Chapter 19

There’s nothing like taking your bra off when you walk in your door after a long hard day of having boobs.

-Raven’s secret thoughts

Raven

“I had a really great time with you ladies,” I said to the room full of women.

Lenore waved her hand as if to clear away my words.

“We enjoyed getting to spend some time with you again,” Lenore replied as she leaned forward. “But we all have a burning question to ask you.”

I blinked, then tilted my head slightly. “What?”

“Does Wolf really have as naughty a personality as he comes off as having?” Annie asked. “He’s always so dark and standoffish. Like Mig used to be, but way worse.”

I smiled at her.

“Wolf isn’t dark. He just doesn’t talk unless he wants to,” I explained. “Engage him in a conversation, and see what comes of it. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.”

“I don’t think Wolf could disappoint anyone,” Tasha put in. “He gave me a ride once. I felt like I was cheating on my man just by having my arms around him.”

I laughed then.

Yeah, Wolf was beautiful. He was also taken. Very, very taken.

And a tingle of jealousy rolled up my spine at hearing all the stories that were floating around that surrounded my man and his good intentions.

“Do you need any help taking these to the car?” I asked Freya.

Freya shook her head. “No. I have a man for that. Although, I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“That’s because the men are having a powwow on the porch with someone.”

I blinked, surprised by that.

“I thought that they were meeting at the clubhouse,” I said. “That’s what I heard Wolf say to whomever he was speaking to on the phone earlier when they called.”

“Something happened,” Annie said as she licked the rest of the salt off her margarita glass. “I saw them with their heads pressed together. Then some man showed up.”

A burning feeling started to tickle my belly.

“What’d the man look like?” I asked, standing up.

“Tall, dark. Bright white smile and brown eyes. Brown hair. Black clothes. Couldn’t tell much more than that because they disappeared around the side of the house when they saw me snooping,” Tasha grinned unrepentantly.

“You should’ve been more covert about it,” Kitt, Core’s wife, said. “How do you think I know the things I do?”

“Because you fuck the answers out of your man, that’s how,” Tasha said. “My man, however, knows the importance of keeping his trap shut.”

Kitt snorted. “You’re full of shit. Just last week you told me that you heard Wolf enjoyed spanking and tying people up from Core. I know for a fact that Wolf didn’t just offer that information up to anyone and everyone that wanted to know.”

I gritted my teeth at the irrational surge of jealousy that rocketed through me at knowing that these women knew about Wolf’s kinks.

“I also heard that Core told you about Lenore being pregnant,” Kitt said.

I sighed and stood up.

“Be right back. Have to pee,” I told them and darted out of the door of Freya and Ridley’s living room.

I stopped at the bathroom and did my business before sneaking out of the bathroom so they wouldn’t hear me go. Then hurried to the backdoor and slipped outside.

I peered around the corner, and I could tell instantly that my attempt to be quiet had not gone unseen.

Mainly because the moment I poked my head around, Wolf’s big ass body was just there, stopping me.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m trying to see who you’re hiding out here,” I said. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought y’all were going to the clubhouse.”

“We were, but then something came up,” he said.

“What came up?” I asked.

“The water, which somehow managed to untie our boats that are now nowhere to be found. Hence, why we’re here,” he explained with a grin on his face.

I pursed my lips.

“Good enough,” I said. “But what are you hiding?”

“That would be me,” a familiar voice said, whipping my head around to my back so fast that I likely sustained whiplash.

“What are you doing here?” I snarled.

“Now, is that any way to talk to your brother?” he teased.

I bared my teeth at him.

“I don’t have a brother,” I said stubbornly.

Okay, I really did have a brother, but this man wasn’t him.

Not anymore, at least.

He lost the right to that title the day he left me to join the military and didn’t look back.

True, I’d been ten at the time, but it still left a lasting impression on me.

He’d been my rock, my everything, and he’d left me in that shitty assed foster home without a backwards glance.

I didn’t care if he tried to come back years later, which happened to be around the time that Wolf came into my life.

It was too little too late, and I didn’t care what kind of good excuses he had. The only thing in my mind that could logically explain his distance from me was death, and by the looks of him, he was most certainly not dead.

“I’m going to go back inside,” I said to no one in particular. “Have fun discussing whatever it is you’re discussing.”

With that, I went back inside, and didn’t spare my ex-brother another glance.

***

“Alright,” Wolf said the moment he came back into the bedroom we were now sharing at his house. “Tell me what the hell is going on with you and your brother and don’t leave a goddamn thing out.”

I lifted my lip up in a silent snarl before totally ignoring the statement.

“Did you get Nathan settled back at Nancy’s?” I tried to divert his attention.

When I saw his look that clearly said it wasn’t going to work, I lifted my shirt up and over my head.

His eyes zeroed in on my breasts, his pupils dilating as his breathing started to increase.

I’d give him credit, though. The man had control.

Wolf turned his back on me and lifted his own shirt, tossing it to the floor at his feet.

I walked around him, picked up his shirt, and then walked both his and mine to the hamper that was about two feet in front of him.

“Nathan’s currently asleep in his bed, and Nancy was about to follow him as soon as I left,” he said to my back. “What are you doing?”

His question sounded strained, but I didn’t chance a look behind me. I didn’t want to run out of courage. If I got a good look at his face, at his worry for me and the situation he’d inadvertently placed me in by getting involved in something that was sure to piss off the man, whomever he was, then I’d lose the courage.

Pushing down my panties, I presented him with my naked back; the only thing blocking his view of the split between my ass cheeks was my hair.

My hair was down and curly, a small section of it hanging down to my front while the other part went in any and all directions around my head.

“I don’t want to talk about anything right now,” I said, turning around and presenting him with my front.

His eyes zeroed in on my belly.

“When,” he took a large step forward, “did you get that?”

Then, suddenly, Wolfgang Amsel was on his knees at my feet.

His large, tanned hands spanned my hips, his fingers digging into the flesh above my butt, and he stared, eyes transfixed on the newest addition to my ink.

It’d hurt like the dickens to get, too.

His thumbs swept forward, just barely caressing the clear covering over my tattoo.

“You tattooed my name on your body,” he said gruffly. “Holy fucking shit.”

I smiled.

“I wasn’t originally going to go in there to do that,” I told him bluntly. “Originally, it was going to be a phoenix, but when I got there, the words just sort of fell out of my mouth.”

“I like it,” he said, a surge of possessiveness tinging his words.

I grinned.

“How did you know what it said?” I asked him. “The guy said you couldn’t really tell.”

He looked up at me like I’d just asked him the stupidest question ever.

“I’ve been spelling my name for thirty some odd years. I’m pretty sure I can spot when my fuckin’ name’s been inked into my woman’s skin,” he muttered.

Then he leaned down and pressed a kiss right above my pubic bone.

His prickly beard mingled with the hairs covering my mound, and I felt a surge of pleasure as I saw how the hairs mingled, becoming one.

“I love you, you know,” Wolf admitted. “Fucking loved you for forever.”

Something in my belly loosened.

“I left because it was too hard to watch you with another woman,” I blurted.

His eyes moved to my face, and I instantly missed the feel of his beard so close to me.

“You what?” he asked in surprise.

“I left,” I repeated, “I left because I couldn’t stand seeing you with Hannah. Y’all had an instant family, and it was tearing me apart.”

He dropped his forehead to my belly.

“I broke up with her that night.”

The words hit me like a ton of bricks, and suddenly anger poured through my system.

“You what?” I yelled, my arms going up above my head. “What the hell?”

He sat back on his heels. However, that was only because the push to his shoulders practically forced him away from me. He would’ve gone further had he not been as quick as he was.

“What?” he asked in confusion. “What’d I say?”

“I make fucking googly eyes at you for months, and nothing. Then I freakin’ throw in the towel, and you decide to break up with her?” I was yelling now, full out.

I didn’t care, though.

Wolf didn’t have any neighbors, and with Nathan at his grandmother’s there was nothing and nobody to upset but him with my words.

“What the fuck?” Wolf stood to his feet, both planted apart and ready for whatever came at him. “I didn’t think you’d freakin’ disappear off the face of the Earth. I gave you my number, and practically told you to call me the moment you got to where you were going. I honestly thought I’d be able to find you faster than I did.”

“You didn’t find me at all!” I yelled, repeating his earlier words. “Before you brought me back, you flat out told me that you couldn’t find me.”

He nodded his head.

“That’s true,” he admitted. “However, that was only by me asking my sister. I was giving you time.”

“Time for what?” I crossed my arms over my chest, tired of feeling them flop around every time I moved my hands. “Me to forget you?”

He was on me before I could react.

One second he was standing across the room from me, and the next he was in my space, his face inches from mine.

His beard tickled my chest, and I refused to react, even though everything inside of me urged me to stroke his beard.

Damn his magical bearded powers against my hormones!

“You’ll never forget me. I won’t let you.” He turned me until I was flattened against the bed, his hips pinning mine to the bed, and his strong thighs parting my legs for him to fall in between.

I gasped when I felt his hard body press against me.

Everything, even the inside of his thighs, were hard. His strong, muscular jaw. His tight, forearms that were planted on either side of my head, and his bearded mouth that started to run down the tops of my shoulders.

I weakened even more.

“You wanna know why you’ll never forget me?” he rasped, letting the stiff point of his tongue trail along the outer shell of my ear.

“Why?” I pushed my booty up, glad now that I was naked.

Expedience was crucial, especially when I was about to come despite the only contact I had from him was with his hard cock along the length of my ass.

“Because I won’t let you. Every time you even seem like you’re forgetting me, I’m going to show you, just like I’m about to do, just what you’ll be missing by me not being there. I’m going to give you everything I have to give, and then I’m going to pull out more. I’m going to drown you in me, and make it physically impossible for you to ever leave me.” He lifted my hips and lined his cock up with my entrance. “You’re mine just as I’m yours, and I’ll never let you forget that. Not for the next hundred years.”

My breath caught in my throat.

“You mean just as much to me, you know,” I whispered to him, looking over my shoulder so he could see the sincerity in my eyes. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t fall more in love with you than I was the day before.”

He slid the length of his cock through my slit, coating himself in my wetness.

My wetness, I had to point out, was so copious that I was on the verge of being embarrassed.

“That makes two of us,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d find love like this. I’d resigned myself to a life filled with useless, meaningless hookups for the rest of my life.”

“Well, I’m going to be happy to prove to you, for the rest of my life, how much you mean to me.” I pushed back. “Now stop teasing me and give me what you’re promising, or I’ll have to take matters into my own hands.”

He growled, and started to press forward, the tip of his cock breaching my entrance, stretching and filling me.

“Condoms,” I breathed, pulling forward.

“No condoms.” He held my hips steady.

“Yes,” I insisted, stiffening slightly. “I’m not on birth control, and you damn well know that’s the last thing we need to be worried about right now.”

“Our worries should be over by tomorrow night,” he said. “So how about you let me worry about what you should be worrying about.”

To be honest, that idea sounded heavenly—to have him making the decisions. To have him take all of my worries away, even if only for a few short moments.

So, that’s how I ended up letting him slide his cock into my pussy, bare, again. I know we’ve done this before, but I wasn’t thinking straight the last time.

Before Wolf entered my life, anytime someone took me, it was with every single precaution in place. With Wolf, I just knew that he was my one and only and if a baby resulted from this, we would deal.

The sheer freeness of having him inside me bare was so arousing, so very, very wrong, that the moment he finally worked his length fully inside of me, I started to come.

“Oh, God,” I breathed, my core muscles clamping tight, and my pussy closing over his cock so hard, that I stopped breathing.

I literally couldn’t find it in myself to do that important bodily function.

My vision swam, and my clit sang.

Then his hand came down on my ass once more, and I drew in a sharp breath.

Wolf stayed true to his norm, though, and never said a word.

Instead, he took hold of my hips when I started to collapse, and he pounded inside of me.

Finesse was so far out the window that everything we did was purely out of instinct.

Our breathing came in rough pulls.

My head fell to rest on the mattress, and Wolf’s hand automatically went to the falling strands, fisting the back of my hair with such strength that I gasped and threw my head back, inadvertently putting it exactly where he wanted it.

His free hand circled my throat, coming to a rest just above my collarbone to hold me in place.

Then he held me to him as he resumed fucking me.

Using my body as he saw fit.

I surrendered all control over to him.

I was too busy trying to retain the last bit of control that I had, and he was busy losing it.

He felt the moment I gave over to him, and with a deep groan, his movements became rougher and less controlled. Suddenly, the lovemaking turned into something so deep and pure that tears started to fall down my cheeks.

This couldn’t be normal, this connection that I had with him. I’d never felt anything like this pure, unaltered passion. This passion we had for each was something that would never, ever fade.

My knees gave out, and instead of falling on top of me like I thought he would do, he pulled me, on my side, curling his big body around me from behind.

He made slow, sweet love to me. Driving in and pulling out, circling his hips almost like we were performing an intimate dance.

And I guess that was what we were doing…only horizontally and in a bed.

With his dick in me.

I was fairly sure most people didn’t dance like we did.

That was the only type of dancing Wolf and I would ever be doing, and to be honest, I was A-Okay with that.

Wolf’s lips parted, and I felt his soft, hot tongue run along the shell of my ear before he bit it.

My hand went down to my parted thighs, and I let my fingers slip through the folds of my sex, slowly moving down until I found where we were joined.

I let my fingers part in the middle, with Wolf’s solid cock thrust between them. The pad of my thumb pressed against my clit, and the orgasm that was building became urgent.

Wolf’s head came down to rest against the top of my spine, and I knew he was close.

Which was why I tightened my pelvic muscles and started to stroke my clit.

Wolf groaned before his breath exploded against my neck.

He grunted, his belly tightened, and I felt his cock start to twitch.

Irrationally, I’d hoped that I would feel the splash of his come inside of me, but alas I didn’t. And I was so focused on feeling him that I didn’t pay attention.

I didn’t feel his hand move to my breast.

Didn’t feel his thumb move to pinch my nipple until he was already doing it.

My attention to the feeling of him coming was lost with my thoughts, and I gasped as my orgasm rolled over me.

My body bowed, and the only thing that was holding me where I was, was Wolf’s grip on my breasts and his cock planted deep.

“Jesus,” I breathed, my head falling back limply against his collarbone.

He hummed, letting my breast go and banding his arm tightly just under my breasts.

We lay like that, both of us trying to control our breathing, for long moments.

Then his hand slipped back down to my hip, his fingers caressing the clear plastic that covered my tattoo.

“When the hell did you find time to get a tattoo without me knowing it?” Wolf asked me, still breathless.

“I became friends with the tattoo artist who did my wolf,” I explained. “She was able to work me in at lunch. We worked on it solid for an hour before I was back. Core waited outside the room the entire time.”

Wolf grinned.

“Did he know what you were doing?” he asked.

I tossed him a look. “No,” I said facetiously. “I was at a tattoo artist’s place of business and he had no clue what I was doing.”

Wolf popped his hand against my ass, and I gasped.

“Wolf!” I growled, trying to dislodge him from my sex and roll over onto my knees. “What the hell?”

He held me steady, keeping himself planted deep, and pulled me in tightly to his chest. His front to my back, his arm up high above my head so my face rested against his bicep.

“Your lip isn’t needed, so stow it away when I want your mouth, and you haven’t just sucked my soul out of my dick,” he said, smoothing the hand that’d just inflicted the damage over my ass to soothe instead of maim this time.

I reached back and pinched him, and he chuckled.

“What?” he asked innocently.

“You know what, dammit,” I pinched him again.

He sighed and ran his hand down my backside, up and down, side to side.

The motion was so soothing that I found my eyes becoming heavy even when I didn’t want them to be.

Wolf finally slipped free of my sex, and I gasped at the feeling of loss.

“Wolf,” I whined.

“You never told me about why you and your brother don’t get along,” he pushed. “Honey, I need to know. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that something happened. If he hurt you, I need to know. My instincts are telling me he’s solid and that he really wants a relationship with you, but I don’t want to continue to put my support at his back if he’s hurt you in some way.”

I sighed and returned my head back to his shoulder.

“He left me,” I whispered into his neck, remembering the pain like it was yesterday. “He was the only constant in life; I relied on him for everything. He kept me sane, protected me against the assholes that were in the foster home with me. Then one day he was just gone, and I was left with no one. My life turned to shit after that, and I blamed him for it. I think I still do, as a matter of fact.”

“You don’t hate him,” Wolf said into my hair. “You’re upset, and understandably so. But in your heart, you knew.”

“I knew what?” I asked stubbornly.

“Why he left.”

I did know.

“They told him he had to go. They said he couldn’t take me, and if he tried, they’d send him to jail,” I whispered into the darkness. “But I didn’t expect him to just completely disappear from my life like that. I expected him to move out, find a job, and stay close by. I never thought he’d just leave me behind and never look back.”

“I overheard him saying that he tried to find a job and couldn’t. Nobody would hire him because he was the son of someone nobody liked,” Wolf replied softly.

“His father wasn’t my father. Apparently, his was a loser who scammed about two hundred people out of their life savings before he was caught,” I sighed. “Nobody liked him. They barely even tolerated me.”

“So you know why he left,” Wolf said gently.

I shrugged.

“Rationally, I do,” I said. “But it doesn’t change how I feel. I can’t control the way I feel.”

Wolf started to run his fingers through my hair, and my traitorous body yielded to him and his ministrations.

“Each time he came home, he came to see me, but I refused,” I pursed my lips. “I was—and still am—stubborn as hell. It hurt…still hurts.”

He snorted. “I could’ve told you that.”

I nipped at his beard and pulled, causing him to laugh.

“Ouch!” He pulled back. “You billy-goated me!”

“Why do you think I did it?” I asked him. “And you just quoted a Ryan Reynolds movie.”

“Hmmm,” he said. “You’re going to give your brother a chance to explain. You’re going to give him the time he deserves.”

“And how do you know that?” I asked.

“Because you wouldn’t be the woman I fell in love with if you didn’t.”

He was right. I would give Raphael the time. Eventually. Maybe tomorrow or the next day.

Whatever.

I’d do it. I may not be happy about it, but I’d do it.

It was going to be hard for Raphael to bridge this gap between us. I was so hurt, I still am, but Wolf was right, I’d give him the chance to explain.

Because, from what I’d heard Wolf explaining tonight, he’d offered up quite a bit of information about the situation Wolf and I were in.

He’d also given me my dog.

A dog who’d been a great friend since the moment I’d found him. A dog who was trained to protect me, and that wasn’t cheap.

My brother, in his own way, had done what he could to watch over me even when I’d refused any contact with and all help from him.

And I found that I quite liked that. Even though I shut him out, he still found a way to try to be there for me. He didn’t give up.

My mind raced as my body calmed.