Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

Kicks walked in the room less than a minute later and froze. He scanned me, looking at my drenched clothing. “What the hell happened?” He touched me everywhere, checking for wounds. “Why are you soaked? I came back and I couldn’t find you.”

“I’m okay.” That might’ve been overshooting the mark, but I was in one piece, if a little shaky.

“What happened?” He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close. I sank into him, letting his warmth surround me, put the heat back into my bones, and help me feel sane again.

I told him almost everything, holding back nothing. I didn’t have the wherewithal to edit at that point.

He didn’t say anything, just kept holding me.

“Let’s get you dry.” His hands went to the hem of my soaked shirt, peeling the fabric from my skin before moving to unbutton my skirt.

I was in nothing but my bra and underwear, making no move to cover myself. His eyes ran over my flesh, and a burning heat rose in them. I didn’t think this was his intention when he’d begun undressing me, but things were shifting hard and fast between us, as they had a tendency to do, especially in moments like these. There was something about walking along the edge of death that made me want to reach for life with both hands. All the reasons to stay away from him had fallen away like they were nothing.

“You’re wet too,” I said, my voice breathless as I looked at the soaked front of his shirt. I went for his buttons, working one and then the next as his muscular torso came into view. How many times had I longed to run my hands over him and denied myself?

His breathing grew ragged as his hands came to my wrists, stopping me. I couldn’t look at him. If he pushed me away, I might actually cry. He hadn’t wanted me in this way in so long, not since he’d discovered there was a chance he could impregnate me, and yet it was all I wanted right now.

“Darlin’, you start something, I’m not stopping. I’m in no mood for games, not today,” he said.

After what I’d just been through, I wasn’t dying without knowing what it would be like to have him inside of me. Of all the regrets that had flashed through my mind as the threat of death hovered near, rejecting him had been near the top.

I looked up, and all I could see in his eyes was savage heat.

“I’m too raw,” he said, every muscle in his body strung tight.

“So am I. I need you.”

Those words seemed to unlock something deep inside of him. He let go of my wrists and cupped my ass, dragging me upward against his body. I wrapped my legs around him. His dick, already hard, pressed against me as his mouth collided with mine. His tongue dipped into my mouth as his hips pressed against my core, lighting me on fire.

He carried me across the room, over to the bed, and followed me down onto it. He moved over me like he was driven by his beast. His mouth left mine to trail down my neck as his hand molded my breast. His hips were thrusting against me, and I wasn’t sure if he was trying to put me on overload so I didn’t have a moment to freeze up or if he was so close to the brink he couldn’t stop himself, or even slow.

His hand was between my legs, rubbing my sensitive bud before he slipped in one finger, and then a second as I arched against him. He was bringing me right to the brink and then keeping me there in exquisite torture.

“I want you. All of you,” I said.

I ripped his shirt off, and he paused to shed the rest of his clothes before his flesh covered me again. I wrapped my legs around his hips, urging him closer, my body throbbing for him.

Heat in his eyes flared as he shifted over me. The head of his penis was gliding along my opening and then pushing against me. He was so thick it was almost jarring, even as my slickness eased his way. He was going slow, letting me adjust to his size, but it was near maddening.

“I need more. I need all of you,” I said, my voice husky.

He thrust deep into me in one swift movement, sending my nerve endings into an oblivion of need.

“More,” I said, gripping him. He thrust deep into me, and I met each stroke like we were two savage beasts feeding after being starved for a month.

His mouth was on my neck and then shifted to my breast; he gripped my hips as he continued to thrust into me. I exploded around him.

He grabbed my hips, flipping me over. “Get on your hands and knees,” he commanded.

I did what he said, and his cock teased my entrance, setting me on fire all over again. He held me in place when I tried to move backward, trying to get him to fill me. He leaned over me, wrapping my hair around his fist and tugging my head back.

“You. Are. Mine. I don’t care what anyone else says. Mine.”

I’d held him at bay so long that now nothing short of an utter claiming would do, on either part. I was sick of pushing him away, letting him act or think like he was a free man. He wasn’t. He was mine every bit as much as I was his. I’d bartered away my life to save him, and I hadn’t done it so he could go off with someone else.

He rocked into me so hard my body was shoved forward, filling me with a thrust so fast and hard I was on the verge of coming again. He pumped into me a few more times and I exploded.

I lay in bed, watching Kicks stare out the window.

“I’ll survive. Whatever they give me, I’ll survive it,” I said, sitting up in bed, hoping I sounded even remotely as confident as I pretended. It wasn’t like promising to study for an English test, though. Making assurances that you’d pass the tests of gods wasn’t exactly a sure thing.

“I know,” he said.

Except he knew nothing. Neither of us did. Were we now to the point it was so bad we were lying to each other? It was becoming kinder to pretend.

He walked back to bed, every glorious inch of him, and then pulled me against him.

I put my head on his chest, feeling his heat, hearing his heartbeat. I ran a hand over his skin. This was all I’d wanted for so long, and I had no idea how he’d even come to be the man he was. How was he such a good person and yet related to such vile shifters? How could a man like his father, capable of killing so many, also be capable of creating a man like Kicks?

“How did you end up in Arkansas?”

He laughed softly, toying with my hair. “You mean how did I escape becoming one of them?”

So much for hiding my curiosity in bland questions. “It’s just that you are so different.”

“My father had a charming side when he wanted to, and my mother was young and na?ve. He’d mated with her before she realized who he was. By the time she began to figure it out, she was already pregnant. Still, she didn’t want me raised around him, so when she realized she was pregnant, she fled this place. She knew that if she didn’t get out then, she’d never break free.

“She didn’t even tell him he had a son until I was ten. An attack of conscience at some point. Time has a way of easing the bad memories and leaving just the good. It was too late at that point to force me to go back there. She had a new pack that would’ve gone to war if my father tried to force it. They came to an agreement that I’d go to Scotland for a month every so often. I guess it wasn’t enough to corrupt me,” he said with a laugh.

“So you grew up with the Arkansas pack?”

“Yes. She’d remated to the alpha of that pack. He was a good man. They both died during a virus outbreak when I was about fifteen, and then the pack raised me after that.”

I wouldn’t have thought that would be ideal, but seeing how so many pitched in with Charlie, I could see it still being a good life.

“Your father didn’t try to get you to stay in Scotland when you came?”

“He did, but it wasn’t my home and I was too old to be dictated to at that point.”

“But you were just a kid?”

“Yeah, but a strong-willed one, and Arkansas was my home.”

“It’s a good home.”

“And it’s yours, too,” he said, idly toying with another lock of hair and then trailing a hand down my arm. “Even in all this chaos around here, something feels like it’s calmed in you.”

He was right. Even here, with this mess, I felt more like me than I had in months. “It feels like the darkness has subsided. Like it’s there, but it feels contained somehow, like I’m not worried about it breaking loose and killing people all the time. It’s as if its grip has eased.” I looked at the foot of the bed, where my wolf had just appeared, settling in by my feet.

“Do you think it’s because Death has blocked some of your abilities?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s different.”