hidden talents (11 page)

“I want this too much,” he said, using all his self control not to pant.

“Are you afraid you"re going to hurt me?”

“I"m afraid I"ll shove up your dress and fuck you into this cinderblock. From behind,” he added. “With my fangs sunk into your nape like a dog.”

Her baby blue eyes widened. “O-kay,” she said slowly.

“Don"t fucking say
okay
. My dick is so hard it"s about to burst. I want this too much to do it nice.”

Her hands slid to his shoulders and back to his chest muscles. His yellow button-down business shirt was no barrier to pleasure. Waves of hot sensation rolled directly from her caresses into his groin.

“Who says you have to do it nice?” she asked, just about slaying him.

“Ari, I don"t have protection. I think -” He didn"t want to get into this, but he kind of had to. It wasn"t like he could keep denying it. “You may have noticed you and I have out of the ordinary chemistry. I think you might be my mate.”

“Like your soul mate?” Her nose wrinkled unsurely.

Yes, said the irrational corner of his mind. “Like my genetic mate,” his mouth corrected. “The ... a woman who"d have healthy babies if I got her pregnant. If I take you in this stairwell, feeling the way I do, I"m not letting you leave until you"ve got a womb full of my puppies.”

Her touch fell from him. “Oh,” she said.

God, it shouldn"t have hurt him. They"d just met. No matter what his

hormones were clamoring for him to do, he shouldn"t be thinking about her having his children. To his dismay, she must have seen what he felt in his expression. She pressed her hands to her mouth.

“Don"t,” she said. “Please. This is not an insult to you. I don"t think any man has ever thought of me as ...” She trailed off and shook her head. “You have to understand. Taking care of myself is more than I can manage sometimes.”

Her worried eyes eased the blow to his pride somewhat. He stroked his finger around the shell of her ear.

“Just do it quick,” she suggested. “Don"t give yourself a chance to lose control.”

Adam groaned. She so didn"t understand what this would be like. “If you think it"s hard for us to resist each other now ...”

“We can do it. We"ll just focus on our priorities. And it"s not like there aren"t other ways to fool around besides intercourse.”

He knew there were. They just wouldn"t be what their instincts would be screaming for them to do. He looked into her big hopeful eyes and sighed. She was right about one thing. They really didn"t have a choice.

“Turn around,” he said gruffly, though he wasn"t certain if the change in position would make his inevitable struggle better or worse. “I want you facing the wall for this. And take off my jacket first. Trust me, I"ll keep you warm.”

She removed the garment, folding it carefully before setting it on the floor.

His dick hardened even more at her actions, the tip leaking through his jock.

When she flattened her hands on the dull white paint of the cinderblock, her palms level with her shoulders, arousal stabbed up his shaft.

“Like this?” she asked breathlessly.

Her little killer body was a shadow inside the thin flowered dress. He licked his upper lip between his lengthened canines, his lust for her savage. She"d arched her buttocks out just a bit. He wondered if she knew what that did to him.

“That"s perfect,” he said hoarsely.

He stepped right up behind her, then growled, then shoved his throbbing front up and down her in one long rub.

“Oh God,” he gasped, because it felt so good. Her spiky platinum hairstyle left her nape bare and vulnerable. Adam pressed his nose to it and groaned. “I"m going to come in my pants the second I bite down.”

“Unzip,” she said, one hand slapping back onto his insane hard-on. His spine rolled when she squeezed it. “Unzip and come in my hand.”

Cursing, he wrenched the casual trousers open, tore his dick from his jock, and trapped her hand around him. He
made
her rub him, though clearly she wasn"t inclined to resist. The dominant in him needed to exert force.

Grunting at the pleasure that wasn"t quite enough, he thrust both their bodies toward the wall. “I want in you, Ari. I want to fuck your pussy.”

“Bite me instead,” she panted, her body writhing under his.

He yanked up her dress and shoved his second hand down the front of her panties. Her curls were soft, her labia hot and wet. Finding her so ready drew another terrible groan from him.

“Bite me,” she repeated throatily.

“I want to fuck you. I want to be in you.”

He worked her hand along his cock with the same heightened speed that he rubbed her wet plump clit. Maybe he could save them if he pumped hard enough.

Maybe he could save the world. He felt Ari racing toward release as fast as he was, her pelvis working jerkily in his hold.

“Adam,” she moaned, tipping her neck forward, exposing it more for him.

“Please, Adam. Please bite me.”

He drew his tongue up the silken perspiring skin. The hormones in her sweat slammed him, locking little keys into his. He"d never felt anything like it, not with any of his lovers. His testicles tightened even as they got heavier. He wanted her enough to lose his mind.

Biting her had been an even worse idea than he"d realized.

Naturally, every cell in his body demanded he go ahead.

“Christ,” he cursed as his fangs slid a fraction longer. Both sets were out, lower and upper. Ari was too gone to notice, straining on the cusp of her orgasm.

The knowledge shoved him right to the edge with her.

His jaw seemed to widen by itself. Unable to stop, he turned his head to clamp it around her nape. The scent of her excitement rose. She shuddered, he licked ...

Then he let all four teeth break skin.

They came in a simultaneous firing of instantly conjoined nerves. Her blood hit his tastebuds and he shot harder. Werewolves had a vestige of the
bulbus
glandis
, a sphere of extra erectile tissue at the base of their penises. It wouldn"t tie them to their partners like real canines, but it did activate when males were near a female with whom they"d be fertile. Adam"s gave an agonizing throb of pleasure as what felt like a gallon of seed pumped from him, ejecting fast enough to burn him from the inside. A second later, Ari"s cream spurted over his fingers, as if praising what he"d done. Praise was hardly necessary. The climax was quick and hot and so intense it almost drove him to his knees.

Unbelievable though it was, the orgasm ended about a year to soon. Adam could have gone with her like that forever. He was limp when he pulled himself from her hold, but somehow that didn"t quell his yearning.

Ari sagged to the wall with both palms braced on it again.

He had a hard time forcing his jaw to unclamp.

“You okay?” he asked, afraid to touch her again.

She nodded, then sighed and turned around. She pressed one hand to the back of her neck where he"d bitten her. “I think I"m still bleeding.”

“If I lick it, it will heal faster.”

Her gaze held his. “I could do it myself. My gift can heal simple injuries.”

“Please let me,” he said softly.

She hesitated, then dropped her hand and presented her nape to him.

The mark was unsettlingly beautiful to him, a reddened ring of teeth with four slight punctures. The cuts only bled a little. His saliva had already healed them partially. Standing close behind her, he traced the circle he"d left on her with gentle thumbs. It gave him great satisfaction that her shoulders relaxed.

“Would you mind if I left the bruises?” he asked. “They"ll tell people you"re

... with me until next moon.”

“I"d like that,” she said softly.

Her caressing voice sent goosebumps across his skin. He kissed her before he licked her, and when he licked her, he felt as if his tongue were saying
I love you
.

He couldn"t fight the emotion, even if the words stayed inside. Perhaps it was a product of their situation, of hormones or stress. It didn"t matter. For that moment, his heart was hers.

He kept his hands on her upper arms until the wounds were closed.

“Thank you,” he said, feeling the gratitude to his bones.

She turned and looked up at him wide-eyed. She touched his lower lip with her fingertips. “Why are you thanking me?”

“I know it"s hard for you to let people be nice to you. I know you don"t trust them to stay that way.”

She blinked, sudden moisture glittering in her eyes. “Adam -”

He stepped back before she could voice whatever warning she seemed about to make. “We should return to the roof. The gargoyles will be waiting to do their ritual.”

Her gaze dropped when she nodded, and then a little smile tugged her mouth.

“Um,” she said, “I think you"d better put your power tool away first.”

∞

Considering the exciting lead-in, Ari found the ritual itself anticlimactic. The gargoyles circled Adam as he stood in the center of the library roof. Without a word, they lifted their wings together, closed their eyes, and went stonelike. The only sign that something was happening was a shimmering in the air, like gas fumes rising from asphalt. Adam hissed in a breath as a pale blue fire sprung to life around his wrists. He held his hands out in front of him, turning them back and forth, but the glow didn"t seem to burn. It guttered out after a minute, and the gargoyles" wings rustled down.

“Done,” said the matriarch. “You sleep. Tomorrow flower bloom.”

Ari was still enjoying a private snigger at the thought of the big bad wolf with a flower in him.

“Cut it out,” Adam said, holding the yellow cab"s door for her.

She slid into the back seat biting her lip. Adam followed and slammed the door. The boy gargoyle was a hulk on the library steps, having arranged to fly home with them. Their cabbie looked up as he took off, but didn"t flinch otherwise.

Just an ordinary city sight, she supposed.

Adam gave the driver his address, then slid the privacy window closed. The simple act made her pussy squirm, though what he said next wasn"t terribly sexy.

“I stuck your depowering charm in my coat pocket. You should put it on

again.”

With an inward sigh, Ari dug it out from behind his folder and dropped the chain back around her neck. The silvery gold medal nestled between her breasts.

The hum she"d almost stopped noticing quieted.

Adam grunted in approval and sat back on the black seat. Seeming immune to the night"s lower temperature, he"d rolled up his cuffs. His palms rested on his thighs, the marks the gargoyles left ringing his strong wrists. They resembled good quality tattoos: eye-catching red and orange flame bracelets, like you might have custom painted on a motorcycle. Adam was holding them as if they needed to dry.

“Do they hurt?” she asked.

He shook his head. “They"re just tingling.”

“Did the ritual feel weird?”

“It hardly felt like anything. I"m hoping it actually did something.”

“Maybe the gargoyles are like the Mayor. You know, so much mojo they

don"t have to shove it in your face.”

“They"re the Eights,” he said. He shifted on the seat to face her. “On the Bunscombe Scale.”

His legs were long enough that his knee bumped hers. Ari tried to pretend the contact didn"t make
her
tingle. “That makes sense. Since they invented it.”

Adam curled his hands into fists, then forced them to relax. “Most people postulate that faeries are Tens.”

“And you"re sure the Mayor isn"t one?”

“I"ve met fae.” The flattened line of his lips suggested it hadn"t been an undiluted pleasure. “Purebloods are both more beautiful and more aloof than him.

They"re like the Parisians of Resurrection. They don"t let you forget who built this place.”

Ari smiled at the analogy. Adam stared at her.

“I would kill,” he breathed, “to have your mouth on me now.”

He shifted on his haunches, his once again fisted hands rubbing up and down his thighs. A giant hard-on bulged up between them, pulling the cloth of his slacks tight across his lap.

Ari"s nipples beaded so fast they stung.

“Crap,” he said, twisting so he sat facing front again. “I knew this would be hell.”

He might have known, but the immensity of the lust that seized her took Ari by surprise. He"d warned her their desires would become contagious. He hadn"t said it would be a tidal wave of longing. She didn"t need his jacket to warm her.

She broke into a sweat just from thinking about making love to him. She"d happily have done it in this cab, just yank down his zipper and straddle him. He"d be thick and hot, and he"d thrust into her really far. It would be heaven. She thrust and grind and thrust and grind until they screamed with pleasure.

“Ari,” Adam said in a strangled tone. “Whatever you"re thinking, stop.”

She blinked out of her daydream to look at him. The muscles of his face were tight, and his nostrils flared with quick breathing. “Oh my God, did you read my thoughts?”

“No,” he said through clenched teeth. “I"m just feeling what they did to you.”

She blushed as hot as he usually did. “Sorry.”

“It"s okay. Maybe think about the weather instead.”

She meant to, but ended up picturing him sunning naked on a tropical beach, his long muscular body sprawled in sensual abandon across the sand. His skin would be brown, his graceful legs fuzzed with hair. The throbbing rod that thrust from his groin would be a thousand times more tempting than a drink with an umbrella.

“Ari,” Adam complained, gripping his knees white-knuckled.

She bit her lip and tried to wrestle her imagination under control. Her labia were swollen, and her clit felt like it swam in hot cream, its steady pulse rolling up into her pussy. Could a person come from a pulse, or was that wishful thinking? Her insides needed something to rub against, something thick and warm to stretch their walls and pump between them really hard ...

“Crap,” she said, echoing him. She snuck a look at him and saw his face had broken into a sweat. His gorgeous mouth looked like it was covering fangs. “How long are we going to feel like this?”