Page 9

Stacy

It takes a while to get back to Greyson’s house, and the anger coming off his skin is practically visible as he moves quickly through the early morning fog.

He’s not speaking, just running, jaw tight, eyes flashing to and fro between brown and silver and glittering angrily. And I’m just holding on and willing my heart to slow down a little. It feels like it could leap straight out of my chest at any moment.

I’m achy and tired. I’ve been in my wolf shape twice today and my body isn’t used to that. Plus, that walk was way longer than I bargained for, and it was fraught with stress about whether Jimmy would be at the motel, whether anyone had suffered due to my disappearing, and not just that… thoughts about the Arcana Falls village, the pack, the trouble I’ve caused them so far, and most of all… Greyson. The way he spoke to me. The way he touched me. The words he spoke. The things it does to me.

What’s going to happen when we’re on the other side of the door to his home? He’s so angry. Maybe even angrier than when he first caught me after I shot Tyson Savage.

My thoughts of terror are interrupted when a woman calls out, “Mornin’ Grey!”

She’s elderly but extraordinarily fit for her age. She’s bent over some flowerbeds with a little shovel.

“Congratulations! Hello young lady. Welcome to the pack,” she says. “I’m Claire.” She rises to standing and smiles wider.

I attempt a friendly wave, but drop my hand when Greyson’s angry gaze snaps to my face.

He’s definitely angrier than when he first caught me.

“Claire,” he returns halfheartedly and continues until he’s at his door where he squats, lifts the giant gift basket while adjusting me in his arms before he manages to twist the doorknob. Once inside, he slams the door and sets everything down other than me before angrily twisting the lock.

“I can walk,” I try.

But his eyes cut to my face and the fury there makes me drop my gaze and clamp my mouth shut.

He clenches and unclenches his jaw while climbing to the top level and taking me straight into the bathroom adjoined to his bedroom.

It’s a beautiful space. The most beautiful, spacious bathroom I’ve ever had the pleasure of being inside. Two sinks. A big shower alcove that could fit four men. There’s also a large, deep tub.

I thought my bathroom at the motel in Drowsy Hollow was spacious, and it is compared to the closet-sized one at home, but this bathroom is three times the size of the motel one. And the water from the taps in here comes out not just clean, also odorless. It wasn’t bad in the motel, but there was a slight bleachy scent. This water here in Arcana falls is the best water I’ve tasted in my life.

I wanted to snoop in the many cupboards and drawers when I used it after he first brought me here, but I resisted that urge. Other than the black and white checkered floor and tile, everything else is gleaming white instead of the yellow of the bathroom at home. Yellow due to age as well as being the golden color that was in style when the home I live in was delivered. Or stolen, knowing my father.

He turns the shower on and steps in. But the water is freezing for a second, so I shudder and gasp as it pours down on our nude bodies.

He seems unbothered by the chill, also unfazed by my shriek, and doesn’t back away from the cold spray, keeps me there under it. Mercifully, it quickly warms. But he still has me in his arms with a chill in his expression that makes me feel ashamed.

He’s been so nice to me so far.

I guess I ruined that.

Finally, he sets me on my feet and reaches for the shower gel bottle on one of the shelves built into the tiles. He pours a lot of it into his hand, rubs his palms together and works on lathering himself up. I’m standing rigid, watching as he soaps up everything, including his erection and the surrounding vicinity.

Yes, as angry as he is, he has an erection. And this can’t bode well for me, can it? Do my actions tonight mean he no longer cares about my fear around being mounted? Being, in his words, claimed .

He turns his back to me as I continue to stand still, watching his soapy hands move over as much of the back of his body as he can reach. He grabs a bottle of shampoo and squirts some into his hands, then lathers up his hair while I watch the bubbles take their time trickling over the ridges and down the valleys of his muscled body until they disappear down the drain.

I’m so fascinated by the process, I kind of forget for a moment where I am. Not to mention the fact that I’m ogling a large alpha who’s currently mad at me.

He's efficient at getting himself clean while I watch as his strong hands move over his wet skin, and when all the bubbles are dribbling into the drain between his feet, my eyes bounce back up in time to see him slick his wet hair back with his hands before he steps out.

Thinking he’s leaving me be so I can wash up, I move closer to the drain, getting fully drenched by the hot streams of water.

As I’m absorbing the wonderful feel, the massaging heat, and maybe the best shower head I’ve ever been under, he’s back. Water droplets dot the expanse of his skin. A droplet falls from his full lower lip.

As I watch it leave his lip another one catches my eye. His collarbone. This drip tumbles over his shoulder. And then my eyes catch another moseying down his corded throat. Because I’m watching random water droplets trickling down Greyson’s body, it takes me a moment to notice that he’s soaped up a washcloth.

I reach for it, thinking it’s for me, but he doesn’t hand it over. Instead, he begins to wash my shoulder with the red cloth, which smells like sugar cookies. He’s placed a new bottle of shower gel beside the one he just used on himself.

I work down a swallow, focused on his mouth as he lathers up my other shoulder. The soapy red cloth moves down my left arm before it dashes across my belly and then up my ribcage. I watch it slide across my right breast and stop. The washcloth falls and hits the floor of the shower with a wet thwack. My eyes follow his hand as he reaches for the shower gel and then drizzles some across my breasts. My gaze bounces up to his face. But his eyes aren’t on mine; they’re on my breasts as he takes one into each hand and lathers them up.

His thumbs graze over my nipples, which react, immediately bunching up tight, as if I’m cold. I’m not cold. I’m far from cold. It’s very, very warm here.

He moans while touching my breasts. A funny sound slips out of my mouth, too, as our eyes meet.

He advances, so I retreat, but this puts my back against the wet tiled wall.

Greyson loses a touch of the intensity as he flashes me a disarming grin before squirting more shower gel into his hands and dropping a stealthy, firm kiss on my lips, which startles me.

He was so angry before. He doesn’t look angry now.

But before I’m able to comprehend what he’s doing, what mood he seems to be in while he does it, he’s grabbing my hips with both hot hands that confidently work their way up and down my legs as he lowers into a squat, paying close attention to what he’s doing while biting his full bottom lip.

For some reason, I feel extraordinarily self-conscious all of a sudden. He’s staring at me so…strangely.

He’s now on his knees, his eyes devouring my skin as they follow his movements. He pays close attention to the task he’s taken up. The task appears to be getting my body soapy as he lathers up my hips, moves down my thighs to my knees, then works down my shins to my ankles, grazing over the tops of my feet until his hands move back up again. And I’ve got goosebumps everywhere, without being cold.

When those strong hands get to my thighs again though, instead of going back down to my knees, they move horizontally.

I watch his face as he gets the cheeks of my rear end in each hand. He squeezes. And for some reason, I find it insanely attractive. I don’t like being pawed at, touched by men. I’ve been subjected to way too much of it and have always found it repulsive.

But the look on his face, the water traveling down his skin, the way it feels to have his strong hands on me... I’m feeling strangely different. Strange in general. Warm, gooey, and as if there are bees buzzing in my veins, butterflies in my tummy, jelly under my kneecaps. Heat between my legs.

“Stacy,” he says in a raspy voice.

I look into his now-silver eyes, and I sway a little. They’re glowing, but without anger. They’re absolutely beautiful.

He smiles big as his nostrils flare and it’s like the smile in the diner. It lights me up inside. Now it’s like there are fireflies inside my veins.

“Move your feet apart just a little.”

“Hm?”

“So you don’t tip over.”

“So I don’t tip over?” I ask softly as I move my left foot just a little.

“Hands on my shoulders.”

I hesitate.

“Now, Blossom,” he urges, molten eyes flashing with urgency.

I comply.

His tongue moistens his lips as his right palm skates down behind my knee and then it’s being lifted up, resting in the crook of his arm, as his face disappears between my thighs.

Some of his fingers on his left hand slide easily inside me from behind as he takes a deep inhale between my legs before his mouth latches over my center.

“Oh my goodness,” I manage to verbalize my surprise amid intense tingling. It’s quickly followed by, “Oh… oh, wow,” as sensation sparks and floods my body. All of it.

His eyes light up with something beyond salacious as I clench his shoulders and melt into the wall. Or melt into his face, maybe.

I’m wet and slippery between my legs, so the plunging in and out that his fingers are doing doesn’t hurt for a change. In fact, it does the opposite of hurt; it feels good. And what he’s doing with his lips and tongue? I’ve never felt sensations like these before.

I’m so lost in them, my body is quaking.

This gorgeous man is on his knees, making out with an area of my body that I don’t enjoy having any attention paid to. In fact, I loathe it. But this isn’t like it usually is. This isn’t remotely like anything I imagined I could feel. All the books I’ve read, all the movies I’ve watched, I couldn’t connect with anything romantic or sexually arousing, even watching a video of an act such as this did nothing for me. I figured I was either deficient in sensation or else those things were mostly for human women, rather than shifter females.

I’ve seen couples look happy, be affectionate, but I’ve never enjoyed a man’s touch and neither do any of the other women in my pack. Aunt Shea is the closest thing to a mother I’ve had since I was a small girl and my grandmother died, and to say Aunt Shea is a man hater is putting it mildly. And who could blame her after all she’s been through?

I’ve kind of related to Aunt Shea because I’ve never wanted a man’s attention. The closest I’ve gotten to attraction is how I felt when this man right here paid attention to me in the diner. Although I can find the male form pleasing to look at, used to get shy or flustered around attractive men when I was a teenager, normally I find a male’s physical attention revolting. They often look at me with a hunger that makes me feel gross. I’ve had to bend over for attractive males before, but they’ve never made my body feel like this.

But this?

Gosh, this …

I think this changes things.

I cry out as it feels like my body goes airborne to leap to the edge of the mountain I’ve been ascending, but then I fall off the peak and somehow I don’t plummet. Instead, I soar. The sounds coming from my mouth are foreign as I cry out a shuddering, husky then squeaky noise that definitely sounds part human, part animal.

And now I’m sliding up, because he’s rising up my body and lifting me, wrapping my legs around his middle as he braces me here against the wet tiles. His eyes search my face with so much hunger and heat, I’m afraid of the sensations I’m feeling right now. They’re big. So big.

I’d try to stop making these sounds, but I can’t. I’d be embarrassed about my reactions, but the look on his face says he likes what’s happening.

His lips touch mine and then his tongue dips between my lips as he deepens the kiss, one hand fisting my hair. He’s moving us out of the shower and back into his room, kissing me the whole way.

His hot mouth is still on mine as we tumble onto the bed, him landing on his back before he flips us, putting me on mine as he perches over me.

Too soon, his mouth is gone from mine, but it’s because it’s latching onto my right nipple. The sensation sends tingly ripples through my body, making my back arch. His fingers slide between my legs again and then I feel the nudge of his erection against my opening. He lifts up and says, “Need to claim you now, Stacy. Can’t wait another second.”

I say nothing.

He stares into my eyes for two more heartbeats before he slides in, slow, deep, God, so deep. Can it go any deeper? It does. And his eyes are still on mine. There’s nowhere to hide because he’s doing this with me on my back, but strangely, I don’t think I want to.

I whimper. I’m so full. He’s big. But it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt at all, and it always hurts when I’m getting mounted, but I’ve never been breached while on my back before and I’ve never been breached while so wet down there. I’m so slippery and nothing was used to make me that way. This wetness isn’t due to his hot, wet mouth. This is from me . My body wants this. Maybe I’m not defective after all. It feels… right. Sex with Greyson Blackwood? It feels like something I could want, maybe even become addicted to.

His mouth lands on mine again and I grab his jaw with both hands, crying out as he’s now fully seated and I’m suddenly way too full. And now it hurts. Ouch! Ouch, ouch… so much ouch. He groans loudly, in a deep tone that’s like music, the best music, as the pain ebbs and now it feels good again.

But wait… what on Earth? It’s now fuller and moving faster and there’s heat and oh my stars …

“Yeah, Blossom, that’s so fucking good. Better than good. That’s my knot, baby. It’s all yours. Never felt this before.”

Oh. His knot. This is what an alpha’s knot feels like. They do exist.

Vibrations. It’s vibrating inside me as I get even more full. There’s no trace of pain left. And I can’t control my body. I begin spasming, almost convulsing as the buzzing shakes my body and sends profound sensations spiraling through the most sensitive spot I have. I’m having another orgasm. Two orgasms at once, it seems, because different sensations are happening in different places. And this one feels different from the oral sex. This is positively amazing. They both were. I’m not sure which was better.

No, this one. This one is definitely better. The other was nothing to scoff about. Not at all.

I can’t believe this can feel like this . Pulsing pleasure that makes me feel like I’m expanding into my surroundings. Like I can taste colors. Like I can feel all the beauty in the world all at once. And he’s expanded inside me. Knotted me. It’s real. It really does happen. I can orgasm!

I’ve heard of knotting and never ever thought I’d be on the receiving end of it. Nobody in our pack talked much about it, but not ever around Wyatt. He got beyond irate while conversing with that alpha he dropped me off to that first time and when the alpha treated him like a young pup, telling him he’d look at life differently once he knotted, Wyatt was so livid, it was bone-chilling. And that alpha didn’t knot in me when he broke through my hymen.

But this means it’s true. This alpha has knotted inside me, and this could also mean that knotting does mean I’m Greyson Blackwood’s fated mate.

My world tilts. Changes. Emotions, knowledge, it all floods through me. I’m absorbing this truth.

This could be real.

“Yeah. This is so good, Stacy, my pretty girl,” he says. “You and me. Mated for life.” He grabs my jaw. “You’re mine forever, Blossom. You? You’re my wife. Your husband is gonna bust his ass to make you so fucking happy.”

“Greyson,” I plead.

I don’t know what I’m asking for. The sensations are insane. I’ve gone crazy. And I don’t ever want to come back from it.

He groans, throwing his head back with pleasure. His eyes are lit up so brightly, they could illuminate his village. My thoughts border on ridiculous. I’m giddy. It’s as if I’m drugged, I’m that euphoric. My legs are wrapped tight around him while the incredible sensations just go on and on and I’m along for the incredibly pleasurable ride.

Greyson puts his mouth to my ear and kisses down the side of my neck, which feels absolutely wonderful, but I suddenly seize as the pain of him sinking his teeth into my skin by my collarbone sends my body into a whirlwind of confusing sensations.

Biting me. Giving me the mate mark. God, this is real. All this is real. He’s my mate. I’m his mate. I get to shower all the love I have in me on him! I have a partner. This alpha. Greyson Blackwood. Half shifter, half witch. I never thought it was possible, that I’d get to love someone. That I’d meet a male worth loving. Never in a million years would I imagine it could be not just an alpha but an extra-alpha one from Arcana Falls of all places.

Will I love him? Will he warrant having that from me?

Tears trickle down my face at the notion, at all the feelings I’m feeling. Something splits open in my chest and fills with warmth as pleasure continues buzzing between my legs, making my body jolt, making my fingernails dig into the skin of his back.

But the pain pulses at my throat as his teeth remain clamped down and I don’t even mind. It hurts, but if it means what he says it means, it could be worth it. His strong arms are tight around me and I’m whimpering as even more heat expands between my legs. Immense heat.

I think he must be ejaculating. It’s never felt hot before. His body convulses along with mine for a long time before he releases my throat and I know that he’s enjoying it, which makes me feel good for a switch. And now our mouths are attached again. I’m not well-versed in kissing, don’t know how to do it, so I just mirror what he’s doing with my tongue and my lips and he groans while holding my face. The sounds he makes cause strange sensations to move through me.

Then his big cock slips out of me, hot liquid spilling between us.

I’m blissed out. Limp. Happy. Gooey. Sleepy. He might give me a baby! Someone to shower my love over. But what if…

My thoughts halt as I’m flipped to my belly, hauled up to balance on my palms and knees, and he slams back inside me, his pelvis hitting my rear end with a familiar slapping noise.

My world tilts again. Because this is the position I’m used to. And it feels like the world I was trapped in my whole life and this promising other world have just smashed into one another.

I squeeze my eyes tight while I cry and big, fat, sorrowful tears escape as he slams forward over and over, gripping my hips. Just like I’m accustomed to.

But I suddenly jolt in surprise as those hot hands slide up and cup my breasts, thumbs grazing over my still-sensitive nipples. And now his mouth is on my neck, at the same place he sank his teeth into. He nips at it, making me jolt before he slowly licks the spot. Now I’m jolting in a different way as he pulls the skin there into his mouth and sucks while continuing to touch my nipples, while continuing to piston his hips forward. I collapse, falling on my face, crying out with more sensation.

How am I feeling so many amazing things at once? I’m not back in that other dark, dreary, strife-ridden world like I was a moment ago. I’m here. With him. We’re somewhere wonderful. In a large, soft bed with clean bedding that smells like detergent and Greyson. He smells like late autumn pine mixed with smoky caramel. And I feel happiness in my chest, in that warm, newly unlocked space that just split open. That’s his place. It’s been locked away until now, and I never knew about it, but now I do. His knot unlocked that spot and I know . I’m meant for him. He’s meant for me.

Oh, my stars.

He keeps sucking and thrusting into me, breathing heavily, releasing low groans as I feel his warm breath, his hot touch, his thick erection stroking my soaking wet and quivering hole so amazingly.

His pace quickens, as does his breathing, and then he thrusts forward hard, staying rooted in me while groaning into my ear. “Stacy. Blossom. Fuck!”

The fuller knotted sensation returns and the buzzing hits again, going on for a long time as I clench the bed sheets, whimpering. But then his hand cups mine and I loosen the grip on the bedding as our fingers weave together. The sounds he’s making are the sexiest noises I’ve heard. I’m not in this alone. I’m not simply servicing a male on my brother’s orders.

It’s different with Greyson. It’s us. Both of us. I feel him. I think he feels me too. He feels so much right now. I feel me. I feel things I’ve never felt in myself. We’re connected by our bodies and by something else, as well. In my mind I see a crystal-clear vision of our wolves nuzzling one another’s muzzles, their tails wagging.

Like Greyson is so much larger than I am, his wolf is larger than my wolf and I feel like both my forms are suddenly so protected, so safe. Never safer.

“Yeah,” he whispers as he stills on top of me for a long moment. Now he’s kissing my neck on the sensitive place where he marked me, touching his lips to the ridge of my ear. He works his way down my back by dotting kisses down to the base of my spine, pulling shivers and goosebumps from me.

My eyes bolt wide open as Greyson sinks his teeth into my right butt cheek. Hard.

I squeak and say, “Ouch!”

“You won’t be taking off on your mate again, will you, Wife?” he asks, then presses his lips there to ease the sting.

I swallow hard. And I say nothing. Not only because I don’t know what to say, but also because I can’t even speak.

I’m liquid. Goo. Sleepy Stacy Goo.

He presses another soft kiss on the spot he just bit before blankets are put on top of me as he snuggles in, draping an arm around me, then rearranging me so that my back is pressed to his front. His other arm slides under me so now he’s spooning me while holding me, my head on his bicep. A faint, gentle vibration slides through me.

What is that? Oh. I know what it is. I forgot… I heard an alpha purrs for his fated mate to comfort her.

My heart swells as a memory seems to unlock. I don’t know how long ago it was, and I can’t see their faces in my mind, but it dances around the edge of my memories. He used to hold her and make that sound. And she looked so happy. So at peace. And watching them made me feel like that, too. I was young. Very young. I think they were my grandparents. My late mother’s folks.

Greyson is doing this as a gift for me. Tears spring up in my eyes and I swallow down a giant lump of relieved emotion as this reality settles in and his purr gets louder. He kisses my shoulder.

I lean into the feeling, giving into it, unable to think of anything other than how utterly weird and wonderful it is to feel this gooey and good. The way a hot bath feels after a hard day. No, better than that. The way it feels sitting by the wood stove when it’s raining out and you don’t need to go out there because you’re enjoying a good book with no chores left to do today. Actually, even better than that. The way warm chocolate chip cookies feel as they melt into your tongue. Yes, like that. All that . Warm chocolate chip cookies after a hot bath in front of a roaring fire with nothing to do but cuddle under a soft blanket that smells good.

My eyes drift closed. Maybe the things Aphra said to me are true. Maybe I am the key to helping my crumbling pack because of who I’m fated to. Greyson Blackwood. Could it be that I’ve found someone who… even though he has no ties to Silver Hills… might come to care enough about me to help me help my pack get out from under Wyatt’s heel? Up on their own four feet?

Something settles in me knowing that I’m not just the sister of the alpha Wyatt Meadows, a piece of his currency to be traded at his whim. I’m now Stacy, mated to Greyson Blackwood, an extraordinarily strong alpha of the famous Arcana Falls shifter council. One who’s not only an extra-alpha alpha – he’s also a warlock. And he’s kind. He’s strong but gentle. He’s capable of pulling sensations from my body that I’ve never felt. That I want more of. And this house, this village, this… this day did not go how I expected it to go. I’m so glad I failed at killing Tyson Savage.

I could become part of his pack. A pack I’d been tasked with helping to dismantle. A pack that Wyatt will continue to try to destroy. If not for the gentle vibrations of Greyson’s purring lulling me to sleep, I know I’d be in absolute panic-mode right now. Because things could get very messy. For all of us.

But maybe it’s his gentle purring, the heat enveloping me, and his strong arms around me that has me thinking that maybe it’s all going to be okay. Could it be that fate wants it all to happen? That all this was meant to happen just like this?