The laughter eased and the flare of heat between us increased. “I’m very glad to hear that,” he said. His hands snaked down to cup my butt, and then he was lifting me up. My legs went around his waist like they had been made to rest there. He held me with ease as our lips crashed together. A deep throbbing was clenching my lower half, my belly filled with heat and butterflies. The emotion of the kiss was everything, it was so much. I had never known this love before and somehow I knew I never would again. This was a once in a lifetime.
He sucked on my bottom lip and I moaned as he gently lay me on the bed. I breathed him in then: wood, soil, home. He was mine and I was willing to die for this love. I just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
The bed engulfed me, softness cushioning my body as Kade rested against me, his weight solid, his bare skin touching mine. Seriously, though, we had too many clothes on. I wanted to feel all of him. I needed the contact.
As if he’d heard me, Kade’s hands slowly skimmed up the side of my body, then my shirt was gone. Pants followed soon after and I was clad in nothing but black lingerie. Not particularly sexy, but you’d never know it by the heat in his gaze. The masculine planes of his face were extra pronounced as he stared down at me, sending my body into a sexual-need overdrive.
I pushed back on him, needing to be in charge as I ran my hands down his bare chest. His eyes lazily following my movements, lips turned up a little in the corners. He was indulging my show of dominance. Damn bear. Reaching for his sleep pants, I drew them down in one easy movement, taking my time to brush against him. The smirk fell from his face, and now he was staring at me with bear in his eyes. Throwing his clothes to the side, he was naked. Holy heck he was naked. I paused, taking a second to stare, because as always, Kade was worth staring at.
“Ari, you’re driving my bear crazy.” Kade’s voice was deeper than usual. Rumbly.
My wolf started howling inside, urging me forward. I needed no urging. I pushed him back down to the bed, straddling him, my hands running across his hard body, caressing his skin, touching wherever I could reach. He lifted himself slightly and cupped my breasts, curving his palms around to take my bra off. My underwear bottoms followed, and then it was nothing but heat and kissing. Hot, drugging, kisses.
Kade let me stay on top for longer than I expected, but as the heat built between us, as our bodies fought for more closeness, his dominance kicked in hard and he flipped our positions. He paused briefly, hands tenderly caressing my face, before he kissed me over and over, my lips swollen and plumped by the attention. Then Kade trailed down further, across my jaw and along my throat. My hands clenched the bed sheets, my body wound up tight and ready to fall apart. We had waited five years to be together, we weren’t going to waste one second of tonight apart. Ten minutes with him and I already could tell … Kade had been worth the wait.
Chapter Fourteen
The best things in life are furry.
The first brush of sunlight warmed the bed and woke me from my dozing. There was a heavy weight across my body, and on instinct I snuggled closer to the heat. Pack. Mate. Last night had been more than I could have ever expected. I’d had sex before. Great sex. But nothing like Kade. Bears did not love the same way wolves loved. Nope, they wrapped you up tight and caressed every part of your body. They were everywhere, touched everything, and … holy crap, there needed to be a word greater than orgasm, because I had surely surpassed that multiple times.
I wanted a lifetime of loving like that. I would never be satisfied with anything less. I hadn’t gotten much sleep, so it was easy to drift back into a nap, pressed tightly to the huge body beside me. Of course, that was right around the time I thought of my advisor. Dammit. Calista was going to kill me if she found out I was with Kade. I was going to have to sneak back in and pretend I was…
Kisses started trailing down my spine and all thoughts were gone. The scrape of his beard against my skin was literally the most erotic thing that had ever happened to me. I was completely at his mercy. He could have asked for anything in that moment and I would have agreed.
“Good morning.” The rumbly voice was a close second on the erotic scale, and as I rolled over to see him, his amber eyes moved right into third place.
The way this man looked at me … holy shifter babies.
“Waking with you is a life I’m already used to, Ari.” Kade kissed me as he spoke. I arched my body like a kitten, shifting closer to him. “I’m not sure I’ll ever let you go back to your own room.”
“You can … deal … with Calista then.” My breathless words had him chuckling.
“I like her,” he said, and went back to kissing me.
I moaned and then there was a knock at the door. I froze.
“Go away!” Kade grumbled, pulling me tighter as if he sensed my instinct to flee.
A male voice spoke through the door: “It’s your mother, sir. She’s waiting downstairs.”
The word “mother” was all it took to have me ripping out of Kade’s arms and shooting out of bed like I’d been stung. “Crap, Kade, your mother’s here. Does she know about us?” I had no idea how the bear matriarch felt about her son’s relationship with a wolf shifter.
My eyes scanned the room for my bra and finally spotted it hanging on his lamp.
Kade was still sitting in bed, the sheets piled across his lower half, which was still very distracting. “She’s been on vacation. Must have come back after learning about the attack, even though I called and told her everything was okay.”
We couldn’t use cell phones, tablets, or computers without short circuiting them, but landlines were okay. That would have been the only way he could have reached her.
I was fully dressed now, feeling much more in control. “Do you think she’s angry about me being here? Do you think we should leave?” What if she’d heard about him firing his council over me and was here to straighten him out? Why hadn’t we just gone to a hotel. This was not the way to ease his people into the idea of a wolf-bear relationship.
Kade was out of bed now, the sheets falling away to give me a glorious glimpse of his body. All of a sudden I wasn’t sure we needed to leave the room yet. Maybe I could avoid meeting his mother for a few more minutes. He strode across to me, his eyes pinning me in place.
“My mother knows all about you, Ari. She’s excited to meet you.”
Okay, then. My mother would have killed Kade on sight. And let’s not even get to the Red Queen, although she’d been with a fae, so there was no room for her judgment.
I was having trouble concentrating on Kade’s words with his huge body right in front of me. “Meet us downstairs for breakfast?” he said.
I cleared my throat. “Uh … what … oh, yeah, sure.” With great difficulty I turned, ready to descend to my room. Kade stopped me, wrapping his hand around my wrist and spinning me around.