Page 25 of The Alpha's Mail Order Bride

“Claire,” he started, and she felt a giddy little thrill as she saw his frown deepening. “Claire, what—stop. Stop.”

An ill-timed instrumental break put a stop to her singing, so instead she poked her tongue out at him. “Make me!”

“This is incredibly juvenile,” Darion growled, but the dignity of the utterance was somewhat impinged upon by the force with which she was dancing him around the kitchen. “Did those teenagers get you drunk or something?”

“You don’t have to be drunk to havefun, Darion.”

“This is fun, is it?” He was still letting her move him, she couldn’t help but observe. Same old Darion, protesting in words alone. She knew he loved every single one of the terrible werewolf movies he complained about so much. She knew he enjoyed hearing the peals of laughter from the local kids racing each other up and down the road outside, even when he growled at them to keep it down. And in that moment, dancing with him in the kitchen, she knew in her bones exactly what he wanted her to do next.

Later, she’d wonder how she reached his lips, given their height difference. Maybe she’d climbed him somehow. Maybe the power of her built-up frustration with him had caused her to levitate. Or maybe, just maybe, he’d lifted her up, or bent to meet her halfway. But when their lips met, Claire had other things on her mind than figuring out the physics of how it had been possible…like getting as much of her body pressed against him as she could.

If the kiss had startled him, she never would have known from his reaction. As if it was the most obvious thing in the world, his arms tightened around her, drawing her in as he kissed her back firmly enough to dispel any lingering concern that she’d misjudged the situation. Maybe it was the dancing, maybe it was the weeks of buildup, or maybe it was the whole ridiculous situation, but Claire was shocked by the force of her body’s response to him, by how quickly her arousal had skyrocketed. They’d barely touched, and her body was already tingling all over. She’d spent entire nights with men who’d done less for her in an hour than Darion had done in a few seconds.

But right now, she didn’t want to think about men from her past. Right now, she had Darion right where she’d been wanting him since the moment she’d first seen him, and she wasn’t going to waste that precious opportunity on thinking about the past or the future. She leaned into him forcefully, the dance forgotten, the music playing distantly in the background and drowned out almost entirely by the roaring of her pulse in her ears. Darion was kissing her fiercely now, his arms tightening around her with a new force that made her utter a breathless little squeak as she felt her feet lift off the ground. He spun them both around, and she found herself sitting on the kitchen counter, Darion’s torso between her parted legs, and she grinned against his lips as she realized what he’d done. Sitting up here reduced their height difference, putting her on a much more level playing field. Clever of him. More than just a handsome face and a stunning body, she reflected dizzily, taking immediate advantage of her new position to run her hands across the harder to reach parts of his shoulders and back. His skin was as warm as she’d expected, that furnace-like heat coming from every part of him she caressed. Well, if she had her way, he was only going to get hotter.

Speaking of which…she grumbled in wordless frustration at the suddenly intolerable presence of the fabric of her top between them. Darion moved faster than she’d thought possible, and she uttered a sound of protest, far too late, at the sharp sound of ripping fabric. The ruins of her shirt fell away, and she quickly unfastened her bra before he could destroy that too.

“You tore my—” she started, but she barely got the first few words of the sentence out before he’d seized her lips in another scorching kiss. Rude, she thought dizzily, but he was still kissing her, and she was finding it hard to hang on to exactly what he’d done to offend her. Something terrible, no doubt. She’d have words with him later, once she’d seen to this fierce, overwhelming desire to get absolutely torn apart right here on the kitchen counter.

If only there was someone around here who could help her with that.

Darion’s lips were on her throat, and the heat of his breath rivaled the heat of his skin. Claire resisted the urge to lose herself in the sensation of that, though judging by the wanton moaning she couldn’t suppress, it seemed her body hadn’t gotten the memo that they had more important things to focus on. Her hands felt clumsy and slow as she slid them down Darion’s sides, seeking out the waistband of his pants, and he caught his breath as she yanked them down, uttering a low and clearly reproachful growl. Reproachful? She could feel his hard-on against her thigh—she’d been enthusiastically rocking her hips against it for the last few minutes, in fact. How dare he reproach her for letting the poor thing out of its fabric prison?

Further indignity was to follow. Darion’s hands closed gently but firmly around her wrists, and she whimpered her displeasure against his lips as he pulled them away from his pants. She resisted, but not especially hard; there was something very pleasing about the way he was moving her around, the way her strength paled in comparison to his, and she didn’t want to discourage him by thrashing around too fiercely in protest in case he took her resistance seriously. She opted instead for whining and arching her back against him, which earned her a huff of amusement, his hot breath ghosting across the naked skin of her chest and making her shiver. His lips followed it, and she moaned as he pressed open-mouthed kisses down her throat and between her breasts, moving to first one and then the other to tease and bite at her nipples. Now she was writhing in earnest, trying to pull her wrists free of his grip so that she might do something about the troublesome fact that he wasn’t inside her right now.

It was probably for the best, she would think much later, that at least one of them had a tiny bit of patience.

He took his merciless time, of course, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he seemed to find a new way to give her pleasure every few seconds, her frustration with him might have become too much to bear. As it was, Claire was quickly reduced to a whimpering mess, her sweat-damp hair utterly askew and hanging in her eyes, her body arching and bucking beneath his careful ministrations. He was so goddamn strong, that was the problem—and every time she thought she might be able to get the upper hand, he’d find a sensitive part of her to kiss or lick or caress, and she’d melt into a puddle again. At some point, to her great relief, they’d done away with the rest of their clothing, and then, before she could blink, she felt his arms sliding around her and realized she was being carried through the house. Well, that was fine by her. His lips were on her throat and threatening to leave bruises, and he could take his sweet time doing that, as far as she was concerned.

It wasn’t until she heard that familiar scrape that she realized that she was on the other side of the most famous door in the house. She’d made it. She was in Darion’s bedroom—and as he threw her down onto his bed, a wild little laugh escaped her lips. Here she was, messing up his bedspread, just as she’d been dreaming about earlier. If she’d known that all it took was a bit of loud music at midnight, why, she’d have done thisweeksago.

But he clearly didn’t intend to give her much time with his bedspread. Because suddenly he was on top of her, and all she could think about was wrapping her legs around him and dragging him closer with all the force available to her. If he continued to tease her, she was going to…well, she was probably going to enjoy it just as much as she had been since he’d pinned her hands in the kitchen, but she was also going to complain somethingfierce.

His face was buried against her throat, and she could feel his lips tracing their way down toward her collarbones, exploring every dip and contour he found, distracting her from the steady progress of his hands, which were sliding up her thighs and inexorably toward where she wanted him most. Later, she’d think back to the sounds they were making and feel very, very grateful that they were far enough away from their neighbors not to risk being overheard, but right then, the entire community could have been in the room next door with their ears pressed to the wall, for all she cared.

Let them hear her moan, as Darion’s fingers slowly parted her lips and set off sparks of pleasure as they slid across the slick, swollen flesh there. Let her scream of delight echo across the entire archipelago as his fingers dove inside her, deeper and deeper, until she was writhing and bucking and panting for breath. He had to know what she wanted—she couldn’t have made it any clearer without drawing him a labeled diagram. He was withholding himself deliberately, that was the only explanation. Teasing her. The cruelty of it was enough to take her breath away. Hadn’t he teased her long enough? Hadn’t he been holding them apart since the moment they’d met? It was true, she realized, rocking her hips helplessly up against the exquisite pressure of his fingers. She’d wanted him the minute she’d seen him. If he’d simply pulled her inside and kissed her that first day, she’d have gone along with it, no questions asked. The thought was enough to make her annoyed with him all over again. They could have hadso much sexby now if he hadn’t been such a grump.

“Enough,” she growled in his ear, her frustration finally rising to a cold, hard point. To her surprise, he responded immediately, pressing a lingering kiss to her lips that almost felt like an apology. Mollified, but still impatient, she wrapped her legs around his waist and tugged him down, her breath heaving in her chest. How was she this out of breath already? But then she felt the tip of his cock sliding against her sex, and her breath froze in her chest as she waited, desperate, aching, praying that she wasn’t about to be subjected to some brutal new level of teasing…

But he didn’t have the strength for that either, she realized, tuning into his ragged breathing, the trembling in his muscles. He’d been holding himself back, using most of that tremendous strength of his, by the looks of it, and she felt an answering spike of arousal in response to the shuddering, ragged moan of pleasure that escaped him as he slid himself deeper and deeper into the hungry embrace of her sex. She felt her eyes roll back and then flutter closed. What need did she have for sight right now, when what she was feeling was so utterly perfect?

Darion paused for a long, agonizing moment with his manhood buried to the hilt inside her, and with a wicked grin, she lifted her hips and tightened every muscle she could. At last, the pressure undid him, and all Claire could do was hang on for dear life as he drove himself into her, again and again, every powerful stroke slamming the bed against the wall and blasting more pleasure through her body. At last, she thought incoherently, nails digging into his back as she moaned wordless encouragement against his throat. At last, at last, at last she’d broken through that shell of his to the wild creature beneath.

But there were two wild creatures in that bed when Claire’s orgasm came crashing over her with all the force of an oncoming train. And with Darion shuddering in the grips of his own climax, she threw back her head and howled the utter, perfect bliss of it, right through the ceiling and to the stars beyond.

Chapter 14 - Darion

She was in his bed. Darion knew it before he’d even come all the way awake; knew it from the way he was lying, knew it from the faint scent that had been coming in with every sleeping breath he drew, knew it from the dull glow of satiation that was still lingering in his muscles, even hours after they’d exhausted themselves making love. He’d never woken up like this before. Not once. So why did it feel so familiar? Why did it feel like the only way he’d ever woken up? Before long he was wide awake, but he kept his body as still as he could, mindful of the way Claire’s sleeping form was curled so trustingly in his arms, her small face pillowed against his upper arm. He wanted to tighten his arms around her again, to press her close and bury his face in her sweet-smelling hair…but he couldn’t bring himself to risk disturbing her sleep.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, in the end, propped up on his pillows with his head tilted down to watch Claire’s sleeping face. But eventually, with the morning sunlight steadily advancing across the room from the window, he felt her begin to stir in her sleep. Suddenly feeling like he’d transgressed somehow, he wondered briefly if he should pretend to be asleep again, but before he could act on that impulse, her dark eyes had slid open and frozen him with wonder. They lay together in perfect stillness for what could have been an eternity, and for the first time since he’d met her Darion let himself gaze into those impossibly beautiful dark brown eyes for as long as he wanted to.

“So it wasn’t a dream,” she said eventually, and it took him a moment to draw the meaning from the sounds. He felt his lips curve in response to the sleepy smile that was spreading across her face, saw a look of mixed surprise and wonder in her eyes in response, realized that he was rarely this free with his expression, this open. Not that it mattered, with Claire. She had a way of seeing right past the defenses he’d always worked so hard to put up around himself, no matter how much he tried to keep himself under control.

Like last night. The moment she’d touched him, he’d felt the fire blazing in the pit of his stomach, felt his wolf’s attention narrow to a laser focus that blotted out everything from his world but the touch of her body against him, the way she’d moved when she’d dragged him, unprotesting, into the dance. There had been no fighting it, no pretending…he could no sooner have pushed her away than he could have stopped his own breathing. But he’d waited, he remembered, feeling his arousal stir at the memory of how she’d moved under his slow, careful touch. All his considerable willpower hadn’t been enough to keep him back from her, but he’d certainly been able to make her wait…and the results, as his body was eagerly remembering now, had been explosive.

“Not a dream,” he agreed huskily now, not sure how much time had passed in his dreamy reverie of the night before. It felt like a spell, somehow, an eager affirmation of the reality of what had happened between them. Her smile was spreading even wider across her pretty face, those soft lips he now knew so intimately, the flash of mischief in her eyes that had utterly undone him the moment he first saw it—he lowered his head to claim her lips with his again, as though their night of sleep had been nothing but a brief interlude in their lovemaking.

It must have been mid-afternoon when they finally, reluctantly drew apart from one another. Darion was still breathing hard, his body aglow with a satisfied exertion, and Claire was flopped against the pillows with her sweat-damp hair in her face and a decidedly smug smile on her parted lips. His gaze was already roaming thoughtfully across her naked body, planning his next move, but when she reached for the empty water glass on the bedside table, more practical considerations took over.

---