CHAPTER 40: WATERFALL IV: MATED?

Adam’s mouth reluctantly released my breast, found my pulse, where his tongue swirled erotically.

"I choose you as my mate." He said. His teeth scraped my soft, creamy flesh. Liquid heat bathed him invitingly.

"I claim you as my lifemate. I belong to you. I offer my life for you." His hands found my hips, cupped me in his palms. His body was a relentless, savage ache of burning hunger.

"I give you my protection, my allegiance, my heart, my soul, and my body. I take into my keeping the same that is yours. Your life, happiness, and welfare will be placed above my own for all time."

"Stop it, Adam," I whispered desperately, feeling every word, every breath weaving us so tightly together that I couldn’t tell where he left off and I began.

This was wrong even though it seemed right. I had no wolf, and I wouldn’t let myself become a burden to Adam. His father might oust him out of an inheritance because of me, and I didn’t want that for him. I didn’t want him to regret these moments if he should remember what he will lose.

"You are my mate, bound to me for all eternity and always in my care." His teeth sank deep; his body surged into mine. White-hot pain exploded over both of us, leaving shimmering flames leaping high and hot.

My cry was lost in my throat. I wrapped my arms around his head and cradled him. Welded together, body, mind, and heart, my life flowing into him, his body took command of mine.

He moved - a slow, careful test of my response to him. I was hot and tight, the friction threatening to engulf him in the frenzied, uninhibited sexual mating of a Lycan male. With effort he controlled himself, savoring the sweet, hot spice of my blood, the velvet fire gripping his body.

He moved gently, tenderly, a long, sure stroke designed to coax me, to calm him. My muscles clenched around him, and he surged forward, buried himself deep in my very core, his mouth drawing the essence of my life into his keeping.

The world narrowed, receded, until I was his breath, his heart, the blood flowing in his veins. There was no darkness, no shadows, only my body with its heat and flowing colors and leaping flames.

My soft little keening cries were muffled against him, yet they echoed in his mind. I could literally hear them. His body craved mine, more and more, harder and faster and deeper. He drove on and on, reaching for the stars, the universe, reaching for the meeting of our souls.

My blood fed his insatiable hunger, no taste ever better, so erotic and perfect that he indulged himself, giving himself up to lust and greed and wave after wave of unbearable pleasure.

My body gripped his, shuddered, clenched, and the earth itself seemed to roll and shake. Molten heat coiled around him like a volcano, and he was crying out, his seed spilling into me, his body going up in my flames.

Adam became aware of my blood trickling between my breasts. In the ecstasy of the moment, he had neglected to close the tiny pinprick he’d made. His tongue stroked gently, tracing the bright trail, and his body reacted as hard and as needy as ever. My hunger was in his mind, my desire wrapped in age-old need.

"Yes, my love," he whispered against my throat. "Need me the way I need you. Let me give you everything that I am. Take from me what only I can give you."

My mouth moved over his neck, his throat, and his body raged at him, swelled and hardened to fill me completely. His heart jumped as my lips caressed his chest. I was just doing as my heart led me to. I didn’t even know what I was doing.

My tongue swirled around his flat nipples, moved over his heart in little nibbling motions. Adam pulled back, waiting breathlessly, waiting while his body screamed at him to bury itself in me once again, to take me over and over.

"Just once, Maya, say you need me, too," he whispered.

I lifted her head, my eyes moving over his sensual face, meeting his blue eyes. I smiled a slow, sexy, very wicked smile. Then I dropped my head down to his chest, stroked the heavy muscles with my tongue. My teeth scraped once, twice, teasingly, then sank deep. How had my teeth done that?

Adam’s voice was hoarse in his mind, in the darkness of the room. The sensation was beyond his imaginings. His body plunged wildly into mine as I drank from him. His palm held my head to him, pressed me closer as his body took mine again and again. He could never get enough. I wondered if we knew what we were doing? What we had just done.

Colors whirled and danced, and the earth shook, and he soared higher and higher, taking me with him in body, mind, and soul. In that perfect moment I was his, my life connecting wholly with his.

Was this for eternity? Were we mates now? Two halves of the same whole, never to be apart again? His release was shattering, I with him every step of the way.

We erupted into the heavens and floated together to earth, Adam anchoring us safely.

My tongue closed the wound over his heart-I didn’t think of this until later, and we lay spent, our bodies locked together, so close that our minds and limbs were still rocking with the aftereffects. Little shocks sent shivers of pleasure through us, in us.

I laid very still, unable to grasp the wonder of what had happened.

I knew it might be forever. This connection. Even though I left the pack. My body felt as if it didn’t belong to me, that he had taken possession of and failed to return some intrinsic part of me.

I appeared outwardly calm, but panic was welling up, fear, sheer terror. Can I hope?

Adam’s hand stroked the length of my hair, lingered on the curve of my bottom. "I have never experienced anything like this," he said softly, attempting to find the words to fight my panic.

I swallowed hard, listening to the frantic pounding of my heart. "How would you know, silly?" I teased back, trying desperately to appear normal. "You have slept with more than half of the school’s female population."

The pounding of my blood was a roar in my ears now. Nothing would ever be the same again. I felt weak. Maybe Adam had taken more blood than I had exchanged. I didn’t even know that there would be an exchange. But I knew there was few differences between Lycan and werewolf in mating.

The blood rush was affecting my mind, slowing my thoughts. Unless it was fear paralyzing my ability to think. That had never happened to me before. My intellect had always dominated. But now my emotions had pushed aside all good sense, and I literally felt lost.

"True. But I choose you now." He said, starting his wandering motions again, this time around my thighs.

"What about Claire? What about your father? Adam, you know I am wolfless. This was a mistake." I blurted out before I could stop myself, regretting my words the next minute when I saw reality flash across his eyes.

His trailing motions stopped and he sat up, his eyes searching probably for his own clothes.

Won’t he say something?

"You won’t be for long. Let’s go. We can talk during the party." He said, standing up from the ground, his hand stretched out toward me.

But I was stiff for that moment.

What does his last statement mean?

Could his blood create a wolf gene in me, or was he just hoping for a miracle?