It took a concerted effort to keep from either grinding her teeth in annoyance or biting her lip as her stomach flipped uncomfortably, insecurities she'd long believed conquered reemerging to taunt her.
Insecurities she rationally knew were entirely unjustified. As though in reassurance, the barely month-old silvery scar on the juncture of her shoulder seemed to tingle.
Unfortunately it did little to help.
It just set her teeth on edge to see another woman sniffing around her mate!
Okay, that was uncharitable. She huffed, leaning back against the table and dropping her face in her hands, forcibly trying to ignore the thrumming, insistent pressure deep in her chest. But seeing the Pack's only unmated female wolf so near the Alpha - her mate - what felt like every time she looked his way? It left her feeling restless and irritable and like her skin was far too tight and too warm and -
"Pet?"
She looked up and the flushed feeling blooming beneath her skin flared at the sight of her mate - her tall, broad, thickly muscled and very, very male mate - standing framed by the back door of their cottage.
Their cottage.
Her mate.
Her core clenched, her knickers suddenly uncomfortably slick and feeling far too restrictive.
His nostrils flared, a low, feral rumble sounding deep in his chest. His gaze gleamed, dark and swiftly bleeding gold and, as palpable as a physical touch, slid slowly, sensually down from hers to her parted lips and further to the suddenly pronounced rise and fall of her chest.
And lower still as she leant back against the table, letting her knickers drop the rest of the way to the floor as she pushed them down past the curve of her thighs.
His golden eyes glowed with hunger.
A hunger she was very certain was echoed in her own consuming gaze as she stared right back.
She licked her lips, her mouth watering as her gaze traced up the long, powerful lines of his legs, lingering hungrily on the pronounced bulge straining the front of his worn jeans, and up along his sinfully defined abdomen and solidly muscled - and deliciously heaving - chest that his old cotton shirt did nothing to hide, across his broad, tense shoulders and corded neck back to those gleaming, feral-gold eyes.
Not breaking contact for a moment, she tugged the knee-length skirt of her sensible sundress up and spread her knees. Grinning wolfishly - and didn't she nearly roll her eyes at that observation - he stalked toward her, his shirt swiftly joining her knickers on the floor even as his hands fell with single-minded purpose to his waistband. Leaning back on her hands, she closed her eyes, already panting with vindicated anticipation as she spread her legs wider at the unspoken request of the large, calloused palms smoothing up her thighs.
Only to gasp with surprise as, instead of a hard, thick cock pushing into her, a hot, eager mouth delved eagerly between her legs instead.
She shuddered, her head falling back briefly at the unexpected sensation, moaning low and deep in her throat. Her thighs trembled where he'd hooked them lazily over his shoulders, threatening to clamp shut in an instinctive effort to urge him closer as his tongue dipped shallowly inside her, rumbling with satisfaction as he greedily lapped up her slick, before turning his focus almost solely to her nub, his beard scratching deliciously at the over-sensitive flesh between her legs with every kiss and nip and suckle. Liquid heat coiled and throbbed deep in her belly, radiating out beneath her flushed skin in flaring, heady waves.
It was then that a long, tapered finger teased at her entrance before pressing into her, sinking deep and curling purposefully, torturously. Seeking.
And easily finding.
Groaning, she arched, her hips bucking and her head falling forward as one of her hands shot forward from where it'd been braced behind her, tangling hard in his thick hair, hauling his lips and tongue and teeth harder against her cunt, demanding more right. . .
. . ..right. . .
There .
Her chest heaved, her pulse roaring in her ears as she struggled to catch her breath. Absently, she felt one strong arm curl around her hips, his broad hand splaying across her lower back to steady her and pull her closer.
But she barely noticed.
She was far too captivated by the sight and feel of her mate feasting between her legs, his mouth and fingers - another having eagerly joined the first - swiftly drawing the demanding heat coiling tight and insistent low in her belly tighter still even as his glowing golden gaze bored into hers with frightening intensity. The equally anxious pressure beneath her breastbone thrummed, soothed and darkly pleased, even delighting in the sight of her powerful, fierce alpha wolf - her mate - with his face buried between her thighs. Revelling in it, even.
And he was all hers .
Her heart stuttered.
Abruptly she was teetering at the cusp of release, her body wound tight and desperately hot with need.
And the hot, insistent pressure deep in her chest and deeper in her belly once more grew urgent, demanding.
She needed more .
Her grip in his think hair tightened and without hesitation he followed as she hauled his lips - his beard glistening and his mouth slick with the evidence of her arousal - to hers.
Her core clenched desperately, the taste of herself on him making her core, her heart, every fibre of her being throb with need.
"Now," she growled into his mouth, nipping sharply at first his lower lip then down along the thick tendons of his throat, hooking her legs around his lean waist and clenching, pulling him closer as she determinedly left marks of her own on his skin. A dark, pleased rumbled vibrated deep in his chest. Her nails dug into his scalp.
His grin as he straightened, seemingly unaffected by what had to be the painful grip she still had on his hair, was feral. Hungry. Predatory.
She bit her lip as he took himself in hand, his gaze not leaving hers for an instant as he stepped closer. She nearly stopped breathing in desperate anticipation at the feel of his cock tracing the slick seam of her sex, lingering, pressing insistently against her entrance. . . before repeating the torture.
"Don't tease," she snapped. He grinned, leaning forward to brush his lips tenderly across her jaw.
But still careful to keep from entering her properly, holding himself poised at her entrance, pressed just firmly enough against her to keep them aligned without truly pushing inside.
"But you look just so damned appetizing like this," he crooned, his dark eyes raking over her squirming body, his thumbs smoothing almost tenderly along the crests of her hipbones where his broad hands held her securely at the edge of the table. "Flushed, panting and so ready for me."
She snarled at him.
And she careened over the edge with a choking cry, her back arching and core clenching as his cock was suddenly, brutally sheathed in her cunt with a practised roll of his hips, splitting her rapturously in two as the pressure building in her belly exploded with enough strength that she shook and writhed. A pleased growl of his own rumbled free as her entire body quaked and spasmed, gripping him tight, her nails digging sharply enough into his flesh to draw beads of blood to the surface where she scrabbled at his forearms and biceps.
But it was only once she came back down, blinking blearily up at his from where she'd fallen back to lay back on the table that the thick length lodged between her splayed thighs began to move.
Slowly he withdrew, leaving her bereft and wanting and writhing with need. She scowled as he chuckled at the way her body tried to follow his, bucking, trying to take him in again even as he pulled away until only the head of him still lingered, safely enveloped in her eager cunt.
The groan he pulled from her as he drove sharply back into her was long and involuntary. Starbursts flared before her eyes as his thumb pressed purposefully against the oversensitive bundle of nerves above her entrance, coordinated perfectly to send waves of pleasure rippling through her with each hard thrust.
"So fucking tight," he snarled low in his throat. "You were fucking made for me, Pet." She whimpered, hips bucking to encourage him further as her fingers scored and scraped along his arms, straining against his hold on her hips. But still she craved more, moaning breathlessly, wantonly as she arched and pressed harder against it.
Wanting, oh, desperately wanting more.
Mercifully, he was all too pleased to deliver, and before long her whole body was jolting from the force of his rapid thrusts, keening in time with his primal grunts as he pushed them both closer to release with each driving stroke. She ached from the girth of him plunging without mercy between her legs, pushing so deep, so fast she could barely breathe around it.
And her mouth fell open in a silent scream as her world shattered in a fiery surge, fingers and inner walls clenching hard, her head falling back as another release rippled and radiated like fiendfyre through her right down to her very bones.
It felt like an age before she came properly back to herself, panting and mewling through the lingering, euphoric waves of her release each plunge of him within her sent radiating out from their joined sexes. She feel he was close, but knew that, while she could feel the beginnings of another beginning to build deep in her belly she wouldn't reach her peak again before he reached his.
And, oh how she was fine with that.
It left her free to lay back and wholly enjoy the view as he chased his release between her legs: he was magnificent, all damp, glistening skin covering tense, flexing muscle as his hips worked eagerly between her thighs, his cock slick and glistening as it slid out and disappeared swiftly back inside her cunt, the friction accompanying the thick, full feeling feeding the pleasant, tingling warmth of the aftershocks rippling out from her throbbing core.
It was an almost odd sensation, but deeply satisfying all the same.
Transfixed, she nibbled on her lower lip as she watched the play of feelings across his features as he moved above her, inside her, unravelling, coming undone before her eyes. His thrusts were losing their rhythm, growing sharper and more urgent, threatening to reignite the need he'd already sated deep in her belly. She clenched her still quivering inner muscles and, though her control was spastic at best, it drove him wild, dragging a deep, throaty groan from deep in his chest.
"Come for me," she said huskily, lifting a hand to card through his beard and up into his thick hair, nails scraping lightly against his scalp.
He snarled, his lips twisting in a dangerous, feral grin. His hips jolted harshly against hers, his hipbones digging hard into her spread thighs, forcing them wider still.
But, as though waiting on her permission, he complied.
The muscles of his abdomen clenched hard, and deep inside her, she felt him pulse and spasm, drawing a low moan from the back of her throat as he went rigid, jerking against her as his cook leapt and pulsed with a hot gush within her. He groaned, his heaving breaths catching as he buried himself as deep inside her as he could go, his hips jerking in the cradle of her thighs as he emptied himself, her core quaking with the shadow of another release of her own with each hot spurt and twitching thrust.
Rumbling, he leaned down, covering her with his broad frame as he nuzzled affectionately at the corner of her jaw. She shivered, her thighs twitching weakly around his hips as his still achingly hard cock shifted within her, prodding almost too deep with a twinge that was both welcome and bordering on uncomfortable. Sighing, she curled her arms around his shoulders, hooking them bonelessly around his neck as he slid his arms around her in turn, cradling her tight against him. It was so. . . so right that she barely felt the table digging into her back, hips and shoulders thanks to his weight pressing down on her.
She just felt him.
And the last vestiges of the irritable, anxious something in her chest melted away at the feel of his breath, warm and steady, against her skin.
"Mine, she breathed, burying her own nose against his throat, breathing deep the scent of him - warm and woodsy and so very male - and her and sex, sating something primal of her own. He chuckled, and she shivered again at the sensation.
She whimpered as he straightened then, once more very aware of his cock still inside her as he lifted her with him from the table. It was only when he settled her carefully on the edge of the sink that he finally - reluctantly, on both their parts - pulled himself free of her. She squirmed, grimacing at the sticky gush from between her legs that followed as he helped steady her atop her perch. She huffed at the smug glint in his still golden gaze as he helped her clean herself up, carefully testing the water temperature before dampening a cloth for her.
"Satisfied?" he asked once she'd handed the cloth back to him, jeans once more in order even if he'd yet to retrieve his shirt. She narrowed her eyes at the very clear amusement in his eyes. He chuckled low in his chest as he pulled her back to the edge of the counter, stepping automatically back between her legs right as her hands just as automatically landed on his upper chest.
"You're not?" she bit acerbically back. He huffed out a half-laugh, and lifted a hand to scratch absently at the line of his throat. . .
. . . very clearly displaying the deep, angry red weals from her nails on his forearms. . .
. . . while also drawing clear attention to the swiftly darkening marks her teeth had left on the skin of his throat.
"I'm not the one who felt the need to mark her territory, Pet."
And he laughed as she groaned, her forehead falling to thunk against his chest as her cheeks positively glowed red.