by Lynn Red
I blushed deeply at the compliment like I always did. “Oh yeah? What’s my tell?”
“You’ve got a dimple right here,” Erik paused to kiss my cheek. “But that’s normal. The one here,” he said, kissing the other cheek, “only shows up when you pucker your lips a little. And that only happens when you’re thinking about something. Don’t make me torture you to get an answer.”
“Torture? You gonna put me on the rack?” I asked, looking up at my huge Erik and biting my lip gently.
I couldn’t help but smiling at him as the sun behind Erik cascaded down his shoulders. The huge tattoo that covered his chest poked out the top of his slightly-open shirt collar. The part I could see was a green and black leaf, part of a branch that was part of a tree. I’d seen the thing a thousand times, but never really studied it before right then.
Tracing the visible edge of the leaf with my fingertip, I pulled his shirt down slightly. “Well?” I asked. “I thought you were going to torture me.”
Lifting my shirt, he kissed my chin, then my neck, and then the hollow between my collarbones. Warm, vibrating groans thrilled me as he went lower and lower, but he never let go of my hands. He moved them around to the small of my back where he flattened his hands against my skin, pinning mine against my back.
“You’re brilliant, you’re gorgeous,” he said, pausing to kiss me again, a little further down my chest, right above the last of my shirt’s open buttons. “I don’t know if I’ve ever known anyone more amazing than you are, and I’ve got you,” he whispered when he came up for air. “How did I manage to luck into this?”
“I don’t think the person getting tortured is supposed to hope that it goes on forever,” I said with a smile stretched across my face. “Aren’t you supposed to make me tell you what you want to hear?”
“You will,” Erik said. “The best torture starts slow. If you go too fast, it’s over all at once. That’s no good.”
Releasing my hands, he moved a finger around my waistband and slid it underneath both khakis and panties and ran it against my softest skin. Almost immediately, I sucked in a sharp breath and I let my head fall backwards in a mixture of pleasure, relaxation and anticipation. He knelt, pushing my shirt up with the tip of his nose and kissing me right above the belly button.
“You never kiss there anymore,” I said with a little wiggle. Every time he kissed me there I got the shivers, and that time was no different. “It’s been so long that I thought you’d forgotten.”
“I never forget a good spot,” Erik whispered. “I just stop doing it for a bit so you get more excited when I finally do it again.”
“God,” I moaned. “You’re making me think my knees are about to give out. How long has it been since we did this?”
“Depends on what you mean.” He kissed me again, warming my flesh with a circling of his tongue before sucking me right above the top of my slacks. I felt myself go by turns hot and cool with each of his gentle, nipping kisses. “If you mean in general, about... four hours? If you mean what I’m going to do to you specifically today, then... never.”
“I like the way you talk,” I breathed. “Although I can’t think of anything we’ve never done, except... Oh no,” I said. “Oh no, no, no, not that.”
“Relax,” Erik said, kissing me again. “I promise I’ll go as slow as you need me to go. If you trust me, then this is the last part of the marking ritual. If we go through with this, we’re one forever.”
A thousand things went through my mind at once. Erik and I had done just about everything I had ever imagined with the exception of two things. First, it was always just he and I. He’d never shared me, he said out of jealousy, although for me it was hard to imagine sharing him either. The other thing was that he’d never put it... there. I’d used my mouth and... but never there. He was so big that just the thought was a little chilling, even though that fear was mixed with equal parts excitement.
“You’re shaking,” he said softly. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“It’s just... I’m scared,” I admitted. “I’ve never imagined doing that and... well, you’re sorta big, so...”
Erik squeezed my hand. I expected some kind of joke, or a sexy glance, but instead, he just held me against him and stared into my eyes. “I’ll never hurt you. Never in my whole life will I hurt you. You’re my mate, Isabel, and I’m going to protect you until the day I die.”
“But... won’t it hurt? I mean, not that you’re going to hurt me, not on purpose anyway, but won’t it just...”
He stopped me with a look so tender, so loving, that I almost melted right then and there. Those cool yellow eyes warmed me all the way to my core and sent heat radiating through me. “You trust me?”
I bit my lip and nodded. “It took me...” I swallowed. Saying what I was about to say was hard, but I wanted – no, needed – to get out. “Trusting you is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I don’t think I’ve ever let myself fall for someone like I did for you.”
It all came out at once, in a big long rush. I was scared that I was going to screw everything up. That I was going to mess this chance up like I had most of my others by being afraid. This time was different though.
“And, well, it took me a lot more than it should have for me to say that just now. I really hope this doesn’t change your mind about anything. About me, or about us, or—”
Erik’s answer was to shush me with a kiss. His lips against mine so hard and deep and hungry, filled me with such warmth and security that I could hardly stand not having him completely right then and there. He took a breath, pushing my lips apart and swirling his tongue against mine for a moment.
When Erik pulled away, he slid his teeth – that I noticed were starting to get a bit sharper – along my lip, and sucked as it popped back into place.
“Nothing you could ever say would make me regret what we’ve done, what I’ve got. Nothing in the world could make me regret you. You understand that, right?”
“It’s just hard for me after everything to sit back and think that, finally, something good is happening to me and that I’m not going to ruin it. I never thought, never in my whole life, that taking some dumb job from an online ad was going to change my whole life, you know?”
Erik studied my face for a second. He opened his mouth, then reconsidered. “It changed mine too, you know,” he said a moment later. The fingers against my sex slid upward, and he cupped my face in his hands.
“It’s okay, Izzy,” he said. “Whatever you’re feeling, whatever you’re going through, I want you to tell me about it, all right?”
I nodded, the tears came. “It’s just... after my whole life, this is really happening, and I can’t let myself believe that it’s really happening.”
Erik watched and waited. “Anything you need to say,” he kissed me again, “never feel like you have to keep secrets. Never feel like you have to be afraid alone. All right?”
With him holding my face in his hands, I just let go.
“I thought we were at goodbye,” I said sniffing. “I thought the other day, we were over, and I thought I’d gone and messed up yet another good thing by being... me.”
“Hey, hey,” Erik said, wiping the tears out of my eyes with his huge thumbs. “That wasn’t your fault. That was me bumbling around and... and me being afraid.”
“What?” I said, sniffling harder. “You? Afraid?”
He nodded. “I had to realize that the only reason I was holding off on marking you was... well, I didn’t trust myself not to make a stupid decision. So I was hunting for any damn excuse I could. But now—”
“Don’t say that,” I said. “You’re not stupid, you were just being careful.”
“No, I was being a coward. When you left, I felt my heart jump right out of my chest. I was afraid you were serious. You have no idea how glad I was when I saw you looking down at me from that window. It was... I don’t know how to explain it, but it was like find someone I thought I’d los
t.”
“No,” I said with a smile through the tears rolling down my cheeks and into Erik’s hands. “That’s exactly what did happen.”
He kissed me again, the sweetest, softest, most gentle kiss I’d ever experienced. He caressed my lips, then my cheek, before warming my neck and sending goosebumps down my chest. “I never wanted anything as bad as I’ve wanted you, Isabel,” he whispered. “I don’t know how or why, but I feel like everything up to this point was just waiting. Just build up. Just... wasting time for you to come along.”
“Really? You really think that?”
He nodded. “The first time I saw you get out of that half-broken Bonneville with the one window that didn’t go down, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. I watched you. You know that?”
I shook my head. “You did? When I first showed up?”
“Yeah. I remember it like it was yesterday. You had a white coat, blue knit hat thing, and those knee boots that I love so much. You looked around when you got out of the car like you were trying to figure out which building to go into – because you know, there’s so many courthouses in Jamesburg’s town square.”
He smiled, and I laughed. It was just like he said. It was exactly the way he told it.
“You looked left,” he kissed me. “Then right.” And again, this time on the other cheek. “And then you finally looked straight at the building, and I saw your perfect face. The second I saw your face, I fell in love with you, Isabel. And I never fell out, not even for a second.”
“And now here we are,” I said. His thickness against me, through our clothes, had me ready to fall over. “You’re about to make me your mate and then...” I shrugged.
“After that,” Erik said, “who cares?”
I nodded, smiling. “Who cares.”
The next kiss tasted so sweet it was like honey on the rim of a teacup.
-11-
Erik’s hands on my back kneaded deep into my muscles. He bent in deep for another kiss, and the taste of his tongue, the aroma of his skin, shot through me, quicksilver through my veins.
As soon as my knees started getting a little wobblier, he smiled and held me tighter, grinding our bodies together.
I leaned my head back, relishing the pleasure and the anticipation that was burning inside me. The instant I closed my eyes, he ran his tongue along my jaw and sucked gently behind my ear. In the four and a half hours since the last time he’d done that, I almost forgot how good it felt.
Almost.
“You feel so good,” I moaned. “You have me right where you want me, huh, big guy?”
“Look at me,” Erik said. “Open those eyes.”
When I did, the last of my tears fell down my cheeks. One of them ran down my neck and soaked into my shirt, but he caught the other one with his lips. The heat of his tongue on my face amplified the tension between my legs that I felt every time he breathed and drove us together.
“How do you do this to me?” I asked. “How do you make me feel so special? Like I’m the only thing in the world that matters to you when I know that can’t possibly be true?”
Erik’s eyes were almost burning they were so intense. “How are you so sure it’s not true?”
“I know it’s not. I mean you have all the town stuff and—”
“Are any of them here?” he asked. “Right now, how many people do you see in this room? How many mates is it that I’ve got?”
“Just the one, I hope,” I said with a grin. “I just... I can’t believe this is happening. It’s all real, right? You’re not going to vanish?”
“You’d need a witch for a vanishing trick,” Erik said.
The next second, he kissed my neck, sucking and biting just a little bit. I let out a little shudder and held onto his big, powerful neck to keep my footing.
“You sleepy?” Erik said, laughing softly. “You keep acting like you’re falling over.”
“Oh shut up, you big jackass,” I giggled. “If you don’t take me to bed right this second, I might just find another werewolf who will.”
Hoisting me off my feet so quickly that I squealed, Erik kissed me all the way down the hall, to the left, and the instant my back hit the comforter and I sunk in, my whole body melted.
He fell on top of me, kissed me once and propped himself up on his elbow.
“Izzy?”
“Yeah?”
“I just want to tell you something.”
I waited, not sure what he could possibly say.
“I,” he swallowed hard, like he’d been practicing this speech, but still wasn’t quite sure about it. “I am yours... forever.”
Those four words made every fright, every tension and fear and regret I’d ever held, vanish in an instant.
“So it is real, then?” I asked. I opened my eyes to study him, watching the waning sun bathe Erik in a warm orange tone. “This is all happening? I’m not going to wake up an hour from now and wonder if you were ever real?”
Erik shook his head slowly, his hair cascading down and tickling the sides of my face. “If that happened, then I’d wake up alone too, and I’d be furious.”
“I don’t want to see you furious,” I said with a grin, running my hand along the muscles of his shoulder and down his arm. “But I do want to see you naked.”
“Oh you do, huh?” After every word, Erik paused to kiss me softly. “Remember, I’ll take this as slow as you need me to take it, okay? And I’m not just making this up to get some.”
He looked at me very seriously. I laughed a little in-laugh. “I didn’t even think that until you said it, but now...”
Erik stood up next to the bed. When I turned my head and looked at him, the sun came through his hair at just the perfect angle to see the vague hints of blue that ran through the inky-blackness of his shoulder-length locks. He was just... him. Perfect. Everything I imagined, right there in front of me.
And being gentle?
I squirmed a little on the mattress, pushing the thick comforter around with my feet and found myself in a stretch that popped my shoulders and my elbows, and then I let out a deep, content sigh. “I’ve got you,” I said. “I’ve really got you.”
Erik’s answer was to turn around, away from me, and unbutton his shirt. Even un-tucked, the tailored blue and white striped dress shirt hugged his exaggerated frame. From the top of his huge neck, sculpted shoulders, all the way down to the delicate lines in the small of his back, I knew his body. I knew his shape.
Now, it struck me, I was going to know his soul.
When he finally got the neck of his shirt undone and began to shrug out of it, the lines and movement of his incredible muscles almost took my breath away. He dropped his shirt into a heap and turned back to me.
Involuntarily, his chest flexed, making the leaves on that huge tattooed tree appear to shake in some unseen and unfelt wind.
Outside the window, a car went by and someone shouted something.
“Your turn,” Erik said.
“But you’re not all the way naked yet,” I playfully protested. “There’s still pants!”
His eyes were half open, satisfied, but still hungry. “Show me how much you want this to happen,” he said. That gravelly voice could have talked me into a job digging ditches.
“What does it mean?” I asked him as I rolled over and slowly stood up. “To be your mate, I mean. Are there any... responsibilities?”
“Lots,” he said, and then fell silent.
“Such as?”
He smiled. “You’ll be fine.”
I realized that I’d somehow hypnotized him with the slow movements I was making, the exaggerated sway of my hips, the why I ran my hands down either side of my body and then back up.
“I wish I had a gown or something. Taking off khakis and a sensible polo isn’t exactly the sexiest thing in the world.”
“But you are,” he said. “Doesn’t matter what you’re wearing.”
A slow, creeping heat worked its way from my center out. He could
melt ice with the gaze he gave me. Hell, an iceberg wouldn’t be much of a stretch. Erik stuck his hand out and tugged the neck of my shirt down a little bit, grinning with a mischievous look to go along with his smoldering eyes.
“What’s taking so long?” he asked. “I thought you were all excited.”
Erik was grinning, sure, but behind the toothy smile was a flame in his eyes that told me he wasn’t interested in this taking any longer than it needed to take. It was all so strange, having him want me like that, even though he always had. I guess it was just starting to sink in that maybe, just maybe, I really was as special as he kept saying over and over.
“And here I thought you wanted me to go slow,” I said. “Are you sure I’m the excited one?”
Grabbing my hand, Erik pulled me against his muscled body and planted a kiss deep. His tongue swirled and explored every fold of my lips, warming me all the way through. Erik hooked it behind my bottom lip, pulled me close again, and then sucked as we parted.
“I wish there was some way we could live and never have to not be together like that,” I breathed softly. “But it might get a little tricky trying to eat.”
Holding my face in his hands, Erik got a very serious look on his face. “When I’m with you, you are my food. You’re my air, my water, you’re everything to me.”
“You’re sure know how to get a girl to let her guard down,” I said.
His soulful eyes just held me enthralled though, refusing to let go of me. Every breath I took, every word I thought, they just became side-notes to the eyes piercing my reality. I didn’t even feel the last button on my polo shirt’s collar come undone until Erik leaned and warmed me with a slow circle of his tongue.
In one smooth motion, Erik pulled my shirt up, and off, then tossed it to the floor on top of his. “What am I going to do with you, Izzy? How am I going to ever work anymore?”
“Well,” I said. I gasped when he ran his tongue down one of my breasts and circled my nipple, warming me through the satin. “It isn’t like you haven’t had me for a while now, you big beast.”
