“I did die,” he roared back. “Do you have any idea how much it destroyed me when you said it was over? When you looked me straight in the eye and said that you’d made a mistake? That I was nothing but a goddamn mistake?”
Every word arrowed through her body. “Shain—”
“That you met your mate and fucked him that morning while I slept? That I had been a temporary means to escape your boring life?”
Oh god, the things she’d said. Why did he have to remind her? “I had to be cruel,” she screamed through her tears. “They were outside listening!”
“You could’ve told me what was going on, Kimber. We could’ve figured something out—”
She shook her head wildly. “There was no time!”
While her voice continued to raise, his became calmer. “You’re right, there wasn’t. You made sure of that. You gave up what we had in fifteen minutes.”
“I didn’t see any other option or I would’ve taken it. I thought it was the only way to save your life.”
“You gave in to them because it was easy. Being together was just too hard—”
Her inner roar came out before she cried, “You know that’s not true!”
“You didn’t have the strength to stand up for what we had.”
“Don’t you see? I chose hurting you over losing you.”
He gritted his teeth, canines pointed. “You did lose me.”
“I meant permanently.”
Mouth in a flat line, he brushed past her. “You did.”
The invisible punch to her stomach stole her breath.
Now he knew everything and it changed nothing?
She covered her sob with her hand. “If that’s true, why did you come for me? Why did you bring me here?”
His reply was the slamming of the front door.
Explaining why she’d lied to him, the fact his brother’s and parents’ lives had also been in play, should’ve at least earned her a little understanding. Did he know something else she didn’t? Were Lilith and Gerard okay? Was Aleck? Had she sacrificed the only love she’d ever known in vain?
She curled up on the sofa and waited for him to come back. After an hour, she went upstairs to bed, despondent, head throbbing, her wolf depressed. If something had happened to them despite her alpha’s promise, she didn’t know how she’d cope.
She stared out the bedroom window, the new moon just a sliver in the sky.
“How can I make him forgive me? How can I make it right?” she whispered.
She had to. She wouldn’t give up.
Just because he said she’d lost him forever didn’t mean she had to believe it. Maybe the pain for him was still too fresh. If they weren’t meant to be, why did the universe keep pushing enormous obstacles out of the way in order for them to find their way to each other?
He just needed time. Even something as devastating as betrayal couldn’t overpower true love.
Her heart and body aching, she took a shower and went back to bed, torn between the hope he would forgive her and the consummate despair she was fooling herself to believe it.
It was the middle of the night when she pulled herself out of a fitful sleep, sensing a presence.
She opened her tired eyes and gasped.
Shain stood at the foot of the queen bed, the dim moonlight reflecting the outline of his shredded physique. When he started to crawl toward her, she couldn’t draw in a breath, too shocked, wondering if she was dreaming.
He tugged the comforter from her nude body, and she realized why he was there.
It wasn’t to talk.
With relief, she laid back and opened her arms, welcoming him, desperate to wrap herself around him, hold him. That was what they needed to reconnect. To push past emotion and discussion and just let their bodies begin the healing.
She parted her legs while he crawled between them, almost hesitantly. The moment they were flesh to flesh, he pressed his hips into hers, his cock at her center. He buried his face in her neck, inhaling, while she raked her fingers to the back of his head.
He pulled back, didn’t speak, his eyes shimmering aqua blue with desire.
Pure, but chilling desire.
That was it. Nothing more.
Dread leaked in her stomach.
She opened her mouth to ask if maybe they shouldn’t, but the moment he swept down and captured her lips, she melted. He parted her lips and dipped his tongue in, sinking his hips toward hers, every part of him rock hard. When he broke away, she was breathless, unsure how much to touch, how to surrender.
Sometimes she was the aggressor, and he’d loved that, but that didn’t seem appropriate now. Down he went to her jaw and neck, sliding his tongue along her shoulder, moving to her breasts. She arched into his mouth and he enclosed his lips around her nipple, hooking his forearm under her shoulders.
Uncertain, she let him do what he wanted to her. Kissing, licking, sucking her breasts, her stomach, while she kept a light hand through his hair.
“Shain…” she whispered, squirming a little uncomfortably, the disconnection maddeningly loud, while he remained uncharacteristically quiet. Shain was an amazing lover. He liked to talk a little dirty and turn her on with his words as much as his hands, but he hadn’t uttered a thing to her yet. It was…different. Not like before.
A low, despairing sound escaped her throat before she could stop it.
Shain kissed his way up her body, between her breasts, and back to her mouth.
A bolt of desire, the urgency to have him inside her, emboldened her to make him wild, compel him say those things she longed to hear. Her mouth on his cock never failed. Even if he couldn’t say words of love, to hear him croon how much she turned him on would be enough.
When she tried to push him to his back, he broke the kiss and shook his head, holding her arms down and kissing her again. If he didn’t want head, that was fine, he could take her however he wanted to. He lifted up and guided her to her stomach, and she instinctively raised her ass for him, closing her eyes when his talented tongue laved from the bottom of her cheeks to her lower back. A soft moan emitted from her throat when his callused palm smoothed over her ass, his nose grazing her spine.
She whimpered, loving how he worshiped her entire body, and not just the usual places. He pressed kisses along her neck from behind while he traced his fingers along her wet slit, using the moisture to gently lube between her cheeks. While his mouth licked her neck and shoulder, his middle finger toyed between circling over her clit and entering her.
The only one making any noise was her as she let out a helplessly long cry of ecstasy.
His cock was so close. She anticipated the moment when they would be one. Surely once they were one, he wouldn’t be able to hold back or restrain all emotion.
“I want you inside me,” she pleaded.
Instead, he buried two middle fingers in her, using her wetness, and rubbing the pad of his thumb between her cheeks. She smothered her moan in the pillow, hands clenching the sheets, body shaking in response while he found her G-spot. Her pussy milked his fingers, the muscles clenching around him as the orgasm flooded every limb.
Shain always found new ways to make her come so hard she thought she’d die.
As he turned her over, she was still panting from her high and desperately grasped his face to kiss him with all the love in her heart, raising her hips. When she opened her eyes, he didn’t meet her gaze, setting her right knee over his shoulder, his cheek pressed to hers.
The tip of his large cock teased her sex and she mewled for it. He tensed briefly, as if hesitating, before pushing forward. She was so wet, he sunk in to the hilt unhindered, and it seemed, it’d not been what he intended. A barely discernible curse left his lips in her ear as he pulled back a little, then plunged back in.
Kimber froze, her lungs robbed of breath with his large cock, making her cry out at the quick pain. It’d been so long. Their hips met over and over in sync, and she closed her eyes at the sweet rhythm t
hey made. She dug her nails in his ass, her eyes rolling in the back of her head at the pure bliss of him rocking inside her. She wanted to weep, lost in joy that they were together again.
Her cries grew louder, another orgasm snaking its way to her head.
“I’m going to come,” she moaned. When she uttered those words, Shain often came with her, and she longed to bring him to bliss.
Shain pressed a kiss to her cheek and increased the pace, but didn’t meet her eyes, or whisper any words of desire. Or love.
The orgasm’s jagged power broke through the middle of her body, and when it hit her brain, she threw back her head and screamed, tears sliding from the corners of her eyes. It wasn’t until Shain’s thrusts began to slow that she realized he’d come too, his cock pulsing his hot seed inside her. His sweaty forehead touched face briefly, his left hand coming up to cup her jaw.
The moment she placed her palm over his hand, he slipped off her and climbed off the bed.
“Shain?” she whispered, reaching for him.
He quietly shut the door.
Hot tears welled her eyes. She hugged her knees to her chest.
How could he make love to her like that and leave?
She turned on her side, covering her face in her hands, empty and confused. Looked like that would be the case until Shain finally forgave her. Part of her wanted to be mad at him for bringing her body such ecstasy, blooming her soul’s deepest hope, only to extinguish it by coldly, leaving her alone in bed afterward.
At least he’d come to her. It was a start.
If that kind of sex was what he needed in order to make his way back to her, then so be it. She wouldn’t demand an explanation or complain it hadn’t felt like he’d truly been with her. Eventually, he would.
He’d come back to her.
Five
It wasn’t a dream.
Kimber woke up, relieved to see the cozy master bedroom of the cabin, and not the choking confines of the compound’s bungalow.
A weight had been lifted.
But another, different kind of weight had taken its place.
She climbed off the bed and looked out the window down below, at the wraparound porch, saturated in new morning snow. The night before last was supposed to have been her wedding night to Hudson, who she was sure was nothing short of enraged after discovering her gone.
Would they suspect Zander Kane had something to do with it? Would they immediately set out to hunt Shain down? Or would they not even consider him as part of the equation? There was no telling what the pack would do. She could only pray they’d let it go.
When she left the bedroom, she found the cabin quiet and the second bedroom door closed. She crept downstairs to look for some kind of breakfast, one that wouldn’t rouse Shain with smells. Her sleep schedule would be out of sync again. After going back to her pack, it’d taken her months to get used to sleeping at night again, so used to spending her days at rest and her nights awake in Shain’s routine.
She found a bag of bagels in the cupboard and cream cheese in the refrigerator. That would be more than enough to keep her stomach full for a while.
Though it was slightly overcast, the snow lit up the outside, creating a glow to brighten the otherwise dreary morning. Her wolf yearned to go for a run and check out the area. If she denied her wolf, it’d drive her nuts in return. After her last bite, she decided to give in. She wouldn’t go far.
She undressed by the back door and opened it, invigorated by the cold. She took a few steps and shifted. There was nothing to fear, she sensed. Most forest animals gave her a wide berth when they saw her coming.
The terrain was ideal. She went out about a mile and made a circle around the property, smelling no other wolves nearby, seeing a few deer tracks, moose prints. She ran along the bank of a small lake, then across it. Tiring, she tracked her way back to the cabin, shifting to human form.
God, she hadn’t felt that unrestricted and strong in a long time.
She gasped when she opened the door to see Shain, fully dressed, his teeth descended. Feeling as though she’d been caught misbehaving, she hesitantly closed the door. “What’s wrong?”
He closed his lips around his teeth, swallowing, looking her up and down, eyes flashing blue. It was the first glimpse of the Shain she knew so well. It amazed her whenever he saw her naked, like it was the first time.
Relief crossed his gaze eyes before it disappeared. “When you go for a run, tell me.”
“I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Disturbing me is ten times better than me waking up to find you gone. For all I know you’ve…been taken.”
He had a point. No matter how isolated they were, she had to take precautions. Freedom by fleeing was quite different than freedom by right. “I’m sorry, that was foolish. I’ll be more careful.” She picked up her clothes.
Had making love to him been a dream? He treated her like someone else had touched her last night, like it hadn’t happened.
Be patient, shiya.
“Did you eat?” he asked, voice curiously devoid of its usual roughness.
“Yeah. A bagel.”
“I’ll have to go into town soon for more food. I’m sure you don’t want to eat old bagels and soup for every meal.”
“You have plenty to keep me full. Don’t go out of your way.”
He went to the bench to tie on his boots. “I’m going to check the property, then chop some wood.”
Kimber bristled at his tone. She didn’t know what was colder: outside in November in Montana, or inside this tastefully furnished cabin. “Okay.” It was on her tongue to say he shouldn’t be outside during the day, but it wasn’t likely he’d listen.
She went upstairs to the bathroom, impressed with the size and luxury of it. An oversized bathtub set next to a floor-to-ceiling window with a view of the backyard, endless snow-capped pines, and mountains far into the distance. While the hot water filled, she eased in, watching through the window as Shain chopped firewood.
Shirtless, he raised the ax overhead, abs rippling, and sliced down.
She drew in a breath and sighed it out.
Her interaction with vampires had been minimal before she’d met Shain. A run-in here and there at a bar or a parking lot. He was the first one she’d ever had a full conversation with, the first—and last—she’d been wildly attracted to. In one feature or another, every vampire was striking. It was a gift from one of their deities, Yva, the goddess of beauty. But Shain, well…it seemed the goddess had spent a little extra time on him.
The face and body of a god himself notwithstanding, he exuded a love of life like Kimber had never before seen. In the beginning, he’d tried to affect the standard, cynical vampire attitude, yet she hadn’t bought it for a minute. It was almost as if around his own kind he acted like one man, because that was what they all acted like—nonchalant and intense—but with her, he’d been pure, intense light.
A light she’d basked in.
Was that Shain gone?
While he sliced another block of wood in two like it was a stick of butter, she wondered if what she’d done had permanently darkened him to a place where light couldn’t touch.
She was determined to earn back his trust and lure out the old Shain.
Resting her arms on the edge of the tub, she stared down at him. “You have to meet me halfway,” she whispered, her breath fogging the windowpane.
He looked up, as if he’d heard her.
She brushed her fingertips on the glass, wishing he’d come in, talk to her, make her laugh.
He broke away and resumed his chore with increased vigor.
Then again, she was the one who’d fucked up. For good reason, yeah, but she should go to him, make him laugh, not the other way around.
Why did he bring her here if not to give her a second chance?
After the bath, she put on the sweatshirt he bought her and gave herself a tour of the cabin.
Surprisingly, he had a small compute
r and internet service, even that far from civilization. Not surprising was a bookshelf stuffed with first edition classics she knew he’d read multiple times. She browsed them for a while, remembering how he used to read to her by candlelight, his deep voice resonant with his love of literature.
She’d bought several for him, but didn’t see those particular novels amongst these. Where was Art of War? Tolstoy? Catcher? With a sigh, she pulled one out, and noticed a postcard stuck in between the books.
Eyes widening as she read it, she debated whether to mention it to Shain, or if she should do with it what he probably wouldn’t dare…
The first wave of stomach-burning nausea Shain ignored.
The second, he powered through.
On the third, he nearly passed out.
Despite it being a cloudy day, the UV rays had immersed into his pores, and his strength rapidly depleted with every move of muscle.
He gathered the last of the firewood and trudged through the deep snow, cursing himself for not paying attention to the time. He’d been out there two hours. Even with fairy-blessed SPF sunscreen on, a vampire had his limits.
Avoiding Kimber was not just punishing her, it was literally killing him.
Physically and mentally.
He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, with her, himself, or the situation.
Last night he’d been taking stock of his weapons, cleaning his gun, inventing tasks to keep his mind off the fact that Kimber slept under the same roof. He told himself he had to be prepared in case her pack showed up, which was true, but the weapons were in the same place they’d always been and the gun hadn’t needed cleaning. He’d been sitting on the bench counting ammunition when he’d heard her cry for him.
He’d bolted to the bedroom, only to realize she was talking in her sleep, dreaming. Of him. The scent of sexual need and yearning drawing him in, her sensa hypnotizing him on impact, making his cock rock hard for reprieve.
If only he’d left the moment she’d opened her eyes…
But he hadn’t, of course. He went to her, aching to soothe his inner havoc and give her what she called out for. What devastated him from the get-go was how she’d surrendered to him immediately, opened her body, and let him do what he wanted.
Shain: Immortal Forsaken Series #6 (Paranormal Romance Novella) Page 5