Base Nature Read online

  Throw in an unhealthy obsession with forcing the issue of unprotected sex…

  She was truly happy and there was a tiny space filled with peace inside her since she’d met him but she needed to remember that her body did not know the difference between good stress and bad. Only her mind did. And when he had snuck in to surprise her—when that shower curtain had been ripped back—she had felt every moment of powerless fear come crashing down on her. And she’d cracked.

  Garrett’s anger had been palpable but it was different. She’d believed him, miraculously, when he’d said it wasn’t her who was making him angry. It was the circumstances that she’d seen that could make her that way. That small space of peace had grown a little.

  When the second wave of tears had come, he’d pulled her onto his lap and rocked her back and forth, very much like a child. Maybe once in a while she needed to feel like a child. A safe one.

  Now Liv heard him downstairs in the kitchen. He had gone to make her tea and check the pies and she was under strict orders to lie down and warm up and relax. Her face burned from the tears and embarrassment but her nose had stopped running and her hands had stopped shaking. She closed her eyes, listening to the domestic sounds of a big man maneuvering in a small kitchen.

  The quilt on his bed was heavy. Heavy like the one her grandmother had owned. It seemed to press her to the bed and immobilize her and the intense warmth made her sleepier than the crying jag had. Liv felt herself drifting and tried to rally, she wanted to lie and listen to the sounds of him making her tea, building a fire, being there. Just being there. But the warmth and the weight and the moment of calm won out and she drifted down further…

  It was exactly as she’d thought. Him slipping into her that way. Her head filled with the forest and cool air smell of him, under it the perfect warm spice scent of a man and sex and attraction. Garrett thrust deeper, his hands cupping her ass, tipping her just so, making it so that each thrust touched off nerves and little sparkly flashes of pleasure so good she shook her head. He whispered to her. Told her all the things he felt. All the ways he would keep her safe and keep her close. She would never know fear again. Only him and the pack and family. He moved faster, his breath warm on her face, his lips hot on her lips. Her shoulder, her collarbone. His breathing like some great animal now, her hips moving up to meet him. The sudden tight spasm of her release rushing toward her and as he went tense against her, something like a growl uncoiling from his throat. And then his teeth. His sharp perfect teeth, penetrating so fast and expertly that it did not feel like pain but like something hot touched to her skin. Just enough to mark. Just enough to draw the tiniest amount of blood. But the orgasm in her doubled, trebled, overtook her and his small sound turned big as he emptied into her. And she wasn’t afraid. And all she could smell in her world at that moment was Garrett…

  “You in there?”

  Liv opened her eyes and he was standing there. Bigger than life, imposing, strong, gruff sometimes. He should have been intimidating to her. All she saw was hope. “I’m right here,” she said, reaching up her hands.

  He stepped in, a baking sheet he was using as a makeshift tray on the nightstand. “Yes, you need me?” He grinned, leaning into her reaching hands.

  “Yes,” she said. His face flickered with confusion and then some unidentifiable emotion. He recognized the truth in her word. “I do need you.”

  Garrett took her hands in his and leaned in, kissing her on the forehead, the nose, each eyelid, each cheek, before finally pressing his lips to hers and kissing her hard. Each soft touch of his mouth to her face filled her with a bigger want. She pushed her fingers into his hair, feeling his warm skin under her hands. She opened her mouth, let his tongue dominate hers and then he settled onto her like a much heavier quilt.

  His cock rode the cleft of her pussy and he slipped against her softly. Just enough to make her want him that much more. Which was impossible. “Garrett?”

  “Yeah?” he said but then looked at her. “Don’t ask me,” he said.

  She wanted to cringe but some part of her reveled instead. She should feel bad but she felt anticipation. Don’t ask me meant I can’t deny you. It wasn’t a denial. It was a plea.

  “Please,” Liv said, delivering her own plea.

  “I can’t. It isn’t done. It isn’t safe.”

  Liv parted her legs so that he could smell and feel the heat of her there between her legs. His cock rubbed and she arched, the room heated quickly despite the lack of a space heater. Rain rapped at the window pane and she swore she could hear each drop hit like a drumstick on dry wood. She pressed up to him, her fingers roaming the planes of his face. He pushed a finger into her mouth and she sucked it hard, running the tip of her tongue along the length of it before he covered her mouth with his palm, groaning, his hips bucking against her body.

  She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Everything was reduced to her body’s craving for Garrett. For a mating. For a change. For the loss of fear and the gain of independence.

  “It’s painful,” he said, nipping and kissing and licking along her throat. His big hand covered her mouth still, gentle but firm. A silent command to listen. But something about this exercise of dominance over her made her wet with urgency. There was no fear in the face of his show of power. There was only the increasing beat of her pulse in her pussy and her temples. She could hear her blood like the ocean in her ears as he said, “It would be the end of everything you know. It would be a change like no other. It would be dangerous and painful,” he repeated.

  She kissed his palm and he took it away to let her speak. His hips still moved against her, rotating in lazy circles that made her nipples spike against the soft gray robe. He parted it and sucked one pink circle into his mouth as she managed to push out the words, “My whole life has been pain. This, I would be in control of.” He tugged the hard, rosy nub with his tongue and she cried out. Now she was too hot. Robe, covers, man. She pulled at the robe and he uncovered her, unbelted it, parted it so that it settled around her in gray, flannel butterfly wings. Garrett licked from her breast to her belly, tipped his slick tongue into her navel and an invisible string of pleasure tugged in her pussy. “I need some control.”

  He parted her legs and settled that tongue on her clit. He simply rested it there. An epicenter of wet heat on her most sensitive place. And just when she thought she would sob with frustration, he sucked in, taking the whole tiny nub in his mouth so that her back arched and she clutched at him.

  “I can’t. Don’t ask me,” he said, sounding utterly defeated.

  Garrett started slow, even strokes that brought her right to the shiny fuzzy edge of coming and then he licked up her inner thighs. Liv grabbed fistfuls of sheet and his hair, pulled at him. “Please.” She meant both things. Please let me come. Please give this to me.

  Garrett sighed, putting his tongue to her again, sweeping wet circles that had her holding her breath until her head buzzed with vertigo. The orgasm was the sweetest one she could remember. Nearly soft at first but gripping her in a long lazy wave of spasms that radiated heat and pleasure through her belly and legs. Her limbs felt heavy and limp and her pussy clutched around nothing at all. Empty. Needing him. “Please,” she said it again but moved her legs a little. An impatient dance to get him to move. To come up to her and into her.

  He reached for the drawer, stilled. Liv knew it wasn’t fair. Knew she was asking him to give something of himself he might not be able to. Knew that she was testing him in the most precarious way. She knew it instinctively because he had never really said a lot out loud to her. She didn’t speak but watched him.

  He kissed her, softly. Almost like he was sad and her heart broke a little. But then he looked at the drawer, dismissing it. Garrett tugged at his jeans and her hands joined the fray. “Are you sure, Liv?” He pressed his cock to her but did not enter.

  She didn’t say a word. She pushed her legs wider, hips up, slipping the head of his cock inside her and then
she leaned up and kissed him. She hoped that even a fraction of her thanks was in that kiss. He could still change his mind but she didn’t think he would.

  You never asked him outright. You never said change me.

  It was true. She hadn’t. She squeezed herself around the tip of him and he kissed her one more time, thrusting into her slowly as he did. He gave her a moment. A perfect still moment where her body adjusted. Her pussy full, her mouth working against his. He stayed right there for one blissful heartbeat so they could both simply feel. And when he started to move, her entire self responded, a second orgasm already brewing in her. Tightening and loosening her body in tandem, a physical oxymoron.

  He knows. He knows what I want.

  When he blew out a breath against her neck, she knew she was right. When he pushed his nose to her throat, her hair, her shoulder, she knew she was right. His hands were more possessive, his movements more aggressive. When he reared back to look at her, nip at her lip, the tarnished metal silver of his eyes winked back at her. She had no fear at all. She just said, “What do you feel?”

  “I smell,” he corrected.

  “You smell what?” The orgasm fired off with no warning. It was as if this coupling were magic. Some storm of flesh and blood stirring up the perfect electrical display. She rode it out, holding onto Garrett like she was drowning.

  “My mate. You. I smell you and this is why…” He broke off. The planes of his face going lean and sharp in a flickering movie reel way that was surreal. Dusk was falling and his hands pulled at her, anchoring her as he pounded into her.

  Liv braced for his orgasm, braced for his teeth. She was once again skating close to coming and she knew right then that when it happened, she would come. She would come and the pleasure and pain of it all would morph into something brand-new for her. She expected a last-minute surge of fear or panic. None came.

  Garrett threw back his head, going stiff against her, his jaw tight with the power of his orgasm. Liv dug her nails into his back, her own orgasm ripping through her, she felt a hot trickle under her fingers but it didn’t really register, because then Garrett’s head was coming down, his eyes mercurial in the low light and then his teeth were on her.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Perfect Storm

  All he could smell when they started mating was her. It was a viable mating. For his kind, any sex that could result in offspring was viable. And that was when a wolf could smell his true mate. It would be like identifying your favorite dessert in a bakery by scent. An intoxicating smell that could not be denied. Once he had taken the step to make love to her without protection, Garrett knew he was done. The moment he pushed inside her and her pussy had closed around him, he could smell nothing in the world but the earthy smell of lavender and sandalwood and her hot, hot blood.

  Every breath she exhaled was filled with the scent of compatibility. Her heartbeat even marked off each beat in synch with his. She was a mate for him. One had been taken, another was being offered. One more chance at what he thought his life should be.

  It was the most perfectly bittersweet moment of his life.

  Her cunt flexed around his cock, a perfect velvety receptacle for him. Each thrust brought him one step closer to giving in to the image that had been in his mind since he’d come flying through her upstairs window like some lycan version of Batman.

  Change her.

  He tried to push it away. They could build a life, get married, have babies, all of it with her as human. There was no reason to put her through the change. None at all.

  But it persisted in him. The irrational, overwhelming, bright and shiny dark thought, change her. Be her champion. Give her something no one else ever has…

  Power.

  In the end, he’d lost his battle. His release had swallowed him up. A roar of light and noise and sound, the smell of his mate filling his head to the point where he felt a sharp but blissful vertigo overtake him. He came, spilling his seed, and at the same instant the wolf claimed its mate. Claimed it irrevocably with teeth and penetration and blood.

  He sat back, studying the darkening bruise on her throat. The slightly staggered line of his teeth marked on her. She slept, already sweating. He put his hand to her forehead, shook his head. Already the heat baked off her. Her breathing was going up, her color going down. Outside a sudden storm raged and Garrett bent his head, kissed her closed eyes.

  He had operated on instinct but so had she. Not even forty-eight hours. Few humans reacted so fast to love or lust or need. The animal in him had spotted a mate in her the moment she had boldly stuck those tweezers in his arm. The man he was had followed suit with very little resistance.

  He’d get her water. He’d get towels. He’d hover and poke and coo and watch her until this was done. She was his now and he was hers. He bent, one more kiss before he’d go and gather what he needed. “I love you, Liv.”

  She opened her eyes, looked at him and then closed them again.

  ———

  He made tea, a pitcher of ice water, gathered some crackers. He wet towels and all the while, as he maneuvered in the kitchen, he knew it was busy work. Liv wouldn’t drink any of this. She would not eat crackers. She would lie up there and she would rage with fever, she would most likely be out of her mind with it for some time. If all went well, she would go through hell and back and then she would be fine. And the pain of her first shift would be what awaited her on the other side. If all did not go well, he’d have a body upstairs very soon. One that the coroner would mark as a massive heart attack due to the complications of some unknown virus or anatomical glitch.

  “But that will not happen,” he said to himself. Part of him was so steeped in self-loathing he could barely function. Another part of him felt that he had gifted a woman he so abruptly loved with what she was asking for. And deep down inside him where the truth lived, there was calm. It would all be well. But Garrett didn’t know how much he trusted that truth sayer. At all.

  The phone rang and he tensed, his whole body tight with nerves. Caller ID gave him no information beyond out of area and private caller. He answered, hands shaking. It was too late to change his mind when he heard Kelly’s voice.

  “I can’t talk right now,” Garrett said, adding a bottle of pain reliever to the tray as if that would help.

  “I just need a moment, Garrett. I wanted to make sure we were okay from earlier? I miss you and you know I feel like you’re one of my—”

  “I know, it’s fine, Kelly. Really. I’m not upset. I’m just busy.”

  Somewhere upstairs Liv made her first noise of the night. A deep, sobbing kind of howl. It was the sound that no human throat should make and it sounded like unadulterated agony.

  “What was that?” She knew though. He could hear it in her voice. He hung his head and tried to get his shaking voice to behave.

  “Nothing. It’s the TV. Some Halloween movie.” Even as he said it, he knew that Kelly would call bullshit. They knew the sound of their own and then knew the sound of a changeling in pain.

  “What did you do, Garrett?”

  “Nothing. It was just—”

  “Did you change her? Did you bite her? Are you trying to nurse her alone?” Her voice went lower with each question. A deep vibrating note joined her normal tone. She was worried and her animal was showing.

  “I…yes. She wanted me to and I’ve had this…shit, this urge since day one and it all got the better of me. And there’s nothing I can do about it now, Kelly. Not one goddamn thing but be there for her and help her. I can’t let her be alone.”

  A long high cry echoed from upstairs. This one very much the sound of a human woman terrified.

  “Garrett, you can’t—”

  He hung up the phone muttering, sorry, sorry and took the steps two at a time. Much like earlier in the night when he’d headed toward a warm, wet woman and a hot shower. What the hell had happened, he wondered.

  She glared at him when he entered, eyes glassy with fever, mout
h moving but no sound coming out. She thrashed to face him but just as quickly rolled to her back. Her body bowed as if caught in the mother of all muscles spasms—because it was—and she rolled right. Garrett knew she was trying to find a comfortable position. He knew from watching several passages from human to mix that there was no such thing. There would be no comfort for Liv until the change was done.

  “I’m sorry,” he said more to himself than her. But her ears, already tuning into higher registers and softer sounds, picked it up. She twisted his way again, her face a bizarre mix of understanding and anger. She reached for him. Garrett almost couldn’t take her hand. He felt like it was something he no longer deserved but she kept reaching and he couldn’t deny her.

  Her hand was both hot and clammy all at once, the sinew under her skin rock-hard and shivering with tension. “Am I dying? I’m dying. Nothing can feel like this—” She closed her eyes, trying so hard to focus. Her legs whipped straight, then bent and crooked in an arthritic slant. “Nothing can feel like this that doesn’t end in death.”

  Garrett sat, trying to smooth her hair back, but the moment he did she shivered, whipped her head to the other side and it shrouded her pained face again. “I don’t think you will die, Liv. I feel like… I never would have done it if I really thought that. This pain is your body changing. This is the beginning of what you wanted. This is what has to happen for you to get to the other side.”

  She moaned low in her throat, such a mournful sound that Garrett wanted to run. He couldn’t take the sound of her pain. Not that much pain. But he had to. He absolutely had to, so he gripped her hand, murmuring to her that he was there, he was right there.

  Liv gripped his hand hard. Way harder than she normally would. It was already taking effect. Her body was breaking down but simultaneously rebuilding. It was wholly necessary and completely unnerving. He bent and kissed her, she thrashed like he had burned her. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”