Chapter 6
The storm rages on and on and on. It feels like it'll never end, the wind howling through the cracks in the door, the windows.
Emmett sits on one side of the couch, and I sit on the other. He's pretending to read a book, but it's been a very long time since he turned the page. His eyes have stopped moving in any discernible way.
I've been trying to get service on my phone for the last hour. I really need to check my emails. Although, I think about what Emmett said, and it almost gets me to stop.
Could I move out here to the middle of nowhere with him? Could I give up my job in the city? Come stay? I always wanted a quiet life. We talked about it when we first got married. Something just like this. A cabin in the middle of nowhere, just the two of us.
But then, life happened. I got offered a job that was just way too much money to say no to. So we moved to the city. I worked, and he worked, and life just got louder and more chaotic every day. But we were together, so it was an easy sacrifice. At least, I thought so.
I glance up at him again. His golden skin, and the way that the firelight flickers across it.
Yes, I think I could give up everything if it meant being here with him.
Because what good is going back to the city and having a six-figure job and a perfect apartment and all of that shit if I don't have him?
Knowing everything that I do now, can I walk away again?
Can I just let him sign those papers and move on?
And then what? Meet someone else while still thinking about him every day, while longing for him?
I put my phone down. “Emmett.”
His eyes flicker to mine. “Yeah?” he says.
I’m pretty sure it's the first word that he's uttered since our conversation in the kitchen nook at breakfast. The day's almost over and we've been orbiting each other carefully, dancing around the situation without actually coming to any kind of solution.
“Do you remember that night the power went out?”
He blinks at me. I think he wasn't quite expecting that. Maybe I wasn't either, but it just popped into my head.
It was the middle of summer. The power went out, and with nothing else to do, we went to bed and fucked for hours, until we had to take a cold shower because we were both so filthy.
“Do you remember it?” I ask again.
He nods. “How could I possibly forget? Do you remember putting on your heels?”
I snort and feel a ridiculous blush crawl up my cheeks. “Yes, I remember.”
His eyes are glowing. A part of it is the firelight, but I think part of it is something else. That beastly side of him. And then his smile starts to fall away, and I can't stand to watch it go.
So I creep across the couch and crawl into his lap, straddling him.
“Brynne,” he says, his voice just a whisper, but he doesn't push me off of him. He wraps his arms around me.
“I want you,” I say. I've never been very good at denying myself, not where Emmett is concerned. And there's no universe in which I could deny myself right now, not after all this time. I'm going crazy from it.
“We can’t,” he says.
“Why not?” My mouth hovers over his, feeling the heat of his breath on me. “Why not, Emmett? I'm not scared of you.”
“You don't know anything about it,” he growls.
“You're right, I don’t.”
I press my hips down into his.
He groans. I can feel that his body is trembling under mine, and I can't tell if it's from desire or something else entirely.
“Brynne,” he warns again, but I kiss him. I kiss him with all the desire I've felt for the last two years.
“I need you,” I say into his mouth, and he lets out a snarl and shoves me off of him onto the couch.
He shoots up and everything happens so fast. Right before my eyes, just like last night, he goes from the Emmett that I know as well as I know myself to something more.
His body changes, shifts, grows by one foot, then two.
He was so far away last night that I didn't even realize how big this version of himself is.
Once he's full wolf, I have to admit that I am a little afraid, but he doesn't move. Doesn't lunge at me like I half expect him to. He just stands there on all fours, watching me, his chest heaving.
“Emmett?” I ask, my voice shaking just slightly. I pray he doesn’t notice, partly because I’m afraid my fear will trigger something predatory inside him, but partly because I’m embarrassed by how nervous I am.
He makes a snuffling noise in response.
“You understand me?”
He nods.
“And… you're still you?”
This time, he doesn't nod but kind of twists his head to the side, like he doesn't understand the question.
“I don't think you're going to hurt me.”
Again, there's no answer, just him watching me carefully.
I step toward him. He couldn’t get away, even if he wanted to. He’s so big in this small cabin, so big that there’s hardly anywhere for him to go without taking out a wall.
“Can you speak?”
He shakes his head just barely, and then lets out a sharp bark that makes me laugh.
“Okay, well, we'll have to work on that communication, I suppose. Is this what you were so afraid of?” I ask, stepping closer.
I expect him to step back, but he doesn't. He lets me come closer until I'm standing right in front of him. “Are you scared?”
Slowly, he nods.
“You're not gonna hurt me. Look at you.” I reach out, and my fingers find the fur on his head. He's so big that his head is level with my eyes. “But you can't control it?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“You can't turn back.”
Again, he shakes his head.
“Okay. Then, I’ll wait.” I walk over to the door and open it, his eyes on me as I go, and then step back away from it as the cold air rushes in. He’ll need to be outside, right? He needs to run and be a wolf, and… I don’t know.
He doesn’t go though. He watches me as I walk past the open door, where it’s raining and raining and raining, and sit on the edge of the couch.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “You can go if you need to.” I can’t believe this is the situation in which I find myself. I can’t believe I’m talking to my husband, who’s a wolf. My brain isn’t processing this. It doesn’t know how to make it seem real.
Emmett inches toward me, his half-glowing eyes never leaving mine, his long, sharp claws clacking against the wood floor.
He can probably smell my fear, hear the sound of my heart beating.
“Emmett?”
He doesn’t stop. He keeps stalking toward me, until the tip of his wet nose touches my knee. I’m still in the sweats he gave me yesterday, his nose leaving a dark spot on the soft fabric.
At first, I think he’s just sniffing me, just trying to have contact with me somehow. But then his nose nudges, pushing at the inside of my knee. I don’t know what he’s doing, but I instinctively follow his unspoken command and open my legs a little wider.
And then Emmett shoves his nose between my legs, sniffing right over my crotch.
“Emmett!” I squeak, slamming my legs closed around his head.
He pulls his head back, shaking his snout, and I suddenly worry that I might have hurt him.
“What are you doing?” I hiss at him, as if he can answer.
He holds my gaze for a moment and then his nose twitches. He tilts his head up and sniffs the air, and a flush races up my face when I realize what he’s implying.
He can smell that I’m aroused.
Well, what the hell did he expect? We were basically dry humping before he turned into a wolf.
He turns slightly toward the door, and I gasp when I get a glimpse between his legs. His cock is half-hard, red and dangling heavy between his legs. Emmett always did have a big dick, but his werewolf dick is almost twice the size.
And he’s… turned on?
Before I have a chance to process exactly what that means for us, Emmett has turned toward the door and bolted into the storm.