«Me. Let me,» she said hoarsely. He stilled, panting, gazing at her with an adoration even her sweetest dreams had never envisioned, and she undid each snap with trembling fingers. She ran her palms across the hard, flat expanse of his abdomen, her thumbs stroking his obliques, and she smiled when his muscles spasmed and jumped beneath her hand. His hips jerked, and he grabbed her wrists with a ragged laugh.
«Baby, don't,» he said unsteadily. «Don't make an alpha embarrass himself.»
Her mouth went dry and she moaned, tugging the jeans over his hips to free his long, engorged cock. The velvety smooth shaft seared her skin as she ran her hands down the length of it, tenderly caressing the head as she watched his face. Taran closed his eyes, taking quick, shallow breaths.
The vein in his jaw jumped erratically, his neck and shoulder muscles taut and strained. She would never forget the sight of him like that, or the fierce euphoria of knowing she did it to him. When she tried to take him into her mouth, he pushed her back.
«No way.» He laughed raggedly, «I'll never make it.»
«Taran,» she pleaded, «Now.»
He stripped her pants off in one fluid motion. With that same wicked smile, he picked up her foot and gently kissed her ankle with his open mouth. Then her calf, then her knee, and then he stopped kissing and just ran his mouth the rest of the way up, and she writhed, shivering with pleasure as his whiskers abraded the soft skin of her inner thighs.
He put his hands beneath her ass and lifted her sex up to his mouth. He licked slowly once, twice, and took her clit in his mouth to suck. Her fingers dug into the plush couch cushions and she held on for dear life as he pulled and licked and teased, and when his tongue dove into her passage she almost levitated off the couch. Her heels dug into his hard back and she screamed as his greedy tongue probed and swirled. She drew in short, shallow gulps as her climax built and she ground her hips against his mouth, desperately pleading for release.
«Oh God, Taran, I-« She sobbed, and she screamed, and she came. And she kept coming, harder and for longer than she could ever remember as his mouth never left her clit, relentlessly riding the waves of her climax until she shattered.
Before she could draw another breath, he pulled her off the couch and onto his lap as he sat back on the floor. Still weak and shaky from the aftershocks of her orgasm, she steadied herself on her knees as he guided his cock into her. She moaned his name softly as she impaled herself on the full, rigid length of him, and he filled her.
«I can't…»
His tongue laved the hollow of her throat. He began to thrust. «You can't what, baby?» he asked in a voice so low she strained to hear it.
«I can't believe you're inside me,» she sighed, and they moved together, his hot hands on her ass holding her tight as he drove into her, each thrust harder and longer than the last, and she murmured little aching cries of need while he fucked her harder and faster.
He reached down to stroke her clit with his thumb, and even though she knew she couldn't come again, not so soon after that earthquake, she did. A sweet little orgasm rocked her softly and she wrapped her arms around his head, his face buried in her neck.
He pumped hard a few more times. Then he too shuddered and came, more quietly but powerfully. Her heart soared at the way he softly shouted her name, squeezing her so tightly she lost her breath. He fell back on the carpet with her atop him, and they didn't move or speak for a long, long time.
Eventually, when she could breathe again and it felt like her mouth might work, she cleared her throat and whispered against his neck, «I thought I'd had sex before, but maybe I was wrong.»
He lay on his back with one arm flung across the carpet, his other hand roaming her back, and she heard his smile as he said sleepily, «I'd kinda forgotten about it myself.»
«What?» Her hand stilled on his stomach. «Do you mean you don't-I mean, you haven't been…»
With an odd, sardonic laugh he said, «I haven't been a busy wolf lately, no.»
She kept quiet, so as not to let on how he'd flabbergasted her. Taran had had women, and spare women, stashed around the city as long as she could remember. He never had steady girlfriends, and he'd never shacked up with anyone, but the idea of an even temporarily celibate Taran just didn't compute.
«Well,» she lightly, «I guess it really is like riding a bicycle, huh? Hey. You taught me to ride a bicycle, didn't you?» Long, uncomfortable pause. «Not that we need to think about that right now.
It's kind of squicky to think about, isn't it. I mean, you taught me how to ride a horse, too, and…wait.» She felt him shaking beneath her; she was pretty sure he was laughing. «Shit.» She sighed. Yeah, he was laughing. «God, I'm babbling. Make me stop babbling.»
«Okay,» he said softly, and rolled her onto her side, sliding his hand up into her hair and kissing her, slow and deep and gentle. She nibbled along his chin and jaw, because the feel of his stubble beneath her tongue made her tingle. He groaned contentedly and pulled her close, tucking her head beneath his chin.
«We need to get off the floor.»
She snuggled against him. «I don't think I can walk yet. And I like the fire.»
«Okay. Couch then.»
«No, I don't wanna get up…» she whined as he stood up, and she whooped in surprise when he reached down and scooped her up. He slid in under her on the enormous sofa and pulled a fleece throw blanket over them.
She lay warm and drowsy between Taran's burning body and the blanket, and as her hand drifted lazily across his stomach, and his hand softly wandered through her hair, she remembered a game she had played with herself as a young girl. When she found herself somewhere she really wanted to be, or doing something she loved doing, or just feeling generally elated, she'd hold her breath and pretend that as long as she didn't breathe, time would stop and that moment would last as long as she wanted. She distinctly remembered playing the game as late as the age of twelve, when Taran taught her to ride a horse. He was a twenty-two year old Army Ranger, home on leave, and her worship of him approached idolatry. She didn't fall in love with him for another five or six years, but that afternoon at the stable in Sugar Land had been a harbinger of the longing she'd carried for him ever since.
«Lark?» he said quietly.
«What?»
«You okay?»
«I think so. It's just weird.»
After a moment he asked, «Weird good, or weird bad?»
The big badass alpha sounded a little scared. She wanted to throw her arm around him and reassure him; but to do that would be to acknowledge his insecurity, and one didn't do that with alphas. She certainly couldn't tell him she loved him. So she said simply, «Weird good, of course, but still weird.»
«Okay. I just don't want you to regret it.»
She laughed softly. «Never.»
She thought he'd fallen asleep when he said, «I've thought about this a long, long time.»
«I have, too. For years.»
«Really.»
«Yes, really. Why?» Rising up on her elbow to smile down at him, she ran a fingernail over his ribs till he laughed. «I told you there were things you didn't know about me,» she said more seriously.
«Like what?»
«Like, you gave me my first orgasm.»
«Lark!» he exclaimed tenderly, and put a hand to her face. «Baby, I didn't know you'd never-« «Not tonight!» She laughed, dropping a kiss on his broad chest. She lingered there, distracted by the sweet salty flavor of the smooth brown skin, and her fingers skipped across the top of his washboard abs. She grinned as his cock, just below her hand, began to notice.
«Lark,» he said in a low voice, and grabbed her hand. «Your first orgasm…?»