Crane huffs, “Don’t you have your own house?”
“The food’s better here.” Caleb opens the fridge and helps himself.
“When you’re older, Crane, you’ll understand.” I can see the way Crane’s skin crawls as Caleb pops a few grapes in his mouth, teeth smiling as he chews.
Crane stretches out his shoulders, squaring himself against his brother, and Caleb stretches himself to his completed height—a big wolf who knows it.
“Outside.” A quick whip of a word comes from the Alpha.
“He started it.” Crane points, and Caleb is right there with a pulled-out bottom lip that tremors as if he’s going to cry, teasing his brother.
Crane chases Caleb outside, and I can see them wrestling on the ground. Ken jumps from his seat and goes outside, jumping on the pile of them with his elbow.
Dee rolls her eyes. “Boys.” And for her, that says it all, but she does get off her chair and runs outside to throw her own elbows into Caleb’s chest. He grunts and groans, holding his heart in pain. Crane lets Ken toss him around and fakes injuries as they bite and nip each other with blunt teeth and no claws.
Cassius runs outside and tackles his brother hard to the ground. It’s rough but gentle, and the Alpha even gets in on it.
The sketchbook sits beside the laptop, and I take the opportunity to open it. The noise that comes out of my chest startles even me.
The first page is me, in a shadowed sort of way; all I can make out are my glasses on a blur of a face. The next picture is more my eyes through the glasses. Each page different, each page getting clearer and sharper.
I can’t stop the desperate flip of each page. Everything is here, all the details I never knew I had. Each picture a picture in itself, it tells some kind of out of focus story. The middle of the book has my body now drawn with a face that’s becoming clearer. More light than shade now. I’m becoming clearer with each line the pencil makes.
Another desperate flip, I want to ingrain this into my memory forever.
A clear portrait of me, a side view of my face, the ruby earring is the only thing that holds color in the entire book. Everything else is shades of slate.
A throat clears, and my head lifts from the book, dropping it on the table. Hands tremble.
Cassius stares right into me, and I feel that everything is about to change.
The quiet seems solemn and heavy.
Everything will change…
Chapter 22
Paper Dreams in the Form of Solid Flesh
Every night Cassius asks me, “Do you want something, Treajure?” Every night I say the same thing, nothing, and he does the same thing, turning on his side facing the wall, wishing me goodnight.
The days are filled with hugs and kisses, deep kisses that have his hands all over me, and my hands all over him, but that’s where it stops, and I’m about to go mad with want.
Tonight’s no different. He’s on his bed fully clothed; the layers of him are all there. His head turns, the full moon’s light reflecting in his eyes.
“Do you want something, Treajure?”
This time, I make a noise in my throat to prepare the muscles to work.
Breathe…
His whole body turns toward me nice and slow.
“Cassius.” It croaks out, but out it comes. I clear my throat again and this time say his name better than the first time.
It takes him a minute to sit up then stand to make his way over to me.
Everything changes. I can feel it inside him, inside me.
“Say it again.”
He turns his ear to me, and I reach up on tiptoes to press his name against his ear. “Cassius.”
Can he feel me trembling? Because when I put my hand on his chest to undo the first few buttons on his shirt, I can feel the shifting of his skin.
The weight of his hands are on the pad of my hips. He watches my fingers as I unbutton every button his shirt has before pulling it down off his shoulders, and past his arms, and finally his wrists. A layer of him lays at our feet.
“It’s only fair.” He shifts his eyes to meet mine before the shirt I wear is pulled off my body.
A layer leaves my skin.
His t-shirt is soft in my hands when I pull it off him, letting my knuckles touch his torso, his chest, shoulders, and finally the shirt is off.
He grunts through a flared nose.
The palms of my hands run up and down his back before the nails dig in against the shifting meat of his muscles.
He holds my bottom lip with his teeth, not too hard, but enough that I can’t pull away from him as his hand holds an appreciation of lace. He strokes the material with his thumb, rubbing against the nipple that feels too tight.
He makes a low, urgent noise; his hand fills with my breast, a firm squeeze before the skin of him dips inside the cup, feeling me raw without the lace between us.
That draws out a noise from deep within, a moan that he swallows down in a giant gulp.
I feel up his spine. His shoulders are curled around me. I feel the skin along his neck to the new growth of hair that I scratch my fingers into.
Heat flushes, rushes, and consumes all thoughts.
My thighs clench when he holds the other breast in his hand. I sigh, muscles shift, tense but not relaxed.
“You’re perfect,” he says into my neck, teeth scraping at the skin.
Everything is changing…
I feel him through his jeans. He’s ready, hard and bulging. I’m slick—I can feel myself soaking through my underwear.
Undoing the button, he dips his head to watch my fingers. The zipper pulls down. I can’t hear it over my breathing. I look up at him as I pull those jeans down his hips, past his thighs, and leave them at his ankles.
Cassius has pulled his bottom lip into his mouth, and he’s all eyes now. His chest heaves, and I place a kiss against the stone rod of him through the material of his underwear.
Fingers hook to the band of his boxers.
“Are you sure?” His hand touches my cheek. “You don’t have to.”
Cassius doesn’t understand, I need to.
My knees hit the carpet, and as I go down, his boxers come down to his ankles. He steps out of his clothes and pulls a hiss of breath in when I run my nose along his length, inhaling his scent.
There’s some sort of primal smell to his sex that goads me on, that makes me want to taste him with my tongue. I can feel the saliva pool in the back of my throat. I want him inside my mouth.
His knees bend when I lick the tip of him, tasting that fluid that starts to bead from his hole.
I can feel his fingers weave through my hair when I sink my mouth down on him, putting him halfway in, feeling the smoothness of his balls, before grasping the base of him.
“Fuck.” The sound crawls out of him.
He doesn’t fit all the way inside, but I try my best, and for my effort, he’s letting his sound rumble around the room.
He lets me explore him without interference, and I explore the male side of him. Licking the underside of his shaft, working my tongue around the shine of his head. Exploring his balls, feeling how they move in my hand.
A hard breath comes out of his mouth when I stroke him from the base, my mouth around the tip. His fingers dig into my hair, borderline painful.
His hips are moving now, I can feel him watching what I’m doing, and I cast my eyes up with him in my open mouth.
“Fuck.” His legs bend a little more, he thrusts himself inside the space of my mouth, and I gag from it.
Eyes water.
“It’s only fair,” he says through exposed teeth, bringing me up to my feet.
He groans when the zipper of my pants come down, he inhales when the material pulls down from my thighs, he takes them off completely, and he pauses to go on his knees.
His straight nose pushes into my mound; his tongue, oh, I can feel his tongue right there, licking me through the material.
He looks up at me
with something precious written across his face. His tongue drags down the curve of my underwear. He groans with half-closed eyes. Nails dig into my thighs, holding me still, and all I want to do is shove myself in his face.
I can’t stop looking down at him even when his fingers curl around the band of my underwear, pulling them down, and that tongue hits a nerve that makes me jump from the sheer force of pleasure.
The bones in my legs feel like they’re turning from solid into a liquid. I hold onto his head as that tongue fleshes out the noise in my chest. I hold onto him until my knees start to bend and my hips try to curl around his face.
He pulls me closer to him, spreading me with the flat part of his tongue.
It’s just too much, and before I sink completely down, I’m lifted up, put on his bed. He crawls between my legs with hungry eyes, his teeth dragging his bottom lip in with a groan. His shoulders spread my legs wider as he nudges himself into my space, my private space that no one has entered before.
It’s getting harder to breathe; I can’t feel the mattress against my back anymore. I try to curl around his head, and the flat part of his hand pushes into my belly to flatten me back out.
A gasp when he licks me harder as his finger enters me. One finger and it’s enough to make me want to come.
He spreads me wider, and the growl spreads through his chest. A moan comes from mine. It’s hard to think about anything else but that tongue circling around my womanhood, his mouth sucking it in, his tongue teasing it with small strokes. He adds another finger, and I feel the pressure of it, a small whimper that turns into a moan once I get used to the feeling of having something substantial inside me.
I can feel myself, oh, I can feel the tightening of my inner walls, and he pulls those fingers out and his tongue away. Panic comes from my lips. He’s not going to stop, is he?
He’s all flushed when he climbs up me, his mouth goes over mine, and I can taste myself on his lips. This feels perversely intimate, as if he’s sharing something special with me, and I’m sharing myself with him.
The feel of his stone-hard cock pressing into my mound drives me to shift my hips and spread my legs so he can settle the weight of him there. He’s on my neck, teeth scraping down the flesh. I can feel the lines that are left behind from the push of the points that are going deeper into the flesh, just not breaking through it.
I want them to break through, pierce me. I clench, thinking of the feeling of what it will be like. He’s pulled down each strap of my bra, unfastening it before laying my back against the mattress. He takes it off nice and slow, his head bent kissing my chest, kissing my neck, kissing my shoulders, back up to my mouth. His fingertip runs circles around my nipples, getting them worked up; the skin gathers all up and puckers tight. Painful almost, but his mouth is there to suck one of them inside. He’s all wet, and when he pulls away, he leaves a shine to the one. He explores the other, just as delicate.
“Have you ever done this before?” There is no judgment in his eyes.
I shake my head no.
His eyes half close, and before I know it, he starts to kiss me again, all urgent and hungry. His hand cups my breast again, and I lean my chest into him, wanting that hand to go right to the bones of me.
He grinds himself against my mound; the pressure is everything.
His thighs spread my legs as he centers himself to my center.
Cassius is all long-toothed now, and he’s staring at my neck. The skin of him is shifting underneath my palms, tensing, and I close my eyes, shut them up real tight, waiting.
Nothing happens…
“There’s no reason to be scared. I’m going to try not to hurt you.” He slides us into a sitting position, and my spread thighs wrap around his waist, his stone-hard shaft between us.
Dark pupils expand into the blue irises, taking control of his vision.
“You are mine.” His teeth scrape down my neck. His voice lingers against my throat. The breath in my throat shortens into a little gasps of tight air.
“You are my hope.” Teeth push in deeper to the hollow of my neck, voice rough and raw sounding from his throat. His tongue slides out and meets my naked flesh, licking at the spot.
My body begs for the feel of teeth in me; my neck arches and lengthens as his straight nose inhales against my skin.
“My love.” He exhales out. He’s all teeth now. I can feel his body shifting in the form of skin and fur. Combing himself into one form.
He lifts me by my ass, and I can feel the head of his shaft press into my entrance. He shifts his hips and kisses me again, with some kind of hunger that is barely controlled.
He sinks my hips down on him slowly, and there is a stretch that takes my breath right out of my lungs. His mouth is there breathing into me, filling my lungs up, forcing me to exhale out as he opens me up.
Cassius shifts up, and I am moved down in one movement that has me clinging onto my bottom lip with teeth. His tongue is there, to take my teeth away from my bottom lip. He lets his tongue swipe at my mouth, and I let my tongue swipe into his.
“My light.” Words on his lips press into mine.
Eye to eye.
We are joined. I’m not sure where he ends and I begin.
I take all of him to the base, and it fills tight, and the stretch hurts, but not as bad as I thought it would be; this is a different kind of hurt. Needed pain.
“My weakness,” his voice breaks through my moan.
He finally moves, and the way he does, it’s like he was meant to be inside me, shifting himself in and out. My hips start to move with his; again teeth scrape along the line of my throat. Digging in, hard, splitting the skin now.
He keeps moving inside me, pulling out, pushing in, while those teeth tease my flesh.
I’m holding onto his shoulders that are strong and dependable.
We make love on his lap.
“My strength.” His breath is quick. He lets out a gasp that’s held long after the words have come out.
I hold his face in my hands now, wanting to see him, wanting to see the desire he has for me. He can’t put those teeth away. He’s breathing hard with every push inside; I’m getting so close. I didn’t know it could be like this. I had expectations, but this, this was beyond what I thought it would be like.
He’s deeper than I thought possible; I’m stretched all around him. There is no space inside me left. He’s occupied it all.
He grinds himself inside me, pulls almost out, shoves back in. His tongue on mine, his hands all over me, he’s all breath and I am following his lead.
Again, his teeth find my throat, and I arch my neck to the side, allowing him to take it if he wants.
Take my throat, I want to scream, take everything from me, I want to give you it all.
The points are the first to be felt, he’s moving faster inside me, and he bites down, hard, and I can’t breathe…
He groans, grunts, and stiffens underneath me, pushing himself so deep that I can’t help myself from clenching all around him, trying to bring him into me more. My insides are milking what’s coming out of him.
This is blinding pleasure, where everything stops but what’s happening inside.
I can feel him pulsing within, each jerk of his shaft expelling his seed into me. I can feel it running out of me, and he continues and continues to come, and so do I.
Teeth retract; the flat part of his tongue licks at my neck until he’s satisfied with something.
My back presses against the mattress now. He hasn’t slipped out. He’s staying locked within my space.
I don’t want to move. His weight is a comfort, security.
“You’re okay?”
I want to ask him the same question, but I only nod my head yes.
“That was amazing.” He presses his mouth to mine. “Thank you.” Another press of lips to mouth.
“I’m going to love you the way you should be.” Another kiss.
“I’ve been in love with you for a whil
e, and I won’t lie—it scared me.” His hips shift, and he’s still as hard as he was before I pulled down his pants.
“I needed to change before all of this.” He shifts his hips again, and I take the fullness of him between my spread legs.
I can feel the point of my teeth; I can feel the Wild’s urgent need to mark him, to claim this male and make him hers, and I want to claim him. I want to put my mark on him and let everyone know he belongs to me.
His hand grips my waist as he pushes deeper inside, dragging himself out, pushing in.
“I don’t want to stop. I’m not ready to get out of you. Not yet.” My toes curl because he’s rubbing into the spot that makes me feel everything.
“I can hear you in my head. I can hear your voice.” There is a rush of his voice all over my tender neck.
My heel is running up the back of his thigh to push into his ass so he goes deeper.
He lifts his head and groans low, neck exposed.
“You have a beautiful voice, Sabe.”
For the longest time, that’s what we do, my name on repeat coming from his throat while he fills me and I try to hold him inside every time his shafts drags down before pushing back inside. Like a game of chase and hold. Our chests pushed flush together.
The mattress has too much give and he’s sinking me into it with every drive of his shaft. He’s becoming more insistent, more demanding on how I am taking him inside me. I spread my legs more, and my teeth draw blood from my bottom lip. He licks at it, cleaning me.
I moan with each hard thrust that digs in deep, filling me, stretching the inside.
His neck is there, right there, the hollow part where the skin on the bone dips down, and I know what to do, like instinct.
Teeth dig in point first, and I can feel him stiffen. His weight drops on my body, and he’s holding onto me, like something inside him is breaking apart while the inside of me becomes full.
Again my edge is reached, and this time I need to hold onto him just as much as he’s holding onto me.
Things are starting to fit together, weave into some kind of hardened structure that we now share together.
Everything changes. We hold ourselves together, clinging to the other as we drown then breathe finally together.
Cassius (The Wildflower Series Book 3) Page 17
