It wasn’t much different from the needs that had filled her before his kiss. The only difference was the physical burn, the taste, the sudden, overwhelming need for more. Now.
Her hands dove into the thick gold and black strands of hair that lay to his shoulders. Her fingers clenched in the coarse mass, pulling him closer as she took his tongue again and again, accepted the taste of the mating hormone and gave herself to him.
She had fought it. She really had. For over ten years she had tried to ignore it, just as he had. They had stayed as far apart from each other as they could. Now there was no ignoring it. There was no way to hide from it. They would never be able to hide from it again.
Lips and tongues melded, stroked and sucked. His hands pushed beneath her T-shirt and Cassa felt the shudder that tore through her body as his calloused hands touched her bare back.
She remembered the sensation of his skin touching hers, even before the hormonal influx that spilled from his tongue. So long ago, his hand around her neck as he swore he owned her. The touch of his hand then had nearly overwhelmed even her fear. Now his touch sent a rush of sensation, hard and brutal, to strike to the very core of her.
It was too much, too soon. The hormonal fluid from the glands in his tongue shouldn’t react on her this quickly, not this hard. Not considering that for the past five years, she had been taking the hormone treatments given to mates. She shouldn’t be reacting this strong, this fast. She shouldn’t be, unless the hunger of the mating heat was reacting to her own desperate need for his touch.
And it was desperate. It had been desperate for years. He had been the focal point of her deepest fantasies, her every desire, and she needed him.
She needed him and she was going to take him. They could run from the need, but they couldn’t hide from it. For eleven years both of them had run, and now the running was over.
“Damn you!” His growl was one of frustration and driving need as he tore his lips from hers long enough to watch, the amber in his gaze flaming, as he jerked her shirt over her br**sts.
The cold air met her heated flesh, adding another sensation. It was surrounding her, rushing through her until she could barely breathe for the need.
“Damn you,” she panted brokenly. “You’ve screwed everything in sight for eleven years. You’ve ignored this. Ignored me.” And she hated him for it. Hated him for the years she hungered for him, the years he had kept that distance between them.
“I spared you this!” His hand tightened in her hair as the fingers of the other flattened at her waist, stroked upward, then cupped one hard, aching mound of a breast.
Cassa sucked in a hard, deep breath at the feel of his hand through the lace of her bra. The heat of his touch was brutal. The feel of his fingers was like a fever raging in her blood.
“You didn’t spare me anything,” she gasped, glaring back at him even as her body rioted for more of his touch.
“I spared myself then,” he snarled, a second before his head lowered, the sharp tips of his canines raking her neck as a growl rumbled in his throat.
Sweet heaven that was good. Her head fell back for more, the feel of his lips, his teeth against her throat was both ecstasy and frustration. It was edged with a sharp pleasure that raked across nerve endings too sensitive to bear.
She felt his hands, one cupping her breast, the other supporting her back. She felt his teeth raking her flesh, and shivered at the electric sensations racing over her.
“I’ve needed you.” She hated the whimper, the weakness she revealed with those three little words, with the way her hands tightened in his hair, with the huskiness of her voice.
She had needed him since that fateful day that the husband who had sworn his loyalty to her had betrayed everything she believed in. She had needed him, needed the power and the promise in the very threat she knew he was to her self-control, to her very survival.
“God, Cassa.” He nipped at her neck, his fingers tightened on her nipple.
Between her thighs Cassa could feel the growing wetness, the slick, heated essence of arousal coating the lips of her pu**y, sensitizing them as her clit began to throb with erotic pain.
She had waited so long, fought so hard to run from it, only to end up right here, in his arms. Finally.
The same place so many other women had been.
“I hate you.” The sob in her voice belied the words.
“You’ll hate me worse before the day is over.” He pushed the cup of her bra over the throbbing flesh of her breast, and she lost her breath.
Capturing a hard, too sensitive nipple between his fingers, he rolled the calloused pads against it and sent her senses spinning with the pleasure.
They were in public. The park might be deserted now, but they could be discovered at any moment. God only knew where that hateful Coyote was, probably spying on them. She didn’t care if a whole damned pack of Coyotes were spying. She didn’t want to let him go. She didn’t want to lose this touch, his kiss.
Gripping his hair, she fought to draw his lips back to hers. She wanted more than the spicy, addictive taste of the hormone that spilled from the glands beneath his tongue. She wanted more than just his touch. In his kiss, there was an intimacy she couldn’t define. As though only there, he allowed her to have all of himself.
And he gave it to her. His tongue licked at her lips, his teeth nipped, lips rubbed then devoured her breathless moan as she arched closer to him.
The naked peak of her breast rubbed against the rough material of his shirt. She wanted flesh against flesh. She wanted to feel the tiny, silken hairs that she knew covered his body. She wanted to see the stripes that were rumored to be so damned sexy.
She wanted her Bengal. Her mate. She wanted what she knew no other woman would ever have with him, had never had with him.
This. Mating heat.
In the next instant, his lips lifted from hers as the words tore from them: “I’ll end up f**king you here.”
Cassa stared up at him. The amber in his eyes was almost neon against the velvety dark green. Intense eyes, filled with hunger. His expression was drawn with the lust surging through him, his lips swollen from their kisses.
Cassa stared at the strong, savagely hewn features and felt her heart trip from more than just the lust surging between them. There was such strength, so much hunger, and yet a thousand betrayals reflected in his eyes, in his expression. He could lust for her, hunger for her, but as she stared into his oddly colored eyes, there wasn’t a hint of the emotions, or the wellspring of need that she felt rising inside herself.