Chapter 19 #2
“I’ll be fine. It’s very early, so my body’s handling it like a heavy period.” She pauses. “But no sex for at least two weeks. Maybe longer.”
The reminder sends a fresh surge of frustration through me. Two weeks without the only form of connection I truly understand. Two weeks of this awkward tenderness I’m not equipped for.
Yet, the thought of hurting her is unbearable.
“I’ll wait.”
“You will?”
Her disbelief stings, and my eyes narrow behind the mask. “You think I’d hurt you? Force you?”
Her gaze sweeps over the mask as she hesitates. “I wasn’t sure you’d stay away. That you’d be able to.”
I want to argue, but my initial reaction condemns me. My cock still throbs with want, even now. If she offered herself, would I have the strength to refuse?
“I fucking want you desperately, Luna.” My voice drops, taking on the rough edge I know reaches her. “Every fucking hour of every day. But not at the expense of your body. Never that.”
Her face softens with relief, then clouds with doubt. “I wasn’t sure. Since I can’t see your reaction behind that mask. I thought maybe you’d see me as broken now. Damaged.”
My hand leaves her stomach and finds her face, cupping her cheek, her skin warm against my palm.
“You’re still perfect. Still mine. Nothing about this changes that.”
“Nothing?” She pushes back.
I weigh the question, fighting the instinct to offer platitudes. “Maybe it changes how I see us. The potential consequences of what we do. What we are.”
“And what are we to each other?”
The question catches me unprepared. What are we? Lovers? Predator and prey? Two broken people seeking oblivion in each other’s bodies? I’ve never had to define it before. I’ve never loved someone the way I love her, but how do I tell her that without revealing who I am?
“More than I intended. And less than you deserve.”
I stand, needing distance. The intimacy of the moment presses in on me, threatening to suffocate me. “You should rest. I’ll go.”
“Don’t.” She reaches her hand out. “Stay. Just… stay with me tonight. For a little while.”
I stop, caught between conflicting impulses. This is the moment. I could tell her who I am and end all the lies right here. But her body is rejecting what we created together. Dumping my confession on top of that seems like the worst kind of selfishness.
“Please.” Her voice comes out small and fractured. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”
The naked need in her voice splinters my chest wide open. Every intention I had to leave evaporates. How can I walk away when she’s asking for this one thing? This basic comfort?
I nod once. “The mask stays.” I cut off the question forming in her eyes before she can voice it.
She’s not fast enough to hide the way her shoulders drop, the disappointment that flashes across her face.
“I know.”
I stretch out along the bed, propping myself against the headboard. The comforter creates a barrier between us, her beneath and me above. She shifts down into the blankets and rolls to face me.
“I’m sorry.” I force the words past years of emotional armor. “Not for something we didn’t plan, but for your pain. For your loss.”
“It’s our loss.”
Tears well in her eyes, and I brush my fingers against her cheek, then slide them through the soft strands of her hair. She sighs and closes her eyes. My body still aches for her, but it’s manageable now, subdued by something stronger, by the overwhelming love I feel for her.
As her breathing evens out and she drifts toward sleep, I battle new demons. My mind cycles through images of what might have been. Luna swollen with my child, a blonde-haired infant with her eyes and my damned bloodline.
Mine
The child would have been mine. Just like Luna is.
The cruel truth mocks me. Maybe it’s better this way. But what kind of man finds relief in the loss of his unborn child?
I’m a killer. A man who stalks prey in the night and hides his face even from the woman he loves. What right do I have to mourn the loss of a child I never intended to make? What right do I have to imagine myself as anyone’s father?
But this pregnancy changes everything. It makes this real in a way I never expected. All this time, I’ve kept myself split in two. Damien Wolfe, the billionaire trying to court Luna with normalcy. And her masked lover, her wolf, who gives her nothing more than brutal passion in the dark of night.
Two separate men. Two separate relationships.
But my body betrayed that careful division. My seed grew inside her, a biological truth that mocks the lie I’ve been living. And now there’s a loss that binds us together in yet another way, a shared grief for something that never had the chance to be.
She deserves better than me. Better than these fucking mind games.
Luna shifts closer, murmuring something in her sleep.
“I’m here, little doe. I’m not going anywhere.”
For tonight at least, I can give her this.
Luna stirs, her eyes blinking open. I’ve watched her for hours, the rise and fall of her chest, memorizing the way her eyelashes cast shadows on her cheeks in the dim morning light.
“You stayed.” Surprise colors her voice.
“I said I would.”
She sits up, then winces, her hand going to her lower abdomen. The gesture—so small, so full of pain—cleaves something open inside me. Rage mingles with helplessness, both fighting for dominance and neither winning.
I push off the bed, unable to remain still. My legs carry me to the window, then back to the door, then to the foot of the bed. The room feels too small, the walls pressing in. My hands ball into fists and release, over and over, every muscle in my body screaming for a target I don’t have.
“You’re angry.”
There’s no point in denying it. “Yes.”
“At me?”
I stop pacing to look at her. “Why would I be angry at you?”
She shrugs, the motion small and uncertain. “For getting pregnant. For losing it. For not being able to give you what you need right now.”
Her words trigger another wave of rage, but it’s aimed at myself, at making her believe she’s the problem.
Yes, I was angry at first. At both of us for letting this happen. Until I understood it was inevitable. With how often I come inside her and how much I need to mark her that way, my seed was bound to take root.
I cross to the bed in three strides. I grasp the hair at the back of her head, tilting it back so her eyes meet mine. She gasps at the sting, but no sound follows.
“Listen to me. I’m not angry with you. I’m angry at the situation.” I struggle to put words to the chaos inside me. “At feeling helpless.”
“I know the feeling.” Her smile cracks at the edges. “I feel like my body betrayed us both.”
“No.” The word comes out sharp, like a shard of glass. “Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true. First, I got pregnant when I shouldn’t have been able to, and then my body rejected it. And now we can’t even—”
“Stop.” I tighten my fingers in her hair, then wrap my other hand around her throat. I don’t cut off her air, but I need her attention. “This isn’t your fault, Luna. Don’t you dare fucking blame yourself. If anything, I did this to you by being too fucking brutal.”
“Rough sex doesn’t cause miscarriages. It just happens sometimes. My body just couldn’t sustain it.”
My grip on her hair tightens. “I said stop. Don’t you ever fucking blame yourself for this again, Luna. Not ever.”
She blinks up at me, eyes wide.
“I mean it.” The words pour out, unstoppable now. “If you do, I swear, when I can finally fuck you again, you won’t be able to walk for a week. You understand me?”
Pain flashes across her face, and regret crashes through me. This is what I know. Dominance, possession, and control. But it’s not what she needs right now.
“That was…” I release her, stepping back. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
To my surprise, a small smile curves her lips, even as she rubs at her scalp.
“That’s the first normal thing you’ve said since I told you.”
I tilt my head, confused.
“That sounded like you. Like the man who comes to me and takes what he wants. Not this careful stranger who’s been tiptoeing around me.”
Her words strike a chord. She’s right. I’ve been performing a role I don’t know how to play. The understanding lover. The supportive partner. Roles beyond the mask I wear.
“I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to comfort you. How to be with you without being inside you.”
“I know. What we have is just physical.”
Her words rip through my chest. A piece of me tears open—hot, bleeding, and raw. The need to correct her burns through me like acid.
“It’s more than that. It’s always been more than that.”
“Has it? Because right now, when we can’t have that, I don’t know what’s left.”
Her words knock the air from my lungs. Is she right? Is our connection nothing more than lust, dominance, and submission? Does that mean she could never love me back? The thought hollows me out.
“There’s more.” I force the words out, though I can’t define what that “more” might be.
“Then show me. Because I need something to hold on to right now.”
I stand frozen, caught between who I am and who she needs me to be.
“All I know is taking you, Luna. I don’t know how to be gentle.”
“You don’t have to be gentle. You just have to be here.”
I watch her for a long moment before moving back to the bed, settling beside her again. I take her hand in mine, the gesture awkward and careful. Nothing like the demanding and rough way I usually touch her. Her hand feels small in mine. Breakable.
The need to hold her burns through me. I want to bury my face in her hair and inhale her scent while I pull her tight against my chest.
“I’m here.” The words scrape from my throat. “And I’ll keep coming back. Every night. Even if I can’t have you.”
“Promise?”
Everything she’s feeling lives in her eyes. Pain, fear, and need, exposed and unguarded.
“I promise.”
The words feel like a vow, binding me more than any contract I’ve ever signed.
We sit in silence, watching the sun climb over the horizon through the sliver in her curtains. In a few minutes, I’ll have to leave before the world wakes. Before the light is too bright to hide my identity.
But for now, I sit beside her, holding her hand, learning a new way to possess her that has nothing to do with flesh and everything to do with presence.
And somewhere deep inside, behind walls I’ve spent years fortifying, I mourn the loss of something I never knew I wanted until it was already gone.