He still hadn’t forgiven Jonas for allowing her to do the job she had set for herself eight years before.
“I make my own choices,” she reminded him, not for the first time.
“Wrong. You and I make the choices now. Remember that.”
“And if I don’t?” She glanced over her shoulder. Tanner’s tension was so thick now it wrapped around her, tingling across her flesh as she picked up the remote and flipped off the interview. Some things, her mate couldn’t handle. The regrets that filled her at times were perfect examples.
“Then I’ll spank you!”
She leaned into the corner of the chair, aware that the position loosened the front of her robe that had only been quickly tied after her shower, and bared her lotioned legs. Tanner didn’t miss the sight. His gaze sparked with lust as he moved around the chair.
Scheme didn’t give him time to pin her in her seat. She rose to her feet, gripped his shoulders as she turned and pushed him back into the chair.
“What are you up to?” His eyelids drooped in sensual response, and the look seemed to stroke over her body.
“Loving you?” She loosened the black slacks. He was shirtless, his dark bronze chest rising and falling sharply as his h*ps lifted, allowing her to draw the material from his powerful thighs and down his legs.
“Hmm, very nice.” She gripped the hard rise of his shaft with both hands before leaning forward and licking over the broad crest. “Have I mentioned lately how much I do love you?”
“I could stand to hear it again.” He groaned, his hands threading into her long hair as she filled her mouth with the engorged head, working her tongue over and around it, moaning at the taste of his flesh, the dark lustiness that filled her each time she experienced it.
“I love you very much.” She lifted her head and placed a kiss on the throbbing crown before rising to her feet and shedding the robe slowly.
His golden gaze flared as his hands gripped the arms of the chair, fingers digging into the padded softness as she smiled back at him.
She cupped her br**sts, her fingertips thrumming over her ni**les as he bared his teeth in arousal.
“I need you,” she whispered.
“I’m yours, pretty girl,” he growled. “Come take me before I have to spank you.”
“It might be worth the spanking,” she drawled as she straddled his lap and began to lower herself to him.
“I’ll spank you anyway,” he promised thickly as he gripped her hips, drew her down, then bit back a curse as the hard crest began to push inside her.
Flames were licking over her flesh even as he leaned forward, his tongue licking over her ni**les as her hands gripped his shoulders.
Slowly, so slowly, he took her. Working inside her, stretching her, filling her, reaffirming the fact that she was alive and she loved. She loved and she was loved.
“Oh God, Tanner, it’s so good.” She moved on him, pressing lower, forcing him deeper until he was seated fully inside her and throbbing pulses of heat began to whip through her body.
It was always like this. So intense. So filled with warmth. With the knowledge that she belonged. Finally Scheme Tallant belonged.
“Beautiful,” Tanner breathed out roughly. “So damned beautiful you steal my breath.”
She couldn’t speak; she could only feel. Feel his hands moving up her back, calloused fingertips stroking up her spine as his erection began to stroke inside her. She leaned to him, needing his kiss. The mating heat wasn’t as harsh as it had been before Tamber’s attack and the subsequent kidnapping attempt. But the need for his taste still filled her head.
He was there for her. His tongue licking over her lips, then flickering over her tongue and spilling the stormy taste of the mating hormone into her mouth. Within seconds she was desperate for more, arousal rising sharper, sweeter than ever before, and it had been damned sweet to begin with.
The mating hormone sensitized her further. It seemed to open each nerve ending in her body, allowing deeper sensation, more heat, more pleasure and, finally, an orgasm that tore through her brain with sharp, blinding pleasure and sent her flying.
She was flying. Free. Her cries echoed around her as she felt the barb emerge, felt it lock straight into an area so sensitive, so filled with nerve endings that she exploded again. Over and over, flying higher, her soul opening and taking Tanner in ways she would have never believed possible before the night he kidnapped her.
“I love you.” She tried to scream the words, but they were only gasps. “Tanner. Oh God, Tanner, I love you.”
She collapsed against him, holding tight to him, only barely aware of his incisors locked once again in her shoulder, piercing the mark he had left there countless times before.
It should hurt, she had once thought. Now she knew it would never hurt. It was the proof that she belonged, that she was now a part of a whole rather than drifting along half-alive.