Wild Nights Read online

  To think her child’s mind had blocked out the good in order to forget the bad! It seemed so unfair now, in hindsight, but it had probably been the healthiest thing, the only way the child could survive.

  Tia was still going over memories long forgotten when Luc slipped back into their room. She raised the covers and moved aside, giving him room to crawl into bed with her. “Is Dad okay?”

  Luc leaned close and kissed her. “He’ll be fine. He’s exhausted.” Luc chuckled and pulled Tia close against his body. “I think he and your mom did a lot more than talk last night.”

  Tia giggled and elbowed him in the stomach. “Too much information. There are some things I’d rather not know.”

  “He did say we’re going to have daughters someday. Camille warned him they’d be a handful. I think impending grand-fatherhood was part of the reason he chose to come back and not to stay with your mom. He figured we’d need his help.”

  Luc’s hand settled protectively over her belly, as though he were imagining those same daughters growing there. The sweet gesture left Tia feeling warm, loved. “I’m not ready for babies yet. Someday.” She tilted her head and kissed Luc’s chin. “I worried he might not come back. He loved her so much.”

  “It was his anger that held her, his resentment that wouldn’t set her free.” Luc nuzzled the back of Tia’s neck, nipped at the tender skin at the juncture near her shoulder. “I don’t know if I could forgive you, either, if you were to leave me.”

  Tia rolled over within his embrace and kissed Luc full on the mouth. “Not a worry. We’ve got way too much to live for. If Dad’s right, we’re going to have the next generation of Chanku to raise.”

  She felt Luc growing hard against her belly, felt the tension building in her own body. No matter how tired she felt, nor how much they loved, Tia’s body was never fully sated, her heart and mind always eager for Luc’s sensual touch.

  His hands stroked her gently; his lips made a velvety, warm foray across her body. Tia arched her back, mewling softly with each new sensation. She felt the slow bloom of desire growing, unfolding as Luc built her arousal with each touch, each caress.

  His body was hot and hard, his lean muscles tense with his own arousal, but Tia’s turned pliant and welcoming with each touch, each whispered word of love.

  He trailed warm kisses along her throat, around her tightly contracted nipple, finally taking it between his lips and sucking until she whimpered.

  Moving lower, he tongued her navel, nipped the soft skin on her belly, licked once across her greedy clit. Tia clutched his shoulders, tangled her fingers in his hair, and lifted her hips to meet his mouth.

  Luc slipped his hands beneath her buttocks, lifted her to his mouth, and feasted on her needy sex. She felt the scrape of teeth over her labia, the kneading pressure of his long fingers as he massaged her buttocks.

  Wet, greedy sounds of Luc’s tongue and lips, soft whimpering moans rising from Tia without form or conscious thought, the quiet rustle of sheets and blankets—all leant punctuation to the silence in the room.

  His tongue found the slick valley between her labia, lapped at her juices flowing fresh and hot. His finger brushed the taut muscle between her cheeks and pressed hard, matching the rhythm he set with his mouth.

  Tia clutched at the sheets, arched her hips, cried out when his lips settled around her throbbing clit. He suckled hard, pressing his tongue against the tiny bundle of nerves just as his finger breached her anus.

  She screamed, a hoarse cry of pleasure and release, her muscles clenching almost painfully, pussy contracting, muscles straining against Luc’s thick finger, his hot, wet tongue.

  On and on, the tender assault never ending, her climax building once more as Luc quickly backed away, knelt between her legs, and thrust his cock hard and deep inside her spasming pussy.

  No matter how often or in how many ways he loved her, Tia still needed time to adjust to his size. Luc filled her, the broad head of his cock and thick girth barely fitting inside her tight passage, touching every nerve and fiber with muscle and heat.

  Tia cried out again, a long, low howl of completion. Suddenly Luc was in her thoughts, in her mind, sharing her orgasm, sharing his own as it built and grew, as his balls contracted and pulled close against his body.

  She felt the pressure, the almost painful pleasure he experienced with each driving thrust. Harder, faster, touching the hard mouth of her womb as his hips drove forward, feeling the tight walls of her pussy grab his cock like a velvet fist each time he withdrew.

  Tia’s climax faded. Luc’s built, bringing her back to join him at the peak. She was there in his mind, in his heart. When Luc finally gasped her name, when his cock spasmed and his hot seed bathed her womb, Tia was Luc.

  As if they’d planned for this, both Tia and Luc shifted at the same time, their bodies morphing, the call of Chanku overwhelming their human minds and bodies.

  Two wolves, locked together between one heartbeat and the next, their four-legged bodies tangled together, mouths open and panting, tongues lolling.

  Tia breathed in deeply of Luc’s scent and felt the events of the night begin to take over. Thoroughly exhausted, her tight muscles still clinging to Luc’s swollen cock, Tia lay her muzzle across his furred shoulder and groaned. Sighing, Luc rested his broad head on Tia’s back.

  Later, the visit from her mother, her father’s journey … later, it might all make sense. When they’d slept, when they’d eaten … and, just maybe, after they’d made love again. For now, she drifted off to sleep, still firmly tied to the one who commanded her dreams.

  Ulrich lay awake, too exhausted to sleep, too wound up to relax. Camille’s scent still clung to him, something that made no sense as this corporeal body had stayed behind, but he would swear he still smelled her seductive perfume, still tasted her feminine flavors on his tongue.

  He’d heard Anton and Stefan return to bed, the muffled cries of Tia and Luc. Ulrich tried to remember if he’d thanked Camille for suggesting that the two marry. It was so easy to forget the legalities after bonding with your mate. The paperwork, the formal steps seemed unnecessary after such a powerful experience, but Camille was right. It was important.

  They’d married. A civil ceremony performed on the beach at dawn, but Ulrich would never forget how beautiful Camille had looked in her wedding gown, her arms filled with flowers, the morning sun sparkling off her raven-black hair.

  She’d looked at him with such love in her eyes.

  Such promise.

  His eyes filled with tears. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t cry. She’d been gone for twenty years, after all, dammit.

  But you never grieved.

  No, he’d been too busy raising Tia. Forming Pack Dynamics. Too busy being angry and resentful.

  Now, with her soft skin still a fresh memory, the warmth of her lithe body pressing against his, the knowledge Camille was truly gone … now he grieved. Now he experienced the true despair he’d denied himself for so many years.

  Not here. Not inside four walls where he might be heard. These people had all gone through so much for him.

  Quietly Ulrich let himself out of the bedroom door that led to the deck. He shifted as he ran. Two bare feet slapping on the wooden deck shimmered, shifted, and became four paws. Extending his front legs, he leapt off the deck and raced for the woods, running, running as if the hounds of hell pursued him.

  Grass flew in great clumps, torn from the ground by his sharp nails. Small woodland creatures ran into the brush, and birds stopped their song.

  Ulrich stopped on a low rise and howled, long and low, the sound echoing off the hillsides, tearing at his throat as he forced the sound longer, louder, a Chanku benediction for his lost mate.

  Then he ran again. Gasping, lungs screaming for air, Ulrich ran on. Frost still coated the shaded spots, wisps of fog hung in the lower areas along the track. He ran until his legs gave out, until he lay on his side in the cold grass, shifted back to his human self, and
wept.

  His body shook with the force of his grief. His lungs burned, his throat ached.

  She was gone. He’d set her free and condemned himself. Had he taken the coward’s way out? Should he have abandoned life, abandoned all who loved him on this plane to join Camille on hers?

  Could Anton send him back? Would Ulrich find her there?

  No. I am gone from that place. Thank you, my love. Thank you for setting me free. It was time to move forward. Time for both of us.

  “Camille?” Rubbing his face with both hands, Ulrich sat up.

  He heard it then, a soft whisper. Camille’s voice.

  Good-bye. For now, Ric, good-bye.

  The silence then was absolute, but only for a moment. Birds came out, one by one, their voices mingling in song. Sunlight streamed through the treetops. A rabbit hopped past, obviously unaware of the threat.

  Ulrich rolled to his knees, thought about standing, and shifted instead. He drank from a small pond and then slowly retraced his steps to Anton’s home. Head hanging low, blood running from a long scratch on his shoulder, he looked beaten and bowed.

  He felt anything but. His tears had washed away the last remnants of an old and dying grief. Camille was gone, but she’d freed him of the weight he’d carried for all the years since her death.

  Ulrich sensed the house just ahead, saw the roofline as he topped a low rise. He sat there for a moment, one large wolf staring down at the sprawling ranch house.

  Then, with a sweep of his tail, his head held high, he trotted slowly down the hill, thinking of Camille’s warning.

  Two little granddaughters, filled with Camille’s sass and sense of mischief and adventure. He was definitely going to be needed.

  Head held high, tail waving like a flag behind him, Ulrich ran the last few steps to the house, leaped over the railing, and headed back into the bedroom. A shower, a little sleep, a good meal, and he’d be ready for just about anything.

  Even a double dose of Camille.

  Midnight Man

  SHARON PAGE

  1

  “We were supposed to meet in public, not have sex in public.”

  Erin’s voice, sultry and breathy, wrapped around Michael Rourke—tempting, rich, and classy, like sweaty sex on hot silk sheets. The subtle note of warning in it made him grin—carefully, to hide the tips of his retracted fangs.

  He brushed his knuckles against Erin’s outer thigh, just below the hem of her skirt. “No, love, I’m not going to make love to you here.”

  Her emerald-green eyes glinted in the soft amber light of the pub, and he caught the flash of disappointment. She was excited, he knew, despite the way she glanced at other tables to ensure no one was looking their way. “Then what do you plan to do?”

  Michael unfurled his fingers to cup her bare leg, her skin warm and satin smooth against his cool palm. His wrist caught the edge of her tailored skirt, lifting it as his fingers crept slowly toward the hot nest between her thighs.

  This game of seduction with his intended soul mate was giving him the most agonizing rock-hard erection of his two-hundred-year existence.

  She tensed her thigh, and he stroked gently until her leg relaxed at his touch.

  In three months of trading steamy e-mails—three months of sharing her secret desires—Erin had laid her soul bare for him, whether she knew it or not.

  She wanted adventure. She wanted great sex. But after building a successful private investigation agency chasing adulterers, she didn’t believe in love.

  And he had to.

  “I plan to pleasure you here, Erin.” And I plan to capture your heart.

  “Oh, you do?” She crossed her arms on the table and leaned closer to him, giving him a view down her white silk crossover blouse, a peek at the shadowy valley between the lightly freckled swells of her breasts. Again, he smiled at the trace of confrontation in her tone—even when she so obviously desired him. “And how do you plan to pleasure me in public?”

  “That’s to be my surprise, sweet.”

  Her brows drew together in an exaggerated frown, drawing a chuckle from deep in his throat. Michael winced at the sound—rusty, unused. How long since he’d last felt the urge to laugh?

  “No,” she insisted. “Tell me.”

  She didn’t like him to take control, but he found it impossible to understand her complex rules about equality. He was a Varkyre, the damned of the damned, the most predatory subspecies of vampire, and when he wanted a woman, he claimed her.

  Hell, he’d always lived outside the rules of human society, even in his mortal life. Michael had no qualms over bringing his intended soul mate to a screaming orgasm in an intimate little curved booth in Bellissima’s, the most popular bar downtown.

  He had to take Erin beyond her sensual limits, take her beyond the rigid, protective walls she’d erected. He had to teach her to trust.

  To trust him.

  “I like to start with the neck.” And you, sweetheart, possess the sexiest neck I’ve found in two centuries. He lifted Erin’s thick auburn hair and pressed his lips to her skin. Flicking his tongue along her peach-soft flesh, he tasted traces of salty sweat and wildflower soap. Delicious.

  He drew slow circles on her leg, letting his finger dip down farther over her inner thigh with each spiral. Her nipples puckered, tenting the silk. The draped fabric shivered with her quick, shallow breaths.

  “Are you really going to put your hand in my panties here, Michael?”

  Her direct question sent a surge of desire through him just as his fangs lengthened and grazed her flesh. Shuddering, he backed off to break the contact before he lost it and sank his teeth in. Before he revealed to her what he was.

  Erin’s hips rocked, slowly, seductively, and he knew she wanted him to lift his hand higher. By playing his game, she was taking a first step in trust.

  Michael took three deep breaths. And for the first time in his cursed existence, his fangs retreated, even as desire burned in him.

  Only with his soul mate could he have that kind of control.

  “No one can see,” he promised. “They think we’re just necking in the corner.”

  “I’ve never done anything like this before.” Her voice shivered with awe and arousal.

  He had. In his mortal past, he’d often engaged in public sex at brothels and parties.

  “Naughty, isn’t it?” he teased. He slid his hand around her upper thigh to cradle her ass. As his fingers encountered soft bare skin, his brows lifted in astonishment, and his cock jerked up against the hard zipper of his leather motorcycle pants. “You’re not wearing underwear.”

  “I am,” she protested in a whisper. “A thong.” Her warm breath coasted over the rim of his ear.

  “So your ass is essentially naked.”

  “Under my skirt, yes.”

  He laughed at that. Her legs parted slightly, and he knew his breath had played its own magic against her ear. He trailed his fingers back up, over her leg, to the damp, lacy thong nestled between her thighs.

  “Have you decided?” their ponytailed server trilled as he flipped out his pad and parked himself with his hip jutting against the table.

  Michael stroked his fingers along Erin’s hot, wet thong.

  She gasped. But her composure returned admirably fast. “I’m not hungry.”

  “We’re fine,” he instructed the waiter, breathing a sigh of relief. He had a beer in front of him, barely touched. Since he could consume only blood, he’d used his ability to move faster than human senses could detect to pour it out and make it look like he was drinking.

  Bloody ironic. He had finally found the woman who might free him from imminent destruction—if he could convince her to believe in him—and he’d done nothing but lie to her so far. The only topic on which he could be honest with Erin was sex.

  As soon as their server left, he bent and nibbled her neck again. This time his fangs remained retracted.

  Sex was the way to capture her heart.

&nbs
p; She whimpered, bending her head so her hair spilled over him.

  He loved hearing her moan with need. Loved the way her auburn waves shivered over her shoulders as she tilted her head. And he adored the throaty melody of her laugh, the honey-sweet sighs of arousal she made at his touch—“Oh!”

  The elastic trim of her thong snapped against her skin as Michael worked to slide his index finger underneath.

  Springy curls brushed his fingertip.

  He nipped her earlobe gently. “You are so wet.”

  Her cleft was snug and hot, and he pressed two fingers against her clit. With a moan, she jumped on the seat.

  “Relax.” His fingers circled over her, and her eyes opened wide. “Trust me.”

  Would she?

  “That’s so good, Michael.” Her hand dropped to his thigh to brace herself as her head arched back in pleasure.

  “Touch me.” He kept his voice low and seductive. He wished he could compel her to do as he asked, but he couldn’t. He could not do that with his soul mate.

  Erin drew her hand up his leg, her touch all the more erotic because he knew it came from her desire.

  “I’ve never groped a man in public,” she confided. Yes, she was beginning to trust him, revealing more and more to him. “But writing all those wild, hot e-mails to you—” She pressed her open palm to the bulge in his pants. “Can you feel that through the leather?”

  “God, yes.”

  His hips bucked as her hand slid along the zipper of his pants, following the line of his swelling cock until she found the engorged head stuffed against his waistband. She cupped him with her palm.

  His head swam as his blood pooled in his crotch, as his cock grew and grew and grew and pushed urgently with no place to go. Hunger surged with every pulse of his rigid shaft.

  Control it. Fight it.

  His jaw throbbed, burned even, but, by a miracle, his fangs stayed retracted.

  “You’ve unleashed a side of me I never knew existed,” she murmured as she glanced down to watch the motion of her hand coasting over the black leather—pulled taut over the broad head of his prick. Her firm gliding motion almost took him to the brink.