Mate of Her Heart

by Butler, R. E.

  He couldn’t very well deal with her while he was bleeding, so he decided to clean up first and then he’d get her to talk.

  “You happen to have a medical kit?”

  “Under the sink.”

  “Don’t even think about leaving, Ev. I’ll be back to talk in a few minutes.”

  When he flicked on the bathroom light, a bare, yellowed bulb illuminated the small room. He grimaced at his reflection in the mirror. Although she had let him in, he was surprised that she hadn’t tried to help him. It made him wonder what the heat-cycle was doing to her.

  The medical kit under the sink was in a large fabric tote filled with much more than he expected. He knew that wolves didn’t really use doctors or hospitals, and they healed quickly, but that didn’t mean they didn’t get injured.

  He turned on the shower and stripped, getting under the tepid water to rinse off the blood and clean his wounds. He had no idea if wolf claws were dirty or not, but he decided to err on the side of caution and used an anti-bacterial wash from the kit to clean the marks. Vince had raked his claws down both of Luke’s arms and gouged his sides as well, so Luke knew he would wind up with scars. But he’d wear the scars with pride because they meant that he was strong enough to protect Eveny.

  When he was free of blood, he turned off the shower and got out, patting his skin dry and then securing the towel around his waist. He put Neosporin on the claw marks on his arms and laid thick gauze pads on them, securing them with tape. Then, to protect the bandages, he wrapped them in wide, self-sticking gauze. Both arms were now covered with flesh-colored bandages from bicep to wrist.

  He tended the wounds on his sides in the same manner, but just taped them well instead of wrapping bandages all around his midsection. He finished by placing a small bandage over a cut on one eye and swallowing four aspirin. Tomorrow he’d be sore as hell, but tonight he was going to ignore the aches and pains and take care of his woman.

  He’d never been so nervous in all his life as when he opened the bathroom door and stepped out into the cabin’s main room. Eveny stood where he’d left her, using the couch to put a physical barrier between them.

  Her eyes landed on his arms immediately and he could see the shine of tears in their golden depths.

  “I’m going to be okay, Ev,” he said in a low voice as he walked slowly towards her. He bypassed her and went to the front door and threw the lock. The sliding bolt echoed in the room in a final way. He was staying.

  “You have to leave, Luke.” Her voice was still low and growly, and he liked it.

  He turned from the front door and faced her. “No.”

  Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the sheet she held against her body. A body he’d wanted to touch for years.

  “Luke, it’s not safe.”

  He cracked his neck as anger wove through him. Hadn’t he just proven that he could take care of her? “Really? Because those assholes came here to rape you, Ev. Males from your own pack. From where I’m standing, it seems as if you’re safer with me than alone.”

  Her eyes widened and she shook her head. “No, it’s not safe for you to be here with me.”

  Before he could tell her that he would be able to handle whatever her heat-cycle threw at him, she made a pained sound and doubled over, clutching her stomach.

  Tired of the couch between them, Luke stormed over to her and picked her up in his arms.

  She struggled weakly at first as he strode to the bed, but then she seemed to melt into him, pressing her face against his neck. He felt the gentle scrape of her teeth against his flesh and he shuddered. Laying her down on the bed, he sat next to her and put one of his hands on hers as they continued to clutch the sheet to her body.

  She tensed and gritted her teeth together. Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she said, “Please, Luke.”

  “Please, what? Leave you in pain? Unprotected? Your father is an idiot for thinking you’d be safe. And don’t get me started on your brother.”

  She went still and opened her eyes slowly. “What about Acksel?”

  Luke shook his head. “He’s the one who told Vince where you were. Vince called his buddies to join him, but Acksel caused the problem. This might have been a safehouse, but Acksel compromised it. Their best intentions involved you getting gang-raped, and judging from their chatter about Acksel’s grief, I don’t think they intended to let you live. I’ll deal with him after your heat. Right now, you’re going to drop that death grip on the sheet and let me take care of you.”

  “Luke.” She licked her lips and he wondered if she was thirsty. Before she could say anything else, he went to the refrigerator and opened it, looking for something cold to drink. There wasn’t anything inside. He settled for filling a glass with water from the sink, and then wet a clean dish towel.

  Joining her on the bed, he put the towel in his lap, hooked his hand behind her neck and lifted her gently so she could drink. She gulped the water until the cup was empty and then he settled her back on the bed. Pressing the towel lightly against her skin, he tried his best to cool her down.

  She exhaled softly when he pressed the towel to her neck. “Thank you.”

  “I will always take care of you, Ev.”

  Her eyes drifted to his. “No, I mean thank you for coming for me and protecting me.”

  “I will always do that, too.”

  He tried to untangle her fingers from the sheet, but she tensed. “You still need to go, Luke.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “You don’t understand what this means. You have to go so I can do this on my own.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I want you, Ev. I want to take care of you. Not just for your heat, but forever.” He felt as if he were standing on the edge of a mountain, unsure whether his next step would be safe or send him plummeting to his death. “I’ve proven I can protect you. I can help you with this, too. I love being your friend, but I want every part of you. Forever.”

  He tossed the wet towel aside and rested his fingers on the edge of the towel around his waist. His cock had gone shamelessly hard the moment that she was safe. Her eyes trailed down his chest and landed where his fingers played across the material.

  “No,” she hissed, her eyes darkening.

  “Tell me why.”

  “Because I might scratch you.”

  He shrugged and looked at his bandaged arms. Scars from her? Not a problem. “I’ll live.”

  “I might bite you.”

  “I like your fangs.” It was true. The first time he’d ever seen her get upset and her fangs came out, he thought they were cool. And sexy.

  She sat up slowly and released the sheet. It pooled at her waist, revealing her large, firm breasts which were tipped with tight, hard nipples.

  “If you make love to me, Luke,” she whispered, “I’m going to let you come inside me. If that happens, then I might become pregnant. But you will definitely become my mate.”

  Clarity washed through him. He reached for her hands and she grasped his. “If it were easy to mate with a human then we would have done this earlier, right?”

  She nodded.

  “You’ll lose your pack if you mate with me, because I’m human.”

  She blinked and tears slipped over her cheeks. “Everything. I’ll lose everything. The pack will shun me and Acksel will be forced to mark me so that no other pack will want me. And my dad will have to turn his back on me and pretend that I’m dead even though I’m not. We’ll have to leave town. You can’t buy the bar because Acksel will forbid the pack from going there and there’s not enough human business to keep it afloat. You won’t be able to see your grandma unless she comes to visit us. My dad will never know his grandkids-” her voice choked off and he hugged her tightly in spite of the ache in his arms.

  He didn’t want her to lose her family. “I’m a selfish prick,” he said, sighing as he pressed his face into her neck. “I didn’t know what mating with me would mean to you or your family. I’ll help yo
u with your heat and not come inside you, and then I’ll walk away so you don’t have to choose between me and your family.”

  It might kill him, but he wanted her to be happy, and he knew she’d be happiest with her family.

  She reared back like he had struck her. “No!”

  Now he was confused.

  “No, what?”

  She shook her head almost violently. “I want you to be my mate. There isn’t anyone else that I want in the world besides you. My wolf wants you. She won’t accept any other males.”

  His heart rejoiced to hear that she wanted him to be her mate. But mating with him came at a terrible cost to her. “But your family? Your pack?”

  “It’ll be painful, but I can’t spend the rest of my life being miserable because of a stupid wolf law that says we can’t mate outside of our own kind. My dad will be sad but he’ll understand. He’ll want me to be happy, even if I have to leave. And he and I will figure out a way to stay in touch, I just know it.” She took a deep breath. “I just wanted time to talk to you about everything.”

  He brushed her hair away from her face as he thought about what she was saying. “You wanted to go through the heat alone so we could talk things out for the next year? And then what?”

  He was mildly amused by her plan. That was so Eveny. She liked to have all her ducks in a row before she did anything. That she would want to have time to prepare him for the consequences of their mating told him how much she cared for him.

  “Then we’d be ready.”

  “I love you, Ev. I’ve loved you since we were kids. If you want my help, I swear on my life that I won’t come inside you. When you’re through the cycle, we can talk.” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “I don’t need the year to think, sweetheart. I know I can’t shift. I know I’m only human. But if you’ll have me, I’ll be the best mate to you. I’ll never regret anything that happened to see you be mine forever.”

  Her voice trembled as she stared at him. “You want to be mine?”

  “I’ve always been yours, Ev.”

  “There isn’t any going back, Luke,” she said, sliding her legs around and going up on her knees. She shoved the sheet away and knelt before him, completely naked. She was so aroused that he could smell the sweet scent of her and it made his mouth water.

  “I don’t want to go back. I never want to go back to when I couldn’t have you. After I touch you, baby, there’s nothing on earth that could keep me away. Be mine.”

  “Yes,” she hissed, leaning forward and pressing her mouth to his. Her lips hovered above his as she whispered, “Make love to me. Come inside me.”

  He growled. “Deep inside.”

  Her hands fisted in his hair and she leaned back enough to look into his eyes. “I’ve never let anyone come inside me, Luke. I want you to be my first. My only.”

  “Your mate.”

  Chapter 7

  Luke crushed his lips to Eveny’s and pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly against him. She’d seen him shirtless before, but she’d never really touched him. Part of her wanted to take the time to explore the smooth muscles of his arms and chest and familiarize herself with every inch of his body. But the bigger part of her – the panting, howling wolf in heat – refused to waste time.

  The first electric touch of their tongues sent shockwaves down her spine. He tasted wild and sweet. Their past kisses had never been like this. Needy. Hot.

  Keeping her lips locked to his, she straddled his waist and reached a hand between them to tug the towel away. His erection had tented the towel, and the moment she felt the hot, hard length of him, she could think of nothing else but impaling herself on him.

  Luke pulled away from her hungry mouth and gripped her wrist, pushing her hand away. “Not yet.”

  She strained against his grip. “Please,” she pleaded, looking into his eyes.

  “Not. Yet.”

  He pushed her backwards until her back pressed against the mattress. She hissed out a breath as her sensitized skin pressed into the fitted sheet. It had felt so good to be against Luke’s body. It hadn’t made her skin ache. But the sheet – which she knew was actually quite soft – felt like razor blades.

  Luke leaned over her and stroked his fingers down the center of her chest. Her breath hitched in her throat.

  “I’ve wanted to touch you for so long, Ev,” he said in a husky tone. His fingers circled around her lower stomach and then trailed upwards until he ran them along the underside of one breast. He cupped her breast with his hand and rubbed his thumb around her nipple. The nipple was already hard and straining, but it tightened further the longer he touched it.

  She whimpered and gripped his biceps. His lips brushed hers.

  “I want to take hours with you, baby, but I know you’re hurting. There’s just one thing I need to do first.”

  She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes until they flew open when he bent over and sucked her nipple into his mouth. The wet heat of his mouth overwhelmed her, making her stomach contract and her body arch up. The hand that cupped her breast slid down her body and pushed her legs apart. She buried her fingers in his hair and held him to her breast as he sucked and teased her nipple and stroked his fingers along her sex. She’d never seen anything as erotic as Luke sucking on her breast, with his cheeks hollowing and a look of rapture on his face.

  “Luke!” she shouted as he plunged two fingers inside her pussy. Her hands fisted in his hair as her hips lifted.

  Before he had come to save her, she had been physically and mentally exhausted. Her orgasms had taken longer and longer to achieve by herself, and the thrum of the vibrator had started to set her teeth on edge. But just one touch from Luke and she was standing on the threshold of pleasure once more; better pleasure than she’d thought possible.

  She thought he would be tender, but he seemed to sense that she didn’t want tender right now. Tender could come later, when the heat was over and her body wasn’t screaming for his cock. His fingers pounded into her and she tugged him from her breast with her fists in his hair until she could kiss him. She whimpered and moaned into his mouth as his fingers worked inside her.

  Pleasure raced over her body like electricity and she cried out, her hands clutching his shoulders and her nails digging into his flesh. He kept the orgasm flowing by thumbing her clit until he had wrenched from her every ounce of pleasure that he could.

  He kneed her legs apart. Lifting his hand slowly so she could see how wet his fingers were, she watched as he licked his fingers, closing his eyes as if he had just tasted something exquisite.

  The heat-cycle began to rise in her again. Her climax had just eased the need, but hadn’t erased it completely.

  He planted his hand next to her head on the bed and fisted his cock, guiding it to the entrance of her body. His eyes held hers, the blue depths darkening as he pushed inside her still-clenching pussy and went into a push-up over her. His hips thrust forward until he was buried to the hilt.

  She gasped as he filled her completely, their bodies perfectly, tightly wed together. Nothing had ever felt as good as her mate filling her and she groaned mindlessly and arched harder against him, his name a breathless chant on her lips.

  Her hands slipped from his shoulders down to his sides, just above the bandages, and she wrapped her legs around his waist.

  “I love you, Eveny.” He kissed her, pressing his hips tighter to her.

  Her hands squeezed his sides as her thighs hugged him. “I love you, too, Luke.”

  He stroked out of her slowly and she felt every inch of him until just the thick head remained inside. He paused for just a second and then he thrust forward, filling her completely. She slipped her arms around him further, one hand resting high on his back and the other lower, just above his ass. She knew she was scratching him, but she couldn’t seem to stop marking him over and over.

  He began to thrust harder and faster, leaning forward and gripping the headboard for leverage with one s
trong arm. She met his thrusts, feeling pleasure bloom inside her once more as he pushed her to orgasm. He gazed down at her as he fucked her hard, pushing the breath from her lungs with each thrust, his body glistening with sweat and his muscles straining.

  Her brain began to fog over as her orgasm grew, twisting and coiling inside her until she thought she would burn from the inside out. Her body locked down on his as her climax crested, and she screamed. She felt her claws spring from her fingertips and dig into his flesh and her fangs erupt from her gums. She snarled and leaned up to sink her fangs into his neck and mark him as hers forever.

  All she could focus on was the feel of Luke’s flesh between her teeth and the metallic taste of his blood on her tongue. His hard and fast rhythm faltered and she felt his cock thicken just a moment before he groaned her name and came. The rush of his hot come inside her calmed her raging libido, and she felt utterly relaxed.

  Releasing his flesh, she licked across the marks and then hugged her arms around him as he exhaled and lowered his body to hers. He kept most of his weight off of her, but she still felt the heaviness of him, and the delicious feeling of his cock still buried deeply.

  This was what had been missing from her life all those years. The intimate connection between herself and her mate. Luke wasn’t just her mate. He was her heart. And the only man that had ever held her heart in his hands.

  He kissed her neck and then rolled to his side, carrying her with him. “I’ve had a lot of fantasies about you over the years, sweetheart, but that was a thousand times better than anything my brain has ever come up with.”

  She chuckled and rested her head on his shoulder. “You’ve been part of my fantasies for a long time, too.”

  “Oh? Anything particularly naughty that we can do after your heat is over?”

  She tipped her face up to look at him. His eyes were bright and his lips were curled up in amusement. “I’ve always wanted to try something sweet and sticky, like whipped cream or chocolate syrup.”