He shuddered and held her mouth to his jaw. “Harder.”
She licked him instead, tongue hot and teasing. “You’re hot when you’re bossy.”
“Bite me again, Eden.” He put steel behind the words this time, a command he knew would get a response. “See what it feels like, making me come.”
Eden slid her fingers up his arm to where his hand cupped her jaw, holding her in place. Her fingers ghosted over his, then tugged, urging him to curl his hand around the front of her throat. “Not bossy enough,” she whispered against his chin before biting him hard enough to bruise.
She wanted to walk the edge. Jay tightened his fingers, just a little, and resumed a grinding rock that had her gasping as she squirmed in his grasp. Her wriggling struggles sharpened her excitement, and a light, teasing graze over her cl*t was all it took to send her spinning straight off that edge again.
Every pulse of her pleasure echoed through him, setting off shivering heat at the base of his spine. His orgasm built, tense and swift, and exploded with two final hard thrusts.
Eden’s head thumped back against his shoulder. She moaned, her throat vibrating against his palm. “Hottest sex ever.”
“Shh.” He wrapped both arms around her and hid a smile against the back of her shoulder. “I’m enjoying the moment.”
“Good moment.” She sounded giddy, though she seemed perfectly content to relax back against him.
An old quilt in an even older barn—one hell of a first time. “I probably did this all wrong, but I don’t give a damn.”
“If this is you doing it wrong, I’m not sure I can handle you doing it right.”
“Even if you couldn’t…I’ve got handcuffs, remember?”
She moaned softly as her head fell forward. “Our rooms had better be soundproofed after tonight. I want you to do bad, bad things to me.”
Jay rolled to the quilt and pulled her into his arms. “Soon, maybe, we won’t have to stay here every night. After this mess with Memphis is sorted out.”
“I don’t mind it as much as I thought I would.” She settled her cheek on his arm with a sigh. “It’s been surreal. I took the vacation from work and I’ve been out here every day, living this new life with these new people. And in two days I have to go back to the library and be…human.”
At least, with his job, he had a reasonable excuse to hustle out to the farm if the need arose. “Do you feel steady enough for that?”
“I think so. Besides, I don’t have a choice. They weren’t happy about my emergency personal vacation.”
But they’d be even less happy if she lost her temper in another meeting. “Eden, this is something that happens to new wolves sometimes. They have to change jobs—change lives, even—because nothing fits right anymore. I’m not saying that’s you. I’m just saying be careful.”
Silence. She traced her fingertips along his palm in an absent caress, but her shoulders tightened. “I don’t feel as unsteady anymore. It builds up, but it doesn’t hurt like it used to. The bond, I guess, or maybe I really am stronger than I thought.”
He dropped a kiss to her temple. “It only gets better from here, I promise.”
“Good.” She snuggled back against him, and her body fit against his, soft and warm. “Do you think they’ll be okay here during the day once we go back to work? Would the wolves from Memphis risk attacking in broad daylight?”
He remembered the look on the de facto leader’s face, the desperation to hold that place no matter what it took. “They’d do damn near anything. But there are other strong wolves here, wolves who can fight, and Shane will find a way to send out a distress call. They won’t be helpless.”
“Good,” she repeated. Her fingers continued up his arm, and she turned her head and licked the inside of his forearm. “Tell me about werewolf stamina. Is it impressive?”
That quickly, his body stirred. “Want me to show you?”
He felt her smile against his biceps. “In loving, excruciating detail.”
The smooth flare of her hip beckoned. Jay slid his hand slowly down her side to her thigh. “Now that we’ve taken the edge off?”
She chuckled and stretched, arching her back languidly. “In our defense, we had days of foreplay.”
“Anticipation,” he declared, “is not the same as foreplay.”
“Are you sure?” She moved fast, lunging over him to straddle his stomach. Without looking away from his eyes, she reached behind her back and circled his c*ck with her fingers. “You made me come on the kitchen table, you know.”
Direct, powerful. She was a woman comfortable in her own skin, and it made him even harder. “I remember.”
She smiled and stroked him lazily. “You want to know a secret?”
He touched her h*ps lightly. “Tell me.”
“I wasn’t really that embarrassed when Lorelei walked in.” Her thumb worked slowly up and down his shaft. “Something broke in me tonight when the wolf took over. Something that needed to break a long time ago.”
“You are who you are, honey.” He arched up into her touch. “I like it.”
She tightened her fingers, turning a light tease into intense friction. “I’m going to learn how to be who I am. I still have to hide from the world, but not from myself anymore. And not you.”
“Not me,” he agreed. “Eden?”
“Mmm?”
“Don’t hold back,” he rasped. “Show me who you are.”
Bracing her hands on his chest, she lifted her h*ps and positioned herself over him, her body brushing his cock. “I’m a work in progress.”
No, she was perfect, whether she realized it or not. “Practice makes perfect?”
“Does it?” She licked her lips and hovered over him, poised teasingly on the edge. “Fuck me, Jay.”
“I did.” He splayed a hand across the small of her back and sat up straight. “Your turn.”
“No turns.” She slid down, taking him deep with a roll of her hips. “Just both f**king. Maybe all the time.”
“All the time?” He bent his head and flicked his tongue over her nipple. “I can do that.”
Her moan bled into a hungry growl, as if the touch had broken some chain on her self-control. She sank her fingers into his hair and dragged his head back, arched his neck until his pulse beat fast and strong under her mouth. Her breath tickled his skin. Her tongue flicked out. Teased.
“Mine,” she whispered, and marked him.
It blazed heat through him, a combination of pain and a warmth that tightened his chest until it ached. Mine. A word and more—a promise. A vow.
He gripped her h*ps again, letting his fingertips bite into her skin. “Yes.”
She shuddered and whispered another word, one laced with an edge of the wolf. “Mate.”
The second time should have been slower, but the moon was high and hot in their blood. Jay urged her to move, and arched back his head when she circled her h*ps over his. “Faster.”
“Yes,” she groaned, and then she was f**king him. Fast and wild, skin slicking over his as she rode him, wallowed in him, claimed him and got off on it. She flung her head back and closed her eyes, as lost in him as he’d always wanted to be in her.
Her hair tangled around his fingers as he cupped her shoulders, and he licked the hollow of her throat before sucking the delicate skin between his teeth.
She cried out, and her tempo changed. She rocked her hips, ground down hard, and came with his name on her lips. Jay tightened his teeth, turning the bruise into a bite as her orgasm melted into his, everything shared across their bond—and doubled because of it.
He cradled her, panting against her damp skin. Finally, she sighed softly and dropped her head to his shoulder. “Good stamina,” she mumbled, sounding sleepily dazed.
Too fast to burn all the way through her first full moon. Once she’d slept a bit, she’d wake up restless again, ready to run.
And Jay was ready to run beside her.
Chapter Twelve
“Got more pancakes ready?”
Shane slid a few stacks onto the serving plate in Jay’s outstretched hand. “We need a bigger griddle, especially for the morning after the full moon.”
Jay shrugged and set the plate in the middle of the table. “Add it to the list.”
“My dad might have some ideas.” Eden snatched a pancake off the top of the stack with a grin. “He said this kitchen hasn’t been updated in half a century, so if we’re going to do it, we might as well think a little less farmhouse and a little more industrial.”
“Which sounds expensive,” Jay pointed out. Lord knew they’d have enough to worry about just keeping the place running until some of the business investments they’d planned started to pay off.
“Not necessarily.” Lorelei poured herself another cup of coffee. “If Austin has some good contacts, you can get plenty of commercial equipment secondhand. You boys are good enough with your hands to handle most of the basic renovations, which just leaves tricky stuff like electrical and plumbing. Easy to subcontract out.”
“I know someone,” Eden said. “I had to have the wiring on my house redone a few years ago. He’s friends with my father and he’ll cut us a deal. Dad feeds him enough free—”
“Shit.” Colin turned away from the window, his face grim. “Car coming up the drive. Fast.”
For all his warnings to Eden the night before, it didn’t seem like the Memphis alphas’ style, a head-on attack in broad daylight. Jay would have expected something sneakier. Deadlier. “There could be more coming through the back. Fletcher, go take a look—howl if there’s anything going on beyond the barn. Shane, go wake Stella.”
The wolves at the breakfast table scattered as if they’d practiced for this moment a hundred times, synchronized in a way they hadn’t been before the full moon. Colin fell in on Jay’s left as he headed for the front door. Eden followed them as far as the stairs, blocking the only way up to where Kaley and Mae still slept.