The future. The word rang through my mind. With Kevin locked up, I supposed I really did have one now. I didn’t have to run anymore. I could go home. Or I could stay.
“I can just see wheels turning,” Nate said with a laugh.
“It’s just… I don’t know. I’m free, aren’t I? It’s a weird feeling.”
“I’ll bet.” Dean’s voice behind me made me jump. “Have you ever been free? You went from college to married to running for your life.”
I shot to my feet and ran to him, throwing myself into his arms and squeezing him tightly. He hugged me back, his lips pressed to the top of my head. It felt so good to be in his arms.
“Monica just left with Kevin. He’s going to be detained in a government facility they’ve set up for shifters. You won’t ever have to worry about that asshole again.”
“Thank God.” I rested my forehead against his chest.
“There’s hugging?” Jasen said, bounding up beside us and throwing his arms around Dean and I. “I love the finale where we all hug and laugh and live happily ever after.”
“Oh,” Nate said, getting to his feet and coming to join the
Golden Girls
moment. “I didn’t realize this was the happily ever after part.”
“I don’t know that it is,” Dean said, untangling himself from us and stepping backward. “No one has actually asked Jo what she plans to do. If her happy ending is to take off and go home, that’s not going to be very exciting to me.”
“What are you talking about?” Jasen asked, looking from Dean to me and back again. “She is home.”
I smiled, and it felt sad to me. This was all so fresh. I hadn’t had time to process everything. As far as home went, I couldn’t say I really had one. The house Billy and I had lived in together had gone to his brother. The cash had been left to me, but I’d made sure when my husband had drafted his will that the majority of his assets had gone to his family.
The Champlain family had hated me since the first time Billy had brought me home. I was so much younger than him and his relatives had been pretty well off so they thought I was a gold digger. It had always been me demanding a pre-nup, making sure his family’s belongings would return to them if anything happened to Billy. I didn’t want anything from him or from them.
So now, I was technically free, but there was nowhere for me to go. I looked around at the guys and wondered if I could really stay in Jericho Falls. Could this be my home? What if now that the stress was over, now that we weren’t tied to this bar, the spark between us fizzled?
“Well,” I said slowly, looking directly at Dean. “Now, that I’m your
mate
, what exactly does that mean?”
“It means that our beasts are tied to each other. You’re free to go wherever you want, but you might feel an occasional twinge when you think of me, and when you shift, your beast may try to come find me.”
I was still studying him. His chocolate brown eyes weren’t accusatory or sad. He just looked at me, waiting for my next question. I tried to imagine sitting somewhere and thinking about him after weeks of not seeing him, not touching him. My stomach clenched right then. I didn’t want to leave him. I didn’t want to leave any of them. They were my friends. Jasen was right, I was already home.
“Where am I going to live?” I asked finally, at a loss for a way to ask if I could really stay.
Dean stared at me for a full minute. No one spoke; no one moved. We all just waited for whatever he was going to say.
“You know, for a genius, you’re awfully stupid,” he said finally.
“Gee, thanks,” I laughed.
“You’ll live with me, of course.” He rolled his eyes. “Did you think we’d leave you on the street?”
“I didn’t really think anything,” I admitted. “Are you sure? I mean, you don’t really know me.”
“You’re my mate,” Dean said, stepping close to me and pulling me into his arms. “Everything else we’ll figure out as we go.”
Chapter Nine
“Honey I’m home,” Dean called as he walked through the door.
“I’m in the bedroom!” I called.
I’d been living with Dean for almost two weeks, and thing were going well. We’d adjusted to each other right away. He didn’t seem to resent sharing his space or his bed with me. And falling asleep sweaty and exhausted then waking up in his arms was about the best thing I could have ever hoped for.
Several large boxes had been delivered earlier in the day, and I was unpacking the clothes Billy’s brother had packed up from the house and shipped to Michigan for me. He’d written me a very nice note telling me that if I ever needed anything to let him know and he’d make sure I was taken care of.
Things were settling down nicely. I still occasional nightmares that Kevin had broken loose and come after me again. In one particularly terrifying dream, Dean had been killed in a horribly bloody manner. It had ended with me waking up screaming while my lover desperately tried to calm me down.
“What’s all this?” Dean asked as he walked into the room and looked around.
“My clothes and personal stuff,” I said as I followed his gaze. “You don’t mind, do you?”
He marched over and pulled me into his arms. He kissed me softly then looked down into my eyes. “You have to stop asking me that. This is your house, too. I know it’s new, and it’s probably strange for you.”
“It’s not for you?” I asked nervously. “You just gave up your space for me, let me take over the kitchen and hog your covers and rip your clothes off whenever I want, and you don’t mind?”
“Do I act like I mind?”
“Not at all. And you don’t find that weird? ‘Cause, I think it’s a little strange.”
“I love you,” he said with a shrug.
“You do?” The question came out as a whisper.
He’d never said that to me before. I’d figured we’d get there eventually, but I hadn’t realized he was at a place where he was comfortable telling me that.
“Of course, I do.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “I thought you knew.”
“Well, I mean, I love you, but I guess I didn’t realize you felt the same way.”
“Then I haven’t been trying hard enough.” He bent down and scooped me into his arms.
He carried me to the bed and laid me gently on top of the covers. His fingers pulled at the buttons on my shirt, popping them one by one until it was completely undone. Spreading the fabric open, he trailed kisses up my stomach, over my ribcage, between my breasts and up my neck.
My fingers fisted in his hair, urging him to keep moving. His lips finally made their way across my jaw to my mouth, his tongue slipping inside to rub lazily against mine. I released his hair so I could pull at his shirt.
We had to break the kiss so I could lift the tee over his head then fling it across the room. His chest crashed against mine as he fell back on top of me, his knee planted between my legs while his hands cupped my breasts and his mouth found mine again.
I arched into him as his fingers pulled my nipples taut through the thin lace covering them. His mouth slid lower, teeth grazing over my collarbone gently before descending again. He pulled my bra cups down so he could lick and suck his way across my tits.
A small whimper escaped my throat at the feel of his lips and tongue on my sensitive skin. He flicked his gaze up to me, watching me as he moved lower still. Leaving a hot, wet trail from his tongue over my ribs and stomach, he kissed a path down my body until he used his teeth to pop the button on my jeans. I raised my hips to allow him to remove the denim. I heard it hit the wall behind us with a soft thump.
Before I had a chance to look back down at him, his mouth against my clit made my head fly back against the bed. My fingers dug into the comforter beneath me as I struggled not to writhe out of his grasp. His hands gripped my thighs, holding them apart while he feasted on my pussy.
His tongue pressed hard circles against my sensitive nub then slid inside me over and over. He switched between the areas until I thought I might lose my mind with need for him.
“Please,” I whimpered, unable to take anymore of his teasing.
“Please what?” he teased.
“Please fuck me.”
“I don’t think you really want that,” he said casually. “Not yet. I think what you really want…” He trailed off as he slid two fingers into my drenched pussy and his thumb tapped against my clit.
Delicious pressure built in my abdomen, my muscles almost humming for release. Dean lowered his face to me again, sucking my clit hard and stars exploded behind my eyes as they slammed shut with pleasure.
My body arched as my muscles released and contracted, tiny explosions rocketing through me.
Before I could catch my breath enough to beg him to fuck me, he climbed over me and pressed his cock to my soaked cunt. My body still shook from the orgasm, and my canal gripped him firmly as he penetrated me.
“I just love the way you feel around me when you’re coming,” he growled against my ear. “You’re so tight and so wet. You feel so fucking good, Jo. How could you think I don’t love you?” His hips moved, slowly fucking me as he talked. His shaft slid in and out of my pussy so achingly slow, I wanted to scream in frustration. “I’ve loved you since you walked into that bar, reeking of trouble and need. I saw you and knew that you were mine. You were made for me. My kitten. Mine.” He stopped moving and looked down into my eyes, trailing a finger along my jaw. “Tell me.”
“I’m yours,” I whispered, lifting my head to kiss him. “I’m yours.”
“Damn straight.” He shifted his hips, and I braced myself for the assault that was about to come.
Dean loved to start slow with me, teasing me, torturing me until I thought I might shatter from tightness then he would slam his cock into me so hard I thought I might just break in general.
As he rocketed in and out of my pussy, his body hitting mine so hard my back was sliding up toward the headboard, I felt the pressure building in my body. No one had ever made me feel the way Dean could.
“I love you,” I said, my nails digging into his shoulders. “You tell me.”
“Yours,” he growled through clenched teeth. “I’m yours. Only yours. I might quarantine you here so we just have to stay here and fuck the hell out of each other for the rest of our lives.”
I would have laughed, but his hip shifted, his pubic bone hitting my clit and I came again, screaming as the familiar electrical shocks burned through my body. It only took a few seconds before Dean lost his rhythm and cried out, his cock jumping inside me as he filled me with his seed.
We lay next to each other on the bed, panting and clinging to each other’s hands as if we might drown if we weren’t touching. I glanced over at him and smiled at the silly grin on his face.
“I love you,” I said again, squeezing his hand.
“I love you, too.”
“Are you two done fucking yet?” A voice yelled from down the hallway.
Dean and I both groaned at the sound of Nate’s voice.
“I’ll have to tell them they can’t just walk in anymore,” Dean said.
“Fuck that. We were here first,” Jasen called back.
“He’s not wrong,” I said with a laugh.
I climbed out of bed and grabbed the button-down shirt of Dean’s I’d been wearing earlier. After throwing it on over a pair of panties that were laying on one of the boxes, I padded down the hall to meet our friends in the living room.
“What the fuck do you two want?” I asked as I walked past them to get beer out of the fridge. I turned back to ask if they wanted one but saw they were already holding bottles. With an exaggerated eye roll in their direction, I opened mine and leaned against the counter.
“Well,” Nate said with a sigh. “Jasen and I were talking, and we realized that we’ve been incredibly rude.”
“Terribly discourteous,” Jasen agreed.
“What are you two on about?” Dean asked, walking into the kitchen.
“Well, do you remember when we were all quarantined in the bar?” Jasen asked.
“Vaguely,” I said, fighting a smile.
“Well, we made a bet that night,” Nate said. “And we were talking earlier about the fact that we’ve never paid up.”
“Right.” Jasen nodded at his lover. “I’m not a welcher.”
“No, you’re really more of a squealer if memory serves,” said Dean with a laugh.
“Bite me,” Jasen shot back. “Anyway, we’re here to pay our debt.”
“Why now?” I looked from Jasen to Nate and back again, utterly bemused at their timing.
“Well, we were going to discuss it with you, but then we came in and the house reeks of sex so we figured we’d just go ahead and make a day of it. You know, if you’re up to that much pleasure.”
“I’m always up for a blow job,” Dean said with a shrug. “But I rode her pretty hard.”
“I’m standing right here, assholes,” I said, crossing my arms across my chest. “As I’m the one who just got ridden,” I shot an angry look at Dean, but he just grinned his cheesy grin at me, “I think I should get some say in this.”
“Absolutely,” Nate said, solemnly walking toward me. He pulled me into his arms and sniffed my throat. “You smell like Dean.”