Never, ever in my life have I felt that much pleasure, and I know, as I look down at her to see her mouth curve into a smile, that neither has she. Grunting my possessive satisfaction, I pull out of her with regret and fall to my back, snatching Hannah closer when she tenses.
“That was fucking awesome,” I murmur, wanting her to know that I loved every minute of it.
My words must be what she needs to hear because she relaxes, her sigh wafting over my skin when she settles her head on my shoulder.
“That was awesome,” she agrees softly, her usually prickly tone gone, as she snuggles closer and lets me cuddle her body.
The last time we had sex, I rolled away and passed out, letting the booze take me under before I did or said something I couldn’t take back. I didn’t touch her afterward or stroke her and let my caresses show her that I care.
The truth is, I couldn’t. I took Hannah to bed with the intention of humiliating her the next morning and letting her know that it meant nothing to me because she meant nothing to me.
It shames me to even think I could treat a female that poorly. Shames me even more to admit I did it to my own Fated, the one female I should have treated with respect and kindness.
I have a chance to make it up to her though, so I do just that, using gentle strokes of my fingers over her skin and soft kisses in her hair to show her that this meant something to me. That it always will.
After minutes of comfortable silence and peace, it occurs to me that we should talk, that I should take Althea’s advice and use the afterglow to learn more, dig deeper, maybe establish a deeper bond now that her defenses are down.
Except, I don’t know what the fuck to say. For the first time in my life, I feel uncertain, vulnerable, and I don’t like it. It’s—
“When I woke up in the clinic, I thought I was dead,” I hear, Hannah’s soft voice cutting into my panic.
Sighing with relief because now I don’t have to stretch my brain for something to say, I squeeze her and lay another kiss in her hair,
“I don’t blame you, baby. The injuries you sustained.” I shudder. “I would have thought I was dead, too.”
Hannah shifts, settling closer and sighs, the sound sad and filled with her special brand of annoyance.
“I should find Brig and return the favor. I can’t believe he just left me.”
My wolf stirs, snarling at the reminder, and I ignore his yap of rage because she doesn’t need me flying off the handle now. This time is for talking and forming our bond, not telling her that I’m planning to murder her brothers sooner or later. After I’ve made them suffer and made them so crazy with fatigue they’ll want to die.
“You shouldn’t focus on that. You should be healing and finding things to do that make you happy.”
“Watching them bleed out would make me ecstatic,” she counters, making me chuckle and hug her closer.
I like this, I think, letting the calm peacefulness of having her here settle deeper. For the first time in my life, I am not alone. When Mika lived with me, I’d lay awake at night, hearing her whisper Bear’s name in her sleep and wish for the same thing, to have a female want me so much that I follow her into her dreams.
Never thought it would be with Hannah though, I think, grinning at the thought. But for whatever reason, we’re here, and I find I like the thought of getting her to soften and sigh my name.
“That isn’t going to make you happy, baby, trust me. You’d regret it, and it would eat you up. Forget them. None of them matter anymore.”
Or they won’t because I’m going to kill them soon.
“Ugh! Don’t say that because it isn’t true. I may be here with you, protected, but what if…what if?” She ends, her thoughts stopping when she tenses and leans back, or tries to.
I won’t let her go, so it ends up being a struggle before she finally concedes defeat and flops back down with a huff.
“What if…? What if I can’t protect you? Is that what you’re thinking? Because I swear to you, Hannah, I can, and I will. I’d use my last fucking breath to keep you safe,” I tell her, meaning it.
It’s not just my instinct or my wolf howling his claim, but me, the male who wants to love her. Yeah, I want to love Hannah and one day feel her love me back. It’s all I have ever wanted in life and the one overriding reason that I always stayed away from her.
Instinct dictates a male mate his Fated. It’s a burning pit that never heals if we don’t, an emptiness that simmers no matter where we go, who we fuck, or what we feel.
I knew a long time ago that Hannah wouldn’t love me back, at least that is what I assumed because I thought all she was, would be is a vain, vapid little rich girl with nothing to offer.
Seeing her in that cell, afraid, comforting Lync while pretending she didn’t care, dying, shattered, it all made me see that my impression of her was nothing more than what I built up in my mind.
So yeah, I think Hannah can love me, and God help me, I want it more than anything in life. I want sex, lovemaking, family, laughter, love. I want it all, and I will have it, starting with earning my mate’s trust and proving to her that she can let go and be free with me.
“I know that, Logan. It’s just that…” she sighs, stroking a finger over my chest and making me shiver with renewed feeling. “I don’t want you doing anything that will have my father coming after you.”
“He wouldn’t—”
“He would, Logan. You don’t know that male. He’s a mean, old asshole, who only craves one thing. Power. I know he’d never just come at you physically, and he wouldn’t send anyone to…but he’d slowly and very systematically start gathering information to make your life hell. That job you love? Gone. He’d ensure the council found a way to force Nick’s hand. Your family? They’d be harassed on a daily basis. Your mom wouldn’t be able to get groceries without one or more of them there to harass her. I don’t want that.”
Hearing her concern, for me, makes my chest swell and fill with emotion so strong I feel my eye burn before I stop and think about what she’s said. It boils down to Hannah, my usually strong and confident virago being afraid of a male who has no power over her. To make it worse, it’s not only herself she’s afraid for, but me.
I’m supposed to protect her and make it so she never thinks of anything but being happy and doing all that female shit like getting her hair done and gossiping or making the other females in the family laugh with her less heated and endearing insults.
Jesus, the female is prickly.
Chapter Fifteen
Hannah
I wait for Logan to tense and roll away, reject me when he hears what a problem being with me will be—not only for him—but his family and friends as well.
I expect a stiffness and tenseness to come over him, but all I feel is his hard body, hot and relaxed beneath me, and hear him snarl out a curse before rolling me beneath him.
His green eyes shine in the muted light, the way he’s looking at me causing butterflies to wing through my stomach.
“You don’t think about that shit anymore. Got me? You wake up in the morning with nothing more challenging on your mind than whether or not you want a morning quickie before we start our day. You focus on having our young, maybe learning to cook without burning our house down or being the first female to poison her mate. You think about ways to insult my mom and the girls without being too much of a bitch because you find it funny. You think about what it’s going to be like years from now when we’re parents and happy and still fucking like minks. That is it. Leave the rest to me,” he says and growls, stopping my protest with his mouth when he kisses me so deeply I feel my toes curl and my sex light up.
The kiss feels like a promise, a yelled command that instead of pissing me off makes my heart race with hope, that bitch of an emotion I swore never to entertain again.
When I’m breathless and sure that my sore sex could surely take him again, he pulls back and settles down again, grunting when I whimper a protest.
�
��Settle your ass down, mate. You’re still a little tight. I don’t want to hurt you on our first night together. About the rest of it, you know how I feel, so either stop worrying so damn much or get ready to have me driving you crazy because I will stick to your ass like glue until you learn to stop thinking about redundant shit and enjoy the life we can make together.”
“Jesus, you’re an asshole,” I mutter, getting comfortable on his chest with a sigh.
“Maybe, but from this night forward, I am your asshole, so watch what you say about me, baby.”
“Don’t hurt them,” I say when the silence signals his disinterest with the subject now that he’s laid down the law.
“Baby—”
“I don’t…it’s over. You’re right. I shouldn’t care about them, and I don’t, but I also don’t want to have to think that my mate killed my brothers. My father is more than up for discussion, seeing as I despise him even more than I thought I could, but the rest, just leave it alone, Lo,” I say quietly, hoping he listens.
After a long pause, he sighs and hugs me, breathing in my scent while I try to rationalize everything I’m feeling. Satiation, a reprieve from the never-ending heat I’ve suffered for too long. Comfort. An odd peace that I try to fight but sings through my blood heedless of my denials.
I feel so much, and yet it’s okay, just for now, to let it settle. Tomorrow, I can look at it, pick it apart, and dissect every layer. For now, I just want to enjoy feeling wanted, even if it’s not real, and rest with the knowledge that I can do anything I want now that I am free and protected.
“Would you stop thinking? You’re making noise with all that agonizing,” Logan mutters.
“Well, what then? It’s barely ten at night. It’s not like I’m falling asleep any time soon and since you won’t—”
“I won’t, not tonight. Tomorrow morning I will definitely wake you with my cock inside you. Chances are I’ll have to take time off just to get my dick to go down,” he jokes, making me laugh before a thought occurs to me.
“You’re too busy to take time off,” I reply, remembering the way he worked even when he stayed with me after brining me to his home.
He’s tired, hardly sleeps, and doesn’t so much as mention the elephant in the room because I think he’s afraid to push me in my “fragile” state. I can’t ignore it though because as much as I want to spit in his eye and not make his problems mine, I have to help him.
If I can.
God, I don’t know if this ability is even working anymore. I haven’t heard anything or felt anything since I came out of the hospital, my mind blank whenever I so much as try to open up and give it a go.
Adversely, it is now imperative for this to work. That I have this ability and may be able to help Logan—and now that I’ve made up my mind to do exactly that—I can’t feel a thing.
“What’s on your mind, Hannah?” he asks, as if he can hear or feel me thinking.
I almost snort until it slams into my brain that we’re…forming a bond, I think with a dose of panic. We’re connecting and, and this is…
We can’t do this! I can’t form a bond with him. It would hurt me if I did and he left me and…and… I force myself to stop, breathe, and think about what I’m saying here.
Of course, he can’t leave! Fated males who mate can go feral if their female isn’t with them. Like Lync. When that settles in me, I relax, my heart calming because surely Logan would never risk going feral just to leave me…
“I want to help you find Barbie Kendall. No wait! I know you haven’t asked again or pushed because you’re afraid that I’ll have some sort of meltdown, but listen, that’s not me, okay? I know what I am, who I am, and I am so over having my throat ripped out,” I assure him, leaning up to gaze at him.
“Hannah, I know you want people to see how little you care, but that just can’t be true. You almost died, savagely, and your brother didn’t stop it. Of course, you’re still traumatized!”
I scoff, roll my eyes, and drop my chin onto my hand where it’s laying on his thick, muscular chest.
“Trauma shmauma! It happened. It’s over, and now I have to move on. Or rather, I already have, and you’re trying to drag me twenty steps back because you think I’m supposed to be like Mika or Barbie or one of those other females. I’m not. It’s done, dusted, finished. Now, about Barbie—?”
“I only have five days left on my deadline to find her, Hannah. I can’t ask you to do this for me. Your ability is new and unstable. I won’t have you harming yourself just to help me.” He sighs.
His words bring a strange tingle to my chest, this warm feeling that I can’t explain but feels almost like it could be, well, it sounds like what Mika told me gratitude feels like.
Well hell, I can be a normal asshole.
“I appreciate that,” I croak, clearing my throat. “But it’s not new. It’s re-emerging or something. I had this ability when I was younger and—”
“And you squashed it,” he cuts in, growling when I nod.
“Yeah. I don’t know why it’s come back all of a sudden, but it’s back, at least I think so. Look, I’ve been trying to do this hearing thing to find your friend, but every time I try, I get nothing. It’s all silent. Nothing. So, I don’t want you getting your hopes up or anything when I offer my help. Because I’m not sure I can do anything to help and—”
Logan closes his hand over my mouth to stop my babble and rolls us both over, his body coming over mine while he laughs, his chuckles confusing me so much I stop talking and blink up at him.
“You don’t have to be afraid—”
“Hhhhmmmnot!” I mumble before he moves his hand. “I’m not! I’m not scared. I just don’t want to be the idiot who makes a promise and breaks it because I’m brain dead on the ability scales. I can’t promise to get anything. I’ll keep trying though,” I say, willing to make that promise.
“That is more than enough and all I can ask, Han. I wouldn’t ask you at all. Hell, I wasn’t going to. I was just going to keep making shifts and going on runs to try and figure this out…,” he says, looking away.
The way he says it, the look on his face, tells me that Logan doesn’t believe that anything he does now will make a difference. He knows that doing this without me will likely result in no result, that he won’t find a trace of a clue, nothing, and he’ll fail.
And yet he didn’t want to ask me because…he cares?
My mind feels like a robot short-circuiting, so I stop trying to think about it and understand and just look up at him, this male who is mine and yet not.
I can’t explain it, but for some reason, despite the sex, the bond that is forming, this caring he seems to be feeling for me, I know deep down that he isn’t mine.
I feel it, like an inner knowledge, a whisper of warning. He isn’t mine. I don’t know if that is me holding back or him holding back, but I know that it hurts something inside me and that before long it will hurt more.
Not wanting to ruin this, whatever it is, I grunt and wrap my legs around him, pulling down fast so he falls into the open cradle of my thighs and makes direct contact with my sex.
His eyes go molten, the green depths swirling.
“Let’s talk later.”
*******************************************************************
The phone Logan gave me this morning before leaving for work rings and vibrates where it’s placed on the counter, the sound snapping me out of an hour-long funk of boredom and frustration.
Going over to answer it, I take another sip of coffee and grin, recalling Logan’s surprise when he came downstairs to find a freshly brewed pot of coffee and perfectly toasted Pop Tarts on the table.
What? I watched Mika do these things all day yesterday before she left. The female ate at least twice, made two pots of coffee—apparently what Bear doesn’t know won’t kill him—and I now know how to make coffee, Pop Tarts, and toast.
God, I didn’t know it could be that easy!
“
Hello?”
“Don’t hang up!”
I hear the voice, and my wolf immediately starts snarling, her anger and distrust making me shake and clutch the phone tighter to stop myself from tossing it against the wall.
“What do you want, Brig?”
“To tell you that I’m sorry—”
“For hunting me like an animal and then watching Goose Banes tear me apart?” I ask, swallowing the aching lump in my throat with effort.
“It wasn’t supposed to—”
“But it did,” I cut in with a hoarseness to my voice that pisses me off. “It did happen. All I wanted to do was leave, get gone, so that you didn’t have to make that choice.”
My rueful laughter keeps him silent while inside I can’t understand if I’m more hurt, angry, or terrified to know why he’s calling me. I know him. He’s not really apologizing or even regretting a damn thing. He wants something, and now that he no longer has to kill me, he’s found a way to use me again.
“Why did you make the choice?” I ask before he can speak, hearing his sigh cut across the line to slap at me.
“If I hadn’t, he’d have become even more suspicious. He already watches everything Blain and I do, Hannah. If I’d refused him, he would have gone nuts again, and I can’t afford for him to track our movements right now,” he admits tiredly, sounding as if he expects me to understand.
I don’t! They’re my brothers, my blood, even if that blood is tainted and ruined by being Daddy’s. I thought…
“He almost killed me,” I whisper, aching and needing something to take it away.
My eyes go wet, the burn a thing that I feel inside as I swallow and try to stop the tears filling my eyes.
“But he didn’t, Hannah. Kilter got there on time and saved you.”
“And if he hadn’t? If Logan hadn’t been so pissed and followed me, what then?” I ask, knowing the answer but wanting so badly to be wrong.
Just once, let me be wrong, I beg, breathing lowly when Brig sighs again, confirming my thoughts before he speaks. God, it hurts. It shouldn’t. I shouldn’t feel a thing for them. I should hate them if I feel anything at all, but all I feel right this minute is pain and betrayal.
Greyriver Shifters Page 39
