Sebastian waited until he was certain that the wine and the detente between him and Charlotte had done its work; he had let her take the rest of the bottle with her into the bathroom for another, longer bath, and had used the time that she was soaking to draw up the contract she wanted.
When she emerged from the bathroom, he continued waiting—giving her time to dry her hair, to relax a bit, but not quite enough time to fall asleep—before he went into her bedroom. Strange that you already think of it as her bedroom, even though it’s in your house, and even though she’s only been here a day. Sebastian shook the thought off.
It helped that Charlotte herself was more of a draw than the thoughts in his head; she’d put on a nightgown, and combed her dark hair as it dried, letting it flow around her face and shoulders. He could see the faint outline of her nipples against the fabric of the gown, and couldn’t help but wonder if she’d bothered with any of the underwear he’d bought for her.
“I wrote up the contract you wanted,” he said, showing her the pages. He took a pen out of his pocket and advanced toward the bed. Charlotte’s bare legs, peeking out from the hem of her night dress, were distracting—all he could think about was what was between them: whether she was bare, whether she shaved or just trimmed or didn’t do anything to her pubic hair at all, what she smelled and tasted like, what she would feel like wrapped around him.
The animal consciousness in him wanted to take control, and Sebastian could feel the pulse of lustful, wordless thoughts in his mind, the heat beginning to flow through his body at the very thought of having sex with her, making her pregnant. Keep control. Stay focused. She’s not here to be yours, she’s just here to have a baby.
He handed Charlotte the contract and the pen he’d brought with him, and stepped back. Maybe it would have been better to let one of the other men be the one to impregnate her. There was too much temptation in the woman under his roof; she smelled—to the animal consciousness inside of him—like something that should belong to him.
He was certain that if he tasted her, she would be just as alluring, that he would have to hold back against the will of his leonine consciousness to avoid the urge to bond with her, to convince her to mate him and be his. Don’t even think about it. Focus. He took a slow, deep breath and watched as Charlotte read through the contract; he was sure she was deliberately taking her time, but then he thought that was all to the good.
Sebastian breathed in the scent of the woman he’d ordered abducted and regretted it. As he had become more familiar with her scent, he could pick out the different variances: the fact that she was getting closer to ovulating—that scent of fertility that every woman took on, like sweet, clean earth—was enough to make his mouth water, and the clean sweet-musk-floral scent of her pheromones, even mingled with the bitter edge of her uncertainty, made him want to rip off her clothes and take her right then and there. She isn’t another lion. She doesn’t even know you’re a lion.
That fact was going to present some difficulties, and Sebastian knew it; he couldn’t have told her right away, and in fact he thought that all things considered he would put off explaining to her for as long as possible. She would eventually want to know more about the genetic issue, and why he specifically needed her, but that would come in time.
“Everything seems to be what we agreed on,” Charlotte said finally, shifting on the bed. Sebastian wanted nothing more than to throw himself onto her, to purr in her ear while his hands worked over her body, turning her on, pulling her desires onto him. He wanted to make her come, hear her moan and cry out, feel her wet heat wrapped around him. Fuck, this may have been a bad—bad—fucking idea.
“I’m capable of some honor,” Sebastian told her.
“There’s no inherent honor in writing a contract,” Charlotte pointed out. “The honor comes later when the terms of the contract come up.”
Sebastian grinned. “You know, even if I had a dozen people to choose from to carry my baby, I think I’d pick you.”
Charlotte looked up from the contract, surprised. “Why?”
“You’re not just pretty and genetically compatible,” Sebastian said. “You’re smart and fiery.”
“Well, I’m in a bit of a mood at the moment. And I probably will be for the foreseeable future,” Charlotte said. She made sure the pen worked and then signed her name at the bottom of the last page. “You sign it too.”
Sebastian accepted the papers from her and signed his name; he didn’t need to read them after having written them. “Here’s your copy, you can keep it wherever you want.” He handed the first—signed—copy to her and folded the second copy in half.
“So, when do we start on...well…”
Sebastian grinned as Charlotte blushed deep red. She lost all bravado in the face of what they actually had to do. It’s actually kind of cute. That was a dangerous thought though, and he pushed it away.
“No time like the present, right?”
Charlotte’s eyes widened, and her blush deepened. “You want to start now?”
Sebastian shrugged. “You’re coming up on a fertile period, right? We might as well go ahead with it, since we have the contract signed. The sooner you can get pregnant, the sooner you’ll be out of here.” His mouth watered at the thought of making her pregnant, of what she would feel like and smell like and taste like. He would have to be careful, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have any fun, did it? And he told himself that—if only to gain her cooperation—he would make it as much fun as possible for Charlotte, too.
“How would you know I’m coming up on a fertile period? How long did you stalk me before having someone kidnap me?”
“I can smell it on you,” Sebastian told her, slowly moving closer to the bed. “A talent of mine.”
“So, if you know when women are fertile, how is it you’ve had such trouble getting a baby that you’d resort to stealing someone?”
Sebastian lingered at the edge of the bed, looking down on Charlotte. He could smell the faint starting scent of arousal working its way through her pheromones, mingled in with her normal scent, and the lion consciousness craved more. You have to take it slow. She has no idea what to expect from you. He took a slow breath, trying to avoid taking in Charlotte’s alluring scent.
“There’s a difference between hormonal and pheromonal cues and the actual ability to carry a child,” Sebastian explained.
“You don’t even know if I’m capable of having the baby you want,” Charlotte pointed out.
“I’m pretty sure of it,” Sebastian said. “Do you want me to rewrite the contract to cover if you can’t?”
“We’ll deal with that when we get to that point,” Charlotte said.
Sebastian nodded. “In the meantime, why don’t we get started?” He had been watching her carefully, taking in every detail of her body language, and in spite of what she was saying, Sebastian was fairly certain that Charlotte was mostly relaxed, at least a little receptive to him.
He climbed onto the bed slowly, giving her every chance to pull back or move away. “I will stop the moment you tell me to,” Sebastian said, moving slowly—slowly—closer to Charlotte. “I want you to enjoy this.”
“I thought…” Charlotte licked her lips and Sebastian heard her breath catch in her throat. “I thought the point was to get pregnant.”
“Being turned on improves the chances of conception,” Sebastian told her. He was inch away from her, and he could almost feel her body vibrating with a mixture of arousal, excitement, and uncertainty; not fear, precisely, but something that was close to it. She’s no virgin, but she hasn’t been with a lot of people, Sebastian decided. God she’s tense. He smiled slowly. “Again: any time it’s too much for you, or you don’t want to keep going, we can stop. The very second.”
He closed the distance between his face and hers and kissed her lightly on the lips. When he’d planned the kidnapping and what would come after, he had thought that he would keep himself from actually being affectionate with the woman he’d chosen as much as possible; but he could tell that the way to get her to open up to him, to make her receptive, was to do just that.
He pulled back and met Charlotte’s gaze. “You’ve hooked up with guys before, haven’t you?”
She hesitated before nodding.
“This is just like that—but you’ll be hooking up with me more than just once.” Sebastian smiled slightly. “Just pretend I’m a guy who picked you up at the bar.”
“I don’t know if my imagination is that good,” Charlotte said dryly. Sebastian kissed her again, more deeply this time, sliding the tip of his tongue against her lips until she opened her mouth to let him in. Just as he’d thought she would, Charlotte tasted almost intoxicating on his tongue—sweet and sharp, with the lingering flavor of the wine and meal they’d shared.
He felt electric sensation coursing through him, as if he’d pressed his lips to a live wire, but without the pain that would come along with that. Heat flowed through him, seemingly flooding directly to his hips, and as he breathed in the scent of Charlotte’s pheromones, his desire intensified in reaction to her slowly building arousal.
He knew he had to take it slow—he was her captor as well as her would-be lover, after all—and build her trust in him. Sebastian touched Charlotte gingerly, feeling the curves of her body with a feather-light touch, the animal instincts hovering on a thin thread of humanity. He dipped down from her lips to nuzzle against her neck, breathing in the pheromone-rich scent there and nipping at the spot where her pulse fluttered, earning a soft, almost unwilling moan of pleasure. “You can touch me you know,” he murmured in her ear, hearing the growl in his own voice. “However you want.”
Sebastian kissed her hungrily, gradually letting his touches become more heavy-handed, more obvious as he explored Charlotte’s body. He felt Charlotte’s hands come to life, leaving her sides to glide over his back, around to his chest, coming to a stop just above the spot where he wanted her to touch him most only to move around to his back once more.
Sebastian pressed Charlotte gently onto her back on the bed, taking his time, intent on building the arousal he could sense in her with animal and human mentality alike. She wanted him—but she didn’t want to. Her body was hot, almost burning through the fabric of her nightgown, but she hadn’t given him the cue he needed to know that she’d given into him.
For what seemed like an eternity, Sebastian held himself back, kissing and touching Charlotte, working her body with a practiced touch as she became more and more turned on. His preternaturally acute nose caught the scent of her fluids beginning to flow, and he gently, carefully reached up between her legs, under the hem of her gown, to find that she was completely bare—her slick folds not even covered by any of the panties he’d bought for her, smooth and wet to his touch. In the back of his mind, Sebastian told himself that that was one question answered at least.
He purred as he dipped down to her chest, nuzzling against her full, heavy breasts. Charlotte moaned and gasped as he found her hardened nipples through the fabric, and then let out a little, breathless cry as he wrapped his lips around one of them, sucking through the thin material, flicking his tongue against the nub and barely grazing it with his teeth.
He knew that he could simply rip the thin garment off her body, that there was nothing that Charlotte could do to stop him if he decided to take her, but the mixed animal-human instincts wouldn’t let him move forward without a clear approval from the female so turned on he could taste it on her lips. “You want this right now, don’t you?” Sebastian pressed his fingertips along her slippery labia, finding her clit and barely—barely—touching it.
“I—I don’t want a baby right now,” Charlotte said. Sebastian chuckled lowly, nipping playfully at her lips.
“But you want sex. I can taste it. I can smell it. You’re so turned on it’s almost painful.” He caught her engorged clitoris with the tip of one finger and began stroking it in light, swirling touches. Charlotte’s body tensed underneath him and she moaned, grabbing at his shoulders and back, her fingernails digging in even through his shirt. “I could spend all night getting you off over and over again and not even think about getting inside of you.”
It wasn’t, strictly speaking, true; Sebastian could feel the ache in his cock as if it wasn’t flesh at all but a hot stone, with liquid metal coursing through it. “Maybe that’s what we should do tonight, don’t you think?” Sebastian kissed her again, nibbling her bottom lip and her tongue even as he continued to work her with his fingers. “Maybe I should show you that it isn’t going to just be getting knocked up.”
“Fuck,” Charlotte breathed, as he slid one finger inside of her, keeping the pressure on her pleasure center with his thumb. She was so wet, so hot, so tight that it was impossible not to imagine how she would feel wrapped around his aching cock.
“Let me show you what I mean,” Sebastian said. “Let me show you how good this could be for you.”
“Okay,” Charlotte said, sounding as if she wasn’t sure what she was agreeing to but didn’t care.
Sebastian lifted the hem of Charlotte’s nightgown up, around her waist, and feasted his eyes on the sight of her hips, her long legs, and the bare, soaking wet pussy between them. He gently pulled her legs apart at the thighs, slipping down along her body.
He ignored the pulsing ache in his cock and balls as he settled himself between her legs, pinning her legs to the bed, keeping them spread wide to make Charlotte as open to him as possible. He hovered slightly, breathing in the scent of her, looking up at her face and waiting for the moment when he knew she couldn’t stand to be teased any longer; and then, finally, he buried his mouth against her slick folds, plunging his tongue between her labia and tasting her as fully as he possibly could.
Charlotte’s body responded instantly, her back arching up on the bed, her hands grabbing at his shoulders, at his hair, as if she were an animal herself, as Sebastian worshipped her with his lips and tongue, tasting her and feeling the way she reacted to him. She tasted sweet-sharp, like wild honey and musk, alluring on his tongue, making him hungry for more.
Sebastian spread her labia with his fingers, nuzzling deeper against her slick folds, plunging his tongue deep inside of her and then moving back up to her clit. Instinct took over, and he lost himself in the act of giving her pleasure, feeling her responses to him as Charlotte became more and more turned on, as she came closer and closer to climax.
Sebastian could barely feel the ache in his hips anymore as he focused entirely on Charlotte’s body, listening to the sounds of her moans and cries of pleasure, feeling the tension ripple through her as she reacted to each thing that he tried out on her. Sebastian couldn’t resist the feeling of pride every time he heard the woman wrapped around him cry out, every time he felt her grab at his head, at his shoulders.
He knew he was winning her over—he knew that she was on the very edge of climax when it happened, and Sebastian kept up his efforts even as he felt her reach orgasm, sucking her clit between his lips and flickering his tongue against it as she pitched and arched and moaned.
When he could sense that her climax had ended, he began to pull back carefully, lapping as gently as possible at her soaking wet labia, at her sensitive clit as he slowed down. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Charlotte’s face was flushed—in fact, the rosy tinge spread all the way down onto her chest as she gasped and panted for breath underneath him. Playfully, Sebastian nipped at the skin above the crest of her hip and then slithered up along her body to her face.
“That—that was... I don’t know what that was,” Charlotte told him breathlessly.
“That was you coming hard all over my tongue,” Sebastian said, purring against her neck. “You’re shaking.”
“It’s like being cold but I’m not cold,” Charlotte said. “I can’t... I can’t stop trembling.”
“Try holding onto me,” Sebastian suggested. He felt her arms coil around his body tightly, and the shaking eased. “See?”
“I’ve never…” Charlotte shook her head. “That was the most intense orgasm I’ve ever had and I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that it was with a guy who kidnapped me.” Sebastian kissed her lightly on the lips, letting her just barely taste herself.
“This doesn’t have to be terrible,” Sebastian told her. “You being turned on makes it easier for you to conceive, so there’s every reason for me to make sure you climax every time. And even before.” He chuckled lowly. “I want you to be as comfortable as humanly possible in this.”
“I never would have guessed,” Charlotte said, still breathless and tactless in the aftermath of her desire.
“Do you think you might be up to trying?” Sebastian rocked his hips against hers, letting her feel the heat and hardness of his erection. “If not I can take care of this myself and just get back to making sure you’re completely relaxed around me when we do try.”
“I think... I think I could try tonight,” Charlotte said.
Sebastian stripped off his clothes quickly, not wanting to give the woman time to change her mind; he would honor her choice, of course, but he would much rather finish inside of Charlotte’s body than in the shower. He caught sight of Charlotte watching him, her eyes wide, full of desire as he wriggled out of his jeans, his cock finally—finally—free of the confining material. Sebastian grinned slightly, hearing the low, growling purr in his throat that he couldn’t help, and reached down to stroke himself a few times slowly. “Okay, you’re... you’re kind of…”
“Kind of what?” Sebastian gave Charlotte an innocent look.
“Kind of big,” Charlotte said. “Please tell me you’re going to go slow.”
“To start with, of course,” Sebastian told her, falling carefully on top of her and reaching for the rumpled hem of her nightgown. He pulled it over her head and Charlotte—cooperating—lifted herself up and wriggled free of it. For a moment, Sebastian took in the sight of her body fully naked: her full breasts trembling slightly with her breaths, the dusky pink nipples hardened into little nubs, the flush spread out over her chest and the tension in her abdomen. He licked his lips and kissed her hungrily, even as he shifted down between her legs, pressing his hips up against hers.
The slick heat of Charlotte’s labia was almost his undoing. She felt so good, pressed against his throbbing, aching cock, that it was nearly impossible not to let himself go then and there. But Sebastian reminded himself that the whole point of what they were doing was to get her pregnant; reaching climax outside of her body wouldn’t help. He guided the tip of his cock against her inner labia and took a deep breath.
Sebastian pushed into Charlotte slowly and steadily, letting himself feel every inch of her tight, wet heat wrapping around his aching cock. Her muscles flexed around him in little spasms, and it was almost enough all on its own to make him come—but he wanted to make their first encounter together to last.
The animal instinct in his mind needed to feel the woman he was taking climax around him. He rocked his hips, pulling out by one inch or two, sliding back inside of her, deeper and deeper, letting her get accustomed to the size of his cock before he began to move faster.
The moans that left Charlotte’s lips were like a spur to his sides, and Sebastian almost shook from having to hold back, having to be slow and gentle and careful with the woman when he wanted more than anything to turn her around onto her stomach and mount her like his mate. He gradually picked up his speed and she fell into his rhythm effortlessly, her body squeezing around his cock as if it wanted to keep him inside indefinitely. Once more he fell into instinct, kissing her hungrily, nipping at her throat, dropping down to her breasts to worship them with his lips and tongue as she moaned and cried out in pleasure.
Almost against his will, Sebastian gave into the moment fully, holding Charlotte how he wanted her while he thrust into her harder and faster, swallowing down the sounds of her pleasure as they left her lips. He felt the tension mounting deep down between his hips, held back by sheer force of will as he waited for the woman to reach her climax.
When he felt the tell-tale spasms of muscle tightening around his cock and felt her whole body tense and then tremble, he let go of the last vestige of control, pounding into her as wave after wave of pleasure washed through him.
He rode through Charlotte’s climax, and then all at once they had both finished; Sebastian half-collapsed on top of the woman he’d taken, panting for breath as crackles of pleasure coursed through his veins. He buried his face against Charlotte’s neck and relaxed, holding onto her body, unwilling to quite let himself leave it, as they both dozed off.