Undertow: Building Sanctuary, Book Two Read online

  Magic rippled through the air as he ran in, and he found her already kneeling by the banked fire, her pale skin glinting in the dim light. “We’ll have to stir this up.”

  Victor nudged the door shut and let her see to the fire. She had the advantage now. Freed from the call of the moon, she wouldn’t fall victim to it again unless fear or pain brought the wolf to the surface.

  He had a harder battle to fight. The moon hung heavy overhead and dug claws deep into his soul. The wolf struggled, demanding another chance to run and revel, to be free and wild.

  Long minutes passed before he knelt trembling on the floor, sides heaving with rough pants.

  “You didn’t have to come back in,” she murmured. “You could stay out. I’ll be fine.”

  “So will I.” Eventually. “I wanted to come with you.”

  The flames jumped and crackled as the fresh logs caught, and Simone stood slowly. “Can I help?”

  She was naked. Beautiful. His to take. Even with pain lingering in his body, his cock stiffened. “That depends. Do you still want me?”

  She tilted her head, and a coppery curl fell over her cheek. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want you.”

  The answer was everything he needed. He rocked to his feet and crossed the space between them, stopping a foot away to admire the wicked curves of her body. Full breasts, flared hips, soft, pale skin… “You’re so beautiful.”

  She closed some of the distance, her fingertips skimming his arms as her gaze drifted down his body. “So are you.”

  He had to make it worth the wait. He had to make up for every moment of pain he’d caused her, erase it all and leave pleasure in its place. The bed was close enough to the fire to benefit from its warmth, so he swept her up into his arms and carried her to the rumpled blankets.

  When he laid her on the bed, Simone bit her lip and held out her arms. “Seems silly to be nervous, but I am.”

  Victor had no idea if Simone had taken a lover after Edwin, and had no intention of bringing the bastard up now. Instead he slid onto the bed, into her arms, and kissed her softly. “Nothing to be nervous about, darling.”

  “It’s easy for you.” She wrapped her hands around him and pulled him closer. “Every time you kiss me, I turn to mush.”

  “Just because I’m getting harder instead of softer doesn’t mean you’re not turning me to mush.”

  Some of the nervousness faded from her smile, and she teased one hand down his side. “An interesting point. One I’ll have to bear in mind.”

  He would kiss her first, he decided. Kiss her until she’d forgotten what nerves were, then trace every inch of her with his tongue. She deserved a slow seduction. Worship. He’d claim her by pleasing her.

  Her mouth opened under his, soft and needy, and she made quiet noises of pleasure. Before long, her body arched to his, hot and seeking.

  The feel of her soft skin under his fingers drove him half-mad. He spread his fingers wide on her abdomen, sweeping his thumb up and down until she nipped at his chin, then gave in and swept his hand up to cup her breast.

  Her gasp echoed in the quiet of the room as her nipple hardened under his palm. “Yes.”

  “You like this?” He teased his thumb over her nipple and delighted in the play of pleasure across her face. “Would you like my tongue? My teeth?”

  Her breath caught, and she slipped her own hand to her other breast and echoed his movements. “Both.”

  So he gave her both, teasing licks giving way to soft nips as his fingers traced her hip and her waist and the soft curve of her belly—anywhere but the beckoning heat between her thighs.

  As Simone’s pleasure grew, so did her confidence. She smiled wickedly and rubbed her thigh against his erection. “Can I touch you?”

  He couldn’t deny her anything with that light filling her eyes. “Any damn place you want.”

  Her hand skimmed his stomach and his hip. “Here?”

  If she wrapped her fingers around his dick, he’d explode. It might be worth it. “Anywhere.”

  “Anywhere,” she echoed softly, the back of her hand grazing his hard flesh. “It’s been a long time, Victor.”

  An answer to the question he hadn’t asked, and all the more reason to take things slowly. She’d tamed the feral edge of the wolf with her first hesitant smile, and it made it easy to roll onto his back. He tugged at her hand, pulling it up against his chest. “All the time in the world to get it right.”

  She sat up, kneeling over his thigh. “You won’t hurt me.”

  The fact that it was almost a question made him want to hurt someone, but he refused to bring anger to bed with them, no matter its object. “Not in a thousand years.”

  Simone released a soft breath, one he doubted she knew she’d been holding, and bent over him until her lips met his bare shoulder.

  It felt good—it felt fucking fantastic, but lying passively was its own sort of torture. He let himself thread his fingers loosely through her hair but didn’t try to guide her. Instead he channeled the need trembling inside him into words. “I’m going to spend hours touching you. So many places I want to kiss.”

  “Here?” She kissed the center of his chest, then lower. “Or here?”

  He tightened his fingers in her hair and lifted her head, giving her a deadly serious look. “I’ll let you lick my cock like an ice cream cone if that’s what you want, but you look me in the eye first and tell me you want to.”

  Again, that gentle smile. “I wouldn’t if I didn’t want to, but I do. I want to taste you.”

  Christ, he really was going to come like an overeager boy. And he didn’t care, as long as she let him keep touching her. “Do I get to return the favor?”

  She laughed and nibbled at his stomach. “Absolutely.”

  He was tempted—more than tempted—to drag her hips around and show her just what he could do with his tongue. Let her ride his mouth while she went down on him, see who lost it first. Tempting—but he didn’t want any distractions when he made her come the first time. Not for him, and not for her.

  Simone stroked his cock, lightly at first and then harder, her eyes locked with his. “I like the way you look at me.”

  “How am I looking at you?” It came out as a growl, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  “As if there’s no doubt at all,” she whispered. “Like you want me.” She touched her tongue to the head of his cock, licking delicately.

  No power in hell or on earth could have kept his hips from jerking up toward the heat of her mouth. “Like I’m imagining how good you’ll look riding me?”

  Her blue eyes darkened with passion. “Like you can’t wait to sink into me.”

  “I can’t.” Victor drove his teeth into his lower lip to keep rougher words from tumbling out. He wanted to fuck her with his tongue until she was limp and trembling. Slide into her cunt before she finished coming. Watch her face when she realized she was his.

  Her fingertips brushed his mouth, freeing his bitten lip, and she watched him closely. “Tell me what you’ll do. What you want.”

  He caught her finger between his teeth with a low growl and teased at the tip of it with his tongue before releasing it. “I want to drag you up here and let you cling to the headboard while I taste you.”

  Simone froze, save for her deep, ragged breaths. “You want me on your mouth?”

  It hadn’t even occurred to him that no one might have bothered to see to her pleasure before, but she didn’t seem nervous. “I want you everywhere,” he replied, keeping his voice low. “But right now, I want you on my mouth.”

  She climbed higher on his body, her movements surprisingly graceful in spite of her haste. “You have to show me.”

  He caught her hips in his hands and held her there as she straddled his waist. “Depends on how you want to do it. Facing the headboard? Or stretched out on top of me with your head on my hip? You can touch me that way…” And the distraction would be worth it.

  “My head on you
r hip?” She rocked against him.

  Imagination conjured the feel of her lips around his cock, and he groaned. “Or do whatever the hell you want.”

  “That’s what I want.” She turned and stretched out over him, her nipples brushing his stomach.

  The view of her ass, legs spread wide on either side of his chest, was almost too much. He smoothed one hand up the back of her thigh and dipped his fingers between her legs, groaning at the slick heat that greeted him. “It sure seems to be, darling.”

  She moaned and wrapped her hand around his cock again. “I don’t know how many times I touched myself, thinking of you.”

  There was a thought to keep a man warm at night. “How do you like it? Slow and soft? Faster?”

  “Slow, but not soft.”

  He gave her what she asked for, a slow, firm touch, letting the fitful movements of her hips guide him. She jerked and rocked, whispering his name, then lowered her mouth and slid her lips down around him.

  Not even the need to make this the best damn sex of her life could keep him in control. He curled both hands around her thighs and guided her back until he could replace his fingers with his tongue.

  Simone had been trying to get Victor in her bed for what seemed like forever, and now she wasn’t sure what to do with him.

  She enjoyed the taste of him on her tongue, musky and male and arousing as hell. It had to last, but she wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to concentrate on teasing her tongue over his hard flesh, not with his tongue doing wicked things to her.

  And wicked they were. He seemed determined to drive her crazy, taking his time exploring her and murmuring encouraging words, his hands never still.

  She threw back her head with a moan, her whole body awash with dizzy pleasure. “Right—right there—”

  Clever fingers pushed their advantage mercilessly, centering in on the spot that made her wild as his tongue licked and coaxed until she was shaking uncontrollably.

  Bliss hovered just out of her reach, and she dug her nails into his hip. There was one thing she needed more than anything, so she pulled away and turned, positioning her hips over his. “Now?”

  He caught her around the waist and flowed into a sitting position, fast and deadly graceful. His chest pressed against hers, his lips found her chin, and he moaned and coaxed her down, inch by inch, pushing into her. “Now.”

  The seconds slipped by too quickly as he thrust up and she rocked down. Simone struggled to hold on to those moments, desperate to capture every second of his claiming. To burn it into her memory. “You’re perfect.”

  “Only with you.” He licked her shoulder and marked her with his teeth. “Because you’re mine.”

  The need to hold his mouth to her skin left her clutching his head, tugging at his hair. “Again.”

  He curled his fingers in her hair and forced her chin up, ignoring her urgings in favor of licking a path up her throat. “Again, what? Tell me, darling. Let me hear it.”

  There was no room for shame or embarrassment. “Bite me again.”

  “Like this?” A soft nip as he dragged her down against him.

  She couldn’t speak, not right away, but she moaned her approval and scratched her nails down his back. “Harder.”

  He closed his teeth on her neck and growled. The possession inherent in the sharp caress sent her spiraling out of control, and she ground down against him.

  “Just like that.” He spoke the words against her skin, low and so hungry. “Perfect. We’re perfect like this, when you’re mine.”

  Perfect. Being with him was better than she’d hoped, an exact fit that made her want to weep because they’d wasted so much time already—

  The thought evaporated like mist on a summer morning, swept away by the certainty that this was where she belonged. Where she needed to stay. “Always yours,” she whispered.

  His hands tightened on her hips, rough fingertips digging in as he urged her to move again, urged her to ride him, their sweat-slick bodies sliding against each other. The room filled with the sounds of their loving, skin on skin, and his rough, rasping pants and his voice saying over and over again, “I know.”

  Do you? She couldn’t ask, could only moan as pleasure closed tight around her.

  Every rock pushed her higher, faster, until she couldn’t have resisted if she’d wanted to. The sweet clench of orgasm seized her, primal and explosive, shaking her in his arms.

  He came in the next moment, as if he’d been holding himself back by willpower alone. His guttural groan echoed off the cabin walls, the basest sound of satisfaction she’d ever heard.

  It went on and on, an unceasing ecstasy intensified by the way Victor held her, as if he never wanted to let go. Simone gasped and shuddered as her tremors subsided into slow, easy waves of pleasure.

  His fingers stroked down her spine. Soft. Worshipful. “You’re perfect.”

  She felt full, complete. “Do you need to run again, or can you stay?”

  “I can stay.” He dropped his forehead to her shoulder, and she thought she felt him smile. “I feel downright tame.”

  “Tame enough to sleep?”

  “As long as you sleep with me, darling.”

  “Nowhere else to go,” she teased. “And nowhere else I’d rather be.”

  “Good.” Both of his arms tightened, keeping her cradled against him as he fell back onto the tangled blankets. “That’s all I need to know.”

  Sleep beckoned, and Simone snuggled closer. “Think we can keep each other warm tonight like this?”

  His rumbling laughter made his chest vibrate beneath her. He shifted to the side and dragged at the blankets until they were both covered, and the edges tucked tight around them. “Sleep.”

  “Until I wake up, horny and groping you again?”

  “Like I said, darling. You put those pretty little hands anywhere you damn well please.”

  “A waking dream.”

  “Uh-huh. Don’t think you’re so much waking as dreaming now, my gorgeous girl.”

  “Mmm.” True enough, but he was warm and comfortable and everything about the world was… “Perfect.”

  Chapter Seven

  By the time they made their way down to Victor’s boat two days later, it was—in a very literal sense—utterly destroyed.

  Simone picked up a jagged piece of broken wood and bit her lip, unsure of what to say. The boat had been his home, a private place on an island that had far too few of them. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It was a boat.” His voice sounded tired. “I’ll buy a new one.”

  She dropped the wood and turned to him. “It wasn’t just a boat. It was yours. Part of you.”

  “So was my car,” he retorted, and this time at least the words held a little bit of humor. “That’s my baby Slim’s driving around in now. We have things. We lose them. You don’t live this long without learning things never matter.”

  “Not like people matter,” she agreed, smoothing her hand over his collar. “You’re safe, and that’s what’s important.”

  “We’re safe.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I’ll just buy an even nicer boat to make myself feel better.”

  “What do we do with this one? Anything?”

  “Salvage what we can. The sails. Maybe the lumber.” He picked up the piece of wood she’d dropped. “Too bad we didn’t have an ax on board. Chopping down trees is going to be a challenge, if we need more firewood.”

  They could check over the other cabin, see if there happened to be even a handsaw. They could always cut up trees that had already fallen. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “Without a doubt. Though if we could turn our minds toward some way of attracting attention to this island, it couldn’t hurt. Guy will be out looking with his eyes, even if magic won’t do the trick.”

  She should have been eager to find ways to hasten their rescue, but what had happened between them was so new it felt like one more misunderstanding, one wrong move could bring it to an e
nd, and it left her wistful, wishing for more time.

  Simone shook herself. “How familiar is Guy with these islands? If he comes out looking, will the smoke from the chimney catch his attention as something odd?”

  Victor’s shoulders bunched up in a half-hearted shrug. “Can’t say for sure. I’m not willing to waste wood making more smoke, though. Not when we don’t know how much of the winter we’ll be spending here.”

  “Could we use part of the sail as a signal? Fly it from a tree out at the edge of the cove?”

  “Maybe.” Another shrug, this one accompanied by a smile that seemed almost a little conspiratorial. “We’ll spend a few days thinking about it, hmm?”

  Relief made it easy to wind her arm around his and smile up at him. “A few days, at least. I’m sure we can formulate a brilliant plan.”

  “With your brains and my appreciation of your brains? Absolutely.”

  “I do my best thinking in bed.”

  His lips twitched. “And here we finally got out of it for a little while. Miss it already?”

  “How could I not?” Something about lying in his arms made it easy to forget everything else.

  Victor tossed the wood toward the water line, turning his back on her. His shoulders were broad. Stiff. “We need to talk. Or we need to decide not to talk.”

  It was far from unexpected, and Simone steeled herself for the discussion. “All right. Which would you prefer?”

  He stared out at the ocean for a long time before looking at her. “Never was much good at talking, and seems like we’ve got enough to worry about for now.”

  She nodded slowly. “We don’t know how long we might be here.” Hurt feelings could only complicate that.

  Something in his stance relaxed, and his easy smile returned. “I think the first thing we need to do is move the supplies up to the cabin. We may have to rearrange things, but having them on hand and in a sturdier shelter will be good.”

  It wouldn’t take them long in fair weather and good fitness. “Can you show me the other cabin after that? I’d like to look around.”