Chapter Seven

Kian

“So beautiful,” I whispered against her lips, diving in again and again for more kisses. Deep kisses. Long, slow kisses. Breaking apart to breathe, to pull her closer, and to keep whispering. “Amazing. I’m so lucky.”

The fact that she couldn’t hear me didn’t matter. I couldn’t hold in the words. I needed to say them to her, to get them out. I had so many things I wanted to tell her. I’d have to spend a lot more time at the library in front of Audrey’s computer, but I’d do it. I’d learn sign language so I could talk to her. But tonight, I didn’t have it in me to try. She was too warm, too soft under my hands. She was too fucking real.

“My mate.” I licked the seam of her lips, clutching her to me, growling at her taste. The bear within me pressed forward, wanting to claim her, to mark her. Growling mine over and over in my head.

Mine.

Yours.

I jumped, staring down at her. I’d heard her. Not with my ears, not the way I would have expected, but in my head. Within my mind.

“Nyla?” My voice cracked. I’d heard her and she’d heard me. I didn’t know how, but I didn’t really know how she’d found me in the first place. Whatever magic she had in her, I wouldn’t underestimate it or doubt its power. I had a feeling the girl could do anything if she just put her mind to it.

Nyla. I thought her name hard, willing her to hear me again. She smiled up at me, waiting, nodding that she’d heard me. My Nyla.

She sighed and ran her nose along mine, making my bear growl happily. He liked that, liked that she was introducing herself to us in a very bear-like way. He also liked the feeling of her pressed up against us, how she was all warm and soft and feminine. I did too. And I wanted more. I wanted all of her.

Find me. Her whisper in my mind was weak and soft but clear.

I nodded, kissing her shoulder, so fucking thrilled to hear her at all. “Where?”

Nothing, no answer. I leaned back, catching her green eyes. “Nyla, where?”

Her eyebrows puckered and she shook her head. My heart sunk. Had our chance faded away? Had that been it? She placed a finger over my lips, silencing me, nodding as if I was supposed to understand what to do next. But then I remembered...she hadn’t responded to my spoken words, but the ones I’d thought. I couldn’t speak what I wanted her to hear.

Concentrating, staring into her eyes, I pushed my thoughts out. Nyla…where?

She licked her lips then closed her eyes tightly. Working hard, straining.

Deals Gap. A whisper, barely more than the concept of the words in my mind. But I heard them, I grasped on to them with everything I had. I’d heard of Deals Gap and the legend of the road known as the Dragon. A place where packless shifters moved to find safety and community. I knew it was down in the lower forty-eight, somewhere in the mountains of the East, but I wasn’t sure exactly where. I could find her, though. I could get to Deals Gap and hunt for her.

“I’m coming for you,” I said. She shook her head, glancing from my mouth to my eyes and back again. Holding her close, I said the words one more time. Loudly. Drawing them out. Making sure she could read my lips. Thinking them at the same time.

“I am coming for you.”

Her face lit up, her smile wide and glorious. She lifted up to nuzzle my nose again, mouthing the word please, and I was lost. Fuck the distance between our lives and the fact that this was a dream. She could disappear in a second, and I’d be alone again until I found her in Deals Gap. I couldn’t let this opportunity pass us by.

Keeping my eyes on hers, I carried her to my bed and laid her on the soft, down comforter. She smiled up at me, trusting. Wanting. And, oh God, did I want, too. I wanted to feel her, taste her, watch her come apart over and over again. I wanted her in that bed for real, when I was both awake and asleep. I wanted her like no other. I wanted my mate.

I kept our eyes locked as I trailed my hand down her body. Along her collarbone, following the curve of her breast, circling her belly button over her clothes. She licked her lips, watching me, her breath coming fast, her skin pebbling. Her nipples poked hard under the thin fabric of her shirt, taunting me. Begging for attention. And I couldn’t resist. I placed my mouth over one, using my lips to pull on that tight bead of flesh. Wishing the fabric wasn’t in the way. Nyla must have felt the same way because she slid her arm between us, yanking her shirt up and off. She stared right at me as she held that fabric over the side of the bed, letting it hang from her fingers for a second, then dropped it to the floor. Brave. Daring. Half-naked.

Beautiful.

My mate was so damn stunning. Giving me all that skin with nothing blocking my gaze, nothing impeding my attention. I praised the stars that she wasn’t wearing a bra as I leaned in for a taste. Shivering when my tongue met skin.

My mouth zeroed in on her left nipple, laving it, pulling it between my teeth and biting it gently. She writhed under me, quivering, gasping, gripping me with her thighs and making me moan against her. I kept up the attention, switching from left to right, bringing a hand into the mix to keep the nipple not in my mouth teased to the perfect point. Her hands were in my hair, pulling me to where she wanted, while her back arched high. So responsive to my touch. So fucking soft and sweet and female underneath me.

But she was also quite obviously a woman who took what she wanted, for which I thanked every god ever referenced on earth. She grabbed my hand and twined our fingers together, sliding them down her body. Under the waistband of the little shorts she wore. Lower still. Not looking away as she directed me, eyes locked as I felt her for the first time. No panties in the way, nothing blocking me from warm, wet flesh as we inched down. And then I was there, right where I wanted to be. Her eyes fluttered closed as I ran a knuckle over her most sensitive skin, as I stroked between the lips of her pussy. As I brushed her clit with the side of my finger. But when she released my hand and sighed, pressing her hips up for more, I knew there’d be no more teasing.

I spread her open, her soft, tight curls tickling me. Fuck, I loved that. Watching every reaction, not wanting to push her too far, I rolled my finger over her clit. Her eyes squeezed closed and she threw her head back, teeth burying themselves in her plump bottom lip. I pressed again, a little harder, keeping up the pressure for a bit longer than the first time. She spread her knees wider, giving me every bit of access. Her body telling me the yes her words couldn’t.

But I wanted to see her, feel her, watch her pretty pussy as she came on my hand. I needed that. Trusting she’d let me know if it was too much, I yanked her shorts down, untangling them from her legs and tossing them across the room. She helped me, lifting her hips and legs to hasten the removal. Giving me consent with her body. Once I had her naked on my bed, I swallowed hard, so damn hard I could barely think. Dark pink, wet, with small tight curls neatly trimmed at the top. Absolute perfection. I wanted to dive into her, bury my face in that pussy and never come back up. But first…

Kian.

I shivered, her voice a whisper along my spine. Moving up her body, I kissed her nose, nuzzling her cheek.

Nyla. Please.

She nodded, pulling me closer, again using her body to tell me what I needed to know. I slid one finger inside her, angling my body so I could watch it disappear, biting my lip to keep from coming just at the sight of her taking me in. She writhed a little, needy and ready for more, so I planted my other hand just below her belly button and held her down. Knowing she’d love what I wanted to do to her. Knowing I would as well.

One finger, in and out. Sliding easily, quickly becoming coated in her. A second finger. Twisting, thrusting, curling to hit just the right spot. And I did…I knew I did. She arched high and twisted toward me, mouth open, eyes squeezed shut. I rubbed that spot hard, thrusting in, pushing down with my other hand, desperate to make her come. To feel her squeezing my fingers. To give her the first orgasm from her mate. The first of many.

There you go, beautiful. Let me make you feel good. Let me make you come.

I slid in a third finger. Pressing harder, using my thumb to circle her clit.

Please, Kian.

She was close. Her walls fluttered, and her head thrashed from side to side. She pulled her hips away as if trying to escape, trying to avoid the coming rush, but I wouldn’t let her. No. I held her down, didn’t let her move, and fucked her with my hand as best as I knew how. I worked that pussy until her body locked down, freezing for one glorious moment before she jerked. Her walls squeezed around my fingers rhythmically, milking them as if they were my cock. And wasn’t that just an enticing thought? To feel that much pressure along with the heat and the softness of her? To get her to the point of no return and come with her as she spasmed all around me? Heaven. It would be pure fucking heaven.

But before I had a chance to do anything more than pull my fingers from her pussy, to lick up the length of them and taste her sweetness, she was gone. Vanished. Disappearing from underneath me.

My bear roared within me, his frustration difficult to contain. I understood that, the man in me needing something just as badly. I collapsed, pressing my aching cock into my palm, lying in the spot where Nyla had just been, breathing in her scent. This was it, the last time I’d be left alone after one of her visits. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to go, to find Deals Gap and claim my mate. No more of this only in my dreams crap.

But first, I needed to do something about the erection that was about to fucking kill me.

Facedown on the mattress, I yanked my shorts over my hips and wrapped my hand around my needy cock. My wet hand, the one that still felt and smelled of Nyla. Fuck, she’d been so hot. So warm and wet and tight. I imagined being inside of her as I stroked myself from base to tip, burying my face in the comforter, lost in her lavender scent. My breathing sped up, growly noises falling from my lips as I thrust my hips into my fist. Rocking my body in a rhythm as old as time. Fucking my own hand.

I groaned long and loud, so turned on, I could hardly breathe. I smelled my mate’s arousal all around me, practically tasted her release. The scent drove me harder, faster, made me need her more. Made me crazy for her. Nyla, Nyla, Nyla. Fuck, she was real and mine and I had to find her. Had to have her. Had to bring her back to my den so I could rut with her for hours at a time. Tease her relentlessly until she let me come deep inside of her. Make her come until she begged me to stop.

Kian.

The memory of her whispered thoughts was all it took to push me over the edge. I came with a harsh growl, my entire body shaking, every muscle clenched tight. Fuck, it felt good, but my heart broke a little knowing she wasn’t with me, and my bear wasn’t satisfied. She was still gone. But this would be the last time I came without her, the last time we were forced to separate. I swore it.

Taking one last deep breath, drawing her scent inside me, I rushed into the bathroom to clean myself up, then tossed some clothes in a bag and grabbed my keys. I couldn’t fly, not on a commercial plane at least. My bear hated heights and too many people in his space. I could fly in Boomer’s plane because, as a fellow shifter, he understood my issues. He also didn’t mind if I shifted in the middle of a flight. I was pretty sure all the human Alaska Airlines passengers wouldn’t feel the same way. So driving it would be. This time of year, the trek would be dangerous at worst and glacially slow at best, but I had to try. I had to find her. I had to bring her home.

Time to face a road called the Dragon and claim my mate for real.