Chapter 10 #2
She shoved the shirt off his shoulders as he unhooked her bra, dragged her shirt up and off in the same motion, and then his mouth was on her throat.
The bond was a live wire. His hunger hit her like a second heartbeat, her own desire throwing it back, amplified, and the feedback loop made her dig her nails into his shoulders just to have something to hold on to.
His mouth found her nipple to nibble.
His name came out breathless and full of demands. “Rex.”
“Moonbeam.”
“I need you to—” His mouth closed over her breast, and the rest of the sentence dissolved.
Her hands went into his hair, holding on, and she felt the low vibration of a growl against her skin, satisfaction and want rolled together.
His hands worked her jeans open, pushed them down just enough, and when his fingers found her, she was already slick and aching, and the sound that escaped her was greed.
He pressed his forehead to hers, breathing hard; he motioned her to stand enough to pull her pants and underwear down and off with a focus that was somehow efficient but couldn’t quite hide the savagery of his hunger.
She dropped down on her knees again, worked his belt, got his pants open, down, and finally, finally, got her hands on him. His exhale was sharp, but he didn’t let her go on with her amazing plan of taking it into her mouth and tasting him, how it was supposed to be.
No.
He pulled her onto him by her thighs so that she wrapped her legs around him, and he crushed her against the cabinets.
Pushed into her, and she stopped breathing.
The fullness of it, the way being joined felt like the bond resolving into something belonging to reality. His forehead dropped to her shoulder.
Then he moved, and she stopped thinking about whatever else.
Not slow. There was no slow left in either of them. His hands found her hips, and the pace was immediate, relentless, wild. She tightened around him, arms, legs, the strength of him almost crushing her. Still not enough. “Rex.”
It came out wrecked—and it wrecked the last strand of control he had. It was fury and hunger, demand and greed.
His cock swelled, and the orgasm hit fast and hard, her whole body seizing with it. He followed her over with a low sound against her skin that resonated in her spine and all the way down to her pussy.
They came out the other side still shaking.
And for the first time, she realized where, and how, they were.
Hidden behind the counter. He was still on his knees, her legs were around his waist, her face in his neck, his arms solid around her. Both of their breathing was strained, and she was still pressed against the lower part of the counter.
Okay, she thought. Okay.
“Better?” he murmured into her hair.
She laughed, undignified and happy. “Shut up.”
“Just saying, because I feel so incredibly better, and we should–”
Hard knocks rattled the door. “I can see yer heads from outside, clear as day,” Lachlan drawled through the glass. “And I’ll note, for fairness, this is very much in character for ye bloody wolf. And yer mate.”
Rex sighed; she pressed her hand on her mouth to stop the laugh. It was the single most embarrassing moment of her life, and yet joy overshadowed it to the point of not caring. Not one bit.
Rex lifted his head and watched over the counter. “Give us two minutes, Lach. Or ten. We can’t quite move right now.”
“Bloody werewolves,” she heard him muttering. “Aye. But only for the lass.”
He shrugged, managed to sit with her still straddling him. And all things considered, there was only one thing to do: she curled on his chest and sighed, happy, as his arms came around her as they waited for the knot to subside.
It was a few minutes before she could leave his lap and put herself together.
Rex pulled up his pants and worked at his shirt buttons, but—he stopped, frowned, looked down at the gap where one was missing. The memory of how it got there crossed his face and became a hot, entirely smug smirk.
She reacted to the smirk. She... she did. How, how was that even possible? He’d been inside of her not ten minutes ago, and she was ready–ready–again. Dignity was so dead.
And yeah, of course he felt it. And smelled it, because he drew a long breath through his nose and his attention snapped back to her, much like a shark did with fresh blood.
“I won’t hear the end of it if I don’t open that door next time he knocks," he said in a voice that was pure menace and hunger. “But give me the word, and he’s gone.”
Oh.
Oh.
She tried to swallow through a throat that had suddenly gone completely dry.
“You should not put that decision in my hands right now.” Self-awareness slapped her—not hard enough, apparently, because the choice should have been clearer.
Save the forest and all that. “I genuinely dislike myself for even thinking about it.”
The growl that came out of him was low, dark, and did not help the situation at all.
New knocks broke the moment. “Rex!” Lachlan shouted from outside, the tone of a man who had been patient, but whose patience had run out.
Rex snarled as he snapped to his feet and marched toward the door, still buttoning his shirt.
She hoped he’d remembered to fix his pants.
She was fairly certain he had. Fairly. He yanked the door open, and the growl came out menacing.
She didn’t think it was directed at Lachlan specifically, just at the general concept that his imminent future wasn’t going to go the way he wanted.
She could relate to that big time. “You have terrible timing,” he said to the Mayor.
Lachlan looked at him. Looked at his shirt.
Looked at Zoe, who was standing behind the counter with her crazy hair, working very hard at her professional smile.
Looked back at Rex with a raised eyebrow.
“Ye summoned me like the devil himself was at yer heels, and now I’m to take my time?
Ye need to stop givin’ me heart attacks. ”
“You literally can not die.”
But the mayor ignored him and strolled past, into the shop. “Bloody wolves. No patience and no reason, the lot of ye.”
Rex closed and locked the door again. “There was no devil, only—never mind.”
Lachlan stopped walking and held up one hand to stop.
.. everything. Looked at the ceiling briefly, possibly looking for an extra stash of patience.
Then back at Zoe, only Zoe, with the attention of a man who had decided there might be things in this room he simply wasn’t going to acknowledge.
“I can come back in five minutes if ye need to regroup.”
“No, we’re fine. Thank you, though, it’s very kind.” She smoothed her hair back, let it go when it refused to cooperate, and gave up on the lost cause of looking like someone who hadn’t been thoroughly fucked on the floor. Don’t think, damn it. “And, ah, thank you for coming over so quickly.”
“It’s not often yer wolf summons me at that particular volume.” He glanced at Rex. “Yer buttoned wrong.”
Rex looked down. Looked up. Left the shirt crooked with sublime indifference, but extended his hand to Zoe and pointed to the floor while telling Lachlan, “Here. Come look.”
Lachlan’s eyebrows went up slightly at the map, at the notes, at the laptop open beside it, and whatever lingering amusement he’d carried in with him shifted into focus. “Tell me what I’m looking at.”
“We can move to the studio if —” Zoe started.
“The floor is all right.” He was already lowering himself onto it, eyes moving across the map. “Walk me through it, lass."
So she did.
They settled on the floor around the map, and she told him all of it. The initial reports, the collection day with the pack, and the numbers that had come back that morning showing the selective drop in potency right after Letha.
Lachlan listened, nodded, let her get it all out with nearly no interruptions.
“The plants are physically healthy,” she said at the end.
“Perfect, almost. No disease, no deficiency, no sickness. It’s only the active properties–the compounds that make them medicinally useful or give them their magical resonance.
” She tapped the map, the ring she and Rex had traced earlier.
“And it’s not random. Every plant showing a significant drop is inside this line.
Closest to town. Everything beyond it is nearly normal. ”
Lachlan leaned in. “When did this start?”
“I first noticed it about six weeks ago. But when I look back through my notes—” she pulled up a document on the laptop, turned it toward him, “—there are smaller anomalies going back further than that. I missed them because they were minor, and I had no reason to connect them. But it always seemed to happen around major seasonal events.” She paused. “And Rex, he also felt... different.”
“My wolf is more restless working closer to town,” Rex added. “I put it down to the activity, the noise. But it eases the further I go into the forest, every time, without exception.” He looked at the map. “I stopped noticing it because the fluctuation had become normal.”
Lachlan said nothing for a moment. He picked up her notes to read them, his eyes bouncing from notes to laptop. He was still frowning, but in concentration, not confusion, as he assembled pieces together. “The plants are healthy,” he repeated slowly.
“Just drained,” Zoe said.
“Aye.” He was quiet again before asking, “How much do ye know about how Mystic Hollow’s magic works, lass? The infrastructure of it.”
“I know things in a second-hand way. Magic doesn’t come to me or from me, but it comes from my clients and what I can do for them.
I know the town is very magically active.
I know there are wards, and that they get renewed.
I know Letha is the biggest renewal event of the year.
” She spread her hands slightly. “Beyond that, I’ve been working from observation more than personal involvement. ”