CHAPTER 21
Fiona stirred and shifted and blinked into the unlit room. She could hear Walker’s even breathing behind her and feel the warmth of him spooned against her back, one large, hairy arm draped over her waist like a blanket. His hand possessively cupped her breast, but she really couldn’t mind. Not when his touch kept her from freezing. The Lupine didn’t own any blankets, which she supposed she should have expected, considering he gave off as much heat as your average five-story bonfire. She figured she’d slept under her last cozy quilt.
Closing her eyes for a moment, Fiona braced herself for a wave of restlessness and unease, crested by a healthy dose of panic, but none materialized. Instead, her heart felt strangely light and content. Very strangely, considering the events of the last few days. She could almost feel it smiling, and she couldn’t fathom any other source for the strange new energy that hummed through her. It didn’t feel quite like the magic she was used to, but she sensed the power in it. How could she not, when it thrummed through her, circulating like the blood in her veins?
She was surprised that the vibrations of the energy hadn’t disturbed Walker. But maybe this was normal to him, this “mating” thing. He hadn’t seemed nearly as thrown by it as she had felt. Of course, Walker hadn’t grown up in Faerie, where everything lasted forever. Except love.
There, she knew, lay the fundamental difference between them and the seeming paradox of their two worlds. In this place, where lifetimes passed in the blink of a Fae eye, the concept of love as eternal seemed to pervade the collective consciousness. Creatures with life spans so short that generations of them had lived and died before Fiona had ceased to be called a child were willing to pledge all of their existence to one another in the name of love. Yet in Faerie, where age held no danger and life stretched out nearly as long as one willed it, couples met and parted with the same ease and regularity of the seasons. Relationships in Fiona’s world were the only truly mortal things. The Fae concept of marriage had more to do with passion or politics and the concerns of succession than with undying devotion. Like the seasons, the Fae said, everything changed, so how could a heart that beat into eternity stay constant?
Fiona had never been able to answer, and the dark room around her offered no suggestions.
If she was going to be honest with herself, she would have to admit that she’d never been so confused in her entire life. She had seen with her own eyes that the heat that drew lovers together inevitably cooled. So why, then, did even the thought of parting from Walker bring back that hideous roiling feeling in the pit of her stomach?
Fiona looked down at the hand on her breast and scowled. How could he continue to sleep so peacefully while she lay there and agonized? He was the one who had started all this. Her turmoil was all his fault. She’d felt fine, right up until he’d used that damned m-word. Being called someone’s mate when you thought you were engaged in a mutually satisfying little fling was bad enough, but then he’d gone and been so amazingly sweet with his sister that Fiona had thought her heart might melt and leak out of her chest.
She’d known then she was doomed. How in the Lady’s name was she supposed to not love a man who’d held his sister gently while she wept at the same time that his eyes glinted hard and bright with the need to exact revenge on the cause of her grief? How was she not supposed to love a man who made her forget everything in two worlds, except for the way it felt when he touched her?
The problem, she supposed, lay in the fact that she couldn’t. She couldn’t not love him. That ship had sailed a long time ago. But unlike in some of the human films she’d seen and novels she’d read, admitting she’d fallen in love with a werewolf didn’t solve all her problems. It created more, one of which kept circling in her head like a crow above a battlefield: Fiona was Fae and immortal; Walker was neither. She didn’t know if she had the strength to watch him grow old and die while eternity stretched before her, looking less like a blessing and more like a cruel sentence.
Instinctively she stirred, as if to move away from the uncomfortable thought. Walker’s arm tightened around her and he nuzzled her hair.
“Stop thinking so hard,” he rumbled. “It’s disturbing my beauty sleep.”
She found herself laughing. “Oh, well, in that case, forgive me. I know you need all of that you can get.”
He nipped her earlobe. “Smart-ass.”
“You’re just noticing?”
He soothed the nip with a kiss and cuddled her closer. As he buried his face in her shoulder, his hands began to roam, skimming over her in light, almost soothing caresses. Only Fiona didn’t feel soothed, and judging by the erection pressed up against her bottom, neither did Walker. Instead, she felt the familiar tingling in her skin and melting in her belly. Everything seemed to dissolve, going warm and soft and liquid, when he touched her.
Walker discovered that for himself when he moved his hand down over her clenching stomach muscles and slid between her thighs. That’s when her insides stopped seizing and started doing cartwheels.
He cupped her, and she melted into his hand like honey, sweet and sticky. She heard his low growl of approval, and his fingers parted her, gliding through her slick folds to find her entrance. He probed, and she squirmed, her breath catching in her throat and then rattling out on a ragged moan. Shifting, he sank two fingers deep inside her.
“Wal-ker.” Her voice broke on the cry, and her body clenched around his fingers.
His teeth scraped with infinite care over the tendon in the side of her neck, making her shudder and arch and sending his fingers deeper. Her breath squeezed out and her senses contracted, but she heard the rough, rumbling sound of his voice close against her ear.
“Mine.”
Blindly she reached back to him, desperate for something to hold on to. Minutes ago he had been asleep and she had felt pleasantly sated. It should have been impossible for him to make her need this much, this fast.
“Mine,” he repeated, his voice going even deeper, his tone rougher. He punctuated his claim with a twist of his wrist that made her head spin. Then his thumb rasped over her swollen clit, and the spinning became whirling.
Sweet Lady, he was killing her.
Her fingers clenched in his hair, pulling him closer. She would have pulled him beneath her skin if she could.
“Please,” she moaned.
“Mine.” His fingers withdrew, making her whimper and arch in an attempt to recapture them, but he eluded her. His hand closed around her thigh, lifting her leg up and back and draping it over the top of his. The position left her open and vulnerable and completely at his disposal. The cool night air on her overheated flesh made her shiver. Moving deliberately against her, he fit the head of his erection against her aching center and suddenly she shivered for an entirely different reason.
She opened her mouth, would have begged him to come inside her, but no words emerged. Instead, she heard a soft mewling sound and realized it was coming from her. Her hips shifted, trying to coax him inside, but he only tightened his fingers on her hips, gripping her hard enough to leave bruises and far enough away to drive her slowly insane.
“Mine.”
She didn’t need to be reminded, not when every cell in her body screamed out its agreement. But she couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe for wanting him. She shook and waited and nearly died when he finally began to push with a mind-boggling lack of haste against her tight entrance.
Braced for the huge, hard thrust of him inside her, her eyes flew open and her jaw dropped when he halted with barely the first inch of his cock inside her. Her body clamped down on his like a trap, exalting in the now-familiar joining. But he went still, poised maddeningly just within her.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
Moaning, Fiona clenched around him in a deliberately provocative massage. He rewarded her with a low growl and a tighter grip, but his hips remained stubbornly motionless.
“Mine.”
“Walker!” Her cry sounded choked, hoarse, half plea, half threat. He ignored it and continued to torture her, fingers stroking and pressing and teasing while his body remained poised just inside hers. It didn’t matter what she said or did, what threat she made, or where she touched him in return; he stayed hard and unyielding behind her. She was going to lose her mind if he didn’t hurry up and make love to her.
“Mine,” he insisted, and at least his voice was starting to sound strained. It scraped over her skin like another caress. Then he leaned forward and his teeth closed over the mark on her shoulder, biting with possessive intent.
Dimly Fiona heard herself scream, but it didn’t interfere with her ability to hear his voice, the words sounding clear and gruff and intractable in her head. “You’re mine.”
“Yours!”
She sobbed rather than spoke, but all her blubbering ended on a scream of satisfaction when he roared in triumph and finally plunged fully inside her.
He stretched her, at once both enhancing and soothing the ache his teasing had created. She felt full, brimming, complete. And utterly, unquestionably, his.
With her head thrown back and her eyes staring blindly into the dark, she gave herself up to his possession and made a promise she’d never intended.
“Always.”
Walker was drowning. The water had closed over his head and he was sinking fast, but he couldn’t have cared less. He would gladly have died then and there, buried deep inside the woman who bore his mark. Who would one day bear his cubs and carry the legacy of his family and his pack into the future.
His cock, though, cared little about the future. It luxuriated in the present, in the tight, hot, slick embrace of Fiona’s body and the even greater pleasure still to come.
Groaning, Walker shifted his hand and drew her upper leg higher, sinking even deeper inside her. She rippled around him, struggling to accommodate his size before relaxing in welcome. The feel of it tore another sound from his throat, a kind of rumbling moan, and he fought against the urge to clench his jaw around the mark in her shoulder.
Forcing himself to pull back, he soothed the fresh bruise with a stroke of his tongue and flexed his hips to stroke again, higher this time. He moved deep inside her, and the feel of her closing around him like a homecoming made him want to howl his joy to the moon. He threw his head back, ground his teeth together, and settled into a hard, driving rhythm.
He shuttled in and out of her and savored every soft gasp and broken whimper that fell from her lips. That he dragged from her lips. Knowing she burned for him made him feel like a god.
Wild now, needing more of her, needing all of her, he grabbed her to him and flipped her onto her stomach. She offered no protest, just pulled her knees up more definitely under her and lifted herself into his next hard thrust. Her arms reached forward, fingers clawing at the bedsheets, scrambling for purchase. Walker draped himself over her, pinning her in place with his weight and his heat. He surged deep, and this time he did howl at the fierce pleasure of losing himself inside her. His lover. His mate.
The feral sound echoed around them. Mewling softly, Fiona dropped her shoulders to the mattress and raised her hips higher before him. He growled his appreciation, running his hands over the warm, smooth curves of her bottom. His palms slid up, over her back, along her sides, reaching beneath her to tease and cuddle her breasts. He lingered only a moment before reaching forward and covering her hands with his own. Their fingers linked together like puzzle pieces, and Walker felt the jolt as his heart locked soundlessly to hers.
“Mine,” he panted, barely able to speak now. He needed all his breath for the urgency of desire. He let his head drop and pressed his cheek against hers, feeling the light sheen of sweat that coated them both. He’d never felt anything more perfect than this, being joined with her, and he knew he never would. “Mine. Always.”
Shaking and desperate, Fiona turned her head until her dazed eyes met his, and Walker felt himself sinking under the pull of those deep violet pools.
“Always,” she whispered. Her eyes drifted shut, her breath catching as the tension filling them peaked and teetered on the brink. “Love you.”
He hadn’t realized he’d been waiting. Not until he heard the words and felt the love and pride and possession and satisfaction exploding inside him like fireworks. Head thrown back, eyes blazing a gold so bright it cast their shadows on the wall of the bedroom, Walker roared the name of his mate and spilled himself endlessly inside her.
When his heart resumed beating, about two minutes too late to prevent brain damage from temporary loss of oxygen to that organ, Walker pried open his eyes and looked down at the tangle of black hair on his pillow.
He had to fight the urge to look smug. He couldn’t do much about the fact that he felt smug, but given his mate’s personality, he thought it best to at least put on a front of non-conquering male with a newly dragged-off mate pinned to the floor of his cave. Sure, it was a bedroom and a very comfortable king-sized bed, but he figured Fiona would view those as semantic differences.
To his surprise, she didn’t say anything, just lay limp and silent beneath him, struggling as hard as he was to catch her breath. He frowned as he realized that might be tough for her if he continued to lie on top of her, pressing her into the mattress.
Reluctantly he shifted and rolled onto his back, taking her with him to reverse their positions. He heard her draw in a deep breath, but she still didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. She’d already told him everything he would ever need to hear.
He wrapped his arms around her and held her snugly against him, nuzzling his face against the soft cloud of her hair that tickled beneath his chin. Her scent surrounded him, warm and sweet and musky, and with his senses full of her, he drifted back into sleep.