Chapter Fifteen Ren #3
“Whatever works for you.” Tobias stood and shook our hands. “Congratulations. You said you were going to delay declaring and claiming, but it looks like the universe had other plans.”
“Something sure did,” I said. “I’m not sorry about it.”
“Neither am I.” Xavier kissed the top of my head. “I should get back to work. Thank you for taking the time, Anax.”
“Tobias.” Tobias rolled his eyes. “You’re welcome. I have some work to do too, so I’m heading into the office.”
“I’ll follow up with Seth to find out where he wants me.” Xavier gave me a one-armed hug. “See you later, Ren.”
“Yes.” I smiled up at him.
Kyle stood. “I need to get back to work on Virtual Haven and the rest. I’d like to at least have Virtual Haven up and running before next full moon. I know I said I didn’t need you today, Ren, but I might ask you to help me out a little this afternoon.”
“I’ll be here,” I said, and was surprised by how incredibly right those words felt.
That night after supper, Xavier and I went to my room. Xavier’s was larger and had a bigger bed, but my room was where I was comfortable. With the door closed, we curled up together on the bed, my head on his chest. He stroked my hair. “How are you feeling?”
“It’s all still a lot.” I kissed just above his shirt collar. We hadn’t gotten around to undressing yet. “And if you claimed me the way you did, what the hell happens when we finally fuck?”
“You’ve been thinking about that?” He scoffed. “I don’t know. Stronger claiming, maybe. Or maybe it just feels incredible, and we both come, and we add it to our repertoire. Do you want to find out tonight?”
He didn’t change tone at all asking the question, so it took me a second to grasp what he’d said. “You want to?”
“I’m asking if you want to.” He pushed me off and turned onto his side to face me. “Yes, I want to. It isn’t only up to me. Everything we’ve done is amazing, and if that’s what it continues being, I’m good with it.”
“I want you,” I whispered. “Inside me. But do we have…?”
I wasn’t sure he even knew what we needed.
Hell, I wasn’t sure I knew. If he was going to fuck my ass, we needed lube.
Maybe not condoms, because no diseases for werewolves, but condoms did make cleaning up easier.
If we went with vaginal, a condom was absolutely needed, but no lube.
Damn. I’d never had this much trouble sorting out logistics when it came to sex. Then again, I’d never been with anyone who gave me as many options as Xavier. It was one of the things I refused to admit I loved about him, because I still wasn’t quite ready to say “love” about anything involving him.
“No.” He rolled his eyes. “Shopping run tomorrow. I was going to make a side trip to the drugstore. So I guess we’ll have to wait another day.”
“It’ll be worth the wait.” Looking down at the baseball logo on his T-shirt, because I couldn’t quite look him in the eye for my next question, I hesitated. “Do you prefer…Like, would you rather be…Shit. What hole do you want to fuck?”
Turning slightly red, he stared for a second, then snorted. “I don’t have a preference.”
“Okay.” That didn’t help. “I don’t want to chance getting pregnant. Like, I need to, I don’t know, have surgery or something? Get rid of the uterus. That would help.”
“I don’t know if it would. Rapid healing, remember?” He grinned. “It might grow back.”
I shuddered. “Don’t even fucking joke about that. Werewolves have never had hysterectomies?"
“Female—sorry. Werewolves with uteri make sure they won’t get pregnant, but I don’t know whether they do it through surgery.” Head tilted, he looked thoughtful. “We could ask.”
“Like, interview every uterus-laden werewolf to find out how they stopped the pregnancy thing?”
He snorted again. “No, I mean ask someone who might know. Suzannah, maybe. She’s a pack healer and someone with a uterus.”
“I’ll talk to her.” Since I’d already started talking with her about all the traumatic shit in my life, I might as well bring this up too.
“So meanwhile, I’m sure we can find a few other things to do to each other. While we figure out how to keep me from getting knocked up and wait for you to remember to buy condoms and lube.”
“I said I’ll be getting them tomorrow.” He shoved me onto my back and threw one leg over me. “And yes, we can definitely find other things to do. Like this.”
He nipped my shoulder just enough to hit the perfect line between pain and pleasure and moved his hand down my side to my hip.
Where he stopped with an evil little smile.
He’d discovered that tormenting me by not touching where I wanted him to touch could be fun.
At least until I started tormenting him right back. I was better at it.
Tonight, though, I didn’t want to torment him. I didn’t care if we did anything besides lying there together. He would sleep beside me; we hadn’t slept apart since Friday. The bed wasn’t huge, but it was big enough for two people who slept wrapped up in each other.
I had a home here. I had Xavier. Eventually, I might stop being astonished every time the reality hit me. Now, as I lay with my mate teasing me, all I could think was that my life was nowhere near what it had been. I was thankful as hell for that.