lips pressing to the bare flesh the unbuttoned portion of his shirt revealed. “What if your mate doesn’t love for life, Creed? If they’re human? Some humans are very fickle, you know.”
His lips quirked at the reminder. Ah yes, humans could be fickle, as could Breeds in some instances. They weren’t so different.
But the question she posed was damned tricky for him.
“There hasn’t been a problem yet,” was the only answer he could give her.
And apparently, it was the wrong one. Suspicion darkened her eyes. “Is there any truth to the tabloid stories about a mating hormone?” There was no fear in her gaze, just curiosity, suspicion.
“You know how the tabloids are, Kita,” he tried to scoff, but went no further.
Creed refused to lie to his mate.
As a covert enforcer, he was used to lying. He had to lie to maintain whatever façade was required for the job. At times, even his name changed, his eye color, his hair color. At times, he’d wondered if he even knew who he was anymore. But that was before he’d walked into Kita’s life.
“I know how they are,” she admitted softly. “And I know you. You’re avoiding my question, Creed. What are you not telling me?”
He almost smiled. As he’d said before, she was damned intuitive. And it appeared she had paid more attention to him over the past year than he would have perhaps wished.
“There are differences with the Breeds,” he finally admitted. “Things I’d prefer we discuss later.”
He felt her tense. An air of hurt descended around her as her gaze took on a wounded look.
“Later as opposed to now in what way?” She was drawing away from him and he couldn’t bear that.
The animal inside him was snarling in fury. First, he’d refused her the mating kiss more than once, then he’d sheathed his cock and prevented his body from locking inside her.
He was defying every natural instinct that his species lived and breathed for. Mating. The bonding of his life to another, the gift that would come to him only once, as far as the Breeds knew. And now, he was allowing her to distance herself, to pull away.
His arms tightened around her involuntarily, a part of his mind, his Breed senses, refusing to release her despite the fact that he knew it was best for both of them.
She stared back at him for long moments, her gaze a silent accusation.
“That’s why you haven’t kissed me again,” she finally stated knowingly. “Because it does exist, and for whatever reason you’ve decided I’m not good enough for whatever your mating is?”
His eyes widened. “Have you fucking lost your mind?” Grating, filled with frustrated surprise, the question slipped past his lips.
“Have you?” Her eyes narrowed back at him, heavy, thick lashes shadowing her cheeks as brown ire sparked back at him. “Do you think I’m so easy to manipulate and control that I wouldn’t notice you’ve not kissed me again? That despite the fact that conception only occurs with mates, you still use a condom. There are no STDs you can give me because Breeds are not susceptible to normal human diseases and viruses. Do you even fucking get a cold?” Her voice rose marginally.
She was angry. He could feel it in her, see it in the spark in her eyes.
“No, we don’t.” His head lowered until they were glaring at each other, nearly nose to nose now in a confrontation he hadn’t expected. “No colds, no STDs, no fucking flu. Anything else?”
“Plenty,” she snapped. “But as you’re suddenly refusing to answer the important questions, then I’m only wasting my time.” Her nose lifted as though she were offended by some smell. “And I do have this thing about wasting my time.”
She moved to rise from him, to leave his arms, to deny him the warmth of her, the comfort, when mating heat was like a fatal wound destroying him from the inside out.
“Then you can waste a little more of it.” Wrapping one arm around her, he lifted, turned, flipped the lever that completely lowered the back of the padded lounger before trapping her beneath his much larger body.
The chill of the fall air swirled around them as his hands gripped her wrists and pulled them above her head to clasp them with the fingers of one hand.
Straining against him, she glared back at him, frustration now anger as she attempted to drive her knee between his thighs, only to have him twist and smoothly maneuver his heavier thighs between hers, opening her to him as he snarled down at her in a warning growl.
It was a primal, desperate measure that slipped free of his control. The man and the animal trapped inside him warred, both savage in their determination to protect their mate in their way. To claim her as each felt she should be claimed.
It was the curse of any Breed. Those two halves suddenly in conflict, fighting for supremacy.
Rather than backing down in wariness, though, Kita bucked against him.
“I can’t believe you dared to snarl at me like that,” she raged furiously, her features flushing, body stiffening, and a hint of feminine arrogance defining her expression. “I’m not one of your prissy little Breed groupies to be frightened of those damned teeth, Creed Raines. Find someone else to intimidate because you’re so not getting away with attempting to intimidate me.”
His cock was on fire. It hardened further, a feat he would have considered impossible. It thickened further, his balls tighter, a lance of pure agony tearing at his mind in his need to mate her. To mark her. To claim her.
“You stubborn little minx,” he snarled down at her as she bucked against him, the soft, wet curls of her pussy pressing into his cock as his hips bore down to hold her in place. “Stay still before you get more than you even realize you’re asking for.”
“What? All of you?” She suddenly cried out. “Fuck you, Creed. You can have all of me, but all you give in return is what you think I might deserve? What little you want to allow me? You can go to hell, because I’ll be damned if I’ll accept less than what belongs to me.”
He stilled. His muscles locked in place, holding her beneath him effortlessly as surprise—fuck no, it was pure shock—had him staring down at her intently.
“Do I have all of you, Kita?” he growled back at her, knowing he should be wary of the sudden primal quality in his voice. “Because it will require your very soul, Kita, to accept the animal you’re tempting.”
She snorted at that, censure gleaming her eyes. “You’re listening to your own Breed press too closely, Creed. You’re a man. A man with a few added qualities and a hell of a lot more primal arrogance, but you still bleed. You still hurt and hope.” Tears suddenly filled her eyes. “You can still love, can’t you?”
And there was the crux of Kita’s fears. Staring back at her, Creed sensed, scented, felt all the emotions tearing through her for the first time. As though she had finally allowed a barrier of some sort between her and the world, between her and Creed, to slide open.
Kita loved.
She loved her father, and he wasn’t the hero she wanted to see him as. But still, she loved him, even though Creed knew there were times she wondered whether her father returned her love.
She loved the sister that had disowned her family. She loved the mother she had lost and the friends that had deserted her when the press had revealed her father’s duplicity against the Breeds.
And he knew now, she loved him.
“I love you, Kita.” And he was damning her in the same sentence. Because he couldn’t tell her what his soul held without giving her the truth, all of the truth, and all of the creature he truly was.
Part man, a primal animal, a creature that burned for her, that hurt clear to his spirit to give her the mating that would always mark her as his.
His.
She belonged to him, the same as he belonged to her.
Nature was gifting him with a strength far greater than the superb male body he had been created to have. She had given him more than the advanced instincts man had coded into his genetics. She was giving him the woman who would
stoke the fires to fight, to protect. A woman who would ease the horrors of battle, who would soothe the desperation when darkness strengthened it.
Yet, at the same time, she was giving him his greatest weakness as well. A weakness that would pull him from covert duty to stay at her side. A weakness that would make him fear for the first time in his life. Creed had something far more important to fear than death. Now, fear of death would be a meager second to the fear of losing her.
Breeds didn’t just mate for life. Couples mated for life. If he lost her, if she lost him, life would become a horrible, bleak existence he never wanted to face.
“Do you love me, Creed?” A small tear slipped from the corner of her eye. “If you love me, then you won’t hide from me. You’ll give me who you are, the same as I give it to you. Isn’t that real love? You can’t love me if you’re willing to take from me the parts of you that make you a Breed.”
He swallowed tightly. “And if those parts of me change you somehow?” he whispered, his teeth clenching as the demand to kiss her, to mate her, ripped at his senses, tearing at the control he was fighting so desperately to hold on to. “If I fear those changes will change that love to hate?”
She licked her lips. Soft, silken, a pink temptation he was dying to taste, her tongue licked over her lips. “Love isn’t like that,” she whispered roughly, the movement of her hips suddenly far more than an attempt to escape. “If even part of the tabloid stories are true, Creed, then it seems to me you’ll only complete me.” For a second, her eyes flickered with shadowed pain. “You have all of me now. Shouldn’t I have the same from you?”
Complete her? He remembered when he had first come to the Engalls estate, hearing her confide to her friend Beth that she felt incomplete. That she felt as though a part of her were detached, distant, unable to reach out and find what it was she could feel missing.
He knew she was his mate. Knew she was his life. But he also knew his fear of turning that love to hate.
God knew, she was the part of his life that had been missing until the day he stared into the pure, sweet, chocolate depths of her gaze. From that moment, he had centered his entire being on drawing her to him, fascinating her, teasing her, encouraging the most minute emotional and sensual responses short of actually allowing her to touch him.
Because he knew once he touched her, holding back would be hell.
And he was in hell.
“Kiss me, Creed.” She strained against him, tempting him, destroying him. “Unless you don’t really want me?” For a second, fear flickered in her gaze.
“Not want you?” he groaned. “Kita. God. Sweetheart. For the past year, I’ve lived for you.”
EIGHT
The kiss, when it came, she hadn’t believed would be as good as the first. Surely it couldn’t have been as good as she remembered the first.
But it was better.
If possible, it was hotter, wilder, more all-consuming than any kiss before it, even that first kiss he had given her four days before.
His lips parted hers, his tongue stroking inside, licking at hers, tempting her to lick back, to play, to tease in a sensual, wicked dance that combined lips and tongues in a manner far more wickedly erotic than she’d ever expected a kiss could be. So erotic it seriously should have been illegal.
Creed didn’t just kiss her. He made love to her mouth.
His lips captured hers, pleasured them with sipping, licking kisses that spread a fire through her senses she couldn’t control—didn’t want to control.
He held her wrists easily above her head, restraining her gently as his free hand gripped her hips, holding her to him as his own hips shifted against the sensitive bundle of nerves between her thighs. Clasping his body with her knees, arching to him, rising against him, Kita felt the same brilliant conflagration exploding through her.
Cinnamon and sweet spice filled her taste buds. The fragrance, the flavor infused her senses, lending an additional sensuality to the caress.
Naked beneath him, vulnerable and aching, Kita hadn’t known a moment’s fear in his embrace. Each touch was delivered for her pleasure only. Bestowed with the greatest of care as the thin material of his shirt skimmed the tight buds of her nipples.
She wanted. She wanted him as she had never wanted anything in her life. The desperation traveling through her body was primal, instinctive. It was like a hunger she couldn’t stop from raging through her system.
When his lips pulled from hers, Kita had to admit she well understood why he had attempted to warn her that it may be something she didn’t want.
She could feel an almost unnatural heat rising inside her, a furious demand resonating throughout her body, crying out for more, for more than his kiss, more than the feel of his denim-covered cock against her pussy. She wanted all of him. His full possession. That blinding, overwhelming fullness that tore her past the bonds of reality and threw her into a shimmering world of release and ultimate satisfaction.
The heat, the demand, the need, was amplified. It wasn’t unnatural. It was sharper, the sensations clearer, cleaner. It was like having a veil of restraint torn away, any fear, uncertainties, or natural hesitancies washed from the senses as pure hunger overtook it.
That was mating heat.
A sense of wonder rose inside her as his lips pulled from hers and traveled along her jaw, leaving the taste of him against her tongue, tempting her.
But it was only seconds later he returned.
Her lashes drifted as he paused above her, his breathing harsh, rapid. Dark gray eyes were nearly black, his lips swollen, cheeks flushed a dark brick red as his gaze centered on her lips.
She licked them slowly, teasingly.
“Let me taste you again, Creed.” She strained against the hold he had on her. “Kiss me again. Do you know I dreamed of your kiss?”
“The perfect kiss,” he answered.
Her eyes widened, lips parting to drag in more air, to ease the sudden restriction in her chest, the emotion, the arousal beating through her heart.
The perfect kiss.
That was what she had searched for. That kiss that fed the need, the arousal. That could soothe or could burn. That could bring ease or bring hunger.
“Creed’s kiss.” Her lips trembled, emotion nearly overwhelming her. “One more.”
He shook his head slowly. “Not one more, Kita. A lifetime more.”
This time, as his lips moved over hers, parted them, his tongue stroking inside, Kita took what she wanted. His taste. The pleasure to be found, the heat and the mark of the lion she’d believed could be no more than a rumor.
Her teeth nipped at his tongue; her tongue stroked over it. She suckled at each penetration of her mouth, glorying in the growl that rumbled in his chest each time the taste of him intensified against her tongue.
His kiss wasn’t all he used to destroy her senses, though.
As one hand held her hands above her head, the other stroked her body. Caressing up her side, cupping her breast, his fingers toying with a nipple as she arched closer and strained to keep contact with his lips.
With the perfect kiss.
Their moans filled the air, swirling around their senses as heated flames licked at Kita’s body.
It was exquisite. It was like being immersed in a world of pure sensuality and white hot pleasure. It whipped through her veins, tightened through her body, and had her gripping his hips with her knees as her body writhed against him.
The heated length of his cock throbbed beneath the denim, pressing into her clit as she rubbed against it, tempting him, on the edge of begging him for the relief she was becoming desperate for.
He tore his lips from hers, gasping for breath, perspiration dotting his brow, a rivulet running from his shoulder as she lifted her head to catch it with her tongue.
The taste of male arousal and heated hunger exploded in her mouth. She moaned, her eyelids almost too heavy to keep open while her body vibrated with a languorous desperation she coul
dn’t control.
“I want to touch you,” she moaned as his fingers cupped her breast, lifted it, and his head descended to the hard tip of her nipple.
His tongue met the tight, hard bud first. Like a lash of pure electric sensation whipping over it, as she arched in a quick, reflexive jerk.
“Creed. Suck it,” she demanded, suddenly so hungry for the feel of his mouth covering her that she couldn’t bear it. “Oh God, Creed. I need your mouth . . .”
A cry tore from her lips as his lips surrounded it. Blistering, wicked. He sucked the bundle of nerve endings into his mouth, drawing it, his cheeks hollowing as his lashes lifted to stare back at her.
His tongue lashed at the tender tip, his teeth gripped. He worried the tiny point, sucked it, loved it until she was arching and begging, crying out for more as he growled above her.
He moved to the other, still holding her wrists above her head as he cupped the mound with his free hand and bent his head to it. He licked around the tip, licked over it. He sucked it inside, sending brutal slashes of pleasure racing from her nipple to her clit, clenching her womb and spilling heated moisture from between her thighs.
With another hard growl, a last firm lick, his head lifted once again, his gaze intent, savagely predatory as that adventurous free hand slid down her stomach.
“I can smell your sweet juices,” he whispered as his fingers rasped over the tender flesh of her stomach. “I want to lick your pussy, baby. I’m going to eat you until all you can do is come for me. Until every thrust of my tongue up your tight pussy has you screaming, Kita. Begging for more.”
She was shaking, watching in fascination as he began to lick a path of fire down her body, releasing her wrists, though she barely realized it, spreading her thighs wide and finally kneeling on the wood deck beneath the edge of the lounger.
The fingers of one hand smoothed through the slick folds as Kita whimpered in rising excitement.
“I dreamed of tasting you. Of kissing you here. Of feeling your tight little pussy rippling around my tongue, your clit swelling against it. That’s what I’m going to have, Kita. I’m going to feel your pussy coming around my tongue.”
His palms flattened on her thighs, pressing them farther apart as his head lowered, his heated breath caressing the intimate flesh a second before his tongue swiped through the saturated slit.
Kita had to watch. She couldn’t help but watch. Watch as he devoured her pussy, licked around her clit, then slowly, oh so very slowly, sucked the swollen, tortured little knot of nerves into his mouth.
Kita tried to scream. Her upper body jerked, nearly rising from the lounger before his palm pressed against her upper stomach and pushed her back to the thick pad. Her hips arched, her feet sliding from the edge of the reclining chaise and lifting closer, pushing her clit further against him.
His tongue circled the swollen bud with flickering licks that had flashes of ecstasy nearly exploding inside her. His fingers parted the folds, two slipping inside her, rubbing, stroking in small thrusts until he was buried inside her and she swore she was dying from the pleasure.
Her hands gripped the pad of the chair above her. Her eyes closed, too heavy to remain open, but the sensations so much sharper, hotter from the lack of sight.
His fingers stretched the supersensitive tissue of her pussy. He thrust inside her, pulling back and pushing inside as he fucked her in controlled, easy penetrations that had her gasping from the pleasure.
His tongue tormented her clit. His lips closed around it, his mouth drew on it. She could feel sizzling pulses of electric sensation beginning to build inside her. Like sparks of lightning shattering the sky, each stroke, each thrust, each lick sent sparks of sensation tearing through her body.
It was so close. She could feel it. It was burning, tightening in her womb. The muscles of her vagina clamped down on his fingers as they pushed past with rasping thrusts. The hold his lips had on her clit was wicked, fiery, pulling each sensation through her clit before sending it racing hotter, harder through every nerve ending of her body.
She could hear herself calling out his name, begging. Her hips lifted and fell, grinding against his lips as she felt rapture continuing to build inside her.
She’d never known sensations like this. She’d always sensed they were there. Always sensed that the pleasure could be so much more, that the perfect kiss, the perfect touch, awaited her.
She had known Creed was there, somewhere. Sensed him. Felt him. Known life held so much more if she could only find it.
And she had found him. Or had he found her? But he was here now, his tongue lashing at the nerve-rich nubbin of her clit as his fingers pierced her pussy, fucking it with such slow, easy strokes that she could feel the heightened sensations building ever stronger.
Pleasure lashed at her.
Like bolts of quick-fire electricity zapping through her clitoris, her pussy, her womb, clenching, spasming through her until finally, with a desperate cry of broken control, she felt every nerve ending in her body rupture.
The orgasm exploded through her system in a rush of such ecstasy, such soul-binding pleasure, she felt as though a part of herself had flown free, straight into Creed’s soul.
Her eyes flew open, her lips parting in a soundless scream as he gave a harsh groan, pulled his fingers out of her, and a second later pressed the thick crest of his cock against the tender, convulsing entrance to her cunt and gave a hard, heavy thrust.
Her feet dug into the wood of the deck, her hips arching from the padded lounge to force the thick flesh deeper, harder. The additional rush of sensation was like throwing gasoline to an already raging flame burning out of control, exploding into the night.
Opening her eyes, her gaze moved, mesmerized, to where he was working the hard stalk of his cock inside her body. The dark flesh, heavily veined and throbbing, shimmered with her juices as he pulled back.
Penetrating again, moving in further with the next thrust, he parted the folds, spreading her, finding nerve endings she was certain she hadn’t felt the times he had used the condom.
He seemed harder, thicker, hotter. Almost bruising in its power and hardness, the engorged shaft forged inside as he straddled the lounge chair, his hands gripping her hips, her thighs lying over his, hips arched.
Her cunt still flexed and gripped in echoes of the orgasm she had barely survived and still, she could feel it building again. It was rising inside her with each thrust, with each burning, stretching penetration until with a final, hard stroke he was buried to the hilt.
Kita lifted her gaze.
He was throbbing inside her, so thick, so heavy she felt overfilled, overly possessed. Her inner flesh flexed and spasmed around the intruder, stroking it, milking it as she fought to catch her breath.
“When it happens,” he said, his voice guttural, “when I come, love, don’t be frightened.” His chest was moving with harsh