18. Chapter Eighteen Rhowyn
Chapter Eighteen: Rhowyn
“Please.” His words whispered across my skin, reaching deep into my soul and pulling the truth from me. If it had been one of the others, that word probably wouldn’t have swayed me. If it had been one of the others, I would have been able to keep hiding from the truth. But not with Callum. He was relentless in his pursuits. Pushing every single one of my buttons until he riled me up to the point that I didn’t know if I was coming or going.
When I didn’t answer, he pinned my hands above my head. “Rho,” he pleaded with me, flaying me open and baring my soul to him.
Meeting his eyes, mine watered. “Maybe a part of me left because I was afraid of what might happen if you stayed with me. Maybe I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else getting hurt because of me. But it wasn’t the only reason I left,” I told him. “I wasn’t lying when I said that it was something Avalonia wanted me to do alone. You happy now?” I bit back, wanting to escape his gaze that saw too much.
“No,” he told me, holding my hands tighter as I struggled against his hold. “Like my sister told me, what happened to Baer is not your fault.”
I barked out a harsh laugh. “How’s it not?” I bucked my hips, trying to get him off me again, needing to escape more than ever, but he was expecting that move now. When I couldn’t break free from his hold, I continued, “He was only there because of me. Only in harm’s way because he was cursed with being my consort. If not for me, he’d still be on portal duty, probably safe on Earth with both hands. Now, he’s suffering, and it’s all my fault.” Once I opened the flood gates, it seemed that all of my thoughts wanted to tumble out.
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” he growled again.
I wrapped a leg around him and twisted my hips, maneuvering myself out from under him when he relaxed his hold, but he rolled with the momentum, slamming me back against the wall. “You’re not running this time, Trouble. I won’t let you.”
“Fuck you!” I spat at him, my eyes watering as I wanted to crumble before him, but my pride wouldn’t allow me to be so vulnerable.
He licked a line up my throat, a hand running down my side. “Gladly.” His husky voice indicated he was just as turned on as I was. As if in answer to that thought, he ground his hips into mine, his cock hard as a rock. A soft moan escaped me before I could wrestle back control of myself. He smirked at me as he taunted, “After you tell me the truth.”
“What do you want to hear? I already told you why I left, what more is there?” I snapped at him, knowing deep down what he was fishing for.
“There it is,” he said cockily, reading me like a book, his eyes dancing between mine.
Narrowing my eyes at him, I decided two could play that game, thrusting my own hips forward to grind against him. His eyes drooped in reaction, his hand squeezing my hip painfully. “You want to play dirty? Fine. If that’s the game you want to play, let’s play it,” he challenged me. Before I could reply, he spun me until my face was pressed against the wall, my arms still pinned above my head as his hand hooked into my pants and tugged them down.
I kicked one leg off, needing this, needing him. I couldn’t bare myself the way he wanted me to, but this was something I could do. As his hand caressed my ass, I pushed back into him, needing more. His chest rumbled, vibrating into my own and causing my sex to clench on empty air. His hand trailed down the curve of my ass cheek, parting me from behind, a finger running along my slit.
“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he growled out, running that same finger around my nub and eliciting a gasp from me. I pushed back into him, needing more still.
“Fuck me, Callum,” I challenged him, letting him know just what I wanted. Needed.
He chuckled, a rustling behind me as he undid his clothes, keeping me pinned. I felt the head of his cock running along my wetness, teasing me. I pushed back into him, tired of the teasing. After being away from them all for so long, I needed what he was offering me. “Quit fucking around,” I snapped at him.
“Gladly,” he snapped back, thrusting in forcefully. The pain bit into me and anchored me to the here and now. He was by far my largest male in every way. But with the pain, pleasure echoed at the fullness of having him seated inside me. Finally.
I bucked against him, trying to get him to move, but he just laughed. “If you want more than this, Trouble, you’re going to have to tell me the truth.”
“Fuck. Shit,” I cursed, knowing he was going to keep me here all night if he had to. The stubborn, pigheaded, ass . Leaning my head against the cool wall, I let my hair curtain my face. “I was scared,” I admitted to him.
His hand wrapped around my hair and jerked my head back almost painfully, his kiss bruising my lips in its intensity. When he pulled back, he asked, “Why?”
“Because,” I told him, inhaling shakily, somehow finding the bravery to confess the truth when I wasn’t facing him directly. “Everyone I’ve ever loved has left me. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing any of you. I was afraid of being alone again.” The truth poured out along with a tear that leaked from my eye.
He released my hands then, cradling me into him, slipping from inside me to turn me around. Picking me up, he walked us to the bed. “You will never lose me,” he told me.
“You can’t know that,” I argued with him. “When I communed with Avalonia, she showed me a vision. A premonition in which the bonds broke inside me as Titania killed you all one by one. I had to live through it, experience it, and it’s not something I can go through again. I can’t lose you. Any of you.” I buried my head into his neck as if I could hide from that outcome, as if it was that simple.
“Ah, Trouble,” he consoled me, squeezing me tightly in his embrace as his cheek rested on my head. “Haven’t you learned by now that there is nothing we won’t do for you. It’s ingrained in us. Even if that means we have to hunt you down from the afterlife, we will always find our way back to you. Always.”
His words slowly sank in, and I raised my head, believing him and the veracity of his words. They’d found their way to me, followed me as I did my best to stay hidden. And still they came. Maybe they always would. All I knew was that I couldn’t keep running from this. From them.
Whether I liked it or not, we were all in it for the long haul. However long that might be. For good or bad, we’d either live or die together.
I turned on his lap from where he’d been cradling me until I was straddling him, holding myself up above his erect cock. Slowly, maintaining eye contact with him, I sank myself down on him until he was fully seated inside me again.
We closed our eyes at the feeling of being right where we belonged. He kissed me again, claiming my mouth, fighting me as our tongues tangled, even now. He was so much like me, it was scary. Both of us were scarred and wounded, growing up having to fight for everything. He frustrated me to no end, but he was mine. And I loved him.
Rising until he was almost out of me completely, I dropped, my thighs slapping against his, both of us moaning. “Fuck!” he cursed, nipping my bottom lip as punishment.
As if the movement lit a fire inside us, we both started moving frantically. I started grasping at his shirt, dragging it over his head so I could feel more of him as he ripped my shirt from me, leaving us both fully exposed to each other.
He flipped us then, kissing me just as fervently, pinning my hands above me again. He thrust forward, his hips slapping against mine as I arched my back, crying out. Pleasure and pain, forever entwined into both of us. This moment was perfect in every way. It could never have been any different for us.
He lowered his head, his mouth trailing kisses down my body until his lips wrapped around a nipple. He sucked it into his mouth, his hips thrusting minutely until he pulled back again. As he slammed back into me, he bit down on my nipple. This time, it was my turn to curse out, panting at the pain that morphed into pleasure as he thrust again. His free hand reached between us, strumming my clit and driving me further up the edge.
I bucked against him as his thrusts slowed, needing him to speed back up. Instead of doing as I’d intended, he stopped altogether with a chuckle. Slapping my ass. “Behave, Trouble. I’m trying to show you something.”
“And what’s that?” I panted out, rolling my hips to find any kind of friction as he left me hanging on that cliff’s edge.
“That without me, you’re not going anywhere. I can keep you on this edge all night, or we can go over it together. It’s your choice.”
“Together,” I told him, the answer simple. “Please, Callum, take me over.” I wasn’t ashamed to admit that I was begging him, not when I needed him this desperately.
“Damn straight,” he said, starting to thrust again. Releasing me from his hold so that he could sit up, he used both hands to lift my hips until he was hitting a new angle inside of me. I swore he was now hitting my cervix; he was so deep inside me with each stroke, his cock dragging against my G-spot.
He pulled out and slammed into me, his pace slowly picking up as he drove me right back up to the edge. “There’s probably something you should know.” His words came out breathless and scratchy as he remained fully focused on his task of fucking me.
“I don’t care,” I told him, my head tossing back and forth as I chased the ending he promised.
He laughed with a groan as I clamped down on him and increased the friction for us both. “I’ll remind you of that in just a few minutes.”
I couldn’t process his words, not while he worked my body like it had been his all along. Every thrust in and out hitting that bundle of nerves inside me. His fingers reached around, pinching my clit as he demanded, “Come for me now, Rhowyn.”
And I did. Stars littered my eyesight as we flew over the edge together, my core squeezing him tightly. His groan told me he had followed me over, his release emptying inside me as he throbbed almost like he was swelling from the intensity. He leaned over, biting me hard over my heart at the swell of my breast. That fierce marking, the claim he was staking on my body, sent me straight into another orgasm.
Holy fucking shit! I didn’t know a bite could do that but sign me up to do that shit again. I lay there, floating for a moment, certain Callum’s cock had only gotten larger inside of me as the tremors from our combined orgasms threatened to send me over the edge again.
He rolled over, taking me with him as he lay on his back, our sweat-slicked skin sliding against each other. After a moment of lying with my head on his shoulder, I could feel his seed starting to leak out of me and decided I should probably clean myself off. Pushing up, I tried to separate my body from his but was stopped as a tugging sensation inside of me kept me in place and sent me over into another fucking orgasm. I cried out at the pleasure that coursed through me so suddenly, riding out the wave of ecstasy as it crashed over me.
“What the fuck?” I panted out when it finally released me from its hold, letting my head break above the waves for blessed oxygen. I collapsed on his chest again, resting my head over his heart, his own heart racing as more cum leaked down our legs, where we were still joined. “What was that?”
He laughed then, the motion pulling at the anchor inside me and making me moan in exhausted desire, threatening to send me over into another orgasm. “That’s the thing I wanted to tell you.”
I pushed up with my forearms resting on his broad chest, puzzled. “The thing with Autumn males who can shift, especially those whose primary affinity is for wolves, we bite our mates, which triggers the knotting.”
“The what?” I asked him, still puzzled, my brain fuzzy from the multiple orgasms that had shaken my world.
“When we mate, we knot,” he said, smiling indulgently at my confusion.
“But that didn’t happen with Lennox?”
He laughed again, causing me to moan as his knot tugged inside of me before I whimpered. “He isn’t my mate.”
“So, you’re saying I’m stuck here because you’ve knotted inside me? I’m now your mate, and each time you move, I’m going to orgasm?” My voice rose an octave as reality sank in. As if in demonstration of the point, he thrust forward and tried to pull back. The knot hit me again and caused us to both see stars as we came again.
“Just when I thought my life couldn’t get more hectic,” I said to the universe that seemed to be plotting against me after we’d both plummeted back to earth and reality.
“Awe, Trouble. It could be worse.” His arms wrapped around me as I settled into him to wait for his knot to release us, his tone teasing.
“How could it be worse?” I asked, my eyes drifting closed as I basked in the afterglow and warmth of his body.
“I could be knotted in your ass.”