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Well, no. My brother might think I am, but I’m notthatnaive. I’m a fully mature female who’s been mating since she was nineteen. Despite my self-imposed celibacy streak these last three years, I’ve had sex. Lots of sex. All of it was with this male right here, so I’d be an idiot if I tried to convince anyone that West’s suddenly good mood didn’t have something to do with me fucking him last night.
It’s more than that, though, and I was being purposely obtuse by pretending not to know.
I love you… tell me you don’t love me…
I couldn’t do that. I also couldn’t say the same words back to him, but I didn’t have to. From the moment I moved into him, reaching for the button on his jeans before dipping my hand inside his underwear, I gave him the impression that I still loved him as much as he loves me.
I didn’t stop him. I didn’t correct him.
I didn’t lie, either.
And, Luna damn it, I’m still wearing his ring. Wrong finger, yeah, but that doesn’t seem to matter to West. I have his bite and his ring, and now I’m covered in his scent. Add that to the way his erection is nudging the top of my mound, the head of his cock searching for my entrance like some kind of heat-seeking missile, and he seems to think that last night wasn’t just a one-time affair.
He took me away from my friends, my family, and my pack in a last ditch effort to get me to choose him as mine before I went to Rafael. I’m still here. I could have left—and I didn’t. After last night, West is giddy with victory.
He thinks he won, when both of us have already lost.
Nothing has changed. Not really. I’m still supposed to mate Rafael, and while I couldn’t reject West the other night, I can’t bring myself to scorn the Luna and reject the Alpha of Gravetail, either.
West is waiting for me to say something. To answer him. I wish I had one to give.
This is all my fault. I didn’t want to lead him on; at least, not any more than I already have. It’s not what I meant to do at all. In the heat of the moment, I justified it as one last time. If I was going to have to spend the rest of my life with a male who isn’t Weston Reed, didn’t I deserve one final mating with him?
Selfish, Helene. Could I have been any more selfish?
This is the flowers all over again. I should have refused the first one he brought to me after I ended things. It just seemed so… soharmlessback then. I wouldn’t eat his food, and I didn’t let him in my cabin, but if he wanted to bring me a flower, that was okay, right?
Wrong.
This is all wrong.
I shift my head, searching for him. “West—”
Eyes sparkling with a mixture of lust and love, he slips his hand between my legs.
It would be so easy to let him in again. Of course, it would only make things so much harder later…
I squeeze my legs together, stopping his hand in its travels. “West, don’t.”
There’s no hesitation. The moment I tell him ‘no’, he immediately pulls his hand away.
“Sorry, baby. Don’t know what I was thinking. You’re probably still tender.” A dark shadow passes across his face. I want to blame the morning sun dipping behind the clouds, but I know better. “I was too rough. I should’ve—”
I shoot my hand up to his face, caressing the edge of his jaw with the side of my thumb. “Stop that. Don’t blame yourself.” I’m the only one to blame. “I picked the pace. You weren’t rough at all. Besides, you know I can handle anything you’ve got.” It’s probably the dumbest thing I can say at this particular moment, but to get rid of the darkness rising up inside of him, I add, “I always have.”
He lowers his forehead, resting it against mine. “That’s because you were made for me.”
If only I was.
CHAPTER10
SORRY
Itell him I’m not tender—because I’m a shifter, and I’mnot—but West wants to be careful. Since that also means that he doesn’t push me to mate again, I go along with it.
It’s a slippery slope. I go along with that, and when West kisses the top of my hair, then invites me to join him in the shower, I can’t think of a good enough reason to refuse that won’t force me to have to reject him so soon. We both need to freshen up anyway. The hot water in the cabin barely lasts through one shower, so I justify it by saying that neither of us should have to be caught beneath a cold shower spray.
He’s gentle. Using his claws to scratch my scalp as he washes my hair for me, his body bowed over mine as the warm water streams over us, I realize that I made another mistake. Sex is one thing. But this? Showering with West is so much more intimate than anything that happened between us last night.
