When he put it like that, it seemed silly she even questioned not becoming his mate. What existed in the universe more important than love? So what that her mate came in a package she’d never thought to have?
She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down on top of her for another kiss.
“Your mouth is so fantastic. But I want to see and touch all of you and if you keep distracting me with your sweet lips, I’ll never get to love the rest of you.”
She wanted to touch the rest of him, too. She had years to make up for and she got to do it all with a man who possessed the body of a god.
He bent over to suck on one of her nipples. Pleasure threatened to overwhelm her and her back arched off the bed.
“So responsive. What a joy you are to make love to.”
She hoped he meant what he said because she’d never done this before, so she had nothing to go by other than what he told her. His hand massaged her other breast. She tugged on his shirt, desperate to get it off him. He smiled as he pulled it over his head.
She fingered his gold chain with a questioning glance. He shook his head. “I’ll explain later. Right now, beautiful, I have to get your pants off.”
Chapter Three
Luke thought if he didn’t get inside of his beautiful little mate soon, he might literally explode from the heat inside his body. His wolf ached to howl his frustration, and Luke struggled to keep his beast under control. She might have been raised with siblings and a stepfather who bathed in the moonlight, but he doubted she was ready to deal with his beast in bed.
Not while she still remained a virgin—something he hadn’t expected and it humbled him to have been given the gift. She belonged to him and would know the touch of no other man.
He pulled at her pants until they came down her shapely legs. “Do you run?”
She giggled. “Badly. No one would ever call me an athlete.”
“You have the legs of a runner.” He pulled her leg up until he could kiss the top of her toes.
He wanted to taste all of her. He lived with the soul of a wolf and his wolf liked to taste things. She had become his new favorite toy.
“I couldn’t run anywhere nearly as fast as my siblings, even when they’re in human form.”
“Even in their human form, they are genetically predisposed to be faster than you are.” He kissed down her legs and she shuddered. God, she was so hot. “Some night I am going to spend hours making love to your legs.”
There could be no doubt about it—he was a lucky man.
He pulled his own pants off. When the time came, he didn’t want anything between them. A thought dawned on him and he was glad he’d prepared for the one-night stand requirement of wearing a condom.
“Sweetheart, I brought a condom. You’re my mate. We’ll be a very good fit for baby making. If we’re not careful, you could get pregnant every year. Do you want a baby or shall I cover it up as Madame Eve said I was required to do?”
Her eyes got huge as he spoke. She visibly swallowed, her neck muscles straining. “I recently lost all this weight. I don’t know if it’s the healthiest time for me to have a baby right now. I’m not a wolf, I’m more fragile.”
“I know that.” He said a silent prayer that he’d always be able to keep her safe. “I’ll cover up until you tell me not to.”
He was a little bit relieved. It might be nice to have some time alone with his mate without children.
She raised an eyebrow. “I’m new to this, but don’t you have to take off your briefs before that becomes necessary?”
“You’re sassy, aren’t you?” He loved it. “Yes, I will remove both your panties and mine.”
She grinned, showing off her bright smile. He loved the happiness in her eyes. If he had to keep her in bed all day and night to keep her smiling, he would gladly do so. Why should they ever leave the bedroom? Except to, say, occasionally do it in the kitchen. Or the living room….
She pulled down his briefs with a shriek. “I beat you to it. I took off yours.”
“You did.” He laughed. She kept surprising him. When he’d come here, he’d expected to have to coax her slowly to this point and now she directed him. “I guess I’ll return the favor.”
He yanked her panties off. A growl of possession formed in his throat. Her pussy lay before him crying for his attention.
“I’m going to feast on you now.”
She sucked in her breath. “What do you mean?”
He bent over until he could reach her warm core. “Your pussy calls to me. I need you so much. I need to see you come, pretty lady.”
His fingers stroked her, starting at her inner thigh and moving slowly to the place where he wanted to be most in the world. She trembled beneath his touch. No one had ever stroked her like that and he needed to remember it, despite all her bravado. He smelled her nervousness.
He caressed her beautiful curls before slipping a finger inside of her. God, she was tight. His cock jumped with anticipation. He would not hurt her; he would not allow it. He had to make her ready to take him.
Taking a moment to explore his mate, he finally found the small bundle of nerves inside of her and began to play with it. She responded to every pat, every movement he made. Then she began to pant when he found the right rhythm.
Damn. His mate appeared so beautiful and he got to look at her extraordinary face for the rest of his life.
“Lucian.” Her voice had gotten husky. “I feel like I might explode.”
“Let yourself, baby. That’s a good thing.” And oh yes, he wanted to explode inside of her.
Her neck arched back on the bed. Her eyes closed and she cried out with her first orgasm. Watching her discover her pleasure looked so beautiful; he knew the image would be imprinted on his brain for all time. It would be his joy to play with her clit anytime she wanted or to find other ways to pleasure her like that with his fingers.
But damn, he couldn’t wait any more. He needed to be inside of her. Right that second. While she still panted, he slipped on the condom as fast as he could. It fit him tightly, which was good, because it would keep him from coming too fast. Using his fingers to loosen her slightly, he gently eased himself into her inch-by-inch.
She gasped, gripping his arms in her embrace. “Wow.”
“Easy. I promise, we fit.”
“You’re inside of me. I’m so happy to have you there.”
He leaned down to kiss her nose. “There’s nowhere else I would rather be.”
As gently as he could, he began to move. Her muscles clenched around him and he nearly came. He was forty years old; he had to keep it together and keep this from ending in two minutes flat.
“You feel so damn good.” He wasn’t even sure he sounded coherent.
“I didn’t know it could be like this. Ever. I couldn’t imagine.”
Neither could he. But then there was no holding back. In and out he moved; she met him thrust for thrust. She gasped, moaned, and writhed beneath him, making him feel like the luckiest guy in the world. He got to do that for the rest of his life.
She cried out his name, her fingers digging into his skin. Her pleasure triggered his and he couldn’t hold back any longer. His body exploded. Yes, that was the moment he’d been waiting for, to lose himself inside of her. His teeth elongated as he gave into the urge and bit down on her neck right up against her shoulder blade, marking her as his for the rest of his life.
His mark would never go away completely. It would fade, but all wolves would know she belonged to him. Luke closed his eyes, losing himself to the pleasure surrounding him in her arms.
He woke up to a strange sensation. It took him a moment to realize what was going on. She rubbed her thumb over his knuckles. He inhaled deeply to take more of her floral—he’d decided lilies—scent into his soul.
“How long have you been awake?”
She smiled, picking up his hand to kiss his knuckles. “A couple of hours actually. You were out cold. I didn’t wan
t to wake you. I guess I couldn’t keep my hands to myself. Sorry.”
She didn’t look sorry and he was glad she didn’t seem that way. She should always feel comfortable waking him up whenever she wanted to.
He stretched. “I guess I must have been exhausted. It was a bit of a long year.”
“I didn’t listen too much when Devron talked about the Alpha challenges, but from what little I gathered, you came back to the pack to take it from Paul? And you had to fight off three other challengers?”
Luke ran his finger up her thigh. He knew that any second he’d be hard for her again. But his mate wanted to talk, so they would do that. First.
“When I was born, Paul smelled me as he does all the new pups and he could tell that I would someday be strong enough to challenge him. My father got wind that he’d ordered my death, so my parents took me and ran. Paul was my uncle, my mother’s brother. I wasn’t the only child Paul ordered killed, but I was only one of four who got away.” He sat up all the way to pull her into his arms. These were not happy memories for him, not at all. It helped to have her presence; she helped to separate the past from the present. “When it became clear that Paul’s leadership would irrevocably destroy the pack, I came back to oust him. I did it and then I fought to keep my position.”
“I guess you didn’t talk Paul into stepping down and then negotiate peace treaties with the others?”
“I’ve told you, my mate.” He kissed her neck and she sighed. “I’m dangerous but not to you.” He’d love the challenge of finally taking what had been his to take since birth. “I’d kill for you.”
Her face fell and wariness flitted across her gaze. “Don’t kill for me.”
“If the situation were to arise where that level of violence became necessary, I’m not going to exactly stop to discuss it with you first.”
She closed her eyes and pressed her face against his chest. “Do you think I’ll be a danger to you?”
His little mate didn’t know him well yet. Very little, short of apocalyptic conditions, could cause him any real danger. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re going to spend half your time fighting off challenges from the wolves who will try to kill me for being human.”
“Bethany.” He pushed her head back gently so he could look her in the eyes and so she could see his resolve. “Why would wolves try to kill you for being human?”
“When the pack shifts on Full Moon nights, they’re so completely in their animal forms that they try to kill the humans who are around. It’s why I had to hide in the basement behind locked doors with the television for company every month.”
Luke tried to digest what his mate had told him. She had grown up thinking that her family might actually kill her while they were in wolf form. Did every human member of his pack think that? Was that why they never showed up for anything?
He took a deep breath and forced back the anger that made him want to kill Paul again.
“A good Alpha is always in control of his pack. When I won the challenge, the Delta pack took a blood oath to me. That means they are always in the back of my mind, even when I am not with them.” He wasn’t, at the moment, going to explain to her how daunting it had initially been to have that many minds connected to his own. It had taken some getting used to. “Even when they are in their wolf forms, I can stop them from doing bad things. Having said that, I’ve never encountered a werewolf who would choose to kill a human member of the pack, even in wolf form.”
“But that’s what happened. To my mother.” Her voice rose barely above a whisper, but he would have heard it across the room.
“What?”
“A rogue wolf attacked and killed her.”
He touched her face, wiping away the one tear that slipped from her eye. That single drop of liquid made his soul ache. There were so many things he couldn’t ever fix for her, no matter how much he wanted to. He leaned down to lick the side of cheek where the tear had been. If he couldn’t make those hurts go away, he would share them with her.
Her skin tasted salty and sweet at the same time but, moreover, she tasted like his.
“A rogue wolf is not pack. But the fact that he could get anywhere near your mother shows how weak the pack was. No one gets that close to my territory.”
“Even now while you’re away?”
He didn’t like not being there but he could feel all the wolves in his pack. They were fine, doing mundane things, cooking, cleaning, and getting ready for bed. Nothing to get worked up over.
“Your brother and his friends have taken it upon themselves to patrol while I am away with you.”
“Jack?” She laughed. “Really?”
“He’s more capable than you might think.”
Her smile fell. “If you hadn’t told me you were a werewolf, I never would have known.”
“Why?” If he could reach inside of her and pull out her unhappiness, he would do it right now.
“Because you seem to feel things, really feel them, and every werewolf I’ve ever known shies away from human emotions like they’re a disease.”
“When I came upon your family, the day I found your scent, your sister wept uncontrollably because you were leaving forever. Werewolves feel emotions just fine. We don’t like to feel other people’s pain. I can smell, taste, and hear your pain. Everything in me cries out to make you happy. Perhaps what you’ve interpreted as shying away is actually an attempt to make you feel better, to not make you feel worse by bringing them up.”
She looked down. “No one ever explained it to me that way, Luke.”
“I liked how you called me Lucian. Could you keep doing that?”
She smiled as she looked back up. “Yes.”
“Good.” He kissed her nose. The feel of the gold necklace he wore scratched his chest and he jumped. He’d almost forgotten about it. In one tug, he got it off his neck. “This is for you. It’s your first, of many, Christmas presents.”
She took it from his hands and he smiled at the way she seemed to hold it like it might break. “It’s beautiful. Is it an angel?”
“It’s a Guardian Angel. My mother gave it to me before she died. She told me to give it to my mate someday, and if she wore it then she would have all the love and protection my mother could send from the great beyond.”
“Oh, my God.” Tears flowed in earnest down her face, but Luke couldn’t smell any sadness. Simply—happiness? “Are you crying because you’re happy?” Maybe she was right; maybe even with his understanding of humans, he would never really get them because this made no sense to him. None at all.
She threw her arms around his neck. “I don’t have anything to give to you.”
“Did you bring a pretty dress to wear to the gala?”
She sniffed. “I did.”
“Then seeing you in it will be my gift.”
He’d gotten a mate for Christmas. It was more than he could ever have asked for. “Were you happy with your one-night stand?”
“What do you think?” She whacked him on the arm and he laughed. “I’m wondering if I can get my money back for all of those Italian language classes I took.”
“I’ll take you there. Soon. We’ll go this year. You can’t stay and teach, but we’ll go. Would that be something you’d like?”
In his whole life, Luke had never, ever wanted to travel. They had to move all the time to avoid his uncle finding them. He liked territory and pack—they both represented safety to him. But mated to his woman, all he wanted was to do whatever she wanted.
“I’d like that.”
He would, too.
***
January 15th
Bethany woke up with a start. What was that? She flipped on the light, anxious to see what had awakened her. Lucian wouldn’t be back yet. It was four in the morning and only the first day of the full moon cycle. She’d be lucky if she saw him before noon.
Five wolves stood at the foot of her bed and one to her right. She gasped and pull
ed the covers up to her neck. Her mate had promised her she was in no danger, but what if he was somehow wrong. Her heart beat wildly.
The wolf to her right nudged her hand. That must have been what woke her in the first place. She blinked. Did she know that wolf? She had no idea. Lucian had white fur on the top of his head, but other than that she’d never been able to tell one werewolf from another since she’d never been allowed to be with them when they shifted. She knew she’d have to work on that.
The wolf whimpered and tugged at her sleeve. “What’s the matter? Is Lucian hurt?”
The same whimpering sound answered her. She jumped up and threw on her boots under her flannel nightgown. It was Alaska in January. Without her mate in the bed with her, she’d gone for warmth instead of sex appeal. She grabbed her coat as she followed the wolves out of the room. Her fear for her own safety had rapidly been replaced with utter terror for her mate. She couldn’t have lost him after she’d finally found him. No, fate couldn’t be that cruel. Tears threatened to spill and she pushed them away as she followed the wolves out through the night.
They didn’t have to walk very far. A few blocks from her house she spotted the storage warehouse where the pack kept extra supplies in the event a snowstorm stopped them from going out for more. Several wolves hung around outside. The wolf behind her nudged her through the door.
Wolves gathered everywhere inside.
“Bethany.”
Lucian’s voice had her turning to look to her left. He leaned against the wall.
“What are you doing?” She rushed over to him. “You’re not supposed to be turned back yet for hours. The moon is still up in the sky.”
“I’m the Alpha. I’m stronger than the others. I can turn whenever I want.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist. “You look exhausted. What is going on?”
“I am exhausted. This is my surprise for you.”
“What?” She really had no idea what he meant.
“Usually, we run until we pass out and we all gather into a big hoard of bodies like puppies do to sleep. Then we wake up and all sort of slump home.”
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