Chapter 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The sunlight hit my eyelids, casting a yellow glow beneath my closed eyes. My body was warm and covered. During the night, I had rolled into a divot in the middle of the mattress created by Everett’s large body, and now I found myself cocooned between the wall of the mattress hollow and his warm chest. My muscles had never felt so relaxed. My brain had never been so relaxed. I wanted nothing more than to live forever in this state of meditation.

Breathing in the clean scent of outside air that seemed to radiate from Everett’s chest almost sent me back into a deep slumber, had it not been for his arm pulling my waist closer to his. His hard erection pushed against my lower back, ready even after how busy it had been last night. I pushed back against it, sighing.

“See what my mate does to me?” Everett asked. He bent his head down to nuzzle my neck. “You make me insatiable.”

I felt light kisses from Everett’s soft lips make a line from my shoulder and up my neck to my ear. My head turned to face his, and I planted my own lips on to his. “How’d you sleep?”

The question was rhetorical, but I was genuinely curious. Personally, I had slept like a rock. It had probably been the deepest sleep I had in several years. Maybe it was the release of all the sexual tension that had been building between us, but I had slept great. I couldn’t imagine Everett could say the same. My small bed at the cabin barely fit his hulking frame. I could only guess, due to the deep depression in the middle of the mattress, that we probably had broken the bed.

“I’m fully rested, Lyka.” Everett pushed his pelvis into my back again to make a point. His morning erection pushed against my spine.

I tried to turn my body around to face him, but I found myself stuck in the bed, unable to move. It ended up being more of a full body wiggle than any rotation.

“Keep moving like that and I’ll have you right here and now,” he said.

My body froze at his threat. I was sore from last night, not used to a man of Everett’s size, but the sore feeling wasn’t a bad one. I rubbed my thighs together to test it, and the movement made me pulse between my legs. The soreness felt like a reward from the exertion of last night. I couldn’t help it; my body was ready for him again.

“I can sense your desire, Elise. Didn’t I tell you that would happen?” Larger than me, Everett could climb out of the mattress pit. I squeaked as my body rolled fully into the depression in his absence. Trapped in the mattress, the alpha easily found his way on top of me. “This bed might not make it through round three, but don’t worry—mine at the pack house is much stronger and much bigger. Next time, when I have you on my bed, I will not be so gentle,” he promised.

Gentle? Thinking back to last night and the current, sore state of my nether regions, I was curious what Everett was like when he was rough in bed.

“We’ve completed half of the mating process.” Kneeling above me, Everett spread my legs apart with his hands, growling deeply at what he found between them. “I can feel you now.” He palmed his cock in his hand and guided it to my entrance and inserted slowly. “Not just here…” I hissed at the feeling of him stretching me. There was pain, a dull pain that served as a reminder of the previous night. “But your emotions. I can feel everything.” Everett paused. “Am I hurting you?”

“I’m just sore. I’m not used to someone of your…size,” I said.

“It’ll get better with time. It seems like we both have some things we need to get used to,” he said through clenched teeth. “I told you I need more practice with you. Your tight walls do nothing but milk me. We both need to build up our tolerances to each other.”

He pulled out and slowly thrust back in. The pain was less this time as my body adjusted. “Are you okay?” he asked gingerly, taking the time to brush a piece of hair off my face.

Smiling up at his concerned face, I crooned, “Practice makes perfect.” It was all the permission he needed before he began steadily thrusting into me. Although longer than last night, it wasn’t long before Everett began breathing heavily and whispering my name against my neck. I could feel him pulsing inside of me, filling me for the third time in the last twenty-four hours. These shifters were persistent.

“I’m improving, Lyka. I wasn’t joking when I told you I need you every day,” Everett said. “You’re like a drug. I can only take so much of you, but slowly I’ll build my tolerance to your tight walls, and soon I’ll fuck you all night and day.”

The quick sex didn’t bother me. I was sore, and the fast sex had relieved some of the feeling. It was Everett’s ability to talk so openly about our sex that threw me. Even having a mother like mine hadn’t prepared me for his openness.

“Are all of you shifters so expletive?” I asked.

Everett lay down after pulling himself out of me. “What’s expletive about sex? It’s natural.” He sounded just like my mother. I made a mental note to never introduce them.

“I guess I’m not used to it. I don’t usually talk about sex with my partners,” I said.

Propped up on an elbow, he played with my hair. “You don’t talk about sex with your partners? Well, now you do. How do you expect to have good sex without talking? Oh, wait…have you never had good sex before?”

I scoffed and smacked his chest playfully. “Nope, never in my life.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Lyka.” Everett leaned in and grabbed my chin. “You’ll find us shifters to be very open and very good at sex. Another thing you’ll have to get used to.” He planted a kiss on my lips. I could smell his body again. Damn pheromones.

“I have to go,” Everett said. “Today starts the last weekend of the tournament.”

I groaned as I tried to roll over. Unable to move and still stuck in the mattress hole, I stuck my arms up, asking for help. He easily climbed out of the bed and lifted me up out of the depression.

We stood next to the bed, looking at the mattress. It looked like a folded soft-shell taco. Everett’s massive body must have bent the mattress coils in such a way that there was no fixing it.

He smirked, catching my eyes. “Whoops.”

“It’s not even my bed!” I screeched.

I couldn’t imagine how I would explain the state of the bed to Professor Robinson. I was already in enough trouble with him with the sneaking out and accusations of falsifying data. What had happened last night was the opposite of my strategy to fix everything with the university. But I couldn’t deny the pull between us—it was too strong. Everett was a part of me now. By claiming me as his mate, he was also inheriting my problems. He had shown me that he was just invested in saving this forest as I was. We could be a team, two advocates saving the forest together. My heart warmed at the thought.

Everett stripped the sheets from the bed and handed them to me. Standing there with a mound of sheets in my arms, I watched as he easily flipped the mattress over. Now it looked like a small mountain, bowed instead of concave, but I could try to flatten it by putting my textbooks on top of it. I threw the sheets on top of the bare mattress to deal with later.

We quickly got dressed and opened the door to my room. The cabin was quiet. Jenny’s room was still empty. I wondered what had happened between her and Gavrill. Leo’s door was closed, and I grimaced, hoping he hadn’t heard any of the activity in my room last night. Or this morning.

Before Everett opened the front door, he pulled me in for a deep kiss. It was like he was still starved for me. I kissed him back just as hungrily.

I watched him walk out the door. For a minute, I wondered how he was going to get home without a car, but then I remembered—he could run just as fast as a car in his wolf form. It wasn’t a shock when he disappeared behind a tree, the black wolf with gold eyes a moment later from behind the same tree. It looked back at me before it ran into the woods.