Helena started to go for the buttons of her slacks, but Conal firmly pushed her hands away. She’d have objected… but perversely, she found it turned her on. Her inner wolf growled in lust, and it was all she could do not to grab him and throw him onto the bed. For just a moment, his eyes met hers, glowing violet, hot and demanding. He needs this. Needed this exercise of control over himself. Over her. And she could control her lusty inner wolf for a few more minutes, damn it.
Self-control had never been Helena’s problem. Growing up a black woman in the South taught you all about not losing your shit, even when you were fully entitled to. Her law enforcement career had honed that discipline even more. I can do this.
Conal slid her top off, and paused, gazing down at her chest. Liam, bless his perceptive psycho’s heart, had added a pretty bra when he’d conjured more suitable clothes. Cream demi-cups lifted the curves of her breasts, veiling her nipples in delicate lace. Judging from the way heat flared in his eyes, Conal approved. He reached out gentle fingertips and ran them over the soft mounds. The contrast of pale fingers and dark skin struck her as erotic, forbidden.
He dropped the top on the floor and reached behind her to unfasten her bra. Even as her hormonal body vibrated at his encircling arms, her lonely soul stilled and settled. Feeling sheltered.
Discarding the bra with an offhand toss, Conal stared down at her bare flesh, her hard, aching nipples. Despite herself, tension gathered in Helena’s shoulders. The man dated actresses who were a size zero. She was all lean Direkind muscle, and nobody had described her as dainty even before she started growing fur.
“You’re so beautiful,” Conal said in an aroused rasp as he traced a finger over a stone-hard nipple. The delicacy of that feathering touch sent an exquisite little flutter of pleasure through her, like the beat of a butterfly’s wing.
He looked up, and their eyes met for a long, suspended moment. Helena could feel Conal’s magic, rolling under the skin of his hands, sweet and burning. He lowered his head and took her lips. It was a slow kiss, as gentle as the first one had been. This time Helena could feel the throbbing restraint in it, his desperate effort not to drag her into his arms.
“Don’t hold back,” Helena whispered against Conal’s mouth. Her voice sounded ragged to her own ears. “I need…” Conal growled, a deep sound that made his chest vibrate beneath the hand she’d raised to explore his sculpted pectorals. Conal bent and scooped her off her feet. She blinked in surprise. Even in human form, Helena was heavier than she looked, yet he lifted her as if she were one of his emaciated starlets, all tits and hair.
He carried Helena across the room to the California King that stood facing that magnificent view. Conal deposited her on the thick comforter and followed her down, covering her in his hot weight. This time there was nothing gentle about his kiss as his mouth devoured hers in wet heat and need. One hand curled in her hair, the other caressing her jaw.
Feeling half-crazed, Helena fought to contain the leap of her wolf. She wrapped her arms around Conal’s broad back, her hands instinctively tightening on the ripples of muscle. Her nails sank in, and she realized they’d become claws. Quickly, she curled her hands into fists, afraid of laying him open.
Her teeth ached in her jaws, and she hoped like hell none them were becoming fangs. Desperately, Helena called on the control Justice had worked so hard to teach her, reeling in her magic. The last thing Conal needed was for her to shift after what had happened to him today.
“Shhh,” he murmured, lifting his head. “It’s all right. I’m not going to leave you wanting.” His eyes had begun to glow like violet fires. She stared up into them, feeling hypnotized by the heat of Sidhe magic burning beneath his skin.
Conal smiled slowly down at her, flashing those amazing dimples. “We’ve got all the time in the world.” His black hair fell around them like a silk curtain, smelling of sandalwood and magic and arousal. Helena rolled her body into his, pressing her belly against the thick, maddening width of Conal’s cock. God, she needed it. Craved it thrusting hard into her slick cunt…
Conal lowered his head again and took her mouth slowly, kissing her as if her mouth were his only goal, not just a step on the way to his own orgasm. His tongue swirled around Helena’s, and she kissed him back, hungry, needing. Losing herself in that pirate’s mouth, all silk and teeth. He made a deep, purring cat sound, hungry and impatient, and began to work his way down to her chin, along the line of her jaw, the arch of her throat, pausing over her bounding pulse.
His hands slid downward, but he didn’t go directly for her breasts. Instead, he explored the long lines of her arms, and she thought again about starlets. Suddenly she wanted to scratch their eyes out.
Not trusting herself in the least, Helena reached up to grab the metal rails of the headboard and held on as she arched under him, lifting them both off the bed. Conal made a startled, purring sound, but it wasn’t disapproval. He was tasting the curve of her shoulder now, pressing burning kisses over her skin. As he moved downward, she felt his thick cock dragging over her belly, leaving a trail of something wet on her skin. Pre-come.
Need roared through her like fire along a trail of gasoline, and she almost flipped him over onto his back so she could impale herself on that big, maddening shaft. No, she told her werewolf. I’m going to act like a fucking human. She dropped her hands down the metal spindles she gripped, hitting something fuzzy that clanked. Rolling her head up, Helena realized it was a pair of sheepskin-lined handcuffs, one cuff dangling. Another pair hung a little farther down the headboard.
Conal found her nipple and started drawing wet circles around it with his tongue, without touching the hard tip, one hand kneading the soft flesh. While he was busy, Helena reached up and fastened the right handcuff around her wrist. The left took a bit more doing, but she’d been in law enforcement long enough to know how to close cuffs one-handed, and she got it done. Not that the cuffs would hold her, even in her human form, but at least it reminded Helena to keep her claws to herself.
Conal looked up at the muffled clank of the padded cuffs, and his dark brows lifted. Something uncomfortable flashed through his eyes, but he gave her a charming smile. “You’d be surprised how many women have Christian Grey fantasies.”
God knew that was true enough -- especially in her case -- yet Helena suspected that wasn’t the reason. She remembered Conal’s out-of-character snarl at his sister. No wonder he had cuffs hanging from his bed. He needed to be in control.
Which was when Helena got an insight she could have done without. Being chained that chair must have triggered the fuck out of him. Thinking they were going to kill him during the torture while that soulless Sidhe bitch laughed…
Conal lifted his head, meeting Helena’s gaze. Shame flashed over his face before his mouth flattened with erotic determination. Violet eyes still locked on hers, Conal lowered his head and took her nipple into his mouth. His stare wouldn’t let her look away as he suckled, pulling hard, dragging, tongue dancing, flicking, with just the right pressure, teeth raking, barely missing pain. Pleasure blasted her, triggering a fresh leap of Burning Moon lust.
“Oh, God! Oh, God, God, just fuck me!” Helena rasped the last word through gritted teeth as she locked her hands around the metal spindles of the bed. “Fuck me!”