Micah's Mate

by Abigail Raines

  Now Micah pulls away and gapes at me. His eyes are so bright in the dim light of the bedroom, they nearly glow in the dark. “It’s against all laws of God and man that you can’t be with me,” he says, as if that much should at least be obvious. He kisses me hard, stealing my breath, and his tongue curls around mine. I pull him closer but he resists and pulls back a little.

  “You’re the one,” he says, like it’s some foregone conclusion. “I can’t tell you how I know that but I know. There is no one else for me.”

  I find myself actually clutching my chest, my heart is so sore. He covers his hand with mine and kisses me again, softly this time and whispers, “You’re the one.”

  I take off my shirt and he gives me that cute little virginal look of his, like he’s never seen boobs before even though I know very well that he’s gotten around. Then I see the wolf take him over and he growls, manhandling me toward the bed. His aggression gets me hot. I kind of wish I could return it but that might give me away. So I let him toss me down on the bed and watch him crawl up my body, fixing me with his wolfish eyes. I start to unzip my jeans and he bats my hand away, undoing them himself before yanking them down.

  “I’m going to taste you,” he whispers against my skin. Just the thought makes me shiver but he’s taking his time. He starts at my neck and mouths along my collar bone. When I try to hold him, he pushes my arms away.

  “Don’t do anything,” he says breathlessly. “Let me do everything.”

  I feel a little self-conscious but I let my arms rest over my head and let him do all the work and then I forget to feel self-conscious as I’m consumed by sensation.

  Micah takes seemingly years to get anywhere near what he said he would do. Not that I mind. He’s looking at me like I’m sacred, like I’m something precious and important. He traces the curve of my neck and the little dip between my breasts and follows those gentle touches with soft kisses.

  Every place he touches me, he leaves a kind of spark, a phantom bit of electricity that makes me quiver. He mouths at my breasts and nibbles lightly, making me moan, and the little noises I make seem to please him. He grips my hips a little harder when I let him know he’s making me feel good.

  He even seems enamoured with my belly, pinching and licking in places that seem random to me but very important to him. I tangle my fingers in his hair and rake my nails along his scalp and that makes him groan. He lets me do that at least, but everything else is all him.

  When his fingers dip just slightly below the waistband of my panties, I tremble with anticipation. I feel wet, and just the thought of Micah’s tongue tasting me is overwhelming. He kisses me through the lace of my panties and I gasp.

  Dark thoughts creep into my head even as he mouths at me, wantonly licking a stripe across my core, over my panties. Stray thoughts of how this will all go wrong and I’m being selfish to let him into my bed intrude and I shove them away again.

  Somehow he knows. He looks at me with dark gray eyes and hoarsely says, “Don’t go away, Luna. Stay with me.”’

  “I’m here,” I murmur.

  He sucks hickies into my thighs and I arch and buck. I’ve always had pretty sensitive thighs and he really knows what he’s doing. He massages my calves. He leans back and becomes briefly obsessed with my ankle which is frankly infuriating when his mouth was so close to where I wanted it. But watching him massage the arch of my foot and kiss my ankle is kind of hilarious when I’m this wet and this wanting and it almost makes me laugh.

  Micah looks down at me and lowers my leg. He crawls over me and looks into my eyes, his hair flopping over. He looks devastating from this position.

  “Do you need something?” He says, in that rough, bedroom voice.

  “Please,” I say. “Micah…”

  “Please?” He pecks a kiss to my lips and I arch again in the bed, sighing and wrapping my leg around him, pulling him toward me.

  “Please,” I say again.

  “Since you said please,” he says. He gets that bright, cocky look in his eyes. I’m happy to see him smile. I know we’ll both be sad soon enough.

  I suddenly get caught up picturing him as a teenager. What was young Micah Tremblay like? I bet he was the funny guy in class. He’s the funny one among his brothers. I bet the girls all thought he was charming. I can tell by his face that he was just as good looking when he was a teenager. Rich, charming, beautiful Micah Trembly is making out with my pussy through my panties and I’m gasping and moaning and probably screaming loud enough to wake the neighbors and that’s with my panties still on. I imagine us as teenagers, wrestling around in some old car in the woods. I imagine the kind of teen-hood I never had. He would have taken me to the prom. He would’ve been such a cocky, jock type, shooting me a shit-eating grin as he handed me a corsage he picked out to match my dress. He would show me off at the dance and I’d take his arm and then we’d dance close to all the good slow songs and he’d whisper in my ear that I was his special girl.

  Micah pulls down my panties with a speed that verges on agonizing.

  I’m shaking like a leaf by the time his tongue ever so tentatively takes a lick at me.

  “Micah.”

  At my demand he licks at me with a little more intention and I begin to get the idea.

  “Micah, do it,” I whisper. His tongue plunges inside me and I scream so loud he laughs against me, his breath a tease after that sensation of tongue. “Yes, do it, Micah…”

  Micah’s finger joins his lips and tongue and I throw my head back. He finally goes all in and his talented tongue goes to work on my clit, already swollen and pulsing with need. I’m going to come in three seconds, I tell myself, and it will still be an amazing orgasm.

  “Does it feel good?” He whispers against me. “Tell me how good it feels.”

  “It f-feels so good,” I say, gasping. “I...yeah...I-I don’t know...oh God…”

  That seems to satisfy him and he wholeheartedly massages my clit with his tongue as his finger plunges in and out of me, and I’m immediately falling off the edge, shaking now not with need but with pleasure. I feel like any man I’ve ever been with has tried and failed to make me feel quite this way, and of course it’s Micah Tremblay who succeeds.

  He seems to know exactly how much I can take and then he crawls back up my body and kisses me deeply. I taste myself in his mouth and wrap my legs around him and in seconds his pants and his briefs are gone and he’s inside me, looking down at me, our breath mingling as he pushes in. I want him closer, always closer, and he’s looking at me like I’m the beginning and end of his world.

  But when I think about what I can’t give him, every kiss feels like a broken promise.

  Chapter Ten: Micah

  Luna doesn’t run away or kick me out. I take that as a good sign. Afterwards, she curls up to me and lays her head on my chest and it’s like we’re a real couple. It’s like nothing could possibly be wrong. I got this stupid feeling when she texted me, like, maybe everything would be fine. I’m not going to say so. I think it would just annoy her. I’m probably just choosing what I want to believe, like Mason said. Love does really wild things to a person’s brain. One second you’re up, the next you’re down.

  Right now, I’m up.

  I’m up because Luna is in bed beside me.

  “You have stars on your ceiling,” I say. I didn’t notice them before somehow, but she’s got those little glow-in-the-dark star stickers like kids have. They’re tiny ones and they’re all over the ceiling. She’s even stuck them up in real constellations. She’s got Orion’s Belt and the Big Dipper.

  “Oh yeah.” She sounds embarrassed and buries her head in my shoulder. “I got this idea like I wanted the whole galaxy in my room once. Michelle helped me put them up. Probably kinda childish. I told you I wanted to go to the moon.”

  “It’s adorable,” I say. My stupid heart swells. “What other little quirky things have you got around here?”

  “Nothing,” she murmurs into my skin. “
God, you smell so good. You know that?”

  “Thank you, baby.”

  Her voice hitches and I sigh, stroking her hair. “No, no, oh no crying, baby. You’ll kill me.”

  She sniffs and composes herself. I rub her back and she calms down a little. “I like it when you call me baby.”

  “I like calling you baby,” I say. “Don’t like making you cry, though.

  “It’s not your fault.” She moves and starts kissing my chest; slowly, kissing just to kiss. There can be no valid reason why I shouldn’t have this forever. What kind of empty half life would I have after this anyway if I didn’t fight to the death for it?

  “I think it’s time you told me what it is you feel like you can’t tell me,” I say. I keep rubbing her back because she all but purrs when I do. “I have my secrets too, you know? In fact, I have a very good reason why we supposedly can’t be together and you know what? I don’t care. Fuck it. I want you.”

  Luna leans on her elbow and stares at me. There’s just enough light for us to see each other’s faces. “You’re ridiculous,” she says. She almost says it like she knows exactly what I’m talking about but...that can’t be possible. Can it? Unless I’m right and she’s a shifter in which case she’d know that I’m a shifter and that I think she’s a human…

  “You’re ridiculous,” I say. I can’t figure out how to broach this. It would be beyond stupid for her to think she can’t tell me she’s a shifter. Now I’m wondering...if we’re both shifters, why can’t we be together? I wonder if there’s some kinda drama with her pack. Maybe she has one of those arranged matings. It hasn’t been done commonly in a long time, but some packs might still do that. “Just tell me what the thing is.”

  She just sighs.

  “Can I guess?” I say.

  “Go ahead.”

  “You’re a shifter,” I say as casually as possible.

  Luna just about falls off the bed as she scrambles to sit up. She stares at me, looking terrified. “How did you know?”

  I can’t help but laugh. I’m so relieved I want to cry. “I was right! Oh thank God!” I say, sitting up next to her. “This is great!”

  “It’s not great,” she says darkly. “Trust me. How did you know?”

  “I guessed,” I say, shrugging. “I was just hoping it was true. If I was wrong, you’d just have said ‘what’s a shifter’ and I would’ve made something up.”

  Luna claps a hand to her face. “Holy shit.”

  “Why have you been hiding it?” I say, pulling her hand away from her face. “You’ve known I was a shifter all along. And Aaron? After everything with Michelle? Why do you think you can’t trust us?”

  I’m not angry, just confused. And absolutely baffled, in fact. All this time! I have to think it’s got something to do with her awful childhood. I need to know what pack she’s from. There’s something to that, I suspect.

  She looks teary again. I don’t understand at all. I hate this. I hate seeing her so upset.

  “Baby, what’s wrong?” I cradle her cheeks between my palms and wipe her tears away. “Please. What pack are you from?”

  That only seems to make it worse and she shakes her head. “I can’t…” She gets out of bed and I detest that she’s pulling away from me. “You should go. I can’t… You should go. I told you before nothing changed and nothing has changed. You have to go.”

  “Whatever’s wrong, we can help you,” I say. “You must know about the Tremblays if you’re a shifter. Are you a wolf?”

  She nods and I want to jump for joy but she looks so fucking unhappy. “Then you must know who we are. We’re powerful in the clan. Whatever it is, we’ll help you if you--”

  “Please go,” she says in a small voice. She’s already pulling on a shirt and then she throws my clothes at me. She mumbles, “He could come back. You can’t be here.”

  “Who?” I jump out of bed and pull on my jeans. My wolf hackles are up now. He? “Who’s he? He who? Luna, tell me!”

  “It’s my life, Micah,” she snaps, glaring me down. “I know this sucks but I was straight with you. I told you this was one night. Now please, get out of here.”

  I zip up my fly and throw on my shirt. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what pack you’re in,” I say, crossing my arms. “I’m not leaving until you let me help you.”

  “You’re not going to leave?”

  “No.”

  “Great, I’ll call the cops!”

  “Luna, Jesus Christ…”

  She shoves me toward the door and I’m so pissed. I’m more pissed than I’ve been in...I don’t know how long. I dig my heels in and she plows into me so I stumble toward her front door. “What pack?”

  “I don’t have a pack, asshole!” I’m so baffled by that, I forget to fight back and she shoves me out the door and into the hall before, once again, slamming the door in my face.

  “Luna!” I pound on the door and call her name until my wrist is sore. I could break it down if I wanted to, but that seems overly dramatic.

  “Hey, douchebag.” A neighbor of hers appears, carrying groceries. “I don’t think she wants to talk to you.”

  I have an urge to try to explain that I’m not actually a bad guy, but it doesn’t matter and I finally cave, stomping down the stairs to my car and grumbling about the stupid pride of wolf shifter women.

  My wolf is not having any better of a time than I am, and it’s three days to the full moon. I spend it over-caffeinated, attempting to focus on my work, and begging Luna to explain how she doesn’t have a pack and why it means we can’t be together.

  I’ve heard of “lone wolves” before. They’re not super common, but sometimes a shifter will be left without a pack for one reason or another. If they’ve chosen to leave, they usually find a new one. But it’s sort of like disowning all your family members. I think I’ve heard of wolves being ostracized due to some terrible crime against the pack, but I don’t know much about that stuff. I’m not even sure if Luna really is a “lone wolf” or if that wasn’t what she meant. I don’t know what else she could mean.

  On the night of the full moon, I go to the estate in an edgy and sour mood. Aaron won’t stop talking about whatever cute thing Trevor just did and I can’t even sum up a polite reply. Xander’s all excited about whatever’s going on with The Tremblay company. It’s all buzzing around me. I sit, brooding over my petite filet at dinner, angsty and irritated.

  Exactly nobody misses this, especially Mason, who keeps shooting me concerned looks. Mom and dad haven’t missed it either, but I can see mom containing herself, not wanting to nag.

  “You guys know anything about lone wolves?” I say, interrupting whatever Xander was just saying about their bio tech sector.

  Everyone stares at me, startled by the non-sequitur.

  “Lone wolves?” My mother says. “Who’s a lone wolf?”

  “Nobody I know,” I say quickly, but I can feel Mason’s stare and I’m sure he’s guessed. “Just something I heard about.”

  “Lone wolves don’t have a pack,” Mason says. “It’s usually because they were ostracized for some reason. They committed a crime against the pack so bad that they’re banished and they can’t join up with another pack either. They’re just alone. Usually that’s the case with lone wolves.” My heart sinks at that. I can’t imagine that Luna could have committed some crime against her pack. It doesn’t make any sense. Mason strokes his chin thoughtfully. “Although, I have heard of people leaving their packs voluntarily for some reason. Not just moving but disavowing their own pack. Usually they join with another one.”

  “Yeah,” I mutter, ignoring everyone else’s baffled looks. “I’ve heard of that. Can you think of any reason somebody would disavow their pack and not join another one?”

  “Well,” Xander pipes up, “maybe if they came from a really shitty pack.”

  “Language, Xander,” our mother says. He shoots her a good-natured look of annoyance.

  “Yeah,” Aaron agrees. “Lik
e if you came from some really heinous pack… I mean, nobody’s going to want you really. Either because of bad blood or just association. We don’t have any packs like that in our clan. Just your average disagreements. Small potatoes.”

  “You can’t trust a lone wolf.” That’s our father, who’s usually pretty quiet at dinner unless we get him to start telling old war stories. “I know I sound old-fashioned saying it, and you pups will roll your eyes but lone wolves are dangerous.”

  I tense up at that. I’m not even sure it applies to Luna but I have a feeling it does. “What if it wasn’t their fault, though? What if they left because their pack was...ya know...bad.” I inwardly roll my eyes at myself as I fumble for the words.

  “There aren’t many packs bad enough to justify leaving and not joining up with someone else,” my dad says knowingly. “A wise wolf would leave with a group and start a new one, or, better yet, overthrow the alpha if he’s bad enough.”

  “It just seems like there might be exceptions,” I say. It’s not often I argue with my father. Everybody’s looking at me like I’ve grown a third head. I’m usually not even talking about something serious at dinner. I’m the one who tells stories about work that makes me look good and cracks jokes to cheer up Xander because he looks too serious all the time. “But what do I know,” I say now, mostly into my mashed potatoes.

  “You okay, man?” That’s Aaron. He looks worried. Everyone looks worried.

  “Hey, I’m fine,” I say, laughing lightly, trying to cover. “I was just talking. Curious.” Mason looks like he’s about to say something and I give him one tiny, curt shake of my head. He dutifully shuts his mouth. I know we’ll be discussing this later.

  That night I shift and it takes a whole lot of running and wrestling and hunting to make myself feel any better. Luna’s just so upset and it kills me that she won’t let me help.

  But I do have one bright thought as I relish the wind blowing through my fur:

  Luna truly is my mate.