She smiled and bent down to flick her tongue across the head of his erection. He almost came off the bed and the swear word he used this time was considerably bluer. "Nice," she murmured, licking her lips, hovering inches from his aroused length.
"What do you want?" He was breathing hard. She thought she heard something rip, wondered if he'd torn into the bed-sheets with his claws. She waited for the spike of fear. What came was another rush of damp need. Her body had learned that for her, his strength meant only pleasure. She loved the way he could pick her up and do all sorts of wicked things...when she wasn't in control, that is.
"I want you," she said. "Naked."
His nostrils flared as if he was soaking in the scent of her arousal. "Tally, honey, I can't get any more naked. That's my cock you're playing with."
She grazed him lightly, very lightly, with her teeth for that remark. He swore again but didn't make any attempt to take control. "I want you," she said, "naked and on your front."
"Why?" A suspicious growl.
"So I can stroke you. Pet you. Love you." She ran her nails along the inside of one thigh, felt him shudder. "At least half an hour." Bending again, she closed her mouth over the top of his erection without warning.
Something definitely tore this time. "Fuck!"
She released him. "Yes?"
"Yes! Damn it, yes! Now suck me or I'm going to have you on your back so fast, you'll - " His threat ended in a roar as she took as much of him in her mouth as she could fit.
Clay, she decided, tasted good. Very good. She liked giving him this pleasure. But more, she liked that he allowed her to see the extremity of his reaction, no holds barred. So she loved him, learned him, tasted him. And when he tugged at her hair to pull her off him, she resisted. But Clay had reached the end of his patience.
Reaching down, he pulled her up by her shoulders and flipped her onto her back. His hand was tearing away her panties a second later and then he thrust into her in one solid stroke. It made her scream.
He froze. "Tally?"
She gripped his shoulders. "Move!" And that was all she had breath to say because he did exactly that. Wrapping her legs around him, she urged him on, vaguely aware that he'd snapped the straps of her flimsy little slip and that the material lay crushed between them, an erotic sensation. But nothing was as erotic as his hand on her breast, his hardness moving inside of her.
Then he licked a line across the freckles decorating her breasts. "I want to eat you up." His teeth closed over her nipple.
Her mind went blank.
"So this stroking thing," Clay asked some time later, his chest against her back. "When were you thinking of doing it?"
She snuggled into his embrace. "Whenever I want. So be ready to drop 'em and spread 'em."
He stroked his hand into the curls at the apex of her thighs, tugged. "Brat."
"Bully." With that familiar exchange, she suddenly knew the answer to the question she hadn't yet asked. "We're mated, aren't we?"
His hand rose up to lie flat on her abdomen. "Yes."
"How long?"
"Always."
She couldn't argue with that, because the truth was, she had been born for Clay. "I'm sick - "
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters," she whispered. "Leopards only bond once."
"Would you leave me if I was sick?"
"That's not fair."
"Hell it isn't." He enclosed her in the circle of his arms. "We're stuck, me and you. It was never going to be anyone else for either of us." Clay waited for her to argue but she didn't. The leopard inside him stopped pacing, hackles smoothing down. Satisfied that she'd accepted the truth, he pulled at the material still bunched around her waist. "Want me to tear this off?"
She slapped at his hand. "Don't you dare. I'll have to sew the straps back on as it is."