Chapter 44 – CAMILLE
THREE MONTHS LATER
CAMILLE
The walk from the car to our cabin takes longer than expected. Mrs. Hendricks waves from her garden, and I pause to admire her late-blooming roses.
"Beautiful," I tell her, hefting my bag higher on my shoulder.
"Your Jax helped me stake them properly last week," she says, beaming. "Such a good boy."
I hide my smile at anyone calling my mate a 'good boy,' and continue up the path. A basket sits by our door, covered with a checkered cloth. Inside, there are three jars of blackberry jam with a note: 'From the Wheelers—thanks for the help with the pups.'
The cabin smells like home when I step inside. Pine wood, coffee, and underneath it all, the mingling of our scents that marks this as ours. I set the jam on the counter, noticing the new shelves on the kitchen wall. Dark wood, perfectly level, and exactly what I'd mentioned wanting last week.
Paint cans and rags are tucked neatly in the corner by the window. Jax must have finished just before heading to the packhouse. Above the fireplace, a photo from last week's pack gathering catches my eye—us laughing at something off-camera, his arm around my waist, looking like we belong.
Three days. It shouldn't feel like forever, but the bond makes every separation ache.
Protection detail for the new prince is prestigious work, and the kind of assignment that usually goes to senior enforcers. Zane giving it to me raised eyebrows. Raven, I heard, was particularly bitter about being passed over.
I consider reaching through the bond to let Jax know I'm home, but I resist.
He's working, probably in the middle of treating someone or meeting with Kain. He'll sense I'm back soon enough. He's due home in an hour anyway.
Still, the restlessness won't settle. I need to move, to do something with my hands. Cooking will help.
I pull ingredients from the fridge, humming as I work. Chicken, vegetables, the herbs from the small garden we started. Simple fare that will taste like heaven after days of elaborate palace meals.
Knife work is soothing, familiar. Dice the onions, slice the peppers, crush the garlic. The oil is just starting to sizzle when the door crashes open.
Jax stands there, chest heaving, sweat running down his face and neck. His shirt clings to him, dark with perspiration, and dirt streaks one cheek. He must have run the entire way from the packhouse. His eyes lock on mine, pupils blown wide, and the intensity in them makes my breath catch.
I barely have time to set down the spatula before he's across the room. "Jax, what—"
His mouth crashes into mine, cutting off my words. His hands frame my face, holding me like I might disappear if he loosens his grip. Through our bond, desperation and need crash into me like a physical force, three days of separation condensed into pure wanting.
"Too long," he growls against my lips, already walking me backward.
My hips hit the counter, hard enough to bruise.
"You were gone too long."
"Three days," I manage between kisses, but my protest is weak. Deep in my gut, our mating bond tells me exactly how those three days affected him—restless nights, the constant ache of my absence, the wolf pacing endlessly. "It was only—"
"Too. Long." He reaches past me to turn off the stove, all four burners click silent. His body cages me against the counter, all hard muscle and barely leashed need. "Dinner can wait."
His hands slide to my waist, gripping tightly before lifting me easily.
The dining table is closer than the bedroom, solid oak we picked out together last month. My back hits the wood, and I have just enough presence of mind to be grateful we haven't set it yet.
"The door isn't even closed." I protest weakly as his hands work at the button of my pants. "Someone could walk by and see—"
"Let them." His eyes flash gold, wolf close to the surface. He yanks my boots off and tosses them aside. "Let the whole pack see who you belong to."
The possessiveness in his voice should bother me. I've spent three days being the one in charge, making strategic decisions coordinating security and protecting royalty. But here, with him, all that authority melts away.
Here, I can just be his.
"Need to taste you," he says, yanking my pants down with my underwear in one motion. The cool air hits heated skin, making me shiver. "Need to be inside you. Now. Can't wait."
He drops to his knees between my spread legs, and any thought of protest dies. Gripping my thighs, he spreads them wider, and the first touch of his tongue makes me arch off the table.
"Fuck." I breathe, hands scrambling for purchase on the smooth wood.
"Missed this," he murmurs against sensitive skin, the vibration making me squirm. "Missed your taste, your scent, the way you move when I—"
He demonstrates with a particularly skilled swirl of his tongue, and I lose the ability to track his words. He devours me with single-minded intensity, like a man starved.
Every trick he's learned about my body over these months, he employs now. Two fingers slide inside while his tongue focuses on my clit, curling just right, and I shatter embarrassingly fast.
"Beautiful," he says, but he's already standing, shoving his pants down just enough to free himself. "My turn."
He lines up and drives deep in one thrust.
We both groan at the connection, the bond flaring brightly between us, completing a circuit that's been broken for days.
"Fuck, you feel perfect," he grits out, hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise. "Always so perfect for me. Made for me."
He sets a punishing pace immediately. No buildup, no teasing. Just his body claiming mine with desperate intensity.
The table creaks under us, the rhythmic sound mixing with our harsh breathing. I know I'll have marks on my back, and anyone walking by can probably hear us, but I don't care at all.
"Never leaving again." He growls, punctuating each word with a deep thrust. "Can't stand it. Need you here. Need you safe, where I can touch you, taste you, protect you."
"It's my job." I gasp, nails digging into his shoulders through his shirt.
But because I can feel his emotions, I understand what he really means—not control, not limiting me, just the ache of missing me made physical. His wolf's way of saying three days felt like three years.
"Don't care." He shifts his angle, hitting that perfect spot that makes me see stars. "Mine. Here. Always. Say it."
"Yours." I agree, because in this moment, it's the only truth that matters.
He'd never actually stop me from working, we both know that. Would never stand in the way of my career or try to cage me.
If I told him tomorrow that I needed to leave for a month, he'd kiss me goodbye, tell me to be safe, and to come back to him. But right now, in this moment, he needs me to know how much my absence affected him. Needs to reclaim what the distance took.
One hand leaves my hip to brace the table, giving him better leverage to drive deeper. The other slides between us, thumb finding my clit with unerring accuracy, circling in time with his thrusts.
"That's it," he encourages as I tighten around him. "Come for me. Show me how much you missed this. Missed me. Missed us."
The dual stimulation combines with his words, with the feeling of being surrounded by him, claimed by him.
I come again, harder this time, his name literally torn from my lips.
He follows immediately, face buried in my neck, breathing in my scent as he comes deep inside me. I feel him pulsing, feel the satisfaction that floods through our bond, as he marks me internally.
We stay like that for a long moment, catching our breath. Him, still inside me, my legs wrapped around his waist, us holding each other in our kitchen, like we're newly mated instead of established. Like three days was three months.
The late afternoon sun slants through the window, painting golden stripes across his shoulders.
Somewhere outside, normal pack life continues. Wolves head home from work, prepare dinner, living their peaceful lives. But here, in our cabin, it's just us reconnecting, the bond humming with satisfaction and completeness.
My fingers card through his sweat-damp hair, and he makes a sound almost like a purr. Through the bond, I’m warmed by his contentment, the desperate edge finally gentled.
His wolf has settled now that I'm back where he can touch me.
Finally, he lifts his head. His hair is wild, sticking up where I've gripped it, eyes still dark with satisfaction, looking thoroughly debauched.
But there's something soft in his expression now, almost vulnerable. My dangerous wolf, brought to his knees by three days' separation.
"Hi," he says casually, as if he didn't just fuck me senseless on our dining table.
I just burst out laughing.