by Sophie Stern
He’s like something from a magazine or a clothing advertisement. Cage has always been confident, but never too cocky, and he just laughs and reaches for me. He kisses me softly on the lips, and then he pulls back and looks at me.
“I dated a little,” he says. “But I never sealed the deal. My bear would never let me.”
“Your bear?”
“Do you know what mates are?”
“Yes. Betty explained all of that. Some shifters believe that each person has someone they are destined to be with: a fated mate.”
“I believe it.”
“You do?”
I don’t dare to hope that he’s going to say I’m his mate. Oh, I would really, really love for him to say that I’m his mate. Is there even the smallest, tiniest chance that he’ll say that?
Because I would really, really love for him to say that.
“Alicia, I knew that night. The night we spent together, I knew. I was scared, and I was young, and I screwed it all up, but it’s you. It’s always been you.”
Then Cage kisses me, and finally, we stop talking.
Finally, we let our bodies do what they want to do.
Finally, we stop holding onto things we can’t control and together, we just let ourselves go. We lose ourselves entirely in this moment, in this experience, and we kiss each other over and over again.
Cage runs his hands up and down my arms, tracing his fingers over my skin. I reach for his face, holding his cheeks carefully as I kiss him. Soon he deepens his touch, though, and I find myself sliding to my knees beside the bed, looking up at him.
“Please,” I whisper, gesturing to his cock.
“So polite,” he smiles, looking at me.
“Give me your dick,” I laugh. “I want to play.”
“I’m not about to tell you no, Alicia. You can have anything you want,” he tells me. He wiggles out of the sweats, kicking them aside, and I see his cock for the first time in forever. Has it always been this thick? It’s girthy, and I lean forward, sliding my tongue over the tip before I take him into my mouth.
He groans a little as I start to suck, playing with him, teasing him. I take my time touching, licking, and sucking, and he grabs my hair and tugs, pulling me deeper onto his cock.
Fuck, if I’m not already wet. He notices, too.
“I can smell you,” he groans. “Fuck, I want inside of you, baby,” he says. “Come here.”
He reaches for me, pulling me to my feet, and I start pulling off my clothing and throwing each piece to the side. I don’t care about being sexy or intimate or sweet right now. I just want him.
All of him.
And I want him inside of me.
I climb up his body, push him back on the bed, and slide down onto him. Instantly, I groan, and then I bite my lip, embarrassed.
“None of that,” he murmurs, palming my breasts. He bounces them lightly before leaning forward and tracing his tongue over each of my nipples. “No being shy. Not with me. This is nothing to be embarrassed about,” he says. “And you shouldn’t be embarrassed.”
“I’m not,” I insist, and I start to ride him.
“Good, because you’re the sexiest damn creature I’ve ever seen, Alicia, and I want more of this.”
He grabs my hips and starts thrusting up into me. He drives his cock deeper and deeper into me, and I grab his shoulders, holding on for the ride. That’s all I can do right now: hold on.
I close my eyes as he makes love to me right here in my loft, and I wonder how I managed to get so damn lucky.
How did I manage to get so lucky to get a second chance with the only man I’ve ever loved?
He teases my body, touching me as he pulses inside of me. I can feel myself edging closer and closer to that beautiful cliff, and I so desperately want to fall over.
He can tell, and he smiles as he pinches one of my nipples.
“Are you going to come for me, princess?” He murmurs.
“Oh...yes...”
“Tell me,” he says. “Tell me you’re going to come for me.”
“I’m going to come for you,” I say.
“Do it now,” he murmurs, running his fingers over my clit.
I’m so full.
I’m completely filled up with his cock, and every part of my body feels like it’s on fire. I’m going to explode if I’m not careful, and I don’t even care.
I want this.
I want more.
He pushes up into me, deeper, and he grabs my neck, pulling me close to him. Cage kisses me on the mouth, sliding his tongue inside of me, and my entire body clenches because I’m so close.
I’m so, so, so close.
“Princess,” he murmurs. “You’re so fucking sexy. Come for me,” he insists again, and now, finally, my body is ready to listen.
My orgasm rushes over me in waves, pouring over my damn soul. I open my mouth in a silent scream as the pleasure covers me. Cage digs his fingers into my hips as he, too, comes apart, and I feel him thrusting up into me, pulsing.
And then it’s over.
It’s over and Cage and I had sex.
And...wow.
I look down at him. My hands are on his chest, and I’m straddling him, and he’s looking up at me like he really does think I’m the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.
I blush, suddenly feeling a little bit shy, because the truth is that Cage and I don’t really know each other that well anymore. Once upon a time, we were inseparable, but now things are different, and I’m different, and he’s different, and...
He kisses me, pulling me close, and he wraps his arms around me.
“I love you,” he says. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter Eleven
Cage
On Monday morning, Alicia and I take Orlando to preschool and drop him off. Orlando is very pleased to introduce me to his teacher, and I’m just as happy to meet her. In my mind, this shows that I’m not going anywhere. I’m sticking around. I’m going to give this parenting thing my all, and I’m going to be totally involved in my child’s life.
I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that he’s not going to grow up like I did. He’s not going to be constantly vying for my attention because I’m going to be there every step of the way. Alicia and I go to her office. I walk her inside, officially meet Heather and a few of the other staff members, and then I politely duck out while Alicia begins her work day.
There’s something I have to do before my life goes any farther.
The cemetery is only a few blocks from the clinic, so I head over on foot. I stand at the gates for what feels like an eternity, and finally, I get the guts to go inside.
It doesn’t take long to find where my mom is buried. She’s got a glamorous-looking tombstone, which totally fits her personality. If there’s one thing my mother always loved, it was to make a show, and oh, she’s made one.
I walk slowly to the tombstone, and when I reach it, I kneel down in front of it.
“Hi, Mom.”
I don’t know what I expect.
I’m not particularly superstitious, but I don’t know what I think is going to happen. I guess I thought there would be something: a gust of wind, a bird flying by.
Something.
But there’s nothing, and now it’s just me and my mom in this moment.
“I miss you,” I whisper. “It’s been a very long time.”
I know what my mom would say if she could speak back. She’d call me ridiculous. She’d tell me I’d been silly. She’d say she was disappointed and frustrated and mad, but oh, that she still loved me.
That’s what Mom would say.
Because I know my mom never stopped loving me.
Every book I write is dedicated to either my mom or Alicia. I never come right out and say it. I always disguise my dedications in beautiful, flowery language, like, “To the girl with the bright eyes,” or, “To the woman who loved me from the start.”
I don’t want my readers
to know I’m totally sappy, but maybe I should. In the future, when I write, maybe I’ll be a little more blunt. Maybe I’ll say, “To my mother, whom I failed.” Perhaps I’ll write, “For Alicia, who never gave up on me.”
Maybe I’ll thank my mom for always believing in me, even when it didn’t always seem that way.
“Our relationship was always hard, Mom,” I whisper, touching the stone that marks her final resting place. “It was never easy. Not for you and me, but you know that? That’s okay.”
It’s okay.
“Looking back, I can see how you were always looking out for me. I thought you didn’t like me because I reminded you of Dad, but now I think you were just trying to protect me.”
She was just trying to look after me.
“And now I know. Now I know everything you did for my family even when you didn’t have to. Now I know you looked after my mate, and you protected my son. I was selfish and wrong and just...lost...”
I don’t bother trying to stop the tears, and I definitely don’t bother wiping them away.
This is what I came here for.
This is why I came to say goodbye.
Oh, I miss my mom sometimes. I probably don’t really have that right. After all, I was the one who walked away. I was the one who said goodbye. She would have gone to the ends of the Earth for me, and I couldn’t even see it.
I wasn’t the best teenager. I definitely wasn’t the most grateful, but...
But she looked past all of that and reached out to my family.
I just wish I had the chance to thank her.
I sit by my mom’s grave for more than three hours. I tell her everything that happened to me and everything I wish I could have said when she was alive. I tell her about my books, and I tell her about all of the things I did while I was gone. I promise that I’ll do better.
I promise that I won’t let her down again.
By the time I’m finished talking to Mom, it’s nearly noon, and I realize that it’s almost time for me to meet Alicia for lunch. We’re going to get some food and talk, and we’re going to make a plan for where we’ll go from here, because Alicia and I?
We’re going to be forever.
When I came back to town, it was because I needed to clean up my mom’s estate and deal with her house.
Now?
Now everything’s changed.
I’m going to ask Alicia if she’d like to move into Mom’s place together. We can totally revamp it and remodel if she wants, but I think that’s what my Mom would have wanted. I think she’d like knowing that Alicia and Orlando are happy in her old place.
I think she’d like knowing that I took care of them.
Finally, I stand, and I stare at my mom’s resting place for just a few more minutes. Then I turn, and I walk quietly out of the cemetery.
It’s a strange feeling: coming home. Everything is the same, but at the same time, nothing is. There are all the same stores, and the same employees, and the same little houses, but there are pockets of freshness. There are new shops here and there. Sometimes there’s a new, random face. Alicia said that occasionally, they’ll get new doctors or nurses who come, work for a year, and then move on.
But for the most part, Storm Haven has been the same for just about forever.
Until now.
For me, walking through town feels like coming home. It’s different, and I know I am, too, but somehow, I get the feeling that no matter what happens next, everything is going to be just fine.
It’s going to be more than fine.
It’s going to be completely unforgettable.
Epilogue
Alicia
Cage came back.
It took years of waiting and growing and crying, but he came back, and I’ve never been happier. There are some days when I wake up and I can’t quite believe the life I’m living. Part of me never really thought he’d return to the mountains or that he’d come back.
I definitely never dreamed that he’d be a world-famous writer living his best life, saving money, and running away from the past.
That’s the problem with not communicating, though: you can’t really know anything if you aren’t willing to talk about things.
It’s been almost a year since he came back.
A year and our life together has been absolutely incredible. Things aren’t the way I thought they would be. They’re so much better. When he walked back into my life, I was expecting the worst, but oh, things are just even better than I ever hoped.
Now things are different.
Fresher.
More beautiful.
The world is a more wonderful place than I could have possibly imagined.
Every day seems brighter than the last.
Today, Cage and I are at the park with Orlando. The three of us are spending an entire afternoon just flying kites, running around, and playing tag. Orlando can’t stop laughing, and even Cage is having fun. Together, the three of us really do seem to fit together to make the perfect little family.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that our start in life was so rough. Our family’s beginning was unbearable: almost impossible. Cage and I both made so many mistakes, and I know that we’re both going to make many more.
He did me wrong by leaving without so much as a fare-thee-well, but I could have tried to find him, and I didn’t. It wasn’t exactly on my to-do list to hunt him down and let him know he had a kid. We both screwed up.
But now, things are different, and our lives are starting to move forward in a way that makes me think maybe Betty was right all of those times she talked about mates. She seemed to really believe in the idea of true mates, and even though she was divorced from her husband, she never really stopped believing in the idea of true love.
Me and Cage?
That’s what we have.
Our lives are going to be hard, I’m sure. We’ll have chaos and turmoil and frustration. We’ll fight and bicker and then we’ll make up and move forward together, as a team, because that’s what true love does.
True love fights forever, but the best thing about love is that it always, always wins.
THE END
Author
Sophie Stern loves reading, dancing, and video games she can lose herself in. She writes contemporary, paranormal, and science fiction romance stories with sassy heroines and wonderful heroes. You can find out more when you visit her website at www.sexysophiestern.com or join her mailing list HERE.
The Bear’s Virgin Darling
Did you enjoy By Hook or By Wolf? Do you want to read more stories about paranormal creatures and the humans who love them?
I have six books out that take place in Honeypot, Colorado and that feature sweet, sexy, and sassy shifters. Check out a chapter from The Bear’s Virgin Darling now. Then consider reading one of my other stories:
The Bear’s Virgin Darling
The Bear’s Virgin Mate
The Bear’s Virgin Bride
The Polar Bear’s Baby
The Tiger’s Baby
The Jaguar’s Baby
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Chapter One
Hope
Hope.
That’s my name.
My parents struggled for years to have a baby and then finally, they had me. They named me Hope to remind themselves that things can always get better. No matter how tough life gets, there’s always a way to make things better.
Always.
It doesn’t matter if you’re old or young or skilled or uneducated. No matter what you’re going through, you can get through it.
As I grip the steering wheel of my beat-up Saturn so hard I think my hands might bleed, their words run through my mind.
“Sorry, Mama,” I whisper. “There’s
no hope this time.”
The highway is empty and I’ve been driving for hours. I still have at least two to go until I reach beautiful, isolated, far-from-home Honeypot, Colorado.
I don’t know a damn thing about the town except that it’s a 12-hour drive from my rink-a-dink hometown in Missouri and that I have a job interview with some ranch.
Like I know anything about ranching.
That doesn’t matter though. I learned this great skill in drama class called “fake it ‘til you make it,” and that’s exactly what I plan to do.
Holbrook can kiss my ass and so can Jacob Clint. Did he really think I wouldn’t find out he was fucking my best friend?
Did she?
It’s been a month since I caught them fooling around, but the pain hasn’t dimmed. It took me a whole month to sell my stuff, give my landlord ample notice I was leaving, and set up this damn job interview.
I applied for a few gigs closer to home, but when I saw the posting for a ranch hand in Colorado, I couldn’t resist applying. I’m still shocked they liked my application. I’m still shocked they called me.
Granted, I could show up tomorrow and they might tell me to get lost, but it’s something new, something different, something brave.
It’s something to keep my mind off how badly my heart hurts.
I hope Jacob and Margaret are very happy together in hell.
I press the gas pedal a little bit harder.
I can’t wait to get to Nowhere, Colorado. Not too much further now. I blast my music and stare out the window, driving with one hand down the highway. My car is loaded with my life’s belongings. I sure as hell hope I get the job because if I don’t, I’m going to be stuck in Colorado with no house, no job, and no boyfriend.
Soon my stomach growls and I decide to stop for a quick burger. The only two things at the next exit are a gas station and a fast food chain, so I eat my run-of-the-mill burger in silence, stretch my legs, and fill up the tank. My thoughts alternate between being horrified Jacob was the best I could do and being horrified that I won’t get the job.