white halos appeared around each of his fingers. She’d have five bruises on each hip tomorrow. Hammer made a mental note to strip her down then and inspect them, kiss them…add more.
Narrowing his eyes, he inched his way up her body with a predatory stare. As he settled his hips between her thighs, a flicker of a smile curled at the corners of her mouth. Raine froze, watching, waiting, breathless.
With a thunderous roar, Hammer drove past her wet folds and deep inside her, all the way to the hilt, in one rough stroke.
He pumped into her, once, twice, again and again as the angry red welt he’d left on Raine’s breast earlier snared his gaze. She needed a matched set. In fact, she should always wear his symbols on her pale skin. Even the thought charged his veins with white-hot lust.
His need to mark her warred with his need to fuck her. He shoved into her again, gnashing his teeth, then pulled out of Raine’s soft pussy with a roar. She whimpered at his loss, moaning in protest when he released her hips as well.
“I’m not done with you yet,” Hammer taunted as he stretched his body over hers. “Fuck, I haven’t even begun.”
Slanting his mouth over her lush breast, he kissed her unmarred skin, then sank his teeth into her flesh just above her nipple with a low groan of bliss.
“Macen…” Raine panted. “Yes. Oh, god. Yes.”
Lifting his head slightly, Hammer watched the ruddy mark darken on her snow-white skin. Strumming his thumb over the impression, he inched higher, then claimed her soft, parted lips in a harsh kiss.
Raine opened farther for him. Hammer nipped her bottom lip, giving a sharp tug, before releasing her mouth. He settled his lips against her slender neck and fastened his teeth over her skin inch by inch, leaving behind a trail of crimson brands. She whimpered, moaned. The sounds only fed his boiling demand.
He eased down, looking for smooth flesh that needed his possession. Her collarbones. Sweet. Delicate. His…
As he bit down against the thin bone, Raine’s screams echoed off the walls, reverberating in his ears. The faint taste of copper slithered over Hammer’s tongue. He pulled away, studying his handiwork. A droplet or two of crimson dotted against her milky flesh.
Her breathing came faster. Her nipples turned harder. She looked at him like he was a fucking god who could give her the world.
Oh, yeah. Fuck yeah. She’d look at that wound for days and remember it. He would, too.
“Tell me what you want, Raine,” Hammer demanded before sucking at the tiny puncture.
“You, Macen. All of you,” Raine groaned as she writhed, rolling her hips under him, taunting him. “Fuck me. Hard. Please.”
Rocking back on his knees, he settled his cock against her rosy pussy, nestling the crest right against her glistening folds. And he waited. She thrashed, but he stilled her with an unyielding grip on her thighs. He watched her opening flutter around him as if she tried to suck him in and pull him deep.
Hammer smiled as he drove inside her in a single, merciless thrust.
Raine gasped and groaned. “Harder, Macen. Deeper… Yes!”
As he slammed into her again, Raine sank her teeth into her bottom lip. Christ, she was amazing, his fucking dream come true.
The first time he’d ravaged her now seemed like a distant memory. Of course, the amount of alcohol he’d consumed at the time had numbed most of the brilliance stunning him now. Just as he had in the dungeon, Hammer focused on every movement of Raine’s body: the wrinkle of her brow, the gasps that expanded her lungs and raised her breasts toward the heavens before they shook and bounced as he slammed into her small, soft body.
The blood on her collarbone beaded again. As he slid on top of her once more, Hammer shoved his arms under her and curled his hands back toward him, over her shoulders. He pounded her pussy and fixated on her unblemished clavicle. He leaned in, opened his mouth, hungry for another taste.
Something in the back of Hammer’s brain kicked him. He wasn’t a goddamn vampire. He’d never gotten off on blood. Why was he so obsessed now? It didn’t matter. He had to pull back, cage this vicious need riding him so hard.
Stilling inside her, Hammer sucked in a deep breath. Shame. Remorse. Guilt. They all flattened him like a freight train. “Christ. I’m sorry, Raine. I didn’t mean to—”
“No,” she gasped as she gripped his arms and dug her nails into his flesh. “Don’t stop. Please. Please. I need this…need you to do this to me.”
He more than liked the idea of her craving the hard edge of his touch. But he couldn’t use her this roughly—not given how small she was, not with the day she’d had.
“No, precious. What you need is to be pampered and loved.”
“If you do that right now, I’ll kill you,” Raine cried. “When you let yourself go, I feel needed. You and Liam give me purpose, make me feel adored. Something in me would die if I couldn’t give you what you craved. Give me all of you. Let me serve your needs, Macen.”
Submissive to the core. Raine had shown the vulnerable side she desperately hid from everyone…except him and Liam.
“Use me,” she urged. “Do whatever you need. I’m yours.”
Her beseeching tone clawed at his precarious restraint. She needed him to fill all the dark recesses inside her, just as much as he needed her to fill his.
“You want it all?” He surged deep into her again.
“Yes.” She rolled her hips up to him.
“Every last bit?”
“I do. Please…I’m begging.”
Yes, she was, and it sounded so sweet.
“Fuck!” He roared as he jerked from inside her, then grabbed her waist and flipped her to her stomach. “Get on your hands and knees. Now.”
Raine rose on all fours, presenting her narrow back and fiery red ass to him. She looked so defenseless, pale and small, head bowed and wordless. Hammer felt the snap of all rationale.
Smoothing his palms over her warm backside, he landed a feral slap across her ass and watched the rosy flesh turn flaming red instantly. Raine howled out. Her screams burrowed into his soul, pouring life into the jaded, dormant crevices inside him.
Still not satisfied, Hammer bent to lick the handprint. As his tongue abraded her skin, Raine writhed and moaned, riding the high of the burn he’d inflicted.
Clutching at her hips and stilling her sway, he bent and sank his teeth into the heated flesh of her ass. And again he felt their shared perfection descend deep inside him.
Hammer slapped at her thighs. “Open. Wide. Take me, Raine. Take all of me.”
She spread for him immediately as Hammer ruthlessly dug his fingers deeper into her sides. He plunged into her cunt and drew her burning cheeks flush against him for a long heartbeat. She clutched at his cock with her aching softness and a sensual cry. His eyes rolled back in his head.
Pure, intoxicating heaven.
“Head down, my sweet sub,” Hammer ordered, his tone unbending. “Keep that beautiful ass poised high in the air.”
As Raine obeyed, Hammer’s chest expanded. He slid his hands up her back and wrapped his fingers around her shoulders, digging them into the wells of her collarbones. Raine’s heartbeat pulsed beneath his fingertips.
Everything about the siren had haunted his fantasies for what seemed a lifetime. And now he knew exactly why.
She was built to take him. He’d convinced himself the first time he’d fucked her that she couldn’t handle him. Now…Raine was fucking all he’d ever sought.
With her head down, she pressed her cheek against the mattress. Her ebony hair fanned out in silken skeins over his sheets. The long line of her rippling spine covered in pale, soft skin shredded the last of his control.
“Scream for me, precious. Fill me with your submission. Your love.”
As Hammer slammed into her like a man possessed, he bit at her back, sucked at her flesh. Raine’s cries of rapture echoed through his head, urging him faster, harder, higher.
God, he fucked her in one of the most s
ubmissive positions he could think of…and it still wasn’t enough. More. He needed it. Now.
Macen pulled her arms behind her back, capturing her wrists in one hand at the small of her back before gripping her hair in his fist. An arc of pure power sizzled through him.
With each new thrust, Hammer ground his hips upward, trying to fight his way deeper.
“Macen!” Raine cried. “Please. I need—”
“I know exactly what you need,” he said between heavy breaths as sweat poured down his face. “And I can’t wait to feel you shatter around me. Clutch my cock tight and suck me in more.”
“Yes,” she screamed. “I can’t…hold—”
“No!” he thundered. “Not yet.”
Releasing her hair, he leaned back and slapped her ass. The sound of the crisp crack resonated through his head, made his balls draw up.
Everything about her set him on fire. The flames licked down his spine, racing through him in a sizzling rush. Reaching around the swell of her hips, Hammer wedged two fingers around her clit. As he rubbed the hard nub, she bucked against the friction and slammed back against him with an incoherent moan. Her cunt rippled and quivered around him.
The rush of release tore through him.
“Now,” he commanded. “Come for me now, Raine. Hard! I want it all.”
Hammer held her wrists in a vise-like grip as he circled the sensitive nub with his thumb again and again.
Raine sucked in a powerful gulp. Her entire body tensed. Then she bowed, lifting her head off the bed, arching and keening and swelling around him.
The muscles of her fiery pussy contracted in hard spasms. Raine screamed his name. Hammer slammed into her shuddering body and released a savage roar, coming into the latex barrier with a spine-bending force that blew him away.
Though he was her Dominant, she stripped him raw. Never had he imagined a woman could utterly decimate him the way Raine did because she was the missing half of his heart. She completed his soul.
As she rippled and clenched around him with aftershocks, his cock jerked. Panting, sweating, Hammer wrapped his arm around her waist and tumbled to his side, toppling her over with him, onto the bed.
Still coupled together, he held her as their breathing slowly evened out. Brushing the hair back from her nape, he pressed his lips against her sweat-soaked skin. Sliding his tongue over her flesh, he tasted salt and breathed in Raine’s musky-lily scent.
“I love you, precious, with every cell in my body.”
“Mmm,” she moaned, then turned her head to kiss him.
He leaned into her soft, warm body, sliding his tongue into her mouth. As he swept deep inside her, she utterly surrounded him, and he groaned.
“I love you, too,” she murmured, her stare tangled up in his.
Replete and totally satisfied, he pulled her in and held her tight. Peace settled over him. With a sigh, he closed his eyes.
* * *
One a.m. had come and gone by the time Kyle had consumed the barium bottle Beck had warned him about. Then the little guy had X-rays taken and more tests administered. Liam had been at the hospital for nearly five hours when the pediatrician on duty finally declared that Kyle wasn’t suffering from a life-threatening illness but merely a virus. Thank God.
Liam exchanged few words with Gwyneth when he finally dropped her and Kyle off at Beck’s condo. After escorting her up and helping her settle Kyle, he ignored the fact that his ex-wife looked as if she had something to say and all but ran out the door.
Despite his weariness, Liam found the energy to smile. Gwyneth’s schemes were behind him. Kyle would be reunited with his parents in a few hours, and Liam hoped the boy wouldn’t actually require a real shrink because of his aunt’s scheme.
Best of all, he would never have to see his she-devil of an ex-wife again.
On the drive back to Shadows, exhaustion slammed him as if he’d run face first into a brick wall. He kept himself awake by blasting the air conditioning in the car, despite the December chill, and counting the moments until he could return to Raine and Hammer. Then he’d strip, shower, crawl into bed, and sleep for a week.
As soon as he shared the happy truth about Kyle.
Until then, Liam mulled over the past twenty-two hours. What was it about money that drove people to senseless acts of mayhem and maliciousness? Try as he might to understand, Gwyneth’s intrigues still boggled him. What had she imagined she’d do with him if she’d persuaded him to marry her again? Divorce him after he’d outlived his usefulness, Liam supposed. After she’d utterly ruined his life, of course.
Deciding he’d never understand the woman, Liam let go of the thought and concentrated on better things, like Raine and Hammer.
How lucky was he to have both his best friend and the woman he loved in his life? Their joining at the lodge had been incredible, but the pleasure they’d exchanged at the new house earlier had transcended any bodily experience and cemented the promise of their future. Of course, what they shared was far more than sex. Their ménage fed his mind, spirit, heart, and Dominant soul. They still had problems to face; Liam had no illusions. But the three of them were a team. They balanced one another. If they all remembered that, somehow they would always find their way together.
The house would be a foundation for their new life. Raine’s stunned reaction had both warmed and convinced Liam that he’d done right in buying the place. And nothing could have surprised—or thrilled—him more than when Hammer had offered to furnish and take care of any other renovations Raine wanted. Now it would be not simply the roof Liam had put over her head to help her feel secure but the home in which they’d all stake their futures.
Relief filled Liam when he pulled into the lot and saw Shadows’ ornate red door. Even in the wee hours, the place was still half full with members’ vehicles. He grabbed a spot and hurried inside.
Hammer and Raine didn’t appear to be working in the dungeon, but the thumping rhythmic beat of the music filled his ears. The primal screams and moans of both pleasure and pain surged a renewed vigor through his veins. The thick scent of heated bodies and sexual arousal swarmed his senses, so heady he could almost taste it.
Seth sat curled up on one of the oversized couches, giving aftercare to a pretty redheaded sub whom he’d wrapped in a blanket within the circle of his arms. The second he caught sight of Liam, he kissed the sub’s forehead and sent her on her way.
As Liam crossed the floor, he heard some of the chatter around the cavernous room. Only a few words filtered through. Members talked excitedly about how intense the scene earlier had been. But as he passed, those conversations ceased abruptly. Some Doms simply stared. Jesus, had the rumor mill found out about Gwyneth and his “son”?
When Liam reached Seth, he nodded to his buddy from New York. “I see you’re adapting to Los Angeles well.”
“I won’t lie. The girls are pretty, and the weather is damn nice.”
Liam half expected Seth to rib him about his entertaining, soap-opera life again, but the man didn’t. “Glad to hear it. You seen Raine and Hammer?”
Seth paused, and all of Liam’s instincts flared. “They scened earlier in the dungeon.”
Just the two of them. Liam heard Seth’s unspoken message. Something between anxiety and annoyance prickled at him. But Hammer was Raine’s Dom, too. He’d sometimes need or want her. At least that’s what his reasonable side told him.
The other side flamed hot with a blinding streak of jealousy.
“And?” he managed to ask.
Another pause, this one longer. “It was…intense.”
Liam didn’t particularly like the sound of that. “Meaning?”
“Raine flew hard and fast. I think she must have needed it.”
After the day she’d endured, likely so. The evasions and the lies, his ex-wife and the baby, their row… All of that would combine to set her off-balance. She would have wanted someone to take that away from her, even if only temporarily, and to center her.
But damn it, his day had been far fucking worse. Every bloody event had blindsided him. He’d managed to brace himself through