Wolf Tales VIII. Kate Douglas
scream of pleasure, the climax she’d denied herself while she waited for this most intimate connection.
A connection even more powerful than two bodies locked together—the melding of two minds, the mating of reality and spirit.
Without warning, Anton tumbled gracelessly into her waiting consciousness. If he’d been human, he would have wept at the very moment the walls crumbled. The barriers he’d erected so many weeks ago dissolved and disappeared, leaving him naked and wanting.
No, my love. Never in my eyes. Never in the eyes of your pack.
He bowed his head until his muzzle rested against her shoulder. They gave everything they had to save me when I’d already given up.
If you’d truly given up, they wouldn’t have been able to save you. Your life force, your force, is stronger than that.
I love you. You deserve better.
I love you, Anton Cheval. Now shut up and make love to me.
Did you just tell me to shut up? He bit back the unexpected laughter and they shifted as one.
The two of them lay together in the frosty grass with Keisha on her belly beneath him. His cock was still hard, planted deep inside her heat, but his mate pulled away from him and rolled to her back. “I want to see you when you make love with me. No more hiding.”
Shamed once again, he hung his head as he knelt between her thighs. “I don’t know what’s happened to me. It’s as if something is lost and I can’t find it.”
“It’s your confidence.” She reached for him. Her palm cupped the side of his face. He turned his head slightly and planted a kiss over her lifeline.
Keisha sighed. “You think too much, worry about too many things. It’s all inside you, that innate ability of yours to trust in yourself. Make love to me now. We’ll worry about it later.”
He smiled. The first time he’d felt like smiling in ages. “Bossy, aren’t we?”
She raised her eyebrows but didn’t say another word.
He rolled his pelvis forward and the hard length of his cock slipped back inside, finding a familiar home between her damp folds. She raised her knees and tilted her hips, giving him perfect access to her slick passage. He clasped her hands up over her head and watched himself, watched his thick shaft slowly disappear deep inside, his skin so fair to her dark, dark chocolate.
Keisha’s vaginal muscles rippled along his length, pulling him deeper, tightening around him until he’d buried himself completely inside her welcoming channel, until his flat belly rested against the soft swell of hers.
Already wet and slippery from their first climax, their bodies slid together in a saturated tangle of damp pubic hair and straining muscles. The ripe, intoxicating fragrance of sex and clean sweat filled his nostrils, the sound of their rapidly beating hearts, of breath rushing in and out of straining lungs rose to his ears.
If he thought about this, if he lost himself in the sensory beauty of the act of sex, he didn’t need to think about everything that was wrong. If he thought about loving Keisha, his world was once again right.
Your world has always been right, you idiot.
Shocked, he blinked and stared at her. She stared back at him with a ferocious look in her eyes.
“Did you just call me an idiot?”
Keisha’s full lips curled up in a smile. “Yes, I did. Want to make something of it?” She tightened her vaginal muscles as if to emphasize her dare.
He groaned and slowly shook his head. “I have been an idiot, haven’t I? I’m not really certain what went wrong.”
She pulled one hand free of his grasp, reached up and stroked his cheek with her fingertips. “I’m not either, but almost dying can have a powerful impact on a person. I’ve been there, remember? I know what it’s like. Then to absorb so much from so many people who love you, their fear for your safety, their determination to make you live…All of that lives inside of you now. I imagine it’s a horrible responsibility, living your life for so many other people. Why don’t you try, for a while, anyway, to live for Anton Cheval?”
He thrust forward, filling her completely. Slowly he withdrew. “And who is this guy? This Anton Cheval?”
Keisha’s smile grew wider. “Why, he’s the man I love. The father of the world’s most beautiful little girl. He’s the one who’s taking me real close to a fantastic orgasm right at this very moment.”
“He is, eh?” Anton drove forward, tilting his hips just enough to slide his cock directly over her clit. He felt her shiver and knew it had nothing to do with the icy ground.
“Oh, Goddess. Yes. He is!”
Again he filled her, and yet again. Keisha’s back arched and her eyes closed. He slipped quietly into her thoughts and found nothing but love. No sense of condemnation, no anger at his foolish, self-centered behavior. She loved him, warts and all. He had no choice. None whatsoever.
No matter what, he would be worthy of the woman who called him mate.
This time, when they reached their peak, they found it together. With a fearsome cry, he arched his back and drove deep inside. Her body tightened and held him. Her nails dug into his shoulders, her ankles locked behind his thighs and she milked him with her warm sex, squeezed him tighter with each contraction of her climax, each beat of her heart.
For the first time since the night he’d almost died, Anton Cheval was finally fully, gloriously alive.
Chapter 2
“Yeah, we’re all worried about him.” Holding the phone to his ear, Stefan Aragat leaned back in the deck chair and rested his heels on the railing. The forest loomed dark and inviting, but little Alex was being a pill and Xandi had her hands full with the baby.
There’d be no running through the woods tonight, damn it all. AJ Temple’s voice was a welcome diversion to a man who would rather be deep in the forest making love to his woman. Of course, AJ in person wouldn’t be a bad diversion himself.
“You want to send three of them up here? Why not all six?”
AJ’s answer made perfect sense. There really wasn’t a good place for six new Chanku shapeshifters to run in downtown San Francisco, especially since a recent attack in Golden Gate Park had everyone watching out for killer dogs. The last thing they needed was a wolf sighting. Millie and Ulrich had asked for two or three people to help with the wolf sanctuary in Colorado. Sending the other three to Montana should work out just fine, if the Montana pack was okay with it.
“I agree, AJ. Plus, I think it’s what Anton needs. Three kids without a lick of sense to take his mind off whatever’s bugging him.” Stefan laughed. It hadn’t been all that long ago he’d been just as stupid. He liked to think he’d smartened up in the past few years, but Anton might have another thought altogether.
“We’ll see you guys at the end of the week. You say one of them is definitely a doctor? It’ll be great to have a doctor around, even if it’s just for a while. Maybe he can figure out why Alex is so colicky. Adam hasn’t been able to help him much and Xandi and I are at our wits’ end. I’ll let Anton know we’ve got company coming. Give my love to Mik and Tala.”
Stefan clicked off the phone and stared out into the forest. The attacks on the Chanku appeared to have ended, at least for now, though he’d not been able to get past a lingering sense of unease. Life should be settled and comfortable, but he missed his best friend and lover. Anton hadn’t been the same since his near-death experience, but then neither had any of the others. They’d all come too close to their own mortality.
Stefan saw the fear in his mate’s eyes and wondered if that same look was mirrored in his own. He wondered, too, if their concerns for their son’s safety might be part of Alex’s fussiness. Was the baby picking up their anxieties?