A rumbling noise of approval started deep in his chest and escaped his lips as he lowered them to her breast. His tongue circled the tip in a teasing flick, and he drew her nipple into his mouth with another low noise.
Nick tried to stifle the cry that accompanied the sharp rush of pleasure, but it rolled out of her between clenched teeth. Her back arched off the ground, toward his mouth, and she barely remembered not to move her hands.
She felt the scrape of teeth, then the heat of his mouth disappeared. A low, masculine laugh rose as he nuzzled her stomach and dropped tiny kisses on her damp skin. “I can smell how hot you are for me.”
Something witty should have popped to mind, the perfect rejoinder to his soft, sexy words. “I want you so bad it hurts. I always have.”
He dragged his tongue up the center of her chest before veering off to nip at her shoulder. “And now you have me.”
Do I? The words hung in her throat as the throbbing need in her body grew worse. Her skin flamed wherever he touched her, but it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. “Derek, please.” Her fingers curled into the mossy earth above her head. “Let me have you.”
His teeth closed on her neck, hard and possessive, and he groaned against her skin and shifted his weight above her. One hand skated over her hip and slipped between her legs, and his fingers stroked through slick folds. He lifted his head and watched her, his face tight. “I want to see you come,” he growled a moment before his fingers centered on her clit.
She thrust her hips up with a whimper. He touched her as if he’d been doing it forever, as if he knew every inch of her already. Desire took over, and she felt him watching as she bit her lip and arched her head back. “Don’t stop.”
He did, but only long enough for his thumb to replace his fingers. Then his fingers shifted lower, easing into her as he groaned. “God damn it, Nicky. Come. Come so I can be inside you.”
“I need—” Her words melted into another desperate cry as the pinpoints of heat and pleasure scattered through her began to gather and tighten. “Kiss me.”
His mouth landed on hers, hot and a little rough. There was no hesitancy, no doubt. Just his tongue, sliding over hers before thrusting into her mouth, and his low groan as he hurried his movements.
Nick forgot to be still, forgot everything but Derek and the way he surrounded and filled her. She shoved her fingers into his hair as release swelled in her, then dug her heels into the ground as it took her. She managed to muffle her scream against his neck, but nothing could stop the shudders that wracked her.
“Yes.” Her body still shook when he pulled his hand away and the world tilted. Derek’s fingers wrapped around her hips and dragged her upright until she straddled his legs. “Like this, so I can watch your face.”
His words barely registered, and she cut them off with another kiss. A lingering hunger made her writhe in his lap, lifting and moving until the head of his cock nudged her entrance. She pulled back far enough to meet his eyes, whispered his name and started slowly lowering her hips.
He growled and dragged her the rest of the way down to him with a sharp tug of his hands. “Fuck, you feel so good.”
Nick could barely breathe through the vise of pleasure that squeezed tight around her, and she dug her nails into his back with a moan. “Whenever I saw you, I thought of this. Of making love to you.”
One of Derek’s hands skated up her back and wrapped in her hair, pulling her head back. “Is this making love?” he panted, the words low and feral. “Too hard, too fast…”
His voice was gentle despite the harsh tone of his words, and she sighed. “It’s you.”
He kissed the pulse pounding in her throat and drew his tongue over it as he shifted their bodies, settling into a tormenting, rocking grind. “No, Nicky. It’s you. You’re everything.”
She had to cover his lips again to silence the satisfied scream that had as much to do with the adoring look in his eyes as the pleasure set off again by the hard thrust of his body inside hers. Mine. There was no room for doubt here, stripped of everything that didn’t matter, with nothing separating them.
Derek rocked back suddenly. He crashed to the ground with a muffled grunt, her body still on top of his. His feet found purchase on the ground, and he rocked up into her with another strained noise. “Ride me, Nick.”
Her knees hit the ground, and the weight of her body drove his cock even deeper. For a moment, all she could do was shiver over him, lost in sensation, in possession. Then she began to move, need urging her to take up a hard, fast pace.
Over the past two months, she’d seen a thousand variations on guarded or wary flicker through Derek’s eyes. Now they were gone, replaced with an open, desperate longing that reflected her own, so deep it stole her breath. Large hands curled around her hips as he found her rhythm, just like they’d done it a thousand times before. “So good—so good—”
Heat blazed through her, and she’d have lost the rhythm completely if he hadn’t been guiding her hips to move. Blood pounded in her ears, and she only vaguely heard her own voice chanting Derek’s name.
Then everything stopped, closed in for one still, incandescent moment, and she screamed again as pleasure crested and crashed over her.
He whispered her name and thrust up, hard, and it was magic. Their energy meshed as easily as their bodies, power swelling between them until it felt like one glorious, continuous wave.
She collapsed against his chest, relishing his scent and strength as well as the mingled power that lingered around them. “That was… I don’t even know what that was.”
Derek’s voice was nothing more than a rasping whisper. “That was making love, dirty style.”
Her hands slid over his skin, slick with sweat and humidity. “That was mating.”
Underneath her, Derek’s body went rigid. “Shit.”
Nick froze. “What is it?”
“We forgot the birth-control issue again.”
The glow faded abruptly, and she pressed a shaking hand to her forehead. “We’re not always very good at that, I guess.”
He rubbed his hands up her back. “I didn’t think. God, when you touch me I can’t think.”
His words were reminiscent of the ones Michelle had given her to explain how she’d ended up pregnant. Nick laid her fingers over his lips. “It happens, a lot. Not to me, I mean, but in general.”
“Yeah. The math of mating.” Derek squeezed his eyes shut. “I think Alec left out a few variables when he tried to explain it.”
“What did he tell you, exactly? Besides the sexy-blind-date thing?”
“That chemistry was bad, emotions were worse, and both together would wipe out your higher reasoning capacity.”
Nick laughed helplessly. “That about covers it, actually. It probably lost something in translation, what with Alec’s amazing powers of understatement.”
Derek lifted his hand and stroked the back of her head, his fingers sifting through her hair. “I think the gist of it is that I’m going to need a lot of condoms and you might need pants that I can’t unbutton so easily.”
“Good idea.” She stretched and kissed him softly. “Though this time I think it was the shifting. Sometimes it makes me crazy.”
“Maybe it was…” His voice faded, and he tilted his head to one side. A moment later, Nick heard it too—the sound of underbrush snapping in the distance as someone or something approached them at a run.
Derek moved fast, coming to his knees and getting his body between hers and the noise. Nick gripped his shoulder with a noise of protest and moved up beside him.
The wind shifted, and carried with it a scent she recognized. Derek frowned a little, his eyebrows coming together. “Is that—?”