RawHeat Page 3

  It wasn’t even like a kiss, really. It was like a try-out, a little brush of skin against skin, as though he wasn’t sure how scared she might be of the sharp points beyond his soft lips. And in truth, she wasn’t sure how scared she should be. If she pressed her mouth to his, suddenly, would that be enough to cut her? To turn her, forever? She didn’t know and found she hardly cared, when he moved his lips over hers like that and pushed his hand into her curly hair.

  He’d started unbuttoning the rest of her dress too. All the way down to the bottom and then oh, his hand slipped inside. Just over her stomach, but apparently her stomach had sprouted seven thousand extra nerve endings and all of them were jumping. Sizzling, in fact.

  Did he know how much she wanted to kiss him properly? She could feel the tentative flicker of his tongue, just every now and then, and when she parted her lips over his he didn’t pull away. But he didn’t push for something deeper, either, so maybe it wasn’t okay, maybe this slow slide back and forth was too much all on its own and he was going to…

  She froze when he pushed a hand between her legs. She didn’t mean to—he just did the whole thing so abruptly. One second they were making out politely like teenagers, the next he had a hand between her legs all lewd and rough, fingertips brushing over the place her panties should have been.

  Of course he must have known she was bare down there. He knew the difference between the smell of flesh clothed, and the smell of it unconfined. But she still appreciated his suddenly hot and panting breaths against her mouth, as though the idea excited him. As though he couldn’t get enough of her slippery pussy all exposed like this, beneath his softly stroking fingertips.

  And he did stroke softly. He didn’t shove right into her, or rub over her clit with a too-firm thumb. He just fondled, he just spread her open, fingers sliding slickly over her swollen lips and the stiff bud nestled between.

  She tried to get away after a second. It was just too much, far too much—it had been too long and him stroking her this way felt almost like pain. He had his finger right on the tip of her clit, just lightly, and in slow, torturous circles and oh dear God she couldn’t stand it. She had to do something, grab something on him, get him inside her all hard and fierce and fuck fuck fuck.

  But he just held her fast—one arm around her waist now. She wasn’t even sure why she’d been worrying about standing up on her own two wobbly legs, because he’d been holding her clear off the ground for the last who-knew-how-long.

  And he was whispering in her ear too, all hot and rough and breathy, that finger circling and circling while he told her that it was her turn now, that she’d made him come so hard the other day and he wanted her to feel the exact same way.

  “Like my body’s singing electric for you,” he said, and she could feel it surging up. She couldn’t remember ever coming this quickly—not even under her own hand—but it was almost on her anyway. Her sex felt like one, long, shivering pulse, and oh God her clit was so swollen beneath his working fingers. So swollen and sharp with sensation, so ready to turn her inside out.

  She knew now why he’d put his fist to his mouth. She had to do the same, only his immense body seemed to be in the way. Her hand was somewhere underneath his massive left arm—the one he’d used to keep her in place—and she had to keep the other one on the back of his wrist. She had to. If she didn’t he was going to do something even more maddening to her clit, he was going to rub it right on the sensitive underside or maybe push two fingers inside her as he stroked and fuck, she couldn’t stand it.

  Which is how she found herself with her mouth on his shoulder—right over his scar, God, right over his scar—biting down hard to stop the moan bubbling up and out of her. But it was okay, it was fine, because the moment she did so obscene a thing he made a sound right into her hair, a choked, thoroughly pleasure-spiked sound, as though she’d done the most erotic thing a person could possibly do.

  And then he pressed down hard on her clit and she bucked, and held on tight to nothing and came in great surging waves, all over his hand.

  Chapter Three

  It felt like a thousand years since she’d last been sensible of anything. She couldn’t even be sure if she was sensible of anything right now, with her head on his shoulder and her hands making long, languorous circles all over his gigantic back. Everything in her seemed to have turned to syrup, and though he was breathing all hard and shaky, and she could feel his probably immense erection sort of brushing against her belly, she couldn’t work up the wherewithal to do anything about it.

  Until he started re-buttoning her uniform. Then she could do something about it. Then it seemed like the utmost importance to do something, immediately, before she found herself completely dressed again and no reciprocation took place.

  He did understand that she wanted to reciprocate, right? He did get that this was all just stupendous-orgasm-laziness and she was on the case, she was in business—in truth she couldn’t wait to get her hands on him in some completely allowed, non-illicit sort of fashion.

  But he just said, “No, no—we’ve been too long already.”

  Even though that was a total lie. She’d gone off in about thirty seconds. Hell, if he went at her again she felt pretty sure she’d go off in less time than that. Nerve endings were jangling. Things were buzzing.

  Why was he pushing her away?

  “We have to do this in stages—slowly, okay?”

  She wasn’t even sure if she still understood what the word slowly meant.

  “But…you…”

  “Slowly,” he said, and somehow he’d gotten her entire uniform buttoned up and closed back together. “Come back tomorrow.”

  “Well, of course I will—but…”

  “Go on. I’ll be fine. I’ve waited to touch you for a year. I can wait another day.”

  He sounded sincere. He really did. Strange thing was, however, he didn’t look sincere. He looked in agony and most of him was juddering like a broken-down washing machine, and when she finally sighed and turned and picked up her tray, she could see he’d pulled his lower lip right into his mouth.

  The way he did when he was in pain.

  “Are you sure I can’t—”

  “Go, before someone realizes you’re missing.”

  She went. Though doing so posed several problems she hadn’t really thought about until she got out of the door and started walking down the narrow corridor to the lab.

  The first being that she couldn’t really walk properly. He’d destroyed her major motor functions. Her body kept sort of sloping to the left, and everything between her legs still felt hot and swollen and slick. Too hot and swollen and slick.

  She was almost certain people could tell. She only passed two people on the way to the lab and then back, in the direction of her room, but even so those two people definitely knew something was up. Her face felt hot and her hair felt all coming out of her ponytail on one side where he’d pushed his hand, and all she could think was, I wish I’d touched him in return. I wish I’d taken him in my mouth or in my cunt, then fucked him until he burst. I wish it I wish it I wish—

  “Hey, Serena, you okay? You look like you’re…straining.”

  Oh God no. Tara. Tara coming down the corridor from the canteen, as she tried to actively run toward the living quarters.

  “Yeah, I’m totally fine,” she said, but there were two things wrong with doing so. Number one—she’d shouted the words over her shoulder as she got up a mild jog. Number two—she’d used the word “totally”.

  Nobody said totally unless they really meant I’ve just let a werewolf bring me to a fantastic, incredible orgasm and now I’m thinking about fucking him and fucking him until he dies.

  Though she had to say, Tara would probably appreciate the last part of that equation. Serena wondered if her friend knew she had blood in her blonde hair. Or if she understood she was looking more and more insane lately, like a person on the edge of doing something terrible.

  Eatin
g a werewolf, perhaps.

  “Slow down then, for goodness sake! I wanted to talk to you about this one wolf, who—”

  “I really have to get to my room, Tara. I’m so tired—the big werewolf is a lot of work, you know.”

  Boy, was he ever.

  “Oh my God, has he actually started reacting to stuff? Because when I did stuff to him he barely made a sound. Kind of like he was asleep, even when he looked awake.”

  God, God, she didn’t want to hear this now. Hell, she hadn’t wanted to hear it before, so Tara trying to tell her tales of torturing Connor after she’d just had his mouth on hers and his hands…there…it just wasn’t kosher. It wasn’t something her soul could reasonably take.

  “Tara, seriously—I’m exhausted,” she said, as she ground to a reluctant halt by her quarters.

  “You look it. Jesus. Have you got a temperature? Because this fortress in quadrant five got struck down by a re-emergence of bubonic plague—did you hear? So you know, if you’re feeling sick you should really report—”

  “I will. I swear to God I will.” She opened the door to her room, and when she stepped inside she made damn sure there was no room for Tara to sneak in. It wasn’t really that hard to achieve, however. Her room was the size of a shoebox. “After I’ve been asleep for a thousand years.”

  And then she closed the door in Tara’s face and slumped against the back of it.

  * * * * *

  “I think we should just talk,” he said, which sounded perfectly normal and reasonable. Most girls loved to just talk, she knew. Like Tara, who’d spent the entire day trying to talk to her about this one wolf who’d started crying and begging for his mommy when she burned him with little white-hot wires.

  But apparently, Serena didn’t like to talk all that much. Because when he sort of pushed her away a little and said those words, she found several things wrong with them.

  There was the fact that he’d spent the day before kissing and touching her and enjoying all of the above. There were the words he’d spoken, about wanting her and arousal and all of that stuff. And then there was his big, uncomfortable-looking erection, pressing up against the sheet.

  When she’d first come into the room she’d even seen him sort of bumping his hips, as though the feel of the material all taut over his swollen hard-on felt amazing. Or unbearable. One or the other.

  “Don’t you want to feel good?”

  “Of course I do. But I also…want to respect you. As a person.”

  Where was he getting this stuff from? They’d spent a year talking and respecting each other. In fact, they’d spent a year respecting each other so painfully that it made her wild just thinking about it. Those barriers were gone now. They’d been blown up. He’d blown them up when he’d let her touch him and told her how much he wanted her and Lord, had she just imagined it all?

  “I thought…you wanted me.”

  It sounded terrible in her head and even worse coming out. And he just looked wretched after she said it, as though it destroyed him to have to tell her that actually, he’d just been glad of some random female company. He’d just been happy to get anything he could and now, in the cold light of day, he could see she wasn’t really worthy of him.

  Other girls—hell, even werewolf-hating girls—would probably be willing, if she was. If one nurse who had problems with him calling her by her first name was up for a fuck, then other nurses would be too. Hotter nurses. Hotter nurses like Tara, with her wires and her little shark’s teeth and her mean eyes.

  He probably liked that kind of stuff—meanness and torture and so on and so forth. He probably had all kinds of kinks she’d not even considered, when she’d sat by his bed and listened to him talk and talk about all the lovely stories he remembered, like the one about the glass slipper and the one about the trail of breadcrumbs and the one about the girl in the red hood…

  Wait, what was he saying now?

  “I don’t just want you, Serena. I love you.”

  Oh. That.

  “I love you.”

  That.

  His arms were kind of burning her hands, so she let them drop away from him. And then she stepped back, just for good measure.

  “Is that so terrible? I just thought if it was okay for us to kiss and touch…I thought it’d be okay for me to say…”

  He looked panicked, suddenly. Unbearably.

  “It is okay. It’s really okay. I’m just…”

  Shocked? Stunned?

  Happy. Happy.

  “You’re sort of smiling. Is that a good sign?”

  He had to know it was, even though she could feel herself trying to hold the corners of her mouth down and her whole face seemed to be kind of trembling and oh no, oh no, he was absolutely going to know how much she loved him too. Had he seen it on her face, the other day? The other day when she’d thought love love love a million times, like an idiot?

  And did it really matter, when he apparently loved her too?

  “Look, I’m completely aware of how insane this is, and I don’t expect to run off into the sunset with you forever or anything like—”

  She kissed him then. He needed kissing. She could feel his teeth like needles beneath the press of his lips, and he made a sound too—a little protesting sound—but she didn’t care. She didn’t care.

  “I want to run off into the sunset with you,” she said, though in truth she had little idea of what that actually meant. It just sounded good in between kisses all over his face and throat and everywhere, just everywhere.

  “Oh God, Serena, listen…”

  “I know you want me. I want you—so badly.”

  “Serena, seriously, seriously—we need to talk about this. I know I said I could control myself but the truth is, I don’t know if—”

  “I don’t care. Lord, you taste so good…”

  He grabbed a hold of her then. Hard.

  “Please don’t kiss me there, don’t!”

  And then quite suddenly she was on her back, on the bed, pinned there like a bug. Him over her, all tense-faced and feral-eyed, hands circling her wrists, body like an iron bar.

  Jesus, he was strong all right. Had she thought he’d be strong? Yeah, he was stronger than that. She’d barely even felt him move or push her…or anything at all, really. He’d just done it as though she weighed nothing and took no effort at all.

  And yet weirdly, she wanted to say something no sane person probably would.

  “It’s okay. I trust you.”

  His breathing slowed a little then. She could see the color blooming in his eyes, again.

  “I know you won’t hurt me. Is that what you’re worried about? That you’ll hurt me? I know you won’t,” she said, and in response he shuddered from head to toe. It felt sort of like she’d pressed herself up against some heavy machinery, when he did so.

  “You can’t know that. You don’t know what it’s like when you kiss me or touch me— I thought it would make things easier, make me relaxed around your arousal, but it doesn’t. It just makes things worse and I’m scared I’ll do something bad if you touch me there again.”

  He’d loosened his grip on her wrists, so it didn’t take much to just pull her hand free and run it over his scar, lightly.

  “You mean here?”

  His eyes turned to slits and he did something both thrilling and terrifying. He parted his lips in some kind of pretense at a bite, like an animal showing that it could, if it wanted to—like the motion of the thing without actually doing it.

  And his eyes looked suddenly pale again. Pale and unearthly.

  “Yes, there.”

  “Is it sensitive?”

  “God, very. Very. I think I could come just having you touch it like that.”

  “Like this?”

  “Mmmm, yes.”

  He made the little bite motion again, this time close to her stroking hand. And it felt awful to be so turned-on by him moving that way, by his body over hers and everything about him so suddenly anima
listic, but it couldn’t be denied. She wanted the very thing the rest of her race so abhorred.

  “How about when I touch you here?”

  It was a joy and a pleasure to run her hand down over his body, truly it was. But God, the feeling that ran through her when she took hold of his stiff dick…

  The tip felt so slick—enough to make her wonder if maybe he’d had one go around already. If maybe he’d spent the time before she arrived stroking himself, or possibly rubbing himself against the mattress or his pillow or just anything, really, anything at all to make himself spurt like a fountain.

  The way he was probably going to right now. His flesh felt searing hot and so swollen, all the silky skin around his shaft as taut as a drum.

  And then he said, “Oh yes, fuck, fuck. Make me come—I don’t care. Make me come.”

  And she was lost, lost on a tide of him swearing and saying dirty words and begging her to do bad things.

  “Tell me you want me.”

  “I do. I do so much. Jesus.”

  “Tell me you want to be inside me,” she said, while stroking him just right, just enough to get him into that teeth-baring, red-faced, agonized sort of state.

  “Oh no, I can’t, we can’t—what if I hurt you? What if I bite you?”

  There was a little hesitation before the word bite—she could hear it, like the sound of someone swallowing something they didn’t want to eat. But all she could think about was the way it would feel—to have his teeth sinking into her flesh, and then to be electric the way he was—and none of it seemed so bad. None of it seemed like something she shouldn’t want.

  Which was how she found herself tugging him toward her aching sex, with nothing between them and him not stopping her at all. He didn’t seem capable of stopping her.

  “You won’t hurt me. Here, here, just like this,” she said, and then she’d gotten him right between her legs, and all she had to do was swipe the swollen head of his cock through her slick folds to make his body go taut all over.

  As though she’d plucked a too-tight string inside him.