Underneath us, the flannel shirt had somehow gotten wadded up, and the leaves crunched with his thrusts. Stems, old bark, and tiny bits of stone pricked my back, but I only felt it as though I was outside and observing. The sensations that filled me, the ones that mattered, were nothing but him and me, existing in a space all our own.
I pulled one more breath, letting his essence invade my lungs, and held it until my chest burned.
The crescendo building in me wasn’t stopping. Damon stiffened against me, and somehow, with a huge effort that I could only imagine hurt him like absolute hell, pulled me off the ground.
He sucked a breath that rattled his whole body when he exhaled. “I want to watch you,” he said. “I want to see your face when...”
I grabbed his hands, and fell forward in a controlled collapse. He pushed against me, I drove my hips down against his, and I squeezed those hands for all they were worth. There was no difference between us. No air between our bodies, no end of him and beginning of me. It just didn’t exist. For that one blissed moment, we were two linked bodies with one joined soul.
He bulged inside me, and I felt a shudder under me. Our skin stuck together with sweat when I pushed up, but as I drew my knees into a crouch and he was at his deepest, I stared down at his perfect face, his perfect eyes, and imagined being able to do this forever.
“Look in my eyes,” he whispered. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
He filled me, over and over, but never took those glimmering eyes off mine.
“I don’t know the future,” he said again, “but I know that if I have you, nothing else matters. Are you okay with... God that feels good, Lily,” he strained, gritting his teeth. “Are you okay with being mine forever? With being marked by an alpha?”
“Marked,” I said softly, and drove him as deep as I could, rotating quickly. “Marked by you, I don’t know what that means, but if it means I’m yours, then that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Rhythmically, Damon’s hands clenched mine, squeezed hard enough to hurt and relaxed. He swelled, and I trembled.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Oh my God yes, take me, Damon, make me yours.”
He let go of my hands, held my face in his hands. I closed my eyes involuntarily, pleasure washed over me, through me. Every muscle in my body clenched up tight, and then exploded at once.
Sweet release coursed through my veins and I pumped harder, desperate to make him feel as good as he did me.
“Watch my face,” he said in short, grunted words. “Don’t look away. This is real, this is... Lily, yes!”
He let out a roar that came from so deep, and was so brutally, fearsomely loud, that it shook the trees, and then his climax shook me.
“What is that?” I asked, when I was finally able to speak again, moments later. “I feel something... inside me, it’s like...”
I didn’t know exactly how to describe it, but something physically held us together, something deep, like we were connected not only by spirit but also by our bodies holding on to one another.
“That’s our bond,” he said as he stroked my face. “It’s the promise I’m giving you. I’ll never let you alone, I’ll never let you be hurt. I’d rather die than see anything happen to you. When a Skarachee alpha takes his mate, he swells and holds her to him. It means that,” he took a breath and swallowed. “It means that all of this, everything, is real. This is how it’s supposed to be.”
“You mean that if we weren’t meant to be together, you wouldn’t be holding me right now? Your body would... reject me?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly. But it wouldn’t hold onto you, either. That doesn’t matter though. I knew it was right all along.”
The bulge inside me slowly subsided, though when it was gone, I immediately missed that physical bond.
“No one’s ever said things like that to me before,” I kissed his sweaty neck, inhaling his scent and immediately rolling off his chest when I remembered how much it must hurt him.
I grabbed his arm and curled up next to him instead.
“That they loved you? I find that hard to believe,” he said.
“No, no, plenty of people have said that, but,” I traced a circle on his arm, “never like that.”
“Did I hurt you? Oh God, I’m so sorry, I—”
Shaking my head, I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “You’ve got a set of broken ribs, a broken hand that I was squeezing, and two ankles that barely work, and here you are, worried about hurting me.”
“Well,” he looked down, bashfully. “I wasn’t really thinking about any of that. I guess I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t done anything...”
“Don’t worry about me so much,” I said, laying my hand on his chest, feeling Damon’s heart beat in his chest. “I’m a pretty big girl. If I can handle a big, manly wolf like you, why do you think I’m so damn fragile all the time?”
He smiled a half smile and shook his head. “It’s not that,” he said. “I don’t think you’re a delicate flower or anything like that. I’ve just never had anyone feel so... right before. I don’t want anything to happen. My life has been... well, anyway, now isn’t the time.”
“No,” I said. “What is it? I want to take care of you just like you did me back when all that stuff happened with me suddenly coming to terms with my parents dying. Even if you didn’t talk much, you got me through that.”
“You’ve helped me more than you could ever, ever know, Lily. I’m never going to forget that.”
He stood, with a whole lot of groaning, and helped me to my feet.
Slowly, he dressed me, in an almost ritual-like way. Luckily, somehow enough buttons had survived on my shirt that it held together.
Barely. I giggled softly when he worked very, very hard to get the three sort-of-working buttons to hold.
Our walk back to Poko’s cave was slow, and careful, and quiet.
“You better just go on and leave me here to die,” Damon said with a grin. “I’m so exhausted I’ll probably sleep the rest of the day and half of tomorrow. This healing business really takes it out of me.”
“Yeah, I bet,” I grinned. “I’m sure today’s extra exercise really put a strain on you.”
“Come here,” he said after I’d turned around. “Stand right there.”
I stood where he put me, with the afternoon sun hanging behind me. Up and down, his eyes went over my face, my body. I knew that look. He was memorizing me. He’d done it before, but never quite so carefully.
“Okay,” he said. “You can go.”
“What was that about?” I felt myself blush a little, or maybe it was afterglow?
“Nothing,” he said with a smile. “I just wanted to remember this. Exactly. Right now. You’re just...” Damon took a deep breath.
I put my finger to my lips. “I love you,” I mouthed, knowing Poko’s weird ability to hear things no one imagined he could hear. I didn’t care if anyone heard it, honestly, but it felt like a little bit of naughty fun to have a secret, at least for a bit.
The smile that crept across Damon’s face melted my heart. “I love... yeah,” he said. “I love you, I love this. I can’t believe I’ve got you.”
So much for the secret.
I gave him a playful wave, and turned to head back to the ancient tank of a Bronco I habitually parked about a mile from the cave. Every afternoon, or night, whichever it happened to be, that I left him behind, I always had a little bit of lightness in my heart.
That day though, I could have bounced halfway home.
When I climbed into the Bronco, and pumped that damn gas pedal, I couldn’t wipe the smirk off my face. I thought maybe it would go away by the time I got home, but grandpa Joe even joked about how happy I looked.
Then I thought maybe it would be gone by bedtime, but it wasn’t.
As I undressed, and put on my pajamas, still aglow with the things that happened, I stuck my hand absently into the pocket of my jean shorts, out of habit. My finger
s closed around something.
“What on earth is this?” I said into the lonely room. Whatever it was, I pulled something about three inches long, curved, hard and oddly warm out of my pocket. It was on a length of chain.
Crossing the room and flicking on the light, I stared at the wolf fang in wonder. “You sneaky jackass,” I said, smiling. It fit around my neck perfectly.
Of course it did.
As soon as the pendant was on, the tip of the tooth hung right between my breasts, just a few inches from my heart. Somehow, having it there made me feel warm, through and through, just like being near Damon had made me feel. The little trinket gave me comfort, made me feel... watched over? Something like that, anyway.
Reclining on my bed, in the pitch black of night, I stared out the window at the full, fat moon that clung to the horizon like a drop of water halfway sunk into a glass. I closed my hand around the fang, and my breathing instantly evened, and slowed.
I dreamt of wolves, fighting over me, I dreamt of Damon and Devin.
And when I snapped my eyes awake, trembling from the nightmare, still clenched in my hand was the tooth. I took a deep breath, shuddered, and blinked.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” I said, like it was some kind of mantra, a prayer to keep me safe in the middle of the terrible night. “If I’ve got you...”
Before I could finish, a howl from across the desert, somewhere distant, broke the silence.
“Damon,” I said softly. “You’re my forever.”
Twelve
Like every routine I’ve ever fallen into, I couldn’t stop poking until something gave.
I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what made me keep on prodding at Damon and demanding more than he could give, but... that’s exactly what I did.
One day, we were all lovey-dovey and stealing every possible moment to ourselves, hiding away in the deepest reaches of Damon and Poko’s cave to hold each other, to caress and kiss and when Poko was in his deepest trances, we happily fell into each other’s arms, surrendering reason to passion.
And the next, it all went up in smoke.
Every single day with him was a new awakening for me. The emotions, the almost spiritual connection I felt, it was all exactly what I’d always dreamed of, no matter how silly that might sound. He made me whole.
When we walked outside the cave, slowly of course, we went further and further, holding hands. When he finally started getting strong enough to walk without help, the arm he put on my shoulder for support just draped over me, warming me, protecting me from dangers that didn’t exist.
It was how boyfriends and girlfriends are supposed to be, except this was so much more, and I knew it. I just didn’t have any context for what we were, or what we were becoming. There aren’t a lot of werewolf alpha mate support groups to talk with, so I relied on Damon, but as time went on, he never opened up the way I hoped. Maybe it was fear on his part, or maybe he just didn’t know either. Poko’s quizzical answers were never any help, either.
We went along, day to day, happier than I’d ever been, but I still couldn’t help but worry.
It’s just something inside me, I guess, that won’t let well enough alone. Every time he kissed me, or slid one of his enormous hands down my back, or held me close, I couldn’t stop wondering “What if this is all because of some ridiculous prophecy? What if he doesn’t even really like me?”
One day, that’s how it was. And then the next day, I don’t know what the hell happened in my brain, but I couldn’t stop my mouth from saying the things my brain thought. Of course I couldn’t.
Just like always, when things were going perfectly, I decided I needed to screw it up.
Damon was getting stronger. A lot stronger, actually, strong enough that the fear of him just up and leaving me again when he didn’t need me anymore resurfaced. There wasn’t any reason for it, none at all. Nothing he ever said or did indicated that was what he had in mind, but hey, that’s me I guess.
He could hobble short distances without any help, and if I let him use me as a crutch, going as far as the little drip of a creek that lay about a mile from the cave, wasn’t a problem.
“Is that okay?” I said when he stepped on a rock that twisted his foot and Damon grunted out loud. “Are you hurt?”
“Nah,” he said. “Just turned my ankle a little. After having most of my ribs broken, and what feels like a thousand cuts, it’s nothing.”
Somehow he still had that charming, wonderful smile, even with all the pain.
When his hand brushed my ear, accidentally shaking my spaced-out demeanor, I turned. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?” he asked.
“This,” I said. “How do you keep going, not knowing, well, I guess anything about what’s coming?”
A squirrel ran past. A really fat one with a nut in either cheek that made Damon snicker. “I look at things like that,” he said. “And knowing you’re around helps too. But honestly?”
I nodded.
“Honestly I try not to think of all the stuff Poko’s been saying. I can’t handle the idea that he’s going to die... or whatever it is he’s going to do. He’s never exactly told me.”
We took a few more steps before I needed to rest. Might sound funny but these walks where I had to support him were harder on me. As much as I like to pretend to be unflappable, it’s pretty hard for a hundred and ten pound girl to support a lumbering giant.
He sat and I turned around, kicking my feet up on a rock beside where we were resting, and put my head on his lap. Looking up at Damon, it struck me just how big he actually is. When we’re standing, he’s about a head and half taller than I am, and probably weighs as much as two and a half of me. But sitting like that, it felt like I was staring up from the bottom of a skyscraper.
“Is this all gonna end?” I said.
“Which part?” he poked a stick with his foot. “You and me? Or?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “I think I’m still worried about what I said last week. About me being a nurse, and once you’re back up and running, you won’t need me anymore.”
“Don’t think about that,” he said. “It’s not... I mean no, we’re not going to end. The Skarachee way is—”
“Damon, I don’t care. I don’t,” I swallowed, knowing I was treading on dangerous ground. “I’ve never believed any of that fortune telling crap before. I want to know what you actually feel, like inside. Not what you’re supposed to care about because Poko told you to feel it.”
He ran his fingers through my hair. Damon looked straight up into the canopy, then down at me. “Lily,” he said slowly, “the first time we were together, I felt so strongly about you that I shut down. I didn’t know what I was then, not really. I mean I knew but I was too young to really take it all in, you know? But now everything is different. We... we’re bonded now. It’s how my people are. There’s no real option to just up and leave you.” He paused for a second. “Not that I want to, it’s just, you know what I mean,” he added quickly.
Of course I can guess what you mean. I have to, you won’t bother telling me.
“Yeah,” I said. “That makes sense. It is kind of a big load to shoulder.”
Damon took a deep breath and held it for a moment. “I’m scared too,” he said. His whole body shuddered with his exhale. “I’m scared of Poko dying, or... uh, rejoining the spirits, or whatever he says is going to happen, and then suddenly being the alpha of a whole pack. It’s nuts. Like really, really nuts.”
I stroked the back of his hand with my fingertips. “It’ll be okay. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. I can’t imagine anything scaring you.”
“Then you don’t know me very well,” he looked down at me again. “It’s not just the wolf part of me that worries me. It’s everything that’s got to come first. I asked him – Poko – the other day about my transformation ritual. What it was going to be, what it was like, that kind of thing. Do you know what he said?
”
I shook my head no.
“You’ll know when it happens,” he said in his best Poko impression. Very spaced out, soft tones made me laugh. “At a time of incredible tension, you will transcend.”
“Well then,” I giggled. “That’s Poko, huh?”
Damon nodded gravely. “And that’s not the only thing that’s bothering me.”
“What is it?” I asked, curling my fingers in between his, intertwining our hands and letting his palm warm mine. “Don’t be shy about telling me things. I patched up parts of you I’m sure you don’t even want to know about.”
That got him to chuckle before he sat quietly for a moment.
“Damon.” I tapped his hand. “Part of being a couple is that we have to do things with each other besides physical therapy and running rescue missions, or like, big giant battles between wolf clans or whatever. We have to, you know, talk sometimes.”
With a glance up to his dark, sparkling eyes, I thought I saw something behind them I’d never seen before. His left eyelid twitched just a little bit.
“I don’t know if you want to hear this,” he said.
I sat up, threw one leg over his lap and straddled his side, facing him. “How old do you think I am?”
“Come on, Lily, I—”
“No, answer me.”
“You’re grown up enough to make your own decisions.”
“Right, say it. How old am I?”
“Nineteen.”
I drummed my thigh with my fingertips. “And, how often, exactly, have I scraped you off the floor and put you back together?”
“Lily, I—”
“Nope,” I said. “You started it. Why do you think I can’t handle whatever heavy truth you’re about to lay on me?”
“Because I don’t want it to be true either.”
I sighed heavily. “Are we really doing this?”
He fell silent for a moment. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was actually trying to piss me off, to pull one of those things where the boy tells the girl it’s better for her if he drops her like a bad habit. That way, she dumps him and he gets to be the Goddamn victim.
Bad Boys and Billionaires (The Naughty List Bundles) Page 15
