"Give me a minute to get inside," I warned, crouching to sit on the floor then sliding into the next chamber, the water level a few inches above my navel.
I dropped the activated chem light and snapped the remaining ones, releasing them into the pool. Their concentration in the small chamber made the walls softly glow.
Turning back to where Paisley waited, I extended my hands toward her.
"Let me help."
Her grip on the chem light she held tightened. I was positive for a second that she was going to turn around and leave, but then her hand relaxed and she tossed the light over my shoulder to join the rest of them at the bottom of the pool.
"It's best if you sit," I advised as she took my hands. "The limestone is completely smooth at this part."
"Could you maybe close your eyes?"
Chuckling, I acquiesced to her request even though I didn't understand the difference between my seeing her lush frame wet and naked but standing versus her getting into a sitting position in front of me.
Either scenario made my cock rock hard, something I could no longer control now that she was bare skinned and had her hands in mine.
"Okay," she said once her bottom was planted on the ground.
I opened my eyes, the light just enough for me to distinguish the bright spots on her cheeks and how her lips were just as flushed as when she'd been mashing at them with indecision a few minutes before.
"Now slide forward." I tugged as I gave her the instruction.
The slippery ground and rush of water pushed her forward faster than she could anticipate, forcing her against me as her feet touched the bottom of the pool. I wrapped my arms around her, lied to myself that it was only to keep her from falling under if she lost her footing.
I heard her swallow. She dipped her head, hiding her gaze from mine.
"Did you enjoy your date?"
The question slipped out of me before my brain could turn it over. She didn't answer immediately, her lips rolling against one another as they had earlier.
"He put a lot of effort into it," she answered at last. "At least I don't see either of the Crockers moving one of the cabin beds out or hauling his dining room table and chairs and making beef stew for their guests."
I grunted, a small part of me relieved that the cabin had been transformed but a larger part annoyed at how well Rooster had played his hand.
"I guess that deserved a kiss," I said.
Disagreeing, the most primal part of my brain ordered me to cinch Paisley closer. I did, my arms moving so that one hand braced between her shoulder blades while the other curled against one fully rounded ass cheek.
She shook her head. I expected her to pull back or at least complain, but she pressed her forehead against my chest.
"He asked me if I was in love with you."
The air inside my lungs froze despite the warm water around us. I hugged her a little tighter, as if I were trying to squeeze from her the answer she had given him.
"I kissed him as I was leaving," she said, the omission of her response to Rooster's question clawing at my gut. "I kissed him because he deserves better than me and I told him so."
"No." Reaching up, I knitted my fingers into her wet hair and forced her to look up. I didn't know how well she could see me, but I could see her, anguish sharpening her features but doing nothing to diminish her beauty.
"That's not true," I rasped. "You deserve better than any man in Night Falls."
She shook her head, tried to pull away, but I wouldn't let her.
"He deserves a mate who can love him and that's not me." Tears formed at the rim of her eyes and I suddenly wished she would bury her face against my chest again.
"And I deserve to marry a man who loves me, who desires me..."
My desire was pressing hard against her stomach, had been since the moment she slid into the chamber and our bodies came into contact.
"I don't deserve someone who's saddling himself with me to keep me alive, to keep his sister safe and happy."
The pain in her voice tore at my heart, each rip bittersweet because I knew I'd put the doubt inside her.
"I told you I wasn't doing this for Clover."
She shrugged, her mouth trembling as she tried to push up the corners into a carefree smile.
"I know what it feels like when I'm being fucked, Braeden. You can say whatever you want, but I'll know each time you touch me that it's nothing more than a marriage of inconvenience for you...that you're giving up someone to protect me."
Her voice caught at the end and she tried again to break free from me. I took a big step back, bringing both of us into the deepest part of the pool, the water up to my collarbone. The move forced her to wrap her arms around my neck to stay above water.
"I want to go back," she begged, her cheek pressing against mine so she wouldn't have to look at me or be seen by me.
"No." I took another step back and then another, my intended destination the opposite side of the chamber from where we had entered. The floor sloped up there. She tried to wriggle free as the water level dropped, but the ground was slippery and she soon had to cling to me again.
Turning, I lifted her onto the ledge that curved around the back third of the chamber, her bottom even with my chest. Falling back, I dove under the water and scooped up the chem lights. When I resurfaced, I placed them next to her on the ledge then grabbed her hips.
A dozen excuses piled up at the end of my tongue for what had transpired between us in Rooster's barn. The hurt visible on her face told me I'd only be digging a deeper grave for myself if I tried to explain why it had been a mistake taking her out there, how I had been near crazy after watching the video of her getting shot, of realizing how close I'd been to losing her and then coming back to have her clothes covered with the stink of sitting where the brothers sat, their smell on her, Rooster's most of all.
"Paisley..." Faltering, I stroked lightly at the bend of each thigh. I wanted this woman, loved her, had loved her for a long time, first with the same fierce sense of family Clover offered her and then as a man.
Damned if I knew how to tell her.
"Please, love," I rasped, fingers pressing into her generous flesh as I fought to constrain my emotions -- to not take her as I had before.
"Let me show you what I've got."
********************
Paisley
I sealed my fate for that night and all the nights that would ever follow with a faint nod and a blink. Braeden spread out the glow sticks then rested his left arm on the ledge.
"Rest your head here," he coaxed, his muscular bicep only slightly more giving than the limestone beneath it.
On my side, I looked up at him, nervous for what came next. Everything had happened so suddenly in the barn. Now his every move was deliberate, thought out. His thumb brushed corner to corner against my lips, his index finger stroking rhythmically at my jaw until the muscles of my face relaxed. My mouth opened, just a small oval at the center. His thumb changed directions, stroking downward, teasing my bottom lip and jaw lower.
His nail played against the horizontal line of my teeth, his eyes locked on mine. Thumb touched tongue and I groaned.
He kissed me then, my head cradled between his arm and the curl of his fingers around my opposite cheek, his tongue taking slow strokes in and out of my mouth. My flesh began to heat, the water around me suddenly feeling cool as need burned through me.
When I started to shake, he shushed me.
Sliding his arm out, he cushioned my head with just his left hand, his lips and other hand trailing down my body. Fingers plucked at my nipples, his tongue and hand alternating which hard nub they would tease. When both stood at an aching attention, his mouth fastened on my upper breast and his palm smoothed over the curve of my stomach to find the pouting, swollen flesh of my mound.
I groaned again, hips squirming, back undulating as every part of me vied for his attention.
Fingers slid between my labia and began
to stroke as his mouth sought mine again. Firm pinches against my clit echoed the gentle gnawing of my bottom lip. Below, fingers slicked their way into me, their tentative exploration at odds with the impassioned thrusting of his tongue.
I leaned toward Braeden, my senses drowning. Lifting my top leg, I rested my foot flat against the ledge, my pussy fully exposed to his teasing hand. He added a third finger to his thrusts and my hips began to rock.
Braeden pushed me onto my back then kissed his way down my arm and across my hip. He tugged one of my legs over the ledge, let it dangle as he maneuvered his shoulders and face between my thighs to continue the gnawing and thrusting.
Nibbling at my labia, he made them surge and swell with fresh blood. His teeth grazed a line down my clit, his fingers twisting inside me, and then his tongue began to roughly boss the small kernel tucked under the hood.
My pleas bounced off the limestone walls as my ass danced a small circle against the rock shelf. His fingers fucked in and out, in and out, as he throttled my clit.
I cried, delirious with the ache he created.
And then he stopped.
"Braeden?" Lifting my head to look at him, I tensed.
It was happening all over again, wasn't it?
Cupping my face with both hands, he kissed me softly on the lips then stared deeply into my eyes. "I didn't want you coming without knowing I love you. That I realized I loved you as a man and not just a friend the day I carried you back to Holly's cabin."
I blinked, most of my blood circling my hips, leaving my brain little to work with. But I remembered. I had been sixteen and the trip up to the cabin in his arms had started with wet rock, too.
"You were a little slow to the party," I teased. I had decided when I was fourteen that I was going to be Mrs. Braeden Hughes.
"And you were still two years too young," he lightly growled.
Smiling, I moved to slide off the rock. He put a hand on my hip, momentarily blocking me.
"I want my arms around you when I come," I said, wiggling past any potential objection. "I want to be looking in your eyes."
Entering the water, I draped my arms around his shoulders and wrapped my legs around his lean hips. His cock nestled between us, its hard strength denting my flesh.
Arching my back, I slid up then open.
"Slow," he warned as the fat head butted against the muscle rimming my pussy. "Patience."
I laughed. Patience felt impossible -- was impossible. Only his strong arms were keeping me from impaling my tender, unstretched flesh on the crown and thick shaft.
Braeden backed me up against a wall, the water above the top curve of my breasts. With my body braced, he worked a hand between us. His fingers worked my pussy, two entering me then corkscrewing in a V, working the muscles until they heated and relaxed.
Teasing a third finger in, he kissed me, fingers splayed and rocking. He had me on the threshold of a climax. I began to shake, pussy and arms clutching at him.
"Look at me, love."
My eyes were wild, wanting to roll up while the lids tried to squeeze shut, but I couldn't disobey his soft command.
"This baby," he said, the punishing tip crowding out his fingers to push into me.
"Yes," I groaned, sucking his cock deeper into me.
His lips fastened on my neck as he began to take hard strokes, the fat head battering around inside me, butting high up to knock against the mouth of my cervix, then tugging the muscles at my gate that constricted to hold him inside.
"Please..." I bounced, my hips reckless with need.
He slid a hand down my back, clamped one ass cheek and held me in place. Pulling back and hooking my gaze, he began to slam into me. I slammed back, both of us moaning and wincing with the need twisting through our chests, igniting our flesh.
Tension poured like molten lead between my thighs, hardening, my muscles frozen around his cock, milking it with fluttering sucks and squeezing kisses.
My head rolled back. He grabbed me by the hair, held it upright, his gaze glowing in that chamber of shadows.
"Look at me, love," he demanded. "Come for me. Tell me you know the difference. Tell me what I'm doing to you."
"Loving me," I cried out, my climax barreling through me just as my heart threatened to burst into ashy fragments. I jerked, squeezed, spasmed all around him and against him.
His cock erupted with me, his come filling me with each spurting jerk. His chin lifted, a primal, victorious howl clawing past his throat, filling the room with an echo that still vibrated as our bodies began to settle against one another.
Embracing me, Braeden kissed lightly against my shoulder.
"You're mine, you always have been, but now we both know it."
"Yes," I agreed, my kiss falling haphazardly against his mouth as a euphoric sob shook my body.
I was his. He was mine.
Now we just had to tell his pack.
********************
Braeden
Late on the following morning, Paisley and I paid a visit to Taron, the big bear still in the city limits for his pregnant mate's safety instead of comfortably up on his mountain where visitors were discouraged.
Standing on the porch of his temporary residence, he grinned to see me pull into the drive, hustle around to the opposite front door of Clover's Jeep and help Paisley exit. The smile broadened as we approached hand in hand.
My pest of a little sister bounded out of the back seat with a satisfied smirk. She was not only getting her way with me openly capitulating to my feelings, but she had won the argument on whether she should be allowed to accompany us to speak with Taron, pointing out that the privacy we sought was already doomed because Onyx would be in the house.
Not that Taron's mate was indiscreet. But hiding anything said from a wolf's ears was next to impossible. And if Onyx got to hear the discussion, however innocently, by virtue of her position as Taron's mate, then Clover ought to hear it as best friend and sister to the concerned parties.
Stepping onto the porch, Clover patted Taron's mighty chest.
"Just agree to everything," she chirped. "I don't want to have to go all Rambo on you."
Seeing Onyx at the front door, Clover stepped inside and gave the she-wolf a friendly hug.
Paisley tightened her grip on my hand. We were there to seek Taron's official blessing, the sanction of the pack leader that would put Paisley off limits to the other single male shifters in the matchmaking game he had set in motion.
I wasn't about to let him deny me my mate. But his approval would erase the possibility of bloodshed within the pack.
Still grinning, he invited us inside, where Onyx had already put on a fresh kettle of water, telling us tea would be ready in about five minutes and she or Clover would give a knock on the study door when it was ready.
Seeing the pout on my little sister's face, I chuckled. Onyx had grown up an outcast, but she had still been raised as the oldest daughter of her pack's leader and she knew how to run interference for Taron. It didn't hurt that Clover was in awe of the she-wolf, rocking a girl crush that was almost as strong as her bond with Paisley.
"I'll need to feel out the more interested suitors," Taron said as soon as he closed the door on his study. "But I assume you are looking to end the thirty-day period and become a mated pair."
Next to me, Paisley started to cough.
Taron's booming laugh turned her cheeks a dark red, but she bobbed her head.
I didn't find anything funny, not after what he had just said.
"Feel out?" I asked.
"Whether any of them are going to raise a stink and accuse me of playing favorites."
"Paisley's playing favorites," I growled at my boss. "And those were the exact rules you laid out."
She rubbed at my arm, the sensation far more comforting than any attempt I had experienced by an alpha other than my father to comfort me with their energy.
Leaning forward, I stared at Taron, no quarter in my gaze. "Ther
e will be no more dates."
He lifted his hands, supplicating my forbearance. "I wasn't suggesting there would be. I'm only considering the possibility your announcement and obvious displays of affection be curtailed a little longer."
His gaze glanced off Paisley's arm on my hand.
Her grip tightened.
"How long?"
I knew by the tone of her voice, its barely detectible quality of vulnerability, that she feared what I feared -- time would find a way to separate us.
Taron considered the question, his hands folded across his stomach, fingers tapping in thought.
"The meeting tonight is still scheduled to address what we've found regarding the shooting."
I snorted. We had found too damn little. The rifle that shot Paisley and Clover had likely belonged to Holly Ulster, a thorough search of her house and barn coming up empty for the weapon or any ammunition. The datura and kerosene pointed to a non-human shooter.
"He needs to be interrogated," I said. "The shooter used tricks he's familiar with and he can't explain away the video. The poor shooting could have been because he hadn't practiced with the stolen rifle.
Paisley leaned forward in her chair, her body turning to face me. "He? You mean Mallory?'"
"Yes, Mallory Craw," Taron answered. "And he'll be there tonight. First we get past this."
He waved his hand at the two of us.
"Then we question him. Otherwise he'll try to make your claim and Paisley's presence within the pack the issue."
A growl rumbled low in my throat, the sound trying to twist into a challenge. But Taron was right. One misstep and everything could get bloody in a heartbeat.
"Bring Clover," Taron said as Onyx knocked on the door. "And Paisley, too. They both have a vested interest in the meeting's results. Onyx will be with me, as well. Otherwise no mates and no cubs this time."
Tension twitching through my body, I rose and led Paisley into the living room where the tea was waiting to be served. We suffered through some twenty minutes of polite conversation I didn't want to have, then Taron sent us on our way.
Eight hours later, I entered the clubhouse behind Clover and Paisley, my balls instantly shriveling as Landa Judd burped out one of her fake laughs.
Comes Now the Wicked Woodsman (A Night Falls Alpha Wolf BBW Shapeshifter Romance) Page 11
