The Phoenix Project Read online

He realized he wasn’t. Not afraid. He knew, just like he seemed to just “know” so much so suddenly, that he would never cause her permanent harm. She was his to protect, even from himself.

  “I’m more afraid of how we will be if we keep away from each other,” he remarked baldly. Her eyes widened in surprise.

  “You feel that too?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Very much. It’s pretty brutal, actually.” As he spoke, Nick trailed sharply tipped fingertips down over her ribs and belly. He raked claws through curls and dipped between her legs as gently as he could. Amara helped him out by parting her legs wide for him, not showing even an instant’s trepidation. What made her so brave? he wondered. How could she so willingly turn herself up to him after the way he had been with her?

  “I’m not afraid of you,” she whispered softly as she reached to kiss his cheek. She nuzzled him and ejected a contented sound from her throat as she so obviously took in his scent down the length of his neck. She licked over his pulse again and again, her teeth nipping at him with sharp points that told him her fangs were now in play. As yet, his were not.

  Not knowing how long he would have that advantage, Nick surged over her and began to devour the delectable tastes of her body. Neck first, then nipples and breasts. At the same time, his fingers drifted between her labia, searching for her clit in the sea of ready wetness that greeted him.

  Amara gasped when a talon found it first, pricking her sharply. But before he could curse himself for it, he heard her moan and felt her purposely writhe against his fingertips until it happened a second time.

  “Oh, God,” she groaned, “why do I like that?”

  Damned if he knew, but Nick wasn’t the type to waste information. Promising himself to get back to the rest of her body later, he slid down between her thighs, pressing against the back of one to push her wider open. Her pubic hair was so fair that it was almost translucent. This left him with a slash of pretty flesh in a surprisingly deep pink. Or maybe it just seemed that way against the paleness of her skin and hair. The dark claws tipping his fingers looked obscene among all of that delicacy, but there was no denying the flow of aroused juices dripping from her.

  To say nothing of the smell of her.

  Now he felt the aching presence of his rousing fangs as they began to push from their retraction. Not knowing if they would interfere with what he wanted, he quickly lowered his mouth to her heated sex. He lapped at her slowly, ignoring everything else just to savor the way she tasted across his tongue. He realized in that moment that his sense of taste had mutated into something wildly sensitive and sharp. Oh, women had always tasted good, and always so different from one another, but he knew immediately that there were depths and nuances to her he was sensing and tasting that he simply should not be able to.

  Like…he knew she wasn’t ovulating. How he knew that was beyond him, but it was like the other mating instincts. He just knew. Without a doubt. He also knew that it would change within a matter of days. She would come into heat then, and then he could put his babies into her.

  This was a thought that would normally have terrified Nick Gregory, since he’d had no fast desires to father a child. Yet, in that moment, all it did was make his cock stretch out thicker and stiffer than ever, as if just the thought alone were the ultimate aphrodisiac.

  Nick could also taste the edginess of her arousal. He could sense how close she was to orgasm, just by her flavor. Now that, he thought, could be very useful. Certainly a theory worth examining. By now his newborn fangs were level with his regular teeth, and they seemed to be holding off from full extension at his desire. It was enough, though, that when he suckled her clit, then drew his lips back just right, they would prick at her sensitive flesh until she was crying out, thrashing under him. She shuddered and quaked with the wild pleasure it roused in her. Her legs had seized him over his shoulders. Her heels were digging into his back desperately. Amara’s fingers were deep against his scalp; her talons nipped him again and again as she held him to herself in demand for more.

  He gave her all of that, and beyond. He dared to work a lethally tipped finger into her vaginal tunnel, not drawing back yet, but keeping sunk into her as he danced his tongue over the sweetly flooded tissues of her sex. He nibbled and bit at her, licked along her perineum, tasting the tangy rise in her arousal with each passing second. He could smell it on her, especially when he pushed up her hips and tongued her flatly over the tight sphincter of her ass.

  She was going to come any moment now if he let her. He probed that pretty pink circle just long enough to feel her flooding his fingers and hands with hot, needy liquid. Nick surged up along her wet flesh with a single, encompassing sweep of his tongue, from rear to clit as if he were playing connect the dots. Then he sucked her clitoris into his mouth hard and tickled the tip of his tongue against her.

  She came with a scream. Her whole body locked up into an arch of pleasure, and he looked up to see the undulation of her torso and the shimmy of her breasts as she rode wave after wave of bliss. Relentlessly, he began to probe with the finger inside of her. He knew every single time the sharp end of his talon caught against her because it sent her right back up to a new, writhing crest. He greedily drank the resulting ambrosia as she came all over him.

  Nick suddenly jerked free of her, the scratching of his withdrawal sending her over again so she was hardly aware of him surging up between her legs, taking his too-thick member in hand and shaking with the need to feel her while she came like that. He needed to be balls deep inside of her while she screamed and writhed around him.

  His fully distended fangs pricked against his lips as he slid himself into place at her liquid-drenched portal. Just feeling the fierce heat difference between himself and her blood-pulsing flesh made him throb with the urge to find release. His mouth ached, hunger stirred. She had gained pleasure without taking blood. Could he?

  “God. Relax, baby, please,” he begged her in a wild rasp. She was so excited, so clenched with pleasure, that he couldn’t find entrance into her. Not a gentle one at least, and his patience was fading really damn fast. That resurrected animal within him was starting to kick up a fuss, snarling for release.

  “Nick. I can’t help it!”

  He knew she couldn’t. She was so aroused, even the slightest eroticism was setting her off into low little spasms of joy. Cursing on a monstrous growl, he forwent gentility and started to force himself into her, pushing hard past the rippling, convulsing muscle in his way. His invasion seemed to only make her all the more mindless. She came. Hard. Her claws were biting into his shoulders and sending a spear of stimulation right down his spine, across the seat of his scrotum, and down his steel-hard cock.

  Oh. He was ready now.

  Now.

  He hilted into her in the next thrust, the smack of his sac against her ass so damn satisfying he had to growl roughly with his approval. He scooped up her knees into the crooks of his elbows, pushed forward nice and deep, thumping against her cervix quite securely. Now he was deep enough. Now she was going to come for him harder than she ever had before.

  Chapter 6

  Amara was in a daze of pleasure that wouldn’t seem to end. The only thing cutting through it all was the painfully persistent intrusion of Nick’s shockingly huge cock. It seemed even thicker and longer than last time. Either that or she was just swollen. Regardless, he only made it halfway into her before pain became ecstasy, and she went flying into an endless night sky full of stars, fresh air, and freedom. She hadn’t seen the night sky in so long. So very long. It was so beautiful, and her whole spirit soared outward to try and touch all those glittering stars.

  Her eyes were still dazzled by it all when she tried to blink into focus. In all that light there came the imposing shadow of Nick’s darkness. Just as his body was a glorious intrusion into hers, his dark presence above her shaded her stinging vision, looming over her as both a force of protection, satisfaction, and domination. Her climaxes had made her slick and ready,
and he was able to sink deep as he caught up her legs. Her belly clenched, the need to come yet again so tight inside of her that tears sprang into her eyes. She had never been this responsive, this sensitive. Her body was completely alien, half of her feeling ethereal and free, the other half demanding more of him. More of them. Somewhere deep within she understood they were a combined entity. They would no longer be just Nick, or just Amara. They were Nick and Amara. Nick and Amara. NickandAmara.

  “I’m so hungry for you,” she breathed on a sob when his head dipped low near hers. “I need you, Nick.”

  He bent to kiss her mouth, drenching her in her own scent and taste as his tongue dove deep against hers. She licked him voraciously, pricking her tongue on both their fangs as she suckled the flavor of herself off of him.

  “You’ll always need me,” he rumbled deeply against her lips as he thrust hard against her womb. “You’ll always want me.”

  “Yes,” she gasped.

  “You are mine now,” he growled roughly, driving harder and faster into her with every word. “No one else, Amara. Never.” He groaned in his pleasure, his big body shuddering hard under her gripping hands.

  “Why would I want anyone or anything else? Nick…Nick, please.”

  “Okay, sweet. Let me feel you come around me.”

  “Bite me, Nick.” Amara turned her head, exposing her throat and the line of her shoulder to him. “God, I’m going to come!”

  “Damn right you are,” he hissed as he bent to lick her where she had beckoned him to go. She felt him hesitate, knew there was still a part of him resisting his desire to taste her. He turned his head, focusing on the driving force of his hips as his cock plowed through her dense, clutching sheath faster and faster.

  Amara burst into little brilliant bits of light, her whole body shuddering and quaking with the powerful impact of her climax. She could hear herself crying out in a lusty, cresting cadence that blended with Nick’s.

  “Fucking hell! Amara! Amara!”

  She felt him unravel, the harsh slams of his pelvis punctuating the violent rush of his orgasm. She felt the burn of his seed flooding into her like superheated magma, the heat of his body so extreme compared to hers in that moment. He shuddered hard, gasping for breath and balance as he tried to keep from crushing her.

  “I didn’t bite you,” he said in heavy panting rasps. “I wanted to—God, you made it so hard to resist—but I didn’t do it.”

  Nick dropped hard onto his elbows, his sweaty forehead falling against the bared length of her neck where she had invited him to taste her. Amara wasn’t certain what he was trying to say, or why it was so important to him that he didn’t even wait to catch his breath to explain.

  Then she understood. He wanted to know he could control himself. He wanted to know he could master his beast even at the most extreme of moments. She envied him that, because now that she had her breath, she couldn’t control what happened next.

  She sank her teeth deeply into his shoulder.

  Nick jolted against her lips, and she instinctively wrapped him up in her arms and legs to hold him in place. She wished she could explain why she needed to drink from him, but she wasn’t exactly certain for herself. All she could assume was that she had not taken enough last time, because she had been increasingly in need of it the more energy she had burned in their lovemaking.

  This time she was much more careful. Amara kept her lips sealed to his skin and did not wrench against him in any way that would tear his flesh or break her seal. Her mouth filled with the heavenly flavor of warm, vital male. He shuddered in her grasp, his body otherwise trapped within hers. He grew hard inside of her again, and she heard him moan low and rough as he bent his head and helped her to himself. By the third swallow, he was moving inside of her again, clearly unable to help himself. Her feeding aroused him. So much so that by her sixth gulp, he was reaching crisis again.

  “Don’t stop,” he commanded her gruffly, his thrusts not even necessarily deep or hard. They didn’t need to be. He could have stayed completely still and the effect on him would have been exactly the same. “Oh, yes…oh, shit…don’t…don’t stop!”

  Nick climaxed again, his body straining to meet the demand of his new nature. She felt herself overflowing with him, both vaginally and orally. She carefully opened her jaw, and swiftly swept her tongue over the four punctures. Nick was shaking with his exertions and the remnants of the incredible ecstasy he’d experienced. He gasped for breath, his open mouth against her neck. When she was satisfied his wounds were closed, she finally relaxed into the mattress.

  They spent several long minutes recuperating, and then Nick lifted up and looked them both over. “You didn’t spill a single drop,” he noted, looking rather impressed.

  “Waste not,” she said with a shrug she hoped looked blasé. Then she grinned. “It was rather cool. I just needed to focus and be more careful. It didn’t hurt?”

  “Babe, it hurt so good I’m still reeling. You needed that?”

  “Yeah,” she admitted. “Does that make me weaker than you? You could resist.”

  “No. I doubt it. You didn’t take as much as I did the first time. Frankly, I don’t care why you did it. You can do it again right now if you like.” The grin he shot her was positively lascivious.

  “Can’t. Look. No fangs.” She opened her mouth and sure enough, they had fully retracted. He examined the little white enamel nubs under her lips for a moment.

  “Guess you got your fill this time.”

  “Yeah. But you didn’t.” She nodded toward his as-yet heavily fanged state.

  “I wanted to know if I could control it. I needed to know,” he corrected himself. “I need to know what all my limits and limitations are. I don’t want to ever hurt you, Amara.”

  “Yes but, that’s just it.” She bit her lip. “I don’t think I process pain the same anymore. It’s like you said. It hurts so good. Every time you did something that should have…would have hurt under normal circumstances, I interpreted it inside myself as pleasure. Weird, huh? Like a natural sadist or something.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps it’s just because it is me.”

  “Maybe so. Do you feel hunger?” She reached up to touch the deadly sharp tip of a tooth.

  “No. Not at all. This time it was more like…well, eroticism. The desire was like the desire to suck on your sweet little clit. I was dying to do it, but could have resisted and still survived. I wouldn’t be happy, and part of me isn’t, as you can see.” He touched his tongue to a fang. “But I can certainly survive. Last time, it was a matter of survival. No bones about it. I had to feed. So did you. I’m not certain how long we can continue to do this off each other, but I hope we can.” He frowned darkly down at her. “If your bite causes that kind of reaction in me, I’m not sure I want to see some other guy getting off on you doing that to him.”

  “One step at a time. Now that we’ve both ‘fed,’ let’s see how long we are able to go before we have to do it again no matter how hard we resist.”

  “I’m all for science,” he noted with a chuckle, “but do we hafta?” He affected a little whine, and then gave her a growling little nibble against her neck. “I bet I could make you come if I just bit you and did nothing else at all. That’s exactly what you did to me.”

  “Mmm. I bet you could,” she agreed breathily. “I’m beginning to think you could make me come just looking at me the wrong way. Or the right way. Whichever.”

  “Well, there’s a theory I’m willing to—”

  Nick halted midsentence when the sharp sound of releasing locks came from the doorway. He was off of her body in an instant, jerking the blanket over her for cover as he sat up on the edge of the bed, keeping her behind his body as he faced the opening door.

  Raul and the Asshole Twins entered the room.

  Chapter 7

  Nick found he was really quite glad to find himself with ready fangs and talons that quickly began to ache for tender human flesh to mark. He made a
low sound of threat, like an animal protecting its den. He supposed that was exactly what he was doing. His den and his mate.

  He wasn’t going to let them touch her. He’d rip them apart first.

  “We’ll be taking blood and the usual vital statistics,” Raul announced. “I’m to ask if you wish to remain together or to be separated.”

  “Together,” they chorused.

  “Hmm,” was all Raul had to say about that. “Behave, or you will be heavily tranquilized.” On cue, Asshole #1, the one who had fondled Amara in the lab, produced the remote to the implanted behavior modification devices.

  Nick’s hands clenched into fists as Raul cautiously approached, and Amara gently covered one of his hands with one of hers, knowing he was puncturing his own palms with his nails. The medic began to prepare the tubes on his tray, and his sharp eyes spied the fresh wound on Nick’s neck.

  “Would you say the climax you experienced with her bite was any different than the others? Stronger, perhaps?”

  “Why, you miserable little fuck!”

  Nick launched off the bed and grabbed Raul around his throat, slamming him hard against the wall even as he tore his nails across the throat of the twin with the remote and wrenched his head off his spine with a single-handed snap. The remote went skidding under the bed as Nick let the body of the first twin fall. Then he snarled viciously at the second one, who was fumbling for his own remote and all of a sudden looked ready to piss his pants.

  “Leave it or he’s dead,” Nick spat in warning to the other man, making certain he could see the rivulets of blood oozing down Raul’s throat. “I owed him for touching her,” he noted, pointing to the dead orderly. “I’ll let you both walk out of here with the blood and vitals you want, but you’re not going to ask any more questions. Got it? You want answers, you just keep spying on us like the slimy little pervert bastards you are. If you don’t figure it out that way, then you can fuck with your own genes and find out for yourselves. We’re done with answering your stupid surveys. Oh”—Nick flashed fierce fangs for a smile—“and we’d like some fresh bedding and clothes so we don’t freeze our asses off anymore. We clear?”