Chapter 29
CHAPTER 29
C hristophe
“You still shouldn’t be out here,” I tell Ashley, even as I bring her hand, intertwined in mine, to my chest. I run the tip of my finger across the skin of her hand, admiring how soft it is. I doubt it’s something I could ever get used to. No matter how much time we had together.
Ashley giggles. “I’m ticklish.”
I nod, even though she can’t see me. We’re sitting with our favorite rock between us. Me facing in the direction of the forest, her facing toward the river. Even with her hand in mine, it’s not enough, but it will have to do.
“I know,” I finally answer.
I hear rustling behind me. “How do you know?”
My lips spread as I recall the way her body trembled as my fingers ran across the skin of her face and neck. The way she let out a little snort that she attempted to stifle the first time my lips brushed across the beating vein in her neck.
“Your body tells on you.”
“Huh?”
I stroke her hand again, and a light tremor races through her. It’s so subtle that most would miss it, but I don’t.
“There,” I say. “Every time I touch you like that, your body gives it away.” As sensitive as she is to my touch, it’s unsurprising that she’s ticklish.
“Can’t hide much from you,” she responds. “At least one of us can’t hide from the other.”
I don’t miss the sarcasm in her tone.
“You’ll hurt her.”
Her sister’s words are a whispered reminder in my mind. It’s selfish of me to be here right now. To have touched her the way I did earlier. I’d hoped feeling her come again for me would somehow sate the burning desire in my core that never ceases for her.
The problem is, now it’s only stronger. Even as I sit here, the remnants of her orgasm a not-so-distant memory, and it’s still not enough. I want to see her and to be inside of her.
“What are you thinking?”
“How I’d love to see another one of your drawings.”
She laughs. “I was so mad when I decided to storm over to your house that I forgot my notepad.”
I pinch my lips together. The pathetic ‘I’m sorry’ is on the verge of escaping, but it would only be hollow. Because though it hurts like hell, I’m not sorry for staying away from her. My aim is always to keep her safe, protect her.
And I stayed away because I believed it was best for her.
Even now, I suspect a stronger wolf would be able to stay away to keep her safe. Yet, hearing her voice, feeling her in my arms, weakens my ability to turn her away.
“We’ve made progress in tracking down those responsible for the prison,” I tell her instead of the truth.
“How many more do you have left to find?”
“A few. One of the guys who brought the guards in for their debts owed on drugs, and those fucking doctors,” I growl out.
“Drugs?”
I nod. “Drugs are a big problem in a lot of shifter communities. Lone wolves also turn to them to sell as a way to make money since being kicked out of their packs.”
“I didn’t know that,” she says. “And this guy, you think he’s the key to tracking down Dr. X?”
I cringe at the sound of the name of the doctor who ran that prison. The crazy son of a bitch who conducted experiments like he was Mother Moon herself.
“Yes,” I tell her, even though that’s not the full truth. It’s our hope, the last clue we have to lead us in the direction of Dr. X.
“I’m still working a few other angles to try to find him also,” I tell her, though I haven’t shared it with anyone else.
“What are they?”
“The chat groups I used to frequent,” I confess. I push out a harsh breath, bracing myself for her response.
“The one where you met that guy, Rufus, was it?”
Another nod.
“Yes. He was one of the wolves on the board of the National Shifter Alliance. I didn’t know it was him when we started interacting,” I explain, though I’ve told her this before.
Ashley’s quiet for a moment. I imagine all types of doubts running through her head.
“Do you think that’s best?”
I run my free hand through my hair. “I owe it to … to … I have to check out every angle I can think of to track that crazy bastard down. To make sure he never gets the chance to hurt anyone like he hurt you again.”
“And you,” Ashley adds.
“What?”
“I wasn’t the only one he hurt in that place. Look at what he did to you.” She snorts. “If anything, he hurt you a lot worse than he did me.”
I’m glad she can’t see me at this moment as I shake my head.
I bring her hand to my lips, kissing the outside of her palm. “I’m fine.”
Though that’s not the truth, I won’t have her worrying about me. “Tell me about the drawings you did out at the caves with Emery,” I encourage.
“You just want to hear me ramble.”
I chuckle. “You know me so well.”
“I still can’t believe you enjoy the sound of my voice as much as you claim,” she shoots back.
“No,” I reply. “I probably can’t convey in words how much I adore the sound of your voice. Tell me about the drawings and everything else you’ve done over the past week. Don’t skip one detail.”
She gasps and calls out my name when I move to the part of the boulder that faces the river.
Keeping my eyes pointed forward, I draw her into me at the same time I bring my body to lay down until I’m staring up at the night sky.
Ashley moves her body, until she’s comfortably tucked into my side, my arm holding her close and her head resting on my shoulder.
I lean in to sniff the crown of her head. A heady sweet scent that only could belong to her fills my nostrils.
Mine, my wolf growls.
I don’t have the strength to fight against or challenge his assumption. Especially not when I know it’s my stupid fault on why that outcome could never be.
“Why don’t you talk instead?” Ashley says after a moment of silence.
Instead of scenting, I kiss the top of her head before lowering my head to the ground and then pointing at the stars.
“Do you see those three stars there?” I fold my finger toward the brightest of the three and then trace the angle they create. “The brightest one creates the tip. On either side it’s like a scale tipping.”
I hold up my fingers, tracing the imaginary scale the stars create. “Do you see it?”
“Hmhmm,” she hums as she turns her body into mine.
I hold her closer, watching as she stares toward where I’m pointing.
“That’s the Libra constellation.”
“Like the zodiac?” She starts to tilt her head upwards as if to look at me, but then she freezes. She goes back to staring at the sky.
“Yes,” I answer. “It’s your zodiac sign.” A smile touches my lips.
“How did you know that?”
“You told me the date.” What I don’t tell her is that every night since I stopped speaking with her even through text, I spent staring up at the stars looking at this very constellation. All because I’d claimed it as hers.
“How do you know about the constellations?” she asks.
“My mother.” I tell her what I’ve never shared with anyone else. “My birth mom, she used to love constellations, astrology, zodiac signs, and all of that stuff. My dad …” I trail off, raw memories starting to resurface.
“He didn’t like her talking about it, and more than once he became violent whenever he saw she had been reading books about it.”
“We’re already the laughingstock of this fucking pack! Are you trying to make it worse?”
“Before he destroyed the last book she had, that’d been passed down from her mother, she would open it up and tell me about the constellations. On late nights when I couldn’t sleep, she would lay with me and point out and name the stars.”
Ashley moves her hand until it covers my chest, just over my heart. “She sounds really sweet.”
I nod. “She was sweeter than he deserved.”
“You too.”
I raise my head to look down at her, but she quickly covers my eyes with her hand. I almost forgot.
As I lower my head, I push out a sigh.
“What do you mean?” I ask, with her hand still covering my eyes.
“You were too sweet for him, too. He should’ve been a better father to you. Maybe then you wouldn’t have been so lonely,” she adds.
I mull her words over.
“He’s not the reason I did what I did,” I finally say. “I don’t need to use him as an excuse for my actions.”
“No,” she quickly counters. “But it’s a partial explanation.”
“You had terrible parents, and you didn’t betray the people closest to you.”
“But I always had Emery. I knew despite everything she still had my back and my best interests at heart.”
My heart squeezes in my chest as the memory of Emery coming to visit me comes back to mind.
“So yeah, I was lonely at times. Maybe even a lot, but I had my big sister,” Ashley continues.
It occurs to me to tell her that I had two brothers. Not my blood brothers like Emery is hers, but we did grow up together. The truth is, though, I always felt separate from Chael and Chance.
I knew my wolf wasn’t as strong as theirs, nor was he meant to be. My wolf was birthed to be the follower to either of their leadership roles. That’s just how it goes in the pecking order of the wolfpack.
“Who did you have?” Ashley asks.
I open and close my mouth a few times. Saying no one would be a lie. There are members of the pack I could’ve gone to here and there, but I chose to stay to myself. To cloud myself in the lie that no one cared about me.
“Ashley—” Whatever I was about to say gets cut off when Ashley covers my eyes again right before pressing her lips against mine. That sensation of free-falling but without the fear overcomes me. As it does every time we kiss.
I push away the questions of how in the hell am I going to live without this feeling once I return to prison. At some point the memories won’t be enough, and worse still, it’ll be the memories that drive me to insanity.
What’s best is for me to push her away and stay away from her until I’m hauled off to jail for the rest of my days.
Yet, I’m too weak to do what makes the most sense. Rather, I open my mouth, allowing our tongues to caress one another, to savor one another’s.
“Promise to keep your eyes closed,” she says, whispering. “I want to do something.”
“What?”
“Just promise,” she insists. “Don’t open your eyes.”
I frown, which only makes her laugh. “You're so handsome when you frown. Almost as cute as when you smile.”
I should be insulted by being called cute. Am I, though? Of course not, because Ashley just called me cute with a slight hitch in her tone.
“Promise,” she insists.
“I promise.”
She cautiously removes her hand from over my eyes. I keep my word and don’t open them, though I want nothing more, even knowing the result.
But that notion gets pushed from my head when the weight of Ashley’s body moves down the length of my body. Soon, her hands are undoing the button of my jeans.
“What are you …” I trail off as the answer becomes abundantly clear when she pulls my semi-erect dick out of my jeans.
“I want to do for you what you did for me.” The innocence in her voice tugs at all of the restraint inside of me. “This is my first time, so just tell me if I’m doing anything wrong.”
Those are her last words before wet heat covers my shaft.
Her mouth!
She’s just covered the tip of my cock with her mouth. The wetness of her tongue as she guides it up the underside of my shaft sends a chill coursing down my spine.
I jump slightly, though, when her teeth bump up against my shaft.
She pulls away. “Sorry.”
I shake my head. “Don’t be sorry. Just go a little slower.” I lower my hand to the back of her head, slowly guiding her back onto my erection. “Widen your jaw,” I instruct.
She does, allowing her to take me deeper into her mouth. Ashley moves, fully seating herself in between my legs. With my eyes still closed, I use both of my hands to gather her long braids at the back of her head.
Fisting the braids in one hand, I use it to continue guiding her up and down my shaft, until she finds her own rhythm.
Every now and again her teeth scrape against the skin of my cock but that doesn’t detract from the pleasure she’s giving me. If anything, it adds to it. I get off on knowing she hasn’t done this for anyone else.
Mine!
This time it’s not just my wolf that declares this. Both my human and my wolf have gotten away from what I know is best. All that exists is right now. With Ashley on her knees, between my legs, my cock in her mouth, my hand fisted in her hair.
There’s only one thing that could make this better.
If I could watch her.
I want to know what she looks like taking my cock in her mouth. Not for the first time, I wish to see beyond the pain that was tortured into me.
“Shit!” I curse as a violent orgasm rips through me. My back becomes so rigid that I sit all of the way up.
Ashley doesn’t move away from me. In fact, she keeps her mouth wrapped around me as I come.
Is she … is she swallowing my semen?
The thought alone has me coming even harder. By the time I remember to take my next breath, my throat is scratchy and dry, making me realize I must’ve been shouting.
Ashley moves away from my now flaccid dick, her hand going up to cover my eyes. A breath later, her lips are on mine. My fist, which is still in her hair, tightens and I drag her deeper into the kiss.
The taste of me on her is not something I will ever forget or get over.
Mine! Mine! Mine! my wolf insists, and I can’t tell him he’s wrong. This woman belongs to me. My other half. No. My better half.
“Mine,” I growl against her lips.
“From the moment you called out to me in the dark cell, I’ve been yours,” she whispers, solidifying her place in my heart.