Chapter 13 Jax
Jax
Maybe it was pitiful, how easily distracted I was—
But no, fuck that. There was nothing commonplace or dismissible about my mate slipping his hand into mine, announcing to the whole damn pack that he wanted me.
My heart squeezed hard—a feeling that left me dazed and happy to trail after Dakota as he pulled me to our room.
Our room.
No way, would I have allowed him to continue occupying space with the roommate and “friend” who’d manipulated and betrayed him for years, but if he’d needed space, he could’ve found it. In this house or elsewhere, I’d have given it to him.
But he’d slipped into my life as seamlessly as he opened the door to our bedroom now, tugged me inside, and kicked it shut. As easily as he leaned against me with his full weight, pressing me back into the door.
“Dakota,” I rasped in his mouth, the sound of his name broken by the hitch of my breath.
He shook his head. Not now.
This wasn’t the moment for me to fall apart. First, he meant to put me back together with the same hands that slipped beneath my shirt. I raised my arms and let him pull it off me.
He was right there, dragging his lips across my chest. The way his teeth scraped across my nipple made my breath catch. It hardened for him, and my dick throbbed.
He had to know, because in that same moment, he reached down and grabbed me through my pants, cupping my shaft and rubbing hard as he growled softly against my skin.
“I want you,” he purred.
I dragged him in, my hands pressed flat on the small of his back as I pulled him onto his toes. “Commere.”
He hopped up, and I caught him. His legs wrapped around my waist.
But he didn’t let me tip him back onto the bed. He clung to me tight, and when we got there, he did this odd little acrobatic twist that left me splayed out under him, grinning.
Right then, it felt impossible that I could be lucky enough that he’d want me, but I couldn’t doubt it. Not with him looking at me like that, biting his lip like he wanted to take a bite out of me too.
I certainly couldn’t doubt it when his heart beat in tandem with my own.
He flicked my belt open and slid it out of the hoops while I kicked off my shoes. It was a fight, to get rid of the rest of my clothes and his, but we squirmed our way free until there was nothing but his skin on mine, the glorious slide of it with every little movement.
He poured lube on his fingers and wasn’t even patient enough to warm it up before he twisted at the waist. His mouth fell slack as he worked his fingers inside him, but I couldn’t see. I couldn’t feel him.
With a growl, I sat up, pulling at his arm. “Mine.”
Dakota pouted. His brow furrowed, and he let me push his hand away. I gripped his fingers, stealing some of that slickness before I plunged my fingers into him instead.
This was how it was meant to be—me taking care of him, driving him over the edge, holding his taut little ass in my hand while I fucked him soft and wanting with two fingers. Three.
He moaned and his eyes fluttered as he arched his back, shoving himself onto the thrust of my hand. His ass squeezed around me, and his dick bobbed as he moved. It wasn’t just the thrust of his hips, but a twitch that spoke to his hunger.
With a high-pitched, impatient keen, Dakota pinned my wrist down and lifted himself off, only to steady my cock between his legs, adjust the tilt of his hips, and—
“Oh, fuck,” I bit out as he shoved himself down on my cock. His hips jerked, his smooth inner thighs flexing at the sudden, blunt sensation. His hands dug into my chest.
Then he started to ride. He had no space for patience or delicacy, only a frenzy of thrusts and clawing at my chest and gasping out his need.
“So good,” he panted, rocking his hips. The ring of muscle that stretched around my cock, sliding down my shaft with every thrust of his hips—it was the most glorious fucking feeling. And there he was telling me I was good? Insanity. “So good for me, Jax.”
Too far gone for words, I groaned and gripped his thighs. I fucking loved his thighs—the way his soft flesh gave way beneath my fingers, dimpling in, letting me dig into muscle in a way that curled his toes and sparked pleasure down our bond.
I dug my heels into the mattress to meet his thrust, our movements turning frantic as we chased each other toward that peak.
Fuck, it was so good when I could feel it through our bond. When I’d first had him, when he hadn’t been part of our pack or my mate, I’d been willing to give up the very idea of a mate, just to keep him. No, I couldn’t have had this with anybody else.
But Dakota? I needed him. To my marrow, I needed him, and it was his cresting pleasure that sent me over the edge.
He cried out, streaks of white shooting across my stomach and chest. I dragged him deep, letting his ecstasy crash over me as I spilled inside him.
Holding himself above me, his loose fist hit my chest with a thud. A shudder worked through him, shaking his breath, and it made me feel warm inside.
“Me too,” I rasped, smiling.
He laughed, and carefully, he eased himself off my cock and halfway off my lap. His leg was still slung over mine, twisted between them as he nestled close to me.
I wrapped my arm around his shoulders while he panted against my chest.
This was perfect. For one blissful moment, I wasn’t stricken with fear or doubt. He was right. I needed this. Floating in the post-sex haze with him, my mind was clearer.
And I almost felt the question bubbling up from him before he spoke it aloud.
“Can you tell me about it? The old pack.” Dakota’s voice was barely above a whisper.
He left his head cradled in the hollow beneath my collarbone, slowly spreading his fingers wide on my chest and dragging them back into a loose fist. It was soothing, and I never wanted him to stop.
“It’s hard to imagine you all coming from a place like that.
Especially with how—” He lifted his head to catch my eye, before sliding his gaze toward my closet full of custom shelving and bespoke suits. “I don’t know—the GQ of it all.”
My laugh came out bleak. “That’s on purpose.
It wouldn’t have seemed so strange if you’d seen us when we’d just left Idaho.
Rural packs—they’re pretty insular. Honestly, I’d have been lost without Jillian.
She’s the one who realized we needed to be serious about our education.
She’s the one who tried to find a way out and made plans and figured out how to apply for loans so we could go to school in the first place.
” I sighed, shutting my eyes. “When we were kids, we argued about it sometimes. I’d be a little shit about doing homework—most of the pack was homeschooled, and that was never a big priority, you know?
Just something to get the humans off our backs.
Some plausible deniability that we weren’t just out there in the woods, letting our kids’ brains rot out their ears in between beatings.
I mean, there were beatings, but cubs don’t bruise like human children .
. . ” I could feel Dakota’s agony ripple across our bond.
I hadn’t—I hadn’t told him any of this. He hadn’t needed to know it.
Even now, I didn’t want to burden him with any of it, but it’d crept back into our lives, and he was my mate.
I couldn’t lie to him. It just wasn’t possible.
“I don’t know—you grow in the family you’re born to?
For a long time, I thought—” I sighed, giving myself a moment to consider as I stroked his arm from elbow to bicep and back.
“I thought that if I were the right kind of wolf, alpha enough, I could keep the people I loved safe. Make things better from within the structure we lived in. I didn’t know anything else, and I didn’t realize that it was all—it was too wrong to fix.
But Jill was right, as always. If she hadn’t fought for us taking it seriously, we’d have been stuck, or—” I grimaced. “I could’ve lost her.”
I’d never known if she meant to leave no matter what. If me staying behind would’ve kept her trapped.
I hoped not. I’d rather her leave me behind and run for the hills, if I’d ever been stupid enough to let her go.
But I wasn’t. It’d never really been a consideration, for me to watch her walk away and not go after her.
Or for me to go out into the world and leave her back in Wildwood, even when she’d told me to.
With a sigh, I shut my eyes. Dakota’s head settled back on my chest. For a few minutes, we just stayed like that.
I had more to say, but Dakota was patient. I don’t know how he did that—knew exactly what I needed and had the fortitude to be there and wait for me to figure it out, a steady comfort at my side all the while.
I squeezed him close, yes, maybe in thanks, but also because I needed him. I didn’t let myself talk about this, even think about it. He was the only reason I’d even try.
“It was awful,” I whispered. “But when we left, I . . . I didn’t know that I could give us anything better. Just—there were people counting on me. I had to try, but it was—”
“So fucking hard,” Dakota finished when words failed me. His arm tightened around my middle.
All I could do was nod and swallow hard against the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me.
“It wasn’t better. Not right away. I mean .
. . I guess some parts were, for most people.
I hope?” I wasn’t sure. Those early days were a lot of doubt and fear and getting by on too little shared between too many of us.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve never been half as much a fucking asshole as Reeve was.
Never hurt anybody who wasn’t, like—I fought him.
But he wasn’t innocent, you know? I didn’t have a choice. ”
Dakota’s soft hair brushed my chest when he nodded.
I didn’t want to say that I was a good alpha—where we’d come from, I wasn’t entirely convinced there was any such thing. But I tried to be a good man.
“Jill and I—we figured it out. But I shouldn’t—I didn’t go back. I shouldn’t have left them. I shouldn’t have left you.” With my free hand, I pinched the bridge of my nose as my eyes stung.
Dakota’s head popped up. “Left me?”
I nodded. “With Cash. That was—I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t know what to do, but I left you here to take that on alone—”
“I wasn’t alone.”
“I should’ve been here.”
Dakota shoved my hand out of the way, his dark eyes narrowed down at me. “You weren’t doing nothing, Jax. You were doing what you could, right?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I hadn’t accomplished much.
Certainly hadn’t saved Cash or anybody else we’d left behind.
“You were doing what you could,” Dakota insisted.
“And we didn’t need you here. Don’t get me wrong—I like when you’re here.
I love knowing I have your support like this .
. . like this physical thing I can hold onto.
It’s an incredible feeling. But I don’t need you here every second of every day just to be okay.
I was doing what I needed to do, and you were doing what you needed to do, and we’re both okay. The whole pack is.”
But Cash wasn’t, and that was my fault.
Rather than admonish me for the swell of doubt, Dakota sighed and snuggled into me. His cheek pressed against my chest, and I must’ve fallen asleep, because—
Because next thing I knew, sunlight was streaming in the window, and I heard Jillian’s harsh, angry snap—
“Try it, motherfucker! We’ll see what happens.”
Dakota blinked up at me, scowling and annoyed, struggling to catch up even as I threw myself out of bed and shrugged into my robe. I took the stairs down at a quick hop, and Jillian was there in the living room, red in the face, looking a bit like she wanted to scream.
“What’s going on?”
Jillian’s jaw clenched, but she wasn’t alone. Seth was leaning back on the couch, one ankle draped over his knee, looking far more at ease than his darting eyes betrayed he was.
“Grant called.” Before I could even ask how, Seth’s lips twisted. “Cash’s phone.”
“He thinks he’s going to come here and what? Fucking throw down on the tarmac like we’re a bunch of brawlers,” Jillian started, incredulous.
But she was precisely right. That was exactly what was going to happen. That was how werewolves handled their issues, and the best I could hope for was to move the whole spectacle away from any humans.
Dakota had caught up with me in an oversized robe of his own, making the cozy kind of picture that had me wanting to crawl back into bed with him and never get out. He leaned into my side, slipping his hand in mine.
I looked at Seth. “I haven’t fought another wolf in—”
Since Reeve. It’d been since Reeve.
Sure, I’d put some people in line when they stepped out of it. There were other wolves around that didn’t belong to pack that sometimes thought it was a good idea to sniff around and cause trouble.
But there’d been nothing like Reeve.
Nothing like the kind of scrap that was coming my way from his younger brother.
Seth shook his head. “We’ll work on it. The full moon’s three weeks away. It’s instinct—your wolf against his. That little asshole isn’t going to take you out, Jax.” Seth flashed a white-toothed grin at me. “I’d like to see him try.”