Chapter Twenty-One
Greyson
Benji’s room lay a couple of doors away from the master bedroom. In fact, Mya’s was in between. Which meant we were going to mine because the boy slept soundly, but mating could be noisy.
“You have a baby monitor still?” she said. “In case he hears something. I wouldn’t want to scare him.”
“Yes, set to one-way to avoid startling him.” It had always been set that way even though there had been nobody in my bed since his mama and no passionate noises since shortly after she fell sick.
But I wasn’t going to bring her in with us.
I paused at her picture on the hall table and sent her a thought.
Keeping my promise, finally. Always missing you, but ready to move on.
I could almost feel her arms around me, lips on my cheek before she faded back. A feeling left, one I hadn’t even thought about because it was always there. Jeanine. Had she been unable to reach the next level until her family was secure in a new and happy life?
It would be like her.
“She was so beautiful.” Mya smiled at her then me. “Do you think she would approve of me? I mean, of course she’d rather be here, but…”
I wrapped an arm around her waist. “She made me promise to find my true mate. We were not that, although we were very happy, and when she knew she wasn’t going to make it, she told me she’d always felt bad that our being together might have kept me from finding my fated one.
I reminded her that not everyone gets one and that I wouldn’t have given up a moment with her for anything. ”
“Of course not! I can tell she was a loving, special person for both of you, and I doubt I can fill her shoes. Are you sure you want me in your lives long term? This mating thing has no out door, right?”
“For you it might. Not sure about humans but not for me. And yes, I’m sure. I am also pretty sure, she knew you were out there somewhere and it gave her peace to know you’d be along.”
“I don’t know how any of this works. I’m so confused. All I know is I love you and Benji already. I feel at home here, and life without you sounds gray and sad. Is that odd? I mean…if a friend latched onto someone like that, I’d worry about them.”
“No, omega mine. That’s what being a mate is like.
I can’t speak about any other people you know, but in our case, we are mates, Fate’s gift to one another, and I couldn’t feel happier about who she—and maybe Jeanine—sent to me.
Now, would you like to come into my bedroom and see how a shifter makes love to his mate? ”
“More than anything on earth.”
I bent to kiss her, holding her close and allowing the joy of my mate to push out the last of the grief I’d been clinging to. Jeanine didn’t want that. She wanted her family to be happy. And she’d won. I was.
Benji too. When he found out we’d mated, he’d be over the moon.
I guided her backward into my room until we came up against the bed then kissed her some more. She reached for the hem of my shirt and pulled it up, and then clothes went everywhere. We’d have time for careful undressing in the future, but for tonight, neither of us was moving at a slow pace.
How could we?
Her skin was like satin under my palms, her breasts filling my hands as I lifted them to taste her nipples. Scent suppressors would have been a crime. I breathed her in, letting her sweetness, unimpeded by clothing, fill me.
My feisty omega didn’t wait for me to lead; she was right there with me, touching, tasting, moaning until I was afraid I was going to come before I even got inside her. She was perfuming, and slick and my fingers glided inside until I reached her barrier. “It might hurt a little bit.”
“It hurts more now,” she moaned, bucking her hips. “I ache for you.”
“Then I will kiss it and make it better.” Bending, I pressed my lips to her feminine center. “You smell incredible.”
“So do you. Now please, I need…I need you.”
Rising, I fitted my cock to her body and pushed inside. When I met resistance in her slick channel, I thrust. Mya gasped, and I stopped, giving her a moment to adjust.
With a sigh, she wrapped her arms around me and held on. “Oh, this is…”
“It sure is.”
It was. We clung to one another while I buried myself deeper with each thrust, while her body stretched to accommodate me.
While we rode together to an orgasm that exploded in a shower of sparks around us. At least, behind my eyelids it did.
I knotted, swelling, holding us together, binding us. Her eyes were closed, lips softly parted when my fangs pierced her throat. Blood flooded my mouth before I lapped the wound closed. It would heal raised, a mark of our mating.
“Can I do that?” she whispered, eyes still closed.
“Y-yes.” It wasn’t traditional, but I brought my neck to her lips and squeezed my eyes closed as well. She bit down, her ordinary human teeth tearing my flesh. The scar would be jagged, and I would wear it with pride.
My mate, my omega…my love.