Page 81 of Ravaged Wolf
“Same.” He leans forward to rest his forehead against mine, but other than that, he doesn’t put any of his weight on me. “If this is it, if we don’t go any further, you know I’m happy, right? You can feel it in the bond. I’m so fucking happy.”
I move my attention from the feel of his breath on my lips to the thumping in my chest, the accompaniment to myheartbeat that flows with happiness, like he said, but also, with something even sweeter and richer.
“You love me,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“When did you start?”
That crease appears between his eyebrows. He’s really considering the question. “I guess when you snuck out to come see me in the stairwell.”
“All the way back then?”
He smiles and kisses me again. “Yeah. I’ve loved you a long time.”
“Why?” I don’t doubt him, I just need to know. I’ve figured out that even though my parents didn’t have love in them, that doesn’t mean I was unlovable, but knowing in your head and knowing in your heart are two very different things. My heart is hungry. Starving. And here is Trevor, my mate, who loves so easily. I want to know the secret.
“You came to me. You were strong and brave, even though you had every reason not to be. I thought to myself that our pups would be safe no matter what. I felt lucky.” Pain flashes in his eyes. “I made so many fucking mistakes.”
“You don’t feel lucky now.” I understand, but it hurts. Itwrenches.
“No, baby. No, no, no,” he says between kisses. “I have always been lucky. Fate gave you to me, and after what I did, you came to me again. So strong and brave and beautiful.” He draws back so he can look me in the eye. “I failed, but I will make it up to you every day for the rest of our lives.”
I’m not sure I see it that way—that he failed—but I think he needs to see it that way. He needs to blame himself because he’s a good male, and he wants to suffer for what he’s done. I don’t want him to suffer.
“I love you, too,” I say, tracing his lips with my thumb.
The shadows instantly clear from his eyes, the blueoutshining the gray like the water on the lake when the sun is shining high at noon and the sky is bright and cloudless.
“Yeah?” He grins. His next kiss scrambles my brains. “Since when?”
Not since the beginning. I didn’t have room inside myself to love back then. I didn’t belong to myself enough. “I think when we woke up naked in that ditch, and you made a joke about how you could carry me back to the den, even though I’m the size of a sub-compact car.”
His mouth falls open. “I didnotsay that.”
“Something like that.” I’m teasing. He’d never say anything mean about me. I know that in my bones, and that’s the number one reason why I love him. Our pups and I will be safe with him, too.
“See how lucky I am? I call my mate a sub-compact car, and she still loves me.”
His happiness makes him so handsome. I lift my head to kiss him, and he kisses me back, and then we’re lost in each other again. He slowly lowers himself closer. I arch my back so I can feel my aching breasts crush against his hard chest. His cock presses into my belly.
He cradles my head with one hand and urges my legs apart with the other. We’re doing this. The past is there, always there, but it’s draped in the background, muted and distant, not nearly as strong as the love warming my heart, not nearly as relentless as the thousands of small steps we made to find our way back to each other.
“Okay?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
He slides inside me, gently, slowly, and strokes in and out. I lift my knees to take him deeper. He groans.
His eyes close, his face intensely focused. There’s a little stretch, a little ache, but soon enough, it only feels good. Heslips his hand between us and finds my sensitive nub again, and it feels even better.
I love the weight of his body on top of me. I love how we rock back and forth in the same rhythm. We’re made perfectly for each other.
He opens his eyes, smiling to see me watching him. “Hey, beautiful,” he says, his voice ragged, breathless.
“Hi.”
“You ready to come?” He tilts his hips and somehow goes even deeper.
