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He was fascinated by her face, the storms of emotions that chased over her features. Every change of angle and every pulse between them affected her. He knew she was close the moment her intense focus slipped away, and she got a dazed, starry look.
Her eyes rolled back in her head as climax overtook them both.
She sighed as she shifted off of him and cuddled down beside him, careful to avoid his chest.
After long moments, he couldn’t help asking, “What was that?”
She raised her head and smirked. “I wouldn’t have thought you needed a lecture about the birds and the bees.”
It was only because they were so close that he could watch her put back on her mask. The insouciant defiance that she met every challenge with hid an intense and intensely vulnerable young woman.
His wolf howled, and he almost passed out in relief that the idiot canine wasn’t dead within him.
Now you’re awake?
The beast snapped its jaws, grinning in satisfaction.
He smiled. She was more of a match for the beast than him. Immediately, guilt crashed into the post-orgasmic haze. What had they just done?
“Goldie, we can’t. The shifter was right.”
“Oh no, what did he say to you? That I have Stockholm Syndrome?”
He didn’t think he could feel worse about this situation. “Is that what happened?”
“You didn’t magically brainwash me, and I let them know that.”
He groaned. “What did you say?”
“I defended you, you ungrateful canine. I told them you saved me. And you protected me from the assholes. And you got beat bloody defending me.” She sat up and pushed her hair out of her face. “And I told them I’d have been home weeks ago if they hadn’t been so bloodthirsty and ready to start a feud insteadof making peace with their neighbors. That it really was all their fault because of how much they hated you.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“Goldie, they were worried about you. And my family did harm you.” He leaned back and scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling the rough nap of a few days' worth of beard. “Why did you say that?”
She scoffed. “Why does everybody get mad when I point out the obvious? Everybody says that Goldie stirs up shit. Goldie causes rifts. You can’t fight with Goldie. All I do is tell the damn truth that’s been hanging over everyone like a— Like a what?”
“Cloud? Hammer? Guillotine?”
“Oh, I like that one.” She poked him in the still-healing pec, and he tried not to wince. “Like a damn guillotine. I don’t put it up there. Y’all put it up there with every word you don’t speak. And then I say: look, there’s a guillotine right above our heads. Then everyone complains about how I put a guillotine up there!”
He ran his hands through his hair. “You’re right. It’s our damn guillotine. It’s probably already fallen. Your family wants to start a feud right as my family is splitting apart.”
Goldie harrumphed and lay down again. He scooched over and put his arm around her. There was just enough room for him to lie on his back with her along his side.
“The absolute worst part,” she said, “is that now they don’t even believe me about the guillotine because they think I’ve been brainwashed.”
“Haven’t you? You stayed and stayed. You even took on Buck. Why?”
“I fell in love with you, you big oaf!”
Everything in him cracked open and then slammed shut again in the wrong places. “It’s not real.”
Her face turned red, and she took a deep, long breath and said in an excessively reasonable tone, “Tell me why you think it’s not real.”
“Nothing is real when you’re under duress. And don’t tell me it’s fine because I’m paying you with tables and chairs. That’s worse.”
