The fight was close and fast as fuck. Despite her aggression and the sheer power behind her blows, he was tougher and bigger. A long, painful minute later he had her stretched out under him with her hands above her head. Still she fought, snapping at his face and neck with fangs that didn’t look nearly so cute when they were threatening to take chunks out of him.
“Shhh…calm down.”
He held on for grim death, throwing a heavy thigh over both of hers when she contorted and tried to knee him in the balls. Sometimes being the opposite sex in a down and dirty fight had its disadvantages, especially when you were the gender with the dangly bits. He was lucky she didn’t have those sharp little fangs anywhere near his crotch. That was one blow-job he could well do without.
“Fuck you.”
She struggled against his hold again. She didn’t…couldn’t break free, not with the firm grip he had on her, but each heave she gave pressed them closer together. The truck aided him, rattling over potholes and jerking them about until she was jammed in the right angle between the floor and the wall. Every inch of her slender but curvy frame pressed tight against him and his c*ck roared to life, pushing against the front of his pants, desperate for release.
“Believe me, doll. I’d love you to.”
She froze again, her eyes widening as her struggles rubbed their lower bodies together and she clocked the raging erection hard against her stomach. His gaze caught hers, heat flowing between them. She dragged a shaky breath in over parted lips. His attention riveted on the pink temptation scant inches from him and he lowered his head, watching her every step of the way. Waiting for her to turn into a spitting cat again.
She didn’t.
Instead, she watched him as if transfixed, her taut body strangely pliant under his, the soft curves and hollows fitting naturally against the hard musculature of his larger frame. A perfect fit. Like she’d been made to be held in his arms. A sense of familiarity, of coming home, assaulted him and he knew he’d give up everything for a few moments in her embrace.
Her pink tongue darted out, wet her lips in unconscious invitation. He groaned. There was only so much temptation a man could take. He’d wanted to be soft, gentle…prove to her he wasn’t an animal, but need rode him hard. Like a devil on his back, it scoured all softness from him until only lust was left. The driving need to taste her, devour her, consumed him and he swooped down, claiming her lips in a hard kiss almost bruising in its intensity.
Unlike earlier, he didn’t—couldn’t—wait for her to soften.
Instead, he demanded and took, parting her lips with a hard sweep to sample the treasures within. Her taste exploded on his tongue, a heavenly combination of tart and sweet, fascinating his senses and totally indescribable. She tasted sublime. Ambrosia. If he died right now, he’d go having tasted a little piece of heaven itself.
The truck rattled again, rolling him so he completed the movement. Pulling her into his side, he held both her wrists with one hand and used the other to sweep down the length of her body. She started, a jump of surprise when he cupped her ass and palmed the luscious curve before pulling her leg up over his thigh. He settled against her. His h*ps cradled in hers, he moved in to deepen the kiss.
She didn’t fight him, just held her body still under his as he stroked his tongue along hers. Enticing her. Teasing her. She moaned, the sexy little sound lost under his lips. He ravaged her mouth, taking and demanding, then giving back in equal measure when she responded. Slowly at first, just the tentative sweep of her tongue, her body rigid as though she fought temptation…then the dam broke. She whimpered against his lips, the sound of her surrender sweet music to his ears, and kissed him back.
Triumph roared through him. All the while his mind screamed at him about operational awareness. That now he had her subdued, he should be doing something about escaping. Wrap the chains around her wrists and imprison her against the cold, hard steel of the truck-side instead. Not kiss her like his life depended on it. Certainly not groan as her tongue slid against his, and roll so she rested on his chest.
Her hands drove into his hair, tugging and pulling at the long locks as she plastered herself over him. Her br**sts mashed against him, the soft mounds delicious pressure against the hard muscles of his broad chest. Her n**ples were hard bullets under the damp fabric of her T-shirt and his groan joined hers as she rubbed herself, cat-like, over his chest.
Heat arched, little lightning strikes every time her skin slid over his, a storm playing out over and between them. A storm of passion he wanted to wallow in, dancing and f**king in the rain to make the woman under him his at last.
Knees on either side of his hips, she ground down, rocking against the rigid length of his erection and nipping his lower lip. Arousal shot through him at the pleasure-pain, washing over his scalp in a thousand tiny pinpricks before rolling through his body to lodge behind his balls and cock. A hot, rolling ball of lust, the thick rod ached to be free, to sink into the sweet cunt just a few layers of clothes away.
“Tease.”
He broke from the kiss to accuse, then dragged his lips along the sensitive curve of her neck, pausing halfway to breathe in her scent. Arms wrapped around her slender waist, he closed his eyes and held her to him.
Perfection. Utter perfection.
“I’m the tease?” She challenged, hands in his hair to drag his head back so she could look in his eyes. The red in hers was gone, replaced by a new darkness that set his blood and body aflame. He surged into movement, sitting up with her in his lap and reached for her lips again. She was his. He had to have her—
The truck braked and turned, the mechanical sounds of a gate and conversation reaching them. Darce stiffened, fingers biting into her h*ps but once again she was too quick for him. The needle pierced his shoulder before he could push her away. Silver flooded his veins, the fresh hit stealing his ability to move. With a grunt he slid back, his eyes still on her.
“I’m sorry. I have to take you in.”
“You know, when Capt’n Jack said ‘supplies’ he wasn’t talking about donuts, right? He meant real food,” Nic demanded, her voice sharp and biting as she crouched beside him behind the mountain town’s single store.
Joe Sanders, formerly Private First Class and now a fully paid up member of Alpha Three Lycan unit, shrugged, zipped his duffle and slung it crosswise over his body. They were both dressed sparsely in sleeveless vests and combat pants with bare feet, but neither of them noticed the chill of the receding night. Their altered bodies ran too hot for such things to be important.
“He said essential supplies. Donuts and coffee are essential supplies. Let’s see what you got,” he replied quietly, nodding his head toward the matching duffle she carried and crowded a little closer to peer into the bag in the pre-dawn light.
They’d been tasked to scout the local area and secure some supplies while the rest of the pack was either on patrol or out on reconnaissance. He and Nic, the smallest and fastest of the pack when on all fours, had been sent to the farthest location—a little town nestled high in the pass between the mountains. An hour’s hard run had gotten them there, the exercise welcome after their recent incarceration. Now they were crouched behind the only store in town, checking over their haul.
Sanders rolled his shoulders. Nothing like a little exercise after getting out of lockdown. He hated being in a cage. Either a real cage, bars around him or the cage of his own body when his abilities were shackled with silver—the Project MO when dealing with Lycans. Unlike the Captain, or even the pack second in command, Lieutenant Foster, Sanders couldn’t force the drugs out of his system on his own. He needed the help of an alpha’s touch. Something which bothered him less than it did the female wolf at his side.
Accepting help from another—anyone at all—pissed Nic off no end. Which was no different from normal. Some days Nic could fall out with her own fingertips. After what they’d been through, Sanders didn’t blame her. They were all dealing with what had been done to them in their own way.
He nodded in approval at the contents of her bag. She’d snagged a shed-load of meal replacement bars and protein shakes. All lightweight, the small packets provided the best bang for the buck, or in this case, the most nutritional value per packet for their weight. And they needed it—all the wolves burned through calories like wildfire, their metabolisms wicked fast since they’d all been turned.
“Cool beans. Did’ya get strawberry…I call dibs,” he declared, rooting around in the bag. Unlike some of the others, he didn’t mind the protein shakes, but he couldn’t stand the banana ones. They made him want to hurl. Strawberry though…that was an entirely different matter. He rifled through the packets, looking for any with a pink stripe.
Nic chuckled. “Of course I got you strawberry. You think I’d forget something like that?”
He flicked her a grin before pulling his hand out of the bag. The packets slithered over each other and something else caught the corner of his eye. Frowning, he looked back. It looked almost like…lace?
“What’s this?”
“Nothing. Leave it.”
Nic squeaked, trying to pull the holdall away and clamp her hand over the opening but he was too quick for her. He drove through the shake packets, searching for the scrap of pink fabric he’d caught a glimpse of. His fingertips grazed something soft. With a crow of triumph he grabbed and pulled. Nic swore, shake packets spilling from the bag as Sanders held up his prize.
And realized he was holding a bra. In hot pink.
“Fuck.”
Heat hit his cheeks and Nic snickered. He avoided her gaze and stuffed the bra back in the bag like it had burned him. He wasn’t interested in women…mostly. He’d seen Nic nak*d more times than he could recall and nothing, despite the fact she was a damn sexy woman. So why did the sight of female underwear have him coloring up like a kid on his first date?
“Honey, if you were interested, I’d already be doing you.”
He dropped his head to try and hide his blush and looked up at her through his bangs. He needed them cut, but they grew so quickly there wasn’t much point—not when there were more important things to do. “Thanks, I appreciate the vote of confidence. If only others…”
He trailed off, zipping the bag up to avoid the subject, but she knew what he meant. He’d had the hots for their unit sergeant since he and Nic had been transferred in, way back when they were all human. But Leon was as straight as they came—a real ladies man who wouldn’t look twice at Sanders. No matter how much his heart and body ached to tell the bigger man how he felt.
Understanding and sympathy flowed over Nic’s features in place of her usual pissed off expression and she reached out to pat his shoulder. Anger and frustration rolled through him. Why couldn’t he find Nic attractive instead of Leon? She had more screws loose in the head than he did, wouldn’t let a guy near her other than him. They could have been each other’s salvation.
“I know, sweets. I know.”
Letting go of him, she resettled the bag and looked around them. Dawn had started to break with a vengeance now so they couldn’t stick around. Not without getting spotted by the locals and having to answer some interesting questions about why they were wandering around in the ass-end of beyond without any shoes on.