Cry Wolf (11 page)

Butch Cassidy yowled for attention on the kitchen counter. Kelly automatically held a hand out for him to rub his cheek over her fingers. Malcolm tried not to laugh. He relinquished her mouth to look around for Butch Cassidy’s food container. He poured a little into the empty bowl. Butch Cassidy gave the interloper a glare, but he accepted Malcolm’s gift with a flip of his mostly lame tail—limp from an early injury.

“Where were we?” Malcolm murmured against her cheek.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Kelly said.

“I may be wrong, but I think we were headed to bed,” Malcolm said. He kissed her chastely on the lips before moving less chastely down to her neck.

As his hot, wet mouth did the most sinful things to her neck from ear to collarbone, he unbuttoned the front of her dress. He made quick work of each small, pearly button with surprisingly deft fingers. Again, Kelly kept waiting for the teeth, to feel his canines rake across her flesh and spike the simmering excitement in her blood, but although he bit at her, they were nothing more than nips.

Once he had unbuttoned the dress past her waist, he pushed the sleeves down over her shoulders and let gravity do the rest. Kelly had to let go of him to shed the dress in favour of skin, the long length of pale, inked limbs. The moonlight came in through her bedroom window and illuminated the rumpled bed.

She tingled all over. As soon as she could, she tangled her fingers in his black hair, raked her nails over his back, but he pulled that hand off.

“I don’t understand,” Kelly said, another quaver in her voice. She realised that she was near tears, though she didn’t know why.

“This is how I made love,” Malcolm murmured, twining their fingers and pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the black ink on her sternum. “When I needed it, this was what I did. I need to know if I still can.”

“But why don’t you—?” Kelly began.

“Just relax, Kelly,” Malcolm said. He flicked the tip of his tongue over her nipple, catching slightly on the bar piercing through it. “Just relax and let me try. Let me take care of you.”

Kelly’s eyebrows drew together, but she combed her free hand through his hair down to the back of his neck and bit her lip, nodding.

He guided her down onto the edge of the bed. As he knelt at her feet, he traced his tongue down the inked filigree on her sternum then returned to her breast, engulfing the small, pert nipple between his soft lips and circling it with his tongue. He hummed. The bar caught the vibration and multiplied it. Whatever nerve connection went from her pierced nipples to her clit practically zinged with pleasure, leaving her gasping.

Her arousal dripped hot down her spine as he ran his hands over her thighs, his thumbs rubbing over the sensitive inner flesh but never quite touching her where she ached. She spread her legs to give him better access, yet he kept his strokes to her legs and the sensitive crease where her legs met her hips.

He mouthed a hot line from one nipple to the other, lavishing it with as much attention as the first, which had tightened sweetly under his ministrations and glistened from his saliva. He stroked up her spine as he wrapped his other hand possessively around the back of her thigh. His fingers brushed her labia, where she was already wet for him. He groaned, pressing his mouth against the heavy underside of her breast.

As he moved to inhale the musk emanating from her, Kelly thought that she would finally have the infuriating hum all over her body satisfied, that he would give in to his hunger and throw her on the bed and fuck her until she screamed. But all she felt was the swirl of cold air from his breathing and the tightening of his hand around her thigh as he reacted to her scent.

His grip on her thigh slowly loosened, and he stood up. His eyes went practically white with desire and moonlight as he undid his jeans and pushed them down his legs. His erection was beautiful, deeply flushed and so very hard, but Kelly didn’t look away from those bright eyes. She ran her thumb over the head, spreading pre-cum as she slid her hand down the shaft. The strong pulse of his heart beat through the thick vein on the underside.

She started to lean down to run her tongue over that pulse, but Malcolm gently disengaged her grip from him and pulled her closed hand to his chest instead.

“Malcolm,” she whispered.

He caught his name with a kiss. Their tongues met and tasted and licked and savoured as he guided them down onto the bed. She slid back until they rested in full moonlight. It called to her wolf and stirred it under the surface. Malcolm gritted his teeth against the same compulsion.

It would be easy for a man of his height and length of limb to be ungainly, but he was surprisingly graceful, delicate, gentle. He traced too-soft lines down her stomach to the juncture of her legs, and when he spread her to his gaze, his hands shook at the sight of her.

“I need to be inside you,” he murmured.

“Now,” she said.

He took himself in hand and positioned himself at her slick entrance. She expected him to finally lose control, that after all this torturous tenderness he would finally take her, pound into her with his not inconsiderable strength. But he didn’t. Instead, he coated his cock with her juices, lifting her up so that he could pass his cock through her folds until his then soaking cockhead stroked her clit. His breath escaped his throat with harsh, caught pants. Sweat dripped over his forehead and down his chest.

They both cried out when he finally sank into her. God, it felt so fucking good to have him inside where she was wet and soft and swollen for him, nothing but his own will holding him back from slamming home.

“Move,” she said, rubbing her calves over his soft, lightly furred thighs.

And he did, thrusting into her until he was completely sheathed. But when he withdrew, he was still slow, still maddeningly deliberate, his cock inside her like a deep massage.

Their mouths met again. He drank every cry he wrought from her. Tears dripped down her temples and into her hair. She wanted to kick and thrash and scream at him to just fuck her already, but his cock filling her and his shivery kisses were too sweet for her to make him stop. Her feelings at that moment were as unintelligible as her prophecy.

“I can’t…” She clutched the headboard of the bed, using it as leverage to push herself down over his cock.

“No, don’t hold onto that,” he said, sliding his hand up her arms to meet at her wrists. He kissed her deeply then murmured, “Hold onto me. Hold on.”

She released the headboard and clung to him, one hand on his shoulder—where the muscle flexed with each measured, rhythmic penetration—and grasping his ass with the other, rocking him in with each thrust. Pleasure was building and building and building, but it just couldn’t reach the crest where she needed it to be so badly.

“Kelly,” he gasped.

She about burst into tears when his hips jerked, breaking the rhythm and filling her. He clenched his eyes shut through his orgasm and bared his teeth, briefly sharp.

Then he slumped over her, his weight hot and heavy over her hypersensitised body. But he didn’t stay there. His mouth found the juncture of her neck and shoulder then he pushed himself down her body, reacquainting himself with her nipple and tugging lightly at the piercing to make her moan. He kissed down her stomach to her navel and dipped his tongue in, over and over and over in simulation of what she really wanted until her eyes rolled back. She spread her legs farther apart to accommodate his broad shoulders in a silent plea for him to fulfil her where arousal heated her pink and wet, needing something, anything—she would use her claws if that would take away the ache.

“Don’t worry,” he said, his voice tinged with a growl as he stared up her body.

He gently stroked his thumbs over her inner thighs. A small sound escaped from her mouth just from that touch.

“I’ll take care of you. Hold on a little longer.”

What came from her mouth now sounded suspiciously like sobs. The flowing river of hot tears into her hair only confirmed it for her. Yet as he moved his tongue in a slow exploration of the folds of her labia, she thought she was going to explode… And still it was not enough.

He glided his tongue in unhurried torture over her clit. But then, he had already come. Any urgency he might have had was gone. He slipped one finger inside her, and her back arched, her fingers curling in the bed sheets. He growled at her reaction, sending vibrations through the piercing in her clitoral hood. She moaned again, this time clenching her fist in his hair. He continued to growl into her as he pressed his tongue flat against her clit. The large finger inside her was joined by another. Already she felt full.

He focused his attention on the hood, the thick flesh she’d had pierced three years ago along with the peaks of her breasts. She remembered how good it had felt, that stab of scorpion sting pain when the needle had gone through, then the bar.

Another finger. He stretched her now. Her body trembled as the orgasm began its climb.

“Not yet,” he murmured, nudging the soft curly hair that framed her folds. “I think you can manage a fourth.”

She wanted to tell him she could take his fist inside her right now if he so desired, but he pushed a fourth finger in with the others and thrust into her firmly enough to pull her hips up off the bed and send all words flying out of her mind. She keened at the ceiling with each thrust.

Kelly was falling back into the blackness, the blackout. She fought to stay out of it, fought to keep the burning in her core contained before it overtook her completely. Then the tension snapped, stopping the fall. Her thighs shook and her cunt clamped down around his fingers. That was when he finally closed his mouth over her clit and sucked and licked in tandem to the pulse of her blood against his tongue. The sound of ripping cloth filled her ears after she released Malcolm for fear of hurting him too badly—instead, she clawed at the sheets. Then she shattered with cascades of hot pleasure that reached every inch of her body, sweet and powerful in its leisurely but persistent swells.

And when it was finally finished, she cried.

Malcolm eased off her clit with one last kiss to the piercing there and pulled his fingers gently from her cunt. He sucked most of the juices from his fingers, one by one, before applying himself to her cunt and her folds, as tenderly as a wolf cleaning his mate. His satisfied growls made her twitch inside, but her thighs were relaxed on either side of his head. Kelly buried part of her face in the pillow and covered the rest with her hand, wiping the tears and trying to stop crying.

He kissed his way up her body, following the path that he had taken when he’d made his way down. He guided her hand back and licked her tears then gently kissed her on her lips.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, his expression twisted with concern. His eyes were still white hot with the wolf inside, but his face was smooth, the skin around the eyes surprisingly youthful after the harshness of the last few months.

Kelly turned on her side and pressed her face more deeply into the space between the two pillows on her bed. It wasn’t that she was ashamed or in pain or sad, although that was probably what Malcolm thought. She was just so overwhelmed by the fact that he
hadn’t
hurt her and how different it was to have sex like that. No, what Malcolm had just done was what people called making love, what
he
called making love. She wrapped her arms around herself and scratched at her ribs to feel something sharp and familiar.

She had only ever had sex two ways. The first was back in her teens before the magic had made it too difficult to have sex with normals, and that had been so supremely awkward that she hadn’t regretted leaving it behind.

Then there was the sex that ripped through her, tore at her skin and made her feel alive and powerful—sex that either let the magic release or allowed the wolf out and made everything else go blissfully quiet. Kelly had never sought anything else because she liked it that way so much.

No man had ever made love to her before. She didn’t know what to do with it, what to do with herself or that sensation of falling, swelling, exploding like sweet champagne, everything smooth, slick, soft, gentle and tender.

Malcolm ghosted his fingers over her shoulder, as though afraid to touch her. Kelly sniffed and rubbed her nose against the sheets under the pillows then turned back around so that he could gradually bring his arms around her as she held herself as well.

“No, you didn’t hurt me at all,” Kelly said. “It’s just never been like that for me before.”

Malcolm’s laugh fluttered her hair. “Sounds vaguely familiar. I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was going to bother you so much.”

“It’s not that it wasn’t good,” Kelly said, peering up at him. “I’ve just never had pleasure without some pain before. I wasn’t prepared for it, and it kind of… I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

“Is that a werewolf thing?” Malcolm asked. “I never used to like it like that, the biting and the claws and everything. I mean, you showed me that I do now, but…”

“It usually is,” Kelly said. “Most werewolves learn the beauty of pain after they turn, that primal urge to bite, fuck, tear, consume in the act of mating. Werewolves have a much higher tolerance for pain than people, as you’ve discovered, not to mention accelerated healing. But for me, it’s always been that way. I’ve always liked pain, before I even knew it could be used in sex.”

“Looking at you, I’d never have guessed you have a thing for pain,” Malcolm said with a grin. He ran his hand down her spine, over her left thigh, stroking at least three giant tattoos in the process.

“And these,” he added, bringing his hand between them, travelling the hills and valleys of her ribs before cupping her breast. Her nipple piercing pressed into one of the creases in his palm. “They can’t be silver.”

She rubbed around her eyes again to smooth the tears back into her hair where it had become stiff from salt.

“They’re titanium,” she replied. “Most of this was done after I turned, but the one on my thigh here”—she covered his hand on her breast and brought it down to her dark fairy—“was before the bite. That was my first clue that I had a thing for pain. I fell asleep during most of my sessions.”