Page 46 of Lost and Bound
Sure, I hadn’t realized at first how truly horrific Hawthorne was. When he’d told me Nate was a dilettante with no control over his own magic and no desire to learn, and that Hawthorne was using his own abilities and also Nate’s magic to protect them both, I’d believed him. He’d convinced me that Nate would be better off with a boyfriend who didn’t mean him any harm, as opposed to the many predatory assholes who’d be only too happy to fuck and use a pretty boy like Nate for his body and the magic that ran through his veins. Between hindsight and what Hawthorne had revealed while sneering at me, taunting me, when he had me at his mercy in that lab, I was sure he’d already been using his own magic, and the magic he’d stolen from his son, to influence my mind.
But it probably wouldn’t have worked on me if I hadn’t been willing to believe it. Willing to believe anything, because Hawthorne was so complimentary about my abilities, about how I’d be the right leader for the Armitage pack—and so confident that he could help me take control. Without actually fighting Matt, of course; it’d be bloodless, best for everyone.
And by the time my doubts kicked in, it’d been too late. Hawthorne had his figurative claws in me. If I’d gone to Matt and Ian for help, I’d have had to come clean—and I was too afraid they’d tell me to go fuck myself and get out of the pack forever.
I would’ve deserved that, actually. And Calder had to agree, because any reasonable person would. But he hadn’t pulled away. He hadn’t ripped his knot out of me and gotten as far from me as the confines of this room would allow. He still had his fingers tangled with mine, his face resting against my hair.
He’d gone a little stiff, but he hadn’t pulled away.
“How old were you? When this started.”
I stared at the wall and licked my dry lips. “Twenty-four.”
He digested that for a moment. “You were too young,” he said. “You still are. And you’ve paid for it. Paid more than enough.”
And he said it with complete finality, no doubt, no hesitation.
No contempt or blame.
He shifted his hips, rubbing his knot over the perfect spot inside me to have me gasping. The mix of incredulous relief at—not his forgiveness, since he wasn’t the one I’d hurt, but maybe absolution?—and that intense pleasure, had me squirming in his arms, not sure whether to laugh or cry or just beg him to fuck me again.
It turned out I didn’t have to beg. His knot didn’t shrink, and he kept rotating his hips, pressing deeper with every pass, fucking me without even pulling out to thrust back in again. Every tug of his knot at my hole had me seeing stars, until I was holding onto his hand with a death-grip and releasing little punched-out moans with every motion.
I didn’t come again, exactly. My cock hadn’t had the time to get hard, even if the conversation had been the type to allow me to be aroused that way. But white-hot sensation radiated out from where he filled me, and I clenched around him, again and again, gasping with the overwhelming pleasure of it.
Calder did come a second time, growling in my ear as he pumped me full again. He never let go of my hand for a second.
This time we didn’t speak afterward. I didn’t sleep, but I drifted, not needing or wanting anything other than the sweaty, spent, perfect sense of peace that’d settled over me.
At long last his knot started to go down, and his weight shifted, like he was getting ready to let go and pull out of me.
I clutched his hand desperately, needing to say one thing before he wasn’t holding me close anymore. And before I lost the little bit of courage I’d dredged up while we lay there.
“Can we wait to break the bond until they figure out who I am? I can’t—please, can we wait, and do that first?”
“There’s nothing to figure out. You’re Jared Armitage.”
That hadn’t answered my question, and maybe he wanted to reassure me, but I couldn’t quite believe it. And right at that moment, I belonged to Calder. I might or might not belong to my pack anymore, but at least I had that—that piece of identity, that anchor to other people in the world. If it turned out I truly didn’t have my pack, and I’d already broken the bond…I’d be nothing, no one, with no connections. Isolated, a single flickering spark floating through the darkness and starting to fade. And I needed time to come to terms with that, if it had to happen.
There might or might not be enough time in the world, but I’d worry about that later.
“Maybe, maybe not. I feel like I am. But—can we—” I couldn’t bring myself to ask again.
“Breaking the bond isn’t a pressing priority right now,” was all he said, still not fucking giving me a straight answer. “I need a shower. You going to join me?”
“Not right now.” I couldn’t look him in the eye after all of that.
Calder grunted some kind of agreement and disentangled himself from me, carefully but efficiently. The bed dipped as he rolled off.
A minute later the shower turned on.
And footsteps in the hall alerted me to someone coming our way. And then that someone knocked.
Chapter 12
I Wasn’t Dead
Werewolves’ casual disregard for nudity notwithstanding, I didnotneed anyone seeing me naked and dripping with Calder’s come right at that moment, so I jumped out of bed like I’d been electrocuted and started yanking on some of the clothes Ian had left for me. “Just a minute!”
