Chapter 16
Luke chugged down a glass of water, splashed ice cold water on his face, walked back and forth in his home, and started working on some sketches.
He did almost any and everything to keep from following his instincts and running back to the cabin to claim…what was his.
Cassie Grey was his. There was no doubt in his mind. Even his wolf rose up against his skin fighting against him to break free. The mating mark on his lower waist burned hot. That had never happened to him. He knew the legends. He'd talked to dozens of mated shifters, even his doctors. The mark that every shifter was born with flamed brightly every time one was in the presence of a true mate. There was no denying that this was the case. He'd suspected it before when the birthmark started bothering him the day Cassie and her brother showed up.
The mark wasn't the only thing bothering him. He was so hard up for Cassie that he couldn't even contain himself or think rationally. If he went back over there now, he was afraid he'd hurt her, fuck her so hard that she'd probably run off and never return.
So he did the only thing that could eliminate his raging hard-on if only for the night. He disrobed, jumped in the shower, turned the faucet on ice cold, and let the water cascade down over him as he stroked his cock over and over again. He gripped his shaft hard, pumping long and twisting upward until his nutsack tightened and filled with his seed. He would rather be pumping between Cassie's creamy thighs with his cock driving balls deep into her.
Luke couldn't get Cassie out of his mind. Her face. Her kissable lips. Her soft fingers as they slipped under his belt. He imagined that her pussy tasted just like the fresh honeysuckle flowers she smelled like. He'd give anything to bend her over the table and eat her pussy for breakfast, snack, lunch, dinner, and supper. She needed punishing for the way she'd teased him. He wanted to squeeze and slap her plump little ass and watch it shake and jiggle as he fucked her long and hard from behind.
"Shit!"
Luke's orgasm surged violently through him. The force of his release sent loads of cum shooting out in the shower. There was so much semen, he could have painted the walls with it. He pumped himself dry, fully expecting the images of sexy ass Cassie to disappear from him. He was a fool. He could never get Cassie out of his mind. Not now. Not after he knew what she meant to him. Not after she'd admitted to wanting him just as much as he wanted her.
He leaned back against the shower wall and panted, trying to think of some type of solution to honor Neil's promise to keep his sister safe and untouched but at the same time making Cassie happy too. Could he do both? Would he have to choose? He couldn't fuckin' think. All he saw were pretty brown eyes staring at him and Cassie begging him to fuck her.
Chapter 17
Cassie closed her eyes and breathed inward, curled back into a child's pose stretch, and then exhaled long and deep. The tranquil music filled the small interior of the cabin as she pushed through the last fifteen minutes of a yoga workout. Her muscles were relaxed, and the negative tension was non-existent. The windows were propped open and crisp mountain breeze blew inward and against her bare skin.
The yoga workout was only meant to aid as a distraction to what was really going on with her body. Last night had been rough for her. She couldn't believe how tempting it was to offer herself to Luke. Hell, she still craved his touch. She had tossed and turned all night in bed with nothing but arousal pulsing between her legs and the "love mark" heating up on her skin.
She continued the workout routine until someone knocked on the door of the cabin. It didn't take long for Cassie to guess who was at the door. She hadn't been expecting Luke's presence this early. He had called earlier that morning, claiming he needed to run an errand up the road. She had wondered all afternoon if that had only been an excuse because he wanted to avoid another episode of what had happened last night. She didn't know if she should be mortified of him seeing her sweaty and overworked or if she should be thankful that she wouldn't miss his visit this time.
"Luke, is that you?" she yelled out over the music and toward an open window.
"Yeah, it's me."
"Come on in," she instructed, and then raised her hands upward to give her forearms a good stretch.
"It's locked," he yelled back.
Cassie chuckled. "Don't act like you don't have a key."
She heard him turning a key in the lock at the same time she grabbed a towel. After lifting herself up on her feet, she met him in the foyer. She dabbed at her damp skin and pushed some stray curls back from her forehead.
His mouth was slightly open as he assessed her from head to toe. "Wh-what have you been doing?"
"What does it look like? I was exercising. Why else would I be sweating?"
He closed the door and dropped his keys on a console table. "When I talked to you earlier you said were going to be working on an article today. By the way, people do sweat from doing other things besides exercising."
"Well the place is virtually spotless thanks to the excellent cleaning company you have, so I wasn't cleaning. And I don't have a boyfriend and a certain someone ran off last night, so I wasn't exactly having sex—which is unfortunate. What else is there?"
She threw him a teasing grin.
The beginnings of a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "You have a whole lot of sass for being such an innocent, petite lady."
"I'm not always innocent. Only when I want to be."
"And how's that working out for you?" he asked.
She shrugged. "I tend to get what I want most days…except for last night." She threw him another accusing look before saying, "Oh! I wanted to ask you something." She dashed over to the office desk where she was looking over some files earlier that morning. As she shuffled through a small box labeled lost and found items, she asked, "Any word on if your Alpha will meet with me?"
"That's one reason why I stopped by. He wants to meet you," Luke said with a nervous expression settling over his face as he watched her shuffle through the box.
"Good. I hope I won't be too much of an inconvenience."
"No. Not at all." Luke shook his head. "Believe it or not, you could be the key to saving a whole lot of shifters."
"I hope so." She scooped some items out of the box to move her search along faster. "What else did you stop by for?"
"Oh yeah…I tried calling your brother but he must be stuck in meetings or something. I met the roofing construction guy at the cabin. I have the estimate. I just need Neil to look it over and approve."
"I'm sure he'll call back soon. My brother and cell phones don't mix. He drops and loses them all the time. Oh, here it is!" She held up a credit card and pushed it across the desk. "Sorting through the lost and found box was one of the projects Nessa was working on before she left. It's strange. The credit card has the name Nessa Lombardi on it. There's an emblem in the right corner that clearly means she identified herself as a shifter. I've seen these before." She peered up at Luke who's expression had gone completely blank. "Was your niece a shifter?"
Luke didn't speak and he kept his gaze on the credit card for the longest before stuffing it down into his front pocket.
"She was looking for this. I think she lost it last year," Luke said.
"Luke…" she said, interrupting the uncomfortable silence between them. "You didn't answer me. Was that intentional?"
Luke sighed deeply and pulled an empty chair. He didn't move the chair behind the desk. He positioned it so that nothing was between them. Their knees were almost touching. His attention was hers. His gaze held a high level of sincerity.
"Cassie, some things are better left uncovered. You won't always like what you find."
"Don't you think I know this by now?" she asked quietly. "I wouldn't risk my life to uncover things that don't matter to me. This case mattered to me. It still does. And I'm asking you this for a reason."
"Of course…" He settled back in his chair.
"You know who I am. You knew from day one that if I had any
doubt or any questions that I wouldn't stop until I knew what every little clue meant. If you wanted this to be a secret from the world—"
"Not from the world." He shook his head.
"From me?" she asked.
"Not intentionally."
"Does my brother know?"
"Know what?"
Cassie swallowed. "That you're a shifter?"
"He doesn't," Luke confirmed. "My bloodline hadn't been outed as shifters when Neil and I went to school together. I mostly lived as a human until the fire took my brother. I finished my last year without having to change my status at the Dean's office. After that, Nessa, Henry, and I made the decisions to come out as such. We anticipated it would affect the business in some way, but we were surprised to find that it didn't affect our profit margins by much. We're pretty established in the lounging business though."
"Well, that's also because your kind has been accepted into our society by everyone with the exception of a few bad apples," Cassie offered. "I'd be wrong if I said I understood why you kept it a secret from everyone for so long. I haven't experienced what you have so I don't know what being a shifter in a predominantly human world is like. I just know that it doesn't change the way I look at you. I'm just mildly curious about your way of life."
"Just mildly?"
"That was an understatement," she replied. "You know, I was wondering why most of your storage sheds had a change of men's clothes in them."
He grinned. "A little nuisance of being a shifter who prefers to travel on foot. We can shift with our clothes on but it's not very comfortable."
Cassie's mind went back to last night and the way he'd kissed her so thoroughly…and then left her. Why did she feel like such a whore for wanting something so badly and not being able to have it?
"About last night," she started. "I'm sorry for causing you to almost break your promise to my brother."
"You don't have to apologize," he said. "I overreacted. In fact, I should have stayed."
"I guess you think I'm some loose woman addicted to sex or something." She sighed.
He shook his head. "No, that's not what I think. I just think you're perfect and have your whole life ahead of you and I don't want to ruin any chances that you might have a normal life."
She blew outward, shaking her head. "But that's my decision to make, but I see you've already made yours."
"Cassie…"
She rose from her seat. "I need to take a shower. You said the Alpha will meet with me, right?"
Luke nodded. "He'll arrive in a couple hours."
Before Cassie could slip past him, he rose too and caught her by the arm. He touched the mark on her neck.
"What's this?"
"You kissed me there, remember?"
His eyes narrowed and his brows furrowed.
"Oh, now you have amnesia," she exclaimed, trying to pull away.
"It's not that, Cassie." He swiped his thumb across the mark again. "I didn't put this there. It was there before I kissed you."
She looked at him perplexed, and then she felt her eyes widen when she realized what he might be inferring.
"No. Just no." She shook her head. "I haven't slept with anyone in almost a year." She pulled her arm away. "I'm glad you stopped by to give me a heads up about your Alpha. Now, I'm really going to go take a shower. Should I call you before I come over?"
Luke took her cue and rose from the chair. "No need. Just come right over. I'll be on the back patio, so if I don't answer the doorbell just come right on in.”
"Will do."
Cassie turned around and took her hair down from the high ponytail on her head, letting her tresses cascade down over her shoulders. She didn't have to look behind her to know that Luke stared at her retreating backside, but she did anyway. Even from across the room, she could sense the hunger emanating from him. Too bad he wouldn't act on it the way she wanted him to, but she was having fun teasing him anyway. She grinned at him and slipped inside the bathroom, leaving him standing aloof in the center of the cabin.
Chapter 18
"Did he change his mind?" Cassie asked, folding her legs under her as she sat on Luke's couch.
"He's probably just caught up in other things at the moment, but when Dane says he'll be somewhere, he'll be there." Luke picked up the remote from the center console and turned off the TV. "While we're waiting on him, I picked up something for you while I was at the market."
Cassie smiled. "I like presents."
He got up, walked over to the fireplace, and removed something from the mantle. He returned to the seat beside her and handed her something wrapped in a brown wrapper and tied with a thick white ribbon.
"Thank you." She opened the package and pulled out two leather handmade journals with linen threads and a white button seal. "Very nice. I love to collect these. I put the prettiest ones on display on my bookcase which is where these will go." She traced the outline of the journal. "You didn't have to get me these, after all, I owe you so much with you allowing me to stay in your cabin."
"You don't owe me anything at all. I'm glad you came. I was getting lonely in these mountains. While you've been here you've reminded me that life isn't always about working endlessly but pursuing what matters the most."
"Then we're helping each other," she replied.
"Cassie, I don't want any more secrets between us. I know I wasn't open about what I was in the beginning. I'm not the kind of guy that just walks right up to folks and reveals that I'm a shifter. If a person knows, they just know. Plus, I really didn't know how you'd react. You came here for safety and I didn't want to run you off."
"I'm in the safest place right now. With you. I'd never run away from you."
"I didn't mean to hurt you last night. We both know that I'm very attracted to you. But eight years ago you were…" He chuckled under his breath and ran his hands through his hair.
"You don't even have to say anything. I know what you're thinking. I'm too young. I was just a tween when you first saw me." She shrugged. "Well, guess what? I'm now a grown ass woman. A woman who does what she pleases and knows what she wants."
"I've learned that about you."
"I'm not bothered by any age difference. Actually, I'm quite pleased that you're not the average run of the mill playboy. I don't like playing games."
"I'm flattered that you're pleased with me," he commented.
"Tell me about what happens if we had ended up in bed with each other last night," she requested.
"I would have fucked you thoroughly."
She blushed and her sex clenched just thinking about it. "I bet. What I meant was…if we do have sex, where would that leave us?"
"I can't predict the future, but I know I want you. And not just for one night. You're wearing my mark for a reason."
"Your mark?"
He reached out and caressed the "love mark" near her collarbone. "Do you remember seeing my birthmark?"
She nodded. "Yeah, the one I thought was a tattoo at first. I couldn't make out what it was."
"All shifters have birthmarks somewhere on their body. Mine happens to be shaped like a pineapple with stems and all. I have no idea what it means, that's just what it looks like to everyone who's seen it." His gaze dropped again to her neck. "My birthmark looks just like that."
"But that's impossible."
"Shifters have certain abilities. We know when we've found our true mate when she wears our mark. Sometimes the mark isn't visible on a human mate unless she comes in close contact with her mate."
"So when we kissed…?"
"When we kissed, your birthmark revealed itself."
"That's fascinating but very surreal," she said. "Has this happened before with other couples?"
"Oh yeah. Hundreds and thousands of times before."
"So what are you saying…?"
"You and I are what they call true mates. If we come together and have sex, the process will complete itself and there's nothing that you or I can do about it. We'll
be mated naturally."
"Wow, really? No dating? No marriage?"
Luke chuckled. "If you'd like to do all that stuff before we have sex and the mating occurs naturally, I'm more than willing to do that for you. We have all the time in the world."
"You're so honorable. And I like it, but I could barely contain myself when we kissed last night. I'm not exactly a saint and you knew I wanted you and you left anyway. Did you know this before last night?"
"Not entirely. I had a feeling but it was confirmed when I saw the mark on your body for the first time today. I guess I was in denial that someone so pure and beautiful could be mine."
"So, what if you're wrong? What if I'm not your mate and we ended up having sex?"
"I know I'm right, but let's just say you and I weren't mates," he said. "When a shifter has sex with someone, doesn't matter if he or she is a shifter or human, they imprint on that person. It's when a wolf's essence is transferred to his or her lover. Kind of like a chemical imbalance in the body. An adult shifter will have developed enough willpower to counteract the effects, but, in a human, it'll cause the person to have increased sexual drives that only his or her shifter lover can satisfy. If they continue to have sex, the chemical imbalance will remain. If they never have sex again, the imprint will eventually fade. There is an exception to that."
"What's that?"
"If the lovers are true mates, the imprinting will never fade. In that case, you'll find that the couple wears each other's marks. We don't even have to have sex. If you keep kissing me, eventually we will be mated naturally."
"Do you mean like this?" She leaned in closer and kissed him deeply.
Luke never got the chance to answer her because she covered his reply with her mouth. His mouth tasted just the way she remembered it and she slipped her tongue between his lips where they came together in heated bliss.
Aspen Valley Wolf Pack (The Complete Series) Page 50
