Chapter 5
Gavin
I didn’t deserve to touch her.
Her perfect lips were red, puffy, and parted in a way that made my cock leak. I would give anything to have her hands around me, her tongue cleaning up the pre-cum soaking my boxers.
Her pussy would look like that after I kissed her there, devoured her sweetness, made her tremble and scream my name until she was a dripping, melting mess.
Fates knew my actions had been shit, turning away from her, never letting her see me and how much I wanted her. She didn’t know me, because I hadn’t let her in.
But I could smell how much she wanted me.
I inhaled, her natural scent of citrus and vanilla warmed by the musky odor of desire.
My aching cock wasn’t enough to prove to this goddess of light that my heart was pure, even if my thoughts were dirty as sin.
I needed her, yet my efforts to protect her from me, from my bear, had been too effective. She was smart, she was sweet, but she wasn’t a pushover.
She was practically in my lap and so fiercely determined that she never noticed the way my claws descended as I gripped her.
“Explain.” Her voice was demanding, taunting, testing me. The hurt in her eyes warred with her desire. “Tell me how you want me but avoided me. Tell me how you can kiss me like you need me but won’t touch me. Won’t let me touch you.”
“You’re touching me,” I growled. “I’m touching you. We’re touching.” I didn’t know how to do this. To make it right. To admit how I felt, how I’d screwed it all up. I just wanted.
“Not the way I want.” She tipped her head to the side, her expression thoughtful, and her thick braid fell over her shoulder.
I wanted to grab that braid and pull her all the way into me. Wrap it around my fist and tug her so close there would be no space between us.
“And we’re not touching the way you want, are we, Gav—”
“Don’t push me.” My bear was at the surface.
My jaw still ached from the way my fangs broke through this morning, the way I’d been holding my bear in all day.
I didn’t like the way she was assessing me.
As if she could look right into my soul and see how much I wanted her.
Craved her touch, her softness and light, her love. I needed her the way I needed air.
She had to stop or I would break—
“You want—”
“I want it all. Everything you’ve got and more than you think you can give,” I rasped out.
She sucked in a breath.
I couldn’t touch her the way we both needed until she knew, deep in her soul, how I felt.
“I am sorry, Serena. I’d tried to ignore Olivia, the way she talked about you all the time.
But lonely nights in the tent, or digging trenches, the stuff she said crept in.
I dreamed about you. Then second I saw you—fuck.
” I was going to screw this up, judging by the look on her face.
“I joined the forestry service as a firefighter because it’s how I protect my land, my family.
It’s dirty, dangerous work, and I’m good at it, because I’m the same. Then I saw you, and you were perfect.”
Her blue eyes were wide, taking it in.
“I thought I had to protect you from me. From what’s inside me. I hurt you, and I did it because I wanted to protect you.” Nothing sounded more dumb, saying it out loud. “That doesn’t make sense, does it?”
She shook her head slowly.
She needed to know everything. I didn’t want to hold back now, but shifting in front of humans was risky for everyone involved. Humans had thought they were losing their mind at the sight. I had to go slow. Especially now.
“I know. I know I’ve been an asshole. I know you deserve better. I can’t help the way I feel,” I confessed.
She stiffened. “How you feel? Are you attracted to me but wish you weren’t? There’s a club for that.” She pursed her lips. “It’s not supposed to be okay to have more than just a handful of ass or thighs, or belly.”
Her bright blue eyes bored into me, drilling her words into my brain so I’d never forget them.
“I am more than ‘okay.’ I am amazing. I don’t want anyone in my life who thinks less of me than I think of myself. If that’s why you’ve avoided me, you can stop. This all ends, now.”
“No. Hell no.” I shook my head. I met her gaze full on, in total agreement and awe. She was nothing less than a goddess, the ruler of my heart and my souls. The only way to prove it to her was to show her.
“Please, forgive me.”
“I—I don’t know if I can, Gavin.” She bit her lip. The fierce woman who’d just stood up for herself looked down at the ground.
My attempt to keep her pure, protect her sunshine from my dark clouds had done it anyway. I’d dimmed her light. My bear roared at me, his frustration with my human side coming to a head.
Fur broke out along my shoulder blades, muscles popped in anticipation of the shift.
I shoved back the bear. This had to come from the man. I hurt her, I had to make it right. From this moment forward she would never worry again about how I felt for her. She would know with every cell of her body and soul she was loved, desired, and wanted.
She would glow by the time I was done. The image of her glowing face, sweetly rounded curves filling out farther, swelling with our child, took over; I nearly busted a nut right then.
Those luscious tits would be full of milk, swollen and tender, rosy peaks…
fuck. Wrong place, wrong time. And impossible if I didn’t do right by her.
“Give me a chance, and I’ll spend our lifetime together making it up to you.”
“Lifetime?”
I raise my arm, the one tied to hers, the tie that was supposed to last for twenty-four hours.
“This is real to me.”
“We don’t even know each other,” she protested, but her words fell flat, like a line she had to say.
As much as I’d learned about her from my sister, I knew Serena had gotten the same hard sell. I could read it in her eyes.
“You heard the history of handfasting. It’s meant to give us a chance to get to know each other. Just, give me the time, Serena.”
“Gavin. I want to. I can handle rejection but I can’t play games. I won’t be jerked around.”
This battle had been raging inside me for far too long, and I was fucking exhausted. I had to let go.
“You donate your time to do accounting for Roaring Rangers. My sister doesn’t have a lot of close friends, but she talks about you as much as she talks about the girls and Jed; you’re new to Wild Mountain and from what I’ve heard, you fit in as if you’ve lived here your whole life.
You are fierce and protective, and yet still so damn sweet.
Somehow you were in my system before I even met you, and I was wrong to walk away. ”
I bowed my head, ceding control to my shifter side and prayed the magic would save us both. The thin, golden thread of Fate wound around us, flowing through me, binding us together more surely than the string on our wrists. It wouldn't be permanent, not until she wanted it to be.
Her breath caught when I lifted my head.
“There’s something wrong with your eyes. Oh my god!” She gasped. “Are you okay? Are you having a stroke?”
“No.” My voice was pure growl, guttural and dark. Fuck. My bear didn’t care that this was a dangerous moment. A tread-carefully, idiot-human-on-thin-ice moment. He was at the surface, ready to make himself known to our mate. “I’ll be better when you give me an answer.”
Her rosy, flushed cheeks, the way her chest was rising and falling with deep pulls of air, her pupils dilated—she could feel it. The bond was making itself known.
If I wasn’t a shifter, and just some asshole who’d done her wrong, this would’ve been over before it began. If I was just some asshole and not a shifter, maybe she’d already be mine.
She’d have to take the next step on her own. I wanted nothing more than to yank her across that line, like the animal I was. The way my bear was a breath away from doing.
The man in me wanted her to cross it on her own. To come to me. Without being compelled. Without my Alpha power pulling her.
That would be a violation of her trust. Of her free will. Of her choice to make.
I would not rob her of that. But I was an asshole, and wasn’t above using my powers once she’d taken that first step.
But the first one had to be hers.
“Yes.” She nodded once. “Yes. I’ll give this a try. Twenty-four hours for you to prove this is more than sexual attraction. That we could have something real.”
I wanted to roar in triumph. She was ready. Ready to let go of the fear that this was a game. Ready to let me in. Ready to be mine.
She paused, and my heart fucking stopped.
I released her arms.
She took a step forward, and I held my breath.
She put her hands on my chest.
And that was far enough for me.
Serena
As if the world had pressed pause on my path to love with Gavin, and just hit re-start, I could feel myself back in that space where I was hopeful and excited to discover him.
I wanted a safe place to land. Arms strong enough to hold me, but not grip so tight I cracked.
I wanted to be in a never ending loop of love and trust—like the handfasting string that bound Gavin and I together.
I wanted it to be real. The memory of that pause, and the hurt that followed wouldn’t be erased by one kiss.
I’d gone bungee jumping off a bridge into a deep, rocky gorge a few years ago. At the time, it was the scariest—possibly dumbest—thing I’d ever done. Getting on stage for this charity event, that was second. This was first by miles.
It was time to admit to myself I’d hoped that somehow Gavin would be on stage, too, when I had no logical reason to think he would be.
The girls would never have convinced me to be the Roaring Ranger’s representative today, otherwise.
I’d meant what I said to Gavin: no one can make you do anything you don’t really want.
And I wanted this to be real so much; I was terrified my secret wish for that future and the desire I had for him was overwhelming my senses, the same way the air had rushed not just around me, but through me as I leapt from that bridge.
I needed to know.
If what he said was true, if what his body showed me was true, and if what my heart felt was true, then I had to leap, right?
“I’ll give you the twenty-four hours to show me who you are.” I nodded my head between us. “And I will accept every part of you, the same as if we were married for real.”
His smile was like his kiss, bold and fierce, and it reached all the way to his eyes, warm with a tenderness I didn’t anticipate. I lost my breath at the emotion there.
I had to keep going, though. There would be no misunderstandings between us. If I was going to go all in, acting as if this was for real, we’d never be apart again. I didn’t want to start the first day of our lives together with anything less than honesty.
“No matter how much you might want to fuck me”—I paused at his growl —“and how much I might want you, sex isn’t enough. I won’t be a dirty secret for you to hide away. You take me as I am, or not at all.”
“I don’t want you any other way, Sunshine.” His grin this time was pure sin. “Except naked.”
I laughed. This was such an intense moment, the mischievous comment took me off guard—and solidified my decision. There was much more to this rough and ready hotshot, and I couldn’t wait one moment more.
“Okay,” I breathed. “Let’s do this.”
“Hold on. I have a few demands of my own.”
My vision narrowed at his words, but I waited for him to speak before I let my stomach jump around.
“One, I want the same from you. Take me as I am.”
I nodded. I wanted him just the way he was. I loved his rough edges and hard angles. He worked hard and it showed.
“Two. You can lead me around all day long, but when it comes to your pleasure, I’m in charge. Always.”
His blazing cinnamon-gold gaze burned into me with an intensity that made my skin heat.
“Breathe, baby.”
His smirk couldn’t dim my desire. Gavin didn’t talk much, but it seemed that when he did, his words were as solid as the mountain beneath my feet. I believed that if he was in charge, I would never regret what we did together.
“Agreed. Is there a three?” I teased him.
He growled and pulled me into his chest.
I practically flew off my feet but never stumbled. He had me wrapped in his arms, secure against his rock-hard body.
The rushing, breathless, weightless feeling was back, this time anchored by a desire so strong it pulsed through him and into me.
“Yeah. Three. I’m never letting you go.”
His words were the last thing I heard before the drum beat of mineminemineminemine started again in my head.