The Wolf's Surrender

CHAPTER 13



Jenner knew he was playing with fire, holding her like this. He just couldn’t seem to stop himself.

He hadn’t allowed himself to respond this way to a woman since Tess. This was different, though. Mia was nothing like the woman he’d once loved and lost. Well, almost nothing. Despite Mia’s innocence, there was still some kind of mystery about her. Not a deadly one. But something...more, nonetheless. Maybe it was that hint of fae blood that had drawn Gaines to her, but he didn’t think so. It was just Mia. To his chagrin, every second he spent with her only drew him more strongly to her.

He wasn’t stupid. He knew what it could mean if he let it. There was a reason werewolf courtships were short and their matings permanent. For his kind, when a thing was right, it just was.

And Mia felt it, too, or she wouldn’t be curled up in his lap, leaning into his touch like a kitten.

Damn it, he’d meant it when he’d told her he couldn’t be the one to bring her into the pack. He wouldn’t risk himself again that way. But hell if he could keep his hands off of her. Especially when he thought of what might have happened earlier.

“Jenner?”

Her voice was warm and smooth, rich like cream. He looked down at her, so full of longing and frustration that he knew she must sense it. Seeing the look in her eyes confirmed it, and Jenner took some solace in the fact that it wasn’t only he who’d been struggling.

Her eyes never leaving his, Mia tentatively lifted her hands to place them on either side of his face. She wasn’t timid. Quiet sometimes, but not timid. Not at her heart. Tonight she’d shocked the hell out of the Silverback Alpha...and gotten exactly what she wanted. He got the feeling, more and more, that one underestimated Mia D’Alessandro at one’s peril. It was one of the many things he found so appealing about her.

“Mia,” he said softly, making that one word a desire-filled plea.

Then they reached for one another at the same time.

At first contact, Jenner felt his blood surge in his veins. Her lips were just as soft as he remembered, made for pleasure. She sank into the kiss with a soft gasp as his world became nothing more than exploring her with his mouth, tongue, hands. Her hands skimmed down the sides of his face, over rough night stubble, and then cruised over his shoulders, down the skin of his chest. Jenner could feel her heart change rhythm under his hands as he cupped one perfect breast with his palm, thumbing the taut nipple until she moaned into his mouth. Passion arced between them, electric in its intensity.

Jenner groaned in return, tangling his fingers in her hair. Mia made a sound, some soft, pleading sound of submission as she pressed herself against him. It drove him right to the brink of his sanity, of his precious control. And he was so dangerously close to letting go. There had been other women since Tess. But he’d never let himself truly want. Not until now.

She gave a soft cry as he broke the kiss. Mia’s eyes were full of fire, glowing softly as she looked at him, and Jenner could see he wasn’t the only one close to losing control. He could see the beast in those eyes...and something more. Something wild and shimmering and irresistibly beautiful. Something singularly Mia. He wanted to turn away from it...but so much of him wanted to simply fall into her.

“Mia,” he breathed. “I can’t...we can’t...”

“I know,” she said. “But I need you to touch me, Jenner. Even if it’s only tonight. Just be with me. Be with me.”

His answer was a series of hot and breathless kisses as he gave into temptation at last.

* * *

Moving with a grace and speed she hadn’t thought herself capable of, Mia shifted position with a single fluid movement and straddled Jenner. His guttural groan, the way his hands clamped on her hips, told her she had won. Every nerve ending was alight with need. Her body felt like it was close to combustion. The feel of him, brutally aroused between her legs and thrust against the thin cotton of her pajama shorts, sent her to the edge of a blinding orgasm before she had time to think.

The magic with her awakened again, sending power and need flickering through her like fire in her veins. She heard her own secret song, heard his pulsing beneath his skin, twining with hers until they made a singular melody that was all their own. Thought fled in the face of instincts that were as old as time. When Jenner hissed in a breath as she arched into him, Mia let her head fall back, exposing her throat to him.

Be with me, she thought. Take me.

And though she knew it was impossible, she could have sworn she heard Jenner’s voice inside her head.

As you wish.

She found herself flipped in an instant, flat on her back on the big, comfortable couch. And the feel of Jenner pressed against her, letting her have some of his weight, was something akin to heaven itself. His hands, so big and sure, slid up and under her tank top. Mia helped him remove it, eager to have nothing between them. It was quickly discarded, and Mia gave a hoarse cry of pleasure when they were skin to skin.

If she’d had any doubts that Jenner was as pulled to her as she was to him, they vanished in the face of his desire. His hands were all over her as they tangled together on the couch. His mouth was hot, hard, demanding. Mia arched into him, urging him on wordlessly as he filled his hands with her breasts, squeezed. Then she gasped as his hand slipped beneath the waistband of her pants. His name filled her head and her heart.

“Nick,” she murmured, forgetting herself as he sought out the slick and swollen folds concealing the bud of her sex, then began to stroke her. For once, the use of his given name didn’t seem to give Jenner any pause at all.

“Mmm,” he agreed, almost a purr. Mia rose against his hand as he played her, his breathing as harsh as hers. She could feel his eyes on her, watching as he drove her toward her climax. Mia’s eyes slipped closed. She could see nothing, only feel. And there was so much to feel.

“Look at me,” he growled. “I want you to look at me.”

Her eyes opened and locked with his, and then Mia was hit with a wave of pleasure that tore right through her. She cried out, arching upward and stiffening as she rode the waves of her orgasm. Jenner continued stroking, wringing every drop of pleasure from her until she should have had nothing left. And still she wanted more.

“Make love to me,” she breathed, writhing against him, sliding her hand down to wrap her fingers around the hard and silken shaft that throbbed at her touch. Jenner’s heart was pounding against her chest, that his breathing was as ragged as she’d ever heard it. He’d buried his face in her neck, and when Mia gave his back a testing stroke, he shuddered in response. It was only then that she realized just how close he was to losing all control.

“Need to...need to get—”

She had wondered how werewolves managed to have sex lives without turning every partner into one of them. The answer, Mia suddenly realized, was laughably simple, apart from being a good idea anyway. And she was ready to sprint wherever she was directed to get Jenner the box he needed.

“Where?” she asked breathlessly. “Nick,” she purred, and she could actually feel his pleasure coursing through her as his given name fell from her lips again.

“Hang on,” he breathed. “Just...hell...”

He vanished so quickly she barely felt him go, and she was gripped by a sudden, terrible fear that he wouldn’t come back. But it was only moments and he returned. She heard the tearing of foil as he fumbled back onto the couch, uncharacteristically graceless in his need. Mia slid her arms around him, and he went still, breathing harshly.

“I just don’t want to screw this up,” he said.

“You won’t,” Mia reassured him. “You’re not.”

She helped him on with the condom, enjoying the way his breath shook as he exhaled. Then they were entwined again, moving together. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her, and Mia twisted and turned so that he could touch more of her, all of her. She slid his pajama pants the rest of the way off, while he took care of her shorts. Jenner took her to the floor, sinking into the plush area rug and positioning himself over her.

He touched his forehead to hers, and then kissed her, a long, slow, decadent kiss that sent pleasure from her head to her toes. Mia moaned and stretched beneath him, and that’s when he plunged. Mia sucked in a breath as Jenner buried himself in her. He stilled.

“God,” he groaned. “So tight. Mia...”

She lifted her hips once, twice against him, and then Jenner began to move inside her with a primal rhythm all his own. Mia matched it, feeling the pressure building inside of her all over again. He filled her completely, and every stroke carried her closer to some decadent place where there was nothing but sensation, nothing but this kind of full-body bliss.

She watched his face as her breath caught with every stroke. He was beautiful, she thought. And tonight, he was hers.

He moved faster within her, and Mia felt the pleasure coiling, tightening. And yet she had the sense that there was more, lingering just out of reach. So much more Jenner could give her, if he were willing. She felt his heart thundering against her chest, keeping perfect time with her own.

Jenner linked his fingers with hers, moving them over her head so that she was captured completely. His mouth scorched her face, her breasts. Mia moaned low in the back of her throat, blind to all but the pleasure that was rushing at her.

The orgasm blew through her like a summer storm. She cried out, arching into Jenner as he found his own release, shouting as he came. Her entire body quivered as the aftershocks shimmered through her one by one. They rode the waves together, until they ebbed into delicate ripples of pleasure. Mia’s entire body felt as though it were covered in stardust.

She curled against Jenner, her breathing slowly normalizing, wondering what they had created together. Even after he withdrew, she could feel him in her blood. Something had shifted fundamentally in her world when they’d joined. She just couldn’t focus well enough to consider what, or what that was going to mean. All she could think of was that no matter how incredible their lovemaking had been, they had teetered on the precipice of even more.

She barely felt it as he lifted her, carrying her to his room where he lowered her to the bed. Jenner didn’t want to let her go, any more than she wanted to be let go, Mia realized. Something else to think about...later. He vanished for a few long seconds, and then climbed in to join her. Mia slid easily into his arms, snuggling into the curve of his body.

Jenner’s soft rumble made her smile.

“If we were going to flout Pack Law,” he said, “we sure did it right.”

He sounded as satisfied as she felt. Mia felt herself beginning to drift to sleep, cruising on the euphoria that came after an amazing session of lovemaking. Jenner said no more, seeming content to hold her.

Somewhere, in the dim recesses of her consciousness, she felt herself reaching for him, into him, re-creating that magic song they’d created together. With her guard down, Mia let it ripple through her, taking it into herself, taking him in, until she was aware of nothing but being enveloped by Jenner. In her mind, they danced together in a ring of faerie lights beneath the glowing moon. Eyes, kind and somehow familiar, watched them approvingly from the gently swaying trees.

Faewolf, they breathed, their voices as one. Daughter of the magic moon.

In innocent sleep, all Mia could think of was that she’d finally come home.

“Nick,” she murmured, the soft sound reaching his ears as he shivered and pulled her closer, trying even in sleep to protect her from something that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, pulsing all around them.

In his dreams he watched Mia dance, laughing, into a strange and unfamiliar night. Her eyes were as bright as the moon...and then they were Tess’s lifeless eyes, mocking him even in death for having loved her. Having trusted her.

Reminding him never to open his heart again.