Page 41 of Reaper's Pack

Little pieces of the beast escaped me, teeth raking her flesh, hands clawing at her exquisite body. Hazel accepted every rough caress like there was no other way to love, arching and moaning and writhing beneath me as I dragged my mouth down, down, down to the valley between her breasts.

Breasts still covered to me, black fabric stuck to each mound, her nipples pebbling through the material. Lips curled in a snarl, I wrenched her dress aside and dragged my tongue up the sinuous swell of her breast, licking the rainwater away. Her pale pink nipples matched her lips, equally tempting, equally swollen under my attentions. I closed my mouth around the little pink pearl, and she bucked beneath me, one hand twisting in my hair, the other pressed to her forehead—as if in anguish.

Desire and duty.

Which would win out?

I grinned against her skin, kissing my way to her other breast, needing to taste every part of her before the night was through. In the past, a spark always jolted between us when we touched, no matter how fleeting the caress. Now, the spark surged like the lightning, bright and brilliant, illuminating me from head to toe. I couldn’t stop touching her, couldn’t stop mapping the dips and valleys of her figure—couldn’t stop tasting her.

Smelling her.

Marking her with my scent, marking me with hers.

And her scent was strongest in her core. I hurriedly crept lower, kissing and nibbling and nipping wherever her body begged to be worshipped, not stopping until I had the scraps of her dress shoved up her hips, her legs thrown over my shoulders. A bolt of light made the darkness into day, and I kissed her core in the thunder that followed, her heady cry drowned out by a single, intense drumbeat.

Here was my honeyed dates, my golden sunshine, my contentment. She tasted divine. My tongue swept between her folds, wet with rain and need. Every inch of her was as cold as the autumn rain—except for here. Her cunt was fire, a delicious, all-consuming heat that I just couldn’t get enough of. Gripping her hips firmly, I yanked her closer and fucked her with my tongue. Hazel shuddered against my face, her thighs twitching, both hands in my hair, but she made noises I had never heard before from a female—wild and ragged and, frankly, a little squeaky—when my thumb found the little bundle of tender nerves at the crest of her sex.

That was where the pleasure lay, apparently. Right. There.

“Declan!” Roaring thunder threatened to drown her out, a poignant complement to the wind howling through the nearby forest—but I heard her. The sounds she made tonight, her taste, her body flush against mine… I would never forget any of it.

I settled between her thighs like I had finally found a home. She wiggled against me, pushed at my arms, shot up with a cry, and then flopped down on the sand—none of it deterred me. Her body was my temple, and I was here to worship until the ritual was done. I lapped at her center like a wretch dying of thirst after stumbling upon an oasis. My fingers and tongue traded places every now and again, allowing me to stroke her inner walls and taste that little bead that made her shaking turn violent. I enjoyed her as I never had a mate before, going on instinct, taking my time.

In the past, any physical gratification came from hurried trysts in dark corners, from the rare hellhound females in heat but ashamed to have succumbed to me. I thought I’d acted on instinct then, simply following my body’s needs and desires like any male should.

But now I knew instinct. Now I felt fate. The three hellhounds in my past had used me just as I’d used them, our fucking shameful and quick. They’d needed relief, not chosen for breeding but still plagued with need. I’d gone with them for comfort, for acceptance—to quell the painful loneliness in my bones.

With Hazel, it was so much more than any of that.

She needed to know…

Hazel needed to know that if I had my way, I would never lick another female again, never worship a mate with every part of me, because this felt right. This was what I had spent my whole life searching for. She—

“Declan, stop.” Gone were the fingers twisting in my hair, replaced by both hands swatting at my shoulders. Panting, Hazel sat up on her elbows, face racked with worry as she very obviously avoided my gaze. Rain slaked over her gorgeous cheekbones, down between her breasts, and a flash of lightning illuminated all that you didn’t want to see at a time like this: apprehension, fear, panic. She shook her head. “We shouldn’t.”

I pushed up with a growl, literally shaking at the effort it took to control the beast within. “Why not?”

Hazel looked lovely when she stammered, stumbled, stuttered for a response—because that told me she had no fucking clue either why we ought to stop. Her pale lashes fluttered, the color in her cheeks ripened, and I caught her by the hips when she tried to crawl back from me, fingers sinking in possessively.

You’re not going anywhere, sweet.

“Don’t you feel it, Hazel?” I asked as I prowled up her body, inch by inch flattening her back down to the compact sand, rain lashing at my back. She opened and closed her mouth, still fighting for a response, and her gaze slid from mine to my lips and back again. In a fleeting moment of softness, I brushed her wet hair from her face, curling it behind her ear with a trembling hand. “I have… The pull between us… I’ve felt it from the moment I first saw you, and I know you feel it too. Don’t deny it for the sake of, I don’t know, fucking propriety.”

“I-I… I feel…” Her eyes dropped to my mouth again, her hands tentatively drifting up my chest, and that was answer enough for me. Forgoing any semblance of restraint, I caught her by the throat, fingers bruising into her jaw, and captured her in another searing kiss that made my cock ache and Hazel moan.

No more waiting.

Mine. All mine.

The tide surged up the sand toward us, ferocious as our kiss, constant as the fire between us, and I wrapped her legs around my hips at the next clap of thunder, then filled her to the hilt with a single, brutal thrust.

“Oh!” Hazel cried into my mouth, her back arching those perfect breasts into me, her hips shoved into the wet grit below.

Fuck. Her center felt as I always imagined Heaven might. In the deep, dank kennels of Hell, I had pictured warmth and acceptance, light and peace—comfort and an intense belonging that I scarcely believed existed in this world. But it was right here, in her, so hot and slick and tight, accommodating for me, for my liberties and my roughness, like we were made for each other.

Hazel deserved slow, sweet lovemaking—but I couldn’t hold back. Couldn’t get enough of her. Desperate to make the most of the moment, I retreated slightly and pounded back home, rutting hard and fast, grinding my hips to toy with that little bundle at the crown of her cunt, memorizing every breathy cry she uttered when I hit it just right.

She was all I could have hoped for in a mate, all that the others hadn’t been. Attentive, her hands roving my body, the bite of her nails down my back the sweetest pain. Engaged, her hooded gaze locked on mine. Present, her hips rocking up to meet my every harsh thrust.

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