Chapter Eleven
Xavier
Xavier: I am glad to see you are looking better, little dove. How are you feeling?
Madelyn’s head shot up after reading the text message he sent, and she began scanning the bar, no doubt looking for him. He had done as she asked and left her alone for the last two days, but he still kept an eye on her from a distance. When he discovered that she was heading to Iggy’s Bar, he decided to tag along so that he could stretch his legs. Then, when he saw her smiling and laughing with her friends, he had to reach out and see if anything had changed. It was obvious she was doing better and coping with everything she had learned, but there was the minor problem of her avoiding him that he needed to correct.
Xavier had spent the last two days in wolf form, running and patrolling the woods that surrounded her house. Because he hadn’t shifted back once during that time, he was feeling a bit more feral and wild than usual, but it was the only way he could cope with not being able to talk to her. Being away from her was torture of the worst kind and it hurt like hell. He had come to need her, crave her, and their conversations were what kept him going.
Because he had been deprived of all that over the last couple of days, it was a wonder he was able to hold it together as well as he was. Even so, he was currently warring with his wolf, the latter wanting to go over there and throw her over his shoulder like a caveman so that he could take her home and show her and everyone else who it was that she belonged to. He was currently holding the beast back, but he didn’t know how long that would last.
It had been his fault that Madelyn was avoiding him; he knew that. It just didn’t make it any easier to deal with.
It took her a few moments, but Madelyn’s eyes finally found him in the corner booth directly across from her. He smirked at her, loving every second of seeing her beautiful eyes looking at him again. Even from where he sat, and over the noise of the bar, he heard her gasp when he winked at her.
They continued to stare at each other for several moments before her eyes narrowed at him and she began typing rapidly on her phone. A few seconds later, his vibrated in his hand.
Madelyn: I thought I told you to leave me alone.
He smiled at her response before typing back one of his own. As he did, he could feel her eyes on him. They were practically boring holes into the top of his head, and it made his smile grow.
Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she liked the fact that he was there. He could tell by the way her sudden arousal permeated the air of the bar, and he wondered if she was thinking about the night they slept together just like he was.
Xavier: You did, but you didn’t mean it.
He watched as her shoulders deflated as she read his message. This time, she didn’t look up at him as she typed back. Instead, her focus was solely on her phone, her tongue pinched adorably between her teeth. He had thought that she was going to try to deny it, but her response surprised him.
Madelyn: You’re right. And I hate the fact that you’re right. Just like I hate the fact that I missed you these last two days, even though my feeling that way is so wrong it’s not even funny.
Madelyn: And if you ever tell anyone I said that, I will deny, deny, deny.
The smile he had been wearing since she locked eyes with him grew. Apparently, all he needed to do to get her to open up a bit was to supply her with a bit of alcohol. It seemed to have taken away some of her inhibitions and filters, and now she was admitting more to him than she usually would have. He wasn’t going to complain though. She was only confirming what he already knew, which meant it was time to tell her what she was to him.
Xavier: There’s a reason for that, you know.
Madelyn: And what reason is that, Xavier?
Xavier: It’s not something that should be said through text messages. If you want to know, you are going to have to talk to me, face-to-face.
After sliding his phone into the pocket of his jeans, he folded his arms across his chest, a silent indication that he wasn’t going to be talking to her through text messages anymore. The ball was in her court now. If she wanted to know the truth, if she wanted to know what he meant, then she was going to have to talk to him in person and not from across the room, behind the safety of a screen. She couldn’t avoid him forever, and she seemed to realize it too if the heavy sigh and the pointed glare she gave him were anything to go by.
Xavier watched as she said something to the two detectives who remained at the table and then rose to her feet when they nodded at her before going back to their conversation. Leaving her purse in her seat and then meeting his eyes once more, she inclined her head toward the back of the bar and then made her way toward the exit, which was located over by the bathrooms. A few moments later, she disappeared into the alleyway that sat beyond the door. Xavier waited a few more moments before following.
The air outside the bar was cool and felt nice against his overheated skin. The sky was clear, and the town was quiet and calm. It was a beautiful night, even if the alley smelled like garbage, and while the setting wasn’t ideal, he guessed it was better than nothing. At least she had agreed to talk to him.
Only a single light hung over the back door since it was supposed to be used as an emergency exit, which meant the rest of the alley was shrouded in darkness. Off to the right, about fifteen feet down, was the back lot. While, to the left, about thirty feet down, was the main road. Madelyn had chosen to wait for him in that direction, a few feet away, shrouded in darkness as if she didn’t want to be seen with him.
Xavier joined her among the shadows, unable to keep the smile off his face as he lowered his hood. “How have you been, little dove?” he asked, lifting his hand and brushing his fingers down her cheek, loving the feel of her skin beneath his fingers again.
“Not good,” she admitted as she shifted on the balls of her feet. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all. But I can’t do this anymore. Surely, you realize how wrong this is; it’s completely fucked up. I can’t… I shouldn’t…Dammit. I don’t even like you.”
“Well, that’s a lie if I ever heard one,” he muttered, resting back against the side of the bar and propping his foot up behind him.
He took her words with a grain of salt because he knew they weren’t true. She may want them to be, but they weren’t. And this did seem to be part of the game they played, always one step forward and two steps back.
“It’s not a lie!” she exclaimed defensively, putting her hands on her hips. “I don’t like you.”
He loved this woman with his whole heart, he really did, but she was as stubborn as a mule. She had been so traumatized by her past, so blinded by pain and heartache, that she couldn’t even see what was standing right in front of her. It didn’t matter how many times she denied it or how ‘wrong’ she thought it was, it didn’t change the fact that she was his. He just needed to make her see that so they could stop with all this bullshit.
Pushing himself off the wall, he moved toward her until she was forced to take a step back. “Yes, you do. And you know how I know that?” he asked. When she only stared back at him without saying anything, he reached up and pinched a strand of her hair between his fingers. “Because you, Madelyn, are my fated mate.”
The only reaction he got out of her was a slight shift and a heavy swallow. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“It means that my wolf recognizes you as our mate. That you are my soulmate and the one person in the entire world that I’m meant to be with. Just like I am yours. I told you, little dove, we are destined to be together. It’s fate.”
There it was, the plain and simple truth out in the open just like she asked. He didn’t like the way it made him feel exposed and vulnerable, but legend stated that a wolf’s fated mate was the one person they could be vulnerable with and still trust that they were safe. He guessed he was testing that theory out now.
“You can’t honestly believe that’s true,” she said after a while. “That’s… that’s not possible.” Her voice had lowered to barely a whisper, and he could hear her heart pattering a rapid beat within her chest. Something he said got to her or, at the very least, was getting to her.
He raised an eyebrow in response. “Just two days ago, you didn’t think the existence of shifters was possible either. I can assure you, it’s possible. And it’s happened. That pull you feel? The fact that you missed me, even though you think you are supposed to hate me, that’s the mate bond. It’s trying to bring us together.” He reached up and cupped the side of her neck with his hand. “It’s also why I can’t stay away from you, little dove. I need you. And I know deep down you know that you need me too.”
Madelyn looked as though she were about to deny it on instinct, but she closed her mouth quickly as if she realized that she couldn’t. It was then that an odd feeling began to spread across his chest, a warmth that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Happiness. He hadn’t felt true happiness like this in years, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with the emotion.
But that was what Madelyn did to him. She made him feel things that he thought he was incapable of feeling anymore. Since he was a child, his life had been bloody and violent, and he had been trapped in the dark with no way out. He had suspected before, but now he knew that she was his way out.
“This is insane,” she tried to say instead. “All of it. It’s absolutely batshit.”
“It may be insane” he replied. “But that doesn’t make it any less real, Madelyn.”
Her eyes bounced between his for several moments as if trying to find any hint of dishonesty, but she wouldn’t find any. It was the truth, and it was very real.
Seemingly realizing that, Madelyn gripped the front of his shirt, and her mouth crashed against his in a rough and searing kiss that stole his breath and made his dick harden in an instant. His body always did have that kind of response whenever she was around, and when her tongue teased his, he knew he had to have her right then and there.
He grinned at her as his hands went to her waist and pulled her against him, and he quickly spun the two of them around before pinning her up against the wall. Needing to feel her again, his hands began roaming her body to try to memorize her every curve.
Nipping her bottom lip with his sharp teeth, his fingers tangled in her hair before he broke the kiss. “No more back and forth, little dove,” he growled, his eyes flashing. “If we do this, then we are doing this. You don’t get to pull away from me again.”
The sight of his glowing eyes didn’t seem to bother her anymore as she lifted her chin defiantly. “I agree to give this a shot and nothing more. This doesn’t mean I believe you. This just means that I’m done fighting you.”
Xavier grinned, his eyes darkening. It wasn’t exactly what he had wanted to hear, but he would take it. He knew, without a doubt, that she would accept him. Once she realized the kind of love and devotion that came along with being a shifter’s mate, she would be all in. It was only a matter of time. She was his now, once and for all and it was time to make it official.
He tugged sharply on her hair, pulling her head back so that she was looking up at him. “I’ll take it,” he murmured. “Now, get on your knees for me. I want to see what that pretty little mouth of yours can do.”
Madelyn licked her lips, and for a moment, he saw a flash of stubbornness behind her eyes, but it was gone just as quickly as it had appeared. She squeezed her thighs together and then slowly began to lower herself onto the ground as he’d told her to. Thankfully, he still had enough sense to stop her just before her knees touched the filthy concrete. He yanked his sweatshirt up over his head and handed it to her. “Here, kneel on this.”
Taking the sweatshirt, she shoved it under her knees while he worked the belt and button on his jeans. Within a matter of seconds, his painfully-hard cock was freed, and she was taking him into her mouth with no hesitation while her hand stroked what she couldn’t quite fit. It was heaven.
A deep groan emanated from the back of his throat as he braced himself against the side of the building with his free hand. His fingers tangled in his mate”s hair as he reveled in the sight and feel of her mouth wrapped around him. If he died now, he would die a happy man because he now had everything he could ever possibly want.