Haunted Sanctuary (Green Pines Sanctuary) (26 page)

He could start over.

Chapter Sixteen

Eden spent most of the day unpacking boxes and setting up the master bedroom in the big house, but it didn’t feel like home until Jay walked through the door, dragging a suitcase of his own.

It had been hard, sending him back to work when she had to face the morning after with a wounded, broken-hearted pack. But Lorelei had rallied in the way only she could, and Eden could do no less in the face of such stubborn strength. They’d attacked the problem of moving Eden’s things together, and the onerous task of unpacking and organizing became less tedious as others drifted in to help them.

Pack building a den together. Family building a home together.

Home, but incomplete without her mate. He looked handsome in his uniform, and felt even better when she stepped close enough to wallow in the power he exuded as naturally as breathing. “I missed you.”

“Good, because I missed you too.” He slipped an arm around her waist. “How’d it go today?”

“We got through. Kaley may need a bit of space, but as long as we keep an eye on her…” Eden rested her forehead on Jay’s shoulder and sighed. “Did you stop by the diner on your way home?”

“I did. Your dad says hi, and to tell you that Zack’s going to be okay, so stop worrying.”

She choked on a laugh. “I’m that predictable, huh?”

He smiled against her temple. “Anyone in your position would be right now. That’s your family.”

“Some of my family,” she corrected softly. She eased back and circled around him, sliding the door shut with a soft
click
and the gentle buzz of wards humming to life. Stella’s clever soundproofing, which would let them steal rare snatches of privacy in the midst of chaos. “Pack’s family too.”

“Yes, it is.” Jay tensed, more a feeling that echoed across their bond than a physical reaction. “I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t have hit you with that stuff about Zack last night.”

Eden pressed her forehead to the door, because it was easier to have this discussion with her back to him. “You had to. I think I wouldn’t have gotten so angry if it hadn’t felt…true. If the wolf hadn’t been so loud inside me, telling me you were right. I couldn’t listen.”

“And no wonder. I didn’t have to be wrong to be a jackass.”

“Fine. You were right
and
a jackass.” Turning, she smiled wanly at him. “I need time, Jay. I’m glad I have this viciousness when bad guys are trying to choke me. But I can’t be glad that some part of me can look at my cousin—my
brother
—and make a cold assessment that he’s too dangerous. I’m not ready to be that pragmatic.”

He brushed his thumb over the corner of her mouth. “You don’t have to be. He was there, Eden, at the edge, and his mind is still his own. He’ll make it.”

“You made him fight. Thank you.” She turned her face into his hand, pressed a kiss to his palm and savored the spark that zipped through her. They’d had a lifetime worth of courtship and responsibility shoehorned into so few days, it was hard to remember that touching him was so new.

“You’re welcome.”

Smiling, she nuzzled his wrist. “Do you hear that?”

He grinned. “Hear what?”

“Exactly. Everyone’s already relaxing in their soundproofed rooms. Nothing’s on fire. No one’s attacking. No panic, no emergencies…just you and me and a few minutes to breathe.”

Jay laughed. “Says you. Work was a madhouse today.”

“That’s what happens when the chief takes a week off.” She traced her fingers along his belt before tugging his polo shirt free of his pants. “Anything you couldn’t handle?”

“Just catch-up crap.” He caught one of the belt loops on her jeans and pulled her closer. “What about you? Thinking about talking to the committee about your job?”

“Not even a little. I’m going to try being a stay-at-home alpha for a little while.” The skin of his back heated under her touch, as if the sparks stirring desire to life burned in him, too. She smoothed her hands around his waist and up his chest, then pushed him back with a teasing smile.

Making him fight for her wasn’t getting old, it turned out. Not that he couldn’t tease back. He tilted his head and casually pulled his shirt over his head.

The sight of him wasn’t getting old either. Eden leaned back against the door and took her time admiring him. For the first time, it felt like…every other encounter had been shrouded in anxiety or fear or the pulsing adrenaline of the full moon.

Tonight he was a man. Her man. And she could trace the way his muscles moved gracefully under his skin all night, if she wanted. “I love you.”

She hadn’t meant to say the words. For a moment she froze, petrified that it was too much, too fast, but he braced his hands on the door and leaned over her, his forehead to hers.

For a long moment, he simply stood there. Then, “I love you too, honey. I have…for a while.”

Eden closed her eyes and floated on relief. “So I wasn’t the only one with a secret crush?”

“Not even close.” He leaned in farther and kissed her lightly, but light wasn’t enough. Eden tilted her head and licked his lips with a hungry growl before burying her hands in his hair. Nothing could ever be enough. Not kissing him forever, not holding him forever, not loving him forever.

Wouldn’t stop her from trying. She dug her teeth into his lower lip. “Can we ravish each other now?”

He swallowed a groan. “Do we have enough time for a proper ravishing?”

“This may be our only chance, Chief Ancheta. You going to waste it?”

“Nope.” Hunger echoed through the bond between them as he locked an arm around her waist, lifted her and dropped her on top of the blessedly bare dresser. “I know better.”

“Good.” She sank her fingers into his hair again and dragged her nails across his scalp teasingly. “What’s involved in a proper ravishing? It can’t be handcuffs, since I see you’ve forgotten them again.”

“Time,” he declared, the words muffled as his lips met her throat. “And effort. Mostly the effort. With a dash of creativity.”

She’d never been this impatient with any other man. Or maybe she’d simply never been this impatient as a woman. She was more now, a woman and a wolf, an alpha burning for her mate, and Jay’s soft, slow touches stoked arousal and frustration in equal measure.

Foreplay took too long, the wolf decided, and Eden had torn open her shirt before the thought finished. She grabbed at Jay’s belt with a growl. “Less time, more effort.”

He caught her hands and twisted them behind her back. “You can’t choose one over the other, or it isn’t a proper ravishing.”

“Oh.” Jerking at his grip did nothing. He had all the leverage and she didn’t
really
want to escape, but trying still got her hot and bothered. “So educate me,” she whispered. Challenged. “Show me how you ravish your mate.”

He kissed her, slow and wet, his tongue following the line of her lower lip. It was raw, unchecked lust, and she shuddered under the assault and pressed her lips together, fighting the natural urge to open to him.

His laugh blew hot on her mouth, but instead of becoming more insistent, his caresses gentled. Slowed.

It only stoked her hunger. Her pulse throbbed throughout her entire body, pooling need between her thighs and setting her nipples to aching. She arched her back, struggling to reach him, to rub against him. Jay relaxed his hold enough to let her, and growled when she pressed her breasts to his chest.

“Too much clothing,” she whispered, coaxing. He still had her hands trapped, and his fingers tightened when she tried to move. “Bra’s in the way. I want your skin against mine.”

He released her, ran his fingers up under her shirt to unhook her bra. “Take it all off, then put your hands back where they were.”

She slid her half-ruined shirt down to pool on the dresser and took her time with the bra, wallowing in his hungry expression as she peeled the fabric from her skin. “You want my hands somewhere, you better put them there. Because I’m going for your belt again if you don’t stop me.”

“Impatient,” he rumbled, pushing her wrists back to pin them at the small of her back. “Leave them there.”

Eden laughed and bit his chin. “And you thought I was joking about the handcuffs. Better invest in a spare pair, because I think I like misbehaving.”

“You could misbehave,” he agreed. “Go for my belt. Go
wild
, Eden. But then you’ll never know what I plan to do next.”

Oh yeah, he knew how to tame her. Not brute strength, but clever words. Whispers that stirred curiosity to life, and even the wolf could be patient for a little while. Her next nip was playful, teeth scraping along his jaw before she licked him, nuzzled into his chin in a brief moment of quiet submission.

“That’s right.” He combed his fingers through her hair, tugging just enough to tingle anticipation up her spine. “Remember…” He opened her pants and pushed them down, easing them under and off her body. “Hands behind your back.”

She twisted her fingers together as a desperate reminder, all too aware of how the posture thrust her breasts out. There was something dirty about being naked while he wasn’t, something that should feel vulnerable but was instead empowering. She felt it in the way his breath hitched when she arched her back, and the jump in his pulse when she eased her knees apart.

Desire. Lust. And a look in his dark eyes that eclipsed both. Eden wet her lips and tilted her head back, leaving her throat as exposed as the rest of her body. “Show me what comes next.”

Jay held her gaze as he leaned down and licked the spot between her breasts. Good, but not enough. She whimpered and twisted, keeping her hands tucked at the small of her back but urging him toward her nipple. “Please?”

He hummed and touched just the tip of his tongue to her nipple, a warm caress that vanished as quickly as it had come.

Patience cracked around the edges, and her next plea came out riding a growl. “
Jay.
”

His mouth closed around the tight peak, hot and wet, and he sucked hard for only a moment before dropping to his knees in front of the dresser and pushing her thighs even wider.

Staring down at him, Eden stopped moving. She stopped breathing. Everything inside her coiled tight, tensed against his first touch. She had just enough air in her lungs to whisper his name.

He murmured hers back at her, then rubbed his fingers through her folds. Pleasure jolted all the way down to her toes, and she thumped her head against the wall with a moan. “Don’t tease. I want you too much.”

“I know.” His thumb slicked over her clit, followed a mere moment later by the wet rasp of his tongue.

Heaven.

She fell into it, closing her eyes as the world narrowed to his mouth and how very, very clever he was with it. Languid pleasure tightened with urgency, and she didn’t remember moving her hands, just sliding them into his hair with a greedy noise she couldn’t help. “More, God, just like that.”

“Mmm.” A hard thrust, his fingers sliding inside her, and she clung to him as her body jerked, a response beyond her control when he went straight for the spot that pulsed through her like lightning. Instinct had her wiggling back, clinging to the scraps of her control.

He licked her again, slowly, and curled his fingers inside her in a gentle rocking motion.

No mercy. No respite, just the slow unraveling of anything human until she was a creature of hunger and impulse, writhing as he brought her up and up and up, so high, so
good
—

“Let me come,” she begged, tugging at his hair. “Make me come.”

And then he did, but not in a relieving rush. He thrust her over the edge and let her fall, let her crash into shaking spasms that had barely subsided before his fingers crooked. She opened her mouth to protest, to beg for a moment to collect herself, but his tongue found her clit again, rasping, demanding, and the growl that vibrated against her rocketed her back to the sharp, oh-so-sweet edge.

He held her there. He held her there until she was twisting and begging, and this time when he pushed her over, he didn’t let her fall. He caught her halfway down, as her voice broke on a helpless cry, and dragged her back to her peak. Release crashed into wanting melted into coming twisted into needing, and somewhere in the foggy distance, the remains of her ecstasy-splintered mind recognized that
this
must be what it was like to fuck a determined man who could feel everything he did to your body. Who could track every reaction, time every touch…

And then even those scraps of thought shattered into nothingness as he drove her up one last time only to sweep her over the edge into limb-melting release.

Jay tangled his fingers in her hair and whispered against her cheek as she floated down, her ears ringing. And when she finally opened her eyes, he nipped her lower lip. “
That’s
how you ravish your mate.”

“Wow.” Eden tilted her head enough to rub her cheek against his. “And you’re still wearing pants. Damn.”

“Mm-hmm. Still wearing pants.”

With her own release fading, she could feel Jay across their bond. He was aroused, still, but a smug satisfaction overwhelmed everything else, blunting the feral edge of dominance that had been riding him.

Jay was a man damn well pleased with himself, and she couldn’t blame him. Her legs felt rubbery as she wrapped them around his hips and drew closer. “We should get you out of them. And get you into me.”