Dark Wolf Rising (Bloodrunners) Read online

“You’re so tight,” he ground out, pushing in another fingertip, then working both digits deeper inside, his free hand reaching over their heads and fisting around one of the headboard’s wooden slats. The wood groaned from the power of his grip, his fingers leaving deep impressions in the wood.

  “You have such big fingers,” she moaned, her head tossing from side to side, arms thrown over her head in a purely sexual pose of surrender. “Feels so good.”

  Ah, God, she had no idea. She was as tender and silky as a rain-slick petal, the mouthwatering scent of her sex the most addictive thing that had ever filled his head. He found her clit with his thumb, pumping his fingers as he buried his face in the pillow, fighting for control. Christ, this was insane. Nothing was supposed to feel this good...this right.

  When she finally settled after another shattering orgasm, relaxing beside him, Eric ripped himself away from her...the bed, and stumbled toward the bathroom at the opposite end of the room. He slammed the door shut behind him, shaking from head to toe as he leaned back against it, his breath sawing past his lips in a series of rough, rapid bursts.

  For two seconds, he fought the urge to lift his slick fingers to his mouth, then lost. Nostrils flaring, he shoved them past his lips and nearly died, right there, in the cheap little motel bathroom with cracked linoleum all around him. He sucked on his fingers as if he’d been starved for days, her succulent taste exploding over his senses like something that could destroy him. It was that sweet...that decadent...that addictive. A narcotic that tasted like it’d been made especially for him.

  His body ached, his hard cock pulsing with need, throbbing with pain. He badly wanted to take matters into his own hand and relieve the pressure, but knew it was too risky. Once out, he might never get the damn beast back in its cage.

  Moving toward the sink, he pulled off his shirt and tossed it on the counter as he turned on the tap, then splashed his face with cold water. Lifting his head, Eric stared in the mirror, no longer recognizing the face staring back at him. It was hard, etched with need, his eyes glowing with the primitive hunger of the wolf, an unusual rim of amber around the brighter silver that he’d never seen before. He didn’t know what it meant—but whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. Craving, dark and inhuman, battered against his conscience like a hammer, fighting to break him down...shatter his control.

  You can do this. You can fight it. Just keep it the hell together.

  At the same time, his wolf snarled for that reasonable voice to shut the hell up, urging him to act on the destructive craving clawing him to shreds on the inside, until he was amazed he hadn’t bled out from the aggressive force of his hunger.

  Just take her... It’s what she wants. What she needs.

  Opportunistic bastard! This wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to find her sister and be safe at home back in Virginia. She didn’t want her life turned upside down by a bunch of strangers, and especially by him. They’d rubbed each other the wrong way from the very beginning. Not that it kept him from wanting her so badly his stomach was tied in knots, his cock so hard he could have hammered it through a bloody wall.

  She cried out, the bleak sound muffled by the door, but he could hear the pain and need in those husky notes, and knew she was suffering again. It was time to stop hiding in the bathroom like a green-eared teen and get his ass back out there. He splashed another couple of handfuls of cold water on his face and the back of his neck, then shook the water out of his hair and opened the door. A pale wash of light shone from the bedside lamp, illuminating the hollows and curves of her feminine little body in the center of the bed...and Eric nearly fell flat on his face.

  Holy...shit. Was she trying to kill him? Her white shirt was still buttoned up, all proper and prim—but she was completely naked from the waist down, her jeans and panties scattered over the floor, as if she’d literally thrown them off.

  For a split second, he was frozen, held immobile by lust and hunger and things that were too primitive for most humans to understand. He wanted to bite her. Lick her. Take her under his body and trap her there...marking her in ways he had no business even thinking about.

  She started to draw her knees up, and he quickly looked away, not trusting himself with the explicit view. Once he looked he would look his fill, and there’d end up being hell to pay. But from the corner of his eye, Eric saw her spreading her legs, revealing herself completely, and he couldn’t have kept his gaze from locking on to that intimate sight any more than he could have stopped sucking air into his lungs. Heat crawled up his spine, curling around the backs of his ears, where his pulse was roaring like a fucking jet engine.

  Christ. The woman was either trying to kill him or melt his brain into a useless lump of putty.

  He tried to get some control over his ragged breathing, but it was impossible when he was staring at something so perfect and pretty. He had to choke back a primitive howl as he soaked in every lush, erotic detail. He wanted—needed—to feast on the tender perfection of her flesh until he was drenched in her, drowning in the blurring, liquid details, the data coming in too fast to separate, until lust was just a hazy, consuming cloud closing in around him, making it hard to breathe...to think.

  So going to hell for this. So going to hell...

  “Eric?”

  “Please, don’t...don’t say anything,” he rasped, rubbing his tongue over his teeth as he crawled onto the foot of the bed. A second later, he had his fingers shoved back inside that sweet, pink opening, his face pressed against her stomach, the low, animal sounds he was making muffled against her smooth, warm skin as the hem of her shirt bunched up beneath her breasts. He’d pushed his other arm beneath her, trapping her against him as he thrust his fingers into that plush, clenching sheath, spurring her into another one of those deliciously tight orgasms that made her scream. Her pleasure surged through him like a blistering rush of heat, a muscle pulsing in the side of his jaw as he gritted his teeth and tried like hell not to follow her over, spilling in his jeans.

  When she finally quieted, Eric lifted his head, his body hard and burning as his heavy-lidded gaze instantly locked with hers. She was looking right at him, her blue eyes dark with passion, her lips swollen from the biting pressure of her teeth. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, her unique scent heady and rich, and he couldn’t fight the need to have her intoxicating taste in his mouth again.

  Holding that passion-wrecked gaze, Eric pulled his drenched fingers from the greedy clasp of her sex and brought them to his mouth, hungrily sucking them past his lips. Her eyes went wide with shock, as if she’d never seen a man do such a thing, and he growled low in his throat.

  “You taste so damn good.” The words were rough and raw. “I could happily keep my tongue buried in you for days, Chelsea. Weeks...months...and it still wouldn’t be enough.”

  “Eric.” She arched beneath him as if she’d suddenly been struck by lightning, her nipples pressing thick and tight against the front of her shirt, blue eyes glazed with need as she sank her teeth into her lower lip. “Again!” she cried, the next wave hitting even faster than he’d expected. Her body writhed beneath him as he caught the sudden head-spinning surge of her scent, and he quickly plunged his fingers back into that tight, slick heaven, giving her something hard and thick to break against.

  But she wanted more. “I need you inside me,” she moaned, her short nails digging into his sweat-slicked shoulders as she tried to pull him up her body. “Need you to make love to me. Now.”

  “Goddamn it, Chelsea.” His voice was little more than a guttural snarl as he shoved his fingers deep and held them there, letting her clench around him. “Don’t do this to me,” he choked out, squeezing his eyes shut as he lowered his head. “I’m trying to help you, baby, but I’m not... Damn it, I’m not raping you!”

  She grabbed his head between her soft palms, tilting his face up. As he lifted his lashes, she whispered, “It’s not rape when I’m begging you for it.” She looked like she was burning with
fever, her eyes bright, cheeks flushed with color. “Please, Eric.”

  His throat felt like he’d tried to swallow a boulder. “That’s the drug talking. It’s not you.”

  Red-tinged fury swiftly built to an inferno behind that sky-blue gaze, as if hell itself were burning in the heavens. “Damn you,” she seethed. “This is my choice! Not yours! You don’t get to tell me what I want.”

  “Damn me all you like,” he grunted. “I’m still not taking you like that. Not for our first time.”

  She sobbed with defeat, her head falling back to the bed as she brought her arms up, curling them over her face. They were both hot and sweaty when she came for the fourth time, her arms falling limply to the bedspread, her body finally quieting as Eric crawled higher onto the bed and stretched out beside her. He lay on his side, facing her, memorizing the way she looked lying there all flushed and pink, her long eyelashes casting shadows over her cheeks as her breathing slowly mellowed.

  He didn’t know how much time had passed when she started to stir again, her dark gaze filled with determination as she lifted those long eyelashes and looked right at him.

  “You’ve been so incredible,” she whispered, rolling toward him and pressing her palm against the center of his chest, right over the heavy beat of his heart. Then her hand slowly started to make its way downward.

  “It’s okay, Chelse. You don’t owe me anything,” he groaned, catching her hand before she reached his navel.

  A small frown settled between her brows. “But it hardly seems fair.”

  It was the hardest damn thing he’d ever had to do, but he somehow found the strength to say, “Let’s just worry about you for right now, okay?”

  As the night deepened outside the motel walls, Eric lost count of how many times he had to ease her through the pain. The drug kept mounting, each rise exhausting Chelsea...and taking him that much closer to the edge. Using one of the washcloths from the bathroom, he applied cool compresses to her sore flesh, making her drink countless bottles of water that he had delivered to the room. He even managed to get some crackers into her, though food wasn’t what she ached for.

  Just as Jillian had predicted, her body craved release, again and again, forging a level of intimacy between them that, despite all his years of sexual experience, Eric had never shared with another woman. He could say, without arrogance, that he was a good lover—but he’d never come close to focusing on a woman the way he focused on the intoxicating Chelsea Smart. His night became a lush, sensual tapestry of feminine textures and scents, his body attuned to the minute rhythms of her heartbeat, the quickening of her breath. He memorized her with the touch of his hands—knew the tight, cushiony feel of her sex and the slick heat of her pleasure by heart, imprinting the evocative details upon his mind the way a scientist soaked in data.

  And yet, no matter how lost he was in her, the struggle never left him. Eric battled through the endless hours with nothing but sheer determination, never allowing the man or the beast to take more than was necessary. He wanted her so badly it was like a physical ache in his bones, breaking him down—but he never touched her with his lips...his tongue. Never took that slippery, melting sex into his mouth and drank his fill, though he was ravenous for that decadent, mouthwatering flavor that threatened to short-circuit his brain.

  And he somehow found the strength to keep his jeans completely buttoned, no matter how many times she begged him to give her more. For that, Eric was fairly certain he deserved some kind of bloody sainthood.

  The closest he came to losing control was when she became too sore for the touch of his fingers. Rolling to his back, he lifted her astride him, gripping her hips, and let her grind herself to completion against the thick, jutting ridge of his cock. She’d come so hard she nearly passed out...

  And so had he.

  “Shh. Just let me hold you,” he murmured afterward, his arms wrapping around her in an unusually possessive hold as he pulled her down to his chest, her cheek resting above the heavy beat of his heart, her long hair streaming over his shoulder and arm. Her body was deliciously soft against his, her warm scent filling his head, giving him an unfamiliar sense of peace, despite the animal hunger still twisting and burning beneath his skin.

  He was in a world of hurt, but he didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to leave her. Strange, considering how much he disliked cuddling with his bed partners. But he liked having Chelsea’s curvaceous little body wrapped up in his arms, even when it was making him sweat. It felt...comfortable. Warm and soft and sweet, and though he hadn’t thought he’d be able to relax, he felt his eyes growing heavy...the tension leaving his muscles in a slow, mellow slide. It was so easy. So right.

  For what felt like the first time in years, Eric surrendered to the moment...and slipped into the soothing darkness of sleep.

  * * *

  Opening her eyes to the bright morning sunlight, Chelsea said the first words that came to mind. “Oh. My. God.”

  “It’s okay,” Eric rasped from the other side of the bed. “Don’t be scared.”

  Painfully aware of the fact that she was naked from the waist down under the sheet, she clutched the white cotton in a deathly grip and stammered, “I...I...”

  “Take a deep breath, Chelsea. There’s no need to panic.”

  From the corner of her eye, she watched as he stretched that long, muscular body, then lazily scratched at his chest and the dark shadow on his jaw.

  What the hell have I done?

  She stared at his hands, at those long, rugged fingers, and could remember the exact feel of them inside her. Could remember the harsh look of hunger on his face when he’d pulled them out, shiny and wet, and sucked them between his lips. He’d been greedy, softly growling, as if he couldn’t get enough of the way she tasted.

  He’d done it more than once—and yet, he’d done his best to keep things from going too far. Not that she’d been much help.

  Now that the drug had worn off, he was probably worried she was going to accuse him of taking advantage of her, but she could remember enough from the night before to know that wasn’t the case. If anything, she was the one who’d taken advantage of him. She’d played on his sympathy, begging him to help her.

  God, if the bed could just swallow her whole, she’d have been eternally grateful. She had no idea what to say to him. How to apologize. The guy had saved her from heaven only knew what back at that club, had given of himself again and again to make sure she wasn’t in pain, and she’d never even been nice to him. Had acted like a bitch most of the time she’d spent with him. Just because her emotions had been wrapped up in worry and fear during the short time that she’d known him didn’t excuse her.

  And even with everything that had happened, she didn’t know if she could act any differently. Her wariness was a part of who she was, of how she’d been shaped. But she could start by at least telling him how sorry she was.

  With a hard swallow, she tried again to force out some words. “I—”

  “I didn’t attack you,” he said, cutting her off, his voice gruff.

  She covered her face with the sheet. “I know you didn’t. I...remember what happened,” she choked out. In fact, she couldn’t stop the images from flashing through her mind. Carnal. Intimate. Explicit. Her body shivered with remembered sensation, the tender flesh between her thighs sore from the endless hours of stimulation. He hadn’t used her roughly—but she’d been insatiable, begging him to keep going...to keep making her climax, again and again and again, long into the early hours of the morning.

  Her blood chilled as she caught a particular flash of memory—Eric above her, his handsome face darkened by an intimidating scowl as he’d made her come. He’d looked so...unhappy, and she cringed, unable to forget the rather important fact that he didn’t like her.

  Though he couldn’t see her face, he must have sensed that she was crying. “Damn it, Chelsea. Don’t be upset. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I’m so embarrassed,”
she said, sniffing. “I can’t believe I begged you... Oh, God. You should have just left me here!”

  He gave a masculine snort that normally would have set her teeth on edge, but seemed somehow sexy to her when he did it. Then again, she pretty much thought everything he did was sexy. “You really think I would have just taken off and left you here in pain?” he asked, an edge of anger creeping into his voice for the first time that morning. “Christ, woman. I’m not that much of a bastard.”

  She peeked over the edge of the sheet. “Eric, you don’t even like me. This—what happened last night—it couldn’t have been pleasant for you.”

  He had the heels of his palms pressed against his eyes, but he lowered his arms and slowly turned his head to the side, locking that beautiful gray gaze with hers. “You’re upset because you think I didn’t enjoy it?” With each word, his eyebrows arched a little higher.

  “I’m upset about a lot of things.”

  “Well, you can ease your mind on that score.” He swung his long legs over the side of the bed as he sat up, one hand lifting to the back of his neck and rubbing at the tense muscles there. Her gaze moved appreciatively over his powerful shoulders and arms, before snagging on the dark, intricate tattoo that wrapped his right shoulder and biceps. She’d never thought of tattoos as all that sexy before, but she’d been wrong. Eric’s tat was sexy as hell.

  Blowing out a rough breath, he looked back over his shoulder, sliding her a heavy-lidded look from under his lashes. “It’s obviously not the way I would have chosen to get a taste of you, but I enjoyed it,” he said in a low, kinda gravelly rumble. “More than I should have, considering the circumstances.”

  “You can’t have enjoyed it that much,” she pointed out in a dubious tone, careful to keep her lower half covered with the sheet as she finally sat up. “You kept your jeans on the entire time.” Even though she could remember repeatedly begging him to take them off.

  “Yeah,” he muttered under his breath, his tone dry as he turned his head forward again. “And now I need clean ones.”