“That’s half the time I get now.”
“But consider the quality of time, HavoK. You’ve spent how long out here beating up trees? Is this the time you fight for? Time away from me?”
“Four.”
“Three,” she said in a stern voice.
HavoK opened his mouth and roared, then paced away and back. “You want Torren.”
“I want both sides of Torren. The man and you.”
“No, because you try and tuck me away. I checked if you were breathing this morning. Me. Last night, I pulled that silverback off you. Me!”
“I love you!”
HavoK skidded to a stop in the snow, smearing red with his knuckles. After a few loaded seconds, he demanded, “Explain love.”
The wind was picking up and it was getting colder, so she pulled her jacket tighter around her torso. “Okay…love is worrying over someone. It’s putting them above yourself. It’s smiling when they smile because their happiness makes you happy. It’s wanting a future with them and working to make them okay so you can both have that future. It’s wanting to know if they are sad so you can hug them and make it better. It’s crying when they say something nice because you feel joy they really see you when no one else does. It’s not being invisible. It’s sleeping beside them and having a bad dream, so you wake up to check if they’re breathing. Because if they weren’t, it would feel like you weren’t breathing. It’s a feeling that when everything is falling apart, they can fix it just by looking at you. A single look, and you know everything will be okay. Love is feeling safe with someone.”
While she’d spoken, HavoK had stopped fidgeting and had become still like a statue. His attention had drifted to her mouth and stayed there as she formed her words. And when she was finished, he frowned. “You feel these things about me?”
With a smile, Candace nodded. “And it’s also standing out in the freezing cold at dawn just on the off-chance I can bring you back to warm me up in bed.”
His frown grew deeper. “You shiver.”
In an effort to keep him on track, she made her voice stern again and said, “Three times a day. No more. I need both sides of you to be steady because I’ve lost a lot. I lost my mom and my dad, and now it’s just me out in the world if you aren’t here to tether me to you, and to the crew. I don’t want to be alone again. Don’t let that happen.”
She turned on her heel and made her way back through the woods, following the tracks she’d made. Already they were filling with snow. It hurt walking away, but she’d put everything out there, and now the animal half of the man she loved would need to make his own decisions.
Quit or stay, just like the decision she’d had to make.
“Candace,” Torren said.
Startled by his human voice, she jerked her gaze up from the snow where she’d been carefully stepping. And there he was. Skin pale, tattoo ink stark against the snowy background. His knuckles were already healing but still looked painful. His eyes were hollow and exhausted.
“You’ve been fighting with yourself,” she said.
He nodded once, slowly. “Different kind of fight from last night. The physical ones are easier.”
“Are you there at all? When HavoK takes over. Do you see and feel what’s happening?”
“Sometimes more than others. Sometimes not at all. Sometimes it’s like I went to sleep and I wake up and my body hurts.” His bare feet made deep prints in the snow as he approached.
He slid his arms around her and hugged her tight, lifting her off her feet. “You’re terrifying.”
“Me? Why?” she asked, wrapping her arms and legs around him, and holding on. She didn’t want him to put her down. Hell, she could stay like this forever. Just them and the silent falling snow and the winter woods of Vyr’s Mountains.
“Because now I have something to lose. Something big. Before, I had already accepted the break HavoK was making in me. Now I want to fight it, but I don’t know how. You’re scary because I can let you down, and I don’t want to. I had accepted my fate, but now I don’t want what’s happening to me, or to my gorilla.”
“Then stay,” she said simply. Candace eased back and ran her fingertips down his beard. “Stay with me. You and HavoK both. We’re going to figure it out, me and you. And the crew.”
Torren snorted. “That entire crew is fucked up and not at a point where they can help anyone else.”
“Not anyone else, just crew.” She grinned and slid down his body, settled on her knees in the snow but kept her eyes on him.
There was a wicked twinkle in Torren’s green eyes now. “What are you doing?”
“Tempting you to try harder.”
“Mmmm. I like when you say harder.” He snarled up his lip and gripped the back of her hair roughly.
Sexy, dominant man. He had so many layers. Rugged brawler on the outside and vulnerable man desperate to stay steady on the inside. Big, muscular, tattooed beast, body humming with power as his eyes sparked an even brighter green. He was hard already, so she gripped him and slid her hand down his shaft. Torren let off a soft rumbling sound and urged her face closer.
She’d already won. He didn’t look tired and beaten anymore. He even felt stronger to her again. Confident. Stable. Hungry.
Candace slid her mouth over him, hand at his hilt because he was too big to take all at once.
He gave off a shaky, “Fuuuck,” as she applied more pressure with her tongue.
She kept the pace steady, and he was good. He was gripping her hair but not forcing her. He was letting her do what she wanted. Good mate. She wanted to take care of him right now and make him forget about losing control.
When Candace dug her nails into his powerful outer thigh, he grunted a sexy noise, and his muscles twitched. Her name came like a prayer to his lips as she pushed him closer to release. He was moving with her now, body shaking, muscles flexed, dick hard in her mouth. He tasted so good, and she looked up at him just to see the expression of pure intensity as he watched her suck him off. She felt powerful, having such control over a monster of a man like this. He might be the new king, the new Kong, but she was his queen, and queens had more power than people realized. It was subtle power. Quiet power.