Page 16 of A Deeper Blue
“Please, baby, please don’t stop!” she begged. He had no intention of stopping. He drove harder, and she clung to him, panting.
“Goddess, I’m going to—” She cut off with a gasp and inarticulate noise, curling in on him, legs wrapping his waist, and then her entire body seemed to clench around him.
He gave a final thrust and came inside her. When he could see straight, Rafe realized he had one arm braced on the changing table and the other wrapped around her, holding so tightly that he was a little worried about breaking something. He eased back a fraction, and Azure made a disagreeing noise and clung tighter. He rumbled his agreement and ran his nose along her neck, enjoying the smell of her pleasure.
He had done that. Her pleasure was because of him. He had howled for his mate and then satisfied her when she’d answered.
The thought froze him in place, and his hands went clammy. Suddenly he wanted to peel Azure off of him and flee the bathroom.
She wasn’t his mate. She wasn’t a wolf. She was human. Once upon a time, humans and wolves could mate, but those days had passed. The only thing that led down this path was heartache for both of them. What the fuck was he doing?
Azure laughed, the warm, happy sound bouncing off the tiles. “I don’t know what the fuck kind of wolf powers you have, but baby,” she leaned back and kissed him, “that was amazing.” She pulled back further and seized his face with both her hands. “Also, you are not allowed to do that to me in public ever again. That was very inappropriate. I cannot be dropping trou in the middle of grocery stores on a routine basis. And, not for nothing, but I do not think changing tables are meant to hold this much weight.”
Rafe blinked at the beige plastic changing table. It was the last thing on his mind.
She hopped down and grabbed her pants off the floor, heading for a bathroom stall.
“Guard the door while I clean up.”
He leaned against the door as he zipped up his pants.
He had howled, and she had responded. That was what had happened—it was a fact. The smell of her arousal still hung in the air.
But… it shouldn’t have happened. Humans didn’t work like that. Not anymore. It was one of the problems facing the wolf community. There weren’t enough wolves being born to build new packs, and existing packs were already scrambling to find appropriate mates. Lone wolves, like him, didn’t stand a chance at claiming mates unless they found their fated one, and those were rare. He scratched his head. What kind of magic did Azure have?
She came out of the stall, clothes once more in order, but he tried to repress a smile—her braid was in wild disarray.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “You look gorgeous.”
She leaned to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
“Oh, good gravy. Look at this mess. Everyone is going to know what we’ve been doing.”
She glared at him and went to the sink, trying to tame some of the wild tendrils.
“Don’t care,” said Rafe. He wanted people to know. He wanted everyone to know that she was his.
Once again, the thought brought with it a nauseous wave of fear. Fate had left him behind. There was no one out there for him. He thought he’d accepted that. He swallowed against the emotion building in his chest.
“I’ll meet you out there,” he said, grabbing for the door handle and letting the door swing shut behind him before he could hear what she said in response.
Azure wasn’t his. Couldn’t be his.
Episode 10
Walmart
Azure
Azure stood in the dressing room of the Walmart and tried not to feel icky. She couldn’t believe she was shopping here. Rafe was right—there wasn’t anywhere else to buy rain gear, but she felt guilty about supporting the exploitation of workers on two continents. She also felt guilty that what she was really worried about was Rafe.
She was starting to see what her little sister found so attractive about Liam. Shifter wolves were intoxicating. Liam was a completely different personality than Rafe, but she could see they shared similar levels of intensity. No wonder Scarlet had fallen for her wolf. She’d finally found someone that didn’t find her exhausting. One of the areas that Azure had always felt entirely in synch with Scarlet was that people usually found them to be too energetic. Their ideas were too big, and they wanted too much all at once. All of Azure’s life, she’d had to ease people into ideas, tip-toe up to them with her plans, slide advice in through the side door. Any other way wastoo aggressiveortoo intense. It didn’t matter how they said it— she got the message. It wasn’t her words. It was her.Shewas too much.
But it felt like Rafe, with his improvise everything attitude, didn’t find her ideas or any other part of her too much. He disagreed and argued with roars and growls, but he didn’t seem to think she had overstepped or needed tocalm down and stop being so emotional. He liked her ideas. Although she had to admit that since her most recent ideas had involved bathroom sex, it probably wasn’t a complete shock that he liked them, but still. Rafe liked her muchness. And while she probably shouldn’t, she liked hisget-it-doneattitude. She also definitely enjoyed a lot of his… ideas.
Azure shivered, remembering the way his hands had felt on her thighs or his tongue, or his… Azure bit her lip, trying to pull her mind out of the gutter. She just needed to finish trying on these rain pants that would probably give her hives if they touched her bare skin and go back out there and get on his bike and head to Oregon. She could try out hisideaslater that night. And also convince him to tell her the truth and not be a dumbass and try to push her away. The idea that he would try to make her leave before she got hurt was annoying, romantic, and stupid all at once. Who did he think he was dealing with? She was a goddamn Fae witch, and she could protect both of them.
