Winter Howl (Sanctuary) Page 19

  “Why?”

  He smiled toothily. “Because it’s fun.”

  Renee rubbed a hand over her face and through her hair, pushing it back. She brought the hand holding the knife away from Grant.

  “So this is fun?” she asked.

  “Were you confused?” He came closer still, but he was careful not to move too quickly. She didn’t bring the knife up, which he took as encouragement to wrap his arms around her, tugging her skirt and panties down until they pooled on the floor at her feet.

  Renee let the knife fall with them.

  “You like it when I hurt you,” she said. “You liked it in the bar.”

  “You have no idea,” he whispered in her ear.

  She moved her fingers up his stomach, tickling the muscles so that they jerked in her hand. She circled his areola, feeling his hair there crinkle slightly. His small, flat nipple hardened almost the way hers had, and she bent forward to take it in her mouth, much like he had hers. Then, she opened her eyes to look up at him as she began to clench her teeth around the small bit of flesh in her mouth.

  His cock jerked between them, and he threw his head back in a loud groan before fisting her hair and yanking. It must have hurt like hell when she pulled his nipple with her teeth on the way, but as she went stumbling back into the wall between the bedroom and bathroom, he only seemed more aroused, if that was possible.

  This time, instead of running from him, she let him come to her. She almost struck his face, but he caught her hand in time, then the other. He was amazingly fast, and she had to suspect that some of her blows had either been unexpected or he’d simply let her hit him. His palms and fingers engulfed her wrists until she could feel her muscles and bones scrape together, and his breath was hot on her mouth, drawing muffled moans from her as he kissed her with her arms against the wall, as if she were crucified. Even though she wanted him to keep kissing her, keep making her moan—keep her forgetting that there could be anyone hearing them, forgetting that she should care—she brought her teeth down hard on his lower lip, then his chin. When he broke away, she tried to dig her nails into his hands but she was at the wrong angle, and she could do nothing as he brought her wrists together, then threw her bodily onto the bed.

  For a moment, as he filled her vision with his too-large, bloody smile and glowing eyes, that fear of him came back. But unlike before, she let that fear thrill her, electrifying every nerve cell in her skin. She was shaking again as he attacked her shoulder, then the top of her breast, but she finally managed to twist her wrists so that she could grab his skin between her nails. She must have reached a pressure point because he let go of her hands, his own falling to each side of her. She brought her knee up, and he dodged a painful bullet by shifting to the side.

  The movement conveniently let her curl herself around him. He rubbed his cock between her legs, his pre-cum and her juices mingling. His head fell next to hers as he began to rut against her without entering. She pressed her mouth to his shoulder, then slid beneath him a little so that he was frotting against her stomach and she could take his abused nipple into her mouth again, biting and licking in turn until he finally came on her, semen smearing over her stomach and her breasts. He did not even try to hold back as he shouted his orgasm, slamming one hand against the headboard and almost breaking the frame.

  She held him through the rocking until he finally crawled down and kissed her again, as though he had worked out none of the sexual energy all night. He plunged his fingers into her hair and kissed her until she was gasping. His skin was so warm that she sweated beneath him, and she could taste her salt on his lips.

  “You think we’re through?” he moaned into her mouth before enclosing her throat in one hand and pressing—not enough to choke her but enough for it to feel like it. “You think I want you to stop fighting me? You’re only just getting started.”

  His eyes were fierce, and her fear was back, drawing her legs together and her nails to his eyes, his Adam’s apple. Blood was rushing through her head and away—she could feel it, thick and heady. She finally managed to get her knees into his ribs, and he let go with a feral grin. Air rushed into her lungs. She coughed and crawled, but he trapped her beneath him, covering her back with his body and nipping down each of her vertebrae. He covered her hands with his and pressed them into the comforter on the mattress.

  She could see the two of them in the mirror above the dresser. There were places on his face that were a little swollen, and there was dried blood in the corner of his mouth. Her red hair was tousled, tangled, and wet at the temples—it looked almost too bright against her pale skin, which set off the marks he had made on her body, places where his teeth had been. She felt his cock stir between her legs as Grant made his way down her back, and he pulled her hands back until her face was against the comforter and her ass was in the air.

  She could still see herself in the mirror. Renee could not believe that the woman was her. For all that she was small and hurt and beneath him, she thought she saw someone with strength there. It was all backwards, but she could not stop the whimper, the startled ‘O’ her mouth made in the mirror as his tongue circled the puckered hole of her ass. It was such an unlikely place for her to find herself wanting to cry from the sensation. He made his way down over her perineum until she was mewling for some kind of force. She squirmed, pulling against his grip as he drank through each clenching of her cunt. He swirled that moisture around her hole again, and she cried out, pressing her face into the mattress.

  He let go of one of her hands to force her head back up as he moved up her body again, pulling her upright by the hair so that she could see her body before her in the mirror. She looked almost in pain as he grasped one breast tightly, pinching the nipple near the webbing between two fingers. He used that leverage to help lift her up so that he could enter her cunt. But she could feel his pubic hair where his mouth had been, and just the memory of it made her moan more every time he slammed into her.

  “God, Renee, yes,” Grant growled. He did not bother lowering his volume. If there were people in the next room or outside—or maybe a few doors down—they all knew that her name was Renee and that she was a wild bitch and that he wanted her more than he had ever wanted any slut. That she was going to keep screaming for him and that people were going to think he was murdering her for the way she was going to love every second of this fucking. He punctuated his declarations with pinching and biting and pulling her until she was just a bundle of aroused nerves, with not a single thought left in her head.

  When he pushed her forward a little so that she had to brace herself on the footboard of the bed, he found that place that did make her scream, over and over and over again, as he hit it without any mercy. She shook with the force of the orgasm when it finally came, the pleasure hitting her over and over with every scream and every brush of that cock until it was too much, and she flung herself around, elbowing his ribs where she had kneed him, then his stomach. His head hit her shoulder, but his cock slipped out of her.

  Renee was a little embarrassed at the fluid beneath her. At first she thought she had peed, but it wasn’t right—it didn’t smell right. Grant grinned as he noticed her notice the stain.

  “Oh, I made you come all right. Now if only I can get my name out of that pretty little mouth next time,” he murmured, pulling her back into bed by the back of her neck. His back curved, almost too much for a human, as he whipped around to cover her again. He buried his face against her breasts, licking at the places where he had come on her until all she was covered with was sweat and saliva and her own moisture dripping down onto the comforter. It was messy, and she should have hated it, but when he came back up to take her mouth, she delved her tongue into the corners of his lips where the blood had dried, cleaning him, too.

  The vibration against her grew as his growl became more pronounced, and Renee swore that his teeth were sharp against her tongue. She jerked back and stared into his mouth. She wasn’t wrong. The shape of his
jaw was altered, slightly elongated to accommodate the new structure.

  “Turnabout is fair play,” he said in a guttural voice, the consonants slurred and sharpened at the same time. “For the silver.”

  She hissed as he began to bite, taking flesh between his teeth and worrying it with his teeth and tongue, to bring blood under the surface but not enough to break the flesh. He was a fraction of an inch from turning her against her will with every bite, just as she had been too close to poisoning him at the edge of a blade.

  And perhaps she knew what had made him quiver with restraint as her fingers threaded through his hair to hold him close, but not pushing him down like she might have done. He was the only one with open wounds, but he avoided places that he had bit down on her before, just in case. It was strange that with all the things that Renee couldn’t trust Grant with, she could trust him not to bite her unless she told him to. She knew forcing her into wolf skin would not be nearly as satisfying to him as Renee choosing to defy her dog pack. Just as letting her choose to come with him on this trip in spite of the commanding tone he had used had been satisfying. Just as every time she let him in or played his games was more satisfying than forcing her to do anything.

  He dipped his tongue into her navel, and her hips canted up of their own accord. The slick surface of his lupine teeth slid against skin. “Careful, love. You don’t want me to slip, now, do you?”

  “Son of a bitch,” she muttered, throwing an arm over her eyes. She bit her lip as he began to move lower, where it would be that much harder to keep still. His laugh came in waves of vibrations through her body.

  “You’ll find it’s easier to stay still if you let yourself scream,” he said, tracing lines up and down the inside of her thighs with clawlike nails. “Let them know which wolf is in your bed, Red.”

  That’s what Britt calls me, she thought, though he’d called her that before. But her thoughts were tenuous as he began to bite and suck the folds of pink flesh between her legs. She could feel him breathe her scent and his in, as if he were determined to make it stronger. His tongue was a little longer and flatter, but still thick and powerful, and he reacquainted himself with the sensitive nerves of her perineum and lower. She couldn’t clutch at him, couldn’t bring him closer to her, and she found that all she had left was to fist the comforter and let the sounds out—wailing, begging, crying. They shattered the already broken barrier in her throat. There were no words but his name. There was not even enough of her in her mind to think that she would be embarrassed by how loud and needy she was being once he was finished.

  His body below her rocked with every lick, every tease and taste of wet, fragrant flesh. He was rubbing against the comforter, growling into her and making the most obscene noises with his tongue. He seemed to draw passion from how vocal she was. What he did hurt as much as it made her blood pulse strongly through her clit and her cunt, and when he drew the orgasm from her, he also drew his claws down the outsides of her legs, so hard that they broke skin. But she was biting her arm through her second climax, which was quicker but almost as strong as the first.

  When he crawled up her body and thrust his erection into her, forcing her legs up until her knees were against her breasts, she could finally wrap herself around him again. It was oddly soothing to hold him when he was as wild as he was. His feral teeth were clenched, holding his growls in his throat until he finally came.

  The room was now strangely quiet but for their heavy breathing. Renee surprised herself by squirming, her clitoris still swollen with arousal. Grant gave a short bark of laughter as he rolled his hips down, giving her a little pressure. He pressed his human mouth to her shoulder and slid from her to rest next to her on the bed. They would have to get rid of the comforter eventually—it was filthy.

  “And they say alcohol decreases the libido,” he muttered into her skin.

  “I told you I don’t get—”

  “Yes, you did,” Grant said. “And I can handle correction.”

  “Then here’s another. Tell me when you’re playing a game. I’m not good at telling the difference. Not with you.” She circled the pads of her fingers gently around his nipple—the one she had bitten and left marks on.

  “Oh, my dear, you fear me when you shouldn’t, and when you should, you only hold me closer,” Grant said, chuckling. “I have to confess, it’s attractive.”

  She looked at him, drawing her eyebrows in over the bridge of her nose.

  “I could have bitten you and torn your life to pieces. Hell, I could have transformed and had you for dinner until you were a bloody mess on the bed sheets,” he murmured. “And you knew it. And you know that I very much want to. You know that I am far less scrupulous than you…with your knife and Junior’s big gun. But you didn’t even fight me when you felt my teeth. Admit it, love,” he said. “You liked it.”

  “You’re not going to bite me,” said Renee. “And if you killed me, my pack would know. And they’d hunt you down and kill you. You’d destroy your life by ending mine.”

  “Maybe I just want to bring you down with me,” he whispered.

  Grant rolled over to turn off the light, but Renee kept her eyes open as the afterimage faded.

  * * * *

  When she woke up, it was still mostly dark outside, although it did not seem to be as dark as when they had come in. She could not believe her sleep had been broken. Even as she stirred, she was exhausted. While the first time she’d had sex with Grant had left her aching, it did not compare to waking up now. She winced with every movement that she made, felt places tear anew that had only just begun to heal.

  Grant’s arm was around her stomach, but he wasn’t too near her, and she was easily able to slip away, biting back the urge to groan as her body protested. But Grant’s breathing was still even, so she assumed she had not woken him.

  And even if she had, Renee thought, Screw it.

  She bent over, hissing through her teeth, and pulled out the toiletry bag she had packed. Once she was in the bathroom, she shut the door and turned on the light. As she started the water for a bath, first cold for a while, then hot, she took a cursory look at herself.

  If she had not known that the marks on her body had been made during particularly rigorous and sometimes violent sex, she probably would have been even more concerned, but as it was, she was only moderately so. She stood up to look at herself in the mirror. It was even worse that way—there were bite marks all over her body, some of them just bruises, others bordering on broken skin. Bruises where he had held her too hard or where she had hit herself on furniture. Claw marks all down her legs. The place on her arm where she had bitten herself. She thought she should be ashamed of them, and although she was slightly horrified, it was more because of their appearance, not because of what had caused them. At least it was winter, and there would not be much cause for someone to ask about places on her body that they would never get the chance to see.

  She looked into the mirror until it began to fog up. She opened the bathroom door so that some of the steam would escape into the bedroom rather than get all thick in the small bathroom. She briefly turned the running water cold to cool it down a little bit, then shut the water off and lowered herself in.

  She was unprepared for the stinging of the wounds all over her body, from her legs up to her neck. Breath slid through her teeth in a prolonged hiss as her skin pulsed in protest before settling down. She could breathe again. She clutched at the side of the tub when she stretched out her legs, pulling at sensitive, stinging places. Finally, she was able to lie back and reach for the soap. She lathered it up on a washcloth and began to wash the dried sweat, blood, tears, and other things from her body, cleaning the clotted places and staining the rough white cloth a little pink.

  The steam, the roughness of the washcloth, the smell of her soap, the movement of her aching muscles—it all made her feel a little better.

  “You don’t have to wash my scent off yourself anymore,” Grant said from the door
way. “You’re not where they can smell you. And you’re not around them. You’re with me.”

  “It’s not about that,” Renee said. He had startled her, but she was glad that she had not shown it. “Not to get you off of me. I just hurt.”

  Grant stepped into the tub. Renee drew her legs up against her chest to let him in. They were cramped, but aside from the bones of her ass pressing against the porcelain, it was not uncomfortable.

  “The good kind?” Grant asked, leaning to the side to avoid the faucet.

  Renee stared at him for a minute, running the washcloth over her arm. Then she nodded. “The good kind.”

  “Good,” Grant said. He slid his legs between hers until the two of them overlapped in the water. He did not try to initiate anything else—he looked tired himself, as though the sound of the water filling the bath had woken him up. It was just his hot limbs against hers, his toes under her thighs, the hot water rocking around them. “It’s a good kind of hurt for me, too.”

  Chapter Ten

  She let him drive in the morning. Her suspicion that she was going to wake up with a hangover had been spot on, but she had had worse hangovers in her life. And in spite of the soak in the middle of the night with Grant, her limbs and cuts still ached and protested when she tried to move. They had managed to remove the dirty comforter to sleep under the cleaner sheets after the bath, though, so she had not felt the need to shower when she woke up. Grant seemed unaffected both by the liquor and the rigorous sex, even though there were livid marks where she had bitten or scratched him, and there was a small corner-shaped bruise where she had hit him in the side of the head with the Gideon Bible.

  He broke away from the highway once, making for an out-of-the-way diner that he had apparently frequented in the past. He knew exactly what to order—waffles, eggs sunny side up, hash browns and sausages. She let the waitress choose for her. What she brought out was just right—two pancakes and a smaller side of scrambled eggs. Renee stole one of Grant’s sausages, surprised that she was so hungry. She usually ate plenty, but a breakfast as big as these pancakes wasn’t her usual fare. Even so, her stomach was still growling halfway through one of them. Grant looked amused as he watched her eat.