Danil's Mate (Secret Shifters of Spokane #1) Read online

  She tried desperately to think of something to say. Anything. But she didn’t get the chance. Because he was pulling out of her and dragging her up his body. Before she could even blink, he’d planted her on his face, his mouth devouring her pussy like she’d never experienced. She’d fully expected this encounter to be over with, you know, the twin orgasms. But apparently not.

  Dora fell partially forward, gripping the headboard for dear life as he tore another orgasm out of her with his devilish mouth. Jesus, this guy must chew a lot of gum or something. His mouth was inhuman. But she didn’t have time to think about it as her next orgasm buzzed through her like white lighting, almost as strong as the first one.

  Then she really did fall forward. Partially landing on his face and partially just lying flat out on the bed. Dora dragged in breath like she’d just run a marathon and it was all she could do to tilt her head to one side so she wouldn’t suffocate in his pillow. A pillow that smelled just like him. Pine trees and morning air.

  And then he was tearing another condom open and Dora’s eyes flung open. He couldn’t be serious? He couldn’t possibly have recovered that fast. But, sure enough, Dora peeked down to stare a raging erection in the eye. Wow.

  Her mouth watered as he sheathed himself but then he was gripping her by the hips, dragging her up to all fours.

  He aligned himself behind her and pressed himself into her, slowly but inescapably, until the front of him was flush against her ass. He fell forward over her, his hands landing on either side of hers as he rutted her like an animal. Dora was shoved forward with every powerful thrust and they moved further up the bed with each one. Finally, when there was nowhere else to go, he reared back up, keeping her pressed against him, so that she was basically sitting in his lap, her back to his front. He kept up the thrusts, anchoring her hands to the headboard underneath his.

  She moaned, incapable of holding it back at this point. Incapable of anything but receiving him. Taking and taking. His teeth came to her ear. Down to her neck and back to her ear.

  “You smell of oranges. You always smell of oranges,” he growled before he stiffened, one hand dropping to her clit. He was pulsing, growing larger inside her as he furiously circled her stiff bud and Dora felt herself explode off into the atmosphere again. This one stronger than the first two combined. She saw nothing. Barely even existed. She forgot her own name.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They fell away from one another as the last trembles of their pleasure rolled through them. They naturally rolled to opposite sides of the bed, like they were tuning forks that couldn’t stand to be touched another second in that state.

  They turned to stare at one another in unison.

  It was a testament to how truly gorgeous her body was that it had taken Danil this long to really see how blue her eyes were. They were like the polar ice caps seen from the sky. The taunting, deep blue that pretended to simply be light.

  No. There was nothing simple about them. Her eyes were bottomless and there was an ocean of secrets behind them.

  A low, long string of Belarusian curses tumbled out of Danil’s mouth as he stared at her. Into her.

  “You can say that again,” Dora said as she pushed her sweaty hair off her forehead, letting her arm collapse back to the bed in exhaustion. She was worn out, he could see that and her body was relaxed, but he watched in fascination as her mind came back to her. He could almost watch the reservations start filing back into her brain. She wasn’t someone who seemed skeptical or suspicious of sex in general. No. Those were feelings she was reserving for Danil himself. Well, he figured they would need to get it out in the open if he was going to prove himself to her. And one of the best ways to get it out in the open was to fight about it. If his brothers were any indication. So, even though she was lying there, her eyes lazily blinking, a little smile on her face, Danil readied himself for the inevitable.

  Danil crossed the bed and laid his head on her soft stomach, staring up at her. His fingers came out to play with one of her nipples, almost absentmindedly. He was marveling at their rose gold color, their responsiveness to his touch. Marveling at this view of her. It was all breasts and her beautiful, angular chin. Her fringe of dark lashes that moved so subtly with the track of her eyes.

  “I’ll bet you can tie a cherry stem in your mouth, huh?” Dora asked.

  Danil raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never tried this.” He was still discombobulated enough that his practiced English wasn’t quite back in its full, flowing form yet.

  “Really?” Dora waved a hand through the air like it didn’t matter. “Well, some people can, and trust me. A guy who can eat pussy like you can would certainly make quick work of a cherry stem.”

  Danil’s eyes raised even further at her frank assessment of his skills, the vulgar phrasing tripping easily off her tongue. Another puzzle piece of who she was clicked neatly into place. He was pleased that so much had been revealed to him in such short time.

  “It never occurred to you to ask for help,” he stated, almost more to himself than to her.

  “Hmmm?” she asked, tracing a hand through his hair as she started to glance around his room. Taking in every detail, he was sure. He knew that not much got past those eyes. That quick brain of hers.

  “When you went snooping at the testing site. Or around my parents’ house in the woods. You never thought ‘this might be too dangerous so I should ask someone to go with me’.”

  Her eyes dropped to his again and he saw her studying him. Taking him in. Her lazy look from a moment ago was gone, replaced with a careful neutrality. “No,” she said slowly. If she was surprised that he knew she’d been snooping at his parents’ house, she didn’t show it.

  “You work alone,” he said. He was fascinated by the slightest flash of pain behind her eyes when he said that.

  So, it was slightly painful for her to work alone, even if she preferred it that way. Well, she was his samotna ptuška, after all.

  “You have handled so much on your own that you think you can handle everything on your own,” he continued. “You don’t scare easily and when you do, you use it as motivation. You’re always one step ahead with both feet on the ground. Like a cat.”

  She was quiet now, her eyes shuttering like a house boarded up for winter time.

  “But that’s over now,” he said, already knowing very well that what he was about to say were fighting words. He welcomed it. It was better than this silent version of her. “Now, when you go to gather information, I go with you. If you insist on finding the danger, then you find it with me.”

  Just as he’d predicted, she sat straight up, dislodging his head from her belly and batting his wandering fingers away from her breast. “That sounded suspiciously like an order.”

  “I prefer calling it the truth.”

  She scoffed from where she sat on the edge of the bed. “Don’t use semantics on me, lawyer.”

  He skated a hand up the landscape of her naked, glorious back. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of looking at that hypnotizing hourglass. She was just so curvy. “Maybe my English is not so good,” he said.

  She turned, her eyebrow arched in disbelief. “Don’t give me that, Dan. I’ve heard you speak without an accent at all.”

  “Fine,” he agreed, pleased that she had paid such close attention to him. “Then perhaps it is because I am Belarusian. But I don’t want a woman I am sleeping with to be putting herself in mortal danger. So, when you need to go scouting for whatever you are looking for, you will ask me and I’ll go with you.”

  “Like hell I will,” she snapped, standing up and turning to face him. Her expression was one of complete war; she wasn’t trying to play her way out of this one and Danil was eating up every minute of it. He was getting the pure, unadulterated Pandora Katsaros and he couldn’t be more into it. Not to mention that she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing on her golden body. Couldn’t fault the view.

  “You know, this is so like a man,” Dora snap
ped. She was on a roll now. “One quick tumble in the hay and suddenly you’re the boss of me.” She gave a disgusted little chuff of a laugh. “God. Why did I expect it to be any different? I don’t need help, a bodyguard, or a project manager, Danil. And fucking me doesn’t give you the qualifications to be any of those things.”

  “Unfortunately, you need all of those things, ptuška.” He had known it was coming, but he was surprised by the way it felt to receive it. Her rejection of him was like sandpaper over a sunburn.

  “You don’t know anything about what I need,” she snapped at him, rooting around on the ground to find her underwear. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  He sat up on the bed, batting her underwear out of her hands as she picked them up. She squeaked in outrage.

  “Please, ptuška,” he said arrogantly. “I know you. The way you fuck tells me everything about you.”

  Her mouth fell open in what he assumed was equal parts outrage and shock. “What. Did. You. Just. Say. To. Me.”

  Danil rolled his eyes to the sky. “American women,” he mumbled. Clearing his throat he decided to fill her in. “I said that the way you fuck tells me more about you than maybe you’d like.”

  Now she was the one who was rolling her eyes. “European men. Think you’re God’s gift to sex. Please. You know what you’re doing in the orgasm department, I’ll give you that. But I’m pretty damn sure you were as single-minded and foggy as I was during the deed. Don’t give me this crap like you were studying me.”

  She was striding toward the door, apparently willing to abandon the underwear in favor of a speedy exit, when he spoke again.

  “You like control. You have it in almost every interaction you have, sexual or not, because of how beautiful you are. It comes naturally that a man would fall before you. The way almost everyone does. You get almost everything you want from life. Except for the things you want the most. Those things you have no idea how to get. How to ask for. When I gave them to you just now, you didn’t even know how to take them. I had to spoon feed you that passion, that pleasure. You would have pushed it away, not even recognizing it for what it was.” Dora’s eyes were like chips of ice, hidden deep beneath her lashes as Danil continued speaking. “You think your defining characteristic is curiosity. But it isn’t. You’re right that it often drives you. But it’s your quest for the truth that’s real. That’s why you accepted me so easily into your body just now.”

  He was standing in front of her, one hand over hers on the doorknob.

  “You accepted me in to you because you see that I wasn’t lying when I said I’d keep you safe. I’d give you a home. You were fuzzy, overwhelmed with it.”

  “Stop,” she said, her eyes startled and cornered, like a wild animal.

  He lifted a hand to her cheek, to soften the blow of his words and was greatly relieved when she didn’t flinch away.

  “You expect to be treated casually,” he said. “So you brace yourself against it. You are comfortable accepting the tip of the iceberg when you deserve the entire ocean. Something in you tells you that you deserve the entire ocean. But you don’t listen to that thing.” His eyes searched hers, he was learning this information almost the same second that he was speaking it. “Because it causes you pain. Whatever it is inside you that demands more is causing you pain.”

  Dora stepped back from him. She flexed her hands at her side like she wanted to cover herself up, but wouldn’t let herself. Her chin raised in the air. “Now let me tell you what I saw.”

  He rolled out a hand as if he were saying ‘be my guest’.

  “I see an arrogant asshole who can’t keep his ridiculous thoughts to himself. I see a man who thinks he can boss me around. I see a man who is NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, smarter than I am. And even if you’ve gotten me off my footing right now, I always gain it back. And then I’m going to win this little sexual chess match. Or whatever the fuck it is you’re playing right now.”

  She whipped the hair out of her eyes and stared him down.

  Danil broke first and chuckled. “Fair enough.”

  Dora furrowed her brow like she wasn’t quite sure of him.

  “Come to my mother’s house for dinner tonight and we can add more pieces to the chess board.”

  “What?” Dora’s mouth dropped open and Danil took the opportunity to kiss it. He swept his tongue through her mouth and was pleased when her tongue met his, if even for a second.

  “Come to my mother’s house. As an invited guest. Really meet my Mama and Papa.”

  “I-” she broke off and furrowed her brow even further. “But I just called you an asshole.”

  He kissed the drawn lines in her forehead and swept her silky hair back. “Yes, but you didn’t mean it. You only said it because of how much you care for me. It was bravado.”

  Dora’s mouth dropped open even further, an outraged squeak tumbling out of her. Danil chose his moment. Picking her up by the backs of her knees he lifted her easily. “That’s okay, call me asshole again if it will make you feel better.”

  “Where are we going?” Dora asked as he stepped out of the bedroom.

  “We shower now,” Danil said, kicking open the bathroom door. “And then I call in sick from work and we go look for whatever clues you want to.”

  ***

  Danil suspected that she had chosen today’s tasks to be especially boring just to spite him. But he didn’t particularly care about that. As long as she wasn’t spelunking down an abandoned mine shaft by herself or whatever mortally dangerous thing she’d probably had planned, then he didn’t care.

  Besides, he liked watching her work. He watched her from across the little table at the coffee shop she’d chosen. She made notes in her notebook as she quasi-casually watched out the window. What she was looking for, he had no earthly clue, and he was sure she wouldn’t tell him if he asked. But again. He didn’t care.

  She was so wildly gorgeous. The clear, sharp lines of her face along with her spiky, angular haircut. There was just something about that combined with the plumpness of her plush lips. It made him want nothing more than to explore her, figure out what was sharp angle and what was soft. So far, everything had been soft. Danil discreetly adjusted himself in his pants as he thought back on their morning together.

  That had… really been something. The magnitude of it was sinking in little by little. He wasn’t sure if he’d be the same after it. He felt different. Like he’d somehow developed a beam of light that went directly from his chest to Dora’s. He couldn’t turn it off. And he didn’t like when anything got in its way.

  Like this kid. The skinny dork of a waiter who kept coming over to chat with Dora. Who, apparently, was a bit of a regular at this cafe. Part of Danil couldn’t blame this kid, because, God, just look at her. But the other part of him wanted to tell skippy to buzz the hell off and go find a girlfriend his own age.

  “You want more hot water for your tea, Dora?”

  “No thanks, Kip,” she replied, a special little smile on her face that Danil was sure Kip was gonna jack off to tonight. “You’re working late this afternoon, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Kip said, intentionally lowering his voice an octave. “Which sucks because I pulled an all-nighter at my other job.”

  “They kept you at the warehouse that long?” Dora asked, widening her eyes and drawing Kip closer. Danil lifted a wry eyebrow and tried not to shift in his seat.

  “Yeah. We got a huge shipment in. So, we had to do a ton of sorting.”

  “It couldn’t have waited until the morning?” she asked.

  “No, they were all overnight packages so they had to be ready for distribution by the morning,” Kip replied, obviously mystified that this gorgeous woman would be so interested in his work schedule.

  Danil was a little mystified himself.

  “Well, I hope your shift ends soon,” Dora said, lifting her cup of tea to him in a cheers. “You should go home and binge on some Netflix and snooze. Or better yet,
find some girl to show a good time.”

  Kip gave a false little laugh, his cheeks turning pink. He obviously didn’t want Dora talking to him about other girls.

  As soon as he walked back behind the counter, Dora’s eyes flicked either way up the street. She rose, tossing some bills out of her back pocket and slinging her messenger bag over her shoulder.

  Danil instantly rose as well. Picking up her money, replacing it with his own. As they walked out, Danil made sure Kip saw him sliding Dora’s cash into her back pocket. He wasn’t worried about the kid making a move on his territory, but you know. Good measure.

  The sun was starting to set and it felt good to stride down the street, matching Dora’s quick pace. They’d been sitting at that coffee shop for the better part of the day and Danil was grateful to stretch his legs. Actually, he would have been even more grateful to shift into his bear form and really get a workout in. But he wasn’t sure how he’d explain that to Dora.

  Actually, he wasn’t sure how he was ever gonna explain that to Dora. He’d just have to get her to understand that no matter what, he still had his own heart. He was still Danil in there. Even when he was a twelve-foot-tall Eurasian Grizzly with fangs the size of a small banana.

  He made a mental note to ask Papa how he’d broken it to Mama when they’d first met.

  “Do I need to dress up to meet your parents?” Dora asked, as if she could read Danil’s thoughts.

  He scanned her outfit, which he was beginning to recognize as her usual. Tight-fitting jeans, a silky, low cut shirt and her bomber jacket. But today it was set off by a pair of small heels. Which she’d probably worn because she’d known they were gonna be sitting in a coffee shop all day.

  “You weren’t staking out the street, were you?” Danil guessed, the puzzle pieces clicking into place.

  “Hmmmm?” she asked, staring forward, evading his question.

  “At first I thought you took the seat by the window to be able to watch for something on the street. But now I realize it was for another reason.”