He grew hard and it was impossible not to rub against the smooth, heated length of his cock. Her nether lips became swollen, parting in readiness.
She captured his tongue. Sucked. Reveling in the way his hips jerked and a low moan joined the night sounds.
His hands roamed. Settled again on her hips. Lifting then lowering her onto his cock.
She moaned. Wrapped her legs around his waist.
His mouth never left hers as he took her in fast, hard thrusts. Not coming until she’d cried out in release.
They were both breathing fast when he freed her mouth. He bit her shoulder then, a sharp rebuke instantly soothed with the swipe of his tongue. “I’ve never known fear like I did today, when I crossed your trail and realized you were heading in the direction of the encampment.”
Her heart dropped to her stomach. She’d hoped to delay reality, to delay the truth. But she didn’t shy away from it. “My gift doesn’t just allow me to heal. What I said to Captain Orst, about the goats drawing me to the encampment because they were diseased, is true. But there’s more to it. If they’d been free instead of penned, I could have drawn them to me, though I wouldn’t have done it intentionally. By the time I got to them, I’d learned how to control that part of my gift.”
Speaking the words out loud, she realized somewhere along the way she’d stopped thinking of the urchin’s gift as something terrible. It made her a weapon, but one that could prevent those, like Radek, from using plague to kill the Weres.
“It’s a dangerous gift to have,” Aryck said, no censure in his tone. He touched his mouth to hers, nibbled on her bottom lip. “And a secret best shared only between mates unless there’s need for others to know.”
Her heart soared, and she decided to give him the rest of the truth. “My father isn’t human. I’ve seen him only once, when he saved my life and told me I’d find work and protection in the Were brothels. I think he’s a demon.”
Aryck buried his face where her neck met her shoulder. Inhaled deeply and said, “Whatever your father might be, you smell fully human to me.”
A small growl followed. “And you smell of other males. If they weren’t already dead, I’d have to leave so I could attend to the matter.”
Without warning he went over backward, submerging them both before letting her go and becoming a jaguar. As a playful cat he swam in circles around her, brushed against her, repeatedly requiring her touch until finally nudging her back to shallow water.
When he shifted to human form and stood before her in the moonlight, the water sluicing down his body, Rebekka could see why ancient civilizations had once formed cults around his kind. He was a primal, powerful male meant to be worshiped. Legs apart, the heavy globes of his testicles and hardened cock were a symbol of potent masculinity.
Rebekka rose up on her knees. His sharp intake of breath brought a smile to her lips, as did the way his cock became more engorged, straining away from his body as if begging her to take it into her mouth.
She placed her palms on his thighs and felt the slight trembling of a man waiting for pleasure to be given freely rather than demanding it. She rewarded him for his restraint by touching him, sliding a hand between his thighs to cup his testicles as the other took him, thumb brushing against his exposed cock head.
His moan sounded loud in the quiet hush surrounding them. His hips bucked, driving his penis through her fist and sending a rush of feminine satisfaction all the way down to her toes.
She leaned forward, heard his breathing become harsh even as he tried to close the distance between his cock and her mouth with another thrust.
A dart of her tongue, a quick swipe, and she shattered his control. His fingers tangled in her wet hair to prevent escape. His body curled over hers, and his voice was little more than a growl when he said, “Now, Rebekka.”
Her channel spasmed at the rough command. Arousal escaped her slit to join the water wetting her inner thighs.
She waited for his hands to tighten in her hair before she yielded. But even then she denied him. Her tongue laved instead of darted, the slow swirl offering torment instead of relief, the warning press of her teeth keeping him from simply taking.
Waves of lust forced the air from Aryck’s lungs with each slick glide of her tongue over his cock, leaving him panting, nearly mindless with the urge to push through kiss-swollen lips and into the hot cavern of her mouth.
White-hot need defined him. Much more of her torment and he would be the one on his knees, begging her to take him. Suck him. Please.
Already the word trembled on his lips. He said her name instead, putting an edge of threat into it, a promise of retribution.
She took more of him. Because she needed, she wanted, and not because he’d commanded it.
It didn’t matter. It didn’t diminish the roar of pleasure rushing from his cock to his head. It didn’t slow the quick, shallow thrusting of his hips.
On a moan he gave himself over to her ministrations, lost himself in a release he couldn’t hold back.
As he’d thought would happen, she brought him to his knees. Only rather than making him beg, she pushed him over to lie in the water, muscles lax and heart thundering, a smile on his face and a contented purr rumbling though him.
Aryck welcomed her when she settled on top of him, a sensual, feminine blanket that covered him nicely. He trailed a finger down her spine, looked deeply into her eyes.
She was aroused. As needy as he’d been.
Her nipples were pebbled points pressed to his chest. Her vulva swollen and hot against his cock, her thighs splayed and resting on either side of his in unconscious pleading for him.
A human male couldn’t have answered her silent call, but for a Jaguar—especially one who’d nearly lost the female he wanted as a mate—it was easy. He hardened at smelling himself on her, at brushing his lips across hers and tasting himself there.
It was darkly carnal—to want to imprint himself on every one of her senses—but all aspects of his soul demanded it.
He rolled so she was underneath him, hands supporting her upper body so she was only partially in the water. He cut off her surprised laugh and turned it into a sigh of pleasure by filling her with his cock.
“That feels so good,” Rebekka said, the throbbing ache between her thighs soothed by having him inside her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, touched her lips to his.
Each of his thrusts sent her spiraling upward. And with every rub of her nipples and clit against his wet skin, she surrendered to sensation—and ultimately to an ecstasy that sent her soul flying as his penis pulsed in long, hot surges of release.
Only reluctantly did she let her arms and legs fall away so he could move to his side. She sat, content to stay in the warm water rather than sit naked on the ground out of it.
He sat as well, pulling her onto his lap. “You’ve proven yourself to the pack and to the ancestors. The Were owe you a debt they can’t repay. Stay with me. Be my mate. If my father still insists you go through the Rite of Trial, then I’ll leave his pack and form my own.”
He pressed a kiss to the place where her neck and shoulder met, sucked on the mark he’d left there. “I wouldn’t have considered it possible, or even wise before, but with you as my mate, Lions, Wolves, even Hyenas might be drawn into the same pack. We could include them, furthering the idea of alliance and cooperation.”
Rebekka’s chest expanded with hope. Her lips trembled, and the words, when she could speak them, were barely more than a whisper. “And the outcasts trapped in the brothels, those not condemned by pack law?”
The instant tension in his body and tightening of his arms around her answered before he did. “If they are willing to go through the rite, they will be allowed onto our lands. Those the ancestors judge as worthy will have a home with us and be protected against recapture or retribution as a result of their life among humans.”