7. Bain
Bain
Ijust wanted to kiss you.
Have sweeter words ever been said? Not to me, they haven’t. Most women look at me and see someone hard as stone, not worth the time it takes to get through my gruff exterior. That’s the way I liked it. I’ve never wanted to let anyone in before.
Not until I met her.
Not only is my mate drop-dead gorgeous, but she’s insanely blunt, and it makes me hard listening to her verbally stumble.
Reaching up, I cup her cheeks as I study her face. Her beautiful, bright blue eyes, the curve of her red cheeks, her pouty pink lips.
Desperate for a real kiss from my mate, I pull her face back to mine and kiss her, much gentler than her attempt had been. She lets out a soft gasp of surprise, which makes my dick jerk in response. Fuck. I bet she’ll be very vocal when I’m pleasing her in bed, naked.
I suck a little on her lower lip, which makes her moan, then press my tongue in, demanding submission from her.
Her chest collapses against mine, as if she can’t keep herself up any longer.
I let one hand slide to the back of her neck as I tilt her just the way I want her.
She feels perfect in my arms. Considering she’s only had one kiss before, and it was earlier today with Maddox, she is a very fast learner.
And using my mouth and tongue to teach her what to do somehow makes it that much hotter.
I’m all but lost in her deliciousness until Maddox clears his throat. Reminding me that we can’t take this any further right now. I pull back and smile at her before kissing her forehead and pulling her head against my chest, hugging her tightly.
I hear a long sigh leave her, and it calms both my wolf and me to know we’re pleasing our mate. “I’ve been dying to hug you all day,” she whispers.
“What about me?” Chase pouts.
“Fuck off,” I growl at him through the bond.
He smirks at me before quickly changing his face to a pout when she pulls back to look at him.
“I meant all of you.” She glances down at where everyone’s hands are gripping her and sighs, a little sad this time. “I can’t wait until I can do this on my own. Oh! That reminds me, earlier I tried to shift, and I felt a little spark of magic!”
“Really?” Gage asks. “You couldn’t feel it before?”
She shakes her head, her wide eyes looking excited. “No, it wasn’t until seconds before we crossed into Starfall Haven that I tried. So I’m not sure if being here has anything to do with it. I hadn't tried since two days ago.”
“Could be,” Gage says with a nod. “Or could just be because you’re shifting more lately.”
“What’s an elemental?” she suddenly asks as she slowly turns herself so her back is against my chest and I can wrap my arms around her. “And are vampires really real?”
“Did you not know other supernatural beings existed?” Maddox asks her gently.
“Just other shifters.”
“Elementals can manipulate the elements,” Gage starts to explain. “So an earth element can move earth and stone with their power, basically.”
“Wow. What about demons? They sound bad.”
“Most of them keep to themselves. They aren’t minions of the underworld like myth would have you believe. Some are good, some are bad, just like shifters,” Maddox tells her.
She looks down at her hands, which are resting on my arms as she speaks, a little quieter now. “I feel like there’s so much I don’t know.”
“That’s okay, pretty girl,” Chase says with a smile. “There’s lots I don’t know, either. That’s why we keep Gage around. He’s like a walking encyclopedia.”
A small smile tugs at her lips as she glances up through her lashes at him. “Really?”
“Yeah, but don’t ask him about cooking,” he says in a mock whisper, earning him a glare from Gage.
“My cooking isn’t that bad,” Gage argues.
“It’s okay,” Cherry says as she reaches out and pats Gage’s arm. “You’ve still got your brains and your good looks to fall back on.”
Chase and Hunter start laughing as Gage stares at her, his face doing a weird twitchy thing. Finally, he tells her, “I don’t know if I should be upset that you agree that I can’t cook, or happy that you think I’m good-looking.”
She nods her head excitedly. “Definitely the second one.”
That finally pulls a smile from him.
“Shall we try to lie down and watch some TV now?” Maddox asks.
We all agree, and it takes some careful maneuvering to get Cherry into a position where we can all easily touch her.
We end up moving her into the center of the bed, with my upper body pressed to her left side, Maddox on her right, the twins each wrapped around her legs, and her head resting against Gage’s stomach.
I move a little closer, pressing my face against her arm and inhaling her addictive scent.
My wolf is pushing me to bite her, to knot her, and complete the bond.
He’s even shown me an image of doing it in our wolf forms so we can get it done.
But I refuse. It has to be done in our human forms first.
“Bain, is that your dick poking me in the shoulder?” Chase asks through the bond.
I smack his shoulder as I tell him to “Fuck off,” while making sure my hips are nowhere near him.
“He’s all worked up from the kiss,” Hunter teases.
“You two are just jealous,” I snap back.
“Of course we’re fucking jealous. I’ve been dreaming of kissing her since I first saw her face,” Chase says through the bond, sounding a little more upset than he sounded a moment ago, making me feel a little chastised.
They’d all given me a moment to kiss her, and yet three of them hadn’t even had a peck yet.
We watch the TV in silence for a few minutes before Gage speaks through the bond. “We need to figure out how to get her to shift at will. It’s dangerous to leave her unbonded.”
What he isn’t saying is that if we don’t bond with her, and Blaze finds her here, we risk him trying to force one on her. Of course, I will never allow him to get within ten feet of her. But until she’s fully bonded to me, and I can feel her emotions I’m not going to be able to fully relax.
Although I probably never will until I’ve rid the world of all her enemies.
At the top of the list is Dr. J and the guards from the facility. If I ever figure out a way to track them down, I won’t stop myself from ripping their heads off. Blaze’s name is right under theirs.
I wrap my arm a little tighter around Cherry’s, placing a kiss on the side of her arm. Feeling her staring, I tilt my head up and see her beautiful blue eyes on me. She smiles, then her fingers find mine, threading her tiny ones through my giant ones and squeezing tight.
A sudden, small burst of her arousal hits my nose, and my nostrils flare. Her eyes grow a little wide as her cheeks heat, and she quickly looks away, pretending her best to suddenly look invested in the TV.
“Oh, fuck,” Chase grumbles through the bond. “Who caused that? You realize my face is less than a foot away from where that addictive scent is coming from?”
“Nobody’s doing anything,” Maddox tells him. “She’s watching TV.”
“This isn’t even a sexy scene,” Hunter says. When I glance at him, I see he’s frowning at the screen.
I don’t tell them it was me who caused her to get excited, but I preen a little inside with the knowledge. I wish I could do something about it. I wish I could run my hand under that large T-shirt and bring her pleasure she’s never felt before.
I quickly shift my hips further away from Chase, not wanting to actually poke him.
“Cherry?” Maddox asks out loud.
“Yeah?” she says, turning those bright blue eyes to him.
“I was wondering if you want me to try to help you with your shifting tomorrow? I don’t have to use my alpha command, but maybe there’s another way I can help, now that you can feel more of your magic?”
“Yes!” she says so excitedly, she almost pulls her head from Gage’s stomach. Luckily, he had his fingers on her neck, and he eases it back down to lie on him. “I’d love that. Thank you, Maddox.”
“Don’t mention it,” he says with a smile.
But that just has her shaking her head. “No, seriously. The fact that you’re all trying to help me means a lot.”
Maddox reaches up and trails his fingers over her cheek, making her scent grow strong again. “We’d do anything for you, little mate.”
“Except seal the bond,” she says with an adorable pout.
“Oh, we most definitely plan on sealing our bonds with you, Cherry. We just want to make sure we can all enjoy it properly and don’t have to worry about you shifting in the middle of it. We want it to be special. Perfect.”
Her scent gets so potent that I have to squeeze my eyes shut tight, trying to think of something not sexy. A bird taking a shit. A bug splattering across a windshield. A—
Suddenly, she shifts back into her wolf form, her four furry legs in the air, leaving me grasping her paw.
“What the fuck?” I ask as I hear a door slam somewhere. I lift my head and see the back end of Hunter disappear into the hall, and Chase is already gone from view.
I grin, realizing their faces were right by her crotch and they couldn’t take that sweet, smoky, dark cherry vanilla scent any longer.
“Never mind them,” Maddox tells Cherry as he sits up. “Why don’t you get comfortable to sleep now?”
When she finds a comfortable spot, after circling the bed three times, I make sure to take the spot right at her back, my hand on her side. I feel an extra need to be close to her tonight. We are in a new place, and the safest place for my mate is in my arms.