Dakotah's Reading

CHAPTER 5

Joy rushed through Domino when Dakotah walked into the house of her own free will. The sight of her loosened the tight knot of rage and frustration that had been a leaden weight in his chest. The sight of her sent his cock jerking to attention in a rush of blood that left him dizzy—until he saw Fane’s mocking smile. “If you’re smart, you won’t say anything,” Domino said.

Fane’s smile widened. “What’s to be said? Other than, He who laughs last, laughs best.”

Domino hissed, flashing his fangs though he knew it would have no effect on Fane. He shifted his attention to Dakotah and his nostrils flared when he became aware of Cable’s scent on her arm. He wanted to rip her jacket off her, to get rid of the smell of another man, but her wary expression warned him against giving in to the primitive impulse.

Dakotah took the last step and closed the distance between them. Their bodies touched. Relief soaked in even without the feel of skin against skin. And still it wasn’t enough for Domino. He pulled her into his arms, covered her lips with his and thrust his tongue against hers.

She tasted of woman and darkness.

Of blood.

And courage.

And him.

He plundered her mouth and she responded by softening, her body molding itself to his as her tongue tangled and battled, rubbed and enticed in a greeting that made his heart race and his cock throb.

Anticipation rose. The Heat burning more intensely than The Hunger and Domino embraced its fiery flame. Envisioned taking her into the bedroom and fucking her as he should have done earlier instead of sending her away. Envisioned taking her as his bride and seeing the truth of it in her eyes.

But as quickly as he thought it, she stiffened and tried to pull away, and in the process stirred the need to dominate, to claim. To be what he was designed to be.

His fangs elongated and he forced himself to end the kiss. The Heat ruled for the moment, but The Hunger was a deadly presence just underneath the surface of his skin. One taste of her blood… He lifted his mouth from hers and stepped away, his eyes traveling over her, his gaze possessive and hot as realization dawned.

He still saw sleek lines and a body that made him want to cover it with his own. To rut like a wolf and make love like a man. But now he also saw her strength of will and found a courage he could admire. There was no fear in her despite the fact he’d very nearly killed her.

She was a woman he could easily imagine at his side, at his back in the centuries that lay ahead. She was what he’d never imagined he might have. Even if the wariness in her eyes warned him she didn’t truly understand or accept what they already were to each other, what they would soon be to one another.

“You need to feed,” Fane said, drawing Domino’s attention away from Dakotah, his words striking against The Hunger like a match and causing it to roar through Domino’s veins.

Domino couldn’t resist shooting a glance in Cable’s direction and then Kiziah’s, his eyes lingering over her blonde beauty in a way guaranteed to scrape over Fane’s nerve endings. “You’re offering your kadine? Your companion?”

This time it was Fane who hissed, flashing his fangs. “You know better.”

Dakotah caught the look of amusement Cable and Kiziah shared before Cable said, “Zia and I are going to go camp out in front of the fireplace.”

The rest of them followed, going deeper into the house. Dakotah acutely aware of the man walking behind her.

Without even touching, the lust was there. The need. Not just the wolf’s, but Dakotah’s own desire. Without a word the anticipation was building. As though the night could be spent in only one way. Sating a hunger that transcended the body. A hunger of the soul. The heart.

Cable and Kiziah settled on the thick carpeting in front of the fireplace, their attention fixed on one another. Dakotah took a seat at the end of the couch and Domino sat next to her, crowding against her so that they were once again touching.

Fane surprised her, sitting on Domino’s other side and unbuttoning the sleeve of his shirt then pulling it back. “You need blood, Domino, to fully sate The Hunger.” His eyes met Dakotah’s, dark and serious. “If you weren’t important to him, he would have killed you to sate the bloodlust that rides us with The Transformation. It’s almost impossible to stop. It’s a miracle that he did.”

“It was a close thing,” she said, remembering how she hadn’t even put up a fight, how good it had felt, even when she knew he was killing her.

There were men she’d been forced to service who required erotic asphyxiation—men willing to skate the edge of death for their sexual pleasure. She’d hated them, hated what they forced her to do to them. It revolted her. They revolted her.

She got to her feet and moved to stand behind the chair. Torn. Confused by her own reaction to Domino. The fact that she didn’t hate him, wasn’t even sickened by what had happened between them after his Transformation. He watched her through hooded eyes as he lifted Fane’s wrist to his mouth and fed.

Dakotah responded to the sight of it, her labia swelling, her breasts growing full and heavy. It was an act of communion, primitive and sacred at the same time. Sexual and yet not sexual.

Her womb fluttered and her nipples hardened. Desire moved through her. To be what Domino needed. To have him take her blood instead of Fane’s.

Domino released Fane’s wrist and stood, his focus on Dakotah. His eyes reflecting the heat that was burning through her.

Fane rose from the sofa and joined Cable and Kiziah on the rug in front of the fireplace, Kiziah’s soft, embarrassed laughter causing Dakotah to look away from Domino, to watch as Cable and Fane positioned Kiziah between them, their hands and mouths roaming over her body, turning her laughter into weak protests, and then into sighs and whimpers and muted pleas.

“Does it turn you on to watch them?” Domino asked, trapping Dakotah between his body and the back of the chair. His hands sliding around, cupping her breasts, tweaking her nipples through clothing that was suddenly too restrictive. Making her folds grow slippery with the feel of his erection pressed against her ass.

“I’ve seen shows like this before,” she said. I’ve been in them. And yet even as she said the words, thought them, she knew they weren’t completely true. If it was only sex, she would have turned away by now. But it was more than sex, more than pleasure. The love she saw on their faces was a seduction of her senses, a torment to her heart.

“Have you really?” he whispered against her neck. “Have you really seen this show before? Once we’ve formed a bond, it’s impossible for us to have sex outside of it. But among close friends and family, we sometimes share the pleasure that we take in those who have become our world. The kadines—or male companions—whose blood sates us, whose bodies succor us, whose existence gives deeper meaning to our own. It’s not a trap I thought to find myself in, but here I am.” His fingers tightened on her nipples, becoming almost painful as he warned, “Don’t fight me, Dakotah. You can’t win and neither of us can change what’s happened between us.”

Dakotah shivered as his words slid through her. In that moment she believed. In that moment she allowed herself to be caught up in the dream.

She didn’t protest when his fingers replicated Fane’s and Cable’s movements, stripping her of her jacket and shirt and bra as they were doing to Kiziah. She whimpered as Kiziah whimpered, longed to feel Domino’s mouth suckling at her breasts, hungrily eating her as Fane and Cable were doing to Kiziah.

“You’re aroused,” Domino said, smoothing over the tight crowns of her breasts, tugging at her nipples before moving lower, his hands hot against her belly, their nearness to her cunt making her suck in her breath, making her want to open her jeans so that he could cup her mound. “Admit it. Admit that you’re aroused.”

“You know I am. You can smell it.”

His hand stroked over her stomach. Teased along the waistband of her pants. And she pushed against his erection, ground against it, needing more as Cable stripped Kiziah of her skirt and panties and pressed his face to her cunt. Kiziah’s cry of pleasure scraping over Dakotah with razor-sharp talons of need.

“You liked the feel of my mouth on you in the woods,” Domino said, tormenting Dakotah by unzipping her jeans, his fingertips sliding inside her panties, tracing the line of her pubic hair.

She tried to turn in his arms, to turn the tables on him, but he held her in place with his superior strength. Buried his face in her neck, seducing her with the feel of lips and fangs, so that she very nearly begged him to bite her.

Lust burned through Domino. Sparked by the sight of Fane with Kiziah and Cable, fed by Dakotah’s willing participation.

The scent of her arousal inflamed him, tested his control. Both The Heat and the wolf urged him to take her, to bury his cock in her, to spend the rest of the night fucking her. But the man wanted to savor these moments. To use them to ease Dakotah into his world. To get better acquainted with his bride.

The word no longer felt awkward on his lips or unexpected in his thoughts. Domino grimaced—no doubt his grandmother would chortle with pleasure that her predictions had come true.

But there was nothing to be done about it and he wouldn’t change it if he could. Dakotah was his bride, she would be his kadine. Already he craved it as much as he’d once craved his freedom. The desire for it was hardwired into him, but her earlier actions had made it more than what he’d always imagined it would be. He’s seen it as a trap. Now he saw it as a doorway. And the need to go through it was overwhelming. She was already everything to him.

He kissed along her spine. Inhaled her scent as he smoothed his hands over her hips and down her legs, pushing her clothing in front of them. Following with his mouth, licking the base of her spine, gently biting a sleek buttock before moving lower, to torment the back of her knees with his tongue as he removed her shoes so that her jeans and panties could fall to the floor.

She was muscle and tawny skin, lean and feminine. Her lines like the wolf’s, beautiful to him. Arousing.

Domino stood, shimmering into mist in order to shed his clothing, returning to human form in the blink of an eye so he could press against Dakotah. So he could drink her in through his skin.

In front of them Cable was scrambling out of his jeans, the firelight dancing off his flesh. Stark need written on his face as he took his cock in hand, its tip glistening with arousal.

With a groan Domino rubbed his cock against Dakotah, covered her mound with his fingers and rejoiced in her wetness, in the stab of her clit against his palm. She pushed back against him, spreading her legs and leaning forward, trying to draw him into her depths.

He resisted. Pressed her more firmly against the back of the chair so he could withstand the temptation she presented for a few moments longer. “Have you really seen this show before?” he asked, returning to their earlier conversation, his lips pulling back in a silent snarl. “Have you experienced it?”

Dakotah’s cunt clinched as Cable pulled Kiziah on top of him. She whimpered when Cable thrust upward, his face a mask of pleasure as his cock slid home. And then Fane joined them, forging into Kiziah’s back entrance, the three of them going still, as though they were savoring the instant when they first joined, as though they were so closely bound together that they were one person.

“No,” Dakotah said, answering Domino’s question. Longing filling her as she looked at the three people making love in front of the fireplace. “No, I’ve never seen this show before.”

Domino brushed his fangs against her neck, the need to dominate pressing in on him along with the wolf’s urge to cover its mate. The desire to erase any memory she had of other men, other lovers, was a burning ache in his gut. “I will kill any man who tries to take you from me.”

“You already have,” Dakotah said, thinking about the two men who’d followed her into the woods. Shuddering as she thought about Victor Hale—a man she’d never met but who was determined to see her dead. “There will be more of them.”

“And they will die too,” Domino said, his voice without inflection. His absolute confidence filling her with a security she’d never known before. A shimmering vision of safety that she was hesitant to believe in.

Already Domino could sense something of her emotions, and already it wasn’t enough. He found himself longing for the second blood exchange and then the third—so he could touch her thoughts at will, so he could know who she was.

He kissed her shoulder, cupped her breast while the fingers of his other hand pushed into her sheath. He gloried in how wet and slick she was, how the muscles of her channel clamped down on him, tried to hold him inside of her. “Do you want me to take you now?” he asked, his cock full, pulsing, leaking as both Fane and Cable began moving in and out of their bride’s body.

Dakotah had never wanted anything so badly. Never thought that anything sexual could touch the deepest parts of her—that she’d allow it to reach her. But seeing Fane and Cable and Kiziah, being with Domino…

She hungered like a beggar at the edge of a feast. Felt starved as though she’d lived through a lifetime of famine. The pain of her need was soul-deep, wrenching, squeezing her chest so the only thing she could say was yes. Her voice whisper-soft, her answer triggering a fierce possessiveness in Domino, a driving desire to see to her safety and happiness.

He positioned her so her hands were braced on the back of the chair, teased her by sliding his cock back and forth along her cunt lips, stroking over her clit as he coated himself with her arousal.

When she would have impaled herself on him, he resisted, tormenting them both by delaying. Pushing the need higher until her skin was coated with a fine sheen of sweat, until his testicles ached for release and his cock screamed for the feel of her wet channel and feminine heat.

Only then did he give in to what nature demanded, thrusting all the way into her in a forceful stroke meant to claim, to dominate, to reach her heart and take her soul. She moaned, a husky sound that had his nostrils flaring, his muscles tensing, fighting against the urge to piston in and out and spew his seed within seconds of mounting her.

“Watch them,” he growled, subduing the fierce urge to rut by focusing on the rhythm in front of him, by matching what Cable and Fane were doing with their bride.

And Dakotah watched, soaking in the raw emotion and passion as she breathed the heavy musk of arousal, became consumed by it. Wanted it for herself. And Domino.

She looked away, tilted her head so that dark eyes met obsidian ones, in challenge, in demand, and he answered her call, snarling with need as his thrusts became more aggressive, as their awareness of what the others were doing faded until the only thing that mattered was finding release and pleasure in each other.

Domino took her to the ground with his penis still embedded in her, the wolf demanding a closer contact, a true covering of its mate. Dakotah’s wolf wanting the same, so that she readily went to her hands and knees, readily lowered her upper body, enabling Domino’s cock to thrust deeper.

He wanted to sink his fangs into her as they fucked, but settled for gripping her shoulder with his teeth, pressing his chest against her back and pinning her with his weight, taking her as a man though the movements and instincts were those of the wolf. He wanted to consume her, to be so closely melded that they were one body, one mind, one being, the ancient stamp of his ancestors so strong that there was no thought to resist. No point in denying it.

Domino settled more heavily on her, a show of strength and dominance, and she responded by yielding more of herself. Accepting all that he had to give, letting him take her as no man ever had, letting him touch her heart and soul where the others had gotten a body devoid of feeling, a hollow vessel to sate their needs with.

He didn’t allow either of them a release until they were both panting, writhing, burning, the sweat pouring off them, their bodies closely attuned, his thoughts pressing into hers. Pounding into her with each thrust. Mine! Mine! Mine! The presence and fierceness of his words as overwhelming as the rush of orgasm that took her, leaving her dizzy, shaken, trying to pull back, to retreat to safer ground.

Domino wouldn’t allow it.

He scooped her up and carried her from the room, though not before Dakotah saw Fane and Cable and Kiziah wrapped in a cocoon of love, holding one another tightly as they basked in the afterglow of their own pleasure. The flames in the fireplace not nearly as bright or as hot as what they found in each other.

She expected Domino to toss her onto the bed, but instead he moved through the bedroom and into the bathroom, depositing her in the shower stall and joining her there, making her scream then laugh when a blast of cold water hit them both before steamy hot water followed in a soothing caress. He pressed her against the wall, eyes dancing, lips trailing wet, sucking kisses along her neck and shoulders, her breasts, playful now where only moments before he’d been intense.

It was a welcome relief to Dakotah. A different type of seduction. And she responded to it, petting him in return, nipping and kissing as she slid down his body. His mock growls making her smile against his slick skin, filling her heart with a lightness she’d never associated with sex.

She stopped to torture tight male nipples, reveled in his honest moans of pleasure, in the way his body shuddered, pressing and rubbing against hers, enticing her to lick and suck, his cock already hard again, thick and full and waiting for her attention.

But she refused to be hurried despite its pulsing insistence. She grasped his nipple between her teeth, tugging as he’d done to her earlier, teasing it with her tongue as his fingers clenched and unclenched in her hair.

Only when his head was thrown back, his body arched, tense, did she slip lower, cupping his testicles in her hand, measuring their fullness and weight as she nuzzled his cock, inhaled his scent, the wolf inside shivering with joy, urging her to taste him, to know him through all her senses.

Domino’s growls turned into moans, and then became her name. Repeated over and over again as she let him press through her lips. Her hands and mouth controlling the depth of his pleasure, the length of it, driving him higher and higher, until there was no hint of their earlier playfulness. Until there was only fevered need and the satisfaction of giving and receiving beyond anything ever experienced with another partner.

She was a heady addiction for Domino. The end result hardwired into him. Each taking fed The Heat and erased the memory of those who had come before her. Bound him more tightly to Dakotah until his reality centered on her. On what she would become for him. His kadine. His mate. The mother of his children. And he rejoiced in her presence in his life.

He took her to the floor of the shower stall, pinned her there, testing his control by burying his face between her thighs, the hot rush of her arousal warring for his attention with the wild thundering of her blood. He wanted to sink his fangs into her inner thigh but thrust his tongue into her cunt instead, fucking in and out, consuming her, lifting his head only to suck her clit, to attack it with his tongue as she writhed and strained against him, her voice husky then hoarse as she begged him for more, and he savored the sound, enjoyed the erotic retribution for what she’d done to him. Ignored her pleas as she’d ignored his until his own needs matched hers. Only then did he swallow her release—jerking away when the temptation to take her blood became too great—and with a growl he levered himself over her, his eyes capturing and holding hers as he pierced her with his cock, fucked her as the hot water rained down on them.