Moira Rogers - Crossroads

Heat flared in her eyes, and she framed his face with her hands. “I don’t know how. That’s what I meant last night. I’ve never—” She moaned and tilted her head back, offering him the pale curve of her throat. “Not like this, Derek. Not like you.”

He got one hand under her skirt as he licked the spot over her pulse. His knuckles brushed damp fabric and the last shred of sanity fled when he realized she was every bit as aroused as he was.

He got them to the floor, but he couldn’t remember how. He shoved her skirt up above her hips and dragged at the expensive little panties, succeeding only in getting them to her knees before he had to touch her.

She bucked up with a low cry, her bare feet sliding on the polished tile. Her nails dug into his shoulders as he stroked his fingers through her wet folds, and she rocked into his touch and watched him with glazed eyes. “More. I want you.”

He wanted to make her come, to do something smooth or sexy or exhibiting the tiniest bit of self-control. Instead he urged her over and tore at her underwear until it ripped away in his hand. The bare line of her spine beckoned, and he licked the back of her shoulder as he moved above her. “Tell me I can.”

“Yes.” She sighed the word as she reached up and tangled her fingers in his hair. “Anything you want.”

It was too fast, and he was supposed to care. There were probably other things he should be thinking about too, aside from how quickly he could get her onto her knees and how good it would feel to be inside her.

And then he was inside her, and he’d been wrong because it was so much better than anything he could have imagined. Nick cried out and threw her head back against his shoulder, already shuddering around his cock. She murmured to him, hoarse, whispered nonsense, but still he knew she meant for him to move, to drive her on. To make her scream.

He got a hand around her and slid it down until he encountered slick heat, the sensation enough to make him moan. His thrusts came too fast, too hard, but he couldn’t stop. Not when she writhed beneath him, whimpering and moving back to meet each advance. He rubbed his fingers over her clit and found he remembered one word. “Nick. Nick .”

Her entire body jerked and shook. Her head crashed into his chin, but he barely felt it. Instead, he focused on her voice, trembling and needy and finally screaming his name as she came.

Derek couldn’t stop himself from biting the back of her shoulder as the clenching heat of her body dragged him over the edge. He came with a roar, drowning out the sound of her voice.

She shivered under him, her back tight against his chest, and finally exhaled with a low curse. “Not crappy. Amazing.”

He wasn’t entirely sure he could speak, but he tried anyway. “Crazy out of control and still sort of awesome.”

Nick groaned quietly. “Come on, Derek. I feel really good. Don’t hurt my feelings with ‘sort of’.”

“Sort of,” he repeated as he shifted to his side, heedless of the cool tile floor. He rolled onto his back and pulled Nick on top of him. “You only came once.”

“Once? Really?” She grinned and bit his jaw. “Seemed like more than that.”

“Mmm, no. I was keeping track.” He curled his fingers in her hair, loving the way it felt under his hand. “Christ, you still need to eat.”

Nick tucked her head under his chin. “So do you. We need to get some things together for Michelle and find some time to talk, and—” She lifted her head suddenly and stared down at him. “Can you still take that vacation you mentioned last night?”

“Sure, Nick. Hell, Andrew might not let me back through the office doors if I wanted to be there.”

She stroked her thumb over his cheek. “Can you stay here with me? Just until we figure out this whole thing with the Conclave? It’s the only thing I can think of that’ll calm your instincts. And…me.” Her lips brushed his. “It’ll be better for me too.”

They hadn’t managed a single date yet, and she was inviting him to take up residence in her home. He would have been thrilled if half of him hadn’t been terrified that he’d never want to leave. But the wolf replied for him, whether he wanted it to or not. “Yes. Of course.”

She studied him wryly. “Too much, too fast, but I don’t know how else to fix it, Derek.”

He snorted. “You don’t get it. My real concern is how I’ll make myself move back out when it’s over.”

Something softened in her eyes as she sat up and smiled down at him. “Let’s burn one bridge at a time.”

“Fair enough.” He reached up to curl a damp lock of her brown hair around his finger. “You should get dressed. I’ll see what I can salvage of our breakfast.” And my clothing.

She climbed up and pulled on her tank top. Then she balled up the expensive silk remains of her panties and jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “I’ll be upstairs, okay?”

She ran out before he could say anything else, even if he’d been able to find the words.

Nick fled upstairs. It was bad enough she’d attacked Derek in the kitchen when they had more important things to do, but to ask him to move in with her?

He had to think she was crazy.

To top it all off, she hadn’t given a thought to birth control before yanking off his clothes in the kitchen. She stared at her reflection in the mirror before stripping out of her tank top and skirt. Maybe Derek hadn’t had much experience dealing with the mating instinct, but she knew better.

She should have known better.

“Fuck. Fuck .” She covered her face with her hands. “Damned mating—” Her words cut off in an angry sigh. No matter how much Derek affected her, she couldn’t afford to get distracted by the need to touch him, especially to the exclusion of everything around them. Michelle couldn’t afford that.

She couldn’t afford for Nick to sit around brooding, either.

Nick grabbed some fresh clothes, dressed hurriedly and snatched the extension phone from her bedside table. The Conclave had to have a trace on her phone already, but they’d be idiots not to suspect Mahalia of being the one to help Michelle and Aaron flee.

The woman who had been a surrogate mother to her for the past few years answered on the second ring. “I’ve been waiting for you to call, Nicole.”

The receiver’s plastic casing cracked, and Nick had to remind herself to loosen her grip. “Thank you. I don’t know what I can do for you, but I owe you.”

“Don’t insult me like that. How is she?”

“Exhausted. Scared.” Nick shuddered. “Worried as hell.”

“Don’t blame her one bit.”

“Me either.” She hesitated. “Does Daddy know?”

“That I helped?” Mahalia sounded wholly unconcerned. “Honey, if he can’t figure it out, he doesn’t need to be the Alpha.”

Which was the witch’s way of saying John Wesley Peyton had known and let them slip away. “Are they giving you a hard time?”

“They dragged me before their little board table,” Mahalia admitted. “It was all very official and intimidating.”

Nick fought a vaguely hysterical laugh. Intimidated was the last thing the older woman seemed. “Threatened you?”

“Mmm. Said I should just tell them what they wanted to know, because they have ways of encouraging people to talk.”

Fury washed over her in a red wave, and Nick gritted her teeth. “You didn’t react well, I take it?”

Mahalia laughed, the amusement edged with something dark and determined. “I told the bastards they could try, they just wouldn’t like what happened.”