by Mandy Rosko
She felt too open. Being totally naked was incredibly intimate, but it wasn't a bad thing. She felt open and exposed to him, but not in a bad way—in a way that made all of this all right. Everything was okay, and when Dane settled his body back on top of hers, it was right. Lois opened her arms and curled them around his back. She held on tight as he spread her legs apart, and she felt the hard length of his cock touching her pubic region.
Thank God she's shaved her legs and everywhere else during her shower that morning, because suddenly everything Lois wanted was to be as sexy and impressive as possible to the man that was on her right now.
Dane thrust his hips forward, teasing her with his cock, touching her sex without entering her. He moaned at the friction, and Lois turned her head from side to side, fighting off the pleasure that such a teasing act was giving her.
"Dane, Dane, Dane," she begged. Over and over again, because his name was the only thing she could say. Everything else she wanted to get out wouldn't form into proper words. She was trapped in the heat of him. Her mind couldn't form any coherent thoughts except for how much she wanted his cock inside her, filling her, stretching her.
Lois was already twitching with the urge to come from that teasing back and forth motion, but she held it back.
"Dane, please," she begged. She bit her bottom lip hard. She stared up at him. He was so close. Her breasts were squeezed tightly against his hard chest, and every time he gasped for breath, she felt that warm gush of air against her neck and chest. God, that felt good.
Lois reached for his back, grabbed onto it, and dug her nails in without thinking. Dane grunted, but didn't seem to be in pain because of it, so Lois did it again just so she could hang on.
Dane moaned a guttural sound as he leaned in and pressed his mouth to one of Lois's nipples. He sucked on it hard as he pulled his hips back. Lois was immediately aware of the loss of warmth, and she moaned, needing it back.
She realized what Dane was reaching down for. He stroked his cock, lining up the head with her opening. Lois let her head fall back, and her mouth opened as she sighed when he pushed inside.
"That's what I want."
Finally. He was finally inside her, and she felt his heat, the throb of his heartbeat through his shaft as he pushed deeper and deeper within her.
And it was good. He stretched her wide, his cock heavy and thick. The sensitive walls of her sex were alive and buzzing like a live wire that didn't know where to put all the energy it was bombarded with. Lois could handle that. She really could.
At least for the next couple of seconds. She was going to embarrass herself with the sudden swelling pleasure that she knew she couldn’t contain.
Best to get as much out of it as she possibly could before the end hit.
"Hard and fast, Dane. Fuck me hard and fast, I'm coming. Please."
Dane growled again, and this time, the noise was more animalistic as he pulled back and surged forward.
Lois moaned, and Dane did it again, hard and fast, just as she'd asked him to. The only difference was in the way he did it. While Dane gave her what she wanted, he still slammed his hips against her pelvis in a way that made their flesh slam together sharply. Lewd slapping noises filled the air, but it was the sudden shock of each of these hard strikes that built up Lois's pleasure, while at the same time, putting off the orgasm that would have ended everything.
"Oh God!"
Lois pressed her face into Dane's neck. She moaned and shouted so many things. Dane's name was the number one thing on that list, but everything else were shouts of pleasure, cursing, gibberish noises, and just stuff she wasn't paying attention to as her body was being utterly owned by the man above her.
And then she couldn't hold back a second longer. She was there. That high wave crashed down hard and the rest bloomed hotly through her body. It started just inside her and spreading out to her chest, her arms, legs, and curled her toes as every muscle she had clenched, released, then tightened again from the high of pleasure.
10
She came down off her high, buzzing and satisfied. Lois's body pulsed. She felt good and warm and tingly all over. She felt like a cotton ball that was on the right side of pleasantly drunk. Warm and safe, like she could stay there forever.
Her hands were still behind Dane's back, though she realized she was no longer digging her nails so harshly into him. She really hoped she hadn't made the wounds worse, but part of her doubted it since Dane wasn't exactly complaining.
He was still on top of her, his back and chest expanding and contracting as he gasped for breath. He was also still inside her, and it took Lois a minute to realize he was still hard.
And despite the most amazing orgasm Lois had ever experienced in her entire life, she felt like she could go again. Not only that, but she felt like she could come again, and all Dane had to do was cant his hips back and forth in that wonderful way he did so well.
Lois turned her face and kissed his throat. "Is that a shifter thing, or do you just naturally have that much stamina?" She laughed, even though it wasn't much of a joke. Still, she was in a good mood and would have thought everything was funny at that point.
Dane pulled back, taking the warmth of his body with him, and Lois got a look back at his face.
His eyes wouldn't meet hers. He was totally closed off as he pulled away, completely separating their bodies.
Lois frowned, and now that he was no longer inside her, her sex was starting to feel tender and sensitive. She winced as she sat up, not having a good feeling about this. "What's the matter?"
"You should go."
Dane still wouldn't look at her, and his words, which were practically whispered, felt like a punch to her stomach.
They shocked the breath right out of her. "Wh-why? I don't understand."
Dane scratched the back of his neck. "You slept with me to help me heal, but I won't take you for my mate. You need to get out. Please," he added, as if that would soften the blow.
It hurt. Lois didn't think he would reject her, especially after they'd had sex. She also didn't expect his words to hurt her this much. A real physical pain pulsed in her chest. She realized that it was her heart. Every beat against her ribs felt like another brutal punch she had to bear. The fact that her heart was racing and her throat was closing just meant the pain was coming on that much faster.
And no matter how much she stared at Dane, tried to think of the right words to say, he still wouldn't look at her.
Lois couldn't force herself to sit there, naked on his bed, any longer.
She wasn't going to argue with him. She wasn't going to be that girl. The one who begged to stay with someone who obviously didn't want her. So she put her bra and shirt back on, then felt a surge of helpless anger when she was reminded of her jeans.
"I have no pants," she said.
Much as Lois just wanted to run out of there and never look back, right now, she had to ask for his help.
Dane, who had apparently been so comfortable with the idea of being naked up until five seconds ago, wrapped one of the bed sheets around his waist and went to his dresser.
He pulled out a pair of jeans so big she was going to have to hold them up at the waist if she didn't want them sliding down her hips.
A towel would have been better, except they were all covered in blood.
Lois wouldn't look at Dane and he still wouldn't look at her. She was too embarrassed. She snatched the offering out of his hands and stuck her legs in them. She probably looked ridiculous holding them up as she rushed to the door and let herself out, and that only made her feel all the more humiliated.
She ran through the house, fighting the burn in her eyes, fighting against the swelling ache in the middle of her throat, and trying to ignore the curious glances of the omegas she passed by.
Katie spotted her, called out to her, but Lois ignored her, too. She didn't want to talk to anyone. She didn't want to see anyone. She wanted to get out of these clothes, jump in the sho
wer, and stay there while she cried.
When she opened the door to her room, Miranda and Anna weren't there. Lois had forgotten they might be, but when Lois didn't come back after Anna's guess about the mating, they must have decided to go do something else.
That was lucky. Also lucky she hadn't run into them, but soon enough, they would be coming to her door to ask what had happened, especially if Katie went to tell them she'd seen Lois crying.
Lois locked her door. She didn’t want either of them coming in here after her.
She pushed the jeans off her hips and kicked them into the corner. She wished she was kicking Dane right about now, but that wasn't going to happen.
She pulled herself out of the rest of her clothes and rushed into the adjacent bathroom, grateful that Garret had given her a room that had one. She hopped into the shower and blasted the water as hard as it would go, as hot as she could take it.
She used the water to hide the sounds of her crying.
When she finished, she felt better, but only a little. Usually, whenever she was stressed or overly angry or sad about something, a good cry was what she needed in order to be able to think again.
This felt different. She couldn't think again. Not about anything other than the way Dane had tossed her out of his room after they'd had sex.
And it was only sex. This shouldn't have been such a big deal to her. She should have been okay with this because, for one thing, she barely knew Dane. Hell, Lois had despised him the first time she'd met him.
But something was different. Maybe she hadn't actually hated him and had only been frustrated and scared because he'd turned into that giant bear and scared her so bad when he'd taken her out of the woods and brought her here.
Lois had basically been his prisoner, and when he'd saved her life, she'd all but glued herself to his side. She'd been unable to leave, and had used the excuse that she owed him, and wanted to repay him since he wouldn't let the omegas near him.
Lois walked over to the bed. Her new art supplies were there, as well as the sketchbook that she had taken from Anna's room.
She flipped it open. There was the unfinished sketch of one of the men she'd seen with Dennis that day Dane had saved her.
Opening the sketchbook to the very back page was Dane's sketch.
Not of his human face, but of his face in that half bear, half man form. Lois had gotten a good look at it when he'd covered her body with his, grunting and squirming with pain as he took blows that would have killed her in an instant.
She glared at it, ripping the sketch out of the book and crumpling it up. She threw it across the room at the wall. Being that it was only paper, it didn't exactly make the satisfying thud she wanted to as it gently hit the wall and fell to the floor.
Lois grabbed a pillow and screamed into it instead. When she pulled her face away for a breath, she sat down on the edge of the bed. Some of the takeout boxes were still in her room, closed and waiting to be finished off. She looked at them and contemplated eating everything inside just to make herself feel better.
So, she did just that. Opening the containers up, she yanked out a half a steak sandwich that had yet to be eaten and started going to town on it.
Her eyes kept moving to the crumpled bit of paper in the corner.
Lois looked away from it, angry with it, with Dane, and with herself.
She took another bite, her body twitching in place as she struggled to calm down.
She finished off the sandwich, and the last of the cold fries. Now she just felt shitty for breaking her diet. She'd eaten pretty much everything that was left.
And that paper was still glaring at her from the corner.
Lois licked some of the sauce from her fingers, and she went to get it. She smoothed it out, looked at the face she'd drawn, and put it back in the sketchbook.
11
Garret whistled as he looked at Dane’s back. “You’re pretty much fixed. I mean, they’re not totally healed, but I don’t think you need bandages anymore.”
Jax said nothing. Dane clenched his fists from where he sat.
Garret stood behind him, and Dane’s shirt was off as his alpha gave his opinion on the state of Dane’s health.
“They’re not getting worse that you can tell?”
When they’d opened up after he’d left Lois in the hall, then shut again when she’d started to kiss him, he’d feared they would spread wide open and he would bleed out. Especially with the obvious way she’d been fighting not to cry.
Aside from the scratches she’d left behind on his back, which were deep enough to bleed, his wounds had surprisingly not opened up again.
“Not that I can tell,” Garret said, still examining his back. “They look like they could be just normal scratches. Not like the ones Lois put on you. Those might actually leave a few scars.”
“Hmm,” Dane grunted, agreeing.
He’d taken a look at himself in the bathroom mirror after sending Lois out. She’d scratched him good all right. She’d gotten his shoulder blades and the back of his neck. She had strong nails, apparently, and she’d used them. Those actually had needed bandages.
“Have you seen Lois since then?” Garret asked.
Dane shook his head. “No.”
Not only were the omegas not showing up to care for him—which he didn’t care about—but Lois had stopped coming around to check on his injuries as well.
That was something he did care about, even though he absolutely shouldn’t.
The fact that she was no longer coming around was putting a break in the routine they’d started to build. Dane liked his routines, which was part of the reason why it had bothered him so much that she’d constantly been coming to disrupt it with her presence.
Now…it was weird not having her there checking on him every morning and evening, regardless of whether he could take care of himself. The fact that she wasn’t around was unsettling him, making him twitchy and irritable.
He didn’t like that she wasn’t around, which went against the entire point of leaving her behind.
“It’s for the best,” Dane said. “She can’t survive here anyway.”
Jax said nothing, but as he stared down at Dane, his arms still crossed, a pitying expression came over his face instead of an irritated one.
“Dane, what happened with Emily—”
“Is never going to happen again,” Dane interjected quickly, glaring at his friend.
Jax raised his hands and backed off.
Meanwhile, Dane’s heart slammed in his chest like he’d just finished a good, bloody fight with two or three of Dennis’s idiot betas.
Neither of these two had ever mentioned Emily to him. Not for a long time. Not since the funeral.
Garret sighed. He had his fingers in his pockets, and he looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Look, Dane, we all miss Emily.”
“You don’t know jack shit,” Dane snapped, shooting to his feet.
However, Garret wasn’t an alpha because he backed down from things. He plowed ahead. “But if you mated with this woman, then you need to take responsibility for that. From the sounds of things, you’re punishing her pretty hard for this. She probably doesn’t even know why you’re trying so hard to stay away from her.”
“I’m staying away from her because if I mate with her, she will eventually die. This isn’t the same as it is with you and Miranda. She was your blooded match. You found her through her bloodline, but then she was turned, so it works out better for you because she’s stronger.” She had a better chance of surviving anything that came at her.
“Dane, Emily was a shifter.”
“You need to shut up, right now,” Dane said. He glared as hard as he could as his friend, and he wasn’t feeling too friendly towards him in that instant. Dane hadn’t lost control of his animal in decades. The last time it had happened was when Emily had died, and before that, he’d been in his twenties. He could do it right now. He could feel the animal right there, itching to come
out and start swiping its claws at things.
And the terrifying part was how Dane didn’t much want to hold it back.
That was the thing about losing control. When it happened, it wasn’t always because the shifter in question was on the verge of going mental. Sometimes it was as simple as letting that animal out while the person inside took the backseat.
When that happened, it wasn’t exactly easy to get control back.
Garret put his hand on Dane’s shoulder, gripping him. The warm pressure from his friend made Dane exhale the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He turned his head and noted the way Garret was looking at him. No judgement was in those eyes, but there was a fair amount of stern warning.
Dane took it, and he nodded. “I’m okay.”
“Good,” Garret said, removing his hand.
Dane no longer felt uncomfortable, or worried about giving into that wild animal within him. That was why Dane and Jax both followed Garret, despite how they were both alphas as well. It was because Garret was genuinely a good leader, kept a cool head, and could keep the men and women under him focused and safe when he needed to.
They respected him for that. Dane especially, given his military background. Garret was no drill sergeant, captain, or commander, but sometimes it was a relief to follow someone who had the confidence of one. Garret fit that perfectly.
“If you don’t want to take her as a mate, that’s your business and no one else’s,” Garret said. “Your back is healed, and that’s the only thing I was worried about.”
Dane nodded, not feeling any better. That empty feeling in his stomach was still there. It wouldn’t seem to go away, even with the helpful words of his leader.
“But,” Garret said.
Dane smiled. “Should’ve seen that one coming.”
Garret smirked at him. “Don’t be a smart ass. I shouldn’t have to say this, but just let her down gently. She’s Miranda’s good friend. If you hurt her feelings, I’ll definitely be hearing about it.”
