Something in the intersection of rage, feral lust, and undying love flashed in the bear’s amber eye, and his green eye. Before she knew it, Jill felt age-worn rocks against her back and then felt lips sucking at her neck. King’s breathing was heavy and hot against her throat, her skin prickling at his touch.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh my God, you can’t do this to me and stop halfway through. It’ll kill me.”
“It’d kill me too,” he whispered, before sliding a tongue along her jaw and grabbing a fistful of hair. With a deep sniff, King inhaled her scent and shuddered as he let the breath drip from his lips.
His hand slid up Jill’s belly, underneath her shirt. He cupped her breast, running his thumb in a slow circle around her stiffened nipple, scratching against the fabric of her thin, designed-to-be-comfortable bra. The pink of her skin showed through the taupe, and the peak of her nipple pushed against her tee, giving King a place to run his tongue after he was finished with her neck.
With no effort at all, the huge alpha lifted her off the ground. Jill gasped at the urgent prodding of cock between her legs, in the crotch of her jeans, but what took her breath away was when he closed his mouth over her sweetly aching nipple, wetting her through her shirt.
Hungrily, he sucked, he pulled and bit – gently at first, but when she started arching her back toward him, the bear got the message. “Oh yes,” Jill hissed, softly enough that only her present lover could hear.
“Will Rogue be upset that—”
“You belong to both of us,” King said, easing open the button that kept Jill’s sex and his apart. “There is no jealousy, no possessiveness between us. We belong to you, and you to us.”
She lay her head back against the cool, smooth stone, and felt her hair stream out on either side, then down her shoulders in a gentle cascade. King grabbed an ankle, easing her jeans down just enough to push her panties aside. When he did, he inhaled again. A shiver crept through him as her scent filled his lungs.
“Perfect,” he groaned. Jill felt the goosebumps wash over his tanned, muscled torso, and felt a hot flush creep up her.
Anticipation was almost too much. The cool kiss of cave air on her wet sex put a fire in Jill’s stomach that she couldn’t contain. It burned out from her core, kissing the tips of her toes, and making her curl her fingers against her mate’s back in an unconscious, desperate scratch.
“Let me feel you,” she whispered.
“Open your eyes,” King said. “I want to watch your face while I—”
As soon as she fluttered her eyelids open, he pushed. Slowly at first, gently, until Jill used what little leverage she had to force the issue.
She gasped, then bit down on her lip. Warmth spread from between her legs, like their union was erupting from inside. Every inch he moved, every tiny breath, every thrust and stretch she felt. “Is this heaven?” she asked as her head tilted backward, the cave scratched gently on her back.
“No,” King said, his voice gravelly and thick with lust. “It’s us. This is fate, this is—”
“Love,” Jill said, moving her head as she clawed harder on the bear’s back. He hissed and thrust again.
“Harder, scratch me harder. Bite,” he demanded.
When she did, Jill nibbled gently. As though he was showing her what he meant, the big bear jammed his hips forward, filling her in one stroke, then pulling away. The stretching pain, the agonized ecstasy of his girth moving into her sex left Jill aching when he left. She shrieked, and then bit down on his neck again.
“Yes!” King grunted, ramming his hips into her again. “Harder, harder, yes!”
As her muscles clenched, milking at King with all their might, Jill bit into him harder than she ever imagined biting someone. She clawed as his back so fiercely she knew it was leaving marks, and was slightly surprised he wasn’t bleeding, but the more she did it, the harder he pushed.
The friction was taking her to places she’d never been. The smells filling her nose seemed clearer, more intense, than ever before. This wasn’t just some almost-public-sex-in-a-cave scenario, Jill realized as a wave of tension gripped her, and King stiffened deep inside.
He thrust again, somehow feeling like he was even deeper than he’d been, no matter how impossible that was. Jill felt her hunger rage, felt her body grasping, clenching, desperate for as much of him as she could manage.
As the two desperate lovers clung to one another, Jill biting down to squelch a pleasured scream, energy swirled around them. Jill opened her eyes to find King staring straight into them. His face was intent, drawn, intense, as he thrust again. His mouth fell open and she saw for the first time that his teeth were longer, sharper than before. His eyes took on an inhuman glint, with flecks of orange and gold apparent in them.
Their mouths only inches apart, Jill felt King’s breath slide along her prickled, flushed skin. His hands gripped her ass, pulling her onto him. For one long, perfect moment, she felt like the two of them were two bears in one body. She felt the hair creep out of his arms, she felt his muscles grow tighter, thicker and harder, and then he went rigid.
“I can’t...” he groaned. “I can’t stop.”
With a hand on the back of his head, Jill scratched one last time, and bent her head, biting into his shoulder. “Don’t stop,” she hissed. “You’re making me come, don’t stop.”
The pulsing between her legs grew so fast, and so hard, that she thought she was going to hit that wall between an orgasm and blacking out that usually only happened when she had Harry, her friendly battery-powered rabbit.
Then again, the reason those orgasms came on so hard was that she’d be fantasizing about... well, one of these two bears.
Every nerve inside and around Jill’s sex flared to life. Her heart thudded against her ribcage, her breaths coming hot and fast and when she let out her groan, the whole world erupted. Him inside her, and Jill clutching to King’s body, she shook, she trembled, and sailed right past that blackout wall into another dimension.
By the time she came back to Earth, King had stood her up, but was still supporting her. She smiled and let out a vaguely embarrassed little puff of laughter. The delicious stickiness between her legs, the still-prickly heat between them, it all enveloped her, caressed her, and clung to every pore.
Off in the distance, there was a scuffling sound, but neither of the two paid any attention to it. They couldn’t – there was nothing in the world right then for either of them except the other one. King brushed her face with the back of a hand.
“We have to go,” he said softly. “No matter how much I want to stay here, holding you, we...”
“I know,” Jill whispered back, leaning forward to kiss his collarbone. She laughed under her breath. “You know, you’re the first man I didn’t have to bend over to kiss on the neck.”
“King!” a shout from the mouth of the cave, where Rogue was helping the cubs, burst through the darkness, shattering the haze of sex afterglow and sticky heat that held Jill and her mate. “King! There’s trouble!”
His eyes flashed, and those dagger-like fangs that grew in the middle of his squeezing and gripping and moaning looked suddenly more dangerous than sexy. “What’s wrong?” Jill asked.
King squinted and looked past the bend in the cave, toward the entrance. He shook his head.
That’s when the sound of a roar, of a clash, and of a body hitting the ground, reached Jill’s ears. She grabbed King one more time, focused his attention on her. “Don’t get hurt,” she said.
He laughed. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“King!” it was Rogue, shouting again. The tightness in his voice was pain.
“Come out here, King!” a different voice – but a familiar one – shouted. Jill searched her memory trying to place it.
“Draven?” she asked, kind of stunned and not really understanding. “Why is he here?”
“You know him?” Rage flashed through King’s face. “That traitor,” he clenched his teeth and his fists at the same time.
“King! I don’t have time for this! Get out here!” Draven shouted again. “I don’t want anyone hurt, but we don’t have much time!”
Another roar, and another crunching sound hit Jill’s ears.
“Uncle!” King roared back. “We call him that, anyway. He was an elder, he abandoned us,” he said to Jill when he saw the confusion spread over her face.
Draven is...? Oh my God this rabbit hole never ends, does it?
“I’ll kill you for what you did!”
King, footsteps heavy and powerful on the stone floor, was running.
Jill followed, unsure what was about to happen, but absolutely certain that no matter what it was, it couldn’t possibly be good.
-15-
“No.”
-King
As she rounded the last curve of the cave, Jill was just in time to see a massive, golden bear take a swipe at a half-changed one.
Draven was standing stiffly, his old, wrinkled skin lined with scars. The neatly trimmed mustache on his lip was twisted when he changed, a huge scar showing Jill why he’d probably grown it in the first place.
“You damn fool!” the older bear hissed, barely dodging a claw.