by J. L. Wilder
“Does it still look like it did when we were younger?”
He smiled. “See for yourself.”
They emerged into a natural clearing in the middle of the woods. Charity let out a little gasp. “It’s exactly the way I remembered it.”
“Do you remember the day we first found it?”
She nodded. “We were fifteen. We were trying to get out of chores, isn’t that right?”
Weston nodded. “Karl was giving people cleaning assignments, and we were dodging the work. We snuck out of the house and came here before we could be given jobs.”
“And we stayed all day,” she remembered. “Even when we started to get hungry, we stayed.”
“Do you want to sit down?”
She shook her head. “Standing’s more comfortable.”
That was no problem. Weston stepped close behind her, bringing his body flush against hers, and wrapped his arms around to cup her swollen breasts. They spilled out of his hands now, unable to be contained. She let out a satisfied sigh and melted against him. “Did you bring me out here for sex?”
“Seemed appropriate,” he said. “Since this is where we had our first kiss, I thought we were due for a rendezvous here.”
“Hmm. I think you’re wearing too many clothes, if that’s what you had in mind.”
“I think we both are.” He slid his hands down and unfastened her pants, sliding them carefully down over her hips and allowing them to pool in the dirt at her feet. Charity stepped out of them and kicked them away, then turned in his arms and loosened his belt as he slipped his hands beneath the hem of her shirt.
When they were both naked, they let their hands explore each other. The sun on their shoulders was relaxing and encouraged a leisurely pace. Weston slid two fingers inside Charity as she brought a hand down to cup his length. They stroked together, rocking their hips, bringing each other close to orgasm.
“You’re driving me insane,” he moaned. “You’re so hot like this, Charity. You’re so beautiful.”
They let go of each other, hips bucking toward each other with loss, and he turned her toward one of the trees in the clearing. Charity braced her hands against the bark as Weston entered her and fucked her slowly, big hands sliding up to massage her breasts and skating back down to feel the delicious new width of her hips.
He hunched over her, pressing his chest flush against her back and cradling her breasts in his hands, thumbs working her sensitive nipples. She cried out and circled her hips desperately as he thrust into her, trying to create more friction between them. “Weston,” she moaned.
“Come for me, Charity, baby. Let me see you.”
She came on a sob, pushing back against him with such force that her hands left the tree. He caught her in his arms, pulled her upright, and fucked into her furiously, intent on prolonging her orgasm, chasing his own.
Her orgasm seemed to go on forever, wracking her body with tremors until she couldn’t stand upright. Even then, he could feel her coming, convulsing around him as he thrust into her. The feeling was so amazing that it sent him over the edge, and he came into her with a yell of primal pleasure.
He sank to his knees, spent and exhausted, bringing her down with him to lie on the grass.
They lay there, gasping and trying to recover themselves, for several long minutes. Their fingers entwined. Weston clung to Charity’s hand as if it were the only thing anchoring him to the earth and stared at the clouds floating by overhead.
“You,” he said when his breathing had recovered enough to allow speech, “are some woman, Charity.”
“It’s not me,” she said. “It’s the two of us. It’s what we do together that’s so amazing.”
“You think so?”
“I don’t think it would ever be this good with someone else,” she said. “Not for either of us.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing we found each other,” Weston said, turning his head to smile at her.
“No,” she said, “it’s a good thing we found our way back.”
Chapter Nineteen
CHARITY
In the seventh month of her pregnancy, Charity had been confined to bed, too big to move around under her own steam. Since then, Weston had brought their meals to the bedroom and had eaten with her, sometimes carrying the TV in so they could watch something together, other times catching her up on the gossip around the house.
“Robbie’s started seeing a girl he met at the bar,” he said now, massaging Charity’s ankles. At nine months pregnant, she dealt with swollen feet and ankles almost all the time and was always eager for a massage. Weston had so far been only too happy to comply.
“A girl he met at the bar?” Charity asked, sitting up a little and propping herself on her elbows. “Like, a human girl?”
“I think so,” Weston said. “Wild, right?”
“I could never have dated a human,” Charity marveled, remembering how inadequate all the men on her online dating profile and seemed when she’d been living on her own. “I guess she must be something special.”
“I guess.”
“But how are they going to have any kind of future together?”
“Well,” Weston said, “eventually, if he’s serious about her, he’ll have to bring her here to meet us. We’d have to let her in on who we really are.”
“You’d do that?”
“It’s exactly what Hawk wouldn’t have done,” Weston said. “He’d never have allowed a human to join the pack. But if Robbie loves her, if she makes him happy, she can become part of our family, maybe.”
“You really are openminded,” Charity marveled.
“You think so? I try to be.”
“It’s what makes you such a great leader. Such a great alpha.”
“Mmm.” he crawled up the bed to lie beside her, moving their lunch trays out of the way. “I can’t get over the fact that I’m the alpha of the Hell’s Wolves.”
“Even after nine months of holding the position?’
“Even now. It still surprises me every time I wake up in the morning. It still surprises me every time I give an order, and someone obeys it.” He pulled her carefully into his arms, moving slowly so as not to jostle the babies or shift her into an uncomfortable position. “I grew up watching Karl lead the Hell’s Wolves. I was always so proud to be a member of this pack. I never dreamed that one day I’d be leading it myself.”
“I know what you mean,” she said. “I never imagined that one day I’d be the pack omega. That I’d be responsible for bringing the next generation into the world. It’s a huge responsibility.”
“I can’t imagine anyone better for the job,” he said, caressing her swollen belly tenderly. “You’ll be a wonderful mother, Charity. They’ll be lucky to have you.”
“I just hope they get here soon,” she murmured. “I’ve enjoyed being pregnant, but I’m definitely ready for what comes next.”
“They’ll come when they’re ready.”
“Hurry up and get ready then,” she said to her belly, mock scolding. “Everyone’s waiting on you. It’s not polite to keep your family waiting.”
Weston chuckled. “They just want to make a dramatic entrance. Just like their mother.”
“What are you talking about! I don’t make dramatic entrances!”
“What do you call being kidnapped into the pack after a six-year absence?”
“That was not my entrance, Weston. That was out of my hands and you know it.”
“Okay, then how about running away on the back of my bike and coming back and knocking on the front door once Hawk had everyone in the country looking for us?”
“That wasn’t my idea either! You’re zero for two.”
“Okay, okay.” He kissed her gently on the cheek. “You win. Don’t get excited.”
“Help me roll over? My back hurts.”
He wrapped his arms around her and gently rolled her up onto her side. “Better?”
“Mmm, not really. These babies sure
are a pain.”
“You’re almost done.” She felt Weston curl his body around hers, his hand coming to rest on her breast. “You’ve done such a good job. You’re amazing to me.”
He was hard against her. It never failed to surprise her how attracted he was to her in her pregnant state. It wasn’t that Charity felt unattractive—far from it. She loved her body now. She loved how useful and purposeful she felt. But she didn’t feel sexy, exactly.
At least, she didn’t until Weston looked at her. He had a way of making her feel like the sexiest woman alive, just by looking at her. Now he let out a little moan against the back of her neck and pressed himself up against her, and she was flooded with heat and passion. “God, you’re killing me,” she whispered.
“The door’s locked.”
“And I’m not wearing anything under this nightgown.”
His hand found its way down below her hem. “Jesus, you’re not. I want you, Charity.”
She wanted him too. Not feeling sexy lately hadn’t inhibited her at all—she felt hungrier for his body than she ever had. Even when he wasn’t in the room with her, she was uncomfortable, dissatisfied. The farther along her pregnancy progressed, the more her body seemed to cry out for her mate.
She had expected the opposite. After all, what an omega’s body craved most of all was to become pregnant in the first place, wasn’t it? Once Charity had become pregnant, shouldn’t her sex drive have subsided a bit?
But that wasn’t what had happened at all. She craved it more than ever.
Weston positioned himself carefully behind her and entered her slowly, his body cradling hers. The sensation of fullness was a welcome relief, and Charity let out a soft cry of ecstasy as he settled himself. They lay still for a moment, and Charity relished the feeling of having her mate inside her. Nothing in the world could compare to this.
“I wish we could just stay like this,” she whispered, her voice ragged with want. “I wish we could be together like this all the time. I wish you never had to leave me.”
“I’ll always come back to you.” He cupped her breast and squeezed, so, so tenderly, then massaged her nipple gently with his thumb.
That was all it took. She was coming, desperately, gratefully, her hands fisted in the sheets. She arched her back and tried to take him deeper.
“God,” he whispered. “Your body’s so sensitive. It’s so fucking hot, Charity.” She felt him throb inside her and shivered with pleasure. He still hadn’t moved. He still just held her in place against him, waiting, tormenting her.
He slid his hand to her other breast, squeezed briefly, and then slid his fingers over her stomach, exploring the expanse of skin there. “So big,” he marveled. He was honoring her, Charity knew. She could sense his awe of her body and what it was capable of. She closed her eyes and basked in his praise.
He moved his hand down to her thigh, fingers skating down the length of it and then slowly back up to the top. His thumb circled her hipbone, then journeyed inward.
Charity gasped with pleasure and longing.
His fingers landed between her legs and pressed up firmly against her, and immediately she was coming again, clenching around him so hard she thought she must be hurting him, grinding forward into the warm weight of his hand. “That’s right,” he whispered in her ear as she bucked against his fingers. “Take what you need, baby. I’ve got you. I’ve got as much as you want.”
She gasped as her orgasm began to subside, and then Weston did something with his fingers—a sort of soft pinch and stroke, and a flick of his thumb—and she came again, even harder, sobbing with effort and ecstasy.
“We can do this all day,” Weston said, and for the first time he withdrew from her body—just slightly—and thrust back in. “We don’t have anywhere to be. We can just lie here, and I can fuck you senseless. How does that sound?”
Charity thought she might already have taken leave of her senses. She couldn’t even pull it together enough to answer him. She lay gasping, feeling somehow both utterly spent and impossibly aroused. Every inch of her skin was alive to Weston’s touch.
He kissed her shoulder blade, then made his way to her neck, to the place where he’d bitten her and marked her. He licked this spot gently, tasting her, and then suckled at it. Charity moaned.
Now his hips began to move. His pace was slow, his rhythm steady, driving Charity progressively wilder. She wanted more. She wanted to cry out to him—faster, harder, deeper—but she knew he would take care of her. Weston would see that she got what she needed, and he wouldn’t leave her bed until she felt satisfied.
And he didn’t. He stayed with her for hours, increasing his pace, slowing down, delaying his own orgasm, until Charity was nothing but putty in his hands. Only then did he fuck her in earnest, bringing her to one final, intense orgasm that had them both shaking and screaming out each other’s names.
“DO YOU THINK YOU COULD come downstairs for dinner?” Lita asked. She was seated on the end of Charity’s bed flicking through a magazine.
“She’s supposed to be on bed rest,” Weston said, looking up from the desk where he’d been working on a sketch of the field by the railroad tracks where their babies had been conceived. Charity had asked him to draw it, to liven up the room a bit, and she had already picked out a spot on the wall for it to hang.
“I know,” Lita said. “But we haven’t had a family dinner in ages. Norma’s making a ham. And anyway, she doesn’t have to get up, Weston. You can just carry her down the stairs.”
“I can’t, actually.” It was a source of frustration for Weston, Charity knew. He could still lift her, but her new shape was too awkward for him to carry her any significant distance.
“I can walk,” Charity said. “I’d like to come to family dinner.”
“You’re supposed to stay in bed,” Weston argued.
“I’m only supposed to do that because you told me to,” she said. “It’s not like it’s doctor’s orders.”
“But I’m the alpha.”
“Yeah, and as the alpha, you could change the order.” She gave him her winningest smile.
“I don’t know about this, Charity.”
“Oh, come on,” she said. “It’ll be fine. You know this is what my body was made for—carrying a litter. Just because I’m the size of a house doesn’t mean I’m not capable of sitting at the table for an hour with my family.”
He frowned. “If you start feeling bad at all—in the slightest—I want you to tell me right away. Understand?”
She nodded. “I promise. Does that mean you’re going to let me do it?”
“It means I’m thinking about it.”
Lita jumped to her feet. “I’ll go tell Norma to set an extra place at the table!” She ran off.
“If I didn’t know better,” Weston said, eyeing Charity, “I’d say you two planned that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said airily.
“You did, didn’t you? Admit it.”
“All right, fine,” Charity said. “It was my idea in the first place. It’s been forever since I’ve had dinner with everyone, and they don’t come up and visit as often as I’d like. I understand why, don’t get me wrong. I know everyone’s busy with work and chores and setting up the nursery, and sitting up here with me is boring—”
“Sitting with you isn’t boring!” Weston sounded scandalized.
She laughed. “For you, it isn’t. For the others...they sit up here for five or ten minutes and then they’re coming up with excuses, reasons to leave.”
Weston scowled. “I’ll talk to them.”
“Don’t do that, come on. They’re allowed to do other things. I don’t want them hanging out up here because their alpha ordered them to. That would be awkward. I just...it would be nice to be able to go to them once in a while.”
“Dinner, huh?”
“And that ham sounds amazing. You know how much I love Norma’s baked ham.”
“All right, a
ll right,” Weston said. “You’ve convinced me.” He sighed. “What good is being an alpha when your mate is the most persuasive woman in the pack, I ask you?”
“I’m not so persuasive.”
“I’m just vulnerable to your charms.” He came over to the bed, sat beside her, and leaned down to kiss her. “Let’s get you up. Do you need to change?”
“Do you think Norma would mind if I came down in my flannels?”
“Are you kidding? You could show up in a burlap sack and she wouldn’t mind. She’s just going to be thrilled that you came down at all.” He wrapped an arm around her and levered her slowly up to her feet. “How’s that? Any pain?”
“No, I’m fine. Just a little off balance. As long as we take it slow on the stairs, I should be good.”
They made it down the stairs and into the kitchen without incident, but as soon as the others saw Charity in the doorway, a roar of delight went up. Several members of the pack jumped to their feet to help Weston escort her to her seat and get her settled in.
“How’s that?” Gino asked. “Are you comfortable?”
“Get her a back pillow,” Norma suggested.
“I’m fine, honestly,” Charity said, but Rick had already taken off running toward the den. He reappeared a few moments later, pillow in hand. Half exasperated and half touched, Charity leaned forward and allowed him to adjust it behind her lower back.
“Can you even reach the table?” Robbie asked.
Norma swatted him on the back of the head. “Don’t be rude, Robbie.”
“The ham smells amazing, Norma,” Charity said, closing her eyes and enjoying the scent.”
“Coming through.” Norma, ham platter in hand, made her way to the table. She settled the dish in the center, right in front of Charity. “Ladies first,” she said. “Weston, serve the girls, will you?”
Weston nodded. He deferred to Norma’s orders, Charity knew, not because he had to but as a sign of respect. The fact that he was her alpha made it even more deferential that he chose to obey her. He honored her every time he did it.
