His lips took hers, his tongue spearing into her mouth as his thighs bunched and he began moving. His cock ached, throbbed to the point of madness as he tried to fuck her hard enough, deep enough to ease the agonizing pleasure filling him.
Her sheath gripped him, milked him. Her hips writhed against his, her lips moved beneath his, suckling at his tongue, moaning as though the taste of him was as much pleasure as the penetration of her body by his.
“I can’t get enough.” He tore his lips from hers, his head tilting back on his shoulders as he slammed his hips against her.
His hands clenched on her ass, and the needs assailing him were richer, deeper than any he had known before. He wanted to bend her over, take her as he knew she had never been taken. Put his mark on her as irrevocably as possible. Until she knew, beneath her skin, clear to her soul, who she belonged to.
Who belonged to her.
“Harder.” Her hands clawed at his shoulders, her lips were on his neck, her teeth scraping. Biting.
“Ah hell. Fuck yes, Ria. Bite me, baby. Bite me hard.”
But she already was. Her teeth were locked in the tough flesh at the base of the side of his neck, sending fire and ecstatic pleasure racing through him.
His head lowered, his teeth seeking her shoulder. He growled. He snarled. He bit her as he felt her erupting, exploding around him, the tight grip of her vagina increasing, milking his release from him until the snarls coming from his lips were nearly enraged and the ache of the furious blasts of semen jetting from him had him wanting, needing, to roar.
It was exquisite. The agony and the pleasure of filling her, and the rage. Because there was no mating. And yet Mercury knew in his soul she was his mate. This woman. She held on to him, her tears dampening his neck, his knowledge that she felt that missing part of him eating inside him.
As the tremors of release eased and he could think, could find balance again, he held her to him, placed his own back to the wall and slid to the floor.
There, he held her against him, his head still buried against her neck, his eyes closed.
“You’re my mate,” he whispered against her neck, against the mark he hadn’t allowed to heal. Because he kept biting it, kept wounding her in ways that went far beyond those tiny marks at her shoulder.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Mercury.” She lifted her head and stared back at him, causing his heart to tear in half.
There was no recrimination there. Her eyes were damp, but languorous pleasure filled them, and emotion. She was open to him now. He could smell the sweet scent of desire that could renew with his lightest touch, and emotions he hadn’t smelled in so many years. He could sense them now, swirling through him, digging into his soul.
“I love you anyway.” She touched his jaw, smoothed her hand down his neck. “Just as you are, just as we are now. I love you.”
“I love you,” he repeated, the words comfortable, easy on his lips. She wasn’t just his mate, no matter the lack of mating heat. She was his heart.
She laid her head against his shoulder and breathed out with a little sigh of completion, and of weariness.
“We could hibernate tonight,” she finally suggested with a grin he felt against his neck. “Just hide.”
And he chuckled. Despite the pain, the betrayal he felt, by his own genetics and the body that refused to produce the mating heat, he had to laugh at the amusement in her voice.
“You call Dane and I’ll call Callan,” he told her, and he meant it. If she didn’t want to go, they wouldn’t go. It was that simple.
But she sighed. “Dane would pout. He’s not nice when he pouts.”
“Callan doesn’t pout,” Mercury laughed. “Games aren’t his style. He would understand.” He touched her hair, smoothed his hands down it. “But I’d probably lose vacation time. That fun in the sun you were talking about.”
“Hell. Figures. Dane just gets stingy with the bribes. He doesn’t bother revoking my vacation time.”
“Do you ever take vacation time? Somehow I doubt you do.” He helped her to her feet before dragging himself from the floor.
He looked at her then-her messed hair, torn clothes-and couldn’t believe the hunger that had swept through him as they entered the cabin.
She wrinkled her nose mockingly. “Know-it-all.”
He stared back at her, knowing he was totally besotted with her. “You will be now. I promise you, Ria. You’re going to be begging for vacation time now.”
If she stayed with Vanderale Industries. Sanctuary needed her more than Dane or Leo Vanderale. And Mercury needed her with him. He would do what she needed to do, what she wanted to do, but he didn’t think she was as happy working for Dane as she would be here.
“Damn parties,” she muttered, turning away from him and walking toward the bedroom before casting him a heated little look over her shoulder. “Want to shower with me?”
“Wrong question,” he growled. “Because you keep me from it.”
He followed after as she laughed, the thought of playing with Ria in the shower again causing his cock to jerk in anticipation.
Hell, it might not be mating heat, but it was damned close. For now, for tonight, he would content himself with that. But he was going to have to stop rubbing his tongue against his teeth, hoping. Because he swore he was making it raw.
Later that evening, as Ria stepped from the bathroom, clipping the pearl earrings to her ears that she had chosen to wear, her hair pinned behind her head, it was all Mercury could do to hold back his growl.
He was in his dress uniform. The severe black pants and jacket were confining enough. The dress boots were a pain in the ass, but he tolerated them when he had to. He wore the insignia of his rank, that of second commander, a narrow golden bar attached to the left shoulder of his jacket. On the right was the gold lion’s head denoting his genetic ranking, and below it the brass Bureau of Breed Affairs pin, a simple brass pin with the initials BBA.
The dress uniform was a necessary evil. Ria’s hair pinned up wasn’t.
“Take your hair down.” He’d meant to make it a request as his gaze swept over the simple black gown she wore. The long sleeves covered her arms, while the material reached to the base of her neck in back.
The front was cut lower, scooped and rounded over her breasts, leaving the barest hint of cleavage.
She wore pearls around her neck to match the earrings, and nothing more.
“I’m not taking down my hair.” She moved to sit on the bureau and checked her earrings. “It would be… Mercury.”
As she talked, he had moved behind her, pulled the anchoring pins and watched that thick, silken mass of hair as it unraveled down her back.
“You did not do that.” She turned on him, incredulous. “Damn you!”
His eyes narrowed back at her. “Get as mad as you like. I want it down.”
Her eyes narrowed back at him. “I want that damned cheesecake I mentioned before. Doesn’t mean I’m going to get it.”
He growled. “There will be four different kinds of cheesecake on the buffet. I requested it. Just for you. All chocolate.”
For a second he could have sworn her eyes glazed with something akin to approaching ecstasy.
“I’m going to revise my opinion of you.” She pouted with charming irritation. “You’re a cruel, evil man. Teasing me with cheesecake. I’ll get you back. You watch.”
He smiled back at her, his brows arching as he pushed his fingers through her hair and restrained the need to kiss her. If he kissed her, he would never get out of that cabin with her.
He let his gaze go over her again, noticing as he did so that the cut of her dress hid the bite he had placed on her shoulder. For some reason, that bothered him.
“Leave the hair down,” he told her. “We’ll discuss the dress later.”