by Dannika Dark
I furrowed my brow. “Why are you acting funny?”
“I’m always funny; it’s not an act.”
I took his hand and stood up. “That I know.”
He tugged me toward the high grass on the side of the house. When he kept looking back at me over his shoulder, that’s when a knot formed in my stomach.
“This grass is making my legs itch,” I complained.
“Do you want me to throw you over my shoulder and carry you?”
I kind of did. “No. I can walk.”
The grass became taller and denser. It led to a line of trees with a shallow creek farther left. My mom had always kept this area off-limits, fearing I’d get bit by a snake. She was probably just saying that. I began scanning the ground, looking twice at every twig.
“How am I going to pay Austin back?” I asked.
“For what?”
“The hospital bills. I’m not insured, and Mom gives most of her money to the pack.”
“Yeah, and that money is for the pack, which you’re a part of, if I remember correctly. It’s not just for bills. It’s a resource for emergencies. I think your knocking your melon around qualifies.”
The slope was steep and I slowed my pace, carefully making my way down until the house was out of sight. A giant maple tree stood out among all the other trees. In autumn, it was one of the few trees on the property that changed colors. Below it, a giant blue blanket was stretched across the ground with a cooler beside it.
I halted in my tracks. “What is all that?”
“What’s it look like, Peanut? We’re gonna have a picnic.”
“Who…”
He tapped his watch. “I had it delivered.”
Wasn’t he full of surprises? “This almost feels like a date,” I said, giving him a nudge. “And who is your sneaky delivery person?”
He moved his finger across his lips, imitating sealing a zipper shut.
I kicked off my shoes at the edge of the blanket and sat down, staring at the oversized cooler.
“Sorry, we’re all out of picnic baskets,” he said, taking off his flip-flops. “What do you feel like eating? We’ve got cold chicken, potato salad—minus the forks, remind me to kill him—chips… Let’s see…”
I brushed some stickers and weeds from my socks and then took them off.
“…watermelon, Lexi’s pudding. That better not be her last stash or Austin will have my head.”
“Watermelon. I’m in the mood for something sweet.”
He pulled out the two wedges and unwrapped the plastic. “I’ve never been about saving dessert for last. Whoever came up with that rule is a glutton for punishment. Here.”
When he handed me the juicy slice, I immediately bit into it. This was absolute perfection. The weather had been uncooperative the past week with temperatures shooting near one hundred degrees. The lack of wind made it feel like hell, but today we had a soft breeze. Still, that ice-cold watermelon hit the spot.
“Why don’t you ever buy the seedless ones?” I asked.
Juice ran down his chin and he licked it away. “They’re genetically modified. Humans need to leave shit alone. I get mine from a local farmer.”
“I don’t think a man who eats cheese out of a spray can should worry about mutant fruit.”
He studied me while enjoying several juicy bites, then asked, “Why are you so quiet today?”
“I have a lot on my mind.”
He spit out a black seed. “Care to share?”
“You first.” I took another bite and watched him closely.
A butterfly landed on his head and I smiled when he didn’t notice it. “Share what?”
“In the hospital, I asked why you hadn’t mated. You said another day. Today is another day.”
I’d never seen him lose color so fast. He set down his slice of melon and wiped his sticky fingers on his jeans. Denver bent his left leg at the knee and draped his arm over it, picking at an invisible spot on the blanket. “It’s not a happy story.”
“Denny, you’re the one who makes everyone laugh, but there’s more to you than that. We all have a past, and yours is one I don’t know anything about. This,” I said, waving my hand between us, “is the kind of relationship I want to build between us. Something truthful. I won’t judge, I promise. Is it because there are no girls in this town like Nadia? Is she the kind of woman you want?”
God, please say no. I’d die if Denver was secretly attracted to rich, gorgeous women with stunning hair, impeccable taste in clothes, an accent… I mentally sighed. I was screwed.
“Nobody wants to hear this. Look, I made this nice picnic and you’re going to ruin it by—”
“Talking?” My voice rose. “By getting to know a part of you I’ve never seen?” I angrily stood up, ready to leave. “My life is complicated, and I gather yours is too. But you never showed me that side of your life because I was just a child. I’m a woman now.”
“Think I don’t know that?” he said, equally upset. “And soon you’ll get older and die. Think that’s easy for me to sit around and watch? Think it’s easy for me to get closer to you, knowing that someday I’ll have to let you go?”
“Then I’ll just make it easy for you and go!” I turned, but not before he snared my wrist.
“Wait. Don’t take off.” His eyes wouldn’t connect with mine.
“You’re one of the most important people in my life, but this has to evolve or it can never be.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance and his grip loosened. “Sit down.”
As I sat, a gust of wind blew my hair in front of my face. Denver reached out and smoothed it back, scooting a little closer.
“Years ago, before I moved back home, I met Cora.”
The leaves rustled in the trees above, and the temperature seemed to drop a degree.
Denver twirled a fallen leaf between two fingers. “I was learning to bartend, and she walked in one night and sat at the bar. I think she was trying to meet someone, but she was too shy and spent the whole night talking to me. She had this really crazy laugh that caught my attention. She’d snort at the end; silliest damn thing I ever heard. We clicked right away and became friends.”
“Why just friends?”
He twirled the leaf by the stem and let it fall to the blanket. “I was too young to get mated, so we stayed friendly. Then I found out she had a little boy.” He huffed out a soft laugh, his eyes sparkling. “Nathan was three. He was real proud of that, told everyone he was three, except he pronounced it as tree. Cora told me about her ex—said he was a jerk. He didn’t want the kid and gave her an ultimatum.”
“What kind?”
“He wanted her to dump the kid and move with him to another pack. She had a few drinks one night and told me the whole story.”
“Did you love her?”
He sighed. “Yeah. Maybe I was just a young, stupid wolf, but I thought about taking her and Nathan in. I didn’t have a pack; I could barely support myself, so it was a dumb idea. She needed someone who could take care of her.”
“What happened?”
Denver was normally talkative, outgoing, and relaxed. But he became closed off—from the subdued way in which he spoke to his body language. He pulled up his knees and wrapped his arms around them, one hand holding the other wrist.
Something wet touched my cheek and I wiped it away.
“One night, I got a call. She was hysterical. Said her ex came back and was threatening to burn the house down. He was kicking on her door and wouldn’t go away. She was a rogue who’d moved to another state, so no one was there to protect her. I couldn’t get there fast enough,” he said, shaking his head.
My heart broke when I saw the pain glittering in his eyes. He covered them with his palms and grimaced.
I touched his knee. “Tell me the rest.”
“The house was on fire. I ran… Then someone knocked me down. I shoved him off to get inside, but the heat was too intense. I couldn’t get the door open. When
I turned, I saw a man holding a bloody knife in his hand.”
I covered my mouth.
“He killed her and burned the house to hide the evidence. Goddammit, I wish I had a time machine,” he spat angrily. “He took a swipe at my head with the knife and cut me deep. Everyone thinks my wolf is loco, but they’ve never seen the real me.”
“What did you do?”
“I killed him with my bare hands. Finished him off with the same knife he’d used on Cora, and God help me if he used it on that little boy.”
Denver broke down and I wrapped my arms around his neck. I knew it wasn’t easy for Shifters to be vulnerable, and Denver wasn’t a guy who liked a pity party. This man was in pain, and someone needed to show him compassion.
“Why would he do something like that?”
His voice cracked, barely audible. “Because he was evil.”
“So that’s why you’ve been pushing women away your whole life. You’re afraid of losing them. You can’t live that way. Have you told the pack? Does Austin know?”
He shook his head. “What good does it do to dig up the past?”
I kissed his ear. “Maybe it’ll help people understand you better.”
“She never knew how I felt about her. Maybe if I’d loved her, she wouldn’t have died. Maybe I would have been there; things might have been different.” Then he laughed softly. “She probably didn’t feel the same anyhow, but I’ll never know.”
I threaded my fingers through his hair, still holding him. When Denver lowered his knees, I straddled his lap and held him tight. Held him like a person needed to be held when they were racked with emotional pain.
“It doesn’t matter if she loved you or not, Denny. You loved her.”
Jesus, nobody deserved to die that way. Her ex sounded like a lunatic—probably a man that couldn’t have been stopped. No wonder he’d never told anyone this story; his confession could mean his going to Breed jail.
“She told me they were still legally mated and he felt entitled to her. I’ll never know why he flipped out, what she said to him. The fire wiped out all evidence, and that meant he would walk. I couldn’t let that happen.”
He nuzzled his face into the crook of my neck and pressed his hands against my back. The air charged with electricity as thunder rolled once more. His hands swept down beneath my short top and then back up so that his fingers were tickling across my bare skin.
My body hummed with desire, but I stayed still, uncertain what Denver’s intentions were. His breath heated my neck, and then I felt a petal-soft kiss. I circled my fingertips around the nape of his neck before sliding my hands to his upper back. Denver had never held me like this before.
Not like this.
My heart was thumping wildly, and a few tiny drops of warm rain touched my arms. I’d never felt so aroused. Ever. I was going to burst if he didn’t make a move to show me this was more than just a momentary lapse of reason.
Denver’s hands found their way to my midriff, and my breath hitched. Then he smoothed them around to my back again. The friction made me tremble, and I knew he was hesitant about going further.
“Touch me,” I whispered against his ear, nibbling on the lobe.
He released a ragged breath. “Are you sure?”
I was sure if he didn’t do something about this, I was going to explode. “Yes.”
He moaned at that word and moved his hands to the front again, exploring the satin material of my bra. I arched beneath his palms, and the warm wind blew my hair back. I reached behind me, unlatched my bra, and pulled it out through a sleeve.
Denver looked at me with heavy-lidded eyes and a subtle grin. “That’s always fascinated me.”
“What?”
“How a woman can undress herself without looking.”
I laughed and realized that was what I loved about Denver. I didn’t want to choose between the funny man and the sexy man; I wanted both. He settled his deep-blue eyes on mine and lifted my shirt. I raised my arms, allowing him to strip it off.
A raindrop landed on my breast and Denver licked it away. That sparked the fire that set my body aflame. The moment he drew in my nipple and rolled the other between his thumb and index finger, I forgot every other man I’d ever been with. Thunder crashed—louder this time. I tugged at his white tank top and he raised his arms, allowing me to remove it. The moment his hot skin pressed against mine in a brief embrace, nothing else existed. I held his tight biceps as he moved down and drew in each nipple, sucking and tugging until sharp desire raced through me like lightning.
I rose up on my knees. Denver slowly unlatched the button on my shorts and pulled down the zipper. I gasped when his mouth kissed below my navel, traveling lower to the edge of my panties.
“Lie down,” he growled.
It was hard to pull away from his raw heat, but I managed to shove my watermelon out of the way and into the grass. He hovered over me like a predator, and I saw his wolf spirit watching me through his indigo eyes. Denver slowly pulled my shorts and panties down, tossing them to the side.
Without hesitation, he removed his own pants.
“Anyone ever told you how sexy you are?” I asked stupidly. I’m sure he hears it all the time, I thought.
He answered me with a kiss to my knee, then my inner leg. I moaned as he stretched his arms forward and cupped my breasts, laving his way up to the apex of my thighs. Just when he was a centimeter away, he crawled over me with a hungry look—a fierce look—his tongue lazily dragging over my breasts.
I’d never had a man look at me like that before. Most looked at me with urgency, but he looked at me with confidence, like a man who was about to torture me with pleasure. The other men I’d been with hadn’t subscribed to the theory of seducing a woman.
Then again, they weren’t Denver.
“Turn over,” he commanded.
Just hearing those words sent a rush of need between my legs that gripped me relentlessly. Shifters preferred it from behind—this I knew. I’d never been with a Shifter before and didn’t realize how strong their energy became—how potent.
The moment I turned onto my stomach, a low growl rose in his chest. A shiver danced through me when his rough hand cupped my ass and moved up the curve of my back. He pressed a kiss at the base of my spine, and I whimpered when his tongue licked all the way up to the middle of my back. Denver brushed my hair away, and I splayed my hands in front of me, lifting my hips.
“Don’t do that,” he said in a raspy voice. “Not yet.” Easy for him to say. His kisses moved around tortuously and then stopped near my right shoulder blade. His finger circled around. “What’s this? I’ve never noticed this before.”
My mark. Suddenly it dawned on me what could happen, and I wondered if I should tell him. I decided against it because it would lead to conversation, and that meant taking us out of the moment. I wanted us to be intimate because he desired me and nothing more. No ulterior motives. No fears. No hopes. Just our bodies coming together the way they were meant to be.
“It’s just a birthmark.”
“Looks like a spade,” he said playfully. “That means rebirth, you know.”
I grinned and turned my head to the side. “Did you learn that in Vegas?”
He kissed it once more and dragged his mouth to my shoulder. “Ben used to read a lot on the history behind playing cards and symbols. I don’t know; it just stuck in my head.”
I felt a couple of raindrops touch my back, and Denver must have noticed them because he licked them up slowly. The earth had never felt more significant beneath me. Then he settled his weight on top of me and kissed the back of my neck.
Sucking.
Nipping.
God, it was sexy feeling him almost naked against my back. I lifted my hips and he sucked in a sharp breath, rocking against me so I could feel the swell of his arousal, as hard as a diamond.
The trees rattled overhead as the rain began to fall, making tapping sounds against the leaves. When Denver move
d off me, I heard him stripping out of his briefs. My entire body became wet with the light rain. We had absolute privacy since no one in the pack ever ventured on this side of the property unless they were in wolf form.
“Damn, you should see yourself,” he whispered. “I’m taking a mental picture of this. So beautiful.”
I turned over and locked eyes with him as I rose to my knees. The rain had dampened his hair, and I ran my fingers through it and drew his mouth to mine. I tasted rain, so I deepened the kiss to get more of him.
He gripped my waist, fingers digging in as he kissed me with intensity. When our tongues danced, he moved his hands up, gliding over my wet breasts.
“I need you,” I whispered.
I love you, I thought.
“I need you too,” he said with more conviction than I had anticipated, his arms encasing me. “Tell me if I’m too rough; I don’t want to hurt you.”
I feverishly kissed his neck. “You could never hurt me.”
In a swift move, Denver tossed me on my back. He lifted my left leg and his shaft rested heavily against my core. Needing. Wanting. Hesitating.
The rain covered us. Joined us. Washed us clean of all our doubts, sins, and pain. It put a lustrous shine on his body, and he looked down at me—water dripping from the ends of his messy hair, scar prominent on his forehead, lips still swollen with my kiss. We were two connected souls discovering ourselves anew.
He slid deep and I gasped, locking my hands around his neck. His eyes told me a thousand secrets, branding me with a look I’d never forget.
A gust of wind skated across my skin, causing my nipples to tighten. The friction of them rubbing against his chest as we made love was seismic. I lightly bit his shoulder, and he kissed my neck in the most slow and erotic manner imaginable.
“You’re so damn wet,” he moaned. “Christ.” The primal sound in his throat penetrated my mind, his hips crashing against mine as our slick bodies rocked against one another.
I fisted his hair and cried out. He was hitting every sensitive spot, and I was about to lose control.
“Turn over,” he growled, flipping me on to my stomach. He lifted my hips until I was on all fours. Denver slid in so slowly that I felt every inch of him until his hips were flush against me. His fingertips bit into my skin, and he thrust even deeper until we were more connected than two people could possibly be.