Skins & Needles (COMPLETE)

Bite

Arsen

Charlotte stood before me in the dim room vibrating with desire. I'd only grazed her skin with my knuckles, but it was like lighting a match. Her beautifully parted lips trembled, and her fingers danced restlessly at her sides. Instead of reaching for me, Charlotte took a step back, climbing onto the bed and waiting on her knees.

"Come here," she said softly, and not heaven or hell or the war with the sorcerers or anything else in the goddamn worlds could have kept me from listening. I moved toward her until her hand on my chest stopped me.

Charlotte's fingers drifted down my abdomen, tickling over my stomach and waistband and causing me to suck in a breath. She was testing my control as both a man and a shifter whose soulmate sat before him, waiting to be marked. But I didn't pounce. Not yet. I was far too curious about what she planned to do with her devilish artist's fingers.

She drew a line across the skin beneath my shirt hem, then slid her pointer down the front of my pants. My erection was straining against the fabric by the time she reached it, and she traced the shape with a look of hypnotized lust. When she lifted her hazel eyes to meet mine, they were blazing with hunger.

"Take them off," she said, her voice thick with need, and I shed my shirt and pants in a rush. I planned to take my time with her, but already my teeth ached as my canines threatened to extend. I still tried to hold back when I joined her atop the mattress.

Charlotte's hands eased over my shoulders, making me realize how taut they were. Her touch wasn't helping me restrain myself, but it did chase away the tension. When she smoothed her palms down my biceps, I found myself catching one of her wrists.

"Charlotte," I said, the word barely more than a growl, and she shivered. "Your dress."

"Yes," she breathed, but when she reached for her skirt, my hands were already there. She gasped as I yanked it up around her hips, then shakily lifted her arms above her head. It was off in an instant, and then we were bare, alone, face to face in the dark. Silence and stillness hung between us by a thread, and the very air felt as fragile as glass.

All at once, it snapped, shattered, and we were crashing together with the force of a hurricane. Charlotte's hands plunged into my hair, and I gripped her hips and tugged her into my lap. My back hit the headboard as we kissed hotly, the overwhelming feeling of coming home multiplied tenfold now that Char was a shifter too, and Charlotte's knees dug into the comforter. When she shyly settled over me, positioning herself so that my cock rested between her folds, she let out the sweetest moan.

"Are you ready, Charlotte?" I asked, thrusting my hips to slide against her. She moaned again, and I squeezed her thighs as the sound made my blood surge. "Are you ready for me to make you mine?"

"Yes, Arsen," she breathed. "Oh, God, I'm ready."

"This can never be undone," I reminded her, a fleeting final thought that I should warn her flashing through my brain. "You'll be mine and only mine for life."

She held my face in her hands and took my eyes captive when she answered.

"I'm already yours," she told me unflinchingly, echoing the words I'd said to her the first time we were together. "I want this. I want you."

"My perfect mate," I murmured, and then my hands were on her waist guiding her over me. "Ride me, Charlotte. Ride me while I mark you."

She sank onto me with a whimper of ecstasy, and I groaned against her skin. The feeling of being connected with her like this— both of us shifters with a powerful mate bond, together at last— had me feeling high, and Charlotte was a drug I never wanted to quit. She took me completely, stretching around my dick until her ass touched my legs, and let out an unrestrained cry when I bottomed out in her.