Her cry, all hoarse triumph and blatant challenge, rang through the clear air around them. Logan grunted and leaned into her more heavily, pinning her to the rough tree trunk as he began thrusting inside her.
Honor squirmed to get closer, ignoring the scrapes and patches of raw skin the rough tree bark left on her back. Her awareness encompassed no more than him. Logan. The man against her, around her, inside her. The man who felt like home, whose body had been made to fill hers.
She thrust back at him, frantic to take him, all of him. His cock stretched her wide, filled her to the heart, and still she wanted more. She braced her hands against his shoulders and pushed, trying to get the leverage to increase the force of his thrusts. He growled a warning and pushed her hard against the tree. She snarled in his ear, but before she could bite, he shifted. His hands snaked down between them and spread her thighs even wider. He hooked his elbows behind her knees and pressed her legs up and back, and she felt his next thrust in the back of her throat.
God, he felt incredible inside her. Hot and thick and hard and so perfect her head spun with it. She felt the truth pounding at her in time with his movements, but she shoved it back in fear. She did not need or want this right now. Sure, her life sucked these days, but it sucked on her terms. If she gave in and accepted the truth she could feel haunting her, her terms would cease to exist. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name. The only terms Logan Hunter intended to play by were his own, and Honor knew that giving in would cost her more than she was willing to pay.
She could feel his muscles tensing beneath her clutching hands. She felt the slickness of sweat and of blood where her nails had bitten deep and carved furrows in his broad back. He began to thrust harder, if that were possible, to quicken his motions until he moved with blurring speed and force and Honor had to abandon her efforts to keep up. She simply held on for dear life. Higher he drove them, and faster, until Honor could feel the tension twist between her hip bones like a tightened rubber band, ready to snap.
She forced her eyes open and met his gaze. His eyes looked hot and wild, glowing a feral gold with hunger and instinct. She knew what he was about to do, and she couldn’t let it happen. Her body tensed, the first wave of orgasm gathering inside her, preparing to break. Logan growled in response to her body’s instinctive tightening and his hands bit deeply into her hips, leaving bruises where tanned fingers gripped creamy flesh. He shifted abruptly and forced her hips to tilt upward until the base of his cock rubbed against her clit as he thrust, and Honor broke.
The climax seized her by the scruff of her neck and shook her like a disobedient cub. Her body clenched around him, milking his cock in hot, slick motions, dragging him into ecstasy behind her.
She felt the moment of his explosion and twisted her torso to the side, raising one arm to deflect his bite, catching it on the muscular flesh of her bicep, rather than on the shoulder where he’d been aiming. She heard his muffled roar, but his jaw had already clenched shut around her arm and he couldn’t pull away. He mouthed the skin as his body emptied itself inside her, a growl rumbling low in his throat. Honor hung there, pinned between the tree and his shuddering body for endless minutes until his tension eased.
He raised his head to glare at her, brown eyes still glowing an amber gold with the aftermath of his climax. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“You shouldn’t have tried to mark me.” She shivered, suddenly aware that they were all but naked outside in the stone yard in the middle of winter. Never mind that steam billowed off them in a hazy fog; she wanted her clothes.
“You are mine.” Logan shook her, staring into her eyes as if he could will her to agree with him.
“I don’t belong to anyone. Least of all you. I bear no man’s mark, and I intend to keep it that way.”
He snorted. “What are you? The Virgin Alpha? I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but your name isn’t Elizabeth.”
“It doesn’t need to be.” She shoved hard at his shoulders, and he grunted, but didn’t release her. “Let me go and get the hell off my property. We’ve said everything we need to say, and I need to go take a frickin’ shower.”
His jaw snapped shut, loud enough for Honor to hear the click. When he spoke from between clenched teeth, it sounded as if it came from a wolf’s throat, not a human larynx. “Not yet. I’m not done. You will be my mate, Honor. No matter what I have to do to convince you.”
He carried her to the floor of the clearing and went ahead with the convincing. All Honor could do was moan.
“This doesn’t change anything, you know.”
Logan sighed and stretched, shifting his weight partially off Honor’s limp body and onto the rough ground. “I never thought it had.”
He might have hoped, but he hadn’t really let himself believe any different. In the twelve hours or so that he’d known Honor Tate, he’d come to realize she could teach stubborn to Missy Winters.
Logan winced at the reminder of his own pack and why he’d come to Connecticut in the first place. It unfortunately hadn’t been to roll around the forest floor with the mouthwatering alpha of the White Paw Clan, but to decide if she had what it took to lead her pack. Something about which he hadn’t yet made up his mind.
“Just so we’re clear.” She pushed him off her, forcing him to roll onto his back so she could sit up and brush the bits of leaves and dirt from her skin. “Now when are you leaving?”
“Sometime next week. Just like I told you.”
She turned to him with narrowed eyes, an expression entirely different from the one she’d worn about ten minutes ago.
“Wrong answer. Try again.”
Logan shook his head. “Honor, I’ve been here for barely twelve hours and I’ve already seen you have to take down one male and had another all but introduce himself to me as alpha in your place. Do you honestly think—”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m just trying to point out that—”
She growled, low and vicious. “What. Member. Of this pack claimed my title to an outsider?”
Logan tightened his lips. “On my way here, a male stopped me. He didn’t tell me he was alpha, but he wanted to welcome me to the territory and clearly would have been happy for me to draw my own conclusions.”
“Who.”
She wasn’t even pretending it was a question.
“Darin Major.”
The tension popped like a balloon, huffed out on a bark of a laugh, and Honor returned her attention to searching for her clothes. “Darin. I thought I was going to have a problem for a minute.”
“You don’t think a male member of your pack assuming your position before outsiders is a problem?”
“No, I just don’t think Darin is a problem.” She met his gaze briefly. “Trust me, I know all about Darin and his delusions of grandeur. I can handle him. Even if he were to challenge me, I can take him. He’s not a threat.”
“The question isn’t just whether or not you can take him. Don’t you think your regional alpha would be a little bit concerned if the alpha of this pack couldn’t go a week without someone challenging for the position? Graham wants stability.”
“And I’ll provide it. In fact, why don’t you go tell your boss that right now? If you get on the road before noon, you can beat most of the traffic back to New York.”
Logan groaned and covered his eyes with his forearm. “Look, I think we’ve come to a Mexican standoff.” He shifted to look at her and tried desperately not to get distracted by the sight of her bare breasts and the marks he’d made on them, most of which were already fading. “You’re not going to change your mind about having me here, and I’m not going to change my mind about staying. So I have a proposal for you.”