The Shifter's Desire Read online

  Unable to help himself, as if her words were a spell she’d cast over him, Arturo leaned forward and took one raspberry nipple into his mouth. She jumped in surprise and then pushed forward. He put one hand on her hip, pinning her to the bed so that she wouldn’t climb on top of him and end this before he even got started.

  First he gave her just the heat of his mouth and then a slight scrape of his teeth. After a minute he suckled at her, teasing her with his tongue. When he came off of her, it was to see her as liquid as heated metal. Her eyes were dozy and half-mast.

  To test, he put one finger on her shoulder and nudged her onto her back. She sort of melted backward, her arms akimbo over her head and one knee falling open.

  Jesus, that was all it took and her lock was fully picked? He looked down between her legs and got one glossy peek of her arousal for him. He was certain that if he touched her right that very second, he’d find her soft and wet.

  But soft and wet wasn’t enough. Not tonight. No, he wanted her wrecked and trembling and spreading. He wanted her—

  His brain cut out when she reached out for him. He felt like a sailor being beckoned home to the rocks by a siren. He didn’t give a fuck if she was drawing him into oblivion. He was going where she was. No matter what, he just needed to be where she was.

  He greeted the palm of her reaching hand with his lips and groaned at the silky warmth he found there. Arturo kissed his way up her arm to bite at the inside of her elbow. His fingers cramped into fists but he didn’t trust himself to touch her yet. He knew that once he touched her, this thing ran the risk of fast-tracking all the way to the end and he wasn’t ready for the end.

  He nuzzled into the skin at the fragrant keyboard of her ribs and kissed a path over the map of her soft belly. He made out with one of her hipbones and ran the risk of falling headlong into love with that part of her body. So soft and sharp and angular and round all at once. It was so Martine. His world-weary, clueless, virgin, badass warrior. She was a mass of contradictions.

  She was everything he wanted.

  Arturo nudged her over with his nose at her hip and she rolled onto her belly. He groaned at the graceful lines of her, the audacious dip of shadows into the ravine of her spine, the crack of her ass. It was another thing he was dangerously close to being in love with, the shadows of her. He licked the line where her thigh met her ass and just like that, the shadows were gone. She had full-body glow to accompany the quick little panting that was making her chest jump.

  In her twist over to her belly, her hair had gotten flung up over her head, leaving her neck and one ear gorgeously exposed. He licked up the golden highway of her back and couldn’t help but suck at the corner of her shoulder. He let his teeth needle her ear. He parted her hair to kiss her scalp.

  He was braced over top of her, still not letting himself touch. “I could take you like this. Did you know that, Wings? That two people can couple in this position?”

  She looked over her shoulder, her eyes arrowing in on his cock. Without warning, she pushed up onto her hands and knees and demolished the blank space between their bodies.

  His cock nestled between her legs and his chest was pressed completely to her back.

  “Gah—Motherfucker.” Arturo couldn’t help but use one hand to clasp her across her chest. Gravity had her already heavy breasts sitting even heavier in the palm of his hand. He tipped back so that she sat up in his lap, her pussy flat against his cock.

  He breathed hard against the back of her neck. He swore and stiffened when her hand traveled down between her legs and found the head of his cock. She tilted her head down and he tucked his chin over her shoulder. He had a perfect view to watch her discover him. He glanced down and then looked immediately away. Her golden fingers across his pissed-off and pulsing cock was too erotic a sight for him. He was trying to keep the insane inside the membrane right now.

  He switched his eyes to her face and gritted his teeth while her fingers circled the head of his cock, played in the wetness there. When he could take no more, he experimentally thrust his hips forward. Her eyes widened.

  “Oh,” she whispered and pushed her hips back toward him.

  He cursed, filled his hands with her breasts and thrusted forward again.

  “Can we do it this way?” Martine asked and to his momentary elation, she started lifting her hips, one hand on his cock, guiding him backward toward her soft, wet pussy.

  “Yes. But not—right now.” He gritted the words out, gripped her by the hips and flipped her back around. She landed in a crouch on the bed, a warrior’s pose, her eyes flashing with surprise and lust.

  “You threw me.”

  “You can handle it.”

  “Is that a normal part of sex?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Fun.” And then she lunged at him. She caught him off balance and had him tipping backwards, halfway off the bed. He barely had time to catch one arm down on the floor to keep them from the hard two-foot drop.

  He laughed, which wasn’t something he’d known he could do with a dick this hard. He lifted one leg, pinned the lower half of her body to his and rolled them.

  She wiggled out from under him and pinned his hands in a retaliatory fashion. He growled and laughed and met her mouth halfway to his.

  Their teeth clacked and tongues slid and he wanted to drink her down like an elixir of life. The irony was not lost on him that the one thing that made him want to live forever had such a pending expiration date on it.

  He broke the hold her hands had on his wrists and dragged the flats of his hands over her back. Her wetness pressed against his lower belly as she bent over him, slamming her lips to his.

  And just like that. Zap! Her fingertips on his chest zapped the shit out of him with her energy. It was an instant sharp bite of discomfort that melted into a zinging heat that spread instantly out from the point of contact.

  He liked it.

  Her energy came out in her lips and then her tongue. He swallowed that gold energy down and it was like taking sips from a lightning bolt. She was white-hot and floral and fruity and burning so bright he could almost feel her changing shapes in his arms, like she was made of molten bronze.

  She zapped him again and their moans twisted together. He tossed her again, this time with less force, and had her splayed out on her back.

  “I’m going to kiss you here,” he told her, spreading her legs and leaning over her, remembering at the last second that she was a virgin and he should probably spell this out for her at least a little bit.

  “What? Yes? I—Oh! Oh, that’s so nice. That’s so—oh, God.”

  Her hand twisted through his hair and he welcomed the bite of pain. It kept him from diving face first into the unbelievable flavor of her body. He licked at her gently, getting accustomed to what it felt like to go down on a being made of light. She was electric and pulsing and tasted like she was literally made of flowers. How could that even be? But it was.

  His tongue gently circled her clit as her thighs trembled on either side of his ears. When she was breathily begging him for something, he finally let his tongue tour downward. He was correct about the soft and wet but she seemed to almost liquefy under the touch of his tongue. He licked inside her, letting his tongue work a circle around her channel. It was when he lost his tongue inside her that he lost himself completely.

  Martine felt the energy shift in his body. He’d been holding himself tightly under control, trying to keep the two of them from drowning in one another. But then his tongue went inside her and a sharp crackle of blue energy pinwheeled out of him, over his skin. He was sparking where he touched her and his hands suddenly gripped her thighs in a tight clasp. He’d gone from deftly pleasuring her, to gorging himself.

  Martine felt like she’d just had the door flung wide on her own pleasure. She wanted all of it to get out of the house, to get lost in the great outdoors. She wanted her pleasure to be free and part of the world. She wanted
it to live and breathe between her and Arturo. She wanted—she had no idea what she wanted, but his mouth was pretty much doing the trick.

  She planted her heels in his back and lifted her hips to his mouth. Martine could feel herself losing control and she did nothing to stop it and nothing to censor herself.

  “I—oh, God. I’m not sure—that’s, please never stop that—Arturo! I’m gonna—”

  Arturo felt her body tighten, her pussy clamp down around his tongue and then there was just a golden silhouette where his hands had been full of woman. Her shape was still there, but she was golden and trembling light. He could see through her to the bedspread beneath her. She shimmered and pulled tight and gasped and then she was there, back in his arms, sweaty and pink and perfect.

  “That was… that felt so good. Oh.” She lunged forward while his mouth was still hanging open, because, you know, she’d just come so hard she’d turned into a creature made of light. But if he was freaked out, it didn’t last for much longer because her mouth was clamped to his and she straddled his lap.

  Her tongue in his mouth, he flipped them so that she was on her back underneath him and her legs clamped hard around his waist.

  “I need to be inside you,” he told her, point-blank. “Now.”

  “Yes,” she nodded her head and spread her legs wide.

  He reared back onto his haunches, the base of his dick in his hand, ready to plunge right into her and end this gorgeous torture. But he froze as he let his eyes trail over her. He was stunned at what he saw there.

  He couldn’t believe that this woman, this creature, had chosen him. She’d had a crush on him. She was so wet for him he could see it glistening on her thighs. She’d patiently and unselfishly observed his relationship with another woman. She’d given him the gift of his energy, his shifter powers, all to protect him. Even now, she was protecting him, shielding him from the demon.

  He pictured her the way she’d been described on the night the demon had tried to possess him. Crouching over him, knives drawn, willing to fight to the death over his soul.

  “This can’t all be for me.” He gripped his hair and looked down at her beautiful, panting body, a sheen of sweat and golden energy all over her. Her strawberry hair darkened and clung to the sweat on her neck. She was reaching for him again and something about that just chopped the legs out from under him.

  He didn’t dare touch her yet.

  “I’ll give you anything,” he told her, his chest expanding and contracting violently. “Anything you ask for, I’ll give you.”

  “I want to feel good.”

  “Done.”

  “I want companionship.”

  “I swear to God I won’t leave your side.”

  “I want what they have,” she tossed her head to indicate all the other couples occupying the house.

  He scoffed arrogantly. “Those mortals? Please, Wings, what you and I will have will be infinitely greater than anything they could even imagine.”

  She laughed and reached for him again and this time he came into her arms. He didn’t give her his weight, but he curled himself around her, equal parts protecting her and attempting to burrow inside of her.

  “But what should I give you?” she asked him in between those feather-light kisses that scrambled her thoughts.

  “Mmm, just let me be near you.” He breathed life into her. “Let me taste you. Let me be next to your light. God. I’m so sick of the dark. Let me have some of your light.”

  “All of it,” she told him with the same generosity and resolution that he’d just shown to her. She would have given him the life-spark in her heart if she could have.

  Instead, she let some of her energy slowly wrap around them. She was thrilling him, sparking him, driving him mad with need and she loved it.

  Arturo’s eyes were closed, so he didn’t observe the cocoon of golden energy that had begun to swirl around the two of them. His face was buried in Martine’s neck as he wrapped her legs around his waist, found her pussy with clumsy, wide fingers and pressed the head of his cock into her, just an inch.

  Martine felt utterly pinned, but still her energy raced around the two of them. She did what she’d done before and used her energy to coax his out. She wanted to feel all of him. She had his body, she was pretty sure she had his emotions, but now she wanted his energy. She wanted to press all of her against all of him. Gold and blue. She wanted to mix in every possible way.

  She lifted her hips at the same second he pressed forward, quick and thorough, and he was suddenly flush against her, completely buried.

  It was in that moment—her lips parted, her eyes glazed, everything in her open for the taking—that Martine called forth his energy.

  Suddenly, in an almost violent burst, his blue burst forth and mixed hard with her gold. A swirling tornado of energy surrounded them, obscuring their naked bodies. Blue and gold tangled and swirled.

  Arturo was almost hypnotized by the beauty of it. His temple was to her forehead, his head canted to the side to watch as their energy picked up speed and spin. It was as if there was a cord of electricity plugged in and pulling at every single one of his cells. He felt like he was forty feet tall. He could have launched an airplane, sucked a thunderstorm from the sky. This was what it felt like to be a god.

  Arturo tipped his head back and held her eyes with his as tucked his hips into hers and went even deeper. She made a little noise and it hit him hard. It was just the cutest little noise. Halfway between a gasp and joy and he cursed himself for forgetting that as powerful as she was, she was still a woman. She was still a beautiful woman in his arms.

  He pulled halfway out and pushed in again. She arched against him and immediately picked up the rhythm he’d started. He was pulling out and pushing back in fast, only to grind against her hard and start it all over again.

  He ripped his head back and breathed raggedly as he lost himself in her. His hips were taking over, dragging both of them into that stuttering, grinding rhythm that just seemed to make sense with her.

  Her ankles locked behind his back and her breath blossomed between them; she was fogging his skin like the glass of a car window. He jammed their faces together as his hands white-knuckled the sheets.

  Their energy swirled as Arturo’s rhythm stumbled and it was all he could do to just hold against her. “Fuck. This is—fuck. More. More.”

  He clamped an arm around her back and rolled to the side. He helped her haul her leg out from under his weight and then they were all spiraled around one another. There wasn’t much leverage or depth in this position, but neither of them cared. She was a writhing, slippery revelation and Arturo could barely keep a grip on her.

  He rolled them back over so that he was on top again and tipped her hips up toward him with one strong palm. He kicked back onto his haunches and hauled her toward him.

  She watched in rising, suspended fascination as he licked one thumb and used it to play loosely with her clit. He had the air of an expert who was absolutely lost to the experience. She had the feeling that his body was taking over where his mind could no longer guide him. His eyes were clouded and harsh, locked on her face. His cock was moving deeply inside her but not sharply. He was soft and so, so intense. Martine loosened the grip of her legs and instead just opened herself even further to him.

  His hips stuttered and his thumb work, work, worked her. There was no more room for thoughts. She rose and rose, trembling.

  Their energy began to mix, blurring together. Where there had only been stripes of yellow and blue, there was now a gorgeous, bright green. It was the color of springtime, of growth and newness and renewal.

  Arturo’s hips picked up speed. He lifted one of her legs and pressed his face into her calf. His mouth came open and he couldn’t help but clamp his teeth around her there. Taste her skin.

  She arched and her hand joined his at her clit and he felt her tighten hard around him. His eyes came open as he fell forward onto her and rode her straight through he
r orgasm. Their energy swirled and whipped around them, almost completely green. He hugged her to him and fucked the hell out of her, four hundred years of loneliness and pain rolling off his back like sweat. He eclipsed, double-helixed, spun away from this earth on another dimension.

  Their energy, green as the bud of a young flower, tightened inexorably around them and then exploded outward. The house shook on its foundation. Every lightbulb shuddered, gasped and blew. The house lit green and gorgeous in one second and in the next second, fell exhaustedly dark.

  CHAPTER TEN

  In every wing of the house, there was a couple laughing. Tre lifted his head and stared in shock at the three lightbulbs in their room that had just completely blown their sockets.

  “Show off,” Tre muttered, chuckling and burying his face in Caroline’s hair as he tugged her closer.

  “Wow,” Caroline laughed in amazement. “You think Arturo and Martine finally did it?”

  “I’m thinking yeah,” Tre said.

  Then she sat up and clapped her hands together. “Oh, I’m so happy! Maybe now they won’t be so lonely.”

  “Is there anything that doesn’t make you happy?” he asked her, tugging his little Wonder Woman back down to his lips.

  Across the house Thea sat all the way up in bed, her mouth open wide enough to catch a passing 747. “Can you believe that son of a bitch?” she griped about Arturo, but the laughter in her eyes softened her words.

  “I guess when you don’t get laid for four hundred years, you tend to shoot the lights out when you finally do,” Jack drawled, feeling lazy and sated from the love he’d just made with Thea. He watched his hand slick up her pale back in the moonlight. There was something about Utah that was bothering him, that he couldn’t quite put a finger on. But right now? When the sun was set and the dark was comfortable and cool and everyone in the house had just gotten laid and well, life was pretty all right.