That was true. And fighting him off wouldn’t be easy; he was bigger and far stronger, and Shaya knew from past experience just how capable he was of taking her on. But she’d made her decision, and she’d stick to it. All she had to do was get close to him. Of course that was a little difficult right now while he was on guard, braced for her to fight him. Still, there was more than one way to skin a cat—or a wolf, in this case.

Just as she had that first night he came when he’d cuffed her wrists, she played the miserable victim accepting of her fate. “Can I at least get a hug before you leave me again?”

Guilt pierced his chest. “Come here.”

Worked like a charm. Fixing a desolate look on her face, she stepped into his open arms, which curled tight around her. She buried her face into his neck, being sure to sniffle.

Another arrow of guilt shot through Nick. “It’s for the best, baby. Really. I know you don’t think that right now, but it—” He flinched as her teeth sank down hard into the juncture of his neck and shoulder. “Fuck.” As she sucked hard on the mark she was leaving, Nick quickly realized she wasn’t marking him one last time. Shaya was trying to claim him.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Shay…Shay, you have to stop.” She really, really did, because the sensations crawling through him and over him were threatening Nick’s self-control. His wolf, his body, his soul—they all rejoiced in what she was doing, and they wanted one thing, and one thing only: to claim her right back. So did Nick, but he knew better, knew he couldn’t keep—

He groaned as she sank her teeth deeper. “Shay…” Then the tricky bitch was tearing open his fly and fishing out his cock. He sucked in a breath at the feel of her soft hand wrapped around him. He was hard and hot and aching, and she was fisting him with a possessive grip that was making him forget why he wanted to fight this.

Tangling a hand in her hair, he tugged hard in an attempt to dislodge her. She was having none of that. She simply bit down harder until she drew blood, growling. And God, that f**king possessive growl made the whole thing worse. His wolf approved of her strength, of her defiance. Nick yanked harder on her hair this time, but it was like she’d locked her jaw because he couldn’t make her release him. Then she was pumping him faster, stealing more and more of his control with each stroke, and sucking on the bite in time with her strokes. If he didn’t stop her, if he didn’t make her release him, there wasn’t a hope in hell that she’d leave this vehicle unclaimed. “Shay, stop,” he ordered.

The depth of authority in his tone almost made Shaya falter. Almost. This was her mate. He was hers. And he wasn’t going anywhere. When he tugged again on her hair, she responded by increasing the pace of her strokes, and smiled inwardly at the sound of his sharp intake of breath. She could sense his resolve weakening, could sense his temptation to claim her slithering all over him, and could sense just how little self-control he had left. It thrilled her wolf to know she could do this to him, to have this power over him. Submissive, my ass.

When the hand she’d knotted in his T-shirt released him, Nick peered down and watched as she opened the snap of her jeans and slid her hand inside her panties. Christ. Then she made that moaning sound that drove him f**king crazy. “Shay…” It wasn’t a sound of complaint or censure anymore. It was a plea for mercy. He was drowning in the sensations she was causing and the primal urge to take, to own, to claim. “Baby, you have to—” His sentence was cut off as the hand she’d jammed down her pants rose and inserted one wet finger into his mouth. Her taste exploded on his tongue. Fuck.

In seconds, Nick had shredded her jeans with his claws, lifted her in his arms, slammed her against the wall, and thrust deep inside her. She released his neck with a shocked gasp, raising determined eyes to his. He held himself still, searching for the control to withdraw, because if he f**ked her right now, he’d claim her. No question.

Anger…he needed anger—it was a fuel that had always worked for him in the past. He didn’t have to dig for it, not while both he and his wolf were already raging at fate. His hard gaze drilled into hers. If he had to make her detest him so that she’d leave, then that was what he’d do. “Why would you want this, baby? Because you feel sorry for me? Because your conscience is telling you that it’s what you should do? I don’t want your f**king pity. I don’t want you.”

Did he really think she wouldn’t know what he was doing? Pfft. Shaya was well aware that he wanted to piss her off, to drive her away, to make her hate him enough to run out of this motor home and never look back. What an idiot. “I want this because I care about you, dumbass.”

“Care about me?” He didn’t have to force the snort—that was something he truly didn’t believe. “Nothing I’ve done since I got here has meant anything to you. Nothing. The only reason you gave me a chance was because you felt bad about going on a date—a date you never would have gone on if you cared—so don’t give me that shit.”

She ran her fingers through his hair. “It won’t work, Nick. You won’t push me away.”

It pissed him off that she’d seen right through him. That didn’t mean he’d give in. “I already have pushed you away. I did it the second I found you by ignoring you instead of claiming you. It put up a barrier between us, and that barrier will always be there, no matter what.”

She shook her head. “Not true.” That barrier had come down weeks ago, she now realized. She’d just been too bowled over by her insecurities to take this final step. Faced with the idea of him leaving, she realized that being without him would actually hurt more than if she took a chance and it didn’t pay off.

“It is, and you know it.” When she writhed and her pu**y tightened around his cock, Nick grasped her h*ps hard to still her. “We never had a chance of making this work—you knew that from the beginning, I just didn’t want to accept it. But you were right; I get that now, and I’ll leave you to live your life just like you wanted.”

She gave him a gentle but self-satisfied smile. “It’s too late, Nick. I’ve claimed you. It’s done.” She didn’t think she’d heard of a submissive wolf being the first one out of a pair of mates to lay claim. The idea of that made her smile widen. Oh yeah, not only had she claimed a dominant alpha male before he’d claimed her, but she was now going to totally seduce that alpha male. This was a story to pass down to the grandkids—when they were old enough to hear it, obviously. Taryn was going to love it.

“It means nothing if I don’t accept that claim. And I don’t. Do you hear me?” Nick went nose to nose with her. “I don’t want you.” His wolf took a swipe at him for that. Nick didn’t blame him.

“Yes, you do,” she softly insisted, sliding her hands over his tense shoulders. “The truth is that the one misguided here is you. I claimed you for the right reasons. You’re trying to push me away for all the wrong ones.” She clenched her inner muscles around him, satisfied by his thick groan. “You want this, Nick. Stop fighting it.”

“Shay.”

It was a tortured plea that made her chest ache. “We’ll find a way to stop what’s happening to you. There are other healers out there. But you have to be prepared to battle it instead of rolling over onto your back and accepting it. Some dominant male you are.”

He growled. “Taunting me?” Even his wolf didn’t like that.

“Just pointing out a fact. No dominant male—especially a born alpha—would give up like this. But you are; you’re doing it. If you’re a dominant male, act like it.”

“I’m not going to fall for that.” Not when it concerned her well-being.

“And I’m not going to fall for your attempts at making me hate you.”

He shrugged. “Stalemate.” She squirmed slightly and, Christ, it was like his brain shut down for a second. Then a rush of her cream bathed his cock, wrenching a guttural groan from him. When she went to squirm again, he tightened his grip on her h*ps and warned her with a look. “Don’t f**king move.” He was too close to losing it.

“I can’t help it.” She truly couldn’t. Figuring some dirty talk would help, she said, “I need you, Nick. I need you to claim me.”

So did he; he felt like he’d go out of his goddamn mind if he didn’t.

“Please, Nick.” Oh, he appeared to like the begging. Ha. “Please, I need to come.”

His eyes flared at her. “You should have thought about that before.”

She raised a daring brow. “Then punish me.”

“Dammit, Shay.”

Seeing how well her efforts were working, she smiled inwardly. “Shall I lick you clean when you’re done?” His c*ck jerked inside her, and his hand abruptly collared her throat.

“Don’t think I won’t make you. They’re brave words, baby, but I don’t think you could back them up.”

“Is that one of the plans you said you had for my mouth?”

Nick squeezed his eyes shut, cursing. The sly little bitch was good at this, pushing all the right buttons.

“We’ll fight it, Nick.”

The sensitivity in her voice made him open his eyes; ones full of determination and arousal were staring back at him. “You’re stronger than anyone I know.”

Seeing that the fight had almost gone out of him, she pressed in a whimper, “Come on, Nick. Fuck me. Do it like you own me.”

“I do own you,” he said through clenched teeth, feeling his control slipping away, feeling her pulling him into a place where there was only Shaya and the need to claim. His wolf was urging him to give her what she wanted, to make it clear to her once and for all that she belonged to him and ensure that she could never dispute it again. Never had Nick been balanced so precariously on the edge of his control. When she drew his tongue into her mouth and sucked on it eagerly, it naturally had him remembering her sensual lips around his cock. Shit.

“Prove it.”

“You know what will happen if I do.” He’d claim her and she’d be tied to someone who—

He groaned as she again squirmed. More of his control slipped away.

“I don’t care, I want this. I want you to claim me. Now, Nick, I need to come. Please.”

With his mate’s gaze holding his, offering everything she had and everything she was, the will to fight this any longer left him. His worries and his reservations left him. All that mattered was Shaya and finally claiming what was his.

Growling, Nick slammed his mouth down on hers, eating at it, plundering it with his tongue. She went pliant under the assault, making him growl approvingly into her mouth. Pulling back, he bit her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. “How bad do you want to come?”

Relief and triumph surged through Shaya, invigorating her. The uncertainty and anxiety had disappeared from his eyes; there was now only pure male need blazing at her. It thrilled her wolf just as much as it did Shaya. “Bad.” She gasped as he cocked his hips, giving her a shallow thrust.

Extending his claws, Nick easily stripped her of her top and bra. “I’m going to f**k you hard, Shay.” He rotated his hips, putting pressure on her cl*t until she whimpered. With one hand still gripping her hip, he let his free hand roam over her body. “But you’re not going to come.” He clutched her ass and shifted her angle, flexing his c*ck inside her and making her gasp. “You’re going to fight it until I say you can come.”

Oh that so wouldn’t be possible, not while she was hanging on the edge. Not while the need to be claimed was like a fever in her blood. “Nick—”

“You taunted me, baby,” he reminded her, pinching her nipple just right until she released that amazing moan. “You can’t taunt me and expect to get away with it. And you tried to take the dominant role here too, didn’t you? Tut, tut, tut. You knew I wouldn’t like that, you know I like to have the control. To make matters worse, you lied to me.”

“I didn’t—”

He cut her off with a hard, punishing thrust. “Oh, you did. You told me you wanted a hug. But you wanted to get close enough to claim me, didn’t you? You tricked me.” He shook his head in reprimand, thumbing her cl*t once. “I can’t have that.”

Seeing his eyes blazing with resolve and heat, Shaya knew that this mating was going to be every bit as rough and hard and explosive as the claiming between true mates was reported to be. It would be no-holds-barred. The idea excited and unnerved her in equal measures.

Leaning forward, Nick licked the crook of her neck. “I’m going to mark you right here.” He sucked at the spot. “Here, where everyone can see it, so that everyone knows you’re mine, that you belong to me. So everyone knows this pu**y belongs to me, and only I can have it. Do you understand that? Only I can have you. Say it.”

Shaya swallowed hard at the authority pouring from him, heating her entire body. Her wolf was melting from it. “Only you can have me.”

“That’s right. Very good.” He rewardingly cupped her breast with the right amount of pressure, knowing what she liked. “No one else will ever be inside you. And if anyone even tries to touch what’s mine, I’ll strangle them with their own spleen.” And then he was powering into her at a frantic pace, staring into her glazed eyes, not letting her look away. She clawed at his back as if trying to anchor herself, tearing into his T-shirt and branding him at the same time. Her legs squeezed him so tight that her heels dug into his ass, which only speared him on. When he felt her inner muscles begin to flutter around him, he snapped, “Fight it.”