Coyote's Mate

CHAPTER 8

“My nails look so pretty.” Ashley sighed as she threw herself beside Anya on the couch in the community room and lifted her hands up for inspection three days later.

French-tipped, a brilliant stripe running diagonally across each of them through a rich, lustrous vermillion. They were pretty nice.

“Cute,” Anya stated as she flipped a page in the magazine she was pretending to read.

Ashley curled her legs under her and stared back at Anya.

“Get a haircut?” Anya asked her.

“Oh yeah.” Ashley flipped the shorter back and sides. “Alpha sprang for it. But I’m still six weeks without new shoes, video games or splurge money for the mall. That sucks. He’s being mean about cutting weeks off too. Remember, though, you can’t have that ceremony until after my punishment. I want to look really pretty for it.”

Anya had thought about that ceremony, though Del-Rey hadn’t mentioned it. Hell, she had even looked at dresses herself, as though it meant something to her.

“Hmm,” Anya muttered as she flipped another page.

“You’re horny,” Ashley whispered. “Alpha make you sleep with him last night?”

Anya glared at her. “I had to have been out of my mind when I bargained for your nails rather than my bed.”

Ashley grinned impishly. “It’s because you love me best. I’ve been rubbing it in too. Sharone and Emma are so put out with me.”

“Emma doesn’t have kitchen duty,” Anya informed her. “Del-Rey put her in the office instead.”

“Only because she put that knife of hers under a Feline Breed’s throat when he wanted a sandwich,” Ashley laughed.

Anya closed her eyes and laid her head back on the couch. “I want kitchen staff, Ashley. A cook, someone that can bake.”

“Ohh, chocolate. Yummy,” Ashley sighed. “I had chocolate cheesecake and coffee in town.”

“I hate you,” Anya muttered, uncurling from her seat and moving away. “Get away from me, chocolate breath, before I kill you.”

No caffeine, no chocolate. No masturbating. No nothing for the bad little Coyote mate that didn’t want to fuck. She snorted at the thought of it.

“Hey, let the alpha give you a little somethin’-somethin’, and you can do coffee and chocolate.”

Ashley caught up with her easily.

Anya harrumphed at the thought. “I’m not that desperate yet.” She was dying for him. So aroused she was liquid heat, and Dr. Armani was scratching her head over it. All hormone levels were fine and dandy. Just great. Emotional response, Dr. Armani had said and smirked.

Emotional her ass.

“Come on, Anya, you know you want him.” Ashley skipped beside her, her pouting lips spreading into a smile. “You could just eat him all up like he’s chocolate himself, couldn’t you?”

“I’m going to shoot you,” Anya mumbled as she headed for her room.

“Where are you going? Don’t you have coya stuff to do?” Ashley asked her. “I heard Brim bitching at Sharone over your reports.”

“Did them,” Anya stated. They hadn’t taken long.

She was dying for Del-Rey’s kiss. It was eating her alive. She wanted to bite that lower lip and then lick it all better. Then she wanted to get serious about it and lick him all over.

“Don’t you have a party tonight?” Anya asked. “I already bought my dress. Thank God I didn’t wait till the last minute on that one.”

“Yes, something. City council shindig. Their yearly schmooze fest from what I understand.”

“Yeah, Del-Rey has a team out now going into place in case of snipers. He says his neck is itching.” Ashley reached back and scratched at her own neck. “So is mine. Do you think he’s messing with my mind?”

Anya had to laugh. “Did they dye your hair again, Ash? Sweetie, that stuff is rotting your brain.”

Ashley pouted. “And here I thought you loved me.”

Anya shook her head as she opened the door into her bedroom and came to a complete, hard stop. In a flash, Ashley was in front of her.

“Oh boy,” Ashley squeaked as the woman pushed away from Del-Rey’s arms. “Oh hell. Oh shit.

Alpha, you fucking suck.”

Del-Rey watched as Anya stepped slowly into the room. He watched her carefully as Sofia Ivanova moved slowly away from him.

Hell, he was up shit creek now and it damned sure wasn’t what it looked like.

“Anya, you know this isn’t the way it seems,” he told her.

“Why is this woman here?” Anya was glaring at Sofia, her sapphire eyes glowing between lowered lashes. “This is my bedroom.”

“I’m sorry, Anya, this is my fault.” Sofia’s smile was nothing if not confident. “I came to see Del-Rey. We argued and I meant to leave the room. I was upset and used the wrong door.”

“Don’t insult me by lying.” She turned to Del-Rey, her nostrils flaring as she fought to control her breathing.

A perfect cloud of beautiful blond hair framed the other woman’s aristocratic features. She was slender, tall, willowy, and Anya had never liked her.

“Why is she here?”

He pushed his fingers through his hair with a grimace. “She’s one of our plants within the Council. She always has been. She came with information and I didn’t want her seen so I had her slipped in.”

“To my room?” Anya drawled. “Did you think my bodyguards wouldn’t know another woman had been in my room?”

“She’s going to be difficult about this, isn’t she?” Sofia whispered loudly. “She always was such a temperamental little thing.”

“She assumed the room was my office. I didn’t have time to inform her otherwise.”

He didn’t look the least uncomfortable. He was still dressed, his wrinkled white shirt hanging over his well-worn jeans. Boots were on his feet. Sofia was still dressed.

“I expect a little trust here, Coya,” he said darkly.

Anya snorted at that. “Get her out of my bedroom.”

Her fists were clenched, her teeth ground together.

“The next time you need to meet with someone, find a room other than my bedroom if you don’t mind.”

“Jealous?” Sofia gave a soft, tinkling little laugh. “Really, Del-Rey, don’t tell me you’re still sleeping with her?”

“Enough,” Del-Rey snapped, his expression growing forbidding. “I apologize for this, Anya.”

“Get out!” She jerked her door open and glared at Sofia. “Now!”

“Oh dear.” Sofia blinked back at her as Ashley growled behind her. “Del-Rey, perhaps I should leave. We can talk later.”

“I think I have everything I need,” Del-Rey snapped. “Ashley, take Sofia down the east tunnel.

She has an escort waiting there. And be nice.”

“I’m always nice, Alpha.” Ashley’s smile was all teeth. “Come along, Ms. Ivanova, I know the way. Boy, whoever did your hair sure messed up. Bad dye job?”

Sofia’s lips tightened at Ashley’s “dumb blonde” routine. Anya didn’t even bother to warn her or Del-Rey that Ashley was going to make sure Sofia suffered before she left the tunnel. Even if it was only with words.

Watching the bodyguard warily, Sofia edged around the room and out the door, leaving Del-Rey and Anya alone.

“Your arms were around her.” Anya closed the door. “Doesn’t hurt to have another woman touch you, huh?”

“Just like a thousand needles slamming into my flesh,” he bit out. “Dammit, Anya, you know I wouldn’t touch her willingly.”

“What about before?” She stared back at him furiously. “She was an informant within the Council. She was part of your network even before I came to you, wasn’t she?”

She watched his jaw bunch. “Yes.”

“You already knew about the facility, and you still waited?”

“Sofia wasn’t in a position to do anything but get information out to me. We couldn’t have breached it without your help.”

“Too bad for me.” She smiled tightly.

God, that bitch had been right, she was jealous. So jealous it was eating her inside. She wanted to push him into a shower and wash the touch of that woman from his flesh.

“Because you really wouldn’t give a damn if I were fucking someone else, would you, Anya?”

“Should I?” she retorted. “Yeah, it was really pleasurable. Mounted, fucked and knotted, then left to figure out what the hell was going on by myself. I’m really anxious to repeat the experience.

Can’t you tell?”

Del-Rey stilled.

He couldn’t believe the words that came from her lips. She had refused to discuss that single night they had been together. She hadn’t spoken to him afterward. In the intervening months she’d only spoken when she had no other choice.

He could feel a curl of shame in his gut.

“It’s not always like that.” He stared at her, feeling the lash to his pride as it seemed to shrivel beneath her withering glare.

It would bounce back easily enough. Del-Rey had immeasurable pride and he knew it. Simply because he knew himself.

“It would never be like that again, Anya.” He would damned well make sure of it. “Do you think that was enough for me? That it was anything close to what I needed?”

She smirked. “Well, you were the one that flipped me on my stomach and decided on the position. Have you learned something since then?”

He snarled silently. “Mate, you’re pushing my temper.”

“Oh come on, Del-Rey.” Dampness glittered in her eyes. “Tell me, those years Sofia was helping you, did you ever fuck her?”

He wasn’t going to lie to her. He couldn’t lie to her, not about this. Something unimportant, something that got him what he knew they both wanted, that was different. Harmless. This wouldn’t be harmless.

“Briefly.”

Her chin lifted and he could smell the tears that sparkled in her eyes. “Did you spend more than a few thrusts and grunts with her? Or was I just the anomaly?”

“Anya.”

“Answer me, Del-Rey.” Her voice was calm, though it throbbed with pain. “Come on, Coyote Man. Tell me. Did you spend hours with her or minutes?”

“What I did to you was unconscionable,” he stated heavily. “And I regret it, Anya, with every fiber of my being.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” Her lips trembled before she firmed them quickly. “Hours or minutes, Del-Rey?”

“Hours.”

She was breathing roughly. Pain emanated from her with a scent that was mixed with more than just pride.

“Well, can’t call you a liar now, can I?”

“Anya.” He shook his head. “I would give my life to go back and make that night what it should have been. I lost control, and when it was over, I had no idea how to deal with it, or what I felt coming from you. The mating heat cheated us, together. I tried to explain that to you afterward, after we arrived here. It would never be that way again.”

She stared at him accusingly. “I was a virgin.”

“I know that, baby.” He ached with that knowledge. Ached with a fire and a fury he couldn’t quell, hadn’t quelled since the moment he realized what he had done.

“Leave me alone.”

Anya knew she was going to cry. She had never imagined Del-Rey had slept with a woman she could possibly know, let alone spent hours pleasuring her body. Touching her. Stroking her.

“Anya, we need to talk about this.” He pushed his fingers through his mussed hair. “Ignoring it isn’t going to work. I won’t let you go.”

She shuddered at the sound of his voice, part growl, part rasp of anger.

“You should have cared!” she cried. “You should have cared enough to at least hold me when you finished. You left me, Del-Rey. Cold and alone, and suffering that damned heat as though something were inside my body tearing it apart. You couldn’t even hold me.”

Oh God, don’t let her cry. Don’t let him see how bad this hurt her.

“You fucking bastard!” Her fists clenched and there was nothing to hit. “You screwed her? The slut of the Chernov facility? You spent hours fucking her? Or just hours giving her pleasure?”

“Enough of this!” He crossed the room, gripped her arms and gave her a firm shake. And she wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate him so bad it ate into her soul like acid, and all she could do was hurt, because one of the few people in this world that she did hate had fucked the man she loved.

“Listen to me, Anya, what happened that night will never, ever happen again. I swear it to you.

The next time I touch you it will be in gentleness. Hours, baby.” One hand cupped her face as his expression twisted.

Anya couldn’t stand it. She didn’t want to see gentleness on his face now. She didn’t care.

“You break your promises, remember, Del-Rey?” she whispered painfully. “Did you break your promises to Sofia?”

“I made no promises to Sofia,” he rumbled. “Stop this.”

Her head jerked up as she forced herself to contain the pain rising inside her. It hurt. It hurt to the bottom of her soul to see that woman in his arms, to know he had pleasured her, spent hours doing so, and she hadn’t deserved so much as a few moments of foreplay.

“I’ll be more than happy to stop it.” Her breath hitched with the pain. “As soon as you leave my room. I have a party to get ready for, remember?”

“You do not order me, Mate,” he growled. “Don’t make the mistake of believing you do.”

Anya watched his eyes flash, the black deepening, showing a hint of raven’s blue as his expression tightened, his hands flexing on her arms as she felt herself backed into the wall.

“Oh so fierce, Del-Rey,” she snapped. “I catch another woman in your arms, a woman you spent hours fucking, and I shouldn’t feel cheated? Doesn’t work that way. You cheated me and you know it and now you expect me to just accept that things will be different? That you can control yourself? Go to hell!”

“Keep running your mouth, Mate, and we’ll see how fast that mating heat can jump back into your system. Don’t push me like this.”

“I dare you!” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

Cassandra had warned her: never dare a Coyote. She’d been pushed past the point of caring.

Sofia had had what should have been hers. Hours of pleasure, and she should just calmly accept it?

“What the hell did you say to me?” His voice deepened, roughened.

“You heard me, Alpha,” she sneered. “I dare you.”

It was the wrong thing to say. He’d warned her years ago never to dare him. He took dares and bets seriously. Both challenged that core of animal genetics within him, and in some situations, well, in this situation, he had no intention of pulling back.

He jerked one hand from her arm, speared it into her hair and jerked her head back.

“You little witch,” he snarled down at her. “You’re not pissed off because of some long-forgotten affair with Sofia. You’re pissed because you believe she had something you didn’t.”

“She had plenty that I didn’t,” she ground out. “She had a man. What the hell did I have, Del-Rey? Slam, bam, knot you, ma’am? It sucked. And you sucked for daring to allow me to walk into my own bedroom and see that affront to the paltry excuse for sex you gave me.”

Enough was enough. He growled low and hard, his lips coming down on hers, his tongue striking sure and deep past the parted curves, as she met his kiss and gave her own.

Her nails bit into his biceps for long, shocked seconds as he felt her lips close over his tongue and her hungry moan filled the room.

There it was. Fuck. Hell. Control. He vowed control. Had sworn for eight months he would love her slow and easy if he ever had the chance again, but all he could do was devour her mouth, her lips.

The glands at the side of his tongue throbbed fierce and hard as he fought to push back the animal rising inside him, striving for satisfaction. Nearly nine months without her. Too many months, too many weeks craving her. He could count the hours if he could clear his head enough.

She drew on his tongue, moaning that soft, feminine little sound of hunger that he remembered only in his dreams.

He pumped his tongue between her lips, fucking her mouth with it as she sucked at it. The mating hormone flowed free now, drawn by the heat of her mouth and the unique taste of her kiss.

He could feel fire gathering at the base of his spine. His balls drew tight and hard beneath his cock, and his muscles locked as he fought for control. Fought to please his fiery little mate.

“Damn you.” His lips jerked back, moving over her jaw, nipping roughly as she arched in his arms. “You’ll drive me insane.”

He jerked at the neckline of her snug sweater, pushed it over her shoulder and attacked with lips and tongue the mark he had left between her shoulder and neck. He stroked it; he sucked at it. He worked his tongue over it and scraped it with his teeth, as his other hand moved from her hair to the hem of her sweater and pushed beneath it roughly.

She was his. His mate. His sweet, tempting little Anya. So soft and defiant. A challenge and a pleasure. She was the perfect mate for him, smart-mouthed little hellion that she was. He loved that about her. She gave him that spark of challenge he needed and kept him on his damn toes.

He intended to keep her on her back.

He picked her off her feet, one arm behind her back, the other at her hips as he laved and caressed the sensitive mating mark.

As he bore her back to the bed, his lips caught hers again. He didn’t want to hear objections. If she dared push the word no between her lips, then he might lose any control he had on the fragile leash of his lust.

Her back met the bed as he pushed her legs apart, settling between them with a groan of triumph.

He had her where she belonged. Beneath him, locked in his embrace, his lips moving over hers as he pushed her sweater over her breasts and palmed the lush, full curves.

“Bra off. Off.” He tore the fragile lace, but her breasts were released to him, her hard little nipples like ripe berries. A delicate, fragile pink. Hard, stiff.

He growled, a demented animalistic sound, as his lips covered one, his tongue licking and stroking, laying that powerful hormone along the throbbing tips.

Oh, dare him, would she? Push him to show her who her alpha was, would she? She would learn better than that here and now, right here in her own bed where she would never forget his possession of her. Then, he would take her to his bed. If he could still walk.

Her nipples were so damned sweet. She was too sweet. The taste of her fueled the flames burning in his gut as the glands in his tongue became sensitive, swollen again.

He lifted his head from her breast, pulled the sweater from her then stared down at her in amazement. She was perfect for him. Beautiful. So sweetly rounded. Lush breasts, curvy hips, thighs that could hold a man through the night.

He eased his hands down her waist. Slow, he reminded himself. Slow and easy. Love her. Touch her. Feel every inch of her silken flesh.

He pulled the button of her jeans free, watching her face, her eyes. His fingers brought her zipper down.

“Toe off the shoes,” he growled.

He expected her to object, to deny him. God help him if she denied him.

She moved, pushed her sneakers from her feet as he pushed his hand beneath the material of her jeans. He was breathing so damned hard it hurt his chest. His fingers slid over her lower stomach, into the band of her silken panties, and he found paradise.

Slick, saturated curls. He loved curls between a woman’s thighs. Breeds had no body hair, though over the past months he had developed chest hair, since mating her. But there was none on his genitals. He was fascinated with his mate’s fiery curls.

He let his fingers pet the sweet curls, scratch through them, feel her heat and the promise of her passion as her hips arched to his hand.

His tongue was throbbing as he lowered his head, his lips taking hers again, capturing the deep, tongue-thrusting kiss he craved from her.

She sucked his tongue into her mouth, moaned at the taste of him, her arms digging into his hair, clenching in the strands and holding him to her. His fingers slid through the thatch of wet curls again, then delved into the narrow, swollen slit of her pussy.

“Fuck!” He snarled the word against her lips as he found the luscious, juicy flesh beyond, filled with her sweet syrup, the temptation of it filling his senses as she lifted to him again. He was drowning in her, and he wanted nothing more than to sink farther.

Anya’s lips parted for air. She couldn’t seem to draw enough into her lungs, couldn’t seem to drag herself from the heated haze of hunger and need that enfolded her. Her thighs parted farther, allowing his fingers privileges she’d sworn she would never give them. Privileges she ached for now.

“More,” she whimpered, desperate for his taste.

It wasn’t like the first time. That freezing, burning, clawing agony. This was just hot, desperate pleasure. So much pleasure she pulled at his hair, dragging his lips back to hers, wanting more of his kisses.

The taste of him was addictive; even with the hormonal therapy in her system, his taste was like a drug she couldn’t get enough of. Was this normal or mating heat?

It was a stronger need than the one she had known before he had betrayed her. Before he had lied to her. It was that same driving, intense need to explore. But the pleasure. Oh, the pleasure was exquisite.

Hours. He could keep this up for hours?

Could she?

She tossed beneath him, sucking his tongue into her mouth and tasting the spicy heat of the hormone that spilled from it.

She could feel his body tensing, growing steel hard as he held himself above her. Her hands moved from his hair to his shirt. She wanted to unbutton it, but couldn’t. Her fingers fumbled; they slipped. She gripped the secured edges, one in each hand and jerked, feeling the buttons pop, tear.

The growl that tore from his throat was primal, feral. It was pure animal hunger and sent racing tingles of electric energy spreading through her body. She could feel them, like little sizzling fingers beneath her flesh as his calloused fingertips rasped around her clit.

“You make me crazy.” He tore his lips from hers, his teeth nipping at her jaw, her neck. “I’m going to come in my fucking jeans.”

She smoothed the shirt back from his broad chest, relished the warm mat of chest hair beneath her fingertips. That was so sexy. Most Breeds had no body hair, she’d heard.

But Del-Rey had a light mat lying over his chest, arrowing down the center of his body to just below his navel. And it was sexy. And warm. And she wanted her tongue in it. She wanted her lips on it. She wanted to lick his flesh, taste him all over.

Her head lifted, her tongue swiping over a hard, flat male nipple as his lips moved to her shoulder again. He froze.

She let her lips, her tongue, play around the bit of flesh. She tugged it with her teeth and pushed her hands beneath his shirt, flattening them on his back, relishing the heat of him.

He surrounded her now. She liked being surrounded. She liked having him all over her until she was melting beneath him.

“I say we castrate the alph—Oh fuck!” Ashley’s shocked voice was a splash of ice water she didn’t need.

“Get the fuck out!” Del-Rey’s voice was feral. “Damn you, Ashley!”

He was poised above Anya, head turned, snarling. His black eyes gleamed with that hint of blue and his hard expression was savage, hungry.

It took a moment for her to realize exactly what she had done. What she was doing. She was pawing him, so desperate for him she had dared him. The same as begging him.

She pushed against his chest. “Stop!”

His head jerked back to her. “I have my fingers all but up your pussy and you’re saying stop?”

Incredulity filled his tone. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Have you lost yours?” she cried. “Let me up, Del-Rey. Now.”

She had to get her bearings. She had to figure this out. This wasn’t heat, but it shouldn’t be arousal either. It shouldn’t be natural. She had just caught another woman in his arms and she was all but pleading with him to take her. Whining because he hadn’t loved her, because he hadn’t touched her, pleased her.

“Now!” she cried out again, pushing against his shoulders as his fingers slid slowly from beneath her jeans.

His expression hardened; his eyes were midnight and navy blue fire. Then he lifted his fingers, still glistening from her juices, and curled his lips around them.

“The next time I get my hands in your pants, Mate, you’re fucked,” he growled. “Be very, very careful the next time you dare me. This one was free.”

With that, he jumped back, landing on the balls of his feet as she lay back on the bed, panting, chilled, weak from the sensations still racing through her.

“The next time I catch Sofia in your arms, I’ll make you wish you were dead,” she shot back, sitting up and jerking her sweater over her head. “You made this situation, now you can live with it.”

His smile was slow, dangerous. “Remember that, Coya, the next time I get between your thighs.

Because next time I’ll show you exactly what you’ve missed out on.”

“What you gave Sofia?” She was shaking again, furious. She saw that scene again—Del-Rey gripping the other woman’s arms, her hands on his chest, her head lifted to him as though for a kiss. It made her want to kill.

He shook his head first, then his finger. “Jealous, Coya? She might have had a taste, but I intend to give you the full banquet. A few hours would never be enough.” He glanced over her body, a flush mantling his cheekbones. “I think I’ll be fucking you all damned night long when I get my cock inside that snug little pussy again. Think about that. Because I will be.”