Poison Ivy Ch. 02

Us. Who the hell was "us"?

A salty hand (she'd been trying to bite him the entire time he'd been speaking) still covered her mouth, so she shook her head in denial instead.

"Yes, Ivy," the infuriating man continued. "Have you ever purchased iron supplements for yourself? Have you ever gotten them from anyone but your father? Did you get sick when you were in boot camp, when you couldn't take these? Did you have withdrawal symptoms... nausea, headaches, night sweats? Don't you think it's odd, Ivy, that you've never had a monthly cycle?"

Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up. She didn't want to think about these things right now, and with her mouth still trapped behind a stubborn palm, she could say nothing to defend her father. Yes, she'd gotten sick at boot camp. Everyone got sick at boot camp, at one time or another. She had just pushed through, refusing to report to sick call, and hid her discomfort.

No, she hadn't thought it odd that she'd never bled. She worked out constantly, seven days a week, at least an hour every day. She ran. She lifted weights. She could do more pull-ups and pushups than three quarters of the Battalion. The kind of rigorous training she put her body through was enough to mess with her cycles.

Her father had been a good man. Kind and strong and intelligent. He'd never do anything to put her in harm's way.

He put the little white bottle back into the console and started stroking her hair. Her mouth was finally freed, his hand moving instead to cover her brow to press her closer. "It's a lot to take in. I will take you through your first estrous, precious one, and then we will talk more." It was disgusting, how deep and calming his voice was, how wonderful his purr felt against her fevered body.

"You're not taking me through shit," she grumbled. Her words felt sluggish and slurred. He gripped her chin and lifted her face, his eyes moving over her in an assessing way. "Your eyes give you away, Ivy." He released her. "You are very close now."

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

She closed her eyes and leaned further into him as he purred and stroked her hair.

This was so fucked up.

.................................................................

The trip back was quite a bit faster than her trip in the supply truck. The Humvee/Limo was able to navigate the dirt roads at high speeds, and the ride was smoother and considerably more comfortable. At least, she assumed it was, since she had slipped in and out of consciousness for the duration of the trip.

By the time they got back to main base, she felt as though every inch of her skin was on fire. A permanent, invisible ice pick had been embedded itself into her lower abdomen. Her muscles ached, and there was an awful throbbing behind her eyes that she thought for sure would end up delivering a painless death via a brain aneurysm.

Didn't sound too bad right now.

The driver dropped them off directly in front of the Alpha's mansion. Ivy could barely walk straight but refused to let the delusional Alpha carry her back into the oversized room he insisted was hers. When they passed another Officer in the hall, he clutched her and squashed her between his body and the wall, growling threateningly, until the other Alpha had passed. She could do little more than grumble, muffled as it was with the way he was crushing her lungs.

When they got to her door with the ridiculous gold knocker, Officer Muscles opened it for her and led her in with a steadying hand wrapped around her arm. He led her toward the bed, but she shook him off and went to the couch. Like everything else in the room, it was entirely too big and obviously built for giants, but she felt more comfortable curled up in a writhing ball on something that wasn't the size of a fucking truck.

For the most part, the Alpha left her alone, bothering her only intermittently to force her to drink what felt like gallons of water. He attempted to get her to eat, but her stomach had adamantly refused all thoughts of food, rumbling in angry disagreement whenever a morsel was brought close to tempt her.

The fire licking over her skin was unbearable. Sweat-drenched clothes were stripped and discarded, her earlier horror at being naked in front of the unfamiliar Alpha now entirely forgotten. She was beyond caring about such things. She just wanted this insufferable fever to go away.

As if someone had actually severed the two hemispheres of her brain, and then walked off with one of them, she felt half of herself drift off into some useless, unreachable place. It was only then, when she'd been reduced to a shuddering, huddled mess of mindless nerves, that she allowed the male to scoop up her feverish body and plunk her directly into the middle of the oversized bed.

The soft feel of downy pillows beneath her cheek accompanied the first hint of relief. Reaching out blindly, she gathered all of the fluffies within grasping distance, arranging them around her like a trench. Which seemed to be quite a lot, actually.

Had she been in her right mind, she would have noticed the Alpha discreetly placing more soft, thick blankets and cozy pillows just inside the perimeter of her stretching arms while maintaining his position at a safe distance away. Not knowing or caring where they were coming from, she continued snatching at warm bits of fabric, piling them up into the ultimate pillow fort.

The second hint of relief came once she had settled comfortably in the center of her magnificently fortified, tactical wall of the cozies. The flames that had been licking over her skin settled to a warm glow as she snuggled deeper into her fortress.

The third hint of the relief was, ultimately, her undoing. Safe and sound in what she would eventually understand was her very first nest, a tantalizing sensation began tickling at her nose. Her admittedly half-fried brain became a paradox of simultaneous relief and painful need when the scent of the nearby Alpha reached her. She whimpered, torn between staying securely huddled in her fluffy bunker and seeking out the source of the smell that was slowly driving her mad.

Had he sensed the change in her? Had he been waiting for signs that she was ready to accept him? Either way, the dilemma of her inaction was settled when strong arms plucked her from her position, only to settle her back down after he'd claimed a foothold within her fortress. He came to her as she was, bared and exposed, intimate places open to hungry eyes. The sharp ridges and valleys of his muscular torso flexed and bunched beneath her hands as he positioned her on top, straddling his thighs. Hands tangled in her loose chocolate locks, the pressure on the back of her skull bringing her head down, down, down until she was inches away from the scariest cock she had ever seen. Which, admittedly, had not been that many.

Tentative fingers reached out to trace the veins that lined his massive shaft, the little bead of precum at the tip of his crown so fragrant and tempting, she was unable to stop herself from closing the short distance and lapping up the foreign elixir. His cock jerked under her tongue, the massive head somehow growing even larger, which should have terrified her. Instead, she moaned, the sudden and painful feeling of emptiness replacing the ice pick in her abdomen. She wanted... No, she needed, him to fill her to the brim, until she flowed over and settled back into herself.

The hands fisting her hair tightened as she wrapped her lips around the head of his cock, encouraging her to sink further onto him, to take all that he was offering and more. Invigorated by the potently sublime taste and feel and smell of him, she licked and suckled at a shaft so thick, the palm she'd wrapped around it was insufficient to fully enclose the pulsing girth. Hands holding the hair at her scalp stilled her movements as he moved his hips, gently thrusting in and out of her wide-open mouth as he grunted and groaned.

His breathing quickening even as hers stopped, she thought maybe she'd unhinged her jaw like a snake to take him further down her throat, as if he might replace the air in her lungs. Chuckling, he pulled her up with a firm grip around the nape of her neck, ignoring her protesting snarls and frustrated growls. He countered with a growl of his own, so deep and primal that she felt the power of it replace the very marrow in her bones, and keeping her pressed tight to his chest, he flipped her beneath him, prowling over her supine form, the same threatening rattle pulling all manner of reactions from the body that was no more familiar to her than a stranger's. His nose, positioned above her navel, grazed her belly as he moved south, his reinforced growl turning more into a hum of approval when slick gushed from her center, flooding the fingers that had begun to separate her swollen folds. Like a cat making languid laps at a bowl of cream, his tongue swept her entrance from bottom to top. Again, and then again, and his mouth latched onto the bundle of nerves that he'd growled awake the last time they'd been alone in this room together. She squirmed restlessly, hissing in angry protest when his hand clamped down on her thighs, pushing them to the side and preventing her attempts to make him go faster, harder, to give her whatever it was that the thick fingers slowly fucking her were promising.

The vibration of his menacing rumble against her clit, coordinated with the rotation and hook of fingers thrust deep against some inner detonator, would have seen her jumping straight off the bed, had fingers and hands and tongue and arm not been pinning her securely to the mattress.

Her head thrashed wildly from side to side, overwhelmed and incapable of any coherent thought beside the absolute assurance that she would die soon if he did not bring her to that elusive peak. And then, deep voice murmuring soothingly, skilled fingers lodged deep, he delivered.

The sound she made was not a scream. Nor was it a moan or a sob, or any comprehensible word. She had no way to describe how half-formed thoughts had sank into some unexplored depth, her own sense of self flooded into obscurity by the sensations playing a symphony of pleasure across her skin.

"Again," a deep voice commanded, and it was as if he had total control of her body and mind, the way a second orgasm split her composure in two, his tongue extending that brief period of intense relief until she shuddered and went limp.

Too soon, the pleasure receded, and she was left again with that intolerable feeling of emptiness. Later, when her mind had returned to her, she would try to convince herself that her desire, her lust, her desperate need, was purely biological. This, she would tell herself, had been her sexual awakening, and it was simply her transition into her first, full-fledged estrous that had caused the sharp claws of insanity to puncture the armor she'd built up around her suddenly broken heart. She would not be able to admit, at least not right away, that the emptiness being patiently stroked to the surface by a strange man who felt like home, went much further, much deeper than his physical body had the ability to fill.

It was as if all the pain and loss in her life had left gaping, sore wounds that she'd tried to bandage like an injured limb in the field. Briefly patched up, but not expected to last longer than the time it took to get to safety. Tucked deep into her fortress, the Alpha between her thighs keeping her balanced on an excruciating precipice, her defenses were torn away to expose the pain of emptiness left behind by the people in her life who'd abandoned her.

These half-finished thoughts, irretrievable and indecipherable, did not distract from the changes happening in her body. If they had been two magnets, she still wouldn't have been as drawn to him as she was in this moment. The Alpha crawled back up her trembling body, trailing kisses and licks and gentle bites as he went, stopping only when his forearms, positioned on either side of her head and shoulders, held the majority of his weight off her considerably smaller body. His eyes held sparks of amusement as his head canted slightly to the side, and startled, she realized she'd been snarling and growling at the infuriatingly stubborn male. Her nails scratched at his chest and the back of his neck in a desperate attempt to pull him closer. As if she was being branded, her skin seared in scorching agony in all the places he touched, trailing his fingers like a flame sparked to dry timber.

And he was making that sound again. Not the warm comforting rattle of his purr, nor the dangerously low growl of disapproval, but the possessive, dominating rumble that brought forth a sudden cascade of liquid heat from between her legs. She groaned and writhed, mindless in her frenzy, unable to vocalize what it was she needed from him, what was making her core clench so painfully in search of something. Tears of frustration gathering at the corners of her eyes, she was incapable of understanding the words meant to calm and sooth spoken against her brow, the Alpha's lips pressed to her skin in an incomprehensible sign of affection.

And then he was there, rocking into her, eliciting more slick to ease his way with that sound, the one that stabbed into the base of her spine and cut upwards until it spread like pins and needles over her scalp. His palm gently circled her neck, the thumb tucked under her jaw directing her gaze up, and up, into darkening stormy skies.

"There she is," a deep voice murmured when her eyes firmly locked onto his. There was discomfort, a sharp pain with each short thrust in, followed by a deeper ache when he withdrew, and she didn't know if she was flying or falling but either way, she was about to crash. When at long last he was firmly seated, her wheezing pants keeping time with the way her body throbbed around a girth and length that most certainly should not have been able to fit, she came to the surface enough to acknowledge the barrage of emotions and sensations coursing through her being the way water surges a riverbed after a deluge of summer rain. Yes, discomfort and pain, but also ecstasy at being full in a way it felt she'd been waiting for, always waiting for. Horror at the changes that were occurring, the feel of things shifting within her that she'd never realized had been out of place. Fear of being alone with the domineering, bull-headed wall of muscle moving over her. Fear of being alone without him.

And there, at the base of her entire existence, a truth that had been slowly weaving itself into her consciousness and now burst through the remaining barriers like a storm cloud cracked apart by sunlight. Something primal, instinctive, cold. Animals. They were both animals, debased and released into pure, ancient dissolution of the physical and the spiritual. There was nothing left but the here and now. Nothing but the drive to come together, to claim and be claimed, to take and be taken.

This man, she knew, would take. He would take it all, and never ask for forgiveness.

The first climax was like coming home. A warm, familiar feeling swept through her abdomen, ruby fingers of flushed skin climbing up her chest and neck like trellises of her namesake. Her rapturous moan was interrupted by the swift withdrawal of the weight on her chest and the fullness of her core, and quicker than her sluggish mind could process, she was flipped and mounted, a possessive grip on the back of her neck ensuring she remain subdued and still.

The Alpha's movements were no longer languorous and smooth. Having ensured her pleasure first, the intrusion became an invasion, a conquering of a thing untamed and wild. Driving into her from behind, hips thrusting with a force that was overwhelming in its stringent need, she felt him swell and pulse and felt sure she was about to be split in half. As if responding to her unspoken terror, a thick, tanned forearm banded just below her breasts, pulling her up and into the heat and safety of his chest. His fingers twined through her hair and gripped hard, the sounds of skin slapping against skin echoing in the increasingly vacant corridors of her mind as he jerked her head to the side, exposing the unmarked expanse of a slender neck.

Beyond the capacity for lucid thought, her body knew what was happening full seconds before her mind caught up. An expanding bulge pressed tight against her pulsating core, her womb doing its best to coax out the fluid his cock was enthusiastically surrendering. A scream, born from a place of unrestrained rapture and unchecked agony, tore itself from her chest like the last surge of a dying flame as teeth, much sharper than they looked, locked around the nape of her neck and sank into tender flesh.

If her last orgasm was like coming home, this was like launching into the stars or plunging deep into dark waters. Her weakened attempts to get away were stilled by a warning growl that vibrated around a locked jaw and the tightening of the arm still banded below her chest. The sounds of her own ragged sobs became muffled and distorted, and soon after, when the last of her tremors had quieted and stilled, he lowered her back into the protection of her fortress of fluff and released his violent, rapacious grip. A thick blanket of darkness fell over her then, murmured words of praise pressed like hot breath against her ear as they both settled and calmed. Dropping beneath the surface of consciousness, Ivy's eyes slipped shut, and she knew what it felt like to die.

...................................................

Precious hours fell to sacred days, each thrust of his cock buried into her perfect, silken heat reinforcing the blossoming bond he'd carved out deep beneath her ribs. The wound, a source of great pride for the newly mate-bonded Alpha, was healing wonderfully, with the aide of semen and saliva worked into beautifully broken skin by his gentle, massaging fingers.

She slept for hours at a time, curled into the cradle of his arms, lulled to silence and calm by the resonance of his wicked purr. He knew it's effect on her and used it often. Her lack of proper preparation was a constant source of anxiety, her slip of a body unnourished except for the come he fed to her on fingers drenched from the tight walls of her pussy, and the dry crackers with peanut butter he forced into her every morning, when she could stomach the snack and keep it down. All the while, he promised himself she would never again enter estrous without full days of proper nutrition and hydration in preparation.

Twice, he'd nearly lost her to the bloody, haunted woods of Torrin. Twice, he'd had to track her scent through towering pines to find her injured and in harm's direct way. He would have followed her right into the underworld, would have sold his soul to drag her kicking and screaming back into life if he'd had to. His thumb skimmed over the swollen, pink skin of his claiming mark, his inner beast calming at the sight of it, at the knowledge that whatever might have happened, she was here with him now, safe and sound and satisfied.

His hand stroked soothingly up and down her bare back as she lay sprawled across him, well-sated from another bout of carnal fucking. She was saturated with his scent, every inch of her caramel-smooth skin having been touched and licked and nipped, the fluids from their couplings rubbed into her like a lotion. He was drunk on her, on the feel of her tongue skimming down his chest, like a kitten lapping up sweet buttermilk from a proffered hand, on the undulating grip of her core as his knot tied her to him as surely as a titanium chain. She tasted like honey and wildflowers. He never wanted this precious time to end.