Merrick's Destiny (4 page)

Not because she was his mate, but because she was damn good company. Smart, sassy, fucking gorgeous company.

Her cheeks turned pink as she stirred the stew and then peeled off her sweater. “I can tell we’ve moved south
and
lower in elevation. It’s a lot warmer, isn’t it?”

Whatever she was wearing under the sweater didn’t deserve to be called clothing—or maybe women’s clothing should be redefined to encompass only this damn garment. Smooth white fabric with lacy edges that left her arms bare and showed off one damn fine pair of tits, and he couldn’t tear his gaze away. “Damn warm,” he rasped.

“Stop,” she whispered, reaching for his hand. “When you look at me like that…”

“Like you’re beautiful?” He forced his gaze to her eyes. “Not sure I can change that.”

“More like…” Her fingers twined with his. “Like you’re dying of thirst and can’t wait to drink me up.”

The innocent touch set off a blaze of heat. Hunger, not thirst, though he could easily enough imagine her wet and open to him. He’d take his time drinking her in, tease until she couldn’t stand another stroke of his tongue, until those sleek thighs trembled and she screamed his name loud enough to echo through the mountains.

He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her fingertips. “I’m dying of thirst, sweet girl, but I won’t drink anything you don’t offer.”

“I’m disrobing, Merrick,” Paralee reminded him softly. “But you’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? That I want you to touch me.”

“I’m going to make you say it,” he agreed, voice scraping out of his suddenly dry throat. “Over and over, so I know I’m not taking anything you don’t want me to have.”

“I want you to touch me.” She stepped closer, her chest rising and falling with each shaky breath. “And I want to touch you too. Kiss you again. I want to know—” Her teeth sank into her lower lip, and she looked away.

Every pounding beat of her heart echoed in his ears, the very speed exciting his predatory instincts. He fought to move slowly, but his hand was clumsy and rough when he cupped her chin and turned her to face him. “What do you want to know?”

Her dark eyes met his, her gaze a perfect, challenging match to the stubborn tilt of her chin. “I’d rather have you now. I’d rather know you want
me
, that it isn’t about needing a warm body for the new moon.”

The challenge heated his blood. No bloodhound could ignore such a look, not even one who’d been around since the founding of the damn Guild. He swept her up in one arm and backed her against the cave wall, then penned her in with both hands on either side of her head. “You want to know if I want
you
?”

She didn’t look away or back down. “Do you?”

“Find out,” he rumbled, holding her gaze. “Touch me. I want your clever fingers around my cock.”

She skimmed her fingertips down his chest. Instead of touching him through his pants, she started to undo them. “Were you thinking of this last night when you kissed me?” she asked as she eased her hand inside and stroked his erection, gentle and questing.

It was hard to think past the feel of her hand wrapped around his shaft. “I’ve been thinking of some variation on this since I woke up with you riding my hips.”

“I was trying to keep you alive, not grope you.” Her voice had gone hoarse, and she swayed toward him as she closed her fist around him and squeezed. Hard.

Merrick shuddered. This was no delicate, nervous touch from a virgin who wasn’t sure how to handle a man. She gripped him the way he liked, rough and firm, and he growled and thrust against her hand.

Paralee whimpered and jerked her hand free of his clothes only to frantically pull at the buttons on his shirt. “Now, Merrick. I don’t have the patience to wait long.”

“That’s a pity.” He caught her hands and brought her wrists together above her head. They were delicate enough to grip in one hand, which left the other free to explore the lush contours of her breasts through that sinful scrap of lace. “Patience has its rewards.”

She closed her eyes and arched into his touch. “With you, I imagine it does.”

Keeping her from touching him was his only hope at control, but he fought to hide that truth. Instead he settled on a lazy, slow exploration, teasing her nipples through fabric before inching a hand under the hem to spread his fingers wide across her belly. “Up or down?”

Her husky laugh shivered up his spine. “Up,” she murmured. “Consider me intrigued by those potential rewards.”

He took her mouth and took his time, licking past her lips to stroke her tongue. Her skin was soft under his fingertips, silky and warm, and he smoothed his thumb up to flick over her nipple.

She drew in a sharp breath and tried his grip on her wrists. Not so hard as to be an attempt at escape, so he bit her lower lip and repeated the caress. “Rethinking your patience?”

“No.” She twisted, brushing her nipple against his thumb again. “Just testing yours a little, that’s all.”

The simple act of laying hands on her had given him an endless supply. He could tease out her secrets for hours,
days
, stroke every inch of her until he’d learned all the shortcuts to quick pleasure and all the slow paths that led to a greater reward. He’d learn her like he’d learned the mountains, live by her moods and thrive on what she gave him in return.

But that wouldn’t answer the question that had started this, her need to believe his desire was more than instinct and the looming new moon. He had to bend a little. Show her what she expected in a man, because she couldn’t understand the needs of a mated hound, that his own urgency faded under the promise of feasting on her pleasure.

Impatience. Hunger too insistent to be denied. He had that inside him too, so he gave in to it. Palmed her breast and seized her mouth in an open, wet kiss that would answer any lingering doubts about patience or how much time she had left before he got his fingers between her thighs.

Paralee melted with a startled moan, then freed her hands and clutched at his shoulders. She rubbed her thigh against his hip before lifting herself higher and wrapping her legs around his.

Finally. He gripped her thighs and pressed her back against the rock, promising himself he wouldn’t grind her into the uneven surface. Not for long. Just to enjoy those strong legs around his hips and her breasts crushed against his chest. Tearing his mouth from hers, he closed it on her throat, licking her pulse with a growl. “Impatient enough?”

She gasped and shook but pushed at his shoulders. “Don’t fuck me to prove a point.”

He almost groaned. “Are your wits addled, woman? I may be struggling with how and how fast, but the only point I prove by fucking you is how goddamned badly I want to.”

“
Do
you want me?” she asked quietly, a frown creasing her brow. “Or do you want your mate?”

She might as well ask him if he wanted water or melted ice. “You couldn’t be my mate if I didn’t want you.”

“Says who? All I know is that you might have been ogling my ass, but you didn’t say two words to me before we crashed.”

Merrick frowned as tangled memories surfaced, more feelings than images. Watching her, wanting her. Respecting her. A draw both physical and mental, an attraction that must have twisted in a moment of blind protectiveness when death seemed near. “You can learn a lot about someone simply by watching, Paralee. It’s what I do. I’m a damned bloodhound spy.”

Paralee studied his face. “And what did you plan to do with all that knowledge, Merrick? If we’d reached Chicago as planned, would you ever have even thought of me again?”

For the life of him, he couldn’t remember—but he knew what his thoughts had likely been. “I would have turned around and hired you out from under the owner of that airship.”

She stared at him for a second, then laughed. “You’re insane. A crazy man.”

“I believe in destiny,” he countered, hoisting her higher as he turned away from the cave wall. With her slight weight and his bloodhound strength, holding her up was effortless. “I nearly died in these mountains. Ripped apart by a grizzly, with infection setting in. If it hadn’t happened, I never would have become a bloodhound.”

Her hands tightened on his shoulder and the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. That must have been horrible.”

He sank to the floor, careful to arrange her in his lap with her legs still wrapped around his waist. It was a nice position, easy to stroke her back and nuzzle her throat, even as he replied. “The Guild made an exception. Before me, they made bloodhounds from experienced soldiers. Volunteers in the best of health. I changed it all.”

“So they saved your life.”

“In a manner of speaking.” Bitterness would creep into his voice if he wasn’t careful, revealing more than she should know. “They saved my life in exchange for owning it. A fair trade, most would say, when it’s more than I would have had.”

“I wouldn’t say so.” Paralee stroked his jaw. “You may work for them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t own you. You could leave.”

“Bloodhounds don’t retire, love.” A warning for her as much as himself. “None of us have died of old age yet. I suppose we have a few more decades before we’ll know if it’ll happen at all, but not many last long enough to find out.”

She leaned in and pressed her cheek to his. “You could say the same of pilots. We don’t tend to go wrinkled and gray, that’s for sure.”

“Not when you’re flying over the Deadlands, I suppose.” He kissed her ear. “So why do you do it?”

“Money?” She laughed. “Freedom, I think. The whole, wide blue sky is mine.”

“I understand that.” Nothing had ever felt so peaceful as nuzzling his nose against her throat, her unbound hair tickling his face. “I may not care for everything the Guild has given me, but I’ve been free in more ways than most men.”

Paralee quieted, then combed her fingers through his hair. “You still don’t remember me, do you? Before the crash.”

“Bits and pieces.” He closed his eyes and leaned in to her touch. “I remember you playing dice with the crew. Thinking I would have to break a man’s hand for grabbing your ass, and watching you break his finger all on your own. And you fighting with Lucius over…something or other. He was a dangerous, rough man, but you weren’t scared of him.”

“Lucius got his way by bullying people. If you stood up to him, he’d usually give in.” She drew in a shaky breath. “It wasn’t my usual crew, but they were good men—even the grabby ones. And now they’re gone.”

The urge to take melted into the need to soothe and pet. He stroked her back and tangled his fingers in her unfettered hair. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“No. I was the one at the helm.” Her lips brushed his ear. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“You were shot down by bloodsuckers. The only reason you’re alive at all is—”

The memory crashed into him. Panic. Fire. Men scrambling across the deck as ropes snapped, tilting the airship so sharply that one sailor pitched over the side with a scream that went on forever.

Paralee murmured something and smoothed her fingers over his brow. “You pulled me from the wheel when we started to list. Wrapped your arms around me and told me to hang on to you and not let go.”

“That’s how it happens sometimes.” His voice sounded hoarse, distant, even to his own ears. “The mating, I mean. There’s usually a powerful lust there already, but the need to protect can trigger it.”

“Then I guess that’s when it happened.” She fell silent, then laughed softly. “I thought it meant you’d be humping me constantly. If anything,
I’ve
been the aggressive one.”

“That’ll change soon enough, love.” Tomorrow, by sunset, he’d fall on her like a madman unless she seemed utterly uninterested.

“The new moon.” She eased back and met his gaze squarely. “I’m not frightened, Merrick. If you’re worrying about that, you can rest easy.”

It eased part of his worry, but not all of it. “Not frightened is a far cry from eager.”

She released him, and her belt clicked as she unbuckled it. “You can rest easy about that too.”

Maybe lust hadn’t retreated as far as he’d thought, not when he needed no encouragement to slide his fingers around her body and tug at the buttons on her pants. “Are you going to let me feel how eager?”

“Yes.” Paralee kissed his jaw and the corner of his mouth, then pulled her camisole up over her head. “Touch me.”

He couldn’t decide where to touch first. Freeing two more buttons allowed him to inch his fingers down the front of her trousers, but her hardened nipples seemed sorely neglected. Urging her back, he closed his lips around one firm peak before working his fingers low enough to find her clit slick and ready.

She grabbed his hair and rocked her hips into his touch. “Oh, fuck.”

“That’s right, sweet girl.” He gave her a hint of teeth, a tease of what was to come, then focused his attention on the heated flesh beneath his fingertips. “Do you want my fingers inside you?”

“Yes.” Her hoarse whisper rasped through the stillness.

Not enough. He wanted the words on her lips. The pleas. “Yes, what?”

“Fuck me with your fingers.” She wiggled on his lap and sucked in a sharp, hitching breath. “Make me come.”

Awkward at this angle, but he savored the challenge. He’d fucked women in odder positions just for the novelty of it, but this time it had nothing to do with the challenge or the victory. Just his own unwillingness to let go of her, even for the time it would take to turn her around.

Besides, she was so damn hungry for him, she might not give him the chance.

Sliding his hand lower, he worked his fingers just inside her cunt, teasing her with penetration as he kept the heel of his hand rocking against her clit.

Paralee whimpered and angled her hips down, taking his fingers deeper. “You don’t exactly play fair, do you, darling?”

He locked an arm around her waist and trapped her in place in spite of her squirming. “Not even a little.”

“As long as you promise.” She leaned closer and slipped her hands under his shirt.

Impertinent creature. His growl caught in his throat as he worked his fingers deeper in rocking thrusts. He wanted her insensible. Starving, begging, as desperate as he’d be soon enough.