Chapter Twelve
When Mundo walked in, Christie felt a surge of relief power through her.
She’d half expected him to go with Pinkie to take part in the ride back into town with the group that were seeking answers and, no doubt, vengeance.
Who could blame him?
Even she who didn’t believe in an ‘eye for an eye’ could understand why he’d want to beat a little vengeance out of someone who was part of a collective who had shot him, close to fatally, and abducted his woman. But just because she ‘got’ it, didn’t mean she had to like it or wanted that to be the case.
He looked a little flustered, and she didn’t know why. She doubted anything Pinkie had to say would put that sheepishness in his expression or the tinge of pink to his ears. So, that had to mean it was to do with their conversation outside the council room.
She stared at him a second, took in the gloriousness of the male that some Goddesses had decreed as hers, and decided then and there that conversation could wait.
She was tired of thinking, tired of talking, and tired of wondering about shit she had no control over.
She wanted to do.
She wanted to do Mundo. Badly.
Maybe he saw that, because he tilted his head to the side and asked, “Christie?”
Her voice was a rasp. “It’s time.”
Eyes flaring, he gulped. “For what I think you mean?” A frown flashed over his brow. “I thought you wanted to talk.” Apparently realizing what he’d said, he shook his head. “Never mind.”
She ignored him. “Come to me, Mundo.”
He clenched his jaw and took two swift steps toward her. She’d taken a seat at the foot of the bed, but now she got to her feet so when he reached her, he could grab hold of her the way she wanted.
The time she’d spent with him had been a cascading deluge of ecstasy, but it hadn’t been consummated. That was because of her body, a body she hadn’t been in control of. Those same Goddesses that had taken Mundo’s choice of life companion away from him—a thought she immediately shied away from—had taken charge of her body.
But for the first time in weeks, Christie realized her body was her own.
She knew it because when he touched her, there was a hunger. But more than that, there was an emptiness—an emptiness she hadn’t felt before.
During those days they’d spent in bed, she’d needed something different from him. She hadn’t needed to be filled. She’d needed to touch him, to taste him, to drown her senses in him. Her skin had craved his seed, and her soul had needed the claiming of his marking her with his essence.
Now, she needed him. Nothing more ethereal or airy-fairy than that.
She wanted him inside her. She wanted him to fuck her, to make love to her, to not stop until she was screaming in his ear, and he was screaming right alongside her.
The minute their mouths clashed, Mundo groaned. She swallowed the noise, reveling in the defenseless utterance. Their tongues battled, and for once, she won. His tongue retreated to his mouth where she fucked him—where she tasted him and savored his surrender.
As she explored, she reached down for the hem of his shirt, tugged it up, and splayed her hands against that rock-hard belly of his. It was her turn to moan at the feel of those taut muscles against her palm. God, she couldn’t wait to feel his strength powering into her. She craved it like she needed her next breath.
Hell, she craved it more than she’d ever craved chocolate in her life!
She pulled back, suddenly desperate for more. Before he could complain, she was dragging his shirt over his torso and lifting it off his chest. He had to help because the shirt got stuck at his armpits, but while he was engaged with removing the cotton, she got to work.
Dropping her head, she nuzzled at his nipples, first one, then the other. She tasted them, tickled them with her tongue, and then slurped one into her mouth. His hands gathered her hair, and a moan escaped him as she raked one with her teeth.
“I should be doing this to you,” he whispered.
“No, it’s the first time I’ve felt in control,” she mumbled, taking the time to explore his abs with her fingers before she ducked down and traced the ridges of his six pack with her lips. She crouched down, got onto her knees when her thighs began to ache, and reached for his belt. “I need you, Mundo. I really need you.”
“I’m glad, Christie.” He let out a sigh. “I’ve needed you since the first moment I clapped eyes on you.”
She gulped at that, swallowing down the flood of emotion that hit her at his earnestness. He meant it. He really meant it.
He wanted her. Fat, stretch-marked, freckly-faced Christie. Warts and all.
The knowledge surged through her, empowering her in a way she shouldn’t have needed but did. Feminism had nothing on the mate bond.
As she unfastened his buckle then got to work on his fly, she murmured, “I still find it hard to believe that, and that’s why I ask you questions like the one I did in the hall, but I can feel how much you need me every time we kiss.”
“So, you know what the solution is, right?”
She smiled. “Every time I feel insecure to kiss you?”
He winked. “You got that damn right.”
She laughed then started to jerk his pants down, and other far more important matters caught her attention. “You’ve gone commando?”
“I need to do laundry.”
That had her chuckling. “I’ll bet. And no, I’m not complaining.” As she looked at his cock, an extremity she’d gotten to know very well of late, she reached forward and pressed a kiss to the tip of his shaft.
His hands tugged at her hair though. “Babe, as much as I’d love for you to go down on me, I really want to be inside you.”
She started to protest then thought about it—so did she!
He reached down and hauled her up to her feet. She wore a kaftan-style top and some leggings. They were clothes that were a little too tight on the boobs and ass, which let him know they belonged to Annette and had been loaned to her.
“You’re beautiful,” he told her as he looked down in her eyes and sighed. “God, you’re mine.” He shook his head at her, almost like he couldn’t believe it was true. “I think I’ll spend the rest of my life looking at you and not being able to believe you’re mine.”
Her cheeks grew pink. “I’m glad,” she mumbled, ducking her chin a little, but he immediately grabbed the delicate point and urged her to look at him.
“I love you, Christie. I know we have to talk. I know you don’t understand the mate bond, and maybe you won’t be able to until you live and breathe it like Annette is. But whatever doubts you have, you can never, ever doubt how much I feel for you.”
Tears pricked at her eyes until she had to flutter her lashes to stop the smarting sensation. She let out a heavy sigh then pressed her forehead to his bare chest. He smelled so good, like hers. “I love you too, James.”
A shuddery breath escaped him. “Then nothing else matters. Nothing else at all. Because everything else can be worked out in time. You get that, don’t you, sweetheart?”
She nodded. “I know you’re right.”
“Good,” he whispered. “Now, let me claim you as I should have claimed you that first time we met.”
A shudder whispered down her spine. “Please.”
It was all she said, all she could say.
He reached for the hem of her kaftan and dragged it overhead. It stuck fast on her boobs but he persevered and reached for the heavy, braless weight of her breasts and squeezed them in his large hands. She had to wonder if they were so big because they’d been made to fit into his palms, because in his grip, they weren’t the hefty lumps that gave her backache—they were mounds made to please him.
The sappy thought made her lips twitch, but all amusement fled when he ducked down and pressed a kiss to the crown of each nipple. “Mine,” he breathed, but not to her, to himself. The satisfaction in that one word oozed out, covering her in a verbal claim.
He fluttered his tongue against the tip then as she’d done, crouched down to kiss her belly and then, on his knees, grabbed the waistband of her pants and started to drag them and her panties down.
When she was bare, he gripped her hands in his own and said, “Fall back against the bed. I won’t let you hurt yourself.”
With his great strength, she tilted back and he let her fall softly so her breath didn’t whoosh out of her. The controlled move made the muscles in his arms flex, and she felt like drooling at the sight of them. Christ, who was she kidding? She did drool. Her mouth watered at the display of his strength that made his core muscles twitch, and those delicious abs of his stick out prominently.
His cock flexed too, pulsing in the same beat as his heart. She felt overwhelmed by the sight of his need for her and hoped he knew how badly she needed him too.
When her back was against the soft pad of the duvet, he let go of her hands and immediately grabbed her feet. He didn’t pull them apart though, he urged them up, then pressed down so her knees were against her belly and her toes were pointed in the air.
“Hold them up,” he ordered, and she rolled her forearms under her knees.
She wanted to cringe at the belly rolls that appeared in that position but didn’t have too much time to be mortified because his mouth was already at the apex of her thighs, and it didn’t discriminate.
That dexterous muscle fluttered against her clit until she was writhing on the bed. The hands that she had clasped under her knees, he reached for, bridging their fingers until she was clenching down hard on his digits as he ate her out.
She screamed when his tongue fucked into her. The air attacked her hot clit with its relative coolness and her skin flushed with how bare she was, how exposed she was to him and his ministrations.
She wanted to be bare though, wanted to be exposed. Only to him. Only ever to him.
She couldn’t really thrust her hips in this position, could only take everything he had to give, but when she was panting hard, small mewls escaping her as he continued to alternate between fucking her with his tongue and flicking her clit, he stopped, leaned up, and with their joined hands dragged her closer to the edge of the bed.
A shudder wracked her. She was so close to coming. It fizzled in her veins like he’d turned her blood to champagne, but oh, how she needed more. She didn’t just need to come, she needed him, needed him inside.
He had to fill her. Now.
He seemed to understand because he urged her to release one hand, grabbed hold of his dick, and pressed it against her slick pussy.
A moan escaped them both at the connection, a delight he prolonged by dragging it up and down the length of her slit. She was panting by the time he pressed the tip to her gate, and when he started to push in, her eyes were glued to his, but they were dazed. Blinded, almost. She couldn’t see or hear, could only feel. And God, the sensation of him was indescribable—like nothing she could even explain to herself.
He was hard and hot, slick at the tip with pre-cum. In comparison, she was drenched, just as hot, but soft, so soft in comparison to his fierce arousal. When he pushed the tip into her, she cried out, clenching down around him as her pussy fluttered in panicked response.
He was so big! God, how she wanted him though. She wanted all of him in all of her.
She shuddered again, and as the tip was inside her now, he returned his hand to hers. As he thrust his hips forward, their fingers were clasped once more, and their eyes were united. She let out a shuddery sigh as he started to push into her, letting her adjust to each inch, letting her feel every bit of her he claimed for his own.
A cry escaped when the sensations became too much. She clenched her eyes, battling the small bubble of orgasm that was like the first gusts of a wind that was about to turn into a hurricane. It whizzed around her system, making her drown in the delight of feeling him in her pussy.
She was lost to the pleasure he gave her, so lost she didn’t feel as he thrust those final inches into her. But he stayed put, stayed still until she came to, and she was glad she’d been focused on that burst bubble of climax because he was a heavy presence inside her.
Too big, she wanted to whimper, but her body disagreed.
It was made for him.
Made to take him.
Made to shelter him.
Another shudder wracked her at thoughts that weren’t her own. The Goddesses? She didn’t know. She just knew they didn’t come from her own conscious mind.
She breathed in pants, trying to accommodate him, and struggling to accept his thick fullness. Her eyes focused on the beads of sweat that had formed at his brow and that were meandering a trail down his forehead.
If this was agony for her, it was for him too.
She could see the struggle in his eyes and knew he was fighting his body’s urges for her.
All for her.
The notion forced her into action. She made herself relax, made herself take a deep breath, made herself stop clenching down on him. When she did, he let out a gusty breath and asked, “Ready?”
She nodded, even though she wasn’t. This was for him. He’d been so patient, more than she deserved.
It was his turn to shudder, and he closed his eyes as he pulled back out, infinitesimally at first, then in a great whoosh. He almost left her, before slowly thrusting back in.
He tormented her like that—or was he tormenting himself? Christie wasn’t sure—for countless moments, making her feel every inch of him while exploring every inch of her. Then, out of nowhere, a different urge overcame him. He looked down at where their sexes were joined, and she couldn’t help but do so too.
They both watched as her softness yielded to his hardness for countless thrusts. He was so big, and her pussy was stretched so tautly around him. Her head flung back at the sight, unable to watch it anymore, and that seemed to be all the encouragement he needed. Rather than thrusting, he sank in deeply and rocked his hips until every bit of her was massaged by every bit of him. He separated their hands, lifted her feet to his shoulders, and leaned over her until they were close enough to kiss.
As he thrust his tongue into her mouth, she felt the full weight of him inside her and let out a small scream. Pleasure cascaded through her as the top of his pubis rubbed against her clit, putting heavy pressure on the nub while the fullness of his shaft caressed that inner spot that was driving her insane.
The combination was like a blast to her senses, and it seemed to make her implode rather than explode. Until this, until Mundo, she’d never known anything like it. Before, orgasms were a release of energy. But this? This was worse and better. The energy imploded, ricocheting inside her, building momentum until she couldn’t contain anymore. The original climax was supercharged, gaining power with every moment, until she let out a scream because she had to let go, had to release this welter of energy.
It burned her, seared her senses, made her feel like she could fly. She was blind yet could see the brightest of colors, was deaf but could hear the glorious sound of Mundo’s breath. All of her was insensate, and yet she’d never felt more.
Just when she felt like the only option open to her was to pass out, she felt it.
His teeth.
Against her throat.
She froze, waiting for the pain, but she embraced it when it came. Because one, it meant she was finally his. As those incisors of his slid into the soft flesh of her throat, he took her and made her his own in the ways of his world and that of his bear—a creature she’d yet to meet. And two, it was painful enough to let go. To let herself go.
It pushed her into unconsciousness, a hazy nothingness she embraced with relief because if she had to experience anymore pleasure, she felt she’d die.
The French weren’t wrong when they called it le petit mort.