Nalini Singh - The Magical Christmas Cat

"Oh yes!" Her fractured wail filled the room as he kissed her clit. Kissed it, as though he were kissing her lips. Soft, gentle, sucking little kisses that had her head thrashing against the bed and any thought of control or restraint dissolving beneath the pleasure.

They were wild together. She could feel it, their pleasure and their need blending and merging, creating something she couldn't have imagined as he began to devour her flesh.

He licked and stroked with his amazingly adept tongue. It flick­ered along the tender slit, circled the entrance to her body, then plunged inside her with destructive results.

She had burned before. But now, as his tongue licked and thrust inside her, she was blazing, consumed, arching, and crying out at the exquisite agony of pleasure. It. tightened inside her, expanded, and before she could draw breath or prepare for it, the explosion of exquisite sensation tore through her.

Haley felt her shoulders jerk from the bed. Her eyes opened, widened, unseeing, her senses dazed as the most exquisite feelings tore through her. Sharp and vibrant, a race of liquid flames, white-hot destruction and dark, primal pleasure.

Noble snarled as he felt her release tearing through her. A year. He had waited a year. He couldn't wait any longer. He straightened between her spread thighs, stared into her dazed feature as he lifted her hips, bracing her rear on his thighs, and tucked the head of his cock into the tiny, spasming entrance to her pussy.

Fiery damp curls surrounded the engorged head as he watched, holding her hips still, determined to see this. To watch her body take him, open for him.

His teeth clenched as he pressed inside her. Sweat ran down his face, burned his eyes, and dampened both their bodies.

He had to hold on just a few more seconds. Just a little bit of control. He had to watch. Watch as he worked his cock into the furnace heat of her rippling pussy and felt his senses incinerate with the sensations.

She clenched around the throbbing head, so tight, so hot he wondered if he would survive taking her. Or if he could hold back his own release until he had felt hers once again.

Beneath the head of his cock he felt the ache of the barb pressing beneath the skin. It matched the ache in his balls as he pulled back, worked in farther, then in one involuntary thrust, the pleasure dim­ming every thought of control, he impaled himself within her to the hilt.

Her scream of pleasure rocked his soul. It was ragged, feminine, throttled. As though she could barely draw in the air to cry out.

Noble shook his head and fought. He tried logic and reasoning, he thought of fishing and cleaning his weapon, but the thoughts disintegrated even as he tried to concentrate on them.

He came over her, feeling her legs cross above his hips, and gave in to the need striking hard and heavy to the painful erection bur­ied inside her.

Nothing mattered but this. He had to fuck her. He had to take her. Hard and deep. And he took her hard and deep. His arms slid beneath her shoulders, his lips covered hers, and his hips jacked against her, burying his cock inside her with rapid, delirious strokes as she sucked at his tongue and moaned into his kiss.

Her nails were raking his shoulders, biting in and creating an ecstatic burn. Like a cat, clawing at him, demanding more. And he gave her more. He gave her everything he had as he felt her explod­ing beneath him.

Burying inside her once, twice, he let his release pour from him. Pumping into her, his semen spurted hot and thick as the barb stretched from beneath the head of his cock, locked inside the flut­tering muscles of her pussy, and spilled its own, tremulous release into her.

He was shuddering with the pleasure. Jerking against her as his head lifted from her kiss, his lips lowered to her shoulder, and be­fore he could still the need, his teeth bit into her tender flesh.

He tasted blood and heard her scream. He couldn't pull back. His tongue raced over the little wound, licking and spilling the hormone into the marks, sucking at them as he felt another, shud­dering orgasm tear through her.

He had marked her. He had promised himself he would hold back, that he wouldn't mar her creamy flesh, that he wouldn't leave that telltale animalistic wound on her. But even as he remembered that promise, his teeth remained in her flesh. The violence of his need rocked inside him, the primal possessiveness tearing through him until nothing mattered, nothing eased it, until he was taking her again.

"What happened here?" It was dark, the faint light that spilled into the room was courtesy of the bathroom light Haley had left on earlier. Just enough to allow her to see the amaz­ing spots on his body, and the scars.

The scars made her ache. Especially the one on his chest. It wasn't very old, the healing flesh still looked tender to the touch.

"Bullet." He yawned as though it were nothing. "We were on the Lawrence estate a few months ago, and I took a bullet covering one of our enforcers."

She remembered the news reports of that. Callan Lyons had been wounded as well, and Cassie Sinclair, one of the wolf breeds who was often in Sanctuary.

The emergence of the wolf breeds and their Colorado compound had aligned two powerful forces. Journalists were forever covering the compounds, the strikes against them, and the struggle for free­dom in the two areas.

"What about here?" There was a long, jagged scar on his side.

"Knife." His tone was lazy, still unconcerned. "Council soldier almost managed to gut me there."

She flinched.

Noble opened one eye and stared down at her. "I'm more careful now than I used to be."

She stared back at him in disbelief. "Why don't I believe you? You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Noble?"

"Course not." His hand stroked down her back, his fingers playing against the rounded curves of her rear as his lips twitched playfully.

"Uh-huh." She rolled from him, aware of his gaze on her, the lazy sprawl of his naked body, and the erect length of his cock.

She glanced at the clock. It was nearly midnight.

"I'm hungry." She was starving. "There's a roast in the slow cooker, if I throw some cut-up potatoes and stuff in, we could have a meal within the hour."

"Let me check the house first."

He was out of the bed in a bound. Smooth dark flesh rippled with muscle as he moved to the surveillance equipment. He checked the screens, then grabbed his weapon, and-moved from the bedroom naked to make his rounds through the house.

Haley pulled on the gown and robe that he had collected for her earlier, when she had meant to finish dinner. He had distracted her that time. When he returned, she was belting the robe and pushing her feet into warm house shoes.

"I'll shower." He entered the bedroom moments later.

She almost grinned at his decisive statement. She had showered earlier, then had allowed him to convince her to lie beside him a little while longer.

While he petted her. Just stroked and touched her. For the mo­ment, the incredible biting need that had filled her had eased, leav­ing her warm and languorous, a glow of satiation filling her.

Another unfamiliar feeling she thought as she moved into the kitchen and checked the roast in the slow cooker. Opening the re­frigerator she pulled out the potatoes and carrots she had cut ear­lier that day. Emptying the water from them, she rinsed them and placed them in the pot.

Half an hour, she decided as she turned the heat up on the food.

She moved into the living room and refueled the glowing em­bers of the fire, watching as the smaller logs caught, and the flames began to lick over them greedily.

She turned and stared at the brightly lit Christmas tree before moving and rearranging a few of the presents beneath it. The bot­tom of the tree was surrounded by gaily wrapped boxes. Hang­ing on the limbs were small, Christmas-patterned bags that held much smaller presents. A silver ring for her mother. A necklace for one of her sisters-in-law, a bracelet for another. There were earrings for several of the college students who helped out at the library and almost always joined Haley and her family for a few hours on Christmas Eve.