by T. S. Joyce
With a frown, Harper unfolded it. When she realized what it was, she clasped her hand over her mouth to keep the heartache inside.
“I know you think I didn’t think about Janey, or that I left you alone to deal with her loss.” Wyatt pointed to the little ultrasound, to the tiny baby, no more than twelve weeks gestation, with little paddle hands and a round belly and knees tucked to her chest. “When you started bleeding, I had this awful, horrible thought that maybe if you lost her, it would be a good thing, because then you could live. I didn’t really think you were losing her. I just had that thought. And when the doctors told me you were delivering, and that Janey was going to be stillborn, I couldn’t go in there with you. I just paced outside the door. They said I needed to look at her for closure, but…” Wyatt scrubbed his hand down his face. “I couldn’t go in there and look at our girl and watch your heartbreak, knowing I had wished that loss on us.”
“You can’t think it was your fault.”
“I know it wasn’t. I forgave myself. I was a stupid kid, just dealing with it the only way that made sense to me at the time, but this is what I have of her now. The cemetery, the hospital, that isn’t my closure.” He pointed to the ultrasound. “That is. That picture of my baby girl is my way of dealing with it.”
Harper hugged the little picture to her chest and let off a long breath. “It feels like a million years ago now, doesn’t it? Like another lifetime. So much has happened since then.”
Wyatt nudged her arm, leaned over, and kissed the tip of her shoulder, then gave his attention to the moon again. “What did she look like?”
Harper traced the little baby and said, “She was a dragon.”
“How do you know?”
“Two blue eyes, long pupils. Oh, she would’ve been a beasty like you. A strong girl. Maybe even a fire-breather like me. She was so tiny. Just…” Harper cupped her hands. “I held her in my palms, all wrapped up in a little pink blanket. “She was beautiful.”
Wyatt wiped his cheek on his shoulder and wouldn’t look at her anymore. But when she wrapped her arms around his waist, he hugged her against his side and let his lips linger on top of her head.
“Did you mean what you said earlier?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
“About wanting to bang in the parking lot of Drat’s?”
Wyatt chuckled thickly and sniffed. “You know what I mean.”
“I love you still, yes.”
“As a friend or more?”
Her dragon let off a long, low growl in her chest. She didn’t like giving too much for nothing.
Wyatt hugged her tighter against him and lowered his lips to her ear. “Because I love you, too. Always have. Always will.”
He eased away just enough that his lips were inches away from hers. His gaze locked with Harper’s, he froze and waited.
The choice was hers. Wyatt was giving her an out by hesitating, but she’d meant what she said in the truck. She loved him, and her soul had felt torn in two until she’d come here. Wyatt wasn’t the boy who’d left all those years ago. He was different now. Mature. That much was clear from him taking Weston’s blame in the truck and apologizing for all of it. He was a man who owned his mistakes, who wasn’t too proud to say he was sorry.
He hadn’t just left because he didn’t love her. He’d left to punish himself, but it was enough that he was here, asking her to trust him and the man he’d become. Tonight, Wyatt had come out of that smoke ready to bring hell to earth and war to the supernaturals of Bryson City and Asheville to protect her.
And now this wild, quiet, loner of a man was admitting he loved her still? After all this time, he had pined for her, too?
Harper eased forward and pressed her lips to his.
Wyatt inhaled deeply, hugged her ribs tightly, and then pushed his tongue past the closed seam of her lips. He was fire in her stomach. He was the cool breeze and the scent of tree sap. He was everywhere and everything, filling her senses.
The only thing that was familiar about his kiss was his taste. Harper lifted the hem of her oversize night shirt as she straddled his lap, and Wyatt angled his face the other way, deepening their kiss.
Harper hesitated, her hands hovering just above his chest, but he pushed forward to meet them, and there he was. So warm and taut against her palms. His heartbeat was racing. She smiled into the kiss. Hers was racing, too.
Wyatt ran his hands under her shirt, over her panties, up her waist and ribs, and when he cupped her breasts, she moaned a helpless sound and leaned into him, encouraging his touch. A throaty growl rattled Wyatt’s chest just under her palms, and gooseflesh raised over her arms at the sexy sound.
“Get a room!” Ryder called from inside. “I can hear you making out.”
They did have a room, but Weston the professional cock-blocker was sleeping on the floor right beside Wyatt’s bed.
Wyatt chuckled against her mouth and stood, taking her with him, straddled around his hips while he held the backs of her knees in place. So he could see where he was walking them, Harper lowered her lips to his neck and sucked gently. His growl was now steady, and louder. It wasn’t the sound of anger, but the sound of satisfaction.
Wyatt’s erection was hard against her soaking panties.
“Tell me you’ve sobered up.”
“My dragon burned off the alcohol hours ago,” she rushed out. “And I’m on birth control. Foolproof. A capsule in my arm keeps me safe for five years at a time.”
Wyatt lengthened his stride and took her straight into the shadows of the tree line. He gathered her hair at the base of her neck and eased her head back as he leaned his shoulder blades against a tree. He held her captivated for the span of three breaths before he snarled his lip back and clamped his teeth onto the healing skin of her neck, then released her, teasing her with a mark.
“Do it,” she pleaded. They’d talked about him claiming her when they were teenagers, and she never thought she would get this second chance. “Please.”
“Harper,” Wyatt groaned, rocking his hips against her. He spun them and settled her on her feet, pressed her back against the tree. “We aren’t there yet.”
The pain in her middle at his rejection was instant. Slowly, she let her hands glide down his chest. Canting her head, she asked, “We aren’t there, or you aren’t there?”
Wyatt shook his head and looked off into the woods with an unfathomable expression. “A claiming mark is a big deal, and you’re just getting to know me again. I want you to be sure when you ask for it next time.”
He was still punishing himself then. Narrowing her eyes in a challenge, she leaned forward and bit down on his pec, just over his pounding heartbeat. She clenched her jaw harder when he let off a helpless sound and bucked his hips. She wouldn’t break his skin until he begged for it. And oh, she was going to get him to beg because she was good and done with waiting around for the man she wanted.
Hooking her fingers in the elastic band of his sweats, she pushed them down slowly, brushing her finger down the length of his swollen shaft as she went. It jumped and throbbed under her touch, and she couldn’t help her smile. Mine, mine, mine.
Inside of her, the dragon that had been so unreachable earlier was drawn up, practically shooting off roman candles with excitement. After Harper pulled her touch from his shaft, he grunted, fell forward, and locked his arms against the tree as she dropped to her knees.
As she looked up and offered him a wicked grin, his eyes turned the color of ice. His chest was heaving, his arms flexed against the tree, abs so tight she could sleep in the damned trenches between each one. Slowly, teasing, she slid her hand down to his base and kissed the salty drop off the tip of his cock. Wyatt straightened and cupped the back of her head. He lifted his chin in that cocky masculine way of his she’d always loved. Guiding her, he pulled her closer and muttered a soft curse when she slid her lips over him. His hips jerked, and she knew she had him.
She taunted, because that was his real punishment for denyi
ng her. Harper took him slowly, then eased back. She ran her nails up his leg and cupped his balls on the next. Wyatt wasn’t so patient now as he held her and thrusted into her mouth faster.
Faster and faster she took him until he jerked out of her mouth and released her head. Closing his eyes, he blew out three soft “Fucks,” then pulled her up against the tree. “Don’t want to come in your mouth. Not for our first time.”
First time. They’d been together a dozen times when they were eighteen, but she understood. It hadn’t been like this. They both had more experience now, and were different people. After all they’d been through, it was easy to appreciate the importance of his moment.
Wyatt’s lips were all over hers, his tongue dipping rhythmically past her lips as he pressed his entire body onto her. Easing back by an inch, he pulled her shirt over her head and threw it onto the forest floor and, ooooh, she was melting. Melting into the tree, melting against his fiery skin, melting into this moment. She was so wet, her panties were soaking through. Wyatt leaned down and drew one of her nipples into his mouth until it tingled and drew up into a tight bud.
Arching her back against the tree, Harper looked up into the forest canopy above her and wondered how she’d gone so long without this. Without his mouth on her, without this feeling of completion. Wyatt dragged burning kisses up her chest and to her neck, allowing a hint of his teeth, and she was gone. He pushed his hand down the front of her panties and let off a long, feral sound when he slid his touch through the wetness he’d conjured between her legs. His breath hitching, he pushed his finger into her, gave her a few graceful strokes, then added another. She knew what he was doing. Wyatt was huge, and he was making sure she was ready for him.
Harper writhed against his hand. “I want more,” she murmured. “I want you.”
Riiiiiip. Her shredded panties were now in the dirt near her sleep-shirt, and Wyatt was shoving her knees farther apart. Here it was! The moment she’d dreamed of. The moment she’d imagined and touched herself to countless times.
Wyatt slid his shaft against her folds in a delicious tease. So close. Harper rolled her hips and caught his desperate kiss, gripped the back of his hair, and grazed her teeth against his bottom lip. Wyatt dipped into her by an inch, then lifted the back of her knee as he pulled back out. He eased into her slowly, stretching her, filling her. And he didn’t stop until his hips met hers. “Wyatt,” she whispered, disbelieving that anything could feel so good, so right.
Wyatt eased out and then pressed into her again, faster this time. And with every stroke, his abs flexed, hard as stone against her. And every time he hit her just right, she let off a needy noise that seemed to drive him mad and make him quicken his pace. Burying his face against her neck, he pulled her other leg around him and buried himself so deeply in her she gasped at the slight tinge of pain that mingled with the pleasure. He froze there for a moment, stayed deep, and thrust into her shallowly, hitting her clit with every smooth stroke.
Crying out with every thrust, clawing his back, she was lost to the intense pleasure he was building in her middle now. She felt everything so acutely. The tingling sensation in her center, the tree bark against her back, the rightness of their connected bodies, the rasp of his short facial scruff against her neck, the beautiful burn of his teeth grazing her healing throat.
“Come with me,” he growled out as he slammed into her harder, but he didn’t have to ask.
She was there. The moon was too bright now so she closed her eyes against the blue light and screamed out his name as orgasm exploded through her. Wyatt drove deeper, faster, and yelled out as his dick throbbed inside of her, shooting warmth into her core. He didn’t slow, just bucked into her harder with every release of his seed until it was too much for her to hold. Warmth trickled down her thighs, and he froze, grunted with the final pulse of his shaft. Heaving breaths matching, Wyatt relaxed against her, held her tight. He brushed his lips against her neck and began moving slowing within her, drawing each aftershock out until her body was depleted.
She intertwined her fingers behind his head, and when she opened her eyes, she could see the old Wyatt there. The one who had loved her fiercely. Her eyes prickled with emotion, and she buried her face against his chest so he wouldn’t see how affected she was. “I missed you so much,” she said on a breath. “Don’t ever leave me again.”
Stroking her hair and hugging her tightly against him, Wyatt sighed and murmured, “My body left you, Harper, but my heart never did.”
But it wasn’t enough. She wanted his oath. She wanted a spoken promise from Wyatt because she saw so clearly the man he’d turned out to be. He was a man of his word. If he said it aloud, he would stick to it. She eased back and searched his blazing blue eyes. And then she whispered, “No leaving.”
Wyatt smiled sadly and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “You’ll be the one leaving this time.”
Harper slid her arms around his neck, hugged him close, and stared into his woods over his shoulder. The woods his bear had claimed as his territory. The woods she didn’t know. The woods that weren’t home. He was here, in this new life he’d created for himself, and she didn’t know where she fit into that.
My body left you…my heart never did.
Harper squeezed her eyes closed, and two tears ran down her cheeks.
She didn’t know how everything got so messed up, but she knew one thing.
Her heart wasn’t whole without him.
Chapter Nine
Clack…
Clack…
Clack…
Harper squinted her eyes open then moved the pillow she was hugging over her face to shield it from the sunlight streaming through the window. What were the boys doing this early? It didn’t sound like chopping wood, but it had the same kind of echo.
Clack.
With a low rumble in her throat, she clicked her fire-starter once in agitation, then threw the covers off and rocked out of bed. One look in the mirror, and she yelped. She’d showered late last night after she and Wyatt had returned from their woodland boinking, and now she looked like she’d stuck a fork in a socket.
The noise continued as she brushed her teeth, straitened her hair, put on her make-up, and dressed. Curious, she kicked Weston’s blankets out of the way of the door, then made her way out into the living room.
Aaron and Weston were sitting on the couch, just two grown men watching cartoons and eating straight out of the cereal boxes. Aaron tilted his head back and drank from the milk jug. Gross.
“Wyatt made you oatmeal an hour ago,” Weston said without turning around. The cartoon was a trio of bouncing bears, dancing to a ridiculously annoying song about apricots and berries.
She moved to the table, peeked over the rim of the white ceramic bowl, and couldn’t help the smile that stretched her face. He’d topped her oatmeal with honey, raisins, and cinnamon, just like she used to eat every day for breakfast her junior and senior year before Wyatt drove her to school.
He remembered.
Clack.
Harper grabbed the bowl and a spoon and meandered around the couch. Weston was wearing his favorite camouflage hat, and today Aaron had gelled back his longer blond hair. The crunching sound of their eating was constant as they took turns dumping cereal into their maws.
Aaron turned to another station, but it was just another cartoon. “God, the channels suck here,” he muttered. And yet he kept watching.
Shaking her head, Harper made her way around the tossed blankets all over the floor where the boys had slept last night and onto the porch.
Clack.
The slap of a baseball against leather gloves was what she’d been hearing. Wyatt was playing catch with Ryder from an insane distance apart. The ball blurred through the air, barely visible it was so fast. Ryder caught it and hissed. “Damn, James, you haven’t missed a step.”
Wyatt had been the pitcher for their little league team when they were kids. Weston’s dad and Wyatt’s dad had coache
d the kids from Damon’s mountains until they outgrew the sport. Harper sat down on the top porch stair since it was the only one not broken from the vampire attack that first night. Someone had hosed the vamp ashes from the porch, thank goodness.
She ate her cold oatmeal and smiled shyly when Wyatt gave her that sexy wink and crooked smile he used to be known for. Whew, he always drove the girls in the crews wild. He was the oldest—the chill, smart, confident one who had the biggest, baddest bear inside of him. He was destined to be alpha, like his father before him, and there had been something so sexy about barely harnessed power like that.
Harper had crushed on him for years before he wised up and held her hand at a homecoming dance.
“Remember when your dad and Mason took us on that road trip for that baseball game?” Ryder called across the clearing.
“Which one?”
“Montana.”
Wyatt snorted and threw the ball back in a blur. Clack. “Yeah, Clinton went with us as a chaperone. He was supposed to help Dad and Mason wrangle us, but instead he gave us a bottle of whiskey, and we all got wasted on the hotel balcony the night before the game.”
“Harper was the worst.” Ryder nodded his chin to her and shook his head. “Sloppy then, sloppy now.”
“Rude,” she teased around a bite of breakfast.
“You did get us caught, though,” Wyatt said, catching the ball. Clack.
“See, you all blamed me, but it was really Weston’s fault. He was puking in the hotel bathroom half the night, and Mason busted him way before I admitted anything.”
“Thanks a lot, Harper!” Weston called from inside.
“Wait, what?” Wyatt asked. “I didn’t know that. Why did you let us give you so much shit over it?”
“Because I was a good friend,” Harper said lightly.
“Was,” Weston called. “Was a good friend.”
Mmm, mmm, mmm, Wyatt was a tall drink of water on a hot summer day. It was chilly this morning, and he was wearing one of those V-neck gray cotton shirts under a blue flannel he’d left unbuttoned. The color made his eyes look inhumanly bright. And with each throw, his movement emphasized his trim waist, long, powerful legs, and biceps bulging against the fabric. He sure grew up right.