A Mate For Phoenix (Forbidden Shifters Series Book 4) Read online

  She rubbed the muscles in his pecs, kneading underneath his collar bone. He grumbled and he could feel her smile even though his eyes were closed.

  He tightened up again as she lifted one of his legs up onto her lap. “Deep breaths,” she reminded him.

  He did as she asked and breathed deeply. She massaged his calf and then his feet. Giving the other leg the same treatment. Next she slowly worked her way up to his thighs, working each and every muscle with surprising strength. Her patience and kindness didn’t surprise him though. This was Ida he was talking about. The sweetest person he’d ever known. The most selfless. The one who made it her mission to make him see the good in the world. And how much good she had to show. The thought filled and expanded within him like a light, like his own personal sun in his chest.

  Ida was good. This was what it felt like to be loved. Truly loved. He was certain of it.

  The heat in his chest, combined with the massage, the hoot of the owls, the wind in the leaves, the soothing trickle of the creek, the heat of the water, all of it worked in unison and then, for a moment, Phoenix felt the way he usually felt during a full moon. He felt the strength of his shift inside of him. He felt his wolf, close to the surface. He knew he wasn’t going to shift tonight, that much was clear. But he suddenly wasn’t undergoing all the deeply stunted discomfort from before. No. He felt … good.

  And maybe it had something to do with her hands on his thighs. His cock stirred. He felt really good.

  He moved his arms through the water and grasped her around the waist, gently pulling her forward until she straddled his hips, his cock pressing into the soft cheek of her ass again.

  “You’re the sweetest woman of all time,” he told her, that energy coursing through him, his body still lazily relaxed from her massage.

  Her eyes flared. “I just want you to feel good.”

  More blood pumped into his dick. There just really was something about a sweet, soft, willing woman saying that to a man.

  “You want to take care of me, Ida?” he murmured, his lips teasing over hers.

  “Yes,” she whispered immediately. “Anything you need.”

  “You’ll give me anything I need?” His arm, braced around her hips, started to rock her back and forth against his erection.

  “God, yes,” she gasped, letting her head drop back, her hands gripping his shoulders.

  But he didn’t want her mouth out of reach. He laced his fingers through her hair and brought her mouth to his, he kissed her deeply, not as forcefully as before, but just as demanding. He opened her completely to him, his tongue touching every surface in her mouth, drawing her into him.

  He wasn’t sure if it was her or him who moved but suddenly her slick-hot pussy was slipping along the length of his cock, almost to the tip, before she eased back down, resting at his base. He tugged at her waist, she rolled her hips, and they did the move again.

  Their kisses were long and drugging and messily slow. His arm, tight at her hips, dragged her up and down his dick, teasing them both into rough breathing, stars in their eyes, the night narrowing down to just the two of them. Nothing else. Not the moon in the sky, not even the oxygen in the air. It was just them. This moment, this feeling between their legs.

  Every time her pussy met the head of his dick, she tipped her hips down and ground down a little bit. She was playing with her clit, he realized. She’d taught him about that particular part of her anatomy and Phoenix had to say, he was a major fan. Up to now, it had been his fingers or mouth pleasuring her clit, but he wondered now if he could do it with his cock. His arousal spiked at that idea.

  He started working her faster over him. She was gasping into his mouth, her lips between his teeth, her fingers biting into his shoulders. The moon energy was bursting stars in his veins, or maybe that was just Ida, that was just what it felt like to be this close, this connected with the woman he—

  Loved.

  There was no doubt in his mind that he loved her. She’d brought him back to life. She’d shown him the beautiful parts of the human world. She’d magicked away his pain and now she was gifting him with the most pleasure he’d maybe ever felt in his entire life. This was love in its most primal, most desperate form and he wanted more. He wanted it all. He wanted all of her.

  She was trembling against him and this time, when her pussy ground against the head of his dick, she tipped her hips forward, just a little bit more and for a glancing second, caught him inside of her. He ripped his mouth away from hers and made a rough, breathless noise. A thought occurred to him.

  “Humans have sex like this? In this position?” They’d never gotten around to watching more porn, so he was certain there was still a great deal he didn’t know.

  Ida bit her lip and nodded her head, her eyes half lidded, looking almost delirious with pleasure. She did it again. She slicked herself up his length, ground her clit against the head of his dick and then tipped forward, slipping him inside a half an inch before she was sliding back.

  Now Phoenix was genuinely seeing stars as each time she slid up his length she let him inside just a tiny bit. God, he wanted it. To be inside her. And in this position? His mind was sort of blown. Her sitting in his lap, his cock spearing into her from below. It hadn’t even occurred to him that she would like this, but now he could fully see why she would. If she took him inside like this, he could touch her clit and suck on her breasts. He could kiss her mouth while they had sex.

  He started grunting and moving her back and forth with his strength, impatient and horny and pushed to the edge.

  This time, when she came up to the tip, she pushed down just a tiny bit harder and the entire head of his cock slipped inside her, pushing past the resistance of her tightness and making Ida throw her head back and scream his name into the night.

  But then she was off of him and torturing him again. He’d had almost enough. He held her hips away from him, and spread his legs so that her thighs were open to the limit. He reached under water and took his dick in hand, he pressed the head to her opening, his eyes asking hers for permission.

  But the second he touched her heat there, he realized why she’d had so much fun teasing him. Because when he pressed into her, letting the head of his dick pop into her tight channel, her entire body shook with pleasure, the same way his surely had just a moment ago. He pulled out of her and guided his cock to her clit, drawing slow circles.

  He teased her mercilessly, and she began to truly tremble. She knocked his hand away from his dick and sat down on him again, trapping his cock between them and slipping forward so that only the head was caught inside again. He pulsed inside of her, all his blood and concentration focused there, on that feeling.

  Her mouth sought his and he gladly obliged her, their tongues pushing against one another just like their hips so obviously wanted to. This time, when he jutted up against her, pushing in just a quarter inch, she didn’t pull away from him. She moaned and kissed him harder, sucking his tongue.

  “You’ll give me anything I need?” he asked, pressing his hips upward infinitesimally, just enough for her to feel.

  She didn’t even hesitate. Not even for the length of a blink. “Anything,” she whispered. “God, Phoenix, I’ll give you everything.”

  With that, he banded one arm around her hips, held her still, speared inside of her all the way to the base.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Ida knew that she was playing with fire. But she honestly didn’t care. She hadn’t even cared enough to have gone to get the condoms from the car. At that very second Phoenix Wolf’s cock was buried nine inches deep inside of her and completely bare. She knew he was clean, because he’d unabashedly discussed that with Jackson in front of her just the other day. And she knew she was clean. And she was good about her birth control. So, it wasn’t that crazy. Right?

  No. Fuck that. This was utter insanity. But she didn’t care. She was finally, finally making love to this man, she finally had him inside of her. And all
the pain she’d seen on his face just an hour earlier, it was gone. Completely. She was blissing him out. Giving him everything. And there was no going back. Nothing was going to take this moment from her. Not reality, not the future, and certainly not her idiotic fears.

  He tugged her mouth back to his and Ida screamed against his tongue when his hips started up a thoroughly shocking beat against her. Something about the warm water and the romance of the wind through the trees had made her think that maybe they were going to gently make love. But nope. She’d apparently pushed the man to his limit and he jacked his hips up into her. She knew that were their hips not under water, they’d be making obscene sex noises right now. The slap of skin, her wetness against him. She didn’t care. She still thought it was romantic, how badly he needed her, how badly she needed him.

  But she wasn’t going to be able to come from a pounding like this, so she braced herself against him and held on his upstroke, grinding her clit against his base. There. That was nice— oh shit- his thumb had come out to play and now he was playing with her clit and fucking her at the same time.

  Apparently he was a fast learner.

  He worked her hard from below and Ida was dazzled by the expression on his face. It was a cross between birth and death.

  He thrust particularly brutally and Ida screamed, tossing her head back. When her vision cleared he was watching her, his hips stilling. “This feels good or bad?”

  “Oh God. Both. Everything. More.”

  “Show me,” he demanded of her the way he had before. “Show me how you like it, Ida. I’ll do anything. You just have to show me.”

  She patted the soft riverbank grass behind his back. “Lay me here.”

  He lifted her immediately, pulling out of her and Ida scrambled onto her back, spreading her legs for him.

  “Now come here.”

  She opened her arms for a hug and he was immediately there, holding her close. “Like this?” He asked, pressing the words into her neck and shoulder. “You want me inside you like this?”

  “Yes,” she gasped, barely through the word before he’d leaned back, lined up, and stroked inside of her.

  Her back arched, the grass scratched at her back, the air was dizzyingly cold, she was in heaven. She shook against him as he took long, smooth strokes, his mouth opening against her collarbone, his teeth glancing against her. She clamped her feet around his waist and guided him in to a tight clasp, working his pelvis up and down against hers. His head raised and he read her expression, taking over the movement from her and riding her clit, every inch of his cock lodged deeply inside of her.

  Again she was arching and saying words and trembling on the edge of oblivion like a water droplet about to tumble off a leaf. She said something into his ear three times. But her body didn’t let her dwell on it for long because the orgasm that zipped itself up tight through her was a world-ender. She tightened and screamed and tried not to scratch the hell out of his back. Her back was fully off the ground, her eyes wide and unseeing. Ecstasy was as sharply flavored as lemon. She shook and shook hard, her legs tight, her breath frozen in her lungs.

  When she came down from it, he was already sliding them backwards into the spring. Holding her tightly against him. Something had changed, she realized. The furious tenor of his fucking was brought down to a more intimate level.

  “I won’t,” he told her, messily kissing her mouth. “I won’t.”

  He was apparently answering whatever she’d said into his ear, but she couldn’t remember what it was, couldn’t think of anything but his hips still moving against her. He sat back down, held her hips tight and ground her down onto him.

  His eyes were wide, his head thrown back, the moon high in the sky now. Ida, looking down at him from where she gripped his shoulders saw that the full moon was reflected in his unseeing pupils, her own face reflected just below that.

  And then his eyes were slammed shut, he was pulling out of her and sandwiching his cock between them, roaring into her skin, tensing and flexing and coming.

  ***

  Ida held him tight and he was grateful for it. He was so relaxed he thought he might just unspool into the water if not for her grip on him. The roaring, everywhere energy of the full moon was still there, still present, but it was in the background, tamed and more of a hum than a roar.

  His shoulders, exposed in the cold air, were freezing cold. And so were his ears and his nose. He shook. He shook the way Ida had shaken when he’d fucked her on the riverbank and he knew it was for the exact same reason. Because in that moment, he was completely and utterly at her mercy, just the way she’d been for him. Somehow this tender, sweet, goofy, clumsy woman had taken everything dangerous that he was and tamed him. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her.

  Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. She’d begged him, her lips to his ear, right before she’d come. And in that moment, he hadn’t known what she’d meant. Did she mean right then? Was she asking him not to pull out? Or more likely, was she disarmed and vulnerable and about to come and asking him for what she truly wanted, what she’d never ask him for when they weren’t naked and laid bare and completely wrapped up in one another.

  Was she asking him not to go into the wilderness without her?

  He’d taken her statement to mean all of the above and, Jesus Christ, he’d agreed. Wholly and without reservation, he’d agreed to stay with her. I won’t, he’d told her. I won’t leave you. And he’d meant it. And even now, shaking, his head tipped back onto the riverbank, the moon in his eyes, his orgasm fully receded, he still meant it. He meant it because in the end, all it had really taken was for her to ask for it.

  He shook more.

  She pressed her warm cheek against his freezing one. “Ready to get out?” she asked quietly.

  “Yeah.”

  She dunked under the water of the hot spring, cleaning off any dirt and grass that still clung to her and he did the same. When he stepped out fully into the freezing air, she was there with a fluffy towel that he scraped across his trembling body.

  She shuffled him into warm clothes and then sat him in the backseat of the car and made him drink two bottles of water, eat another huge sandwich, and a snickers bar. And then she was shuffling him into their tent, which was filled to the brim with pillows and blankets and then it was filled with Ida too.

  She zipped them closed, closing out the world, but unzipped a flap at the top so that they could see the sky from where they lay next to one another, blankets up to their chins.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, perhaps noticing that he hadn’t completely stopped shaking yet.

  Completely at your mercy. “Strange,” he answered truthfully.

  “Because of the full moon and your shift? Or because we had sex?”

  “Both,” he answered, again truthfully.

  He pulled her close and kissed her, sensing that she was a little worried.

  “I think that was the most perfect moment of my entire life,” he told her. “I’ve never felt like that before.”

  She lifted her face to catch his eye, her cheeks pink. “Me neither. Sex with you is… really good.”

  He laughed at her lackluster compliment. “I don’t think I even have to tell you that you’re the best sex I’ve ever had.”

  Even so, she still smiled, tucking away her satisfied expression into his shoulder. After a moment, she resurfaced. “Can I ask, um, what your other experiences were like? I mean,” she rushed on, “using context clues and things that you’ve said, I think I can guess about a lot of it, but yeah, I’m just curious, I guess?”

  It didn’t take a lifetime of human experiences to recognize this as very sticky territory. What woman wanted to hear about past sexual partners? What man for that matter? Did Phoenix want to picture any of the twerpy, sniveling, nothings who had happened to have the honor of being inside of her before? No. Not at all. As far as he was concerned, now that he was here, holding her underneath the full moon,
underneath these blankets, none of those men even existed. They’d popped into thin air the moment he’d realized that he loved her. That he wasn’t leaving her.

  “Ida,” he answered, more wisely than he could have possibly known. “Is there something specific you’re wondering about?”

  She pushed her face against his shoulder again. “Yeah. Um. I guess I’m wondering about why you pulled out? If you’ve, um, done that before?”

  Ah. He understood now. Technical details he was much more comfortable divulging. Rather than details about the women themselves. “No, I’ve never pulled out before.”

  “Oh,” she whispered.

  “I’ve always used condoms before.”

  She immediately poked her head up and stared at him through the dim light. “What? Really? You’ve always used condoms?”

  He nodded at her, secretly tickled by her reaction but giving away nothing with his expression. “I’m not a complete sexual idiot, Ida. I understand the biology of sex.”

  “Right. But there are people in the US who go through an entire twelve grades of public school and don’t even know how to use a condom. How the hell did you figure it out?”

  “The first time I ever went into town to find a woman to be with there was a bowl of condoms in the bathroom. I wasn’t sure what they were but I took some. And the woman, she uh, put one on me. After that, I always used them because I didn’t want to have a kid I couldn’t take care of. And then, after the fire, they gave us all sorts of lectures in the hospital and then in the different government programs they sent us to. They really don’t want shifters to accidentally procreate, I guess.”

  “I— wow.” She turned up to look at him. “Just so you know, I’m on birth control.”

  He blinked down at her. “So, you’re saying…”

  “That it’s very statistically unlikely for me to get pregnant even if you hadn’t pulled out. But it was still a gentlemanly thing to do. Even if pulling out really isn’t a very reliable way to avoid unwanted pregnancy.”