Chapter 16

sixteen

DEE

It is the most debauched thing possible to be enjoying myself as Bill’s tongue reaches my throat, his fanged jaws wide open above my face. He could clamp down on my head at any time, but I know he never would. I am literally inside the lion’s jaws, making out with him while he fucks me into a whimpering, sweating, mindless puddle. My legs are wrapped like iron around his waist, his huge, clawed hands holding me up in the air as he guides himself in and out of me, that immense, fat cock pushing every limit I have. I’m helpless in his arms as he brings me down onto him again and again, squeezing my ass in his claws so tight I wonder if I’ll have marks later.

I couldn’t care any less.

My Bill. No, it’s Russ. Fuck, it doesn’t matter. He smells like home, and having him inside me again is simply arriving back where I belong. My brain is light and airy, filled with his scent, with the heady delirium of having him inside me again .

I whimper and cry and wrap my arms even tighter around his neck, burying my fingers in his scruff with each mad thrust. That amazing cock of his is winding me up, spinning my pleasure around me into a whirlwind. I sob into his huge mouth as he glides on a river of both our fluids, that bulbous knot of his hinting again and again at what it would like to do.

His tongue snakes back out of my mouth, and there’s drool covering my face.

“I’m going to fuck my knot into you,” he says in that low, rumbling voice. “I’m going to stretch you wide, until your pussy can’t be filled by anyone else but me.”

My brain is foggy, so foggy with my bliss, that all I can do is moan, “Yes!”

He pumps his hips faster, harder, that bulge starting to squeeze into me with each deep stroke. As he commanded, I’m opening for him, allowing through a little more each time. The more I accommodate him, the greater the volley of pleasure that echoes through me, from my throat to my toes. Bill—no, Russ —shoves into me harder, and I buckle forward. He lowers his nose to touch it to mine, and I open my eyes to gaze up at him.

His irises are bright amber, his black pupils blown out and huge. The skin is bunched up on his snout in a vicious snarl, his teeth bared with each plunge inside me. More of his knot is working its way in, and I’m so full that I might simply pop like a balloon.

“Take it,” he rumbles. “Take my knot. Take all of me.”

“I will,” I sob, and then the rest of his thick, swollen cock finally slips through. But that’s not what sends me over the edge, tumbling into oblivion—it’s when he yanks it free, then shoves it into me a second, a third, a fourth time, that my body can’t take any more, and my orgasm shatters me .

I bury my face into the fur of his throat and scream as it shakes me like an earthquake. My wolfman groans as he slides in one final time, and then I’m clamped around him so tight, he can’t pull out again. He makes a strangled sound, almost like a kicked dog, and then he swells. Suddenly, teeth sink into the flesh of my shoulder, and the exquisite pain of the bite morphs into a mad, impossible pleasure, ratcheting up my climax into another mountain.

Then he explodes. His hot come fills me up in a rush so powerful I feel it slosh inside me, asking me to make even more room. Whimpering, he thrusts again, burying himself even deeper. As his own peak consumes him, his pumps grow shallower, and there’s a wet squelch as his excess spills out around his knot. Panting, he finally falls limp. Then he stumbles backwards, still buried in me, and comes to rest against a tree trunk.

I gasp for air, clinging to him like my life depends on it. He holds me around my ass, his knot stuck like a stopper, his jaws sunk into the flesh of my shoulder. Ever so slowly he releases me, and then the acute, painful sting of it finally hits.

“Ow, fuck,” I say, reaching up to cover the wound.

“I’m so sorry.” Russ stands up straighter and peers down at the damage he’s done. “I didn’t mean to do that. I wasn’t going to do that.” His cock twitches inside me.

“What is it? What did you do?”

“It’s my mark,” he says quietly. “Because you’re my mate, and I had to?—”

“I’m your what? ”

Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Some monsters, like wolfmen and yetis and orcs, have life mates. I’ve heard people say it’s spiritual, supernatural, fated by a higher power. Others believe it’s simply hormones and instincts and genetic compatibility.

But Russ has decided I’m his mate...

“I knew it after the first time,” he says, then pauses to lick the wound. It stings, but also strangely, feels good. “You’re mine, Dee. You and the cub both.”

He’s speaking too fast, so fast I can’t keep up.

“Now that you know the truth,” he continues, his voice frantic, “you should move into my house, and?—”

What the fuck is he saying? “Stop,” I snap, tensing up all over. With his knot still trapped inside my tight pussy, he groans. “I’m not yours, Bill. Russ. Whoever you are. And I’m not moving anywhere.” I try to separate myself from him, because now, suddenly, I realize how desperately we need to have an actual conversation.

I can’t believe I just flung myself at him that way. I’m such a moron. I guess just another animal fueled by instinct and base needs.

Russ whimpers as I try to pull his knot free of me. “Dee,” he says in a worried voice. “You can’t move yet.” He remains holding me up with one arm, and wraps the other around my back to keep me close to him. “I just want to make sure you’re safe. And the two of you will be safest if you’re with me.”

I push away again, and this time, his knot has gone down enough that he slips free of me. I wriggle out of his arms and drop to the ground, and Russ stares down at me, his brow furrowed in concern.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, planting both my feet firmly. “I have my own apartment. I have a...”

I have a boyfriend .

Oh, extra fucks. I just had sex with a wolfman who thinks I’m his life mate, while Robbie’s probably at home, fast asleep in his bed. It just... completely exited my brain. Like there was nothing else in the world that mattered except being with Bill again.

Has he brainwashed me?

“Dee, please.” Russ kneels down at my feet, his soaking-wet cock hanging limp between his legs. He’s still level with my chest even like this, and he reaches out one hand to touch me. I jerk backward in surprise. “Let me be there for you. Let me watch over you and our cub. You can have anything you need, and then we’ll raise it together, and?—”

He’s fucking delusional.

“You’re crazy,” I say, blinking back tears. I take a step back. “Raise it together? What are you talking about?” He has a whole world up there in his head that’s separate from mine. He wants a relationship, a family. That’s why he came to DreamTogether in the first place.

Now that the high of sex and lust has faded, I comb back over everything Russ said and did after the dog attack. Now, I understand why he gave me his number, why he checked in on me over text message in a way that felt so sweet and genuine.

“So that’s it,” I say quietly, as horror dawns on me. “You didn’t want to be my friend. You were... you were trying to ingratiate yourself in my life.” My voice is strained and broken. “You were going to try to break up Robbie and I, weren’t you?”

When Russ’s mouth falls open, I know that I’m right. Even worse, he was living a double life—one as Russ, my friend, and one as Bill, my stalker. Little pieces in my memory click into place, of a car that looked vaguely like Russ’s behind me in traffic, of someone walking a few blocks behind me as I went on a walk. Boomer going wild in the middle of the night .

How did he even find me? DreamTogether is supposed to be completely anonymous. He had nothing to go on, and managed to track me down.

Then... he bit me. While he was inside me, he fucking bit me to make me his mate, when I never agreed to anything like that.

It’s honestly terrifying. And maybe it’s even worse that I went along with this, that I wanted this.

Shivering, I pull Boomer closer to me. My pants are a mess, and Russ’s come is slipping down my thighs in a river. I’m disgusted with myself.

“I just want you to be safe,” Russ says in a pleading tone. “That human guy can’t do that. That’s not his cub, it’s mine. I can watch over you. I can be?—”

“Shut up!” It bursts out of me, much louder than I intended, but I’m filling with rage. “You are a fucking creep. You could have told me the truth so long ago, but you didn’t. No, instead you made me feel paranoid. You lied about so many things, made me believe you were someone else.”

And I just fucking had sex with him. Carnal, primal, mind-blowing sex.

“I’m so sorr—” Russ opens his mouth to say, but I smack him right in the snout. His head swings to one side and I back away, Boomer’s leash clutched tight in my hand. His mouth falls open as he turns back to face me, his eyes wide and betrayed.

I can’t believe I just did that. But I’m not just enraged by what he’s done—I’m furious at myself, too, for falling for it. Why did he have to lie to me? Now I can’t trust him.

“Come on, boy,” I tell Boomer, then turn around and jog away, fresh tears stinging behind my eyes.

“Wait!” Russ’s claws click on the sidewalk as he starts after me. “Dee! ”

I glance back over my shoulder at the wolfman standing in the middle of the path, his jeans at his feet. The devastation is clear on his face as I leave him behind.

I don’t care how I feel about Russ, I tell myself. I don’t care how much that look makes me hurt, how obvious it is that I mean the world to him. I don’t care how fierce and right it felt to be with him. None of that matters.

He’s... he’s dangerous. All red flags. And I need to get away from him as fast as I can, for my sake and this baby’s.

RUSS

Watching Dee run away, her pants ripped from front to back and hanging in shreds, will be forever imprinted on my memory. The agony I feel, knowing I can’t chase her or I’ll only reinforce what she already believes.

What she already knows. Because it’s the truth, really.

I am a fucking creep.

When she’s gone, I fall to the ground on my knees. Fuck. I really ruined it. I ruined everything.

I can’t help it when my head tilts back, my nose points up at the moon, and a mournful howl pours from my mouth. It’s all I can do, calling out to the world just how unfair it is that I’d be bound to her, and she wouldn’t want me in return.

Well, she might have, if I hadn’t royally screwed up every part of it I could.

My mate. My cub.

My whole world.