Chapter 7

Chapter

Seven

W ith no quick, pithy comeback and unwilling to deal with all of the emotion she thought she had long ago locked away in a deep, dark corner of her soul, she turned away.

"I never thought I'd live to see the day Riley Nichols' daughter turned tail and ran."

Piper froze and without turning back to face him, said, "I'm not running or turning tail. I'm walking away from a conversation that will not lead to anything productive. Neither of us is willing to leave our families with the Darkness heading this way, so let's just try and avoid each other. When my parents have defeated this bogeyman that's after your family, we can both walk away and never have to see each other again."

"That doesn't work for me, Piper."

"Too fucking bad, Rémy. What does or doesn't work for you ceased to matter to me a long time ago."

"Again, I don't believe you."

She whirled around. "For the record, asshole, calling a girl a liar isn't the best way to get yourself back into her good graces."

"At least you're looking at me. Have I ever told you how beautiful you are? How every night for the last decade when I closed my eyes, it was you I saw? Or how you saved me on my last mission?"

"I'm confused," she said wrinkling her brow. "How could I have saved you? I didn't even know where you were or that anyone was torturing you."

"And if you had, would you have come for me?"

"I don't understand you. I guess I never have. Leave me alone, Rémy."

"I can't."

"Since when? You left for the Naval Academy, and I never heard from you again."

"That isn't true, Piper. We both know that I wrote to you. For five long years, I mailed a letter to you every week. I understand at first you'd at least look at the envelope before very pointedly tossing it into a fire. After a while you just ignored them and didn't even bother to pick them up."

"How do you know that? No, wait. Travis, of course. That rat bastard. Remind me when this is over to kick his balls back up into his body cavity."

"I will do no such thing. Your brother loves you. He's my best friend, my sister's mate and an incurable romantic."

"It doesn't matter. That still leaves a lot of years you didn't write."

Rémy chuckled softly. "Ah, chère , is that why you're still angry? I did write, Piper, I just didn't mail them."

"Why not?"

"Because I knew by then that you weren't ready to read them or to hear what I had to say. I'll give them all to you the day you tell me you forgive me."

"Don't hold your breath. You were an arrogant bastard back then, and you haven't changed."

"Arrogant? How the hell do you get arrogance out of anything that happened?"

"Simple. You, like every other fucking male alpha wolf, thought you knew what was best for the little she-wolf. Well guess what? You didn't. I got over it and I got over you."

S he was lying and they both knew it. Before he could mount another argument, Piper turned her back on him. He'd had too much to drink at dinner and the discussion after the meal had been unsettling to say the least. He'd gone for a run to clear his head, but it had done no good. Then he'd picked up her scent as she'd headed up the knoll. His howl had split the night, calling to her, letting her know he needed her.

"Did you? Don't you ever think about that kiss? I do. It's the reason I've never kissed another female since that night—wolf or human."

"Bullshit. I've seen the way women hang all over you, and I understand that at Torch Light or Baker Street you're catnip to unsuspecting kittens. There's no fucking way you've been abstinent."

"Jealous, chère ?" She snorted at that. It was such an unfeminine sound; he kind of loved that she did it. Piper didn't conform to anyone's notions of what was proper or appropriate. "I didn't say I went without sex, I said you were the last woman I ever kissed. Kissing is intimate. It means something. Sex is a biological function."

He closed the distance between them before she could react. He had to get his hands on her. Before she could get away, he trapped her within his embrace and stroked the back of her hair with one hand. It was as soft and silky as he remembered. He gently walked her backward until her back was up against one of the sturdy oak trees that grew among the willows. He loomed over her even though she was taller than most she-wolves. There was no fear in her eyes as she looked up at him.

Rémy stared down at her, studying her face and watching a myriad of emotions pass over her features. At first, she struggled, trying to force him to let her go. She pulled her knee back and he blocked it with his thigh.

" Non, chère, " he said in his French-Cajun accent that was thickened with lust. "You will not do that. Try it again and you will find out just how a male alpha wolf disciplines his mate."

"You are not my mate."

"We both know better." He pressed his hard cock into her and smiled when she began to settle into him. "That's better. I've missed you, Piper."

He lowered his head and brushed his lips across hers. God, he'd almost forgotten how sweet she tasted, and that was just her lips. He remembered her mouth being better still. Would the cream he wanted to lap from between her legs be even better? He deepened the kiss, running his tongue along her bottom lip, waiting to see if she'd open for him.

Piper moaned and relaxed against the tree, drawing him closer to her, melting into his heat and parting her lips. He pressed her against the rough bark and parted her thighs with one of his own. He plunged his tongue into the dark recesses of her mouth—tasting, exploring, and seducing. He wanted her to want him. Rémy allowed his tongue to mimic what he wanted to do with his cock in her pussy. There would be a time when he would want her to take his staff into her mouth and swallow him down, but that time was not tonight.

He moved his hands down to grip her hips, so she fit closer to him and answered her moan with one of his own. One hand slipped between her ass and the tree, the grooves in the tree bark scraping his knuckles, but he didn't care. He had Piper's glorious ass under his hand. He released her head with the other and drew it down, tracing a line to her breast so he could cup it through the shift. Her nipple peaked and he wished that he had his hands on her bare flesh.

Piper slowly ran her hands along his spine. "They hurt you," she murmured as he nibbled down her jaw to her neck.

He knew better than to spend any time nuzzling and kissing her throat. He could feel his fangs trying to sharpen and elongate so he could mark her. That would be a mistake. He tried to focus but found it difficult, as the run hadn't cleared his head completely. His primitive instincts wanted to drag her down to the ground and sink his teeth into the place alpha males had been marking their mates for millennia. And it wasn't only his instinct to mark her that he was having trouble controlling. His alpha knot was determined to form and breach her.

"I'm fine, Piper," he murmured as he whispered kisses toward her breast.

Rémy slipped the strap of the shift off her shoulder to expose her left breast. He'd never seen anything more tantalizing in his life. The creamy ivory of her smooth skin contrasted with the dusky areola and slightly darker center of her breast. He swirled his tongue around that enticing stiffened tip. Opening his mouth, he covered her nipple, latching on and suckling.

"Oh God," she groaned.

He used his free hand to tug the hem of her shift up out of his way as he pressed her harder into the tree and rubbed his leg between hers. He wedged it high enough that she was standing on her tiptoes, her feet only having the lightest of contact with the earth. When she started to grind herself against him, he gave her nipple the slightest edge of his teeth.

"Come for me, Piper," he commanded in a deep voice.

She relaxed against him, riding his thigh as he moved against her clit. She held onto him, matching her rhythm to his. He could sense her increasing arousal. She was wet. Hell, she was soaked. He could feel it as it dampened his sweatpants. Her breath hitched as she arched her back to expose her throat, her pussy, her everything to him.

Rubbing more intensely to increase the friction, he pressed hard and felt her orgasm wash over her. Her eyes were open, allowing him to see the wonder and pleasure in them as she held onto him and rode the wave, reveling in the sensation. She floated back down to reality, languid and disheveled from their encounter—just the way he wanted her.

Piper Nichols was indeed her mother's daughter. She was an alpha female who gloried in pleasure. He would use that quality to bind her to him. Piper didn't know it, but she would forgive him, and he would claim her as his.

S he sagged against Rémy, listening to the beat of his heart and the sonorous rumbling from deep within his chest. Piper had never experienced anything as intimate as what had just happened. What the hell had she done? She wanted to rail at him, blame him. But she knew that wasn't fair. Yes, he'd started it, but she'd grown up with Rémy; she knew him. If she had asked him to stop, he would have. If she'd done anything other than wrap her arms around him, drop her guard, and indulge her fantasies—which had been nothing compared to the reality—he would have reluctantly obliged.

But now Piper squirmed in his arms, and he responded by tightening his grip on her. He muttered something to her in French. She had no idea what he was saying, but it sounded delicious and dirty as hell. She should protest and make him let her go, but she wanted to stay with him and pretend he'd never left so many years earlier. She wanted to make believe just for a few moments that there wasn't an ancient evil preparing to kill them that very moment. She wanted to believe that they had a future.

God, how she wanted a future with Rémy. She'd always wanted a future with him. If he'd asked all those years ago, she would have run away with him. She would have walked away from Wolf Meadow and never looked back. They would have made a life together, been happy. Maybe even formed their own pack.

But instead, he'd chosen to leave her. It hadn't mattered that they were fated mates. He had decided to walk away and abandon her, even though he knew she would have given up everything that had ever mattered to her just to be with him. With that remembrance she felt the walls of her fortress rising back up, inserting themselves as she pushed away from him.

"Let me down, Rémy. This was a mistake."

" Non , chère . Nothing that reminds you of who we are to each other is a mistake."

Locking her elbows straight, she kept him at arm's length. "You had the only chance you will ever have with me a long, long time ago. The past is dead and gone."

"Do you know how beautiful you are when you come?" he said, not making any move to comply with her perfectly reasonable request for him to let her go. "As for the past? Yes, I fucked up. I was barely eighteen years old. But the fire isn't dead, chère . The embers have merely been banked and are ready now to spark anew and allow us to bask in their glow."

Piper snorted. "Do you actually believe the drivel you're spouting or are you just making noise? And no, Rémy, no one has ever mentioned how I look when I have an orgasm, but then again I don't generally talk to my sexual partners."

"Curious you refer to them as sexual partners and not lovers."

"I don't believe in love Rémy—at least not for me."

"I will teach you to believe. Before we're through you will believe in it. You'll believe in love and believe that we belong together."

There was no reasoning with male alpha wolves. Had there been enough space between them, she would have drawn her arm back, made a fist, and punched him in the nose. And seeing as she was still balancing on his thigh, it was doubtful she could make an effective connection with his nuts. No matter—she-wolves had one definite advantage over their human counterparts that she could still use.

Piper called forth her wolf and before Rémy could react, she shimmered and shifted, before bounding off his lap and running for her life.

W atching her go, Rémy thought about how that had been the most sexually frustrating, but intensely intimate thing, he'd ever done.

"You can run, but you can't hide," he called after her, truly amused.