“Was your mom a shifter?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Your father must have been, then.”
“I figured that’s what the tattoo meant after I shifted for the first time. Black leopards live in some of the African mountains.”
“What happened to them?”
“No fucking clue on the sperm donor. Mom was killed that day she called me away from you.” I clenched my jaw as the stench of her attackers’ coyote blood slithered through my memory.
“I’m so sorry,” Ashlyn said, lightly touching my thigh.
“I raced back to camp, but too late to save her. The three men who’d attacked her ended up dead—thanks to my inner beast.”
“That was the first time you shifted?”
“Yeah. Took me ten years to get back to human form, too.”
“Tell me all about that,” she said, her tone broking no argument, so I obliged, spilling my own fears and the beliefs of myself I’d huddled under for so damn long.
Ashlyn’s nearness, however, lessened the tension between my shoulders. She’d brought about an inner peace of sorts I’d never experienced in my forty-some years, had made shifting back to human downright easy.
Home.
In my mind, I agreed with my inner cat—and my protective instincts solidified in my head and heart. I would move heaven and earth to exact revenge, to keep her safe from our enemies—but after fully claiming her as my own.
We arrived back at Wraith’s camp, and I took Ashlyn inside directly to the claw foot tub for a good, long soak. While she washed the stench of the woods and those cock-sucking wolves off her skin, I rifled through her stuff in the back of my truck, bringing in her suitcase of clothing and a box of food stuff along with her small cooler.
While I’d planned on hanging at the cabin for a few days, I hadn’t brought much in terms of food. With Wraith’s freezer stocked full of steaks for whatever ravenous cat shifted back to human form, I really didn’t need much else. Shifting brought on the need for meat, and I’d planned on spending most of my time in cat form anyway.
Ashlyn had some organic, non-nitrate lunchmeat shit—and I devoured the goddamn pack after one sniff. Fucking fantastic. I passed on the fat-free yogurt before wiping out her supply of perfectly ripened bananas—black speckled and everything.
Still ravenous, I stripped down to my skin, the way I preferred while indoors, and poked my head into the bathroom.
Ashlyn leaned against the back of the tub, her eyes closed, a small smile curving her lips. Her breasts swelled above the water, twitching my dick back to attention. The dark pink of her nipples tightened beneath my stare.
One bent leg rose above the water line, and I imagined diving between her thighs—once she climbed out of the water, of course.
My mouth flooded with drool for more than mere sustenance.
“You look ravenous.”
I jerked my focus back to Ashlyn’s face, a slow, rare as fuck smile lifting my lips. “You have no idea.”
Her smile faded, her hazel eyes piercing mine. “Will you finish what you started in the woods? Make me yours in all ways?”
My dick swelled to full mast, pre-cum oozing within a blink, but I considered the well-being of her mind even if her body had healed from my bite.
“Please … I’m ready—I need you right now.”
I stepped fully into the bathroom, Ashlyn’s gaze dropping to my dick, her lips parting.
Fuck, they would look good wrapped around my dick—so would her huge tits, but it was time to erase whatever memory she had of those fuckers who’d taken what didn’t belong to them. Time to spill my own seed deep inside her, claiming her for a lifetime.
I stroked down my length, my focus on the pulse thrumming in her throat, hating the choice I had to give her. “You can still walk away, Ashlyn. Go back to the sticks of Pennsylvania, forget any of this shit happened. Go back to living in ignorant bliss. I’m not a good man—I don’t run with good men. My brothers and I are ruthless bastards who never shy from a fight or bloodshed. We aren’t honest creatures. We break the law on a daily basis. Take what doesn’t belong to us.”
“But you protect what does.”
I snapped my jaw shut and nodded.
Ashlyn held her hand out to me. “Fate brought us together, Bryce, and I’ve never felt more … at home than I do with you.”
Well, fuck.
I climbed into the damn tub behind her, and even with it being a tight fit, we got her turned around and facing me, her soft breasts against my chest, the heat of her pussy pressed against the back of my dick.
“Taking you bare—right here, right now,” I told her through clenched teeth, my balls already close to exploding. It’d been weeks—months since I’d been with one of the club whores. They’d never truly satisfied, but I expected I’d found the one who would slake the lust thrumming through my blood.
Ashlyn reached between us to grasp my dick, and I hissed through my teeth as she stroked me. I swore a goddamn purr escaped her—and her inner cat whispered its need through the link between us I’d created with our bite.
She lifted and notched my dick inside her. “I’m claiming you, Bryce Hunter.” Inch by torturous inch, she lowered herself onto my throbbing dick, holding my gaze. “You’re mine. My alpha—my beast. My Pisoiaș.”
“Fuck.”
She bottomed out against my thighs, her wet heat clasping like a perfectly fit glove around my girth. Slick. Tight. Fucking perfect.
“Fuck yourself on my dick, iubita.”
A shudder rippled over her at my command, and I grasped her tits in my hands, lifting their weight, thumbing her hard nipples. Lower lip between her teeth, she took what she wanted, lifting and lowering. Grinding. Gasping when I thrust to meet her downward stroke.
My balls
