“Touch me.” Her voice was throaty. Whoever or whatever this was, it wasn’t her.
“I think it’s a bad idea.” Why the hell was he growing a conscience now?
“I have to sleep with someone now,” she said. “If you don't do it, I’ll have to find someone who will.” She made her way back toward the door, her exit as much a seduction as her entrance.
Like hell, she was. “You aren’t going anywhere. You promised your blood to me, and I will collect.”
She didn’t seem bothered that he’d reduced her to nothing more than a magical blood donor. She stood in front of him, gloriously naked and pulsing with desire, her body vibrating with the purrs he knew were more from painful need than contentedness.
“Please,” she said, rubbing her breasts against him. The action was so feline she might as well have been in her fur.
Dayne gripped her by the shoulders. “How much of you is still in there? Because I promise if you regret this afterward and think you’re running off, I will lock you in the cage downstairs. I’m not having your heat cycle screw this up.”
She was unfazed by the threat, too lost in elevated hormones. “Don’t you want me?” She pouted prettily and then turned in his arms, her ass grinding against his erection. “Mmmmm I see that you do.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Well?”
His hands slid around to her front, running smoothly over her belly and up to her exposed breasts.
“Are you coherent enough to talk to me?” He was in the process of losing his own powers of coherence.
“Don’t wanna talk. Wanna fuck.”
He gripped her by the shoulders again and shook her. “How long does this last, and how often does it happen?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Exposure to eligible mates.” She moaned. “Don’t stop touching.”
“You can’t possibly live like this.” He found it hard to believe Weres were running amuck having heat cycles and getting anything done in the real world.
“I take a pill. They’re in my apartment.” She sped the pace of her grinding.
“Like birth control?” If she didn’t stop that, he wasn’t going to be able to continue the conversation. Not verbally anyway.
“Sort of. Stops the cycle. Mutes it so I can function. Please fuck me now. Talk after.”
“I’ll go get your prescription.”
“Too late, won’t help once it’s started. Have to get them after.”
Against his better judgment, Dayne picked her up and carried her to his bedroom. What was he going to do? Have her rolling around all over him until the full moon? He was supposed to be evil. He was well within his rights at this point. With all he’d heard about the tortures of heat without fulfillment, he was providing a service.
When they reached the bedroom, he set her firmly on her feet and brushed a strand of hair from her face. She leaned into his touch. He jerked his hand away, remembering the same gesture from a few days before. This wasn’t her.
“Please.” Greta’s breath came out in labored pants.
“Oh fuck it, I’m the bad guy.”
He pushed her until the backs of her legs hit the bed. Her knees bent, and she laid back, spreading her legs wide for his perusal, her earlier shyness gone. He leaned down to kiss her.
“Please,” she whimpered.
The kitty didn’t want foreplay. Dayne shrugged and shucked his clothes. He tossed them blindly to the corner and took in the feast in front of him. Her fingernails transformed into sharp, razored points.
“Scoot back up on the bed.”
“Please.”
“Scoot back up on the bed or I’ll leave you here to handle this yourself.” He knew she couldn’t.
She obeyed him; she probably would have walked through fire at this point. If he were more sadistic, he might have tested that theory. Instead, he went to the adjacent room, came back with rope, and tied her wrists to the bars.
“For my protection from those nasty claws of yours,” he said, pointing to the healing marks on his forearm. There was no betrayal in her eyes, only raw lust as she spread her legs wider. Tears streamed down her face.
“Please, Dayne.”
Superpowers or no, she could do nothing but submit when the heat took over.
He looked down at her writhing in heat. She was so fucking beautiful. Her pheromones were heavy on the air, in his nose, in his throat. In his head. Everything was her in that moment.
Her skin was silken as his bare flesh slid against hers. He wanted to take it slow, not just rut like two mindless animals, but she wouldn’t let him. Her legs wrapped around him in a vice, using her considerable therian strength to pull him to her, rubbing her body against his.
Dayne gave up his plans to be noble and slid inside her. In that moment he felt one thing. Possession. This belonged to him. He felt it in the same primal way he felt magic when he’d followed the proper formulas. Whatever she thought this was, she was going to be in his bed for a good long time if he had anything to say about it.
A symphony of emotion played over her face as her more restrained counterpart fought for control. Fear, confusion, desperation, need, and finally surrender, as that part of her lost. She lurched off the bed as her orgasm took her, and he joined her.
When it was over, Greta’s face telegraphed equal parts shame and fear. She turned away, staring at the wallpaper as if trying to imprint the pattern on her memory.
Dayne untied her, and she wrapped herself in the bedspread.
“God, what you must think,” she finally said. She’d been making an effort to keep her crying quiet, but it flowed out of her voice when she spoke.
“I’m thinking, for a quickie, that was amazing. And that I’m probably done with my own species. To hell with playing it safe.”
He smiled at her when she turned back to him and kissed the dampness from her face.
“It’s worse than a vampire’s need for blood,” she said.
Another odd quirk. Most Weres reveled in their sexual power and slept with anything they could get their hands on. It was the one reason he’d trusted Jaden. When she’d come to his bed when she wasn’t in heat, he’d believed her feeling for him was genuine. Now he knew what it had really been about. Control.
Her face was tense, no doubt waiting for him to say something cruel.
“Are you okay now?” He sat on the bed beside her, for his part unconcerned with his nudity, as he stroked her back through the bedspread.
“Yes. I’m sorry about that.”
“Believe me, there is nothing for you to be sorry about. I’m evil, remember? Your petty heat cycle doesn’t intimidate me.”
She laughed a little. “It won’t happen again if you can get my pills.” Greta frowned then, lines appearing in the middle of her forehead. “I’m sure my apartment is being watched.”
“I can get in undetected. Will you be okay if I leave you?”
“Yes, go.”
The fridge door stood open as Greta debated the benefits of leftover spaghetti versus peanut butter and jelly. She finally decided on chicken nuggets from the freezer.
Over the past few days she’d slowly come to trust she was safe here. The longer she was exposed to the sorcerer’s magical signature, the more she knew the world was shown a very different Dayne Wickham than the reality. Now her unease and fear were back.