"Nikki." He took a step toward her, then froze again.
They were watching him quietly, their gazes flickering over the family, who finally also came to their feet.
He had prayed over the past hours. He had bargained with God. He had begged for just one more chance and offered his life for hers. He had pleaded with a being that hadn't created him, but one Matthias prayed would bless him.
"It was close," Nikki finally said, a smile creasing her dark, exotic features. "But she's alive, Matthias" Two months later
"I told you to wear jeans." Grace was laughing at him, her gray eyes shining with happiness, as tears of mirth rolled down her cheeks. "Didn't I warn you to wear jeans?"
"Shut up, Grace," he growled, attempting to peel the wet leather from his legs as he stood in the middle of their bedroom, dripping from sweat and the pain. "Those brothers of yours are f**king insane," he snarled violently. "Have I ever mentioned they are f**king crazy?" His voice rose at the accusation. She was laughing. She was standing in the middle of the floor, her arms across her stomach, and she bent over, struggling to breathe as she laughed at him.
She was barely healed from the wound she had taken the night the coyotes attacked them. It had been slow progress, until Dr. Armani had given her a transfusion of Matthias's blood. After that, her recovery had moved quickly. Although the blood they had given her in surgery saved her life, her body had attempted to reject it. The unique qualities of the hormones in her body had fought it, and fought her recovery, until Matthias's blood had been added to it.
It shouldn't have worked. Their blood types didn't match, and his Breed blood should have been an instant poison to her system. Instead, from the moment it was introduced, she had begun to heal. Now, two months later, she was standing here laughing her ass off at him because he was coated with mud and grime and struggling to get his damned pants off.
"I told you, jeans," she reminded him, finally straightening. "Geeze, Matthias, you need a shower." Another peel of laughter left her, as a mud-sodden hunk of hair fell over his face. He swiped it back and glared at her.
"Poor little wolfie," she crooned, as he kicked his pants free and stood before her, naked. And aroused. Horribly aroused. He had felt the mating heat returning in the past week, tormenting him with the need to possess her. To taste and touch her.
In the weeks since her surgery, as though her body recognized its need to heal, the heat had only been a slow simmer inside them both. Now it was blazing inside him, and the scent of her heat filled his head. His lashes lowered, as he flicked a look over the shorts and T-shirt she wore.
"Shower with me." He moved toward her, his body tightening with hunger. He had been like this for days, and it was killing him. If he didn't touch her, take her, he would go insane. Her tongue swiped over her lips, as she pushed her hair back from her face, sensuality marking her features.
Grace hadn't forgotten for a second what she had almost been taken from. Over the past two months she had made certain Matthias became an integral part of her family, so that, should the worst ever happen, he wouldn't be alone.
He fought her, of course. He knew what she was doing. But when she awoke in that hospital room, saw his pale, haggard features and his agonized whiskey eyes, she had known. Had she died, Matthias wouldn't have been long behind her. His soul was a part of hers. She wondered, even now, if either of them could survive without the other.
God she loved him.
She leaned against his damp, muddy chest, her eyes closing, as she felt the warmth of him surrounding her. She loved him like flowers loved the sunshine. They embraced it, drew in its heat, and basked in its approval. That's what she did with Matthias.
Her hands slid over his powerful forearms, as they enclosed her, his hands gripping the hem of her shirt and drawing it away from her body.
Tossing the material aside, his lips went instantly to the mark throbbing on her shoulder.
"Like the flowers love the sun," he whispered at her ear, echoing her thoughts. "That's how I love you, too, Grace. I can't survive without your warmth. Without your love." She turned to him, her head tilting back, her lips accepting his, as his tongue swept into her mouth. Honey and spice. That was his taste, and she gloried in it. Her tongue wrapped around his, drew the hormone from the swollen glands beneath it, and she let the fire have her. Kissing her, touching her, Matthias lifted her into his arms and carried her to the shower. He didn't take his lips from hers as he adjusted the water. He sipped at them, licked at them, shared his taste with her, then lifted her beneath the spray of the dual showerheads.
The glass doors closed behind them, wrapping them in steamy intimacy, as his hands coasted over her body. His lips moved down her neck, to her chest. Just beneath her collarbone, he licked the scars the bullet and subsequent surgery had left. They were still a little tender, but the stroke of his tongue was like the sunlight.
Grace lifted herself against him, her head tipping back, as water ran over her head, soaking her hair, running in rivulets over her face, down her neck, to his lips. Lips that were moving from the scar to her ni**les.
He sucked the hard points inside his mouth, drew on them deeply, growled in pleasure as she rubbed her leg along his thigh. The tiny, nearly invisible hairs that grew there, soft as a whisper of silk, caressed her.
Her hands weren't still, and neither were his lips. As he sucked at her nipple, scraped it with his teeth, her head lifted to allow her lips to touch his brow. Her hands smoothed over his shoulders, over the bulge of his arms.
Warmth and pleasure filled her. Wicked, sharp pleasure that clenched her womb and had her breath catching with an overload of sensations.
She had missed this. She had missed his touch, his kiss, the heat of him flowing over her and through her, until she didn't know where he ended and she began. He was her dreams, her adventures. Her sunlight.
"Poor Grace," he whispered against her breast. "I can smell how hot you are, how sweet."
"So fix it," she demanded breathlessly, leaning back against the shower wall, as his tongue swiped between her br**sts, followed by a hungry growl.
She loved that growl. A bit of a rumble, a latent vibration of pleasure. She could distinguish between the sounds. Matthias growled a lot. Especially when he reached the saturated, slick folds of her pu**y.
"Oh, God." He shuddered beneath her hands. He did that a lot, too. "I could eat you for hours. For days." His tongue licked through the narrow slit, circled her clit, and had her shuddering. She was supposed to stand when he did this? When his tongue licked and stroked, and sent fingers of electric heat whipping through her?