Chapter 30
Jaxon
It was a fever dream that pulled me from the depths of sleep and I woke to the sound of my tent unzipping, but I had to still be dreaming.
“Tisiphone?” I whispered.
“Hi.” Her pretty face came into focus as the moon above illuminated her teal hair. “You’re okay.”
I glanced down at my bare chest, checking the muscles on my right arm. It’d been a long afternoon, forcing the males of my coven to leave me alone, and begging them not to send for Sage or anyone else while I recovered.
“Yeah. I guess I am.” All trace of the fight earlier was gone, and Tisiphone’s scent was filling my space, making my wolf’s tongue hang out.
“Good.” She nodded, clutching the canvas on either side of the open doorway. “I had to see for myself after Calla told me what happened.”
“Right.” I nodded, trying to get in control of myself and fully wake up. As Alpha, my first thoughts should’ve been of Calla. Not me dreaming about what it meant to have Tisiphone here in my tent. “How is she?”
“She’s fine,” Tisiphone said, but I didn’t miss the soft growl of her wolf in her chest. “She’s sleeping in my bed. I think she planned this.”
“That’s what we all thought too.” I moved my legs under me, slowly, so as not to frighten Tisiphone away, and kept my smile to myself upon hearing that she wasn’t sharing a bed with anyone else.
“About earlier…” I started, not sure when I’d get this chance again.
She shook her head. “Not now. I… I have to get back before anyone realizes I’m gone.”
She’s not going anywhere. Drag her into this tent and convince her to stay.
“I understand.” I bit down on my bottom lip and nodded, keeping my wolf from forcing me to do something stupid. “Thanks for checking on me.”
Tisiphone lowered her eyes, leaning back as if she’d leave, but her fists stayed clenched on the sides of the tent. There was a long pause where I didn’t dare breathe.
She looked at me again. “How long did you suspect we were… mates?”
Every muscle in my body tensed. I didn’t want to lie to her, but I didn’t want to scare her away.
Stop dancing around it and tell her.
“The day we met in your Gram’s yard. You were carrying a slingshot and two squirrel tails for the cauldron.”
“That’s the day we met.” She inhaled sharply. “You couldn’t have known from the beginning.”
“Obviously, no one knows for sure until after puberty.” I shrugged, trying to pretend she hadn’t just taken a cleaver to my heart. But that was our story. From the beginning, I loved her more than she ever loved me.
“At the cemetery…” Tisiphone coughed, but not before I heard the emotion breaking her voice. “I wasn’t rejecting you. I was releasing you from the burden Gram gave you of protecting me. You didn’t need to carry that promise for her.”
My wolf growled.
“No. It was never meant to be a burden.” My fingers ached to reach out and touch her, but I knew this feeling well, so I kept my hand pressed against my side. “Lisa knew I needed you. That promise was spoken for me.”
My heart raced at the admission. This conversation—the truth and vulnerability of it—was as close as we’d come in years. It tugged at dark places, threatening to expose them to the light.
We were right there. Somewhere I’d never thought we’d be again.
“You don’t need me,” Tisiphone whispered, adding a little smile to her tone. Keeping things playful. Shooting another arrow into my chest.
I closed my eyes, so fucking tired of this dance. “You don’t know what I need.”
In the silence that followed, I imagined her leaving and already forgave her for the cold lingering in her absence. But her scent never faded, and there was a rustle as she climbed into my small tent, zipping it closed behind her.
I couldn’t open my eyes, too afraid I’d wake from this dream, as she placed her hands against my chest and her sweet lips whispered a kiss against my cheek, moving to my ear.
“Show me.”
My eyes opened to see her wide, honey-brown eyes staring into mine. The question there would be my undoing.
“Show you?” I asked, needing to hear her spell it out so there was no more miscommunication, not like the many that apparently plagued us for years.
But we were foolish pups then, and there was nothing childlike about the way Tisiphone was looking at me now.
She straddled my waist, her heart beating as fast as mine. “Show me how to give you what you need.”
“You don’t have to do this.” I captured her wrists, pinning them against my chest. The last thing I wanted was her pity. “I’m fine.”
“I’m not.” She whimpered, rocking her hips forward so that she pressed against my pulsing cock. “I want you. I want whatever this is between us.”
Shut up and give her what she needs.
I didn’t know if the roaring in my ears was my beast or the blood rushing to my loins, but I wasn’t about to make her ask again.
My lips captured her soft lips, and I parted them with a growl, grabbing her waist and neck to press her closer to me as I drank my fill. I thrust upward, meeting the gentle rocks of her hips with punishing promises of my own.
I wanted more. To touch her again. Peel each scrap of fabric off her skin and taste her inch by inch until I memorized every part of her I hadn’t known before.
I wanted to worship her body, to bend her over and drag her ass up, presenting her to me and claiming her like a wild animal as I drove myself home.
But I couldn’t stop kissing her. Not now. Not ever. Not when she felt like air, and I’d never fully breathed until this moment. Our tongues danced. I held to her tighter, groaning as she gasped and pulled away.
Not yet. Please, don’t leave yet.
“I haven’t…” She exhaled a worried breath. “I… Um…”
“I know.” I ignored the prideful howl of my wolf. “It’s okay.” I kissed the side of her neck, her shoulder, and slid the pretty little dress she was wearing up around her hips, wanting to tear the dainty fabric off.
I moved slowly, though. Still not quite sure I wasn’t dreaming. If I was, I never wanted to wake up.
“Have you?” Tisiphine panted as I kissed up the side of her neck, finding the zipper on her dress and tugging it down.
I stilled as her question met my ears.
She leaned back, pulling the dress up over her head in one gentle sweep, freeing her perfect breasts.
Her pink nipples hardened under my gaze as her teal hair cascaded like water around her shoulders.
She sat on my lap in nothing but a little piece of black fabric underwear that I could feel her heat seeping through.
I’d forgotten what she asked.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Tisiphone hurried to say. “And I’ve used toys for my heat, so I’m not some innocent virgin, but I never—”
“Once,” I cut her off before she could talk about anyone else ever touching her. The beast inside Tisiphone growled.
I know, love, my wolf tried to soothe her, shivering at the distant memory.
I grabbed her hips again, needing her close. “I tried to get you out of my mind. It was awful. I haven’t let another female touch me since.”
Tisiphone cried out with pleasure as I lowered my teeth to one of her pert nipples, growling as I got another taste of her skin. Her silk underwear was a forbidden barrier as she glided her core up and down my shaft.
But I could wait. I did wait. I would wait. A thousand years. Forever. As long as it took for her to come around and admit she was always made to be mine.
She moaned as I released her nipple and blew on it, leaving the cool bite of air in my place as I moved to bestow the same attention on the other.
The silk barrier between us was soaked as she continued to move, chasing her own pleasure.
Fuck. She could use me if she wanted. My length grew painfully hard at the thought.
“This isn’t fair,” Tisiphone whimpered as her body relaxed in my hands. “You know how to make me fall apart, but I don’t know what to do for you.”
“Feel what you do to me.” I chuckled as I moved her hand between us, closing my eyes when she wrapped her fingers around my shaft. “You drive me crazy. Always have.”
“I need more,” she whispered. “I need you inside me.”
Stop stalling!
I didn’t hesitate to extend a claw and rip off the thin panties, growling when she positioned herself right above my tip.
I had to still be dreaming.
Tisiphone’s legs shook as she grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to look up into her tear-filled eyes. “I’m sorry, Jaxon. For whatever part I played in keeping us apart.”
“No.” I kissed her. Gently, coaxing her out of the headspace she was slipping into. “You don’t get to be sorry. Not now. With me. Like this. I only want you to feel joy. Feel the need I have for you. Do you hear me?”
She nodded once, drawing in a ragged breath as the heat of her wet center lined up with my aching cock, and not for the first time, I welcomed the playful smirk on her face. “Can you show me what I’ve been missing?”