Chapter 17 Raphael #2
Not like this morning, where I’d used my mouth to prove a point, to stake a claim, to remind her who owned her body.
This kiss was different. Slower. My lips against hers, tasting the surprised gasp she made, the way her mouth opened for me without resistance.
She tasted like mint tea and something sweeter underneath.
Yes, the wolf crooned. Ours. Care for her. Please her.
I told myself this was still control. Still dominance. I was choosing to be gentle, choosing to give her pleasure instead of taking it. That made it mine to command.
But my hands told a different story. They moved over her body with a reverence I didn’t intend, learning the curve of her waist, the dip of her hip, the softness of her inner thigh. When I unhooked her bra and peeled it away, my thumbs traced circles around her nipples instead of pinching.
She arched into my touch, a soft moan escaping her lips. Her scent deepened, honey-warm with arousal.
“Please,” she whispered.
“Please what?”
I expected her to say something about permission. About needing to come. The phrases I’d trained into her, the way I’d taught her to beg.
Instead, she reached up and touched my face.
Her fingers traced my jaw, the stubble there, the hard line of my cheekbone. Touching me like I was something worth touching. Like she wanted to understand the shape of me the way she’d understood the shape of my past.
I froze. Every muscle locked.
Let her, the wolf demanded. She sees us. She wants us. Let her touch.
My hand shot out, catching her wrist and pinning it to the pillow beside her head. “Don’t.”
She didn’t look away. Didn’t apologize. Just held my gaze with that impossible understanding while her pulse fluttered against my fingers, quick and warm and alive.
“I’m not going to break you,” she said quietly.
The words hit like a blade between my ribs.
Because that was what I was afraid of, wasn’t it? Not that I would break her. I knew I could do that, had already started. What terrified me was that she would break me. That this girl with her soft hands and softer heart would crack me open and find nothing inside worth saving.
I released her wrist and slid my hand between her thighs instead. If she wanted to understand me, she could understand this. The way I could make her body sing. The way I could pull pleasure from her whether she wanted to give it or not.
She was already wet. Her arousal running down her thighs.
I stroked through her folds, spreading the slickness, finding the bundle of nerves at her center and circling it with my thumb. Her hips jerked against my hand, chasing the pressure.
“This is what you are to me,” I said, my voice rough. “This. A body that responds when I touch it. A cunt that gets wet when I walk into the room.”
She should have flinched. Should have looked hurt, ashamed, reminded of her place.
Instead, she moaned and pressed herself harder against my hand.
“Then touch me,” she breathed. “If that’s all I am, then touch me.”
I slid two fingers inside her, and she cried out, her back arching off the bed. Tight. So fucking tight around my fingers. Hot and wet and clenching as I curled them forward, finding that spot that made her gasp.
I should have been watching her body. Cataloging her responses. Using them against her.
Instead, I watched her face.
The way her eyes fluttered closed. The way her lips parted on a broken sound. The way she didn’t hide from the pleasure, didn’t try to resist it or be ashamed of it. She just let herself feel. Trusted me enough to let go.
My cock was hard against the constraint of my pants, aching to be inside her. To claim her the way my wolf demanded. To bury myself so deep she’d never get me out.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I added a third finger, stretching her, and bent to take her nipple in my mouth.
Sucked it while my fingers worked her, while my thumb rubbed relentless circles over her clit.
Her hands found my hair, tangling in it, pulling me closer.
Her scent surrounded me now, arousal and sweetness and trust, and I breathed her in like a man starving for air.
“Raphael. Oh God. Raphael, please—”
“Come,” I growled against her breast. “Come on my hand. Let me feel you fall apart.”
She shattered.
Her cunt clamped down on my fingers, pulsing, milking, while her whole body shook with the force of her orgasm. She cried out my name. Just my name, over and over, and I felt the last of my resistance give way.
I withdrew my fingers, slick with her release, and stood from the bed. My hands went to my belt before I could think better of it. The leather hissed through the loops. I unbuttoned my pants, shoved them down my hips, and freed my cock.
I was so hard it hurt. The head was flushed dark, leaking, and when I wrapped my fist around the shaft and stroked, the slickness of her arousal coated me like a brand.
Yes, the wolf growled. Mark her. Make her smell like us.
She watched me from the pillows, her chest still heaving, her thighs still trembling from the aftershocks. Those blue eyes fixed on my hand, on my cock, on the way I stroked myself with her wetness.
“This is what you do to me. What you’ve done since the first moment I scented you.”
I should have turned away. Should have finished in the bathroom like a civilized man.
Instead, I planted one knee on the bed and stroked harder, faster, my fist tight around my cock, her arousal and my precum mixing into something obscene. Her scent surrounded me. Apples and cream and sex. I breathed her in and felt the pressure building at the base of my spine.
“Raphael.” She said my name like a prayer. Like a question. The tip of her tongue darted out to wet her lips.
I came with a groan I couldn’t suppress. Hot ropes of cum splattered across her stomach, her ribs, marking the pale canvas of her skin. The wolf howled in satisfaction. Mine. Ours. Claimed.
I stared at her, at my release glistening on her body, and felt a shift I couldn’t name.
Ours, the wolf purred. She wears our scent now. Everyone will know.
I should have felt satisfied. Dominant. In control.
Then she moved.
Slowly, curiously, she dragged one finger through the mess on her stomach. Lifted it to her lips. Her tongue darted out to taste, and her eyes never left mine.
The last of my restraint shattered.
She wasn’t disgusted. Wasn’t ashamed. She was tasting me like she wanted to know what I was made of, and the look on her face wasn’t revulsion.
It was wonder.
I grabbed a cloth from the nightstand and wiped her clean with hands that weren’t quite steady. Gentle, when I should have been rough. Thorough, when I should have been dismissive.
When I finished, I couldn’t make myself pull away.
Instead, I gathered her against me.
Her head fit into the curve of my shoulder like it belonged there.
Her breath came in soft pants against my neck, warm and damp.
I could smell her pleasure, her sweat, the musk of her release mingling with that ever-present apple sweetness.
My arms wrapped around her of their own accord, pulling her closer.
For one moment, one terrible and perfect moment, I held her.
Then her hand moved. Her fingers found the ridge of scar tissue across my ribs, the place where a belt buckle had split the skin when I was twelve. She traced it slowly, gently, learning the shape of old damage.
I went rigid.
Her touch drifted higher, finding another scar. And another. The map of my childhood written in raised flesh. She didn’t recoil. Didn’t ask. Just touched me like she was memorizing the hurt, and when she looked up at me, her eyes were soft with something I couldn’t bear.
Pity. Understanding. Tenderness.
I released her so fast she fell back against the pillows with a startled sound. My heart was pounding. My wolf was howling. My cock was still rock hard and aching and I wanted nothing more than to sink into her and never come out.
Instead, I stood from the bed and crossed to the window, putting distance between us. The night pressed against the glass, dark and cold and empty.
“Get dressed,” I said, my voice cold. “Return to your room.”
A long silence. I could hear her breathing. Could smell the confusion in her scent, the hurt.
“Raphael—”
“Now.”
I heard the rustle of fabric. The soft sounds of her gathering her clothes. My reflection in the window showed a man in perfect control. Hair slightly mussed, expression carved from ice.
A lie. All of it, a lie.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said from behind me. “Pushing me away because I got too close.”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. If I opened my mouth, I didn’t know what would come out.
“It’s not going to work.”
Her footsteps crossed to the door. Paused there.
“Whatever you think you are, whatever you’re afraid of becoming, that’s not what I see when I look at you.”
I turned then. Some masochistic impulse to watch her leave, to see the damage I’d done.
She stood in the doorway, dressed now, her hand on the frame. For one heartbeat, her face was open. Vulnerable. The girl who’d touched my scars with tenderness, who’d tasted me with wonder, who’d looked at me like I was worth saving.
Then her expression changed.
I watched it happen in real time. The softness in her eyes wavered, then died. Her expression hardened. Her chin lifted. And the warmth that had been there moments ago, the understanding that had cracked me open, vanished behind a wall I recognized all too well.
Because I’d built the same one.
She looked at me one last time, and there was nothing tender in her gaze now. Just cold assessment. The look of someone who’d learned a lesson and wouldn’t forget it.
The door closed behind her with a soft click.
She was gone. And she’d taken something with her that I hadn’t meant to give.
I stood at the window until I was sure my legs would hold me, then crossed to the dresser and poured myself a whiskey. My hand was shaking. The amber liquid trembled in the glass and felt a fury so vast I couldn’t breathe through it.
She was wrong. She had to be wrong. Because if she was right, if there was something inside me worth seeing, worth knowing, worth staying for, then everything I’d built was a lie.
The monster. The control. The walls.
All of it, useless.
She’s our mate, the wolf said, and there was no gloating in his voice now. Only truth. She sees us. All of us. And she’s still here.
I threw the whiskey against the wall. Glass shattered. Amber liquid dripped down the wallpaper like tears.
It didn’t help. Nothing helped. Because she was right, and I knew it, and tomorrow I would have to face her again and pretend that nothing had changed.
When everything had.