The Beast

FORTY

“Okay, I might have thought you were joking about this.”

As his Mary sank down into a Jacuzzi full of bubbles, Rhage reached out through the warm, frothy swirl and ohhhhh, yeaaaaaah, there it was, his mate’s body all slippery and smooth, from the curve of her waist to the flare of her hips—and so many other things.

“Gimme, gimme, gimme.”

Leaning back against the wall of the tub, he pulled her to him, splitting her thighs and settling her right on top of his bobbing, bright-idea cock. He didn’t enter her, though. There was time for that later.

“How long have you been waiting for me?” she asked as she put her arms around his neck.

“Hours and hours.”

Her breasts were obscured and revealed, obscured and revealed, as the level in the tub recalibrated itself to her presence, and Rhage licked his lips at the sight of her glistening nipples and the bands of suds that remained on her skin.

It reminded him of a bikini top that had failed in the most miraculous of ways.

“I thought you went downtown to fight after ice cream?” she said.

“Oh, I did.” He shifted his palms around and cupped her breasts, moving them together while he thumbed those nipples, wiping them free. “Yup.”

Mary moaned in the back of her throat, and she seemed to struggle to collect her thoughts—especially as he lifted her up to his mouth and sucked one of her tips in, flicking it with his tongue. Under the surface, his erection kicked like a bull and his hips surged.

“What did you say?” he murmured as he moved to her other breast.

Squeezing her, kneading her, he found himself thinking, yes . . . yes, he remembered this back from their earlier nights, when he couldn’t wait to get home and get her naked, when Last Meal was second priority, because his Mary was the only sustenance he really needed.

“I honestly can’t—oh, right, how long did you wait for me.”

“Years.”

“That’s”—she gasped—“not possible.”

“Are you kidding me? I got home about ten minutes ago.”

Mary laughed. “And that was forever?”

“Waiting for you? In this tub alone? Hell, yeah.”

And fighting would not have been a word he’d have used to describe what he’d done in those alleys. More like foot patrol.

No slayers had been out and about—and that was not a good sign. The question was where the next wave of the Omega’s troops was going to come from. Who the Fore-lesser was going to be. How long the lull was going to last.

The enemy was going to be back. That had been the nature of the war for aeons and aeons. And sometimes the quiet periods were harder to get through than the battles.

A subtle glint at the window beside them caught his attention. It was the automatic steel shutters coming down to protect the mansion’s interior from sunlight.

And provide privacy, too.

Using his superior strength, he lifted Mary from the water until one of her knees was on a stack of fluffy white towels next to his head and her other leg was fully extended and propped against the floor of the Jacuzzi. As she balanced herself by holding the molding of the window, her breasts swayed forward.

So much dripping.

So much warm water and so many trails of tiny bubbles sluicing off her skin, trickling down her stomach, her hips, her thigh.

Her sex.

Extending his tongue, he nestled his face in there, licking at her in a lazy way, wishing he’d not gone with the damn bubbles, because they masked her taste some. Pulling her onto him, he worshiped her with his mouth, hearing her groan his name, feeling her orgasm—

Something slipped, her foot on the inside of the tub probably, and talk about applecart over; her body went off balance, and he slid down, and the next thing he knew, he was underwater, and she was laughing, and there was a tidal-wave splash out onto the marble.

“Oh, no!” Mary said. “I’d better clean that up—”

“Not yet, female.”

With a growl, he put her under him, her buoyancy in the deep tub bringing her up to his body. “Wrap your legs around me.”

As she did, he reached between them and angled himself and then—

“Oh, yeah,” he gritted out.

They worked together to create the friction, him wrapping his arm around her waist and pumping her up and down, her rocking herself by pushing and pulling with her legs against his pelvis. So good, so tight that he didn’t even notice the suds in his face, or the fact that he kept having to readjust his grip on the tub’s lip.

Annnnnnnnd there was one other thing he kind of ignored.

There might have been some more over-the-gunnels splashing.

Just as he was starting to come inside of her, as his balls tightened and that sharp-knifed pleasure kicked his cock and made him punch his hips over and over again . . .

There was the not-so-dulcet sound of pounding out on the bedroom door.

“Rhage! Yo, Rhage!”

“Not now,” he barked as he continued to pump and Mary’s release had her locking tight against him.

“Rhage! What the fuck!” came another voice.

“Not now!” he yelled back.

“Rhage!”

More pounding. Like, with multiple fists.

With a last jerk of the pelvis, he went still with a curse. “Mary, I’m so sorry.”

She laughed and put her face into the crook of his neck. “It’s not your fault—”

So much more pounding on the door—to the point where it was clear there were a number of Brothers out there. And as multiple males kept calling his name, he cursed again.

“You stay here,” he muttered.

Withdrawing his cock, the warm bathwater was a piss-poor substitute for Mary’s core, and he was in a really bad mood as he stood up and kicked one leg out to put a foot on the marble—

Three. Fucking. Stooges.

All three hundred pounds of him went ass-over-elbow, the water on that smooth stone turning the floor of the bathroom into an ice-skating rink. Arms pinwheeling in thin air, body contorting, something in his spine cracking—

Boom! He didn’t so much land as detonate, all kinds of pain lighting off in explosions in his arm, his shoulder, his back, his ass, and one of his legs.

“Rhage!”

For a moment, all he could do was stare at the ceiling as he got his breath back. And then Mary’s face was in his line of vision.

“Ouch.” And then he sneezed for some reason—oh, right. He had bubbles up his nose—and fuck, that hurt. “I mean, like . . . really ouch.”

Meanwhile, the cast of thousands outside was still going batshit at their door. And yeah, there was a lot of water.

“Mary, do me a favor?”

“You want me to get Doc Jane?”

“Not unless all this wetness under me is my blood,” he said dryly. “Can you please put a bathrobe on before they break that door down? I love my brothers, but if even one of them sees you naked, I’m going to kill him. After I get out of traction, that is.”

When Mary was sure that Rhage was fairly okay-ish, she stood up and carefully walked over to where one of Rhage’s thick terry-cloth bathrobes was hanging on a hook. She figured he’d like her in that the best because it smelled like him, and it had so much surface area, it would cover her from collarbone to ankle with yards to spare.

Then she went across to the archway–

Well, waded across, she amended, as water literally splashed up onto her feet. Shoot, this was out of the realm of towels, and seriously into the wet-vac zip code.

“This is bad, this is really bad,” she said.

“I’ll be fine—ow. Fuck, I think I broke my arm.”

“We’re never doing that again. Ever.”

“Sex?!” he sputtered. “What?”

She pivoted back around to the sight of him buck-ass naked, covered with vaguely pinkish bubbles, in the midst of a giant pool of water, with an expression of total, abject, and enduring horror on his face.

Mary burst out laughing so hard, she had to reach out and steady herself on the wall. “Oh, my God, I need to stop—”

“Tell me we’re still having sex—”

“Of course! Just maybe not in the tub with that much water!”

“Jesus, don’t scare me like that. You’ll give me a damn aneurysm.”

“You may already have one. And can I let them in now?”

Rhage grunted as he sat up, the tattoo on his back writhing as if the beast were feeling a little beaten-up, too. “Fine, but I don’t know what they’re bitching about. Jeez, you spill a little water and everyone has a fucking cow.”

“Try a swimming pool’s worth.”

It was a relief to get out onto the carpet, where the traction was good and she didn’t have to think about exactly how she was stepping.

“I’m coming! You can stop pounding now!” she hollered over the din.

When she got to the door, she found that it had been locked. No doubt Rhage had willed the dead bolt into place—which made her smile.

Opening things up, she faced off with—

“Wow.” Okay, there were a lot of Brothers out there. “It’s a convention.”

Butch was in the front of the pack, a glass of what had to be Lagavulin in his hand, a wry smile on his face. John Matthew was behind him, along with Blay and Qhuinn. V. Zsadist. And Phury. And Tohr.

“What are you two doing in there?” someone asked.

“Don’t answer that, Mary!” Rhage shouted.

“Did you think there was a fire in the pantry?”

“I’m coming!” Rhage said.

“I think he already did,” somebody else muttered.

A collective oooooooooooow! rose from the group as Rhage appeared behind her.

“That arm is wicked bad,” Butch said. “I mean, it’s like you have a second elbow.”

As Mary glanced over her shoulder, she recoiled, too. “Oh, Rhage, you need to get that set.”

Rhage glared at the group. “Just gimme a Band-Aid, I’ll be fine. Now will you give us some privacy?”

Butch shook his head. “Okay, one, no, we will not, because where do you think all that water is going? And two, you are on your way to the clinic—”

“It’s fine!”

“Then why are you holding it with your free hand?”

Rhage looked down at himself as if he’d been unaware of what he’d been doing. “Oh, shit.”

Mary patted his shoulder. “I’ll go with you, okay?”

He stared at her, and dropped his voice. “This was not how I envisioned the session ending.”

“They’ll be other opportunities—”

“Just not in water,” came the collective response.

Striding back to the bathroom, she snagged a towel and returned, wrapping it around her mate’s waist and tucking the end in so the thing stayed put.

Getting up onto her tiptoes, she whispered, “If you’re a good boy, I’ll play nurse and patient with you after you get your cast.”

Rhage’s laugh was low and a little evil, his eyes going half-lidded and hot. “Deal.”