Chapter 24

Zander

Her taste would linger on my tongue forever. I"d never savored anything so perfect, so sweet, until I tasted my mate. Every sound she made. Every time she tugged at my hair, or tightened her thighs around my face.

It would replay in my head like a broken record. The harmony her orgasm brought my body made me feel whole. Helping her stand up, she slipped the skirt of her dress back down her legs, and looked at me with reddened cheeks.

I chuckled, and tucked a piece of her chocolate colored hair behind her ear. "Don"t get embarrassed now, Little One."

She rolled her eyes slyly, and lifted her chin. "Lead the way."

She walked with me toward my room where I locked the door behind us, and led us into the bathroom. She waited in the doorway as I turned on the shower, with the waterfall showerhead, and stripped out of my shirt.

She didn"t hide her eager eyes as they traced the lines of my body. "Do all wolves look like you?" she asked, her hazel gaze lifted toward mine.

I stepped forward, and reached behind her, untying her dress slowly. "All wolves are in shape, but you don"t worry about other wolves, Ms. Sloane."

She smiled slowly, and helped me kick her dress off once I unlaced it. She wrapped her arm around her stomach nervously in an attempt to hide herself from me. I"d already parted her thighs and tasted, I wasn"t sure why she wanted to hide. Since her panties were snugly inside my pants" pocket, she was nude besides her bra, which suited me just fine.

I"d been waiting to see all of her from the moment I saw her in the driver"s seat of her car. I wrapped my four fingers around the back of her neck, and angled her mouth toward mine. "Do you like the way I look?" I whispered against her mouth.

She closed her eyes. "Yes."

"Good," I said, brushing my mouth against her parted one. "The shower is ready."

Stepping back from her, I kicked off my jeans, and bravely took off my underwear. I knew she"d seen me naked that morning, when she woke to my clothes shredded from the beast. I"d felt her eyes on me then.

"Turn around," she said sheepishly.

I lifted my brows toward my hairline. "Turn around? After what I just did for you, Love? I don"t think so."

She narrowed her pretty eyes to slits. "I"m ... new to this."

"Then let me help you," I said, snaking my arm around, I unclipped her bra, and tugged it off her shoulders. "Done. Now come on so I can wash you."

I turned, and opened the glass door to the shower, letting her inside with me. The stream of water hit my body, and it soothed the aches I had from shifting.

Piper slipped in beside me and let out a soft sigh. "This shower is amazing."

I grabbed a bottle of shampoo and squirted it into my palm. "You can use it whenever you like, as long as I'm in here with you."

She braced her hands against the wall as I began to work my fingers into her hair. The moans coming out of her would tempt a nun. My wolf was pissed that I hadn"t slipped inside of her, and marked her right then and there.

I couldn't mark her until I knew if she was staying or not. If I marked her, and she disappeared, my heart would break. Piper arched her back, taunting me, and her fingers balled into fists against the wall. "This feels so good," she said.

Obviously she"d never had someone wash her hair for her.

When I finished, she grabbed the shampoo, but I stopped her. "No. This is for you."

She stared up at me through the water falling down her face. "Can I wash your body?" she asked softly.

I craned my head slightly. "Why?"

"I want to see it," she admitted.

I laughed. "You"re looking at it."

"I want to see those marks on your back," she said quickly.

The marks on my back—I hadn"t forgotten about them, I never could—but sometimes I forgot she didn't know the story. While keeping eye contact, I handed her the bottle of body wash and a washcloth. She squirted some on, and slid it over my shoulders.

She was quiet, as if she waited for me to say something, but kept her eyes on my body as if she was mesmerized by it. "Your scars. They"re everywhere," she said, sliding over one on my biceps.

"That"s from my youth, when I was a pup. William and I were rowdy. All of my scars are from my youth, before I shifted for the first time. Once you shift, you heal immediately. All besides the ones on my back. I got those after I became alpha."

Her brows pulled down in concentration. She made her way across my chest, and toward my deltoid. "What about here?" she whispered softly.

I smiled. "I tried to jump a fence when I was seven."

Slowly, she slid the cloth down my body to my hipbone. "Here?" she asked.

"William shifted before me. It was spontaneous, his nail clipped me."

She dropped to her knees, and washed every single inch of me below. I braced my hand against the wall, knowing the things I wanted to do with my mate. Grabbing the back of her neck, I lifted her back up to her full height. "I can"t take that," I bit through my teeth.

She nodded. "Turn around."

I swallowed, and slowly turned away from her. I heard her slight gasp at the sight of my back. It was hideous, one of the many ways the voodoo queen punished me for what I did.

The wash cloth slipped to the floor of the shower, and Piper"s fingertips traced the lashes. I stood helpless as she studied me. "These are so deep," she whispered under the steam of water.

"They were deep when it happened," I admitted.

She sighed heavily, and bent down to grab the cloth. Slowly, she washed my back, and I turned around to trap her against the wall. "You don"t have any scars?" I asked against her mouth.

"Just a couple from falling off my bike, and tripping on the track, while trying out for cheerleading."

I grinned. "Did you make it?"

She laughed. "Heck no. I wasn"t the cheering type."

"They don"t know what they were missing," I said. "I would give my left arm to see you in one of those outfits."

She chuckled, and her face slowly turned serious. She lifted her palm to my cheek. "You"re the most interesting, and beautiful man I"ve ever met."

"You"re just saying that because what happened back there on your bed."

"Maybe," she teased, though she lifted on her tiptoes to kiss me. "Or maybe I mean it."

She leaned back against the tiled wall, and I kissed her. The water running down our faces, her hands grabbing at my flesh, and her heartbeat thumping wildly in my ears, those were the things I would never forget about Piper Sloane.

Those were the things I vowed to have forever.

Once the water dropped in temperature, I helped her out of the shower, and into one of my robes. She dried the ends of her hair with a towel, and watched as I dressed in front of her. "Thank you."

I tugged on my shirt. "For what, Little One?"

"For giving me a shower scene that will forever erase the last one I remember. The one with my ex and another woman."

I chuckled. "Perhaps the next time I"ll have you pressed against the shower wall with my mark on your neck."

Piper smiled. "Perhaps that will happen."

William waited until Piper went to her room before he barged into mine. He looked worried, his face ashen in color. "What is it now?" I asked, sitting down on the edge of my bed.

William stopped in front of me. "We haven"t talked about Piper"s dream, Zander."

The seriousness of William"s voice was really killing my mood. Sliding my hand down my face, I sighed heavily. "What about it?"

He gaped at me. "It was her reaching out to Piper, Zander. She is going to derail her. She doesn"t want you to find your mate. Don"t you remember? She even said it, "who could love a beast?""

I hadn"t forgotten one sentence that fell from the wench"s mouth. "I know that she wants me to suffer, William. I"m not stupid."

"You have to tell Piper before she finds out by herself. Her parents and volunteers have made it several miles into the woods. We have a day or two tops, Zander. Tops. I know you"ve grown closer to her, and I can tell she"s weakening to the idea of staying, but what if she finds out because the voodoo queen somehow tells her, Z? What you did—,"

"I know what I did was terrible," I said, my voice growing irate. I stood, my fingers clutching and unclutching at my sides. "I don"t need a reminder, okay? I ... can"t tell her now. We had a great morning. I can"t tell her because she won"t love me. When the voodoo queen did this to me, she told me she was making my outside match my inside. So when she said who could love a beast, she didn"t just mean this thing I turn into. She meant me. Who could truly love me?"

William frowned. "You were young, and your wolf was taking over—,"

"There isn"t an excuse. I—I want to be alone for a while. Can you please tell Piper I will be down for lunch soon?"

William pressed his lips into a tight line, but he obeyed. Because he had to, because I was his alpha. Like my pack had done. They"d listened to me, because I was in charge, and led them all astray.

The truth was, that I was the beast way before that woman put a curse on me.