“You feel like coming home,” Razor whispered against her lips, his cock now buried to the hilt. She whimpered and thrust her hips off the bed, demanding friction. He grinned and kissed her again. “You do, Ginny. No one has ever felt as right as you do.”
“Razor, please…”
“Reyvon.”
Her heart leapt into her throat. He’d said that name before. “Reyvon?”
“When we’re like this, at least.” He smiled and lifted off her, dragging his dick against her flesh in exquisite torture before he sank within her once more. “That’s who I used to be,” he explained on a sigh. “Reyvon.”
Ginny nodded. “Your given name.”
“That’s right.” His lips found hers again as his body assumed a natural rhythm. “That’s who I want to be when we’re like this.”
The request was bizarre but she decided not to question it. Razor had given her so much—why worry over something so small? Perhaps he felt he couldn’t be himself with anyone else—perhaps this was his way of inviting her in when he’d already crawled inside her.
In a few seconds though, it didn’t matter anymore. Not with him moving above her, pushing deeper into her with each thrust. The noise in her head faded for the more pleasurable immediacy of the moment. Razor’s hot breath was ragged against her lips, his prick plunging in and out of her hot cunt, his hands curled under her shoulders and his flesh smacking hard against hers. Each drive knocked the headboard against the wall until the air picked up a rhythmic cadence. Again. Again. Again.
All the while Razor’s eyes remained on her. He kept her grounded while taking her to the stars.
In a moment of blind stupidity, she wanted to say something ridiculous. Like she loved him, which wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. The emotional car in which she rode had simply parked at the top of the roller coaster and was staring at a downward plunge. Her stomach threatened to dive bomb and an excited rush shot up her spine, but for the moment she could hold on.
Looking at him as he rocked inside her was somehow more intimate than anything they’d done to that point. Perhaps Razor sensed it as well, for he broke the next second and buried his face in the crook of her neck, his thrusts coming harder and more desperate.
“So tight. My Ginny. So good. Fuck me so good.”
Ginny blinked again and arched beneath him. His gasps now crashed against her throat, the absence of his face above her giving her an eyeful of the ceiling. And without warning, something began to change.
Her mind flashed to another night and a cool spike of unwanted fear pierced the heat of the moment.
Ginny bit her lip and forced herself to relax. Or tried to, as well as she could. Small, pleasurable shocks had begun mounting in her gut, her pussy feeling wetter every time his dick drove home, but the sudden spike in anxiety now racing alongside lust refused to go quietly. Instead, the longer she stared at the ceiling, the more the memories she didn’t want began to fight back.
Suddenly she wasn’t with Razor at all. Suddenly she was several years younger and staring at a different ceiling, and the man above her wasn’t one she trusted.
Panic roped her insides and every molecule in her body stiffened. “Razor,” she whispered, hating the weakness in her voice. But she needed to see him. She needed him to bring her back home. “Razor, please.”
No sooner had the words touched the air than he raised his head again, his eyes wide with concern. His thrusts rocked to a halt. “Ginny?”
She shook her head. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. What—”
“Just keep looking at me, okay?”
Razor nodded shakily, hesitated a beat longer, then resumed thrusting—cautiously at first, then with renewed vigor when she didn’t fall apart.
“Touch me,” she whispered. “Please.”
“Anything,” he promised, stealing a kiss and slipping a hand between their warring bodies. His fingers drifted over her sex and settled near her clit, positioned so he struck her every time his cock slid home. “Anything, Ginny. Just ask me.”
She attempted a smile. Her eyes had welled with tears again. But even as they began to spill, she refused to look away from him. Her body trembled and her resurging orgasm finally triggered and split her apart—her pussy clenching, milking him into his own release, and she kept her gaze fixed on his.
“You’re safe here,” he promised softly, the words tumbling over on a moan as he stiffened and spilled himself inside her. “You’re safe with me, Ginny. I promise you.”
And that was it. She couldn’t hold it in any longer. The surge of every wayward sensation her mind and body had entertained had mounted toward an explosion she had no chance of preventing. Not with him looking so damn understanding while locked within her body. As though he could tell exactly what this past day had meant to her, how much it had shaped her and moved her personal goalposts. As though he knew the ghosts shading her past and how to defeat them.
The truly crazy thing though, was Ginny was beginning to believe he did and could.
When she came apart in his arms, he was there to catch her.
From him there was no hiding. She didn’t know why she’d ever thought otherwise.
Chapter Nine
She felt so right in his arms.
Razor didn’t know when he’d stopped hoping the burn he felt for her would fade rather than grow. All he knew was he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so at peace. Lying in her bed, Ginny’s cheek pressed against his chest, her arm strewn across him and her steady breaths whispering across his skin was the closest he’d come to absolute solace in a long time.
Something had changed between them. Beyond the sex and the arguing and the confusion and all that other stuff. His hunger for her remained just as potent, but there was something else in the mix now. Something that seemed just as content to lie with her pressed against him.
Mate.
The word, the possibility, didn’t frighten him as it had before. Nor did he balk at the unlikelihood that his mate could have wandered into the club at random. Sometimes things happened at random. He was okay with that.
Aria’s visit earlier hadn’t yielded much more than the ingredients she’d brought for dinner. She was still looking into the mate thing, as well as other possibilities. She said she hoped to have a sound theory tomorrow.
Not that it mattered. Razor didn’t give a damn what Ginny was, so long as she was his. Mate or not, rational or not, statistically likely or not, he wouldn’t let her get away.
Not now that he’d shared so much with her. Not even knowing the larger thing he still needed to share.
She was his. He’d seen it in her eyes before she came apart. A part of her she’d tried to keep at bay had opened.
Razor released a trembling sigh and brushed her hair over her back. “Ginny—”
“His name was Travis Farley.”
He froze, his heart jerking. When she didn’t immediately continue, he had to bite back the urge to prompt her. The next steps were hers to take. She didn’t need his help getting there.
“He was my…well, not my boyfriend. We went on a few dates. I had a reputation I was trying to fix. The same all good girls get when they get to college and let loose for the first time.” Ginny began tracing indecipherable patterns on his chest with her forefinger. “I lost my virginity on a dare—well, a pledge, actually. I wanted to be in a sorority, because that was just what girls did. And I didn’t want to be a prude anymore. I’d been a prude all my life and college is when you’re supposed to take chances.” She paused, then scoffed. “I was so stupid.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“Believe me, Razor, I was a moron. You can’t get dumber than a girl who drops her panties for a guy whose name she doesn’t catch. I just wanted to fit in.” Ginny broke off again and took a few deep breaths. “There were a few nights like that, with a grand total of four guys, virginity-taker included. One I dated for about three weeks before we ended things,
but it was enough to give me a reputation as an easy lay. The other three guys… I was always safe with them. Smart enough to require protection but not smart enough to just say no. I convinced myself I was doing the normal thing. I was just like all the other girls. But eventually I didn’t want to be like the other girls anymore. I wanted my life back. My grades were suffering, my mother had seen some pictures of me on Facebook that had her convinced I was doing drugs, and my father—to this day—thinks I’m a whore.”
She paused again. “I don’t think of that all that much. That part of my life. I was a stupid kid—we all did stuff like that, or some version. But I turned it around. I approached all my professors, and all but one let me do some sort of make-up work for the stuff I’d missed. I dropped the sorority, got a part-time job, and kept my eyes on the prize.”
Ginny fell quiet again for a moment, then took a deep breath as though bracing herself.
“I met Travis my sophomore year. He was the first guy I accepted a date from after my whole shedding of the party girl image. He was nice, or seemed it at the time. We went out three times before I let him kiss me. Another three times before he tried to do anything else.” She swallowed. “I told him I wasn’t that girl anymore—really never had been, and he seemed okay with it. Maybe three weeks passed…and he started trying to get me into bed. When it became clear sex was an expected part of our relationship—and important enough to ignore my request for patience, I ended it. He said some nasty things and we didn’t see each other for almost a year.”
Another break, though this one carrying with it a cloud of foreboding. Razor felt himself tense, partly because he dreaded what came next but mostly because he already knew it.
His wolf, which had been a docile puppy since taking her to bed, had reared its head. He felt it strain through every muscle in his body, a rising tide of anger moving against his chest.
Anyone who hurt Ginny…
Razor clenched his jaw and did his best not to squeeze her too close to him. It was more important that she say the words than he hear them.
“I was a junior,” she continued a moment later, her voice now strained. “It was Homecoming weekend. I went to the game with a girlfriend, who then dragged me to a frat party. Travis was there. I hadn’t seen him in a while, but he seemed…calmer. We chatted but didn’t really say much. He went one way and I went another. About an hour later, he found me again. This time he had a beer. Peace offering.”
Harsh breaths crashed against Razor’s chest. His hold on her tightened, his grip on the wolf beginning to slip. Still, he forced himself to hold his tongue.
“I don’t know when I started to feel a little woozy, but it didn’t take me long to figure out what he’d done. I’m not sure what kind of drug he used, but I knew what was happening the entire time. I think that made it worse, actually. Feeling locked inside your body.” Ginny shifted. “He took me upstairs. Started taking my clothes off…”
Razor bit back a growl, cold rage pumping through his veins. “Ginny.”
“I told him no. I remember that. I begged him a couple times. He told me he’d waited long enough, or something stupid and barbaric.” He felt the flick of her eyelashes as she blinked against his skin. “And I lied earlier. When I said no one had… I think he thought if he went down on me, it’d be less of a rape. He could make me want it.”
His stomach clenched. Her words earlier, her soft admission, had come after a second’s hesitance. He suspected if he hadn’t been so surprised he wouldn’t have noticed it. Razor didn’t know if it was a wolf thing—though he doubted it, as he’d been rather explorative before being infected—but not sampling every inch of a woman seemed a waste of a tongue. Granted, like there were women who avoided putting their mouths south of the border on their lovers, he knew that street had to go both ways. It just struck him as thoroughly unbelievable that any of Ginny’s previous bedmates could have her beside them and not want to taste her.
But discovering the truth was far worse.
“He climbed on me. Pressed his face against my shoulder and—”
Her voice broke, but she didn’t need to say any more. She’d said more than enough.
And that was it. The break in her voice. The surging storm warring within his chest broke loose, hard shards of fury roping his muscles and pressing against his skin until he was certain he would explode. Razor couldn’t contain his roar any longer, nor could he keep still. His bones shifted under his flesh and patches of fur broke across his body.
Oh God, no.
Razor roared again, though this time in terror. He still had so much to tell her, so much she wouldn’t believe but needed to hear anyway. And he definitely didn’t want her to discover his secret—the truth of what he’d told her earlier, when she hadn’t believed him and he hadn’t meant her to—on the cusp of something intense and personal she’d shared with him. Yet he couldn’t leash the wolf.
He couldn’t leash himself.
“Run!” he spat, shoving her away.
“Reyvon?”
The use of his given name—bathed in her fear—was all it took. Razor screamed and tore away from the bed. He landed hard on the floor and scampered as far from her as he could, but the hint of her tears tickled his nose and the last hold he had on himself fell away.
“Oh my God,” he heard her whisper.
And then he was gone.
Ginny couldn’t reconcile reality with what she’d just witnessed, because what she’d just witnessed wasn’t possible.
It wasn’t possible that he’d just been in her bed and now was across the room, blinking at her through the eyes of an animal.
It wasn’t possible the man who had held her so tenderly, loved her so well with his body, broken down those final barriers around her heart wasn’t a man at all. Because there were certain things bound to the world of fantasy, and men who turned into wolves were definitely among them.
“Oh shit, oh shit.”
She didn’t remember getting out of bed, but she must have for the next thing she knew she was in the hall. The wolf—Razor—whatever didn’t follow her, though that might be because she’d just lost her mind or passed out but she didn’t want to double back just in case her eyes hadn’t deceived her. Instead, she went to her utility closet and grabbed a fresh pair of jeans and a green tank top from the dryer.
“There isn’t a wolf in my bedroom.”
A definitively canine whine sounded from behind and dared to her turn around. Ginny froze in place, her heart hammering. When she gathered the courage to brave a glance over her shoulder, Razor—the wolf—crowded the doorway.
And then it hit. Everything she’d seen combined with the things she’d been told and the patches of black in her memory. All of it—even the elements she’d managed to forget over the past day and a half came surging to the forefront. Then she needed to get the hell out. Away from him, away from the apartment, away from the illusion she’d crafted around herself.
She needed air.
“Ginny—”
She whirled around. Razor stood where the big dog had been, buck naked, his eyes wide and pleading. “Ginny,” he said again, raising a hand. “Just talk to me.”
She blinked at him dumbly. “Talk?” she repeated. “Talk? I-I don’t. What…what the fuck was that?”
“I tried to tell you—”
“No,” she spat. “Don’t give me that shit. You… I… Have I lost my mind?” Her hands were shaking. Hell, all of her was shaking. The ground beneath her feet didn’t seem stable. “You were just… That happened, didn’t it?”
Razor stepped forward and she recovered the space in the opposite direction as quickly as possible. “I was born into a family of hunters,” he said. “I don’t know how it is for people who aren’t told from the cradle that the boogeyman is a real thing, but I was.”
“The boogeyman. What?” Ginny blinked and shook her head, defying him to make sense. “Please start talking sane, I don’t think I can handle—”
“You have to know how that sounds.”
Razor gestured to the doorway behind him and took another step forward. “You just saw me, Ginny. What do you think that was?”
“A stroke?”
“I told you earlier—”
“And you really thought I believed that?”
He frowned. “Well, no, but—”
“Then why the hell would you just… Why would you turn in front of me?”
Even though they were separated by several feet of carpet, even though Razor’s body was mostly cast in the hallway’s shadow, she didn’t miss how fiercely he tensed. How every line in his body went rigid, his hands forming fists and a hard breath stealing through his lips. A low growl touched the air, enough to spark the shimmer of fear she’d felt earlier but not enough to sustain it. For whatever reason, her fear had begun receding, even when it had no earthly reason to.
A man had turned into a fucking wolf in her room, practically in her bed, and somehow that wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened all week.
“Why?” Razor repeated slowly, moving a pace forward. It might have been a trick of the light—or lack thereof—but she could have sworn tufts of fur resurfaced, blanketing his skin. He entered a darker patch of shadow before she could know for certain. “You told me what happened to you—”
“Because I trusted you, dummy!”
“And I fucking love you, so hearing—”
Ginny’s heart dropped and her ears started buzzing. “Wait… You… What?”
“I said I love you.”
She blinked at him stupidly. That didn’t make sense. In fact, of everything that had happened in recent memory, that made the least amount of sense. “You… Razor, you barely know me. You can’t love—”
“I never claimed otherwise.”
“Then you can’t love me! That’s ridiculous.”
He gestured emphatically but still didn’t leave the shadows. “Any more ridiculous than me turning into a fucking wolf in your room?”
Insatiable Craving: 2 (Insatiable Nights) Page 13