by Maddy Barone
“You feel so good,” she whispered. “I’m ready for fireworks.”
“If my mate wants fireworks, I’ll give her fireworks,” he promised.
It was the flat tone he’d always used, but now she knew he hid dry humor behind it. “Light ’em up!” she invited, using her heels to nudge his ass into action.
“Hold on,” he ordered, and began to move.
Boy, could he move! His first strokes were languorously gentle, but after a few moments she was meeting him thrust for thrust, and he left languor behind. She was sure if the bed frame wasn’t bolted to the floor it would be slamming against the wall. Her earrings chimed in time with Des’ thrusts, a reminder of Paul that she shoved away to focus on Des. The angle of his penetration, or perhaps it was just his size, pushed his cock continually over her g-spot with exquisite pressure. Orgasm was close. So close.
“Des!” she cried, holding on to his long hair for dear life. “The fireworks are coming. Just need a bigger spark, just a little more—Ah!”
Orgasm crashed over her, with waves that seemed to go forever. When her body finally stopped shaking, she was embarrassed by the scream she’d let out, but she remembered his frenzied howl roaring out over her scream. Des was slumped, unmoving, over her, like a heavy bearskin rug oozing male satisfaction with each panting breath. She gave a half-hearted shove at his chest to get him to move.
He shifted a bit so most of his body weight was off her, but his face was still buried in her neck. “I think you scalped me,” he murmured.
Her hands jerked open, releasing his hair. “Sorry!”
“I’m not.” There was no mistaking the smugness in his voice. “Did you see fireworks?”
She forced the inappropriate giggles back. “Oh, yeah. In Technicolor.”
“I don’t know what that is, but it sounds good.”
“It was better than good.” She flexed her toes against the mattress to savor the last rise and ebb of orgasm. “It was amazing.”
“I agree. Amazing.” He brushed his lips over the pulse thundering in her throat. “I love you.”
She stared into the dark, toes clenching. “Des.” Her voice got caught in her throat. She coughed slightly. “We had sex. Great sex. But that’s not love.”
She felt his hands cup her face, turning her in the dark to where he must be. “You’re right. Sex isn’t love. In the first couple of years after my mother was killed, I went to Omaha every few months, and I bought sex from a good lady named Jade. I liked her, and I liked the sex, but I didn’t love her. It’s different with you.”
She shouldn’t ask. She should change the subject. Really. “How is it different?”
His lips touched her temple in a light caress. “You’re my mate.”
“Oh.” She shifted her shoulders in the snug hollow their lovemaking had made in the feather tick. “We don’t actually know each other well enough to have fallen in love.” She hated the hesitant note in her voice, and firmed her face in the dark. “Love takes time.”
“It does,” he agreed. “For some people. The moment I knew you were my mate I began to love you. Since then, I’ve grown to love you more every time I saw you.”
“You did?” Inwardly, she slapped herself for her breathlessly hopeful tone. “How could you? We barely spoke.”
“I watched you. A lot. Didn’t you notice?”
She had noticed him enough to fuel hot erotic dreams that didn’t begin to compare to reality, but she didn’t tell him that. “No, not really.”
“I saw how you did everything you could to help the women in your house. I watched you try to balance your need for food, clothing, heating, and house repairs against the demands of the men in Kearney.”
Hell, yeah. Pushy men like Dick Dickinson had offered food and more woodstoves in exchange for more access to the women. They needed those things, but her women weren’t objects for trade. She drummed her fingertips against her bare thigh under the blanket. Maybe Faron hadn’t bargained as hard as he should have, allowing more freedoms to those men than Connie liked. Now she knew the reason for it: he had hoped the exposure would ensure the women found husbands before spring.
“But now we have you.” Connie felt herself relax. She fumbled in the dark to stroke his hair and caress his shoulder. “You promised to protect us.”
“You and the women are my Pack now. What do you think about Hawk, Red Wing and a few more of the wolves coming and living at the House? They’ll increase security, and Renee and Marissa will live there too.”
Connie relaxed just a little more. “I think that’s good.” She surprised herself with a jaw-cracking yawn.
“Sleep now, mate. I love you.”
She twitched. “Des…”
“Shh,” he whispered. I know. We don’t need to figure it all out tonight.” He lay on his side and pulled the covers securely around them. “Sleep.”
She wanted to say she loved him, but she wouldn’t lie. Unless this first time was a fluke, the sex would be great, so that part wouldn’t be a hardship. He had asked her about having other wolves come live at the house instead of issuing a command, so apparently he would share responsibility with her and include her in decision making. She felt something for him. Lust, liking and respect weren’t a bad start to a strange marriage like theirs.
She snuggled her back against his front and lifted his big hand from her waist to her lips. “Good night, Des.”
Chapter Seven
Des woke her at dawn to make love to her again. Cold light glimmered through the half-open curtain at the window, showing her the intensity on his face while he moved inside her. The way he focused on her made her feel like she was the only thing that mattered to him. She liked that feeling, and she liked how he touched her, tender and demanding and achingly sensual. God, she’d never get enough of his mouth on her body. Afterward, lying together, she on her back and he on his side facing her, they talked.
“Why did you want to fly planes?” he asked, combing his fingers through her hair.
She didn’t have to think to find an answer. “Because when I fly, I’m free. I’m in control of so much power that I feel like nothing can stop me or hurt me.”
His arm tightened around her shoulders. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”
She almost snapped that she didn’t need his protection, but she swallowed it. In this new world, someone to guard her back was welcome. “Thanks.”
For a moment, he was quiet. “I heard that in the Times Before, everybody rode cars to go places. Did everybody fly planes too?”
“No, not very many, and female pilots in the military were even more rare. It takes a certain kind of woman to be a fighter pilot in the United States Marine Corps.”
His tangled hair spilled forward to tickle her bare shoulder when he leaned up to smile at her. “My mate is special. I knew it. All women are special. You are the ones who give life. Not many men can live without a woman to complete him. But you were always special to me, from the moment I saw you.” He dipped his head to give her a warm, lingering kiss. “You are an amazing woman.”
He made her glad to be a woman.
That sounded wrong. She was proud to be a woman. As a female fighter pilot in the Corps, she had been one of a very small, very elite group. She was proud of that, but a woman didn’t have to be a member of an elite group to be worthy of love and respect. Just being a woman—hell, a human being— was enough to deserve those things. Des seemed to understand that. It made her warm to him in a way that wild declarations of love wouldn’t.
“Faron’s a decent guy,” she said. “But he’s disgustingly patriarchal. Are you going to boss me around and treat me like I don’t have a brain?”
“Like you don’t have a br…?” He stared at her before slumping down beside her to look up at the ceiling. “He means well. He only wants to keep you safe.”
“You’ll be taking his place as the man in charge of security now.” Connie tried to keep her voice mild and steady.
“Yes. I’ll be the Alpha. I’ll ask Hawk to be my beta. I think we’ll have maybe another ten men of the Clan or Pack too.”
“Where do I fit in this hierarchy?”
“At the top, with me. You’re the Lupa, the Alpha female.”
She let out a slow breath. “That’s good.”
“We’ll make decisions together when we can. There will be times when you will have the final word, like when it comes to the women. You know them better than I ever could. But there will be times when I will have final word, like in matters of security. We can discuss it, but once I decide, there will be no argument. And there will be times when we won’t have a chance to discuss issues and I will have to decide without you. Can you accept that?”
Connie thought it over, wanting to be sure her answer would be utterly truthful. “I was in the military for ten years. I’m used to a chain of command, and taking orders. Yeah, I can accept that.”
It was far more than she’d had with Faron in charge. Des seemed like a level-headed guy. She felt sure any decisions he made would be carefully weighed. Relief kicked the breath out of her. This marriage could work. It really could.
“How many werew…” She caught herself. “How many wolves will we have altogether, do you think?”
“Including me and Hawk? A dozen, I think. A couple won’t be wolf-born, but they are well trained. You can trust them to see to the safety of our Pack.”
“Wolf-born? What’s that?”
Des blinked at her, and then smiled. “You still have things to learn about the Wolf Clan. Not all of us are born with wolves. Take Tracker. He is stronger, faster, heals quickly, and has the best sense of smell of any of us, but he doesn’t have a wolf.”
“Really?” Connie remembered the smooth grace with which Tracker moved, like a cat hunting. If anyone should be a wolf, it was Tracker. “He’s just human?”
“He’s a man of the Clan, whether he has a wolf or not. About half of us don’t have wolves. That doesn’t mean they can’t fight.”
A light rap on the door made Connie jump slightly. A voice murmured quietly on the other side. Des nodded, as if in response. It was weird, how well these guys could hear. He dropped a light kiss on her head.
“The water in the shower will be hot for three minutes.”
Connie felt her mouth fall open. “A hot shower?”
“Only for a few minutes, and only right now. So hurry!”
She leapt from the bed and rushed, naked, to the bathroom. She reached through the shower curtain for the faucet. When she turned the knob, warm water poured in a weak stream from the showerhead. She was standing under the water and wetting her hair before she remembered she didn’t have shampoo. The soap by the sink would have to do. She pulled the shower curtain back a few inches to reach for the soap dish on the sink. Des was there.
“Only two more minutes,” he warned her, handing her the soap and a washcloth.
She frantically scrubbed her body and hair. Warm water relaxed her muscles and delighted her soul, almost as much as Des’ lovemaking had last night and this morning. No, nothing did that as well as sex with Des. She was about to invite her new husband to join her when the water turned icy. She sucked in a shocked breath and fumbled to turn off the faucets. Des was ready with a towel. She noticed with disappointment that he had re-braided his hair.
“That was great,” she said through chattering teeth.
He laughed softly, wrapping her goose-bumped body in the towel and giving her arms a vigorous rub through the terrycloth. “Here, take this towel for your hair.”
Once her hair was wrapped up, he put his arms around her and held her. She liked the strength that cradled her against his warm chest. “Des, we have got to get hot running water for our place.”
His face lit, an unusual expression for his normally dour face, and his arms crushed her in a hug. She held the towel up over her breasts with one arm and hugged him back with the other. When he loosened his grip she raised a quizzical eyebrow. “What was that for?”
His face settled back into its typical stoic lines, although she could still see a hint of warmth in his eyes. “You said ‘our place’. You accept our mating.”
“I married you. That’s pretty accepting, don’t you think?”
He shrugged, stepping away to allow her to go back into the bedroom. “Words and a piece of paper don’t mean much. Actions and thoughts do.”
Actions, she mused, rubbing her hair vigorously with the towel. She prided herself on being a woman of action. Her clothes were folded neatly on the floor by the bed, painfully cold, and the panties weren’t clean. She winced as she pulled them on to her newly washed body. The socks, jeans and shirt followed. Shivers were still coursing through her body when she turned back to the bathroom to hang up the towels. They were already showing signs of forming ice crystals. Was it actually freezing in here? Yeah, it was cold, but with Des to keep her warm under the covers last night she hadn’t felt the temperature. He took the towels from her and tossed them over the bar for the shower curtain. The he stood in the bathroom door, naked, arms folded over his chest.
“You’re right, Des. Actions speak louder than words, but I’ll say it anyway. I appreciate you. If you hadn’t stepped up, all of us women would be facing a bad situation. This marriage isn’t what I’d planned on, but I think it will be good. It can work.”
“Do you think stepping up was a sacrifice for me?”
The note of incredulity in his voice made her twitch. “Maybe not, but it’s changed everything for you. You’ll be leaving the den and starting a new job in a place with a bunch of women. And let me tell you, that’s not as easy as you might think, and—”
“And I’ll be living with my mate,” he cut her off with finality. “The woman I love.”
She drew in a breath, ready to argue, but let it out in a controlled sigh. “I’m not trying to put you down, but I don’t see how you can love me when you don’t know me.”
He left the bathroom doorway to stand close enough to her to comb his fingers through her wet, tangled hair. “We talked about this last night. When I first saw you in the Clan camp I was attracted to you because my wolf chose you to be my mate. You rejected me, but I’ve watched you since then. You’re brave.” He brushed his lips over her hair. “You’re strong.” His lips smoothed over her temple. “You put the other women first.” His lips settled over hers in a kiss so gentle she barely felt it. “Aren’t those reasons to love you?”
The blush that rose to her cheeks was hot. “Well, I guess so.”
He put a warm hand around the back of her neck. “And I hope that in time you’ll find things about me to love too.” Before she could answer, his fingers brushed through her hair. “I’ve always wanted to ask you why is your hair two inches shorter on this side. Was there an accident?”
She laughed, partly with relief that he was dropping the subject, and partly because nearly every man who had the guts to talk to her commented on her hair. “No! It’s the fashion. When I left the Corps I decided to let my hair make a statement. I was tired of always being the straight arrow; I wanted to be just a tiny bit rebellious.”
He bent and picked something up off the floor next to the bed. The weak early morning light gleamed on her earrings as they swung from his brown fingers. “Are these rebellious too?”
“My earrings!” Her hands flew unthinkingly to her earlobes. “How did they get on the floor?”
“You looked uncomfortable last night while you were sleeping, so I took them out. They’re pretty.”
“Yeah.” She took them and threaded them through her earlobes. How had she not noticed they were gone? Well, between making love with Des and the shower call this morning, her attention had been on other things, so maybe it wasn’t surprising.
“Are they special to you?” he asked.
She slowly lowered her hands, debating how much to say. “Yeah, they are. They were a gift from my fiancé before he died.” When his face closed, she h
urried to reassure him. “He died years before the plane crashed. I loved him, and I still think of him, but it was a long time ago.”
“How did he die?”
Connie didn’t understand the need she had to comfort him. She stepped close enough to him to lay her still-wet head on his chest. “He was a fighter pilot too. His plane was shot down by insurgents. He didn’t survive the crash.”
His arms came around her. “He died in battle?”
“Yeah. Killed by the enemy in Iraq.”
“Did he die well?”
She nodded, a shadow of the old pain passing through her heart.
Des’ fingers were gentle when they brushed the chiming drops of little gems cascading from her lobes. “Then you should always wear these to honor him.”
Tears smarted her eyes. “Thank you, Des.”
He smiled down at her. “For what?”
“For not being a stupid, jealous git.”
“You loved him. He must have made you happy. I’m sorry you had to suffer pain when he died.”
She remembered her blind attempts to escape that pain through sex and alcohol. “I was stupid. I behaved badly after he died. But I learned eventually to be a better person because of it. I had to leave the Corps to do it, though, and that was hard for me. My dad was disappointed in me.” That had hurt almost as much as losing Paul. “He called me a quitter.”
His kiss was gentle. “I’m sorry he was disappointed in you. If he could see you now, he’d be proud of you.”
That made her want to cry, too. She sniffed hard. “I’m freezing. And starving. Is it breakfast time yet?”
He gave her one more kiss, a hard one that seemed fiercely possessive and protective. “I can smell ham.” He let her go long enough to pull on the sweats he wore last night, handed her her cane, and ushered her to the door. “Let’s go see.”
