by Lynn Howard
Brax kissed a path across her stomach as he undid her pants, hooking his fingers in the beltline and pulling them down along with her panties. And now she was covered in nothing but her bra as he undid his own pants with shaking hands.
She got it. She was both nervous and out of her mind with lust. Butterflies buzzed like crazy in her belly as her body trembled and she grew wet and warm at the sight of his hard length jutting toward her as he shoved his jeans to his feet and stepped out of them.
The man was an Adonis. He was beautiful, yet so fucking masculine. Even his long hair gave him an edge instead of being too pretty as it laid past his shoulders, reaching just above his nipples.
After a few moments, Brax still hadn’t crawled onto the bed. He merely stood there, staring down at her. No way had he changed his mind.
When his eyes lifted to hers, they were so bright it was almost hard to look directly into them.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered in the quiet of the room, only their breaths breaking the silence.
“I was thinking the same thing about you,” she replied softly.
Kneeling at the end of the bed, Brax started at her feet, leaving soft kisses along them, up to her ankles, her calves, his hands trailing along the places where his lips had showered attention. The act only ratcheted her need up even further.
“Brax,” she moaned as his lips grazed her sex, his tongue teasing her there. “Please.”
“I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you,” he admitted, his voice deep and guttural and so fucking primal.
“Then take me. Take me now.”
A deep growl rattled from his chest as he rose up her bed and settled between her thighs. The tip of his cock teased her core as he dipped his head and claimed her lips again. When she writhed and was ready to beg again, Brax pushed into her, only entering an inch at a time, waiting for her body to stretch to accommodate his girth.
She’d never thought of herself as super tight, but between not having sex in so long and Brax’s size, she had to fight the urge to tense at the sudden intrusion.
Brax pulled his face away and stared down at her, a look of awe in his glowing eyes as they bounced across her face. His lips parted then closed.
He didn’t need to say a word; she felt it, too.
That connection between them, the bond, it was instantly strengthened the moment he entered her. She could only wonder how much stronger it would be if he were able to bite her, to mark her as his, the way he’d explained a few nights ago.
Never in her life had she thought something like that would be appealing. She belonged to no one, least of all a man. But with Brax, she wanted nothing more than to show the world they were together, that her heart, mind, and body were solely his.
With a nod, she wrapped her fingers in his hair and pulled him down to her, wrapping her legs around his waist to encourage him to move. She needed him to move. She needed a release from the pressure building low in her belly.
She nodded so he’d know she knew what he was feeling. So he would know she wanted this. So he’d know she was his, she was giving herself to him freely.
His lips still on hers, he moved his hips in tantalizingly slow circles, his weight held on his elbows that bracketed her face.
Campbell wasn’t small, not compared to other women. But Brax made her feel petite with his height and bulk of muscles. She trailed her fingers along his back, reveling in the way the muscles there bunched and released with each slow thrust.
Soon, though, those slow movements increased. Her moans mixed with his, a sheen developed on his back and chest as he lifted himself onto his hands, looking into her eyes as he pumped into her.
She was so close. So freaking close.
“Brax,” she moaned out.
Brax lifted onto his knees, hooking hers over his elbows to open her more for him, and thrust harder, faster, until that pressure exploded, sending tiny fireworks off behind her closed eyelids.
He only lasted a few more minutes before he fell over the edge with her, calling out her name a half second before pulling from her and releasing on her stomach.
That should’ve been gross. Instead, there was some inner instinct that told her she’d been marked as his in another way.
****
Brax’s heart felt like it would burst from his chest and he was sucking air like he was a fish out of water.
And it wasn’t only from making love to Campbell.
As he gently lowered her legs to the mattress and glanced down at her body, he realized he’d spilled on her stomach. He’d had enough forethought to not release inside of her and risk getting her pregnant.
But he’d also marked her with his scent.
Did she know what that meant? Could she possibly understand what carrying his scent meant?
It was the only way he could mark her since he couldn’t bite her. And it would be fleeting, temporary. Within a day or two and after a few showers, it would fade. His panther purred then switched to snarling inside his head at that realization. There was an instant need to cover her with his scent, to rub against her, to make sure any and every male in the area knew she was off limits, that she was his and his alone.
Campbell’s eyes opened and leveled on him. A slow smile bloomed on her face as she held her arms out to him, beckoning him down.
“Let me get a towel and clean you up,” he said, scooting backward toward the end of the bed.
“Won’t it help if it stays longer?” she asked, her brows pinching together even though her smile never faded. She looked high, like she was still riding the endorphins from her orgasm.
Manly pride rushed his system as he realized how hard her core had clenched around him when he’d brought her to the edge and led her over until she was crying out his name.
“What?”
She waved toward the mess on her belly. “Won’t it make the smell last longer or whatever if you leave it for a few minutes?”
He felt his brows shoot up to his hairline and his eyes go wide. She knew what that meant and she wasn’t pissed?
“Yeah. It will.”
“Why do you look freaked out now?” she asked, her smile falling.
He quickly wiped the look from his face and moved closer to her, stretching out beside her and rolling so he was facing her.
“I’m not freaked out. Just…surprised. You know what that means?” he said, doing as she had done and waving his hand toward the moisture on her stomach.
Campbell shrugged up her shoulders. “I mean, not at first. I figured you didn’t want to knock me up. Although I still think we need to use a rubber in case –”
“I can’t carry diseases. Shifters don’t get sick. And we can’t carry anything.”
“Still. I don’t want to risk a baby. We barely know each other. And I’m not sure I want to be a mother. Not with all the shit going on in the world,” she admitted, her eyes darting away before returning to his face.
Brax had always pictured himself as a father, but totally understood her fears. If they had a daughter, like the wolves in Big River, they would always have to watch over them, they’d live in fear every single day of their lives that some asshole would come for them simply because they were born female.
“Was I right? Did you mark me in your own way?”
“Yeah,” he said, his heart kicking up again.
“Because you can’t bite me.”
“How did you know, though? I don’t think we’ve ever talked about that before,” Brax said, reaching forward to push a strand of hair from her face.
Her shoulders shrugged up again. “I don’t know. It was like…I don’t know. I just knew. That sounds weird.”
“It’s the bond,” Brax said softly.
It was common for Shifters to feel the others’ emotions, though nothing like Noah from Blackwater had with his mate who happened to be a Fairy. No. It was more primal than that. It was a deep connection, what humans called being soul mates. It was n
o different than knowing what the other one was thinking by a simple look.
She nodded, her head still on the pillow. As she’d done a few moments ago, she reached her arms toward him. How the hell could he turn that down?
Scooting forward, Brax laid his head on Campbell’s breasts and sighed as she combed her fingers through his now tangled hair. He stared down at his seed on her belly and felt instant peace. She was his. She’d accepted him. She’d accepted the bond.
“I thought it would piss you off,” he said into the quiet of the room.
Campbell’s heart thumped softly against his ear through her chest. She was silent for so long he wondered if she’d fallen asleep. Just as he moved to sit up and roll off of her, she tightened her arms around him.
“I guess it should. It doesn’t, though. You might understand all of this, but I don’t. But I haven’t felt this…” She trailed off as she tried to come up with the right word.
“At peace?” he suggested. The same thing he felt in Campbell’s arms.
“Exactly. Like, I’m just now waking up from a dream or something. Like nothing was real until tonight.”
She went quiet again, her fingers slowly combing through his long hair. “What would’ve happened if I’d told you to hit the bricks?” she asked.
Brax pulled back and looked into her eyes. “Do you really want to know?” Because he really didn’t want to tell her. He would never force her to stay with him. If at some point she decided his world was too much, he’d let her walk away. It would kill him, but he would let her go.
She nodded, her eyes roaming his face as if trying to memorize every line.
It had only been a week since they’d spent time together. Or barely over a week. They’d only known each other for just over three. Yet, she was already his entire world. While she was trying to memorize every line of his face, he’d had hers burned into his mind from day one.
“When a Shifter is denied his true mate, he – or she – goes insane. Not right away. It’s usually the same grieving process humans go through. But over time, the Shifter goes feral. And some have had to be put down.”
Campbell’s breath hitched and her eyes glimmered with unshed tears.
“That would’ve happened to you?”
He loved that she was fully accepting of the bond, that she understood what was happening between them was far more than a crush or even falling in love. Although the love part would still come. It always did.
“Yeah,” he said after a few minutes of hesitation.
Campbell pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it. “What would happen if I was killed hunting the Rogues?”
Pain lanced through his heart so fast it took his breath. That wasn’t something he could ever think about. He had thought about it, of course. It was his greatest fear, even from that first night.
“I’d follow you as soon as I could,” he admitted.
Her lips popped open and a tear trailed down her temple to soak into the pillow. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.”
She sat up, scrubbing the palm of her hand across the wetness, and searched for her clothes in the dark room. She was shutting him out. He could see it in her eyes.
“Camp –”
“No. Brax, listen. I know you said you wouldn’t try to stop me from going after those assholes, but my death is a very real possibility. I can’t worry that you’ll end your own life if something ever happened to me. I can’t have that on my conscience.”
Shit. He should’ve kept his fucking mouth shut. Why the hell had he admitted that to her? Why the hell hadn’t he made some shit up, lied to her to keep her in her blissful state?
Because he couldn’t lie to her. He’d never been a good liar to begin with, but he couldn’t lie to Campbell.
Her movements were jerky as she tugged on her underwear then grabbed a pair of sweats and t-shirt from her dresser, yanking those on next. And then she left him lying in her bed alone as she pulled her bedroom door open and headed into the living room.
The front door opened and closed. Brax hoped she’d taken Polo for a walk. She wasn’t dressed the way he’d seen her before when she went hunting, so he knew at least she was safe for now.
His first instinct was to get dressed and chase after her, make her listen to him. But he’d give her time, let her work through this on her own. But should he stay in her home or head back to his and give her space. In the movies, the girls tended to like when men chased after them to plead their case. But Campbell wasn’t like that. She said what she thought, and meant what she said at all times. She wasn’t one to send mixed signals or play games.
So, he pulled on his clothes and wandered into the empty living room and waited.
At first, Brax paced the living room, occasionally glancing through the front window. Campbell hadn’t left; she was sitting on the front porch with Polo wearing only the t-shirt, no jacket. It was cold for a human outside. March was just around the corner, but the end of February in the Midwest could be frigid, as it was tonight. The temperatures had dipped noticeably since they’d left Big River territory.
After a while, his protective instincts kicked in. He had to make sure she was warm. Even if she didn’t want to talk to him, he had to make sure she had something to cover her bare arms. He didn’t really know where she kept anything, so he grabbed the blanket from the back of the couch and carried it outside, making sure his car keys and phone were in his pockets. He planned to head home and let her work through whatever had caused her mood change alone. She’d reach out to him when she was ready.
Stepping outside, his heart splintered when she stiffened but didn’t look over her shoulder at him. Just kept watching forward with Polo sitting at her feet on the top stair.
Brax draped the crocheted blanket around her shoulders, then descended the stairs, making himself refrain from looking back. He didn’t want her to see the fear and pain he knew was plain on his face.
“Brax,” she said softly.
He halted his steps but didn’t turn.
“I wanted this to work. But…I can’t handle the thought of your life ending because something happened to me. I think it’s better this way. We’ll stay friends. That’s all.”
This time, Brax did look back at her. Friends. He’d still have her in his life, but not the way he wanted, not the way he needed.
Would that be enough to keep his animal settled? Or would he sink into a downward spiral, one of which he could never climb free?
With a nod, Brax turned and walked with leaden steps toward his car. Every inch of his body felt heavy and his heart hurt. He’d thought he knew heartbreak. Anything he’d gone through in the past paled in comparison to the pain he felt walking away from Campbell and realizing he’d lost the most important person in the same day he’d finally and fully had her.
Chapter Eleven
Campbell sat on the porch and watched as Brax took jerky steps toward his Camaro. Did he realize she was doing this to protect him? It had nothing to do with how she felt about him. It had been one of the hardest damn things she’d ever done.
If it was the right decision, why the hell did it hurt so bad?
“Brax,” she called out. He stopped walking but didn’t look at her. “I wanted this to work. But…I can’t handle the thought of your life ending because something happened to me. I think it’s better this way. We’ll stay friends. That’s all.”
If they stayed friends, he’d still technically have his mate in his life. That should keep him from going crazy. Or feral, as he’d called it. But the thought of him doing something to get himself killed if something happened to her…that wasn’t something she could handle. Losing Caren had almost killed her. It had turned her into a completely different person than the quiet insurance office manager she’d been before her nightmare had begun.
It had also sent her to a dark place. She knew all too well what losing someone you loved could do to a person. And she didn’t want to do that to Brax. She knew
her life would eventually end if she continued going after the Rogues, the traffickers, the evil fucks who’d caused Caren’s death along with numerous others.
He didn’t turn back. Didn’t say anything. But his shoulders seemed to hunch forward and he dropped his head with a heavy sigh. And then he got into his Camaro and backed out of her driveway, his look lingering on her for a moment before he put the vehicle into gear and drove out of the mobile home park.
And that was it. He hadn’t begged. Hadn’t argued. Hadn’t dropped to his knees and cried or yelled or demanded an explanation.
I’ll never take what you don’t give.
He’d said that to her when she was half asleep. And he’d said more than once he’d never force anything on her, and that included a relationship with him.
Tears burned the back of her eyes when she could no longer hear the rumble of the Camaro. The silence was like death, like the final moment of what they could have been. And it hurt. It hurt more than any relationship she’d ever ended.
“Come on, honey,” she said to Polo, pushing to her feet and heading inside. There was no longer any reason to hide out on the porch. Her house was empty again. The way it had been since she’d moved in. The way it would stay.
Campbell moved through her house slowly, dreading going to bed. She’d only had one night with him, yet it had meant more than a thousand nights with anyone else.
“Dammit,” she muttered as she forced her feet to carry her forward.
She couldn’t stay out here and sulk. Only, the second she stepped into her room she was overcome with Brax’s smell. It was all over her bed, all over the sheets. She was half tempted to change the bedding but decided she’d at least give herself one more night. She’d take him as far into her core as she could. She hadn’t even cleaned off her stomach after he’d finished on her. Just pulled a shirt on when she’d more or less run away from her fear of his death because of her.
Polo hopped up onto his side of the bed and settled in. But Campbell couldn’t make herself lie down.
