CHAPTER 8
Maya kept her head down as she fought the crowd, desperate to put some distance between her and August. Kissing him had been a mistake. She should have stopped him, shouldn’t have let him do that to her, but she had foolishly thought herself strong enough to handle it.
She wasn’t.
Kissing August had only made her realise what she was sacrificing for the sake of her pride, and the safety of her brothers.
It was killing her.
She sniffed back the tears, refusing to let them fall, and pushed onwards, determined to escape before she did something she would truly regret. The people in her path slowed her progress, most of them refusing to move, forcing her to find another route as she tiptoed and looked for the door that would lead into the backroom.
It wouldn’t be enough to escape August.
She knew that, but she still kept pushing towards it, an ache building in her chest as she ran away from him.
Ran away from the one male she wanted to run towards.
“Damn it,” she muttered and pushed a male aside.
He growled at her, but she paid him no heed, kept on pushing and shoving, desperate to escape.
Even when she knew she couldn’t really escape the one thing she wanted to.
The need to honour her parents and protect the pride would continue to bind her hands, would have her returning to the path that would take her to Siberia, no matter how fiercely she fought it.
It broke her heart.
She wished she had the courage to refuse to go to the Altay pride, but the risk was too great, and she would never be able to live with herself if her freedom cost Byron his life, or put the pride in danger.
She shrieked as someone grabbed her from behind.
A hand came down over her mouth, muffling it.
August.
His masculine earthy scent filled her senses, had her purring inside and that need to fight stirring again, the need to stake a claim on him as her territory.
Mine.
No. He couldn’t be hers. He could never be hers.
Not even if she turned her back on her promise and risked it all.
He had made that clear when he had been talking to his cousin.
He had said he didn’t want a mate.
She tried to break free of him as he took hold of her wrist, his grip like iron, squeezing her bones and sending a dull ache up her arm. He refused to release her and dragged her through the crowd, his focus fixed firmly ahead of him. She looked there, afraid he was taking her to the backroom.
A shadowy set of stairs loomed ahead of her, close to the back wall of the club, leading upwards.
She glanced over her shoulder at the door near the bar.
He was taking her away from it.
She looked up the stairs as they reached them, at the darkness, the unknown.
Where was he taking her?
She dug at his fingers, trying to get hers beneath them so she could loosen his grip. He growled again and held her tighter as he pulled her up the stairs, into the gloom. Her pulse picked up as she stumbled on the metal steps, his heavy footsteps ringing around her, a determined clip to them as he tugged her along behind him.
Music thumped around her, quieter in the stairwell, but loud as they reached a balcony above the dance floor.
August pulled her left, along the wide balcony, past empty booths on her left, and one that had a thick curtain drawn across it.
Her pulse went wild.
No. She couldn’t be alone with him. She couldn’t bear it.
He reached the final booth and pulled her into it.
The moment the heavy velvet curtain was closed behind him, he twirled her so her back was against the black wall. His mouth came down on hers, his kiss like fire as it seared her, burning away her fragile restraint.
He stepped into her, pinning her to the wall, his hands claiming her hips and holding her there.
She had to stop this madness.
Maya kissed him back, couldn’t stop herself as he went to war on her defences, breaking them all down and leaving her weak against him, and against herself. She wanted this, needed him with a ferocity that frightened her.
He mastered her mouth, bending her to his will, stoking that side of her he had awoken the moment she had set eyes on him. She growled and seized control of the kiss, clutching his head in her palms and holding him at her mercy. He groaned, the sound like music to her ears.
It ripped control from her grasp.
He was hers.
Hers.
She had failed to make him submit to her once. She wouldn’t fail again.
She gripped his hair and kissed him harder, earning a husky moan from him that sent a shiver over her skin and made it feel hot and too tight. He palmed her backside, and she trembled and moaned, the wanton sound of it shocking her, but she was too far gone to care. His strong hands kneading her flesh sent another wave of heat through her, one so fierce she couldn’t stop herself from rolling her hips against his.
A rigid length of steel met her flesh.
Gods.
Her breath left her in a rush.
All that heat, that fire, pooled low in her belly and she found herself rubbing against him, a need to feel him controlling her.
He groaned and lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and gasped as he pressed into her, pinning her back against the wall, making her feel every hard inch of him.
She trembled at the feel of it, at the urge that burst to life inside her, a powerful need to touch him, to lay her hands on his flesh and feel what she did to him.
It overwhelmed her.
Panicked her.
She stilled in his arms, her lips frozen against his.
What was she doing?
August kissed down her throat, slowly sweeping his lips over her flesh, searing her and trying to wrench control from her again.
This was madness.
Yes.
“Madness,” she whispered.
August lifted his head and stared into her eyes, confusion shining in his silvery ones.
“You’re handsome,” she said, voice distant in her ears, her words hollow. “I want you… need this moment of madness before I go on with my life.”
He frowned at her.
She faltered. It was stupid, but she needed to keep going, needed to say something to justify what she was doing and make herself believe it.
“I’m not your mate.” She held his gaze, fielding another confused look. “We both know snow leopards can’t find their fated one outside their species, so this is just desire… we just want each other… that’s all this is.”
Was she trying to convince herself, or him?
She wasn’t sure what she was doing anymore. Fear was at the helm, driving her to say something, anything, that might make it possible for her to do as she wanted for once, and not end up hurt by it.
His silver eyes dropped to her mouth.
He swooped on it and kissed her harder than before, until there wasn’t a part of her that didn’t sing with the pleasure that rolled through her.
She could do this.
One night of madness.
One moment of doing what she wanted.
Of being with her fated one.
She looped her arms around his neck and kissed him, tried to keep up with him as it grew more heated, fiercer and faster, until all those worries that had been building inside of her went rushing out of her, forgotten in the heat of the moment.
She groaned and tipped her head back when he broke away from her mouth and kissed down her neck, his breath hot on her skin.
“Gods, I need you,” he murmured against her breasts, sweeping kisses along the neckline of her dress above them.
She knew. She could feel it in him and could sense the staggering depth of that need had startled him. Confused him. It built inside her too, drove her to keep going, until they were both sated at last.
He dropped to his knees before her and looked up at her, a corona of gold around the dark abysses of his pupils. A tremor wracked her, that need cranking tighter, and she swallowed hard.
Was she really going to do this?
His eyes eased down her body, growing hooded as they fell lower.
She really was.
With shaking fingers, she clutched the skirt of her dress and inched it upwards.
Her reward was a feral growl and his hands on her thighs, driving her mad with a light caress as he skimmed them upwards, chasing the hem of her dress and then dipping beneath it. The trembling grew worse, so fierce she feared he would notice it. He moaned as he reached her backside and palmed it again, and then kept pushing upwards, lifting her dress.
She pulled it up for him, her breath coming faster, heart racing in her ears, drowning out the music.
August’s gaze seared her as he raked hungry eyes over her legs, tracking the hem of her dress as she kept pulling it higher. When she revealed her cream panties, he swallowed hard.
Stared.
She started to lower her dress.
He growled and seized it, pushing it higher up her stomach. She tensed when he leaned in, but the moment his tongue swept over her stomach, following the line of the elastic of her underwear, she sagged against the wall, letting the fiery tingles wash through her.
A groan issued from his lips and he kissed lower, his hands easing down her sides. She trembled again as he hooked his fingers into the waist of her panties, her breath coming in short gasps as anticipation built inside her, colliding with the need to make it stronger, until she couldn’t keep still, thought she might go out of her mind if he didn’t touch her soon.
He gently slid her underwear down.
When they reached her knees, he kissed down from her belly button, igniting a fire inside her that burned so hotly it stole her breath entirely.
The first brush of his tongue between her thighs had her crying out so loudly she feared someone would hear.
She clapped her hand over her mouth and moaned into it, tingles rushing through every inch of her in dizzying waves as he stroked her with his tongue.
Gods.
“Fuck, Maya… you taste so damn sweet.”
Those words almost undid her.
She glanced down at him, still holding her mouth, her eyes wide.
Fuck.
The way he was looking up at her, his eyes reflecting his desire, devouring her as he licked his lips, sent a tremor of pleasure through her.
She needed him.
Needed more from him and only him.
His eyes darkened and lowered, as if he had felt that need in her and he wanted to fulfil it.
Her panties reached her ankles.
He lifted her left foot and eased them over it.
She waited for him to set her foot back down.
He didn’t.
He placed it over his shoulder, spreading her legs, and delved between her thighs, sending her shooting into the stratosphere.
Maya wasn’t sure whether to keep her mouth covered to muffle her cries or grab hold of August with both hands. She shook against the wall as she fought to remain standing under the onslaught, the delicious stroke of his tongue through her flesh and the way he teased her pert nub at the end of each one.
He growled and licked harder, and she couldn’t stop her thighs from trembling against him.
It was too much.
She hadn’t been prepared for this.
She hadn’t expected it to feel this good.
Her free hand came down hard on his head and she couldn’t stop herself from gripping his hair, from holding him tightly as he licked and stroked between her thighs, sending her flying onwards, upwards, towards Heaven.
She growled as need hijacked control of her body and had her rocking against his face as he devoured her.
Oh gods.
She tipped her head back, clung to him and cried into her hand as lightning whipped through her, striking hard and fast, and leaving her shaking from head to toe. Her heart pounded in her head, blood rushing in her ears, as she fought to hold herself together, quivered fiercely. Stars winked across her closed eyes.
She really hadn’t been prepared for that.
August’s strong hands caught her waist as her knees buckled, holding her upright and against the wall.
He lifted his eyes, scorching her with his gaze, flooding her with a need to look at him too.
She slowly lowered her head, her breathing still ragged and too fast, her skin flushed all over, and hoped to the gods he wasn’t going to look horrified.
Prayed to her ancestors he hadn’t realised she was untouched.
His wide silver eyes threw a bucket of icy water over all those hopes, turning them into fears.
Fear that he would stop when she craved him more now than ever, needed him to keep going, to show her that Heaven she had glimpsed because of his masterful touch.
Fear that he wouldn’t want what she was willing to give him.
All of her.
“August,” she started.
She didn’t get a chance to finish.
He shot to his feet and claimed her mouth in a bruising kiss, one that obliterated those fears and her voice with them, and stole her away from the world again.
Maya wrapped her arms around his neck and held on to him, kissed him hard and let herself go.
Let everything go.
Everything but August.
He was all that mattered.
“Maya,” he whispered against her lips, sending heat curling through her as she closed her eyes and savoured the way he said her name.
It always came out fierce, even when he whispered it.
It always came out filled with need and a desperate edge, as if he would die if she didn’t answer him, if she wasn’t there with him.
“August,” she murmured, let him hear in his name that she was right there with him, swept up and lost, and a little afraid.
He softened the kiss, slowing it down, easing back and leaving her feeling even more off balance, in danger of slipping and falling. She couldn’t do that. This was meant to be a moment of sheer madness, about satisfying their needs, and nothing more.
So why did she feel as if she wasn’t going to walk away from this unscathed?
Why did she feel as if she was about to break her own heart?
She pushed away from those thoughts and focused on kissing him, imagining him as he had been in the gym when he had stripped for her.
Sweet mercy, she needed to touch that body he had revealed to her, needed to revel in the feel of his muscles beneath her palms and all the strength at his disposal.
She seized his shoulders, swallowed his moan as she rubbed them through his black shirt and smoothed her palms over his chest. It was hard beneath her touch, and she could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, beating as frantically as her own. A tremor shook her as she reached the buttons of his shirt, a ripple of nerves making her fingers shake as she tackled the first one.
His kiss slowed again and then his lips left hers as he drew back and glanced down at her hands, watching her as she popped each button on his shirt.
Her heart beat a little faster with each one, the need to race rushing through her. She held it back and kept things slow, not wanting to spoil the moment.
Her eyes tracked her fingers until she opened the middle button, and then she couldn’t take her eyes off the deep valley between his pectoral muscles. They drifted downwards as she tackled more buttons, taking in the rigid ropes of his stomach. Her breath hitched as she undid the final button and parted his shirt, revealing him to her eyes.
Glorious.
She licked her lips.
Itched with a need to run her tongue over every inch of him.
Her eyes dropped lower.
Every inch.
She pushed his shirt off his shoulders and he was quick to help her, tugging it off over his hands and tossing it onto the bench chair to her right. She failed to bite back the groan that rolled up her throat at the delicious sight of him and the way his muscles moved, screaming of strength, power that she wanted to feel under her hands.
The second her hands met his chest, he stilled, his face still averted, towards his shirt. She bit her lip and stroked her palms over his chest, quivered at the feel of his warm flesh and how smooth his skin was, stretched tight over hard muscle.
A growl rumbled through her.
Her male was strong.
But he would submit to her.