He felt it the moment his beast found peace and stilled inside him. It was as if a switch flipped and all that had been holding Zane trapped within was gone. The fire in his blood still raged, but the animal was no longer fighting. The growl of the cat was replaced with the groan of the man as Zane shifted into his human skin for the first time since being hit with a needle in the basement storage room by Dillon, the young shifter who’d come with Lydia Blane. The man would pay for what he’d stolen from Zane and Diane—time for gentleness and seduction.
“Diane,” he grunted. He shuffled as much as his control would allow him. He was sprawled naked across her, his weight pinning her to the ground beneath him.
She moved, her hands frantically touching him. His face, his shoulders, his chest and down his sides. Soft fingers stroking fire across his skin and igniting lust already at explosive levels. It took every ounce of will he held to keep his hands planted beside her, holding his body mere inches from hers.
“You’re here,” she sobbed. “I was so worried about you. I thought you were gone. I thought I’d lost you before I even had you.”
He shoved up, pushing himself farther away from her. He was panting with the effort required. Then she grabbed him, capturing his shoulders and pulling him back down to her.
“Don’t go,” she begged softly, and her voice was ripe with fear. “Don’t leave me. I want to be your mate. I want everything. I want it all with you.”
Did she have any idea what she was doing to him? He was trying to give himself time to temper the beast. He wasn’t walking away. He couldn’t. Not with the sweet smell of her need filling his senses. He’d been searching for a gentleness that eluded him.
“Zane,” she pleaded and lifted up into him.
He felt the soft stroke of her tongue over his neck and any control he’d deluded himself into believing he might possess disappeared. She moaned against his skin and undulated beneath him. He felt the tight points of her nipples, felt the heat of her sex against his thigh and was lost. Need tore through him. He heard her gasp as their gazes finally collided and held and knew his eyes were glowing with the primal ferocity that roared in his body.
“Mine,” he growled, lowering his head and skimming his elongated canines over the soft skin of her throat.
She whimpered, but it wasn’t fear he smelled rolling off her. It was lust and need.
“Mine,” he told her again.
“Yes,” she groaned in agreement. “Yours. All yours.”
And she sealed her fate.
“I’m going to claim you, Diane. I’m going to strip you naked, spread your legs and fuck you until neither of us can move. I’m going to take you hard and fast. I’m going to take you slow and easy. I’m going to fuck you, make love to you then fuck you again. My cock will feel the slick walls of your pussy and the velvet smoothness of your lips. I’ll mark you in every way I can. God help us if this isn’t what you wanted because I can’t stop. The need for you sets my blood on fire even more than the fever does.”
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I want all of you, any way I can have you.”
“From this moment on, you belong to me and only me. No other man will ever touch you or I will tear him apart with my bare hands. Your joy will become my joy just as your pain will be my pain. Do you understand this?”
Diane nodded, but he sensed something, an uncertainty.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“I’m to be yours. What about you? Will you be mine?”
He smiled, letting her see the full brunt of what he felt on his face. “My dear, sweet mate, I’ve been yours since the moment I first laid eyes on you. I knew the first time I saw you that you were my mate. No other woman will ever hold me as you do.”
“Oh, Zane,” she sighed and gave a sniffle.
It hurt him that he couldn’t be gentle, but there was no help for it. Between the feral fever and the delicious scent of heat her body gave off, there was no hope of reining himself in.
“I want you naked, as quickly as you can strip. Do you understand me?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“But first,” he murmured and ran his finger across her neck to her chin, exposing the spot he wanted. “You are mine,” he proclaimed and lowered his head, biting deep and mixing his salvia with her blood.
Diane cried out, passion filling her voice as she crested into orgasm beneath him. He’d heard the bite of a mate could do that.
When the fever eased, the mixture of his saliva in her blood would bring about other changes for them. They’d be linked, sharing emotions with one another, connecting in a way only true mates could. Diane moaned as she trembled from the pleasure she’d found with his marking of her. He released her and inhaled deeply, brushing his nose against her skin. His mate was ready.