Where Wild Things Roam

Intentional

Darby    

Oh, the things Ian can do with his mouth!

And his hands.

And his body.

For hours without stop.

I’m quite certain none of that was ever mentioned in the texts I’ve read about weres. Not that I’m complaining, though I am utterly exhausted and starving too. Basking in my latest afterglow, I settle myself in his arms, my fingertips lazily tracing around one of his n*****s and beneath my hand I feel the low rumble of enjoyment in his wide chest.

“I thought you wanted to rest.”

“That’s not a want, Ian. It’s a need. I’m not used to your level of …. athleticism, regardless of how often you’re supplying that little energy boost of yours.”

He chuckles, laying his huge hand over mine, pressing it flat and still, commanding my submission. “I’m not actually supplying that on purpose, baby, but it’s interesting that you feel it too. Must come from the mate bond.”

Mate bond? I roll myself up onto his chest so I can see his face and I’m struck again, my thoughts completely derailed. “I swear, Ian, you’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on.” I’m getting lost in his beautiful blues and starting to fall under his seductive spell. Beneath my hands, his chiseled chest rises and falls with a deep breath and one large hand caresses slowly up my spine to the back of my neck.

He lifts himself, his core muscles flexing beneath me in a way that makes me delirious. Kissing my mouth sensually, he nibbles at my bottom lip to get me to open it. “I can smell that delicate feminine desire, Darby,” he breathes huskily into my mouth.

With a groan, I wrench my lips away, smacking him lightly on the chest. “Oh, for f**k’s sake! Stop that!” Ian lays back with a wide grin on his handsome face, tucks one hand behind his head so he can see me better and lets the other one cup my posterior.

It takes several long seconds for me to collect my thoughts again. Seeing what this position does to his sculpted body doesn’t help either. My eyes rove wantonly from his shoulder, across his chest to where he narrows at the waist. And that V. Oh, that V! I just want to lick it…

“I really can smell your desire, Darby,” he warns gently.

It’s enough to snap me out of it. “Mate bond!”

The words pop out like they were squeezed out of someplace tight and small.

“Whoa, baby. Are you alright?” Ian chuckles.

I look down at his face. “Mate bond. You keep talking about mate bonds and being mates. We’re different species. How can that even work?”

His expression is so tender and loving I want to kiss him. A lot. All over that fabulous body of his. A roguish smile pulls one corner of his mouth and his large warm hand starts up my spine again, sending a scrumptious shiver over me.

Damn weres.

“Weres can have mates besides other weres, baby. It’s actually fairly common. Shifters of other species. Even humans. Ivan’s mate was full human. He had to give her a wolf before they could have offspring, but—.”

“Wait! What’s that mean? Give her a wolf? He infected her?”

Ian nods. “After she agreed to it, of course.”

“Then what happened to her?”

“I don’t know all the biology behind it—you’d have to ask one of the pack doctors about that—but the short version is that he bit her, gave her his wolf catalyst and it turned her into a were.”

Wolf catalyst? WTF? I need some better books in my library. “Pack doctors? You have your own medicine?”

 “We have our own community.” Ian grins proudly. “Hospital. Places some members of my pack live and work. Businesses they own. Others work in the nearby human communities. Candlewood’s in the mountains, kind of like here. It’s beautiful. I can’t wait to take you there.”

Leave my valley? The thought makes my chest constrict painfully. “What’s wrong with my valley?”

“Nothing, baby.” Ian shifts me entirely on top of him, wraps both arms around me and gives me a little squeeze. “It’s amazing. But I’m the Candlewood Alpha. My pack needs me. My pack needs you—my alpha mate, their Luna. We can come back and visit your valley anytime you want.”

Visit? I can feel the scowl forming on my face. “So, your mate bond tells you that I’m supposed to give up my entire way of life and submit to yours?”

“No!” he denies quickly. “Submission is voluntary, baby.” One brow flicks up playfully.

“Oh!” I huff, exasperated. Wiggling furiously, I extract myself from his embrace and roll off the bed. “I’m serious!”

**

Ian    

Darby is the kind of woman— with the kind of body— that makes a man appreciate the view.

All the view.

From any and every angle he can get it.

And right now, she’s standing over me at the side of the bed in all of her perfect-hourglass-perfect-skin-perfect-scent-now-covered-in-my-scent faery glory and if don’t start worshipping that body of hers with mine in the next sixty seconds, I may as well not exist as a man.

It won’t be living.

But when she throws her hands up and snaps, “What kind of primeval patriarchal bullshit is this?”, I realize I’ve got some digging to do getting out of the hole I didn’t know I was in.

I leap out of the bed and try to take her in my arms again. “Wai-wai-wai-wai-wait a minute,” I soothe, resignedly accepting when she fends off my hands. “Darby. Baby. We’re mates. Partners. And I may have a pack I need your help caring for but I’m down for helping you care for what you have here.”

“Partners? Is that what you call that?” she says indignantly. “What kind of partnership equates caring for my simple life with caring for all the complexities of yours that you,” she pokes me in the chest, “so generously took on without my consent before you even met me? “

Oh s**t. She’s right.

Her peridot eyes read my expression before I can hide it and formulate a way to address this. Her face melts into a saccharine smile. “Mmmmm. Now you’re catching on. I’m sorry, Ian. As much as I enjoy your company, and,” her eyes skim my body shamelessly in the cutest way, lingering at my c**k while she sucks her bottom lip, “you need to find yourself another mate. I can’t do it.”

She turns towards an ornate armoire and starts to walk away.

Desperate, I snatch at her arm. “That’s not how it works,” I growl, towering over her. “In all of my life—in all of your life—there’s only one mate. Of all the creatures on this planet, in this realm or any other, I’m made exactly for you and you’re made perfectly for me. I know you can feel it because I can. And right now, the thought of spending the rest of my days without you is crushing my soul.”

The compassion in her eyes is such a relief tears start down my cheeks. Darby reaches up and lays her hand tenderly along my jaw.

“I do have a complex life by comparison with yours. I admit that. But we’re not meant for each other because we’re the same, Darby. You’re not my mate because I am what you are. You’re my mate because I need what you are.”

The tingling starts at the base of my skull, maybe even stronger than any other time. Well, except when I make love to her. It’s gigantic raging alpha wolf powerful then. I pull her into an embrace and the more of her skin that touches mine, the stronger the tingling gets.

“It’s more than just that little boost we’re getting from each other.” I brush her hair aside and lay one hand over the back of her neck, seeking what I know is there. Her nape under my hand is zapping sparks directly into my nervous system, and the tingling in me becomes so pins-and-needly pleasurable I start to feel hot. “Can’t you feel it?”

Darby slides her hand up the back of my neck and stars shoot across my vision.

“You know I can,” she whispers.

And the sound of it rocks my world.

“It’s been a long time since I left here, Ian. Longer still since I dealt with others. I guess I’m a little afraid.”

Bending, I murmur against her lips. “With courage and honor, I will aid and sustain you. With knowledge and truth, I will respect and uphold you. With strength and wrath, I will guard and preserve you. With temperance and grace, I will cherish and love you, all the rest of my days. This I promise, my mate.”

I don’t expect she knows the words of the Mate Vow. And honestly, it’s a little weird to be in the middle of who knows where this valley of hers is after fighting with her and saying it—usually, it’s spoken when you, well, mate, and it’s sealed with shared blood from a bite.

But I want her to hear it and the words have power. The back of my neck pulses and prickles like the way it feels when you tickle the roof of your mouth with the tip of your tongue.

Darby doesn’t wait for me to kiss her. She throws her arms tight around my neck and kisses me. Deeply. Passionately. Even a little savagely.

I crash with her into the armoire, kissing her the way she’s kissing me. I’m so completely lost in the taste and feel of her mouth, I don’t notice until she closes her delicate fingers over the head of my erect c**k and begins stroking.

“Ohhh!” I gasp to the sky, my head tipped back and my eyes squeezed shut. With her free hand, she rakes her fingernails down my side, then stands on her tiptoes and bites the thin flesh between my collarbones. “That. So good.”

Sliding down and pushing me back, she bends, taking the tip of my c**k in her mouth and it gets so much better. Her plump lips stretch around me, her warm wet tongue and gently scraping teeth working my sensitive head while her hands stroke along my shaft.

I brace myself with one hand over her on the armoire, my core muscles tensing to keep me upright. Her mouth and hands keep moving, the pleasure building until I’m so hard, I think I’m going to burst and it makes me harder just thinking about watching her swallow every thick spurt over her plump rosy lips and down that delicate throat. I pull my mind back from the brink—not yet. Come in her womb until she’s out of heat. I put my hand under her chin and lift her face to mine.

Her eyes are wild and dilated and she gives a frustrated whine when I won’t let her put her mouth back on me. “You keep that up, there won’t be anything left for you.”

She locks her eyes on mine and her tongue makes a purely seductive pass over her upper lip shining wetly, then she greedily sucks her bottom one in.

“Oooh, you sexy-ass little vixen,” I chuckle darkly. “My turn.”

I jerk her to her feet and turn her, roughly push her front into the armoire. Her silky tresses hide her body from my view and I brush them over one shoulder, stroke the back of my fingers along her spine, loving the quiver it sends through her. “Keep your hands right here,” I growl, pressing them flat against the wooden doors above her head, my stiff c**k straining against that gorgeous bubble butt of hers.

The gleam has started under her creamy soft skin and as if it somehow knows, it’s concentrated at the back of her neck, precisely where that tingling sensation is on mine.

That’s where, my wolf half growls with conviction. You gave her your Vow. Now bite her. There!

I kick her feet apart and bend my knees to get my hips under her, the tip of my c**k slipping against her slick nether lips and the smell of her s*x is a sensual assault that only fuels the burning inside me to take her and take her until she’s boneless beneath me. “Oh, Darby,” I groan. “You are so wet.”

She turns her head, says with a quiver in her voice, “Ian, I need you. Right now.”

I lace my fingers through hers on the armoire doors and move into her powerfully. As I lift her off her feet, skewering her body, my throbbing c**k capped at her womb, her sighing groan rises with mine. I wrap one arm all the way around her slender waist, holding her body and f*****g myself with her. The tingling at the back of my neck shoots through me and intensifies as I pump into her and when I open my eyes, that spot on the back of her neck gleams brighter.

Bending slightly, I place a kiss there. It sparks pleasure into my lips that I feel all through me and against me Darby gives a little shiver, her p***y tightening around my c**k, sweet honey seeping out from around me.

Oh-ho-ho-ho-ohhh. This just keeps getting better and better.

My curiosity peaked, the next kiss is open-mouthed and I suck a little, stroking the delicate flesh with my tongue. This time both of us tremble hard as the tingling zaps a deeper place of primal need. New wetness, hot and thick, runs in slow rivulets down the inside of Darby’s thighs and over my balls and I know she’s close. I thrust into her harder and faster, but it’s not what she needs and I know that too.

Releasing her hand, I push her head down. Her whole neck from her hairline to her shoulders is a mass of frenetically swirling motes of light. I dip my mouth to it, lips curled back and my jaw clenches, fighting the urge to sink my teeth deep as I try to decide.

 When I open my mouth, my canines elongate. My wolf half howls in excitement.

“Ian! Please!” Darby begs.

**

Darby    

Ian pants open-mouthed through clenched teeth as he pounds into me. His hot breath stimulates and arouses all the nerves in the back of my neck and across my shoulders, cool and hot in alternating waves. The prickling has become so intense, I feel like an open nerve, raw and quivering with anticipation of something I don’t know but desperately need.

“Ian! Please!”

With my hands against the armoire, the tips of my n*****s rub against the rough door, stimulating them with each hard thrust. Ian’s destroying my p***y—again—his long, thick c**k buried deep, his balls slapping against my aching c**t. It’s absolute bliss and I never want it to end. Nothing could feel better. Nothing coul—

There’s a blaze of light, bright white and glorious, when I feel Ian’s wolf teeth nip and hold the sensitized flesh on my nape. My orgasm rips a scream from my lips and a low deep growl from Ian a second before I feel him bathe my insides with his thick juices.

I’m falling into him, electrified and grounded at the same time. Splintering, a veil lifts and opens to emotions I never thought existed, was too weak to bear alone. I feel them all, drifting inside him. We expand into each other, more now than we could ever be apart. There’s no direction or space or time—just a yawning, depthless, infinite, perfect love that’s Ian.

My mate.

**

Ian    

Darby arches against me as my wolf teeth nip and gently hold the tender flesh at the back of her neck. In a flash, her wings explode out, crashing against and wrapping around my chest. My sight vanishes and as if I’ve only just opened my eyes, I find myself tumbling, underwater, amid crashing waves. My entire body is burning with the most intense tingling I’ve felt with her and I realize this raging ocean around me is her orgasm. As I understand I’m no longer limited to my body’s confines, I expand into her, my waves crashing and rolling with hers and now it’s our orgasm.

I don’t know how long it lasts. When I become aware of our physical bodies again, she’s clutched against my heaving chest and I’m sliding down the armoire to the floor with her protected by my arms.

Holy goddess! That was incredible.

Darby’s eyelashes flutter closed, tickling the flesh at my sternum. The last thing in my exhausted awareness is her snoring softly, pillowed on my chest.Ian    

The faintest hint of dawn is in the air when I wake, curled around Darby at the foot of the armoire. I lay there, breathing in the sweet scent of early-morning dew, watching as the night sky softens and listen as the first birds trill their morning songs across the flower-dotted meadow.

Burying my nose in Darby’s hair, I inhale, loving that the smell of me is overlaid on her florally sweet female fragrance. She smells like s*x.

Her s*x. And my s*x. Our s*x. My mate. Mine.

I inhale again, finding a soft musk lingers too—the odor of her heat—and my c**k stirs, instantly ready for service.

Down, boy. She needs her rest.

And probably some food.

Careful not to disturb her, I roll into a crouch, then scoop her up in my arms and carry her to her bed. I debate for a moment, watching her sleep. Food first? Or bath?

I hear my wolf half grumbling something to himself about f*****g the s**t out of her and the word i***t.

He might have a point.

In most shifter females, heat and its respective increase in fertility occurs no more than a few times each year and lasts perhaps a week, sometimes less. The drive to procreate skyrockets during it. For were-were pairings, that means nothing but s*x until either the female of the pair is pregnant, or the heat ends.

Or the male dies trying.

I’ve never heard of that happening though. We’re hardy stock and going days without food and minimal sleep to satisfy our mate’s desire is hardwired.

Darby isn’t a were though. And what was left of the woman who slid down the front of the armoire with me an hour ago, was utterly exhausted from all the climaxes I dragged out of her.

She only slept for a few hours after healing Ivan, so I don’t know how long she’ll sleep now. And once she’s awake again, it’s go big or go home time. So I’ll get her some food and if she’s still sleeping, I’ll give her a bath. And if she’s still sleeping, I’ll wake her up and feed her, then f**k her into exhaustion again.

The other bedroom is empty when I leave Darby’s room, and I wonder where Jack is until I get down the stairs. I find him sleeping, flopped over a chair that’s too small for him with his feet propped on a coffee table, and Tessa curled over his lap like a blanket.

Kicking his feet off the table, I growl, “Get your feet off her furniture.”

Jack jerks awake when his heels hit the floor. His reflex response is to catch at Tessa, but she’s sleeping soundly and isn’t displaced or even awakened. “What the hell, Ian? Don’t be a d**k! I just got to sleep and I might’ve dropped Tessa.”

“If you slept in on a piece of furniture that’s meant to be slept on, you might not have either problem.”

“I tried sleeping upstairs. Big bad Alpha banging that woman of yours so hard, her screaming’s giving me nightmares.”

With his brows arched, Jack stares up at me accusingly and I stare down at him unapologetically for a long minute.

Then a crooked grin spreads across his face and he holds up a fist, knuckles towards me. When I bump my knuckles against his, he asks excitedly, “Do we have alpha offspring yet?”

“If so, I can’t smell it.”

“Welp,” Jack brushes one palm across his knee, “Probably need a real man to take care of it. You’re lucky I’m around.”

“Don’t even think about it, Jack. She’s my mate and I’ll kill you if you touch her. I’m down here to get her some food.”

“Oh.” His lip curls up. “She’s one of the fragile ones, huh? She needs some meat.”

I roll my eyes, shake my head. “She’s fae. Besides,” a smirk touches my lips, “she eats what food eats.”

Jack bursts out laughing. “Didn’t I tell you? Wolf tongue is a girl’s best friend. Aren’t you glad you have me around?”

“Yes, but not for your questionable s****l advice.” I turn towards the kitchen, then stop abruptly. “Where’s the stove? And the refrigerator?” I glance over my shoulder at Jack.

He rises, then gently sets the still sleeping Tessa in his spot on the chair. She promptly rolls onto her back, all four feet in the air and her pink belly up. “She’s so cute,” he chuckles, then marches past me. “There’s no stove here. Or refrigerator.”

He opens a narrow cupboard, the shelves inside lined neatly with baskets of fruits and vegetables, and points inside. “This is it. This is all I found. She might do some cooking over there on the fireplace.” He directs my attention to the hearth beyond the chair where Tessa’s sleeping. “There’s a few stoneware pots and that’s where I cooked the chunks of deer Tessa and I ate,” he explains. “But there’s no refrigerator.”

Leaving the pantry door open, he moves to the sink, waving me towards him. “You know what else is weird? There’s no metal anywhere but in her surgery, and even there, it’s all sheathed.” Jack flips up the wooden handle on the whittled spigot and water runs into the stone sink. “And look.” He opens another cupboard next to the sink. Inside, are a few stoneware plates and goblets and several glass stacking bowls. “Even here,” he finishes, opening a drawer and gesturing to the wooden utensils inside. “The few knives she has—the blades are all either some kind of stone, or they’re made out of glass.”

“Glass knives?”

“I’m not knocking ‘em. They’re sharp as all hell though this black stone, whatever it is, is even better. That’s what I used to carve the deer. There’s some cooked by the fireplace for you, by the way.” Jack closes the drawer and cupboard, then turns off the water. “There’s no metal anywhere else either. No screws or nails in the furniture. No metal hinges. I don’t know how the lights work without metal.”

“There’s a copper tub upstairs in Darby’s bathroom.”

Jack shrugs. “I didn’t check up there. I just peed outside in the orchard.”

I sigh in frustration.

“What? Tessa was doing it too.”

“You’ve been here less than twenty-four hours and you’re behaving like a savage.”

“Because I’m living like a savage. Who doesn’t have a refrigerator, Ian? It’s like the dark ages.”

“What about clothes?”

“No love there either. There’s a trunk upstairs full of children’s clothes. That’s all.”

I inhale deeply, liking that she’s prepared that way at least. “Okay. How’s Ivan?”

“Still asleep. I’ve changed the IV bag a couple times when it ran out.”

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” I say unnecessarily. “Speaking of which, nice job cleaning up. I appreciate it.”

“No problem, Alpha.” Jack waves my compliment away. “Not to dis on your faery, but we need to get Ivan back to Candlewood Hospital where he can get some real treatment.”

“I wouldn’t want to move him until he’s come around a bit. Right now, the best healer we’ve got is Darby.”

“Darby? That’s her name?”

Jack’s tone earns him a glare. “Yeah,” I growl in warning. “Darby is your alpha’s mate and your future Luna’s name.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t get all touchy.” Jack turns and gets a plate out of the cupboard, handing it to me. “Best get her some food and get back to making alpha babies.”

**

Jack    

It’s marginally reassuring to me that Ian doesn’t freak out any more than that over the missing fridge and stove. It’s one of the things that makes him the Alpha he is—when s**t gets weird, he rolls with the punches, dishing out better than he gets, but only if he has to.

It’s exceptionally reassuring to see him wolf down an entire deer haunch by himself, guzzle about six gallons of water, then carry a pitcher of some kind of nectar and a tray of washed fruit and vegetables up to his mate to get back to work making Candlewood’s future heirs.

“Thanks for the food, Jack. And for holding down the fort. Let me know if Ivan needs anything,” he says over his shoulder on the way to the stairs. “And stop peeing in the orchard. Use the bathroom like a civilized adult.”

I just laugh, scoop Tessa up and take my chair back before depositing her on my lap. She doesn’t even wake up. She’s so cute.

Ian’s a good man, and an incredible alpha. He’s my big brother. Plus he’s one of my best friends and I’m glad to see him happy. And finding his girl has been a long time coming, so I’m comfortable saying it’s not just me, but the whole pack anxiously awaiting the next generation of alpha babies.

I cross my ankles on the coffee table and tip my head back, confident I can run this show for the time being.

**