Page 22 of Cruel Mate

"Maybe a massage will stimulate blood flow and help you heal faster so we can get back on the move,” he suggested, and suddenly Layla was less inclined to want to leave.

His said it straightforwardly, but the glint in his eye spoke of much more as his hands traveled down her leg and over her calf to pick up her foot.

Layla leaned back against the wall, breathing a sigh as she whispered, “I think it's working.”

In the near-darkness, Zander’s deep blue eyes blazed with something Layla had never seen in his gaze before. Deep down she knew it should have frightened her, but in that moment all she could think of was how good his touch felt.

There, in that cabin, they were far away from the real world. She was not the Layla who hated his guts, and he was not the wolf that made her blood boil with anger.

They weren’t rivals or opponents or whatever else she might have considered him. They just were.

And Layla suddenly realized that simply existing had never felt so good in all her life.

He smelled so good. Why did he have to smell so good? The scent of him was intoxicating, wrapping around her as if it were the steam that had followed him out of the bathroom, though that had dissipated long ago.

Against her better judgment, Layla didn’t tell Zander to stop massaging. Instead, she allowed herself to enjoy it, closing her eyes to really feel his hands at work as he massaged her foot, calf, and just above her knee.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she leaned back against the wall, concentrating on the warmth of his hands as they caressed her flesh. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been touched like that. In fact, she wasn’t sure she had ever been massaged before, especially not like this.

And before she knew it, Zander’s hands were traveling. They slipped up her thigh, snaking their way under the blanket that still draped loosely over her body. He squeezed gently, dangerously close to her womanhood.

She didn’t dare to open her eyes. She didn’t even dare to breathe. Instead, she held her breath as one hand slipped between her thighs, his fingertips stroking ever so gently against her clit.

Her head tilted back further against the hard wood of the wall and she bit her lip, still holding her breath. Why did his touch have to feel so good? Especially there!

It was impossible for her to resist. It had been so damn long. She couldn’t remember the last time she came. And even then, that had been alone. She was tired of being alone, tired of being frustrated. Maybe it was time to give in.

And so, she did, opening her legs ever so slightly. She felt Zander adjust himself on the bed, and her heart raced as she sensed him dropping off it completely.

Still, she didn’t dare to open her eyes. Her other senses took over entirely as Zander’s hands gripped her knees and pushed them open. The blanket was lifted from her slightly, and then she felt his breath. It was warm and moist upon her thighs as he delicately brushed his lips over her flesh. He grazed first one and then the other, from knee to the crevice of her thigh, just shy of her sex.

And the teasing, tingling sensation of it was absolutely infuriating.

She clutched tightly to the blanket to stop herself from grabbing hold of his head instead. The way he was teasing her made her want to clamp her hands down on the back of his skull and wrap her legs around his shoulders.

But she knew Zander better than that. It had only been a couple of months since his arrival in Nightstar, but she knew him well enough to know he was a real dominant wolf. The power and energy dripping off him and often made her defensive against him.

Not now. Now, she opened herself entirely to him, spreading her thighs even further as finally, he laid his mouth upon her, his tongue caressing her clit with slow and deliberate strokes.

She could barely breathe from panting with pleasure as his finger teased the entrance of her sex. The tip played joyously for several moments before he slipped it in to the first knuckle, removed it and slipped it in to the second knuckle. Again, he removed it, and finally slipped all the way in, adding pressure before he stroked her with a come-hither motion, teasing the most sensitive parts of her insides as his tongue did all of the work outside.

For only a second, she thought of their confrontation at the full moon bonfire. Maybe his comments about her being shit in bed weren’t entirely unwarranted. He most definitely appeared to know exactly what he was doing.

“Fuck,” she breathed out, unable to handle the growing pressure inside her as she grew more and more frustrated, more and more needy, desperate to cum.

“Shit, sorry, did I hurt you?”

Layla’s eyes flew open, her heart hammering and face hot as hell as she realized that Zander wasn’t on his knees between her thighs, but still sitting on the bed beside her, his hands still wrapped around her foot.

She stared at him, unable to believe that her imagination had been quite so vivid. Were his hands that good, that she had been able to imagine them elsewhere? It appeared so.

And she was desperately embarrassed, as she had clearly spoken out loud while daydreaming about him going down on her.

What the hell is wrong with me? She asked herself, wondering if maybe she might have hit her head at the same time as she had hurt her knee. She didn’t remember having done so, but anything was possible.

After all, she was sitting in a cabin with a man whose guts she hated, daydreaming about things that were entirely unmentionable.

“No, no,” Layla said, shaking her head. “You didn’t hurt me.”

---