Too far gone for words, I groaned and gripped his thighs. I fucking loved his thighs—the way his soft flesh gave way beneath my fingers, dimpling in, letting me dig into muscle in a way that curled his toes and sparked pleasure down our bond.
I dug my heels into the mattress to meet his thrust, our movements turning frantic as we chased each other toward that peak.
Fuck, it was so good when I could feel it through our bond. When I’d first had him, when he hadn’t been part of our pack or my mate, I’d been willing to give up the very idea of a mate, just to keep him. No, I couldn’t have had this with anybody else.
But Dakota? I needed him. To my marrow, I needed him, and it was his cresting pleasure that sent me over the edge.
He cried out, streaks of white shooting across my stomach and chest. I dragged him deep, letting his ecstasy crash over me as I spilled inside him.
Holding himself above me, his loose fist hit my chest with a thud. A shudder worked through him, shaking his breath, and it made me feel warm inside.
“Me too,” I rasped, smiling.
He laughed, and carefully, he eased himself off my cock and halfway off my lap. His leg was still slung over mine, twisted between them as he nestled close to me.
I wrapped my arm around his shoulders while he panted against my chest.
This was perfect. For one blissful moment, I wasn’t stricken with fear or doubt. He was right. I needed this. Floating in the post-sex haze with him, my mind was clearer.
And I almost felt the question bubbling up from him before he spoke it aloud.
“Can you tell me about it? The old pack.” Dakota’s voice was barely above a whisper. He left his head cradled in the hollow beneath my collarbone, slowly spreading his fingers wide on my chest and dragging them back into a loose fist. It was soothing, and I never wanted him to stop. “It’s hard to imagine you all coming from a place like that. Especially with how—” He lifted his head to catch my eye, before sliding his gaze toward my closet full of custom shelving and bespoke suits. “I don’t know—theGQof it all.”
My laugh came out bleak. “That’s on purpose. It wouldn’t have seemed so strange if you’d seen us when we’d just left Idaho. Rural packs—they’re pretty insular. Honestly, I’d have been lost without Jillian. She’s the one who realized we needed to be serious about our education. She’s the one who tried tofind a way out and made plans and figured out how to apply for loans so we could go to school in the first place.” I sighed, shutting my eyes. “When we were kids, we argued about it sometimes. I’d be a little shit about doing homework—most of the pack was homeschooled, and that was never a big priority, you know? Just something to get the humans off our backs. Some plausible deniability that we weren’t just out there in the woods, letting our kids’ brains rot out their ears in between beatings. I mean, there were beatings, but cubs don’t bruise like human children...” I could feel Dakota’s agony ripple across our bond. I hadn’t—I hadn’t told him any of this. He hadn’t needed to know it. Even now, I didn’t want to burden him with any of it, but it’d crept back into our lives, and he was my mate. I couldn’t lie to him. It just wasn’t possible. “I don’t know—you grow in the family you’re born to? For a long time, I thought—” I sighed, giving myself a moment to consider as I stroked his arm from elbow to bicep and back. “I thought that if I were the right kind of wolf, alphaenough, I could keep the people I loved safe. Make things better from within the structure we lived in. I didn’t know anything else, and I didn’t realize that it was all—it was too wrong to fix. But Jill was right, as always. If she hadn’t fought for us taking it seriously, we’d have been stuck, or—” I grimaced. “I could’ve lost her.”
I’d never known if she meant to leave no matter what. If me staying behind would’ve kept her trapped.
I hoped not. I’d rather her leave me behind and run for the hills, if I’d ever been stupid enough to let her go.
But I wasn’t. It’d never really been a consideration, for me to watch her walk away and not go after her.
Or for me to go out into the world and leave her back in Wildwood, even when she’d told me to.
With a sigh, I shut my eyes. Dakota’s head settled back on my chest. For a few minutes, we just stayed like that.
I had more to say, but Dakota was patient. I don’t know how he did that—knew exactly what I needed and had the fortitude to be there and wait for me to figure it out, a steady comfort at my side all the while.
I squeezed him close, yes, maybe in thanks, but also because I needed him. I didn’t let myself talk about this, even think about it. He was the only reason I’d even try.
“It was awful,” I whispered. “But when we left, I... I didn’t know that I could give us anything better. Just—there were people counting on me. I had totry, but it was?—”
“So fucking hard,” Dakota finished when words failed me. His arm tightened around my middle.
All I could do was nod and swallow hard against the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me.
“It wasn’t better. Not right away. I mean... I guess some parts were, for most people. I hope?” I wasn’t sure. Those early days were a lot of doubt and fear and getting by on too little shared between too many of us. “I’m pretty sure I’ve never been half as much a fucking asshole as Reeve was. Never hurt anybody who wasn’t, like—I fought him. But he wasn’t innocent, you know? I didn’t have a choice.”
Dakota’s soft hair brushed my chest when he nodded.
I didn’t want to say that I was a good alpha—where we’d come from, I wasn’t entirely convinced there was any such thing. But I tried to be a good man.
“Jill and I—we figured it out. But I shouldn’t—I didn’t go back. I shouldn’t have left them. I shouldn’t have left you.” With my free hand, I pinched the bridge of my nose as my eyes stung.
Dakota’s head popped up. “Left me?”
I nodded. “With Cash. That was—I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t know what to do, but I left you here to take that on alone?—”
“I wasn’t alone.”
