Chapter 10
Gypsy quickly flicked off the light for the OPEN sign and locked the door before she turned around to stare at Nick. She was really treading the line between nervousness and extreme excitement. What she needed right now was to break the silence.
“Fifteen customers,” she whispered not even having to fake her amazement. “I can’t believe fifteen customers were actually true paranormals… some of them have been coming here since I was a kid. And just think, we were only open a little over half of a normal business day. I usually have more customers in the late evening than I do during the morning hours.”
Nick couldn’t help but enjoy her enthusiasm. He started pressing buttons on the security system to turn on every security measure available. The last thing he wanted was more visitors no matter their breed.
Hearing the speedy tempo of her heartbeat, Nick kept his voice calm and relaxing as he responded. “Not all of us are the bad guys. Most of us are living normal lives and dealing with the same problems humans do. We just have to be careful not to be exposed so we aren’t hunted and well… I’m sure you get the grand idea.”
Gypsy tried unsuccessfully not to flinch when the heavy iron blinds behind her suddenly descended and some of the overhead lights flicked off dimming the room. She steadied her gaze on Nick pretending that hadn’t almost made her jump out of her skin.
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” she continued, “Though now, it makes a lot more sense when I add up the number of demands for the scent masking spritzer and requests for specially made weapons and tools.”
Nick chuckled softly. “I’m surprised you didn’t put the pieces of the puzzle together yourself.”
“Well, I have to say that the thought did cross my mind a couple of times but I just waved it off as the local covens being stranger than normal,” Gypsy admitted, moving her hand as if she were shooing something away. “Here I was treating it all like a game when I really should have known better.”
“Your grandfather wanted to keep you innocent and still teach you the things you needed to know just in case. There was nothing wrong with his wisdom,” Nick said as he flicked a couple more lights off, leaving only the blue and purple ones on knowing it would bring all of the crystals to life and set the ambience he wanted.
Gypsy turned full circle loving the mystery of the room in this light no matter how many times she saw it. She smiled softly seeing someone had added small black lights behind the shelves when they had redecorated. As she came back around to face Nick, she took a quick intake a breath finding him directly in front of her.
Nick took hold of her hand and pulled her flush against him. “Then again, not knowing puts you at risk of one of those paranormals coming in here and trying to steal a kiss.”
Gypsy looked up at him with another blush on her cheeks, “Will you protect me from such creatures?”
Nick arched an eyebrow, “Why would I when I’m the one that wants to do exactly that?”
Gypsy felt her nervousness vanish with one hard pound of her heartbeat and something else she had been feeling all along rose up to replace it. If he thought she was going to let him get away with that kind of open invitation then he didn’t know how many times she’d played this fantasy out in her dreams.
“Prove it,” she dared him without blinking.
It was disturbing what those two little words had the power to do to his body and mind. Nick mentally tightened the leash on his own sexual desire before he trusted himself enough to lower his gaze to her full lips. The second he focused on them he descended with predatory swiftness.
When Nick sucked her bottom lip between his so deliciously, Gypsy responded by wrapping her arm around his neck and clutching a handful of that sinfully thick silky hair that she had always wanted to touch. All of the erotic fantasies she’d had as a teenager swept through her mind and mingled with the lusty ones she’d had more recently. Those memories were a heated reminder of the things she desperately wanted to do with him.
Nick groaned feeling her gripping his hair and instantly deepened the kiss. He was trying to be gentle with her but damn if she wasn't going to make it easy on him. Opening his eyes, he tried to locate a clear spot on the wall to pin her against but inadvertently caught sight of his ethereal gaze in one of the mirrors. As soon as he saw the luminous glow of his eyes he closed them knowing he was in trouble.
Gypsy moaned loving the heat of his lips and skin. She could even feel it generating through his clothing. The intensity of that warmth was causing cold chills in the places that weren’t touching him and she wondered if the legends were true about shifters having higher temperatures than humans.
She pulled him down further wanting closer to his height and pressed her breasts against him as she bowed her body backwards to stay flush with his. When he growled against her lips she just kissed him harder, more turned on by his demanding kiss than she had ever been turned on in her life.
His chest vibrated as he half moaned, half growled into the kiss, licking and biting at her full red lips. Lowering his hand, he cupped her thigh and lifted one leg up around his waist, pulling her up off the floor. He could feel the coolness of her skin as she wrapped her naked legs around him. He pushed his hips forward, grinding his swollen erection against her. She wasn’t asking for mercy so he wasn’t going to give it to her.
Refusing to release the hold she had on his hair, she angled downward and nipped at his bottom lip before he captured hers again in a searing almost savage kiss.
Feeling a burning aching need slam through him so intense that it almost snapped his control, Nick broke away from the kiss with a harsh growl and hid his face in the arc of her neck so that she wouldn’t see the glow of his eyes. Inhaling her scent, he released the breath with a deep purr against the shell of her ear. He bucked upwards against her well aware that the jaguar inside him wanted to claim her just as much as he did.
His thoughts turned dark as he remembered Devon and Trevor's argument about marking Envy and just who she belonged to. Animalistic instinct now gave him a better perspective on that argument. He kissed his way down Gypsy's neck to the curve of her shoulder and gently scraped his teeth across her soft skin.
His heartbeat became so loud in his ears that it was making it almost impossible to resist the temptation. Did he dare sink his teeth into her without warning her of the implications?
Gypsy shuddered against the heated bulge pressed between her legs. He was hotter than she was down there. She leaned her head to the side giving him better access to her neck as she tightened her legs and pushed against him hard before rolling her hips downward until the pressure was against the little bundle of nerves in the front.
She couldn’t stop the almost strained whine that escaped her as she wiggled against him then rose up to do it again. She started to struggle when Nick held her up so she couldn’t get to what she wanted.
“I am damn sure I’m going to regret the hell out of this but Stop,” Nick said in a ragged voice as he held her still.
“I don’t want to,” Gypsy quickly informed him and made a frustrated sound finding that he was a whole lot stronger than she was.
“Unless you want me to bite you and mark you as mine and only mine… then you need to be still for a minute,” he warned less than an inch from where he had already decided his mating mark would go. It didn’t help matters when a loud crack of thunder boomed directly over the building and the sound of driven rain hitting the windows followed it.
Tightening her grip on Nick’s hair, she pulled his face away from her neck surprised when he allowed her to do it. She barely blinked when she locked gazes with the familiar eyes of the same jaguar that had fearlessly come to her rescue when Ren had taken her during his state of confusion and power surge.
“Nick?” she whispered wanting the reassurance of hearing his voice again.
Looking up into Gypsy's passion flushed face and seeing her kiss swollen lips did nothing to tame the instinct to fully claim her. Now that he’d told her exactly what he was about to do, he thought twice about giving her a chance to reject him.
“It’s still me… just all of me,” Nick informed her with renewed determination. Throwing away what little self-control he had left, he lowered his arms until she was once again straddling him and started back for her neck only to stop short because she still had a tight hold on his hair.
“You’re serious aren’t you,” Gypsy asked then lost her hold on his hair when Nick surged forward with a kiss that rivaled the last one. He completely overwhelmed her with fierce need that only reignited her own.
She tightened her legs around him and rubbed herself against his hardness deciding she didn’t give a damn about consequences. She felt a breeze flow by her and opened her eyes to see the streaming glow of the crystals moving past her as he took her out of the shop and down the stairs.
Nick had the forethought to pause just inside the bomb shelter and kick the heavy door closed with his foot. Leaning against it, he quickly locked the world out then headed toward the beaded wall of the back room. His jacket landed in the floor with a heavy metallic thump before he even made it out of the living area.
As soon as her bed came into view, Nick felt a different kind of self-control hit him. Last time he’d slept in her bed he had been alone… this time would be much more interesting.
Gypsy didn’t fight Nick when he lifted her off of him and stood her on her own two feet in front of the bed. However, her eyes did widen seeing several different weapons strapped to various parts of his body. She’d thought by the sound of the thump his trench coat had made in the living room that he’d shed about fifty pounds of arsenal. She watched completely fascinated as one by one, weapons of all kinds started hitting the floor.
Their gazes locked and she could see the raw hunger in the darkening of his eyes that were now captured between his true blue color and the startling color of his alter ego. When he was down to only his black jeans she reached out wanting to touch the hard sleek muscles that were able to carry all of that around every day like it was nothing.
Nick grabbed her by the wrist and quickly turned her around, caging that dangerous little hand against her ribs as he backed her up against him. When she turned her head to look up at him, he captured her lips in a quick kiss before sliding his other hand under the elastic waistband of the floor length skirt she was wearing. Within seconds, it was in a pool around her ankles.
He glanced to his right at the full sized mirror and turned them toward it, cupping her chin so he could get her attention focused on their reflection. He let his heated gaze caress the white sheer shirt she was wearing. The transparent material reached mid-thigh but allowed him to clearly see that the sparkling black panties she had on underneath it matched the black glittering bra that was outlined by her gypsy style vest perfectly.
He had to admit that he had always loved the renaissance era but seeing her seductive body like this was going to quickly make it a fetish for him.
Letting her watch him, he kept a secure hold on that one wrist and reached down with his other hand until he could dip up in under the sheer material. Placing his palm against her inner thigh, he slowly caressed his way back up letting the long shirt ride up with his arm.
Gypsy pressed her head back against his chest and slowly inhaled wanting his hot palm to reach its goal. When he stopped just short of his destination she glanced back at the mirror and locked gazes with him just as he turned his hand and cupped her hard between her legs. Her knees almost buckled when he gripped her then ran the tip of his middle finger down the slit of her nether lips.
Nick watched more color bloom in her cheeks and those swollen red lips part as she gasped. No longer interested in his mirrored voyeurism, he swung her around to face him and latched on to those lips. Gripping her hair at the nape of her neck like she’d done him, Nick tilted her head up so he could devour her with more aggression. He’d never wanted anything this bad in his life.
Restraining the impulse to rip her panties clear off of her, Nick pushed the thin material to the side sliding his hand up under them, this time running his middle finger deeper within the slickness of her nether lips and across the swollen bundle of nerves where he paused to massage it mercilessly with added pressure.
Shuddering at the sensation, Gypsy cried out against his lips trying to strain away from the torture of his fingers and get closer to it at the same time. She rocked against him in twisting pleasure while nimbly unfastening her vest with her free hand.
Deciding that wasn’t enough undoing she slid her palm down his rippling abs until she could caress the length of his hardness through his pants. Curling her fingers around the shape and size of him, Gypsy felt a nervous flinch crawl through her only to collide with desperate longing. She quickly attacked the button of his pants getting it undone on her first try.
When she lowered his zipper releasing the tightness that had been restraining him, Nick jerked his lips from hers, ending the kiss with a pained sound before locking their gazes together. Abandoning the wetness between her thighs, he gripped the bottom of her shirt and in one smooth movement pulled it up and off of her.
He watched with half lidded eyes as her long dark hair cascaded back down around her shoulders framing the glittering black bra she was wearing. Dipping forward, he slid his teeth across the thin material directly over one of her nipples before kissing it much the same way he had her mouth. His growl was the sound of pure seduction when the bra came away from her exposing the huge mounds of creamy flesh to his hungry gaze.
The feel of Nick’s lips closing around her cloth covered nipple was nothing compared to feeling the hot wetness of him sucking one of them into his mouth. Gypsy moaned feeling like she was going under and franticly decided that she wasn't stopping at her bra. She pushed her panties down her thighs using her legs to rid herself of them while her curious hands went right back to the open fly of his jeans.
Nick growled low in his throat almost falling prey to her seduction. Releasing his hold on her breast, he inhaled deeply and rose to his full height in front of her. Reaching down, he snagged both of her wrists and pulled them safely out of reach of his throbbing erection. Before he could regain his dominance over her, Nick caught sight of her completely bare body and his world narrowed.
Hearing the hissing sound he made as his gaze traveled down her body, Gypsy gave into the wicked impulse and leaned back to give him a better view using his hold on her wrist as leverage. She was quickly rewarded when he jerked her forward and wrapped one arm around the small of her back to lift her flush against him.
Gypsy slowly raised her gaze to find him staring down at her with a hooded expression and felt the sudden fear that look caused collide with the heat that he had been building within her. She gripped his shoulder and raised her legs to wrap them back around him only to push downward when he lifted her up higher than her planned destination.
Nick nipped at her neck making her flinch and push back from him so she could stare down into his face again. He could tell by her startled expression that his eyes had returned to their luminous jaguar state but he decided she’d just have to get used to both sides of him if she was going to tempt his passion to such an extreme level.
Bringing his arm under her so that he could keep her at the height he had put her, Nick glanced down between them before slashing his lips across hers. He needed her good and distracted while he removed his jeans because if she touched him right now he would impale her where he stood. He felt himself throb painfully when she gripped him with her legs and started rocking against his stomach causing the head of him to fleetingly caress her bottom.
His instinct demanded that he completely dominate her for their first mating but for a human female, she was giving it her best shot at dominating him instead. One day he might let her win but today was not that day. Intensifying the kiss, Nick tightened his hold on her while he crawled up and on to the bed.
He stilled keeping her several inches off the mattress so he could enjoy the erotic rhythm she had started. Focusing, he pushed her down into the softness to cage her under him with his arms.
Gypsy gazed up at him as his dark hair fell forward to create a curtain around her that blocked out the rest of the world and made him seem bigger than life. This was so much better than her fantasies had ever thought about being. He was hot as hell and if he thought biting her was the only way to keep her, then she’d let him bite her as many times as he needed.
With him on his hands and knees and her legs still latched around him, Gypsy had a daring thought. Sucking in a shaky breath, she used that hold to move down his body, stopping only when she felt the thick heaviness of him straining against her aching core.
In one fluid motion, she pushed her head back against the mattress and flexed her hips, arcing in a downward motion and made her own erotic hissing sound when the huge head of him pressed inside her… stretching her tightly.
“Make me yours,” she demanded in a husky whisper.
Nick lost his breath and knew damn well he didn’t have that kind of willpower. There were so many things he wanted to do to her body but right now there was only one thing screaming at him to do.
Giving in to another quick savage kiss, he tore away from her lips. The moment their eyes locked, Nick thrust forward, burying himself deep inside her tightness. He shuddered as he felt her muscles squeezing him from the inside, daring him to fight his way even deeper. He rocked hard against her, taking her up on her dare.
Gypsy raked her fingernails down Nick’s shoulders and chest with the first impact. With the pain and pleasure riding her, her lips parted and she forgot to breathe. They both held still for a moment, and then he rocked and strained deeper causing her to suck in much-needed air. Not taking her eyes from his, she flexed her hips trying to follow him as he pulled out only for him to slam back into her even deeper.
“You are mine,” Nick whispered back, somehow making it sound more like a threat in its intensity as he caught a dangerous rhythm that threatened to pull them under.
He watched her with a predatory gaze as she tossed her head back into the mattress and arched against him. He was the one dominating her now. She was the definition of seductive beauty as she turned her head up at an angle and cried out his name before rising back up to look at him with passion hazed eyes. He could feel her pulling at him as he withdrew and had to tighten his control to keep from falling victim to it.
This time he pushed his way back inside so slowly, it made his arms shake where he was holding his weight above her. With a pained groan, he began to push and pull in a slow pounding rhythm that was nearly killing them both.
He felt hot moisture surround him when she tensed up and cried out, again leaving red welts on his skin with her fingernails. He jerked deeper within her when she turned her head and placed her teeth just above his wrist. Instead of breaking the skin, she sucked at it and moaned against his flesh se nding chills racing up his arm.
Nick’s gaze focused directly on her exposed neck and he couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried. Darting forward, he latched onto the perfect place for the whole world to see his mating mark. He didn’t want anyone questioning that it was there. The second he broke the skin, she bit down just as hard as he had. The shock of what she’d just done snapped his control making Nick pound into her with a furious tempo that caused both of them to release their bite in an effort to hold on.
He gritted his teeth, refusing to give in to the overwhelming sensation of it all and fill her with his seed. Desperately reaching for her shoulders, he rose on the mattress, pulling her up with him until she was nestled in his lap with him still deep inside of her.
Gypsy gasped for air before lowering her head until she could reach his lips. She nipped at his bottom lip mimicking what they had just done to each other. She had felt the sharp pain of his bite but the exploding pleasure in other places was what had nearly rendered her senseless. Her fantasies had truly underestimated his passion and she had to admit that marking her as his mate only turned her on that much more.
Nick wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her up. Then, using his hips to thrust upwards, he brought her back down. He hissed feeling her flex hard around him as she took every single pulsating inch up inside her heat.
Gypsy arched away from him feeling him go even deeper than he had before. She moaned, rolling her hips back and forth until he lifted her again then impaled her onto him. She marveled at his strength as he did it again and again like an addiction neither of them could get enough of.
Nick watched her swollen lips part and leaned forward capturing them in a fiery kiss as he lifted her then let her impale herself. He moaned into the kiss as her hardened nipples caressed his chest before she pressed the soft rounded flesh tightly against him and ground herself downward in an arc.
Completely fascinated, he let go of her waist, giving her the freedom to ride him as he let his hands caress their way up in under her long hair and around her back. The room filled with their sounds of passion as they reached a place only intense lovers knew existed.
Nick slid his hand up her shoulder to move her silky hair away from his mark and noticed the mart just above his wrist. Feeling himself deep inside of her and seeing the bold mating marks they had both made was the highest he’d ever been in his life and he did not want to come down.
Her rocking became more intense as she rode him, grinding down against him at the same time. He thrust himself upwards and held her there as she clenched around him, sucking at him and killing his control. Grabbing both of her wrists, he pushed her back down on the mattress and sped up his motions, taking her breath away. He thrust in and out faster, harder, only to slow down then slam back into her.
Gypsy cried out no longer able to keep up with him and so far gone that she was getting lightheaded. She wrapped her legs tighter around his waist and clutched at his shoulders as she came again. The sound that followed was more like a whimper as she shuddered against him.
Nick felt total satisfaction knowing she’d reached her limit. With a growl growing louder in his chest he strained forward, feeling himself pulsate deep inside her as he buried his face into the arc of her neck and held himself rigid until he was completely spent.
Gypsy nuzzled her cheek against his hair as she fought to keep her eyes open. Snuggling into the heat of his bare skin she whispered sleepily, “I love you.”
Nick closed his eyes savoring those heartfelt words then pressed his lips to the shell of her ear. “That’s a good thing because I will never give you back now. I’m in love with you Gypsy and have been for a while.”
“Then what took you so long?” She asked then giggled when he growled in her ear then rolled to his side taking her with him.
“I had to wait on you to grow up or your grandfather would have killed me.” He smirked knowing it wasn't exactly a lie.
