by Lisa Ladew
Evie pushed her work away and went to the couch, sitting down, waiting for her mate, sorry, but no, not sorry, not at all. She stayed silent and waited for him to come to her, to get past it.
He leaned against the door frame, blue shirt in his hand, pants still open at the zipper, those curls calling her eyes there again and again. He waited her out, his eyes dark, smoldering, still pissed. Evie didn’t know how long she could keep her hands off him. She tried to reel in her breathing, stay calm, focus so she could convince him to come over to her, put his big hands all over her. She didn’t understand why it wasn’t happening already. She stretched, shifting her hips. “I don’t want to make you mad,” she said simply. It was true. She never wanted that. Your mate was your partner for life.
“I’m not mad,” he said, although he clearly still was. “I can’t believe you did it, Evie. What if I still hadn’t recognized you. Would you have gone through with it?”
She didn’t answer.
“Bad girl,” he growled, literally growled, making her middle go all liquid and soft. Her mate. She needed his body covering hers. He was so damn big. She wanted to feel him on top of her, wanted to touch his skin, yearned to learn his body. She lay back in the pillows, her voice low, non-confrontational. “It doesn’t matter. Can’t you come here? Talk to me from over here?”
“It does matter,” he said darkly. “Because you’re mine now, and you won’t ever pull that again.”
She sat up, and matched his stare. “I know I am, I know I won’t, and you are mine too. So come show me. I want to meet the male fate has gifted me above all others.”
Harlan’s eyes flashed and a strong male scent of need reached her, fluttering her eyes, relaxing her back into the pillows again. If he wouldn’t touch her, she would touch herself in front of him…
Before she knew it, he was next to her, his big hand on her small wrist, encircling it, stilling it at her side. “Bad girl,” he said, something like worship in his voice, and oh boy did that wrap around her middle and make her body arc toward him. Touch me, Harlan, touch me, but he still wasn’t. She opened her eyes, learning her male already. He was a stubborn one. Couldn’t let things go. So very useful in a wolf and a warrior. Not so helpful in love. He needed her reassurance and she was happy to give it. She caressed his cheek with her free hand, trying to show him with her eyes that she was sorry, she was, that she had made him so upset, that she had caused him that panic. If there had been another way she would have tried it. “I’ll be a good mate, Harlan, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m not a cheater. If you wouldn’t have made it so very clear to me that you were going to date I never would have dreamed to do it, but I was not about to watch you touch another, either.”
Her mate’s face flushed slightly. So he knew his part in it. “Still a bad girl,” he whispered.
“Want me to call you daddy?” She asked, genuinely curious. If he did she was gonna have to call Burton, “Burton” full time. Might start anyway. She knew she had daddy’s girl issues, she’d always made excuses about it, but that had to end now. Now she was Harlan’s female.
He laughed, a rough chuckle that heated her from the inside out. “No, no daddy.”
She curled her fingers around the nape of his neck, urging him to come to her, squirming under his hand at her waist. “Don’t act like my daddy, then. Are you punishing me? That’s not what partners do either.”
His eyes widened. “I’m not.”
“Then why aren’t you touching me?” She arched into him, and still his fingers didn’t move on her body. Frustration pinned her. He wanted her. Would not take her. But nothing else made sense! It was time for the taking. “You’re still mad.”
He caressed her hair, running his fingers and his eyes through it, his face and body relaxing, like touching her was a drug he needed in order to thrive. She curled into him. Yes, more.
His face was sad. “Evie, I, I don’t feel right about… it. About doing this now…. Chief Risson—”
Evie pulled her hair out of his grasp, sitting up quickly. Burton? What in the hell did he have to do with anything? She opened her mouth to say so. Were they really going to fight when they should be doing anything but? But then she saw him, really saw him, perched on the very edge of the couch, head drooping, hands hanging down. He was conflicted down to his very core. She touched him softly. “Harlan?”
“Your dad- Burton. I-ah, well, he’s my Chief. He doesn’t want you to mate. I don’t know his reasons, but, ah, well, if I respect the male, then he doesn’t have to explain his reasons to me. If I—.”
He grabbed for her blindly, his eyes still on the floor. This wasn’t easy on him. Sharing his inner thought processes like this. Complex, he was, and she loved it. Did she respect the male? She did, so he did not have to explain his reasons. She would go along with what he wanted. And it struck her then. Harlan was loyal to a fault. Even to his own fault. A true soldier, he had thrown all in behind Burton, her daddy. Her throat lumped as she understood him just a little better.
She took his hand between both of hers, keeping her voice soft. “I can understand that.”
His voice was strangled. “I want to claim you, Evie, don’t think I don’t.” He took a deep breath, then sighed it out. “You’re beautiful.”
Evie’s breath held in her throat. Had she ever been called beautiful before by anyone but Burton? She didn’t think so. She knew her face was attractive in a bold and dangerous kind of way, but beautiful? She’d never seen herself that way. But her mate spoke the word like it was a fact.
They fell silent. Evie held her mate’s hand, felt his skin on hers, soaked up his size, his maleness, his nearness. Was it enough? It was.
For now.
29 - Past - Stolen Kisses
“Go, go, before he sees you,” Evie whispered, pushing Harlan up the stairs. “Let me feel him out.” It had been two days. Harlan and Evie had been living in virtue in Evie’s office, Harlan keeping an eye on her, keeping her away from boys like Burton wanted, as they very quietly learned each other. Lots of stolen kisses and whispered secrets and over-the-clothes-gropes, and dry-humping till he came in his pants like a teenager and she came in hers like a goddess and then they kissed quietly and whispered stories of their pasts to each other and pretended that it didn’t matter. That Burton would not be upset if he knew what they were doing because they weren’t doing much of anything.
Harlan clomped up the wooden stairs as quietly as he could in his work boots. First door on the left, Evie had said. He was excited to see her bedroom, see if it was like her office, with lots of houseplants and organizational tools and a spare cat or two sneaking around. As long as the goat wasn’t allowed in there, he could deal with anything.
He pushed open the door and stood there dumbfounded for a minute, because what he was seeing made no sense at all. Pink. Ruffles. Bows. Satin. Velvet. A twin bed with princess canopy. Like a unicorn had vomited up society’s dream of a little girl’s room.
When Evie showed up he was still standing in that one spot, eyes wide, looking around, trying to reconcile what he was seeing with the strong, competent woman he knew. His mate.
“Oh,” Evie said, coming up behind him, slipping her hands around his waist. “Sorry, I should have warned you. Burton decorated it years ago. This is why I don’t sleep here. That’s my corner.”
She pointed to a modern desk in the corner, a bedroll next to it.
“And why don’t you redecorate again?” Harlan asked, blinded by pink.
“I tried a couple of times. It’s not worth it. Burton gets all moody and throws fits. So now I just pretend like it doesn’t exist.”
“Super healthy relationship you got there.”
She laughed. “Right. We’re not all scions of emotional maturity up here in Serenity like the Mundeleins of Mundelein, Kentucky.”
She touched him lightly on the back of his neck and he shivered, laughing softly at her subtle joke, turning quickly, catching her in his arms
, reaching behind her to push the door shut. She wanted kisses. He gave her a quick peck and pulled her close, not looking at her, looking over her head at the pink wrapping paper that covered the back of the door. “Evie, I’m not sure how to put this, but I think Burton might be more than just eccentric.”
Evie pulled back to stare at him, her eyes hard, as she wiggled to fit into his arms the way she liked best, molded perfectly against his body, no air between them, her legs, straddling his leg, her hot pussy pressed up against his thigh, and fuck if he wasn’t hard and ready for her, but he kept his thoughts straight. This was a conversation they needed to have.
She spoke. “You mean you think he’s going moonstruck?”
Harlan pressed his hard dick against his mate’s belly, hoping she’d grab it like she was trying to come up with a proper name for it. He smiled at her direct question. She was never anything but. “Yes, mentally unstable somehow... But he might already be there, not just heading there.”
Evie nodded once, sharply. “I’ve had the thought a few times, but only recently.”
“Don’t you think we should tell someone?”
He thought she might say, “tell who?” but she didn’t. Instead, her words seemed to surprise even her. They sure as hell shocked him.
“We can’t. If the Police Commission removes him, Serenity P.D. won’t make it through what’s coming. We need him.”
She stared at him. He stared at her. A communication passed between them. Not quite ruhi, which he still didn’t speak, except with Nowl. She spoke it, of course she did, but still they understood each other perfectly. Eventine was not Citlali, and that was not prophecy, and she didn’t know how she knew what she knew, but she knew. Go with it, Harlan, flow with it, you don’t accept Eventine Risson as your mate without knowing your life will never be the same.
Harlan dipped his head down and caught his mate’s lower lip in his teeth and nibbled on it. She sighed and opened to him like a flower, going limp in his arms. He pressed her up against the wall in her bedroom, between a fluffy satin wall hanging and a poster of the Care Bear Movie, rainbow teddy bears everywhere. If he were in his right mind, he might try to think about the symbolism and meaning someone sane might assign to this room, to Burton, but he was not in his right mind. He was crazed, crazier than Burton, driven to desperation by the need to claim his mate, to take her, to leave nothing undone between them.
He feasted on her skin, ears, neck, the hollows in her collarbone, hands roaming everywhere, molding muscles and flesh and skin gliding, then catching and dragging, fingers kneading, seeking, her moan music to him, her sigh more delicate than a breeze and her hands were on him and he couldn’t think, could only feel, could only desire, could only want. Her scent, her skin, her touch, it conspired to drug him, to sedate him until all he could think was of her, of her pleasure, of steering her to her pleasure.
“Have to take you,” he growled in her ear.
“Yes,” she breathed, jerking her hips, clawing at him, yanking at his clothes.
“Can’t take you,” he growled, grabbing both her hands, pinning her against the wall with his body, “Unless you told him, or showed him your mate mark.” It was a thing of beauty, his twisted knot over her circled phoenix, but there was still one step until it was complete. The biting. Keep yourself under control. Keep it reined in. Back to her neck, her ears, nibble, nibble, bite like a wolf, not quite hard enough to pierce the skin but oh how he wanted to. He switched sides, from her right side to her left side. No. Her renqua, right there, nibble, kiss, suck gently, but his fangs were growing. No. Stop. He yanked himself back to the other side. Not yet. “Did you tell him?” he urged, because she still hadn’t said, instead was clutching at him, her greedy fingers rolling over his skin, driving him mad and blind with lust.
Her head lolled against the wall. “Couldn’t,” she panted. “I tried to ease him in, mentioned mating, he got all strange, said something bad would happen if I mated. Disappeared. Fairy drops. I don’t know. I don’t think we should tell him.”
Harlan stifled a grunt, a groan, a moan, stopping himself from moving, pulling his lips away from his mate, but not quite able to break the connection between their bodies. But if they couldn’t tell Burton, they couldn’t go on pretending like what they were doing was ok. He tried to pull away again, couldn’t. She was his mate. He couldn’t deny himself her.
Evie grabbed his head, pulled his lips back toward her neck gently, steering him where she wanted him. “I’ve got a plan, Harlan, just give me a few more days. We can make him see that whatever he thinks is going to happen, won’t.”
That was good enough for Harlan. He let himself be pulled to his mate’s soft spots, curling his fingers around her hips, urging her to grind away on him. Fuck it, he was going in. He ripped at her shirt, opening it at the front, freeing her bare breasts to his hands for the first time, suckling her peaked nipples.
“Yes, Harlan,” she moaned, head still back, hips moving fluidly. “Take me.”
“Won’t, till he knows,” he rasped against his mate’s skin.
“Harlan, I can’t wait,” she whispered, her words traveling on a breathy whisper.
“You can,” he whispered back, right into her ear, kiss, kiss, whisper. “It’s gonna be so good. The longer the wait, the better the satisfaction”—fuck he was gonna have to bring his ‘A’ game, good thing he had one—“I’m gonna fill you so full you won’t be able to see,” he rasped in her ear, his thumbs lightly flicking each nipple, then traveling so softly back the other way to flick again. Soft, barely touching, slide, flick. She moaned, went to butter in his arms, slid, pressing against him, cheeks flushed, eyes closed, lips slightly parted. “You want it, Evie, don’t you? Tell me. Tell me how much you want me to fill you full of cock, to—” But she had stopped, straightened, cheeks still flushed, but eyes open as she stared at him, panting lightly. Her eyes were wide, her mouth smiling, looking like she’d been scandalized but she loved it, wanted more of it. Aaaaaaah. He’d just been given the key to his mate’s pleasure.
“Whatsamatter, Evie?” he said, touching her forehead with his, lightly, so they were within kissing distance. “Those high school boys didn’t do much dirty talking?”
“No,” she breathed, and he could hear the anticipation in that one syllable. Damn right they didn’t. Boys only cared about their nut, so that’s what they talked about, for about three words and then they were done. Men cared about their female’s orgasm, so that’s what they talked about.
“Did you like it?” he drawled, hearing the country in his voice, not giving a fuck. This was his female, and right at that moment, he was in charge of how she felt, which was a big job that required his full concentration.
“Yes,” she breathed in that same airy tone.
“Which part?” he teased. “Was it the word?” Kiss on the corner of her mouth. “Cock?” Kiss. “Or was it the thought of mine filling you till you couldn’t see? Maybe till you cry. Hm? Which was it?”
“Both,” she breathed, head back again, eyes closed, hips grinding on him, hands creeping that way.
“Mmmmm,” he said in her ear, firming his grip on her hands again, angling himself so she couldn’t quite reach him with her core.
She squirmed and pouted. “Harlan.” So much pout in that voice, like he was holding something she wanted just out of her reach. An ice cream cone maybe. A swirly lollipop. Or a big cock that promised to split her in two.
“Hmmm?” He kissed her cheekbone, moved back to her ear, whispered in it. “You want something?”
She struggled to free her hands. They'd played this game before. If he wasn't going to give it to her, she was going to give it to herself. Problem was, he wanted to give it to her. Over and over again. No one else, not even she would ever give herself another orgasm. Just him, from now on, as many times a day as she needed to stay sane and happy. Ten times, twelve times. He would do tongue pushups to train. Penis yoga. Whatever it took. He held her hands, pressed
her into the wall with his body, and gave her both barrels.
Voice low. Soft. Harsh but smooth, too. “I can’t take you just yet, Evie, see, because it’s gonna be just that good, so good that you aren’t ready for it yet. Me and you, Evie, we’re magic. Your body plus my body equals an equation made for you and me alone. Better than poetry in motion. A perfect masterpiece. The most beautiful piece of art created.” He pressed her against the wall with his hips, held her hands just a bit tighter, leaned in far enough that she could get her sexy self all up against him, so she could grind however she liked, however she wanted, however would press enough of her softest parts against his hardest parts, just so. And when he saw the rhythmic tightening of her hips shorten and quicken he pressed against her, a bit of a thrust, really. “You’ve heard that, right, my sexy wolf? That when you are properly mated and claimed, the pleasure is so much more intense?” She’d begun to whimper, but only softly. He pulled her hands behind her back so he could hold her around the wrist with just one of his hands, pushing her off balance slightly, letting her know that he was in charge and she was just along for the ride. Close your eyes tight, because here we go, up, up to the top of that monster hill. “Mmmm, your hips, Evie, yes, move them just like that. Grind against me, that’s right.” He hooked his free hand around her ass pulling her harder against him. Squeezing. “I want to see you cum, my sexy, beautiful mate, I want to see you soak that smart suit with your pussy juices.” Her hips stopped moving, her eyes popped open and she stared at him again with that wide-eyed look, making him chuckle. Shit, he didn’t think he’d ever chuckled before in his life, but her face was so classically surprised it had pulled an actual chuckle from him. She was a virgin, she’d said. Plenty of opportunities, she’d said, but never felt quite right, she said. If he’d never asked, all the proof he ever would have needed was right there on her face. A woman who obviously enjoyed dirty talk but was surprised by it, had never been properly fucked, even if she’d had a thousand lovers. A lifetime of searching for the buttons that got her hottest stretched out before him. This was going to be fun.
