14. Jade

It’s the middle of the night and I can’t sleep.

We’ve spread ourselves around the house. I’m in one bedroom, a turquoise room with a gold bed and mustard drapes. Shep is in another. Isaiah muttered something about wanting to check out the attic and wandered off. Patten claimed the last room the moment it looked like Dominik was about to.

I don’t know where Dominik is. Mostly because I don’t care to wonder.

Dominik bonded us together, and my mind keeps gnawing at what that actually means. I don’t feel any different, but a permanent bond has to do something to you. Right?

I don’t like him and I don’t trust him. What if, despite all that, I start wanting him anyway? And surely it’s only a matter of time before pregnancy hormones kick in and I start thinking that maybe the father of my child isn’t that bad.

I get up.

I’ve tossed and turned in this bed for long enough. As I swing my bare legs off the bed, my eyes latch on the small white alarm clock on the bedside table. 2:15 a.m. I wince.

It’s been four hours since I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and borrowed a white T-shirt from Shep—ignoring Dominik’s compressed lips when he overheard my request—and I haven’t slept a wink.

I’m tired, and I could do with the sleep, but the second, the very second I shut my eyes, I’m plagued with what ifs and maybes and doubt. Endless doubt. About everything.

My belly rumbles as I stand, the hollow sound reminding me that I ate precious little of the pasta and jar of sauce that Shep pulled from a kitchen cupboard.

I walk downstairs to grab a glass of water, hoping the task will distract me enough to actually go to sleep. Doubtful, but maybe?

The house is quiet. I think I’m the only one still awake until I reach the kitchen doorway and stop.

Shep must have had the same idea.

He’s in a pair of navy shorts, nothing else, as he leans against a counter chugging from his glass. It takes superhuman effort to stop staring at his tanned, muscled chest.

His eyes meet mine once I’ve stopped staring, and he places his empty glass on the counter. “Couldn’t sleep?”

I shake my head as I try not to notice the way his hooded gaze is drifting over my body. “No.”

He silently refills his glass and offers it to me.

I drink from the same place as he did, my eyes still on him. After one quick glance at my mouth as I drink, he doesn’t look again.

“Did he hurt you?” he asks quietly.

I lower my half-empty glass from my mouth. “Who?”

His gaze is searching. “Dominik. You’re avoiding him.”

Of course he noticed the way I’m determined not to come within two feet of Dominik. How could he not? “I’m okay.”

His gaze sharpens, amber rather than wolf-gold. He’s not angry. Or aroused. Yet. “That’s not really an answer.”

“I guess not,” I respond. “But I’m trying not to think of him or the pregnancy. I’m shelving it. The bond, his betrayal… Dad. It’s too much to think about right now.” I offer him a smile and it’s so weak it soon slips. “Just when I start to get used to something, everything changes.”

He doesn’t return my tepid smile. “You’ll get through this.”

The back of my eyes prickle. This, this, is why I’ve been trying not to think of things. “I don’t know how to be strong. I don’t know how to be a mother. And I don’t?—”

I choke back the rest of my complaints, hating myself for my whining.

I got out of the compound. The girl with the blue hair and the terrifying shark-like teeth might not have. So many people could have died when Dad blasted the top of Atticus’s compound open and freed us from the trap we stepped into.

I’m free.

I should be grateful that I am. But it’s so hard to be grateful when my life keeps changing and changing and I wish it would just stop. I went on a carousel at an amusement park years and years ago. After it stopped circling, I slipped off my metal horse, stepped off the platform and… tipped. Dad caught me back then, but he isn’t around to do any catching now.

Ever since I left the attic, that’s how I’ve felt. Off center and dizzy.

I need everything to stop.

I walk over to the sink to empty the rest of the water I no longer want.

After placing the glass in the sink, I look at the water splashes, listen to the slow drip from the faucet, and try to accept that soon, something else will change when I’m sick to death of things changing every five minutes.

“Jade?”

I didn’t hear him move.

He’s big, and I should have heard him, but I didn’t hear a thing.

I only know it when he wraps big, strong arms around me from behind. His breath is warm on my bare shoulder, and his squeeze is gentle as he draws my body back to his.

My eyes slide shut as the heat of his body warms my cooler one.

“I didn’t always know how to lead. I thought I did, but I had no clue,” he speaks directly into my ear, and strokes his right hand down over my flat belly. “Lucky for me, my dad was a patient teacher. There’s a way to convincing someone to follow you—to trust you—that is more than just orders and growling. Some things will come with instinct, others in time.”

“You said being an alpha was in your DNA. That you were born to do it,” I whisper, trying not to react to the warmth of his skin on mine or the way his potent masculine scent wraps around me.

“Before my first shift, I was just a boy running around and getting into fights.” He’s smiling as he presses a hot kiss on my throat. “You have nine months to prepare to be a mother. It won’t always be so terrifying. And you have me. When Patten and Isaiah aren’t busy arguing, you have them, too.”

“It doesn’t bother you that I’m pregnant.” I crush his words into my chest, holding them there for the next time my fear overwhelms me. I don’t know what I’m doing or how to live outside of an apartment that Dad warned me it was too dangerous to leave, and I’m terrified that I never will.

His lips brush the shell of my ear. “Dominik hurting you—anyone hurting you—bothers me. You being pregnant does not.”

The tips of his fingers go on a slow meander up and down my lower belly.

Before, his touch comforted. Now, it makes me burn.

“Shep?” My head tips back of its own volition as I grip the edge of the counter, needing something solid to keep myself upright.

He nuzzles my throat, dragging in a deep rumbling breath as he cups my hip and he holds me tucked flush against him. “Hmm?”

“You keep sniffing me.”

He inhales again and groans. “You smell good.”

“You said I smelled different.”

He nips my throat. “Different does not always mean bad.” He smiles against my neck. “Patten was right. I need to be more careful with my words.”

“What did he say?” I breathe.

“Anything less than perfect smells causes problems. He was right.” His fingers pluck my nipple, and I gasp as I tighten my hold on the counter. Only his arms are keeping me upright at this point.

“I like how you smelled earlier.” His lips trail fire up my throat to just below my ear, and I angle my head to the right so he can reach even more.

“When?” A slow burn starts between my thighs, making me restless. I rise to my tiptoes and rub myself on him.

“When you were watching Isaiah feed on Patten, I could smell you.” His hand clamps on my hip. “Don’t move like that. I’m barely holding myself together as it is.”

“And how did I smell?” As if I don’t know.

“Soft and warm and biteable. Aroused.” He grips my chin and angles my face up to him as his lips find mine. Despite the heat of his touch, his kiss is soft, and I sink into it.

Something thumps on the floor above.

I break the kiss, pulling away as I smooth down the front of my shirt with shaking hands. “I should go back up to bed.”

Someone is awake, maybe preparing to come down here. If I don’t end things right now, they are liable to find Shep doing things to me in the kitchen better suited to a bed.

But I don’t go anywhere.

“Jade?”

“Hmm?” I reach for my glass to fill it with more water I don’t want.

He circles my wrist. I stare down at his hand, asking myself how I can crave a person’s touch as much as I do his. He’s like a furnace, kicking off all this heat.

“I missed you.” I tear my gaze from his hand. His eyes are liquid gold. Wolf eyes. They only change like that when his emotions are strongest, he said. “We dug ourselves out of the compound ruin and you were gone.”

“Dominik transformed and took me to his New York penthouse, if you can believe it.”

“He said he bonded you. How?”

I lift my fingers to my throat. “He bit me. Here.”

“I don’t see any bite or even a scar.” Shep spends several seconds examining my throat, then bends his head and sniffs. “And you don’t smell like him.”

“It healed straight away, and I don’t know about the smell.” I sigh. “I have so many questions that no one can answer. Dad can’t talk to me, and Dominik would probably lie.”

“I can’t offer you answers, but I can offer you a hug if you want it,” he says.

My smile is faint.

“Yes, to the hug?” he asks.

I shake my head. “It’s probably not a good idea.”

“Because?”

“I might want more than a hug,” I quietly admit.

His cock swells against my backside, and his breath turns heavier as his head lowers. “That doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me.”

It doesn’t to me either.

His lips touch mine, and our kiss is soft. Sweet. He slips his hand under the hem of my shirt and deepens the kiss as he strokes his fingers along my bare thigh.

I part my legs for him, and he groans in approval, yanking the shirt up. One hand fists the material up over my hip as his other continues a slow and thorough exploration of my overheated body.

“Shep,” I moan into his mouth.

He’s slowly pumping his cock against my back, rocking like he can’t quite stop himself.

I’m getting a crick in my neck when he breaks the kiss and spins me so we’re face to face.

A second later, I’m sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter, Shep nudging my thighs open as he steps close and reclaims my lips.

I stroke my hands over his shoulders, my fingers massaging hard muscle as I go on my own exploration of his back and the firm globes of his ass.

He growls in his throat, and the hungry sound makes my body soften and melt around his.

As he slips a hand between my thighs, his thumb edging under my panties, I swallow my moan.

Everyone is sleeping, so we have to be quiet.

But he’s rubbing his thumb on me and I’m whimpering much louder than I should. Too loud. He cradles the nape of my neck, slanting his mouth over mine to turn an already hungry kiss more potent.

He pulls his hand from between my thighs. Before I can do much more than make a soft sound of complaint, he lifts me from the counter and drags my panties off me. I have no idea where they land. I’m too busy leaning into his kiss as I shove his shorts down off his hips.

They make a soft thump when they land, barely audible over our skin slapping together, when Shep yanks my shirt up and drags us close.

Skin to skin. Heart to heart.

I wrap arms and legs around him, eyes closed, loving every second of being this close to him.

There’s something about touch that I will never get enough of. The connection. I was so hungry for touch that I snatched it up eagerly. Now I know better. Not just anyone’s touch.

Shep’s.

He breaks the kiss, his eyes luminous gold as he peers down at me. “You’re smiling.”

I hadn’t realized I was. “Because of you. I missed you too, and I didn’t realize how much until you were gone.”

He smiles back, his large hand framing my face. “You make me want.”

“Want what?”

“Your touch, your smile, your kiss. Everything.”

His next kiss is sweeter, and he slides me even closer to him until I’m on the very edge of the counter. I moan as the tip of his cock touches my pussy.

He swallows my moan as he slowly lays me down on the counter, breaking the kiss when my spine hugs the cool marble. There’s a question in his eyes. “Jade?”

I smile, lifting a finger to trace the outline of his lips. “Yes.”

He drags me toward him.

My eyes slam shut as my hips lift off the counter and he slowly impales me. His breath is loud, a groan that vibrates along my body. Such a sweet stretch means staying quiet is impossible.

I push against him, wanting him deeper. He grunts, growls, and slams into me.

We come together with a loud slap of sweat-dampened skin.

I cry out. Shep’s lips crash onto mine, silencing my next gasp as he rolls his hips, finding a hard rhythm that compels me to lock my ankles around him and rock back.

Our pace isn’t as fast as I thought it would be.

But it’s desperate, and it’s over far too soon.

I fall first, my release crashing over me between one of Shep’s driving thrusts. He follows a beat later, filling me with a delicious heat that makes me sigh and cling to him.

As Shep drapes himself over me, my eyes snap open, sensing we’re no longer alone.

I catch a faint movement just outside the kitchen doorway, and push on Shep’s chest. “Shep.”

He lifts the top half of his body from me, his eyes half-lidded, satisfied and as sexy as his rumpled hair. “Jade?”

I peer over his shoulder. Nothing is there. No movement in the shadows, no awareness that someone was there. Watching. “I thought I saw someone.”

He throws a quick glance over his shoulder and his nostrils flare. But he doesn’t seem concerned. He straightens. “Let me take you to bed.”

“Okay.” Aware anyone could come down at any moment, I don’t ask him if he smelled whoever it was. I just want to get up off this counter and pull my shirt down over my naked body.

Shep doesn’t let me stand. He pauses long enough to tug his shorts up over his hips and pick up my panties from the floor before he carries me right up to his room and onto his bed.

I fall asleep in his arms, his hand stroking up and down my back, skin to skin. Just like we did back in Chicago. I don’t know what this feeling is, whether it’s love, or if it’s even possible to fall in love so fast.

Whatever it is, if it isn’t love yet, I think it might be very soon.

I hope so.