Page 39 of Protected Promise

I bit my lip and shook my head.

“What? Why the hell not?”

I gave him a sad look. “Because I begged him not to.”

“Kaitlyn, why? Why would you want that piece of shit to breathe another breath?”

I sobbed. “Because he’s fully mated to my aunt and I couldn’t kill her. She was as much of a victim as I was.”

“No, she was charged to protect you.”

I shook my head. “She couldn’t.”

“Kaitlyn, did you take all of that all those years to protect her?”

I gasped and looked up into his eyes. He knew. I didn’t know how, but he knew. Tears welled up clouding my vision. “I thought he would kill her if I didn’t,” I whispered.

“Shit,” he cursed under his breath as he held me tighter. “One thing I can absolutely give you is the promise that I will never raise my hand to you or intentionally hurt you in any way. You are mine to protect now, and that is my number one most important job.”

“Pack first,” I told him like a preconditioned wolf robot.

“Mate first, Pack second,” he corrected.

I didn’t argue with him.

Despite rehashing my life’s trauma, I found that being in his strong embrace was actually a turn on. I wanted to cry all over again, but this time in relief.

One of my biggest fears had always been that I would carry this with me and that it would destroy every opportunity of love. Like an invisible disease, I didn’t think I could actually be intimate with a man. The idea of sex had repulsed me, until now.

Sure, I’d tried with a whole lot of liquid courage to get past that fear of intimacy, dimly lit rooms were often a trigger for me, but not as much as being in a room alone with a guy that I didn’t fully trust.

Damon had helped some with that. My freshman year I had been determined to get past it. I had put myself in some uncomfortable situations and one time things went a little too far. I said no, but the guy wasn’t listening. Damon had come to my rescue that night and since then he had appointed himself my personal protector and then recruited his entire fraternity to his cause, guaranteeing my virginity.

I gasped again and could feel my cheeks on fire.

“What is it?” Landon asked.

“Um, did we actually, you know?”

“Bond? Yes.” He tilted his head and showed me the mark.

“No. I mean, yes I know that, but did we have sex?” I blurted out.

His face paled and I couldn’t imagine what was going through his head.

“You don’t remember?”

“I do, or at least I think I do. It all feels more like a dream than reality. I’ve, um, never…”

“Never?”

I bit my lip and shook my head.

He grinned like he was relieved and kissed me hard on the lips and then trailed light kisses across my cheek. “It was my first time too,” he whispered in my ear.

Landon

Chapter 12