Sassy Ever After: Mate of Honor (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read online

She whimpered because it was all her animal self could manage as her fur turned to skin and her sleek body became a series of fleshy curves. When she finished, she stood and waited for him to speak.

  Instead, Forrest circled Bailey like a predator stalking his prey. He dipped his head and sniffed her hair. The heat of his breath shimmered across her skin. When he faced her again, his eyes were lit with something akin to fire.

  She resisted the urge to cover herself. “If you don’t quit looking at me like that, I’m going to shift back into a fox.”

  “Looking at you like what?”

  “You know, like I’m a push-up pop that you can’t wait to suck on.”

  “Oh, I haven’t had an orange Creamsicle in years. I bet you taste really good.”

  Bailey wet her lips and swallowed the knot in her throat. “You’re teasing me.”

  Forrest growled low, sexy. The sound made her lower parts go tight and wet. He inhaled deeply through his nose. “I can smell your arousal, Bailey.” His tone had dropped two octaves lower than normal.

  Emboldened by him, she asked, “Is the big bad wolf going to eat me?”

  “Only if you ask nicely.” Forrest’s voice went tight and quiet. “Come here.”

  Unable to resist him, she took a step in his direction.

  “Closer,” he whispered, barely audible. “I want to tell you something.”

  Cautiously, Bailey drew close enough to feel the rising heat from his skin.

  Quick as a cobra strike, Forrest’s arm wrapped around her, his large palm sweeping behind her neck. She yipped as he pulled her against him; the feel of his hard flesh against her skin stole her breath.

  “That’s better.” He grinned.

  Before Bailey could respond, he covered her mouth with his. His tongue slipped between her lips, and while her mind told her this was a very bad idea, her libido had plans of its own. She met his kiss with fierce passion. Her tongue danced against his until she felt a sharp pain then the taste of blood. Her damn canines had dropped with her fox just below the surface, and she’d punctured his tongue.

  Her first impulse was to pull back when the warm salted liquid dusted her taste buds, but the way it provoked Forrest’s passion spurred Bailey on. His cock rubbed against her stomach just below her breasts.

  “Fuck,” he said in a harsh whisper. “You drive me wild, woman.” He lifted her from the ground and wrapped his arms around her tightly while he feasted on her lips. “You’re so goddamn beautiful. Beautiful.”

  “You’re aggravating.” She moaned. “And arrogant.”

  “And beautiful,” he added.

  “Yes,” she panted. “And that. Definitely that.”

  His hands under her thighs moved until his fingers dipped into the folds of her swollen sex. “I want to feel you, smell you, taste you…” He held her easily as he brought his glistening fingers wet with her fluids to his mouth and sucked them, his eyes never leaving hers.

  Bailey drew a staggering breath at the sight as she watched him. His eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head as he fed himself from her.

  “God, you taste better than honey and spice.” He dipped his hand once again, fingers playing along her heated core, dipping the tip of his middle finger inside her as she moved against the pressure. Then again, he pulled his hand out to taste. She was surprised when he placed one finger to her mouth and traced her lips before sucking his finger clean again. Bailey watched his eyes glitter with hunger and savage lust. Raw and unfettered.

  With another growl, he dropped to his knees and laid her on the mossy ground. He trailed kisses down her chin and neck as he made his way to her breasts, cupping them with his strong hands and playing her nipples between his fingers. He nuzzled his face against her, his hot breath giving rise to gooseflesh on her skin.

  “Fuck, I want you.” Bailey closed her eyes and groaned as her body reacted, breasts tightening, nipples hard, and her pussy slick with heat. The heady scent of sandalwood filled her with a sense of unquenchable need.

  He suckled her breast, teasing her tightening areola with his tongue, tugging gently at her nipple with his teeth. His mouth moved farther down her stomach, and his head dipped between her legs.

  “Ah!” she cried out as his tongue slid against her, curling and flicking her clit.

  His hand molded to her breast as he came up and pressed his lips to hers, his tongue fighting for occupation in her mouth, then back down between her legs to lick and suck the tender flesh. He hooked his other hand under her thigh, lifting her to delve his tongue deeply into the heat of her pulsing core.

  She grasped his hair, squeezing her hands against the coolness of the short curls while his face worked gloriously between her legs. She pulled him up for another kiss, licking her own juices from his shiny wet lips. His eyes had been closed, and when he opened them, a yellow ring of amber had pushed all the blue from his irises.

  Forrest snarled as he took two fingers and plunged them into her pussy, his teeth nipping her lower lip.

  “Fuck, oh fuck,” she moaned into his mouth.

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s the plan.”

  He pulled his fingers from her and steadied his large, solid cock between her thighs. He rubbed the head against her clit, making her squirm beneath him, pleasure enhanced by the building excitement.

  Bailey forced herself to stop moving against him. She needed to feel him inside her. She wanted him, at that moment, more than she wanted air. “I want you. I want you in me. Now. Fuck me.”

  Growling, Forrest leaned back and flipped Bailey onto her knees, her ass pressed against his thighs. With the flat of his palm, he pressed the middle of her back down until her elbows rested on the ground and her buttocks were on full display for him.

  Her insecurities niggled their way through the heady lust, and she tried to move away. This was not a flattering angle.

  “Stop,” Forrest commanded. He splayed his hands across her cheeks, spreading her open for his view. “Your ass is as sweet as your pussy.”

  “Jayz-z-zus,” she stuttered as his blatant observation stole her breath. He traced the curves of her bottom with his fingers while his thumbs slid the crack. She heard a whimper and a chuckle. The whimper was her, the chuckle, him. God, he had her right where he wanted her. “Don’t play games with me, Forrest.”

  “But I like playing games with you, Bailey.” His slid the head of his cock between the slick folds and used the tip to circle her clit.”

  “Fucking hell,” Bailey gritted out. “Take me already. Now.”

  His hand slipped around her chest, cupping the mound of flesh. “You are mine,” he whispered hoarsely. He pinched her nipple between his fingertips as he simultaneously bit down gently on her shoulder and pushed his thick cock against her opening. He entered her slowly, inch by languid inch.

  “Yes,” she said. “Oh, God.”

  “You’re so tight,” Forrest said. “I can feel you squeezing me. Fuck.” His voice was strained, and the sound of him losing control turned Bailey on even more. He gripped her tighter as he entered her completely and held her as her body adjusted to his size.

  “God, you’re huge,” Bailey said. “Jesus.” Even completely wet, the accommodation to his girth took a minute.

  “Am I hurting you?” Forrest asked.

  “Yes,” Bailey answered. “But don’t stop.”

  He nipped her ear. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  He withdrew a little, and Bailey sucked in a breath. He began to move against her, slow, shallow thrusts, with more control than she thought anyone possible. Soon, her muscles relaxed and the friction bringing rise to the pleasure.

  “You feel good,” she crooned. “So good.”

  “You like the way my cock feels inside you?”

  “Yes,” she panted. “God, yes.”

  “I can’t keep up this control much longer. My dick is going to explode.”

  “Take me,” Bailey said. “Hard. Fast. Whatever you want. I want your passion,
not your control.”

  “Jesus, woman.” The words tore from his mouth as a declaration. Pleasure soared through Bailey as he quickened his thrusts, his hips pounding against her ass as he gave over to abandon. Their moans met in chorus. As he squeezed her hips with his fingers, his nails digging in, as the sound of their flesh slapping together took Bailey to the brink. Her pussy felt electrified with every driving joust of his hips. Her skin vibrated as ripples of ecstasy rolled down her spine.

  Shit, she was going to come and hard.

  His teeth bore down into her flesh, not enough to break the skin, but enough to hurt. The pain heightened the sensations as blood and heat raced to her lower regions, making her feel impossibly swollen around his rock-hard shaft. He was dominating her, which should have freaked her out, but she didn’t care.

  His teeth released the skin on her shoulder as a sound, much like a howl only lower, pushed through his mouth. One hand gripped the back of her neck, while the other rested on her ass.

  “Bailey, my beautiful Bailey.” He said her name like a prayer. “So good watching my cock slide in and out of your pussy. Hot and wet.” He lightly slapped her ass, and then dug his fingers into the giving flesh. “You feel so right, Bailey Corsac.” He surged forward again and added another light slap.

  “Oh, God…” Her words bit off at the end of a groan of ecstasy as his thumb slid over the circular opening of her ass, the pressure building inside her like a dam trying to hold back the ocean.

  “Tell me you want me,” he grunted as he pumped his cock into her so hard her elbows buckled, landing her face in the grass.

  She pushed herself up and leaned back into force of his onslaught. “I want you.”

  “Only me,” he said.

  “Only you!” The words tore from her as pain and pleasure opened her up.

  “Who am I?”

  She twisted her shoulders and looked up at the gold rings around his pupils and the wild, animalistic expression on his face. The man in her dreams had asked that same question. Was this a dream? The dream? The one she’d been having since she was a teenager? Could she really be a home in bed? He wet his lips and growled as his intense gaze bore a whole right into her soul.

  Again he asked, “Who am I?”

  “Forrest!” she screamed as the floodgates opened, her body bucking and shaking through the orgasm as ripple after ripple of ecstasy surged through her.

  Forrest’s pace quickened, his body rigidly moving against her, his grip tightening on the back of her neck and ass until…

  “Ahh!” he cried out with one final thrust, holding himself tight against her until the last of his seed pumped into her.

  He pulled out slowly as Bailey collapsed down, her forehead lying on a cool clump of moss. “Holy shit stick. Fu-uck me.”

  Forrest wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. “Again?”

  “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

  “I can think of worse ways to die.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you come after me?” Bailey asked the question that had been on her mind since he chased the other wolf off. “What game are you playing?”

  “In the library, what was that song you were singing?” he asked, deftly changing the subject.

  Bailey sighed. “Kalinka. It’s an old song.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Red berry. It’s about the little red berries that grow on the snowball tree.”

  “You smell like berries to me,” he said.

  “Really?” She never had anybody tell her that before. “I don’t know why.”

  “Maybe because you’re sweet and ripe.” He smiled with an ease she hadn’t seen before in him. “What language is the song?”

  “Russian. I was born in Siberia. My mother brought me over when I was five. After my father was killed.”

  “By another Fox?”

  Bailey shook her head. She was too young to remember much about her dad. But the one thing that always stuck was his kind eyes. “Hunters. Corsac fox fur is in demand in the cold Russian climate.”

  “Wow, I’m sorry.”

  Bailey shrugged. “My father had been on a run, and the men didn’t now he was a shifter. They thought he was a natural. They shot him. My mother said that when they got to his body, he had shifted back into his human form. They recognized my father. They would have killed my mother and myself as demons if she hadn’t escaped with me. The Russians aren’t as open minded about us as the Americans are.” She smiled and traced the line of his jaw with her fingertip. “I have never told a single soul this story. I don’t know why I’m telling you.” The story made her remember just how alone she was now with her mother gone too.

  “Because I’m special.” He smiled.

  “You think an awful lot of yourself, don’t you,” she teased.

  “You know I’m the alpha, right?”

  The reminder brought a sick feeling to the pit of her stomach. He was the alpha. And she was…no one. This was as far as things could go for her and Forrest. She’d heard her father say he had to choose a wolf mate, one that would add to his power base. She could never be that for him.

  “You are the Alpha,” she said numbly.

  “Yeah, I am.” Forrest, who hadn’t registered the shift in her mood, rolled Bailey onto her back and held her hands above her head. First, he kissed her stomach, then her breasts, one kiss on each, and lastly, he pressed his mouth gently against hers. “God, you’re soft.”

  Bailey tucked her chin as a familiar sense of wariness fell over her. “What’s that supposed to mean?” All her anxieties about her weight and her station popped back up as if she were a teenager again, forced to follow the rules of a pack that would never be hers. In her heart, she knew her reactions wasn’t about anything Forrest had done. It was her desperate attempt to save herself from heartbreak.

  The confused expression on his face made her want to kiss him. He frowned. “I love the way you feel in my hands, Bailey. Everything about you is perfect.”

  “Perfectly chubby, you mean.” Damn it, she was being an asshole. But the only way to get out of this without her heart breaking completely in two was to not let it go any farther.

  “There is nothing I would change about you,” Forrest said.

  “You don’t even know me, Forrest. You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know I want you.” He’d never been good at reading people, but had he been so far off the mark with Bailey?

  “And you had me. Congratulations. You’ve satisfied your libido.” She scooched out from under him. Her face held an expression of hurt and pain he hadn’t expected.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, Forrest.” She shook her head sadly. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I did. I’m a fox. You’re a wolf and the new alpha of the Blackthorn Pack. You have responsibilities that don’t include taking an outsider, a loner, as a lover. You will have to take a mate, and I can’t stand by and watch. I can’t watch you mate with someone who isn’t me.” She stood up. “Fuck!”

  “Wait, Bailey. You don’t--”

  “You know what I’m saying is true.” Before she shifted into a fox, she gave him one last look. “Please don’t follow me this time.”

  The situation was impossible. It not only wouldn’t work between them. It couldn’t. And the realization tore Bailey apart.

  Chapter Seven

  Forrest had been summoned--summoned!--like a child to the family lounge. He was in no mood for whatever his parents had planned. The night before had been simultaneously the worst and best night of his life, and he needed time to formulate his next step.

  When he walked into the room Evan and Lara sat on a crushed velvet loveseat, Luke and Blessing sat in chairs near the fireplace. Dorian perched himself near the bar--smart man. All his siblings and his sibling’s mate had the same look a rabbit gets right before they are caught by a predator. His parents, how
ever, who stood near the piano, an instrument his mother played as well as any concert pianist, were covered in sheer disappointment.

  Not one to pussy-foot around difficult topics, Forrest crossed his arms and said, “Get on with it.”

  “You have put this entire family in jeopardy,” Burn said.

  The room stilled, everyone hyper-focused on Forrest’s response. “Fuck that.”

  Dorian dropped his glass of whiskey, the liquid splashed out, but the thick glass wobbled a bit then stopped moving.

  “Dorian!” Lila Blackthorn admonished.

  He was already bent over cleaning the hardwood floor with a bar rag. “Continue,” he muttered. “Bigger fish to fry than little old me.” He cast Forrest a wicked grin.

  It wasn’t often Forrest’s brothers got to see him get dressed down by their parents. The last time was, oh, never.

  Lila turned her ire toward her eldest son. “We’ve tried to make this transition to alpha as problem free for you as possible. All you had to do was choose one suitable mate.” She held up her index finger. “Just one. Do you want what happened to the Rahound Pack to happen to us?”

  “I am not Rocco Rahound.”

  “If you aren’t strong enough to hold the pack, someone like him might decide to take over,” Burn said.

  “I’d like to see someone try.” Forrest’s wolf snarled inside him, ready for action. Evan, Luke, and Dorian nodded their agreement, and it bolstered Forrest’s spirit. He might feel like an outsider sometimes, but his brothers were there if he needed them.

  Burn smacked the piano top. “That’s not the point, son.”

  “The point is, Caleb’s choice of mate had nothing to do with the turmoil in the Rahound Pack.”

  “You had almost forty females to scent, Forrest.” His mother threw up her arms. “You picked none.”

  “I picked one.” Out of his peripheral vision, he saw Evan, Lara, Luke, and Blessing all scoot forward in their seats. Even Dorian was paying attention.

  “She’s a lone vixen with no pack affiliation. She’s not strong enough to help you keep your position,” Burn said.

  “Wait, vixen?” Evan asked. “Do you mean Bailey?”