Jennifer Ashley - Pride Mates

"Kim."

"Liam." She kissed the tip of his nose. "I don't want to go slow. I need you."

He kissed her. The bricks scraped his arms as he shielded her from the wall. She wrapped her legs around his hips, her skirt riding up her thighs. It was easy to shove aside the elastic of her thong, to find her opening with his cock. She sucked in a breath, eyes widening, as he slid firmly into her.

How could he have ever thought that sex in human form was boring? He was content never to do it as a wildcat again. Kim was hot and wet, so easy to enter. She arched against him, her nipples rubbing him through her thin shirt. Liam shielded her from the wall with his arms, the bricks abrading his already bloody skin.

His adrenaline hadn't cooled from the fight. He needed this mating. Liam's heart rocketed, his blood hot.

Kim's sheath clenched him, her body and his fitting together perfectly. His mind went blank. All he felt was Kim, all he smelled was her body and her sex, her breath, her hair. He licked her face. He tasted her neck. He thrust into her, his blood pumping. Outside, lightning crackled, blinding flashes followed by booms of thunder. The hail fell like bullets on the roof, balls of ice bouncing in through the wide door.

"Liam. Yes."

Liam squeezed his eyes shut and leaned his forehead on the wall. He shoved himself into her as though he wanted to crawl inside her and be part of her. His shoulders bunched; his breath burned in his lungs.

Kim shuddered in climax, her feet around his buttocks. The heels of her sandals grated his skin, and he didn't care.

Still holding her with one arm between her and the wall, Liam pounded his fist into the brick. Another lightning strike lit the world, and Liam came.

Sweat poured from him, his body on fire. Kim was screaming, and Liam heard his own voice ring through the warehouse. He was falling. Kim, he had to catch her.

He landed flat on his back, Kim's soft body on top of his. The movement slid him out of her hot sheath, and he groaned with loss.

Kim smiled down at him. "Holy shit. That was... good."

Liam wanted to answer her, tell her it was the best he'd ever had, that he loved her. He could only gasp for breath. The pain of his fight, the bewilderment of his flooding instincts, robbed him of his voice.

Kim closed her hand on him, and he groaned again.

"You're still hard. I thought you came."

Liam nodded. "I did." Gritting his teeth, he turned her over to put her beneath him and entered her once more.

Sex had never been like this before. Not free-for-all, no-holding-back, wet and messy sex. Kim laughed with it.

Not to mention having it on a bare cement floor with a naked, half-crazed, hard-bodied Shifter on top of her while a hailstorm raged outside. Another lightning bolt could strike the building and bring it down on top of them, and Kim didn't care.

"I love you, Liam," she shouted.

He opened his eyes. Once beautiful blue, they were now Shifter gray-white.

Kim would be afraid later. Right now, she was as crazed as he was. Was this what he meant by mating frenzy ?

Liam pumped into her for a few more minutes, then dragged in a breath and filled her with his hot seed. Liam collapsed on top of her, breathing hard, his body roasting. He lingered on her, kissing her face and hair, then rolled off onto his back, still breathing as though he'd just finished a ten-mile run.

They lay still for a long time, Liam's breathing hoarse, Kim too tired to move. Gradually the hailstorm slackened, the time between lightning strikes increasing. Thunder rumbled in the distance, the storm drifting away, following the river.

Liam didn't move, and Kim wondered if he'd dropped off to sleep. She propped her aching body on one arm. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Liam lay face up, eyes open, his breathing rapid. "I don't know."

"The storm's letting up. It's what my mother liked to call a 'wham-bam, thank you, ma'am' storm."

Liam didn't answer, didn't laugh.

"You know what the storm dying off means," Kim continued. "It means that Sean and your dad are going to come looking for us. I bet Connor and Glory will too. And Ellison. He was real worried about you when I saw him earlier. In fact, every Shifter curious about what happened to you will be showing up pretty quick."

Liam raked his sweating hair from his face. "They shouldn't."

"Like that's going to stop them."

"Kim." Liam's face twisted, and he wrapped his arms around his chest. "I need to find my Collar before they get here."

"Is that what you really want?" she asked in a quiet voice.

"Fergus was crazy. He'd have destroyed us."

Kim noticed he hadn't answered the question. "You don't think Shifters can adapt to going without the Collar again?"

"Not like this." Liam's chest expanded with an agonized breath. "We'll kill each other. Gods, Kim, I wanted to kill Michael. I needed to. Even Sean. My own brother. And the feelings haven't gone away. If they come to get us, I'll fight. I'll kill until someone kills me."

"And me?"

He reached for her. "No. You, I just want to fuck."

"I should be flattered, but I have the feeling I wouldn't last very long. You have stamina."

"I'd hurt you. I've already hurt you." He touched her bruised lip.

"You didn't. Don't you get it, Liam? You could have, but you didn't."

"That's no guarantee, love. I want you so damn bad." He kissed her swollen lips and drew back, eyes flicking from white to blue to white again.

Kim touched the red line on his neck. Liam flinched but didn't stop her.

"Or you could go," she said softly. "Run away back to Ireland or something. Live free."

Liam closed his eyes, blotting out the awful look in them. "Not without you. I don't want to live without you." He bowed his head, resting on Kim's shoulder. "But Fergus was right. I'd use you until there was nothing left of you. I'd not be able to stop myself." He raised his head, expression anguished. "Don't you understand? If I'm this way, I can't have you."

Kim rubbed his arms, wishing she could tell him that everything would be all right. You'll be fine, you'll get used to it, you'll learn to control your instincts. But she had no idea whether it would be all right. The Lupine who'd attacked her in her bedroom had been the victim of Fergus's experiments, ready to slaughter Kim to torture Liam. She'd seen the way Liam had looked at innocent Michael and at his own brother, as though they were enemies he needed to destroy. She had no idea what kind of crazed being Liam would become.

"I can't tell you to put yourself into captivity again for me," she said. "I don't want you to."

"I hate the Collar. Kim, I hate it so much. It hurts us when we so much as think about the way we used to be. One surge of adrenaline and it's giving us pain. You can't know what that's like. Always living in fear of the pain."

"You're right. I don't know."

"Being free of it..." Liam slid his fingers and thumb around the mark where the Collar had been, his wild smile emerging. "It's a joyous thing, love. I can do anything I want, and no one can stop me."

"Not even me?"

"No. That's the trouble."

"Sean said you weren't like this before--before you all took the Collar, I mean."

"Not this out of control. Not with twenty years of need falling on me at once. But it was like this too. We were strong and free, and those few who knew about us were in awe of us. Even the Fae acknowledged our strength, that we no longer served their whims. That's what rankles most--the Fae helped to bind us. They've always wanted to bind us." Anger danced in his eyes, lines pulling the sides of his mouth. "We hate them for it."

"What about humans?" Kim made herself ask.