Chapter 11
ROY
Shit. Shit.
The sweat on my skin was drying, and my heart was coming down from stroke level. It hadn’t been a full-on panic attack because I’d had my mate at my side, but my wolf had been freaking out.
He sure as fuck didn’t like being imprisoned any more than I did. He didn’t know the difference between an elevator and a military jail cell.
I did my usual quick sweep of the room once I shut the door behind us then went to the mini bar and grabbed a bottle of water, twisted off the cap, and started chugging.
I appreciated Boone getting this expansive space now more than ever.
I needed to remain calm for my mate, and that sure as fuck hadn’t just happend.
It wasn’t the size of the room that was an issue because my cabin in the woods wasn’t as spacious.
It was the fact that the room was on the top floor of a hotel in the middle of a city, and I’d just taken an elevator to get there.
Denver had some big parks, but there was concrete everywhere. Cars. People.
Ten days in a jail cell awaiting a military tribunal had damaged me and my wolf, and that meant I couldn’t be strong for my mate. I couldn’t protect her if I was losing my shit.
She’d comforted me.
“Have you always been claustrophobic?” Brooke asked.
I couldn’t lie to my mate. Ever. But this… weakness was shameful. I couldn’t be strong for her if she knew that I had weaknesses.
“Not always.” I paced the room, ran a hand over my head. The hair by my temple was sweaty. “It’s… PTSD from the service.”
From the jail cell they put me in after I killed one of my commanding officers. A rapist and a murderer, the fucker.
“Tell me what happened.” Brooke’s voice was soft, as if she knew she needed to be strong for me. I guessed that was what having a mate was like. We balanced each other out.
Not that I believed she was on board with being my mate, yet. Still, her instincts were there, and that was a good start.
She settled onto the couch, the one where I’d fucked her for the first time. And second. And where we spent the night with me curled around her. All I wanted to do was bury my face between her legs again and get her taste on my tongue to make the entire world go away.
No fucking mob. No past. Only a future with her. I wanted to get lost in my mate and never be found.
But she deserved an answer, especially after what she just witnessed. Shame swirled with the sick feeling in my gut remembering what it had been like to be locked up.
I sat down beside her and toed off my boots.
She kicked off her heels. I stared down at my hands.
“I grew up on a mountain in Montana. I was raised with wide open skies and plenty of land to run on. But my family was fucked up, like most, and I thought it would be best if I went and found myself in the Marines. One of my packmates, Colton, who was like an older brother to me, was a Green Beret. I admired the fuck out of him, so I thought the military would be the best place for me.”
“Packmates?” Brooke smiled.
Fuck. I forced out a laugh to hide my mistake.
“I mean buddies.” I tunneled my fingers through my hair again.
“Anyway, it turned out that I was good at it. I had the physicality. Had no problem following a chain of command. It seemed like a pretty good fit. I did three tours in Afghanistan. I saw some shit that was hard to swallow, but I was still okay. But on the third tour, I had this commanding officer.” I drew in a breath.
My throat closed. I hadn’t told this story since I’d gotten back. The pack knew what happened and why I’d returned but from Selena Jenkins, my lawyer, not me. Why I needed to stay holed up making furniture on the mountain with my asocial brothers. No one made me relive it, thank fuck.
Except for now. I shouldn’t tell her. She was already freaked out about me killing the guys who were after her. She’d almost bolted from my van. Adding another dead body to my count wasn’t going to do me any favors, even if he deserved to be dead.
“I, um, had a run-in with him, and it landed my ass in a military jail cell. I–” I shook my head and stole another look. She was gazing at me with intelligent, understanding eyes. I didn’t ever want to violate the trust she seemed to have in me.
I shrugged. And switched what I was going to say to remain vague. “Anyway. It was only ten days that I was held in that tiny cell. It shouldn’t have driven me crazy, but it did. I mean, literally. I lost my shit.”
Because a full moon had come and gone while I’d been behind bars.
“It took that long for the charges to be dropped, and I was discharged, but I was never the same. I went home to Montana and started making furniture. I’d always tinkered with wood when I was younger and turned it into a pretty successful business.
I live way up on the mountain, away from people.
Plenty of room to not feel cornered. Being here in the city is hard for me, but the trade show is a way to get my pieces in front of new clients.
But elevators? Forget it.” I forced a wry smile and raised my hand in the air like a game show hostess.
“I wouldn’t have come if my brother hadn’t booked me this big penthouse suite, so I wouldn’t feel so trapped in the city. ”
“Ah,” she said. “I wondered why you had such a fancy suite. It didn’t seem to fit your personality.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Yeah. I don’t need fancy. But I do need space.”
“Now you’re trapped again in this suite with me.” She sounded regretful.
I snatched up her hand and squeezed it. My wolf and I would love to be trapped with her, forever. Just as long as it wasn’t in a fucking elevator. “No, it’s okay. Don’t worry about me. This is so fucking embarrassing. I will pull my shit together and be your man.”
She slipped her hand out of mine and stood. “You don’t have to man up. And, calling yourself my man is, um, a bit too much, don’t you think?”
My shoulders drooped. I was fucking up. Again. “Shit. Sorry. I swear I’m not presuming anything about you or us. I just want to be your man. That’s all.”
“Are you like this with every woman you save?” She sounded like she was trying for a jocular tone but failed. I’d made her nervous again.
“No.” I wanted to get off the couch and follow her, but I forced myself to remain still.
“Listen.” I spread my hands. “Maybe this is the exact wrong thing to say, but I want you to know it just the same. I haven’t been like this with any woman.
I don’t get attached to females I just met.
I don’t chase them down after they leave because I want to protect them.
This thing with you…is different. It felt like fate sent you right to my door.
I knew it the moment I smel–met you–that you were the one. ”
Brooke stared at me for a long moment.
Fuck. I’d really botched this, hadn’t I?
I remembered Boone had to really dial back his aggression when he met his mate, Summer.
She, too, was human, and hadn’t understood our ways.
They may have felt the attraction, but they didn’t know that it meant so much more.
They didn’t trust it blindly like we did.
Instead of leaving, she walked right between my knees and kissed the hell out of me.
Um… what the fuck? I wasn’t complaining, but I was stunned. I’d thought I’d driven her away. Instead–
Instantly, every particle that made up my body came alive.
Focused. All that noise in my head from being in the elevator stopped.
I banded an arm around her waist and boosted her onto my lap.
Her knees spread, sending that tight skirt skidding up her thighs and– oh fuck!
I got a glorious view of her bare pussy.
I’d never been so happy for pocketing those panties the night before.
I palmed her ass with both hands, kneading it as she undulated over my lap, her lips sliding and sucking across mine like her life depended on it.
This was the second time my mate had come in hot, and I was living for it. This female was everything. Her soft lips made me groan. Her caramel scent drove me mad. The scent of her arousal filled my nostrils.
“Shirt off, ” she demanded, mimicking my command the first time we’d made love.
I laughed and kissed her back. “Are you getting bossy now?”
Her cheeks had a feverish glow.
“That’s right.” She rocked those sexy hips over my lap.
I remembered how turned on she’d been by my dominance, so I brought my thumb to my mouth and made a show out of licking the pad of it.
“How about this?” I glanced down at her soaked pussy, but needed a better view.
With my hands on her knees, I spread them wide making her skirt rip up the seam along her right thigh.
“You unbutton my shirt while I see how swollen I can get that clit of yours.”
Her inner thighs clamped and trembled against my waist, and her pupils blew wide. A panting-moan fell from her lips.
I brought the pad of my thumb to the apex of her labia and slid it between the folds.
“Oh…ah!” Brooke threw her head back, her long, glossy black hair falling to her ass. I went slowly, lightly brushing my thumb over her most sensitive area.
She was panting like she was running a race, but she lifted her head and tried to focus on unbuttoning my shirt.
“Good fucking girl,” I praised, trailing kisses along the side of her neck.
She moaned, her eyes momentarily rolling back in her head.
Praise kink was definitely her thing. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons. I applied gentle pressure over her clit, eased back, then repeated, like I was lightly pressing a button.
She started mewling, shoving her hips forward to get more contact.
I slid my thumb lower to dip it in her juices, then brought it back up to her clit and made a tiny, feather-light circle around it.
Brooke’s fingers grew frantic with my shirt, as if opening it was somehow tied to her orgasm. She finally undid all of the buttons and yanked it down my shoulders. I shrugged it off, and she stilled.
“Your wound.” She eyed my arm where entry and exit wounds should still have been for another week or more, except because of my speed-healing, they were fully healed before the call from Boone and Rob woke me this morning. “It’s all better.”
“Told you it was no big deal.”
“But–”
“I heal quickly.” She’d been close to coming before my lack of a gunshot wound had distracted her, and my dick was so fucking hard I could use it as a hammer. I’d always tell her the truth, but now sure as hell wasn’t the time. Her pussy scent was in the air. Her juices on my fingers.
My wolf howled with the need to fuck. Now. Was. Not. The. Time.
With my hand still between her parted thighs, I put my attention back on her clit. Flicked it.
“It makes no sense,” she said, then moaned when I found a way to play with it that she liked.
Leaning in, I kissed her neck, and licked behind her ear as I slid my middle finger inside her pussy, fucking her with it. When she was writhing in my lap, I whispered, “I’m a shifter, sugar. I heal real fast. But I bet I can make you come again even faster.”
She didn’t respond to me telling her the truth, that I was a shifter, other than to grip my shoulders and take the finger fuck like a good girl and come all over my hand.
When I slipped my hand free, bringing the glistening fingers to my mouth, I licked them clean as she caught her breath.
When I had her taste coating my tongue, I said, “Now, unbutton my jeans, sugar.”