Bryce, page 9
part #2 of Anarock Shifters Series
He rotated onto his side in her arms. He faced her and slotted between her legs. He gouged his bulging crotch into her delicate cleft. She should have withdrawn from such a blatant suggestion, but she didn’t.
Why should she withdraw from it? She wanted it. She didn’t care if that made her a slut or anything else. This had nothing to do with Victor. Victor no longer existed for her. She wanted Bryce. She wanted him for himself. She wanted him for the man who stood by her and supported her here and now.
He kneaded her ass while he drove into her pussy with ever-increasing determination. He pierced her jeans and ground her clit to a sodden mess. She answered him riding that sharp point until she couldn’t hold back. She spiked into an orgasm, but she couldn’t open herself to him.
The climax contracted her into a ball. She tucked her forehead against his sternum and gasped. She couldn’t make a sound. She couldn’t let the whole world know how she felt about him. This was all hers—hers and his. This moment existed only between them.
He seized her in both arms and hauled her the rest of the way to him. He sat her on his cock and pumped between her legs. In a second, he rolled her onto her back and yanked up her shirt.
She didn’t care. She would have taken it off herself if he didn’t do it for her. She held up her arms while he stripped it over her head. He pushed her bra straps down and left them there. When her breasts tumbled free, the starving, savage need for him magnetized her to his solid frame. She smashed her chest against his and nearly collapsed from the mind-blowing delight of his heat burning her skin.
He tore his shirt off and tossed it away. Her bra still circled her midriff, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything anymore but taking him and being taken by him.
He set to work on her jeans. He pushed her off just long enough to unbutton them and slide them down to her knees. He let her kick them aside while he ripped his fly open and shucked off his own pants. His prick stabbed out at her. She stared down at it while she waited for him to get his pants and shoes off.
She experienced an inescapable sucking force binding her to it. It would come for her. Could she handle the unbearable intensity when that happened? Could she survive the upheaval of accepting it inside herself? She would do it even if it killed her. She already knew that. She wouldn’t let this night end without it.
When he got his legs free and drew her back into his embrace, his naked heat overpowered her. Her head spun in swooning excitement. She almost climaxed again just from the sheer, stupendous power and relief of wanting him so bad.
He twined into her thighs and brought another gurgle of wetness from her cunt. Her lips and channel sizzled crying out for his solidness. He steered her toward him and his shaft whispered over her slit.
She whimpered in agony watching it come closer, closer. It burrowed between her petals and found the slippery cavern waiting for it. That gravitational power wouldn’t let her go. It sealed them together. She could only gape at the ridged hardness of its length sliding inside her.
She groaned and almost passed out when it split her open. It plowed her apart and punched to her very center. Intoxicating intensity shattered her world. It was never like this with Victor. He never touched her deep inside like this. He never tried.
She didn’t want to watch, but she couldn’t turn away. She pinned her forehead to Bryce’s chest and stared at every inch of his tool disappearing into her. Its dark nest of hair melded with her. Then they parted and the long, white shaft retracted to repeat the process.
Every time it entered her, a splintering cataclysm rocked her all over. That thing injected its masculine power into her. Her system couldn’t sustain the pressure. It ruptured from her eyes and teeth and pores. It shattered her to a million pieces and still she couldn’t look away. She had to watch it piercing her and filling her and dancing away to do it again.
She didn’t realize the moment when she started to orgasm again. She was transported to a state somewhere beyond the orgasm she knew. She hovered there in torrential ecstasy watching his prick breach all her boundaries. It demanded her for itself. It left nothing of her behind without changing her forever.
She moaned in startled shock, but it kept filling her to overflowing. Every time it penetrated to her core, it rocketed her into outer space where she couldn’t understand. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t do this and yet she had to.
She clawed at him in astonished, dizzying rapture. She convulsed all over him. She brushed her nipples against his chest and suffered another catastrophic wave of bliss that overrode her neural circuitry.
He guided her up onto his shaft by the waist and ass. He pumped into her with his thrusts and smacked his crotch against her saturated clit. He split her in half with every pointed stab until she had to cry out.
Just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, he nudged her closer. He turned her aside and folded her against his torso. She had to turn her head to fit in that undeniable embrace.
When he did that, the shock and devastation ceased to be. She wrapped her arms around his middle and settled into his easy, comforting presence. He still glided inside her. He fired her full of himself with his thick tool, but it didn’t destroy her the way it did before.
She shut her eyes in the fullness of being exactly where she needed to be. She needed this more than she ever thought possible. She needed him, his arms around her, his flesh inside her rewriting everything she knew about herself.
She tucked her ear against his chest and enjoyed the delirious swirling oblivion of not knowing where she was or where she was going. She didn’t know if she was orgasming or not and she didn’t care. She didn’t care at all anymore. She was just here.
He continued to direct her body into him and away, extending her ride of his stiff cock. Her wetness dripped down her thighs and into his hair. His chest tightened and his shoulders went granite hard. She felt him clenching her tighter while he built up to his own release.
Not even that mattered anymore. How long it went on didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she had him and she would keep him right here inside her heart. If he woke up tomorrow regretting this, she didn’t care.
He gave one last brutal thrust and stayed there. He quaked all over and his cock quivered inside her. It rippled with her inner muscles stroking the last good drops of his essence from him.
He gasped and groaned into her hair. He ground his teeth and sweat sprang out on his skin. The paroxysm sparked another overwhelming tide of emotion in her. She cherished him even more for this, for giving himself to her.
His very cells meant more to her than gold. His sweat tasted sweet and filled her soul with rapture. She never wanted to peel her body off him.
He shuddered to silence and lay limp and stupefied in her arms, but she didn’t move. She didn’t want him to pull out and roll away. She floated in a haze of bliss that she never wanted to leave.
She must have fallen asleep again because she opened her eyes to see the tent canvas glowing bright white from daylight outside. She blinked. Bryce still lay in the same position. He hadn’t moved all night.
She tried to keep still so she wouldn’t wake him up, but he pried back and looked down at her. She glanced up for the first time all night and came face to face with him.
His eyes gleamed the way they did last night after the fight. He studied her features in the tiniest detail. What was he thinking? The small muscles around his eyes danced with his irises’ ever-changing reactions. How different he looked at this close range. What did he see when he looked at her?
He cupped her chin and glanced down at her mouth hesitating. Was he really going to do this? Ever so slowly, as if he wasn’t quite sure, he steered her mouth to his. He touched his lips to hers without taking his eyes off her.
Was he kissing her? Was he really kissing her? She explored the beautiful, velvet sensation of his lips. Was this real? She couldn’t remember kissing ever feeling like this. His body anointed hers all the way down to their hips joined in an eternal locked embrace. She didn’t want to break that connection.
Why didn’t she kiss him last night? She couldn’t remember exactly now. She got lost in the storm of emotions and sensations. She couldn’t have enjoyed it then the way she enjoyed it now. She couldn’t have thought about it and analyzed it to find out what it all meant.
His mouth explored hers opening and closing to pluck at her lips. Somewhere in there, his tongue dashed in to meet hers. They lingered between his teeth and back to her throat.
This was Bryce. She was kissing Bryce Griffin. She always thought of him as a pathetic, no-account juvenile. She barely recognized the man in front of her. He occupied her senses as no one else ever did. This kiss, this experience of lying on the ground in his arms—it meant so much more than she could ever conceive.
She didn’t know what it meant, but she couldn’t ignore it. She was with him in more ways than one. That was what it meant.
Their kissing grew more insistent, more passionate, more certain. This kiss answered all the questions it raised. He glided his hand up her back to cradle her neck. She sank into his grip and let him bring her to his mouth. His lips crushed hers in their fire.
His face floated out of focus and she let her eyes drift closed. She didn’t need to see him. Instead, she looked inside her mind at the cosmic force of what he was in her life. She collapsed into kissing him. Her lips matched his. Her body moved where he directed. She didn’t have to decide on her own.
11
Bryce sat outside the tent in his pants and nothing else. The sun felt good on his shoulders. He screwed his bare toes into the grass. For lack of anything better to do with his hands, he twisted blades of grass into a make-shift cord.
Alexa still slept in their blankets inside, but he couldn’t rest. For the thousandth time, he cast another long, searching glance around the Omega Battalion thinking everything over.
Last night’s battle proved his point. He and Alexa could both act of their own free will. They could fight to defend each other and they could walk or run away from the Battalion. No one could stop them. They just couldn’t use their dragon abilities to do it. So far as he could tell, everything else was fair game.
He turned back the other way and noticed McCain striding between the tents. Considering how many people the Battalion lost last night, they certainly recovered fast. While Bryce and Alexa slept, these people got rid of all their dead and erected more tents to replace the ones they lost. From what Bryce saw, they went right back to their usual routine without missing a beat. Maybe they even wiped their dead comrades’ existence from their memories.
He sat quietly while McCain got nearer. The grizzled leader stopped to exchange pleasantries with a few people, but most scurried away and made themselves busy with something or other. Not many of them appeared in any big hurry to talk to him.
Bryce sized up the old man. Bryce hadn’t seen McCain use any power yet. Did he have one? Maybe he was just as human as the next person. Maybe he used his overbearing personality to browbeat his benighted subjects into submission.
Bryce bent over his grass weaving and waited for the man to walk past. His head snapped up when McCain stopped in front of him and spoke in what Bryce suspected might be the closest thing McCain could muster to a friendly tone. “How are you feeling after last night?”
“I feel fine.” Bryce stared at McCain’s white eyes. He still didn’t know for certain if McCain could see at all. “I was a little cold afterward, but the effects wore off overnight.”
McCain nodded. “You and your friend did very well. I’m proud of you both.”
Bryce cocked his head. “Thanks.” Where was this conversation going?
McCain turned aside as though he was looking around. “I’m gonna need your help in the future. I want you and your friend there to help me plan our next campaign.”
Bryce raised his eyebrows. “Your next campaign? Isn’t your next campaign attacking Anarock?”
“Not with the military hanging around.” McCain traced his fingertip along the northern hills. “They attacked us once. That tells me they’ll try it again. They know where we are and they have magic-users with them who can defeat our people. That means they’ll be more dangerous next time. I’ll need your help with that.”
Bryce stiffened. He detected some hidden subtext here, but he couldn’t decipher what it was. He didn’t trust McCain as far as he could throw him. “What do you need us for? You’ve got seers and wizards and spellbinders already. They can help you more than we can.”
McCain shook his head. “I can’t trust them. I can never be sure one of them isn’t a mole planted by the enemy.”
“Enemy?” Bryce hated to ask. “What enemy would that be?”
McCain waved at nothing. “Anyone who might want to get rid of me. The military could have sent someone to infiltrate the Battalion and destroy me. Any one of these people you see here could be waiting for a chance to undercut me and take the Battalion for themselves.”
Bryce lowered his gaze to his twisting rope. So that was it. Old McCain was as paranoid as a coot. Like most tyrants, he came to mistrust his own people. He used fear to make them obey. Now he realized too late they certainly didn’t follow him out of love and devotion.
Fucking twisted bastard. He got exactly what he deserved and Bryce didn’t pity him in the slightest. He hoped one of these outcast freaks cut the son of a bitch’s throat in his sleep one of these nights. Hell, maybe Bryce would do it himself.
So now McCain wanted Bryce and Alexa to take the place of his whipped toadies. Well, that would give Bryce the perfect opening to stab the cocksucker in the back. Bryce couldn’t wait for the day.
“I want you and her to go upstairs and scout the land,” McCain was saying. “I want you to check out the country to the north and see what the military is doing.”
Bryce blinked up at him. “Go upstairs—you mean, fly?”
“That’s right. Go over there and report back what you see.”
Bryce added a few strands to his rope. “Okay. We can do that.”
McCain scowled down at him. “Now.”
“Alexa is still asleep. She’s tired after proving herself to you last night. We’ll go when she wakes up.”
McCain squared his shoulders. “You’ll go now. Go wake her up.”
Bryce let his hands fall into his lap. He lifted his eyes to the man’s scarred old face. “I said we would go when she wakes up and that’s what we’ll do.”
McCain compressed his lips. “When I give you an order, you follow it. You don’t sit around telling me what you will and won’t do.”
Bryce felt himself relaxing on his seat. He didn’t feel like giving in to McCain—not today, not ever again. McCain might be able to order him around, but that didn’t mean Bryce had to cave every time the old man twitched his lip. “I said we’ll follow your order when Alexa wakes up.”
McCain bared his rotten teeth. “You want to do it when she wakes up? Fine. I’ll wake her up for you.”
He took two rapid strides toward the tent. Without thinking twice, Bryce’s arm darted out. He grabbed the old man by the wrist and dug his fingertips in hard. His head swung up and he locked his eyes on the wrinkled features.
Seething fury boiled just below the surface. He itched to test himself against this asshole. The longer he interacted with McCain, the more he realized McCain was nothing but a bully. He was a coward who thrived on frightening anyone who would bow to his will.
Bryce wouldn’t bow anymore. If McCain couldn’t subdue Bryce on his own, if he needed his people to do his dirty work for him, Bryce would never back down again.
He lowered his voice to a threatening whisper. “You’re not going in there and you won’t wake her up. I said we would go later and we will.”
McCain glared down at him, but Bryce found it impossible to read the man’s expression without seeing his eyes. He kept a firm grip on McCain until the old man jerked away with a snort. “Huh! Well, a few more minutes won’t make any difference. Just make sure you do it. I want that report as soon as possible.”
He spun on his heel and marched away. In a second, the tents hid him and the scene returned to normal.
Bryce went back to twisting his rope. So that fucker really was powerless. He couldn’t enforce his orders on his own. He might look ugly, but underneath, he was nobody. Bryce might have known a dictator like that would wind up being a spineless punk underneath.
How many others in this Battalion suspected the truth? McCain feared some of these people might be plotting against him. What if he was right? Maybe Bryce and Alexa could find some allies here. Maybe one of them could break Susie’s spell and restore his power.
He didn’t study the camp again. He concentrated on twisting his grass as tight as possible. His mind turned on so many possibilities that he didn’t hear Alexa come up behind him. Movement in his peripheral vision alerted him when she squatted down next to him. She murmured in an undertone. “Thanks. I don’t think I could deal with him without trying to strangle that piece of shit.”
Bryce bit back a smile, but he didn’t look at her. “Did you hear what he just said?”
“I heard him back down when you stood up to him. He’s a toad.”
He turned and feasted his eyes on her beautiful countenance. He could almost be tempted to doubt if last night really happened. “He ordered us to fly over those hills and scout the military.”
“I heard that. That doesn’t do anything for us. We’ll have to fly back here. We won’t be able to fly away.”
“Yeah, but just imagine….” Bryce forced himself to whisper so no one else heard. “Imagine we were flying over the hills and spotted the military. Imagine we tried to leave to report back and they shot at us. Imagine that we returned fire and got into a fight with them. Then imagine that we landed in the Quag and we were on the ground when the fight ended. Imagine that we shifted so we could have a conversation about something or to check on something.”
