chapter Sixteen
Eden spent most of the day unpacking boxes and setting up the master bedroom in the big house, but it didn’t feel like home until Jay walked through the door, dragging a suitcase of his own.
It had been hard, sending him back to work when she had to face the morning after with a wounded, broken-hearted pack. But Lorelei had rallied in the way only she could, and Eden could do no less in the face of such stubborn strength. They’d attacked the problem of moving Eden’s things together, and the onerous task of unpacking and organizing became less tedious as others drifted in to help them.
Pack building a den together. Family building a home together.
Home, but incomplete without her mate. He looked handsome in his uniform, and felt even better when she stepped close enough to wallow in the power he exuded as naturally as breathing. “I missed you.”
“Good, because I missed you too.” He slipped an arm around her waist. “How’d it go today?”
“We got through. Kaley may need a bit of space, but as long as we keep an eye on her…” Eden rested her forehead on Jay’s shoulder and sighed. “Did you stop by the diner on your way home?”
“I did. Your dad says hi, and to tell you that Zack’s going to be okay, so stop worrying.”
She choked on a laugh. “I’m that predictable, huh?”
He smiled against her temple. “Anyone in your position would be right now. That’s your family.”
“Some of my family,” she corrected softly. She eased back and circled around him, sliding the door shut with a soft click and the gentle buzz of wards humming to life. Stella’s clever soundproofing, which would let them steal rare snatches of privacy in the midst of chaos. “Pack’s family too.”
“Yes, it is.” Jay tensed, more a feeling that echoed across their bond than a physical reaction. “I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t have hit you with that stuff about Zack last night.”
Eden pressed her forehead to the door, because it was easier to have this discussion with her back to him. “You had to. I think I wouldn’t have gotten so angry if it hadn’t felt…true. If the wolf hadn’t been so loud inside me, telling me you were right. I couldn’t listen.”
“And no wonder. I didn’t have to be wrong to be a jackass.”
“Fine. You were right and a jackass.” Turning, she smiled wanly at him. “I need time, Jay. I’m glad I have this viciousness when bad guys are trying to choke me. But I can’t be glad that some part of me can look at my cousin—my brother—and make a cold assessment that he’s too dangerous. I’m not ready to be that pragmatic.”
He brushed his thumb over the corner of her mouth. “You don’t have to be. He was there, Eden, at the edge, and his mind is still his own. He’ll make it.”
“You made him fight. Thank you.” She turned her face into his hand, pressed a kiss to his palm and savored the spark that zipped through her. They’d had a lifetime worth of courtship and responsibility shoehorned into so few days, it was hard to remember that touching him was so new.
“You’re welcome.”
Smiling, she nuzzled his wrist. “Do you hear that?”
He grinned. “Hear what?”
“Exactly. Everyone’s already relaxing in their soundproofed rooms. Nothing’s on fire. No one’s attacking. No panic, no emergencies…just you and me and a few minutes to breathe.”
Jay laughed. “Says you. Work was a madhouse today.”
“That’s what happens when the chief takes a week off.” She traced her fingers along his belt before tugging his polo shirt free of his pants. “Anything you couldn’t handle?”
“Just catch-up crap.” He caught one of the belt loops on her jeans and pulled her closer. “What about you? Thinking about talking to the committee about your job?”
“Not even a little. I’m going to try being a stay-at-home alpha for a little while.” The skin of his back heated under her touch, as if the sparks stirring desire to life burned in him, too. She smoothed her hands around his waist and up his chest, then pushed him back with a teasing smile.
Making him fight for her wasn’t getting old, it turned out. Not that he couldn’t tease back. He tilted his head and casually pulled his shirt over his head.
The sight of him wasn’t getting old either. Eden leaned back against the door and took her time admiring him. For the first time, it felt like…every other encounter had been shrouded in anxiety or fear or the pulsing adrenaline of the full moon.
Tonight he was a man. Her man. And she could trace the way his muscles moved gracefully under his skin all night, if she wanted. “I love you.”
She hadn’t meant to say the words. For a moment she froze, petrified that it was too much, too fast, but he braced his hands on the door and leaned over her, his forehead to hers.
For a long moment, he simply stood there. Then, “I love you too, honey. I have…for a while.”
Eden closed her eyes and floated on relief. “So I wasn’t the only one with a secret crush?”
“Not even close.” He leaned in farther and kissed her lightly, but light wasn’t enough. Eden tilted her head and licked his lips with a hungry growl before burying her hands in his hair. Nothing could ever be enough. Not kissing him forever, not holding him forever, not loving him forever.
Wouldn’t stop her from trying. She dug her teeth into his lower lip. “Can we ravish each other now?”
He swallowed a groan. “Do we have enough time for a proper ravishing?”
“This may be our only chance, Chief Ancheta. You going to waste it?”
“Nope.” Hunger echoed through the bond between them as he locked an arm around her waist, lifted her and dropped her on top of the blessedly bare dresser. “I know better.”
“Good.” She sank her fingers into his hair again and dragged her nails across his scalp teasingly. “What’s involved in a proper ravishing? It can’t be handcuffs, since I see you’ve forgotten them again.”
“Time,” he declared, the words muffled as his lips met her throat. “And effort. Mostly the effort. With a dash of creativity.”
She’d never been this impatient with any other man. Or maybe she’d simply never been this impatient as a woman. She was more now, a woman and a wolf, an alpha burning for her mate, and Jay’s soft, slow touches stoked arousal and frustration in equal measure.
Foreplay took too long, the wolf decided, and Eden had torn open her shirt before the thought finished. She grabbed at Jay’s belt with a growl. “Less time, more effort.”
He caught her hands and twisted them behind her back. “You can’t choose one over the other, or it isn’t a proper ravishing.”
“Oh.” Jerking at his grip did nothing. He had all the leverage and she didn’t really want to escape, but trying still got her hot and bothered. “So educate me,” she whispered. Challenged. “Show me how you ravish your mate.”
He kissed her, slow and wet, his tongue following the line of her lower lip. It was raw, unchecked lust, and she shuddered under the assault and pressed her lips together, fighting the natural urge to open to him.
His laugh blew hot on her mouth, but instead of becoming more insistent, his caresses gentled. Slowed.
It only stoked her hunger. Her pulse throbbed throughout her entire body, pooling need between her thighs and setting her nipples to aching. She arched her back, struggling to reach him, to rub against him. Jay relaxed his hold enough to let her, and growled when she pressed her breasts to his chest.
“Too much clothing,” she whispered, coaxing. He still had her hands trapped, and his fingers tightened when she tried to move. “Bra’s in the way. I want your skin against mine.”
He released her, ran his fingers up under her shirt to unhook her bra. “Take it all off, then put your hands back where they were.”
She slid her half-ruined shirt down to pool on the dresser and took her time with the bra, wallowing in his hungry expression as she peeled the fabric from her skin. “You want my hands somewhere, you better put them there. Because I’m going for your belt again if you don’t stop me.”
“Impatient,” he rumbled, pushing her wrists back to pin them at the small of her back. “Leave them there.”
Eden laughed and bit his chin. “And you thought I was joking about the handcuffs. Better invest in a spare pair, because I think I like misbehaving.”
“You could misbehave,” he agreed. “Go for my belt. Go wild, Eden. But then you’ll never know what I plan to do next.”
Oh yeah, he knew how to tame her. Not brute strength, but clever words. Whispers that stirred curiosity to life, and even the wolf could be patient for a little while. Her next nip was playful, teeth scraping along his jaw before she licked him, nuzzled into his chin in a brief moment of quiet submission.
“That’s right.” He combed his fingers through her hair, tugging just enough to tingle anticipation up her spine. “Remember…” He opened her pants and pushed them down, easing them under and off her body. “Hands behind your back.”
She twisted her fingers together as a desperate reminder, all too aware of how the posture thrust her breasts out. There was something dirty about being naked while he wasn’t, something that should feel vulnerable but was instead empowering. She felt it in the way his breath hitched when she arched her back, and the jump in his pulse when she eased her knees apart.
Desire. Lust. And a look in his dark eyes that eclipsed both. Eden wet her lips and tilted her head back, leaving her throat as exposed as the rest of her body. “Show me what comes next.”
Jay held her gaze as he leaned down and licked the spot between her breasts. Good, but not enough. She whimpered and twisted, keeping her hands tucked at the small of her back but urging him toward her nipple. “Please?”
He hummed and touched just the tip of his tongue to her nipple, a warm caress that vanished as quickly as it had come.
Patience cracked around the edges, and her next plea came out riding a growl. “Jay.”
His mouth closed around the tight peak, hot and wet, and he sucked hard for only a moment before dropping to his knees in front of the dresser and pushing her thighs even wider.
Staring down at him, Eden stopped moving. She stopped breathing. Everything inside her coiled tight, tensed against his first touch. She had just enough air in her lungs to whisper his name.
He murmured hers back at her, then rubbed his fingers through her folds. Pleasure jolted all the way down to her toes, and she thumped her head against the wall with a moan. “Don’t tease. I want you too much.”
“I know.” His thumb slicked over her *, followed a mere moment later by the wet rasp of his tongue.
Heaven.
She fell into it, closing her eyes as the world narrowed to his mouth and how very, very clever he was with it. Languid pleasure tightened with urgency, and she didn’t remember moving her hands, just sliding them into his hair with a greedy noise she couldn’t help. “More, God, just like that.”
“Mmm.” A hard thrust, his fingers sliding inside her, and she clung to him as her body jerked, a response beyond her control when he went straight for the spot that pulsed through her like lightning. Instinct had her wiggling back, clinging to the scraps of her control.
He licked her again, slowly, and curled his fingers inside her in a gentle rocking motion.
No mercy. No respite, just the slow unraveling of anything human until she was a creature of hunger and impulse, writhing as he brought her up and up and up, so high, so good—
“Let me come,” she begged, tugging at his hair. “Make me come.”
And then he did, but not in a relieving rush. He thrust her over the edge and let her fall, let her crash into shaking spasms that had barely subsided before his fingers crooked. She opened her mouth to protest, to beg for a moment to collect herself, but his tongue found her * again, rasping, demanding, and the growl that vibrated against her rocketed her back to the sharp, oh-so-sweet edge.
He held her there. He held her there until she was twisting and begging, and this time when he pushed her over, he didn’t let her fall. He caught her halfway down, as her voice broke on a helpless cry, and dragged her back to her peak. Release crashed into wanting melted into coming twisted into needing, and somewhere in the foggy distance, the remains of her ecstasy-splintered mind recognized that this must be what it was like to f*ck a determined man who could feel everything he did to your body. Who could track every reaction, time every touch…
And then even those scraps of thought shattered into nothingness as he drove her up one last time only to sweep her over the edge into limb-melting release.
Jay tangled his fingers in her hair and whispered against her cheek as she floated down, her ears ringing. And when she finally opened her eyes, he nipped her lower lip. “That’s how you ravish your mate.”
“Wow.” Eden tilted her head enough to rub her cheek against his. “And you’re still wearing pants. Damn.”
“Mm-hmm. Still wearing pants.”
With her own release fading, she could feel Jay across their bond. He was aroused, still, but a smug satisfaction overwhelmed everything else, blunting the feral edge of dominance that had been riding him.
Jay was a man damn well pleased with himself, and she couldn’t blame him. Her legs felt rubbery as she wrapped them around his hips and drew closer. “We should get you out of them. And get you into me.”
“Dirty.” He picked her up, stepped back and dropped to the bed with her in his lap. “Maybe just get them open?”
She wiggled back and fumbled with his fly, her fingers still clumsy. “You broke me. God damn it, Jay, you freaking broke me. I can’t—” The button popped off and she yanked at his zipper. “Quit being pleased with yourself and help.”
“Can’t,” he rasped. Helping involved waiting until she’d released his cock, then lifting her high and positioning her over him. “Quit being pleased with myself, I mean.”
“So smug.” Eden sank her fingers into his hair and jerked his head back. He might have satisfied the demands of possessiveness, but she’d barely gotten started. She licked the strong column of his throat with a growl. “I hope you won’t be disappointed if I don’t stay tamed for very long.”
He trembled under her, every muscle tense and taut. “You never could be, honey.”
“No.” She relaxed her body enough to sink down. Not all the way, not even most of the way, just until the head of his cock pushed into her, then locked her knees. “How badly do you want to be inside me?”
“I can wait,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Are you going to make me?”
“Yes.” So many ways to tease him. She rubbed her breasts against his chest. Scraped her teeth along his jaw in teasing bites only to follow with her tongue. “Wait. You have to wait.”
But he didn’t wait. He moved, and suddenly she found herself bent over the edge of the bed with Jay behind her, over her, his chest pressed to her back. “Wait?”
He wanted her. Needed her. Loved her. Passion and hunger throbbed between them, and she didn’t need a magical bond to feel it. Restraint tensed his muscles, need set his heart to hammering against her back. She rocked back against him and gasped when his cock slicked through her folds and rubbed over her *.
“Wait,” she whispered, curling her fingers in the blankets. Her arms shook. “Wait until you can’t stand it. Wait until you’ll die if you don’t take me.”
His hands tightened on her hips, stilling her even as he took up her rocking motion. “You don’t even know when that happened, do you?”
She’d needed him from the first shivering terror of being infected, but she’d wanted him for longer. “When I became a wolf?”
“Not even close.” He licked a path up her spine. “I watched you before. I needed you.”
A thousand casual interactions came back to her. Years of small talk and polite greetings, of passing each other in the street or crossing paths at the diner, but the wolf saw something else in her human memories. Self-denial in his eyes and protectiveness in his stance, an alpha alone and lonely and wanting what he couldn’t have.
Maybe some part of her had always known. Maybe it had been fate all along. She was meant to be here, under him, alive because they fit together, body and soul.
“I didn’t see,” she whispered, twisting her head to meet his glazed, drowning dark eyes. “I wasn’t ready.”
He slid inside her with a sharp, indrawn breath. “And now?”
As if he had to ask. They fit together, all right, in the rawest, basest way imaginable. He pressed deep and she moaned at the perfect stretch, just enough to bring every nerve singing to life without pushing over the line into too much. She was meant to be like this, joined, one being shuddering together.
She dropped her head forward, baring the back of her neck as her hair swung around her face. “Show me what you’ve always wanted.”
His mouth traveled higher, between her shoulder blades and finally to the nape of her neck. “It’ll take years, Eden.” He angled his hips back as he spoke, then drove deep with a groan.
Her body forgot that it had already been sated. Her knees buckled, spilling her onto the mattress, and then he was doing it again, gripping her hips and pulling her into the perfect position to shatter her sanity, and she didn’t have the experience or the self-control to turn the tables on him. She couldn’t reach him to stroke him to insanity or uncover the secrets of what touches made him wild.
But she could do something far more devastating. Pressing her cheek to the mattress, she melted for him, gave him one precious moment of submission along with the human equivalent. “I love you. You’re mine.”
Jay took both, closing his teeth on the vulnerable curve of her neck before whispering, “Love you too.” The words rode a wave of emotion, love crashing over her tangled with lust and a dark, hungry satisfaction at her willing submission.
So much power in such tiny gestures. She wiggled, working her hands behind her until they nestled at the small of her back, trapped between their bodies, and the thrill it gave him turned helplessness into power. “Love me harder.”
He hissed in a breath and reached between them to lock one hand around her wrists. “Yes, ma’am.” Then he straightened, pulling her arms back to hold her suspended over the bed.
He’d used the Guide bond to master her body. She used it to claim his soul, following instinct to the deepest part of his heart, the not-so-human parts of him that craved the partnership of a strong mate and the submission of a strong lover.
She trusted him, and loved him, and she owned him when his control snapped and he took her.
Strong thrusts brought him into her again and again, each advance stripping another layer of humanity away. She groaned every time he slammed home, rasping encouragement in short, choppy pleas, crude words she couldn’t remember knowing and couldn’t believe she was saying.
“Eden.” He ground out her name, the tension along their bond stretched taut like a bowstring. His free hand tangled in her hair, and he pulled her head back. “Now.”
He wanted her to come. He needed it, the need so vast it swallowed her whole. All of his concentration was focused on her pleasure, on driving it to ridiculous heights with hard, carefully placed strokes, and knowing he’d do anything to earn her release tripped her over the edge.
The fall was beautiful. Heat cascading through her and she cried out, past dignity or reason as she rode her orgasm and he rode her.
Moments later, his pace sped. He rasped her name again and punctuated the whisper with one final, hard thrust. They fell through the bottom together, tumbling end over end in one another’s release and crashing back to earth as one.
Eden didn’t speak at first. She panted against the quilt as Jay eased her onto the bed and curled up behind her, his chest heaving as well.
As her heart rate slowed, a smile curved her lips. “You kinky bastard. You get off on that so hard.”
He growled through a laugh and propped his head on her shoulder. “On what? On you?”
“On being the big bad alpha wolf.” Feeling just as smug as he was, Eden caught his hand and twined their fingers together. “It’s hot, how crazy it makes you.”
“It wouldn’t make me crazy if you didn’t love it too. See the connection?”
“Works out pretty well, I suppose.” She traced her fingertip over his hand in a loopy, mindless pattern. “We’re a matched pair. A mated pair.”
“An alpha pair.” His fingers tightened around hers. “I don’t think they can be honest with me about how they’re doing yet, any of them.”
“It’ll take time, but they’ll come around. And…” She smiled a little. “Lorelei. She doesn’t trust me completely yet, but I like her, and she likes me. She’ll help me take care of them, and Colin will help you protect them. We have backup.”
“Betas,” he murmured.
“Betas.” She had to get at Shane’s computer full of lore sooner rather than later. There was so much to learn about werewolves and pack, about the sanctuary they were going to build and the history of what she had become.
Tomorrow would be soon enough. Tonight she wanted to cuddle with her mate and enjoy the moment’s peace. “Would it be rude or complimentary if I took a nap?”
Jay’s laugh shook through her. “Passing out would be a compliment. A nap just sounds like a damn good idea.”
“Next time,” she mumbled, but it might have been a lie. Drained by the excitement of the past week and wrapped in the strength of his love and the warmth of his body, she tumbled toward oblivion.
Passing out was going to make Jay impossibly smug, but she didn’t really care. He deserved it.
A three-hour nap through the evening was almost unforgivable, but Jay decided to let it slide—just this once. He emerged from the bedroom, bent on raiding the fridge for leftovers, but Mae and Stella were sitting at the kitchen table, talking quietly over mugs of hot cocoa.
Jay hastily finished buttoning his shirt. “Ladies.”
Mae took in his disheveled appearance in her usual silence, but a small smile tugged at her lips as she rose to her feet. “I saved dinner for you and Eden.”
He waved her back to her seat. “I don’t think she’ll be up before morning. She’s exhausted.”
“Bet she is, tiger.” Stella raised an eyebrow at him over her mug.
“Not like that,” he grumbled, pouring himself some cocoa from the pan on the stove. “What’re you two up to?”
“Nothing.” Stella flashed a look at Mae. “Talking about the farm, that’s all.”
“What about it?”
Mae wet her lips nervously. “The magic. We were talking about Stella’s spells. She’s cast a lot of them, along with some pretty impressive wards, but she’s not tired like she should be.”
Then she was the only one. He turned his attention to Stella. “How odd is that?”
“Mmm, hard to say.” She shrugged. “Some places have power. It’s in the earth, the air. The ether, I guess. Maybe this farm is one of them.”
It explained plenty, from Eden’s transformation before the pull of the full moon straight on back to the mysterious circumstances of Zack’s conception. “Find out what it means, okay? For sure.”
She inclined her head. “You got it.”
Mae fiddled with her mug of cocoa, twisting it back and forth before giving Stella a significant look.
The witch responded instantly. “Yeah, well. I’m beat in a completely mundane, non-magical way, so I’m going to pack it in. Good night.”
Jay watched as she set her mug in the sink and hurried out the door. Then he pulled out the chair opposite Mae’s and sat. “What is it?”
Mae’s gaze locked somewhere around his chin. “It’s kind of silly.”
He had to smile. “No, Mae. Whatever it is, it’s not silly if it’s important to you.”
“It’s just…” She swallowed hard, and her hand inched across the table, stopping just shy of his. “You’re my alpha, and I’ve never really talked to you. But it matters to me, maybe more than it does to the rest of them. I need pack. My wolf’s…weak.”
Not weak, though how could she know that if she could barely touch the beast inside? “Are you having any control problems?”
She shook her head, sending pink hair flying. “She really only comes out at the full moon, or if another wolf…” Her jaw clenched, and fear and shame soured the space between them. “But that’s not the same as control. I never really learned because I had a Guide, but she was one of the first wolves Christian killed.”
Damn it. Jay covered her hand with his, moving slowly. “Then we’ll need to find you another one.”
“I know.” Her voice faded to a small, scared whisper, but she clung to his hand as if it were the only solid thing in the world. “That’s why I didn’t tell you before… I don’t know if I’m ready.”
“You have time. If you were starting to shift without trying, anything dangerous like that, it’d have to be now. But you have time, Mae. Time to choose.”
Her fingers clenched tight. “Thank you.”
Don’t. His first instinct, to deny her thanks. Deflect the gratitude that wafted around every single member of the pack like a tangible wave of sadness mixed with relief. “You’re welcome.”
He knew he’d made the right choice when her tension eased. She slipped her hand free of his and rose, only to circle the table and wrap one arm around his shoulders in a shy, tentative hug. “If Eden does wake up, her food’s on the second shelf in the fridge. Yours is too.”
“Thanks. I think I’m just going to lock up and head back to bed.”
Mae smiled—a real smile—and swept up her cocoa. “Good night, Jay. Sleep well.”
When the house was quiet, a stillness fell. More than the quiet, it seemed to seep from every wall, heavy somehow with echoes. Shadows you could just barely catch out of the corner of your eye, the kind that vanished when you turned to look.
Ghosts. That’s what Eden had called them. Memories, Jay had said, and he still believed that. What had the old walls seen? What secrets did they carry?
He checked the front door before returning to the kitchen to flip the deadbolt on the back door. Before he could, a glimmer out by the barn caught his eye. White or beige, certainly not the shadows he was used to seeing in the darkness.
Jay pushed through the door. A breeze stirred his hair as well as a set of wind chimes on the back porch—Mae’s doing, perhaps, or Lorelei’s. They tinkled, underscored by a soft murmur.
The wind through the trees. Except the longer he listened, the more it sounded like a voice, words too low to make out.
He strode out toward the barn, the grass cool under his bare feet. His glimpse of the figure under the moonlight had been brief, but his mind already supplied details—human, feminine, dark hair.
The whispering stopped.
“Kaley, is that you?” He rounded the back of the barn, but nothing greeted him except trees and that damnable breeze.
Alpha.
The word crawled up his spine, sick and terrifying. It came from nowhere, and it came from right beside him. He whirled, his gaze snagging on a soft glow through the trees.
A woman stared at him, familiar somehow. Unsmiling. He watched, dumbstruck, as she shook her head, mouthed words and vanished.
Alpha. The word echoed again, sending another shiver up Jay’s back, especially when the whisper continued. Help him.
No throb of magic, not a single sense on alert. Jay stood behind the barn, his heart pounding, and fought the urge to run like a damn boy. When he did move, he kept his pace measured, even, and walked back to the house.
The lock clicked behind him, and absent steps carried him into the den, where he’d stowed Eden’s box of pictures, the ones she’d brought home the night before. His hands trembled as he pawed through them, and a stray shard of glass sliced his thumb.
“F*ck.” He sucked away the blood and lifted the photo he’d been looking for, a sad shot on the front porch of the farmhouse. Zack’s parents sat in rocking chairs, while he stood between them. His hands clenched so tightly around the straight chair backs that his knuckles stood out, stark and white, but that wasn’t what held Jay’s attention riveted.
Kathy Green, beautiful but melancholy. The woman in the photo.
The woman he’d seen outside.
Help him. Help them all.
About the Author
How do you make a Moira Rogers? Take a former forensic science and nursing student obsessed with paranormal romance and add a computer programmer with a passion for gritty urban fantasy. To learn more about this romance-writing, crime-fighting duo, visit their webpage at www.moirarogers.com, or drop them an email at [email protected]. (Disclaimer: crime-fighting abilities may appear only in the aforementioned fevered imaginations.)