chapter 17

Tali's POV

Brushing my hair aside from the back of my neck, I feel his lips glance over the sensitive line of my throat, and then the firm flick of his tongue against my mate's bite has me gasping with pleasure.

I had no idea how sensitive a mate bite would be since no one ever told me. Not that I expected Uncle to tell me a thing.

"You're mine," he growls against my neck. "Mine."

He moves now, lifting his body, which is lying flush against mine.

Thinking he's letting me up, I rise onto my hands and knees. But I don't get any further than that.

One of Dayne's hands slides around my front, up between the valleys of my breasts, while the other squeezes my hip. Just once, but hard enough for me to know it's nothing less than a warning.

Immediately, I stopped moving.

The hand on my hip shifts under my shirt and glides along the bare skin on my stomach before pausing on my lower belly. Just above my sweatpants.

Sucking in a breath, I make a soft sound when it's clear in which direction he intends to move his hand next.

"Did you think you could escape me?" he murmurs in an oh-so-soft voice that makes me shiver when his lips brush against the shell of my ear. "Did you think I'd let you go?"

There is no response to a question like that, so I do the wise thing and keep my mouth shut as Dayne slips his fingers under the waistband of my sweatpants and angles his fingers down.

My entire body tenses in anticipation as the very tip of his fingers trail a searing path along my lower belly, and drifts lower.

And as the rain continues to pummel down on us through the gaps in the trees high above us, I force back my moan when Dayne's finger brushes intimately against me, teasing the entrance of my sex.

"Answer me," he growls.

Answer? Does he think I can speak? Now?

"Uh," I choke out, about the only sound I can make.

Swallowing hard, I open my mouth to try again. Which is when Dayne presses the blunt head of his finger inside me.

There's no holding back my moan now as I force myself to hold still.

Although he's wearing jeans, and I'm in sweatpants, there still isn't enough material between us for me not to feel his erection nestled in the crease of my ass.

Squeezing my eyes shut as my head hangs down, all I can do is fight for breath, panting, as he works the thick length of his finger in and out of me, going deeper each time, echoing what he did with his cock at our mating hours before.

"Talis," he snarls my name in warning.

Presumably, he still wants me to answer him, but it's wasted on me. I've lost the ability to think, to speak, to do anything but feel as he reawakens a need deep inside me.

This, this was what it felt like, him moving inside me after the initial sharp pain of our first joining. But then he stopped, and the pressure eased, and he left me incomplete, throbbing with unfulfilled, agonizing need.

But now, with the pressure building between my legs as he works another finger inside me, I move with him, rubbing myself with increasing desperation against his hardness pressed tight against my ass, widening my stance so he keeps driving his fingers deeper inside me. Hoping. Praying he never stops.

"Please…" I whimper, the heat building inside me, tossing my head as I hover on the edge of some great explosion, I'm desperate to throw myself over.

It's going to be so good, I tell myself as a warm fullness spreads, my stomach muscles tighten, and I grow wetter when Dayne growls deep in his throat.

The muskiness in the air is me, my arousal, a scent that continues to intensify.

I'm close. So close.

And just as my breathing changes, just as the muscles of my sex ripples and clench, is when he yanks his finger free and tears himself away from me, making me cry out in frustration.

For the second time in forty-eight hours, my knees can't hold me up as Dayne leaves me a quivering crumpled mess on the ground.

I lay there shaking, struggling to force breath back into my lungs, so painfully close to climaxing that if Dayne wasn't there, I would finish it myself.

"There's nowhere you can go where I won't find you. No way you can escape me." Dayne's voice leaves me cold, stealing away the heat of his body and his touch.

He's more wolf than man, and not only does it sound like he's a wolf on the edge of violence, I'm his closest target.

I still go. It's a battle to slow my breathing, to force my body back under control, but bit by bit I claw myself closer to normality.

"Do you hear me, Talis?"

The scent of my arousal still surrounds me, a rich fragrance in the air.

How can my body still be crying out for him, even now?

"Talis!" he snaps, which finally gives me the strength I need to flip myself over onto my ass so I can see him, in case he decides to attack.

"Yes… yes, I understand," I reply, the words spilling from my lips. He stares down at me, his eyes silvered in the night.

For a second, my gaze drifted down, caught by the bulge in his pants. And seeing it, remembering how good it felt to have him inside me, how full… the scent of my arousal sharpens, crystallizes.

His low growl has my eyes flying back up to meet him.

When I see his face gone harsh with raw emotion, fear replaces my body's desperate need for sex, and I scramble backward, crablike, and keep going until my back hits a tree.

All the while Dayne marks my retreat with his wolf silver eyes, lips compressed into a merciless line, and his hands forming tight fists by his side.

"You're mine now," he growls, "and I never give up what's mine."