Chapter 3 - Caelan
The moment his lips touch mine, I forget every reason this might be a bad idea.
Patrick kisses like a man who’s been starving for connection, and I drink him in with equal desperation.
His hands find my waist and pull me closer until there’s no space left between us, until I can feel every hard line of his body against my softer curves.
I grab the collar of his shirt and hold on like he’s the only solid thing in a spinning world.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard. His amber-gold eyes have gone darker, and the sight of him looking at me like that sends heat pooling low in my belly.
Patrick pulls back just enough to look at me. His breath is ragged against my lips, and those amber-gold eyes are searching my face for what I can only guess is confirmation that I want this as much as he does.
I answer by reaching up and running my fingertips along the line of his jaw. His stubble is rough against my skin, and I like the way it feels. I like everything about this moment.
“I know what I want,” I tell him. “Do you?”
In answer, he groans and captures my mouth again. He kisses me like he’s trying to memorize the taste of me, like he’s afraid I might disappear if he lets go for even a second. I match his hunger with my own as years of suppressed desire are finally given permission to surface and run wild.
He slides his hands down to grab my hips, and then he’s walking me backward toward the bed.
The backs of my knees hit the mattress, and I let myself fall, pulling him down on top of me.
His weight is solid and grounding, and I arch up into him without thinking, seeking more contact, more friction, more everything.
I reach for the hem of his shirt and tug it upward.
He takes the hint and sits back long enough to yank it over his head, revealing the broad chest and sculpted abs I’d been imagining all night.
Scars crisscross his skin in patterns that speak of violence and survival, and I want to learn the story behind every single one.
“Your turn,” he prompts in a voice that’s rough with need.
I sit up and let him find the zipper at the back of my dress, and he drags it down, and I shiver at the contact despite the heat building between us. The fabric loosens, and he pushes it off my shoulders, down my arms, and past my hips until it falls onto the floor beside the bed.
I’m left in nothing but my underwear, and for a split second, old insecurities try to surface.
I’m not built like the women in magazines or the lean warriors of my pack.
My stomach isn’t flat, my thighs touch when I walk, and my breasts are probably too heavy for my frame.
Before the curse broke, I would have covered myself with my arms. I would have made excuses and turned off the lights and hoped he wouldn’t notice all the ways my body fails to meet some arbitrary standard of perfection.
But Patrick is looking at me like I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
“God,” he breathes, and the reverence in his tone makes my heart stutter in my chest. “Look at you.”
He runs his hands up my sides, over the curve of my hips, and along the soft swell of my belly.
There’s no judgment in his touch. Only hunger.
Only want. He looks at my body like my curves are exactly what he’s been craving, and something inside me cracks wide open at the realization that I don’t have to hide. Not from him. Not tonight.
“You’re overdressed,” I manage to say as I reach for his belt with trembling fingers.
He helps me with the buckle, and then his pants are gone. There’s nothing between us but heat and skin and the desperate need to be closer. His hands are rough and sure as they explore my body, finding spots that make me gasp and arch underneath him.
“Patrick.” His name comes out as a plea, a prayer, a demand all wrapped into one breathless syllable.
He answers with his mouth on my neck, my collarbone, and the curve of my breast. Every touch sends sparks shooting through my nervous system, and I’m trembling with need by the time he finally finds his place between my thighs.
***
After the most erotic night of my life, I lie in the circle of his arms and try to remember how to form coherent thoughts.
The sex was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.
Not that I have much to compare it to; the curse made physical intimacy feel like going through the motions, a biological function stripped of any real emotion or connection.
I’ve been with one man before tonight. It was a brief and forgettable encounter that left me wondering what all the fuss was about.
But this was different. This was fire and need and a pleasure so overwhelming I thought I might shatter into a thousand glittering pieces.
And when his knot swelled inside me, locking us together in the most intimate way possible, the pleasure was so intense I nearly blacked out.
My entire body shook through waves of release that seemed to go on forever.
I held on to him through all of it, with my face buried in his neck and his name falling from my lips like a chant.
Even now, with his knot finally released and our bodies separated, I can still feel the echo of it thrumming through my veins like a second heartbeat.
Patrick’s chest rises and falls beneath my cheek in a steady rhythm.
His arm is wrapped around my shoulders, keeping me tucked against his side like he’s afraid I might slip away.
I trace the scar on his forearm with idle fingers, following the raised line of tissue from his elbow to his wrist. The skin there is puckered and pale.
That wound must have been deep to leave such a mark.
“How’d you get this?” I ask, my voice drowsy and content.
“Training accident. A long time ago.”
I make a soft sound of acknowledgment and keep running my fingers along the scar. My mind is drifting, loose and unfocused in that pleasant post-orgasm haze, but one thought keeps circling back no matter how hard I try to push it away.
Is this what Sera was trying to describe?
When my sister talked about meeting Reeyan, about the way her wolf recognized him instantly, she struggled to put it into words.
She said it was like finding a piece of herself she didn’t know was missing.
Like coming home to a place she’d never been before.
I thought she was being dramatic at the time, that she was swept up in the novelty of being able to feel emotions after three centuries of magical suppression.
I smiled and nodded and secretly wondered if she was exaggerating.
But lying here in Patrick’s arms, with his heartbeat steady beneath my ear and his scent surrounding me like a warm blanket, I’m starting to understand what she meant.
Which is ridiculous. Completely and utterly ridiculous.
I don’t even know this man. I don’t know where he comes from or what he does for a living or why he was sitting alone in a bar.
I don’t know his last name or his favorite food or whether he has family somewhere waiting for him to come home.
I don’t know if he’s kind to strangers or cruel to enemies or somewhere complicated in between.
All I know is how he makes me feel. Alive. Seen. Wanted in a way I’ve never been wanted before.
That’s not enough to build a future on. It’s barely enough to justify a one-night stand with a stranger whose last name I never thought to ask.
But my wolf doesn’t seem to care about logic or reason or common sense.
She’s curled up inside me, content in a way I’ve never felt before, and every time I think about leaving this bed, she whines in protest. She wants to stay here forever.
She wants to burrow deeper in his arms and never come out.
I can’t do that. I have responsibilities. I have a life waiting for me back in Llewelyn territory, a job and a family and a future that doesn’t include mysterious strangers from Grayhide bars.
Sera will wake up in a few hours, and if she finds my bed empty, she’ll worry.
Then she’ll come looking for me, and when she discovers I spent the night with a stranger I picked up in a bar, she’ll give me that look.
The one that says she’s trying not to judge but can’t quite manage it.
The one that makes me feel like a reckless child playing at being grown instead of an adult woman capable of making her own choices.
I love my sister more than anything in this world. She saved me, saved all of us, and I owe her a debt I can never fully repay. But sometimes her concern feels suffocating. Sometimes I want to make mistakes without someone hovering nearby, waiting to catch me when I fall.
Tonight was supposed to be mine. This moment, this man, this feeling—it was supposed to belong to me and no one else. A secret I could keep tucked away in my heart like a precious stone.
But dawn is coming whether I want it to or not, and reality is waiting just outside that window.
I know I’ll have to slip out of this bed before Patrick wakes up.
I know I’ll have to leave without saying goodbye, without explaining, without finding out if this could have been something more than one perfect night.
“What’s on your mind?” Patrick mumbles from beside me.
Everything. Nothing. The fact that I want to stay here forever and the knowledge that I can’t. The question of whether this feeling in my chest is real or just a product of too much whiskey and not enough experience with actual emotions.
“Just wondering if I’ll ever see you again,” I reply instead. It’s not the whole truth, but it’s not a lie, either.
Patrick’s arm tightens around me, pulling me closer against his side. “Do you want to?”
“Yes.” The answer comes without thinking, as natural as breathing. “I really do.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, and I can feel something moving through him. When he speaks again, his voice is careful and guarded in a way it wasn’t before.
“My life is complicated, Caelan. There are things about me you don’t know. Things that might change how you feel if I told you.”
“Everyone has secrets.”
“Not like mine.”
I prop myself up on my elbow so I can look at him. His eyes are shadowed in the low lighting of the room, and there’s something in his face I can’t quite read.
“I don’t care about your secrets,” I tell him honestly. “Not tonight. Tonight, I just want this. Whatever this is, whatever it means, I just want to have it for a little while longer.”
He reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, letting his fingers linger on my cheek.
“Okay,” he relents. “Tonight, we just have this.”
I settle back against his chest and let my eyes drift closed. His heartbeat is a steady drum beneath my ear, slow and soothing, and exhaustion is pulling at the edges of my consciousness with insistent fingers.
I’ll leave before dawn. I’ll sneak back to Sera’s house and climb into the guest bed and pretend this night never happened. I’ll return to my life in Llewelyn territory and probably never see Patrick again.
But for now, just for these few stolen hours, I let myself pretend that I could have more than one perfect night with a man whose secrets don’t matter and whose arms feel like home.
Sleep takes me before I can decide if that makes me brave or foolish.