Chapter 10
Emory
My eyes open on an unfamiliar ceiling.
Then I remember.
What a day.
And for the first time in my life, I’m not alone. I’m in Maxim’s bed, snuggled in his arms. We’re both naked and he’s holding me tight against his huge body. What a blissful feeling.
I’m his mate.
After a night’s sleep, that seems impossible. Except—
I put my fingers to the sore spot on the back of my neck. It kind of throbs when I touch it or think about it.
He gave me his claiming mark. Which means I’m his, forever.
There’s also an ache between my thighs, from where his giant cock took my virginity, and pounded me three more times that day.
Those naughty teenage fantasies I used to have about being his… they were nothing compared to the reality of being ravished by Maxim. Of coming all over his cock, while he set my insides on fire.
And my childish brain wasn’t capable of imagining myself being mated to him.
A wolf’s mate.
Maxim’s mate.
I say the words over and over in my head, and tingles run through me.
This is real.
It means he’ll protect me, always. We’ll be together forever. One day, when I’m ready, I’ll bear his pups. Last night, he explained to me what being a wolf’s mate really means.
It means loyalty.
A lifelong partner bond, that nothing can break.
Being completely protected by your mate.
Frequent mating, and plenty of pups.
Maxim is ready for pups right now—his eyes turned soft as he told me. He can’t wait for us to have kids. But he knows I’ve got a bunch of things to do first, before it’s my time.
He’s right—I think it’ll be a couple of years before I’m ready, but I know he’ll be a great father when the time comes.
Maxim’s breathing is slow and regular. I lie still so I don’t wake him, and I just enjoy the moment. I stare up at the wooden ceiling, just breathing, inhaling his sexy, masculine smell.
No one knows we’re here. Maxim got me to ditch my phone SIM, and I’ve got a brand-new one. There’s not a single thing that can track us to this lovely little place.
For the first time in so many years, I don’t feel scared or watchful. I know I can trust him. My own professional bodyguard, whose senses are hundreds of times sharper than mine.
I’m finally safe from my father’s reach.
Lying safe and protected in Maxim’s embrace.
What a feeling.
At last, he gives a long, sleepy sigh. I freeze, a tiny bit of me wondering if he’ll decide yesterday was all some terrible mistake.
“C’mere,” he growls, and he draws me closer to him.
Little starbursts of joy fizz inside me.
“Good morning, my angel.” He plants a kiss on my forehead. “How did you sleep?”
“Think I slept right through.” I frown. “Wow, that’s a first.”
“Probably because it was real quiet out here.”
“Or maybe because I was sleeping in your arms.”
He gives a chuckle that sounds very unlike the Maxim I know.
“I’m sure glad to hear that.” He nuzzles at my neck, inhaling deeply.
“God, you smell incredible. Like mayflowers. All sweet and fertile.” He lifts a hand and cups my bare breast. I sigh, which turns into a moan as he gently tweaks my nipple.
Then his hand slides down between my legs. “How’s that little pussy of yours?”
He’s inquired about my pussy a couple of times already.
I love that he worries about it. I can’t lie, it hurt like crazy when he tore through my virginity, but it was worth every second of pain for his cock to be the first thing that went inside me.
Even when I was a lonely teenager, touching myself all the time and thinking about him, I never used a vibrator or anything.
Because in my fantasies, his cock was going to be the first thing inside me.
And it has been. Stretching me out, almost splitting me in two. But so, so good.
Making me come like crazy, until I couldn’t take any more.
“It’s better,” I tell him.
“That’s good to hear,” he growls. He caresses my labia with light fingertips.
That feels so good. Right away, I start to get wet, my pussy beginning to ache for his cock. He keeps going, casually, like he’s in no rush at all. Heat floods my core and I squirm under his touch.
Then he spreads my pussy open, and I’m lost.
“Fuck,” I mutter. I’m open, so ready for him.
“You want me to fuck you again?” His breath is hot on my ear.
“Uh huh.”
“You sure you’re wet enough for my cock?”
I bite my lip. “I don’t know,” I lie.
He climbs on top of me and shoves my legs wide apart with his big, muscular thighs. I sense his cock, looming right above my pussy, but just out of reach. He’s not touching me anymore, he’s just pinning me there, spread and ready for him. Kissing my mouth, my neck, sucking on my nipples.
I make a sound of frustration. Damn. He’s enjoying this. I can feel my wetness seeping out of me and dripping down onto the mattress. My pussy is aching like crazy for him.
“Maxim, I’m wet enough. Fuck me already,” I exclaim.
He crooks a thick eyebrow. “Hmmm… what’s the magic word?”
“Please!” I burst out. “Please fuck me.”
He gives a raw sound of need, and pushes his cock against my entrance.
“So big,” I pant as his big, broad head enters me.
“Your little pussy needs to get used to my girth,” he grunts. “I’ve got to stretch it out, day after day, until it’s a perfect fit for my cock. And only my cock.” He forces himself in, slowly but relentlessly, until he’s balls-deep inside me. I feel like he’s impaled me.
“You have any idea how good your pussy feels?” He stares down at me intensely.
“Tight… I guess,” I gasp out.
A wicked smile tugs at his lips. “So, so tight,” he confirms. “Gripping my cock like it was made for me.”
I shudder at his words. “I think it was,” I say.
“That’s right. Made for me,” he repeats, thrusting himself into me. “Whose is it?”
“It’s yours,” I say, right away, and another rush of arousal surges in me.
“That’s right, it’s mine.” He goes harder and faster. Arching over me, his big cock hammers into me, screwing me into the mattress.
I come all over his dick, one, two, three times, panting, gasping, begging for more. And he doesn’t quit.
Only when I’m lying helpless, all wet and messy and sated, does he grip me tight and unleash his hot seed, deep inside me.
Maxim is as good as his word—he does stretch my pussy out, day after day.
I learn that being a wolf’s mate also means having a lot of outdoor sex, on the porch, in the forest. It’s important for his beast to mate in its most natural environment.
And I’m glad to connect with it. It’s always there when we mate, right below the surface, glowing in his eyes, in the fierceness of his touch, and it’s part of his wild sexiness.
I love how much he wants me. He rarely wears clothes—he says shifters usually walk around naked when there are no prudish humans to see them—and I’m treated to the sight of him gloriously naked all the time, nothing concealing that big, cock from me.
Most of the time it’s hard, or semi-hard, always ready to shove its way inside me.
I’m a little shyer than him, and I usually wear at least a slip dress to preserve my modesty, but it only takes a touch or a kiss from Maxim, and I’m aching for my mate to claim me again.
And when we’re not fucking, we get to know each other again. Not as bodyguard and ward, but as a wolf and his mate. My sexy older man, who’s teaching me so much about life.
This little cabin and the vegetable garden outside become our whole world, and I couldn’t be happier.
I spend a lot of time cooking. The kitchen is high-spec and it’s a dream to cook in.
Maxim buys me some extra utensils, as well as the long list of ingredients I give him.
All day long, I try out new recipes, and at lunchtime and in the evening, I feed him.
He’s always full of compliments and helpful suggestions.
While I’m cooking up a storm in the kitchen, he runs his business remotely, at the little wooden dining table, his huge frame hunched over his laptop, right by my side. Then in the afternoons, when the sun has lost its fierce heat, we tend the garden together.
One beautiful day after another.
I love what we’re building together. Every day I fall more and more deeply for him. I feel like we’ve always been together. I even forget that there was this long period when we weren’t in each other’s lives.
We’re in a perfect bubble.
Except for that one thing that keeps nagging at me: his brother. Rotting in jail.
Maxim doesn’t talk about him a lot, except to say that he’s a real good guy, and the charges against him were bullshit. But I know he must be weighing heavily on his mind.
And I can’t stop thinking that it’s my fault. Maxim gave up his chance to help his brother in favor of saving me.
“You can leave me here by myself for a while, you know?” I tell him one morning. He’s just come back from a run in the forest, and his eyes have that wild, intense look they always get when he’s just shifted back from his wolf form.
“What?”
“If you need to go and help your brother. I’ll be okay here.”
“No!” he almost shouts. Still naked, he strides across the cabin, snatches me up in his arms and plants me down on the kitchen counter. “You’re mine, Emory.” He presses his forehead to mine. “A wolf does not leave its mate. Ever. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” I say, startled by his fierceness.
“There was a reason why things unfolded the way they did that day.”
That day. All those things that could’ve stopped us from meeting.
He could’ve been in a different chain gang.
Another restaurant could’ve agreed to supply lunch.
I could’ve refused to deliver it. All those little happenings that conspired to enable that unlikely meeting to happen. It gives me shivers to think about it.
How easily he could’ve slipped through my fingers.
He strokes my hair. “I’m working on helping my brother,” he tells me. “But leaving you here, unprotected, is not the answer.”
That evening, a seed of an idea plants itself in my head, and I do something I haven’t done for a long time—I Google my father’s case.
And when I click on the first result that appears, my stomach plummets:
Head of Manzoni crime family set to walk free as witnesses alter testimony en masse
Says the news headline.
“Motherfucker,” I whisper. He’s done it. He’s got to them all.
The trial is set to continue on Monday morning, on what is expected to be the final day of the hearing.
It’s believed that, unless any new evidence is uncovered at the eleventh hour, Manzoni is likely to be found not guilty of the many, many crimes with which he has been charged.
Legal experts describe this as the worst travesty of justice that has ever occurred in this country.
I swallow hard to stop myself from throwing up.
Previously, my father was looking at life without parole.
The FBI read out a list of charges to me while they were convincing me to testify against him. I was in tears before they’d gotten a quarter of the way through.
I’ve long since emotionally detached from the reality that it’s my father, my own flesh and blood, who’s been doing these despicable things. I just feel so, so awful for his victims.
Now, every single one of them has been intimidated—or worse—into not testifying against him.
Except for one.
I close my eyes as the last few months of my life flashes through my memory. The disguises, the lying, the fear. The constant looking over my shoulder.
I’ve got to do this.
But there’s no way I can get Maxim caught up in it.
I’ve got to do it alone.
It kills me to hide anything from him. But if I told him what I was planning to do, he’d stop me.
I promise myself, this is the dead last time.
The only time he leaves me alone is when he goes hunting. These days his beast needs a release twice a day, after it was trapped in jail for so long. So, the next morning, I wait until he’s gone out, and I leave. I drive his SUV down to Twin Falls, and I buy an old car with my secret wad of cash.
I leave the SUV at the near end of Main Street, with the key fob in the wheel well. Then I take a moment to call my old contact at the FBI—right before I drive hell-for-leather back to a world I hoped I’d never see again.