Page 20 of A Queen and Her Knight

“Zoe,” Cleo repeated herself, husky and impatient, telling Zoe that Zoe was failing to give her what she needed, which Zoe could not allow. Zoe lifted her to the counter and slid her hands to Cleo’s hips as she stepped between her legs. Cleo gasped.This was right, Mate’s scent told her.This was good. Their bodies closer, thighs warm around Zoe, her mate free to run her hands up Zoe’s arms and back, and down over her stomach. “I don’t normally…” Cleo started, but left the thought unfinished as she unclasped Zoe’s bra enough to push it up. “Oh my God.”

Zoe stilled in embarrassment, but with a sweet sound of pleasure, Cleo continued to touch her. She put her mouth to Zoe’s bicep as her fingers trailed over Zoe’s exposed nipples. It was only for the few moments before she leaned back to look at her. Cleo watched Zoe’s face while she ran her thumb across the peaked, sensitive skin, and when Zoe bit back a cry, she slid her other hand down, past Zoe’s belly button to the waist of her pants. She was breathing raggedly. Zoe was too. She was wet, as swollen as Cleo’s mouth, and all she could do was shiver for the press of Cleo’s fingers, over her underwear, then inside them, cool where Zoe was so hot.

She closed her eyes, knowing she didn’t wear anything pretty or pink, although Cleo didn’t seem to mind boring white cotton-and-elastic. Cleo hummed for how wet Zoe was, and finally scraped her teeth across Zoe’s throat as she spread Zoe open. She began to smell of sharper arousal, the scent enough to make Zoe weak. Zoe wanted to taste her and couldn’t, not like this. She moved her hips instead, rocking forward into the tease ofher mate’s fingertips, and then gasped for the heat of Cleo’s mouth on her skin, her teeth pressing not quite hard enough, the suction going straight down to her clit.

“Mate,” Zoe pleaded, after a long time of heavy breathing, and tentative, bruising hickeys, and spiraling, building hot need beneath the push of Cleo’s fingers. She grasped at Cleo’s hips and shuddered for Cleo’s breath over her damp skin.

Cleo dropped her mouth to Zoe’s chest, kissing as she whispered fragments of sentences. “I’ve never…. But you need…. I want…. Oh, good, Zoe. So good.” Her mouth went everywhere, Zoe’s shoulders, her arms, dragging across her nipples in slow approval when Zoe squeezed her harder. Cleo’s edged, honeysuckle desire was nearly on Zoe’s tongue. Her mate was aroused by her arousal. Zoe wanted her to have it, and begged for her, rough, panting sounds that grew louder and louder until Cleo finally let her come, left her shocked and trembling and weak-kneed.

Zoe leaned onto her while lightning flashed behind her eyes. Cleo wrapped herself tighter around her, one hand curled lightly to the back of Zoe’s neck. “So good,” she murmured again, while Zoe caught her breath. “So good it hurts, Zoe.”

Zoe found Cleo’s mouth, blindly, and licked at her parted lips, her tongue. Even with her underwear soaked and her mate’s fingers stroking smaller bursts of pleasure from her, Zoe needed more. “Taste. I need to.” She wondered if Cleo knew about weres, how they couldn’t get sick, that they couldn’t spread sickness either. They barely got tired. She put her face to Cleo’s shoulder and inhaled. “Let me taste you.” Desire was rich at her mate’s skin now, blood-heavy, like the pulse Zoe could hear, like the hungry gasp of her name when Cleo heard Zoe’s request.

Zoe followed the sound, nosing at the damp valley between Cleo’s breasts and moaning in gratitude when Cleo pulled herown shirt away. Zoe felt empty with Cleo’s hand gone, but nuzzled at the swell of cleavage and the light, blushing lace of Cleo’s bra. The taste was closer there, but it still wasn’t enough. Zoe whined. For a moment her thinking wasn’t entirely human. She gathered sweat with the flat of her tongue and whined again.

Cleo curved her body forward for Zoe’s mouth, and twined her hands into Zoe’s short curls. She displaced the bobby pins and tugged until Zoe lifted her head. Cleo forced Zoe to look at her. She usedwords. “You want to taste me?” she demanded, tone muzzy, eyes dazed. She hitched a loud breath when Zoe considered the words and gave a human response; she nodded. Cleo immediately knotted her fingers in Zoe’s hair and urged her closer. “Then eat me out already,” she whispered, her breath light and damp at Zoe’s mouth. Whatever look crossed Zoe’s face made her shiver.

Her mate knew about weres. Knew enough to give Zoe what she, what they both, wanted. Zoe picked her up, arms careful under her thighs, and carried her to the bedroom. Cleo’s pulse jumped. She slid her mouth over Zoe’s, a kiss of surprise and delight that tormented Zoe’s instincts. She wanted to kiss back, harder, leave marks. She wanted to protect and please. That last instinct won. Mate would be comfortable. Zoe would please her.

She placed Cleo on the bed, gently, controlling her strength now, and liked how eagerly Cleo kicked off her shoes, how she arched up to help Zoe remove her pants. “Zoe,” she kept saying, “Zoe,” calling Zoe back to humanity, and words. “Zoe,” as Zoe undressed her.

If Zoe wore underwear, Cleo worepanties, fragile, soft, and thin, lace Zoe wanted to tear with her teeth. But the scent brought her to her knees first, made her collapse at the edge of the bed, breathing hard, and then she leaned forward to put her mouth against the soaked fabric.

Cleo bucked up, but Zoe didn’t mind. It was easy to glide her hands along Cleo’s thighs to hold them apart, and then lick in again,mate/home/mateheady in her mouth. She pushed the panties aside at first, impatient for slick, throbbing heat against her fingers, then her tongue.

The sounds from her mate were beautiful, starving little cries that the whole town could hear for all Zoe cared. She understood it now, the need that made Little Wolf demand this in public, and why Nathaniel had let him. She lapped up concentrated flower scent and musky, metallic warmth and slipped her fingers inside, deep enough to make Cleo tangle her hands into Zoe’s hair to make sure she wouldn’t stop. Her body jerked when Zoe sucked at her clit, but then she was gasping at the ceiling. She said Zoe’s name again, as though it meant something. Zoe growled in pleasure, right where she was, and Cleo arched up again with a choked noise, coming.

Surprised, but not unhappy, Zoe coaxed more shocks from her with her mouth at her clit and fingers sliding free, loving the following rush of more honeyed arousal. Zoe kissed her trembling thighs for a few moments, trying to remember to be gentle with the human, to wait a moment before continuing. The growl was in the back of her throat. Her breathing was heavy, wild. Her face was wet and hot. She smoothed her hands up over Cleo’s hips to her stomach, petting, soothing, mouthing at Cleo’s pretty skin distractedly while she waited to be allowed to make her come again.

When Cleo exhaled with a shudder and shifted her hips, Zoe grunted happily and went back to get more of her mate on her tongue. The lace of Cleo’s panties was drenched in mate-scent, pleasure-scent, burning desire for Zoe. Zoe bit at it to get at the source of that smell.

“Just take them off.” Cleo’s throaty command made Zoe pause. She withdrew her teeth and pushed the panties from Cleo’s hips. When they were past her ankles, already forgotten, Cleo wrapped a leg around Zoe’s shoulders, without letting go of Zoe’s hair. “That’s better,” she decided, in a slow, slurring voice that made Zoe’s toes curl. She rolled her hips up, hinting, or giving Zoe what she still needed.

Zoe didn’t need any other encouragement. She buried her face in the thatch of her mate’s short curls and lost herself in the feel and scent and the sound of her mate’s pleasure.

~~

Zoe woke to the smell of her mate’s bed and her mate’s pleasure, but not her mate herself. Some light peeked through the bedroom curtains, indicating it was morning, which meant Cleo had likely gotten up to get ready for work.

Zoe tracked the sound of movement in the kitchen, then gave herself a few minutes to bury her face in the pillows and breathe in the best scents in the world. She stretched out, for once not feeling too tall. Her limbs felt strong, put to their proper use. She almost wished she could experience lingering soreness from exertion the way humans did. But sleeping next to her mate, even for only a few hours, was invigorating.

She stretched again, taking up the entire bed for one greedy, giggling moment. She was naked under the covers, which was vaguely concerning until she remembered losing her belt and pants… and shoes… after making Cleo come for the third time, and before Cleo had sleepily curled up next to her and fingered her beneath the blankets.

Zoe put a hand to her neck, but of course, even her whispered requests for bites and hickeys wouldn’t matter now. They’d already healed.

She turned to stretch over the soft sheets, proof of her mate’s good taste, and sniff out more traces of damp spots. Her cheeks were burning, but she hid her grin in a pillow. She had been permitted to touch her mate, and made her gasp her name. That was good. That had to be good.

Tim would tease her, but whatever. It was worth it.

But since she had no idea what time it was other than early morning with the sun rising steadily higher, she rolled to the edge of the bed to look for a clock, or at least her clothes.

She didn’t see an alarm clock on the nightstand, only a charger for Cleo’s phone, which was missing.

So were Zoe’s clothes, although she identified the lacy bundle on the floor as her mate’s underwear. She still saw no sign of her own clothes, not even her shoes. That made her smile dip somewhat, because being naked alone in the woods was different from being naked in front of someone important.

Zoe flung an arm across her chest and sat up. She cocked her head toward the sound of Cleo’s voice again, wondering if Cleo was doing laundry, and if, in her animal, lustful fog last night, Zoe had failed to notice a washer and dryer in the kitchen. Then she remembered the small washer and dryer unit by the bathroom.

“You realize what time it is? I could have been sleeping,” Cleo was saying, faint exasperation in her tone. There was a quiet bang, like a pot or a pan hitting something else. Cleo hissed at the sound, then spoke again. “Well, no, I wasn’t asleep, luckily.”

---