6.
S TASSI
I spent the short ride from Cas and Nikki’s to Aksel’s absolutely terrified that I’d say something that would put an end to this enjoyable evening. I’d spent so many years trying to bait Aksel into a fight that I wasn’t quite sure how to behave any other way. He seemed uncomfortable, and I thought he might be feeling the same way.
“Would it help if I insulted you and made you angry?”
“What?” he asked as he turned onto the long, curving drive that led up the mountain to his house. I’d never been there before, but everyone knew where everyone else lived in Mereu, especially the original town members who were still on the council. All of them kept homes here except the few who had been banished over the years - only two that I knew of, Aksel’s sire included. “Do you want to argue?”
“It seems that I don’t know how to do anything else with you.”
Aksel chuckled as he took a sharp curve, and I gasped when the trees disappeared and we were suddenly driving across a wide expanse of well-manicured lawn. The sight of Aksel’s home made me breathless - the beautiful log structure seemed to be part of the mountain. My guess was that you probably felt that way after seeing all the different decks and patios along with the walls of windows that looked out over the land.
“Your home is beautiful,” I whispered in awe.
“Thank you. For a time, I was fascinated with architecture and explored a career in the field. The best thing I got out of that time in my life was the ability to plan out this home.”
“This isn’t the original home you built on the mountain?” I asked. Before he could answer, I laughed and said, “Of course not. They didn’t have solar panels in the 1800s.”
“I lived a very rustic life when I first moved here. I literally just wanted to crawl into a cave and hibernate, so that’s what I did.”
“You lived in a cave?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I built this house around it and still use the cave as my master suite.”
“You’re kidding.”
Aksel wiggled his eyebrows and said, “Can I drag you to my cave, sweet Stassi?”
“If you promise you’ll never do that eyebrow thing again.”
Aksel laughed as he parked beneath the front deck of the house, and then reached over and took my hand. “Don’t be nervous, Stassi, just be yourself.”
“That’s the problem. When I’m myself around you, we end up screaming at each other.”
“But it’s not always bad screaming,” Aksel argued. When he saw my skeptical look, he laughed and said, “You’re a screamer, Stassi. You always have been.”
“I am not!”
“Why did we get asked to leave that hotel in New Orleans?” I pressed my lips together to hold back a smile, and Aksel opened his door and then smiled at me. “Or do you remember that time . . . was it in Paris? The police showed up because a concerned citizen called and said it sounded like someone was being murdered in the park across from her house. And then there was the time the valet caught us in the cloak room at the . . .” I rolled my eyes and then got out of the car. Aksel got out at the same time and faced me over the roof as he said, “You’re a screamer.”
“Occasionally, I might forget myself, but that’s all your fault.”
“I’ll take the blame for that any day,” Aksel said proudly.
“Don’t get too cocky,” I warned as I walked around the back of the car. When he stepped in front of me, I reached up and adjusted his collar before I said, “Cocky is not a good look on you, Aksel.”
“You seem to appreciate it the majority of the time.”
“Possibly.”
“Do you appreciate it now?”
I smiled, but it was cut short when Aksel bent at the waist and threw me over his shoulder. I let out a loud ‘oof’ and started to squirm. “Put me down before you throw your back out, old man!”
Aksel slapped my ass and said, “If you keep screaming, I’m gonna put something in your mouth to make you stop.”
“If you . . .” My words were cut off when he took the stairs two at a time, jostling my stomach against his shoulder, most likely on purpose. Once he was finally on the deck, I reared up and tried to squirm out of his arms and got another sharp smack on the ass. “If you do that again, I will turn you into a bonfire and dance naked around the flames.”
“That is a sight I’d like to see,” Aksel said right before he spanked me again. I was trying to control my temper, which was easier to do than one might think since I was more turned on than I’d ever been in my life.
Seriously? Big strong man carries the dainty woman off to his cave to have his wicked way with her . . . Swoonworthy.
“Where are you taking me? I want you to show me your house!”
“I have something to show you.”
“You know what I . . .”
My words were cut off when I went flying through the air and bounced on a cloud of luxury. Okay, it wasn’t exactly a cloud, but it was probably the most comfortable bed I’d ever laid down on. I wanted to snuggle into the soft duvet and curl up with the multitude of pillows around me, but Aksel had other plans that I knew from experience would be just as wonderful.
He quickly unzipped my left boot and tossed it aside before he grabbed my right foot and did the same thing. While he worked, I shimmied my leggings down over my hips because I knew from experience that if they got between him and his goal, he’d tear at them until they were in tatters - which wouldn’t be a problem here, but I learned my lesson years ago in Central Park when I was left half-naked after our furious and wild sexual encounter there.
Just like I knew he would, Aksel yanked my leggings down and tossed them aside, leaving me naked from the waist down on the bed before him.
He shook his head as if to clear it and then took a deep breath. I could tell that he was at war with himself over something, and it made me self-conscious, so I closed my legs and started to sit up.
“No. I want to savor this, but I was falling into old habits, as usual” Aksel explained. “I don’t have to rip your clothes off and . . .”
“But I like it when you do that,” I interrupted.
“Oh, sweetheart, I like it when I get to do that, too, but we’re savoring the moment and all that.”
“Don’t savor. Rip away. Obviously, I’ve enjoyed that over the years or it wouldn’t have happened so many times.”
“True,” Aksel said as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt. Once I could see his bare chest, he shrugged it off his shoulders and let it fall to the floor. I completely forgot my nudity and self-consciousness because I was enjoying the show - one I’d never witnessed before.
Even during those rare times where we spent a few nights together in a hotel somewhere, we hadn’t had the slow joining that I knew he was planning for tonight. Those times had always been rough and wild, which I found more than satisfactory, but this was different. We were different. I could feel it deep inside, and it seemed as if he could too.
The second his pants hit the floor, he stepped out of them and put a knee on the bed between my still-spread legs. Like a predator, he slowly crawled up my body until our mouths were just a breath apart, but rather than kiss me like I was yearning for him to do, he whispered, “I’ve dreamed of this.”
Without thinking, I said, “That’s the girliest thing I’ve ever heard come out of your pretty mouth, Aksel.”
He burst out laughing and let his head fall to the pillow beside my head before he rolled us so that I was on top of him. Naturally, my legs fell to the side of his hips, which nestled his cock almost exactly where I wanted it to be. I rested my hands on his chest as I slid myself back and forth over his erection. Aksel’s eyes drifted closed, and I heard a loud exhale when I notched the head of his cock at just the right angle to slowly slide down until he filled me completely.
I started moving in a way that hit all the right spots and not just for me. I could tell that Aksel was teetering close to the edge already, which he always seemed to do when I was astride him. For a man who craved control, he was more than eager to give it up when I took the lead and rode him. I appreciated that trait.
“Take it off,” Aksel said as he pulled at the hem of my shirt. I whipped it off and tossed it aside and then unhooked my bra in the front and let my breasts free as I shook it off behind me. Aksel’s hands instantly cupped my breasts, and as he slowly ran his thumbs over my nipples, he murmured, “You’re perfect.”
I let my head fall back in bliss and couldn’t help but say, “You only tell me that when we’re naked.”
“Because that’s the only time you shut up long enough for me . . . Yeah, just like that,” Aksel moaned.
I leaned forward again and rested my hands on his chest as I started lifting myself up and down, almost losing his cock each time before I slowly slid back down his length.
It was hard to concentrate, but I managed to say, “When is the only time I shut up?”
“The only time you don’t argue with me is when you’ve got my dick in your mouth or you’re about to come.” I laughed and Aksel gasped, “Gods, don’t do that if you want me to last.”
“Oh, shit!” I yelled.
“Already?”
“Cramp!Cramp!Dammit!”
Aksel was laughing when I rolled off of him and started hopping around the bedroom trying to relieve the pain in my leg. But his laughter faded when the cramp didn’t go away even after I stood flat-footed near the wall and leaned forward to stretch my leg muscles. I heard him moving behind me and then his hands were on my legs, his thumbs pressing into my calf to help ease the pain.
“We’ve done a lot of things together, but this is a new one.”
“Blame Ivan. No. It’s not his fault. I knew what I was doing that day.”
“I was talking about massaging you.”
“True,” I agreed. “I don’t think either of us has ever considered doing something so . . .”
When my voice trailed off as I was searching for the right word, he suggested, “Helpful?”
“I was going to say personal,” I said as I pushed away from the wall and stood upright. The cramp was gone, but the lingering pain was still there. Now that my mind was focused on it, the aches in my bones suddenly seemed to get worse. “I think I’m going to have to tap out for now.”
“Of course,” Aksel said easily. “Come to bed and let me hold you.”
“Do you mean hold a pillow over my face or . . .”
Aksel laughed and said, “Let’s see if we know how to spoon one another.”
“That’s new and different.”
“This whole day has been.”
◆◆◆
For the next few hours, I laid in Aksel’s arms and listened to his even breathing as he slept. Supernaturals Aksel’s age didn’t need much sleep or even to feed as often as others. I knew his sleeping actually had more to do with how comfortable he was feeling with me in his arms.
He’d said as much, and for once, I hadn’t mucked up the nice conversation with sarcasm.
While we were laying in bed together, burrowed into a nest of pillows with only the firelight casting shadows around the room, I realized that I was in the vision he’d projected that day in the walk-in - the place that he said he always imagined us to be when we were together.
At the time, I thought it was a romantic scene from his imagination, but now, I realized it was Aksel’s bedroom - part of the cave his house was built around. That gave me pause, considering his admission. It made me wonder if Aksel had been seeking more in our relationship for longer than just the few days since we called a truce.
I know I’d wondered over the years if there could be something there, but I’d fought it tooth and nail because I’d rather head off the heartbreak that always seemed to come when I got close to another supernatural being.
Over the years, I’d had relationships with other shifters and even a few vampires, but they all seemed to have a time limit which always had to do with the nature of my powers. The vampires didn’t understand or didn’t care that, at heart, I was a witch, but my body had to shift occasionally to stave off the discomfort my bear felt at being tethered in my body. The shifters seemed to look down on me for my vampire side, and neither the vampires nor shifters pretended to understand my powers as a witch.
Aksel seemed to accept all of the facets that made up my existence and had never seemed uncomfortable with any of them. That in and of itself was enough to make my heart soften toward the man - even before I tasted his blood and realized that he was the other part of my soul, something I couldn’t comprehend and wasn’t quite ready to admit that I needed my aunts’ help to understand.
Aksel muttered something in his sleep and rolled over, and after a few minutes, I slipped out of bed and padded barefoot across the room toward the door, picking up his shirt on the way. As I walked down the long hallway toward the light at the other end, I slipped it on and buttoned it up to cover myself, wondering how I had never noticed just how big Aksel was.
I was the same height as an average human woman and had the body shape of the majority of them too. As a witch, I could change my appearance if I wanted, but so far, I hadn’t found the urge. As a young woman, I had been self-conscious about my appearance - thick thighs, wider hips, and a belly that wasn’t flat and firm like some other women. The bear in me knew I was meant to be this way, the vampire in me didn’t seem to care, and the witch in me knew I could change how I looked at any time.
Just like humans, sometimes I was thinner or heavier, but unlike humans who dealt with different environmental and physical factors that made their weight fluctuate, mine happened because of my shifter side. In the wild, bears lost weight as they hibernated and then gained it back during the seasons they were out hunting, packing the weight back on to take them through the next period of hibernation. Mortal women did much the same, following the yo-yo pattern of dieting and gaining weight until their hormones and nature changed their bodies with maturity in the hopes that nature would help them procreate and nurture a child through gestation and childbirth.
That was something I had always wanted to do, but I’d never even once had a pregnancy scare. It wasn’t like I could go to a doctor and ask him to run a gamut of tests on me because one of the things that had been drilled into my head - first by my mother and then by my aunts - was to keep the knowledge of exactly what I could do close to the vest because nefarious people might use my powers for their own advantage.
Not for the first time, I wondered what Drasil and Stefan had planned. I knew they intended for Aksel and I to marry, but why? Did they think that Aksel could sire children?
I sincerely doubted that was possible considering the number of times we had been together through the years. Although my bear form was only fertile every other year, the witch in me would be monthly according to the cycle I still suffered through just like mortal women.
I stopped suddenly and looked at my surroundings, which I hadn’t been able to study when Aksel carried me inside like a caveman. I found myself in a comfortable living room with large puffy couches and lots of throw pillows and afghans. It looked like the home of a comfortable elderly person with odds and ends scattered among picture frames and piles of books.
I wandered around the room and saw pictures of Aksel with other people I knew. I recognized Blair and Mayne along with Cas and Ivan, but there were other pictures taken over the years with people I didn’t know as well and even more who I didn’t recognize at all.
What surprised me more than anything were the pictures of Aksel and I together. The most recent was a snapshot from a few years ago at a dinner party for my Aunt Maribel’s birthday. It was a picture of the entire party, grouped together and smiling - except for me and Aksel, who were looking at each other with a secretive smile. I tried to remember what he’d said in the second before the picture was taken but couldn’t pin down the details.
I remember thinking that he was by far the best looking man in the room, which said a lot because my aunts had some very handsome acquaintances.
I wandered around the main floor of the house and then walked out onto the deck where dawn was just beginning to break. From this height, I could see the landscaping, complete with groupings of flowers and seating areas in the garden. For a second, I wondered who his gardener might be but remembered that his hands were rough - rougher than a man of leisure like I’d always assumed him to be.
I felt the ache in my bones getting worse, which it usually did during the night when I was still. The only thing I’d found that helped at all was to shift and spend time relaxing in my bear form. Since Aksel was sound asleep, I transformed right there on the deck.
The light coming through the trees instantly looked different and the feel of the slight breeze coming down the mountain was welcome since my body temperature was even higher in my bear form and I was covered in thick fur. It took me a bit to find my way down to the grass, but when I did, I took off to explore, something I loved to do when I knew the area where I was roaming was safe.
What a wonderful way to start the day - in bed next to a handsome man who I was quickly realizing cared for me more than I’d ever imagined and then greeting the day with morning dew on my paws and the smell of the forest around me.
It just didn’t get much better than this.