by Thorne, Elle
“Go on.” He led the way toward a large rock and took a seat, patting the area next to him.
“Something strange has happened to me.”
“Your elemental? That stuff?”
Mae shook her head. “No, other than that, though I guess at some point we should discuss it.”
Why did I say that? He’s leaving.
He wasn’t the same Jake she’d always talked to and turned to when she needed someone. He wasn’t her inseparable friend any longer; he was now simply Jake who was leaving. She had a feeling he didn’t plan to return.
Why don’t you just ask him instead of having a feeling that he may or may not do something? Benithe butted in.
Why don’t you just go away?
Mae plunged in. “Something happened to me, and I’m not sure when. I haven’t wanted to think about it, much less talk about it.”
“Is it something I can help you with?”
This was the Jake she’d fallen in love with. Damn it.
His hand rested on hers, and that jolt that traveled through her when he touched her ran its course again, setting her veins on fire.
“My couple bonding mark.” She paused. “The one that Brad gave me so long ago…”
“What about it?”
“For years after he died, it gave me comfort. It was a warm spot that reminded me that I was loved. It tingled when I thought of him. It warmed my being.” Tears came to her eyes. “It doesn’t anymore. It’s like it never was there. It’s like I never had it.”
* * *
Jake watched a solitary tear make its way down over the curve of her cheek. He could see this was hard on Mae, and a part of his heart broke for her. He had gone through the exact same turmoil when he’d realized that the bond he’d had with Anna was gone. He’d woken up one day and that invisible thread, that unseen connection that had kept them bound, even after her death, was completely gone.
He remembered that day clearly because he’d gone into the forest with his bear and grieved. He’d run for hours and had gallons of tears over that lost love. His bear had comforted him and had tried to explain to him that this was a normal process, but Jake wasn’t having it.
Now he knew it meant that he’d fallen for Mae. That she was his fated one.
Wait a minute. Jake jerked up, spine straightening.
Did this mean…? Could it be…?
“Hey.” He kept his voice soft, though a part of him soared with excitement at the possibility.
She turned dark, tear-filled eyes toward him. She blinked, and another tear slipped loose and trickled down her smooth, olive-toned skin.
Jake placed a thumb on it and pushed it upward, retracing the path the two tears had taken. “I know exactly what you mean. I hope you know that. I went through the same thing with Anna.”
“I feel like I’m dishonoring Brad’s memory by not having that sensation on my neck anymore.” She reached up and touched the spot where she’d been marked, long ago. “Nothing. I feel nothing.” Her voice caught, as if she was holding a sob back.
“I felt the same way when I felt the bond with Anna break. It was devastating. I also came to an awakening. I realized that I was being given a second chance at life. I knew immediately what that second chance was. Who that person was, and what it meant.”
“You did?” Her voice was tinged with hope.
“Yup. And I went out and got a tattoo. I knew I couldn’t be wrong, but if I was…” He shrugged. “I wasn’t prepared to be wrong. I’m still not.”
“What tattoo? Where?”
“Right here.” He put his hand on the spot on his neck where shifters couple bonded.
“What is it?”
“Want to see?”
Mae laughed. “It’s dark. It’s not like I have your vision, Jake Evans.”
God, he loved her laugh. He loved the way his name rolled off her tongue, as if it was a caress that roamed his body.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, turned the light on, handed it to her, and moved his shirt collar aside.
Mae drew closer. Too close. Christ. He inhaled her scent. She filled his senses.
Mae shone the light on his neck and gasped.
She almost fell off the rock. Jake had to steady her while with a grip on her elbow and a hand on her knee. “Easy now.” He didn’t want her falling and suffering a concussion. A smile crept to his face as he had a thought. Or worse—amnesia.
“That’s… my… name…” Her words were let out in gasps.
He let that knowledge sink in for a moment while she raised the light and studied it again.
“And there’s a date, right there.” Her fingers traced the delicate script on his neck, her name and the date he’d had tattooed next to it.
The date Jake had figured out his feelings for her. Delicate and beautiful, exotic and fine—the font was exactly what she was.
It’s now or never. He cleared his throat. “Mae. The reason your mark changed, the reason it went away…”
“I know the reason.” Her voice was low, husky. “I simply didn’t want to accept it.”
“Why not?” He wondered if her issues were the same as his.
“I didn’t want to diminish what I had with Brad. I didn’t want to act as if he’d stopped being important to me. Precious to me.”
Her reasons were so very similar to his. “And now?”
She raised her head. Her lips were full, a dark cherry red in the darkness. The sliver of a moon cast the perfect amount of light.
He could not resist the attraction he had for her. It was so much more than an attraction, though.
He lowered his head.
Chapter Fourteen
Jake’s eyes flashed a golden glow she knew only too well. His bear was at the surface. Her mind knew what he wanted. Her mind wanted to say no—sort of. Maybe.
Her body and her heart had nothing to do with her mind. She held her breath and tried to swallow down the lump of anticipation. This was going to be it. This was it. This was going to happen.
She let her breath out and sucked another lungful of air in. she couldn’t tear her eyes from his, they held her captive. When Jake licked his lower lip, she fought the moan fighting to come out.
Her body, the usurper that it was, had begun to full on betray her. Her nipples pressed against the fabric of her lacy bra, erect, needy, pebbled and wanting attention.
Jake planted a finger beneath her chin, though he didn’t need to. She couldn’t have moved her head if she’d wanted to, that’s how entranced she was with the moment she felt like she’d been waiting forever for. Jake caught her mouth with his, taking her lips prisoner while her legs began to quake with desire. He pressed against her, keeping her from toppling over.
His taste was that of cinnamon and manliness. His kiss left her heady and intoxicated. His tongue wrapped around hers, took control, seized her heart and mouth with a fierceness she’d never figured she’d see in him.
He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her tight against him, calming the quiver of desire, yet making it more intense.
He pulled his mouth away from hers, leaving her breathless.
“Jake.” His name left her lips in a panted whisper.
Before she could determine if he’d made this happen or if she had, he was on his feet, facing her, and her legs were wrapped around his waist.
Mae looked down, her eyes caught on his chest. So broad. The muscles so defined. She raised her gaze and her mind went back to that tattoo.
Her name.
God.
He’d tattooed her name where a couple bond mark would be.
She breathed a sigh, her chest expanding, her breasts pressed against his chest. The sensation was heady. Jake slipped his hands under the fabric of her top, working them upwards. He cupped her breast, his fingers tweaking her nipple, rolling it between his thumb and fingers.
Mae leaned back on her hands, arching her torso, her chest thrust forward. A heat surged in
her center and traveled throughout her body.
It was as if she wasn’t in control of her own body. Passion was in control. She used her legs to pull him closer. His erection, thick and hard pressed against her mound. She rolled her hips, pressing her clit against his shaft, their clothing still between them. His thickness applied just the right amount of pressure, sending her into a wave of pre-orgasmic state.
He tugged on her top, lifting it over her head and flicked the hook on her bra loose with a quick snap. Pushing the bra off, he stared at her breasts, lust altering his features, even in the dim night’s light. The bear glowed fiercely behind his dark gaze.
Reaching out, he cupped her breasts, weighing their fullness, both hands rolling her nipples, tugging on them, pinching them between his fingertips while he watched her face.
When he lowered his head, Mae gasped even though his lips hadn’t even touched her yet. Still keeping his eyes on hers, he put his tongue on her nipple, flicked it, then sucked it in.
Mae squirmed, her legs pulling his cock closer to her clit, closer to her entrance, even though all this fabric was between them. He sucked hard, his mouth puling on her, drawing her in deep. His teeth scraped her pebbled hardness, making her skin goosebump in response.
Jake pulled his mouth off her nipple with a pop, pressed her breasts together and her nipples as close to each other as he could, then ran his tongue between them, driving her crazy.
Her moan made him pause.
“What do you want?” he asked, and drew her nipple in his mouth.
“I—I—oh… God, Jake.”
Pop.
He made a smacking sound as he released her nipple. “Tell me.”
“I want you.” She let the words slide off her tongue except it fell more like they stumbled over her lips.
He pulled away, tugged her skirt up, over her knees, over her thighs. The chill air caressed her thighs, but couldn’t cool the heat inside her panties.
He ran his fingertip along the elastic of her panties, along her tummy—she felt self-conscious for a brief second, then he lowered his fingers and traced the elastic from her hip toward her inner thigh.
“You’re beautiful.” He cocked his head, studying her. “Sheer perfection. Just like I knew you’d be.”
Mae’s face grew hot and she was thankful for the darkness for a brief second before she realized he could see as well as he could in broad daylight. Her blush grew deeper, a hot heat on her flesh.
Jake chuckled softly. “Where’s that bold Mae who has an entire valley of shifters rebuilding into its prior glory?”
“She’s—” Mae lost her nerve.
“Finish,” his voice had the ring of authority. He was her alpha. He leaned his lips close to her ear, his breath a caress. “Please,” he said it, but it was more of a commanding plea than a request.
Mae looked him in the eye. “She’s right here, naked. Full of desire. For you.”
She ran her fingernails up the material of his shirt. Letting him feel her nails and what she wanted to do to him. His muscles rippled under her hand, his abs tightened.
“I told myself that I wouldn’t rush it. If I had a first time with you, I’d take my time. I’d make love to you slowly, I’d please every inch of you with my hands and my mouth…” He exhaled a tortured breath.
He continued, “That was before I had you in front of me, the scent of you filling my nostrils with an aroma that’s so strong I can almost taste it.” He traced the valley between her breasts with a feathered touch, then moved from one nipple to another.
Mae, it’s taking every bit of my self-control not to let myself and my bear have you in the fiercest, most demanding, most taking way possible.”
Mae felt like her heart had filled with the joy of a thousand lifetimes. She didn’t care about anything but being joined with this man, right now. There was time for the rest later.
This moment in time, she wanted nothing more than to have him deep inside her, branding her as his, making them one, giving her what she wanted to give him.
* * *
Jake and his bear were torn. They cherished and adored this woman to such a degree that they didn’t want to impose their will on her, but she made it too difficult. She was so delectable, creamy curves, rosy-tipped full breasts.
When she reached for his pants, her fingers deft and nimble as they unzipped him, his breath caught. Her lips, her eyes with their occasional indigo flash, those cheekbones catching the shadows of the night. She was magic.
She was his. He would take no other, and he would let no other take her.
Mae pulled on his pants. With the speed of the supernatural being that he was, he shed his pants, and took his position between her legs once more. The heat of her body, the moisture the apex of her thighs created greeted him.
Taking her panties between his fingers, the crotch damp against his skin, he ripped them with a swift yank, shredding the cotton concoction.
Raising them to his face, he inhaled her scent deeply. She watched him, that gaze of hers lighting up again from behind, a bright blue flash this time.
He spread her delicate, dark pink, soaking folds and surveyed the exquisiteness before him. With one hand on her clit, pressed down slowly on the swollen button.
Mae released a moan, closed her eyes, and pulled one leg up on the rock, spreading herself more for him.
Jake placed his thick engorged head at the entrance to her channel. He nudged forward, breaching her. Her sweet velvety pussy swallowed the tip of his cock, hugging it firmly, her muscles flexed inside, as if she were pulling him deeper into the tight wetness.
* * *
Mae gasped as he moved in a little bit deeper. He filled her, he took her breath away, stretching her, almost painfully but with a delicious hint of the pleasure that was to come.
She raised her leg, gently placing them on his hips, then wrapped them around him fully as she grabbed his shoulders and impaled herself on him.
Jake let out a groan, his hands found purchase under her ass, pulling her in closer, plunging in deeper. He found a rhythm and drove into her over and over, pushing them both to a climax.
She screamed his name as a furious surge of an orgasm flowed throughout her body.
The first sound of thunder cracked in her ear, making her jump. Her muscles clenched around him tightly, squeezing him, not allowing him to move.
Jake paused, kissed her lips. “Will it rain?”
Lightning rippled across the sky, white veins on a black canvas. A flash of lightning lit up his face.
“No.” Mae smiled. “I’m not sad. That was a direct result of my elemental.”
She yelped as another orgasm’s aftershock traveled through her body. In the distance, thunder rumbled.
“I should get the training that I passed up on, to help me control this elemental better.”
“And miss the lightning show?” He kissed the tip of her nose, then took her tongue hostage in a kiss that left her breathless.
Jake picked up the rhythm in the exact same place he’d left off, and amid an assortment of lightning flashes, he took her to a place she hadn’t been in such a long time, and never thought she’d ever be again.
And then he joined her in that magical place, while the thunder rolled.
* * *
“God. Did we make a mistake?”
This again? Jake thought they’d settled this.
“I’m thinking of Anna and Brad.”
“You think too much.” He kissed her forehead.
A shiver ran through her. Was it that she was cold, or was it because of his touch? This woman certainly kept him on his toes.
“It’s just that I know how you feel about Anna.”
“That has nothing to do with what I feel for you.”
“This is wrong.”
“Nothing is more right. Tell me you don’t feel the same way. I thought we straightened that out.”
“I can’t say that I don’t feel the same way. It does feel
right. You’re my heart, my soul, my everything. My couple bond with Brad no longer feels like anything different. It used to tingle, even though he’s been gone for a long time. Now it doesn’t do anything.”
“You know what that means.”
“I know it can’t mean anything but that.”
“So let’s stop denying what we both want. Let’s stop second-guessing and move forward.”
Mae nodded.
“And if I have moments where I falter? I will never doubt my feelings for you and yours for me, but if I have moments where I doubt I’m a good person because I moved forward?”
“Making it official would change that.”
An indigo light flashed in the depths of her eyes.
“Can I think about that? Can we talk to Astra first? I don’t want her to be upset.”
Jake didn’t want to tell her that Astra endorsed this fully. Let Astra tell her that.
Chapter Fifteen
The next evening, Jake and Mae joined Astra and Kane for dinner at their cabin. Mae hadn’t wanted to wait before asking Astra for her blessing.
Jake pushed his chair back. “I’ll get coffee.”
Kane followed suit. ”I’ll help.”
Mae gave him a look as if to say, You’re going to make me handle this alone?
Jake and Kane puttered in the kitchen, messing with the coffee machine, unable to avoid hearing what the women were saying because of their shifter senses.
“Should we go outside and give them some privacy?” Jake asked Kane.
Kane laughed softly. “Nah. Fact is, Astra knows already. Her elemental talked to her. And I think it talked to Mae’s, or at least that’s what I think Astra was trying to explain to me. Anyway, the bottom line is this: Mae’s going to ask her for permission or her blessing or whatever. Astra’s going to give it. Then Astra’s going to ask Mae for something.”
“No shit? It’s that choreographed?” Jake couldn’t help the smile that came to his face. He had some serious spitfire women in his family.