by Jayla Kane
It’s intimate to want someone to belong to you. To command them to tell you that they belong to you.
But was it also wrong?
Fuck.
The whole thing confused me. She wasn’t upset about it, I didn’t think—would she be tomorrow, though? Would she think of it as a violation, a way to possess her that came too close to…
My chest ached. The idea of hurting her made me clench my teeth, and when she stirred next to me I realized I needed to calm down so I wouldn’t wake her. I tucked her under my chin, holding her close, and listened to her untroubled breathing.
I was so in love with her that it made me crazy. Was that her theory?
I wasn’t a fan, if it was.
Nothing excused risking the bond we had—nothing. I was shaken by how deep I’d gone, how far—when she was under me, when I was inside of her, I wasn’t aware of anything but she and I. Baby and me. Our flesh, one flesh, all the biblical shit my dad used to rant about when he got drunk and had a go at Molly, before I beat some sense back into him.
Was that it? I couldn’t protect her when I was like that. That was the price, I suddenly realized, of real intimacy. I was vulnerable.
Jesus Christ—what if she said she wasn’t mine? What would I have done?
I bit my tongue.
I knew I wouldn’t have hurt her. But I for damn sure could have wolfed out, changed while I was still inside of her, jumped through the damn window and never come back. I could’ve really lost my mind…
I swallowed the blood in my mouth and thought about it. I don’t think I would’ve, I realized; for one thing… I instinctively knew what she would say. I wouldn’t have gone there with anyone else. I couldn’t.
Because she was all I loved. Only her.
And I would never do something that would hurt her—the moment I felt a shred of resistance, I would stop, and I knew it. I loved her in a way that shaped my soul, my very existence.
I was not my father.
I shifted so that Baby was resting on my arm and stared out at the moon, wondering what the rest of the wolves were doing tonight, stuffed full of fried chicken and done with the witches in their midst. I was surprised to recognize a little bit of longing in me; now that I was sated, that I’d been with my love, a part of me wanted to go out and roam around in the dark. It was a strange feeling, because the—
What the fuck was that?
I sat up in the bed, gently pushing Baby aside so I could peek behind the curtain without being noticed. I stared out at the dark night, waiting for what felt like an eternity; there was another wolf out there. Just one.
I stood as still as one of the pines and waited, watching the gloom with my eyes black as pitch, the shadows peeling into separate shapes as my pupil overtook my eye and sharpened my night vision.
I didn’t want to leave the room; a part of me thought I should get dressed and head out, but then I realized I didn’t feel cold. Not the way I usually did. I felt like… I felt like I could walk right out into the snow and run a couple of miles then come back and be with her again. More than once. Something besides the adrenaline prickled through me, something… It was magic, sure, but it wasn’t the witch magic I’d grown used to without realizing it. This was from the wolves.
I stood, watched, and waited, my claws out, my body ready for another fight.
I stood there for an hour.
And then I saw their eyes, just once, glinting from under the tree. The wolf blinked out at me—blinked, not staring, not… Challenging. As if it was on guard. As if it were just checking in with me, letting me know the perimeter was secure—I could feel what it was trying to tell me, as insane as that sounds, as if we had some kind of telepathic bond. Its eyes were darker than the other wolves, but still had that phosphorescent sheen that made them easy to track in the dark; it was taller, too, than all but that massive black wolf. I wondered if I’d recognize them the next time I came out at Moondown.
Because, suddenly, I realized I would come out at the next Moondown.
Not to fight. I was done with that. I didn’t want to challenge the other wolves for a position, and they knew it; they also knew I’d fight for them, that when the time came—when their enemies came, or mine—we’d fight together. And I was where I was supposed to be. Somehow. Buckeye was the place where I was supposed to end up, all along.
The wolf with the violet eyes backed into the trees and vanished; I never saw more than the shine of its gaze in the moonlight, but once it stepped away I went back and laid next to the beautiful woman in my bed, the one I would die for, kill for, live for. I pulled her into my arms and let myself absorb the complete, complex scent of her, of us, my body able, for the first time, to accept what I’d become.
And not hate it.
I slept until morning, Baby pressed tight against the heart that belonged to her, and dreamed of nothing but her exquisite face.
Chapter Eighteen
Baby
So.
That was sex.
I got it now; I got why Raven was all of a sudden a chipper go-getter, why she and Jake went all gross and gooey while they talked in the privacy of her head. I understood my mother a little better too. She was certainly never one to walk away from some good D-with-a-capital-D, and now I got it. I did. The world seemed bigger to me, but smaller at the same time; I felt like a part of it in a way I wasn’t before, although I wasn’t entirely sure why. And I couldn’t say without any doubt that it was because I just had back-breaking, deep-digging, incredible sex with a man who looked like he’d walked straight out of my sweetest dreams, or because I was in love with him.
Because that remained between us, around us; I loved him.
I didn’t open my eyes when I woke up, but I knew he could tell I was awake. He nuzzled my forehead, wrapping thick arms tighter around my body, and I felt the whole length of us, my entire torso and his entire torso, pressed against one another so closely I could feel the ridges of his scars when he breathed. I let him kiss my cheeks, my jaw, then my throat; I felt it when he shifted and his hard, needy body moved against mine. I opened my legs and slid him inside with nothing more than an arch of my back, and I came for him again, slow and sweet, before I even saw the daylight.
Hunter and I kissed for most of an hour afterward. I could probably spend a couple weeks doing that, the way he threatened to eat my ass for days. He just… It’s so hard to understand what was happening, but I didn’t care, didn’t need to. Logic didn’t really matter in the bubble that we inhabited once we touched one another. I knew I didn’t know him—not like you’re supposed to, I guess, when you tell someone ‘I’m in love with you.’ Not like my mom’s self-help books suggested, not according to Zelle and Charlie and Raven and virtually every single one of the girls on the squad that I thought might know what they were talking about. But I did. I knew him, and I loved him.
When we finally pulled apart, hesitant to leave one another, my stomach rumbled before I could dive back in to his kiss. The smile that lit his eyes was breath-taking; Hunter is a lot of things, but peaceful is not one of them. And that’s what he looked like in that moment: a man finally at peace.
Again: was it the sex? Or love?
He never said…
“Pancakes?” He gently kissed me as he murmured in my ear, his hands sliding over my skin. “Bacon, eggs?” He brushed the hair back from my face and kissed me again, his mouth tender against mine. “I can go get some doughnuts—”
“So romantic,” I whispered, and he chuckled and wrapped me up in his arms, pulling me into his lap as he sat up and tucked my hair behind my ears. His eyes ran all over my body and face, here and there and everywhere, and it was impossible not to feel completely adored in that moment.
And then my stomach rumbled again. “Come on, sugar,” he said, and I reluctantly flopped onto the bed when he slid out from beneath me and stood up. I rolled onto my side and enjoyed the view when he walked away, completely naked, off through the house.
> “I thought it was a crime against common sense to cook naked?” I followed him after I pulled one of his t-shirts over my head, and when he turned around and saw me in it his smile lit up his whole face. Very cute, I thought, surprised by how guileless his enjoyment was. Hunter just liked seeing me in his shirt, and he didn’t hesitate to show me. It was weird how that struck me—the simple happiness he had when we shared something so small.
So many of my relationships looked dumb in retrospect now.
So did my cynicism. But I guess it served me well, if I ended up here.
“Sure it is.” He turned back to me and raised an elegant eyebrow. “When you don’t know what the hell you’re doing,” he said quietly, letting his gaze flicker over my legs and then back up to my face one more time; then efficiency took over, and he got down to business. Hunter probably needs to eat more than the average person to begin with, given he’s about twice their size and uses a ton of calories doing things like cutting down trees and hauling tires. He turned to the stove and started pulling things out of the fridge, my view of his muscular body completely free of all that pesky clothing. Here was my anatomy lesson, I thought, feeling my jaw go a bit slack as I took it all in and plopped down in a chair. Damn.
He was just… Gorgeous. Truly. He was absolutely beautiful, from the top of his dark head to the arch of his foot. In this light, I could see a hint of red to the hair that ran from his navel down; I could see all of his scars, and there were a hell of a lot more than I’d noticed before. I could see the indent of his muscles where they met over his spine, the dim coffee color of the skin of his long thighs, the shadows and shapes of his most private places, all laid out there for me to see. Hunter is kind of shy, but in a reversal of the way most people work; he hides every emotion, so much so that those beautiful little smiles of his can light up my whole world like a sky full of stars… And then he can walk around naked without a second thought. Maybe a lifetime in locker rooms will do that. I don’t know.
He made us a completely ridiculous breakfast and set it on the table, then proceeded to eat enough for at least three men. I watched him, putting my fork down, and when he dabbed the corner of his mouth with a napkin after he was finally done I couldn’t help but laugh. He waggled his eyebrows in what I would previously have thought was a very un-Hunter-like way and chugged half a carton of orange juice, then stood up and stretched.
I didn’t think the view could get better, but…
And then his eyes strayed over me and snagged on something, and his whole demeanor changed. His head tilted, his eyes grew slightly darker, and I held still when he came towards me on silent feet and leaned down to inspect something. “Sugar,” I said finally, batting him away and peering up at his face, “what? What is it?”
“A bruise,” he said quietly, and then started to back away.
“Hey,” I said, reaching out and grasping his hand, “that’s not, like, a surprise, is it? We… I mean, we were both pretty into it, weren’t we?” All the light was gone from his face, his whole body. His eyes faded back to the beautiful shade I loved so much, but something was wrong. I laced our fingers together while he glanced down at our hands. “Hey. Babe. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he said immediately, and I frowned up at him.
“Come on,” I said, unable to keep the slightest quiver out of my voice. “Don’t be like that. It’s just a bruise,” I told him, then stood up and marched over to the bathroom to do a quick inspection. “Hunter,” I called, looking at the tiny purple mark on my throat, “this is nothing. Lindsey gave me a black eye last month when we screwed up a lift.” I stalked back to the living room and stared him down; it was true that he’d bitten me last night, but I didn’t care then and I sure as hell didn’t care now. His face was that blank, expressionless nothing I hated so much when I was back in the cell. “What the hell, Hunter? Come on, you’re being a drama queen.” It took me three seconds to heal it, once I actually concentrated. “See?”
That lit a little spark behind his eyes. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
“I just—” He stopped short, staring at me, then stalked over to the closet and found a pair of jeans, sitting down on the edge of the bed and yanking them over his feet like they’d personally offended him. But his face was blank, and he didn’t say anything else while I stood there in the doorway to the bathroom and watched him, getting more pissed by the second.
“Why aren’t you talking to me?” Something in my voice must have signaled to him that I wasn’t just irritated now, but upset, and when he finished putting his pants on and stood up, my heart stuttered when he bit his lip before meeting my eyes. I remembered him doing that a lot when we were in the cell. When I hated him.
When he hated himself.
“Hunter, please,” I said, and then I couldn’t stop myself from going over to him, wrapping my arms around his waist and scrutinizing his lovely face. His whole body melted against mine, pulling me tighter and tighter until I could feel his breath on my neck.
“I just don’t want to hurt you,” he finally said, his voice a low rumble. I leaned away and looked up at him again, deepening the frown on my own forehead as I took in his—unwarranted, I felt--concern. “That’s all.”
“That was a really severe reaction to a very small bruise, dude,” I told him, watching his eyebrow jump.
“Dude,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” I said flatly. “Dude. If you’re going to act like every other dickwad I’ve ever dated—” I stopped short as he released me and walked back over to the closet, rummaging for another shirt. “Here,” I snapped, ripping the one I was wearing over my head. “Take this one.” I flung it on the mattress as he turned around, his expression carefully blank. We regarded one another across the bed, both of us with our arms crossed. Not a good sign. “Is this really how you want to play it? You want to pull your super-stoic, strong-but-silent bullshit now? The first day after we—” I choked on the sudden tears that threatened behind my eyes.
“That’s not what I—”
“Yes it is!” I glared at him, furious that he’d reduced me to tears with the simple act of not talking. Just the absence of… Of that closeness, of his friendship—I’d come to rely on it so completely, so quickly, and here he was, pulling away already. “It’s just sex, Hunter! Don’t, don’t do this—”
“It’s just sex?” And now it was my turn to freeze, to take in the shock of pain that flashed across his face, there and gone again. He thumped down on the bed and yanked the shirt he’d pulled from the closet over his head, staring at nothing. When he started to get up I went over and stood in front of him, barring the way.
“Please don’t make me do this,” I whispered, and he glanced up at me, then away. “Hunter, this is fucking embarrassing,” I told him, unable to keep the tear that was tracking down my cheek from falling. “Please.”
He swallowed hard, watching that tear. “Baby, I just… I don’t know what you want me to say—”
“Literally anything,” I snapped, and his eyes flashed again as he sucked in a deep breath.
“How did this happen?” He studied my face, and I was startled by the pain in his eyes, there and gone again so fast, so expertly hidden I was sure no one else would have ever seen it. “I just… I don’t want to hurt you. That’s all. That’s not hard to understand.”
“I told you last night,” I said, plunking down next to him, “I’m not fragile, okay?” He said nothing and stared at the floor. “It’s sex, it’s not—”
“It’s just sex,” he said again, his voice dull, and I frowned and leaned into his shoulder. He didn’t yield, but I twisted my body and plopped my leg over one of his and tugged his arm around my shoulders, forcing him to hold me. He only resisted for a second.
“I didn’t… I meant that it wasn’t like you were trying to hurt me. You were… You were carried away, and—”
“I can’t get carried away with you,” he said bluntly, his eyes still on the floo
r.
“Not like, crazy,” I said, wishing he would look at me. “You were just… I mean, Hunter, you’re making a federal case out of a bruise the size of a nickel—for all we know, it was there before we got in the bed, okay?” He swallowed and shook his head. “Why can’t you let me decide whether or not to freak out about something happening to my body?” That got his attention. Finally. “Why do you get to be the decider of whether or not we freak out? You know my stupid power is going to heal it in ten minutes anyway.” And then I shut up, because there was an excellent chance that it actually was much worse before, if it was still here this morning.
Too late. From the look on his face, I realized I was just catching up to his thinking.
“I don’t understand my body like I used to,” he said finally, his voice little more than a rumble. “I’m… I don’t want to be—”
“I know what you don’t want to be,” I said, screwing my eyes shut, “and you’re not. There’s no mistaking you for someone else, okay?” I didn’t want to bring him into this, the fucker I’d finally escaped last night. I didn’t want him to matter any more.
But I was beginning to realize even if he might not matter to me, he might matter to Hunter.
“You know why I wanted to be with you while you were… While you wolfed out, right?” He didn’t say anything. “I know you do. I know you get it. I wanted my first time to be with you, first of all—I want you. I wanted to know it was you, to feel you, Hunter. And afterwards…” Ugh, how to explain? “I don’t care if it’s rough, if it’s you,” I said, and he finally looked at me, his pulse hammering in his throat. “Did you hear anything I said last night? I love you, okay? I love you.” He swallowed just as hard as he did last time, and I wished to god he would just let the words come out instead. “Hunter? You have to say something now,” I told him, unable to keep the tears at bay any longer. “It’s your turn, alright? Now you talk.” I shoved against his shoulder again, rocking my body back and forth, but this time he caught me and swung me around so we were face to face, my legs wrapped around his waist. Every other time we’d been in this position became a beautiful, sensual memory for me, but this time… His rough hands came up and cradled my face, and I sucked in a deep breath and gazed up at him. “You didn’t say it back,” I whispered, and his eyes widened in surprise. “You don’t get to be all weird, okay? I’m trying to be cool, to make this… Not such a huge fucking deal.” Because it was. It was everything.
