Chapter 13 #2
The master bedroom was exactly as I remembered it, though I had not slept here since I was a girl sneaking into my parents’ bed during thunderstorms. Someone, probably Marjorie, had updated it since my father’s death.
Fresh paint, modern linens, a new bed, but the same view of the mountains through tall windows.
The same claw-foot tub and giant glass shower visible through the bathroom door.
I stood in the doorway, overwhelmed by the simple normalcy of it.
Raphael moved through the room with efficient paranoia, checking windows, testing locks, scanning for anything out of place.
Old habits. Understanding settled over me: this was how he showed love.
Protection. Vigilance. The wolf in him would never fully relax, but he could learn to be vigilant here, in my childhood home that was becoming ours, instead of a series of safe houses.
“Clear,” he said finally.
“The bond tells me.” I crossed to the window, looking out at the mountains that had hidden us. “Your wolf calming down.”
He came up behind me, his arms wrapping around my waist. His scent surrounded me. The familiar smell of my mate, my husband, the man who had killed to keep me alive.
“We are home,” he said.
“We are.” I turned in his arms, looking up at him. “We might actually be okay, Raphael. For the first time since this started, I actually believe that.”
His hand came up to cup my face, his thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone. His cautious hope bled into mine, mingling until I could not tell where his ended and mine began. His vigilance had not disappeared, would never disappear entirely, but beneath it was peace.
“Michael is still out there,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
“Viktor will find him. And when he does, I will end it.”
The cold promise in his voice should have frightened me. It did not. I had spent days running from Michael’s obsession, from Max’s kill order, from the violence that Raphael’s world brought with it. I was done being afraid.
“Not tonight,” I said. “Tonight, we are home.”
Hunger darkened his gaze. The protective vigilance that had defined him for days began to transform into hunger. The need had been leashed while we ran, while survival demanded all our focus, while there was no safe place to let it loose.
We were safe now. And his wolf was done waiting.
“Lena.” His voice dropped low, rough with need. “I have been patient.”
My pulse jumped at the shift in his tone. “You have.”
“You have no idea how scared I was of losing you.” His grip on my waist tightened. “We are home now. Behind locked doors.” His nose wrinkled slightly. “But we are filthy.”
He was right. Days of running through mountain forests, sleeping in bunkers and safe houses, had left us both covered in dirt and sweat and the grime of survival. My hair was matted. His skin still bore traces of dried blood from the fight.
“Shower,” I said.
His smile was all teeth. “Shower.”
Raphael turned on the water, steam rising to fill the space, and then his hands were on my clothes.
We tore at each other’s clothes with desperate hands.
His sweater caught on his shoulders and he ripped it over his head.
I fumbled with my shirt buttons until he lost patience and yanked, sending buttons scattering across the tile.
My pants stuck to my legs, damp with sweat and forest dirt, and he dragged them down with a growl that vibrated through my bones.
“You are still here,” he said, his voice raw. “Still alive.”
“So are you.” I pressed my palm flat against his scarred chest, feeling his heart pound beneath my hand. The old scars from Max’s punishment. The newer ones from the torture that had been interrupted when he came to save me. Still warm. Still breathing. Still mine. “Prove it.”
He hauled me into the shower, and the hot water hit us both like absolution.
I groaned as the heat soaked into muscles I had not realized were aching. Days of tension began to unwind as the water rinsed away the grime of our escape.
“Turn around,” he said, and I obeyed.
His fingers worked shampoo into my matted hair, massaging my scalp with firm, thorough strokes.
I let my head fall back, eyes closing as he worked through the tangles and the dirt, cleaning away the forest and the fear.
The intimacy of it caught me off guard. This was not sexual.
This was care. This was a man who had almost lost me, putting me back together piece by piece.
He tilted my head back into the water, rinsing until the suds ran clear, and then his lips brushed my temple.
“Better,” he murmured.
Then he reached for the body wash, and his touch shifted from tender to something far more dangerous.
He washed me with devastating thoroughness.
His palms sliding over my shoulders, down my arms, across my back.
He knelt to wash my legs, my feet, working the soap into every inch of skin while I braced myself against the tile and tried to remember how to breathe.
When he stood again, his soapy hands cupped my breasts, thumbs circling my nipples until they peaked under his touch.
“Raphael,” I gasped.
“Hush.” He turned me, pressing my back against his chest as his hands slid lower. Over my stomach. Between my thighs. “Let me take care of you.”
His fingers found my center, slick with the water and my own arousal.
He stroked me slowly at first, teasing, circling my clit until my hips bucked against his hand.
I arched back against him, feeling his hard length pressing against my lower back, and the need that had been building since we crossed into Paradise Peaks finally ignited into something desperate.
“More,” I gasped.
He gave me more. Two fingers slid inside me, curving to find that spot that made my vision blur. His palm ground against my clit while his fingers worked me from the inside, stroking that swollen ridge of nerves with devastating precision.
“That is it,” he murmured against my ear. “Let go. I have you.”
I could not have held back if I tried. The orgasm built fast and hard, coiling tighter with every stroke of his fingers, every press of his palm.
When it broke, I cried out, my knees buckling, and only his arm around my waist kept me upright.
He worked me through it, drawing out every last shudder, until I sagged boneless against his chest.
“Good girl,” he said, and slowly withdrew his fingers.
I turned in his arms, still shaking. “My turn.”
I pushed him back until he stood under the spray, water streaming over his broad shoulders, rinsing away the last traces of blood and dirt.
I reached for the shampoo and worked it through his dark hair, standing on my toes to reach, my fingers scraping against his scalp the way he had done for me.
He closed his eyes, a low rumble building in his chest.
“Rinse,” I said, and he tipped his head back.
Then I took the soap and washed him the way he had washed me.
My hands mapped the terrain of his body, the ridges of muscle, the valleys of old scars.
I traced the fresh wounds on his chest with gentle fingers, then pressed my lips to each one.
A shudder ran through him. I washed his arms, his stomach, his hips.
When I knelt to wash his legs, I felt the tension coil through him.
I stayed on my knees. Looked up at him through the steam, water cascading over my shoulders.
“Lena.” His voice was strained.
“You told me to kneel for you once,” I said. “The first night of our contract. In your manor.”
His hand fisted in my wet hair. “I remember.”
“Tell me again.”
His voice dropped to a growl. “Kneel.”
I was already kneeling, but the command sent a shiver through me anyway. This was what I needed. Not gentleness. Not careful reunion. I needed him to take, to demand, to prove with his body that we had both survived.
I wrapped my hand around his cock, thick and hard and straining toward me. He groaned when I stroked him, and the sound echoed off the tile. I leaned forward and took him into my mouth.
“Yes,” he hissed. “That is it. Take me.”
I did. I took him as deep as I could, hollowing my cheeks, working him with my hand and my mouth while the water pounded down around us.
I wanted to swallow him whole, as if to prove to myself that he was still here.
His grip on my hair tightened, controlling the pace, and I surrendered to it.
Let him use my mouth. Let him thrust deeper, hitting the back of my throat until my eyes watered.
“Look at me,” he commanded, and I obeyed. Staring up at him while he fucked my mouth, watching the tension coil tighter in his body. “You are mine. Say it.”
I could not speak with him filling my throat, but I moaned around him, and he understood.
“Good girl.” His hips snapped forward, harder now, and I relaxed my throat to take him. “You take me so well. You were made for this. Made for me.”
I could feel him getting close, his thrusts growing erratic, his grip bruising.
When he came, it was with a roar that echoed off the bathroom walls, his cock pulsing as he spilled down my throat.
I swallowed everything he gave me, nearly choking on the force of it, and when he finally pulled back, I gasped for air.
He hauled me to my feet and kissed me hard enough to taste himself on my lips.
“My turn,” he growled against my mouth.
He spun me, pressing my front against the cold tile while the hot water beat down on my back. I felt him behind me, the heat of his body, the hard press of his cock already stirring again. Shifter recovery time. I had learned to appreciate it.
His hands found my wrists and pinned them above my head, holding them both in one large hand while the other gripped my hip.
“You cannot move,” he said against my ear. “You cannot touch. You can only take what I give you.”
“Yes,” I breathed.
He thrust into me without warning, and I cried out at the sudden fullness. He was thick, stretching me, and the angle had him hitting deep. I tried to brace myself, but pinned as I was, I could not move. Could not do anything but let him take me.
“This is what you need,” he said, setting a brutal pace. “To feel me inside you. To know that I am still here.”
“Yes.”
“You thought you might lose me.” His free hand slid around to find my clit, circling it with devastating precision. “You thought Michael might win. That Max might kill me. That you would be alone.”
“I did.” The admission came out broken. “I was so scared.”
“I know.” He drove into me harder. “I was scared too. Scared that I could not protect you. That I would fail you. That I would watch you die and be powerless to stop it.”
His fingers worked my clit faster, and I could feel the orgasm building, spiraling tighter with every thrust. When it hit, it ripped through me like lightning, and I screamed his name.
And then I felt him swell.
His knot expanded at the base of his cock, stretching me impossibly wide, locking us together. The pressure was overwhelming, delicious, almost too much. I gasped at the fullness, my inner walls clenching around the intrusion.
“Raphael,” I whimpered.
“I have you.” His voice was rough, strained with the effort of holding back. “You can take it. You were made to take it.”
The stretch burned and ached and felt so good I could not tell where pain ended and pleasure began. He was locked inside me now, his knot sealing us together, and I was not sure I could survive another orgasm. My body felt wrung out, oversensitive, every nerve ending raw.
He did not stop.
“Again,” he commanded, grinding against me, his knot pressing against that spot deep inside. “Give me another one.”
“I cannot,” I gasped. “It is too much.”
“You can. You will.” His teeth scraped my shoulder, right over the claiming bite. “You are mine, Lena. Your pleasure belongs to me. Now give it to me.”
He pinched my clit, and I shattered again, my legs threatening to give out beneath me. Only his grip on my wrists and his cock inside me kept me upright.
“Again.”
“Raphael, please.” I was begging now, tears mixing with the shower water. “I cannot.”
“One more.” His voice was relentless. “One more, and then I will fill you. Mark you from the inside. Prove that you are mine.”
His fingers found that devastating rhythm again, and even though I was sure my body had nothing left to give, I felt the pleasure building once more.
His knot pulsed inside me, grinding against nerves I had not known existed, and this time when I came, he came with me.
I felt the hot rush of him filling me, his seed trapped inside by the knot that locked us together, his roar vibrating against my skin.
We stayed like that for a long time, locked together under the cooling water, both of us shaking. His knot held us joined, and I floated in the aftermath, too spent to move, too full to think. When he finally softened enough to slip free, I whimpered at the loss.
He released my wrists and turned me in his arms, cradling me against his chest.
“I have you,” he murmured. “I have you.”
I pressed my face against his wet skin and let the last of my tears fall. We were alive. We were together. We were home.
He carried me out of the shower, wrapping me in a towel that smelled like laundry detergent. He dried me with the same reverent attention he had used to wash me, and then he carried me to the bed.
“Food first,” I managed. “Marjorie will murder us both if we do not eat.”
A laugh rumbled through his chest. “Food first.”
We ate Marjorie’s dinner in bed, sharing the plate between us. Roast chicken and potatoes and vegetables that had stayed perfectly warm in the oven. Simple food, made with love, and I could not remember anything ever tasting so good.
When the plate was empty, Raphael pulled me against him, tucking my head under his chin. The afternoon light was fading to evening gold, and exhaustion finally caught up with both of us.
“We are home,” he murmured against my hair.
“We are.”
“I will keep you safe here. I will keep you safe everywhere.”
I pressed a kiss to his chest, right over his heart. “I believe you.”
Tomorrow, I would throw myself back into hotel operations. Christmas was coming, and there was work to do. Michael was still out there, a shadow waiting to fall.
But tonight, I was home. In my bed. In my mate’s arms.