Page 32 of Love Bites (Timber Creek #2)

CHAPTER 32

MAX

Soaring over Summer’s pack as they ran, I could feel her joy down to my bones. Whether that was something to do with our connection, my shadowmark on her, or something else, I didn’t know. But damn I’d fight like hell to make sure she got to come back here and be a part of this again.

I wasn’t sure if flying above them was intrusive, but I couldn’t let her out of my sight. The way her wolf tipped up her head, howling at me, made me think maybe she felt the same.

Eventually, the pack slowed near a river so they could all grab a drink. I circled until Summer canted her head and wandered off, a clear signal to follow her.

Out of sight of the others, I shot to the ground right in front of her, silent as a shadow, my lips tipping up as all four of her paws left the earth at once.

In an instant, she was human again and threw herself at me. Cheeks flushed from the brisk air of her run, hair windswept, she crashed her lips against mine with a low, feral moan.

That same electric energy flowed between us when our lips touched, a current I couldn’t stop even if I’d wanted to. My hands found her bare waist instantly as I breathed into her mouth, “Summer?—”

Her hands found my belt, tugging insistently, and I groaned. She may have been heedless to the hundred people merely a few trees around the corner, but I wasn’t.

“Hold on, sunshine.” Grabbing her tight, I vanished us out of the woods, landing in her rooftop garden in case the fresh air was part of this need she’d awoken.

Moaning my name, her fingers dug into my scalp as she swayed slightly from the jolt of vanishing. The decadent sound was too much, and I couldn’t stop myself. Without a thought, I bit into her neck, taking the smallest sip. Sweetness washed over my tongue, the taste as addicting as any I’d ever had.

Together we pulled at my clothes, dropping them to the floor piece by piece until I was as naked as her. Our mouths fused back together as if this was the only way we could breathe. With a gentle nudge, I urged her towards the patio chaise across from where we’d landed. Her knees hit the wooden frame, and scooted back on it until she was laid out across the bright yellow cushion, my body draped over hers.

Every kiss I’d denied her came out in a frenzied haze, one after the next, as if we couldn’t get enough. Magic hummed between us as I kissed along her jaw and back to the pulse point in her neck, thrumming as hard as my own.

“Touch me,” Summer demanded, back arched beneath me. Another time I might have scolded her bossy tone, but I was helpless to resist her breathy voice. Her nails clawed across my back as if she could pull my wings free from their glamour, needing me in all aspects, and I fucking loved it.

My hands drifted down her body to her entrance, pressing everywhere she needed me until her breathing was ragged. Some intrinsic need to make her even more mine than just the rings on our fingers had my fangs out and biting into my own thumb, dragging the drop of blood across her bottom lip.

She sucked in a breath, her eyes flying open as I held myself above her, unable to see anything but this gorgeous woman spread out below me. Her eyes were rimmed in gold as her tongue darted out, licking away the small drop of blood I’d left there.

It was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen, the most alive I’d ever felt. In a frenzy, she pulled on my head until I lowered my mouth to hers. She opened beneath me, and I slid my tongue into her mouth, tasting the coppery tang of my blood lingering.

Like gasoline on a fire, I needed her, and I needed her now.

“On your stomach,” I growled against her lips. Gripping her hips to help her roll over, I moved to kneel behind her. She did as I said, dropping her head to the cushion as she raised her hips. Gold-rimmed eyes on me, she wiggled her ass in invitation until I smacked it. A gasp had her eyes shifting from gold-rimmed to pure gold, and I lost any ability I had to resist her.

Her shadowmark rippled across her skin, growing in a perfect combination of flowers and the night sky — the two of us, combined into one. I ran a hand across my aching cock, watching the shadowmark grow until it covered the majority of her back.

I ran my free hand down her spine, magic humming beneath my hands until she moaned, the bond strengthening between us while I stroked myself. “You are so fucking gorgeous. My beautiful wife.”

She reached a hand between her legs to dull the ache surely building there until I slapped it away. Replacing her fingers with my own, I pushed into her as I worked my thumb in small circles around her apex.

“More, Max.” Her eyes fluttered closed as her hips shifted backwards, pushing me deeper. “I need more.”

I smirked, high off her little sounds, knowing she was as desperate for me as I was her. “Such a needy girl, aren’t you?”

She rocked forward then back, and I hooked my fingers just right until she moaned shamelessly again, squirming against my hand. As she tightened around me, I withdrew my fingers from her warmth and sucked the moisture off them.

“Oh, fuck, Max.”

I flipped her onto her back and her knees parted in invitation. Settling between her thighs, I held myself aloft to notch my cock at her entrance.

Before I could tease her more, Summer’s foot wrapped around my ass, pulling me into her with a swift motion.

I dropped my head into the crook of her shoulder, inhaling her scent as my mind blanked, lost to anything but the feel of her warmth wrapped around me.

“Move,” Summer whined, pushing her hips up into mine. I did as she said, pulling back before pushing in deeper.

“How?” I mumbled against her skin, unable to resist licking across her pulse point again as I continued to move. “How does it just get better every time? Why do you smell like the most irresistible desert? When will I get enough of this?”

She tightened around me, squeezing until I could hardly breathe. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.” She repeated the phrase over and over, as lost as I was to whatever this pull was between us. I knew there were reasons why we couldn’t continue this after my mission was complete, but here, wrapped up with her, none of them came to mind.

My lips found hers as we moved in tandem, her fingers gripping my head. She held me to her until she began to shudder and pulse beneath me.

“That’s it, my good girl,” I said against her lips. “Come all over your husband’s cock.”

She tossed her head back, eyes closed as I traced a hand down her chest, feeling her heartbeat slam against her ribcage in a rhythm that matched my own.

“I can’t—” she started, licking her lips, then gasping again as I kept thrusting through her orgasm, dragging it out until I couldn’t help but follow.

My body folded around hers, a deep groan leaving me I hardly recognized as I came inside her for the first time.

Heart racing, I tipped my body to the side, wrapping my arms around her back as I pulled her with me, not ready to leave the warmth of her body.

Her lips found mine as we lazily kissed, ignoring the world around us including the howls of her pack in the distance.

“Stay out here or find a real bed?”

“Stay,” she whispered, and it sounded like so much more. “I want to hear them.”

On cue, another round of howls went up, and a contented smile graced her lips.

I grabbed a blanket from a nearby chair, dragging it over us. “They won’t wonder where you went and come looking, right?”

“No.” Summer’s murmur was fading, like she was already half-asleep. “I let them know I’m right where I belong.”

I lay awake long after Summer fell asleep, unable to stop tracing the delicate curve of her features and wondering just what I’d done to deserve to lie next to her. To be any part of her world, her life, her family.

Some tiny, long forgotten part of my heart tightened painfully; the dark corner that held the foolish hopes of a lonely boy who, once upon a time, wished for a family like that of his own.

Maybe that was what made me slip off the lounge, careful not to disturb my wife, and pad down to the living room. I found my jacket where I’d hung it on the rack by the door, and took it with me as I sank down on the couch.

From the jacket pocket, I pulled the crumpled envelope my father had given me weeks ago. The one supposedly from my mother.

My mother, who’d never so much as called me up before. Never spoken to me, never sought me out. Never wanted me.

So why now? Why would she reach out now, and why not just talk to me directly?

More importantly, why was I even contemplating reading it?

But apparently, I was. I peeled open the envelope and pulled out the letter. My mother’s cursive handwriting was elegant, old fashioned.

Massimo Marco,

You must have many questions for me. I wish I could answer them. But I cannot say much, in case this letter falls into the wrong hands.

When you wonder for whom the bell tolls, follow its ring to the east. Perhaps history will repeat itself where dukes slept and fires lit the water.

Would that I could cross the bridges between us, but I’m afraid they burned long ago.

-G.

I read it once, then read it again, anger rising in me.

What the hell was she talking about? The bell? What fucking history? Fire on water?

With a frustrated sigh, I crumpled the letter, tossing it onto the coffee table in front of me. I wasn’t sure what I’d hoped to find, but it wasn’t this mysterious nonsense that read more like the delusional musings of a vampire with too many years in her mind.

I was so fucking sick of the endless questions with no answers. My whole life, my father told me just enough to keep me useful, and refused to share anything important. How many times had I asked him about my mother, about my vampire heritage, and he’d just shut me down? I was always feeling my way through my life in the dark, unable to see more than a few feet in front of me, and I was over it. The secrets, the mysteries, the ‘need to know’ bullshit my father always spouted at me. I’d had it with all these loose threads, never knowing where I was going next or what the next task would be, and now my so-called mother was just adding to the unknown.

The last thing I needed was another unknown. Another fucking mystery to unravel.

My head tipped back on the couch and I stared up at the ceiling, trying to shove my disappointment down. I refused to let her letter have that effect on me. Refused to admit I’d ever expected anything more, anything close to an apology. Anything close to a family.

I knew better than that.

Running a hand through my hair, I stood, shaking my head at the pathetic excuse for a letter and resolving to find my father so I could ask all the questions he’d been avoiding for so long.

He’d raised me to need no one, and job well done.

Consider the bridges long gone, G .