After the Moon Rises by Karilyn Bentley Read Free Book Online Page B

performance anxiety.
    Elizabeth lifted her head from Tom’s shoulder. “Hey, Dad, what’s consummated mean?”

Chapter 6
    Vonda touched the silver picture frame containing a photo of a black-haired woman in a white, strapless wedding dress and a younger looking Tom. Husband and wife. Until death do us part.
    They’d looked so happy, so in love. How could Vonda hope to achieve that with Tom?
    First things first. They needed to consummate this agreement, something Tom looked rather hesitant to do. He paced the room, running fingers through his short hair until it stood like captured soldiers, nervous and trembling.
    “Elizabeth will be okay. She’ll sleep for awhile. Margie put her under and promised she’d stay asleep.” The alpha, Margie, had claimed she had the ability to make Elizabeth catch eight hours of zzzs, and set about proving it with a wave of her hand.
    Tom stopped his pacing and stared at her. “I should be up there with her, not down here with you.” He ran his hand through his hair again, making matters up top worse. “Dammit, that didn’t come out right.”
    “I know what you mean.” And she did. Tom should be with his daughter, not trying to have sex with Vonda.
    Although sex sounded great at the moment. And how screwed up was that? Mating heat was a bitch.
    “Did it hurt?” Tom gestured at her.
    Vonda looked down her body from Tom’s t-shirt around her torso to his sweat pants on her legs and wondered what the hell he was talking about.
    “Did what hurt?” Having his shirt rub against her sensitive nipples or his pants rest against her already wet core? Somehow she didn’t think that was what he wanted to know.
    “The change back.”
    Oh, yeah. That. “Well, it wasn’t the best feeling I’ve ever had.” The only thing she could imagine worse would be having her tonsils ripped out through her nose. “But it doesn’t seem to have any lingering effects. I didn’t realize changing back to a human while the moon was still out was even possible.”
    Margie was one powerful bitch. Holding her hand toward Vonda, she had forced Vonda’s wolf back to its hiding place, bringing out the human half to writhe in agony on the cold linoleum floor of Tom’s kitchen. For the first time since she hit puberty, Vonda saw the moon out of her human eyes.
    It was worth every bit of pain.
    “Maybe she’ll show me how to do that. She’s going to teach me what it means to be a pack member.” Vonda couldn’t wait. After all these years alone, she would learn what it meant to be a werewolf. There had to be more to it than getting furry once a month.
    “That’s good. That’s real good.” More with the hand through the hair routine. “I need to go check on Elizabeth.”
    Tom headed for the door, but Vonda beat him to it.
    “You can’t go anywhere until we, um, until we mate.”
    Her hand on his arm sparked heat, a tangible arc crossing the air to Tom, stilling him. He took a deep breath, turning to face Vonda. His green eyes smoked with desire, firing the blood in her veins, whipping it into a frenzy being with her ex had never produced.
    It was callous of her to want sex after all that had happened tonight, knowing a ten-year-old frightened girl lay upstairs. But with the mating heat firing her blood, she couldn’t help it. All she wanted was Tom. His arms around her, his body pressed to her, his thick staff inside her.
    Her imagination kicked into overdrive as she pictured him pumping into her, in and out, his big body slamming into her over and over again. She felt wetness between her legs as her core wept, wanting him in her, needing him to complete her.
    His nostrils flared. “You smell good,” he said, his voice a low growl that distorted the words.
    She didn’t think she could get wetter, but that growling thing sent her core into overdrive.
    Holding his gaze, she started working the buttons on his shirt. His breath sawed in and out of his lungs as her hands crept down his torso. Once