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CHAPTER TWENTY

RORA DOMINATED THE conversation at dinner, and Tawny found herself caught up in the girl’s new bubbly effervescence. She was transformed, really, a completely different doe than the shy and insecure girl she’d met yesterday.

Tawny listened to her story about her day, finding Stockton in the elevator, then running into him after he’d been wounded, their little lunch date, his buying her books, the brush with the vulturekin, the kisses, and the fact they had plans to see each other next week, after she’d had the chance to talk to her friend Maibell.

“It’s probably a good thing,” said Rora, “because I kind of wanted to, you know, let him. Have sex with a whole different person the day after losing my virginity to someone else! Which is, like, really slutty and not even like me. And anyway…” Her voice dropped as her cheeks turned pink. “I’m sore.”

Tawny laughed, remembering that, actually, all those years ago, after her first time, that tenderness in the wake of it. Sometimes, she still had that lingering feeling—probably would after all the raw footage with Athos today, actually, but it had never been quite as intense as that first time, had it?

“I didn’t think I would be,” said Rora. “It didn’t hurt. It wasn’t like those bodice ripper historical romances or anything. No bleeding.”

“That’s a myth,” said Eiren. “Hymens stay intact forever, and if they get damaged and there’s blood, it’s only because someone was needlessly rough.”

Rora’s eyes widened, thinking that through. “So, there was this whole mythology about bleeding with virginity because men were brutal assholes for hundreds of years?”

Eiren shrugged.

Tawny shrugged.

Rora grimaced.

Tawny should have told Rora that she’d spent the afternoon with Stockton’s friend, but she felt embarrassed about having done it, especially when she’d been so adamantly against Athos, and she couldn’t find a way to explain it. Rora was talking enough that it didn’t matter.

Eventually, Rora stopped to ask if either of them was planning on the evening run.

Tawny shrugged. “Remains to be seen, I suppose.” But if she did it, it would be with Athos again. She might be up for nighttime sex in the woods, or for watching Athos lock antlers with some other buck out there, she wasn’t sure. She wanted it to be him, though.

“No, not me,” said Eiren.

“Did you guys do the mid-morning one?” said Rora. “Am I the only person to get laid this weekend?”

“No, I did it,” said Eiren with a shrug.

“Tawny?” said Rora.

“I got some, um, donor sperm,” said Tawny, with a little tilt of her head.

All of them laughed appreciatively.

Tawny got that sense from Eiren again, that the other woman didn’t want anyone to pry, and she pushed at it this time. “What happened, Eiren?”

Eiren drew in a breath and let it out. “I got myself caught up in a thing. A stupid thing. Story of my life, really.”

“What do you mean?” said Rora.

Tawny just waited.

Eiren ran her finger around the lip of her glass, smiling wistfully. “It was a wolf.”

“A wolf?” said Tawny, sitting forward.

“He has a house on the other side of the woods,” said Eiren. “I don’t know why I went that far, but he, um, I think the scent of all of this, it made him sort of excitable. It was good sex, like really good sex, but…” She groaned, leaning back in her chair. “But he was really, really adamant about how he never wanted to see me again or anything, and I think I might have stupidly caught feelings, and I’m an idiot.”

“A wolf,” repeated Tawny, shaking her head. “Excited by the smell, like in a… predator way.”

Eiren nodded.

Tawny let out a giggle.

A smile cracked Eiren’s features.

“You lucky little bitch,” said Tawny, still giggling.

Eiren giggled too. “Did you just call me a bitch?”

“Oh, whatever, you called me a ‘taker.’ We are even. Bitch. And I say it out of love and respect and, you know, jealousy.”

Eiren collapsed into giggles, her shoulders shaking.

Rora looked back and forth between them, bemused. “Did he try to bite you?”

Eiren raised her eyebrows, sat up straight, and then turned around, moving her hair away from the back of her neck, where she was bruised.

“Ouch,” said Rora, horrified.

“It was a good ouch?” said Eiren with a helpless shrug.

Tawny let out a guffaw. “I hate you. Really, I hate you right now.”

“Do you?” said Eiren. “You wouldn’t have done that. You’re here for donor sperm and wolves are no good for that.”

“True,” said Tawny, sighing. “But there’s a younger self in me that would have ridden wolf cock all night. Damn it.”

LYALL WALKED OUT of the Center in a bad mood. There were deerkin everywhere, their little white tails bouncing around all over the place, and every single one made him feel some strange painful feeling that felt like there was a hole in his chest cavity somewhere.

He fought his way through the field and the woods and over the fence, back to his house.

Inside, he found his laptop right away and looked her up on social media.

She wasn’t hard to find at all, because she had her graphic design business, and she had a huge internet presence. A website, a personal page, and business accounts on four or five different social media platforms.

He hovered over the friend request button and didn’t press it.

Women had asked him before to exchange numbers after hook-ups. He always shut that down right away, gentle but firm, saying he didn’t think he was what they were looking for.

When she asked, he said yes.

And right after he said it, he started to feel a growing sense of panic, wondering what in the hell he’d just done.

But then she took it back.

Which should have been a relief, but it only made the panic worse for some reason.

He stared up at the ceiling, wondering if he’d ever been rejected like that by a woman.

Obviously, he’d made passes and been shot down. That happened to everyone. He wouldn’t say it was a pleasant experience, but he took that in stride.

Had he ever actually been rejected after he fucked a woman, fucked a woman who came so easily for him, just fell apart under his fingers and tongue and smelled so amazing when she was doing it, just flooded his whole being with that delectable scent that was all sex and fear and food mixed together?

Well, no.

He’d never had sex like that, for one thing.

And he couldn’t understand why she’d rejected him. She wanted him and he could tell. He could smell it.

Fuck.

He glared down at the laptop. Then he slammed it shut.

Well, it was for the best, he thought. He’d have disappointed her, in the end. He was never enough for people, and he didn’t even know how to be enough. He wasn’t really interested in trying.

Or, at least, he never had been before.

He gazed out over his living room, sighing. “Think I just got my heart broken,” he muttered. “So that’s what it feels like.”

ATHOS WAS SITTING up on a chair in his hotel room with Tawny straddling him. He was buried inside her and her perfect tits were bouncing in front of his face as they moved together. He nipped at her nipples, gently pinched them, and she said, “Thank you, sir. That’s good, sir,” in a hoarse voice.

He rocked into her and his voice was hoarse too as he told her that she needed to keep riding him, just like this, just keep moving her wet little cunt up and down on his hard, aching cock. “Because you need my come, sweet thing. Need it so that we can get you pregnant, right?”

“Right, sir, right,” she moaned.

“Good girl, just take me and get bred,” he said.

“Breed me, Athos,” she said. “Breed me, sir, breed me so hard.”

So, he bred her. Hard.

And then they slept in his bed, all tangled up, their legs entwined, his body curved around hers, one of his hands cupping one of her soft, round breasts, another resting on her belly.

Before they went to sleep, they made plans.

She was free on Tuesday next week and they were going to go to dinner.

They joked that it would be over quickly, that they’d work the insanity of this weekend out of their systems and realize that they didn’t actually like each other.

They joked that it would be good to get that figured out as soon as possible.

And then they slept in each other’s arms, and he thought that he never wanted to let her go.