by T. S. Joyce
Brighton bit his lip as he wrote, He Changed her without telling her anything. No warning, and just left afterward.
Tagan rolled his head backward and closed his eyes. “Fffuck.”
Can you help her?
Tagan read the note and shook his head. “Not if she’s seizing. I’ll be her alpha when she gets this under control, but I can feel her bear. Submissive as all get out. She won’t trust me. Not when she’s sick like this. I can try to force her out, but there’s the risk that her body will seize as soon as I attempt it. And from the looks of her, she can’t be doing that too many more times.”
“Why would Connor do this?” Denison looked green in the face as he knelt beside the bed and studied Everly. “I thought he was after Brooke.”
“Because he was a psychopath,” Tagan suggested. “And likely, Brooke distracted him away from Everly, right when she needed him to tell her what was happening. Did she say why he did it?”
Brighton glared down at the notepad, sickened by what he would have to write. Because he wanted her to be better in bed for him.
“He hurt her?” Denison’s voice wrenched up a couple notches in volume.
Brighton’s shirt was constricting him, making it hard to draw a full breath. He nodded and dropped his eyes to the molding that ran along the bottom of the wall. In his middle, his insides were churning like rough seas, and his bear was pulsing against his veins, ravenous for escape just thinking about Connor hurting her.
“Brighton?” Tagan asked, warning in his voice. “Do we have a problem here?”
Shallow breaths racked Brighton’s chest as he squeezed his eyes closed and tried to focus on not falling apart. Not now. He had to hold on until Denison and Tagan left.
“Stop your Change,” Tagan ordered. “Now.” His snarling bear settled under his alpha’s demand. Slowly, his breathing returned to normal, and he cracked his eyes open.
“What the fuck, man?” Denison asked. “Should I be worried about you?”
I’m fine, Brighton mouthed, hands clenched.
He didn’t like the way Tagan was looking at him, as if he was studying something he’d never seen before. Curling his lip, Brighton turned and left the room. And for that matter, he left the entire house. He needed fresh air to clear his head.
“Can you handle this on your own?” Tagan asked, following behind. “Brighton!” Tagan jerked his arm and spun him around. “Can you?”
Brighton leveled his alpha a look and nodded. He scribbled angry, oversize letters across an entire sheet of paper. She’s mine.
“Nobody is disputing that. Connor has no claim on her from hell, man. What I’m asking is do you need to bring her back to the trailer park so we can all take care of her?”
Brighton’s shoulders slumped, and he sat heavily on the top porch stair. Miserably, he shook his head and wrote, I know her bear. I get glimpses of her when Everly is seizing. She won’t be able to handle the crowds. Not sick. She’ll never Change if I bring her to the Ashe Crew. I have to do this on my own.
Denison pulled the notebook from his grasp and read it, his lips moving slightly as he did. “This is a lot, Brigh. If she dies—”
Brighton shot up and wrapped his fingers around Denison’s throat, cutting off his sentence. She won’t, he mouthed.
Denison pushed him off and rubbed his neck. “Sorry,” his brother said low. “I shouldn’t have said that. If anyone said that about Danielle… Look, I’m sorry.”
Brighton raked his hands through his hair and watched his alpha and brother get into the truck and turn slowly around in the front yard.
Denison rolled down the front window. “I know Tagan already asked you to come, but I need you there when I marry Danielle.” He lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. “I need you to be my best man.”
I wouldn’t miss it, Brighton mouthed. He offered Denison the most reassuring smile he could muster, then watched them pull away until Tagan’s taillights disappeared completely. A deep, aching loneliness filled him, yawning wider and wider until it threatened to swallow him up completely.
Now, he needed to Change just to forget all of these pestering, painful human emotions.
Chapter Eight
“Brighton?” Everly squinted at the late afternoon sunlight that filtered through the single open window. It smelled like rain and flowers. And fur.
Pulling her nose to her shoulder and inhaling, she realized the scent of animal was coming from her. She sighed and rolled onto her back. “Why won’t you come out? I can feel you right there. What are you so scared of?”
Everly knew exactly what. Connor, but how did she explain to that part of herself that Connor didn’t exist in this realm anymore and would never hurt her again? She didn’t understand anything about Changing or the animal that was such a big part of her now. A sense of disconnection loomed over her, as if she didn’t have the tools to reach the animal in her. Or if she had the tools at one point, Connor had snapped them all in half.
She sat up in Brighton’s bed and rubbed her eyes. At least she didn’t feel awful at the moment. In fact, she felt better than she had in days. The long sleep must’ve been good for her. When she twisted her neck, pain shot up the back of her spine, and she touched a sore spot on the back of her scalp gingerly. She didn’t remember hitting her head when she’d seized last night, but she must’ve.
The door creaked open, and Brighton stuck his head inside. His eyes were pure silver, but relief pooled in them, making him look more human. His beard was gone, and in its place was short facial scruff that looked like it belonged on some model in a big city. Her heart thudded against her breastbone as she studied his chiseled jaws and sensual lips.
“You shaved.”
Opening the door wider, he ducked under the frame and stood to his full height. He looked especially tall from her lower position on the bed, and his muscular chest pressed against the soft-looking fabric of his black T-shirt. Dark, fitted denim clung to his powerful legs, and his work boots thudded against the wood floor as he approached.
Brighton smelled of animal, too, just like her. She huffed a soft laugh and fiddled with a loose thread on the comforter before she lifted her gaze back to his. “What a pair we make,” she murmured.
The mattress sank as he sat beside her. As he rested a hand on her leg, his lips curled up in a devastating smile. It was one of relief and melted her heart in an instant. She hadn’t died alone after all. Brighton had found her and taken care of her. Again. Just like she knew he always would until her last breath.
His eyes didn’t darken, and he clenched his jaw against some internal struggle.
“You have to Change again, don’t you?”
He nodded.
“Will I have to Turn as much as you do if I get better?”
“No,” he rasped out. “I’m broken. You will be perfect.”
“How often for me?”
“Once every week or so, and you’ll get to choose when you do it. It won’t be forced.”
“What’s happened to make you like this?”
His eyes looked sad as he shook his head.
Hurt slashed through her at his denial. It hadn’t mattered that she’d opened up to him completely last night. It hadn’t mattered that she’d shared her darkest secret. He still wouldn’t, or couldn’t, let her in.
Stung and frustrated, she said, “I should take a shower.” She stood and gathered her clothes and a bag of toiletries from her duffle bag. Without another word, she slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind her, then hit the hot tap. When steam filled the bathroom, she stepped under the hot streams of water and scrubbed herself clean until her skin shone like an eggshell. And when the water finally ran cold, she wrapped a towel around herself, brushed her teeth, and scrubbed her face with a washrag she found in the cabinet above the toilet. Her time was limited before the next seizure would hit, and she wanted to feel clean before the next round of agony. She’d already spent way too much time rigid, on the ground, in
the dirt for one day.
When she came back into the room, she assumed Brighton would be long gone, off doing bear shit. Instead, he watched her from his position on the bed, leaning back on locked elbows.
“I messed up last night. I messed everything up,” he whispered.
She couldn’t look at him or she’d fold and allow the water building in her eyes to fall. “It’s fine. You knew Connor, so my confession must’ve been a blow.”
“I shouldn’t have left you like that.”
She turned as frustration seared through her. “What could you have done? This is my life, Brighton. What Connor did cost me everything. My job. I’m about to be evicted from my apartment because I’m two months late on rent and up to my eyeballs in medical bills for something the doctors never figured out. And now I can’t go five hours without seizing and having to sleep off the awful aftermath. This isn’t any way to live. Good thing though, right? I guess it’s preparing me, ’cause you and I both know I can’t go on like this forever.” Her face crumpled and she threw the clothes in her hand against the wall. “I’m scared. I’m not ready to die. I haven’t kissed a nice boy or fallen in love or—”
Brighton was next to her so fast, he blurred. His lips crashed onto hers as his hand cupped her neck, dragging her closer. His lips moved against hers, rhythmically, and she gasped against his mouth. Her surprise only gave him a way to slip his tongue past her lips. The sensation and taste of him buckled her knees, and she whimpered. Kisses hadn’t been like this with Connor. He hadn’t cared about her. Brighton, though, was stroking the pad of his thumb against her cheek and pressing her backward until she was propped up against the wall, unable to fall to the floor in a puddle of surprise like she’d thought she was going to do.
And dammit, if this was it, if he was giving her one last good experience before she faded to oblivion, she was going to run with it.
She pushed up on her tiptoes, flung her arms around his neck, and kissed him back. He didn’t smell like a man anymore. There were no traces of his cologne or the scent of his skin that was tangy with undercurrents of pine. He was raw, male animal.
“What Connor did with you,” he rasped out in a barely audible whisper. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be. You are supposed to bed someone you care about. It’ll be different with me.”
“Different how?” she asked, arching her neck back as he trailed sucking kisses to her earlobe.
“I won’t hurt you. I’m going to make you come instead.”
Now her knees really did buckle as he rolled his hips against the thick towel she wore.
Reaching back, he stopped his affection only long enough to pull his shirt over his head. Desperate to be closer to his skin, she pulled at the fly of his jeans and pushed them down his hips until his long, thick cock was unsheathed completely.
A trill of anxiety filled her as the memory of the pain Connor had caused washed over her.
“Hey,” Brighton whispered, hooking his finger under her chin and bringing her gaze back up to his. “Come back to me. I’m right here. It’s just us. Just you and me.”
She nodded in a jerky motion and offered him the ghost of a smile. Brighton had cared for her and never pushed her for anything she didn’t want to give. He was a good man.
He twitched his head and leveled her with a serious look. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. I promise. You want to stop now? I won’t be mad or even disappointed.”
She ran her finger up the length of the silken skin that stretched across his shaft, buying herself time to think. If she didn’t try intimacy with Brighton, she would die with the memory of what Connor had done stamped onto her heart. And that seemed like a bigger tragedy than the bear that was slowly killing her from the inside out.
Closing her eyes, she inhaled a steadying breath and pulled the tucked end of the towel until the fabric fell in a pile around her ankles. Her cheeks heated at her boldness.
“Damn, woman,” Brighton said on a breath.
When Everly dared a peek at him, his eyes still churned with the evidence of his inner monster, but he couldn’t seem to drag his attention away from her breasts. They weren’t anything special. Average size, she’d say, but by the way Brighton was looking at them, she’d have thought they were the sexiest things he’d ever encountered. She couldn’t help the smile that cracked her face wide open.
“You’re not so bad yourself there, handsome,” she said, running her fingertips along the edge of one of his scars, the one that stretched from the crease between his abdominal muscles to his side and around to his back.
“You don’t mind the way I look?”
Her heart sank at the rawness in his voice. “Of course I don’t,” she said, resting her palm over his heartbeat. “You’re perfect to me. I wouldn’t change a single thing about the way you look.” She smiled mischievously. “Especially now that you shaved that scraggly beard.”
His grin nearly stole her breath away, and before she could react, he picked her up, to her giggling delight, and tossed her onto the mattress, where she bounced and settled in the middle. He stalked her from the edge of the bed, his shoulder muscles flexing as he crawled toward her.
“Where do you want me to touch you?” His eyes reflected oddly in the low lighting, but his playful smile was all human.
“Here,” she said, touching the faint dimple that devoted her left cheek.
He inhaled deeply, then leaned down and pecked a kiss where she had pointed.
“And here,” she said, smile fading away as she pointed to the sensitive skin on the underside of her wrist.
He grazed his teeth against the pulse there, and her heart pounded harder.
“Here,” she murmured, pointing to her collar bone.
Brighton settled himself on top of her, his hips cradled against hers. He pushed her knees wider with his own, then trailed kisses along her collarbone. Working his way down, the man didn’t seem to need any more direction from her, and she was too breathless to give them now anyway. Brighton sure had a clever mouth and knew how to use it. He pulled one of her drawn up nipples into his mouth and kneaded the other with his hand. Over and over, his tongue lapped at her until she instinctively drew her knees even wider, inviting his cock to rest against the apex between her legs.
He bumped an extremely sensitive spot, and she rolled her hips against him to savor that feeling.
“Here,” she pleaded as she pointed just under her naval.
She could feel him smile against her skin as he moved his nibbling kisses downward. He didn’t stop at her lower stomach, though. Instead, he made his way to the top of her wet seam, then spread her gently with his fingers and sucked on the spot that had her knees drawing up and her toes curling. The man was a damned magician. With a few more cleverly timed flicks of his tongue, when he covered her clit with his mouth and sucked gently again, she nearly came. And when he plunged his tongue into her for the first time, she was already done. Orgasm rocked through her body, throbbing between her legs with deep, languid pulses. But Brighton didn’t stop there. Nope, he lapped at her until every aftershock had drained away.
She looked down in wonder and realized she was gripping his hair. “Sorry.”
He bit the inside of her thigh playfully, then whispered, “I’d tell you if I minded. I didn’t, though. I like it when you show me what you like.”
“That. I liked everything you just did.”
Brighton beamed at her from between her legs, like he’d just gotten straight As on his report card. “Good. Do you want to stop now?”
Everly pursed her lips and considered it. Already, this was the most gratifying intimate experience of her entire twenty-five years. Granted, she didn’t have that much to compare it to, but it sure didn’t feel this good when she touched herself. There was something special about sharing this experience with Brighton. Already, her heart had tethered to him, but with every sweet, sexy touch of his fingers and lips, she felt like she was opening up. Blossomi
ng like a spring flower. And inside, the sickness was easing. Maybe his adoration was just a beautiful distraction, but deep in her middle, she felt warmth instead of the jagged chill that had been constantly slashing her apart.
Brighton wasn’t Connor. He wasn’t. He could erase what that horrible man had done.
“I want more.”
Brighton drew her hands from his hair and kissed her knuckles, eyes cast downward. Finally, he looked up at her and asked, “You aren’t doing this just to please me, are you, Ever?”
“I like to please you,” she admitted, “but that’s not the reason I want to be with you. Connor scared me. I thought I would live the rest of my days terrified of attracting that kind of attention from another man.” She propped herself up on her elbows and allowed him to see the honesty in her eyes. “I’m not afraid of you, Brighton. I trust you.”
Adoration pooled in the deep silver of his eyes. She felt beautiful when he looked at her like this, and she smiled as he crawled over her and settled himself on top of her.
“I think I like you,” he whispered as he dragged his fingers down the length of her collar bone. “You’re different than anyone else I’ve ever met.” He kissed her shoulder. “You’re strong.” Another kiss just below her earlobe. “And beautiful.” His lips pressed against her jaw line. “You see the world differently, and it settles me. Makes me feel like someday I could look at it differently, too.” A nibble to her lobe and a velvet stroke whisper against her ear. “The longer I know you, the more I think I could be good again.”
Everly cupped his cheeks and searched his eyes, now a mix of silver and green. “I see you, Brighton. You are good.”
His nostrils flared as he inhaled, as if some emotion was pushing him to calm down. Slowly, he lowered his lips to hers and pressed the head of his cock into her. A tiny gasp took her at how good he felt. Brighton had prepared her, taken it slow and easy, made her comfortable, and had worshipped her body before he pushed for this connection. It was that realization that made her remaining fear fall away. He was taking care of her, and inside, she was glowing. She angled her hips and moved with him on his next slow thrust. Gently, he slid into her, filling her. The stretch of her insides didn’t hurt. It felt natural with Brighton. Perhaps because he’d been so careful to make sure she was ready and wet to take him, but more likely, it was because she was falling in love with him, and her body craved to be as close to him as possible. If she only had days left with this man, she wanted to spend them burrowed against him.