Something About Harry(85)

“I really do, er, did. Now I just want everything to be okay, and for you and the kids to be okay, too.”

“Are you rethinking your stance on it now?”

“I’m rethinking everything right now,” she told him truthfully. “I realize I didn’t give a lot of thought to the idea someone could steal the formula and create utter havoc for us paranormals. Why I didn’t think about it is the question. I’m usually pretty thorough. I never would have let anyone have the formula for it. I almost can’t believe it worked.”

Harry’s smile was wry. “I guess we can only surmise it would have worked. You sort of started with a living, breathing guinea pig. But I don’t doubt it would’ve worked because you’re brilliant. Yet, I’ve wondered something . . .”

“Shoot.”

“If this pack of yours is so strict about mating and all these rules, how would you have explained how you got pregnant?”

Mara sighed, looking down at their intertwined hands. “I never got that far in my mind, I guess. I wouldn’t let myself get that far. It took me months to get as far as I did.”

He gave her one of his sweetest smiles, making the grooves on either side of it deepen. “So are you willing to share how you got as far as you did?”

“Not if you flayed me alive and poured vinegar on my open, raw wounds. If I don’t ever tell, no one can ever steal it.”

He chuckled, rich and full. “Damn. Fair enough. Either way, I think you’re an amazing human being, and you’re really good with kids. I think the pack should let you have a dozen. I know my kids like you a lot. I’m impressed.”

“I like them, too,” was all she could manage around the lump in her throat.

“So, sixty-five, huh?” he asked, low and husky.

“Total GILF.”

He leaned into her, nipping at her jaw, brushing her hair aside, his breath hot on her neck. “Total package, if you ask me,” he murmured on a rasp of a breath before removing her coffee cup from her hand, then taking her lips.





CHAPTER

16





Harry slanted his mouth over hers, slipping his tongue between her lips, stroking it until Mara had to grab hold of the front of his sweater to keep the world from tilting.

He bracketed her face with his hands, driving his fingers into her hair, pulling the clip that held it up out so the strands fell over her shoulders and down her back. “Hearts and flowers this time—promise. We’ll go slow. Really slow,” he muttered between kisses.

Her heart raced with need at his words, so much gentler than the last time. Her answer was to move closer to him, burrow into the warm shelter of his chest, savor the friction of her nipples, drawn tightly in her bra.

Harry’s hands slipped under her sweater, caressing her skin, drawing out the agonizing wait for him to unclasp her bra and touch her naked flesh.

He drew her to him, pulling her top over her shoulders, teasing her with his tongue, caressing the sensitive flesh of her neck while exposing her flesh to the cool air.

He groaned when he pulled away, scanning her in nothing but her bra and jeans. “So beautiful,” he whispered, popping the clasp on her bra and brushing it off her shoulders.

Pushing her back against the couch with a hot moan, Mara tugged his shirt off, too, dragging it upward, relishing his heated flesh against her fingertips.

She ran her fingers over his nipples, moaning her satisfaction when he hissed into her mouth, sliding down along her body until he was at her breasts.

The brief moment before he wrapped his lips around the tightened bud was full of exquisite agony. Suspended by his dark head against her pale skin, his molten-hot tongue rasping along her collarbone, settling between her breasts, and nipping the underside of one.

She arched against him, rearing up when he enveloped her nipple, wetting it, blowing on it just before capturing it again. Heat, white and thick, spiraled in the pit of her belly. Her cleft grew wet with anticipation, the rib of Harry’s chest between her legs, excruciating.

Mara’s hands gripped his shoulders, digging her fingers into his flesh as he gathered both of her breasts together; he laved each nipple to a tight peak, making her writhe beneath him with the scream of his name.

And then his hands were dragging her jeans off, unzipping, tearing until there was nothing left between her and complete nudity but her lace panties.

Harry slipped a finger into the triangle of material, drawing his finger between her swollen lips, stopping only briefly to drag his index finger over her clit.

Desperation warred with her wish to make these moments last as long as she could. Yet, with a will of its own, her body bowed against his touch, begged for it, each stroke he took, each whisper of his breath across her thigh, made her need deeper, harder.