by Rose, Dahlia
April loved the springtime. It started in March and by the month she was born in and named after, everything was in bloom. She could smell the first hints of honeysuckle in the air, and her tulip bulbs had sprung from the ground days earlier. She couldn’t wait to see everything from the blue bonnets to the rose bushes bloom. She had planted her herb garden with new sprigs of red lavender and sweet basil. The scent of both plants was still on her hands blended with the smell of the rich earth she was digging in.
Being an herbalist, she found uses for each herbs to help her clients. From teas to poultices, she knew the healing properties of everything in her yard. Spring didn’t just bring in a season where everything bloomed. It also brought Kale Pendleton to her door.
He was her Achilles heel. They’d met one spring four years ago on her birthday. That same night, she’d shared his bed, and never thought one man could make her feel so much. One week of pure bliss and he was gone. They shared phone calls and email, but she saw him once a year in the spring, and the rest of the time she was alone. It was like having a relationship with a ghost. April cursed herself for falling in love with him and waiting like some damn fool for three weeks out of the year to spend time with him. She didn’t date and could think of any other man touching her but Kale. She also knew that she couldn’t do this anymore. So when he showed up, she had an ultimatum for him. Change the script or there would be no next time. She was done.
The thought of it broke her heart—no more Kale in her life! But April couldn’t see herself in the future still playing this game. How pathetic would it be if she ended up forty and still standing in her doorway waiting for three weeks with a man who didn’t want to put down roots? She’d already gotten the text message, “on my way babe.” The words filled her with anger.
How dare he assume I’m just here waiting on his ass?
You have no one to blame but yourself for this! her little voice yelled, and she knew it was the truth. She’d let him set those unspoken rules and now she would be hurt. By now, she would be upstairs making herself pretty, knowing he would be rolling up on his bike before the sun went down.
Instead, she dug furiously in the damp earth where she knelt to take her mind off him and what she had to do. It wasn’t too long after when she heard the familiar roar coming down her street. He heart jumped, but yet she kept as her task. She had to be firm and say no. But even as the sound of his motorcycle pulled into her driveway, she couldn’t help that even that made her panties wet with anticipation.
“Babe!” she heard him yell, and the door bell ring.
Still saying nothing, she sat at her flower beds planting the new bulbs before they lost all their moisture in their young roots. His footsteps coming forward on the walkway that led around the house made her breath race. Stay strong, April girl, she warned herself firmly.
“Hey, no greeting for your favorite man?” he said from behind her.
April dropped the trowel in her hands and dusted the dirt from her fingertips before she stood and turned to face him. Kale looked entirely too good in his worn leather jacket and holding his helmet in his hands. Those light blue eyes set in that handsome face and his lips curved in a sexy smile made her blood heated. His hair was longer since she’d last seen him and he was so tall she always had to stand on tip toes to kiss him.
“To say you were my favorite man means I have a few more that held less appeal than you,” April said simply.
He pulled her stiff form into a bracing hug. He smelled like the outdoors and his cologne reminded her of the sea. April resisted pressing her nose into his hard chest and inhaling deeply.
“Yeah, a year and only a few calls and some emails will do that to you.” She stepped out of his arms.
“What’s wrong, April?” His blue eyes searched her face for an answer.
She let loose the temper that she was holding back. “What do you think is wrong, Kale? Um, let’s see, for the past three years I get three weeks and some calls? How long did you think I would be putting my life on hold for you, huh?” She poked her finger into his chest. “I’m a woman with feelings. For all I know, there are eleven more women all across this country that gets three weeks too! You don’t give a crap about me. If you did, you’d see the woman I am and what I need. Couldn’t you tell that I want more than this?”
“There’s not eleven other women. Only you,” he said. “Ig you wanted more from me, why didn’t you just ask?”
April had to admit the words thrilled her. Still, there was more to be said. “I didn’t want to put any pressure on you all right? Your exact words to me were, ‘my life is a whirlwind. I don’t stay in one place too long.’ I thought having this with you was better that not having you at all, and honestly, the thought of you saying, ‘see ya, babe’ scared me. But now I can’t let that hold me back any longer. I can’t do this anymore, Kale. You have to leave.”
“April, don’t do this. Let me be the person you need me to be.” He stepped toward her and she instinctively stepped back.
She shook her head sadly. “I know you enough to know you’d try for a little bit, but like you said, you are a whirlwind and then when you went away, I’d be destroyed. No, it’s better this way, Kale. I’m sure you can find some other warm body for a few nights a year. It won’t be me.”
“Is that your final answer? There’s no changing your mind?” he asked quietly.
She nodded, feeling the tears threaten and knowing she couldn’t speak. He pulled her into his arms and devoured her lips in a kiss. She moaned and held on to his broad shoulders while he penetrated her mouth with his tongue. Heat infused her as their tongues dueled. One last kiss. The thought barely registered while he molded her to him. He could always take her to the edge of coming with just a kiss.
“Think on that for a few hours and let me know if you change my mind.” Kale’s voice was almost a growl. “You can’t get rid of me that easy.”
She watched him stride away and she called after him. “You’re full of yourself. I’m not changing my mind.”
She heard his bike purr to life and roar away before she stomped her foot in frustration and stalked back to her flower bed. It was a lucky thing she kept high fences around her backyard. She’d be the talk of the town if one of her older neighbors saw her outside kissing Kale like a horny teen “Think on that, huh? Well, I’m going to put you right out of my mind, Kale Pendleton,” she muttered. An hour later, with her lips still tingling from his kisses, she found out that was easier to say than do.
* * * *
By nine o’ clock, she was coming out of the shower clean from a day of sweating in the backyard. By now, she would be under Kale screaming his name and, no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t get the aching for him to stop.
She dried with a fluffy towel and took her long silk robe of the back of the bathroom door. She looked at herself in the mirror. Yeah, you’ll be missing this, buddy, she thought. Kale praised her body constantly when he was around. Her mahogany skin practically glowed after her shower. Any man would be lucky to have her. But, sadly, the one she wanted most of all was only willing to give her a small fraction of himself.
The positive reinforcement of her decision being right was doing nothing for her libido that was raging. Her body needed him. It was like it could tell she was purposely avoiding Kale. She put on her robe and went downstairs to grab a glass of wine. April brooded over the fact she would be in bed alone…again.
Her phone rang and, when she looked at the readout, she saw his name. She pressed the button and asked shortly, “What do you want, Kale?”
“Come out to the backyard and see.”
The rumble of his voice made her nipples hard. Slut, she berated her inner self. Yeah, yeah, go get yours. She shook her head sadly. Even her subconscious was giving her attitude.
“You can’t be outside. I didn’t hear your bike,” she announced.
“I stopped it down the block and pushed it in,” he replied, and then cajoled, “Apri
l, baby, come outside and see Daddy. I miss you and I have to show you something. It’s something I’ve kept from you for a long time.”
“You don’t have a wife and kids out in my yard, do you?’ she asked suspiciously. “Trust me, I will not handle that well.”
Kale gave a husky laugh. “No, baby girl, it’s nothing like that. Just come on down and don’t run away, please?
She loved when he used that southern twang and called her things like baby girl or darling. She barely got that he was originally from Columbia South Carolina out of him. She could picture him on that bike going all those miles to see her. He was that kind of guy. Just not the commitment type.
She stuck her feet in her slippers and tightened the belt of her robe before heading downstairs. She could at least hear him out. Yeah, that’s why you’re going outside with only a robe on and your inside are clenching.
She rolled her eyes. Shut up, she chastised her inner voice. Maybe she was insane because her mental conversations were getting more frequent. By the glass doors that led out to her yard, she took a deep breath and opened them. She gasped and put her hand over her mouth. Kale stood in her backyard, completely nude, and only one word came to mind…. Magnificent.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a fierce whisper. “Put your clothes on!”
“I can’t. I have to something to show you,” he said mildly.
Her gaze traveled down the muscled contours of his body until she reached his cock. Knowing the pleasure that one particular part of his anatomy had given her time and time again gave her chills.
“I’ve seen what you have to offer before. You can put it away now,” she snapped.
“Your mind is in the gutter, sweetheart. Something else.” Kale hesitated before he went on. “I don’t want to scare you, but I also know if I don’t tell you…. show you what I truly am, then we can’t move on…You told me to leave, but here I am to share the biggest secret in my life with you. Because when I do, you’ll understand why our relationship was as it was, and now it can change.”
“You’re being very evasive.” April wondered what he was talking about. The seriousness of his tone made worry form in the pit of her stomach.
“No, I’m worried you might hate me or be disgusted and just plain terrified,” Kale admitted. Such words from him made her even more scared. He was always so strong, and showed no fear. What secret could he hold that made him show any vulnerability?
She stepped down to the grass, stood before him and spoke truthfully. “There is nothing you could do to make me afraid of you.”
He nodded and stepped further away. “Then watch and see another part of me.”
April stared at him as he crouched low to the ground. His body began to shake as she held her breath. A low groan that reminded her of the ones he made in the midst of their lovemaking came from his throat. His body shifted and changed form. April couldn’t help the cry that came to her lips. She clasped her hand to her face once more as this man she thought she knew and the one she loved changed into something not human. His skin changed to form fur, and legs shortened to that of an animal. The process took only minutes, but to her it seemed like time slowed down. When the transformation was over, instead of Kale her human lover, in front of her stood the biggest wolf she had ever seen.
His yellow eyes peered at her and blinked. He stood still, waiting for her to make the next move. What should it be? she wondered wildly. The scared woman inside her wanted to run screaming into the night. But this was Kale, the man she loved and waited for each year to come to her. What did it matter what was inside him? She became an herbalist because she believed in more than western medicine. She knew the magic of herbs, read and was taught by shamans. They believed all people had a spirit guide that manifested in the shape of an animal. Could they be one and the same in one man?
It was no leap to believe that men could be something more. Most people would never get to see this. He chose to show her, and she pushed fear aside. He had done her an honor. She stepped forward hesitantly. Kale stood waiting patiently, staring with yellow eyes. April passed her hand through his fur. It was so soft, and beneath she could feel the thick chords of his muscles bunch.
She knelt in front of and caressed his face in her palm, rubbing his fur from his snub nose to his ears. “This is you, isn’t it? You’re so beautiful, Kale. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
He morphed instantly back to human form and instead of her holding the face of a wolf, she now held his stubbled cheeks.
“I thought you would hate me. People tend to hate what they don’t understand,” Kale answered truthfully. “But after all this time of coming to see you and being with you, I could tell your mind would be open.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me something sooner?” April asked.
“My life is complicated. There’s so much more I have to tell you,” Kale said. “I’m part of a unit called the Army Beasts.”
“And they’re all like you?” April asked. She thought she knew what the world had to offer, but never this.
“Yes, all like me. Some are even married now. My boss Chase is, and his second in command Zane just got married.” Kale hesitated. “It got me thinking about you and our relationship. I’ve been taking it for granted that you would always be here, and then I tried to picture my life if you were not. I couldn’t stand the thought of another man holding you or smelling your scent. Seeing the way you whisper you love me just before you fall asleep. I don’t ever want to lose that.” He gave her a slow grin. “I was coming here to tell you that before you kicked me out. I want to be with you every hour of every day. Simply put, April, I love you.”
“You heard me whisper I love you in my sleep?” she asked. All this time, she’d thought her secret was safe.
“Each and every time because my heart was saying it back to you.” Kale cupped her cheek and kissed her gently. “Can you accept me as I am?”
They were the words she’d wanted to hear for so long, with some added surprise, but the words meant the same nonetheless. Others like him had found love and had relationships. Why couldn’t he…with her? It had broken her heart when she had to tell him to leave, and she wasn’t about to let him go, not again.
“I couldn’t do anything less.” She smiled and kissed him in return before laughing out loud. “Oh my God, you’re a wolf!”
“Now I’m going to eat you up.” He growled.
“Oh yes, Kale. I missed you so much,” April whispered. When his lips met hers, she succumbed to the ache that he elicited in her. April was glad she had those high privacy fences put up around her yard because she was about to loved hard by her wolf.
April loved drying her sheets and blankets outside. The air made the lavender fabric softener she used smell all the sweeter, as if it was kissed by the sun that dried the fabric. She had washed all her spring linens and this was the last batch from the dryer. She didn’t protest when Kale pulled one of her Afghans off the clothes line and spread in on the grass. He knelt on the fabric and held out his hand to her. April’s eyes traveled down his muscled chest to the engorged flesh of his cock jutting out from between his legs. The ache she’d fought against early that evening came back with a sudden force that stole her breath. She slipped her robe from her shoulders and stepped toward him. She knelt and placed her hand against the hard muscles of chest, feeling them jump beneath her fingers. She looked up at him and saw the flash of his wolf eyes before his lips descended to hers.
Kale lifted his head to look into her eyes. “Be my mate. The wolf in me needs its companion, and that is you.”
“You have me for always,” April whispered.
His mouth took hers with a kiss that sent her senses reeling. She had seen her man turn to wolf and then back to a man. He vowed his love to her and called her his mate. All this combined with the feeling of his lips made the night more intimate and the pleasure more intense. His big palms massaged her breasts and she pressed her naked form to him. April f
elt the hardness of his cock pressed against her belly he reached between them and pressed it high between her thighs. His hips moved and moaned as the thickness of his rod slide against the lips of her pussy. The moans mingled and April reached to grab his cock in her hand.
She tore away from the kiss and pressed feverish kisses down his body until she came to his shaft. She took the thick beast in her mouth and feasted on him, taking his hard flesh onto her mouth and loving it with her tongue while she sucked. Kale’s body tensed and he threw his head back with a cry. She lifted her eyes and he looked like the wolf howling in front of the full moon.
“Oh God, that feels so good! Your lips on me, damn, I missed it so much,” Kale growled.
She drew away from his cock, leaving it wet, and he pulled her back up to him by her shoulders. April gasped as he nuzzled her neck and bit the sensitive skin there. She closed her eyes while his lips caused excitement to dance along every nerve ending of her skin. Kale cupped her breasts and lifted them to his mouth. April gasped in pleasure. She arched her back, pushing herself more into his mouth. She loved the suction of his lips around her nipple and way his tongue flicked around the sensitive bud.
“Kale, oh yes!” She moaned.
He laid her down and she felt Afghan against her back. He made her so aroused that she swore she could feel each chord of the knitted fabric on her skin. He lay so that his head was between her legs. Kale placed his hot lips on her inner thighs, and her stomach clench with anticipation.
“April, do you know I have your scent imprinted in me, and your taste, it makes me crave you in so many ways.”
As his kisses got closer to her core, April’s breath came in little pants. She spread her legs wider in silent need to feel his lips on her. She couldn’t help the soft moan of frustration that escaped her while she waited to feel him taste her pussy. He was so close to her core she could feel his breath against her, making her so hot she raised her hips trying to just feel him.
