Chapter Fifteen – Cade

“And you didn’t think this was something I should know?” Octavia asked as they walked alone with Cade, under the canopy of the trees, the afternoon sun dappling the ground before them.

“I thought you had enough to think about without adding more,” Cade said honestly. Was he being honest, was that the real reason he hadn’t been completely open about the mating bond? Or was it his way of protecting Octavia? If she couldn’t turn into a bear, she would have to stay back out of harm’s way.

It killed him every time they went out as a squad, that one of them would get injured, like Roman. Or worse.

The last words his father had said to him before he went to find his brother, Liam, were, “Look after them. It’s your duty as the eldest, your responsibility to make sure they all come home at night.”

Kurt had shouldered some of the burden, that was true, but as the leader, the buck, or the degetty, stopped with Cade.

“Cade, don’t shut me out,” Octavia said.

He took her hand, static electricity sparking between them as skin made contact with skin. “I don’t want to.” He frowned. “You said you wanted to go back to your old life, when this is over. If I turn you, that is never going to happen. You might go back to your old home, your old job, but that life will never be the same.”

“I think I know that now.” She reached for his other hand and stood looking at him, while all around them the world went on as normal. Birds sang and searched for food, the breeze rattled the leaves, and clouds moved across the sun. “And I’ve made my choice.”

His heart hammered in his chest. “You want to stay?”

“Yes.” She smiled crookedly. “If you’ll have me, of course.”

“You are all I want … to have,” he added.

“Kiss me.” She tilted her head back, her lips open in anticipation.

Cade lowered his head, his lips an inch from hers. “I have nothing much to offer. We make a living off of the furniture we make, but it’s haphazard at best.”

“I only asked for a kiss.”

He smiled, and inhaled her scent, which aroused him instantly. This was where he belonged, this was where she belonged. Life in this split second was perfect, there were no Templars, no lost parents, only the two of them and the forest where he belonged.

“I can give you that.”

Their lips met and fireworks exploded in his head, setting off a chain reaction in his body. He wrapped his left arm around her waist, and pulled her close, their bodies pressed together. Octavia leaned into him, his body giving her support. He wanted to think his kiss had made her go weak at the knees, but he figured it was more likely shock from everything that had happened in the last few days.

He moved to pull back, to let her recover, but she put her hands around his neck, and held him close, whispering, “Maybe more than a kiss.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to do something you might regret,” Cade said.

“I won’t regret a thing,” Octavia said. She slid her hand down between their bodies and stroked his hardness. Cade groaned against her mouth, wanting to devour her. His bear roared inside his head: she was his, he had every right to take her, to turn her.

No one gets turned today, Cade said, and he meant it, but he was not prepared for the strength of emotions she unleashed in him.

As they kissed, he moved her toward a thicket of trees. Using his body to shield her, and ignoring the sharp branches that tore at him, he took them deep inside the trees, where no one could see them. There, he intended to make love to her.

“Are you sure?” he asked once more.

“Never been surer,” Octavia replied, and her hands set to work undoing his belt, and then the buttons of his jeans, so she could reach inside and squeeze his cock.

He nearly came right there in her hand. It shocked him how little control he had when Octavia was close by. This was why it was better if he didn’t turn her. Cade knew that in the heat of a battle, he would be too worried about Octavia to be able to focus properly. And that’s when people got hurt.

“Let it go,” she whispered in his ear, her breath caressing his neck, sending shivers of desire through him.

Cade stared into her eyes, they were so clear, so honest, so innocent of what was to come, and he longed for her to stay that way. But she was right: she was part of this, because she was his.

Claiming her became his new obsession.

Fumbling with the hem of her borrowed T-shirt, he lifted it up over her head, revealing the same lacy bra she had worn under her tight dress. It might have withstood a degetty attack, but it was no barrier to his eager hands. Unclasped, it fell to the forest floor, and her pants soon followed.

“No fair,” she said. She didn’t try to cover her body, which had curves in all the right places, from her voluptuous breasts, down to her curvy hips, and her round thighs. Octavia was comfortable in her own skin, and he marveled at the way she responded to him as he reached out and touched her breasts, her nipples hardening.

“I don’t play fair, I play to win,” he said, and lowered his head to graze the taut buds with his teeth, before sucking one inside his mouth.

“No rules, I like it.” She curled her hand around his cock and began to torture him in earnest. Up and down, the palm of her hand covering the head of his cock, then she slid down the length of his shaft before repeating the same movement.

“Fuck,” he ground out, when she cupped his balls in her hand and fondled them. It was his turn to feel weak at the knees. He was also incredibly close to coming.

“Whenever you are ready,” she whispered against his ear, her teeth nipping the soft flesh of his earlobe, driving him insane.

Cade broke away from her, lifting her off her feet, and, after quickly appraising the forest floor, laid her down in the soft leaf litter before covering her body with his. He kissed her neck, his hand stroking her breasts as he slid between her thighs.

She moved, opening her thighs wider for him, as he adjusted his weight, and then guided himself inside her. Octavia gasped, her back arching as he filled her with his cock. Deeper he pushed, closing his eyes as the sensations built up inside him, until he thought he would lose control. Cade slowed, lying still, inside his mate, allowing his arousal to lose its peak. He wanted this to last, he wanted to make love to her, slowly, not jerk into her immediately.

What kind of a lover would she think he was if he came prematurely?

“Relax,” Octavia said, her fingers trailing across his chest.

“I don’t think I can. Not at a time like this,” he said hoarsely.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” she said. “There is always next time, or the time after that…”

“First impressions count,” he said.

She lifted her head off the ground; leaves littered her hair. Placing her hand on his cheek, she leaned forward and kissed his lips softly, sensually. “I already have an impression of you. And it’s not formed on your prowess in the bedroom.”

He looked down into her eyes, and wanted to lose himself in them. “I wanted this to be perfect, because nothing else has been, and I can’t promise the future will be either.”

“I’ve lived in an imperfect world all my life.” She pressed her lips against his skin, in the place where his heart beat beneath it. Beat for her. “And I’ll take your imperfections, just as you will take mine.”

He laughed. “You are my mate, you are already perfect.”

“Don’t put me on a pedestal,” Octavia said quickly. “Perfection is a difficult thing to live up to.”

He brushed the leaves from her hair and began to move inside her, his arousal once more back under his control. “As long as you are in my life, it’s perfect.”

Octavia kissed his lips, gasping against him when he screwed his hips around, stretching her wider, penetrating her deeper. In and out he moved, until his orgasm raced back toward him. However, this time Octavia raced him side by side, her breathing quickening as her orgasm reached her.

As she came beneath him, he felt his teeth elongate, the primal urge to turn her to make her his completely was hard to fight, but he swallowed it down. Now was not the time.

No matter how much he longed to, as his orgasm crashed into him and he spurted his seed deep inside the woman who would one day carry his children.

No one was getting turned today.