Chapter 19 Avery
AVERY
Ileaned over the sink in the bar’s employee bathroom and splashed water on my face for the fourth time. My tiger paced her cage, testing my control. The aggression, the untamed energy, and the need had not abated even a little bit, no matter how many times I’d drenched myself.
The beast was there in my reflection, in my glowing eyes and in my flushed face. Even my hair looked like it was standing on end, cascading in wild waves down the back of my borrowed T-shirt.
Mallory’s search through her car had turned up a black cotton skirt that hit me at mid-thigh and a pair of Converse sneakers that were half a size too small.
I had no panties or bra on, but that was the least of my problems. I needed to sneak through the bar, which would hopefully be much less crowded than it’d been a few hours ago, and get to my car out front, where Mallory waited with my purse and hopefully my brother, who had better be in human form, fully clothed, and ready with an apology for his reckless behavior.
And then I needed to get the hell out of here.
Forty-five minutes of driving, and I’d be home in my bed for one blissful night before I had to return to camp tomorrow evening.
With any luck, my dad Joseph would have a fresh batch of his homemade sleeping tonic on hand because I needed to be knocked the fuck out.
Too many things had happened in the past hour. Too many thoughts, too many confusing feelings. I wanted off this emotional rollercoaster.
First the revelations about Heath’s plan to save Clara.
Then I’d let my beast out, in fucking public, and killed another Prime. It hadn’t been me who’d struck the killing blow, but I’d issued his death sentence all the same.
And now I was keyed up, debating whether to touch myself right here in this bathroom to take the edge off or ride home with Ian while stinking of violence and carnal lust. My entire body was a live wire. I’d heard it could be like this, but I’d never experienced it.
I’d been in a lot of fights. I’d killed before, many times.
But fighting Kace wasn’t like fighting wraiths.
Those were warped, grotesque monsters that needed to be culled for the sake of public safety.
It also wasn’t like fighting in controlled combat drills or when I’d had to go up against shifted beasts with my swords.
This had been my tiger, unleashed in her true form, fighting beast to beast against another Prime animal. Kill or be killed. This was primal—a baser instinct engrained in those who carried a beast soul within our bodies.
With one last look at my flushed face in the mirror, I slipped out of the bathroom and into the hallway.
It was quiet, a lone exposed bulb hanging from the ceiling, illuminating the bathroom door on one side and what appeared to be an office and a storeroom on the other.
At one end of the hall was the exit to the employee parking lot, where Heath and Aiden would be concocting the story of Kace Mahoney’s demise and selling it to the Council.
The door at the other end led back into the main bar area.
I smoothed my skirt and started for the door to the bar. I didn’t care to see the carnage in the back again, nor did I need to be around any of my not-mates in my current condition.
Especially because, despite what they’d done for me here tonight, for which I was truly grateful, I was once again really fucking mad at them.
As I neared the door, it cracked open, sending a sliver of the bar’s orange-tinged light into the hallway.
Wyatt slipped through the crack and shut the door behind him. He shoved a few locks of his dark-red hair off his forehead and blew out a breath, and then his emerald gaze landed on me.
He froze, his brows lifting like he was surprised to find me standing here in the dim hallway in borrowed clothes with a raging beast simmering under my skin.
And then in an instant, the mood shifted.
Wyatt’s nostrils flared and his eyes hooded. “Wildcat,” he purred, taking one small step towards me. “You need something, don’t you?”
I raised my chin and clenched my jaw, bracing against the caress of his beast and the scent of him—woodsy pine, fresh rain, cinnamon, man.
“Not from you,” I said through gritted teeth.
He advanced on me, slowly, carefully, treating me like the wild animal I was.
“Baby,” he said softly, lifting a hand to gently stroke my cheek.
“Your beast just fought another shifter damn near to the death. She’s riding you hard right now, I can tell.
There’s no one left to fight, so you need to fuck.
” He grinned, showing me his perfect white teeth, and then his voice dropped to an inhuman register. “Use me.”
I swatted his hand away. “No. You don’t deserve that.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” He leaned in until we were almost nose to nose, and then he whispered, oh so softly, “But you do.”
I sucked in a breath.
“You’ve been through so much, baby. Not just tonight, but the whole fucking year.
All the bullshit at school, whatever happened to you that made you come to school in the first place, the attack in the woods, us…
.” He ran his fingers gently through my hair.
“When was the last time someone really took care of you? You deserve to feel good.”
He was right.
I did deserve that.
With a frustrated cry, I shoved him against the wall and pressed my forearm against his throat like it was my blade. “Fine,” I growled in his face. “But you don’t get to come. Only me.”
“Fuck,” he rasped, his eyes lighting up like Christmas. “Anything you want, Wildcat. Anything you fucking want.”
I leaned in, pressing my arm harder against his throat, which brought the rest of my body flush against his. He was scorching underneath me, his muscles taut, his rock-hard dick settled against the apex of my thighs, a preview of the treat that awaited me. “I mean it, Wyatt. This isn’t for you.”
His answering grin was hot and wicked. “I know, baby. I’ll be good.”
Groaning, I released him, and then I grabbed his hand and pulled him into the empty office down the hall. The room was small and dark, the only light streaming in through the lone window from the streetlamps outside.
Wyatt slammed the door and flicked the lock behind us, and then I deposited him on a worn leather couch nearby. It was the only furniture in the room besides a neat wooden desk.
My beast, no longer in a rage, purred happily within me as I climbed on top of Wyatt and straddled his thick thighs, doing my damnedest to resist cataloging every line of his handsome face that I could make out in the low light.
He ghosted his hands up the backs of my legs and made his way under my skirt. “For the love of the fucking Moon, Avery,” he growled, grabbing the globes of my ass roughly. “No panties? Are you kidding me?”
I unbuckled his belt and went to work on his zipper. “Destroyed them in the parking lot with the shift. You were there.”
“Mmm, I was. My bear loves watching his mate shred Alphas like tissue paper.”
“Not your mate,” I grumbled. “What is with this fucking button on your jeans? Is this your new chastity belt? Too little, too late, Gale.”
He chuckled, and the sound dripped down my spine like honey. “Let me, baby.”
Those strong fingers made quick work of the button and then ripped his fly open. He freed his enormous erection from the confines of his boxers and stroked it slowly, his hot gaze never leaving my face.
I shoved his hand away and lowered my very bare, extremely wet pussy right on top of his dick, pressing it flat against his stomach. I rocked slowly, reveling in the easy slide and the delicious friction. Preparing this monster to fit inside me was priority number one.
“Wildcat,” Wyatt groaned, his hands still on my ass as he helped me grind against him. “Holy fuck, that’s good. Let me eat your cunt.”
I stopped rocking, clamped him with my thighs, and grabbed him by the throat. “No,” I hissed in his face. “You’d like that too much.”
He barked a laugh, a manic look in his glowing eyes. He grasped the back of my head roughly and jerked my lips to his.
He kissed me like he owned me, taking exactly what he wanted with every press of his lips and every skillful exploration of his tongue. He held my head firmly, moving it to his liking, in control even though I was the one who had him pinned underneath me.
I let him do this for a few glorious seconds because it made my whole body fucking sing, and I was so tired of fighting.
Everything, all the time.
Wraiths, other shifters, our society’s expectations, my restless beast, the pull to the men who had hurt me.
In Wyatt’s arms, I didn’t have to fight—at least for a few minutes.
And a few minutes was all I would allow myself to give to him. This didn’t erase what he’d done.
After one last frenzied kiss, I bit down on his lip.
“Fuck,” he swore, releasing me. His eyes were so glazed with lust that he looked high as kite. A knowing grin spread across his kiss-swollen lips. “Were you enjoying that too much, baby? Felt right, didn’t it? Like I’ve been kissing you for years.”
“Shut up.” I grabbed his cock and notched it at my aching, overheated core.
The fit was going to be a challenge, but I’d tackled more difficult tasks in the past hour.
With a fortifying breath, I began to sink down onto it, and the intensity of the stretch ripped a tortured moan from me.
I gasped and dug my fingernails into his shoulders. “Fuck.”
His moan was equally as tortured as he gripped my hips and thrust slowly up into me, helping me along. “You can do it, Wildcat. This cock is yours. Take everything you fucking want from it.”
I began to slowly roll my hips, letting the motion ease me lower and lower onto him until he was fully seated inside me. He was so big, but my beast had revved every single one of my hormones, and they’d been working overtime to make me wet and pliable and ready.
I leaned back, tossing my hair over my shoulder, and I began to ride him harder. “Yes,” I said with a sigh. His dick was hitting every spot I had, winding the knot of pleasure in my center tighter and tighter with every cant of my hips. “I’m already close.”
Wyatt groaned like he was dying, and then he took advantage of my new position to jerk the hem of my borrowed shirt up to my collarbone and bury his face in my breasts.
“So perfect, Wildcat. I’ve missed these tits.
” He wrapped his lips around my nipple and lavished it with the same attention he’d given my mouth, and then he switched to the other.
“Let go, baby,” he said between licks and sucks. “You’ve earned it.”
I had earned it, and I was going to come harder than I ever had in my life.
I shifted again, gripping the back of the couch on either side of his head, and then I increased my pace. “Do. Not. Come,” I growled between panting breaths, my nose an inch from his.
He nipped my lip and gave me a strained smile that still managed to be the most sinful thing I’d ever seen.
“It’ll be the second-hardest thing I’ve ever done because your pussy is fucking nirvana, but you need to get it through your gorgeous, stubborn head that I will do anything for you. For-fucking-ever and always.”
Suddenly my chest ached and my eyes stung.
No. Not now.
“Ugh,” I groaned. “Stop talking.”
He chuckled and kissed along my heated skin, down my neck and across my collarbone, his hands wrapped around my hips like a vice.
I chased my orgasm, needing to release the pressure that’d been building inside of me for the Moon knew how long at this point—hours, days, months—more than I’d needed anything in quite some time.
I was coiled so tight, my vision going spotty, but my thighs were burning, exhaustion finally setting in.
“Fuck,” I whined. “I need to…. I can’t….”
My back hit the couch cushions. Before I could cry out in surprise, my legs were over Wyatt’s shoulders and he was pounding into me, fucking me brutally, relentlessly, unlike anything I’d ever experienced in my life.
My body exploded into a million pieces, and I screamed.
“Yes,” Wyatt snarled. “Fuck yes, baby. That’s so fucking good.”
I fell over the cliff, the tension rushing from my body until I was a wet noodle.
Wyatt gave me two last hard thrusts before he yanked himself away with a frustrated roar.
He sank to the floor in front of the couch, his rigid dick encased in the punishing grip of his fist, his knuckles white and his jaw as tense as Heath’s on his worst day.
Slowly, I righted myself. I sat up, smoothed my shirt, and adjusted my skirt so that it was no longer twisted to the side and riding halfway up my torso. I finger-combed my hair and retied the laces of one of my shoes that’d come undone.
My beast, to both my relief and everlasting annoyance, lounged peacefully, her bloodlust—and regular lust—sated.
Wyatt was silent, his broad chest rising and falling as he caught his breath. He watched me as I stood up and gave my borrowed outfit one last smoothing. He’d lost the wicked smile and bedroom eyes.
He was all predator now.
“I, um….” I began. My cheeks heated, which was ridiculous given everything that’d just happened. “Thank you, Wyatt. I do feel better.”
“Any fucking time, Wildcat,” he replied, and it sounded like both a vow and a threat. He squeezed his dick, still hard and full of the promise of another round if I wanted it.
I needed to go.
Resolved, I strode to the door and turned the lock, but then something tugged at me. I cast one last look at Wyatt over my shoulder.
“What was the first-hardest thing?” I asked softly.
He didn’t have to ask what I meant. A red sheen rolled over his glinting green eyes as he answered, his voice just as soft. “Giving you up.”
I left the room without another word and shut the door firmly behind me.