Fated, page 8
part #5 of Cascadia Wolves Series
He wandered back into his quiet living room and heaved himself onto the couch. He’d never meant to tell Layla and Sid about the first time he’d changed. It wasn’tevenhe liked to remember but now he couldn’t forget it.
When wolves reached puberty and approached their first transformation, it was harder to control. His father had been helping him quietly, trying to keep it away from his mother who had been taking the changes in Shane very hard.
He’d changed and it had felt remarkable. Joyous. She’d been waiting as he came back into the yard, pulling his shirt on. She knew and she’d pulled him into the house, weeping and railing about how dangerous it was for him to change. How he had to resist the beast within him or risk losing his humanity.
It was a refrain he’d heard many times before but her hysteria, her anger this time had hit home with him. Had settled in his gut, shame, fear of harming her or making her embarrassed for him. He be the son who got good grades, who made her proud and that son was human.
She’d made him stay around the house for an entire month, giving him long lists of chores from morning until he’d dropped into bed, exhausted well after dark. No pack had come to help him then. His father had said nothing and so Shane had simply left his wolf behind. Had only let him out when it was unavoidable.
Very few times in his life did he allow himself to celebrate that part of himself, let himself enjoy that tiny rebellion of simply being what his other half was. When he’d accepted Sid’s request to be his andLayla’s Anchor bond and then when he’d scented
and Claimed Megan.
He sighed and rubbed his eyes, not sure if he could be sorry but not knowing if he could embrace what he’d been taught to hate either.
***
“Sid did what?” Megan massaged her temples, trying not to take her shitty mood out on her sister. Layla had been leaving messages for a few days and finally just barged into Lex and Nina’s, foisting herself on Megan like a limpet. She loved her big sister but Christ on a skateboard, Layla could be an annoying little bulldog sometimes. “He called his uncle and then they both visited Shane at his place a few days ago.Igo myself but Sid said it would be better if he went with Shane’s dad.Itell you right away but you’d have tried to stop it.”
“That’s because it’s none of your business!” She stood and grabbed her bag. “I spoke to his father a few days ago. He was very nice and all, but of course no one mentioned this little planned visit. And you? You’re such a hypocrite. You remember back when you were mated to Sid? You ran! Did I run? No. I faced up to it. I asked him to give us a chance. I explained why his moving here was the best option.” She hesitated, feeling the now familiar tears but not wanting to shed one more. “I have to go. Adam is meeting me.”
“Don’t you care? Don’t you want to know what happened? What he said? Does it bother you at all?” Layla got in her face.
“What do you want from me? Because I’m not weeping and throwing myself on the ground, tearing at my hair I’m unfeeling? Fuck you, Lay. Yes I care. I care so much it breaks me in two every morning when I open my eyes and he’s not here. But he isn’t. It’s his choice. He made the choice to Claim me and then not live up to his duty to me. Just like I’m making the choice to live openly as what I am instead of playing human in the
desert and cutting myself off from everything else but him. As for what happened.” She shrugged and looked around the room. “He’s not here. He hasn’t called. It’s been over a week. I can take an educated guess. It hurts that he’s not here but he isn’t. I can’t make it anything else. So I’ll live with the pain because there is nothing else to do.”
She stormed out and drove off, annoyed, frustrated and hurt. Over a week and not a damned word. Granted, she hadn’t called him either but at that point, she wasn’t sure what she could say. The ball was in his court.
She could beg. She would if she thought it would work.Shebe with him. Every time she closed her eyes she saw his face. When she got a quiet moment she heard his voice, felt the phantom touch of his lips on her neck.
But if she begged and even succeeded enough to bring him to her, what then? She had to know it was real and not guilt.
Her phone rang just as she arrived at Adam’s to pick him up.
“Megan?” Shane’s deep voice slid through her, filled her up in ways that made her achingly aware of how empty she’d been.
“Hi.” She sat back in her seat, closing the car door to cut the street noise.
“Can we talk? You know, like every day? I want to…can we try to get to know each other? I can’t take the time from work just now but say in two weeks I can come up to visit for a week or so. Would that work?”
She smiled, feeling just a tiny flame of hope kindle in her chest. “Yes. I’d like that a lot.
I’ve missed you. Funny how you can miss someone you barely know.”
“Me too. I’ve missed you I mean. So, what are you doing right now?Wanna talk while I eat my dinner? We can share a meal.” He laughed and things knotted in her gut began to loosen.
“Let me call you back in ten minutes. I’m in my car but I’m only about five minutes away from home and I’ll eat my dinner too.” She’d beg off dinner with Adam, he’d
understand.
“Do you have a webcam? Maybe we could use that and talk. I’d like to see your face.”
“Yeah, I do. I’ll call you back in a few and we’ll get it all set.” She hesitated. “Shane?
I’m glad you called.”
“I’m glad I did too.”
When she hung up she jogged to Adam’s door. He opened as she approached and pulled her into a hug. His support had helped so much over the last week. He’d accepted whatever her mood had been. Had listened when she talk, had left her alone when she didn’t want to. He’d been more than a friend, he’d filled up at least a small part of the emptiness Shane’s absence had created and she’d forever love him for it.
“Hiya, gorgeous. Hungry?” He kissed the top of her head. Another thing was that he’d never been anything more than platonic. Nothing romantic or sexual, just comforting. She could let her guard down with him and he had no idea how much that meant.
“Hey. Listen, I have to bag dinner. I’m sorry. Shane called and he wants to talk. I want to do this. I want it to work.”
He tucked a curl behind her ear. “Of course you do, honey. Go on. We can see each other tomorrow or whenever. You know I’m here for you. I’m glad he’s coming to his senses. I knew he would.”
“That makes one of us.” She laughed as she waved and headed back to her car.
“Drive safely! You can’t talk to him at all if you get into an accident. Call me later to fill me in on what happens if you want, okay?”
She opened her door and turned back to him. “Thank you, Adam. So much.”
Chapter Eight
Shane tried not to be giddy when her webcam finally broadcast her image to his screen.
She was so damned beautiful. More than he’d remembered.
He said so. “Wow, I’ve missed your face.”
She laughed and the sound tightened things in his gut.
“What’s?” She took a sip from a glass and he wished he were there to lick away the bead of glistening liquid on her lip.
He cleared his throat. His yearning for her had been hard to endure but seeing her there, seeing her and hearing her after silence brought it home until his cock ached against his zipper.
“You noticed I don’t tend to have food in my fridge. I picked up a chicken on the way home. Got some pasta to go with it and a little cheesecake for after.” He grinned. “Not as good as the stuff you cooked when you were here.” Nothing was as good as it was when she was with him.
“When you come up, I’ll cook for you every day. I promise. I like to cook. My kitchen isn’t as huge as yours but it gets the job done. So tell me about your day while I eat this leftover lasagna.”
He found himself spilling all the details of his day to her like she was right in the same room. She laughed when he told her about the mix up in his billing, charging him nine hundred million dollars instead of nine hundred. She made a concerned face when he described the difficulty he’d been having with the rest of his practice group in dealing with treating low-income patients.
“I think you’d really like Grace. She’s a doctor too and last year she started a walk-in clinic for low-income Pack members in Boston. She really loves the work. She says it’s hard for werewolves to get the kind of medical treatment they need because they’re often treated like humans, but of course, hello, not so much with the human bio systems.”
He agreed actually. He’d seen it a few times and it had driven him nuts. At the same time, her ease in bringing it up when he had such a hard time wrapping his head around it made him.
She sighed. “I’ve upset you, haven’t I? I don’t know how to not be straight with you. I don’t know how to not just say whatever I feel and share things that are important to me.
I’m not trying to push anything on you. I’m just making conversation.”
He couldn’t lie, the link made it clear just exactly how he was feeling, even so far away.
“No. I mean, yes but it’s stupid. You’re fine.” He didn’t like the distance in her eyes replacing the warmth she’d had just moments before. “I want you to share with me. I’ll get over it. So tell me about your day then.”
Silly as it was, he liked hearing her recount all her stuff. She spoke of her family with a warmth that filled him with envy. He’d never had that, although he did have a closeness with Layla and Sid, it wasn’t anything near what she seemed to share with her siblings and niece.
They spoke for three hours until her eyes began to droop and the sharp need to care for her pounded in his temples.
“Oh, baby, you’re looking like you need some rest. Go to sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
“Wait.”
She stood and he watched, mouth gaping open, as she shrugged off her shirt and pants.
Her panties and bra followed until all she wore was her creamy skin and a smile.
“Jesus.” He had to gulp down water to moisten suddenly dry lips.
Her hands slid up her belly and cupped her breasts. She moaned, low and sexy and need, sharp and nearly painful, sliced through him.
“So, you know, I’ve missed you. Like, really missed you.” A smile curved her lips and she sat, pushing her chair back enough that he could see most of her body. Especially the way her graceful fingers kneaded and rolled her nipples.
“Are you wet?” he asked as he freed his cock one handed and stroked it lightly.
“Mmmm, let me see.”
He nearly choked as he watched her fingers slide down her belly and disappear between the lips of her pussy and draw out again, glistening.
“Yes. Yes I am. Talking to you, hearing your voice and seeing your face makes me this way. When I put my fingers up into my pussy it felt so good, Shane. I need to come.”
It wasn’t like he’d never had phone sex but this was different. He wanted her desperately but he couldn’t touch her. He’d have to settle for her touching herself on his behalf while he watched.
“Keep playing with your nipples but put those fingers back in your pussy. I want you to fuck yourself nice and slow for me. Can you do that? Spread your legs wide so I can see everything.”
He watched, mesmerized as her fingers slid in and out of her pussy. He heard the wet sounds and the sense memory of her scent came to him, sharp and sudden.Hecome too but not did. He didn’t want anything to take away from the sight of her right there, just beyond his physical reach but his nonetheless.
“Baby, is your clit hard? Swollen and needy? I can remember how it felt against my tongue. The taste of you, the way you got so wet just for me.”
Her whimper made his cock jump against his palm and a bead of semen pearled at the tip.
He slid his thumb through it, groaning at the sensation, imagining her mouth there instead of his hand.
She held herself open with one hand, displaying the darkened folds of her pussy to him while she fingered her clit with the other hand. She gasped. “Yes, hard and swollen. I need, oh God…I can’t stop it.”
Her hips bucked against her fingers but her gaze never left the screen, never broke from his.
He stroked his cock. Already just a razor’s edge away from climax and it wasn’t more
than a few breaths before he came, her name on his lips.
She touched her lips with her finger tips. “I love you, Shane. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Christ, what a woman,” he murmured as she signed off.
It went on like that for a week and a half. Phone calls or webcam calls every night when he rushed home from work just to see her or hear her voice. He’d never found himself so willing to disconnect from work before but by three or so each day he’d found himself wrapping up mentally and he’d walked away from his office without looking over his shoulder no later than six.
He liked Megan Warden a hell of a lot. She was funny. Fierce in many ways. Intelligent and insightful on top of and totally self assured. No other woman compared. God knew he saw hot women by the dozens every day at work or just out and about in town but none of them held his interest at all.
At times he resented that. His loss of attraction for all the women he’d been so interested in just weeks before. But more often, as the calls went on, he began to accept his feelings and attraction to Megan weren’t just the bond but that he really did enjoy her company.
She’d be a compelling woman no matter what.
He had to see her and she wasn’t volunteering to come back to Vegas. Not that he could blame her. She seemed to be going out of her way to let him have the time he needed and he had promised to visit her in Seattle. So he made plans to fly up and spend a week in her territory so to speak.
But he couldn’t be gone for a week or two like he wanted because he didn’t have the coverage at work and deep down, in truth, he just wasn’t sure if he could give her that time in Seattle. Cowardly? Maybe. But he decided to start with three days and four nights to see what happened.
The flight was short enough that he could leave Thursday night after work and arrive in
two hours and come back early Monday morning. Enough time to be with her, to touch her and smell her and roll around with her but not too much. He could retreat if he needed to.
He planned to meet her in just a few hours in baggage claim. Funny, sort of full circle from where they’d metbeforedinner with her family. God knew he was nervous about it but what could he say?Sheintroduce him to the people who mattered to her. That was important. He was important to her which made him proud.
Chapter Nine
Megan was glad to have the distraction of the two young and handsome men flirting with her at baggage claim as she waited for Shane. Her hands would have been shaking had she not been holding on to her purse so tightly and focusing on being witty while making it clear she was waiting for her special someone.
She felt him before she saw him, but kept on chatting with her admirers. It wasn’t about playing a game, but she didn’t want to leap on Shane and jump his bones in the middle of the airport. She didn’t want to scare him away. The trip was important. He was taking a small step into her life and she obsessed about doing it right.
“Boys, I think you might get your drool all over my wife if you stand so close.” Shane’s arms encircled her waist and he pulled her back, into the warmth and solid muscle of his body and she nearly groaned aloud at how good it felt.
She turned her head and met his gaze, just as his mouth claimed hers for a kiss.
Everything in her melted as she opened for him. He kept her pinned to his body, back to front as he devastated her mouth, took and took and gave in return nearly fell over at the overwhelming sensation. Mine.
When he let hergo,s all around them returned slowly but she never took her gaze from his.
“Hi.” She was proud she could speak at that point and the wicked man he was, she saw he
knew his affect on her. His smile was smug as well as sexy.
“Hi yourself. You taste good.”
She laughed, turning in his arms to wrap hers around his neck. Tiptoeing up, she kissed his nose briefly. “Good. I like to hear these things. God, I missed you.”
He squeezed her tight for a moment and she breathed in as he did, their bodies pressed together.
“So who are your friends?” He jerked his head and she remembered the two who’d been flirting with her.
“Oh them? Just a way to keep my mind off how long your flight had been delayed.”
They laughed behind her and she felt Shane’s jealousy ease through their link.
“You have nothing to worry about.”
“Good.” He turned a glare on her flirty companions and then tugged her toward the conveyor belt. She waved at them over her shoulder and Shane grunted. She snuggled into his side as they waited for his bag, just loving being with him after being apart for nearly two weeks. Her wolf did summersaults inside her human skin at his scent.
“How was the flight?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Long. I must have looked at my watch every forty seconds. I thought I’d never get here.”
“But you’re here now. I’m so glad.”
“So we’re going to dinner then? At Lex and Nina’s house?”
“Don’t sound so nervous. Honestly I limited it as much as I could and Lay helped. It’ll just be Lex, Nina, Lay and Sid and my parents. My grandmother harrumphed at me and said she’d see you before the weekend was up. I know you met her briefly before but I can’t wait for you to spend some time with her. You’ll like her. Or she’ll beat you up. My grandmother isn’t one to be ignored.” She laughed.
