AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She stilled in his arms, her hands fisting over the material of his shirt. “I wondered. I never stop thinking about it. Every single day, I still think about when they will catch me.” Her voice was muffled against his bare skin where the shirt parted. Her breath seared his flesh. Then her arms came around him. “I wondered what happened to you. I worried that they’d killed you too.” Her voice cracked and her hot tears hit his skin.
“You don’t have to be afraid of them. They’re all gone. They’ll never hurt you again.” He rocked her close and when it wasn’t enough, he changed his grip, pulling her up into his arms and carrying her down the short hallway. He didn’t bother to ask her which room was her bedroom. The whole house might carry her scent, but her bedroom held a scent of its own. A softer smell of comfort and restfulness, which he wasn’t very familiar with.
Harley stiffened in his arms. But only for a heartbeat then she relaxed once more. Her arms gripped his neck and shoulders.
He lowered her to the bed and for a moment thought she would object. But instead, her fingers slid down his arm and claimed his hand tugging him forward until he leaned over her close enough to kiss. Then her lips claimed his. Even from her submissive position, she had all the control, and she knew it.
His arousal jumped up another notch. Just being with her, breathing the same air as her, kept him aroused and hard, but when she reached for him, when she touched him, when she wanted him… he could fucking cut diamonds. He let her lead in a kiss, let her taste his lips, let her slowly devour him. When she hesitated and the cool air separated them, his heart stopped. “Harley, I need you.”
Chapter Eleven
Harley stared at him. She needed him too. It was as if the years had disappeared, and they were back on that desert sand touching each other for the first time. She was a different person now and she could tell already, so was he. But the new hard edge to Zeven was just as appealing as he’d been so long ago.
She couldn’t help but touch his face, to ease the lines of strain around his eyes, to smooth them out with the pad of her thumb. Why was it that she had to touch him? Like they were two magnets drawn together, she’d run away and yet here he was again in her life. She pulled him forward to continue their kiss. The contact was electric and everything she’d missed, everything she thought was gone forever. She should push him away. She should run. Surely if she wanted to escape badly enough, he wouldn’t catch her. But did she really want any distance between them?
The truth was no. She wanted this. She wanted him in her arms and even if it didn’t last, she needed a little bit more.
His weight pressed lightly against her. His fingers shook while removing her clothes. That tiny sign of weakness undid her determination. She helped him with the task and soon they were both naked. Damn, touching him felt decadent. The brush of fingers and the sliding caress of the rumpled bed sheets teased and tempted them both. But it wasn’t enough.
He knelt over her. His fingertips trailed over her body, followed by his lips. He suckled at her nipples, lavishing attention to the beaded tips, nipping, licking and rolling her flesh between his teeth.
She arched up into the touch, overwhelmed by the rush of sensation. It was easy to forget he was part animal, and yet just as easy to feel how predatory he was. She felt halfway between being his main course served up on a platter and a goddess being worshiped.
She reached for him, needing to touch more of his body, his broad shoulders, his muscled back… Oh yeah, and his sexy as hell ass, and the greatest temptation, his thick hard cock.
But he stopped her, catching her hand, drawing it above her head to the bars of the headboard. “I need this. Let me have this time, this control.” He caught her other hand where it was fisted in the sheet and moved it to another bar, wrapping her fingers there under his gentle touch.
And just like that she offered up her body to his hands. She did it without hesitation and completely without regret. Her whole life was going to hell and here in this moment none of it mattered. Maybe it was by his command that they were not making an escape, but in his arms, she had to admit at least to herself that part of her was very glad to be here. Even if they came to kill her tomorrow… She’d been yearning to be with him again. To feel his heat and how he made her burn.
Zeven trailed his fingers down her arms, slowly tracing lines only he could see. When he paused over the insides of her elbows, she shook in response. The sensation was erotic and tantalizing, more powerful than she’d expected such an innocent touch to feel.
Something else she hadn’t expected was for Zeven to decide to tell her his life story while she was so sweetly chained.
Yet that is what he did. “There are things I have to say, things I thought you knew…” His mouth returned to her breasts, sucking them with long gentle pulls. Each suck was accompanied by sweeps of his tongue. The combination left her bucking and barely hanging on to the bed.
She gasped at the pleasure building like a raging river, coursing through her limbs. His lips met hers for a fierce kiss then he pulled back to trail kisses softly down her body. “If I let you, you’d ask questions that might distract me.”
His hands glided in languid exploration. “This time, I will tell you everything. Everything that happened, everything that I went through and what I hoped for. I just want you to listen and focus on the pleasure.” For a moment he stopped. After a short inhalation, she took for scenting, he opened and reached into her nightstand. He’d found her favorite lotion, the delicate fragrance of desert jasmine. He returned his attention once more to her arms, this time with the lotion to soothe over her as he went.
“I never considered that you’d seen me with my clan. Or at least how you would have interpreted it.” He brushed a feather light kiss over her lips before continuing. “I was omega to them. After my parents died, they could have just let me starve. The clan let me stay, but I was never loved. I was nothing, one of no worth. I accepted the role, because I knew of no other way.”
Harley closed her eyes, remembering those perfect and terrible days. Zeven had found her. He’d protected her and loved her all through the long desert darkness. At the time she’d believed him to be human like her. And when morning came, he showed her where her family was, offering to take her back, and leave. Instead, she’d begged him to stay with her for the day. He’d agreed. She’d introduced him to her parents, and he spent the whole day with them. And he’d returned the next day and the one after that. Those days had felt impossibly perfect. Like she’d stepped inside of some kind of romance novel. Seriously, who met the man of their dreams wandering in a wasteland of sand?
“I would have followed you out of the desert. I would have followed you anywhere.” Zeven’s lotion covered fingers slid over her sides, back up and over her breasts. The touch was erotic but tempered by the dark words falling between them. “My Alpha, the big man with graying hair, had warned me not to speak with outsiders. I’d broken a direct command from my Alpha. He had the right to kill me for such insubordination. That won’t make much sense to you, but in my clan, Alpha had the ultimate right to decide if I lived or died. If any of us did. His decisions were absolute.”
It didn’t make sense at first. Back then she hadn’t known anything about wolves, or werewolves but after escaping, she’d made a point of learning. What choice had there been? She’d immersed herself in reading about wolves to avoid the deaths of her family and to find a way to evade the pack that was after her.
“But Alpha did not have the right to decide over your life or that of your family. You were not of our clan. You had never submitted to him. He did not have that right.” His fingers stilled while his eyes closed, and the stillness proved how wild his emotions were. “Alpha ordered your family to be killed because of my actions. Their deaths were meant to punish my disobedience. For that I am very sorry. I will carry that guilt forever.”
She reached for him, cupping his stubble-covered jaw in her palm, wishing to comfort him, even though it had been her family that had been lost.
He pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist then returned her grip to the headboard. “I told you my clan was not coming after you and that you’re safe from them. It is the complete truth. I killed them.”
Shock rolled through her, throwing icy water on her arousal.
“I know your human mind may not understand, but I had to stop them, or they would have hunted you down. I challenged Alpha. I challenged him but they would not accept my claim. They laughed. I thought that if I challenged him then you would be free. I figured that I would lose, they would probably kill me, leaving no one to punish with your death.” His breath came faster. “I didn’t expect them to laugh and ignore my challenge. When Tracker found your scent, I couldn’t risk them finding you. I attacked Alpha.”
His panting eased. Zeven moved between her thighs and began slowly caressing her legs with the lotion. His touch was smooth and rhythmic as if he needed that to calm himself. His silence stretched out.
