by KT Strange
“I think I was so scared they were, they were gone, that I didn’t let myself really think about it hard, you know?” I rubbed a hand over my eyes, my face feeling swollen and hot. “And now they’re okay? Just like that.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t want to go look,” he said, “if I’d listened to you, I might have found them before they left.” Regret made his voice heavy.
“You didn’t want to leave me alone,” I reminded him. His eyes flicked over my face and his jaw tensed.
“No, I didn’t.” He hesitated for a moment and then kissed me hard, pulling me against him. “I never want to have to make that choice again,” he whispered when he broke for air. “I need to make you feel good. Let me make you feel good, Darcy. Seeing you so upset… I couldn’t, I can’t—”
“You’ve done everything you could. As soon as we find them, we’re never leaving them, so you won’t have to,” I promised him. He kissed me until I shivered.
“I should feed you,” he said, although his tone was tight, his eyes intense as he gazed down at me. I squirmed in the bed, and then shook my head.
“Stay,” I whispered, and then reached down to pull at the hem of my shirt. Charlie made a low, soft noise, like a groan crossed with a growl. When I tossed my shirt to the side, I felt his gaze slide over my skin like physical pressure, hot and heavy.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “There’s a can of cold beans in the cupboard with your name on it.”
“Charlie,” I said his name one last time, and tucked my fingers into the side my underwear. He inhaled, sharp and noisy, his eyes following my fingers’ movements. I lifted my hips and pushed my panties down my legs. “I’m sure.”
Five
Darcy
His weight settled over me, pressing me down into the mattress. Let me make you feel good, Darcy. His words echoed in my head along with the thud of my heartbeat as his mouth moved from mine, to the curve of my jaw, then to my throat. I felt him hesitate, his lips brushing over the marks his pack mates had left there, the bites that had bonded me to them, and through them to him. He shivered, a low growl unfurling from the bottom of his lungs.
“What,” I whispered, not wanting to break the moment, but needing to know what was affecting him so much.
“I can smell them on you.” His eyes were liquid when he shifted over me, and he let out a long, shaking breath. “You don’t know what that does to me. I love it, knowing you’re a part of our pack, that you’re ours, Darce, but I hate that I’m not there too. That you’re not marked as mine. That I haven’t claimed you,” the intensity in his voice shook me. It was so different from the Charlie that I was used to, the breezy, chill, wise-cracking joker who never could lift his face from his phone. He was more likely to share a stupid cat meme with me than stare at me like he wanted to devour me.
“I… I’m sorry?” my words were squeaky, and my cheeks burned. He bit his lip and grinned.
“Not your fault,” he bent to kiss me, his lips rough on mine. I chased him when he pulled back. “It’s mine. I never took you like I should’ve. Made myself wait. Like an idiot. But here you are now, all mine.”
He was looking at me like nothing in the world would make him whole except me, and I shivered underneath him.
“I’m yours,” I said, because there was nothing else to tell him but the truth. He was done running, and now he was right there with me. He growled and bent down to kiss me, his kisses trailing over my cheek down to my neck again. He licked hard at my skin, like he was trying to cover his pack-mates’ scent with his own, and after a few frustrated moments, he rolled off of me.
“I want to see you,” he said, slipping the blankets down my body, and exposing my skin to the cold air of the cabin. My nipples pebbled immediately in the chill, and he groaned, covering me with his body. The rough cotton of his boxers rubbed into my thighs and urged me to part them for him. My back arched; his hand cupped the small of it to support me as his mouth worked a lazy trail down my chest. His tongue circled one nipple slowly, flicking over it to make me gasp. “Again,” he whispered, his tongue slicking across my skin once more. The sparks of pleasure went right to my clit, tracing an arc path along my body.
Already I was wanting it, and I squirmed my hips against his, trying to encourage him to move it along and not make me wait. He took his time though, exploring my skin like it was the first time he’d seen me naked.
“All those nights, listening to Finn make you light up,” he said against my ribs, rubbing his cheek over my belly as it curved up to him. “It was like torture. Listening to you, crying out in the dark, it cut me so deep. I just wanted to push him aside, take my place over you. God, Darcy, do you know how crazy you make me?” His tongue dipped over the bump of my hip-bone, washing down my skin, like if he could drink me up he would.
“Breathe for me, baby,” his voice was a low croon, and I moaned in response. “Let me hear how good I make it for you.”
“It’s so good,” I promised him, holding my breath for a moment when I felt his fingers trail over my pussy, tucking inside my folds and spreading me open.
“I said breathe, baby,” he ordered, voice laced with steel. I gasped for air and his mouth descended over my pussy, tongue teasing over my skin. I cried out and arched, fingers digging into the sheets as I hung on. “That’s what you need. Just like this. Relax, baby, I promise, I’ll give you everything you need.” His tongue was a hot brand, running over my folds, circling my clit. The first touch of his fingers at my entrance had my hips jerking up with need.
He laughed, quiet, the sound edged with arousal.
“Relax,” he encouraged me, “I’ll make it so good for you Darcy.”
“Stop talking and fuck me,” I demanded, and he laughed again, but wasted no time, sinking one finger inside me in one slow, insistent press until he bottomed out at his knuckles. My head fell back against the mattress with relief, the ache to clench down onto something finally fulfilled. He didn’t leave me to ask for anything though, his mouth ghosting over my slick skin, licking in between my folds and up over my clit.
“Gonna make you come so hard,” he promised, the threat hanging over me as his finger started up a devastating pattern of thrusts that had me arching into him with each movement. It was perfect, it was just what I needed, but I wanted it to last, the warmth, the pleasure.
Charlie had other ideas, his hand gripping me tight. His lips caught my clit, sucking on it slowly, and with each thrust of his fingers I was closer, closer, my toes curling, trying to make it last, the pleasure feeling like it would never end and—
He nipped me, once, softly, and I cried out, grabbing his shoulder with one hand and holding him there. He lapped at me slowly, finger pulling out too soon and I cried out again, softer this time, desperate for more. The feeling faded hard when he draped himself across my hips, his chin propped in one hand. His lips were shiny in the low light, and he smirked at me.
I looked away, heat suffusing my skin all over.
“Sounded like that felt good for you,” he teased, his fingers dragging over my thigh. I shivered.
“Maybe,” I said, keeping my voice light. He’d stopped before I’d finished. That was rude. He wasn’t getting a cookie from me for that.
“Maybe?” His voice pitched dark and he pushed my thighs apart.
“Charlie?!” I lifted my head to look at him. He was staring at my pussy with a single-minded, dogged expression on his face.
“Guess I better try again.”
“Charlie,” I exhaled his name as he lowered his face to my poor, abused skin.
“Gotta make it better,” he said into the wet flesh of my thigh, his tongue traveling along, drawing whorls, slashes, other patterns that had me coming up to meet him, my hands fisting beside my hips. It was too soon but it was also exactly what I needed.
“Oh god, oh god,” I whispered the words again and again as his tongue laved over me, the warmth and wetness making me push my hips up off the bed for more.
“Maybe if you weren’t being such a tease, I would,” I hissed back after catching my breath. Charlie let out a low, sexy chuckle, nuzzling the inside of my thigh. The stubble along his cheek grazed my skin and I gasped for air. His tongue followed the path that his 5-o’clock shadow had left, soothing the burn. My muscles tensed and shivered as he lapped along my thigh, reaching the soft skin where it met my torso.
My eyes closed, my breath stalling in my chest, waiting for him to make his next move. I whined when he let his finger trail along the split of my pussy. The touch was so light I barely felt it, but completely electric at the same time.
“I’m going to have you, Darcy,” he whispered into my skin, his breath fleeting across my nerves. He kept stroking my pussy slowly, his touch downy-soft and teasing until I felt like I couldn’t handle it anymore.
“Charlie,” I demanded, as insistent as I could manage. His tongue slid out, following the path his finger had traced, and then he licked into me. Hot, wet heat saturated my awareness and I moaned, reaching down to clench my fingers in his hair and keep him there. If he teased me anymore I thought I might fall apart.
His shoulders were firm between my thighs, my muscles flexing and tightening down on them, trying to keep him there or push him away. My body couldn’t make up its mind, hips moving in slow, urgent dips, encouraging him for more, more of what he was giving me. I cried out when two of his fingers slipped inside me, sliding deep and curving up. The white heat that followed, with each slow thrust of his fingers into me, had me twisting my free hand in the sheets as I tried to get some grip on reality and not explode right over the edge.
“You say please anymore and I’m gonna think you’re begging me,” he murmured and heat rocketed across my face as I realized I’d been whispering the word over and over. I licked my lips, dry from panting, and squirmed as he sucked on my clit slowly. Everything was slow, from the twist of his fingers inside of me, to the shattering way his tongue trailed through my folds. Not like earlier, the first time, when he’d had me desperate and coming so fast.
He was taking me apart on his own time, groaning into my skin, until my breaths were high-pitched and I shuddered right at the edge.
“I can feel you,” he lifted his head to look at me, the planes of his face half in shadow, half glowing from the light of the lantern. “You’re so close, aren’t you, Darcy?”
I opened my mouth to beg him to get his face back down where it belonged, between my thighs, where he made me feel amazing. A smirk twisted across his lips and he shouldered my legs apart further, his lips rubbing across the crook where my thigh met my torso.
The graze of his teeth made me tense, and I screamed, his fingers sliding deep inside me as he bit down hard. Pain, so exquisite that I ripped at his hair, exploded inside of me as I came hard, racing over the edge. Sparks lit up along the peripheral of my vision and I gasped when he pulled away, licking at the bite he’d given me.
Little shivers coursed through my muscles, his fingers still deep in me, coaxing me along, drawing my orgasm out until my cries grew desperate. Then he pulled away, soothing me with slow licks to the bite on my thigh. I shuddered.
“Ow,” I whispered. He sighed, pressing one last, tender kiss there. He moved over me, a satisfied look on his face. He leaned down and kissed me slowly, and I could taste myself on him, along with a bitter hint of copper too. My arms wrapped around his shoulders and I clung to him. The feeling inside me was overwhelming, and I couldn’t shake its intensity as it rolled over me. I was his. He was mine. We were linked together, by something invisible, but so powerful that nothing could ever take him from me.
It’s a damn good thing I wasn’t a commitment-phobe anymore. My thoughts were wry with wrung-out humor.
“You alright?” His fingers sprawled across my chest, cupping one of my breasts in his hand. His palm was rough, catching on my soft skin.
“That was a dirty trick.” I closed my eyes for a moment before opening them to gaze at him. “I loved it.”
“Sounded like you did.” He smirked, and I smacked his shoulder weakly.
“Don’t gloat, it’s a bad habit.”
“I’m not gloating,” he insisted, “I’m reveling.”
“Same thing.”
He kissed me, not answering, rolling his hips down into mine. A soreness, where he’d bitten me, blossomed.
“I don’t think so,” I said, feeling the shakiness inside of me. That had been… intense, to put it mildly. He’d broken the skin. He’d marked me. “We don’t exactly have antiseptic cream or anything.”
“In my day we didn’t have that either,” he said, looking slightly affronted, but then his expression melted into something tender. His erection was hard against my thigh, but he slipped off of me, curling me into him so he could spoon me. Warmth surrounded me, and my muscles went lax. He may not have had Finn’s or Cash’s bulk, but he was toned, his muscles firm as I snuggled back into him.
His fingers stroked through my hair, rubbing down to the nape of my neck. I moaned and arched into it with a low sigh. It was exactly what I needed right then. His hands scooped down my back, over my sides, and he reached for the blanket, pulling it up our bodies.
I was drifting, that slow, floaty feeling returning as he took care of me. I wanted to tell him that I was up for sex, really. If he just gave me a few minutes he wouldn’t need to be such a gentleman about the raging hard-on he was packing, but sleep kept tugging at the edges of my awareness.
He wrapped his arm around my belly, his fingers splayed over the blanket in a possessive move that had me relaxing even further. He pressed a kiss right behind my ear, and I heard him whisper, “I love you, sweetheart.”
My heart fluttered a response, but before I could reply, there was a tentative knock at the door. Charlie was up and out of the bed, growling, before I could even re-open my eyes.
“Who’s there?” he barked as I sat up, pulling the blanket against my chest. The feelings of vulnerability rushed in as he stood there, stark naked and ready for a fight.
“It’s Frank,” called a voice from behind the door. “Open up!”
Six
Darcy
Charlie threw my clothes at me, and I hurriedly pulled on my t-shirt. He opened the door. Frank burst in, throwing his arms around the older wolf. Frank was all limbs and curly, messy hair. He made a hiccuping noise and it hit home even more that despite the fact the boy looked to be in his late teens, he was probably, in werewolf terms, still very much a child in a lot of ways.
“Hey, kiddo, it’s all good,” Charlie said, hugging Frank tight and shooting me a worried look over his head. I slipped from the bed, tugging my jeans up as I went and being gentle with my injury. A small nip of pain reminded me that Charlie had bitten me, mated me, and I shifted my jeans so it wouldn’t rub across the mark so much. He and I were going to have a talk about his choice of bond-bite locations later. Much later.
“He took them,” Frank blurted out. “He took them and Wolfe went and please —”
“Hey, hey, heyyyy, deep breaths, kid, because you’re making absolutely no sense at all,” Charlie soothed Frank, wiping away tears from the boy’s face. Frank nodded hard and coughed, clearing his throat. “The fire?”
“It ate everything, the cabin, half of the fields, it was burning the forest and spreading. He tried, but it kept coming back, no matter how many times Wolfe put it out, even when he brought the storms,” Frank gulped a breath of air. The storms… the weather had been relentless since we’d run from the flames and now I knew why. Wolfe had tried to tame the fire.
“You hungry?” Charlie tried humor, but he sounded on edge more than anything else. “We got a tin of beans.”
Frank shook his head.
“No thanks,” he swallowed hard, “I’m not — that weren’t the worst of it, cause when he almost got done with the fire, and the pack thought that you
and Darcy were dead or burnt, or missing, then he came, and —” Frank closed his eyes tight. From his tone I knew right away that ‘he’ was not Wolfe.
“Who was it?” I took a few short steps toward Frank. Charlie’s eyes flicked down to my injured ankle but I ignored him. It was starting to feel better anyway.
“A witch, he said he knew you, and you were his,” Frank spat the word out, “like you just belonged to him and was his property and he could do what he liked and—” He took a deep breath, his shoulders shaking with anger. A maw of dread opened up in my stomach.
“What was his name?” Each word was painful for me to say, my mind spinning wildly. My father had tracked the pack down; he’d tracked me down.
“Said his name was something stupid, stupidest name I ever heard, Creston—”
Oh.
I sat down hard on the edge of the bed and Charlie made a move toward me, but I waved him off.
“Creston Hailward,” I said. Frank’s eyes went wide.
“I thought he was lying. He knows you?” Frank glanced from me to Charlie and back again.
“Sort of an ex-boyfriend,” I said, my voice thin in my own ears. I felt like I was underwater. Creston had followed me here. A brief memory fluttered through my mind, of his hands running over my body, of the hot sick feeling in the back of my throat when I’d felt helpless in his grasp.
Frank made a face, breaking through the fog that was clouding my vision.
“Gross.” He yelped when Charlie smacked him upside the head lightly.
“Give yourself a few years, and you’ll see if you don’t make some bad life choices you come to regret,” Charlie murmured. I shot him a grateful smile but I wasn’t really offended. Frank was young and spoke his mind without thinking. And he was right. Creston was gross.