I’m still not at peak performance, my body feels like I haven’t slept in days, and after the day I had, the last thing I need is an emotional war with that cold-hearted harpy while fighting my body’s needs to mate my female.
Fucking Hannah. Why can’t that female ever keep her nose out of my business! I can’t think about the consequences of what will happen to Julia because the truth is I have to think about me. Mate her? Boooond her?
Not fucking likely, and hell no will I ever put myself in that position only to have Daddy’s little pack princess prance off home once she changes her mind about me.
No, it’s far safer for me to keep this thing about sex, pure and simple, use each other while the mood strikes, and then if Julia leaves, like I expect she eventually will, then I won’t be a feral bag of fleas, gnawing at my own leg in mindless pain and bewilderment.
Turn out like Lync? Not in this lifetime, I think, finishing off the bottle and stumbling to my feet. The door leading to the backyard opens smoothly, and I stand there and remove my clothes before walking into the crisp night air and calling on my wolf.
The tingling is there. It rushes over me a lot slower than it usually does, but after long minute of clearing my mind and forcing my wolf to obey I feel my bones pop and shift as the change takes place.
Exhilaration sweeps through me, the call of the outdoors and everything wild making my wolf throw his head back and howl. I feel the healing seep into my blood and every sinew, bone, and piece of flesh that’s been bothering me moves back into place with perfect precision until all I feel is alive.
The woods call to me, so I run and keep running until I reach the edges of the lake and stop at the water’s edge, panting to regain my breath. This, this freedom is what I crave. My life is so constricting, and after years of my father punishing us with shifting rights, I now have the liberty to do it whenever I want.
Most shifters take it for granted, don’t think twice about bringing on the fur and letting their animals run free. For Hannah, Brigger, and myself, it was a torture that soon got us all in line, just as father wanted.
Trust me, if you have to go three weeks without shifting, it literally feels like ants crawling beneath your skin. I’d equate it to the human version of drug addicts, and I’ve been in so much pain, denying the shift that I’ve literally screamed myself raw at times.
I hate the memories, the ghostly fingers of them sweeping over me even when I’m in full shift and freer than I have ever been. I still remember father whipping me, yelling at me, threatening us all until all I could do was lay there and take it and push myself to the background.
That’s how I learned to mask my reaction to Julia in the beginning. In fact, it was Brig who taught me that skill. If you just believe hard enough that something isn’t true, you can fool your animal into calming.
I kept doing that until I was eighteen years old until eventually one day I saw Julia in town and I felt…nothing. The stirring was gone. The need. The ache. The sorrow and loneliness that comes from losing something you love. It all disappeared, and I was able to never, ever think of her that way again.
My brother taught me many things, and for that, and that alone, I will never harm him. Even if that stupid little pal of his Jock is sniffing around and helping Logan Kilter investigate me. May have to kill Jock though…
My thoughts cut off when a russet wolf stops beside me, and I look over, scenting Julia before turning back to stare out at the water. She doesn’t move but to drop to her haunches and settle on the shore, her wolf resting there as if this was her intention all along.
Just to lay and watch the water. I join her there and do the same because this is what I need, even if I don’t want to admit it. I need peace, companionship. Quiet understanding.
We stay there for easily an hour, listening to the animals scurry by deep in the woods, the breeze rustling in the spring leaves that have just begun sprouting on the trees.
Most of all, I listen to her heartbeat, the steady rhythm of her lifeforce, and for just a moment, I revel in feeling nothing but peace. I stay where I am, even after she rises and buts her head against mine in greeting before loping off, back the way she came.
Can I do this? I wonder, watching the lights in the lone cabin that is occupied across the water. I envy those humans sometimes, even as I sneer at their weakness. They’re lucky to live in a world where the most complicated thing about their relationships revolves around whether or not the man forgot Valentine’s Day or an anniversary.
In my world, I could lose everything, my sanity, my life if I make the wrong move. Would that I was a human man and Julia was just another woman, I would ask her out, date her, maybe try my luck scoring first base on the first date.
God, I wish, I think, getting to my feet to throw my head back and howl.
If wishes were gold….
Chapter Ten
Jules
I stretch awake with a moan and freeze when I feel hands traveling up my legs, the calloused digits scraping all the way up to my inner thighs where they stop and spread my legs.
I’m still sleep fuzzy, but I definitely wake up when my panties get ripped and something wet settles—
“Oh my God!”
A hum reaches my ears when my eyes fly open, and I stare down at Blain as he opens my sex with his fingers and smiles up at me cheekily before swiping his tongue back over me.
“Blain! I, oh God what are you doing?” I wail when his mouth settles over my clit and sucks so hard it should hurt.
It doesn’t. It feels amazing, so good I can’t do anything but bow my body to press closer. Heat suffuses me, the warmth traveling from my sex where he’s sucking and licking at me to my womb, my very skin. I can’t help the moans that won’t stop, nor can I keep from curling my fingers into his hair and pulling him closer. I want, oh God I don’t know what I want.
I just need something, anything to still the coil tightening deep within me, the ravages of the heat spiking until I’m covered in perspiration and everything feels on the verge of exploding. I’m close, so near falling over the edge, when he pulls away and peers up at me, grinning when I shriek a protest.
“Hhhmbria, you taste delicious. Has anyone ever…?”
“No!” I gasp, enjoying the light that sparks in his eyes at the admission.
“Never? You’ve never had this sweet place licked or sucked until you come all over a male’s face?” he muses, sounding wicked and seductive in a way I know I can’t fight against.
I’ve never had a male near me, because the truth is, no one turned me on half as much as Blain did. All these years, fighting against my lust for him, I just assumed that it was a product of hate. Now I know that my wolf was waiting, just lying under the surface and waiting to break free. I wanted…want Blain Seers to touch me, and he’s the only one I have ever thought that about.
I won’t tell him, I think, panting and trying not to squirm in embarrassment when he looks down at my sex and slowly licks his lips. The sight is so seductive I tighten between my legs and feel my arousal spike even more. He likes what he’s seeing, and that is perhaps even more arousing than the way he licks just the tip of his tongue over me.
I can’t pull my eyes away, can hardly breathe, when he slowly seals his mouth over me and sucks, his blue eyes holding mine in challenge. He’s daring me to flinch, to show him weakness, and despite the embarrassment coursing through me, I hold his eyes and let him see what I feel.
Rapture. Bliss. Acceptance. Because no matter what happens between us, this is what we can have for now.
Blain seems to know it all and uses his mouth to love me until I’m screaming and coming so hard I go tight all over. Waves pulse through my sex, spreading out from my clit where he keeps sucking, slowly bringing me down from that blissful high I can’t describe in words.
All I know is the feel of his tongue as he licks down and sucks up my pleasure before wiping his chin on my thigh and crawling up the bed to suspend himself over
me.
He kisses me sweetly, almost reverently, before pulling away to smile down at me.
“Soon, bria.”
That’s all he says before sliding back down, kissing my mound and leaving me melted on the bed. I love the way he grins over his shoulder, the tight corded muscles in his back, and the way his ass cheeks flex beneath the thin, cotton sleep pants when he walks away and slowly closes my door.
Oh my God.
Now that was excellent head! I tuned out for a good minute or twenty to give you privacy, but even I know he did you right, girl.
Hearing Hannah’s voice in my head after an orgasm that is still rocking through me is not ideal, but I just go with it because honestly…nothing can faze me right now.
That’s it? No witty answer? No cursing. No ‘oh my God, not you’?
I grunt, smiling when she giggles and lay back with a sigh of contentment. Honestly, I never once thought that this morning I would wake up this way, my decision made and me ready to jump into things both feet first. I—for real—did not think that I would feel this happy to make a decision that was killing me inside.
It’s been what, three days now since I cooked Blain and his mom supper for the first time and took that wild impromptu run in the woods, only to stumble across him, running his wolf too?
I thought for sure things were over before they even started when Blain didn’t bother to so much as talk to me for the last three days. I sort of knew I was done for when it made me sad, if I’m going to be completely honest.
The truth is that I have learned a lot about Blain since I got here. His mother is a terror, only allowing me to call her Bee, because apparently she’s not my mother and doesn’t want to be and she confided in me, sadly, that’s what her mother used to call her when she was young.
Not that the moment lasted all that long because the next time I called her Bee, she yelled at me that she’d changed her mind, it’s Mrs. Seers. I still call her Bee, if only to see her face turn puce before she starts going off.
Comedy hour.
Hey, I have to find my amusement somewhere right, and these days, after walking into the store and having Bronwyn call me a traitorous whore, I take my laughs where I can.
Yesterday, I went over to Denise’s to buy clothes since I only have Hannah’s, which don’t fit me all that well, and I got told right off—admission is reserved. In other words, I wasn’t welcome.
I came home. Yeah, I think of this place as home as messed up as that sounds—mostly because it’s all I got left—and cried for an hour before going downstairs and baking so many donuts my hands hurt from kneading and rolling out dough.
It helped me focus and not feel, the repetitive motions centering me in a way that allowed me to stop and think about what my life is going to be like from now on.
That, right there, was maybe when I decided that from here on out I am giving this my all. I won’t do half measures here because the truth is, I can’t not give my all. Blain is in trouble. I can’t just forget that in all this drama, and I owe it to him to be everything he needs me to be, even if that hurts me for a time.
I am taking a leaf out of Cass’s book and making this an all or nothing, no holds barred, oh God I hope I don’t fuck this up kind of story. I want sex, romance, mating.
I want babies, as Cass keeps cooing in my ear. Most of all, I want to look back on this time in my life in thirty or forty years and know that I have no regrets.
God willing, that means that I’ll be looking at Blain and watching our young play and live a childhood that they deserve. One that is so far from his it isn’t funny, and truthfully, one that is nothing like mine.
Most people assume that I was the spoiled princess, and they’d be right. Mostly. I bet most people would never think that I spent hours studying pack law and getting elocution lessons from Mom because as the Alpha’s daughter it is up to me to set a good example for all females of my generation.
When I wanted to wear jeans, Mom would buy me dresses. When I wanted to run wild, I would get stuck inside doing everything other than what normal kids were doing.
I have been spoiled, but I think, I hope others would agree, that I more than paid that price. I want my young to have complete freedom and run around with Logan and Bear’s children like wild savages. I want one of my little boys to fall in love with a little girl that is all Cass and Banner, a precious little thing that is sweet to her core.
To have a shot at that, just a small chance, I need to jump and pray to God that I can make this work for me, and Blain. So yeah, I am content right now because one, I just came hard enough that if I wasn’t regaining my senses, I’d be searching the bed for the top of my skull.
Blain blew my mind that much.
The other reason is simple. He’s talking to me again, and apparently, he now knows I am willing and more than ready to explore this side of us. Maybe that will backfire on me, and in a few months, I’ll be alone, rejected and discarded and ridiculed.
Maybe.
For now, I’m going on faith, and God help me, I pray it’s the right decision.
Hellllloooo! Are you gonna be in your head all day? I’m still here you know.
Sorry, Hannah, just—
Yeah, yeah, getting all introspective and disgusting. I hear it all, and while I want to put it on record that I puked in my mouth, I hope like hell you get all that, Julia.
That shocks me, and I don’t think I hide it well enough because Hannah starts cackling.
Why so shocked, Juju?
Well, I mean, I don’t blame you if you despise me, Hannah. It’s not as if I’ve been your biggest fan in the last few years, and well, I deserve your anger and dislike.
Oh pfft! That’s all in the past. Fred says the past is not something we should think about. Mostly because he’s nuts and drunk all the time, but he’s a wise man that Fred. Besides, I kinda like your spunk.
I don’t know what to say to that, but after the last three days of complete shunning, I am not willing to lose this olive branch. I need all the friends I can get.
Thank you, Hannah. That is very—
Yeah, yeah. Keep your tampon in your vagina. That emotional stuff is only on the table when shit hits the fan and my wisdom is needed. Then I talk a great romance novel. Hell, I still say Lifetime needs me on their writing staff but whatever. Those losers can kiss my ass after four rejection letters.
My snort makes her chuckle, and I hear a groan on the heels of her mirth.
You okay?
Yes. No? I dunno. I feel like I swallowed a whale these days, and my body always hurts. Logan’s getting so hysterical lately that I swear to God I almost look forward to the birth just to get these kids out.
You’re big, Han, like really big.
I know. Trust me, I’ve seen my ass.
And puffer.
Yeah, yeah, yuck it up, bitch. Just wait until my brother pulls his head out of his ass and plants trips in your belly. Then we’ll see who’s laughing about a fat pussycat.
Not nice, and besides, we already know he doesn’t plan to do that.
Yeah, until he gets into your magical golden triangle and gets addicted.
I doubt he’ll get addicted. Apparently, he’s a man whore around town, the guy probably has at least ten skanks on speed dial to take care of that.
Poppycock! That is—
Wait. Did you just say—?
Yeah, give me a break. I’ve been watching British cinema for three days straight. Damn, those Brits sure do have a classy accent. Not like those filthy hockey playing syrup drinkers up north.
I laugh, a full bellied sound of amusement, and roll out of bed to grab a shower and get dressed for breakfast. Hannah lets me go with promises of checking in later after Logan comes back to give her a foot rub, which honestly, sounds better than sex the way she was screaming his name.
Once I’m all dressed, again in borrowed clothes that are a smidge too short for me at the ankles and wrists, I make my way downstairs t
o start a breakfast of omelets, toast, and fruit, something I learned from Hannah is Blain’s favorite meal.
It’s while I’m peeling and slicing oranges that he strolls in and walks passed me, pecking me on the cheek and surprising me mute. I keep going, not knowing what to say and only get tenser when Blain stops beside me and looks down at me, waiting silently until I look up and meet his eyes.
“Good morning, malina,” he purrs, pecking my mouth again when I gulp.
I’m blushing seven shades of virgin, as I bite my lips and smile shyly.
“Hi. I uh, this will be done in a minute,” I say quietly, my heart beating a rapid thrum in my chest.
That’s more than once now, twice really, that I can remember him calling me malina. I don’t make a big deal out of it because I don’t think Blain even realizes it, but having the male call me ‘breath of life’—even if it is in Lionish—is something I don’t know if I will ever get used to.
It’s so intimate, the word more than just words because I know that for lion shifters the word is what mates call each other. Of course, I don’t think Blain knows that I understand almost all shifter languages because he doesn’t look at all fazed to be saying it and some part of me hurts that he won’t give that to me in the open.
I have no right to hurt, of course. None whatsoever because, honestly, I shouldn’t want emotion from him that he can’t or won’t give me. We hardly know each other. Sure, I know that he likes to eat certain things, that his favorite color is sky blue and that he hates peanuts and peanut butter—that hurts parts of my soul, I mean, how can he not like the PB?
We don’t know much else though, not the personal stuff besides what he yelled at me in the basement, and that…well it wasn’t exactly like he was sharing his deepest and darkest with me.
I snort silently, rolling my eyes because he was probably planning to kill me at that stage.
“Jules?”
I blink, clearing the thoughts from my mind to see Blain staring down at me with a frown, obviously having said something to me.
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