Chapter 41 - Dove
At the end of our one-week hiatus on the island, I finish towel-drying my hair in the bathroom and stare at the fogged mirror.
My reflection looks… Different. Unsettled but not in a bad way. More like I’ve been unplugged and rebooted, and all my internal parts have recalibrated around… Him.
My darling wolf.
This week gave us quiet mornings, slow nights, honest answers, stolen hours where nothing hurt, and the best sex of my life.
He taught me how to fish off the dock, and I learned that I don’t have the patience for it. We played cards with his family, and I learned that Leo is a sore loser and that Kody is a sneaky cheat.
We ate dinner with his family on the outdoor patio, worked out in the home gym, and took full advantage of the pool.
And now it’s ending.
My heart rate is all over the place because I don’t know what life looks like once we leave this house, this strange, precious bubble we hid ourselves in.
I’m terrified I’m about to lose it.
I’m equally terrified I’m not.
Under all the clashing noise, something louder pushes against my breastbone. A pressure. A truth. Three words I’ve been carrying like held breath. They’ve been sitting in my lungs all week, swelling with every glance, touch, and easy grin Wolf tosses my way.
I’ve told other men something before. Variations. Performances. Nothing that came with this intensity, this clarity, this life-altering certainty.
This is absolute.
Wolfson Strakh isn’t a gentle drift or a stumbling detour. He’s a roar in my chest. A pounding beneath my skin. Losing him would be losing an organ. He’s vital. Integral. An essential part that doesn’t grow back.
I can’t lose him.
With a steadying breath, I return to the bedroom in a long T-shirt and undies, my hair damp around my shoulders.
He’s sprawled across the bed, head tipped back, eyes closed. His arms lay out to the sides like he’s offering himself up to a god who never deserved him.
It looks like prayer.
A heathen’s prayer.
“You falling asleep on me?” I ask.
“Never,” he says without lifting his lids.
Then he opens them, and that arctic blue gaze knocks the air out of me.
He looks lighter. Not healed. Not even close. But more distributed. Like the heaviness he carries found a way to spread out instead of crushing him all in one spot.
I climb onto the bed beside him, and he rolls, facing me, his hands tugging my hips until we’re pressed together.
“What’s going on?” He narrows his eyes as if trying to see straight into the center of me.
My throat thickens.
This is it.
No running. No hedging. No half-truths.
“I love you.” The words leave me in a rush, almost violent in their urgency.
His breath stops. His lashes flutter. Shock freezes his entire body for one second, two seconds, three… Then his face cracks with pure, blinding happiness.
He tries to hide it. Of course, he tries. He pushes his tongue into his cheek, nostrils pulsing, fighting a grin, fighting the wide-eyed innocence threatening to spill out.
But he can’t mask it. Not from me.
His fingers sweep up my arm and tremble against my cheek as he brings his mouth to mine, eyes blazing with reciprocated love.
“Of course, you do,” he says hotly, hoarsely. “You never stood a chance.”
He leans his forehead against mine, the grin winning, boyish and smug. Somehow, that arrogance makes my heart bang harder.
He’s still smiling when he rolls onto his back and releases a satisfied breath. I follow the movement, propping myself on an elbow beside him.
“We leave the island tomorrow.” I run a finger down his chest, tracing the longest scar beneath his ribs. “Back to everything.”
His nose wrinkles. “We could stay. Build a treehouse. Start our cult. Only rule is nudity after breakfast. And before.”
“Be serious.”
“I am serious.” He turns his head toward me. “I don’t want to go back to separate schedules and walking around Sitka pretending we don’t have an entourage of bodyguards.”
“We can’t stay here forever.”
“Why not?”
I laugh under my breath, because, of course, Wolfson Strakh asks why not to reality like it’s negotiable.
Reality won’t wait for us. Not while Jag is hacking systems, controlling cameras, and making enemies with every criminal organization under the sun. As expected, Monty’s private investigator has uncovered fuck all on my stepbrother and his associates.
“Did you tell Taaq you’re returning tomorrow?” Wolf shifts closer, sliding a hand under my T-shirt, warm palm settling against my stomach.
“Yeah. I have a full roster waiting for me. Brake jobs, filter changes, oil leaks… Back to minimum wage and greasy hands.”
He studies me for a long beat. Too long. “You know you don’t have to do that, right?”
“I like working on cars.”
“I know.” He nods slowly. “You used to have your own garage. Specialized in vintage engines. You like working on those. The ones you choose. But that shop in Sitka? It’s not the same thing.”
I look away, because he’s right. I love vintage engines, the old-timey mechanics, the well-built parts, the delicious history. But being elbow-deep in strangers’ junkers while a shop owner hovers over my shoulder with a clipboard? That isn’t passion. It’s survival.
“Stubborn little dove.” His fingers skim over my pierced nipple. “You don’t have to survive now.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“You bet your pretty ass it is. Because I can fix this part.” He sits up a little, resting his cheek against his shoulder as he looks at me. “What are you trying to prove by staying in that job?”
“I’m not trying to prove anything.”
“Then why does it feel like you’re punishing yourself?”
That knocks something loose in my chest. I swallow hard.
“Look, my brothers and I inherited everything Denver hoarded. And Rurik Strakh’s empire. And my dad’s old accounts. Offshore stuff I didn’t even know existed until Monty dumped the folders on the table.” He widens his eyes dramatically. “I have more money than I can ethically talk about out loud.”
“I don’t need your money.”
“I know. That’s why I want you to take it.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Sure it does.” He cups my breast, thumbing the nipple. “You’re not with me for my money. You’re with me for—”
“Your tiny pancakes.”
“I was going to say the best sex of your life.”
“Definitely the pancakes.”
He squeezes my breast with a wolfish smile. “You’re not trapped anymore.”
“Feels like I’m trapped.” I wriggle in his grip, matching his smile.
“You don’t have to cling to scraps to feel safe.”
“I’m not clinging.”
“You are.” He releases me and moves to my other breast, teasing me there.
“It’s okay. I get it. But you don’t need to anymore.
Your independence isn’t tied to a clock-in screen at some garage.
” His voice sinks into a dark, velvety rumble.
“You’re with me. That doesn’t make you less. It gives you room to breathe.”
The fight goes out of me all at once. It’s like my shoulders release for the first time in years.
“So what?” I whisper. “I just… Quit?”
“If it makes you miserable? Yeah. Let me take care of you. Not because you’re weak. Because you don’t have to do everything alone.”
“What about you? Will you quit, too?”
“Absolutely. Whatever you want, my queen. Besides, Jag already fired me, remember? And it’s not like I need the money.”
“But you love going in.”
“Because it’s fun. I show up whenever I want, tattoo whatever I want, turn away the idiots, and listen to Declan fill the silence with his unhinged conspiracies.
I mean, he doesn’t shut up, but I kind of miss the guy.
He’s awkward and odd as hell, and… Nice.
Really nice. Being around him is better than being alone.
But now I have you, so lonely isn’t a thing anymore. ”
“You’re right. You’re not alone anymore. But you can’t quit.”
“Well, I’m not going to keep my job if I convince you to ditch yours. That’s villain behavior. Grade-A dick move.”
“Except what you have isn’t a job. It’s a passion. You’re pursuing what you love at your shop. That’s not what I’m doing at my shop.”
“What are you saying?”
My mouth dries, but not in a scared way. In a maturing way. In a way that growth brings discomfort and surrender releases its grip on the things that hold me back.
“Okay,” I breathe.
“Okay?” His eyes shine, luminous and hungry. “You’ll quit?”
“Yeah.”
He grabs me by the hips and yanks me flush against him, his smile feral and sweet as he presses it against my mouth.
Then he goes still.
“Wait a damn minute.” He leans back, brows puckered. “Did I just run accidental reverse psychology on you?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I totally did. I told you to quit, then somehow made it about me quitting, and you argued I should keep my job, which magically proved you should quit yours. This is sorcery.” He beams at me, his grin way too wide, all feigned surprise, the exact expression of a man who knows what he’s doing and can’t wait to do it again.
“You’re so obnoxious when you get your way.”
“I regret nothing.”
“You might’ve won this round, but don’t get comfortable.” Setting my palm to his sternum, I give a firm push. “I have a condition.”
He goes down easily, flat on his back and hair fanning against the pillow.
“Give it to me, Wildbird.” His troublemaking, kiss-stealing, too-pretty mouth slants in a lopsided grin.
I climb over him, sliding onto his chest and settling into my rightful place. My legs tuck along his ribs, my hands braced on either side of his shoulders, our noses a twitch apart.
His breath hitches. Mine licks over his mouth.
“My condition for quitting is…” I slide a hand between his legs and feel him thicken in my grip. “You have to put your cock in my mouth.”
“Hmm… Let me think.” He sucks at the corner of his bottom lip, feigning deep concentration. Then his gravel-rough voice rasps across my skin. “You have no idea how much yes.”
“Really? Because every time I try to go down on you, you stop me.”
“Mother Mary’s dangling cherry.” He closes his eyes, breathes deeply, then meets me stare for stare. “I’m new at this, okay? My control levels are questionable, and I’m still figuring out the whole lasting forever magic show.”
“You don’t need to last forever.”
“Cute theory, but I’m an overexcited rookie. The mere thought of your lips on my dick already kicked off the pre-party. Like the tap’s open and the opening credits are rolling. Don’t believe me?” He shoves down his boxers, freeing his enormously hard, very wet erection.
“You’re overthinking it.”
“Tell that to the low-pressure leak.” His abs flex restlessly. “This is a bust-a-nut the instant you tongue-a-nut situation.”
“Let me worry about that.” I scoot backward, lowering myself down his legs and taking his boxers with me.
“Wait.” He fists my hair, stopping my descent. “What happens when I need to come?”
“Then you come.” I glide a loose fist along his length. “Shoot it straight down my throat, and I’ll swallow all of you.”
“Sweet sin on a Sunday.” He drops his head back, his hand falling to the mattress. “You’ll be the death of me.”
“Relax. I’ll revive you.”
He said Denver never crossed this line, so it shouldn’t be a trigger. Even so, I’m cautious, paying attention to his breath, his muscles, the smallest changes as I stretch out between his legs and lower my head.
Beautiful. I’ve never thought of a dick in that way, but the long, thick, leaking hardness between Wolf’s legs is unreasonably, irresistibly beautiful. He’s immaculately formed, uncut, no blemishes, no curves, nothing outside the golden rule of proportions.
Except his size.
His length and girth are significantly more impressive than every man I’ve been with.
My brain fires in eighty filthy directions as I stare into his eyes and slowly lick a wet circle around the bulging, plump head.
His jaw falls open, and his muscles lock. Not a single part of him moves as I take him into my mouth.
Oh, damn.
The sound he makes is guttural, wild, dragged from a place of pure ecstasy. So. Fucking. Sexy.
His head snaps back against the pillow. His throat arches, long and cut with muscle, every line of it tightening as another obscene sound punches out of him.
He’s hot and slippery against my tongue, pulsing hard, the skin smooth and tight. I trace the swollen veins with my lips and palm his heavy balls, learning the shape and texture of him.
“Dove…” A mangled whisper.
His hand fists in the sheets beside him, and his stomach tenses, the hard ridges flexing with the swirl of my tongue. His hips jerk, uncontrolled and instinctive, before he forces them down with a bitten-off groan.
All his usual swagger is gone, his flirty smiles and patented one-liners nowhere to be seen.
He’s actually shaking. His eyes squeeze shut. His back arches, and his thighs go rigid around me.
He’s losing the battle, and we both know it.