by Shannan Rhys
Aaron had been so kind. So quick to adopt her into his pack.
And yet, her feelings for Ash were sure and solid. They were undeniable.
The truck jolted and then stopped. Helena looked around, surprised to find they were already in town. Ash had parked in a little lot behind the café he’d claimed made the best waffles in the world.
The big picture windows were painted with murals of turkeys and pilgrims, even though it was nearly seventy degrees right now and the people leaving the restaurant were wearing shorts and flip flops. Autumn in Texas was like a roller coaster at a Six Flags amusement park—up down and all around, never staying in one place for very long. Most of the time it was still summer right up until it was winter.
Ash walked around the hood of the truck and opened the door for her, offering her a hand as she stepped down. His touch sent desire flaring through her body, but she tamped it down. She needed to talk first. They needed to talk. She only hoped he would give her another chance.
“Thank you,” she whispered as he released her hand and closed the truck door. He snaked an arm around her waist and tugged her along the sidewalk toward the restaurant’s entrance. But he didn’t speak. His mind and emotions were still awash with the same hurt and disappointment she’d sensed back at the ranch.
The hostess sat them in a booth by the window. Helena sat first and Ash sank into the bench across from her. He seemed distant, wrapped up in his thoughts and worries.
“So, the best waffles on the planet, huh?” she asked, raising a brow, hoping to engage him in conversation.
“Definitely.”
She opened the menu. “What kind do you get?”
“I’ll order for you. Get you the best ones.”
The stilted, uneasy conversation was making her crazy. She put her menu down and looked at him. There were so many things she wanted to say. But she couldn’t find the right words. It felt like there was a gulf between them—something she’d realized all too clearly upon seeing his easiness with Luke VonBrandt’s mate. They’d been so open with each other that first night, if only…
Jump in and be brave, Helena. It’s the only way.
“So, you called Kara a moon widow, I’ve never heard that term before.”
Ash’s eyebrows rose slightly. “There were a pile of them at the ranch house last night. All of them are humans mated to wolves. They sit together for the runs. At least that’s what I gathered between the clinking wine glasses.”
“Oh, I see.” Helena bit her lip, a little jealous that Ash had spent the entire evening with a houseful of women. It was ridiculous. They were all mated.
“Why didn’t you know what they were? The moon widows, I mean,” he asked, keeping his voice low as he sipped on his water.
“I don’t. I mean, we don’t…” She took a deep breath and looked up into Ash’s blue eyes. “There are no moon widows in El Paso. They’re not allowed.”
“Not allowed?” he asked, his expression darkening. “How can one pack be so different from another?”
Helena shook her head. “We’ve always been a small, tightly knit pack. People who marry out never come back. And people who marry in are always wolves. Never humans. Ever. Except for my mother and father. They broke the rules. They challenged my grandfather and—”
Ash just sat there quietly. He didn’t goad or push. He just waited for her to tell him what she needed to tell him.
She took a sip of water the waitress had already dropped at the table. “There are things I should’ve told you. Things about my parents.” She rubbed a stripe in the condensation on the glass. “My parents love and hate each other in the same breath. They stayed together, outside the pack, until I graduated high school. When I chose to live and work on the ranch, my dad moved back, too. My mother gave up on me, and we’ve barely spoken since. The pack always excluded her. Was mean to her. They met and mated in the space of a weekend…without telling his father.”
“Your grandfather?” Ash muttered.
Helena nodded. “My dad’s the only person in the El Paso pack to have defied tradition like that. And my parents have paid for it over and over and over.” She wiped a stray tear from her cheek and pasted on a smile as the waitress approached.
“What can I get for you two today?”
“Two plates of the original blueberry waffles,” Ash said, pasting on his own fake smile for the waitress’s benefit. “Thank you.”
“Perfect. I’ll have those out for you in a just a minute.” She scratched the order down on her pad and left the table with quick nod.
“The thing is…I was trying to protect you. Both of us, really. You have a life here. I have—well, had—to stay with my pack in El Paso, and my pack would’ve hated you. Been cruel to you like they were to my mother and father. I didn’t want to ruin your life.”
“So, you protected me…by…letting some random guy put his hand on your boobs and your ass? Or is there another mate I should know about out there?” There was so much hurt underneath his words, and Helena shook her head, trying to understand what he was saying.
“I didn’t let some random guy—” She snapped her mouth shut. Oh, wait. Except… “Did you feel that?”
His jaw dropped open, hanging there, but he didn’t say anything. Then he licked his lips and met her eyes. “Woke me up out of a dead sleep.”
Helena snapped her mouth shut and wiped away another errant tear. “I’m so sorry I hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you. That was me trying to forget you and find a wolf to be with. The guy…Adam…he’s Aaron’s brother…he was trying to help me.”
“By copping a feel?”
“He was trying to help me figure out if we had a mate bond.” She shook her head. “It was less than nothing. It only proved that you were the only one for me. No one else. But I felt I had to try with the wolves, for my grandfather—”
“No one else?” Ash asked slowly. He looked like someone awakening from a nap. “No one else but me. Is that what you’re saying? That you want me?”
Helena covered her mouth to stifle a sob. “Gods, Ash, I’ve wanted you from that very first moment in the bar. And then I realized I had to protect you from my grandfather…from my pack…from myself. I love you so much. But I didn’t think I could have you.”
She could feel hope rising like the sun inside him. “But you can. Aaron fixed it. Their pack allows humans. And even if they didn’t, I would be a wolf for you, Helena.”
A wolf? Helena pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. She’d love for Ash to be a wolf, for them to take runs together, but he wasn’t. And why would he ever think that was possible? People couldn’t just be changed into wolves. Didn’t everybody know that?
Ash pulled out his wallet and tossed a few bills on the table before he stood. He grabbed her hand and pulled her up from her seat. His mouth descended onto hers like a starving predator that’d just caught its supper. The salt of her tears mixed with the sweet taste of his mouth. Warm. Safe. She belonged to him. And she loved that feeling, especially after the empty gulf she’d experienced this morning when her grandfather took away the alpha bond. When she thought about it, she’d never really felt a sense of belonging with the Quades. Now she had Ash, and the future felt like a wide expanse of possibilities.
“Come on,” he whispered. “We’re leaving.”
“What about the waffles?”
“I’ll make you something at the house,” he said against her lips.
“Get a room, kids,” someone shouted from across the restaurant.
Ash’s mouth curved into a grin against hers. “Guess we should stop making out in the middle of the diner.”
“They’re just jealous,” Helena whispered.
“Truthfact,” Ash chuckled. He grabbed her hand and hauled her out of the restaurant and back to the truck. His mouth was on her again before they got the door open. Her back hit the side with a thud and she wrapped a leg around his hip, arching so that every inch of her was pressed agai
nst him. She wanted him inside her, but that would have to wait. Having sex in public wasn’t on any of her lists.
“Would that help?” Ash asked, pulling his lips off her neck. “Would it make it easier if I were a wolf?”
“I-I—I’ve always wanted a wolf mate, Ash, but you’re human. Humans can’t just choose to be wolves.”
“Tonya said there’s a spell that you can use to turn a man into a wolf—”
“Wait.” She put her hand up. “What are you talking about?”
“It only works on men or something. I tried to listen to everything she said, but there was so much coming at me from so many directions. But I can do this. Whatever you need.”
“I…I…I need to think.” Helena shook her head, trying to process what she’d just heard. Men becoming wolves? “I didn’t realize…”
She looked up at him. Is that really what I want? Do I want to be a wolf?
“You don’t need to make a snap decision, babe. We have all the time you need,” Ash said, kissing her neck again and cupping her breast through the tank top. Her nipples peaked instantly and her entire lower body ached with need.
“Damn, I can literally feel your response to me.” He pulled in a ragged breath. “The way you’re coiling up on the inside. It’s like it’s happening to me too.”
Helena could feel Ash’s arousal too. The hard erection throbbing between his legs. His desire to take her right there and then. “Not here.” She put a hand on his chest. “I want you so much, but not out here. Take me to your bed, Ash.”
He crushed his mouth against hers one more time, thrusting his tongue deep and tasting all of her. She briefly considered revoking her public sex ban, but then he opened the truck and lifted her up into the passenger seat, breaking their kiss.
“I need to be naked in your bed, right now,” she gasped when he climbed into the cab behind the steering wheel. She wanted to taste him. To feel him inside her. To be in his arms. Even the few minutes it would take to get to his house would seem like an eternity.
“Hold that thought,” he said with a wide grin, all for her.
He was so beautiful with those big dimples and sparkling blue eyes. He wanted her, still, after everything he’d seen and been through. Hell, he was willing to become a wolf.
For her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ash was hard the entire ride home—which thankfully only took about thirty seconds, though that half a minute certainly felt like an eternity. He kept his hand entwined with hers, just in case she forgot how much he wanted her. How much he’d always wanted her.
There was something so intoxicating about Helena, he couldn’t even stop thinking about having sex with her for the whole seven seconds he could usually repress sex thoughts. It was nonstop, this desire to have her. If this was a Fated-mate thing, he’d take it.
He ran inside, tugging her along. They didn’t stop at the front door this time, even though part of him kind of wanted to for nostalgia’s sake. He locked it behind him, and they made a beeline for the bedroom. She’d asked for the bed—she was gonna get the bed.
Once they were inside his bedroom, Helena jumped on him. Literally. Her legs straddled his hips before he could even get the bedroom door closed. He laughed into her lips as she kissed him.
There was absolutely nothing hotter in the world than a woman who was this ready to have sex with him. And on Helena, it was just about mind blowing. Add on to that the heady feeling-her-feelings-and-his cyclone, and the desire pulsing through him made his mind spin.
“Just give me a second here, girl,” he said, pulling her to the floor with a deep breath. “You move like that on me, and I’m gonna be done before we get started.”
“Oh, now…we don’t want that…” She backed up, yanking off her black tank top to reveal she wasn’t wearing a bra, and he saw those tattoos spiraling up either the side of her body. Dammit. He wanted her even more, something he hadn’t thought possible.
He groaned, watching her hips undulate as she brought her pants down. She backed all the way to his bed, slinking onto her back and holding out her hand for him. Ash pulled off his shirt and shrugged out of his pants in record time. But there was such fire in her eyes, he couldn’t finish undressing either of them. He had to have his lips on her.
Ash placed a kiss on the edge of one tattoo and made his way up the side of her body, loving her shuddering sighs as he did.
“Oh, Ash,” she whispered, letting her legs slip apart to welcome him between them. His boxer-clad erection rubbed against her wet panties, and Helena gasped so loud, he wanted to keep doing it just to hear that sound again.
But he couldn’t. He needed to be inside her.
Ash climbed down her body, kissing as he went, and pulled her panties down, heading straight for her clitoris. He had Googled this shit yesterday. Spreading her lips apart, he found the plump little bud, just like the Men’s Health article had said he would. Her entire body tensed and she cried out.
Bingo.
He’d done a lot of oral sex in the past with a wink and a prayer, having learned enough from conversations with his friends to be passably good. But he knew that the more aroused she was, the more likely she would have an orgasm with him inside her, and that was happening. Dammit. Right now.
Ash lapped at her little bud with gentle strokes, sliding one finger inside her and stroking her. Helena’s hands were in his hair, and she was curling up on herself, trying to move him. He let her guide his tongue exactly where she wanted it, and when he reached that spot, she screamed. Not an orgasm yet, but a cry of pure pleasure.
He smiled up at her, watching her eyes roll back in her head. Oh, yeah. That’s it.
These dudes at Men’s Health. They knew their shit.
He varied the movements of his tongue, first on one side of the little, erect bundle of nerves, and then on the other. He tried harder pressure and she wheezed out his name, then he backed off, giving her room to build a little.
“Please, Ash,” she panted, pulling on the ends of his hair. “I need you to be inside me. I need it now.”
“Anything for the lady,” he said with a smile, kissing his way back up her body, but she pulled him up so fast, and took his lips in such a ferocious kiss, it made him impossibly harder. He shimmied out of his boxers and reached over into his nightstand drawer.
She stopped his hand, meeting his eyes. “I don’t want you to use a condom, Ash. I need to feel you. All of you.”
He smiled and kissed her forehead, continuing his reach. “That’s not what I’m reaching for, babe.”
Her shock was visible, like she expected him to get out a toy or something. But no. Just something every dude kept by his bed. He squirted some lube into his hand and knelt over her, wiping the lube all over the head of his now-rock-hard dick. Her eyes on his cock just about made him come right then and there, but he was so careful not to apply too much pressure. This was for her. Just on the end.
Ash held himself as he guided his erection toward her entrance. He paused to rub his dick on her clitoris, giving the little bud some of the safe lubricant.
“Aaahhhhh,” she gasped, grabbing his shoulders. “Babe, what are you doing?”
“Trust me,” he said, slowly. “I want you to come while I’m inside you. This is how.”
“Ash,” she groaned, as he slid to the hilt into her wet heat. “Oh, fuck.”
The sound of that crude word on her lips threatened to drive him to the edge—and over it—and he hadn’t even managed a full stroke yet. He dragged his pelvis forward, grinding against her clitoris, and he felt her insides coil up, like she was on the precipice of something incredible.
So he pulled back, stroking into her tightness with short thrusts, trying to keep her on the edge.
“I take it you like that,” he whispered against her neck, and she shuddered his name on a broken breath. She was feeling such intense pleasure, it made her wordless—and he could feel her pleasure and his. Fuck. So hot. His balls tig
htened.
“Oh, Ash,” she breathed out again. “I’m going to come.”
“Yes, you are.” He thrust deep into her, hard and fast, dragging himself up on his elbows so he could make more pelvic contact with her enflamed little clit. She panted—actually fuckin’ panted—his name, and that sent him over the edge.
He kissed her throat, stroking deep, and whispered, “Now, come for me, my girl.”
Her breath hitched, and she screamed, the most breathy, sensual scream he could have imagined. He released himself into her, pouring his hot seed as deep as he could thrust. Wanting to give her everything. She tightened around him and he lost his ability to think or move. This woman. She was his everything.
Ash collapsed on top of her, continuing to drag himself against her clitoris. He wanted her to keep coming. Wanted her never to forget this moment. Because he wouldn’t.
Her hips gyrated against his, and he felt aftershocks continue to pull at her. Her orgasm was so different from his, but so powerful. Feeling them both together just about made him pass out.
“God, woman,” he whispered against her neck, frozen. “I love you.”
“I love you, Ash.” She tightened her legs around his hips and his heart felt like it would burn straight through him, into her, and into the earth. She loved him. She wanted him more than anything else. He could feel the truth of it.
She wrapped her arms around him and held him close. He breathed against the skin of her neck, and she planted an open-mouthed kiss on him. He couldn’t quite catch his breath.
“That was some good Googling,” he groaned. “Right?”
“Oh, is that what they call it?”
He chuckled, still not able to breathe normal. “The research, woman. Google.”
“Ask me how much I love it that you Googled how to give me an orgasm like that,” she said in a low voice, the edge of tears in her tone.
Ash gathered all his energy and pulled back to look in her eyes. There were tears there. He rolled to one side so he could meet her gaze without having to use any of his muscles—he still wasn’t there yet.
