Loner (Norseton Wolves #2) Page 2

  “Like I asked before, how do you want to do this?”

  Gods, her voice. He could hardly make sense of the words through the spellbinding sound. “Huh?”

  She tugged down the neckline of her loose tank and exposed the stretch of pale flesh between her breast and collarbone.

  Dear goddess…

  “The bite.”

  He forced down a swallow, his mouth suddenly having gone as dry as the desert outside.

  Just a bite?

  “Do you want to do it right here, or should we find a nice sofa? Hey, no worries—I’m easy.”

  “Easy?”

  She let go of her shirt and rolled her eyes. “Not easy easy. You know what I mean.”

  He did. Or at least, he thought he did. He’d always considered himself to be pretty street-smart, given he’d been on his own since he was a kid, but his brain sure as shit seemed to be a few beats behind at the moment. “Uh—sofa, I guess.”

  “Lead the way. Unless you’d like me to just make myself at home?”

  “Yeah. Your home now, too.” He hoped she liked it. It was basic: a base model house with no customization. He hadn’t even known what upgrades to pick, and by the time he could give it any serious thought, it was too late to put the specs in. He didn’t really care, though. She could do whatever she wanted to it.

  “Oh-kay.” She turned on her heel and passed beneath the archway into the great room. There, she paused, looking around and finally heading for the sofa.

  He hurried ahead of her and picked up the pile of newspapers he’d been storing there. He didn’t even know why he was collecting them, beyond his chronic inability to throw things away as of late. He’d been so used to having few possessions, and only one or two bags to store them in. Having a whole house to himself was a novelty that still hadn’t worn off in six months.

  He dropped the papers onto the coffee table and straightened the slipcover. “Sorry for the mess.”

  “Nice print.” She settled onto the sofa and gave the fabric a rub beneath both palms. “Did you pick it out?”

  “Uh—yeah.” He could have lied and said that Alpha’s wife, Mrs. Carbone, had chosen it, but he didn’t see the point. He’d been drawn to the pattern. The hunter green chevrons reminded him of mountain treetops—of home. Of course, he hadn’t seen that home in over twenty years. He’d been expelled from his birthpack at age nine. Fortunately, Alpha had scooped him up before any real harm could come to him. Still, he missed it, his first home, in spite of everything that had happened there. In spite of being all but forgotten by the people who were supposed to care for him.

  “Plain white sofa underneath?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I recognized the pattern because I used to have same white chair, just with a different cover. Gone now, though. I sold or gave away most of my things before I came here.”

  She must have had a lot of stuff if she’d needed four big suitcases to haul what was left. “Sorry. You can change it. So it’s like yours was, I mean.” She could have whatever made her comfortable. He wouldn’t complain. It wasn’t like he knew what he was doing in that part of his life, or many other, for that matter. He was far smarter in his wolf form. His wolf wasn’t constantly second-guessing himself, or berating himself for saying stupid shit.

  “Nah, I like the green. I can do stuff with green. It’s not in my usual decorating palette, but I like stretching myself. It’ll be interesting to see what I can do to feminize it. Hope you don’t mind a little feminizing around here.”

  He shook his head. She’d be spending more time there than he would, anyway. He spent most of his days out on the Norseton grounds, and by the time he got home, he didn’t care much what his surroundings looked like. They only things that were important were that they were dark and quiet. Cavelike, Mrs. Carbone had once accused. “You’d live in a cave, wouldn’t you, if you had your druthers?” she’d asked him.

  He’d just shrugged. It was true. The guys had laughed, but Darius hadn’t seen the point of arguing it. He’d spent a lot of time as a child in his wolf form, hiding out in caves whenever the human world got too fucking crowded and loud. No one ever went looking for him, and eventually, they’d asked him not to go home at all.

  “Splendid,” Stephanie said. “And you need more furniture.”

  “I buy a little each month.” He took a seat on the coffee table in front of her, right on top of the newspapers.

  “Are you going slow by necessity, or are you just indecisive?”

  “I don’t use credit.” Everything he had he owned free and clear. Most folks couldn’t say that, and he was proud that he could. If she expected more from him, then she was just going to have to be disappointed.

  “I don’t either. I’ve got lots of money.”

  He furrowed his brow. It seemed like an odd thing to confess, but he wasn’t exactly a gold star student when it came to small talk.

  She shrugged. “Might as well be candid, right? We’ll probably be married tomorrow morning if what Alpha said during the drive from the airport was true. He said his missus is a traditionalist in that one way.”

  “Yeah, that’s the plan.”

  “So we might as well clear the air, right? Well—I’m quite wealthy.”

  “Okay.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek, and with great difficulty, pulled his gaze away from the smattering of freckles beneath the sun-reddened skin on her chest. Is she spotted all over, like a cougar? He’d been with a were-cougar woman once, but he couldn’t remember if she’d had spots. He was drunk, as he often was during one-night stands. The booze took the edge off the social shit—the performance. Not the sexual one, but the song and dance leading up to it.

  He raked his hand over his face and sighed. Fuck. Is she going to expect that from me?

  “You don’t seem especially gleeful about that, Darius. Any other man would have had a wanton glint in his eye by now.”

  What are we even talking about? He dropped his hand and fixed his stare on the bright green of her eyes. Green. Oh, right. Money.

  He cleared his throat. “I’ve always worked for what I wanted.”

  She shrugged again, making those distracting tits bounce.

  Sighing, he closed his eyes to shut off the visual onslaught and let his knee bob. The last thing he needed was to go hard like a horny fifteen-year old and embarrass himself in front of the finest woman he’d ever encountered in the flesh.

  “Keep on keeping on, then,” she said. “I figured I’d make things cozy. I assure you, I’m not the kind of girl who spends to excess. In fact, I only own ten pairs of shoes.”

  He opened his eyes, only to furrow his brow at her.

  “Just kidding. I have five pairs, not counting these sandals. But they’re really nice shoes.”

  “I have two pairs.” Dumb. Like she even cares.

  “The boots you’re wearing and what?”

  “A pair of tennis shoes.”

  They were around…somewhere. He’d probably had them for nearly as long as he’d had his GED.

  “They probably suit about ninety-eight percent of your needs.”

  “Pretty much, or I go barefoot, otherwise. I don’t need shoes in my wolf form.”

  She cringed. “Wolf, huh? I guess I’ll be able to shift by morning, if it works.”

  “I’ve never heard of it not working.”

  Female wolves were unable to shapeshift until they’d received their mate’s bite. Apparently, evolution was a chauvinist.

  “Sure.” She pulled her plump bottom lip between her teeth and rolled her gaze to the ceiling.

  “Well, it doesn’t hurt. Not much, anyway.”

  She fixed her intent, glass green gaze on him and arched one of those defined eyebrows. “Are you serious? I don’t know you yet, so I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

  “About shifting? Yeah. I’m used to it, I guess.”

  She nudged down her collar to expose that spot again, but before he could tra
nsfix upon it a second time, she let the fabric fall back in place. “This is my favorite shirt. I don’t want to get it bloody.” Without hesitating, she lifted her shirt by the hem and pulled the garment over her head.

  Fuck.

  He hadn’t thought her breasts could possibly get any better. Uncovered, they were full and round, dotted with pale brown freckles which did go all the way down to the inside of her bra. Her puckered nipples were slanted upward, and he wondered if he pushed that satiny material aside, would they be the same brown as her freckles or if they’d be as pink as her flushed cheeks.

  He bobbed his knee and tried to get his mind off of sex, and away from his tingling cock. Do better. Don’t act like an animal.

  She cleared her throat and he looked up to see her flattened lips and narrowed stare. She made an invisible X in the bite zone and he leaned in, extending his fangs as he bent.

  Such a pity to break that pristine skin.

  There wasn’t any other way around it, though. It had to be a bite, and not just a nibble, either. She’d always have the scar, even after she’d shifted to wolf and back. It was his mark.

  She was his mate.

  Blood hit his tongue before he even registered that he’d broken the skin, and his mind and body went to war. At her gasp of pain, his human brain said, retreat, but his primal jaws clamped even more, and his grip on her waist tightened. You have to be sure, his inner wolf told him, so Darius pulled her to the edge of the sofa, insinuating her soft body against his harder one, and tongued the flesh.

  He inched his hands up the heated plane of her back and around her ribcage. He flitted his tongue against the gashes again and again until the metallic tang ebbed and her breathy swears turned into sighs.

  Darius rolled his gaze up to find her tipping back her head. Her back arched, breasts jutted out to him, and he pulled one hard, fabric-covered nipple between his teeth. He couldn’t help himself. Couldn’t help wanting to feel and taste every part of her, because she was so fucking beautiful, and right there, and his.

  She yanked down her bra straps and pushed herself back into his mouth. “Here. God!” She leaned back onto the cushions, face still tilted to the ceiling, with hot breaths coming out in pants. “Suck them.”

  He didn’t hesitate, and turned her sideways, then onto her back so he could straddle her thighs. He took first one tender nub into his mouth, and then the other, sucking, licking, and nipping while he massaged her pillowy breasts.

  On his knees, she wouldn’t be able to feel how hard he was, or guess how poor his control might be at the moment. She likely thought him completely lacking in expertise—having no mastery at all in the art of seduction—and she wouldn’t be wrong if she did. One-night stands didn’t care about foreplay. They just looked at his dick and asked in various degrees of aggressiveness for him to put it in them, and that was that.

  But this was his mate. He wasn’t going to be one of those wolves who attacked his woman the moment he stepped into the house after work, as if that was all she was good for.

  Groaning, he pulled himself back and squeezed his eyes closed.

  Don’t look. Don’t even fucking look.

  If he saw his mark on her, and those breasts—shit.

  “So fucking horny! What are you doing?” She nudged him with the inside of her knee.

  He opened his eyes, but immediately cast his gaze toward the ceiling. Too late, though. He saw them. Pink nipples, and the deep red slits from his razor-sharp teeth.

  And her smell…

  She nudged him again. “Fuck me, or get off of me. I know you can smell it. I may only be half-wolf, but my sense of smell works just as good as yours. You know I’m ripe for you.”

  “You want me to—”

  She grabbed his hair and yanked him close to her lips. “Fuck me, or get off of me. Which is it going to be?”

  He loosened her fingers from his hair and moved back quickly to work her sandals off and pull her jeans down her legs. Her panties were a couple of barely-there strings, attached to a little sliver of lace between her legs, and then they were gone next, the elastic at the sides snapping before he tossed the garment onto the floor.

  “Red,” he said as he slipped his hand between her thighs. Her pussy was as wet as her fertile scent had suggested, and the small strip of hair just over her clit confirmed that her coloring was all natural.

  “You’ll have to get used to it.” There was a tart snap to her voice that he really didn’t understand, but then again, he didn’t understand most things about women.

  He stood and took off his boots and pants, leaving them in the pile along with hers, and settled between her spread legs.

  She batted his shirt out of the way of his cock, and drew in some air between clenched teeth. “Take off your socks.”

  “Oh.” No reason to act completely desperate, even if he was. He flung his socks toward the clothing pile next, and in one easy movement, flipped her onto her belly and pulled her hips back. He nudged his cock head right against her tight entrance, but there was no give.

  With a sigh, she reached between her legs and gripped his shaft hard, pointing him where he needed to go.

  His eyes rolled back into his head as he settled into her heat, and her hand fell away. Gods, so good. He renewed his grip on her hips, and after a few trial thrusts, increased his speed until he fucked faster than his swinging balls could catch the momentum of. The sounds they made became a symphony of skin slapping skin—his grunts, and her gasps and pants—each one of her little noises of pleasure spurring him on even more.

  She was so tight, and the view of her body from where he was—narrow waist and the perfect globes of her ass that his pelvis kept bumping—felt like perfection. Each forceful bump made her supple flesh jiggle, and he stared, hypnotized as he landed his dick into her again and again, hardly noticing her plaintive pleas for release, or even how wet she was getting. Her own cream seeped down her thighs, a surplus for him to taste and lick up—but later. She wanted to come, and he could make her. He was good at that.

  He pushed her shoulders down against the sofa cushion and leaned over her, pressing his hands to either side of her back. She peered up at him through her one visible eye, and although her mouth was telling him to make her come, her expression didn’t seem to back it up.

  “I can,” he assured. He hooked his chin over her shoulder and thrust into her from a more acute angle. So tight.

  “Do it,” she said tartly, and immediately followed it with a whispered, “now.”

  “Anything you want.”

  He fucked her so hard now that she had to press her palms to the armrest to keep from sliding forward. She met each of his thrusts, growling as he pounded her deep, again and again, until finally, she clamped down hard around his shaft, and shouted, “Fuck!”

  And she must have climaxed, because she was wetter and tighter then, and her legs had gone all wobbly, and then fuck—he came, too, right inside her—his mate.

  For a moment, they didn’t move. Didn’t say anything. Then she shifted beneath him and said, with her face pressed to the slipcover, “You’re heavy.”

  “Sorry.” Somewhat sheepishly, he eased off her a bit and slid his dick out, only to brush the slick head between her soft cheeks.

  She made some noise that was half a hiss and half a growl as he pressed against her unexplored entrance. Wriggling her ass, she scooted away from him. “You are not putting that there.”

  “Wasn’t going to.” He’d never done that before; no one had ever let him, and he could understand why. He was probably too big. He just wanted to play with Stephanie—feel his flesh against hers.

  “Can you get me a cloth or something? To clean up, I mean.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Yeah.”

  Reluctantly, he eased off the sofa, moaning at the sight of her still-presented ass, and padded to the bathroom.

  Wow.

  He’d definitely gotten lucky with his mate. Not only was she the prettiest thing he’d
ever seen, but damn, that body. He was probably going to spring a woody every time she took her clothes off to shapeshift.

  He slapped on the bathroom light and grabbed a clean washcloth. As long as no one else got too excited around her, they’d all get along just fine. If not, well—he might have to hurt them. A lot.

  He hoped it was as good for her as he thought, because that was just about all he could give her. He was used to communicating through actions, not words, so if she wanted discourse and stimulating conversation, she’d be out of luck.

  Or maybe he’d be the one out of luck. She might go looking for that conversation elsewhere, and whether she bore his mark and essence or not, she could probably make any man strike up a conversation. A human male wouldn’t know she was a wolf.

  He wrung out the excess water from the cloth and turned off the light.

  Wolves would stay away from her, but that didn’t mean anyone else would. What the fuck had Alpha been thinking, pairing her with me? She should have been with Vic, or Colt. At least they talked.

  Darius—well, he just brooded. Lone wolves weren’t good for much else.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Great.

  Not only was Stephanie’s new mate a monosyllabic caveman, but a judgmental prick as well. That became crystal clear when he’d flipped her over. It was obvious that he could hardly stand looking at her. Already, he was seeing her as a receptacle—holes for his pleasure—and as long as he was giving his attention to those, the rest of her didn’t matter.

  While he had paid very nice attention to her hole—honestly, she’d never been fucked so well—good sex did not a relationship make. She knew that there were mated couples who weren’t in relationships so much as arrangements, and if they were happy, that was fine for them. However, she’d wanted a man who would not only fuck her boneless when she demanded it, but also someone who’d be attracted to her, and who’d talk to her. To care about her. She didn’t want to repeat her mother’s history and be someone a wolf could easily cast aside.