“I know that,” Sienna said, a pert look to her that made him chuckle.
“Was I taking over?”
“Just a little bit.” Fingers weaving through his hair.
His wolf rubbed up against his skin, wanting that touch. Later, he promised.
“I spoke to Lara and got what I needed when I first became an adult,” Sienna told him, “I was so afraid about passing on the X mutation.” The mate bond vibrated with quiet passion. “I didn’t purposefully keep it a secret—it just never came up before.”
“I know.” Sienna’s honesty was an integral aspect of her nature. “It’s a good thing you took care of that or we’d probably be wrangling a litter in a year or two, rabble-rouser that you are.”
A playful thump against his chest. “I think that maybe, I might not be a bad mother,” she said with a shaky smile, “but I’m not ready yet.”
“Hey, I’m not sure I am either.” He might be wolf, might be alpha, but he was also a man who’d just found his mate after believing he’d never have that bond. “I want this time with you.” Curving his hand around her rib cage, he slanted his mouth over hers in a slow, petting kind of a kiss, licking out at her lower lip, nipping at her upper one.
“Hawke.” His name a caress, Sienna wrapped her arms around his neck and melted into the kiss. A far more pleasurable kind of tension rippled through her body, her eyes devoid of stars for a reason that had nothing to do with fear or worry when she broke the kiss to run her lips along his jaw.
He groaned, went to slide his hand under her shirt … but Sienna shifted without warning. Tumbling out of the car after shoving the door open, she shot him a look of pure challenge. “Twenty-minute head start. I get to our grotto before you. Winner does what she wants with the loser.”
His wolf jerked to attention. “Go.” There was nothing he liked better than playing with Sienna, especially when he had more than one new trick up his sleeve. Baring his lips in a feral grin, he waited exactly twenty minutes before taking off after her.
Chapter 32
ADRIA WAKENED TO find herself wrapped in hot, muscled male flesh. Not for an instant did she wonder who it was that held her, the dark woodsmoke and fresh bite of Riaz’s scent intimately familiar. Sensing he hadn’t yet awakened, she remained motionless, the crispness of his chest hair against her palm an exquisite temptation, the thickness of his thigh shoved between her own—pressed against the part of her that was going damp with a slow, inexorable arousal though she tried to fight the response.
She hadn’t invited him into bed to demand sex, but there was no way he’d fail to sense her body’s response. His erection rubbed against her almost the instant the thought passed through her head, and then he was rolling her over onto her back, still sleepy-eyed, his hair tousled and unbearably sexy.
“Riaz,” she said, thrusting a hand into the jet black strands to keep him in place when he would’ve gone for her breasts.
Except there really was no way to stop a dominant changeling male who outweighed her by a good eighty pounds from going after what he wanted in bed, not unless she wanted to say an unequivocal “no.” Because that would get through. The thing was, she didn’t want to say no. She just wanted to make sure he was fully conscious.
“Oh God!” Her back arched up off the bed as he took one of her nipples into his mouth and sucked. Hard.
He fondled her neglected breast with his free hand, a little rough, and so perfect it made her ache. Wanting to rub up against the thickness she could feel hot and rigid against her thigh through the jeans neither of them had taken off, she forced herself to concentrate—and pulled at his hair hard enough that it had to hurt.
Growling against her skin, he let her feel his teeth. “Damn it,” she demanded, “are you awake?”
He bit down on her nipple … very, very carefully. She was still attempting to gasp in a breath when he lifted his head and sleepy gold eyes blazed at her. The wolf was in charge, she thought, and its wildness called to her own. Twisting beneath him, she hissed out a breath when he clamped his hand on her hip, his claws pricking at her skin just enough to tell her he was running the show.
Awake. Very much so.
“Get your claws off my skin.” It was the snarl of a female wolf who knew her own strength.
“I think you like my claws.” A feral smile, but he did retract the sharp tips.
His response unbalanced her wolf—men of his dominance weren’t so easily commanded.
“I also think,” he said in a dark whisper that made the tiny hairs on her body quiver in warning, “you’ll like this even more.” Sliding his hand over her navel—the skin so exquisitely sensitive her toes curled—he thrust it under the waistband of her jeans and into her panties in a single unpredictable move.
It shattered her to look down and see his muscled forearm, a sprinkling of fine black hair on the dusky brown of his skin, disappearing into her jeans … where he cupped her with stark intimacy within the tight confines of her clothing. Chest jerking, she rose up against him in a vain effort to find relief.
“Undo your jeans.” His voice edgy in her ear, the scrape of his unshaven jaw an erotic temptation.
Her fingers brushed his arm as she obeyed the order that promised to give her what she wanted. Removing his hand to rip off her jeans the second she unzipped the fly, he kicked her legs apart to settle himself in between, his jean-covered cock pushing up against the white lace and blue satin of her panties in blatant demand. “Tell me,” he said, the hairs on his chest rubbing over her already sensitized nipples, threatening to steal what sense of reason remained, “something you’ve always wanted to do in bed but never dared.”
“Why?” she asked, her skin stretched taut over a body it couldn’t contain.
“Because I want to play.” It wasn’t until the words were out that Riaz realized what he’d said. Playing with a bedmate … for a lone wolf, it was beyond friendship, beyond need, a step into an altogether different kind of a relationship.
No, he contradicted himself the second after the thought passed through his head. Neither one of them wanted a relationship, least of all Adria. They were in this to give each other a little surcease. And there was nothing wrong with playing with a friend, even if his wolf rarely played with anyone. “No?” he said when she remained silent.
Her eyes a pale, haunting amber—the wolf looking out at him—she said, “If you promise to reciprocate.”
Wolfish curiosity rose to the fore. He nodded at once.
She went to speak, halted, hot red painting her cheeks. Her sudden, unexpected shyness only deepened his curiosity—until he glimpsed the darkness that shadowed her eyes without warning. And he knew she was no longer fully with him, the past tangling with the present.
Gripping her jaw, he growled, “Me and you. No one else comes into this bed. Got it?” It was a vow as much as it was a demand.
“Yes.” Amber clashing into his. “For both of us.”
“Yes.” He closed their deal with a hot, openmouthed kiss, grazing the bottom of her left breast with his thumb as he did so.
Adria jerked away from the kiss with a gasp. “I’ve heard some women can orgasm just by having their breasts caressed,” she said, her husky voice breathless. “I’ve always wondered if I could.” Her cheeks were blazing by the time she finished.
“Somehow, I didn’t think you’d be shy.” It did something to him to know she trusted him enough to drop her guard. “Anything else you want to share about this fantasy?”
Adria shook her head, feeling naked in a way that had nothing to do with exposing skin. Allowing more of his weight onto her body, Riaz took her mouth in another kiss. A raunchy, wet, demanding one that had her digging her nails into his shoulder as she ground her body against the rigid intrusion of his cock.