Trace reached Asylum in less than thirty minutes and roared down her driveway on his chopper like a hundred fiery steeds breaking free from the gates of hell.
He killed the engine and burst through the garage door seconds later. It was after midnight, so the house was dark and quiet.
Too quiet.
“Cordray!”
He took the stairs three at a time, ran down the hall, and threw open her bedroom door.
Only to find her tied up on the bed, her arms and legs bent behind her, her wrists and ankles bound together.
“What are you doing here?” Her face blanched as she met his gaze.
“You were in danger.” He leaped onto the bed, pulling out the knife he’d borrowed from Micah. Within seconds, he’d sliced through the knots. “What happened? Are you okay? Who did this to you?”
“I’m fine, and it doesn’t matter who did this to me.” Rolling away from him, she flung off the rope and planted her feet on the floor. “He’s gone. I’m alive. Thank you for cutting me loose, but now you can leave.”
She dusted her hands down her arms and darted past him into the hall.
Ah, hell no. She wasn’t running away again. Not this time. Not now that he knew the truth that she was his mate and that she loved him.
He caught up to her in four strides and grabbed her arm. “Where are you going?”
“Anywhere you aren’t.” She tried to twist her arm from his grasp. “Let me go, damn it.”
“No. Not until you tell me why you’re fighting this.”
“Fighting what?” She tried to turn away from him, but he grabbed her other arm and backed her into the wall.
“This.”
* * *
His lips claimed hers with a fervor she’d never felt. And since this was Trace, she felt every ounce of the fervor he was channeling from his lips into hers as his hands traveled from her shoulders to her hands, which he slammed against the wall a moment later.
After a long, dizzying stretch in which she thought her lips might melt, he pulled back and searched her face, leaving her wide-eyed and breathless.
The power rolling off him set her senses on fire.
“Why are you fighting what’s happening between us?” he said, breathing hard, gazing at her mouth. “Why are you always running away from me?”
Reclaiming her courage and her conviction, she freed her hands from his. “There is no us, hotshot. No matter how great a kisser you are.” She shoved him away and turned to make her escape.
“Oh no you don’t. Get back here.” Trace tried to grab her arm, but she flung his hand away as his searing touch lit fiery excitement inside her muscles.
“Don’t touch me!” She fled down the hall. If she didn’t get away now, she wouldn’t be able to.
“Don’t you run away from me!” His body heat bled into her back as he followed.
Arousal blasted through the pit of her stomach, sending her thighs up in flames. The waves of power pulsing from his body beat the air around her like heavy bass from a high-def speaker. Thump-thump-thump. Only these hard palpitations hit her between the legs, each pulse like a heartbeat that throbbed deep inside her core.
She had to get away from him. She couldn’t give in to whatever this was. If he was manifesting his power to get her in the sack, she couldn’t let that happen.
With renewed effort, she hurried toward the stairs, trying to escape.
He raced ahead of her, blocking her way.
“Leave me alone, Trace!” She spun and darted back toward her bedroom.
But he was right behind her, assailing her body with wave after wave of sexual heat, weakening both her knees and her resolve.
“Tell me the truth!” He clutched her wrist and swung her back around to face him.
She staggered as her feet briefly went out from under her. “What truth?”
“That you love me!” His turbulent gaze searched hers. “You do, don’t you? Don’t lie and tell me you don’t.”
Damn Samantha. She’d told him.
“What does it matter?” she yelled at him as tears blurred her vision. “You don’t want me! You hate me!”
“Just admit it, Cordray! Admit that you love me!”
“Why? Why should I? What fucking difference does it make?” She tried to break free, but he held her too tightly.
“Because—”
“Let me go, Trace. Just let me go so I can—”
“You’re my mate, goddamn it!” He shook her then slammed her back against the wall.
Arousal exploded in her blood, and she sucked in her breath a split second before—
SMACK!
Her palm connected with his face. Hard.
His head whipped to the side, and he released her. The air thickened. When he brought his face back around, he was rocking the most intense set of fuck-me eyes she’d ever seen. As she slowly stepped to the side, he eased closer, and a blast of hormonal heat pulsed from his body like a sonic boom.
Warmth bloomed deep inside the heart of her and slicked her core.
She swayed as she cautiously circled him then took two backward steps toward her bedroom.
There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run, no way of getting out of the coming storm as he bulldozed toward her, chest pumping, fangs extending, gaze locked on hers as if she were a pool of cold water in a desert and he’d been without water for weeks.
Retreating, she backpedaled over her own two feet until her back thudded against the wall again.
He was a predator, and she was his prey. In an instant, his arms caged her. The warmth of his body seeped into hers as another eruption of hormonal heat fired under his skin and sparked the air around them.
“Trace . . .” She broke eye contact and tried to duck under his arm, irrationally terrified of what was happening between them.
He blocked her and encroached even farther into her personal space.
“Hit me,” he said, his voice a deep purr. “Hit me again.”
God help her, but she actually wanted to hit him, and not because she wanted to hurt him, but because she knew—instinctively knew—that hitting him was the key to breaking his arousal wide open.
And damn her to hell, she wanted that. She wanted to feel him inside her, against her, touching her, kissing, sucking, biting.
Even so, she proudly jutted her chin. “No.” But her body screamed YES!
The corner of his mouth curled upward as he pressed against her, setting off all kinds of alarms in her nervous system as her sense of touch accelerated to full throttle.
She gasped and instinctively thrust her arms out in front of her, only to meet with the brick wall of his body. The muscles of his torso felt like sculpted marble. Thank God for compression shirts that fit like a second skin, because she could glide her hands over this shit all day.
“Hit. Me.” A low purr broke deep inside his chest.
She met his hooded gaze with as much audacity as she could muster. “No.”
“Wicked female.” The dark chuckle that broke from his throat like a spritz of tequila and honey made her knees tremble. “I know you want to. I can feel it.”
The front of his body crushed hers, his chest mashing her breasts in such a delicious, erotic way. She drew in her breath and tilted her head back as his lips brushed up the slender column of her neck. His fists latched onto her hips. He grunted and yanked them forward, making her gasp again as his erection rubbed the juncture between her legs. Everywhere he touched burst with sexual awareness. Hot. Like someone had injected fire into her veins.
The sensory overload was almost too much, and she nearly came on the spot.
“Trace . . . I can’t. I don’t want . . .” Her voice trailed off, because what she’d been about to say was a bold-faced lie. Because she did want. She wanted everything he seemed ready to give her. If he stopped now, it would destroy her.
“Oh, but you do,” he said, calling her bluff. “I know you want it.” His warm breath flowed in staccato exhales against her neck, right below her ear.
She was so close. An orgasm sat just on the perimeter of her awareness, circling, closing in, almost there.
“Trace . . . please . . .” She didn’t know what she was begging for. Her mind was a scrambled mess of desire and need.
He slid his nose up the side of her neck and into her hair, inhaling deeply as he continued rubbing his erection against her. His slow, insistent grinding was nice. Very nice. Take-her-breath-away nice.
“You’re my mate, Cordray.” His warm breath washed over her skin. “Do you know what that means?”
She nodded then changed her mind and shook her head. Her fingers curled over his shoulders like hooks. He was so hard, so hot, so incredibly, insanely perfect.
“It means that this”—he thrust between her legs—“is mine.”
She sucked in her breath and eagerly nodded. Okay, yes, that was his. It was so his.
“And it means that this”—he ran his tongue along her neck, right over her vein—“this is mine, too. Your blood is my blood.” He nipped her flesh. “You will never feed from anyone other than me again, Cordray. Do you understand?”
No other. Her blood, his blood. Got it. She just didn’t want him to stop.
Two weeks ago, she and Trace had been magnets that repelled each other, but that was only because they’d been facing each other with their north poles. But now . . . flip! North, meet South. They snapped together the way nature had always intended.
He pulled back and groaned lustfully as his eyes ranged her face.
“Hit. Me.” The words rose like steam from his throat, his gaze sending all kinds of I’m-going-to-fuck-you-so-hard signals. “Please.”
Well, since he’d said please.
* * *
Her hand shot out, blistering his cheek with the delicious sting of pain.
Trace’s head spun to the side, and lightning bolted down his spine to his dick. Five-alarm arousal burst to life inside his balls, and he suddenly wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything, and not because his inner beast had been beaten into submission.
When he pivoted back around, she was staring at her hand as if she couldn’t believe it was attached to her body but liked that it was.
“Again.” Heat poured through him. He was panting hard, needing more. “Hit me again.”
And God love her, she did. The hardest yet. He might melt he was so hot, and it was all because of her.
He closed his eyes and moaned, relishing the biting pain as it resonated briefly then faded.
He closed the short distance between them, hard as steel, aroused in a way he’d never been. The curves of her body welcomed his. Her heavy breasts rose and fell against his chest. Her hips cradled his as she locked her eyes to his and proudly lifted her chin.
She was as turned on as he was. Even more. He could smell her arousal. It smelled like orange blossoms at midnight.
He drew in a long, deep breath and let that tropically infused scent filter into his lungs and spread into his limbs.
“You’re mine, Cordray. You belong to me now. Your body. Your heart. Your very breath. And tonight I’m going to claim what is rightfully mine.” He didn’t know where the words came from, but he felt the truth of them flowing through his blood. Blood that was hers now, as much as hers was his.
She started to resist, but he thrust his entire body against hers, snatching her hands in an instant and pinning her arms against the wall, extending them over her head.
Her staccato inhale and the drawn-out moan that followed were music in the silence of the house. A lusty serenade meant only for his ears.
Her eyelids drifted down, hooding her eyes. Her body undulated against his.
“Hit me again.” He eased his hold on her hands, letting his palms slide down her arms to her breasts, where they paused before easing lower, to her flat stomach.
God, she felt good. Feminine yet strong. Like a female was supposed to feel. He dropped his nose to the side of her neck, where he dragged in another long, consuming inhale of her scent, musky and sweet. Sexy as hell.
“Trace . . .”
“Hit me, Cordray.” He spoke against the expanse of skin at the base of her neck.
A wanton groan broke from her throat as she shuddered and tipped her head back. Her hands curled into fists against his chest.
“Trace . . . please . . .”
“Hit me.” He pulled his face away from her neck and stared deep into her eyes. “One more time, and I’ll give you what you want. What we both want.” He licked his lips and gazed at her luscious mouth. “What we’ve both wanted since the moment we met but were too stubborn to see.”
God, he needed the pain. Needed it to be free.
And then he could take what was his.
* * *
She took several quick breaths, fighting a final resurgence of resistance.
For one intense moment, she was trapped between fight or flight, acceptance or denial. Between consent and refusal. Her body ached for him in all the right places. For days, she had fought her attraction to him, struggling to keep him away when all she wanted was to draw him closer. And now he had forced the issue by announcing that she was his mate.
His mate!
Trace was the reason why Gideon had never mated her. Because she’d been meant for another. And nature had chosen well. Trace was perfect for her in every way, but remnants of fear still echoed in her heart. She couldn’t expect them to cease altogether when she’d made fear a way of life for so long. After all, old habits were hard to break.
His strong hands held her hips against the wall, but even now their hold softened, his palms sliding higher and leaving a wake of sizzling fire.
His body pressed against hers, and she could feel how hard he was. Hard for her. His body heat churned the air around them into a feverish cauldron. All it would take to feel his hands on her bare skin, his lips against hers, his hardness inside her, and all that heat to wrap around them both, was one more slap. All she had to do was hit him, and fate would do the rest.
She had to decide. The time was now.
His face drew closer, consuming her field of vision with his hooded eyes. His pale-green, so-goddamn-sexy eyes.
“Hit. Me.” He whispered the command against her mouth, so close that his breath washed over her lips.
She wanted that mouth on her. Everywhere. All over her body. Her lips, her breasts, her stomach, her sex.
Her hand whipped out.
SMACK!
Her palm connected with his cheek. Hard.
His eyes shut briefly then snapped opened as he let go of her and hastily shed his shirt.
“Again,” he said urgently, gripping the sides of her body, slamming himself against her.
It didn’t matter that he’d promised only once more. She would hit him as many times as he wanted. Whatever he asked, she would do. That’s how far she’d fallen out of her own control in the last sixty seconds. It was as if something greater than herself controlled her actions, pouring through her blood, making her let go and embrace her instincts for the first time in her life.
She slapped him again, feeding the building frenzy spiraling around them.
“More.” His hands drove under her shirt.
The moment his palms found bare skin, she nearly blacked out. She hadn’t felt a male’s intimate touch for so long she almost wept as his palms shot up her stomach to her breasts.
“No.” But her mind screamed yes as she struck him twice more then clutched his shoulders. She tugged then pushed, both pulling him closer and pushing him away in a constant battle to resist and take all at once.
“Yes.” Trace lifted her shirt, struggled against her uncooperative arms, and then fisted the material as he growled. He pulled, hoisting her away from the wall. The angry sound of ripping fabric was followed by the rush of cool air on her exposed skin.
“Stop,” she said, but the single syllable sounded more like damp cheesecloth than the snap of a wet towel.
The only part of her that wanted Trace to stop was her fear. Fear that was dwindling and slipping toward surrender with each passing second.
Her body was in heaven. A torturous heaven that assaulted her senses and flooded her ability to cope. Every breath pulled more of Trace’s earthy scent into her lungs and compelled her to touch him, to fall into the moment, to give him what he wanted and hit him again.
Trace shook his head, his gaze locked to hers as his fingers dove under her bra and grazed her nipples.
She sucked in a blast of air and gripped his shoulders to keep from falling as her knees buckled.
“You don’t want me to stop.” Trace was all male, virile and demanding, a tightly coiled bundle of need that commanded every cell in her body as he flicked his fingertips back and forth over her puckered skin. “I can feel how badly you want me. I can see it. You can’t lie to me, anymore, Cordray. You can’t lie to your mate.”
“Bastard.” She gasped the word then bit back a moan of approval as he nipped the side of her neck. Her knees quivered, and she clung to him for fear of tumbling to the floor.
He pulled back and grinned. “Sticks and stones, baby.”
Flames erupted between them, and the air shifted as her fear vaporized. She would have Trace, and she would have him now.
With an aggressive surge, she shoved him against the opposite wall and drove her hands up his stomach to his chest. He willingly lifted his arms, exposing himself to her hungry gaze, staring at her with eager, fascinated eyes.
Then his hands found her skin once more as she shrugged out of what was left of her top. With the flick of his index finger, he snapped the tender lace in the center of her bra, and her breasts spilled into his palms. She let her head fall back, wound her fingers through the belt loops of his pants, and tugged him forward as she backed into the wall again. They were like two pinballs, magnetically connected, spinning and bouncing back and forth in the hallway.
Enchanted bewilderment filled Trace’s gaze, which dropped to her chest. From his expression, it was obvious he’d never held a woman’s breasts in his hands before. The way he stared gave her the impression he had never seen nipples, either. Surely, he had. He’d had plenty of mistresses who had taken pleasure from him. But never like this. Never when he wasn’t under submission.
Something in his expression weakened Cordray’s knees even further. Under his gaze, she felt like a rare artifact. Precious. A treasure to be admired and beheld with the utmost reverence. Then he dove down and claimed one of her nipples with his mouth.
Oh God!
She cried out and slapped one hand against the wall to support her as she clutched the back of his head with the other. Heat burned the insides of her thighs, and the muscles deep inside her clenched.
She was going to come. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find the ability to take in oxygen. Every muscle screamed, tightened, prepared to celebrate the rediscovery of her sexual response. For the first time in centuries, she was going to have a goddamn orgasm. Right here. Now. This . . . very . . . second!
“Holy shit! Trace!” Everything went black as the power of her long-suppressed sex drive blew her into the cosmos. A fraction of a second later, she gulped in air like she had just come up from being sucked into the ocean by a riptide.
On and on, the pleasure ricocheted throughout her body, rolling through her muscles. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t comprehend reality. All she was, was a mass of sensation, synapses firing, nerve endings reacting to stimuli. Trace’s stimuli. With Trace, she was alive. Pleasure, pain, the warm wetness of his mouth. The sensations strangled her in such a beautiful, captivating way. And when he licked her skin, cool air washed over the moisture and sent a shiver through her body.
When her orgasm finally waned, she realized she was slung backward like a passed-out co-ed. The ends of her hair brushed the floor, and her arms were like slack rope. Trace’s arms encircled her waist, and his lips were leaving a trail of tiny supernovas down the middle of her stomach.
“Oh . . . my . . . God.”
As Trace continued his downward journey, she managed to pull herself back up and lean against the wall for support.
He unfastened her pants, pushed his thumbs into the waist, and shimmied them down her legs and off her feet.
When he lifted his gaze back up to hers, it was with a sense of wonder, as if he didn’t understand what was happening to him, what drove him to continue, or why he was reacting to her the way he was.
Cordray could understand the feeling. Despite her attraction to him and the fact that he’d mated her, she’d gotten used to them hating one another. Or at least acting like they hated one another. Yet here he was, his large hands gripping her hips, the tips of his fingers playing over the elastic waistband of her panties, his gaze locked to hers, his face inches from where she wanted him the most. He had just given her the most incredible orgasm she had ever experienced, and it looked like he was nowhere near ready to be done with her.
And didn’t that just make her day, because she wasn’t ready for him to be done, either. Not even close.
She still had at least a dozen orgasms queueing up now that her libido was back online.
For another delirious moment, as her breath quickened to shallow pants of anticipation, they stared into each other’s eyes. Then, as if his hardened will suddenly snapped, Trace dove his face into the apex of her body, burying his nose and mouth against the moistened heat of her core. Once more, her knees threatened to give as she cried out.
He breathed in, drawing cool air through the material of her panties, and then blew out, suffusing her skin with heat. When he exhaled again, his mouth opened. She felt it. Felt his lips part. Felt his tongue press against her through the satin. She looked down and moaned at the dreamy expression on his face. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be savoring the moment, as if he didn’t want it to end.
He was a slave to his sex drive, taking what rightfully belonged to him, granted to him through biology.
She writhed against the wall, caressing the top of his hairless head, wanting the moment to stretch on forever. Whisker-like stubble scraped her fingertips.
Somehow, she still managed to breathe, but each shallow inhale caught in her throat, held for a fraction of a second, and then burst out on a plaintive, staccato moan that made her sound like she was begging.
How long could she take this? Already, another orgasm was unfurling itself in her belly like a flower, stretching out its petals, growing, turning toward Trace’s silent urging.
She was the flower. It was her petals uncurling from a tight bud. And he was the sun warming her, nourishing her, giving her life.
“More.” Her whispered demand surprised her, because she hadn’t intended to speak.
Trace hooked his fingers under the elastic waist of her panties and slid them down her legs, never removing his mouth from the heart of her. As the fabric skimmed past his chin, he burrowed deeper and laved her with his tongue. He licked her again, more insistently, drinking her in like he was sipping nectar from a honeysuckle blossom. His hands gripped her hips, pulled her against his face, lifted her legs over his shoulders one at a time. Her feet were no longer on the floor, and his mouth—God! His mouth! Teeth nipped her engorged flesh, his tongue dipped inside her, and he closed his lips around her clit—yes, she remembered her old friend Clitoris. How long it had been since they’d shared a moment like this?
“Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.” She really was begging now, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was the second orgasm rushing from the depths of her body, reaching for Trace’s mouth and strangling her midsection.
For so long, she had lived without this. Lived without pleasure. And now, as her second orgasm crested and shattered her into a thousand pieces, she knew she never wanted to go back to that life of deadened reality again.
Her legs jerked against Trace’s shoulders, clamping around his head as her fingers curled against his scalp. Her stomach quivered and convulsed. And she became aware that she was crying his name over and over with each pulse of rapture that broke through her body.
He remained as he was, his mouth pressed against her quivering core, riding her out. His warm, solid hands cradled her bottom as if she were a bowl, and he were drinking from her.
His eyelids lifted, and his eyes locked to hers, sending another shiver through her thighs as she clamped her palms around his head.
He took another long, luxurious draw with his tongue then withdrew his mouth from her core. His lips glistened with her release.
“I like how you taste,” he said, slowly rising, lifting her legs from his shoulders and easily guiding them around his waist. He smiled and glanced down at them as if he’d never known the feel of a female’s legs around him before.
“What’s happening?” Even as she said it, her hands slid down between them and freed his leather belt.
Through half-closed eyes, he stared at her mouth. “I’m claiming my mate.” The words fluttered from his lips as his hands joined hers, unfastening, unsnapping, unzipping. “And nothing will stop me until I do. Not even you.”
It was as if she were watching from afar, like she was having an out of body experience. His pants dropped, he shoved down his briefs, and his erection was suddenly in her hands. The erection she’d seen barely two hours ago straining skyward as he writhed on Micah’s table. And she was guiding him, positioning him, and then sinking down on his impressive, hard length.
His entire body jolted and shuddered as the connection was made. Strength and power poured out of him, and a chaotic surge of energy rocketed into her as he began pumping his hips.
He was like a virgin, out of control, at the whim of his body. He gasped with each haphazard thrust, his bewildered gaze crashing into hers as if he didn’t understand what was happening but refused to stop.
He was strong. So incredibly powerful as he plowed her into the wall, thrusting hard and fast, pinning her hips with his hands. And yet his eyes pleaded with her, almost begging her for mercy.
“Oh God . . .” The skin on his face tightened. His eyes watered. His jaw clenched so tightly she thought it might break.
But she didn’t have time to think about what was happening to him. Out of nowhere, a third orgasm rose inside her, fast, furious, unleashed as if the first two were nothing but child’s play meant to pave the way for the real deal.
Her back knocked in rapid beats against the wall, her pleasure mounting. She tried to hold on to his shoulders, but perspiration slicked his skin, making it impossible to find traction. She dug her fingernails into his flesh like they were claws. She clamped her legs around his waist. Anything to find purchase before the deluge swept her away.
Trace was relentless. A fervent, sweat-covered mass of taut muscle driven by desire and biological need. A need that, until now, had only been fulfilled as a trade-off with pain.
Cordray had seen inside his mind. She knew that he’d never fucked like this. That he’d never taken a female without first being flogged into submission, humiliated, or bound to some apparatus. Or all of the above.
But now Trace was unbound, free, driven by his own demands, not someone else’s.
As her third orgasm built to a fever pitch, a strong breeze blew her hair over her face. Then the picture hanging on the wall beside her popped off its fastening and plummeted to the floor.
Trace was breaking free, and his power was unleashing as he did.
But she couldn’t stop. Whatever energy was breaking loose from Trace’s body to redecorate her hallway would just have to wait, because she was close. So close.
“Don’t stop!” She clung to his potent, virile body.
An onslaught of guttural growls rumbled from deep within his throat, one after the other, growing louder, beating in time with his thrusts.
A decorative porcelain bowl cracked and broke in half on the table at the end of the hall, and somewhere nearby, glass shattered.
She was only half aware of the destruction raining down around her as the wind increased in strength until it was whipping her hair around their joined bodies. Orgasm number three was about to go postal. And it sounded like he would join her.
From the well of her soul, a long, keening wail rose through her throat. Her vision blurred, her back curved into him, and her arms locked around his shoulders as the force of her orgasm threw her off the wall against his body.
Trace’s legs buckled, and a thunderous roar tore from this throat as his thighs spasmed, rocked, and let go, dropping him to his knees. He took Cordray with him, locking her in his embrace. The muscles of his arms contracted and released in time with each pulse of his cock inside her. In a tumble, they rolled to the floor, Trace on top. His hips flexed as he continued pumping into her.
He was a hurricane making landfall against her body. Warmth spilled against her inner flesh, and she actually smiled as she fought back happy tears. She could feel it. She could feel every inch of him, every stroke, every spurt, every quiver of his stomach against hers, and every contraction of his biceps as he continued to rock himself against her.
Eventually, the euphoria subsided, and he gradually pushed himself up on his arms, breathless, glistening with sweat, gloriously virile and the damn sexiest thing Cordray had ever laid eyes on.
His tongue peeked out and slowly wet his lips. His full, luscious lips. His gaze searched her face, and she tried not to breathe, not to move. She feared that if she did, she would scare him away. He had that startled, what-did-we-just-do look on his face.
He blinked, frowned, then stared at her in wonder. “It’s you.” The words breathed out of him on a low, dazed whisper.
Cordray exhaled. “It’s me.”
It had actually happened.
The one thing she never thought would.
And it was Trace. It had always been Trace.
This time, when the tears stung her eyes, she allowed them to fall.
Because her true mate had finally found her.