“Don’t play stupid with me. Jamie told me about your whole fated thing,” she said with a bitter laugh. “She overheard some of the wives of the hybrids talking about it. It all makes sense now. All the stuff about making choices.”
Her whole body shook as she spoke, her anger and pain clear to him.
“I’m don’t want to be played with,” she said and made her way inside. “Good-bye, Cato.”
Faster than either of them expected, Cato had her in his arms, unwilling to let her just close the door on his heart like that.
“I don’t know what you were told, but there is no other woman. It’s always been you. The fates made the choice that my heart already knew was right, and they led me to you.”
Wendy stood with her mouth open for a moment, her gaze still pinned on his.
“Now I’m confused,” she whispered.
Cato nodded. “Then let me explain.”
Wendy stepped out of his arms, and for a moment, he worried she might shut the door on him again. She stepped inside.
“Let’s talk,” she said.
Wendy watched as Cato closed the door and made his way inside. They sat on the couch, her emotions still on high, and she was not quite sure what the hell was going on. Everything had made sense at the bar, but suddenly she was a jumble all over again.
“The term we use is Vestal,” he said. “It’s like a purified woman sent from the gods. One half of the heart of a hybrid. Or at least that’s how it’s told,” he mumbled.
“So this is an old wives tale? Some religious myth?”
Cato looked over to her and shook his head. “We used to think so, but more and more we know it to be true. The Vestal is a woman. Her scent is made to draw the hybrid. The two pull each other in with their pheromones. But it’s even more than that.”
Wendy blinked a few times. More?
“There is one Vestal for a hybrid. One chance at happiness. Once they have bonded, there is no going back for the hybrid.”
Wendy kicked off her heels and tucked them under her legs on the couch.
“And how does the bonding happen? Is it like a marriage?”
He shrugged. “Sort of. It’s like a bonding of the souls.”
She noticed he’d aptly avoided her other question. “How?” she said bluntly.
“You are my bonded,” he said. “My heart, body, and soul are already yours.”
She opened her mouth and closed it. This was far heavier than she anticipated. Somehow, she had tied herself to Cato. What’s more, she wasn’t tossing him out the door.
Wendy had never really thought of herself as the marrying sort. Maybe a long-term boyfriend, but marriage? Yet when he talked about being bonded, the very idea of it just seemed right. Not just seemed, felt right, in her heart, maybe even in her soul.
“You don’t have to love me,” Cato said when she hadn’t spoken for some time. “I’m content to just be by your side, but you need to know my feelings. I should have been honest last night before we did anything.”
She looked over at him. His face was far more uncertain than she’d ever seen him.
Cato was worried.
Her heart ached at the sight of it, and before she even knew what she was doing, Wendy was moving. She straddled his lap and kissed him on the lips.
It wasn’t the searing sort they had shared the night before. This one contained something even more. A feeling. Something more than the words she couldn’t seem to find.
When she pulled away, Wendy stared into his soft amber eyes.
“I’m content to be by your side as well,” she whispered.
This time she kissed him again. With a bit more passion than what had been there before, an aching need that never seemed to leave when he was around.
Slowly she undid the buttons to his shirt but stopped when his hands clasped over her own. When she leaned back, she could see the fear there in his eyes.
“Maybe we should go to the bedroom,” he said.
Wendy frowned. “I want to see you.”
Cato looked away from her and nodded.
She leaned back on his lap as she popped each of the buttons. When she was finished, she pulled the soft cotton away and gasped.
Cato wanted her hands on him. To feel her against him. To think he wasn’t some freak, but that’s exactly what he was.
He pulled his arms out of his shirt and placed it on the couch next to him.
Wendy placed her small hands on his chest. His muscles tightened under her touch. With slow deliberation, she ran her fingers over the puckered spots that dotted his chest. The scars that were the physical manifestation of his pain.
“Burns,” she said softly.
Cato hated them. A sign of his weakness. It was always there, reminding him of just how easily a person’s rights could be taken away.
“I was just a teen then,” he said. “One of the Horatius Group guards wanted to teach me a lesson after I tried to run on him.”
“He burned you like this?”
Cato turned his face away from her. He didn’t want her to see this side of him. The one that still felt the pain from it all.
“They held me down as he burned me over and over again.”
Cato could still feel the sizzle of his skin and smell the god-awful stench that filled the air.
He jumped when soft lips kissed a sensitive scar on his chest. Wendy placed a kiss on each one of the spots. When she was finished, she stared back up at him again.
“I don’t want you to hide anything about yourself from me,” she said softly. “I want to see all of you. Good, bad, and ugly.”
His heart filled with a joy he’d never felt before but even more than that, hope.
Cato leaned in and kissed her. His tongue pressed deeply inside, as if he wanted to devour all of her.
With deft hands he slid the black dress over hear and onto the couch.
His eyes roved over the black lace that covered her body. He loved every little inch of her.
Soft hands pressed against his pants, and with far more ease than he expected, Wendy unbuttoned and unzipped them. She shoved the material down enough that his cock sprang free of its fabric prison.
“I need you,” she whispered to him.
Cato understood. He felt the urgency to be connected to her once again. To fill her up inside as they each reached out for their release together.
He reached down and tore the black panties from her. A small yelp followed.
“I have to be in you,” he mumbled.
His fingers brushed across her wet pussy, and he moaned in surprise. She was ready for him.
As if understanding his needs without thought, Wendy lowered herself onto his throbbing cock, taking him in all the way until they were so close that he could no longer see where they were joined.
“So big,” she said with a grunt.
Cato stared at her with concern. Despite the beads of sweat that were breaking out on his brow from just the feel of her tight confines, he wanted them both to enjoy it.
He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips.
“Don’t push yourself,” he whispered.
He groaned loudly near her face when she rose up slightly and then pressed herself back down on him again.
Wendy leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her mouth against the shell of his ear.
“I’m so turned on seeing your face as I push you deep inside,” she whispered. She moaned still near his ear. “When you twitch like that, I can feel it pushing at my cervix,” she panted. “It makes my inside shiver.”
Damn. She was going to kill him with this sort of talk. But he could feel how deep he was, and the way she flexed around him only added to the pleasure of it all.
She inched up and down him, each time pressing him as far as she could.
Cato gripped her hips hard when she sat down on him again and gyrated her hips, his cock moving inside her as she did.
“Fuck,” he said and
grunted. “I’m going to come if you keep that up.”
Wendy shivered hard in his arms, and she tightened around him, her orgasm shaking her. His cock was still buried deep inside. Every part of her sweet pussy was moving over him, squeezing him in a way he’d never felt before.
Unable to stop, he released inside her. His seed poured against her cervix as it suctioned the tip of his cock.
She collapsed against him. She still shivered as the waves of pleasure wracked her body.
He had never been so drained in his life, but it was all in the best sort of way.
Wendy placed small kisses against his neck, and he could feel the smile there. “You owe me a pair of panties.”
Cato laughed. Her comment was totally unexpected.
“Worth it,” he whispered.
Chapter Sixteen
Wendy slipped out of the house early Sunday morning, Cato still sleeping in her bed. They spent the rest of Friday night, along with all of Saturday further exploring both their pleasure and their love.
She ached and was tired, but it was worth it.
That said, duty called. Friday afternoon had been very productive, but they weren’t done. The colonel loaned her more than a few lower enlisted, and Titus more than a few hybrids, to help with last minute preparations. Vincent and the other vendors didn’t seem to mind the military-grade help.
Despite the fact that everything was nearly ready, Wendy still worried that they had slacked by not at least checking in on the ballroom Saturday. Something might have fallen, or some fool private might have screwed something up.
She decided to walk to the ballroom. It gave her more time to consider her new relationship. Relationship didn’t almost seem strong enough to describe something that might have been the result of fate.
Wendy wasn’t sure she bought into all of the Vestal story, but she couldn’t deny that she’d been drawn to Cato in a way she’d never before experienced. It just felt true.
She let out a quiet chuckle. Lying in bed all day on her day off had been amazing. Thinking on it, she didn’t think she’d had a day like that pretty much ever in her life.
Most of her relationships had been when she was just a teen, and when she entered the military, they’d become downright rare. She didn’t have the time, and she worried about unit cohesion, so avoided dating the available military men.
Wendy reached the ballroom and stepped in. Surprisingly, Colonel Hall stood inside, her arms folded behind her back.
“Seems like everything is nearly ready,” the colonel said.
“Ma’am,” Wendy said, and smiled. “I think we were able to pull it off. Still going to be a full day of setting things up and getting the catering in order, but we’re ready for this, especially with the added help.”
She watched as the colonel walked around the room, examining all the progress they had made. “It seems that you and this man make a good team.”
Wendy nodded. “He worked very hard to help make it an affair that all the men will feel welcome at.”
Colonel Hall shook her head. “I’ve also heard that you might be teaming up in a more social way.”
Wendy was shocked. Never in the several years she’d been with Colonel Hall had her superior asked her about her private life.
“Ma’am, I didn’t think there was any order prohibiting—”
The colonel held up her hand. “Relax, there’s no order.” She furrowed her brow. “I thought about it, given our position here, but I also realized if I issued an order like that, Titus and his people would take it as a grave insult. It’d make things worse. Plus, I didn’t really think it’d be an issue.”
“I don’t understand, then.”
“This isn’t about the mission. This is about you as a woman.” Colonel Hall sighed. “Take this as friendly advice. This won’t end well.”
“Why?” Wendy frowned slightly. “Is it because he’s hybrid?”
Colonel Hall let out a short laugh.
“Not even the slightest,” she said with a smile. “I might be getting up there, but I’m not blind. I get the attraction. They are… the ultimate soldiers.”
She winked at her, and Wendy’s mouth fell open. This was as frank as she’d ever seen her superior.
“Look, it’s not because he’s a hybrid. If only it was so simple. It’s because he’s a man.” She patted Wendy on the shoulder. “I’ve seen you fight your way to where you are. The men respect, you and you work damn hard. You could really go places. I’d just hate to see you throw it all away on some man. Sure, he’s an impressive specimen, but he’s still a man.”
“How is being with Cato throwing things away?”
“You can’t be with him. You think you’re going to be permanently assigned to Luna Lodge? We might be here years, or they might reassign us in six months. Needs of the Army. Then, what? You going to leave, throw away your career and live with him?” She let out another long sigh. “This is where him being a hybrid matters. The fact that we’re here shows how unstable things are. For all we know, next week, everyone will stop caring about hybrids, or maybe they’ll kick them all out of the country. Are you ready to sacrifice your entire career for that kind of uncertainty?”
Wendy felt her throat close up. She had worked hard, and she was proud of the work that she had done. All this time she had told herself that a relationship was the last thing she needed. There were goals to be met, and it wouldn’t happen with a man in the picture.
Then she met Cato, and he changed everything.
But had he? She still wanted the same things she wanted before. Only now she wanted him there with her. She wasn’t even sure that was something she could consider. The fact was that he was a hybrid, and she was still a member of the military.
The colonel was right. Their lives were not their own to direct.
“Just think it over,” Colonel Hall said with a sad smile.
Wendy nodded. “Thank you, ma’am. I will.”
Her mentor stepped out of the room. Wendy could already feel her heart closing off from the outside world, trying to make a wall so she wouldn’t be hurt when she really had to say good-bye to the only man she’d ever loved, maybe the only she ever would.
* * *
Cato hadn’t managed to meet up with Wendy before the party started Sunday evening. He’d tried to catch her alone, but it never seemed to work out in his favor. Either someone stepped in the way, or she would slip out without him ever even seeing.
At first, he’d just thought it was the busyness that came with the party. With hundreds of guests and dozens of support staff, it was the largest concentration of people he’d ever dealt with outside one of the protests. In such a situation, it initially made sense that he might not be able to get even a minute of alone time with Wendy.
But he wasn’t an idiot. A few times might have been an accident, but it was more than clear that she was doing her damnedest not to be around him. He was starting to think she missed her calling as a super-secret spy.
Even the pesky reporter Jill Hope hadn’t been able to catch her for another interview before the big party. Instead Wendy had forced him to do it solo, which didn’t go nearly as well. Congenial was something he was not.
That surprised him. She seemed to take her duty seriously, and PR was part of her current task, which meant there was something strong enough to make her risk not doing her best job.
There was no two ways about it, Wendy was avoiding him.
Cato wracked his brain all day with why that would be the case. The last couple days had been amazing, he thought. They’d made love so many times. Each time he’d made sure she was just as satisfied as him.
So much so that he’d made a game of it. How many times he could get her off before he couldn’t hold back anymore.
Four times was as high as he’d gotten, but that was mainly because he was so desperate to be inside her he just couldn’t hold out.
Cato tugged at the collar of the button-down shirt he was wear
ing and gave up trying to be as formal as he wanted. He flicked the button and found he could breathe a little better. He still hated the little buttons and slacks he was wearing, but he had wanted to show her that he could look good as well. Or something like that.
Light music played in the background. He glanced around the room. People chatted with one another. Hybrid and human. The event seemed to meet all their expectations, just as he and Wendy had hoped. He could see the cameraman making his way through the party, catching nice shots of people as they seemed to be enjoying things.
“You did well,” Titus said as he stepped over to him.
Cato was still pissed at his leader, but he’d take the compliment.
“It was all Wendy,” he said stiffly.
Titus laughed. “I somehow doubt that.”
Cato turned to frown at him.
“Trouble with the newlyweds?”
Cato grunted. Last thing he wanted to do was talk about his troubles with Titus.
His leader clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sure it’s just jitters,” he said. “She’ll come around.”
He stopped abruptly when Jill made her way quickly in their direction.
“No more interviews,” Cato said quickly.
Jill shook her head, and for the first time he could see that the color had washed from her face.
“Where are the children?” she asked quickly.
Cato frowned, but it was Titus who spoke first.
“At home,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. The normally well put together woman was shaking and pale.
“I don’t know,” she said quickly. “It might be nothing, but we just received a tip.”
Cato narrowed his eyes. “What sort of tip?”
Jill looked to him, her eyes brimmed in fear. “They said there’s a bomb in the building.”
Chapter Seventeen
Wendy wasn’t jealous. It didn’t bother her at all that Cato had been talking to the pretty reporter or that they had stepped out into the hall to continue their discussion.
Jill Hope probably had questions about the hybrid angle. Soldiers weren’t exactly rare; hybrids were. There was nothing more to it.
Cato: #13 (Luna Lodge) Page 8
