Claiming His Human Read online

  Oh God, if it wasn’t a dream, I snuggled up to that chest like some harlot. And I’m naked.

  “Why the hell am I naked, and where the fuck am I?” She threw one of the pillows at his face for good measure and swallowed hard when he simply ducked out the way. Before she could even blink he was on his feet and glowering down at her. Said pillow flew past her head and back onto the bed, and a distinct growl came from his massive chest.

  “I take it you’re not a morning person then, my sweet.”

  A grim laugh kicked up his full lips when she picked up that pillow again.

  “Try hitting me with that again, and see what happens. I’ll make allowances for now, but behavior like that will get that delicious ass of yours spanked.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.” Damn it, though, that reply came out far too breathy, almost hopeful, and he clearly caught that intonation, because his grin deepened.

  “Try me and find out, sweetheart.”

  Holly thought it wisest to not rouse the sleeping bear, so she hugged the pillow to herself instead, and brought her knees up to her chest.

  Darius ran a hand over his beard and sighed.

  “I realize you must have gazillion questions, and I’ll answer them all, once I’ve had some coffee.”

  That sounded heavenly to Holly, too, but she couldn’t just let this go.

  “Only one question for now. Why am I naked in what I presume is your bed?”

  Another one of those sighs. They did peculiar things to her insides. Who knew there were so many nuances to a simple sigh?

  “That’s not really the question you’re asking me, though, is it? Come on, spit it out, and let me know how little you think of me, really?”

  “I … that is … I don’t…” Holly couldn’t bring herself to continue because the way he studied her, as though her reply really mattered to him … well, what could she say to that? He slept on top of the covers, after all, fully dressed, and he looked tired, worn out she’d say. If he had truly been here all night, and a quick look at the old-fashioned alarm clock on his nightstand confirmed that it had been all night. It was 7:00 AM, apparently, then he couldn’t have slept well because Holly certainly hadn’t. She’d hugged what she believed to be her trusty teddy so hard she was surprised Darius didn’t carry bruises this morning. Did shifters bruise? Now there was a question to ask. Holly frowned at her own bruises when she dropped her gaze to her hands, and she couldn’t stop her shiver of fear when she relived that moment that vile man had grabbed her so hard she hadn’t thought she’d get away.

  “I would kill him all over again, for hurting you.” The absolute conviction behind those grumbled words should have terrified her further, but it seemed to have the opposite effect on her. Somehow it made her feel safe, and she forced herself to look at Darius. A muscle ticked just under his left eye, betraying how tense he was right now.

  “Do you make a habit of that? Killing people, I mean? Not rescuing and then abducting clueless humans like me.”

  If that was possible the man who’d occupied far too many of her previous fantasies grew even tenser.

  “No, on both counts. And to answer the question you didn’t ask, nothing happened between us, other than me undressing you to help you sleep. Your uniform was covered in…” He flinched at her immediate recoil. “Well, let’s just say, you couldn’t stay in it. The bra went, too, ‘cause as pretty as it was I figured it wouldn’t be comfortable to sleep in.”

  This time he smirked at her sharp intake of breath.

  “And yes, I could pretend I didn’t look, but I sure did.”

  “Oh, God.” Holly wanted to crawl into the next available mouse hole, but, of course, they were never around when you needed them, so she did the next best thing and buried her head in that pillow she was still holding. The bed depressed next to her, and in the next instant, Darius had pulled her protection away and cupped her chin. It left her no choice but to look at him, and the admiration she read in his warm gaze took her breath away.

  “Don’t be embarrassed, sweetheart. I love your body.”

  Holly knew she was doing goldfish impressions, but, really, what was she supposed to say to that? He meant what he said to her. His words rang with utter sincerity and conviction, and her heart gave a very suspicious bump in her chest. The way he looked at her made her feel cherished, loved almost, and while that had to be a byproduct of her overactive imagination, no doubt brought on by all the kerfuffle she’d witnessed, she couldn’t utter one single word to refute that notion.

  Besides, she had more pressing concerns, namely her bladder, which decided to forcefully remind her that she needed to pee.

  Damn it all to hell and back.

  “Cat got your tongue, girl?”

  Darius released his surprisingly tender hold on her chin and studied her.

  “No, I that is. Erm, I really need to pee. And coffee sounds wonderful, and I didn’t mean to imply you did anything you shouldn’t have… It’s just … so much has happened and I don’t know what to think and I’m sorry, but where is the bathroom?”

  Darius blinked, threw his head back and laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” Holly mumbled her reply, but her lips twitched in answering amusement, especially when he winked at her, flicked her nose and stood up.

  “It is a little, sweetheart. The bathroom is through there, and there’s a bathrobe on the back of the door. As much as I love your body, seeing you strut around my place in just that itty bit of a thong you’re wearing would test my resolve too much.” He held his hands up and took a step back. “I value my gonads, and I reckon you’d kick them if I tried anything.”

  “Too damn right I would.” Holly tried for her haughtiest tone, but she didn’t succeed, because, naturally, her gaze slid lower to snare on the prominent bulge he was packing in his jeans. One that got more prominent in front of her very eyes. Oh lordy, she was in so much trouble here.

  Darius cleared his throat and turned away. Judging by his hand movements he was adjusting himself, and Holly clenched her thighs together to relieve the sweet ache starting there.

  Yes, fucked up in the head that was her. If he pressed the point, she’d be putty in his damn hands, for sure.

  “When you’ve freshened up, come and meet me in the kitchen. I’ll rustle us up some breakfast and then we can have a proper talk. I need to explain a few things to you.”

  Before Holly could say anything to that all, he’d stalked from the room, and the door shut behind him with a soft click.

  ****

  Darius forced himself to keep going once he’d shut the door. One step in front of the other, he could do this. His bear voiced his annoyance at every step he took down the stairs and away from their mate, but Darius couldn’t give into the urgent demands of his beast. If he allowed his tight control to slip, his animal instincts would take over, and he wouldn’t stop until he was buried balls deep in her sweet body and with his bite marking her as his. There was no way she was ready for that, and to force the issue would make him an asshole of the first order.

  So, he told his bear to shut the fuck up. The animal did so with a huff, and Darius groaned when he heard the toilet flush, followed by the shower coming on. That’s all he needed, images of Holly’s curvy body all wet and covered in soapsuds.

  His cock gave up any pretense of behaving itself, and he resigned himself to having blue balls for the foreseeable future. He was used to it, after all. One whiff of her scent and he was in a perpetual state of arousal. At least he knew that she didn’t find him completely repulsive. While she had clung to him in her sleep, desperately seeking and needing his comfort, he hadn’t been at all sure what reception he would get once she was fully awake.

  Their conversation had gone much better than he’d anticipated. His girl had spunk and backbone in spades. Not many would be holding up as well as she was this morning. While her mind protested the pull between them, her body responded to him instinctively, and that made his bear roar in
delight.

  Putting all thoughts of wet, naked Holly from his mind he concentrated on getting their breakfast ready. It took moments to set the coffee to brew, and he was in the process of frying bacon when he heard the door open upstairs. His girl hesitated at the top of the stairs for what felt like ages, and it took every ounce of self-control he had to not march up there and see what was taking her so long. She took her time coming down those stairs, and he couldn’t help but wonder what she made of his modest home, in particular the images he’d hung going up the stairs. The sketches were some of his own work, back in the day when he’d had dreams of pursuing a career in Art. Puberty and his shift into a volatile grizzly had put paid to the dream.

  It had taken all of his energy to learn to control his inner animal, and Darius had been in a ton of trouble with the human and shifter police in his misbegotten teenage years until Cole had taken him under his huge paw. Male teenage shifters needed the steadying influence of an older, experienced role model more than most, and with Darius’s dad long out of the picture, Cole had taken on the role of, if not father—they were too close in age for that—then older brother.

  Darius would never let the man down, and that was the main reason why Cole had trusted him to take care of Holly. That and the small matter of the fragile human being his mate.

  Fuck it all. She was fragile and would remain so until she was properly mated to him. The council scientists were hard at work to determine what genetic changes the mating bond caused in humans. So far all they had was anecdotal evidence, which while compelling in itself, wasn’t enough to lift the stigma of mating with humans. And it was fuck all use to him right now, when he knew his own human mate would be full of questions for him, most of which he had no answers to. How did you explain the inexplicable pull a shifter felt to his mate to a human?

  Holly would no doubt think it a line, not unlike the lame ones human males used to snare a female. Darius had heard them all in his time, and no doubt Holly had, too.

  A sharp intake of breath announced Holly’s arrival in the kitchen doorway. His bear grinned from ear to ear, but Darius forced himself to not react and put the finishing touches to their breakfast instead. Only when he’d plated up the full English, did he turn around, put the two overflowing plates on the breakfast bar, and finally looked across at her.

  Holly worried her bottom lip with her teeth, a frown line pulling her eyebrows together as she stood there. His large bathrobe complexly dwarfed her frame. It hung well below her calves. Not an ounce of skin was on display because she’d chosen to wear a pair of his socks, too. His lips twitched in silent amusement. That incongruous view helped to keep his bear under control, because of her scent, mixed in as it was with his shower gel, was far too heavy an aphrodisiac.

  “I hope you don’t mind my borrowing some of your socks. My feet get cold easily.”

  Darius shook his head to clear it off the immediate images bombarding his brain of the various inventive ways he’d like to warm his mate up.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I’ll take them off, I—”

  Holly jumped at his bear’s annoyed growl in response to her assumptions, and Darius took a step toward her. Seeing her immediately retreat from him, pissed his animal off even more. He forced a smile on his lips and tried again.

  “I don’t mind at all. We will have to stop by your place and pick you up some clothes.” Holly’s frown deepened, and when he stepped back to gesture to the breakfast items on the bar, she followed him. Every line of her body spoke of her wariness, but, at least she didn’t flinch away from him when he pulled out a stool for her and poured her a cup of coffee. Letting go of the death grip she had on the lapels of his robe, she wrapped her hands around the coffee cup instead and offered him a wobbly smile.

  Darius sat down and lifted his cup in silent salute.

  Holly followed suit, and when he tucked into his breakfast she did, too. He hid his smile at her involuntary groan of delight when she bit into the fluffy eggs.

  “Good?” he asked. Warmth spread through his chest when he was rewarded with her first genuine smile that morning.

  “Heavenly. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

  “Well, we did miss dinner last night, so I figured we could do with a proper breakfast.”

  A shadow crossed her expressive features, and Darius inwardly kicked himself for making her remember why she was here. The freckles on her skin showed up in stark contrast, as she paled, but, at least she kept on eating.

  A somewhat strained silence fell between them, while they finished their meal. It was beyond gratifying to see his mate enjoy her food. Not that he made it a habit to cook breakfast for the females he spent the night with, but on the odd occasion when he had, they’d only ever picked at his offerings, too concerned with their figure to give into the demands of hunger, but not so his mate.

  His mate. That sure had a nice ring to it. Darius had always shied from committing to one woman, but with Holly, this was a foregone conclusion. Even if she never agreed to be his mate, she would always be the one woman for him. The thought of spending the rest of his life celibate didn’t appeal to his bear. A deep rumble rose from Darius’s chest, and the cutlery in Holly’s hands clinked loudly onto the plate as she almost dropped it.

  “Ignore him. My bear is distinctly lacking in manners.”

  Eyes wide, face flushed, whether, in fear or some other emotion, Darius couldn’t quite determine now, because her question threw him.

  “You talk about him as though he’s a separate entity. Do you have any control over him, or does he do as he pleases and kills people willy-nilly?”

  Chapter Four

  Oh God, her and her runaway mouth. Darius grew several inches in front of her, and his amber eyes flashed to glowing yellow and back again. It was terrifying and fascinating all rolled into one. None of this should be physically possible, but, unless she was indeed caught in some terrifying, never-ending nightmare then she had to simply accept that the evidence in front of her eyes was real.

  “If I didn’t have control over him, girl, you’d be bent over this breakfast bar with my balls deep in your sweet cunt, while you’re screaming my name and coming all over my dick.”

  He paused, ran a hand over his beard, and shut his eyes. When he opened them again, they were back to his usual warm chocolate brown, and he smiled.

  “Don’t look so freaked out. You’d rather enjoy it.”

  “I … that is… How dare you. I most certainly wouldn’t.”

  Even to her own ears that protest came out far too feeble and breathy, and sure enough, Darius smirked and shrugged.

  “Keep on believing that if it makes you feel better, but I can smell you from here. Just thinking about what I might do to you turns you on. Tell me, how wet are you right now, my sweet?”

  Holly opened her mouth to protest, but nothing but a squeak came out because Darius chose that moment to take her hand. A jolt of heat traveled up her arm, and she stopped breathing when his scent intensified, further drawing her under his spell. Darius ran his thumb over her leftover bruises with the lightest of touches.

  “Breathe, sweetheart, I’m only checking on these. Do they hurt?”

  He glanced up at her from his perusal of her wrist, and Holly pulled a much-needed breath into her suddenly restrictive lungs. She ought to be furious at him for the liberties he took, the way he spoke to her, the fact that he had effectively kidnapped her, for fuck’s sake, but the rightful anger she ought to be feeling just didn’t materialize. It wasn’t possible, not when he looked at her like this, his warm eyes full of compassion and concern for her.

  “Answer me, baby, do they hurt? Do you need some painkillers?” He frowned as he said that. “Not that I have any, I don’t think. Though I’m sure Mrs. Peters next door would happily oblige.”

  “Mrs. Peters?” Holly’s question hung in the air, and Darius smiled.

  “She’s my neighbor. Ninety, if she’s day, though she swears she’s in her si
xties, very much human and the old dear has made it her mission in life to look after me. My freezer is stuffed full of meals she’s made for me, ‘cause clearly, I can’t be trusted to eat properly. Her words, entirely. I would appear to remind her of her long lost late son, and thus she has taken it upon herself to look after me, whether I want her to or not. So, if you’re in pain, she’ll only be too happy to give you something to help. Of course, you’ll also get the third degree, because she is determined that I should settle down, and she’ll be utterly delighted that I’ll have brought home a nice girl, for once.”

  “A nice girl?” Holly knew she was in danger of sounding like a freaking parrot, but, really, what was she supposed to make of all this. The man who shifted into a huge grizzly and killed a wolf for her didn’t seem the sort to indulge the foibles of little old ladies, yet she could sense his affection for this Mrs. Peters.

  Darius winked at her in response, and somewhat belatedly Holly withdrew her hand from his grasp. She instantly missed the contact, and to stop herself from shivering wrapped her arms around herself.

  “Is that what I am? A nice girl, as opposed to what? Do you normally bring floozies home then?”

  That telltale tick under his eye was back at her irritated outburst, and Holly swallowed hard, as she looked into the eyes of his beast.

  “Define floozies, girl.” He pulled back, crossed his arms over his massive chest and regarded her through hooded eyes. “Though in Mandy’s case you might have a point, had I ever brought her back here, which I haven’t. For the record, I don’t bring women back here. You’re the first, hence, Mrs. Peters will be beside herself with excitement when she cottons on to you being here.”

  “You don’t?” There she went with the parrot impression again, and to save face she added, “Why not?”