Chapter 26
While Calum didn’t let her go in one sense, he did start to let her out more. He was home a lot more because there was peace and not a lot of battling or fighting that had to be done. He had never known such peace and having Ali with him while he did things made him want her even more.
Ali was guarded, and she didn’t understand what was going on with Cal, but she was happy to get out in the daytime to the rest of the house, and she was able to walk under the moonlight with Calum at night. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than it had been in a while.
One day she was getting close to her date, a couple weeks out, but she still felt pretty good. She wanted to go for a walk, and Calum agreed. He didn’t feel like going out into the woods and walking for a couple of hours, but he would have said yes over and over again if it would have her looking at him in the same way that she was at that moment. He loved the expression of pleasure and Cal decided it had been far too long since he’d seen real pleasure on her face. He knew how she craved it and Cal wondered if she still did. He couldn’t get it off his mind and the more he tried to push it away, the more it was just a reminder of how great it had been not so long ago.
She was smiling up at him as Ali started to get up to leave and Cal mistook the moment and bent down to kiss her. He knew that it wasn’t the right time, but he was sick of waiting for it. He wanted her, badly, and nothing was going to change that. Even if he couldn’t trust her, he could certainly want her in his bed. She was to be the mother of his children after all. Cal couldn’t see her leaving after just one, or ever for that matter.
Ali kissed him back, but when he tried to deepen the kiss more, she pulled away from him. It was hard for her to kiss him and be close to him when she couldn’t have him like she wanted. Ali wanted all of him, not just little doses while she was caged the rest of the time. She wanted it to be back to the way it was so long ago.
She pushed him away. “Come on, Cal. You said you were going to take me for a walk.”
Ali wanted to stay there and make love so badly, but she was too afraid that he would put her back in the cage when he was done, and she wasn’t going to be able to live with that. There was just no way.
Cal didn’t know what to think, but it was hard to think as it was because all his blood was going to his nether regions. He was so turned on and so ready for everything to be different that it took him several minutes to change gears. His ability to read her mind seemed to become clouded, when his love for her was so strong. He was no longer worried about going for a walk. He had only one sort of exercise in mind.
Ali was ready, and she asked him if he was as well. Cal was ready for all kinds of things, but none of them included a walk into the darkness with a woman he couldn’t have. He wanted so much more than that.
He shook his head and waited for her to go out the door first while he held it open for her.
“After you.”
Ali smiled his way and tried to calm the nerves that were going crazy in her mind. She wanted to think about everything he said, but there was a big part of her that didn’t want to talk. She wanted to feel, and when she asked him to change, he looked at her a little weird.
“You’ve always hated my true form, Ali.”
“Not at all. At first, it scared the living hell out of me, but that’s been a long time. After that first time, it just turned me on.”
Cal was not expecting that sort of response, and he liked to hear that she was turned on by him.
“So why do you want me to change now?” Cal was getting his hopes up, and he didn’t want to. He knew that hopes were just to be dashed away and that had happened a couple of times with her already.
“Because I want to ride you, Cal.”
The answer was so simple, and it sent fire to his loins. He knew after a moment that she was talking about the fact that she wanted to ride on his back, but that didn’t really matter because at the end of the day, no matter how he got her on him, he wanted to feel her body against him once more. Cal missed her in so many ways, and all he could think about was what it was like to be with her.
He shifted because she asked him to and when she slid on his back, the bear underneath her growled. Ali liked the sound of it, and when he asked where she wanted to go, she had the strangest answer.
“I want you to take me back to where it all started. Behind the log by the club where I hid from you.”
Cal didn’t understand why, but she was on top of him, and he would have tried to take her to the moon if that was truly what she wanted. He wanted to please her in any way that he could, and that meant that he was willing to do what was necessary to make that happen.
He didn’t say anything as he started off towards the destination she had in mind. It was easy to find it, and it wasn’t long before they were pulling up to the very log that she had been hiding behind. She’d been hiding from him, scared that he was going to want to eat her.
“Let’s get down.”
She slid off his back and made her way to the hollowed-out stump. Ali didn’t know why she was so attached to the place, but it was the exact location where everything in her life had changed forever. Now, as she looked up at the man, he was just as hard and full of need as he had been that night, maybe more so now.
Cal didn’t argue, feeling the vibrations that she was giving off and wanting to see where it all ended. He wanted her badly, and she had that look in her eye that he’d seen before. It had been a long time since he’d seen it, but he wanted to believe that it was the sign that he needed. Maybe Ali had turned a corner, and he was going to be able to have her like he wanted her so desperately.
She was the first one to make a move, taking her clothes off slowly. Her belly was swollen with his child, and it was impossible for him to pull his gaze from. That wasn’t the only change. Her breasts had gotten a lot bigger, and it was another part of her that he was having a hard time taking his eyes off of.
When she was naked in front of him, Cal was speechless and didn’t know what to do. She should be mad at him and not forgive him, but something told him that she had. He didn’t know how, but he didn’t want to second-guess his good fortune.
“I want you, Cal. I want you bad. It’s been too long since you’ve touched me. You’re the only man who ever has really, and I wanted to think that you’d be the only one who ever did.”
“I thought Trenton had you.”
Ali shook her head that it wasn’t true. “He tried to trick me into thinking that he was you, some illusion or something, but it didn’t work. Me and Trenton were never together.”
It didn’t matter either way. That’s what he told himself anyways, and he would have been wrong when he said that. It did matter. A lot. He loved the idea that he was the only one that had ever touched her, and he wanted to be the only one who ever touched her again. He hated to think of anyone else having that pleasure.
“That’s good to hear, Ali. You’ve never stopped being my mate, and I don’t like to share.”
“If you want me to be your mate, Cal, you need to start acting like that’s what I am to you.”
Cal didn’t like to be told what to do. He was the Alpha after all, but he agreed. Ali was right. Things had to change from that moment on. All he’d ever wanted was her as his mate and peace. It looked like he finally had them both.
