CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

 

Race stood in the shadows across the street from where Jackson Durant was pulling his black Jeep into the driveway. So. He wouldn’t be going to the farm tonight. Race had spent many hours tracking through the woods on foot to find the farm hidden back on the long dirt road.

It was hard to get to. Through the woods, over two ravines that required climbing equipment. But he did not want to run the risk of being seen on the road. And as he’d expected, the long dirt road led only to the single farm at the end, four miles down. Any person driving on that road who was not invited would instantly be suspect.              

He’d made his way out there one week ago and spent the day in the woods with his binoculars. He’d seen a young redheaded man who reeked of being a cop, and his blonde-haired wife who always wore a baseball cap over her shiny hair and large sunglasses that obscured her face.

On the farm the two of them tended to all sorts of animals. At night, some of those animals, even the supposedly wild ones, were invited into their large, rickety farmhouse.

To Race, there was only one reason a perfectly sane couple would let a one-eyed goose, a fox, and a small black bear amble into their home for the night.

That reason being they were not, in fact, animals at all. They were shifters.

He’d seen one other shifter safehouse in his life and it hadn’t been nearly as put together as this one. But nonetheless, he’d felt the bile rise in his throat as he realized what he was looking at.

The next day, Race had returned on foot and he’d been lucky enough to be able to observe Jackson there with his pretty little girlfriend. They spent the afternoon in the barn, the animals filing in one by one.

Race knew then that he’d been patient for a reason. Using the camera feature on his birdwatching binoculars, he now had proof that Jackson Durant was aiding and abetting shifters and shifter housers. Not only could he get him sent to a shifter internment camp, he could get his girlfriend sent to prison.

Power swelled in Race’s heart, pumping through his blood like a poison that burned so good. He’d spent the last year utterly powerless. And now, all at once, everything was back in his court.

 As his plan started to form in his mind, he kept up his surveillance on each member of the family. Tonight, he watched Jackson and his girlfriend get out of Jackson’s car and head into his house.

He knew from experience that they’d be in for the night. There wouldn’t be anything else for him to see. And that was a sort of swelling triumph within him as well. The Durants were a predictable lot. And by now, he knew their schedules like the back of his hand.

He walked slowly down the street, grateful for the four-mile lonely walk back to his house that stretched out before him. Because he needed the time to relish how close he was to the finish line. How close he was to ruining them. He only had to wait for the full moon.

 

 

***

 

 

Jackson opened his mouth as he set the food down on his kitchen counter but Kaya whirled around to face him, her palm clamping over his lips. “Don’t say it.”

“Say what?” he asked, his voice muffled by her hand.

“Don’t say that we don’t have to do this tonight.”

He frowned. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

She lifted her eyebrows.

“I was going to say that if you’d rather we do it another night then—”

“Jackson!” She threw her hands up in the air and laughed in exasperation. “You’re impossible.”             

“Kaya, when was the last time you saw your mother before tonight?”

She frowned. “I saw her from a distance at the Fourth of July fireworks.”

He took two steps, bridged their distance, and drew her into his chest, his arms tight around her. “God, I’m so sorry, baby. This whole situation is so screwed up. I never understood it.”

“Well, that makes two of us.” She sighed and tipped her head back. “It’s really all right, Jackson. Natalie loved me as much as a parent is supposed to. She practically raised me. And anything that she didn’t do, your mom certainly did. I’m lucky, if you think of it in a certain way.”

“I still think that seeing her out of the blue must have made you feel something. And maybe it would be better if we took it easy tonight. If we talked about it, watched a movie, ate dinner, went to bed early…”

She pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers. “I don’t want to watch a movie and go to bed early. I want to watch you turn into a wolf and then I want you to finally make me come.”

Her hands were on her hips and her golden-brown hair was spilling everywhere. She wore a sweater dress and bright tights and boots to her knees, but she might as well have been in a lace g-string because Jackson suddenly felt his knees turn to jelly as all the blood in his body rushed to one place.

He took a deep breath. He refused to let the animal inside of him call the shots tonight. “I want that, too. But not as much as I want to make sure that we do right by you tonight.”

“Talking about it will not help me right now. I promise. I’ve done all the therapy. And at some point, I will let you in on all the nitty gritty details about my parents and you can gnash your teeth and curse the world. I’m not withholding from you, I swear. I just truly have nothing to say about it right now. She’s a shitty mother. But I really, really don’t want that to get in the way of what I want to do with you tonight.”

He scraped a hand over his stubble, eyeing her. So much of the time he spent with her he was completely lost. The water was up all the way over his head. He’d never been foolish enough to think that a relationship would be simple, but he’d never expected it to feel like the two of them were speaking two different languages. He just had no idea what to do here. Should he push her in one direction or the other? Should he just take her at her word?

Kaya laughed again, just a little bit, shaking her head from side to side. “I can see the war that’s going on in your head, Jackson. And I love you for it. You’re fighting with yourself, aren’t you? The old Jackson wants nothing more than to wrap me up in an afghan, feed me these enchiladas and make me talk about my feelings. But the new Jackson is wondering if he should just trust me to know what’s best for myself.”

I love you for it.

The words hit him like a sledgehammer and it was all he could do to just stand there and look at her.

“You want to know what I realized when I saw my mother tonight? I realized just how much I trust you. Just how much I know you’ll take care of me. You told her, and you meant it, that you didn’t think you were too old for me. The old Jackson could never have done that. The old Jackson would have spiraled down into self-hatred at that suggestion. But the new Jackson, you held me tighter, and defended yourself because it meant you were defending me, too. And, yeah, I trust you, Jacks. I trust this person you’re becoming. So, no. I don’t want to make this night about old news with my mom. I want to make this night about all the ways that you and I have grown since we started doing… whatever this is that we’re doing.”

Jackson’s heart started beating like a kid playing a drum in an empty house somewhere around the middle of her speech. By the time she’d used his nickname, all the breath had left his chest as well. He’d never felt more excited or more blindly terrified in his entire life. This last month with her he’d been working so freaking hard to be the man that she deserved, that he hadn’t really stopped to check and see if it was working. But suddenly, all at once, he was forced to identify that feeling ballooning in his chest.

That was pride.

He thought that she was right. He believed her.

I love you for it.

I trust this person you’re becoming.

He’d never had this feeling before, deep in his gut, but he didn’t have any trouble identifying it. For the first time in his entire life, Jackson felt worthy.

Worthy of this life he was fighting for. Worthy of his family. Worthy of Kaya.

So, why wait? Why push this off a second longer? He strode forward and took her by the hand, his heart still dancing the rumba in his chest. He tugged her toward the basement stairs, turning toward her when they were halfway down. “‘Whatever this is we’re doing,’” he informed her, “is called a relationship.”

She was one step above him, which brought their faces level.

“I’ve… never really had one of those before,” she whispered, her face flushed with pleasure and trepidation.

“I’ve never had one that matters.”

“What if I’m really bad at it?”

“We’ll be generous with the learning curve. You’ll get the hang of it.”

“Okay,” she nodded. “Step one in any relationship manual is definitely to see your boyfriend shift into a wolf in the middle of the moon cycle.”

He laughed, kissed her on the stairs, and took her the rest of the way down to the basement.

 

 

***

 

 

It broke Kaya’s heart to look down at the chains and manacles that Jackson used on the full moons when he shifted in his own basement. How freaking depressing.

“Has it ever occurred to you that you’re so scared of getting locked up for being a shifter that you’ve been chaining yourself up for being a shifter?”

He raised an eyebrow at her and started to undress. “The irony has been pointed out before.”

“By your brothers?”

“And mother. And Bauer. And Natalie. And Sarah, too, come to think of it.”

“Everybody gets it but you.”

“I’m starting to get it,” he said, smiling at her and folding up his clothes. He was completely naked and beautiful, but for once, Kaya wasn’t completely distracted by the utter and complete hotness of his body. She was too anxious for what was about to come next.

She couldn’t help but let out a noise of distress when he clamped the chains around his neck and the manacles on his wrist. “Jackson, are you sure you have to do that?”

He gave her the eye. “Kaya, I’ve come a really long way in the last month to even be considering this. Just meet me halfway and let me ensure that no matter what happens you’ll stay safe.”

“Even if I know, in my heart of hearts, that you’re never going to hurt me?”

He rolled his eyes in a loving, self-deprecating way. “Even then.”

“Carry on, then.” She sat down on the bottom step where he’d told her to sit. If he went violent or rageful, he wouldn’t be able to reach her there. And if he broke the chains, she was supposed to use the bear spray on him without hesitation.

Jackson sat down on a towel he’d laid out and she winced at how chilly the basement must be on his naked skin. “Explain the theory again to me?”

He sighed. “Bauer thinks that you might be the reason I was so calm during my last full moon shift, considering…”

“Considering…”

“Considering I’d never once been that calm in my wolf form before. No matter what zen tricks he’d tried to teach me to use.”

“But you weren’t always calm around me. Remember when you attacked a couple of years ago?”

He winced and dropped his head into his hands. “Yeah. I remember. It was the only time I’ve ever shifted outside of the full moon. And I was completely out of control. That can happen sometimes when you’re terrified. I’d never been more scared in my entire life. Seth was telling us that he was in love with Sarah, that he wanted to tell her our secret. I saw our entire way of life going up in smoke. I saw our secret being blown. I saw my brothers getting dragged away to a shifter camp, and I knew that it would be all my fault for not raising them the right way.”

“Jackson,” she whispered sadly. He used to be able to turn anything into his fault. He would find a way to blame himself for a wildfire three states away if he could have.

“And then suddenly there was Sarah. She was coming around the side of the house and I was absolutely freaking out. I thought to myself, she can’t know our secret, I have to stop her. And I was shifted into my wolf, completely out of control and sprinting at her.”

“But I was there, too. You were sprinting at me, too.”

“I know. But I didn’t truly realize it until after Seth attacked me. I wouldn’t truly realize the extent of what I’d done until after everything was over.”

“If you had made it all the way over to us, what would have happened? Would you have snarled and tried to scare us away? Or would you have attacked?”

“I… honestly don’t know. And that was enough to make me hate myself for years afterward. But I’m starting to think that if I’d truly registered you there, if I’d caught your scent, even for a moment, I might have been immobilized. A wolf will never attack his mate.”

She naturally wanted to argue with the whole ‘mate’ business, but now didn’t seem like the time. “Shift for me, Jacks.”

He smiled softly at her use of his nickname and took a deep breath. “Seriously, you might just watch me meditate for twenty minutes. No promises.”

She nodded and he lay onto his back, his palms up on either side of him, taking deep breaths and letting his eyes close.

Kaya did her best not to distract him. But her heart banged in her chest as she watched his large ribcage work up and down with each breath. He always looked tall, but naked, each limb of his body looked especially long. His hair was longer on top than she’d ever seen it before, the dark waves starting to form into the hint of a curl. His perfect face was just that. Perfect. Maybe his brows were a bit too prominent, his nose too blunt, his eyes too shadowed. But these were the things that drew Kaya to him the most. For a glimmering second, she understood exactly what he meant when he described her as his mate in the cosmic sense. It was almost as if some greater being had designed the two of them to be attractive to the other. There was a sort of undeniable magnetism in this man that she would never, ever be able to turn from.

But all thoughts fled from her head as suddenly Jackson’s back arched. His head curled back in what looked like pain. She shoved down her sounds of distress, not wanting to distract him. Silently, she burned the images into her brain. Jackson curled, his bones cracking, pure white fur racing up over his body. His face changing, but no less beautiful. It looked painful and pleasurable all at once. And then the wolf, shackles and all, was scrambling  to his feet, shaking himself off down to his snowy white tail.

“You did it,” she whispered, tears in her eyes, her hands over her mouth. Then all the blood in her body froze solid when the wolf swung his vision over to Kaya and stared her down.              

Again, she got the same feelings she’d had at the cabin. There was no hint of Jackson inside this creature. Nothing human to soften the wolf’s animalistic appraisal of her. Spiders of fear crept down Kaya’s spine but she made herself sit still, knew better than to retreat in the face of a wild animal.

If he was any more human or aware than the last time, if his training this month was working at all, Kaya certainly could not tell. The wolf moved so fast she gasped. Suddenly he was at the end of his chains, his nose sniffing at the air, just three feet from where Kaya sat.

He tugged at his chains. Her hand curled around the bear spray. He tugged harder at the chains, his eyes feral and warlike.

“Don’t, Jacks!” she ordered, calling up reserves of strength. “You’ll hurt yourself if you pull at the chains.”

To her shock, the wolf stopped pulling. Instead, he paced a small line, as if he were trying to find just how far the chain could go, just how close to her he could get. When he realized the pacing wasn’t helping him get any closer to her, the wolf lay down in a huff, his paws under his chin, and let out a long, thin whine.

Kaya couldn’t help but laugh. “Jackson, are you pouting?”

He lifted his head at the sound of his name, tipping it to the side like he was trying to understand what she was saying.

“Can you understand me?”

He tipped his head again.

“Okay, let’s try this. Look up at the ceiling. Look up.” She lifted a finger and pointed. The wolf’s eyes followed where she was pointing. “Hmm. Okay. How about… sit? Sit, Jackson.”

She couldn’t help the fact that she was talking to him like he was a puppy dog, but to her astonishment, the wolf pushed up into a sit.

“Wow. Okay. If you can understand me, nod your head.”

Nothing.

“Back up. The chains are too tight. I know they’re hurting you. Go back. Back.”

She said the last word quite forcefully, pointing her finger, and the wolf, with another low whine, obeyed her. He rose up, took a few steps back, erasing the tension from the chain. He lay back down, eyeing her.

Kaya took a deep breath. “I’m gonna come over there. Whine if that’s a bad idea.”

The wolf was silent but she didn’t know if that was because he didn’t understand or if he really was on board with her approaching him. She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to do this, but she knew that this was her chance. She was unsettled by Jackson’s wolf, but she felt now that it had much more to do with him being so new, so foreign to her.

She rose up and took a step forward. The wolf watched. She took a step into the radius of his chain. And another. A moment later she was sitting cross-legged next to the wolf, her hands shaking and her breath rattling in her chest.

“Hi,” she whispered.

The wolf nuzzled roughly at her knee, harder than she would have expected, and Kaya couldn’t help but jump. She yelped with surprise and a little fear, her hand coming over her mouth. The wolf whined along with her, retreating a few inches.

“That scared me,” she admitted.

The wolf whined again. They stared at one another for a while, maybe even a long while. Kaya willed herself to become comfortable and familiar with the wolf. She didn’t want to lie when Jackson asked her later if he’d scared her. She wanted to be able to say, ‘a little, but then I got used to you’.

“How do I get used to you?” she asked the wolf, tipping her chin onto one fist. “You look so… wild.”

The wolf nuzzled at her knee again, marginally softer this time. Slowly, Kaya lifted her hand and let the wolf sniff at her. She gasped in surprised shock when he suddenly nosed under her hand, tossing it in the air and making it land on top of his furry head.

When her heart rate started to return to normal, she started to take in the physical sensations. “Wow. Your fur… it isn’t soft. It’s more like spun glass. Smooth.”

She gave into temptation and stroked over his head. To her amusement, his eyes immediately went half-lidded and dozy. The wolf laid his head on her knee as if a few simple pets were enough to put him right to sleep.

“Okay,” Kaya said after a minute. “You said it might be hard for you to shift back if I’m around, so I’m gonna go upstairs and wait for you to shift back.”

The wolf lifted his head and looked for all the world like he understood what she was saying. It was the most humanlike he’d seemed yet. And even that was a tiny bit unnerving. Kaya didn’t think the wolf would hurt her, but there was something so untamed in his expression that she couldn’t help the shiver that ran down her spine.

She rose slowly to her feet and started toward the stairs. Behind her, she heard the wolf’s chains drag on the ground. She heard him whimper when he got to the end of the chain. She was halfway up the stairs when she heard other noises. Cracking, rustling, pained grunts. She went slower but didn’t turn. She heard the sound of chains falling to the ground. She was four steps from the top step when two very human hands came around her waist and a very naked body pressed against her back.

Jackson opened his mouth against her neck.

“Oh my God,” he gasped. “I’ve never felt anything like that in my life.”

She laughed and struggled forward; he was giving her quite a lot of weight. After a second, she inwardly shrugged and let him lay her down on the stairs, his front pressed to her back.

“How did it feel?” she asked, gasping a little under his weight. He was just like he’d been after he’d shifted at the end of the last full moon. Naked, giving her all his weight, clinging to her, as if he couldn’t stand to be separated from her.

“It was… I could understand you. Not everything you said, but most of it. I felt like me, Kaya. It was me inside that brain. I can’t even tell you how that makes me feel.” He moved her hair aside to kiss and kiss the back of her neck. “It was the first time I didn’t feel like a monster.”

Her eyes filled with instant tears and she gasped his name.

“I’m crushing you,” he realized, taking his weight away and lifting her up all at once.

She was dizzy with it, and suddenly flipped over in his arms, her eyes focused all the way down the stairs, and she dug her fingers into his shoulders in sudden fear of falling. But he was already striding up, back to the first floor and to his bedroom.

“It was because of you,” he told her, walking straight in and laying her on the bed. “Fuck. This whole time I’ve been avoiding you, thinking I couldn’t inflict this monster on you, but you were the one who could make me better. You put my brain back in my brain. That doesn’t even make sense. I know I’m not making sense.”

She was laid out on his bed, her arms flung over her head, her feet on either side of his legs. He was naked and wild-eyed, thoughts and feelings obviously churning within him. She wasn’t sure if she should soothe him or spur him on. She fought for breath, a rising excitement threatening to choke her.

He answered her quandary by taking matters into his own hands. He ripped off her socks and went straight to her leggings. He shoved up her oversized sweater so he could stare down at her skimpy underwear.

“I didn’t scare you, did I? My wolf?”

“At first, yeah. But not by the end.” She answered honestly because she didn’t see an advantage to lying to him. He was being so honest and trustworthy with her, it was the least she could do to return the favor.

He stilled for a second, absorbing that information, but she didn’t want him to give it too much thought. She sat up and stripped off her sweater, tossing it away. She was about to take her bra off, too, but he pushed her down onto her back and pulled the cups down, making her spill out.              

He sucked one of her nipples into his mouth much harder than he ever had before. He raked his teeth across her sensitive skin and she nearly levitated.

“Jackson!”

“Let me make it up to you, baby. Let me make you feel good.”

“Yes,” she gasped, thinking there was no other word in the English language. “Yes.”

He tossed her legs around his waist and leaned down over her. Kaya glanced down and got one beautiful shot of his cock, so hard it was almost purplish, pressed against her underwear, the closest it had ever been to between her legs. She almost convulsed with desire for him. He took both hands and molded her breasts, pressing them together and burying his stubbled face in her soft flesh. He bit and sucked and left her tender and buzzing as he moved next to her stomach, her ribs.

He was murmuring things to her, maybe it was nonsense, maybe it was nuclear codes, she’d never know because she couldn’t concentrate on a single thing. Was this what sex was supposed to feel like? As if her body might just up and take flight? As if every single brush of his body against hers was enough to have lightning sparking over her skin?

He put his weight onto one side and let his free hand skim over her body quickly. But then he seemed to change his mind and he went back and retouched every single square inch of her. He alternated between gentle and rough, taking and giving, as if he couldn’t decide if she were there to serve him or if he were there to serve her. God, she hoped it was both.

His hand stopped moving altogether between her legs. No one had ever touched her between her legs before. Kaya gasped and swore, undecided on whether she wanted to open herself to him or clamp her legs together, trapping him there. For a moment, he just laid his flat palm over the crotch of her underwear, letting her feel the heat of him. When her eyes cleared, she saw that he was staring down at his hand between her legs, as if he were hypnotized by it. Maybe he was. She certainly felt under a spell.

He traced a few lines over the fabric of her underwear, finding her clit even through the fabric.

“Jackson!”

“Shh. It’s okay, baby. I’ll make you feel good. All you have to do is let me.” His fingers went downward now, spreading her pussy open just a little bit. He found her opening over the fabric and pushed his fingers forward, the fabric and the tightness of her body preventing him from pushing more than a knuckle inside of her. But still, she felt split wide, vulnerable.

He pushed his fingers into her in a rhythmic way, never pushing farther than an inch or so, his eyes alternating between her face and his hand.

“I—” she gasped. “I can’t take it.”

She didn’t even know what she meant by that. If she meant that his fingers were too much for her to handle between her legs or if she meant that she couldn’t take the painful waiting he was subjecting her to, arousing her without pushing her over the edge.

Either way, her words seemed to push him past some internal point of no return.

He knelt next to the bed and suddenly her underwear was tracking down her legs and flung to the side. He dragged her hips down the bed until her pussy wasn’t more than a few inches from his mouth. Kaya’s eyes grew wide as she scrambled up to her elbows. He hadn’t even used his hand on her bare skin before and he was about to—

“Oh holy motherfucker.” Kaya stiffened and softened all at once as her hips came up off the bed, toward the wet heat of his mouth that had just opened over her pussy. He chuckled and she felt it inside of herself.              

At first, his tongue was doing broad, soft, get-to-know-you strokes through her wetness, and then he was tunneling inside her only to come up and circle around her clit, giving her a little suck for the road before he was back to exploring her.

She was dimly aware of the hand she had in his hair, surprised she wasn’t tearing his hair out with how hard she was wrenching at him. But she couldn’t stop twisting, couldn’t stop writhing. He took his hands and opened her thighs wide, pinning her to the edge of the bed.

“Don’t fight it, sweetheart. All you have to do is take it. All you have to do is take everything I’m giving you.”

He planted his mouth again and gave her a good ten seconds of suction accompanied by some light fluttering thing with his tongue and Kaya was a goner. Her body was an arc of vibrating lightning, pinned in place and generating enough energy to power the entire city. She was only aware that she was screaming by how dry her throat was when she collapsed back down onto the bed. He’d destroyed her. Utterly and completely.

And now he was going to pay the price. He’d told her not to fight it, but he apparently still had a lot to learn about her. His face was still buried between her legs, giving her sweet little nudges and kisses but he’d opened up a treasure box inside her and there wasn’t any closing it.

She clamped her hand in his hair again and held him forcefully between her legs. His eyes shot up to hers and flared with heat. He tightened his grip on her thighs, holding her down again, and Kaya fought it.

He pulled his mouth away an inch, teasing her, and Kaya fought forward, using her weight and leverage to get closer to his mouth. She wanted more. She was greedy for it. She was gonna get it, one way or another. She didn’t care if it was selfish. He’d opened up the door to this part of her, this sexual hunger, and now he was going to pay the piper.

He chuckled as she scooted forward, draping her legs over his shoulders. He sucked on her between her legs, his eyes on hers. It was the look in his dark eyes that pushed her fully over the edge. She used the rest of her weight to shove them back, off the bed. He landed on his back on the floor and she crouched over top of him.

In a move that she’d never forget as long as she lived, he cracked a palm over her ass, sharp and punishing and delicious. “I told you not to fight it.”

She gasped with the instant pain of the spank and gasped again when she felt the heat of it spread out slowly through her veins, making her pulse with sensitivity everywhere. She never thought she’d like that, but here they were. She liked it and she wanted more. His words were telling her not to fight. But she could tell by the flare in his eyes that he was really asking her if she wanted to fight some more. If she did, he could take it. If he did, she could take it. Something in her gut told her to push even harder. He chuckled again when, straddling his neck, she dropped her pussy to his mouth. He rolled her to her back, but didn’t deny her, sucking and licking and swirling until she was sparking with pleasure again, cresting the wave and falling limp, jolting with sensitivity as he continued to pet her with his mouth.

Momentarily sated, reality set in just a little bit. “Wait a second,” she gasped. “You were the one who did all the hard work with your shift just now. I was supposed to be rewarding you.”

Still playing and licking between her legs, Jackson chuckled again. “Trust me. This was a reward.”

She knew that he derived a ridiculous amount of pleasure from playing with her body, but she wanted a more direct kind of reward. And she wanted to be the one who gave it.

She sat up, tugged herself away from him and pushed him over onto his back. The hardwood floor was hard on her knees but she didn’t care one bit.

“Like this?” she asked, gripping his cock for the first time and moving her fist up and down.

His hand closed over hers, tightening her grip and adding a twisting motion.

“Wow. That doesn’t hurt?”

“What?” he asked, his eyes blown out and his hands looking like they were about to claw out a chunk of the hardwood underneath him.

She loved that she had him like this. Normally he was so in control. So together. Normally, he worked so freaking hard to make sure that there wasn’t a single feather out of place. But not today. Not this moment. Right now he was gasping for breath and baring his teeth, looking like he couldn’t remember his own name. But did she want to make this easy? Or did she want to go with her instinct?

“Jackson,” she said sharply. His eyes shot to hers. Making sure he was watching, she lowered down over him and licked the purpling head of his cock.

His hips jumped upward an inch, and for a moment, Kaya forgot that she had a greater plan here. She was momentarily caught off guard by the flavor of him, the smoothness of his skin. She’d watched porn before and always tracked forward past the minutes of blowjob scenes—she’d just thought it wasn’t her thing. It was always so showy, so ostentatiously sexual, nothing nuanced about it. But there was actually an incredible amount of nuance in the man on whom she was currently sucking. And his dick was different than she’d imagined. It wasn’t intrusive and dumb the way they always seemed in porn. No, it was… personal. Almost comforting in her mouth. Warm and smooth and smelling like soap and man. She explored a little more, teasing the tip and tasting something unexpected, like a mixture between metal and salt.

She’d expected to go down on him as a gift, to feel like a sexual goddess, because even if she was bad at it, he was still getting his dick sucked and he wasn’t the kind of man to fault her for clumsiness. But she didn’t expect to go down on him and feel this swelling of tenderness and affection for him. She didn’t expect to suddenly have his pleasure be at the very tip-top of her priority list.

And that brought her full circle back to her original plan. Driving him insane. She’d taken him halfway into her mouth, experimentally sucking, and when she looked up she saw that his dark eyes were half-lidded and unseeing, staring at the ceiling in what looked like disbelief and pleasure/pain.

That wouldn’t do.

“Jackson,” she said, just as sharply as the first time. He looked at her immediately, lost in sensation, but still mindful of his partner. “Have you thought about me doing this to you before?”

She may have been inexperienced, but she wasn’t naive. She knew the answer to her question before she’d even asked it.

“Yes,” he rasped, and then let his head fall back for a second. “Fuck.”

She licked up the side of his cock and waited until she had his attention again. “Tell me about it.”

“About what?” He was pressing his eyes closed hard and then opening wide as they were refusing to focus on the woman sucking his dick.

“Tell me about one of your fantasies where I do this. What happens?”

“You give me head. That’s the fantasy.”

She laughed and licked him like a lollipop. “Paint the picture. Where are we? What exactly do I do to you?” She put her lips around the head and gave him a good hard suck.

“Fuck!” He dragged a hand over his face. “Uh. Okay. Yeah. For years, whenever we’ve been at Sunday dinner together, I imagine you slipping under the table. Fuck, right there. Just like that.”

She felt achy and wet again with the beginning of the fantasy he’d just painted for her. “What happens next in the fantasy?”

“No one notices. Everything goes on like it normally would. But you’re sucking my cock like a champ under the table. And I have to keep my shit together so no one catches on.”

His words lit a flame in her and she suddenly swallowed him down farther than she had before, and jerked him with her hand on her way back up. “Poor, repressed Jackson. Even in your fantasies you have to act like you don’t want what you really want.”

His hand found its way into the hair at the back of her head and he started guiding her up and down in a shallow, insistent rhythm. “Trust me, there’s plenty of fantasies where I get exactly what I want and enjoy the fuck out of it. You on your knees in the shower choking on it. You giving me road head on the highway. Me waking up with your mouth swallowing me down. In my head, I’ve fucked your mouth in every way it’s possible to fuck a mouth.”

His words were rude and thrilling and Kaya felt as if he’d just unzipped a dress she hadn’t even known she was wearing. She felt sexier than she’d ever felt in her entire life. And more vulnerable. And that only added to feeling sexy. She’d spent so many years with men’s eyes on her, making her feel like a sex object. But this right now? Jackson’s eyes on her? Blown out with pleasure, barely holding on to reality and dirty-talking the hell out of her? She felt powerful and filled to the brim with, finally, her own action. She wasn’t an object to be lusted over. She was a person on her knees giving pleasure in a way she hadn’t thought herself capable.

“I’m close,” he groaned, sitting up now, his hand still on the back of her head, guiding her up and down.

He loomed over her and she loved it. She felt surrounded by him in every way that mattered. She sucked on the upstroke and swirled her tongue on the downstroke.

“Shit. Really close.” One of his hands stroked down her back and to her ass. She thought for a second he might spank her again but instead he dipped his hand between her legs and pressed the flat of his palm to her pussy, the way he had before. Kaya moaned around him and spread her legs a little further.

“I’m gonna—Shit. Kaya, I’m gonna come, baby. If you don’t stop, you’re gonna make me—”

She wanted that so badly. She thrummed with a mixture of power and curiosity and desire. She’d never felt this cocktail of emotions before. She almost felt that, by doing what she was doing to him, she was performing some kind of magic trick over Jackson. That she could gift him with something carnal and beautiful that she knew, in her heart, only she could give him.

“Baby,” he gasped, and then his hand tightened painfully in her hair, his hips jutted upward, and he made a sound like he was dying a gorgeous death.

Kaya jumped at the volume and heat of the liquid in her mouth, swallowing reflexively and then finding she had to swallow again. Jackson sagged to the ground, breathing hard. She might have popped right off of him, but she remembered how good it had felt to have him pet her through her aftershocks so she lightened her grip and did just that, giving him a little parting kiss after a minute and sitting up.

She looked down at him, lying there in a haphazard sort of way, like he’d just been hit by a metaphysical garbage truck. His face was buried in the inside of his elbow and his chest sawed up and down as he searched for breath. She placed a hand gently on his thigh and he popped his head up, staring at her with a wild, inscrutable expression.

For the first time in his human form, Kaya was reminded of Jackson’s wolf. His eyes were searching her, analyzing her in a way that felt instinctual, devoid of human logic.

He sat up and scooped her onto his lap, pressing their naked skin together. He lifted her into the bed and then was gone from the bedroom. He came back moments later with a glass of water for her which she gratefully gulped down, wondering how he’d known how badly she wanted that.

He’d yet to speak. As he crawled under the covers with her, Kaya felt energized and anticipatory, wondering what came next. Would he jump her? Make her come again?

Instead, he dragged her into his arms, tangling their legs and running his hands over her, smoothing her hair back. He whispered sweet, quiet words to her and despite the electricity in her veins, Kaya found herself relaxed and soothed. Her eyes closed and she drifted away.