“And the man,” she whispered as he glared down at her, holding her down, his hands manacling her wrists to the mattress, his hips pressing against hers. “You’re both. I want both.”
“So you had to do without the injections to take both?” Self-disgust tore through him.
“Is that what you think, Del-Rey?” She stared back at him, her eyes so brilliant with arousal it hurt to stare into them. “That I have to let myself become drugged by the heat to take you? That isn’t why.”
“Then why?”
“Because the hormone therapy they were giving me deadens certain nerve endings and makes anger, frustration and fear worse. It was the only way it would work. It blocked the receptors to areas that receive the most arousal, while heightening other emotions. I don’t want anything deadened or heightened unnaturally. I want to feel you,” she whispered. “All of you. Was that so wrong?”
He shook his head. He was supposed to make sense of this right now? When need was tearing through him with a force he had never known before?
“I want your kiss, and I want to taste it, feel it. I want your touch, and I want to know all the pleasure. I want you inside me, and I want to feel the emotions I felt before. All of them, Del-Rey.”
“You’re lying,” he growled. “I can smell the fear inside you and the lie that falls from your lips.”
He pressed his forehead against hers, his balls cramping with the need tearing through him.
“God, Anya. Why are you doing this to us?”
“I can’t be a little bit afraid?” Tears sparkled in her eyes then. “Del-Rey, I don’t want the hormone therapy because I don’t want to cheat whatever it is that does this to us. If I don’t face it now, I’m never going to.”
No, it wasn’t a lie, it was courage and fear. She was coming to him, all of him, and she was trying.
“And what do I do when I knot you?” he snarled. “When I swell inside you and the fear overwhelms that pleasure? When you beg me to make it stop, Anya? What do I do then? Because there is no stopping it.”
“Whatever you need to do, as long as you hold me, Del-Rey. Don’t leave me alone. Don’t let me get cold,” she finally answered. “But if I take another of those injections, then I won’t come back here until it wears off again. We’ll do this right, and we’ll both become accustomed to it, or we’ll not do it at all.”
Anya could feel the old fears trying to rise inside her, the need versus the unfamiliarity of the Breed body and the mating heat. He made her wild, and control had always been her focus. He made her lose that control. He made her want to lose it, made her want to be wicked, and he had never known that was the most terrifying thing of all.
Now, as she stared into his raven black eyes, she knew the chance she was taking. If she didn’t overcome those fears, if she lost herself and the fear returned, it could damage something more between them.
She had never considered how Del-Rey had felt when the mating heat tore through both of them.
When she had cried and fought him, feeling him locked inside her, becoming hysterical at the brutal pleasure that tore through her. She had begged, pleaded with him to stop it. And she had cried. Hysterical tears that had dampened her pillow and left her exhausted even as the heat rebuilt.
“We won’t resolve this by hiding behind the hormone treatments.” She breathed in raggedly as a wave of furious need swept through her. “This was my decision, Del-Rey. I won’t blame you for anything.”
“Anya.” Agony flickered in his gaze. “Do you know what you’re doing to us? To me?”
“I’m not a child,” she told him, willing him to believe her. “I’m not the woman you probably expected. I’m your mate, and you can take me as your mate, or I can walk away.”
A growl rumbled in his chest. It was sexy; she had always found that sound to be soul-searingly sexy. It sent shivers racing up her spine, and even before the mating it had made her wet.
“Growl at me again,” she tempted him. “Kiss me while you growl, Del-Rey. I dare you.”
Never dare a Coyote. Ever. It was a law, even the Council knew to never dare them. They always accepted a dare. They always triumphed.
His lips were on hers in an instant, his tongue sinking inside her, and Anya realized what she had been missing for eight long months. Even in the past week his kiss hadn’t been just right.
The taste hadn’t been just so, because of that damned therapy. This was Del-Rey’s kiss. Primitive and primal. The hormone that spilled from his tongue was spicy and addictive. There was nothing sweet about it, nothing gentle, it was hot and sensual, and she stroked her tongue against his, drawing more to her, needing more.
This was the taste, the heat, the hunger. It merged and melded with her own, stoked the fire waiting inside her and sent it blazing. Without the fear.
She strained in his grasp as she heard the growl in his throat that rumbled into their kiss. Strong thighs bracketed hers; the feel of his cock throbbing against her lower stomach had her trying to arch closer. She couldn’t touch him as she wanted to, as she needed to.
She tore her lips from his. “Let me touch.”
He growled harder, rougher, but didn’t release her hands. He stared at her breasts as they rose and fell swiftly, the hard tips of her nipples standing tight and a blushing pink beneath his gaze.
“I kissed you here while I slept?” he asked her, his gaze lifting to hers.
“You only kissed them,” she admitted. “I wanted to beg for more.”
His expression shifted, turned arrogant and dominant as sexual tension tightened his features.
“You wanted more?”
“I ached for more.”
His head lowered and she nearly screamed at the sensation. Her nipples had always been incredibly sensitive, until the hormonal treatments. Now that sensitivity had returned tenfold.
She swore she was going to orgasm from his mouth sucking her in, drawing on a tight, hard tip and lashing it with his tongue.
The pleasure was exquisite. She arched against him, drowning in it now where it had terrified her before. It raced over her flesh, streaked to her clit and spasmed her womb in one heated second as she gasped his name.
The sight of him suckling at her nipple did things to her that she couldn’t describe. The pleasure was incredible, but the visual sensation, his black eyes, heavily lashed, watching her, his lips drawing on her, his dark face ravaged by lust. It was the most incredible sight of her life. It clenched her thighs, had her straining to create friction at her clit as pleasure invaded every cell of her body.
“Don’t stop,” she moaned as his head lifted.
He moved to her neglected nipple, sucked it into his mouth and with his free hand used his fingers to plump the damp tip he had abandoned.
Shards of sensation were tearing through her now. She wanted him and she wanted him now.
Waiting didn’t seem to be a viable option. Then his lips lowered. He kissed and nipped his way down her torso, her stomach, as he released her wrists and loosened his thighs about her legs.
“The scent of your arousal makes me hungry.” The growl in his voice was deeper, darker. “I wanted to taste you before and didn’t get to. I swore, if ever you gave me the chance again, then I was going to lap every drop of cream from your sweet pussy.”
Anya lost the ability to breathe for precious seconds. When she finally managed to inhale, he had her legs spread and his lips lowered.
He kissed her first. His lips pursed and he kissed her clit, so gently as he watched her. As she watched him.
A heavy flush mantled his cheekbones now and Anya could feel the same heat flushing her body.
She couldn’t drag her gaze from the sight of him though, his lips delivering sensual, hot kisses as his hands pushed her thighs farther apart, opening her to his lips and tongue.