She gasped with instant pleasure. Her body had only ever known the thrust of her own fingers, and while that had felt good, this—Xavier’s thick digit deep inside of her—was a thousand times better.
“Oh, Amalie,” he growled against her swollen bud. “You are so tight. So hot. You wrap around me. Your sweet, honeyed walls tremble around me.”
Mal’s eyes closed and she let her head fall back against the stone, let the steam envelop her.
“That’s right,” Xavier said, easing a second finger inside her and pumping her gently. “Let me make you feel good, Amalie. Let me make you come so hard you scream. God, there’s nothing I want more than to please you.”
His mouth found her sex once again, and as he fingered her, deeper and deeper with each thrust, he suckled her clit, drawing on it, sending her to the purple moon and back. Her fingernails dug into the rock walls, and she whimpered and bucked against his hungry mouth as her arousal made his sexy jaw glisten.
Just when she thought she was going to explode, Xavier drew back and gentled his touch. His tongue swirled around her swollen, sensitive bud, flicking it back and forth until she gulped in air. But it was his purr that did her in, made her still, made her moan into the hot, steamy air. The vibration curled up from the back of his throat and hit his tongue.
The tongue that was pressed lightly against her clit.
With a pained, delicious cry, she fell apart under his mouth, her knees buckling, her thighs shaking. Pulling his fingers from her drenched sex, Xavier grabbed her ass, held her up as he kissed her shaking mound and licked her cream.
It seemed like hours before she came down, before her legs stopped trembling, before he stopped pleasuring her and rested his head on her abdomen.
“Xavier,” she mumbled incoherently. “Take me to bed.”
For several seconds, he remained silent. Then he released her and stood up. The pained and guilty expression on his gorgeous face combined with the wetness around his mouth, made her growl.
She wanted to lick him. Taste herself on him.
And then he cursed and shook his head, and ruined it for the both of them.
“Goddamn you.” Her heart lurched. “You want me. I know you do.”
“That’s not the point,” he ground out.
Her gaze searched his. “Do you think this was a mistake?”
“Oh, Amalie.”
“Do you?” she demanded, feeling suddenly naked and cold and vulnerable.
“It shouldn’t have happened.” He looked away, his jaw as tight as the rest of him. “Fuck me.”
“Yes. Fuck you.”
Enough. This had to be it. This had to kill her goddamn crush once and for all, right?
Wrong, her heart whispered as it clenched miserably.
She pushed past him, stumbled out of the shower and into the fragrant night air. Tears blurred her vision as she rushed into the house and headed down the hall. What an idiot. What a stupid, foolish female. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was still a cub. Because only a cub would harbor a crush for so damned long. Only a cub would react this way: hurt and miserable, yet desperate for more. A grown female would take her orgasm and walk away satisfied.
She slammed the door to her bedroom, and headed for her bed. She was cold and wet beneath her covers, due to the fact that she hadn’t dried off. But she didn’t care. She just wanted to cry in peace.
She didn’t hear the door open, didn’t hear Xavier pad across the floor. She only sensed him, scented him, when the mattress dipped with his weight, and he curled up behind her.
“Don’t ever say fuck you to me,” he whispered into the curve of her ear.
She swallowed a sob. “Why not? You deserve it.”
“Maybe, but it hurts me. Cuts me deep, Beautiful.”
Swiping the tears from her eyes, she growled and rolled around to face him, connect with those killer blue eyes. “How can you say that? When it’s you who’s hurting me. Every time you reject me. Every time you say this is a mistake—that we’re a mistake.”
“I have to say that,” he ground out, his eyes flaring with sudden and passionate heat. “Shit, Amalie.” He reached out and brushed her hair off her cheek, then kept his palm there. “If I take you to bed, if I mate you, I’ll claim you. Do you understand me?”
Her insides tensed. Claimed. She stared at him.
His eyes bore into hers, and he growled. “You’ll be mine, goddamit.”
“I want to be yours,” she said, shaking her head. “Tonight, tomorrow, for the next three days—”
“No, Amalie,” he cut her off, his tone deadly serious. “You’ll be mine for a lifetime.”
His words silenced her, made her chest ache and her mind race with thoughts, memories and wishes. She wasn’t sure how to feel. She didn’t want him to fuck her and stick around out of obligation. And wasn’t that what he was saying? That if he slept with her, he’d feel obligated to claim her?
“Xavier, I’m not asking for anything more than this,” she began. “Three days of this. I’m not asking for a commitment, a mating—”
He cut her off again, but this time with a deep, hungry kiss. It was so intense and toe-curling, Mal couldn’t stop herself from moaning and snuggling in closer and wrapping her arms around his neck.
When he broke the kiss, his breathing labored and his eyes dilated, her body and her puma purred.
“This isn’t about you asking, Amalie,” he said with animal-like ferocity. “This isn’t even about what you want—though fuck, I want to give you everything. It’s about me. My regret in all of this is that because I’ve given in to what I want, what I’m hungry for, I don’t think I can ever let you go. And if I fuck you, if our bodies connect, you will not be able to walk away from me. I won’t allow it. You’ll be mine. Forever. Always. No one will look at you without me growling at them. No one will touch you without getting their paws ripped off.” He reached around her, grabbed her ass and hauled her tight against him. “Even now, with your cream on my tongue, down my throat, inside of me, I don’t know if I can let you go.”
Staring at him, her mouth open, Mal felt as though both her head and her heart might explode. “Xavier…”
“No, no,” he uttered hoarsely, his hands raking up her ass to stroke her lower back. “Not tonight, Beautiful. No more tonight. Just let me hold you while you sleep. Let me feel your warmth, your skin against mine.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Light shocked the backs of Xavier’s eyes as he came awake. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d slept all night—been able to sleep all night. Normally, his mind was so thick with ideas, moving too rapidly as he built codes and cracked codes, that he couldn’t calm himself enough to sleep well.
But last night had been different.
He growled softly, reveling in the heat and sweet scent of the female curled up into him, her back against his chest and groin. Nothing had prepared him for the depth of desire he’d experienced on his knees before her in the shower. The surge of possessiveness. Even as he held her now, even as his cock filled with blood and grew hard against his belly, he felt it.
Mine.
The haze of sleep still within him, Xavier lowered his head and kissed the back of her neck. She had the most beautiful skin, softness over lean muscle. He was about to follow the line of her backbone with his mouth, all the way down to the curve of her sweet ass, and into heaven once again, when his smartphone rang out from the living room. He wanted to ignore it. He even lifted his hand toward the door and flipped it off, but he knew it could be news about the camera’s owner, perhaps even news about Chayton. They were counting on him—Raphael, Ashe, the elders, the Pantera—he’d given his word.