Lori Handeland - Marked by the Moon

“Alex?” he murmured. “What’s wrong?”

She moved beneath him, and her nipples, hard and cold as marbles left out in the snow, rolled along his chest. He grit his teeth and waited for an answer. But he didn’t get the one that he expected.

Instead she arched her neck and let her scalding tongue—startling amid so much cold—lick the line of his mouth.

He gasped, jerked back, and she nipped, catching his lip between her teeth and holding on.

The damnable cloud stayed over the moon. He could only see the outline of her face, which served to make every other sense he possessed stronger.

Her scent mixed with the ice and the snow and the smell of the moon—sweet like blue snow cones. The bones of her wrists beneath his palm shifted like sticks trapped in a bag of the most delicate material ever made. Her skin, so cold, refreshed his, which felt like a blistering fever had broken free when he’d viciously put a stop to his change. Her mouth, soft as rain in the precious spring, opened and welcomed him within.

He shouldn’t. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

He did.

That taste—both familiar yet still so new—called. The sex they’d already had, forbidden, dangerous, half remembered with the mind, was fully remembered by the body.

With her wrists trapped above her head, she lay open to him, like the sacrificial maidens of long ago. She could do nothing but accept—his kiss, his touch, him— and the idea made him so hard he wondered momentarily if his dick had frozen solid.

Except his dick wasn’t cold but fiery hot, and she was rubbing her chilled belly against it as if the friction alone would warm her, the murmurs in her throat rolling along her lips and his like a low-level earthquake across the land.

His free hand cupped her hip, his thumb sliding across the bone, his fingernail scraping just a little because when he did that she arched, pressing her breasts with those fantastic marble nipples into his chest and shifting—back and forth, back and forth—until the rasp nearly made him insane.

He waited as long as he could to touch, palm itching, fingers twitching, and when he could wait no longer he swept his hand up, from hip to breast, sliding along the still-cool length of her waist until he could cup the glorious weight and roll that nipple beneath his thumb.

She cried out, and he drank the sound with his mouth, desperate to remain undetected, uninterrupted. Except…

Beneath the moon, they were the only souls left in town.

God. He thought he might explode before he even buried himself inside her.

Then he tasted her tears, salt and heat amid the cool and sweet, reminding him of the first blood he’d ever known.

It had been so damn good.

Julian released her and backed away. She was right. There would always be a beast inside him, one step from escaping and crushing everything.

The moon sprang free, cascading from the sky like a waterfall of ice, turning the tracks of her tears molten silver. Julian lifted a hand—shaking, he saw—and ran a thumb across her cheek.

Her eyes snapped open, seeped of color in the night, their brilliant green now a shade identical to the moon. She looked like a painting, an ice goddess, sparkling white and pewter, her hair tumbling like tousled midnight across her pearly breasts. He ached to lick those tears from her face as he plunged into her over and over again.

“Faet,” he muttered, and began to withdraw his hand.

Her fingers closed around his wrist. “No,” she said, the rumble of her beast rippling near, calling wildly to his own.

“Sorry.” He tugged on his hand, trying again to get away. “I—”

She growled, low, vicious, and his skin rippled. She let go of his hand, then reached forward with blurring speed to tangle her fingers in his hair. He had no choice but to come where she led, or lose big chunks from his scalp.

She pulled him back where he’d been, hip-to-hip, chest-to-chest, holding him still inches from her face; then she leaned her forehead against his, her silvery green eyes so close, the sheen of the tear tracks nearly blinding him.

“When you touch me,” she whispered, “I forget. I need, Julian ”—her fingers clenched on his name, drawing him ever closer, giving him just a hint of pleasurable pain—“to forget.”

Had she ever called him Julian? He couldn’t recall, but considering the way his name sounded in that voice —part woman, part wolf—the way it made him harden and pulse, he didn’t think so.

Yet still he hesitated. The first time had been a dream, or so they’d thought, easily passed off as a mistake. This would be a choice, and there would be no denying it.

For either one of them.

She closed her eyes, perhaps to get herself under control, or let him do the same, and as she did a single, silver droplet fell.

Time slowed. Julian could see the tear plummeting, could hear the whoosh of it through the air; he caught the scent of the sea, could almost taste again the flavorful brine.

The tear splashed against his chest, and he hissed in a breath. How could it be so cold?

The sound caused Alex’s eyes to flare open, and they traced the track of the tear across his nipple, then she leaned forward and did the same with her tongue.

How could he have been so wrong? Choice had nothing to do with it.

She suckled him hard and he cursed—Norwegian. English. A little Inuit thrown in—but when she would have lifted her head, he cupped his hand around her neck and pulled her back.

Her lips curved against his skin; then her tongue curled around his nipple, laving, tickling before her teeth grazed the flat disk until he pearled as hard as she had.

She slid downward, mouth busy on his ribs, his belly, his—

“Whoa!” He tried to lift her—if she got busy there, this would be over before it began—but she grabbed his penis in her ice-cold hand and he jerked. Maybe he could last a while longer.

Her breath was warm, her mouth even warmer. It had been so damn long. He’d had sex, sure, but this to him had always been the height of intimacy. You had to trust someone to put your “jewels” in a place where they kept all those teeth.

Julian stiffened. He had a lot of feelings about Alex, but trust wasn’t one of them.

Struggling for control, at first Julian didn’t realize that Alex had gone to her knees. He looked down just as she leaned forward and licked him, quick as a cat, along his tip.

He cursed, reaching for her, but she struck away his hands, then with agonizing slowness she rose.

Her breath drifted over his belly, and the muscles beneath the skin fluttered. Moist heat curled across his chest, his neck and mouth. She lifted her gaze to his, tilting her chin just enough so their lips brushed.

“What kind of man are you?” she asked.

“Not a man,” he said, and pushed her once more against the wall.

He could only take so much and he’d already taken it. Hell, he’d refused a blow job. He deserved a fucking medal. Instead, he’d take this.

He cupped her buttocks, sliding his fingers across the soft, virgin skin where thighs became ass. His biceps flexed to lift her, but she already had her arms around his neck, using the house to brace herself so she could hook her knees over his hips, cross her ankles at the small of his back, and pull him home.

He thrust, sliding within, relishing her heat—that soft, tight, moist heat. He’d meant to finish quick—he didn’t have much finesse left—but instead, the instant she surrounded him, he stilled, then lowered his forehead to hers.

She wanted to forget; he could understand that. Some nights he would have given the soul she didn’t think he had for just an hour’s sweet peace.