by Amanda LeMay
“What do you do when the moon is full? Do you have a safe room here or something?”
Back home in New Mexico, unmated males or males without a female to provide the sex they needed throughout the full moon, locked themselves away in the caverns, stayed away from the human population. Their inability to control their sexual needs during the full moon had led to the werewolf legends. Males never meant to hurt anyone, but if another male, wolf or human, tried to get between them and the female they had a hard-on for, well, there would be blood. And because we shifted at will, there was nothing “werewolf” about us. Just silly superstition. It was absolutely impossible for a human to become a wolf from a bite. However, they did experience a hyper sense of sexual need during the full moon for about a year or so. It was against our laws to bite a human, so it didn’t happen often and if it did, the punishment was unbelievably severe.
Dain fiddled with the remote, avoiding my question. He pressed a couple of buttons on a separate remote and the lights dimmed like in a real movie theater.
“There are caverns here. I don’t like going there.” He shrugged. “They’re uh...pretty far from here so, we expanded the storm cellar to include a safe room. Even though we’re kind of remote here at the ranch, I still lock myself in for the night.”
Yeah, I understood. He didn’t have a choice.
He pressed a few more buttons on the remote and the movie started playing.
“I didn’t have a problem with control for the longest time. Rand always thought there was something wrong with me. He thought I should be out there ripping it up in the caverns with the other single males once a month, and getting laid the rest of the month. He was such a worthless dick.” He sighed bitterly. “Doesn’t matter.”
My life was so different growing up. From the little I’d heard from Maygan while we worked together all day long, Dain’s father basically abandoned his family. Nothing in this world would ever make my dad behave so irresponsibly.
“Did she tell you how my father died?”
“He lost a challenge.” Since I hadn’t pried when Maygan talked about her first mate, I didn’t know any of the details.
“Yeah. A challenge he set. For another female. How many mated males have you heard of who were killed in a challenge, huh?”
I wasn’t sure Dain really expected answer. The shock of finding out his father set the challenge had me so speechless I didn’t do much more than shake my head and shrug my shoulders.
“Probably none. Can you imagine what that did to my mom? She never said anything to me directly, but I saw what it did to her. He wanted some other female enough to risk death. He was so busy screwing around, trying to prove he was some kind of super-viral male, he forgot he had a family.” He shifted in the chair, reclining it back. “Idiot.” He paused. “Rand spent all his money on whoring around. Mom hid her money or he would have spent that too, and the ranch and everything on it is in her name, so he couldn’t touch that. He’d come crawling home, tail between his legs, begging her to forgive him and because that asshole was her mate, she’d take him back every damn time.”
“Was your father a Breeder?” I asked quietly.
Dain scoffed. “Rand only wished he was a Breeder.”
“Oh.” I turned away and tried to focus on the movie screen.
If Rand wasn’t a Breeder, and Maygan wasn’t either, then neither was Dain—it was a rare, inherited trait that came directly from a parent—and suddenly I was a lot happier than I had any right to be. If Dain were a Breeder, he’d already be off breeding with other female Breeders. Since most Breeders didn’t mate, I would’ve had to share him.
And sharing? Not happening. At least, not without me putting up a fight.
If and when Dain and I were mated, with the addition of our sakana bond, we would share a special bond—a bond that lasted for life. For either of the pair to wander was almost unheard of. Yeah, it was common for an alpha to have more than one mate at a time, but mated males in the general population stayed paired. It was also common for widowed wolves to mate again rather quickly. Being left alone without a mate nearly crippled the survivor. I saw how the grief had affected my dad. If another sakana crossed a wolf’s path, suffering from grief or not, there was no stopping the pull, the attraction, the need to be together.
It was a fact I had completely forgotten when Dad met Maygan. And now, Dain and I felt the same need.
The movie played low in the background. I didn’t hear a word of it. I focused on the pain in Dain’s face. His fingers laced together so tightly on his flat stomach, his knuckles showed white in the light that reflected off the big screen.
“Hey, it’s okay.” I stroked the back of his hands with my fingers. He relaxed a little, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly as he turned to face me.
“The night...” He struggled with his words. His dark eyebrows bunched and released, as if he were deciding whether to tell me something or not.
“Dain, it’s okay.” I turned toward him and pulled my legs up into the big recliner, trying not to look as eager as I was to hear him talk. It was the first time since I’d been in the house that he’d put more than four or five words together into sentences, at least for something other than directions on how to clip the twine from the hay bales, or peel off a flake and toss it in a feeding trough.
Whatever it was he was trying to say, hurt him deeply. I felt his pain in my own chest.
“I know. But...I need you to understand.” There was a little lift at the corner of his mouth. “The night Rand lost the challenge, someone called my mom to tell her where his body had been left. She asked me to go find him, so I did. He wasn’t dead. He was broken and mangled and mauled and bleeding all over the damn place. It would’ve taken forever for him to heal, if he ever did. The male he’d challenged didn’t show any mercy by leaving him alive. It was insult heaped on top of injury. Where he pulled the energy from to shift to his human form, I had no idea. And the pain of shifting must have been—well, he hurt like hell.” His face went taut, his jaw hardening at the memory. “And I didn’t care. I hated him.” He looked away from me, casting his dark eyes down as he spoke. “He told me to go away and let him die in peace. I didn’t. The chance he might heal enough to pull through, come crawling back and hurt my mom all over again? No way. I sat there for hours, watching him bleed, waiting for him to die. He started confessing shit I didn’t want to hear. I shifted, grabbed him by the throat and crushed the last bit of life he still had right out of him. I held on until his heart stopped beating. Then, I stayed there, looking at him, until I knew for sure he wasn’t going to come back to haunt us.”
Dain lowered his head until his chin almost touched his chest, as if awaiting some kind of punishment for something he apparently saw as a crime.
“Damn, I sound like some heartless, murdering SOB.” He shook his head. “But Jess, I’m not.”
“I know.” I would feel it in my soul if he were a heartless, murdering SOB.
I didn’t know what else to say. Evidently, Dain was still haunted by a father who’d betrayed his family. Rand’s behavior was completely unacceptable for a mated male in any pack, and if he were still here, I had a damn good idea what I’d say to that stupid, selfish bastard. All of which I kept to myself, since none of what I had to say would ease Dain’s heart in any way.
I swallowed and looked away, trying to tamp down the rage I felt inside for a male I had never met, but whose bad memory had suddenly become part of my life. I focused on the movie to give my brain and my heart a chance to sync up and give me the right words to say.
There was some sort a battle taking place on the big screen and not having paid any attention to the beginning, I was completely lost. From the corner of my eye, Dain moved and lifted his head to stare straight ahead at the screen as well.
“I never told her—my mom.” Dain’s hand slipped into mine, huge and warm and calloused from working the ranch. We looked at each other across the small space between us
. “She deserves to be happy. She deserves to be loved the way your dad loves her.”
“I understand.” I really did. “And thank you. Thank you for trusting me.”
His lips touched my forehead for a long second as his other hand cupped my face. His thumb stroked against my cheek as he gazed into my eyes. Sweet, minty breath puffed into my mouth from his. I tilted my head just so and closed the distance between us. He gasped as our lips met, but he didn’t pull away.
The kiss lasted only a second or two, but seemed to suddenly change the axis of the earth and in my soul I knew: I would never kiss another male as long as Dain lived.
Sitting back, I went back to staring at the big screen on the wall, not hearing a thing that was said, or caring who lived or died. The rush of blood through my heart pounded wildly in my ears and beat like a pulse in my lips. What I had always considered a crazy unsatisfied lust, smoldering hot as coals, burst into something uncontrollable that swept like a wildfire through my body. Yes, I lusted after Dain, but that feeling wasn’t what had my hands shaking and my insides quivering—no—the emotion I had trampled down since the second I saw him, the second I caught his scent, was so much more than just simple lust.
The feeling that had me all fluttery and on fire was the sakana bond. And it was damn scary.
Since Dad and Maygan mated, I had spent the first eighteen months in San Francisco, firmly set in the belief that finding another sakana was nothing more than an ancient myth. One sakana, yes, I believed that. My parents had shared that bond. But the chance there was another wolf out in the world who could share that special bond, no way.
I could still hear my brother’s words in my head. “Dad misses you. He loves you. He and Maygan didn’t fall in love on purpose. It just happened. And you know, one of these days you’re gonna open your eyes and your mate is gonna be standing right there and the first time you lock eyes on him, you’ll know. There’s no fighting it. You try and you’ll be nothing but unhappy for the rest of your sorry life.”
The day I’d woken up and realized my strained relationship with my dad was my fault, I had to face the fact that, yes, falling madly and unbelievably in love in the span of a single second was possible. I had never believed that was exactly what had happened to me. And again, I was so wrong.
Our sakana bond was the reason no other male could satisfy me. From the moment I saw Dain, I needed something to fill the desperate void not being with him had left in my heart. Though I strived to fulfill the cravings my body had for sex, my heart kept me from giving all I had to any relationship. I had experimented, using casual sex as a release for pent-up aggression, as the other members of the San Francisco pack did, and made the mistake of trusting someone who flat-out lied to me and got off on inflicting pain. I didn’t make that mistake a second time and for the last six months, the only thing that got between my legs either plugged into the wall or ran off a couple of double-As.
Dain’s hand tightened in mine, bringing me back to the here and now, dragging me from a past event I’d just as soon forget forever.
“Have you ever—you know?” He whispered and nodded toward the screen where the main characters were busy making love in a grass-covered beach hut.
“I’m not a virgin,” I whispered back, not knowing why—we were the only ones in the room. Still, for some strange reason, at that moment, I wished I’d waited to share my body. I hadn’t been as wild and free as some of my friends, but I hadn’t held my virginity as something precious like Jules had, either. There was no taking it back. The only thing I could do was keep my past experiences from coloring any future I might have with Dain.
“Have you ever made love?”
He hesitated. Minutes passed as I listened to him breathe.
“No,” he finally whispered back.
No? Dain was a virgin?
I turned to him. The light from the movie screen flickered across his handsome face. “I wouldn’t have thought...” I snapped my mouth shut. Would he take it as a compliment if I thought he was much more experienced than he really was?
“Thought...what?”
“Well, that girl at the feed lot, Maddy.” Crap. The words caught in my throat. “She’s so pretty and...you...you are so...so gorgeous.”
His eyes widened as he looked at me. I had no problem seeing the deep, rosy blush that bloomed in his cheeks before he turned away.
“Uh...Maddy? No. Never. No way.” He wiped his forehead with his other hand.
“Because she’s human?”
“No, it’s not that. Well, that’s part of it, but still, no. Maddy is Chuck’s baby sister.” His head swiveled toward me again. His eyes had the most wonderfully sexy, sleepy look. He gazed down at our entwined fingers and whispered, “There’s never been any other female, Jessy.”
No other female? I was the one to turn away this time. I focused on the movie screen watching the two lovers touch and kiss. Their bodies moved passionately together, with the camera strategically placed so as not to show the entire length of their joined bodies.
I wanted that with Dain. I wanted to touch him, kiss him, feel his body on top of mine.
“Would you like to make love?” I whispered. His hand tightened around mine almost painfully. “With me?” I turned toward him. “Here? Now?”
Don’t say no. Please, don’t say no.
He blinked, not saying anything. I waited. I studied his profile. His eyes sparkled, reflecting the light from the movie screen, his lips parted while his jaw seemed to hang loose, and his chest moved rapidly up and down. Sweet heavens, he was so beautifully shy. I wanted to crawl into his lap and lick him, kiss him, devour him in all kinds of ways. Teach him all the ways we could use this recliner. And the floor. And the barn. And the tall, brown grass that covered most of the ranch.
While the couple on the screen made love in front of a small fire on a cold beach, I had my own fire burning.
“Dain?”
“Jessy.” He blinked again, licked his lips and turned his head slowly in my direction. “I don’t know what to do first.”
I couldn’t help but smile. He wanted me to take the lead, and with this beautiful male, taking the lead, giving direction, setting the pace, was a dream come true.
“Well, then, let me show you.”
I stood from the recliner and pulled him along with me down to the carpet. He knelt between my legs, looking down into my face with a pained expression. I smoothed my fingers over his cheeks and sighed at how remarkably soft and warm his skin felt. Where there should have been a small amount of beard was only smooth, freshly shaven skin.
“You shaved.” I smiled. “Thank you.”
“I wanted to kiss you.” His eyes focused on my lips. “That’s all, I swear.”
He had planned ahead. For me.
Whispering, I said, “Then, kiss me.”
And he did. Slowly, softly, tentatively.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I reclined on the carpet and pulled him down on top of me. He shuddered as his body lay against mine. I wrapped a leg around his calf and smoothed my hands down his back.
“I love the feel of your body on top of me,” I whispered between our small kisses.
“I don’t want to crush you.”
“You won’t.”
I combed my fingers through his hair and slowly pulled his braid free. His hair fell forward, enclosing our faces in a silky, black curtain.
“I’ve been dying to run my fingers through your hair.”
His eyes gazed at me even as his lips pressed little kisses to mine. We were sheltered in our own little world and nothing existed except him and me. His big body finally settled heavily between my legs. There was no mistaking the long, hard length that rested against me.
I wiggled just a bit, pressed up into his erection. Dain gasped as his eyes popped, then closed in that slow, sleepy way that was so freaking sexy.
“Ahhh...damn, Jessy.” He moaned. “I’ve never done this.”
“Never l
ay between a girl’s legs before?” I pushed my hips up again and the expression that crossed his face was so intense, so sensual.
“Damn, Jessy.” He groaned. “Never really wanted to...until...I saw...you.” His body moved in a lunging wave, grinding his manhood into my most sensitive spot.
“Please...” My body lunged on its own, matching his waves, pitching up and down, melting into him. I had never wanted someone so badly in my entire life. “Dain...Dain...open your mouth. I want your tongue.”
I didn’t have to ask twice. He opened his mouth and his tongue plunged between my open lips and devoured me in the best way possible. His hand roamed down my side and up around the leg curled over his calf. My skin was on fire as he traced his way back and slipped his hand beneath my panties to squeeze my ass. The tease of his long, strong fingers so close to my center made me squirm in aching need.
On a deep moan, he pulled his mouth away. “Tell me what to do, Jess. Tell me what you want.”
“Make love to me, Dain,” I whispered as I wrapped my hand around the nape of his neck, beneath the thick strands of his silky hair, and pulled his mouth back to mine. “I’ve wanted you this way for so long.”
In the next few seconds, my panties were off and flung somewhere in the room and my nightshirt was bunched up around my neck. Dain yanked his white T-shirt up over his head as I unbuttoned his jeans and shoved them down around his knees. I was on my back and his big, trembling body lay between my legs. It all happened so fast I didn’t even take off my bra and I didn’t care.
No other male had ever made me burn the way Dain did.
I wanted him inside me just as we were.
We could get naked afterward.
“Jessy.” His erection rubbed against me, slipping, sliding and spreading my wetness. I tilted my pelvis enough to position him just right. “I can’t...I can’t...wait.”
“Neither can I.” I groaned as he lunged against me again.
“I have wanted you since the first time I saw you in the caverns.” His lips whispered against mine. “I want to tell you so many things.”
