by Holley Trent
“Some of those bits and pieces aren’t worth talking about.”
“Maybe.” He set his feet on the floor and pulled her onto his lap. Closer was always better where she was concerned. “So tell me about the pieces that are.”
She drew in a long breath and let it out in a sputter. “Morocco. Berbers had been in Spain for a very long time. At some point, you lose track of where one culture ends and another begins. History isn’t always honest about who deserves credit.”
“I’m sorry you feel like you can’t go back.” He knew what that felt like, a little—not wanting to go home because home was the birthplace of all the hardest memories.
And because home was where guilt and unfair obligations lived.
She shrugged and hung her head. “Maybe some day a long time from now, I’ll go. Track my relatives, perhaps.”
“I hope I’m alive long enough to take you. Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t bring home any more wild dogs to take care of. I think one is probably enough for you.”
He’d meant it as a joke, but she didn’t laugh. She notched her teeth into her lip and shifted atop his thigh.
“Are you . . . spending the night?” she whispered.
“If you need me to.”
“I’m supposed to be off tomorrow, but I need to go finalize fundraiser stuff. And Hank’s supposed to be there to work with some of the kids. Not until eleven, though.”
So they had until ten.
He set her onto her feet, turned off the television, pulled off his shirt and pants. They were the only clothes he had until the cleaners had processed the order he hadn’t even dropped off yet.
Willa draped her robe over the chair arm and climbed into bed.
Wrong side, so he scooted her over.
He was a creature of habit, even in other people’s houses.
He turned off the light and joined her under the covers.
“Strange having someone in my bed,” she murmured.
“Is this even stranger?” He pulled her closer. He was going to have to teach her that she didn’t have to hold herself so far away from him. Her presence wasn’t a nuisance, but the opposite. It was becoming a requirement.
She laughed, then, and tentatively stroked at the hair on his chest, fingers slowly finding a nipple. She withdrew her hand at the discovery only to return it moments later—after he didn’t scold or flinch.
He realized then the difference in texture between the pads of her left hand and right. The left pads were rougher, had more calluses. The rights were soft and pliant.
“Strings?” he whispered.
“Hmm?”
“Calluses from strings?”
Her hand fell away again. When she didn’t return it, he brought it back himself and pressed her hand over his belly. “I wasn’t complaining. Just wondering.”
“I wore gloves for two centuries because of them. My nails were ugly and deformed.”
“Because you make pretty things.”
“A sacrifice I’ve questioned more times than I care to admit. Sometimes, I wish I could just . . . be dainty and put together, but it seems like too much work to do to get there.”
“You’re perfect the way you are.”
“I think you’ve just told me your first lie.”
“I’m not lying. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Then maybe you should get your head examined. Have you had any concussions lately?”
“No more than usual.”
Her laugh was light and sparkling, like bubbles popping in champagne or taffeta crinkling. He couldn’t remember ever making a woman laugh like that. Most laughed right on cue, but not with genuine enthusiasm. Willa’s laughs made him want to keep talking, keep learning.
Her fingers trailed down his belly, taking a slow and curious detour around his navel, stopping finally at the elastic of his boxer shorts.
She flicked it with her thumbnail, her sunlight-gold gaze finding his face in the near dark.
“Go ahead, if you want.”
Dangerous, but he didn’t care anymore. He wouldn’t deprive her of his touch or access to his body if she needed it. And he wouldn’t deny that he needed it. Needed his mate the same way he needed to slip out of his human skin some nights and run until the only thing keeping him going was inertia.
Needed someone to depend on him for reasons other than the fact that his energy had a subduing effect on lesser creatures, because she wasn’t lesser. He wouldn’t let anyone ever make that claim in front of him.
“Does . . . it hurt?”
The words were so quiet he wouldn’t have been able to make them out if his senses weren’t as evolved as they were.
“Touching me?” he asked. “No, you won’t hurt me.”
Her fingers dipped beneath the band.
Not far, though.
He’d been half hard since stepping into her bedroom. She was the only woman who could trigger his erection without showing any skin beyond her face, hands, and feet. She didn’t pulse with sensuality the way shapeshifters did. She wasn’t showy or provocative, but she was his, and that was all the seduction he needed.
“Go ahead,” he murmured, trying his damnedest to keep his hands to himself and not rush her. This was new for both of them. Her touching a man in such an intimate way. Him being patient when he’d never been required to be before.
“Are you going to tease me about this later?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Seems to be a game some men like to play when things get awkward.”
“This isn’t awkward for me.” Driving him insane with need, yes, but definitely not awkward. “And boys play games, not men. I don’t fuck around with games. I’m too old for them.”
“Old enough to be her father,” she said quietly, pondering.
“I told you. And stop worrying about her, okay? I’ve made my choice, and it wasn’t a rash one.”
“You must think I’m an antique.”
“That thought hasn’t crossed my mind a single time.”
He could only be so patient. He rocked his hips, tapping the end of him against her fingertips and startling her upright.
He didn’t let her flinch too far from him. He was developing an instinct to know when to reach for her, when to guide her back home.
“I don’t,” he said, easing her hand where it’d been, and farther.
Her body tensed as he placed her cupped palm over his shaft and curled her fingers around it.
“Hard to think that when I look at you,” he said, “and see a bewildered young woman who’s so damned agreeable even when she’s earned the right to be cynical.”
“You’re better at compartmentalizing than I am, then.” He thought he was going to have to show her what to do with her hand, but she started moving it again on her own. Soft, experimental strokes of his sac that had his nuts jumping up toward his core. A tentative slide of her palm up the length of him.
He swallowed and laced his fingers behind his head. “Maybe so. All I know is what I see.”
Her touch was gentle, and she didn’t need to be, but he wasn’t in a mood to criticize. The last thing he wanted was for her to back off of touching him because he’d been too didactic, too opinionated.
It was her rodeo. He could let her have that.
Grimacing, she pulled her hand out and rolled her wrist a few seconds.
The bad wrist. He wanted to kiss it better, but he wasn’t even supposed to know about it.
“Want me to take them off?” he asked instead.
“I . . . ” She stopped massaging the tendons between her hand and forearm and sat up straight, nodding.
He shucked his boxer shorts, tossing them toward the grubby clothes he’d visited her in. He leaned back again with his hands behind his head, legs crossed at the ankles, letting her examine him the best she could in the dark. He didn’t know what she could see, but everything was there for her pleasure. “No” wasn’t in his script for the evening.
> “Now I’m wearing too many clothes,” she murmured, looking down at her garments.
He kept his mouth shut. If she wanted to defrock, he wasn’t going to stop her. He wanted to feel the press of her against him, soothe his inner beast with her warmth and closeness. Give pleasure she hadn’t had before, but she was the one conducting the song. She got to set the tempo. She got to call the whole thing off, if the parts weren’t coming together as well as they could have.
She unfastened her robe, pushed it off, and dropped it onto the floor. The pajamas beneath were patterned with little roses, the fabric worn and faded. Laundered to softness and much loved, probably.
Her hands shook as she unbuttoned her shirt, and his itched to stop her.
She’d accused him of thinking she was an antique, but he saw someone who was just fragile and in need of protection. Touching her wasn’t protecting. It was selfish, reckless.
Limiting.
She’d always be his, and she hadn’t asked for that.
It didn’t matter, though. He was going to look after her no matter what. Even if she sent him away, or circumstances forced her to move on from the place where she’d settled.
Her shirt fell to the floor in a soft whisper. Kneeling beside him, she hooked her thumbs into the elastic of her pants, contemplating, perhaps.
He pressed his lips tightly together, staving off the “You don’t have to” protest, because it was self-defeating. The animal inside him needed her to undress. It needed to mark her in every possible way. She may not have had magic, but Blue had an alpha’s power. No outsider Coyote would bother her if she carried the taint of what was his—not unless they wanted a war. No good alpha would stand for his mate being insulted in any way.
Nude and skin burning hot with shame, as evidenced by the fright in her scent, she folded her arms over her chest and looked down at her knees. “You have to tell me what to do,” she whispered.
“You can do whatever you want, sweetheart.”
“I don’t have . . . instincts for this.”
“I don’t want to tell you what to do. I don’t want you to feel like you don’t have a say in the matter. You get to choose the adventure.”
She scoffed, but slowly, she extended a hand to his navel again, softly tickling the hair around it with a fingertip, carefully avoiding the terminus of his erection with each pass.
Killing me.
“Should I . . . lie down?” she asked.
“If you want. What do you want?”
“I want you to decide.”
He chuckled and rolled onto his side. “I thought you didn’t like when I made decisions.”
“Decisions without my input. Not the same thing.”
“I see.”
He sat up. Helped her onto her back. Settled himself between her legs and smoothed his palms down her ribs and up again, smiling when she squirmed more when he touched her golden places—places no one but him had touched.
“Selfish of me, maybe.” He pulled the tip of one pert breast into his mouth and sucked it until it pearled and her torso shuddered with her gasp. “That I’m glad no one really pays attention to you. I’m glad no one else sees what I do.”
“You could have anyone you want.”
Maybe.
He wanted only her.
“No one’s as interesting as you.” He sucked the other nipple to make it match, then alternated one then the other until they were glistening and erect.
Hard as him, even.
Whatever return quip she might have had to his statement, she couldn’t get out and gasp at the same time. He’d kissed down her belly and lashed his tongue between her thighs.
Her fingers curled into the back of his head, clumsily holding him in place, or pushing him away—he couldn’t tell, but he ate up her delighted moans the same way he consumed her body.
He slid a fingertip into her juncture, pausing at the entrance when her body went taut, pressing it in more when she relaxed. “Give me some input, sweetheart. Decide if that’s something you like.”
She unclenched her hands from his hair, clamped them around his hand, and guided him in deeper, slowly, as she hooked her legs around him.
He laughed. “How about another?”
Two fingers inside her, his thumb over her engorged button.
Her fists in his hair again. Thank the gods he had enough for her to pull.
“Tell me if you like that, Willa.” He stilled his hand again, and put his lips just over the soft hair at the top of her sex. “I’ll stop if you don’t want it.”
“D-don’t stop.”
“Whatever you like.” He put his mouth where his thumb had been and sucked and fingered, making her wet and ready, until her belly caved in and she dug her nails into his back. Her heels tried to pull him up and away, but her faltering breaths hinted to craving, not dissent. “If it feels good, hold on to it,” he said. He eased his body up without disturbing the work of his fingers and kissed her jaw, her chin.
It was she who took his lips, shrinking back momentary, likely surprised by the taste of her on her mouth. Any hesitation she may have had quickly fled. She worked her tongue into his mouth assertively trying to reach all of his corners, to delve deep into him up high as his body strained to do the same down below.
She worked her hand between their bodies, grabbing the base of his shaft pointedly, directing it toward her center, but he broke the kiss and put some air between them.
“You sure?”
Her nod came as she worked his bottom lip between her teeth, drawing it out sensuously before letting it snap back into place. “Here. Now.”
“Hate to admit it, but I find myself a bit unprepared.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, because of my former obligation, I’ve been chaste for the past six months. Pretty sure I don’t have a condom.”
“Oh.” Her brow furrowed, body shifted minutely toward him. She probably didn’t realize she was doing it, and he was trying his damnedest not to capitalize on it. “What are the risks?”
Having a lovesick Coyote attached to you for the rest of his life.
He cleared his throat and ran his fingertip around a swirl of hair near her temple. All that glorious hair shorn off for an opinion that was almost entirely wrong. Perhaps she had hair like her father’s and bore minor proof of inheritance of facial structure, but Apollo had probably been telling the truth when he’d said she looked like her mother.
“Coyotes are resistant to STDs,” he said, “so there’s just the other issue. A major one, in the scheme of things.” Another potential Coyote for his father to harass . . . unless the child wasn’t a Coyote.
Blue didn’t know what the end product would be of a recipe of shapeshifter and demigoddess.
Of course he was curious to find out, though. Dogs didn’t take mates without wanting the product of the coupling. He wanted that with her—something binding and proof of his good intentions. Proof that he could be decent.
“I can’t afford a child.” There was more wistfulness than frustration in her voice, and he never wanted her to go without anything she desired. She’d lived too long without having her wishes come true.
“Crass to say it, but I’m filthy rich.”
“I . . . don’t expect you to take care of me.” Heat poured off of her. A surge of humiliation, perhaps, but she didn’t need to be ashamed. She would never have to beg him for anything that mattered.
“No, of course not.” He held himself up on his forearms and watched the litany of emotions flitting across her face. Confusion. Curiosity. Wonderment. The last one was harder to peg, but it looked a lot like determination.
“If it happened,” she whispered as if to herself, “at least then, I’d always have someone.”
“You already have—” Biting his tongue on the retort, he let his head hang so she couldn’t see the frustration on his face. Things would be easier if he could just tell her what she was to him, but she had good reasons no
t to trust him, or to trust him too quickly. He could tell her he’d always be around, but she wasn’t going to believe him. Their relationship had started on the wrong foot, and that was his fault more than hers. She’d only been trying to do the right thing.
She was always trying to do the right thing.
But is this right?
Her decision. She pulled him into her the best she could, hardly a breach. Plenty of opportunity to change her mind and call it all off, but she whispered, “Help me,” and he knew there was no chance at that.
She’d asked him.
He couldn’t deny her anything.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Willa had always heard that it was supposed to hurt, and that certainly hadn’t been an exaggeration. For a moment, she lay in her bed, pressed beneath the heavy weight of Blue’s body, panting with uncertainty. Squirming with discomfort.
“We can stop this here,” he whispered, lifting her hips and sliding a pillow beneath. “I won’t be angry.”
“I want to. It’s just not . . . familiar.”
He chuckled against her ear and laid a soft kiss on the cusp of the lobe. “I hear that changes.”
“Then I want you to.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’re trying to talk me out of it. You don’t want to?”
“What do you think?” He rocked against her, sliding the rigid part of him along her juncture, exciting the stimulated nub even more than his mouth had.
Tasting her like that had been a breathtakingly intimate act to witness, but what they were doing was far more intense. It was how people were created.
“Relax,” he murmured, locking himself against her once more. “I’ll do everything I can not to hurt you.”
“Short of leaving.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Good.
She always had to make people leave before she got attached, and she was tired of it.
He worked himself into her, and pressure mounted as he pushed past the entrance. A sting. A rip, perhaps.
Breathless pressure.
Her gasp when he slid all the way home without warning.
He worked his hand between their bodies, massaging and providing counter pressure to the stretch.
Tipping her face toward his, he took her mouth with a kiss so tender—so possessing—she stopped paying attention to the unfamiliar discomfort below. He kissed as though she was the last sustenance on the planet and like he didn’t want to save any for anyone else, and that was fine with her. She didn’t want anyone else near. She didn’t fear that he’d use her up and immediately forget why she’d even been needed in the first place.