I would remember that picture all my life, whatever came next.
Micah shuddered one more time, then let go of my hair and pushed my forehead. “Enough.”
Letting him slip from my lips was hard, because this part had been straightforward, simple. But it’d been easy last time too. I remembered how, after we were done, he’d drawn back. Turned away. I kissed his hip, his belly, trying to draw out the moment of connection.
Micah propped himself on one elbow beneath me and raised a hand to touch my cheek. I leaned into the warmth of his palm for a second longer, then sat back on my heels and met his eyes.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
That this is everything I ever wanted. That it will kill me to let you go.Even my wolf was almost purring with contentment after so long alone. I said, “That we’d better clean up well before we give our statements to the sheriff. He’s no wolf, to smell what we’ve done, but right now it wouldn’t take a wolf.”
Some of the light died out of Micah’s eyes. “Truly? That’s what came to your mind first?”
“What do you want from me?” I tried to make that sound ordinary, not desperate. I swung off him and got to my feet to meet his answer standing up.
Micah looked up at me, his chest still streaked with my cum. I was surely no cleaner, the way my chin felt.
What now?
He sucked in a slow breath. “Do you want me to go?”
“No.”Never.But that was unrealistic. “Well, I do want you to go get your stuff on Sunday, so you can stop borrowing my shirts.” Even that was a lie. I liked seeing him in my shirts.
He swung his legs over to sit on the edge of the bed. “And if I want to come back here afterward?”
“You’d be welcome. You’ll always be welcome. A week, a month, a year from now, my door is open to you.”And my heart.I couldn’t hint at that, but I knew it was true. Had probably always been true. The past hour had ripped the armor off that weak spot and exposed me. I couldn’t even bring myself to be sorry. If this was all I got, it was still more than I’d ever had before.
“I want to spend more time with you.” Micah reached out and put a hand on my hip. My spent dick gave a tiny, valiant twitch, and we both laughed. That eased things some. He was smiling as he said, “In bed and out of it. We’ve been apart a long time. These past ten days have been good, more than good. But we’re not the same boys who said ‘I love you too,’ twenty-five years ago.”
A shiver passed through me when he said the words I hadn’t dared repeat. “I haven’t changed that much.” Although that was a lie for everything except how I felt about him.
“I have.” He stood and faced me. “At twenty, I was too scared to even let the idea of you and me rise to my conscious mind. It took a lot of years, a lot of people, and time away from the pack,for me to get here. You were braver than I was, by far. Braver in your words. Braver in your life.”
Trying to prove his faith in me wasn’t wrong, I grabbed my courage with both hands and said those words. “I love you.” Rushing on, I added, “I know it’s too soon, and maybe you don’t want that. Maybe you just want someone you trust in your bed—”
“Hush.” He put his fingers on my mouth. “If that was all I wanted, there are plenty of willing women out there. I’ve had quite a few of them. They were never enough. My heart— and my wolf— say you are.”
My wolf down inside me murmured“Mate,”as if he was caught up in this insanity. The echo of that word was more than I could handle, but everything I wanted. “You’re right,” I told him. “We need time. As adults who’ve seen things and done things, who have pasts.”
“Are you worried about my women?” Micah asked.
Yes? No?He’d said they weren’t enough and I trusted him. And yet… “You like women, right? For real, not pretending like me?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“So won’t you go back to them, eventually? Why wouldn’t you want a family someday? A wife you can show off in public. Sons, even, if you’re lucky enough.” Our pack wives lost a lot of pregnancies, but every pup was a gift to be cherished.Unless they turn out homosexual.I pushed that thought away. “You could even join another pack.”
“I haven’t wanted that for decades. I don’t now. What I want is you, and time to build something with you.” He stared into my face, his gray eyes intent. “Can you trust me?”
Every experience, every bit of common sense said I should be careful, play it cool, but there was only one answer to his question. “I already do.”
Micah closed the gap between us and kissed me, cradling my face between his hands like I was precious. This kiss was soft and deep and slow, full of the tastes of us both. When it ended, he pulled me into a tight hug, our naked bodies pressed together.
We stood there rocking slowly. I turned my face into his hair and breathed, tried not to think, just let myself have this moment. A sense of rightness, of place, settled into my bones.
Then my phone rang. We stepped apart, and I yanked on my shorts before heading into the main room to answer the call. “Handyman Hank’s. This is Lee.”
“Hey, Pierce, you gonna come down here and give me your statement? I’m not coming out there after you,” Tomlinson grumbled. “My goddamned face hurts.”
