Chapter 6
Vaughn watched Holly leave the family room and his heart fell. He wasn’t exactly sure what he’d expected to happen when he shared the truth of his world with her, but he’d certainly hoped she’d want to talk some more. And a small part of him had wanted her to agree to move to NPC, especially when she figured out that Ivy and Jack were leaving.
He couldn’t imagine what it was like to know that what she’d believed was legend was actually truth. She said she needed time to think, and he’d give it to her. No matter that his body was strung tight like a bow, or that his beasts were roaring within him to go to her and not leave things unsettled.
He got up to add more wood to the fire, then closed the screen and settled back on the couch to stare into the flames, wishing he felt welcome in the bedroom. Her actions had spoken far louder than words when she shut the door.
Closing his eyes, he hoped the dawn would bring Holly back into his arms. Things had been going so well, and he hated the distance that lay between them now.
* * *
He woke slowly with a growl, his beasts urging him awake. Holly stood before him wearing only the shirt she’d had on earlier, which was barely long enough to cover the tops of her thighs. Her hands twisted in the hem of the shirt, revealing her panties and a tantalizing view of the apex of her thighs.
He rubbed his eyes and sat up, his cock springing to life immediately.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“No.” Her knuckles turned white, and he could hear her heart rate picking up.
“What can I do?”
She swallowed hard, and the sweet scent of her arousal hit him.
“I’m…” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know what to tell you about the future, but I know I really do love you. I want to be with you, and right now I don’t care if it’s here or in your world, I just don’t want to go another second without being in your arms.”
He pulled the quilt off and stood. “If we make love right now, Holly, I’m going to want to fully make you mine.”
“What do you mean?” She stared up at him with luminous eyes, trust and uncertainty in the depths.
He brushed his thumb lightly down her throat. “My people mark their mates with a bite. It’s like marriage without the government paperwork.”
“Do you have to bite me?”
“I don’t think I can make love to you without doing it. My beasts are banging around in my skull to make you ours in truth.”
She chewed on her bottom lip and he kept his thumb on her pulse, wanting her to say she’d be his in every way, even though he knew he was asking a lot.
“Will it hurt?”
“I’ll make you feel good first,” he said, his voice suddenly husky. He cupped her face and kissed her. “Be my mate, Holly. Here or in NPC, I don’t care, I just want you to be mine.”
“Yes,” she whispered, rising onto her toes and kissing him.
He tilted her head, stroking his tongue deeply into her mouth. She moaned softly and he ate the sound, a million thoughts cascading through his mind, the chiefest of which was making her his immediately.
He lifted her and set her on the couch, dropping to his knees and resting his hands on her thighs. She gazed at him, her eyes alight with curiosity and blazing with passion as she slowly lifted her shirt up her stomach. She curled a finger into her panties and tugged, and then he took over, sliding his hands up the outside of her thighs and wrapping them around the silk material. He drew them down her legs and tossed them aside, then pushed her knees gently. She spread her legs for him and he moved between them, sliding his hands under her thighs and pulling her forward, spreading her body open for him and inhaling the sweet scent of her heat.
Her hand curled around the back of his head as she gripped her shirt between her breasts.
He lowered his head and kissed her, flicking his tongue over her clit and smiling as her hips jerked with the motion. He circled her bud slowly, feeling it swell under his tongue. She moaned softly, her nails abrading his skull, and wiggled farther down into the couch. He gripped her thighs and licked his way down to her center, sliding his tongue inside and lapping at the heady taste of her. He’d never tasted anything as sweet as his beautiful fated mate.
She fisted his hair and arched under him while he moved his tongue in and out of her as he played with her clit. Groaning, she chanted his name and thrashed her head against the cushions, her stomach fluttering as he worked her to her peak. She shrieked as she crested the climax, her body jolting and her toes curling against his back. He snarled as he sucked on her clit and fingered her, drawing her pleasure out until she was panting for breath, her eyes the most beautiful shade of blue he’d ever seen.
He positioned his cock at her center and slowly pulled her down onto him. She gripped his shoulders and kissed him, mewling into his mouth as she planted her feet on the carpet and lifted herself off him. He slipped his hands up her top and cupped her breasts, the heavy globes tipped with tight nipples that he wanted to kiss and lick. She swiveled her hips, and his eyes crossed as sheer pleasure lit up within him.
Laying his thumb on her clit, he rubbed the sensitive bud, her pussy gripping him as they moved together. She wrenched from the kiss with a groan and drew her hair to the side, baring her throat.
“Vaughn,” she murmured. “I’m yours. I’m so fucking yours.”
“Yes,” he whispered against her skin, his fangs punching from his gums as his body roared toward completion. He waited until her body locked up around him, her cry of pleasure echoing in the room. Then he bit down on her throat as he played with her clit, drawing her pleasure out as long as he could.
The first sweet taste of her blood on his tongue and he followed her into bliss, barely able to control the roar from his bear at how perfect and sweet things were now. He nicked his tongue and covered her wounds, ensuring they would heal quickly but scar permanently, a reminder to all who would see her that she was claimed by him forever.
She went limp against him with a gusty sigh, her arms wrapping tightly around him and her ankles hooked behind his back.
“I fucking love you,” he said, kissing below the mark and down to the crux of her neck.
“I love you, too.”
“Fucking love you.”
She giggled. “I fucking love you.”
Damn straight.
After they made love on the floor, he carried her to the bedroom where he loved her right a second time, and then a third, before they fell asleep watching the sunrise through the window. He’d never been more content than he was at that moment, with his fated mate in his arms and all right in the world.
She hadn’t promised him anything but her heart, and they hadn’t nailed down their plans for the future, but he didn’t actually care. He’d told her she was home for him, and he was 100 percent sure that was the truth. Wherever the future took them, as long as they were together, the location actually didn’t matter. He understood now what his friends had been through when it came to their fated mates. Just finding and mating her made everything else inconsequential. His heart was firmly in Holly’s hands, and he’d never been happier.
* * *
Vaughn woke to the smell of bacon, his sensitive hearing picking up the sputtering of meat in a hot pan. His stomach rumbled as much as his beasts did when he realized how cold the bed was without Holly in it. He got up and stretched, then found his jeans on the floor and tugged them on.
In the family room, he found Holly crouched next to the fireplace, using a long-handled fork to turn bacon, which squeaked and popped in a cast-iron skillet.
He looked out the window at the afternoon sunshine. “Hey, beautiful.”
She smiled at him. “Hi.”
“Have you been up long?”
“Not really. I woke up hungry. I think it was because there was a really horny guy in bed with me.”
He chuckled. “I’d say we were both equally horny.”
“Um, yeah.” Her nose wrinkled as she smiled at him a second time. “I think that’s the understatement of the century.”
He gathered plates and silverware and set them on the coffee table, then filled mugs with coffee.
“This is pretty cool,” she said.
“What is?”
“Cooking in a fireplace. It’s rustic. Is NPC like this?”
“Yes and no. There’s electricity in some buildings using generators, but the homes don’t have any. Stoves use wood or coal.”
She snorted. “Coal.”
“SC doesn’t really bring coal to bad kids. They just get nothing.”
“Aw.”
She grabbed one of the plates and set the bacon on it, then returned the pan to the fire and cracked eggs into the hot oil.
“Do you like to cook?”
“Yes and no. I used to like it a lot more before I was cooking every night at the bar. Then I kind of got to a place where I didn’t want to cook at all at home, so Ivy does the cooking, or we pick up premade food at the grocery. Since I don’t make breakfast at the bar, it’s a nice change of pace to make it. Do you like to cook?”
“Not hardly. There’s a cafeteria that serves excellent food three times a day. I lived in a room in the barracks, along with the other unmated males. There’s no kitchen anywhere in the barracks, so even if I had liked to cook, I would’ve needed to go to my parents’ home to do so.”
“Where do the unmated girls live if all the guys live in the barracks?”
“With their parents.”
“Is there a college in NPC?”
He shook his head. “Everyone, male and female, trains for a job with those who already hold the jobs. My dad is a builder, so when he was ready to start working, he joined the builders and learned on the job. My mother is a seamstress like her mother, so she learned how to sew as a kid and joined the other seamstresses when she was old enough. She specializes in dresses and skirts, but she can make pretty much anything.”
“What about your sister?”
“She makes toys. She never liked sewing, but she does like to paint, so she works with the toymakers as a painter.”
“That is freaking awesome. I wonder what I would’ve chosen to do if I’d been born in NPC and had so many different trades to choose from.”
“Well, I hope that whatever you would’ve chosen would’ve led us together.”
She smiled brilliantly. “Me, too.”
When the eggs were cooked, she joined him at the coffee table, and they ate and talked about NPC and their families.
“I’d like to go to town,” she said when they’d washed and put away the dishes.
“Okay. For anything in particular?”
“There’s no cell signal here, and I’d like to call Ivy and tell her we won’t be back tonight.”
He couldn’t keep the happy rumble from making his chest vibrate. “Really?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I feel like if we go back today, we’ll be missing out on getting to know each other. I already feel like you’re my best friend, but I want to know you even better.”
“We don’t have to go to town to talk to them.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “There’s a computer in the bedroom closet, and our people have access to a private satellite, so we can contact Jack on his computer and you can video-chat with Ivy.”
“That would be great.”
“I’ll get it set up.” He found the computer and arranged it on the coffee table. “How long would you like to stay?”
“Maybe until Thursday? A few more days here in this wintry paradise seems like a great idea.”
“I agree completely.”
The computer booted up, and within minutes Jack had answered and called for Ivy, who sat next to him with a grin.
“Hey, sis!” Ivy said.
“Hi. I wanted to tell you guys that we’re not going to come back until Thursday before the bar opens.”
Ivy nodded knowingly. “The cabin is magical, right? I didn’t want to leave either.”
Holly hummed in agreement. “It’s really wonderful. Would you mind changing the sign on the door to reflect that it’ll be closed for a few more days?”
“We can open it and run it for you if you don’t want to lose the business,” Jack offered.
“No, it’s okay. You guys can’t run it on your own. Neither of you are bartenders, and it would end up being more stressful than you need to deal with. It won’t hurt things to be closed for a few days, and weeknights aren’t our busiest time anyway.”
“Okay,” Ivy said. “Have you two talked about everything?”
Holly and Vaughn both laughed. “Yes, I shared my shift with Holly last night.”
“Yay!” Ivy clapped. “So you’ll move to NPC with us, right?”
Holly’s breath hitched in her throat. Vaughn spoke before she could, not wanting to put her on the spot.
“Give us a little time, guys.” He chuckled. “We don’t need to rush into any decisions.”
“Right, right, sorry.” Ivy smiled sadly at Holly. “I just felt so bad that I couldn’t tell you the truth about where we were moving, or why it was important to me.”
“I understood why you didn’t want to be pregnant and still singing at the bar. And I get now why you want to live in NPC.” She took Vaughn’s hand and squeezed it, giving him a faint smile. “I’m not ready to say I want to move. Things have just turned around at the bar, and all this is new to me.”
The sisters talked a little while longer and then ended the call.
Holly sat back against the couch and sighed deeply.
“We’ve never lived apart before.”
He closed the laptop and turned to face her. “Don’t feel guilty. This is a normal decision for couples to have to make, and it’s up to us to decide what’s best. You’re my home, and the only thing I need in this world is you.”
“What about shifting? Do you have to do that regularly?”
“Just when I feel the urge. We can come up here for a night or two when I need to shift.”
“You promise you won’t be disappointed if I don’t want to move?”
He leaned forward and kissed her. “I promise.”
“We have time, though, right?”
He nodded. “Until Christmas Eve morning of this year.”
“You’ll lose your job.”
He shrugged. “I get you.”
“I’m really lucky. I’m just sorry I waited so long to let down my guard.”
“Three weeks isn’t that long in the whole scheme of life, you know. A blip on the radar. We’re together now, and our future is wide open. For the next few days, though, let’s not worry about anything but getting to know each other better and enjoying our mini-vacation. Deal?”
“Seal it with a kiss?” she asked, her eyes darkening with promise.
“At the very least.”