by Lauren Esker
"And is that who you are—a person with no romance in your soul?" Damon asked quietly, gazing down into the bottomless depths of her blue eyes. "Is that what you want—a quick civil ceremony and a lifetime of farm work?"
"No," she whispered, and then more firmly, "No. I want—I want moonlight and roses and all the rest of it."
Damon's mouth quirked wryly. "And maybe I need the kind of stability that a down-to-earth sheep can provide. My home life hasn't always been the most comfortable or happy."
He hadn't meant to say that, and regretted it immediately, but Julie's only reaction was to gently touch his lips with her fingertips. "I know," she said softly. "I saw."
What she'd seen that night in the woods was only the tip of the family iceberg, but she knew more than anyone else outside the family. His dark family secrets were not a secret from her, and sudden relief broke over him like a wave. But he couldn't allow himself to be washed away by emotion now. Not yet. "Then you understand what you'll be getting yourself into. Julie, you're my mate. I can feel it growing between us. If you allow yourself to give in to it, what you'll get is me—all of me. The good and the bad, and the dysfunctional family too."
"Then I want it," she said immediately. "I've never wanted anything more. You don't have to be alone anymore, Damon."
Tears prickled the corners of his eyes. Ruthlessly, he trampled his emotions. "Just let me finish. Right now, if we try, we can both walk away from it." Grief nearly choked him at the thought, but he forced himself onward. "It might be hard, and we might regret it always, but we can do it. If we make love, though, it will complete the bond. There's no walking away after that. You'll be mine, and I'll be yours—forever."
Julie took his hand in her small, square one, and pressed it against her chest. Beneath the silky fabric of her nightgown, her breasts were too soft to be real. "Damon, do you feel this?"
His train of thought temporarily derailed. All he was aware of were those soft, perfect breasts, and the gentle warmth of her eyes as she gazed up at him. He couldn't fail to notice that she was not wearing anything under the nightgown.
"Your ... chest?" he managed.
"My heart, Damon. It beats for you. It always has, I think. I just didn't know it before. Now I do."
Her scene was intoxicating, a clean fragrance like wildflowers and fresh-cut grass in the summer sun. He was foundering in it, drowning in her bottomless eyes.
One last time, he tried to offer her a lifeline back to shore. "If we do this, there are no takebacks and no do-overs. Our families will still hate each other, and we'll still have all the same problems, except we'll be bound together forever. This is for a lifetime, Julie."
"Then we'll face our problems together," she said. "Forever."
With her hand still clasped over his, her fingers pressing his palm against the lush softness of her chest, she raised her face to his. Her eyes remained open, gazing into his, unblinking, until they were so close that they blurred in his vision. If she was a wolf shifter, he'd expect at this close range to meet her inner wolf in her eyes—as he sometimes glimpsed Vanessa's, as he'd met his father's in challenge. But this was a different kind of presence, softer and calmer, lacking the wild edge; yet, for all of that, he could sense the solid, firmly grounded strength of the animal that lived in her.
The wolves of his family were like forest fires, conflagrations burning hot and bright. But Julie's soul was a different kind of fire. She was like a hearth, radiating a generous, giving warmth, the kind of fire a man could warm himself beside for a lifetime.
This time, when she kissed him, all his doubts evaporated. He kissed her back with a hot, hungry passion. This was what he wanted, what he needed, and his rational human mind and his instincts were finally in perfect accord.
5. Julie
What am I doing? Julie asked herself, with the rapidly crumbling remnant of her self-control, as her lips met Damon's for the second time. There was every reason not to do this. It just wasn't her, to be overcome with passion for her family's ancient enemy in a barn hayloft.
But Damon's kiss set her on fire. She was already wet and slick, dampening the little red panties under the nightgown. She'd slept with other boys in college, but she'd never responded to any of them like this. Maybe it was that mate bond he'd talked about, but if so, she didn't care, because it felt amazing. Everything felt amazing. All she could think about was Damon—his touch, his scent, his electric presence.
Damon explored her mouth with skilled lips and tongue. He cupped her breasts through the thin fabric of her nightgown, and she gasped against his mouth as he rubbed his thumb over the sensitive nub of her erect nipple, slippery through a cool layer of satin.
She wanted to be closer—needed to be closer. She pressed into his lap without breaking the kiss. The jacket fell aside and she hiked up the skirt of her nightgown to straddle his thigh. As she ground herself against the hard muscles of his thigh, her body responded with powerful waves of lust.
One of his hands kept rubbing her nipple, sending pleasure and excitement washing through her. His other hand curled around the back of her head, fingers twining in her masses of thick curls.
His black hair was loose, falling nearly to his shoulders. Even as a child he'd had beautiful hair. Now she succumbed, finally, to the urge to touch it, and found it just as silken-soft as it looked. She stroked her fingers through it, scritching his scalp, and felt him shiver.
Damon broke the kiss at last. He pulled back and looked at her with eyes like dark pools in the dim light of the hayloft. Julie couldn't imagine what a sight she must be—hair tousled and wild, nipples standing erect beneath the nightgown.
"You're sure about this," he said.
"More sure than I've ever been about anything."
Damon smoothed his hands over her satin-clad body, across her hips, and then dipped one hand under each of her buttocks. He stood up in a single fluid motion, lifting her with his hands cupped under her ass. Julie gasped and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"You're strong!"
Damon grinned and nuzzled into her neck, flicking his tongue against the soft skin above her collarbone, then biting gently. "Not a kid anymore."
"You are definitely—" She paused with a gasp as he snugged her tighter against him, grinding their crotches together. He was rock-hard, pressing against his jeans so firmly it was amazing the zipper hadn't given way under the strain. "—definitely all grown up," she managed. She was lightheaded with arousal.
Damon swung her around, stepping carefully in the dim hayloft, and laid her down in a pile of hay. Despite the strength in his powerful arms, and the barely contained urgency she sensed in him, his every move was exquisitely gentle. He laid her on the hay like a princess on a silk-and-lace coverlet, and caressed her as he licked and nibbled his way across her neck and down her chest. One of his hands slid between her legs, brushing tantalizing fingers across her mound through the light fabric of panties and nightgown.
His mouth reached her breasts and she arched back as he licked her nipples through the satin nightgown—first one, then the other. A little lower down, his fingers found her clit. Julie's hips lifted, pressing into his hand with wordless need. Damon responded to her urgency by sitting up—she gasped again as his mouth left her breasts; she was quivering with desire, her entire body on fire with need. She started to follow, but Damon pushed her gently back down. He was taking it slow. She just wanted it now!
Damon put a hand up her nightgown's skirt. His callused fingers, rough with farm work, brushed across her inner thigh. He hooked a thumb in her panties and tugged them off, leaving her naked beneath her nightie. Even the light brush of satin across her touch-sensitive skin was sweet torment in her state of arousal. Then his fingers found her entrance, and he slid a finger inside.
She choked on a cry, stifling the sound. The last thing she wanted right now was having her parents come running to see what was going on in the barn.
Damon slid another finger into
her, stretching her sensitive inner walls. While he worked his fingers back and forth, his thumb brushed over her clit, just enough to tease.
"Damon, I need ..." She was almost incoherent with wordless want, but she didn't want to come without him inside her. "I want us to both ..." she tried, and saw his eyes darken with an urgency matching her own.
Unwilling to wait—unable to wait—she sat halfway up, clenching her inner muscles around his fingers (Oh wow) so she could fumble with his fly. She unzipped his jeans and shoved both jeans and underwear down his hips. Damon groaned softly as his cock sprang free. He was long and uncut.
Julie wrapped her hand around him. His moisture slicked her fingers. All she could think about was feeling him inside her, moving together, coming together—
And yet, she was a Capshaw. Common sense was born and bred in her, rooted deep in her bones, and somehow it managed to fight its way up from her sex-addled brain.
"Damon," she gasped, and his hand stilled instantly, fingers still buried deep in her. "Are we—do we have—" Oh lord. Now that they weren't moving, the steady pressure of his fingers, filling her and pushing against her inner walls, left her teetering on the edge of total incoherency. "Condoms," she managed to stammer. "I'm on the pill, but it's not a hundred percent—"
Damon shook his head, dark hair swishing. "I forgot, you're not a wolf shifter. You can't get pregnant in the mate-bond consummation, and we're immune to STDs—us wolves, I mean, and you probably are too, even if you don't know it. There's nothing to worry about."
"Oh," she gasped. "Carry on, then."
Consummation. The word made it real, bringing to mind wedding nights. But that's what this is, isn't it? Forever, he had said. 'Til death did they part.
And she wanted it. She wanted it more than she'd ever wanted anything.
Damon pulled his hand out of her, and with fingers still slick with her juices, he guided himself into her. His cock fit her perfectly, like a key in a lock—but of course it would. It had to.
Mates, she thought, as he made the first thrust. Meant to be—as he thrust again, his body shuddering with the suppression of his own building orgasm. She thrust back against him, finding his rhythm and matching it with her own.
And then there was nothing in the world but Damon: Damon filling her, Damon's arms around her, his lips on her mouth and jaw and neck. His teeth raked the soft skin of her throat, and he growled softly, a low rumble she could feel vibrating through his chest.
—and that was what did it, that was what made her orgasm break over her like a waterfall. White-hot pleasure rushed through her, so intense she saw stars.
Damon gave a muffled cry into her neck, and his body stiffened as his own climax hit him. They shuddered together, riding out the waves, tangled in each other's arms so closely that she couldn't even tell where he left off and she began.
One being, indivisible. Mated.
6. Damon
He lay beside her in the hay, sweat drying on their bodies. Damon didn't want to move, but eventually he stirred himself enough to bury his face in Julie's damp curls, basking in her sweet scent.
He'd felt the mate bond snap into place at the moment of orgasm. He wasn't sure what Julie had felt, if anything, or what she felt now. He could still sense it, though, in the form of a heightened awareness of Julie's presence—as if her skin was touching his everywhere, not just where they were pressed together.
It would lessen with time and distance, from what he'd heard, but they would always be able to sense each other. They were one soul now. Distance could stretch the bond, but never break it.
My father is going to kill me for this.
A shiver raced through him. But he reminded himself that he wasn't a helpless cub anymore. He was an adult, with a newfound awareness that a whole world existed outside the pack structure he'd grown up in.
How strong was the alpha bond, really, compared to the mate bond? If he had to, he could leave the valley with Julie and seek a new pack to take him in.
A pack willing to accept a wolf mated to a sheep shifter? A wolf who'd left his original pack, who might have an angry alpha showing up at any moment to reclaim him?
It doesn't matter, he told himself, stroking Julie's blond curls. If we have to, we can give up on the pack completely. We'll live like non-shifters do. They muddle through somehow.
They could get apartments. Jobs. Make new friends.
But what kind of life was he condemning Julie to? The life of a vagrant, forever running from his father? Silently, he kicked himself. How could he have given in to lust, when he had nothing more to offer her than this?
And what about poor Vanessa, abandoned to a miserable life with her unwanted husband and the abusive father Damon would have selfishly left behind?
"Penny for your thoughts," Julie murmured sleepily.
She must be able to feel his disquiet through the mate bond. Damon fought down his worry and pushed away his dark musings.
"You," he said. "I was thinking about you, and our future." He brushed a lock of hair away from her cheek. "And how amazing you are."
"Flattery," Julie whispered, nuzzling him, "will get you everywhere."
They kissed again, deep and long. Kissing her was different, so different, from any girl he'd ever kissed before—and different, actually, from kissing Julie earlier that night, before the bond took full effect. A shivering electric current ran between them, feedback racing back and forth, growing and growing, until pulling away from her felt like breaking a circuit.
It was Julie who pulled back first, her eyes wide in the dim light. "Did you feel that too?"
He could sense her amazement, in a way that went beyond his senses. It wasn't quite telepathy; it was more like the sort of awareness of the other person's thoughts and feelings that most couples didn't develop until they'd been together for years. Mated wolf shifters got it all at once.
"I did," he said, and kissed the tip of her nose. Even such a small contact produced a sensation like a gentle and unseen spark of static electricity. "It's the mate bond. That's what it feels like."
With an expression of wonder, she stroked his arm, then kissed him lightly on the neck and shoulder. Damon shivered at the intensity of her touch. Although they'd just made love, he could already feel himself hardening again.
He could also smell and sense Julie's arousal, even after she drew away. Her face was a study in wonder and surprise. "Is it always going to be like this?" she asked. "I don't even know how we could bear to make love right now. It's too much. We'd explode!"
Damon smiled and brushed his thumb over the corner of her beautiful bow of a mouth. She turned her head slightly as if to prolong the contact. "It won't always be this intense. From what I've heard, it's the strongest it'll ever be right now. It'll lessen and start to feel more ordinary as we get used to it."
"I'm not sure if I want it to," she murmured, stroking her fingertips along his jaw. Pleasant shivers raced through him, and he felt the same sensations echoed in Julie as well: his pleasure, and hers, flowing back and forth. "I love how extraordinary this feels. I don't want to lose it."
Damon laughed. "Yeah, but do you really want to have spontaneous orgasms while you're, say, working on the farm or doing dishes?"
"Doesn't sound that bad to me."
They giggled quietly for a moment. But as they cooled down from their exertions, Damon was finally starting to notice the chill in the air, which meant she must be freezing—he, at least, still had his T-shirt on.
He sat up and located his jacket, and laid it gently over her before getting dressed.
"Awwww," Julie said sleepily from under the jacket as he zipped up his jeans.
"Believe me, there's nothing I want more than to spend the rest of the night in bed with you, naked."
Julie sat up. Her hair was adorably mussed, with bits of straw in it. "I'm sensing a 'but' coming. What's the problem?"
Damon waved a hand around. "Isn't it obvious?"
Julie
shook her head.
"We don't even have a bed," he said. "We have a hayloft where we don't dare get caught. That's not the kind of bridal bower I want to offer you."
"I don't care. The important thing is that you're here."
Damon growled softly in frustration. "But this isn't the life I want to give you."
"I could smuggle you into my room," she offered. "You can spend the night there. Ava and I don't share a bedroom anymore; she has a place across town."
"And then what? Smuggle me back out again before the sun comes up? We're mates now, Julie. We can't make do with stolen glances and clandestine meetings." He knelt down and touched her face gently, to make sure she knew he wasn't mad at her. Though the mate bond probably told her that anyway.
"You deserve so much better than this," he said softly. "Sex in a hayloft and a boyfriend who has to run off before dawn? That's not what I want to give you. I want you to have long nights of passion followed by breakfast in bed. I want us to have a house and a home and a life together. Not a relationship we can't even admit to in public."
Julie swallowed, and raised her hand to cup his. Determination solidified in her eyes. "I'll talk to my folks in the morning. I don't know what they'll say. My dad might even throw me out. But—but I don't care if he does. I'm an adult now. He can't tell me who to date. Or—or who to mate."
He could feel her fear, but also the amount of effort she was exerting to hide it. She was so brave. He couldn't be any less so. "I'm not waiting 'til morning. I'm going to go talk to my dad right now."
"But—Damon!" Her eyes flew wide with worry. "I remember the last time. What if he tries to hurt you?"
"I won't let him," Damon said with more confidence than he felt. "I have something to fight for now. You."
"But you said you can't leave the pack."
"I never had the courage before. I never had a reason before. If he won't accept you as my mate, then I'm walking out, for real this time."
