Misty
Cole groans against my neck as I reach between, running my hand down his chest to the deep V of the muscles of his waist. He kisses me again, hungrily this time, his tongue sweeping over mine in a slow dance that has sparkles of pleasure rippling over my skin. I sigh against his mouth as he grinds his hips against mine, rocking us back and forth, his hands drifting down my sides and settling on my ass with a squeeze.
He slides his hand beneath my shirt, revealing how naked I already am.
“I didn’t bring any pajamas,” I admit, my voice pitched with excitement as he smiles against my lips. There’s no panties in his way tonight.
A dull, throbbing ache radiates through my lower belly. My inner folds are already slick as he drags his fingers through them, lowering his head against my shoulder and trembling with anticipation. “Fuck, Misty, you’re soaking wet.”
I close my eyes and arch when he presses two fingers inside of me, his thumb stroking slow, teasing circles over my clit. I rock into his touch, rolling my head back and forth as the sensation edges on too intense, and all the while, he presses kisses to my neck, my jaw, his teeth nibbling that sensitive spot just behind my ear.
Cole’s touch has a way of unraveling the tangled thoughts in my mind. They flow away, replaced by pure pleasure. He removes his fingers, grunting under his breath as he slips his boxers down and slides his cock between my legs, entering me without ceremony.
He groans–loud and deep–as he buries himself inside me but claps his hand over my mouth when I let out a pitched cry of ecstasy I’m sure the entire camp can hear, despite the rain.
“Hush,” he breathes, giving me a cocky smile as he pulls out slow, teasing me. “I don’t want anyone to hear you. The sounds you make while I’m fucking you are for me only.”
Goddess, I’m going to come right now.
I’ve forgotten how possessive Cole can be. It has been almost a year, I guess, since we first met, and he used that tone with me. That dark, rasping voice that demands submission–my submission.
I think about our first kiss. It’s one of the only memories I allow myself to dwell on, to pull back from the recesses of my mind.
That initial kiss had been mind blowing, nearly intense enough to knock me off my feet. Sometimes, I wish I’d been older when it happened–old enough to know in that moment that he was mine–my mate.
Now, my wolf side cries out for him and his for me, and it’s bliss.
I drag my nails down his back as his movements become more erratic, his voice hoarse and strained as he whispers filthy things in my ear, praising me and my body.
But he slows down, panting, switching from hard thrusts to deliberate strokes at the very moment I’m about to fall over the edge.
I whine, trying to pull him back to me, but he rises over me instead, lifting my right leg and resting it on his shoulder.
“I mean to take my time,” he says, his eyes dark and locked on mine. His hair is wild–curling tightly from being wet. He’s lost some of that sharp edge over the past year, sure, but right now, the old Cole is between my legs. The stern one. The bossy one. The one I miss more than anything during our most mundane days of work and parenthood.
I shouldn’t be longing for that side of him, though, should I? He was only like that because we were going through hell together, and he needed to be hard and scary to protect me.
But this… this is really him. He’s obsessed, and that’s evident in the way he presses a kiss to my calf and grinds into me with renewed fervor.
I can barely breathe as my muscles contract, trembling with tension. I bite back a scream of pure pleasure while he begins to stroke my clit and lifts me back into an orgasm I know is about to rock me to my core.
“Come for me,” he commands, his mouth lifted in a dark, wry kind of smile.
My arms fall to my sides. I grip the blankets all around us, arching into his touch when he thrusts so deep I see stars and come completely, utterly undone. My inner walls spasm around his cock. He chokes out a breath, leaning deeper into this position and riding out my orgasm with enthusiasm.
I try to be quiet. I hope the thundering rain is enough to shield my moans and whimpering from the rest of the camp, from the wolves lingering on the outskirts of the clearing doing their rounds.
Cole pumps into me hard, squeezing my thighs as he spills himself inside of me, filling me with warmth. My chest heaves as he gently lowers my leg and pulls out. He scoops me into his arms, kissing me soundly. We’re both slick with sweat when he lowers us against the blankets and holds me to his chest, his breathing slightly uneven and his heart beating rapidly.
“I love you,” he breathes into my hair, his fingers drawing lazy circles over my naked hip.
“I love you,” I echo, stifling a yawn. Pure exhaustion settles through my body almost immediately, and before I know it, we’re both fast asleep tangled in each other’s arms…
And we don’t wake until what we find out is the late hours of morning.
Ryan arches his brow at us from the warming fire someone built in the center of our camp, where he’s sprawled out with a cup of coffee in his hands and a smug–ass smile on his face.
“Good morning,” he chuckles as I walk beside Cole, whose hand is laced in mine.
“You shouldn’t have let us sleep in,” I tell him hotly, noticing that our tent is the only one left standing and the camp is nearly empty.
The camp was erected a few yards away from the clearing, tucked in the woods. Ryan tilts his head in the direction of the clearing where Aviva’s voice drifts toward us, lifted and sharp.
“Aviva was up at the crack of dawn,” he says before taking another sip of his coffee. “Figured if anyone got the pleasure of sleeping in without a kid waking them up, it should be you guys, since my mate is dead set on bossing everyone around this morning.”
Cole sits beside him, and Ryan offers him some coffee from a thermos, pouring it into a metal mug for him. I stay standing, crossing my hands over my chest and silently thanking the Goddess that the leggings I packed dried out by morning so I’m not practically bare right now.
“What is she yelling about?”
Ryan shrugs, looking tired. “She’s been on a tear all morning, trust me.”
I narrow my eyes at him and decide to find out for myself, which I quickly do.
I leave the camp and cross into the clearing just in time for Aviva to say to Jacob, “Fine, then. Anyone who can be spared will be here, guarding this place. You can pick the warriors, or I can.”
“We’ve got the wheat harvest next week,” another man I haven’t personally met says nearby, and he quickly becomes the subject of Aviva’s wrath.
“This place–whatever it is–is a beckon of hell drawing in rogues and hellhounds. We’re only thirty miles west of Silverhide right now. Do you want to harvest wheat or fight off rogues left and right when they realize how close they are to us?”
The rest of the warriors shuffle from foot to foot, but Jacob sighs and nods, saying to the group. “The Luna’s right. We’ll have to take shifts. Four men, every three days, will guard this place and switch off with the next group.”
“Great,” Aviva says, eyeing the group for a moment. “Well, then. Pick your four, Jacob. Then we can go home.”
She ignores the few grumbles from the group and turns, looking slightly surprised to see me standing there.
I arch my brows at her, giving her a little smile.
“What?” she says, almost shyly.
“Look at you,” I tease as we turn back to what remains of the camp. “Being a Luna and whatnot.”
“They’re not used to a woman bossing them around,” she says with a smirk, adding, “but I think most of them are scared of me, so it’s not that hard to get them to do what I want.”
“You’re turning my brother into a stay-at-home-dad.”
“He’s honestly loving having a respite from his Alpha duties. He prefers… building stuff and goofing off.” She sighs, pausing when Ryan and Cole come into view at their perch near the dwindling fire.
I glance over my shoulder at the gaping depression in the clearing. Mud continues to slide into the hole, widening its entrance. Aviva notices me looking back and rolls her lower lip between her teeth, waiting for me to say what we’re both thinking.
“We have to find the entrance, don’t we?”
“Yep,” she replies, running her fingers through her hair. “As soon as we can.”
“What are we supposed to do once we’re inside?” My powers simmer as the question works through my brain. In all honesty, once the war was over, I didn’t touch the barrage of new powers I’d developed shortly after my birthday. I’d ignored them, refusing to train them, to hone them and sharpen them… and now I’m paying dearly for it.
“I knew it wasn’t over, you know?” Aviva breathes, both of us still locked on the hole we had to be pulled out of last night. “I couldn’t bring myself to relax, even after Lexa was born, and things felt like they were returning to normal.”
“I know. I felt the same way. I still feel–feel the same way.” I swallow past the lump in my throat and turn to Cole and Ryan, who’re calling our names.
Cole obviously notices the slight pinch of my brows because his smile fades, his eyes shimmering with silent concern. I do my best to give him a smile, but it falls flat.
Ryan, however, seems totally oblivious to the concern threatening to turn Aviva and I inside out, and plants his hands on his hips, smiling up at the sun. “I think we have some time to hunt today. What do you think? We could bring a few deer home, I’m sure.”
Aviva playfully crosses her arms over her chest. “You mean I’m going to get a few deer, right?”
Ryan beams at her. Goddess, Ryan is totally head over heels, and it’s incredible to see. If anyone deserves this kind of love and happiness, it’s him. “A few rabbits, too? I could use some new mittens for winter…”
They turn away from camp together, walking toward their pack members, who are starting to pick up their supplies, some of them shifting in preparation for their journey back to SIlverhide.
Cole waits for them to walk out of ear shot before turning to me, his hand ghosting down my back.
“What’s going on?” he asks in a gentle, yet commanding, tone.
“I mean, a lot,” I whisper, kicking at a pebble with the toe of my boot. “Obviously.”
“Misty, can you talk to me–”
“There’s really nothing to talk about. We found what we think is a forge and now we… have to do something about it.”
“Are you okay?” Cole’s words hang in the air before shattering between us.
I turn my eyes to him, praying they’re not watering.
“Misty,” he says, wincing as he takes me by the upper arms. “It’s been months of this, okay? You’re not yourself.”
I step away from him, shaking my head.
“Things have been hard with Addy, I know. We haven’t been sleeping, and I dragged you both here–” he begins.
“It’s not your fault–”
“It is my fault. This–” he motions between us, “Everything we went through… I didn’t–I didn’t give us any time to get over it. We didn’t work through it. I just forced us into what I thought we needed, a normal life. With a–a house and jobs–”
“Cole–”
“I’ve been watching your light dim for months now, and I thought coming here would help. I thought you needed to come back to Eastonia to close some unfinished chapter, but I–I think we need to go home.”
“No! We can’t, especially not now. And you’re here for training–”
“Fuck my training,” he growls. “I can’t put you through something like this again. The first time–I didn’t do enough–”
We haven’t fought in a very long time. Not since our days in the fortress together, and his palace in Oasia, when things were so, inexplicably horrible, and we only had each other to lean on.
“I hate what we went through, but it's over,” I say to him, but the words echo through my mind, my body. “I need to accept that, and I haven’t. I have work to do. I have a son, a mate, a life I want to start living again without memories from the war tearing me to shreds, so I’m done.” I suck in a breath as Cole watches me closely. “I’m done. We’re not going home yet. I have to figure out this forge issue and close that chapter, Cole. And you have to–to do whatever you’re doing with Kyra.”
He steps toward me at the mention of Kyra. “Why did you say her name like that?”
I ball my hands into fists, unsure why I’m suddenly channeling my feelings toward the healer. “No reason.”
Cole rubs his temples like he has a headache, squinting his eyes against the sun. His lips part like he’s about to say something, to question me further, but Ryan calls out our names.