The Mating Game by Lana Ferguson - 29

I can tell my heat is waning on the second day. My head feels clearer, my need less demanding. I can’t say why that disappoints me. The reality is I am a mess of sweat and slick and God knows what else, and I should be grateful for the reprieve, I really should. So why aren’t I?

I snuggle into Hunter just a little closer as he sleeps, peering up at his relaxed expression as I revel in the warmth of his arm draped across my hip. It’s been an intense forty-eight hours; I can honestly say that nothing about this experience has been something I would ever have expected—but as overwhelming as it’s been, I’ve actually really…liked it. I’ve never felt as protected or as cared for as I have during this heat, and I know it’s entirely because of Hunter.

It still makes me shiver when I remember some of the things he said to me, things like how he owned me, how I belonged to him. Rationally, I know it was nothing more than his instincts and a whole lot of hormones that most likely made him say those things, but I can’t pretend I didn’t like hearing it. What’s more, I loved hearing it. And maybe that’s just instincts and hormones too, but I still feel it.

I’ve spent most of my adult life making sure that everyone around me was always taken care of—it’s just in my nature. So being like this, having someone take care of me for a change, is…nice, to say the least. It’s something I’m afraid to let myself get used to, because who knows how long I’ll have it?

I close my eyes as I nuzzle into his throat, inhaling his calming scent and letting it wash over me, soothing my anxieties about what he might or might not have meant to say in the heat of the moment. For a little while longer, at least, I can simply enjoy the way he feels against me. He stirs when I press my hand to his chest, running my fingers through the dark hair there.

“What time is it?” he asks groggily.

I tilt my head back to meet his sleepy gaze. “Almost lunchtime,” I tell him. “I checked my phone when I woke up.”

“Have you heard from your brothers?”

He winces when he says it, and I know he’s thinking about the moment when this little bubble of ours has to burst. When we’re forced to return to the real world. Is he also agonizing over what that might mean for us?

“They texted me last night to say they’re okay,” I tell him. “They’ve got power where they are—they’re staying in a hotel right now—and they said as soon as the roads are deemed clear enough to travel, they’re going to head back this way.” I run my fingers through his chest hair again, enjoying the soft sound of contentment it draws out of him. “Probably tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” he echoes, sounding not so thrilled. “Right.”

I kiss the corner of his mouth, grinning against his scruff. “Plenty of time for you to take care of me again.”

“Oh yeah?” He chuckles softly, turning his head so he can breathe in deep from my hair. “Your scent is waning,” he tells me, sounding displeased. “Your heat might break before the day is out.”

Disappointment floods me, and I know it’s only because I’m not sure what comes after this. I want to ask him, to talk to him about what all this might mean, but I can’t bring myself to. I’m too worried about what he would say, worried that it wouldn’t be what I want to hear.

“I still need you,” I tell him quietly, not feeling that demanding urge to have him but wanting him all the same.

He makes a low sound deep in his chest as he pulls me tighter against him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And as he rolls me onto my back, covering me with his larger-than-life body, I can’t help but hope he means that.

After more than three days without power, the afternoon brings more small projects and more makeshift sponge baths that have me starting to really miss the shower upstairs. I mean, yes, having Hunter’s help has been a major point in the whole roughing-it scene, but still. A girl needs hot running water.

Not that he seems to mind in the slightest.

I’ve been lounging at the dining room table while he rehangs the curtains we took outside to beat the dust out of an hour ago, admittedly enjoying the way he tends to roll up his sleeves when he works regardless of the temperature. (I think that could be its own genre of porn, just saying.) My body is still sore and drained from everything we’ve done, and Hunter insisted on letting me rest for a while, as much as I protested.

“So Nate will be here tomorrow,” I point out, making conversation. “Are you nervous?”

“Well, the future of the lodge is sort of hinging on this one guy and him not finding the place ‘dingy’ when he first sees it”—he looks back at me over his shoulder, but there’s a teasing smile at his mouth—“so why would I be nervous?”

“It’s going to be fine,” I assure him. “This place looks like a whole new lodge even after a few weeks. Imagine what it will look like when we finish everything after the interview is over.”

“What sort of things is he going to ask me, you think?”

“It’s a short piece,” I promise. “Just a little bit about you and the lodge and prime times to visit. Nothing major.”

He nods his head as he breathes deep in relief. “I can handle that.”

“Don’t worry,” I soothe. “He’s going to love this place. You don’t see rustic little places like this where I’m from. It’s practically alien.”

He leans back to fiddle with the curtains, opening them slightly until he’s content with their placement on the rod. “Jeannie is going to be so smug about this.”

“I really hope I’m around for that conversation.”

Hunter makes an indignant sound. “I’ll bet.” He steps down from the stepladder to assess his work. “Does that look straight?”

“Well, considering you obsessed over that level for at least fifteen minutes…”

He shoots me a disgruntled look as he steps around the table to my side, still looking at the curtains. “I just want to make sure it looks right.”

“You are nervous.” I turn toward him on the bench, leaning on one elbow to prop my cheek against my fist. “That’s so cute.”

He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Cute?”

“Even big, scary lumberjacks can be cute,” I tell him seriously.

“I can definitively say you’re the only person on the planet who has ever called me ‘cute,’ ” he snorts.

“Really? Not even during your streaking days? I bet someone thought you were very cute when you went out there butt na—”

It takes him no time at all to cross the minimal distance to tower over me, his hands coming to rest on either side of my body as they brace against the table behind me and effectively trap me below him where I sit. He leans down to press his lips firmly to mine, and my lashes flutter.

I’m a little short of breath when he pulls away, his mouth only inches from mine. “Did you just shut me up by kissing me?”

“It worked,” he murmurs.

“That’s not very nice of you, Mr. Barrett.”

He makes some sound in his chest, one that makes me press my legs together. “I really don’t think that should do what it does to me.”

“Oh?” My hands come to rest on either side of his denim-clad hips, my fingers hooking in the loops as I pull him a little closer. “So does that mean you want me to stop, Mr. Barrett?”

“Tess,” he groans.

I let my hand wander until I can palm him through the now-straining zipper, feeling exactly what my teasing is doing to him. I know my scent is still thicker than normal; I know that because he told me in a sort of a groan only an hour ago while we were eating lunch. “Because it kind of seems like you don’t want me to stop.”

His lips brush along my cheek, his mouth parted and slack—his breath catching when I pop open the button at his fly. His head lowers to watch as I drag his zipper down slowly, his cock already pressing insistently against the cotton of his boxer briefs as if he really doesn’t want me to stop.

“Tess,” he says again, his voice sort of choked this time. “You must be tired. You don’t have to—”

I don’t hear the rest of his protest, and honestly, I’d be willing to bet he forgets what he was going to say altogether when I tug down the elastic of his underwear to free him. Despite his imperviousness to the chill in the room that comes from lack of power, I can say definitively that I have no such resistance to it. Maybe it’s something that will come the more I settle into my new omega designation. I know my hands have to be cold when they circle him. Maybe that’s why he hisses through his teeth as my fingers curl around the hot, hard length of him—or maybe it’s simply that I’m touching him. I like that thought better.

I’m not going to pretend I’ve ever particularly enjoyed oral. I mean, I was getting nothing from it in the past except a sore jaw well before I was acquainted with the enormity that is Hunter Barrett—but something about the way his breath seems to come unsteadily now, the way his fingers find their way to fist gently in my hair in an almost unconscious way…I find myself enjoying the effects of what I’m doing to him very much.

I know before I even start that actually fitting all of him in my mouth is going to be impossible, but I’m going for sexy here. Even in my limited experience with this, I doubt gagging will be a particularly attractive move. Last time was so rushed, so frantic—I didn’t have time to properly enjoy everything I was doing to him. Now I let my fist slide down the velvety firmness of his cock, leaning in to press the flat of my tongue just under the head before I close my lips around it to suck.

“ Fuck ,” he grunts.

If I turn up my eyes, I can see the way he’s watching me; there’s something wild in his expression that only spurs me on. I hold his gaze when I take as much as I’m able to, letting him push deeper into my mouth, keeping a tight pressure with my lips so that I can feel every inch of him as he moves over my tongue.

I doubt I can even get half of him in my mouth , I think distantly.

His hips jerk when I suck softly, making a wet sound that feels a little obscene. I tease the end with the tip of my tongue before swirling it all around the thick head, and the groan that tumbles out of his mouth when I dip it into the slit seems almost pained. His taste makes me dizzy, stirring up the ghost of that same need I felt when I was fully in my heat, making this just as enjoyable for me as it is for him, I think.

“Tess. Tess .”

I push my lips down the length of him slowly, looking up at him as innocently as I can manage while my mouth is so full. “Hmm?”

“I’m going to come,” he warns me, sounding completely regretful. “I’m going to come in your mouth if you keep doing that.”

I pull off him with another exaggerated sound, only because it seems to really rile him up. “You can,” I tell him. “If you want to.”

I’m lifted off the bench so fast I don’t even know what’s happening at first. Suddenly his hands are under my arms and he’s tugging me upward to bring me right off my seat, plopping me down on the table as his mouth slants across mine roughly. His tongue slips inside to pet at mine as his hand tugs my hair a little less gently to angle me into the kiss, and all I can do is wind my arms around his neck to hold on.

“That’s not where I want to come,” he breathes against my mouth between kisses.

I’m surprised I can even make words, my voice sounding hardly like my own with the way it rasps out of me. “What’s the alternative, Mr. Barrett?”

“Hmm.” He gives me another slow kiss that has me leaning into it. “Aren’t you cold?”

I don’t tell him that my sweater and my fleece-lined leggings feel a little sweltering now, shaking my head instead. “Getting warmer by the second.”

“Really?” For a moment, I’m actually put out by the way his fingers untangle themselves from my hair—until he reaches for the waistband of my leggings. “Then lift up.”

I drop my hands to brace myself against the tabletop, lifting my hips to let him start peeling my leggings along my thighs and down my legs, with my underwear in tow. They slide over my wool socks to flutter to the floor and leave me in nothing else from the waist down, and I briefly wonder if I look ridiculous, half-naked in socks on a dining room table.

Not that Hunter seems to mind. He shoves the bench seat under the table with one swift movement of his foot, and then he’s kissing me again, stepping between my legs and stealing my breath with both his tongue and the sudden sensation of his very warm, very hard length slotting at my core. He tilts his hips to let himself slide through my wet folds as if to coat himself in them, bumping my clit so that I shiver against him.

“You are”—he looks down to watch as he gives another slow, deliberate slide—“very hot here, at least.”

I shift a little, struggling to hold on to coherent thought. “How sturdy is this table?”

“I don’t know,” Hunter tells me, his lips finding mine to curl lazily as he draws back to nudge at my entrance. “Guess we’ll find out.”

“ Oh .”

I’ve lost track of how many times we’ve done this over the last few days, but even still, it takes me by surprise just how much of him there is. The way I’m sitting makes it easy for him to glide deep inside—my body welcoming him as he fills me up wholly. It’s not as all-consuming as it was when I was fully in heat, but even still, the feel of him has my skin prickling with warmth and my insides twisting with want. Heat or no, I think that’s just the effect he seems to have on me.

My nails dig into his shoulders when his hips meet mine, a rush of air escaping me, which he quickly swallows down as his mouth finds mine again.

“Fucking perfect,” he mutters against my mouth. “How are you so perfect?”

“I’m not really that per— Ah .”

His hips draw away to give me that slow, delicious friction as he pulls out, my eyes rolling back a bit as my belly tenses, flooding with warmth.

“Trust me,” he sighs, easing inside again as I gasp with it. “You are.”

He doesn’t hesitate to do it all over again, forming a steady rhythm, in and out, that has me clinging to him tighter. He isn’t looking at me—his gaze is fixed on the place where we’re connected, watching himself push into me. My eyes drift closed as I lean in to press my lips to his throat, mouthing there softly as I push my fingers into his hair.

“ Hunter ,” I breathe. “Right there.”

He pulls out just to drive back inside, hitting the place that makes me lose my breath. “There?”

“ Yes .”

I feel one large hand at my shoulder, a finger hooking into my neckline to pull my sweater away, and then there’s the hot wet of his tongue and his teeth as he sucks at a place near my collarbone, which damn near makes me forget my own name. I pull him tighter, which seems impossible given how little room there is between us as it is, and through it all Hunter never stops the way he rocks into me, moving a little faster with each thrust as his stuttered breath washes against my shoulder.

“Hunter,” I huff at his neck. “Can you—? I just need—”

As if he can read my mind, I feel his other hand snaking between us, pressing against my clit, rolling the sensitive bundle under his fingertips as pleasure sparks between my legs and my thighs tremble.

“I love the sounds you make when you come,” he rasps into my shoulder. He bites gently before he licks it, and I shudder as I remember what he said about my mating gland. “Can you come for me?”

“Keep— Yes. Right there. Don’t—Please. Please don’t— Fuck, Hunter .”

He grunts when I come apart, my entire body shaking against his as I moan through my orgasm. It seems to go on forever with the way he continues to drive into me, chasing after his own release and prolonging that humming current that seems to be coursing through every inch of my skin. He’s loud and rough when he finishes, groaning nonsense that I can’t fully catch. Words like fuck and perfect and so good are the only pieces my brain can pick up on.

I feel his knot swell, pressing against my inner walls, leaving behind that delicious feeling of fullness, and I think there’s a good chance I might be a little addicted to the sensation. Will anything after this ever compare to him? Why does the thought of doing this with anyone else leave me irritated and a bit sad? I have to push the thoughts away, not wanting them to sour my mood.

His chest heaves against me as he holds me close afterward, his lips trailing along my jaw before they find mine. “I have no idea how we’ve gotten any work done this weekend.”

“It’s fine,” I assure him. “I remember back in my high school health class they said you’re supposed to share your body heat to avoid hypothermia in extreme temperatures.”

Hunter smiles against my mouth. “I don’t think this is what they meant.”

“Whatever. Same difference.”

I’m fully aware of how close he is—how full of him I still am—but none of this seems to faze Hunter. His face is hardly inches away from mine when his hands come up between us in that same adorable little would-be camera gesture as he makes a clicking sound with his mouth.

I bite softly at my lower lip. “Another moment you want to remember?”

He smiles as he kisses me again, and just when I think we might be here for a good while, there’s a click above us, causing us both to turn up our faces as a sudden blast of slightly warm air begins to pour from the vent overhead. Hunter’s surprised expression matches mine when his eyes find my face, and my lips tilt at the corners as I wind my arms around his neck once more.

“I guess they fixed the line,” he comments.

“Oh my God, we can shower ,” I gush. I shift my hips, both of us wincing. “I definitely need one.”

“I keep making a mess of you,” he murmurs.

My smile widens as he closes the distance between us, brushing his lips against mine as he leans into the kiss. “I guess that means you should come clean me up then.”

“Are you asking me to shower with you?”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking.”

“Hmm.” He kisses me again, slower this time. “I can’t promise you’ll get clean.”

I grin against his mouth. “Sort of the whole point.”