Under a Midnight Moon Read online

  She hopped off the last mossy boulder and eased out into the icy water. It was there she reached for that niggling speck of conscience at the back of her mind, that bit of humanity that was always there, calling her back. She shifted easily into her human form, and leaned back in the waist deep creek, enjoying the feel of drifting water against her back.

  “I thought you were going to run all night,” said a rough voice from ridge above.

  “Hmm...” Betsey smiled slyly. She opened her eyes and found him crouching on an outcropping of rock. “I thought about it. But then, I’d only be denying myself what I really want.”

  “What do you want, Betsey?”

  She stood up slowly, her hair, shoulders, and breasts shedding glistening beads of water. “I want you, Chase Tillman.”

  He stood then, and Betsey reveled in the view she had of his beautiful male body—the broad shoulders, firm abs, and sculpted thighs.

  He made his way down the embankment, and Betsey waited with a hammering heart. She wanted to touch him, to taste him, to feel him beneath her fingers. He wasted no time in sluiced through the water to her; however, when he was only a few feet away, he did a mock dive and disappeared under the rippling surface.

  He popped up right in front of her a scant second later, and Betsey knew by the look on his face he wasn’t playing around. He wanted her just as much as she wanted him. He pushed his dripping hair from his face and reached for her.

  “Baby,” he said in a husky voice. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.” He dipped his head to lick a bead of water off the tip of her breast.

  She sighed softly, cradling his head to her while he sucked at her taut nipples, first one and then the other. He released the second bud with a wet pop, and trailed his tongue up her chest to capture her mouth in a rough, hungry kiss.

  Betsey matched his kiss. She rubbed her tongue greedily against his. He growled in pleasure, and she smoothed her hands over his shoulders, loving the feel of him, the warmth and security of his well-muscled body.

  Chase tugged her hips closer to his, and she felt the brush of his hot erection against her belly. She smiled against his mouth. “Mm… We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” she teased. “Someone might find out about us—think we’re out here fooling around.”

  A gruff laugh rumbled in his throat. “I’m pretty sure you let the cat out of the bag when you singled me out for your little strip tease back at the camp.”

  “Didn’t you like it?” She wrapped her arms around his neck and rubbed herself against him.

  He thrust his cock up against her in response. “Can’t you tell?”

  She grinned like a fox. “Oh, is that what that’s supposed to mean?”

  He nipped her shoulder and she laughed against his chest. Joy speared through her. Just being close to him like this made her happy. She listened to the sound of his heart racing away under her ear, and she wanted to make this moment last forever.

  He continued to caress her breasts, her buttocks, her thighs, and a desperate pulse built within her body. Her womb tightened, aching with need. She rubbed against him, needing him. “Chase, it’s time.” She pulled back to look into his eyes. “I—I want to do this.”

  He grew very still. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  She nipped his chin affectionately, and he growled down at her. “Betsey, look at me. We’ve talked about this. You know what I—” His breath caught. He held her away from him and “Are you sure?”

  “I’m tired of tiptoeing around everyone else. I belong with you.”

  Her heart in her eyes, she waded away from him and leaned back against the rocks along the embankment. While he watched, she opened her thighs to him and stroked her hands over her slender body, surrendering herself to his gaze and his touch.

  He followed her, and when he boosted himself out of the water to join her, she slid her hands over his chest, and then reached up to push his dripping hair out of his face.

  “You’re absolutely sure?”

  “I love you, Chase.” She kissed his shoulder, his neck.

  “I know you do. And I’ve been in love with you since I first laid eyes on you. But I need to know if you’re trying to tell me what I think you are— I need to hear you say it.”

  She stopped kissing him and held his face in her hands. Her face burned as she looked into his eyes. “I accept you. I want you for my mate.”

  Her gaze searched him. For a moment he didn’t move, he simply stared down at her. And then his body began to shake. His breathing quickened and a possessive, rumbling growl bubbled up from deep inside. At last he dipped his head and kissed her fiercely.

  Joy and contentment surged through her. Betsey held him close, and welcomed him to explore her body. She needed it as much as he did—to know that someone cared for her, loved her enough to commit himself to her. She stroked his back with her palms, and then she raked her nails along the trail of his spine in contrast. He snapped at her neck in approval, and for his efforts, she gripped his buttocks and ground her slick folds along his shaft.

  He snarled in pleasure, and her insides clenched. The smell of her arousal rose like a heady perfume on the crisp, mountain air. He muttered words of love and commitment in a gruff voice, and then Betsey groaned as he began kissing his way down her body.

  Chase trailed his hands over her, touching her everywhere, caressing, stroking. Betsey mewled in hot approval as he settled his shoulders between her thighs and parted her folds with his expert fingers.

  “Oh, yes…” She rocked her hips gently as he stroked inside her. When he leaned forward and found her swollen clit with his tongue, heat shot through her body, from her innermost core to the top of her head.

  As he continued his rough ministrations, she felt her desire rising and rising. She gripped the back of his head with her hand and urged him closer. “Oh, please— Chase… Oh, don’t stop…”

  He sucked her furiously, his tongue lapping and stroking until the pleasure became too much, too great. It shot through her like a sudden flash of fire, and she clenched her hands in his hair as it consumed her.

  When she at last stopped shaking, her orgasm settling into a warm glow in her bones, Chase moved over her and nudged the head of dick against her wet entrance.

  “No more hiding, Betsey,” he ground out as he thrust into her. “When someone asks you the name of your mate, what will you tell them?”

  “You,” she gasped. “I’ll— I’ll… tell them it’s you!”

  Chase snarled in satisfaction and pounded into her. His cock stretched her, filled her, until she was panting, once again teetering on the verge of a climax.

  “More! Chase! Harder!” She cried out as he speared into her. She wrapped her legs around him and clutched at his hips. He hit a sweet spot and shock flickered through her, making her cry out. She writhed beneath him as an orgasm slammed into her like a bolt of lightning.

  Her face flushed, and she gazed up at him with her lips parted and her eyes glazed with passion. Chase snarled in satisfaction. He touched her face, and then he was trembling, unraveling, thrusting into her until the high sensation crashed down on him and he could only hang on and let it blaze out of control. His arms shook as his orgasm took him. Betsey had never seen anything so sexy in her life. She reached down and grabbed his rock hard buttocks, using his taut flesh for leverage as she alternately massaged and crushed his cock with her tight, inner walls.

  “Ah, God, Betsey— Fuck!” He shuddered over her, spilling his seed deep into her sweet, clutching body.

  Chapter Four

  The minute Betsey climbed off the back of Chase’s motorcycle, he swept her into his arms and carried her across the moonlight dappled yard to her house.

  To Betsey, it felt like her wedding night. Everything around her held a dreamlike quality—the way the chirruping crickets serenaded them, the hauntingly peaceful way the wind rustled the leaves. It was exciting, and a little frightening at the same time.

>   Her heart fluttered as Chase stomped up the front steps with her, and nudged the screen door open with his shoulder. They lingered under the eave of the door, kissing her for a breathless eternity before she finally reached down and turned the knob to let them inside.

  “Welcome home,” she whispered up at him.

  The house was cool, quite, and dark. Chase carried her sideways through the doorway and stopped just over the threshold. “Think we should bother to turn on the lights?”

  At that very moment, the table light flicked on as if his voice had somehow commanded it. Startled, she gaped at Chase, and then the color drained from her face as she turned her head and realized just who had turned on the lamp.

  “Jonas!”

  He rose from the couch. She had never seen him look so menacing. His face twisted in bitter fury. “I thought so. I figured something had to be going on behind my back.”

  Betsey bristled. “Behind your back?” She pushed her way out of Chase’s arms and shifted uncomfortably. “I think you’re forgetting whose house you’re standing in.” She pointed to the open door. “Get out!”

  “Have you forgotten?” he snapped, and thumped his chest. “You’re my bitch!”

  “You fuck!” Chase gnashed his teeth in fury, his eyes glowing with sudden fire. He pushed Betsey behind him. “That’s not what she told me tonight when she agreed to be my mate!”

  Jonas let out a howl of rage, and lunged at Chase. “I challenge!”

  “Jonas, no!”

  Betsey leaped out of the way as the two males flew into each other like a pair of rabid dogs. They grabbled and twisted, one moment on the ground, the next hurling across the floor on their feet. They scattered furniture, crashed against her TV set, and knocked the lamp from the end table. It hit the floor with a loud crash, and the room went dark.

  Temporarily blinded by the sudden darkness, she caught flashes of the fight only as they passed by the living room window. Claws slashed, teeth sank deep into both leather and flesh, sending a spray of black blood across the back of her couch.

  They pounded each other with powerful fists—punishing each other’s ribs as they tussled through her living room. They fell hard against her couch, shoving it back so hard it flipped over. The snapping and snarling continued until they rolled across the pieces of broken lamp.

  Chase grunted in pain.

  “Stop it!” Betsey screamed at them and ran toward the couch. “Jonas, no! What are you doing?”

  Jonas slashed at him mercilessly, ripping easily through leather, cloth, and flesh. Chase fell back to get away from his claws, and Jonas made yet another lunge for him. This time, he was ready. He threw his feet up and slammed them into his opponent’s chest. Bones crunched and Jonas howled in pain. He staggered back several steps, and Chase jumped to his feet. He charged his attacker, knocking him backward through the front door.

  Shaking from head to foot, Betsey rushed outside and watched the two males grappling on her front porch. They thundered across the wooden flooring like beasts, slamming into her porch swing before wavered back toward the railing. Jonas snatched Chase by the lapels of his jacket and tossed him against the living room window. The glass shattered; the curtain rod popped free inside the house, the ghost-white curtains tangling in the wreckage.

  One minute they struggled against the shattered window, the glass remaining shards dropping like glittering shards of ice, and then somehow they charged back across the porch and went tumbling over the wooden railing.

  “Oh my god— Chase!”

  Betsey raced to the steps and jumped down into the yard. Chase had Jonas down, a knee on his chest, another on his throat. Jonas still fought, but it a hopeless struggle—he was pinned down by Chase’s claws.

  “Yield, Jonas,” Betsey commanded in shaky voice as she fell to her knees beside him. He looked over at her with pain in his eyes, and she swallowed thickly. “Do you hear me? Please, yield—” She tucked her hair behind her ears, and gazed into his eyes. “I don’t love you anymore.”

  Chase dug his claws in deeper. “Say it, Jonas, or I will kill you.”

  “This… isn’t over, asshole,” snarled Jonas. Chase twisted his claws, and the other male thrashed wildly. At last he opened his eyes again, and looked over at Betsey. His eyes glittered with pain and hatred.

  “I yield.”

  * * * * *

  “That was completely stupid,” Betsey snapped at Chase as she helped him into her bedroom some minutes later. She guided him over to the bed where he flopped back on the dust blue comforter.

  “It was necessary,” Chase rumbled moodily.

  Her eyes flashed angrily, but Betsey said nothing. She wanted to yell at him, tell him he was lucky he hadn’t gotten his macho ass killed. Bruised and bloodied as he was; however, she decided to give him a break. She left him and went into the adjoining bathroom to rummage through her towel cabinets for the first-aid kit.

  “I imagine we’ll both have to go before the council tomorrow and explain everything,” she called out from the bathroom. “Christ, I hope I don’t have to drag Gemma and Adriana before the pack leader. That is begging for disaster.”

  “Why is that?” asked Chase.

  “Because they hate him, that’s why.” Betsey returned to the bedroom with the open first-aid kit. She pulled out a packet of alcohol swabs and set the case on the nightstand. “He’ll bring them in for questioning and they’ll end up giving him the third degree about mating rights. No, really. You’re laughing, but I’m dead serious.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you are,” he said as he sat up on the edge of the bed and stripped out of his jacket and shirt. “But I can assure you, there’s nothing to worry about. By morning, those two friends of yours are gonna have a whole new outlook on the mating situation here in Silver.”

  Betsey stopped what she was doing and looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s supposed to be a secret,” he said as he folded his hands behind his head and lounged back on the bed. “But maybe if you come over here and give me a kiss, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  ~~~~~~

  End

  Author's Bio

  Cora Zane loves to write steamy and erotic romances about handsome heroes who will go out of their way to win the affection of their lady love. These men are strong, sexy, and not afraid of commitment. They know what they want, and are determined to get it. Cora believes it's a man's willingness to risk getting his heart broken that makes him all the more irresistible—and special.

  Cora began writing erotic romances in 2005. Her other e-books include Crossing Borders, and Bonding Experience, which are currently available for purchase from www.cobblestone-press.com . Both are installments in her ongoing Werekind Series. Cora’s first ever erotic vampire novella, Wicked Temptation, is scheduled to be released Friday, October 13th, 2006 through www.cobblestone-press.com .

  You can email Cora at [email protected], or contact her by visiting her at one of the following places online:

  Website: www.corazane.com

  Blogs: www.corazane.blogspot.com

  www.midnightmooncafe.blogspot.com

  Myspace: www.myspace.com/corazane