“If you’re sure?” Jonas asked, looking at her and Rush both.
“Stay,” he added. “I don’t want to take her away from her friends because of this.”
Jonas nodded, and he and Stacee stood to the side in silent support of her. The breadth of Rush’s shoulders rose and rolled as he faced her again.
Rush lifted her chin with a finger. “Kay, I love you. I don’t want to lose you. You won’t be alone as the fem-alpha.”
“But I’m not like you,” she whispered, feeling whipped and shredded, her emotions scattered and difficult to define. With him there, standing in front of her again… Her heart raced like a horse on the run. All the wanting she’d denied reared up and stared her in the eye.
“You don’t have to be.” Glancing up, he turned toward Jonas. “Stacee, you’re human.”
“Completely.”
“Was finding out the truth a shock?”
Jonas smirked, and the glance he shared with Stacee filled with a memory they’ll never forget. “She fainted.”
Kay gasped, stunned. “She doesn’t faint.”
“I did,” she confirmed, giggling behind her hand.
“Kay.” Rush’s voice caressed her ears. “I should have let you decide. I took that away from you, and I didn’t mean to. Every time I came to grips with something, I just moved on, never thinking about how it would affect you or if it would even matter.” Leaning down, he touched his forehead to hers. “It was a lot to take in. I’m sorry. I was the inconsiderate jerk in this.”
“You were only helping me. I was a wreck the whole week. How?”
He lifted a hand and wound her hair over her ear, leaving a tingling trail beneath his fingertips. “Because to me you’re simply perfect. There’s no explanation that could really describe it,” he replied softly.
Subconsciously, she lifted a hand to her face. “But…”
He fisted over her hand, stopping her, twining his fingers through hers. “I knew you before that happened, and you were beautiful to me. You are beautiful.” He brought her hand to his mouth, brushing a tender kiss to her skin. “And I think you’re wrong. You are the perfect mate for an alpha. What you did and faced, with nothing but near-strangers with you at the time, took courage. Kaisha Noelles is an alpha, a strong one that I would be proud to know stood at my side.”
Hanging on his every word, his declaration brought a burst of heat to her cheeks.
“Give us, this, a chance,” he whispered, nuzzling with his lip against the hand he held. “I’ll be more patient. I promise. I need you Kay.”
Kay barely blinked, completely captured by his gaze and his words. The soft tap of the front door closing dragged her focus to the living room. They were alone.
“They left.” The sound of her voice sounded loud in the quiet of the apartment. Even the beating of her heart seemed to echo with a heavy, nervous tattoo.
“Do you want me to?” he asked her, his gaze and voice utterly serious.
She drew a breath, trying to still her trembling legs. “No.” His touch was sending shooting heat up her arms.
Studying his face, she wondered if they were putting it all on the table. Was this the deciding moment to their future? She lowered her eyes, watching the tender slide of his lip over her hand, his breath warming her and making her heart race and leap inside her chest. At the least, she owed him a full apology and explanation to her behavior.
It was just going to be one of the hardest apologies of her life.
Chapter Fourteen
“Rush?” She whispered his name, mesmerized by the back and forth of his mouth hovering over her hand. “It wasn’t just you. I’m sorry.”
“I tried to push you into something, rush you into it, even.”
Steeling herself, preparing to expose her darkest secret, she told him, “Do you know why I wasn’t hurt when Steven broke up with me?”
He froze, but he was listening. “Why?”
“Because I wouldn’t let myself care for him. I haven’t been in a long-term relationship since I was twenty-three. At most, I dated for six months then moved on. The guys I met weren’t looking for anything deeper, either. We all knew it. Someone to go to movies, to hit a club or two. I rarely saw any guy more than three times,” she admitted. Not sleeping with them usually precluded a lot of interest on their part. She couldn’t look up, didn’t want to see the disappointment in his eyes as she bared her soul to him.
“Since I was nine, maybe younger to be honest, my mother would leave me in the care of her friends and sisters while she went out, and I don’t mean it was just for a few hours or even overnight. Sometimes it was for days.” Kay was surprised she was able to tell him about her childhood without breaking down, without letting the years of pain leak through. “I didn’t suffer through a lifetime of 'uncles', but I did have to accept my mother’s selfish nature and her incapability of loving long term. Me included.”
“Kay,” he whispered.
She fought the tender understanding in his gaze, in his touch. She needed to say this, just once. “No, this is important.” He threaded his free hand through her hair comforting her, massaging her, but didn’t say another word.
“In many ways, I’m like her except I don’t have a child, and I never lead my flavor of the month falsely, dropping them unexpectedly when I felt I wasn’t receiving something I felt I needed or thought I could do better with the next man to cross my path. I don’t go out of my way looking for affection or love. I go out of my way to avoid it. When you said we’d bonded, I felt trapped. Utterly and irrevocably. I don’t understand it,” she said, her voice thickening as she got to the really hard truths. “But I’ve been miserable without you. I think if you hadn’t shown up tonight, Stacee would have either suggested I find you or she was going to do it for us.”
Rush’s jaw flexed just above her line of sight, and she was sure that sexy quirk of his lips had appeared. She couldn’t raise her vision any higher than the joined hands in front of her, her shame keeping her from looking into the eyes that she knew saw right through her. Swallowing, she finished. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“That is my fault. I haven’t been fair to you. Every time I came to terms with something, I became distracted and by the time I had the chance to think clearly enough to talk to you about it, the moment was gone and something else had moved into its place.”
The scent of his skin filled her senses when he leaned down to rest against her forehead again. Husky and deep, his voice reached out to her. “I’ve been miserable, too. It’s been hell without you.”
Her gaze flew to his eyes, drawn like a moth to a flame, wanting the truth and it was there, bared for her. She saw the tiredness in the dull gleam of his blue eyes, the lines in the corners that hadn’t been there before. His skin was warm when she lifted her fingers to caress those tell-tale signs. “You haven’t been sleeping.”
“Have you?” he asked right back.
“Not well.” A giddy sensation blossomed in her chest, warm and small, just a nugget, but it was there.
“I won’t lie to you, Kay. The bond is there. It’s unbreakable in our world.” Leaning closer until his cheek fit next to hers and she could feel each breath on her skin, he said, “I can’t, I wouldn’t, take it back. You may not believe it yet, but I love you. I have since I woke up with you in my arms and knew you had been there all along with me. You accepted me when I’ve never wanted anyone else to even try. No, it’s not how I would have had it happen between us, but it did.” He brushed a feathery finger across her lips, ramming at her barriers with gentle persuasion. “And I’m not going to let someone else watch over the greatest treasure I’ve ever received. Don’t live with that fear between us. I need you too much.”
Glancing away, she blinked to hide the fresh dampness in her eyes. “You’ve got a way with words,” she teased, trying to hide the depth of her reaction from him. It all sounded so wonderful; it was just taking time for her heart and mind to both agree to be
lieve in them.
“Let go,” he breathed. “Let go and love me.” Then his lips touched her temple and her eyes fluttered shut.
A light tug brought her flush to his body, and she couldn’t stop herself from melting straight through. The lean length of him pressed to hers, his thighs solid against hers. With her free hand, she braced herself on his chest, surprised to feel the ripple of skin and muscle beneath her fingertips. He sighed.
“Yes, princess. Touch me. God, I missed you.”
The nickname sent a shot of hunger clear down to her toes. The princess she’d envisioned had been a protection, an untouchable wall to separate herself from the world and the hurt surrounding her life. A barrier that kept the world at bay because princesses weren’t approachable, were detached from reality. The way he said it though, the husky rumble, made the nickname sound precious, treasured. Protected.
The gentle pressure of his hand on her back guided her closer, and her hand slid upward, caressing his shoulder. The cotton of his shirt smelled like him and she couldn’t resist rubbing her cheek over him to absorb all of him at once. She’d missed him so much. The scent of his skin, the heat of his body, the tenderness in his touch. She sighed quietly, too content to move for several minutes.
With the hand in her hair, he tipped her up to him. The depth of longing and wanting in his gaze stole her breath. He hid nothing from her. Not how much he desired her or needed her, or how much he craved her physically. The steel hardness of his length jutted into her through his jeans in an adamant statement of longing.
“I want you, Kay, but I won’t ask for more unless you can honestly tell me you can give me a chance. I can give you the time you need to understand this, but it won’t stop me from wanting you.”
Gazing up at him into the flecked blue of his eyes, she felt a chink against her heart. A large crack was the result. “You mean it?”
A gentle kiss to her mouth had her sighing. “Completely. I want to court you the way I should have from the beginning. Circumstances being what they were, I never got to really show you much. We kind of jumped right to the middle and the end.” He teased her with that smile of his, warm and heady. He slipped from her mouth to lick at the corner of her lips. “You taste so good. I’ve dreamed of kissing you.”
Aches were spiraling, slowly coiling her body tighter with need and desire.
Tucked against her neck, he drew a slow breath, his tongue flicking against her pulse, and she shivered. “Did I ever tell you a wolf has a heightened sense of smell?”
“N-No.” She gasped as he continued to tease the one spot that had remained sensitive even when everything else had healed.
“I can smell how much you want me, princess,” he told her, his rich voice slipping into her blood stream. “I can find your arousal on your skin, taste it, and it’s driving me insane with wanting you.”
The thickened roll of his voice sent shivers down her body in a constant shower, increasing her own desire with every kiss, touch, breath. A dampness she couldn’t control built and her pussy clenched. Her body thrummed like a taut wire being plucked as his fingers caressed and danced up and down her spine.
Something between a growl and a groan grew between them as he shuddered against her body. Slowly, as though she was fragile and he feared breaking her, he straightened.
“Kay.”
She followed the slow movement of his throat as he swallowed. The dull tiredness she’d seen in his eyes was gone. Now they almost burned with his desire. Tension radiated outward. Control hardened his entire length. “I need to leave. I won’t force you back into my bed, and right now the only thing keeping me from ravishing that body for hours is a very thin thread of control.”
Her fingers dug into his waist, her legs having turned to water ages ago. “Rush,” she whimpered, “I’ve never felt this before.” She closed her eyes as another wave made her body hum harder.
“Does it scare you?” Something softened in his expression, his tone washing over her with a blanket of understanding.
“A little, but I want it. I want you.” Her eyes widened at the open admittance of her own needs. A heat that had nothing to do with wanting flooded her cheeks.
“Baby,” he breathed, dipping to capture another kiss. “This is normal.” He moved to whisper into her ear. “This hunger,” he growled. Reaching for a hand, he cupped her and slid her palm over his pulsating cock. She licked her lips, unable to deny what he was doing to her. “This is only for you. No one else, ever again.”
Her eyes sank shut and dots rose up in a swarm in front of her vision. Heat and scents flooded her, sweat coated her body and somewhere inside, a part of her cried out for him. Stubbornly refusing to put a voice to it out of fear made the dots glow and spin. She swayed, and he caught her.
With a single movement, he scooped her up and cradled her. He buried his nose against her throat as though unable to get enough of any part of her. Gently, he stretched her on her bed then stood. “Better?” he asked. She hardly recognized his voice. She couldn’t find hers to answer him.
She didn’t know how long she lay there, her world completely distorted as her body and her mind collided. One was filled with a gnawing need that cried for fulfillment, the other screaming with dire terror at what was happening and fearing every step of it.
At some point, she felt his hand holding hers, his thumb brushing over her as he’d done so many times in the past. Time flickered through her mind, knowing it was passing, but no concept of how long.
Eventually she whispered his name without opening her eyes, frightened that she would be alone now. She never wanted to be alone again.
“I’m here, princess.” His weight moved on the bed and she turned toward that voice. Opening her eyes to the shadowy quiet of her bedroom, she found him laying along her length beside her, not touching, merely holding himself up with a palm to watch over her. Protecting her. Loving her.
Finding him there, that crack in her heart shattered completely apart.
The wrenched cry she made was soul shattering. Without an ounce of restraint, she threw herself into his hard body. He caught her, rolling beneath her. “Don’t ever leave me. Don’t ever let me be stupid like this again.”
“Never baby,” he agreed, nuzzling her, his arms wrapped around her body, cradling her into his chest. “You can do anything, think anything, but this will never end. I love you.”
He dropped butterfly kisses over her face and down her neck, his breath sweeping through her hair in hot bursts with every caress.
Lying across his broad chest, one leg draped between his thighs, the hard press of his erection thickened beneath her weight. The solid pound of his heart thudded against her breast where she pressed into him.
“Rush?”
“Hm?” he answered, apparently very engrossed in his current mission of kissing every exposed inch within reach.
“I can. I want this. I want us,” she whispered, tilting to feel the spark of his lips strike against her skin.
The kisses stopped, and he dropped back down to the pillow. “Do you love me?” he asked.
She blinked into the shadowy stillness of her bedroom, taking her time to really think about his question, to not lie, which was her first reflex, and not push him away. He deserved the truth, and an honest answer was the only way. The clock on her bedside table said it was just after midnight. Lowering her eyes, she picked at the hem of his sleeve between her fingers.
Did she love him? She thought she could, felt herself longing for something that she’d never come close to experiencing or wanting. Rolling to look into his eyes, her worries seemed lighter, maybe even easier to handle because she wouldn’t be doing any of this alone. Lifting a hand, she traced his mouth with a finger. He gently kissed the tip, not demanding more, though she could see the lingering desire in his eyes, just waiting for the moment to flare to life again.
“I think I do,” she whispered. “It still scares me.”
Another kiss to her
fingers. “I know it does, princess. I’ll do whatever it takes to be here for you.”
She let her lashes drop, lost in the sea of tossed emotions crashing over her. “Rush?”
“Yes?”
“Love me.” Two words, so achingly quiet, and her own heartbeat drowned them out of her ears.
Chapter Fifteen
“Kaisha,” he whispered, a groan that flitted like a sparrow between them. The lightest pressure of his fingers lifted her when he twisted his fingers into her hair to play with the length. “Never hide from me. If you want something, tell me. If you’re mad at me, scream then tell me why, but please, never hide from me.” He caressed her lips with his own with aching slowness, seducing her with his tongue.
“I don’t know how to do this, Rush,” she admitted. He kept her from turning away again.
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