Page 19 of Mated
I strip out of my makeshift clothes and grab a cold shower.
I can’t use my soap. Even opening the bottle makes me sneeze. I look around. A few bars with natural looking labels rest along the tub edge. Opening the plastic wrapping, I give a few exploratory sniffs.
Soft herbs and something lemony floats out. But it’s mild. Gentle on my nose. I nod in approval and cover myself in it. Once the water runs clean and my skin only smells like me and a bottle of lemon juice, do I climb from the spray.
Wrapped in a towel, I snare a bag of regular beef jerky, an apple, and a bottle of water before climbing onto the bed in a clean bralette and panties.
It’s too hot for pajamas. Even with the air conditioner.
For a moment, I consider turning on the ancient TV. But it has been years since I even liked a show, let alone watched one.
So I sit on the bed and finish my pre-bed meal. Even after I clean up my small mess and wash my face and hands, I’m not tired.
It’s the exact opposite.
My body hums, damn near vibrating like a tuning fork. It’s like having a hundred joules of electricity coursing through your veins with no outlet.
The urge to run, to let the wind soar past me, builds until my legs quake on the inside. I climb to my feet and pace. My skin crawls.
“Shit. Is this what an addict feels like?” My arms wind around my midsection, and I glance at the door as the night air seems to beckon.
I stop. “No. This shit does not control me,” I snarl into the quiet. Some of the tension eases, but the fever in my skin worsens.
Walking to the bed, I snare a pillow and toss it a foot away from the air conditioner and angle the vents down. I drop next to the pillow and lay on the carpet.
The fabric beneath my head has more of the evergreen fragrance inside it, and it helps lull my body into a stupor as some of the heat finally dispels.
I settle back with a sigh, hands over my stomach. “Oh thank god.”
Which is of course when the ache begins.
My eyes widen as my sex seems to swell, tightening and rippling without reason. I shift. The cool air goes from pleasant to torture as my nipples peak. I groan and try to turn over.
Every rub of my thighs together makes the need worse. Flopping back, I shove my hand under the waistband of my panties. Anything to get some relief.
My skin is slick, ready, and the bud at my apex is rock-hard, engorged. I press a finger into my core and my spine arches. “Oh god.”
Never, even when Chuck would go down on me, did it feel like this. Everything is heightened and too sensitive. It borders on a pleasure so sharp it’s pain.
I slide a second finger into my heat and pump slowly. My core tightens. I work myself as gentle as I can manage, trying to learn the new curve of sex as a bitten shifter.
But my traitorous mind throws up a pair of near silver eyes and tattooed biceps. It takes seconds of Tanner filling my head, and the orgasm rips into me with waves so strong, I scream. My thighs clench and my chest heaves, and still I pump into my body, making the pleasure last. My eyes roll back.
I shake uncontrollably when I slump back down. Everything spins as my blood flows back to my extremities. My breathing is loud. Erratic.
“God.”
But the orgasm did what all the pacing and cool air couldn’t. My body grows heavy, languid. I coast along on the aftershocks, luxuriating in being sexually satisfied for the time being.
What would sex be like for real?
Turning on to my side, I shove that thought away, scrunch up the pillow, and snuggle down to sleep while I can.
Chapter 9
Tanner
I knock on Caine’s door at a little after ten a.m. and try not to let my eyes wander to Nisha’s dark cabin. A part of me really hopes she was making good use of the prepaid cable and what I heard earlier wasn’t what I thought it was.
