“You’re already developing a goose egg, but you didn’t break the skin, at least, and your skull seems intact,” Wyatt said solemnly as he set her on the bathroom counter.
“But it felt damp,” she protested, lifting her head and opening her eyes with surprise.
“Water,” he explained with a crooked smile.
“Oh,” Elspeth grimaced. Sighing, she shifted her attention to Wyatt and then froze when she saw where his gaze had gone. His eyes were roving hungrily over her body, and she could almost feel his gaze like a touch as it burned its way over her breasts, and then down her stomach and between her legs.
“Wyatt?” she said gently, surprised at how breathless her voice was. She was panting, Elspeth realized with amazement. The man hadn’t even touched her and she was panting like an overheated dog . . . or a horny one, she thought, recalling Alex’s description.
“I’m sorry,” Wyatt growled, and turned away to quickly search the room. He spotted the bath towel over the towel rack, grabbed it, and turned back to offer it to her.
Elspeth automatically reached for it, but froze when their hands touched. For a minute, they just remained like that, both silent and still as shockwaves rolled through them from where they touched, and then Wyatt cleared his throat. His voice a husky rasp of sound, he said, “I know you’re not ready for a life mate, and I—”
That was as far as he got before Elspeth finished taking the towel from him, let it drop to the floor, and reached for him instead.
“Oh thank God,” he growled and bent his head to kiss her.
Kapow didn’t describe the passion that suddenly exploded inside Elspeth as his mouth covered hers. Shocked at the extent of the response her body had to such a simple caress, Elspeth slid her arms around his shoulders and held on in a dazed way as his tongue slid along the seam of her lips. When she opened her mouth and his tongue slid in to explore, she groaned in welcome and instinctively wiggled forward on the countertop, trying to get closer.
The moment she did that, Wyatt’s hands dropped to her thighs, urging them apart. Elspeth obeyed the silent demand, and spread her legs for him. He immediately stepped between them, moving as close as he could.
Elspeth gasped, and jerked back a bit, though, when her naked breasts brushed across the cold metal of the guns in his double chest holster.
“Sorry,” he muttered, and pulled back enough to unsnap and remove the gear.
Elspeth let her hands glide over his T-shirt–covered chest as he set the gun holster in the sink next to her. When he then turned his attention to the holster at his hip, she let her hands drop to grab the material of his T-shirt just above his belt and began to tug it upward. Dragging the cloth out of his jeans, she pushed it up until she could run her hands over the skin she’d bared.
Now it was Wyatt’s turn to groan as her fingers skimmed lightly over the rippling muscles of his stomach and up to explore and caress his pecs. The man had some muscle on him, Elspeth noted with appreciation as she squeezed and caressed him, and then she moaned in protest when he broke their kiss.
“Be careful not to accidentally turn on the taps,” he warned, his voice a sexy growl as he set the hip holster with its gun in the sink as well. He then began to remove his T-shirt. Elspeth helped eagerly, taking over tugging it up over his head. She then let it drop to the floor and covered his hands with an encouraging moan as they suddenly closed over her breasts.
“God, I thought surely it couldn’t have been as good as I remembered,” he growled, watching her face as he caressed her breasts and rolled her nipples. “I thought I’d built it up in my head, or just gone briefly mad or something, but dear God, just touching you is . . .”
Rather than finish, he bent to kiss her again. This time the kiss didn’t start softly or as a sweet caress. It was a hungry, almost violent taking on both their parts, a violent battle of tongues as his body urged hers back until she was at a fifty-degree angle to the counter. Giving up her hold on his hands, Elspeth clutched at his shoulders to keep from falling, and then he broke the kiss again, this time to lower his mouth and claim one breast.
“Oh God,” Elspeth gasped, her hips jumping and then sliding forward on the counter until his body stopped her. They both groaned then as their groins met, pressing against each other through his jeans, and then Elspeth wrapped her legs around his hips and used her hold to urge him tighter still. He began to grind against her as he suckled at her breast.
It wasn’t long before they both wanted more, though. At least, Elspeth wanted more, and reached for his face with one hand, trying to urge him back up for a kiss. Wyatt responded to the silent request, but not before nipping at the nipple he’d been laving. He let it slip from his mouth then, and raised his head to kiss her again. The moment he did, Elspeth reached for his belt buckle and began feeling around blindly, trying to undo it, a difficult task when she couldn’t see it. Fortunately, Wyatt urged her hands away after a moment of fumbling and quickly undid the belt, and then the button and zipper of his jeans as well. He reached for the material on each side to push his jeans down, but jerked to a halt, even his mouth freezing midkiss as she reached into the open jeans, found him, and carefully pulled him out.
When Elspeth had him out and was finally able to close her hand around his hard erection, he gasped into her mouth, a sound she echoed as the excitement she’d caused in him reverberated through her own body.
Once that first shock had slid through her and begun to fade, Elspeth moved her hand, groaning along with him as his pleasure rang through her, making her wiggle on the countertop with excitement and need. She knew he was about to find his satisfaction, because she was too, when Wyatt suddenly caught her hand and jerked it away from him.
Panting heavily, he leaned his forehead against hers briefly to catch his breath. He then kissed her hard and quick, before dropping to his knees in front of her and burying his face between her legs. When he began to rasp his tongue across her soaking and sensitive skin, Elspeth cried out and grabbed for his head, trying to get him to stop, but it was too late. She was too excited. They both were, and she’d barely touched his head when she felt something press into her. Elspeth froze, her body arching so far back now she was sure it would snap, and then something did snap, something deep inside, a fine gossamer string that had been holding back her release. Without it, she screamed and began to thrash on the countertop, vaguely aware that Wyatt was doing the same between her legs as her release poured over him, pushing him into his own, and then she slid away into the unconsciousness new life mates experienced.
Eleven
Wyatt shifted sleepily, and grimaced as his body complained at the hard, cold bed he’d chosen to sleep on. He was getting too old for the rough living necessitated by being in the JTF2, he thought wearily, shifting again and barely restraining a moan when his hip began to throb.
“Elspeth! Wyatt!”
Frowning, he opened his eyes and peered with confusion around the smoky room . . . until his brain woke up enough to realize that the smoke in the air was a bad thing and that the room he was in was Elspeth’s bathroom. Cursing, Wyatt sat up abruptly, bumping his shoulder against something as he did. He looked to see what it was and paused, his eyes widening as he saw that it was Elspeth’s knee. She was still seated on the counter; her upper body slumped against the mirror.
“Wyatt! Elspeth!”
He turned his head and peered out into the bedroom to find the source of the shouting. He didn’t see anyone, but he did see flames filling the next room. Cursing, Wyatt lunged to his feet and moved to the door, doing up his pants as he went.
“Thank God!”
That cry drew his gaze to the door, where Sam and Alex were looking in from the hall. Their faces were riddled with anxiety as they peered at him across the burning room, he saw, coughing in reaction to the smoke he was inhaling now that he was off the floor.
“Where’s Elspeth?” Sam asked anxiously. “You have to get her out of here.”
“I’ve got it!” he assured them, an icy calm settling over him as it always did in a crisis. “You get the twins and my grandmother out, and make sure Martine is out of the basement apartment as well. Go!” he barked when they didn’t move at once. “Get everyone else. I’ll see to Elspeth.”