Page 26 of Love Bites Hard

Self-hatred.

Fear.

Despair.

Loss.

Grief.

Guilt.

I wasn’t entirely sated when he ripped his mouth from mine, but I was getting there. And I’d been expecting him to pull away, that time.

He eased his knot out of me, and my entire body seemed to groan at the loss. With his expression dark, he grabbed the boxers I’d borrowed off the floor and put them in my arms, then stood up and strode out of the gazebo without looking back, leaving me in complete and utter darkness.

The curtains fell smoothly into place, and I lowered my forehead to the chair’s cushion, taking a deep, shaky breath in.

Howls rang through the forest around me.

Being mated to a werewolf was wild. Absolutely, insanely wild.

But I was starting to think I might be a huge fan.

I gave myself a minute to catch my breath, then finally stood up. My legs were shaky, and I was sore between my thighs, but I felt good.

Really good.

I slipped the boxers on even though the last thing I wanted to do was soak them with Porter’s release. And there was alotof it, so there was no way around that.

As unpleasant as it was to feel his pleasure dripping down the insides of my thighs, there was some amount of pride, too.

We were permanently mated—and I could obviously please him. That felt good.

I slipped out of the gazebo a minute later, moving through the curtains like Porter had.

There was a wolf sitting at the bottom of the steps that led up to the structure, which caught me off-guard. It was so dark that I couldn’t make out the fur color, and could barely tell what size it was. It seemed a lot smaller than Porter, but I couldn’t be sure.

A mind brushed against mine through the pack’s bond, and it felt like a request. I let it in, and realized it was Kim.

“Porter asked me to take you back to the Manor,”she said into my mind.

So she was the wolf in front of me.

“It’s weird that he ditched me here after screwing me, don’t you think?”I asked, stepping closer to her.

Her humor curled through my mind.“Wolves are always very snuggly after sex, so yes.”

“I don’t know if he qualifies as a normal wolf, given the situation.”

“He’s watching us closely from the trees, so I think he’s feeling the normal things. He’s just fighting it.”

“Lovely.”

The wolf made a sound that reminded me of a laugh, and my lips curved upward.

“I’m not getting on your back while I’m covered in his release. That’s disgusting,”I said, sitting down on the bottom step of the gazebo. Not only was it gross, but I was possessive enough not to want anyone else smelling like his pleasure. Wolves had an amazing sense of smell—every other wolf in the pack would notice his scent on whoever carried me.

“I’ll take a dip in the lake afterward to erase the smell. Evan is off doing something for Porter, so he won’t care.”

---