A Pack of Love and Hate

by Olivia Wildenstein

  Digging the van’s key out of his jacket pocket, my uncle congratulated August on landing another deal with the Rivers, then to me, he said, “I’ll bring the car around.”

  We hadn’t parked far, but I was glad not to have to walk in the heels that were so high I was only half a head shorter than August.

  Keeping my gaze on the stubble coating his jaw, I said, “Thanks for my palm tree.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  His scent and heat eddied in the air between us, tempting me to step in closer. “I love it.”

  His lips arched. “I’m glad.”

  I inhaled a long breath that just tortured my heart. “How are you feeling?”

  “I still can’t shift. But otherwise, I feel good.”

  For a moment, neither of us spoke, and then we both spoke at the same time.

  He said, “How was your first week of school?” while I asked, “When are you leaving?”

  “You first,” he said.

  “My first week was really good.”

  “It’s a big milestone. We should celebrate. If you have time next week, we could go for ice-cream at the Creamery.”

  His suggestion had me wincing. I loved that parlor and I loved the idea of going with him, but it was a place he’d bring me to when I was a kid, and that made me feel so young, like I’d blown out thirteen candles instead of eighteen.

  “Sure,” I said, just as the van turned the corner. I started heading toward it, but paused. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”

  I clenched the pouch that held my little palm tree. “For how long?”

  “Two nights.”

  I swallowed and eased my grip before I could break the creation like I’d broken us. “Huh,” I ended up saying. Not very eloquent, but it beat the wounded sound forming at the back of my throat.

  As I staggered the few feet that separated me from the van, I attempted not to topple from the weight of the war raging within me. I paused by the car door, the desire to admit my lie burning on my tongue. I glanced over my shoulder. August was reading something on his phone’s screen.

  Something that made him smile.

  Had the River Alpha’s daughter sent him a text message?

  “Ness?” My uncle’s voice made me jump. “I’m holding up traffic, sweetie.”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, getting into the car.

  I didn’t look at August as we drove away, afraid he was still smiling at his phone.

  37

  “Last coat of paint goes on tomorrow,” Jeb said before heading into his bedroom. “If we start early, we could be done with everything by nightfall and move in on Sunday.”

  “Only if you take the bigger room.”

  “Ness—”

  “Please, Jeb. I can’t live in their room.” Already moving into my old home, however different it would look with fresh paint and new furniture, was going to be difficult.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Two hundred percent.”

  He looked at me a long time before saying, “Okay,” then drummed his fingers against the doorframe. “Have a good night, sweetie. And again, happy birthday.”

  Once his door clicked shut, I reached for my zipper and started easing it down, but then the memory of August smiling at his phone had me tugging it back up and grabbing my keys.

  Maybe it hadn’t been the River Alpha’s daughter on the other end of his pleasant conversation, but either way, I wasn’t letting him leave without understanding my reasons for shutting him out.

  I wrote Jeb a note that I was going over to a friend’s house and left the paper on the dining table. Ten minutes later, I was standing in front of August’s front door. I lifted my finger to the ringer, but before I could press it, the door opened.

  August stood on the threshold, shirt flapping open, as though I’d caught him in the middle of undressing.

  “How—how did you know I was here?” My voice tripped in time with my pulse.

  He tapped his bare midriff. “I have this nifty, built-in mate-detector. I believe you possess the same one.”

  My stomach was tied in too many knots to sense much over my heightened nerves. “Can I . . . can I come in?”

  He drew the door wider.

  My heels clicked on the gray floorboards, echoing through the dimly lit loft. A slowly moving image of our planet seen from space ebbed on his TV screen, splashing one end of the apartment in a rich-blue glow. The only other source of light came from the glass fixture suspended over the kitchen island, dimmed to its lowest setting.

  I closed my eyes to center myself and silence the voice of reason that was telling me to get back into my car and drive away. When I lifted my lids, August was standing before me.

  “Don’t—” I swallowed thickly.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t go tomorrow.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “Because . . .” I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. I was being selfish; I had no right to ask this of him.

  “Because what, Dimples?”

  “Because I don’t want to lose you.”

  His gaze turned so dusky his bright irises became barely distinguishable from his pupils. “Why would you lose me?”

  “Because”—I wet my lips—“the Alpha’s daughter. She wants to marry you. And the link—”

  “You think I’m going there to get engaged to Ingrid?”

  Ingrid . . . I’d conveniently forgotten her name, but August hadn’t.

  He never forgot anything.

  “It’s just work.” He tilted his face to the side. “But I do have to wonder why it would bother you since you don’t have feelings for me.”

  Evelyn’s warning beat against my temples, but then the words she’d spoken tonight trickled over them, blurring the line between right and wrong.

  I steeled my spine. “August, I lied.”

  A beat of silence passed before he said, “I know.”

  “When I was away, I—wait. What do you mean, you know?”

  His expression gentled but stayed guarded. “Frank called me a couple nights ago.”

  “Frank?” I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “He overheard you and Evelyn talk the day you came back from your trip. He didn’t want to get involved, but you know Frank, and how sacred he finds mating links.”

  My eyes widened.

  “And he might’ve mentioned that you looked miserable and that I was obtuse if I actually believed you didn’t want me.”

  I didn’t think my eyes could get wider, but my lids stretched higher.

  August raised his hand to the nape of his neck and cradled it. “What is it you want from me?” His voice was so raw it had me shivering. “To wait a couple years for you to grow readier?”

  “No.”

  His brow furrowed. “Then what?”

  “I want you to forgive me.”

  “For what?”

  “For lying. I know I hurt you, and I hate myself for it.”

  He let his hand drop back to his side. “You think I can stay mad at you?”

  “Not staying mad at me and forgiving me are two separate things.”

  His jaw tensed. And then, in a voice that scattered goose bumps over my skin, he said, “I forgive you.”

  My heart was pounding so hard the fabric of my red dress vibrated. The tether too, probably. For a second, I considered tugging it to pull August toward me, but what if . . . what if it didn’t work?

  Or what if he didn’t want me like that anymore?

  My arms started shaking, so I clutched my elbows. “I’d understand if you say no, but would you give me a second chance?”

  He didn’t answer me for so long that I wondered if I’d spoken too quietly, but then he took a tentative step toward me and crooked my chin up on his finger. “Only if you promise not to let anyone, and I mean anyone—not Evelyn, not Liam—come between us again, because I’m not interested in our Alpha’
s rules or societal propriety. It’s you and me. No one else. And even though I could never hate you, if you break my heart again—”

  “When I break yours, it breaks mine,” I whispered in a tenuous voice. I hadn’t realized I’d started crying until his thumbs swiped my cheeks. And here I thought I’d exhausted my tear ducts earlier, but apparently they were bottomless. “I’m so sorry, August.”

  He pressed his mouth to mine and stroked away my apology with his tongue. And then his hands trailed down my arms, loosening them, before lacing around my waist.

  His scent would be all over me, but I no longer cared. Besides, I was pretty confident that Tamara’s pregnancy would make Liam think twice before jumping into a duel now.

  I pushed up on my tiptoes and gripped the back of August’s neck to deepen the kiss and to erase any remaining space between our bodies. His mouth slid off mine but didn’t leave my body. It traveled across my jaw and down my neck, traced the slope of my shoulder, tracking wet heat over my sensitive skin.

  I shivered. Shuddered. Shook.

  When he lifted his head to look at me, I thumbed the back of his neck. “As far as birthday presents go, that kiss might’ve beat the palm tree. Which is a feat, considering how much I love that palm tree.”

  He smiled quietly, his fingertips sketching unhurried circles at the base of my spine. “Ness, I have to ask, what made you change your mind?”

  I worried the inside of my cheek. “I didn’t want you going somewhere the link didn’t work thinking I wasn’t attracted to you.” I dragged my hand through my straightened hair. “I’m really jealous of Ingrid. Of pretty much every girl you’ve dated.”

  “You have nothing to be jealous about.”

  “Are you kidding? They’re all still hung up on you. And they’re all older, and way more experienced, and—”

  He kissed me before saying, “And none of them are you.”

  “Are you sure it’s not just the link that makes you want me?”

  He pulled away, the tendons in his neck pinching beneath my fingertips. “When you went off to Tennessee with Liam, I considered boarding a plane and coming after you, but Mom told me the best way to scare a girl off was to do just that, so I stayed here and sulked and imagined the worst things. And then when you came back and said you hadn’t missed me”—he grimaced—“it felt like I’d taken a bullet to the heart.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  “I’m just sorry we lost all this time, sweetheart.” He nudged my nose with his before kissing me so tenderly it made my toes curl. After a deliciously long while, he said, “I have a confession of my own.”

  “You do?”

  “I went to speak with Evelyn this week.”

  I blanched.

  “I told her about my intentions toward you.”

  I stared at him in mute horror. “Your intentions?”

  “I told her that when I returned from my trip, I would ask you out. On a proper date.”

  “Did she threaten to murder you?”

  His lips quirked. “No. She thanked me for my honesty and then she left the room.” His mouth straightened into a contemplative expression. “I didn’t mean to upset her; I only meant to show her that I was serious about you. I hope that, in time, she’ll accept me.”

  “I think she’s already starting to.”

  He stared so intently into my eyes that I shivered again.

  “What are your intentions toward me?”

  He leaned in to nuzzle the base of my neck again. “Long term, making you mine, but you already know that.”

  My heartbeat detonated.

  “Short term, showing you how right we are for each other.” He licked a line up to my earlobe, making a fierce wave of desire break against my skin. “How well we fit together.”

  The word fitting had my mind concocting all sorts of scenarios that involved a lot less clothes. None at all for that matter. “If we use protection, we can have sex without consolidating the mating link,” I blurted out, before slapping my hand over my mouth.

  Had I really said this out loud?

  He pulled away from me, eyebrows writhing in amusement.

  “I learned that in Tennessee,” I mumbled, cheeks flaming.

  He studied me a long beat before dragging my hand off my mouth. “Is that what you want?”

  My throat went dry so fast I had to swallow several times before I could speak again. “Isn’t it what you want?”

  “What I want is you.” He crooked my face up. “And I’m not going to lie . . . I most definitely want to make love to you, but I don’t want to rush into something you’re not ready for.”

  “I’m ready.”

  His gaze turned hooded.

  “I don’t want to feel like a kid anymore, August.”

  He frowned. “You’re not.” His hands tracked up my ribcage and cupped my breasts. “I’m not sure why you don’t seem to believe this, but you’re already very much a woman.”

  “Maybe I feel this way because I’m still a virgin.” I strained against his palms. “Please?”

  Letting out a husky growl, he dropped his hands to my ass and lifted me up. I gasped, my legs reflexively coming around his waist. He carried me over to the kitchen island and sat me down on the satiny wood, the dim glow over our heads casting luminous ripples over his face.

  As he stood between my legs, he said, “I won’t have sex with you to make you feel like more of a woman.”

  My heart stumbled around in my chest. Everything about his body echoed my own desire. Had I read him wrong?

  He traced the contour of my lips with his fingertip. “I’ll have sex with you to show you that you already are.”

  He dipped his finger down my neck, then kissed the hollow at the base of my neck where his finger had been, before trawling his tongue lower. His hands came around my back and eased my zipper open.

  Air rushed out of my mouth at the sensation of the fabric falling away from my skin, baring my upper body.

  He straightened and drank me in. “God, you’re beautiful.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes or say, have you looked in a mirror? Instead, I forced his already open shirt off his shoulders and rolled it down his arms. I knew this wasn’t a comparison, but my upper body had nothing on his. I trailed my fingers over his copper skin, over his dark nipples, over the perfect grid of his abs, stilling on the sharp indents at his waist.

  Looking back into his eyes that flashed with the same lust heating my blood, I lowered my hands to the button of his pants and popped it open, then got off the island so that my dress pooled around my feet.

  August’s pupils swelled, blotting out all the green around them, and then his calloused hands grazed my skin. After an agonizingly quiet moment, his face slanted to one of my breasts. He tugged me into his mouth, licking the pebbling skin. As he moved to the other, he raked his deft hands down my spine, hooking the waistband of my black thong and sliding it down my legs.

  He lifted me back to the island, his breathing growing so ragged that the mere sound of him exhaling on me sent daggers of heat into my core. When he took a step back, I squeezed my thighs together and covered my breasts.

  “Please don’t hide yourself from me, sweetheart.”

  Biting my lip, I whispered, “Can you also—I don’t want to be the only one . . . naked.” I felt silly asking him to take off his clothes, but the weight of his stare made me terribly self-conscious.

  He pushed his pants and briefs down in one swift stroke. The sight of him springing out, thick and ready, made my entire body blaze warmer. I inched my hand closer to his silky flesh, closed my fingers around him, then dragged them up to the tip.

  He cuffed my wrist and towed it off his body.

  “You have a . . . condom?”

  A corner of his mouth tipped up. “I do, but we won’t be needing one for a while still.” He eased me onto my back until my spine was flush against the cool wood, and then he parted my legs and draped them over his shoulders.<
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  When his tongue flicked against me, I picked my head off and gasped, “August! You don’t have to do that.”

  I could only see his eyes, and they glowed with amusement and with a bunch of other things, but mostly amusement.

  “Don’t have to do that?” He spoke the words so close to my delicate flesh that I shivered and writhed. He clamped his hands around my thighs to pin them to his shoulders. “Oh, I’ve been wanting to do this”—he gave me a long, slow lick—“since the day you walked back into my life.” He skated a kiss over my pulsing center. “Fuck, you taste so good,” he growled.

  He was relentless and made me shatter so many times that my body felt made of clouds and stars instead of flesh and blood.

  At some point, he came up for air, lips swollen and slick. He scooped my boneless body up, grabbed his wallet, then carried me over to the couch. He laid me out before pulling a condom from his wallet. The casing crinkled as he tore it open. With unabashed curiosity, I watched him roll it on.

  “Ness,” he whispered raucously, climbing over me and bracing himself on his arms as his length settled against my abdomen, “condoms . . . they can break. It’s never happened to me before, but they can. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  I traced the shape of Cassiopeia on his cheek, connecting each freckle to the next. “I have never wanted anything more.”

  “But you understand the risks?”

  “I understand the risks.” When he still hadn’t moved, I said, “Are you going to make me sign a disclaimer?”

  A laugh burst from him. “Maybe I should.” He moved down my body to position himself at my entrance. “Next time.”

  Next time . . . My heart felt like it had melted and little pieces of it were beating everywhere in me.

  His hips shifted, and then he was stretching me open, and a gasp tore up my throat. When he pulled out, eyes stained with concern, I clamped my hands on his backside, over his scar, and pressed him back in.

  Pleasure warred with pain. Neither sensation won. They battled till the very end, till his body stilled and shuddered over mine . . . into mine.

  Stroking his scar, I whispered, “You had a toast ready for me tonight, didn’t you?”