“And you believe that it doesn’t mean I have needs you can’t fulfill,” Trick pushed, stroking his thumb down her cheek, which was pink and warm.
Frankie inhaled deeply, breathing in the moist air. “I believe you when you say I’m enough for you.” He’d never given her any reason to think differently. “But if it turns out that you lied about that . . . well, there’s a good chance I’ll stomp on your spine until I hear something crack.”
Trick smiled, perversely finding the threatening glitter in her eyes kind of hot. He cupped her nape. She’d tied her hair up into a high ponytail, but curly tendrils hung around her neck. “You’re not only enough for me. You’re everything.”
She really didn’t know how to handle it when he said stuff like that. He didn’t say it shyly or with any hesitation. He spoke boldly yet casually, holding her eyes the entire time. As if he sensed her discomfort, he gave her a lopsided grin that made the claw marks on his cheek darken. She tilted her head. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You just did, baby. Not really giving me a choice here, are you?”
Frankie gave him a droll look. “Funny.” She bit her lip. “You can tell me to mind my own business if you want—”
“I’m yours. My business is your business. What do you want to know?”
“How did you get the scars on your face?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t ask about them sooner.” He’d sensed that she was curious about them. “It’s not a pretty story,” he warned her, slowly smoothing his hands up and down her legs. “When I was fourteen and still part of the Bjorn Pack, a twelve-year-old girl declared to me that we were true mates.”
She blinked. “Wow. Just wow.”
“Jana was adamant that she was right. She truly believed it, but I didn’t. There was no doubt in my mind that she wasn’t mine. The moment was awkward as fuck, and I felt like a bastard when I refuted it, but I had to make her see that it was just a crush. She wasn’t hearing me, though. She believed I was hers. Said she knew her own mind and her own feelings. She accused me of denying it out of fear of mating.”
“Which is something you’ve never feared.”
He exhaled a heavy sigh. “I’ll admit I lost my temper. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I knew that being firm about it was the only way to shut that shit down. I wouldn’t have in a million years suspected that she’d attempt suicide.”
Frankie’s eyes bulged. “She what?”
“She wrote a note and said she didn’t want to live a life without me in it. Then she slit her wrists in the bathtub.”
“Jesus.” Frankie loosely hooked her arms around his neck and studied his expression as she said, “It wasn’t your fault, Trick. You know that, right? It was tragic that she tried to commit suicide, but it was her choice. You don’t hold any blame for it.”
“I know that.” But he’d still been hit hard by regret, shame, and guilt back then. “She was a nice kid, you know. Fun and bright and upbeat. She had really bad lows, though. Could bounce from happy to sad to angry in an instant. Being around her had been like walking on a minefield. But she had a spark; it made people like her, made her seem strong. I realized later that the spark was just that—a spark. Not a sign of strength.”
“And you felt like you’d snuffed out that spark,” Frankie realized.
“At first, yeah. Not by saying that it was a crush, but by losing my temper and hurting her.”
“To be fair, Trick, I don’t think there is a sensitive way of telling a young girl that the guy she’s crushing so hard on isn’t really her mate. Not if she truly believed it. If you hadn’t been firm about it, she might have interpreted it as indecision on your part—purely because it would have been what she wanted to believe.”
“Maybe.” Trick’s eyes drifted almost shut as Frankie’s fingers soothingly traced patterns on his back. “Anyway, her family was understandably upset. Her parents agreed with me that it was just a crush that she mistook for something more. They didn’t blame me, but her older brother sure did. He went for my throat.”
Bastard. Her wolf growled at the idea. “How old was he?”
“Seventeen. He was angry and looking for someone to take it out on. The fight was brutal. I was younger than him, but I was equally dominant, and I was big for my age. I won the duel and he submitted, which meant I didn’t have to kill him. But he dug his claws in deep enough for that strike to scar me. For a while that scar felt like a reminder of what an insensitive bastard I’d been to Jana. But intellectually I knew that I wasn’t responsible for her choices. I eventually came to believe that.”
“Good, because you did nothing wrong. Sounds to me like she wasn’t emotionally stable. Is she better now?”
“I have no idea. Her family left the pack shortly after that.” He rested his forehead on hers. “No one outside my childhood pack mates knows that story.”
“It’s safe with me.”
“I know.” He snaked a hand around her throat and kissed her, slow and wet and deep. He got lost in it. Lost in her. And now his cock was full and aching. He growled. “I love this mouth.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I think about it a lot. I think about tasting it. Then I think about fucking it. Then I think about fucking you. Then I think about you fucking me. You see the pattern.”
“You think too much.” Her mouth twisted. “This might seem like a stupid question . . .”
“It probably is. Ask anyway.”
She gave him a mock glare for that comment. “Did you ever think there was a chance that your true mate was a guy?”
Trick narrowed his eyes, wondering if the real question was Did you hope your true mate was a guy? “I always thought my mate would be female.”
She slanted her head. “Why?”
“It was just a feeling. Now, though, I think maybe a part of my subconscious had already recognized you and so I knew my mate was female. Frankie, when I was with someone in the past, it wasn’t about whether they had a pussy or a cock. I didn’t prefer one over the other.” He gripped her neck. “Hear me when I say this because it’s important—I don’t need cock, I don’t need pussy, I need you. Just you.”
Frankie bit the inside of her cheek. They might not have been poetic words, but they got to her. “I’m not like you.”
His brow lifted. “In what way, baby?”
“I don’t find it easy to say nice stuff. I’m outspoken, I’ll say what I’m thinking or feeling, but I find it awkward when it comes to talking about personal feelings. And I’m annoyed at myself for that. You don’t hold anything back, and you deserve to hear what I’m feeling.”
Trick’s chest clenched. He scooped her up and brought her close to straddle him. “I know what you’re feeling. It’s written all over your face.”
She couldn’t help bristling. “What am I feeling?”
“You’re so madly, deeply, irreversibly in love with me that you find yourself bursting into happy tears at random times, thanking fate for sending me your way and letting you get caught up in my sexual web.”
Frankie stifled a smile and said, deadpan, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m feeling.”
“See, it’s like one mind.”
“Uh-huh.”
He curved his hand around her chin. “I don’t need pretty words from you, Frankie. I find it cute that you struggle with them. But I can see that this really bothers you, so let’s do this another way. Do you want me here?”
“If I didn’t want you here, I’d have kicked your ass out.”
She’d have tried, thought Trick. It wouldn’t have worked. “Am I enough for you the way I am?”
She swallowed. “Yes.”
“Do you think you could ever love me?”
“I’m kind of halfway there,” she whispered.
Satisfied, Trick smiled. “That’s all I need to know.”
CHAPTER TEN
The next morning, Frankie was cursing at her cell phone when she sensed Trick enter the kitchen. “B
rad’s still not answering my calls,” she told him without looking up. Apparently her uncle was taking a page from Marcia’s book and giving Frankie the cold shoulder. “Well, I’m not calling again so he can keep blowing me off. He knows I want to speak to him. I’m not giving him the satisfaction of chasing after him.” When Trick said nothing, she lifted her head and met his eyes. The sober look on his face made her tense. “Something wrong?”
He crossed to her stool and took her hands in his. “Baby, it’s Iris. She passed away in her sleep last night.”
The words stabbed Frankie right in the stomach. She took in a huge gulp of air. “Oh.”
“Come here.” Trick drew her to him, curling his arms tight around her. He kissed her hair. “I’m sorry, baby.”
The gentleness in his voice made her chest tighten. “I didn’t really know her.”
Trick framed her face with his hands. “She was your grandmother, and she loved you. She was a good woman, and I’m sorry that you didn’t get more time with her. And I’m sorry for all the years that you missed with her. If nothing else, you can mourn what you missed.”
Frankie rested her forehead on his chest. She hadn’t expected to feel such deep sorrow about the news. Iris was her grandmother, sure, but she was also a virtual stranger. Still, Frankie remembered those pictures she’d seen in the albums of Iris hugging her tight, kissing her cheek, holding her hand, or carrying her around. Iris had loved her, and the child that Frankie had once been had loved her right back.
Realizing she was clinging to Trick, Frankie loosened her grip on him. “Will there be a funeral?”
“It’ll be held on Bjorn Pack territory in a few days.”
She frowned. “Bjorn territory?”
“Iris wanted to be buried near her mate and son.” Which meant that if Frankie went, she’d see Christopher’s grave. Trick wasn’t sure if that was something she was ready for. “You don’t have to go to the funeral, Frankie. Iris would have wanted you to be there, but she would also have perfectly understood if you didn’t go.”
“I’ll be there.” She wanted to pay her respects. His eyes searched hers, uncertain, so she assured him, “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. The graveyard is near the border of Bjorn Pack territory, so there’ll be no need for us to drive through the heart of it.”
That was a relief. She wasn’t ready to revisit the place yet. Wasn’t sure if it was something she’d ever want to do.
“Don’t know if you’re one of those people who like to be alone when you’re sad or grieving, but I’m telling you now that that won’t be happening. I’m staying at your side. We don’t have to talk about this anymore if you don’t want to, but I’m not leaving you.”
“I wasn’t going to ask you to go.” Her chest felt tight, and she rubbed the heel of her hand over it. Her stomach was churning, and she was surprised she hadn’t retched.
“We need to go check on Lydia. She’ll want to see you. Think you’re up to that?”
“I thought we’d established that I’m not made of fine bone china, Trick.”
He cupped her face. “I know you’re not fragile. But you are mine. That means I intend to take care of you, no matter how strong you are.”
“Even a strong woman needs to lean on her man sometimes.”
Hearing Iris’s voice in her head made her swallow hard. Frankie went pliant against him, and he wrapped his arms tight around her once more. She said nothing as he gently rocked her from side to side; she allowed herself to take comfort from him. Her wolf pushed up against him, letting out a whine of grief. “You’re right, she was a good woman. She didn’t deserve to have her granddaughter taken from her life.”
Trick kissed her temple. “No, she didn’t. But she got to see the woman you’d become. That made up for a lot.” He squeezed her nape. “Come on, let’s go home.” He was glad when she didn’t argue that Phoenix Pack territory wasn’t her home. They both knew she wouldn’t be living in the house much longer. “We’ll see Lydia, and then we’ll let our wolves out so they can run together.”
“Sounds good.”
An hour later, they were walking through the caves of pack territory. As they entered the living area, Frankie saw that most of the pack were gathered around, all looking grief-stricken to varying degrees.
Lydia’s lips trembled as she saw Frankie. Her eyes were red rimmed, and her face was puffy and splotchy. She stood and crossed to Frankie.
Not good with grieving people, Frankie shifted from foot to foot. She opened her mouth, intending to say the typical “I’m sorry for your loss,” but the words just seemed so formal and distant. All that came out was, “Hey.”
“Frankie,” was all Lydia said. Then she wrapped her arms around Frankie. It wasn’t a hug that offered comfort, it was one that begged for it. Frankie awkwardly returned the hug.
“I really can’t thank you enough for coming to see her,” Lydia whispered, as if her voice lacked strength. “She’d wanted it for so long . . .”
Frankie swallowed. Her throat felt sore and scratchy from the sob that she couldn’t seem to let go. “I’m glad I was able to see her. As Trick said, she was a good woman.” Hell, they weren’t exactly comforting words, but she was truly at a loss for what to say.
“I knew it was coming. Even though I was prepared, it still hit me hard when I went to check on her and realized she was gone.” Lydia shuddered, and then it was like she just crumpled. Her sobs were heartbreaking. Cam gently pulled her to him, murmuring in her ear as Lydia cried, clutching his arms.
Trick draped an arm over Frankie’s shoulders, holding her close, as people offered her sympathetic looks and words of comfort. He knew his mate. Knew she’d feel that she didn’t deserve that support, considering it felt to her as if she’d only met Iris twice. But he also knew that Frankie was hurting. Mourning the years that she’d lost with her grandmother, and imagining how different things would have been if they hadn’t been separated from each other all those years ago.
Taking a shaky breath, Lydia raked a hand through her hair. “Clara will be here soon. She wants to help with the funeral arrangements. She’ll probably bring her sons with her.”
He felt Frankie tense in his arms and wondered why. Figuring she felt overwhelmed, he spoke into her ear. “Come on, let’s go for that run.”
Taking possession of her hand, he led her out of the caves and down to a clearing near the river. He grimaced at the thick gray cloud that smeared the sky. “Rain’s coming, but I think our wolves will have enough time to play before it starts.”
As they began to strip, she asked, “Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, our wolves could claim each other.”
Trick chuckled. “I can’t promise that my wolf won’t try his luck, but I know your wolf won’t let him claim her. Not yet. She’s still testing me.”
“You’re winning her over. Fast.”
“Good. Now let her free,” he coaxed. Bones snapped and popped as his Frankie withdrew and a creamy blonde wolf with a patch of silver fur between her ears stood in her place. The female stretched, scrabbling her claws on the ground. Trick crouched down to her and patted her neck while she licked his jaw. “Beautiful,” he said. Then he shifted.
The male wolf shook fur that was a mix of gray, brown, and gold. He sniffed his mate. She backed away with a playful snarl. Then she ran. He chased her through the woods, paws padding over fallen leaves, pine needles, flowers, and mushrooms. Gaining on her, he pounced.
The female barked as he wrestled her to the ground. She twisted. Playfully bit and swatted him. Back on her feet, she ran again.
For hours they explored, leaping over crumbling logs, lapping at the stream, and chasing forest creatures into the underbrush or up the trees.
Random drops of water wet their fur, but they kept playing. It wasn’t until the rain picked up that they turned to head back to the river. It was too late. The rain was soon pounding down on them. The male wolf herded his female into a small building for sh
elter. Then he pulled back, allowing his human half to surface.
Trick scratched the she-wolf’s ear. “Shift, baby.” He waited, muscles coiled, ready to pounce.
Standing, Frankie blinked rain out of her eyes, surprised to see a row of SUVs. Realizing it was a small garage, she said, “Why do you have—” A mouth closed over hers, hot and hard. For a second she froze, startled. Then she gave herself over to him.
He backed her against an SUV, his growl vibrating with pure power. His hands roughly fisted her wet hair, angling her head. Yes, this was what she needed. His heat. His strength. The ferocity of what he felt for her. And he’d known that, she realized. Known that soft and gentle would do nothing for her while so many emotions were putting her through the wringer. She didn’t want to be gentled, she wanted to be fucked. Taken. Used.
She shivered, but it wasn’t from the cool air or the rain that dripped from her hair down her back. No, it was her body instantly responding to Trick—heating, melting, shaking, readying itself.
She probably looked like a drowned rat—her skin was wet and clammy, and her hair was plastered to her head. Trick didn’t seem to care. He ravaged her mouth, aggressively shoving his cock against her. A moan slipped out of her as he licked his way down to her pulse. She winced at the hard bite of his teeth.
Trick laved the mark with his tongue to soothe the sting. “Just a little reminder that you belong to me.” He slid his finger between her folds, groaning at how slick she was. His cock twitched, so full and heavy that he ached.
He sank two fingers inside her and hooked them just right. “All mine. Yeah, my pussy is so hot and tight.” Her inner muscles spasmed, and he knew she loved it when he talked that way. So, as he slowly fucked her with his fingers, Trick whispered into her ear—telling her how much he loved being inside her, how thoroughly he intended to fuck her, how he’d one day claim her ass just as surely as he’d claimed her pussy.
He didn’t want her thinking about Iris, the Newmans, or anything else that hurt her. He wanted to sweep her away from it all, wanted her priority right then to be simply how bad she needed to come. At that moment she needed it so bad, she was quivering.
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