Chapter Twenty-two
She couldn’t believe this food was here in the middle of nowhere. And she was starving. The food and drink at the prince’s dinner were completely gone from her stomach.
A bowl of dried fruits in hand, she sat next to Bryon on rugs he’d moved around. With a sigh, she toed off her shoes and wiggled her toes. “I won’t be able to walk for a week without Band-Aids.”
“Guess I’ll have to carry you around for that time,” Bryon said. So gorgeous, so perfect.
“Uh, probably not,” she replied. “But we can work something out.” Whoa. What did she mean by that? Great. She was delirious now. Delirious with love? Good god, that was lame.
“Kari,” he said, “how much do you know about shifters?”
She halfway shrugged. “I’ve learned a few things besides what you’ve told me. You guys have super senses and your mates are forever.”
“You know about mates?” he asked, surprise in his voice.
“Not that much. Just that once you find your mate, your heart is theirs forever.” She hadn’t mentioned this to Director Lancaster, but she had known shifters existed before she’d decoded any messages. When she was eight years old, her mom worked two jobs for a while. During that time, the older neighbors, Tabi and her husband, Joe, would watch over her at night until her mother came home. Kari considered Tabi to be her grandmother since her real grandmothers were with the angels in heaven.
Even at her young age, she saw the intense love between Tabi and Joe. The couple was really old and had been together since they were in school. They always held hands when they sat on the swing on the front porch. Joe kissed Tabi every time he walked in or out of a room she was in. And they always ate dinner together at the table.
Kari had known the couple were shifters when one of the young grandkids accidentally shifted when she was there. It had become their little secret. When Kari once asked how they could be together so long without getting bored of each other, Tabi told her, when you find your true mate, your heart is theirs forever. Then Kari asked if that was for shifters only, or if she could find her own mate.
Tabi told her if she had a true mate waiting for her, then she would be cherished and loved by her mate unconditionally. But humans didn’t usually have shifter mates back then. Well, they did, but shifter law forbade the races to mix at the time.
One day, Joe was in an accident and died. Kari hadn’t grasped the concept of death except that the person went to heaven to be with angels, like her grandmothers. The next day, Tabi said she couldn’t take care of Kari any longer. She had to go where Joe, her mate, was because she loved him too much to be away from him.
Kari never saw Tabi after that, but as Kari grew older, she’d come to understand the meaning of all Tabi had shared with her. She never met another shifter, that she knew of, anyway.
She decided that was why she accepted Bryon so readily. She’d romanticized shifters into great lovers and heroes. And she had secretly prayed that one day she would meet her mate and have what the old couple had.
“You’re absolutely right about that. Mates are born to be together,” he responded. “Many times, our mates are human, too.”
“Really,” she said. Man, oh, man. What she would do to be the mate to the delectable man sitting next to her. She’d win the Powerball if that was true. Hot sex with shifter alpha 24/7. She’d never leave her bed. Hell, she’d never let him leave. She stuffed more fruit into her mouth to keep from drooling.
He rubbed the back of his hand on her arm. He was warm in the chilly air. Chills ran down to her fingers. She loved when he touched her. Loved when he stood so close. Loved his smell, loved his body. All right, she needed to cut it out. He’d catch her horny scent soon.
“What would you think if you were my mate?”
Her heart stumbled over itself, fell flat, then pumped overtime. “Was that a ‘let’s pretend I’m your mate’ or ‘You want me to be your mate, for real’?” She wasn’t hungry anymore. Her stomach was too busy being nervous.
Bryon slid closer on the thick rug, his eyes never leaving hers. “The question wasn’t rhetorical nor was it a hypothetical.”
“Why me?”
He glided his knuckles over her arm, grazing her breast, and she closed her eyes at the promise in the not-so-innocent gesture.
“No one’s ever gotten to me like you do, Kari.”
“But?”
He shook his head. “No buts. I would go through captivity all over again, especially if it means meeting you.”
Kari’s eyes searched his. Bryon the badass agent wanted her. Not for a night. Not for the hottest sex she would ever have, but for himself. For her to be his mate in front of god and the entire world. She chewed on her lips and he smirked.
“What?”
“Nibble, nibble. You know you only do that when you’re arguing with yourself.”
Heat bloomed in her cheeks. “How’d you figure that?”
He leaned in so his lips were no more than a breath from hers. “Because I’ve gotten to know you, Kari. Not just your scent branded on my brain, but you. Inside and out. Whether you want to admit it or not, you are mine. MINE. My mate. Now and for always. But I can’t do anything about that alone. I need you.”
That was it. Every question, every misgiving that reached up and grabbed her was silenced. Bryon took her mouth as if he knew it, too, muzzling any remaining doubt in a hungry kiss.
He fisted her hair, his tongue plundering the sweet cavern of her mouth. “I want you, Kari. Forever. Let me have you.”
His words were a whisper in his kiss and they rang in her head. They were the same words he said to her in her dream and she gasped. Taking the sharp intake as an invitation for more, he unbuttoned her shirt, pushing the front wide, exposing her breasts.
“If I had known we’d be doing this I would have worn sexier underwear,” she joked.
He rolled his thumb and forefinger over her nipple and pinched the puckered flesh. “You’re sexy enough no matter what you wear, but I’d prefer you in nothing at all.”
Kari’s mouth slid into a sexy smile and she shrugged out of her shirt. “Your wish is my command.” She had to laugh at the 1,001 Arabian Nights feel of the moment. An evil prince somewhere above them. A cavern full of dried fruits and nuts and every kind of stored delicacy and a carpet that was about to become magical beneath them.
“Watch that, Kari. My wishes can be pretty primal, especially when it comes to you and the thought of your pretty pink pussy.”
His raw language made her panties wet. “I’m a tough cookie, Bryon. Bring it, baby.”
His eyes darkened to a feral green and he slid onto his knees, reaching to slip his shirt over his head. “Now you.”
Knee to knee, they each stripped off a piece of clothing one by one. Kari’s blood raced with anticipation, especially with Bryon’s thick member so prominent and clearly ready for action.
He pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Do you know how lush and full you are? I could eat you up.”
She smirked. “Now there’s an idea.” Disentangling herself she stretched out on the rug, pulling her knees up and letting them fall apart. “Juicy is best, don’t you think?” Her fingers stroked her pussy, and she let her index finger slide through her slickness, lifting her finger to her mouth. “I think so.”
Bryon growled low in his throat and crawled toward her open legs, burying his face between her legs. He lapped and laved at her slit, circling her nub until the sensitive bud swelled beneath the rough barbs on the tip of his tongue.
She fisted his hair as she did in her dream, urging his mouth deeper, harder. Her body tensed and a climax crested, but Bryon held her at the edge, pulling his mouth away.
She cried out, protesting but he shook his head. “My wish, remember?” His smirk made her clit jerk and she slid her hand down to give herself relief, but he held her wrist. “I want to watch you come, Kari, but by my hand, not yours.”
He raised her wrist high and held it over her head and she lifted her other hand clasping her fingers together. He kissed her mouth, her chin, her neck, working his way to her breasts. He sucked and flicked her nipples, teasing each with his tongue and teeth until Kari locked her legs around his waist.
“Bryon! Please!”
He reared back and drove his cock deep, his hips grinding against hers with thrust after thrust. Again he brought her to the edge and held her there.
“Are you ready, Kari?”
“Argh! I’ve been ready, you son of a bitch! Make me come!”
He chuckled. “You’re so sexy, Kari. Hot and flushed and frustrated, and ready to eat my head or my cock, whichever you could sink your teeth into first, but I need you even more ready . . . ready for the bite of your life.”
His words pulled her back from the precipice and she looked at him. Their bodies were joined and in that moment so were their hearts, their souls. This was it. He was asking her again.
“Make me come, Bryon. I’m ready . . . for everything. For it all.” Her eyes locked on his. “For you.”
In one fluid motion he flipped her onto all fours and plunged his cock deep. He rode her hard, driving over and over, his sex swelling inside her as the ridge on his head scored her walls. She cried out as she came, rockets exploding behind her eyes.
Bryon threw his head back and the roar that ripped from his throat shook the room. Hot jets pulsed from his cock and as his body released he bit down on her nape, his mark penetrating her flesh as his sex penetrated her core.
The two fell forward, letting the spasms ebb. Sweaty and sated, he wrapped his arm around Kari’s waist and held her close against him. He licked the bloody mark, his saliva sealing the wound and making it permanent.
“You’re mine, Kari. Now and always.”
She snuggled in closer, letting the heat from his body sooth her tender bits. “Just the way I dreamed it would be.”