Reed pulled back to look at me. “I was so wrong, Harris. I never should have said this was a mistake. You’re the best thing in my life—the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Please stay,” he said, his voice going thick around the words. It wasn’t a command, but a request. “Build a life with me here. With the pack. Please.”
I understood that, while I was a wolf now and intimately connected to the pack, this was Reed’s way of undoing his words in the bar. The bond between us thrummed with his hope and his fear.
And I realized something I hadn’t consciously noticed before. It was different now. Stronger than ever. Before, it had felt like athread connecting us, fragile and easy to ignore if I tried. Now it felt like a bridge. Solid and impossible to dismiss.
Awe swept through me. I could feel him soclearly. His exhaustion and his pain. And his love.
Especially his love.
“Yes,” I said simply. “I’ll stay.”
Relief flooded through his expression, and he kissed me. Soft and sweet, as simple as breathing.
When we finally pulled apart, I helped him out of his torn, bloodstained clothes and into the bed. He didn’t say anything when I climbed in beside him. He just turned into my arms and pressed his face against my chest.
Within minutes, his breathing evened out.
I held him while he slept, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against mine, and I finally let myself believe everything was going to be okay.
* * *
I woke to soft light filtering through the window. For a moment I just lay there, disoriented from the dream we’d shared. It had been a pleasant dream—us holding hands in a tropical paradise, then bathing together beneath a waterfall of sparkling, warm water. Serene and impossibly beautiful. Perfection.
I grinned to myself. We’d probably save a small fortune on vacations over the years.
Reed was pressed against my side, his arm slung across my chest protectively. Without even looking, I could feel him waking up beside me, his consciousness surfacing slowly. His contentment and happiness was a mirror of my own.
Reed shifted against me, and I realized two things simultaneously: I was achingly hard, and so was he.
His eyes opened, meeting mine. Still dark—not the gold of his wolf—but there was an unmistakable heat in them.
“Morning,” he murmured, his voice rough with sleep.
“Hi,” I said back, raising my eyebrows suggestively with a smirk. I nodded downward and added, “Need a hand?”
“As a matter of fact,” he said, grinning, suddenly more awake, “I’m gonna need more than a hand.”
Then he moved, rolling on top of me in one smooth motion, settling his weight against me. I could feel every inch of him—his heat, his skin, the hardness of his cock pressing against mine through the thin fabric of our boxers.
I groaned, my hands gripping his hips.
Reed leaned forward and kissed me, slow and deep and thorough, and I felt his need.
When he pulled back, his lips were swollen and his eyes were dark with want.
“Make love to me,” he said quietly. “Please.”
It wasn’t a command and it wasn’t the same desperate need he’d had when we first made love—he didn’t need me to grant him reprieve from having to be in charge. This was Reed was choosing to surrender himself to me.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “I can do that.”
I flipped us over, careful of his still-healing wounds—which now looked weeks old—and settled between his thighs. He looked up at me, his hair mussed and his lips parted.
He was so beautiful.
I kissed him again, then started working my way down his body. I pressed my lips to his throat, his collarbone, the edges of the mostly healed wounds on his chest. Reed’s hands fisted in the sheets as I moved lower, my mouth trailing over his stomach, his hip bones.
By the time I pulled his boxers down and took him in my mouth, he was already trembling.
