by J. J. Massa
“I have an idea,” he told her as he shrugged out of his own shirt and pushed his pants off of his hips, scraping his shoes off while he was at it.
She adopted a serious face as she looked toward his voice. He rested one bare knee on the bed and carefully slid in behind her, pulling her against him, back to front.
“Your idea?” she breathed, arousal causing her breath to hitch.
His hand made its way between her legs, fingers finding her leaking center, liquid heat dripping now. He pulled back, lining his hard erection to her wet center and pushing slowly inside from behind.
“We’ll--um, ah,” he fought for breath.
“Yeah?” she gasped.
“Uh, we’ll just lay here like this, and uh, nap,” he finally forced out, not so much fighting his inner wolf as the hungry man that wanted to plunge over and over.
Her little gasps were killing him as she managed, “Yeah, that could work if you, um, just pull back and…oh!”
He began to move slowly, sliding in, pulling out, not too far, just steadily in and out.
“Philomela Livingston,” he groaned. “My sweet mate.”
“Yes,” she wriggled back against him, moaning when he pulled back and plunged deep, taking her shoulder into his jaws.
“Mine,” his breath was a growl, not harsh but possessive. “Mine,” he insisted.
“Oh, yes,” she agreed, pulling up and pushing back. His arms wrapped tightly around her. “Yours. You are mine.”
“Yours,” he agreed, beginning to thrust more steadily.
“Ahh,” she yipped as her peak approached. “Yancey!” she felt her channel tighten and heat began to fill her.
“Love you, Little Mate, love you,” he chanted, jerking inside of her as he emptied. They would make it, no matter what. He’d gotten his second chance and they would make it.
Chapter 20
“I just got back from Wales.” Myles wondered why Riker was telling him this. He knew his older brother had just finished filming a movie.
“Did Bethany and the boys go?” Myles asked politely.
They were sitting in Riker’s study. Myles was drinking bourbon from the bottle. The bottle was from a case Riker had gotten while he was looking for Bethany. Ashley had been gone over a year now and Myles was looking for something--anything--to kill the pain.
“No, it was just me, by myself.” He reached over and took the nearly empty bottle of bourbon from Myles and handed him a fresh one. Myles arched a brow but said nothing. He suspected they were nearing the point of his visit. “While I was there, I took in a show. Not a lot else to do there, you know?”
Riker turned and poked the fire.
“It’s bloody cold there this time of year. The Welsh are a very outdoorsy lot.” Myles felt like he ought to say something.
“The London Modern Dance and Ballet was performing there.” Riker waited, not speaking. Myles looked at him, his brow furrowed.
Suddenly it hit him, what the other man was trying to tell him. “My Princess,” he choked.
“We had supper. She spent the day with me, too.” Riker poked at the fire again and sat down.
“How is she?” Myles felt his eyes fill. He chugged more of the bourbon.
Riker waited until he swallowed. “She’s lost a lot of weight. She’s fine, just dancing stand in, really. It’s an honorary thing, she says, but she’s learning.” He took a deep breath and looked at Myles, “She told me what she did.” Myles would have choked if he’d still been drinking. As it was, he chugged more bourbon.
“What do you mean, ‘what she did’?” Myles didn’t want to hear this, but then again, he did. “She would only talk about it briefly. She said she’d crawled in your bed the afternoon of her eighteenth birthday. She said that she’d taken advantage of you and you were upset.” Riker looked at him unblinking. Myles looked back for long moments.
Myles closed his eyes and leaned back expelling his breath slowly. “That’s a pretty skewed description. I crawled in my bed for a nap. I didn’t even notice the tiny little lump. I thought I was dreaming. So did she.” He took another generous swig from the bottle. “As for taking advantage, not possible. I don’t know how much longer I could have held back. I wanted her, always, always…”
“Why aren’t you two together then, man? What’s going on? Usually after mates…mate, they live together.”
“I--we--I said some bloody stupid things. I treated her--I fouled it up is all I can say. She says,” he inhaled deeply, forcing the words out, “she says we weren’t meant to be mates, even though we are mates. She says she isn’t right for me and that’s why I fought it when I should have been making room for her in my life. That deep down I don’t want her for a mate and p’raps that’s as it should be. She…” he choked on it but forced himself to say the rest of it, “She absolves me of any obligation to her, as her mate.”
He’d never told another soul the last words she’d said to him, and even that had been a taped message. He played it back every now and then, arguing with it, had even had it digitally mastered on a CD so that it wouldn’t wear out.
It felt both good and bad to say the words out loud, to share his burden with someone else. Now that he’d started, he couldn’t seem to stop.
“God I love her, Riker. What the sodding fuck was my problem? A beautiful mate handed to me, just waiting for me and I …”
Myles couldn’t speak, could barely breathe. Before he knew what was happening, he was wrapped in his brother’s arms, body shaking, dry heaves, but laying his burden on the wide shoulders of someone else, someone who loved him, who knew.
How long they stood together, two strong men, two indomitable werewolves sharing a pain that few could understand, neither noticed the passage of time. Finally, they sat again, this time passing the bottle of bourbon back and forth. Sharing the pain and the false remedy, equally.
“I told her that she is your mate, that she’s a Montgomery,” Riker said finally.
Myles looked at him skeptically. “And?”
Riker expelled another heavy, uneasy sigh. “She said that you were always her mate, whether she was yours or not.”
Myles sat, stunned. He considered the words this way and that, turning them over for all possible meanings. He couldn’t blame Riker for the worried look when he started to smile.
“I’m her mate, Rike, I’m her mate.” Riker shook his head, skeptical. “She still regards me as hers, she still loves me. There’s hope.”
Riker shrugged, clapped Myles on the shoulder and led him from the room.
--The End--
About The Author
J.J. lives on the Jersey Shore with her husband, her teenaged daughter, his nine-year-old daughter, and his thirteen-year-old son. To complete this eclectic family, she has her writing partner and yellow lab, Cosmo, at her side all the time for plot twists and character advice. There are some visiting cats, aquatic turtles, and an assortment of hermit crabs just to keep things interesting. There's never a dull moment in the Massa household. Maybe that's why there's never a dull moment in J.J. Massa's books...