Chapter 21

Ruby had just experienced the best orgasm of her entire life, but Rafe was the one who looked wrecked. He knelt in front of her, her wetness on his lips, his fingers still digging into her thighs, but his eyes were filled with something she’d never seen before.

Longing and desire mixed with … fear? Rafe was looking at her like he wanted to fuck her into oblivion and run from her at the same time. She grabbed tight to his arm. She wouldn’t let him run.

“Fuck me, Rafe.”

He shook his head, hard, like the words had rattled him out of his thoughts.

“I…” His voice was rough and choked like he couldn’t bear the words he was about to say. Somehow Ruby knew she couldn’t bear to hear them either. She leaned forward and claimed his mouth with hers, demanding he open for her, demanding he let her in.

For a moment he did, and Ruby sagged in relief. She ran her fingers through his hair and down his shoulders. He was still fully clothed which now seemed like a horrible oversight. She tugged at his shirt and he let her yank it over his head. He kissed her like a desperate man, like this was some kind of goodbye. But that couldn’t be true. Despite all that “get it out of their system” crap, Rafe couldn’t deny what existed between them. Not when it was so obvious, so bare.

Ruby pulled away and leaned her forehead against his. She let her hands trace the planes of his chest.

“That was amazing, but I don’t want to stop.”

Rafe’s exhale was one of defeat. “You got what you needed.” He pushed away from her, rising up. Ruby stood too, not wanting him to tower over her. Not now when he already held too much else over her. She’d been completely open with him and still he was pulling away?

“What I needed? I thought this was a mutual getting over it thing.” She crossed her arms over her bare chest. Rafe grabbed her shirt from the bed and handed it to her.

“You said you were distracted. Hopefully, now you can concentrate better.”

What the actual hell was happening here? Ruby tugged the shirt on, not caring that it was inside out and backwards. This whole night was falling down around her head. Outside rain pelted against the windows. The storm had broken.

“Are you kidding?” she asked, ignoring how hurt her voice sounded. “You’re pretending that was just a favor to me?” She gestured to where Rafe’s cock strained against the front of his pants.

The color rose in Rafe’s cheeks, a pained expression crossing his face. “This is all I can give you, Ruby.”

He stalked from the room before she could argue. Thunder rumbled through the house, drowning out his footsteps on the stairs. Ruby dropped back onto the bed, her legs still shaking from her soul-shattering orgasm.

She had never been so embarrassed in her life.

* * *

This wasn’t possible. There was no way this could be happening. Not to him. Not with Ruby.

Rafe paced the woods beyond the house, his fur plastered to his body. He was soaked to the bone and the rain still hadn’t let up. Every muscle in his body, every instinct was screaming at him to run back to her. But he couldn’t. Especially not now. Not with Ruby’s taste still on his tongue, the feel of her body still imprinted on his. He shook his fur out again, water spraying everywhere, not that it did any good in this downpour.

God, she must hate him. The look on her face when he pulled away, the betrayal and the anger, would haunt him forever.

But this couldn’t be possible.

Rafe hadn’t grown up with the fairy tale of fated Mates. His father shut down any whisper of it. The pack mated for strength and skill, not based on destiny or, worse, love. At a very young age, Rafe was convinced the concept didn’t even exist.

Until he met Scarlet and he’d thought maybe…

The light in Ruby’s bedroom went out, bathing the yard in darkness. She’d given up on him coming back. Rafe’s chest cracked, letting the darkness in.

Good. She needed to give up on him. It was why he didn’t fuck her. Why he couldn’t, even as his body craved it like his next breath. Stories linger, even when they are suppressed. People whisper. Wolves talk. He knew the fairy tale even if he never believed in it. Werewolves were meant to mate for life. If they were lucky, they found their fated Mate, the wolf that was tied to their soul, the wolf they literally could not live without. It was all bullshit. Rafe had never met anyone who’d found their one, true Mate. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t real.

Unless it was… Rafe shook himself again, his body still reverberating from the realization he’d had between Ruby’s legs. The word Mate still ran through his blood, still screamed at him to pay attention to what was right in front of him.

Shit.He couldn’t do it. Didn’t want it. Humans were not for him. Not even that one, not even Ruby. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to pull himself together, trying to slow his racing heart so he could think.

If the stories were true, the Mate bond wouldn’t lock in place until he claimed her. In his current state, there was exactly one way Rafe could think of to claim his Mate and it didn’t involve promise rings. Which was why he’d stopped before they went any further, before he lost himself in her and did things they’d both regret.

Just imagining being buried deep inside her made Rafe groan in agony, but she would have no choice, she’d be stuck with him forever whether she wanted it or not. Right? There was too much he still didn’t know. Too many questions he’d never asked. He’d been afraid to ask them, to even think them, back then.

He knew one thing for certain, the last thing he wanted to do was force Ruby to be with him.

She was a human. Maybe she didn’t sense the bond at all, maybe this was all one-sided. And what was he going to do, tie himself for eternity to this human for one little fuck? Follow Ruby around like a puppy for the rest of her life? He refused to think of what would happen to him after Ruby died and his damn werewolf genes kept him alive for several more centuries. The terror that seized his heart at that thought was too much to bear.

None of this was fair to Ruby. She wasn’t a werewolf. She was a human, another human that would be taken from him too soon. He refused to make that mistake again.

But even as he vowed to himself that he wouldn’t claim her, that he wouldn’t fuck her and make her his, even as he swore to himself that he would leave, his body rebelled. His feet wouldn’t budge. He should find another way to protect her from afar. But even as he racked his brain for ways to do that, his heart laughed at what a liar he was, at what a fool he was.

It was too late. It didn’t matter if he stayed away from Ruby for the rest of his life. It didn’t matter if he ran to the ends of the earth to avoid her. It didn’t matter if he never touched her again. She was already his. It was too damn late.

For him anyway. But maybe she could be the one to run. Just like Scarlet had, saving them both the trouble of wondering what could possibly happen next between a wolf and a woman.

The memory was vivid and real, like a movie played on the shadows of the forest.