by Chant, Zoe
She couldn’t even if she wanted to.
“I want you to take my shirt off.”
His fingers ghosted alone her spine, the calluses sending shockwaves across her skin.
“Kiss my neck.”
His arms twined around her, lifting her off the ground as she fumbled with his trouser zipper.
“Touch me—”
She was his mate. That was miracle enough. That he listened to her every shameless, whispered plea, and obeyed, his eyes black with desire and his breath hot on her skin? It shouldn’t have been possible. Nothing she wanted so much should have been possible.
She slipped one hand under the band of his briefs. His hips bucked, fingers tightening almost painfully around her waist as she wrapped her hand around his cock.
He was hard. That shouldn’t have been a surprise. What surprised her was the thrill that went through her as she felt him in her hand, thick and urgent and wanting.
She kissed him until he moaned and pumped her hand up and down his cock until whatever words he’d been about to say came out in a jumbled gasp against her lips. “What was that?”
“I can’t take this much longer.” He jerked against her again. “God, Delphine...”
She stripped her pants off one-handed. He slid his hands over her ass, pulling her up so she could wrap her legs around him. His cock pressed between her legs, sending shivers of anticipation into her core. She ground against him.
“Bed?” she suggested.
“Is that what you want?”
Somehow, through the very determined messages her body was sending her and the messages his body was sending her, too, she sensed the hesitation in his voice.
“Honestly?”
“Honestly,” he breathed, easily, as though her voice had never made him double over in pain.
“Honestly, I’m easy on where.”
That smile again. He picked her up and she kissed the side of his neck, his earlobe, wherever she could reach until he put her down next to the sofa.
“Here?” she asked.
“Last night—” He cleared his throat, embarrassment mingling with desire. She leaned against the back of the sofa and put his arms around his neck, keeping him close.
“Tell me,” she whispered. “Fair turnabout.”
He acknowledged her point with a quick smile. “Sleeping here last night, knowing you were just in the next room, surrounded by your scent all over the cushions and the blanket... it was hell.”
“You didn’t sleep well either?”
“You too?”
“I didn’t even get to smell your scent on the bed,” she grumbled.
“I hadn’t slept there yet.”
He pushed her against the back of the sofa, kissing her deeply. “Let’s change that,” she whispered.
Hardwick picked her up and was about to lay her down on the sofa, but she wriggled out of his grasp. She didn’t know why. This was wrong-right and exciting and everything she wanted, and what she wanted was—
She almost groaned with the arguing wants inside her. She wanted now. Here. Everything. All the years she’d spent bottling herself up meant there was so much she’d never tried.
She could start here. They could start here.
“No. Here,” she said, turning around so that she was leaning over the sofa, Hardwick pressed hard against her back. His cock jutted against her ass. “Please?”
His hands slid onto her hips. “This is what you want?”
“Yes—”
“Tell me.”
“I want you to take me. Like this. Hard. Please.”
His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her waist. He kissed the back of her neck and she twisted so she could capture his lips with hers. She bit him—gently. Hard enough that his cock jumped.
“You’re incredible,” he breathed. “I never thought—”
“Please,” she begged, and his words dissolved into a low chuckle.
“As my lady wishes.”
He slid one hand down between her legs and parted her folds. Delphine bucked, despite herself; it was so long since anyone had touched her like this. And Hardwick was like no one else she’d ever been with. He pushed one finger inside her.
Delphine moaned. It felt so good, but... “That’s not enough,” she complained.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
Still riding high on sensation and the wonder of the light burning in her chest, she didn’t stop to wonder why the next words that came out of her mouth were: “I don’t care. Hurt me. Anything. Please.”
Hardwick growled something wordless against her shoulder. She gasped as he removed his finger and repositioned himself, both hands back around her waist. She reached back and wrapped one hand around his cock, guiding him into place.
The head of his cock nudged between her legs. Delphine bit her lip. This was happening. This was all really, truly happening. To her.
“Yes,” she whispered, and he thrust forward.
Her back arched as he pushed inside her to the hilt. His cock was thick, she knew that—but to have it all inside her, all at once, to feel it, was something else entirely. She’d gone onto tip-toes automatically, her body so surprised by the sudden intrusion, but Hardwick held her down. He nuzzled into her shoulder, soft words that made her melt against him.
Then he started to move his hips, and Delphine groaned.
Small movements. Tiny. The merest suggestion of a thrust, retreat, thrust again. But Delphine felt each one as though it was a lightning strike. The pleasure building inside her was so intense she thought she would go limp, but instead she strained backwards, pressing against him, desperate to wring more sensation out of every aggravatingly small movement.
“Not enough for you?” Hardwick teased. Hardwick. Teased. The newness of it shot through her and she laughed.
“Do I need to tell you?” she asked, twining one leg around his. Opening herself more for him.
“Always.” His voice was rough. Delphine flexed her leg, holding him tight against her. His heartbeat thundered against her back; she could feel every breath he took, deep and ragged. The hand she’d used to guide his cock to her entrance was trapped between them, fingers spread out against his abs.
“Then please,” she asked, her own voice catching. “I want you to fuck me hard.”
He kissed the side of her jaw, then pulled back and drove into her so hard she lost her breath. Before she could catch it, he fucked into her again. She cried out, her one free hand scrambling on the sofa back to keep herself upright. She tried to pull the other one free to help steady herself and he grabbed it. Hardwick locked her hand in place, not letting her move an inch as he thrust into her.
Whatever it was that telling the truth about she wanted had unleashed inside her, it had done the same to him. He whispered gentle, soft praise in her ear as he drove into her again and again, his words completely at odds with the brute force of every thrust.
Pressure built up inside her. Every time he filled her, she thought it would be too much, too hard, too overwhelming—and every time he pulled back it was too soon, leaving her crying out for more. His fingers dug into her hip, the nails scratching, and she keened as the pain arced deep inside her.
“Did you like that?” Wonder threaded through his voice.
Delphine made a noise that she hoped he read as yes, yes, fucking hell yes. She twisted her tongue around a few words, hoping they would come out right. “Did you?”
“Did I enjoy—” He thrust into her. “Hearing you make a noise—” Again. “Like that?”
He buried his face in the corner of her neck. “Yes.”
His teeth scratched her skin. “Do you want this?”
“Y-yes.” That had come out too uncertain. She licked her lips. “Yes, Hardwick, please—”
He bit down. Delphine gasped, then moaned as he released her, kissing and licking where it hurt. When he thrust into her again, he bit down, too, and the pain shot straight to the stretched, full feeling
inside her, and Hardwick’s grip on her waist and her trapped hand. It all tangled up with the feeling of being held down and asking for what she wanted and getting it, and what she wanted being what he wanted, too, and all built up inside her.
She came so hard her legs collapsed beneath her. If not for Hardwick’s arm around her she would have collapsed over the sofa, helpless as her body clenched and throbbed around his cock. He groaned into her neck and thrust into her again, and her already sparking nerve endings exploded again. She arched against him, legs trembling, words pouring from her mouth—“Oh, God, Hardwick, please don’t stop, please—”and he came inside her, his cock pumping as he wrapped his arms more tightly around her.
They stood together, half-collapsed, holding one another as their breathing slowed. Delphine grasped for Hardwick’s hand on her waist and wound her fingers through his. He lifted their joined hands to her chest.
“It’s changed,” he whispered, his voice ragged. “Do you feel it?”
She didn’t need to ask what he meant. She didn’t even need to close her eyes to see that the bright light inside her heart was glowing even stronger than it had after their first kiss. And it wasn’t just a lonely star. Part of it stretched out, a ribbon of golden light that stretched from her heart to Hardwick’s.
“I can feel it,” she gasped. “I can—I can see it. But how is that possible? It’s inside me...”
“My griffin is inside me, but I can see it.” Hardwick brushed a strand of her hair back and turned her head to kiss her. “I don’t know whether you call it your mind’s eye, or seeing into your own soul, but the way I see my griffin and the way I see our bond is the same.”
Our bond.
Delphine was suddenly aware of the world slotting back into existence around her. The warm cabin filled only with the sounds of their breathing and the gentle fire-noises of the stove. Outside, the heavy silence of snow and the mountains. And then, somewhere beyond that...
The real world.
Her family.
And the old her, her old self, the one she’d built so carefully.
Something inside her snapped shut, afraid.
Chapter Eighteen
Hardwick
Delphine went stiff in his arms.
“Are you cold?” he asked, reluctantly slipping out of her. She half-turned, one hand still clasping his, the other rising to rest on his chest. “We can move to the bed now if you like.”
“It’s not that. I—” She looked up at him, her face pinched. “What happens now?”
He reached for the mate bond. His parents had told him once that they could use it to communicate even more closely than they could with telepathy. Telepathy could send words, but two mated shifters could send emotions down their mate bond.
But not him, apparently. When he tried to hold onto the mate bond it slipped out of his psychic grasp, as immaterial as mist.
Was it because Delphine wasn’t a shifter?
His jaw tightened. Thank goodness she couldn’t feel his emotions, because that stray thought might have just broken her.
“Now?” he said out loud, trying to push away the guilt and worry building up inside him. “It’s almost Christmas—”
He didn’t need a mate bond to see the sudden panic in her eyes. Thank all the stars she was finally being honest with him, and not hiding her genuine responses behind her mask of lies.
“You don’t want to go back to your family for Christmas, do you?”
Delphine opened her mouth. Shut it again. Gave him a look that told him this probably wasn’t a conversation to be had in a naked clinch.
He tugged her towards her and kissed her forehead. “Tell you what. Let’s get cleaned up. I’ll put on some food. You can tell me later—”
Her shoulders stiffened.
“—if you want.”
He let her have the bathroom first and grabbed a couple of frozen lasagnas. One veggie, one classic. That was a balanced meal, right, if they split them?
As he heard the shower start to run, he sighed. His shoulders slumped.
Had this all been a terrible idea?
Staying apart from her had been agony. But being with her would be agony, too. She knew now that her lies caused him actual, physical pain, and she seemed to regret it—but now that the glow of their first time together was fading, his headache was back. The dull, constant ache he’d come to think of as all Delphine.
She might want to change. He would believe that. Believe in the want, anyway. He’d been on the force too long to fool himself that want lasted any time at all against the other pressures in anyone’s life. Whatever pressures had caused her to be the way she was, being with him was unlikely to remove them.
She would keep being her. And he would keep hurting—or have to force himself to be apart from her, which would hurt in a different way, but just as badly.
The mood thickened as Delphine borrowed more of his clothes to change into and he took her place in the bathroom. The days before, you could have cut the tension in the air with a knife. The tension had been all possibility. Now, the knife would stick mid-air, snared in the dense tangle of unsaid words, and their weight was the threat of things breaking down.
“I don’t want to go back,” Delphine said when they were both clean, and dressed, and weighed down by not saying. She glanced at Hardwick quickly, watching his face for signs of pain, and added: “I know it sounds awful...”
“Plenty of people prefer not to spend Christmas with their family.”
“Like you?” Her lips curved into a smile that was a ghost of the one she’d gifted him earlier. “I don’t have your excuse.”
Hardwick shrugged. “If my parents were still around, I’d spend the holiday with them.”
“I’m sorry.” Delphine covered her eyes. “I didn’t even think—”
“It’s okay. I didn’t mean that as an attack. Just...” He shrugged again. “It was easier having other people around who had the same issue as I did. Sensing lies didn’t hurt them like it hurts me, but it still gave them a weird feeling. Telling the truth came naturally to us.”
Delphine lowered her hands. Her gaze was distant. “I imagine it would be easier,” she said, and the note of longing in her voice made his heart twist. “My father died when I was ten. Maybe if he—but that doesn’t matter. It’s just my mother and my two younger brothers now. And the rest of the extended family.”
“Jackson said a shifter family had booked out half the town.”
“Only half?” Delphine reached for her drink. “It was all right last year. I was here for work, and Mum and the boys came over to surprise me. There was enough for them to do that I could stay out of the spotlight, but with everyone here...” Her fingers fidgeted on the glass. “You’d think it’d be easier to blend in in a crowd. But my family is so into... family things.”
“Like everyone being a shifter.”
She nodded and picked up her glass at last. “Like everyone being a shifter,” she echoed, and sipped.
“How have you managed to keep the truth hidden so long?”
She met his eyes and tapped her temple, one eyebrow raised.
“By lying. Right. I want to know the specifics.”
Delphine let out a deep breath. “The specifics... okay.”
She sounded relieved. Hardwick knew why. This wasn’t the question she’d been dreading. The one whose answer she kept locked up so deep inside it was like sitting next to a construction site.
“How do you know if someone’s a shifter? One, they shift in front of you. That’s a fairly solid giveaway. But it’s not the only way. Two, if they’re a shifter and you are too, you can speak telepathically. Which is easy to get through in a big group setting, where everyone might has well be talking at once and even if they aren’t, you can pretend to be so focused on whatever you’re doing, or another conversation, or one of the kids trying to fly up the chimney to find Santa that you always have an excuse for not catching on. And—” She grimaced. “
It helps when you know they’re only going to be talking about certain things, anyway. The pool of conversation at most of my family gatherings in not particularly deep.”
“You just fake it. How long have you been doing this?”
“Three. When you look deep into a shifter’s eyes, you can sometimes catch a glimpse of their inner animal. Especially if said inner animal is having strong feelings about whatever’s happening, like the roast’s just come out of the oven, or someone has impugned the family honor by not rolling over and letting grandmother use them as a bridge over a muddy puddle, or whatever other horrific slight she can come up with. Solution: don’t look at them. That one’s easy.”
“Delphine, that’s horrible.”
“As for your question...” She seemed to wrestle with it. “Fifteen years?”
The bottom dropped out of Hardwick’s stomach. No wonder just being in her presence made his head hurt. “Why?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it.”
She scooped up a forkful of lasagna, avoiding his eyes.
“I can’t,” she said at last. “I can’t tell you.”
“You can tell me anything.”
“It’s not just about me. There’s someone else who—” She shook her head firmly. “I need this to keep working. It’s—important. It might be horrible, and hard, but it’s working.”
To his horror, his head remained clear. She was telling the truth; whatever she was trying to achieve, lying to her entire family was letting her do it.
“It’s working,” she repeated, quietly, “And it—it doesn’t matter, anyway, because you’re not going to meet them.”
“What are you talking about?”
She looked at him then, her expression determined. “You’re not going to meet my family.”
“But I’m your mate.”
The words were awkward on his tongue. As he watched Delphine’s face close over, he realized that was the first time either of them had said it out loud.
He’d just claimed her out loud as his mate, in the same breath as he was telling her what to do.