black hair was drenched, and he used his free hand to cup water and pour it over the rest of her head.
She made a sound at the back of her throat as he lathered the shampoo onto her head, massaging it onto her scalp, extending his claws ever so slightly so he could scratch at her.
Another moan.
Another cock flex.
He gritted his teeth.
This was pure torture. He had waited centuries for his woman, to claim her, and there he was fucking washing her hair. But mates were more than just someone to spill seed into. Even the wild beast inside him wanted more than that. It was pure instinct that compelled him to care for his female in every way possible, protect her from harm—with his life, if need be—which was why his treatment of her on their first claiming haunted him so.
He deserved the torture of having her wet, naked body against him and his cock straining with the need to be inside it. She’d felt pain worse than that.
From him.
But had she really?
She’d transferred her pleasure to him while he plunged into her; he’d tasted the sheer nirvana both of them shared. Even after she woke up—before she’d turned on him, of course—she’d betrayed no true pain, no vulnerability.
She could handle it.
Broken bones, bruises, she treated them as if they were nothing. He sensed her life was violent—it was attached to her, chaos. Inked into her very skin, dancing behind her eyes. He sensed true and dangerous chaos further inside her, threaded into the magic she unleashed.
He loved that violence, because he too could not escape it. Would never escape it.
But that did not mean that was the only thing he could give her.
More water cascaded over her head as he washed the shampoo away. She groaned again, but was not content to lie docile.
He’d known it was only a matter of time before she came back to rights.
She turned in the tub, splashing more water over the edge. Despite its overly large size, it was a tight fit for the both of them, considering he was both an overly large man and an overly large werewolf.
Her eyes glowed in the dim candlelight, and he scented barely a whiff of the alcohol that had near replaced her blood before.
Surely she couldn’t have metabolized it that quickly.
He glanced down at her chest, willing himself not to be distracted by her perfect nipples. The angry red bruising had receded to a dull brown, and he sensed no broken bones that had been there moments before.
She had said the candles worked as some sort of, what was the word… conductor, but this was almost impossible.
“That’s enough washing,” she purred, her voice rough, pushing away all thoughts of impossible. “I think it’s my turn now.”
Water droplets trailed down her naked skin, glistening in the flickering light, and he had to clench the sides of the tub to stop himself from snatching her, most likely breaking bones that had just healed.
The marble cracked and neither of them noticed.
Her short hair hung like a curtain as she circled his shaft under the water.
He hissed out a curse.
Her eyes glowed with erotic satisfaction as she watched him, as she drank in his reaction to her stroking him, burning the base of his spine with his need for release once more.
It surprised him that his teeth did not shatter with the force of clenching his jaw. He had not exerted this much control over himself in his entire time on earth. He’d thought such a feat as restraining the beast in front of a naked and willing mate was impossible.
She was quickly teaching him about what was impossible.
“Wolf,” she rasped again. Her hand paused and he nearly broke the sides of the tub. “I do not know your name.” Her eyes were glowing now, as was her pale body. It should have disturbed him—werewolves were distrustful of witches by nature and despised witchcraft—but there was nothing to hate about his witch. About her power. “I guess I could keep calling you Wolf,” she mused, “but I would like to have choices.”
Her hand stayed circling the base of his shaft, unmoving, as if she was torturing the mere information of his name from him. It took him a few moments to answer because her beauty had yanked it straight from his mind.
She’s literally making me forget my own fucking name.
“Conall,” he growled finally, half of it coming out barely conceivable.
“Conall,” she repeated, rolling the name over her tongue. His balls burned for release.
He could no longer hold onto his beast, not upon hearing his true name spoken from his mate’s lips. Water splashed everywhere as he stood, snatching her as he did so. He hadn’t even realized he’d shattered the marble of the tub, kicking at it in his desperation, until water flooded through the room, settling under his feet.
She didn’t notice it because he’d claimed her mouth and she had wrapped her legs around his waist, grinding her sodden panties against his shaft. He’d left them on because he knew he wouldn’t have been able to control himself had he seen her perfect, exposed core.
She nibbled at his bottom lip, drawing blood, and he barely stopped himself from squeezing her with enough force to break her ribs. The bed was still ruined from the last time he was there, and he threw her on it once more.
A warm wind picked up, coming from her. He sucked it in, following her to the bed, moving down her body so he could rip her panties off with his teeth.
She let out a cry as he did so and as his finger pushed inside her wetness.
“Conall!” she screamed.
His wolf howled inside him at her screaming his name on the edge of climax, with his finger inside of her.
“You shall not come until I’m inside you,” he demanded. “Until you admit one thing.”
She blinked at him through hooded lashes, wild with need. “I’ll admit I was on the grassy knoll if that’s what you need. Just come inside.”
The wind roared around them, mirroring her need.
“That you are mine,” he said, voice little more than a rasp. “Mine and only mine. No other being will possess you except me.”
The wind stopped abruptly, snatching her scent from the air and seeming to take his oxygen with it.
Every inch of her body tensed, which caused her core to clench around his finger. She let out a cry at that, then scampered off the bed with a blinding speed for a witch.
“You need to leave, now,” she demanded, voice hard.
He scowled at her, standing as quick as she did and advancing on her. His beast shimmered underneath his face, but she did not retreat.
He felt pride in the midst of his fury. She held her own. She always would. “I will not go anywhere except inside my fucking woman,” he growled.
She jutted her chin up in defiance, even though he could all but taste her need from his words. Something bitter swirled
in the air, something working to become a barrier from his body reaching hers. His skin rippled with the change as he fought against her magic.
Her gaze flickered as his beast started to tear through the invisible wall between them. “Even your sorcery cannot deny me,” he growled. “I will have you. It will be done.”
Her eyes were somehow immediately black. “You will have none of me,” she promised.
He didn’t speak, merely gritted his teeth and continued to gain traction against her power. Soon he’d be able to snatch her shoulders, claim her mouth, take her against the wall as he’d ached to do before.
“You’re going to rape me, Conall?” she asked flatly.
The words were a slap.
He stilled.
“Because if you continue this, you might be able to work through my magic, but then you will force yourself inside me. And then I will have to kill you. Will you do that? Force your attentions on me?”
The words themselves sickened him, and the worst thing was her sincerity. She had wanted him moments before, had matched his crazed need. But something in his words had shut off that need and gave way to burning hatred. If he continued to fight, he would win. Then his beast would take over and he would take her. Claim her well and proper.
Rape.
The ugly word cut at his mind.
Never would he force himself on his mate. Causing her such pain was akin to a death sentence. He knew one such wolf in his old life. The one whose beast had taken over and had claimed his unwitting human mate.
She’d survived.
But she’d been broken.
That wolf had hurled himself off a cliff.
Even a hundred-foot drop could kill an immortal, Conall had discovered that day. But it wasn’t the fall that had killed the wolf—that had merely ended his body. His essence was gone the second he’d defiled his mate.
She’d followed him to the grave shortly thereafter.
He tensed his body.
She stepped back from him. “You will leave now. And drunk or not, you’re in my house next time, I will kill you. It is your demise that will follow any more of your advances to mate with me,” she growled, her voice taking on a quality that was not natural to her. Something else speaking in her stead from inside her that terrified Conall.