eir mates for years before, and they had lived.
He would live as well.
But first, he would have to distract her. He would have to give her so much pleasure that she didn’t realize the kiss wasn’t there.
Bending, he put his arms behind her knees and her back, lifting her against his chest as he carried her quickly to the bedroom he had found earlier.
The bed was already turned down. She’d let someone know she was coming because the pantry as well as the refrigerator and bathroom were stocked with new items. Nothing had been used before.
Laying her on the bed, Creed moved to her feet and carefully pulled off her sneakers, then the soft cotton socks. Undressing her became one of the most sensual chores he had ever undertaken.
She arched to him as he pulled her jeans from her body. Free of those, she began to fumble with the buttons of her sweater.
He watched. Watched those graceful fingers release each button as he hurriedly tore his own clothes from his body, carefully laying a condom aside.
This would be agony. Agony and ecstasy. It would be the heights of rapture, and it would be the further depths of pain if what he’d heard was true.
And it would be worth it.
It would be worth every second of agony to feel her clenching and coming around his dick.
As she tossed her sweater aside, Creed tossed aside his own shirt.
Naked, so fucking hard each pulse of blood pounding through his cock was a pleasure so intense it was painful.
Sitting up in the bed, her hair falling around her face in sunlit and shadowed blonde waves, she looked like a damned temptress come to haunt his fantasies.
That was exactly what she was. His fantasy. That nameless woman he had dreamt of for years before Jonas had sent him to the Engalls estate.
She was his mate.
And she was reaching for him.
SIX
Arousal, that hunger, unsated desire, the desperate longings and pulse-pounding aches. It was the need for touch, the body so hypersensitive, each nerve ending rising in attention as pleasure became the focal point of reality.
It was also the need to touch, though.
Rising to her knees, she flattened her palms against the hard muscles of his abdomen, feeling them flex in response to her touch, heated, alive. At first glance, the hard, bronzed flesh seemed completely free of male hair. But beneath her sensitive hands, she felt the ultrasoft down, almost like a pelt, smooth, warm, invisible to the eye, but detectable to the skin.
Resting on her knees, the object of twelve months’ obsession right before her eyes, completely naked, completely aroused, the hard length of his cock jutting forward, she couldn’t help but compare it to her fantasies.
And the fantasies paled in comparison.
Nothing could have prepared her for the highly conditioned, fully aroused, steel-hard body of a male Breed in his prime.
Her fingers curled against the flexing abs, nails rasping against his flesh as she felt his muscles harden further beneath her touch. The head of his cock was sheened with moisture, engorged and flushed dark with extreme arousal.
Dragging her nails down his abs, she gloried in the hard male groan that met the caress as well as the visible throbbing in the heavy veins of the powerful, thick shaft.
As her hands moved down, caressing, stroking to his thighs, his fingers buried in her hair. Blunt male nails scraped across her scalp, sending trails of exquisite sensation tearing down her spine.
She needed to touch him, to taste him, to experience every sensual pleasure to be had in his arms. Every sensual, erotic touch, taste, and sound.
Her head lowered, her lips moving to his chest, her tongue licking over a hard, flat male nipple as she heard the smothered groan vibrate in his chest.
Part moan, part growl, the sound wrapped around her senses, stoked the sensations rising inside her as her teeth gripped the disk and she allowed her tongue to worry it with sharp little flicks.
The taste of male desire and a hint of cinnamon hit her senses hard and burned through her veins. Between her thighs, her clit throbbed and ached, the need for touch riding her like a fever as her hands moved to his heavy, muscled legs.
She felt as though she were growing drunk, intoxicated on the sheer wicked excitement. Fascination had followed her since the day she had met him, fantasy flowing through her mind as she fought to bring herself to relief when the need for his touch, his kiss, had grown out of control.
And now, he was here. So obviously aroused, his hands in her hair, the pads of his fingers rubbing against her scalp as she began to lick her way down his torso.
She had never touched a man as she was now touching Creed, with such freedom. There had always been hesitation, a sense of something just not quite right. The two men she had been with before had each been a disappointment, making her fear she would never realize the pleasure she sensed could be had in a man’s touch.
In this man’s touch.
In a Breed’s arms.
A moan tore from her throat.
Her Breed. The human species that had been a fascination for her since the day they had revealed themselves, and tonight, she would claim one for her own.
Her lips moved down his abdomen, her tongue licked, stroked, until she came to the brutally hard length of his heavy cock.
One hand curved around the base of it, the feel of the heavy pulse beneath sending the blood crashing through her veins. Pulling her head back, she moved to lick, to taste the engorged head when she suddenly found herself pushed back to the bed, and a second later, rolled to her stomach as Creed came behind her.
“Oh God, Creed,” she cried out, her back arching as his arm curved beneath her hips, jerking them up and back until he pulled her to her knees.
“Stay still.” Hard legs gripped her thighs as she felt him moving behind her, one hand smoothing over the curve of her rear. “Just like that, Kita. So sweet and ready for me. Trusting me. Do you trust me, sweetheart?”
Did she trust him?
Only with her life.
“I trust you,” she cried out as his finger eased between her thighs, pressing against the entrance to her pussy, easing inside as the calloused tip rasped against oversensitive nerve endings.
It was a fury of hunger. A craving. A need she didn’t know how to bear as her hips jerked back, desperate for more.
“I need you,” she demanded, her voice ragged now. “Please, Creed. Please need me.”
She hadn’t meant to sound so needy, so aching. She hadn’t meant to beg, but the yearning inside her refused to remain silent. She had waited too long for this, waited too long for him. God, he had to ache just as deeply for her.
“I need you more than you know, Kita.” He came over her, his lips pressing against her shoulder, the heat of him like a fire at her back as she felt the thick width of his cock slide along the slick folds of her pussy.
The pulsing flesh raked across her engorged clit, sent fire and ice rushing through her body as pleasure exploded at the back of her skull and sizzled through her brain.
With trembling fingers, she pushed her hand between her thighs, gripping the hard strength of his cock as the sound of his harsh growl rumbled at her back.
Her fingers stroked the length, lubricated by the heavy juices that eased from her pussy.
The muscles of her vagina convulsed as her womb tightened. His cock throbbed in her hand, and the need to have him inside her was like a fever she couldn’t bear any longer.
A distant part of her realized that somehow, as he’d paused behind her, he’d donned a condom. For a second, confusion filled her mind. It was so rare for a Breed to be able to impregnate a woman. They were genetically coded against it. A few had defied that rule, but only a very few.
Then he was shifting, moving, following her grip as she tucked the thick head of his erection against the clenched, snug entrance to her body.
“I need you,” she whispered, desperate for him now.
“Oh God, Creed, I need you so desperately.”
“Then take me, Kita,” he groaned, his lips moving to her ear, a warm breath of air stroking over the tender shell a second before his rough cheek caressed it. “Take me how you need me, baby. Every inch.”
Every inch. Every steel-hard inch pulsing against her pussy as she began to press backward, feeling the flared head slowly part the tender opening.
She was shaking, hard tremors racing through her body as she felt the entrance stretching, burning as she backed into his cock. Her head fell to the bed, pressing into the pillows, her fingers clenching into the blankets beneath her as she pushed back. Each thick, throbbing inch easing inside her made her feel taken, almost to the point of bruising, pleasure and pain combining until she was whimpering, smothered cries leaving her lips as he began to fill her.
“Kita,” the growling whisper at her ear had her jerking, spiking pleasure raking through her body as the stretching burn amplified every touch of his chest against her back, his thighs gripping hers, his cock easing inside her. “Take me sweetheart. All of me. Push back, love. Fill yourself with me.”
Her teeth clenched as her hips jerked back, burying him deeper inside her with a searing thrust.
Panting, crying out from the sensations as her body struggled to accept the iron erection pressing inside her, Kita fought to just breathe. To make sense of the clenching, searing sensations striking from her pussy to her womb only to echo with eruptions of near ecstasy throughout the rest of her body.
“More,” she gasped, struggling to ease back. “Creed, please . . .”
“Take more of me, baby.” It sounded as though he were forcing the words between his teeth, and she felt the warmth of his perspiration in a heated drop along her shoulder. “Take what you want, Kita. It’s all yours, baby. As much as you want.”
She wanted it all. She wanted to burn inside and out. She wanted to be taken by him, possessed, and flying through rapture as the agonizing pleasure building inside her released.
She wanted to see the sun, the flames she could feel licking at her flesh.
And she wanted his kiss. She could almost taste it. Cinnamon and a wicked brew of a storm infused with the ocean. Pure male. Pure iron-hard heat forging through her.
“Creed.” She moaned his name again as her forehead dug into the pillow before her neck arched, pulling it back to rest against his shoulder as he braced himself behind her. “Fuck me. Please, I can’t do it alone.” She was to the point of sobbing now, the hunger tearing at her, building through her until she couldn’t fight it. “Take me, Creed. Make me belong to you.”
As though that request were all he needed, a savage growl sounded behind her as he jerked back, rising to his knees, his hands gripping her hips, and he forged, surged inside her to the hilt, burying his cock full length and more. She jerked at the hard entrance and shuddered, shook as her senses threatened to detonate at the extremity of the sensations.
There was no way to process it. No way to acclimate to the feel of him fully imbedded inside her before he began moving. Pulling back, the flared crest raking, rasping over exposed nerve endings before he was suddenly shafting forward once again and sending her reeling with the ecstatic preliminary explosions of release.
Except, release didn’t come.
A scream tore from her throat as he jerked back again, a second later thrusting forward, fucking her with a driving rhythm she couldn’t resist and had no intention of fighting. She could only accept. Only hold on for the ride as she felt the last threads of reality dissolve beneath the pleasure tearing through her.
The sound of his thighs slapping against hers, the feel of his perspiration against her back, the sound of his growls in the air, and the feel of the steely length of his cock taking her, possessing her. Oh God, he was owning her.
He was taking her outside herself with the excruciating pleasure and delightful agony. Blending sensations through her body, forcing them to melt together as his cock tunneled inside her, over and over again. It stroked, caressed hidden nerves endings she hadn’t known her body possessed, and left her screaming, begging for release.
Each driving stroke was another painful pleasure, another step closer to the brilliant flames she could sense threatening to overtake her.
He was pushing her toward a plane she had never known. A world where nothing existed but sensation, but the feel of his erection shafting, fucking inside her. There was nothing but sensation upon sensation, her clit swelling to a desperate point, her nipples burning as they rubbed against the sheet, her pussy blazing with pleasure.
She was riding a high she couldn’t have known existed, and behind her, she could feel Creed tensing, feel the brutal sensations tightening through her, her womb clenching, her pussy gripping him tighter, milking his cock, fighting to hold him inside her, to achieve that final, all-consuming stroke that would throw her headlong into an abyss of sheer rapture.
It was there.
So close.
It was burning around her, filling her senses, drawing her closer. He fucked her harder, faster, his hands tightening on her hips until finally, with a scream of suddenly ecstatic fear, she felt it possess her.
Brutal, searing explosions began erupting through her body. Kita felt herself jerk beneath him, heard her strangled scream as her nails clawed at the blankets beneath her.
Her pussy throbbed, tightened, quivered with the sudden upheaval tearing through it. She heard him give a desperate, animalistic growl before burying his cock deep and hard inside her just as that final blaze of ecstasy tore through her mind.
She was aware of nothing but the sharp, all-consuming pleasure and Creed’s arms surrounding her. Knew nothing but the brutal, enveloping heat that radiated in a conflagration of building explosions that finally left her shuddering, limp in his arms as they both collapsed to the bed.
It was exhausting.
It drained her to the point that she wondered if she would ever have the strength or the will to pull herself from him. It bound her to him, even more so than she’d realized she already was.
It was the reason she had run.
This was the reason she had made that desperate, racing escape from her father’s home.
Not just because her father had betrayed her.
Not just because she didn’t know if she could trust him any longer.
Because she hadn’t known if she could trust herself. If she could keep from begging, just as she had ended up begging, for this.
For Creed Raines to tear through her senses, to burn past her reservations, and to steal the heart she knew, in that instant, she had saved for him.
SEVEN
Creed was in hell. Agony. His cock was so damned hard it felt as though it would split open. His balls were drawn beneath the heavy length of his shaft, and he swore his blood was on fire as it pumped through his body.
His release had drained him dry at first, rocking through his body and filling the condom. The lack of sensation against the underside, where the mating barb should have emerged, had kept that final release from triggering, though.
He knew the basics of mating heat. He and several other covert enforcers had been given only the sketchiest information just before leaving Sanctuary a year before.
He’d known, though, instinctually, of the mating heat; all Breeds did. It was the scent the mates shared, the sense of bonding that was a scent all its own. And the love.
The animal inside Creed had acknowledged it, and a part of him had longed for it since the first day he’d sensed it just after he’d arrived at Sanctuary.
The labs he’d been in hadn’t been as monstrous as most. Once rescues had begun, the scientists, soldiers, and trainers there had worked with the Breeds to see to their safe release and transport to Sanctuary.
Not all the labs involved with the Genetics Council had subscribed to their methods of cruelty.
Lying in the bed with his own mate, Creed had come to understand why the mated Breeds he’
d talked to had told him it was something that couldn’t be denied.
The urge to mark her, to bite her delicate skin just above her shoulder and allow the mating hormone into her system there, the need to kiss her, to spill inside her, it was all part of the bonding and all a part of the overwhelming heat tearing through his senses now.
The agony was nothing compared to the sense of satisfaction and completion, though, as he sat, fully dressed, in the sheltered backyard of the small house Kita owned, holding her against him.
The overlarge lounger was thickly padded and wide enough to allow for both his much larger body and that of the woman stretched out between his spread thighs, her back against his chest, the long waves of her sunlit dark blonde hair cascading over his arm.
They had been there for hours, simply watching the sun rise until it was now beginning to warm the mountains that surrounded them and peek its golden trails of light into the shadowed grotto she’d created for a back deck.
“When did you buy the house?” he asked as she snuggled closer, the quilt he’d wrapped around her earlier falling off one bare shoulder before he tucked it back.
She was nice and warm, content and languorous as she lay against him.
“A few years ago.” She sighed. “It took forever to figure out how to hide the purchase. My name isn’t associated with it anywhere other than a paper signed between myself and a lawyer in Charleston. That seemed the simplest way.”
“Why did you need it?”
She was right. Despite the thorough investigation the Breeds had done on her, this property hadn’t come to light. They’d checked every friend, schoolmate, and even enemies she had, prying into every nook and cranny of her life to find even the smallest detail about her. And still, this had escaped them.
“I don’t know why it was so important at the time.” The note of bemusement in her voice couldn’t be hidden, nor could the fact that now she wondered if she had somehow sensed what was coming.
The fact was, Creed was gaining a sense that Kita had known for years that her father was involved in something he shouldn’t have been. Likely, from the first release of the news that the Breeds existed, Kita had been picking up on her father’s subversion.
She was an intuitive little thing, there was no doubt. He imagined that once she got to know him well, there would be very little he could pull off without her sensing it.
“Tell me about you instead,” she demanded softly. “All we’ve talked about the last four days has been me. I want to know more about you.”
“Like what?” He stared into the fenced backyard wishing he could put off any questions about himself. He wouldn’t lie to her, but he knew, at times, the truth was tricky.
“Like, what’s it like at Sanctuary?” She tilted her head back against his arm as she shifted around to stare up at him. “I’ve read it’s like an armed camp, and then reports it’s one big orgy.” She gave a low, light laugh. “Beth is certain it’s the orgy. Though, if it is, she just lost her bet with Stacey.”
Stacey was one of the girlfriends that came to the house often. A redheaded spitfire with more courage than good sense sometimes. Beth, on the other hand, was normally practical, though easygoing.
“And what does Stacey say it is?” he asked.
The amusement slowly filtered from her eyes. “An armed camp,” she said sadly. “A place filled with tension and combat-ready at all times.”
It was interesting to hear the two had bet at opposite ends of their character spectrum.
“Then they both lost.” He gave her a smile he hoped would comfort the distress he saw in her gaze. It was one of the things he loved about her, he realized. Her compassion. A compassion neither her father nor her uncle possessed.
“Sanctuary is always prepared, it’s secured. We have teams of enforcers that are constantly on guard, but, for the most part, it’s more like a large community.”
“Until it’s attacked,” she guessed.
Creed gave a short nod. “Until it’s attacked. But we’re trained for this Kita. We know how to react, and we know how to fight back.”
“And those you’ve brought in who don’t know how to fight?” she asked softly. “Your wives? What do they do, Creed?”
Did she want to be a Breed wife? There was a flash of hope and concern in her gaze, as though she had given the question a lot of thought but needed more in-depth information.
“They’re protected,” he promised her. “Every Breed in Sanctuary, whether it be male or female, feline, wolf, or coyote, dedicates his life to protecting the wives and children if an attack is launched.” He lifted his hand and cupped her cheek as his thumb caressed her lower lip. “Love is something we dare never take for granted, Kita. Even those who haven’t yet felt the fire of that emotion know that they long for it. They would give their lives to ensure that a Breed mate is completely protected.”
“A mate,” she whispered. “What does it take, Creed, to be a Breed’s mate?”
She spoke against his thumb, her dark brown eyes becoming sensual, slumberous as her body softened further against him.
“Love. That’s all it takes, Kita. The only difference is, Breeds love the first time, for all time. Just as our genetic cousins do.” He was dying to kiss her. The hormone filled his mouth like a particularly spicy aphrodisiac, demanding he share. Until he kissed her, until he forced the hormone into her system, it would only grow worse.
God, if it became worse, he didn’t know if he could bear it. It was an agony now. Like a brutal flame burning in his loins, threatening his self-control.
And it wasn’t that he hadn’t had her. They’d spent the past two days fucking like minks. She’d been exhausted when he’d carried her to the porch after fixing the decaf coffee he thanked God she drank. The caffeinated brew was like an accelerant to mating heat in both males and females. He didn’t think he could bear to have anything intensify it. She wouldn’t be safe with him if it became worse.
“Just love.” Her head turned, her