The Shifter's Desire Page 16

  The feeling of their energies mixing—even without their physical bodies touching—was just about as close to orgasmic as a feeling could get. He could feel each and every one of his cells vibrating with heat and pleasure as their energies slipped and slid and mixed. He could see her through foggy eyes. She’d fallen to her back on the bed. Her feet planted and her back arching, her eyes on his.

  She was clearly experiencing the exact same ecstasy that he was. She tangled her hands in her hair, stretched her arms out over top of her as her pink-tipped breasts tightened and called out to his hands. She spread her legs and gave him a gorgeous shot of glistening pink pussy, begging for his mouth.

  His breath was ragged and shallow, his hands in fists. He wouldn’t move until she told him, he could give her this. He forced his energy further into hers and even more mixed. She cried out on the bed, her thighs trembling. She spread her legs even further, her eyes locked on his.

  Then finally, finally, she reached her hand out toward him.

  “I need you,” she whispered.

  He was across the room in two large steps, their combined energy rushing with him. Arturo’s hands came to Martine’s knees. One he pushed all the way down to the bed, the other he turned and clasped around his waist.

  One of his knees on the bed, he slid her hips up and slammed his way home, her slick-hot pussy greeting and gripping him to the hilt.

  “Yes!” she screamed, her hands taking great fistfuls of the sheets.

  Their energy buzzed and whirled, heightening all the feelings. It was not slow and sensuous. Arturo was soul-deep inside her and pulled out just enough to jack himself back in. She was coming by his third rough stroke and he was coming by his tenth.

  He jutted forward and grunted into her mouth, needling her lip with his teeth and grabbing her ass hard as he pressed them together.

  “Jesus,” he gasped into her hair. “Jesus.”

  Her arms gripped his back but slid down when she found she simply didn’t have the strength for that right at that moment. He pushed them up the bed so that he could collapse over her, but he didn’t disconnect them. He would have slept inside her if he could have.

  He petted her hair and whispered nonsense words in her ear. He couldn’t believe what had just happened, could barely understand it. He hadn’t known, couldn’t possibly have anticipated what it would feel like to be so seen. To have one soul mix with his.

  “I wasn’t even sure if I still had a soul before you.”

  “I was sure,” she whispered back. “I’ve—” She cut herself off and suddenly there was an intensity in her eyes.

  She was searching him for something and he hoped to God he possessed it.

  “Do you remember when you told me that you would give me anything?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you still feel that way?”

  “Wings, how could you ask me that? All of this,” he gestured at himself, at his heart, at the air behind them, at what had just happened. “All of this is for you. I’ll give you anything.”

  “I want love,” she told him immediately, unabashedly.

  He grunted, like she’d just hit him with a gut shot. If he hadn’t been sure he’d had a soul, then he’d been even less sure that he’d had love to give. It wasn’t that he was scared of giving it, it was that he simply wasn’t sure he could give it. He got the sudden image of himself walking a thousand miles to meet her in the desert and then realizing he’d forgotten to bring the water.

  He slammed his eyes closed. For just a moment, he pretended that the demon had never taken him. That he’d never served him. That the last four hundred years had never happened. That he was mortal Arturo, pulsing inside a woman he’d just made love to. He opened his eyes and saw her there, light freckles on the bridge of her nose, strawberry hair in a glossy tangle, big green eyes waiting patiently for an answer.

  And he found that it wasn’t really so hard. Not after all. He found that he had the answer. It was inside him, he’d just had to remember how to find his way there.

  “It’s yours,” he replied, his mouth dropping down to sip from hers. “All the love that I have to give, it’s yours.”

  “No,” she shook her head, her eyes glistening with happy tears. “Not all of it. I don’t want all of it. Save some of it for other people, too.”

  “I’ll try. But no promises. All my love seems to flow straight toward you.”

  There was an anxious racing in him, like an upended jug of wine emptying itself out onto the floor.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  The racing within him stopped. She’d corked the wine.

  He took a deep breath. “Say it again.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you,” he replied so quickly they laughed.

  She gasped as she felt him growing hard within her. “Oh.”

  “Say it again.”

  “I love you,” she whispered and gasped again as he pushed into her.

  This time it was slow, but not lazy. Martine felt every microscopic slide of his skin against hers. Their energy wasn’t mixing, at least not as intensely as before, but that didn’t seem to matter. She could simply sense his focus, his attention to her every breath and expression, every sound she made. His hands were tangled in her hair as he braced his weight on his elbows and loved her hard. They kissed for a moment but then that was too much and their faces rolled.

  Their cheeks jammed together as he rolled himself into her, each thrust rounder than the last. He was creating a rhythmic, sliding roll that touched every single pleasure point she had.

  Martine was vaguely aware that her nails were scoring his back and that her thighs were trembling at his hips. “More,” she told him. “Give me more of your weight.”

  He followed her request immediately, pressing her hard into the mattress and giving her everything he had to give. His thrusts weren’t sharp. They were still rolling and fluid, but he was deeper than he’d ever been before.

  When Martine came, it was from deep within and it had no clear beginning, and all she knew was that she’d never felt pleasure that acute in her life. She was tight and trembling beneath him. When she fell back from him, it was to the realization that she’d bitten the hell out of his shoulder. He didn’t seem to mind.

  She reached up to his face, drew his eyes to hers and had the immense pleasure and privilege of watching him fall over the edge. His eyes dilated hard and fast, pure black, his mouth somehow slackened and tightened all at once. He was seeing her and loving her and exploding inside her all at once.

  Her energy stayed within her and his stayed within him. This connection that the two of them felt, as he fell over her again and pressed his racing heart to hers, wasn’t supernatural. It was human.

  ***

  “Come for a walk with me.”

  Her eyes had barely fluttered open yet. The sunrise was just peeking its head over the edge of the cliffs out back. Her body was loose and sated and sore and perfect.

  “Hmm?” she stretched and rolled into the warmth of his body.

  “Come for a walk with me,” he repeated.

  “Now? It’s barely five.”

  “We’ll bring coffee. Just come with me.”

  Just as he wanted to give her anything she asked for, she didn’t particularly have a strong immunity toward giving him whatever he wanted either. And he was asking so sweetly and kissing so nicely along her neck. She couldn’t deny him.

  But she could certainly groan as she rolled out of bed. She laughed when suddenly a toothbrush complete with toothpaste was gently inserted into her mouth. Her eyes came open fully and she brushed and walked to the bathroom. She came back out, got dressed, and, much more alert now, followed Arturo out the back door.

  They passed back and forth a Thermos of coffee and padded quietly along the roadside until they came to the entrance of Bryce Canyon National Park. He led her in and past all the tourist view points, though they were fairly empty at that point.
They walked the rim of the canyon until he found a good spot and they sat on a patch of clumpy, silvery grass. The sun was just coming fully over the far edge of the canyon.

  The shadows made the landscape look even more alien. The tall, orange rock spires looked almost like figures lit from one side, spearing up toward the sky, praying for whatever came next.

  Arturo could hear a bird chirping from somewhere in the canyon and in the stillness of the morning, with the acoustics of the canyon, the sound carried for miles. Something in that fortified him.

  Even a small noise had the capacity to be heard from a great distance. Even though their relationship would be a short one, cut off by whatever fate the demon brought for them, it didn’t make it any less important, or beautiful, or meaningful. Some relationships were defined by their length, others were defined by the intensity of feeling. And Arturo found himself comfortable with being the latter.

  “Martine,” he murmured, as she looked out over the gorgeous landscape in front of them. “I want to marry you.”

  “What?” she nearly bobbled the Thermos, her eyes growing large and her mouth falling open.

  He gently took the Thermos from her hands and set it aside. “We talk about how we wish we could do all these normal things together. Have a house, cook dinner, fight about chores, raise kids. But we can’t. We both know that our lives are on a crash course with the demon. We’re going to kill him. I feel it in my heart. Which means that—” His voice broke, unable to say the words out loud.

  “That I will pass on.”

  He nodded tersely. “And most likely, so will I. My life force is tied up with his and there’s no reason to pretend it isn’t.”

  “But you still want to get married?”

  He nodded. “It’s very important to me. I don’t want to do it just to pretend that everything will be okay. I don’t want to do it to imitate mortals and their traditions. I want to do it because you and I love one another. And though it will most likely be a short marriage, it will be a strong one, too. I want to live the rest of my life with you. I want to die by your side. I will die by your side. As your husband.”

  Martine opened her mouth but Arturo suddenly clapped a hand over it.

  “Wait. I’m fucking this up. I’m asking you to marry me but all I’m talking about is death. No. That’s not what I even really want to say. What I really want to tell you is that you brought me back to life. I have been living with no soul. No heart. For damn near four centuries. I didn’t think I was capable of love. Or tenderness. Or affection. Or kindness. But you not only drew those feelings out of me. You reminded me that that’s who I used to be. Who I really am. You didn’t let the demon take away my humanity when you made me a shifter and gifted me with my energy. But you also didn’t let him take away my heart. The man that I am, sitting here right now, that’s because of you.”

  He took one more deep, cleansing breath. “Marry me.”

  Golden tear tracks hit the side of his hand and he realized that he was still covering her mouth. He hastily removed his hand and she gave a little shuddering laugh. “I’m going to love you forever anyways, so we might as well tie the knot.”

  She flung herself forward and Arturo gripped her hard to his chest, his arms full of this strong, badass woman who was filled with so much tenderness on the inside he could barely believe it. He kissed her hair, her ear, her neck, the strap of her shirt.

  She was doing the same thing to him. Attempting to kiss every scrape of his beard, his eyelids, the bridge of his nose.

  “Here,” he told her, laughing at himself and wondering when the hell he’d gotten so sentimental. “Here. Now you can have this.”

  He handed over a ring with a shiny gold band and an even shinier green diamond set atop it.

  Martine gasped, her hands going to her cheeks. “The stone is the exact same color as our energies when we mix!”

  “That’s why I chose it, Wings.” He leaned in to kiss her. “Martine, breathe.”

  She took a huge breath all at once and then flung herself backward to stare at the sky. She hadn’t touched the ring yet.

  “I can’t believe that’s for me. I can’t believe this whole thing is for me. I can’t believe you’re for me.”

  “I only wish it had happened sooner. When we had more time.”

  She sat up and snatched the ring from him, jamming it on her finger. “No more sadness. We found each other. We’re here. And we’re going to fight honorably and nobly when the demon comes. And we will not let him take one of our mortals’ souls.”

  ***

  They returned in the middle of breakfast and found the group sitting around the kitchen table. To Martine’s surprise, there were glasses of champagne at every table setting.

  “There you are!” Caroline crowed. “You’ll never believe what’s HAPpened!” Her voice rose in a melodic, sing-song way that showed exactly how excited she was.

  “Martine and I are getting married,” Arturo bluntly told the group.

  Stunned silent, Caroline just sort of slumped back onto Tre’s lap. The group couldn’t help but laugh at the expression on her face.

  “Love,” Tre told her. “Deep breath, it’s all gonna be all right.” He turned to the group. “I think she’s overloading on happiness. We finally found out the answer to how much happiness is too much for Caroline.”

  “Apparently three engagements will do it,” Celia said, laughing into her champagne.

  “Three?” Martine asked in surprise.

  “You.” Caroline pointed at Martine. “Me.” She pointed at herself. “Thea.” She pointed at Thea who merely lifted an eyebrow and flicked open a jackknife.

  “How’d he propose?” Caroline asked, bouncing on Tre’s lap.

  Arturo bit back a groan. It was obviously a tradition to rehash the events that had just taken place, but frankly, he’d rather drink poison. Martine, however, was positively glowing, staring down at her ring and sort of floating across the room. So, who cared, really? He pulled out a chair for her and slid into the seat next to hers.

  “He took me to the canyon and we watched the sunrise.”

  “Beautiful,” Caroline sighed.

  “And symbolic,” Arturo said with a frown. “It was supposed to represent the new day ahead of us and, ah,” he cleared his throat, suddenly feeling a little heat around the collar. “And some other stuff, too. But I guess I forgot to say all that.”

  “Well, proposing to a woman will fuck with your head, that’s for sure,” Jean Luc said. “I basically blacked out and hoped that when I came to, I’d have said something cogent enough for her to realize what the hell was happening.”

  “I was, uh, pretty flustered myself,” Tre admitted, going red at the ears.

  “He proposed during sex,” Caroline stage-whispered, one hand pretending to block the sound.

  “No shit?!” Jack laughed and Jean Luc leaned across the table to smack Tre on the back.

  Arturo suddenly felt a whole lot less self-conscious about his proposal. At least he hadn’t blurted it out during sex.

  But Caroline was sparkling with delight. “It was perfect. I’d describe it more but—”

  Tre kissed her quickly to get her to stop talking. “But you kinda had to be there.”

  “How’d you get engaged?” Martine asked Thea.

  Thea grinned at Jack. “He shook me awake in the middle of the night and shoved a knife in my hand.”

  The men laughed, because they all knew that Jack had given her a jackknife instead of a ring, but the other three women looked genuinely confused until Thea cracked and showed them the beautiful knife. “He handed it to me and told me that I was the strongest, most individual person he’d ever met in his life and that it would be an honor to walk beside me. And then he told me that he’d get me some sparkly shit to wear if I wanted it but he figured I’d rather get some use out of my engagement gift.”

  “It’s perfect,” Martine said, emotion clogging her throat. She thought of Arturo’
s group, of how swiftly the demon had descended on them. They’d been caught unawares and had suffered for it, all of their relationships in disarray and confusion. But this time, they were stronger. They were knit together. They were friends, real friends. They had connections to one another and to the places they’d done battle. And there was love. Palpable love.

  Let the demon come, she thought. She wasn’t ready to die. And she’d never be ready to give up Arturo, but this was her destiny. This was the way it was going to happen no matter what her personal life held. So why not now? When she’d finally tasted happiness and fulfillment.

  She turned to Arturo. “This was exactly the way it was all supposed to happen.”

  He knew exactly what she meant.

  ***

  The demon seethed in his dark place. He’d recovered from his run-in with Martine. He was hungry, angry, and restless.

  But something was happening with the seven that he couldn’t understand or explain. The house was so bright, so filled with color, that he could barely stand to watch it. It was as if they’d left every single light on. But the demon knew it was more than that. They’d formed bonds that were greater than he’d ever anticipated.

  It meant that he could no longer wait. It meant that now was the time to strike and strike hard. Now was the time to end this.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  That night, after a day of grueling shifter practice, they decided to grill on the back porch. They knew that their month was winding down. They could see it in the moon, on the calendar, in the bite in the air each night. The autumn was coming and somehow, they knew that this adventure wouldn’t change with the seasons. It was going to end. And soon.

  They were fortified as a group in a way that they had never been before. The bond between each couple was incredibly strong, but the bonds between the friendships was stronger than ever before as well.

  This fortified them, but it also made them each a little nervous, because to them, it seemed as if there were nothing else to happen but for the demon to come.