An intimacy.
I let my fingers explore, slide up his pecs, and they twitch and tense. His lungs hitch.
I did that.
There’s a rumble in his chest, and I lay my cheek against it to see if I can feel it.
I can.
He smooths my hair, dropping a kiss to my hairline, the tip of my nose. I sigh and cling tighter, winding my arms around his neck, lifting myself so I can kiss him back.
This is perfect. This is designed. This can make up for it all if I let go, if I just give in to the mysterious swirling rising inside me.
He’s exploring, traveling from my lips to my temple to my jaw, as if he’s tasting the differences, as if he’s swept away, too.
We’re thigh to thigh, the shawl bunched and tented as we twist to reach each other. I want more. I want to touch everything. I grab his shoulders to lift myself, but my leg is stiff, and I can’t get a good enough grip. I growl, frustrated.
He chuckles. “I got you.” He picks me up and resettles me sideways in his lap, returning my hands to his shoulders and then massaging the thigh of my bad leg.
He kisses me, eyes closed, as he cradles me, and I feel floaty and surrounded and gobsmacked. I feel held.
He’s so strong. I run my fingers down his bulging arms, the veined tops of his hands, his hard knuckles. He has a fighter’s hands, a fighter’s body. But he’s docile beneath me. Patient. Coaxing.
Waiting for me.
For what?
He nips my bottom lip with his sharp teeth, and something inside me bursts open.
Oh, now I know. For this.
I want. Heat courses through my veins, and I squirm.
I don’t like this position. I want to be able to climb, crawl, roll.
I dig my fingers into the bunched muscles of his shoulders and lift up. This is too slow motion. I know what I need. He knows too, that’s why he matches me, urges me closer, cradles my neck in his palm.
I lick his mouth, and when he parts his lips, I devour him. I clutch him, plastering my breasts to his hard chest, inhaling with him because he’s air, he’s home, he’s everything.
I need, and he has what I want. The deprivation is a chasm inside me, and he can fill it, he has it, and I can make him give it to me, with my mouth, my hands.
He folds his arms around me, tight, and rubs my lower back, soothing me and murmuring, “You taste so good, baby. Let’s go back to my place. We’ll get this out of our systems.”
Yes.
That’s the best idea.
We need space. So I can put things in order, and we can touch all over, and we can—get this out of our systems.
My brain crashes headfirst into the words. There’s almost an audible tire screech.
Hold up.
Wait a minute.
I’m the only one swept away here.
He’s in full control.
He’s smirking, self-satisfied, tugging the shawl where it’s bunched under my thigh.
Oh, hell. I’m making a fool of myself.
I’ve never stood so quickly. I hop down into the phlox, landing with my weight on my bad leg, and thank goodness, it holds me. My wolf is snarling, raging, utterly pissed on my behalf. I’m gonna barf.
I stumble through the flower garden toward the stairs.
My hands are shaking. I wipe my mouth. I want to spit him out. I want to suck on a bar of soap.
What’s wrong with me?
I trip. He reaches to steady me—he’s right behind me—but I stagger forward, putting as much distance between us as I can.
He keeps following, but a few more steps behind. When I get to the steps, he lifts me up then backs off again.
“What’s going on?” He’s genuinely confused.
I don’t know. The mate bond is gone. I’m not in heat. My body’s gone bonkers—and my feelings are all over the place—but this isn’t like back in the briar patch. I never want to feel that way again. And yet, here I am, thirsting after this asshole like a teenage fangirl, gobbling up any crumb he throws my way.
I tell the roomies all the time—just because this pack treats us as less than doesn’t make it true. But no matter how much I tell myself that, no matter how far I’ve gotten from the “poor lone female” mentality, here I am, my lonely orphaned self, clinging to the alpha, desperate to feel less abandoned.
This is more humiliating than the briar patch.
“Nothing. I want you to leave. Just go.”
His brow furrows.
“My wolf does, too,” I add like that’ll help.
I stare at his feet and the rough wood planks beneath them.
“Una. Look at me.”
My name on his lips stokes the strange excitement in my chest, and it doesn’t make sense. I’m hurt. Bristling. And awake and aware in a way I’ve never been before, not even on a full moon.
I jerk my head no.
He sighs in exasperation and paces a few feet away. “You gotta tell me what’s going on in your head. I’m not a mind reader.”
It comes out so easily. He’s definitely said this to a female before. My wolf growls and tosses her head. I’m with her.
“No, I don’t,” I say to the weathered porch boards. “I didn’t come to your house. I didn’t howl outside your window. I didn’t start any of this, and I—” My voice breaks just a little. “I don’t have any problem leaving.”
I turn toward the door so quickly that I catch Mari’s wide eyes as the curtain falls back into place.
I stop mid-stride and take a deep breath. I’m not going to run away like I’m scared. I force myself to look him in the eye. “I’m not your mate. You said so yourself, and you’re the alpha. And I don’t want a ‘with benefits’ kind of thing. Or any kind of thing with you.”
“What’s ‘with benefits?’” he asks.
“And you’re not in my system.”
“Hold up. Go back. What benefits?”
“There aren’t any. That’s what I’m saying. You do your thing, and I’ll do mine, and just, just—get off my damn porch.”
I fumble with the door knob, and when I get it open, it slams into the wall. My insides are sparking. I carefully shut the door so it doesn’t seem like I’m upset, and I drive the deadbolt home.
Mari, Annie, and Kennedy huddle in the hall, gawking.
“H-He can break down that door,” Annie says.
“We should put the couch in front of it.” Kennedy’s already pushing up the sleeves of her sweatshirt.
“We can’t take him just the three of us,” Mari says, her sweet voice quavering. “I’m gonna call Abertha.”
And whoosh, the temper drops out of me like a row in Tetris. I’m not accustomed to anger. Big feelings aren’t my register. I’m calm, cool, and collected.
And my roomies are the best. I’ve done okay with them, I think. We’re taught every day to bend and show our necks, but all three are making to move the couch. They’ve got my back.
“You don’t have to. The kitchen door’s right there.” I hike a thumb over my shoulder. “And I don’t think he’s going to bust in.”
Mari peeks outside. “He’s sitting on the edge of the porch again.”
“Wolf or man?” Annie asks.
“Man.”
“What’s he doing?” Kennedy elbows Mari away so she can see for herself.
“Staring at the moon.”
They’re all looking to me, but I don’t know what to say. “I think he’s guarding us. He’ll probably go home in a little bit.”