Page 16 of Kidnapped by the Wolf (Gold Creek Wolves)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CASSIE

I’m so exhausted that I fall asleep the moment Adrian puts me in the car. The jostling of the rough dirt road rouses me after a while, and I open my eyes.

The windows of his A-frame are glowing through the trees, and the sight fills me with warmth.

Glancing over at him, I don’t see the fierce alpha who burst into the camper and rescued me half an hour ago. I see a battle-weary man.

His eyes have returned to that warm brown color, though they are still flecked with gold. Beneath the five o’clock shadow, he looks tense and haggard. His face and hands are streaked with blood, and it’s caked in his short hair.

The change in my breathing seems to alert him that I’m no longer asleep, and he turns toward me.

Immediately, that haunted look vanishes — replaced by such immense relief and devotion that it completely knocks the wind out of me.

“We’re home.”

Home .

It’s a loaded word for me. I’ve never had a real home — a place where I felt safe and loved. My father always put a roof over my head, but he made sure I understood that his protection was conditional.

Even after I left the pack, I never felt safe or settled. I was always just one wrong move from being back under my father’s thumb and treated like dirt.

He’s dead now , I remind myself. It still doesn’t seem real, but I don’t feel even a twinge of sadness. I feel . . . relief.

Maybe it was my time away from the pack. Or maybe it was seeing the way Adrian cares for his wolves. But I’ve realized that sharing DNA with a man doesn’t make him family, just as violence and intimidation don’t make an alpha.

Family is supposed to love you unconditionally, and an alpha is supposed to protect what’s his.

We’re home.

Coming from Adrian, those two words take on a whole new meaning.

“Home,” I whisper, offering a weak smile.

An aching tenderness flashes through his eyes before he comes around to my side and scoops me into his arms. The moon has risen. It’s full tonight, and the silvery light threads through the trees, casting long shadows over the ground.

Everything in the cabin is exactly where it was when I left this morning, including the ukulele resting on the bedside table. Adrian sets me gently on the edge of the mattress and goes over to start the fire.

As I watch him patiently bunch twigs underneath a few larger sticks, I pick up the beautiful instrument and begin to strum a familiar melody. At first, all I can do is hum the lyrics, but then the words begin to flow from my lips, my voice cracking on each note.

One foot in and one foot back

But it don’t pay to live like that

So I cut the ties and I jumped the tracks

For never to return

I’m halfway through the song when I realize Adrian is no longer fiddling with the fire. He’s kneeling on the hardwood floor, listening to me sing. His eyes are bright with a sweet kind of sadness and the sort of acceptance that makes tears prick at the corners of my eyes.

Three words that became hard to say

I, and love, and you

I finish off the song with a few slow picked notes and let the last one reverberate throughout the cabin.

Slowly, Adrian rises to his feet and comes to stand in front of me. He cups my cheek with one warm, calloused hand, and a sob shakes out of my body. Warm, salty tears trickle into my mouth as my chest heaves unevenly.

I’m not crying for my father tonight. I’m crying for the love I was denied for so long that this man standing before me is so ready to give.

Adrian wipes my tears away with the pads of his thumbs and takes me by the hand. He leads me silently into the small bathroom, where the towel bar is still lying on the floor from when the two of us crashed into it.

My breath hitches as he grips the hem of my shirt and tugs it over my head. Then he kneels before me as though in prayer and carefully unbuttons my jeans.

I watch as he shimmies them down my thighs. Then he takes my hand to steady me as I step out of them.

My panties grow damp as he looks me over, those warm brown irises lightening to gold as they explore every inch of me. As his gaze travels to my breasts, my nipples pebble beneath my bra, and the feel of the material dragging along them becomes almost unbearable.

I shiver as Adrian loops his fingers in the thin straps and tugs them down off my shoulders. My breasts spring free, and he leans in — his mouth devouring one pert nipple.

A moan escapes me as I thrust my chest forward, desperate for his touch. He sucks lightly for a moment and then moves down, leaving a trail of wet kisses down my ribs, along the curve of my waist, and finally stopping at my hip.

My bra hits the bathroom floor, and Adrian holds my gaze as he slips my panties off too. He continues his stream of tantalizing kisses, and when he pauses to plant one at the top of my mound, I let out a shaky exhale.

As if sensing that I need a moment, Adrian gets up and turns on the shower.

He doesn’t speak, but his eyes are full of questions as he starts undressing himself.

I watch hungrily as he pulls his T-shirt over his head, but then I suck in a gasp. His shoulder is pitted with the spray from the shotgun pellets, but the angry wounds are already scarring over, thanks to his superhuman healing.

If he weren’t a shifter . . . I don’t even want to think about it.

“Does it hurt?” I ask, my voice coming out choked.

He shakes his head, throat bobbing as I run my fingers over the skin.

No one has ever cared enough to fight for me, not even my own mother. And yet this wolf took a bullet for me tonight.

The heaviness of that reality makes the horrible scars marring his skin beautiful to me.

Adrian holds my gaze as I continue to caress him, slowly unbuckling his belt. His erection is already straining against the material of his jeans, and when he shucks them off along with his underwear, I don’t hesitate.

I almost died tonight, and my last thoughts were of him.

It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t want me to be his mate. Right now, I don’t have it in me to care. I just want him.

Planting a hand on his strong chest, I push him backward under the stream of the shower. My core throbs as I watch the water sluice over his pecs and down the center of his abs.

I rise up onto tiptoe and capture his mouth, kissing him slowly but deliberately. Adrian kisses me back as if it’s the last time, his big rough hands palming my breasts. His thumbs move in firm, torturous circles over my nipples as his lips ghost over my jaw.

Cupping my ass, he hoists me up, and I wrap my legs around his waist. His mouth drops to the sensitive skin along my neck, and I shiver as I feel his teeth rake across the skin.

Needing to taste him, I cup his face and bring his mouth back to mine, nipping at his bottom lip. His hard cock presses against my clit, and my whole body aches to let him in.

Tilting my hips in invitation, I groan as his shaft parts my delicate folds. I dig my heels into his firm ass, desperate to feel him inside me again.

A growl or maybe a chuckle rumbles through him as I slide up and down his length, the warm water from the shower mixing with my own wetness.

Finally, Adrian relents. He pulls back just enough to capture my gaze with those golden eyes before he buries himself inside of me.

My cry reverberates off the tile as he fills every inch of me, my walls squeezing his member.

For several seconds, neither of us moves. We stay just like that. Tentatively, I lay my head against his shoulder, savoring the rightness of this moment as his cock twitches inside of me.

“You saved me,” I whisper against his skin, my words nearly lost in the hiss of water from the shower. “You came.”

“You left,” he rumbles, cupping the side of my face again and running his thumb along the swell of my lip.

Adrian’s touch is featherlight on my bruised skin. I know I must look like hell.

“I . . . overheard you talking to Sebastian.”

“I figured.”

I bite my lip, embarrassed, and Adrian slides out of me and sets me on my feet.

My body instantly misses his fullness.

On the one hand, I really want to forget the whole emotional mess and just let him fuck me until tomorrow morning. But there’s a question that’s been festering inside me that refuses to be ignored.

I open my mouth, but Adrian speaks before I have a chance to ask it.

“There’s . . . something I haven’t told you,” he murmurs, tilting his head forward to keep the water out of my eyes and leaning against the shower wall. “Something you should know.”

“I’m listening,” I whisper, my heart pounding so hard I’m sure he can hear it.

“We should probably stop,” he says with a frustrated sigh, though he is still fully hard.

He trails a hand up my hip to my lower back, and his erection grows, if possible, even larger.

“Why?” I ask in a breathless voice.

I don’t want him to stop.

“Because . . .” Adrian lets out a growl of frustration and places his other hand on the wall, effectively caging me in. “If you let me fuck you again, I’m going to sink my fangs into your flesh and finally claim what’s mine.”

I suck in a gasp, which becomes an embarrassing little coughing fit. “You’re going to . . . I’m sorry, what?”

He nods slowly, his expression pained. “You’re my mate, Cassie. My fated mate.”

At those words, my world tilts on its axis, and it’s a miracle that I manage to stay on my feet.

His fated mate ?

I’ve heard of some shifters being soul-bound to their mates, though I’ve never known anyone it’s happened to.

“My wolf has been begging me to claim you since the very first moment I saw you. So if you don’t tell me to stop, I’m going to fuck you right here against this wall. Then I’m going to carry you to my bed, fuck you some more, and give you my mark.”

My heart feels as though it might punch right out of my ribs.

“Your mark?” I rasp, my throat suddenly very dry.

I’m familiar with the sort of marks shifters give their mates. Bears rake their claws across their mate’s chest, but I have no idea how wolves do it.

He nods. “It’s a bite. My fangs will embed my scent in your skin so that every other male knows you’re mine.”

The idea of being branded should freak me out, but his words have the exact opposite effect. My heart flutters at the thought of belonging to Adrian in this way — of being his.

“So do it,” I whisper, reaching up to cup the back of his neck and bringing my lips close to his. “Make me yours.”

I feel Adrian’s chest brush against my nipples as he inhales deeply. Then I see his control snap.

His hand comes around my outer thigh, lifting my leg as he thrusts into me. I cry out in surprise as he hits the very end of me, but fuck , he feels so good.

Raking my fingers through his hair, I hold on for dear life as Adrian pulls out and rams back in, each thrust a claiming all on its own.

Water pounds my head and shoulders, sliding down my face and between my breasts as Adrian sets a frantic rhythm that steals the air from my lungs.

I’m so consumed with the rightness of him that I hardly notice when he turns off the water and carries me out of the bathroom.

A trail of water follows us across the cabin, but instead of taking me to his bed, Adrian brings me to the hearth and lays me down on a soft fur rug.

The heat of the fire feels like a warm caress, and the sight of the alpha hovering over me naked as he prepares to claim me, body and soul . . . it’s an image I’ll never forget.

His eyes are pure molten gold as they take me in, his gaze like a physical touch. My skin flushes everywhere his eyes caress me. Then Adrian bends to chase a rogue droplet of water with his tongue, licking a trail over the swell of my breast.

That wicked mouth moves lower, and when he parts my folds with his fingers, my whole body tingles. I arch into his warmth as he licks me lazily, lapping up all my cream.

He slides one finger inside me, then two, and all my muscles clench in response.

A soft chuckle rumbles through him as he works his fingers faster, driving me closer and closer to the edge.

When his tongue moves back up to tease my clit, I feel the pressure building low in my belly. And when he palms my mound possessively and bites down on that bundle of nerves, I shatter into a million pieces.

The sound that comes out of me is more of a howl than a cry, and the look of feral pride in his eyes is enough to make me fist his shaft and pull him between my legs.

“Are you sure?” Adrian murmurs.

I know he’s not talking about having sex.

I nod. “I’m sure.” And because I can see him still warring with himself, I grip a fistful of his hair and pull his face down to mine. “I want you, Adrian. Mark me. Please .”

Maybe it’s the declaration that strips me bare, or maybe it’s the “please.” Either way, my words seem to shatter his restraint, and he thrusts into me so deeply that he fills every aching void.

Once he’s seated to the hilt, he turns his head, gently pushing the hair off my shoulder and kissing the spot along the curve of my neck. I feel some pressure, followed by a stab of pain, but it’s quickly lost in a rush of love and belonging as Adrian starts to move inside me.

Tears well up in my eyes, but they aren’t tears of pain. I’ve finally found a place I belong — right here with my alpha.

My whole body shudders as I break apart, and then I feel a warm gush inside of me. Adrian’s cock pulses as he finds his release. Then he withdraws his fangs and gently licks the sting away.

When he pulls back to look at me, his eyes are so full of love and pride that a sob slips out of me.

“I’m sorry,” he rumbles, stroking my hair. “It should only hurt for a second.”

I shake my head. “It isn’t that.”

“Then what is it, mate?” His voice breaks as he continues to soothe me, and I realize that he’s crying too.

It occurs to me that I’m not the only one who’s been starved for love. My mate has spent most of his adult life looking after his pack, but he’s never had anyone to look after him .

That changes tonight.

“It’s just . . .” I shake my head, biting down on my lip as I look around the tiny cabin. I don’t want to cry, but I can’t help it. I’m so full of love it hurts.

Adrian gently wipes my tears with the pads of his thumbs, hanging on my every word.

“I finally feel like I’m home.”