Cooper grabbed my hips and pulled me toward him, wrapping my legs around his waist while he ran the tip of his nose from my temple to my navel, kissing and licking my overheated skin at every step. He smelled of man and woods and animal. His hair seemed shaggier, falling over my eyes as he kissed my eyelids, the bridge of my nose, the curve of my jaw. He buried his hands in my hair, pressing his face into the wild, dark strands. “Missed you,” he growled. “Missed you so damned much. Love you.”
His mouth traveled from my neck to my ankles, stopped to nip and lick at my collarbone, my belly button, my hip bones. He blew a teasing hot breath between my legs before darting away and pressing kisses on my thighs.
His lips skimmed back to my breasts, lavishing attention over one tight, oversensitized nipple and then other with his tongue. He pinched them gently between his teeth as I writhed under him, slipping his mouth over the curve of my breast as I wrapped my fingers around his warm, hard length. I guided him toward me, but he pitched his hips forward and slid inside me, strong and sure. My body welcomed him back, pulling him deeper with warm, steady strokes. I felt moisture seeping down my thighs as we rocked our hips together. Cooper’s hands kneaded my ass, my hips, keeping me moving in time when I was too lost to keep up.
“Mine,” he told me, making me convulse around him like a velvet-covered fist.
Just as he reached his climax, Cooper’s irises seemed to darken and expand, closing out all of the white. Teeth bared, he threw his head back with the final thrust and clamped down on my shoulder, just where it met my neck. I shrieked at the intrusion of teeth against my flesh, but Cooper held me fast against him. My hands batted ineffectively at his shoulders as my skin tore like paper under his mouth. This painful, alien sensation sent me toppling over the edge of sanity. My pulse jumped, my breath caught, and all of my muscles seemed to contract at once, shuddering through the most powerful orgasm I’d ever had. As I shook and screamed, Cooper gathered my fluttering wrists with one hand and used the other to slip soothing brushes along my brow. I felt a trickle of blood down my back as Cooper’s head fell to rest against mine.
Our breathing slowed and he rolled off me, gathering me to his side. Once I’d regained use of my arms, I reached out and smacked the side of his head.
“Ow!” he cried.
“You bit me!” I groused, pressing my hand to the wound. “Again!”
He flushed with guilt but kept a defensive note in his voice. “It’s a good thing! It means you’re mine. The scar is a public declaration. It means you’re my mate. It means no other wolf can claim you. It means you’re under my protection and the protection of my pack . . . if I had one.”
“Like a pimp.”
He made a sour face. “It’s no different from me peeing on your doorstep.”
“You peed on my doorstep?”
He winced. I don’t think he realized how gross that sounded until he said it aloud. “Right before I told you I couldn’t see you anymore.” His expression was alternately sheepish and defensive. “I was marking the territory. It keeps other predators away. I had to keep you safe somehow. You stumble into the path of pissed-off grizzlies, for God’s sake.”
Suddenly, my hand snaked out, and I hit him again.
He winced. “Ow! What was that for?”
“Apparently, I’m still a little mad at you.”
“Mo, I’m sorry if it hurt—”
“Yes, Cooper, that’s why I’m mad, because you bit me.” I snorted.
“—but marking you is best for the baby,” he insisted.
My shirt slithered out of my hand. “How did you find out?” I whispered.
“Well, my mom sort of tracked me down and proceeded to beat the ever-loving hell out of me until I admitted you were the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And that I would have to be an idiot not to run back to you and beg for forgiveness. With the understanding that she plans on beating me at regular intervals just to keep me on my toes. She’s had some sort of violent epiphany, I think.”
I lay back, feeling as if all of the air in my lungs had been pulled out. He knew. He knew, and he didn’t say anything? Shouldn’t that have been maybe the second or third thing he’d said? Maybe right after “Missed you so damned much,” he could have mentioned “Love you, and I’m so sorry I ran off and left you to suffer through your first trimester alone.” How would I know now? How would I know whether he wanted me for me or because he felt he had no other choice?
“Is that the only reason you came back? Because your mom implied that you were being less than a man?”
“No, it’s not the only reason.”
I hopped to my feet. “Because I don’t need you to raise this baby. I don’t need you or any other sperm carrier just to be a good parent.”
Cooper’s jaw dropped, and somehow he found the gall to look offended. “Sperm carrier?”
I glared down at him. “Am I supposed to be happy that you came running back because you heard you knocked me up? I don’t want you here out of some sense of obligation.”
“But you do need me. You’re going to need me to help you. I want to be with you, Mo. I want to be a family.”
“You know, I find myself not really giving a crap what you want,” I said, nudging him with my feet until he was forced to get up. I threw a blanket at him, which he wrapped around his waist.
“You told my mother. You had to know that she would get word to me eventually.”