Big Badd Wolf Read online

  But...god, I couldn't help it. I wanted to taste her lips again. I wanted to feel her pressed up against me. It didn't have to lead to anything else, I just...I needed to kiss her.

  To know if I'd imagined how it had felt, how intense it had been.

  "Lucian--" she protested, as I sidled closer, closing the gap between us.

  I stared down at her. "Tell me you don't want this, Joss."

  "Want what?" she breathed.

  Moving slowly, deliberately telegraphing my intentions, I reached out and placed my hands on her waist, just above her hips, and moved so our bodies just barely touched--her breasts against my chest, soft and pliant and firm, our hips nudging, our faces inches apart. Her eyes went wide, and her breathing quickened. My hands slid around to her back, edging lower, to the upper swell of her buttocks, where they remained.

  "This," I murmured.

  She stared up at me, and her tongue slid across her lower lip. "Lucian--"

  "Tell me to let go, Joss." I watched her tongue wet her lips, leaning closer. "Tell me not to kiss you."

  Her hands lifted, rested on my chest, and then her fingers curled into the thick cotton of my sweatshirt. "I can't," she breathed. "You know I can't."

  She was trembling--I felt it in her breath, in her hands. Scared, or excited, or both?

  I'm not sure whether she lifted up or if I leaned down. Who kissed whom? I don't know. I just know our lips met in a tangle of wet warmth. She leaned against me, and her fingers released their grip on my sweatshirt to slide upward, carving over my shoulders and wrapping around the back of my neck. It was an effort of sheer willpower to keep my hands where they were, to keep them from descending lower and palming her luscious ass. I barely managed to restrain the impulse, instead letting one arm wrap all the way around her waist, my other hand lifting to her cheek. Her lips worked against mine, shifting and seeking, and then they parted and I felt her tongue teasing mine, questing.

  She moaned, a low whimper in her throat, a sound of agonized rapture. God, what would she sound like if it was me making her quake, making her gasp and moan as she toppled over the edge? I remembered all too well the sounds she made as she came, and I couldn't suppress a vision of us together, of me, between her thighs, tasting her. Touching her. Bringing her to an orgasm she'd never forget.

  I lost myself in the kiss, trying to banish the image I'd conjured.

  In vain.

  I felt us moving, and then she was braced against the railing of the dock and reaching up to pull me down, both hands on my face, lifting up on her toes to reach me, to deepen the kiss. I pressed harder against her, palming her cheek, and she gave me her tongue, unabashedly, hungrily. I groaned as my willpower ran out, and the thick, firm weight of her ass filled both of my hands, and her moan was one of surprise and pleasure. I kneaded and cupped and caressed, pulled her flush against my body, my hardness against her softness.

  Abruptly, just like the first time, she yanked herself out of my grip, panting raggedly, her fingers trembling as they slid across her lips.

  And then she was gone, bolting at a dead run back toward the bar.

  8

  Joss

  * * *

  It happened again. Only...worse. Or better. Or something.

  That kiss had eclipsed the first one completely. It left me shaking all over, breathing hard, aching between my thighs, and unable to think straight. His hands had been on my ass, and I'd allowed it to happen. Enjoyed it, even. It wasn't until he'd ground against me and I'd felt the long, hard, thick ridge of his erection against me that I'd woken up, that I'd been shaken out of my aroused hypnosis.

  That's really what it was, too--hypnosis.

  I'm a strong, smart, tough girl--independent, a survivor. I don't get sidetracked or distracted or duped or tricked. But Lucian--once he got his hands on me, once his mouth met mine, he just...decimated me. Ravaged my ability to think straight. His lips were jet fuel on the fire of my libido, his hands on my body setting off the afterburner of my desire.

  I ran like my life depended on it, seized by an odd mixture of arousal and the need to cry.

  I made it to Badd's, slammed through the door and into the dim interior of the bar. I saw no one, nothing, heard a voice calling my name, but I ignored it, hauling ass upstairs to my room.

  I collapsed into bed, sweating, peeled off my hoodie, gasping partly from exertion and partly from the overwhelming, emotional, visceral reaction to everything that was Lucian.

  How could he have this effect on me? What did he do to me? What was wrong with me that I was so easily swept away by him? I didn't want to want him, but I did. I didn't want to feel a desperate need for his touch, his kiss, but I did.

  I hated it.

  It was weakness on my part, pure and simple. It would only sabotage my future. I was living a precarious existence, walking a delicate line. I was trying to not get too attached to the Badd tribe, because I couldn't stay here indefinitely. They weren't my family. This was just a pit stop on the road. A side quest. A chance to get off the streets for a while, to be safe, a chance to put away some money--I cashed every check I made, banded the cash into tight rolls, and hid them in an old tampon box in my backpack, which I never let out of my sight. That backpack represented everything to me--my savings, my potential future. If I saved enough, I could start thinking about opening The Garden, someday, but to do that, I had to work every spare moment, save every penny. There was no time for a man. No time for attraction. No time for Lucian.

  And even if there was time, I couldn't emotionally afford the risk of getting involved with Lucian. Losing my parents like I did had shut me down, emotionally, and being alone and homeless on the road had forced to me put up a hardened facade to the world, hiding myself within layers of walls. Lucian, somehow, got past those walls and saw the real me. But the damage he could do to my heart and soul from inside my walls? It was incalculable. I'd only survived this long, emotionally, by being cold and shut down. I couldn't care about him. Just COULDN'T. He would wreck me, ruin me.

  I'd gone down that road once before, and it had nearly undone me. Nearly killed me, physically, and shattered any ability I had to trust men.

  Lucian wouldn't be any different than Rob.

  But he is, a small voice whispered. You know he is.

  But what if he's not? What if he's the same?

  I heard a door close, heard booted footsteps outside my room. A moment of silence, hesitation, and then a knock. "Joss?"

  "Go away."

  "Joss, please...talk to me." He sounded as out of breath as I was.

  "I can't--I can't--Lucian, please, just...leave me alone."

  My heart was urging me to listen to him, my mind was shackling me in place with chains of fear and distrust, and my body was screaming for me to open the door, to take more of what he was offering.

  "Joss." I heard a thump, as if he'd thunked his head against the door, or a fist. "Let me in. Please."

  "The door isn't locked," I murmured.

  I rolled away to face the wall, curled into a tight ball.

  I heard him enter, close the door behind him, felt him sit on the edge of the bed. His hand touched my side, and I flinched, even as his touch thrilled through me.

  "Joss, I don't understand."

  "You couldn't."

  "I want to."

  "No you don't."

  He shifted closer to me, and I felt his body heat, felt him close, his hand on my waist. "Yes. I do."

  "Why?"

  "Because I--" he halted, and I heard him swallow. "I don't know how to put it. It's...it's you. I need--I want--fuck." He broke off with a strangled groan. "Joss, just let me in a little. Why do you keep pulling away from me? Do you not want me? Is there something wrong? Something I did wrong?"

  At the confused pain in his voice, I rolled to face him. "Lucian, no. It's not that."

  "Then what, goddammit?"

  "It's everything. It's me. It's my life. What I've been through, where I'm trying to
get--you asked me what I was so afraid of, and I told you everything. And that's the truth." I stared up into his conflicted brown eyes, hating the pain I saw there, only partially masking the desire also prevalent.

  He just stared back down at me, as if he could divine the truth just by looking hard enough.

  And the hell of it was, it felt as if he could. His eyes were so deep, so expressive, so piercing, and they bored into me, penetrating my defenses, making me want to tell him everything, the things I'd never spoken aloud to a living soul.

  He was back inside my physical space, touching me.

  "Don't look at me like that," I whispered.

  "Like what?"

  "Like you can see my every secret."

  "If only I could."

  "Why would you want to? What if you don't like what you see?"

  His eyes raked over me, reminding me that I'd taken off my hoodie, revealing the fact that I wasn't wearing a bra--as if my recent run hadn't made that painfully clear enough as it was. His eyes on my body gave my question multiple layers of meaning and context.

  "I see you, Joss, and I like what I see. I want more of what I see." He returned his eyes to mine. "So much more."

  "Dammit, Lucian." I put my hand on his chest to stop him from getting any closer. "It's not that simple."

  I shouldn't have touched him. Even as the conflict in my head and heart warred on, the act of touching him incited a riot in my body, sending sparks through my blood, setting me on fire all over again.

  He was sweating slightly, a sheen on his forehead and upper lip. He had lost his sweatshirt at some point too, and was wearing just his T-shirt, a plain white V-neck stretched tight around his sculpted body. My hand was on his chest, dead center between his pecs, and I felt the heat of his skin under my palm. I had a mental flash of him naked, every ripped, shredded muscle on display, and my heart thundered.

  Silence.

  His eyes on mine--one hand on my waist, my hand on his chest; it was like the moment before a storm hits, when the air crackles with energy.

  This time, it was all me.

  I lunged at him, groaning a curse at my own weakness even as I gave in yet again to the desire I knew would only further confuse me, would only cause me to pull away yet again. This couldn't last. Fear would take the reins again--I kissed him knowing this.

  But dammit, I wanted him. He kissed like he'd invented it, taking control of my mouth, guiding us to rapturous heights, until I was breathless with need for more.

  I landed in his arms, and he fell backward to the bed, pulling me on top of him, and everything inside me became a roaring conflagration of desire for Lucian. My heart crashed and skipped beats, and my hands sought him, sought skin, pushing his shirt up so my palms and fingertips skated across his hot taut flesh and firm muscles. I felt that huge hard ridge between us, and it made my thighs quake with equal parts fear and need. It didn't stop me, this time, though. I was too lost in the fervor of his mouth, the debilitating, dizzying way his hands explored my body.

  Oh god, oh god, how could this feel so perfect, so right, and yet so scary and so wrong at the same time?

  His tongue demanded mine, and I gave it to him. Tasted him, felt him beneath me. His hands slipped under the hem of my shirt and his fingers danced up my spine, and then his palms skated back down. His hands were warm and strong and callused and gentle as they soothed in circles from shoulders downward to the small of my back. I shivered, broke the kiss to pull away to meet his eyes. All I saw in his gaze was need, desire as potent as my own. And then he was reclaiming the kiss, groaning as our mouths parted and our tongues tangled in a wild dance of furious passion. I felt him hesitate, felt his hands pause at the swell of my butt, and then, with a deep, raspy moan of pleasure, he cupped my ass. I arched my spine at his touch, my heart thrumming and crashing, heat and pressure roiling low in my belly, need building inside me with volcanic intensity.

  His fingers clawed into the meat and muscle of my buttocks, and then released to caress, to explore the roundness and the weight, and I felt his touch like an electrical current searing through me, igniting my desire to mad, manic, explosive fury. I shoved at his shirt and he ripped it off, and then he was twisting against me, rolling, and I was pinned beneath him. His weight was centered at our hips, his erection hard against my core. I pawed his muscular back, exploring his broad shoulders, tugging his hair free from the ever-present ponytail to cascade around our lip-locked faces. Shoulders, spine, sides, I touched him everywhere I could find skin--chest, stomach, arms. I couldn't resist the temptation of his ass, cupped by just-tight-enough jeans. I pulled him closer, gasping into his mouth, whimpering at the strength and gentility in his touch, in the possessive ferocity of his kiss, and his exploration of my body.

  And then he wasn't kissing my mouth anymore, but my stomach, my side, my diaphragm. He pushed up my T-shirt--it caught on my chin and then slipped off, vanishing, and his hands were sliding up my ribcage. I gasped, and then moaned breathlessly when his hands palmed my bared breasts, whined in my throat as his thumbs brushed over my nipples, sending currents of sizzling ecstasy through me. His mouth danced across my flesh, skipping and kissing and stuttering from navel to ribs, up my breastbone, to my throat, and then he was cupping my breast as an offering to his lips, and his hot wet mouth latched onto my nipple and his teeth and tongue were a frenzy of erotic attention, sawing, flicking, suckling, until I was arched up off the mattress, shoving my hips at his, grinding against him wantonly, moaning, the edge of orgasm bearing down on me.

  I caught at his bicep, the bulging power filling my hand, taut and thick. My mouth found his neck, and then his shoulder, and my tongue tasted the salt of his skin and my lips slid and my teeth dimpled the flesh as he shifted from the left breast to my right. His fingers pinioned my nipple, the one still slick from his mouth, twisting and pinching, and then his hand was caressing and lifting and squeezing the entire heavy mound of my breast while his mouth devoured the other. My spine was concave, pressing myself against him, offering myself to his lavish attention.

  God, more.

  More.

  I felt the desperate cry within my body for more of his touch like a siren song. I needed more.

  I buried my hands in his hair, running my fingers through the silky locks, and then cupped the back of his head in my palms, holding him in place as he licked and lapped and suckled at my tits.

  He groaned, and then growled. His hips lifted from mine, and he shifted so his body was to one side of mine but still levered over me. He never stopped his mouth's attention to my breasts, one and then the other in alternating rhythm, one hand on whichever breast his mouth wasn't latched onto. His other hand, ohhh, that hand was sliding downward. Dancing down my belly, going past my navel to the stretchy waistband of my yoga pants.

  Did he know I wasn't wearing anything under them?

  Too late, now.

  His fingers were teasing underneath the elastic cotton, and I was quivering in anticipation. Riding the edge already just from his mouth on my breasts, the prospect of his touch on my most intimate, most sensitive place had me shaking and too breathless to make a sound. I wanted his touch--I wanted this.

  But yet, there was an undercurrent of something dark and subversive layered beneath the desire. I fought it. I didn't want that to hold me back--I knew what it was, and I didn't want to give it power over me anymore. But it was there. And it was growing stronger.

  I palmed his cheeks and brought his mouth back up to mine, lost myself in kissing him all over again. Let the delirium of his mouth and tongue take me away again. Rolled my hips in invitation as he worked his fingers under the waistband. His tongue danced on mine, and I felt the first questing brush of his fingertip down my center. I whimpered, clutching at his shoulder with one hand and palming his cheek with the other, and the kiss broke, both of us gasping. My eyes flew open, and I met his heated brown gaze.

  There was a moment of hesitation on his part then. Him, allowing me time
to stop him.

  I didn't want to.

  I liked his touch. I enjoyed how beautiful his kiss made me feel, how wanted, how desired I felt in his hands. I knew what he was about to do, and I wanted it.

  I lifted my hips again, and felt his touch slide against my seam, a slow, gentle foray. His eyes never left mine. And then, gently, slowly, he delved into me, eliciting a quavering whimper at the thick intrusion of his touch. In, then, deeper, gathering the wetness of my desire and sliding his touch outward and then upward, where his fingers circled, touching gently, delicately. I couldn't even gasp. Could only let my eyes roll back in my head, and let my hips roll at the slowly increasing speed of his circling fingers. The heat inside me was expanding and morphing into pressure, into desperation.

  I felt myself coming apart, heard the sound of my voice crying out, muffled against his shoulder. My hands were claws, raking down his back as his fingers worked a sorcery like nothing I'd ever felt, sliding down to dip inside me, smearing my own essence on the bundle of nerves at my very core, manipulating me to wild, thrashing desperation.

  His mouth was at my breasts again and I was clawing at one of his shoulders and my other hand was pawing down the hard rippling blocks of his abs, catching at the waist of his jeans. I felt outside myself, somehow, not in control. It wasn't me, I was some other Joss, a Joss free from the dark fear of the past. This Joss was hungry for Lucian, desperate to feel more of him, to take the pleasure he was offering and give him pleasure in return.

  This Joss--the free one--was in control. I gave myself to the new version, gave her my mind, my heart, my soul, and let her lead me. My hands were at the front of his jeans. Popping open the cold brass of the button, sliding down the zipper.

  Lucian's touch thrilled through me, seared me, like lightning striking again and again. I was beyond breathless, now, my thighs quaking, aching. His fingers teased and toyed, dove inside me and slipped out, circled my clit, drove me to the edge and left me hovering there, a gasping shriek escaping as an orgasm teetered inside me, a nuclear bomb an instant from exploding.

  I welcomed it, my heels catching at the blankets, thighs quaking and falling open, hips driving upward into his touch. I buried my mouth in the side of his neck and let myself moan loud into his flesh as he circled my clit faster and faster now, until the heat and pressure and need and pleasure became too much, too much, and I detonated, biting down on his shoulder and screaming as I came.