Chapter Five
Rhetta had never been swept off her feet before. She’d never been carried as a child by either of her parents. None of the wolves out in the valley had ever had the balls to step to her, much less pick her up. Even her dearly departed mate had never so much as lifted her hand to his lips for a kiss.
Theirs had been a relationship based on mutual respect. Passion was a fleeting emotion. Love was a dangerous condition. Rhetta spent her life as far away from both of those wretched states of being as possible.
But when Rory put his hands on her body, she felt a jolt. When his lips captured hers, she felt a shock. When he lifted her off her feet, she felt something spread throughout her body like wildfire racing through the brush.
Her eyes opened as he pulled away. The bright, white light blinded her. She looked out the window and saw the rays of the moon shining brightly on her. It was the full moon.
The moon’s rays reached out and shone its light on her forehead. The heat of the rays forced her head back and Rory slid his tongue along the column of her throat. The rays made their way into her and she turned her head, causing Rory’s mouth to find her earlobe. If she tried to run from one, the other caught her.
So, you see, it wasn’t her fault. It was the moon that burned the backs of her hands until they moved up his body. It was the moon whose flame hit her ass and caused her to thrust forward into Rory.
Yes, that was it. That was the reason why she had lost her damned mind. It was the moon and not her. The full moon was known to induce high emotions in Moonkind.
True, it had never affected her like this before. But she’d never been pushed before like Rory had pushed her. She had never been manhandled before. She’d never had a man paw at her or lick into her mouth or make her feel so incredibly heated like her body was a bush and she was on fire.
And so, she would say it was the moon that made her do it.
She would blame the moon for not stopping Rory as he ripped open her blouse. Her favorite blouse that made her bust look perky. Rory was admiring the pert mounds now. He fisted them in his big hands, kneading them.
Rhetta’s head fell back when his tongue hit the tight bead of her nipple. She’d never had a tongue on her breast. The sensation was so overpowering that she had to shut her eyes.
She had enjoyed sex with her dearly departed husband. The closeness of the intimacy had been pleasant and welcome. What was happening to her now wasn’t intimacy. She felt like she was suffocating and burning and drowning all at the same time. But she didn’t pull away. She pressed her body into Rory’s.
He ran his teeth along the fleshy part of her neck. When his lips touched the cone of her ear, he gave a sharp nip and then he pulled away.
“How is it that he’s asked you to mate him and he hasn’t claimed you?” Rory asked.
Rhetta’s hand rose to cover her bare neck. She’d seen other she-wolves prance around with their mate’s marks on their necks. Her sister included, because even Vivi’s mate, easy-going Pierce, had that much of a beast inside him.
Rhetta’s husband had marked her when they danced the dance of mating. But he didn’t make it a habit to reapply the brand every month. Or a second time after the one and only occasion. And of course, Jordan had never dared. He’d never even seen her breasts.
Rory bared his teeth. Rhetta shrank back.
Rory’s lips spread in a carnivorous smile. “Before I’m finished with you, kitten, you’ll be begging me for my mark.”
“Don’t call me kitten. I hate cats.”
The bastard mewled at her. Before she could launch an argument or a fist, his hand snaked into her disheveled hair. She felt his thick fingers sink into her scalp. She yelped as he twisted his wrist.
It wasn’t a gentle lover’s nudging to tilt her head back. No, it was a hard yank. It jolted her good sense at the same time as it made her back arch.
She inhaled, causing her breasts to rise toward him. He lowered himself and attacked her neck, grazing with his teeth, nipping and sucking, but not breaking any skin.
Rhetta held her breath in anticipation of his strike. It didn’t come. Instead, she felt her feet come out from under her again. Instead of going up in the air, she was falling down. She landed on the bed with a thump.
The beast had pushed her onto the mattress!
Before she could sit up to give him a piece of her mind, Rory prowled up her body like the dangerous animal that he was. His cocky grin dared her to run. She could see he liked the chase, that he was the type to play with his food.
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She lay there, unresponsive. He’d have to come to her.
He raised an eyebrow in challenge. He lowered himself to her body, slowly. Slowly enough that she almost arched to meet him at the end, but she held still. In fact, she held her breath. Then let it go in a shaky gust as he grazed her nipple with his two front teeth.
His breath came out in a chuckle that gushed across the valley of her breasts. He prowled down her body, sticking his tongue in her belly button, and she shivered.
He hooked his incisors around her utilitarian underwear. Looking up at her, his hooded eyes challenged her. But her voice caught in her throat, and so he ripped them to shreds.
Rhetta lay before him, bare as the day she was born. But she was a grown woman. She pressed her thighs together as Rory tried to part them, his face far too close for comfort to her intimate flesh.
Her husband hadn’t gone down there. She’d heard the women in her pack cackle about such things. Rory chuckled as he spread her eagle-wide on his bed. Like a winged predator swooping down on his prey, he buried his head between her thighs. Not gentle. He was rough.
Rhetta jackknifed off the mattress as his tongue met the pearl hidden between the folds of her sex. Rory laved and tugged at the spot until she was trembling.
She’d had a pleasant warming between her thighs with her husband. This was not a pleasant warming. This was a raging inferno. But before she could explode, Rory reared back.
Rhetta’s head cleared enough to shut her thighs and rise up. But Rory was having none of that. He reached out and insinuated a hand between her knees, prying her back open.
In all honesty, she could’ve put up more of a fight. But it was hard to keep her thighs together with her sex swollen from the few moments of attention he’d given her with his tongue.
Rory had managed to slip his pants off when he’d released her. His package was impressive. She’d only seen the like between the hindquarters of stallions. Momentarily distracted by his manhood, Rhetta lost the battle of the thigh gap and Rory was upon her once more.
He aimed his thick manhood at her hungry lower lips and her body welcomed him in. With one thrust, he shoved into her, up to the hilt. They both let out a guttural yell. Rhetta wanted to beat at his chest at the brutality of his claiming, just as much as she wanted to wrap her legs around him to urge him deeper.
Rory set a brutal pace and before she knew it she was telling him to do it harder, deeper, faster. She’d never been so vocal with her husband. But it had never felt this all-consuming when they’d come together.
Above her, Rory eyed her collarbone. Against her better judgment, Rhetta found herself arching her neck toward him.
“Say it,” he said.
The sound of his thrusting hips meeting the flesh of her core filled the silence as she stared at him. She truly had no idea what he wanted her to say. But she was so pleasure-drunk that she’d give him any words he wanted.
“Beg me,” he said.
Any words except those ones. “Fuck you.”
“Gladly,” he growled.
Rory withdrew from her and flipped her over. Before Rhetta got her bearings on her belly, he’d plunged back into her from behind, even deeper. The angle was too much. She didn’t know there could be such a thing as too much pleasure.
“Please,” she moaned. “Please, I beg you, please.”
She felt a sharp pain at her neck mixed with a fullness in her belly from his long, stout cock. It was too much. Her body seized, holding her entire being in a tight grip for a couple of pleasure-tense seconds before releasing her. The sublime sensations rolled off her in waves, warming her blood, stretching her limbs, and unfurling something deep inside her that she had no experience with to name.
The last thing she remembered was the moon shining its full glare into the room and Rory growling. He was loud enough that she knew the neighbors would hear. She may have imagined it, but it sounded as though he said a word. One word.
“Mine.”