Moira Rogers: Zola's Pride

With his hips bracing her weight, he leaned back and yanked his T-shirt over his head. “You’re positive?”

Such a foolish question. She answered by working a hand between them until her fingers cupped the hard weight of his cock. “I told you. I’m not an innocent girl anymore. Can you keep up with me now?”

Walker hissed in a breath and bit her, the sharp press of his teeth on her jaw just short of savage. “Ask me again later, if you can still think.”

Thought already fought a hopeless battle. She got her fingers around the button on his jeans and ripped it off in her haste. “Hurry.”

“No.” He slid his hands under her ass and hoisted her up. “First door, yeah?”

She’d take him into her now and glory in every thrust as he fucked her against the wall. Some dangerous alchemy of lust and instinct turned her wild, and only the promise of seeing him twisted in her sheets made it possible to find her voice. “Yes.”

It took him only a few quick steps to reach the bedroom—and the bed. He dropped her on it and slipped his hand under her shirt, his eyes blazing. “I missed you.”

Warm, callused fingers stroked over her stomach. She arched into the touch, eyes falling shut. “You don’t need to miss me anymore.”

“No, I don’t.” He palmed her breast through her sports bra. “Take off your clothes.”

Easier said than done. Her T-shirt tore under her frantic fingers. She let the cotton slip to the floor and wiggled her way out of her pants more carefully.

By the time she lay in her bra and underwear, Walker was watching her, his hands clenched by his sides. “This is the first time,” he whispered. “You’ve been mine for so long that it seems surreal, but this is the first time.”

Their first time, and relief rose that it wasn’t her first time. At fifteen, she’d fallen in girlish love with a youth of twenty-one. At nineteen, she’d trembled beneath the careful kisses of a man who’d held himself back, too aware of her innocence.

At thirty, she was a woman who knew what she wanted, and she took it, rising to her knees and sliding her palms against the incredible heat of his strong chest. “The first time. Not the last.”

“No.” He slid his fingers into her hair and tilted her head back. “What do you like?”

Zola laughed and scraped her nails down his arms, letting power rise in her, the best kind of challenge. “Figure it out.”

“Uh-huh.” He arched an eyebrow. “You’re not naked yet.”

With the button from his jeans gone, it was easy to slide the zipper down. “I’m distracted. If it’s important to you, maybe you should help.”

He caught her wrists in an iron grip, and it was only then that she realized how tenuous his control was. “If you want me to take my time,” he rasped, “then you’re going to have to let me.”

Wildness seethed just under the surface, and she wanted it. Needed it. With her wrists pinned she used her teeth to drive home her point, biting his shoulder with a low growl. “Take your time later. Now, we fuck.”

Walker surged over her with a growl, as if some leash holding him back had snapped. “Should have just said so.” The stretchy fabric of her bra yielded under his hands.

It was too fast to savor, but she wouldn’t have been able to appreciate finesse with blood pounding in her ears and hunger narrowing the room to his touch. Callused fingers, fast and frantic until she revealed a weakness with an arch or gasp, then so intense he had her panting as he toyed with her breasts. She moaned when he added his mouth, his rough tongue and sharp nips of his teeth.

He teased his thumb under the edge of her panties. One gentle tug and then he ripped those off, as well, baring her to his touch. He didn’t hesitate, just rocked the heel of his hand against her and groaned when pleasure shattered through her so hot that she cried out.

If he worked his fingers inside her body, she’d come and he’d take her and it would be good, but it wouldn’t be what she needed. Using all the strength in her trembling limbs, she broke free and rolled to her stomach, then came to her knees. “Now.”

Walker growled his pleasure, but he didn’t touch her again until his bare skin brushed her ass and the backs of her thighs. He leaned over her, strong arms braced beside hers, and kissed the back of her shoulder. “Now.”

He drove into her, and the world tumbled end over end in a dizzy spiral that tightened along with her body. In ten years of running she’d never belonged anywhere as much as she belonged here, beneath him, around him.

Part of him, as she’d been since the first day she’d loved him.

Her fingers fisted in the blankets as she rocked back, taking him deeper until pleasure gained a sharp edge that sliced through her, laying everything bare. That edge cut deeper as he nudged her hair off the back of her neck and bit her, then began to move, slow and strong.

Perfect.

She wanted it to last forever, but of course it couldn’t. Zola closed her eyes and reveled in the slick thrust of his cock, the heat of his skin, the flex of his muscles. Too soon, she was trembling.

He whispered one dark, quiet entreaty. “Come.”

She did, with a helpless moan that didn’t drown out the sweet sound of their bodies slamming together as she tumbled into bliss. He bit her again, arms shaking as his thrusts sped until he went rigid and followed her over the edge with a choked sigh.

Her name.

I love you. The words echoed in her mind, but she collapsed in a sweaty, trembling tangle of limbs without giving them voice. Too fragile. Too old and too new. So she pushed them down and ignored the lion’s unhappy rumble.

Walker would be theirs soon enough. She wouldn’t let him go a second time.

Walker woke with Zola draped over him, a living dream that had haunted him for years. His third time waking and reaching for her, and she came to him as readily as the first, wrapping her legs around his hips.

“Slow.” More than a whispered promise to her, it was a pledge to himself. They’d both waited so long, and they deserved to have each other in every way imaginable.

He kept his pledge until she bit his ear and whispered, “Mine.”

He lost himself then, surging deep. Mine. More than a word—a claim, one that matched the way her body welcomed his. Pleasure overwhelmed him, pure instinctive satisfaction.

Completion.

He belonged here, exactly where he was.

Afterwards, he licked the sweat from the hollow of her throat and smoothed her hair back. “Do you have classes tomorrow?”

A sleepy shake of her head as she stroked his back. “Never on Sundays.”

One of a hundred tiny little details he didn’t know, and he relished the opportunity to learn everything about her. “Just us, then?”

“Unless we want to start making arrangements to bring the pride to New Orleans.” Her fingers slid up to tease the back of his scalp. “I have money. We can find them a place to live.”

Money was the least of it. “So do I. The problem is how much red tape is involved with a move like this. That’s part of why I wanted the wolf council’s help.”

She chuckled. “I did not immigrate...naturally. There is a thriving business in New Orleans that focuses on nothing but making red tape disappear.”

“And if they’re like all the other thriving businesses like that all over the world, you don’t just walk up to them with an envelope of cash.”

“No,” she agreed, laughter still bubbling in her voice. “You send Alexander Jacobson. He will do it, because I’ve recently taken on a young woman of his acquaintance as a private student, and he’s feeling very grateful.”