by Dannika Dark
A woman who had come to him on a full moon with danger nipping at her heels. One who stood up to him and yet brought out his protective side. A woman he wanted to learn inside out.
He stroked her silver coat as she stared out the window at the treetops covered in a thin fog. The sun napped behind the clouds, and the snow had tapered off to nothing but a few sparse flecks of ice tapping against the window.
Lorenzo draped a thin blanket around her. “Shift,” he said and then turned toward the fire to light it up.
Once he got a good blaze and put on a pair of pants, he glanced over his shoulder. Ivy stood facing the windows with her back to him, her hair in a loose braid. But it was unraveling at the bottom without a band to tie it with.
“Come sit and we’ll talk,” he said gently. “You leave tomorrow, and I would like to spend some time with you before we part ways.”
***
When Lorenzo called me to the fire, I knew this was a turning point. I would be going home tomorrow, and I had no idea what kind of reception awaited me. Would my wolf be able to fight by their side with her injury? Would my pack accept me?
I took a seat in the chair and Lorenzo sat on the bed across from me. The heat from the fire engulfed the left side of my body, making me want to turn away from it.
“Do you think Austin will reject me from his pack once he sees the condition I’m in?” I asked. “As a Packmaster, give me your honest answer.”
“I cannot say. If he has humans in his house, I would guess no. Do you have a job that will secure your position in his pack?”
“Denver suggested I go into furniture restoration,” I said with a shrug.
“There’s money in that.”
“Money isn’t the only thing worth valuing. Your house doesn’t impress me as much as your knowledge for healing magic.”
He pursed his lips, considering the comment. “But healing magic will not put food in your mouth and a roof over your head. You understand the importance of each packmate contributing to the house. Not all bring in money, but some have skills that are put to good use. A few things around here could use a little touch-up.”
“Are you offering me a job?”
He lifted a shoulder and looked toward the fire. “All members of a pack should contribute in some way, whether one brings in money, is a caregiver, or even the healer in the pack. Children get sick, and someone needs to know how to care for them. Everyone should have a place.”
“I’ve been feeling adrift since my father sent me away.” I turned more on my right side and closed my fist, leaning my head against it.
“What troubles you? Since Fox left, your spirit’s been left broken. This is not the wolf I have come to know.”
“I’m going to talk to Austin about it. Maybe my leg will make it easier for him to let me go.”
He leaned forward with a glint of firelight in his eyes. “Go where?”
“To go with Fox.”
“That’s all the fight you have? It didn’t take long for you to buckle under the weight of words.”
I rested my arm on the chair and sighed. “Fox has something over me and he laid down a threat. I have no choice in the matter.”
“Ah, yes. Lakota.” I didn’t like the way he’d said Lakota’s name, as if it were a curse. Lorenzo rose to his feet and folded his arms. “So you would let your love for another man lead to your ruination? If he was any kind of a man, he wouldn’t allow this to happen.”
I laughed softly and it grew louder until tears welled in my eyes.
“This is funny?” Anger flashed in his eyes and he dropped his arms to his sides. “You’re giving yourself over to a rapist as an offering to save a weak man.”
“That’s right, Lorenzo. You’re absolutely right.” I sat back and slouched. “Lakota is weak, and that’s why I must protect him.”
“The man can’t fight off a rogue wolf?”
I shook my head, my eyes never leaving his. “Lakota is my son,” I said in a soft breath.
He blanched and almost stumbled backward over the bearskin rug. Lorenzo sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes downcast.
So I drew a deep breath and revealed a family secret that I’d kept buried for many years.
“When I was sixteen, Fox had sex with me and it wasn’t consensual. I thought I’d done something wrong to deserve it because no one had ever talked about sex with me. Our pack kept the children sheltered. Soon I began to get sick and my mother called a Relic.” I wrung my hands together and lowered my eyes. “The Relic revealed I was pregnant, which came as a surprise to my mother, who had no idea I’d been with a man. Not to mention Shifter women rarely get pregnant before their first change, let alone when not in their heat cycle. I defied every kind of natural law, as if the fates wanted to punish me for what I’d done. That’s how I felt—punished. Why else would the spirits give me a child under such conditions?”
“And what did you tell Ivan?”
“Nothing. He cornered me and wanted to know who the father was, but I couldn’t tell him. I was terrified. Part of me still loved Fox in an irrational way, because I’d known him my entire life—a man who was as close to me as an uncle. I was confused and torn, not to mention humiliated. One day my father led me out to the field with my horse and held a gun to her head. He said if I didn’t give him a name, he’d shoot her.”
My lower lip quivered and I swallowed down the guilt.
“That beautiful mare died because of me. He tried to question everyone in the pack, and Fox stood behind him, so he never suspected a thing. Soon it was time for me to have the baby, but he wouldn’t allow me to keep it. My father said it would be a reminder to every man in the pack that I was a whore. He never knew I was forced, Lorenzo. He thought I’d lain with a man willingly and I was lying to protect him. It’s probably for the best, because he would have never recovered from that secret. It would have driven him mad.”
Lorenzo glanced at an arrowhead necklace on the small table beside his bed. “What happened to the child?”
“A few months after I turned seventeen, the Relic delivered a baby boy. At first they didn’t want me to see him, but when my mother left the room to tell my father it was over, the Relic slipped him into my arms for a good-bye. I never believed in love at first sight until I laid eyes on my baby. Oh, Lorenzo… he was so beautiful.”
I grimaced and threw my head back, closing my eyes as the pain threatened to steal me away. My beautiful baby boy. I remembered how I’d kissed his fingers and stroked his chubby cheeks as he wailed and shook in my arms.
“I only had moments, so I told the Relic his name. I’m sure wherever he is now, he goes by something else, but I’d hoped maybe he’d keep his name and someday I’d be able to find him. She wrapped him in a swaddling cloth and took him away. No one saw the baby, not my father and especially not Fox.”
“And now he wants the child?”
I laughed somberly. “Fox never wanted children, let alone his own child. That man feels no love. The only thing he feels is envy. What you heard earlier wasn’t Fox threatening to steal my baby. He was threatening to kill him. I don’t know if he knows where Lakota is, but I have to stop him, whether that means killing him or going to him. I can’t make a foolish assumption that Fox won’t follow through with it. He would do it out of spite. That mare died because I sacrificed something I loved for someone I didn’t. I won’t make that same mistake again. I may not know my child, but I love him. I will always love him, even if we never meet in this life.”
“How long ago was that?”
I looked wistfully out the window. “He’ll be five this winter. Sometimes I try to imagine what he looks like, what he’s doing right now. Maybe he’s sitting in front of a warm fire, playing with toy horses and pretending a great battle is unfolding before his eyes and that he’s the warrior who will save his pack. Lakota wasn’t born an alpha, but I know he has a strong spirit. He’ll be second-in-command if he joins a pack. I just know it.”
; “Why haven’t you looked for him since moving here?”
I leaned forward and sighed, watching the ends of my braid unravel. “It’s not meant to be.”
“Do you even know where he could be? Shifters rarely give away children. Some end up in orphanages, but others go on the black market. Who was the Relic who delivered him?”
“Please, Lorenzo. I’ve lived long enough with those kinds of worries in my head, and they don’t do me any good. It would be impossible for me to find him. But if Fox finds him… I have to go home tomorrow first thing.”
“Agreed.”
I glanced at Lorenzo’s feet. He had nice, strong feet for a man. And he’d set them flat on the ground, never fidgeting or moving them around as a man unsure of himself would. Every quality about him I found attractive—the kind of man I would choose if the choice were mine.
“Do you think I’ll ever find a mate?” I asked in a soft breath. “Be honest. Could a man love me knowing that I’ve had another man’s child? Maybe love is too much to ask, but I don’t want to turn away from my heart. It wants so much to love, and I can’t let Fox steal that away from me.”
“I think… I think you are a noble woman. Strong. Stubborn. Opinionated.”
“And those are compliments?”
He chuckled. “You just proved my point. A good mate would want to pass these traits on to his sons.”
“Or daughters,” I added. “The world doesn’t just revolve around men.”
I rose to my feet, stretching my stiff muscles, and approached Lorenzo with my blanket still wrapped around me.
His lips parted, and when he matched my gaze, I saw experience in the depths of his eyes. He looked as if he’d been carved from stone, with a strong nose and cheekbones that sculpted his face into perfection. Lorenzo had a low brow bone, and the closer I looked, the more I began to notice little details. Like a tiny birthmark by his temple that looked like a speck of dirt, and shadows of muscle along his ribcage that drew my attention to a few small scars. His skin was lightly bronzed, and his black hair had dark shades of brown blended with all the silkiness one could imagine. Because of my mixed descent, mine was more chocolate with a hint of cherry undertones. I wondered about the purity of his blood because his hair wasn’t as black as I’d seen on some who still lived in Shifter tribes. Whatever genes he had inherited created perfection.
“When you kissed me earlier, did you know that was the first time a man has ever kissed me on the mouth?”
His pupils dilated, and yet no witty remarks were cast back at me like tiny stones.
“Can I kiss you, Lorenzo?”
He seemed to have found his voice. “I like that you call me by my full name.” After a moment of staring at my lips, he answered, “Kiss me if you wish.”
I smirked and traced my finger along his mouth. “Your exalted opinion of yourself makes me smile, Thunder.”
With his permission, I leaned forward and clumsily delivered a kiss. I wasn’t sure, but I think I might have bitten his lip in the process. My cheeks flushed.
“Woman, that is hardly anything to blush about.” He widened his legs. “Step closer.”
I stepped forward until our faces were a breath away and nervously looked into his eyes. They glittered with interest as he watched me.
When I moved to kiss him again, his hands cradled my neck and stopped me.
“Your eyes are still open,” he said in a honeyed voice, his breath warming my skin. “You’re not kissing a puppy.”
I clutched my blanket tighter as he slipped his fingers behind the nape of my neck and stroked my skin. Lorenzo liked caressing my face, neck, and shoulders.
“Bring your lips closer until they’re touching mine.”
When I did, the heat was electric.
“Can you feel that?” he asked, moving his lips from one corner of my mouth to the other. “That’s the chemistry between man and woman. It doesn’t need to be forced. You shouldn’t overthink what to do with your mouth or tongue—give in to your instincts.”
His words buzzed against my lips and a riotous wave of desire bloomed between my legs.
He rubbed noses with me. “Do it again. No thinking.”
So I closed my eyes and felt the soft flesh of his lips against mine. The scorch of his breath slid across my cheek as I explored his mouth without kissing, just moving my lips until they found a spot that felt natural. I planted a lingering kiss on his upper lip, tilting my head to the right so our noses didn’t bump together.
The moment it happened, I felt it everywhere like a surge of hot adrenaline. I tasted his mouth as if there were small flecks of sugar to be savored, and he reciprocated in cautious movements until our mouths moved together in a harmonized dance.
Lorenzo pulled back and stroked my cheeks in a downward motion with his index fingers. “You’re a quick study. Now I want you to relax your mouth and part your lips some more. This is the part where it gets sexy.”
“Sexy?” I asked, bemused. So what we’d been doing wasn’t?
He kissed my chin and playfully rubbed his nose against mine. “Yes, sexy,” he growled. “Give in to me—don’t pull back. I’m going to slide my tongue against yours, and I just want you to let it happen.”
My heart picked up speed and I trembled like a leaf. Lorenzo leaned forward a little more assertively this time and I kissed him as before, only this time he parted his lips, opening his mouth wider. Then I gasped when his tongue brushed across my lip.
I was a grown woman being schooled on how to kiss a man, and I stumbled at it like a child learning to ride a bicycle.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said, breathless.
“Yes you do.” He drew in a soft breath and thought for a moment. “What do you do with your mouth when eating an ice cream cone? Not licking, but when you take a bite. Think about it, Ivy. You gently stroke the cream with your tongue.”
I smirked. “Maybe we don’t eat ice cream the same way.”
He lifted my chin and held his thumb in front of my mouth. “Show me how you would taste honey from my finger using your mouth and tongue at the same time.”
So I kissed his thumb and lightly sucked on the flat part before stroking it with my tongue. His eyes hooded and I knew Lorenzo Church was aroused. His breathing grew heavy and with every ounce of restraint, he moved his hand away and replaced his thumb with his mouth. I repeated the motion until our tongues met again.
This time it felt right. He tilted his head a different way and I followed his rhythm, his kisses like silk as his tongue swept against mine.
Instinctively, I curved my arms around his neck and my blanket slipped to the floor, as quiet as a whisper. He pulled my naked body against him and the kiss became deep and desperate on both ends. I could feel the pulse of arousal between my legs and I moaned, pressing closer to him. His body went rigid, while mine weakened in his embrace.
“Are you always this warm?” I whispered.
He groaned and his hands were suddenly everywhere.
Then I broke the kiss and pushed at his shoulders. “Lie back.”
He sharply inhaled, as if to protest.
“I owe you my life. Please…,” I said, stroking his shoulders. “I may never find a lover or mate, and I don’t want the only sex I’ll ever know to have been with Fox… in that way. You were right in that my reward is a paltry sum, but maybe it’ll mean something to know that you’re the only man I’ve ever freely given myself to.”
“You aren’t afraid?” he asked cautiously.
I was terrified, but I didn’t want him to know that. I craved his touch, and needed to find out if it would ruin or heal me. “I’m not afraid of anything,” I whispered.
He circled his arms about my waist and regarded me with reverent eyes. “Another man may have taken your pearl, but he did not take away your luster.”
His lips mashed against mine, and I crawled on top of him as he stretched himself out on the bed. Lorenzo raised his arms and I relished the p
rovocative feel of his skin against mine.
I unzipped his black cargo pants and pulled them away, leaving him spread naked before me. I glanced at his large arousal and averted my eyes, erasing the memories of Fox that polluted my thoughts.
This time would be different.
Chapter 12
Lorenzo sat up and drew my long braid around to the front. He began working from the bottom, meticulously unraveling my hair. “I sense you began doing this for the wrong reasons.”
“It’s just hair.”
“Yes, but hair is a woman’s glory, and I want your glory spread across me like a shield.”
I continued to protest, tugging at it. “Maybe all this glory is what got me in trouble.”
He seized my wrist and moved my hand away, settling his eyes on mine. “We both know you did nothing to deserve what that animal did to you. If you wish to wear your hair braided, then that’s your decision. But when you’re in my bed, you’ll be unbound to me. I’ll have no memory tie you up in any form. Take your thoughts away from that time and stay with me here in this moment. Listen to the crackling of the fire and the sound my lips make as they taste your skin. Feel my heartbeat.” He held my hand against his bare chest and it was a banging drum.
I moved my hand upward and touched his Adam’s apple, taking pleasure in the simplicity of learning the things about Lorenzo that no one paid attention to. I kissed the tiny mark on his head, felt his dark lashes with the tips of my fingers, and tasted his skin beneath his jaw.
The intensity in Lorenzo’s eyes couldn’t be matched. “What you said last night… I’m not a terrible lover.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I whispered.
Our mouths met and then he journeyed down, sucking at my breast. I gripped his hair and moaned, feeling a swell of desire.
Lorenzo patted my right thigh. “Get on your knees. I want you to straddle me.”
I did as he asked and then he patted my left leg to do the same.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I said in a gasp against his ear. “My leg…”
So instead of letting me kneel on top of him, he pulled my left leg out and curved it around his back, watching my face to see if I found this position tolerable, which I did. “You’ve been avoiding looking down, sweet Ivy. I don’t want you to fear anything about me.”