Haunted Sanctuary (Green Pines Sanctuary) (27 page)

“Dirty.” He picked her up, stepped back and dropped to the bed with her in his lap. “Maybe just get them open?”

She wiggled back and fumbled with his fly, her fingers still clumsy. “You broke me. God damn it, Jay, you freaking broke me. I can’t—” The button popped off and she yanked at his zipper. “Quit being pleased with yourself and help.”

“Can’t,” he rasped. Helping involved waiting until she’d released his cock, then lifting her high and positioning her over him. “Quit being pleased with myself, I mean.”

“So smug.” Eden sank her fingers into his hair and jerked his head back. He might have satisfied the demands of possessiveness, but she’d barely gotten started. She licked the strong column of his throat with a growl. “I hope you won’t be disappointed if I don’t stay tamed for very long.”

He trembled under her, every muscle tense and taut. “You never could be, honey.”

“No.” She relaxed her body enough to sink down. Not all the way, not even most of the way, just until the head of his cock pushed into her, then locked her knees. “How badly do you want to be inside me?”

“I can wait,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Are you going to make me?”

“Yes.” So many ways to tease him. She rubbed her breasts against his chest. Scraped her teeth along his jaw in teasing bites only to follow with her tongue. “Wait. You have to wait.”

But he didn’t wait. He
moved
, and suddenly she found herself bent over the edge of the bed with Jay behind her, over her, his chest pressed to her back. “Wait?”

He wanted her. Needed her. Loved her. Passion and hunger throbbed between them, and she didn’t need a magical bond to feel it. Restraint tensed his muscles, need set his heart to hammering against her back. She rocked back against him and gasped when his cock slicked through her folds and rubbed over her clit.

“Wait,” she whispered, curling her fingers in the blankets. Her arms shook. “Wait until you can’t stand it. Wait until you’ll die if you don’t take me.”

His hands tightened on her hips, stilling her even as he took up her rocking motion. “You don’t even know when that happened, do you?”

She’d needed him from the first shivering terror of being infected, but she’d wanted him for longer. “When I became a wolf?”

“Not even close.” He licked a path up her spine. “I watched you before. I needed you.”

A thousand casual interactions came back to her. Years of small talk and polite greetings, of passing each other in the street or crossing paths at the diner, but the wolf saw something else in her human memories. Self-denial in his eyes and protectiveness in his stance, an alpha alone and lonely and wanting what he couldn’t have.

Maybe some part of her had always known. Maybe it had been fate all along. She was meant to be here, under him, alive because they fit together, body and soul.

“I didn’t see,” she whispered, twisting her head to meet his glazed, drowning dark eyes. “I wasn’t ready.”

He slid inside her with a sharp, indrawn breath. “And now?”

As if he had to ask. They fit together, all right, in the rawest, basest way imaginable. He pressed deep and she moaned at the perfect stretch, just enough to bring every nerve singing to life without pushing over the line into too much. She was meant to be like this, joined, one being shuddering together.

She dropped her head forward, baring the back of her neck as her hair swung around her face. “Show me what you’ve always wanted.”

His mouth traveled higher, between her shoulder blades and finally to the nape of her neck. “It’ll take years, Eden.” He angled his hips back as he spoke, then drove deep with a groan.

Her body forgot that it had already been sated. Her knees buckled, spilling her onto the mattress, and then he was doing it again, gripping her hips and pulling her into the perfect position to shatter her sanity, and she didn’t have the experience or the self-control to turn the tables on him. She couldn’t reach him to stroke him to insanity or uncover the secrets of what touches made him wild.

But she could do something far more devastating. Pressing her cheek to the mattress, she melted for him, gave him one precious moment of submission along with the human equivalent. “I love you. You’re mine.”

Jay took both, closing his teeth on the vulnerable curve of her neck before whispering, “Love you too.” The words rode a wave of emotion, love crashing over her tangled with lust and a dark, hungry satisfaction at her willing submission.

So much power in such tiny gestures. She wiggled, working her hands behind her until they nestled at the small of her back, trapped between their bodies, and the thrill it gave him turned helplessness into power. “Love me harder.”

He hissed in a breath and reached between them to lock one hand around her wrists. “Yes, ma’am.” Then he straightened, pulling her arms back to hold her suspended over the bed.

He’d used the Guide bond to master her body. She used it to claim his soul, following instinct to the deepest part of his heart, the not-so-human parts of him that craved the partnership of a strong mate and the submission of a strong lover.

She trusted him, and loved him, and she owned him when his control snapped and he took her.

Strong thrusts brought him into her again and again, each advance stripping another layer of humanity away. She groaned every time he slammed home, rasping encouragement in short, choppy pleas, crude words she couldn’t remember knowing and couldn’t believe she was saying.

“Eden.” He ground out her name, the tension along their bond stretched taut like a bowstring. His free hand tangled in her hair, and he pulled her head back. “Now.”

He wanted her to come. He needed it, the need so vast it swallowed her whole. All of his concentration was focused on her pleasure, on driving it to ridiculous heights with hard, carefully placed strokes, and knowing he’d do anything to earn her release tripped her over the edge.

The fall was beautiful. Heat cascading through her and she cried out, past dignity or reason as she rode her orgasm and he rode her.

Moments later, his pace sped. He rasped her name again and punctuated the whisper with one final, hard thrust. They fell through the bottom together, tumbling end over end in one another’s release and crashing back to earth as one.

Eden didn’t speak at first. She panted against the quilt as Jay eased her onto the bed and curled up behind her, his chest heaving as well.

As her heart rate slowed, a smile curved her lips. “You kinky bastard. You get off on that so hard.”

He growled through a laugh and propped his head on her shoulder. “On what? On you?”

“On being the big bad alpha wolf.” Feeling just as smug as he was, Eden caught his hand and twined their fingers together. “It’s hot, how crazy it makes you.”

“It wouldn’t make me crazy if you didn’t love it too. See the connection?”

“Works out pretty well, I suppose.” She traced her fingertip over his hand in a loopy, mindless pattern. “We’re a matched pair. A mated pair.”

“An alpha pair.” His fingers tightened around hers. “I don’t think they can be honest with me about how they’re doing yet, any of them.”

“It’ll take time, but they’ll come around. And…” She smiled a little. “Lorelei. She doesn’t trust me completely yet, but I like her, and she likes me. She’ll help me take care of them, and Colin will help you protect them. We have backup.”

“Betas,” he murmured.

“Betas.” She had to get at Shane’s computer full of lore sooner rather than later. There was so much to learn about werewolves and pack, about the sanctuary they were going to build and the history of what she had become.

Tomorrow would be soon enough. Tonight she wanted to cuddle with her mate and enjoy the moment’s peace. “Would it be rude or complimentary if I took a nap?”

Jay’s laugh shook through her. “Passing out would be a compliment. A nap just sounds like a damn good idea.”

“Next time,” she mumbled, but it might have been a lie. Drained by the excitement of the past week and wrapped in the strength of his love and the warmth of his body, she tumbled toward oblivion.

Passing out was going to make Jay impossibly smug, but she didn’t really care. He deserved it.

A three-hour nap through the evening was almost unforgivable, but Jay decided to let it slide—just this once. He emerged from the bedroom, bent on raiding the fridge for leftovers, but Mae and Stella were sitting at the kitchen table, talking quietly over mugs of hot cocoa.

Jay hastily finished buttoning his shirt. “Ladies.”

Mae took in his disheveled appearance in her usual silence, but a small smile tugged at her lips as she rose to her feet. “I saved dinner for you and Eden.”

He waved her back to her seat. “I don’t think she’ll be up before morning. She’s exhausted.”

“Bet she is, tiger.” Stella raised an eyebrow at him over her mug.

“Not like that,” he grumbled, pouring himself some cocoa from the pan on the stove. “What’re you two up to?”

“Nothing.” Stella flashed a look at Mae. “Talking about the farm, that’s all.”

“What about it?”

Mae wet her lips nervously. “The magic. We were talking about Stella’s spells. She’s cast a lot of them, along with some pretty impressive wards, but she’s not tired like she should be.”

Then she was the only one. He turned his attention to Stella. “How odd is that?”

“Mmm, hard to say.” She shrugged. “Some places have power. It’s in the earth, the air. The ether, I guess. Maybe this farm is one of them.”

It explained plenty, from Eden’s transformation before the pull of the full moon straight on back to the mysterious circumstances of Zack’s conception. “Find out what it means, okay? For sure.”

She inclined her head. “You got it.”

Mae fiddled with her mug of cocoa, twisting it back and forth before giving Stella a significant look.

The witch responded instantly. “Yeah, well. I’m beat in a completely mundane, non-magical way, so I’m going to pack it in. Good night.”

Jay watched as she set her mug in the sink and hurried out the door. Then he pulled out the chair opposite Mae’s and sat. “What is it?”

Mae’s gaze locked somewhere around his chin. “It’s kind of silly.”

He had to smile. “No, Mae. Whatever it is, it’s not silly if it’s important to you.”

“It’s just…” She swallowed hard, and her hand inched across the table, stopping just shy of his. “You’re my alpha, and I’ve never really talked to you. But it matters to me, maybe more than it does to the rest of them. I need pack. My wolf’s…weak.”

Not weak, though how could she know that if she could barely touch the beast inside? “Are you having any control problems?”

She shook her head, sending pink hair flying. “She really only comes out at the full moon, or if another wolf…” Her jaw clenched, and fear and shame soured the space between them. “But that’s not the same as control. I never really learned because I had a Guide, but she was one of the first wolves Christian killed.”

Damn it.
Jay covered her hand with his, moving slowly. “Then we’ll need to find you another one.”

“I know.” Her voice faded to a small, scared whisper, but she clung to his hand as if it were the only solid thing in the world. “That’s why I didn’t tell you before… I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“You have time. If you were starting to shift without trying, anything dangerous like that, it’d have to be now. But you have time, Mae. Time to choose.”

Her fingers clenched tight. “Thank you.”

Don’t.
His first instinct, to deny her thanks. Deflect the gratitude that wafted around every single member of the pack like a tangible wave of sadness mixed with relief. “You’re welcome.”

He knew he’d made the right choice when her tension eased. She slipped her hand free of his and rose, only to circle the table and wrap one arm around his shoulders in a shy, tentative hug. “If Eden does wake up, her food’s on the second shelf in the fridge. Yours is too.”

“Thanks. I think I’m just going to lock up and head back to bed.”

Mae smiled—a real smile—and swept up her cocoa. “Good night, Jay. Sleep well.”

When the house was quiet, a stillness fell. More than the quiet, it seemed to seep from every wall, heavy somehow with echoes. Shadows you could just barely catch out of the corner of your eye, the kind that vanished when you turned to look.

Ghosts.
That’s what Eden had called them. Memories, Jay had said, and he still believed that. What had the old walls seen? What secrets did they carry?

He checked the front door before returning to the kitchen to flip the deadbolt on the back door. Before he could, a glimmer out by the barn caught his eye. White or beige, certainly not the shadows he was used to seeing in the darkness.

Jay pushed through the door. A breeze stirred his hair as well as a set of wind chimes on the back porch—Mae’s doing, perhaps, or Lorelei’s. They tinkled, underscored by a soft murmur.

The wind through the trees. Except the longer he listened, the more it sounded like a voice, words too low to make out.

He strode out toward the barn, the grass cool under his bare feet. His glimpse of the figure under the moonlight had been brief, but his mind already supplied details—human, feminine, dark hair.