Aris
I lift the smaller skull and balance it in my hand while Posey moves in the background. The midmorning air is scented with the herbs she uses for her potions and hand creams. Little bells and chimes ping through the air as her timer goes off. I glance at her, the sunlight casting a halo around her face. She’s pouring a cooled tincture of whistlethorne and dried cherry into a large vial.
It’s not even noon, and her fingers are already stained black.
I set the skull down and look at the tools arranged on the granite, some still cooling, sending puffs of steam into the air. “You have a whole collection now,” I muse, and her smile is soft, no teeth, just a twitch of her lips.
“I have a ways to go to replace everything from the old alchemy room downstairs.”
“I could… order some, take the burden off your shoulders.”
She throws me an incredulous look that makes my heart squeeze.
“Or not.” I ease onto the stool I brought upstairs so I could sit here and watch her from a closer distance than my chair far across the room. After last night, we’ve breached that invisible boundary.
I’m not sure why I didn’t pick up on the fact that she is a fox. I can see it now in the way she moves. Her small, delicate, but skilled hands. Even the curve of her eyes and chin are fox-like, and her hair?
“You’re almost completely red in the summer, aren’t you?”
She glances up from a book about herbal remedies and catches my gaze, again with that soft but not quite full smile. “Just about–with tinges of pink, I think. I’m still strawberry-blonde, even in my fox form. But… I haven’t had much of a chance to look at myself in a mirror in that form or even a pond.”
“Can you shift at will?”
“Yeah. I can.” She turns to the other counter along the wall. I watch the movement, the way she takes a deep breath.
“You’ve never been able to talk to anyone about this before.”
“No,” she replies quickly and then clears her throat. She looks at me over her shoulder and smiles. “Just you.”
My heart lurches. It’s not the first time it’s done that this morning, either. Waking up with her in my arms, soft and warm… gods, it had been everything I prayed for. Everything I incessantly dreamed about come to life, and I really don’t want to fuck it up by moving too fast.
Or by trapping her, which is why I didn’t take her last night, even after marking her. Marking her while my fox form held dominance over my senses.
I shift my weight on the stool, interlocking my fingers over the granite slab. “Posey… if this isn’t what you want… if you want to…” How do I even begin?
“Aris.” She turns, her hands on her hips, and for the first time in months, I see her again, Posey from this summer, grumpy and busy, but this time, she’s mine, and it shows as her smile widens. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time.” She licks her lips, just as speechless as I feel. “I thought I could handle it. This summer, when we slept together? Even if we weren’t mates, I think I would have felt the same way I have all fall and winter, like my heart went through a meat grinder, and I didn’t know how to put it back together. And I hate being here with you because I knew how much it was hurting you, and I couldn’t just say I didn’t want you because that would have been a lie, and I’d been lying for so long already.”
I rise, but she backs up into the juncture of the counter, wringing her fingers like they ache, and I know they do. I can feel that now. Those little whispers of discomfort that rile my senses through our bond.
“I’m very good at lying, but I can’t lie about how I feel, not with you,” she whispers.
“I know. I couldn’t either.” I take a few steps in her direction, but she doesn’t notice.
“When I found out about Morgan, I was devastated,” she admits, breathless, her cheeks turning a rosy pink that floods down her neck and chest. Her breasts rise, and she takes a deep breath, and my vision hones on her soft curves. “And I felt so terrible about that. How much I wished it could have been me. How much I wanted to go with you instead of Roman. I would have–if I’d known, if I hadn’t been so scared.”
“Did you think I was going to hurt you?” If what she was muttering when I found her is any indication, I already know the answer. I reach for her, dragging my knuckles over the sharp curve of her waist, imagining her like she was last night, her skin warm from the fire and naked for me to see. All of her. All of her softness. I wanted to bite her all over.
“Yes.” The word trembles with guilt. “I did. I thought you’d kill me. Everyone hates foxes. They’re scared of them, even wild ones. And I messed up this summer, didn’t I? Other people caught my scent, and it sent the Ruby pack into a frenzy.”
I was a very good boy last night, in my opinion. I wasn’t going to bend her over the bed and fuck her after she was nearly torn limb-from-limb by that rogue pack of wolves. Oh, but I wanted to. So badly it killed me to lay her in my bed and watch her drift to sleep. More so, this morning, when I sat across from her and watched her eat for what I think was the first time in days. I wanted to sweep every plate off the table and drag her to me, seating her on my lap, ripping the fabric of her shirt open until those glorious breasts were mine for the taking.
“Aris?”
I look into her eyes. “People are always going to be afraid of what they don’t understand.” I kiss her hard, unable to stop myself as every damning, delicious, utterly indecent thought I’ve had about this woman before me rips my other senses to shreds.
She gasps against my mouth, but it’s over. I can’t stop, not when she grips my shoulders and moans against my mouth. The world goes dark, and everything else fades.
We’re alone. There’s no one else here. She can scream to the rafters, and no one would hear her. The spirits… I’ll deal with them later. They’re being weird. The female won’t respond to us, and her companion has a freezing, bitter presence when he’s near that I recognize as a mate doing everything in his power to make his mate’s world a little smaller and more secure for her comfort.
I don’t realize I’ve picked Posey up and splayed her out on her worktable until her metal tools ping off the floorboards, and empty glass vials shatter. She rips at my shirt, tearing it open, pressing her hands flat against my chest.
Her touch is enough to send me spiraling.
“Fuck,” I grunt, tearing her shirt down the center. She’s not wearing a bra which makes me weak in the knees, and before I can finish shredding her clothes from her skin, I bury my face between her breasts, and she squeals in delight. Those little giggles…
I nip at the top of her right breast to give myself a moment to calm down. “I should have marked you here.” I move to the other side, catching her gaze. “Or here.” I bite down a little harder than I mean to, but she takes it. She’s so good to me.
Her whimpering makes me feel completely feral. She’s fumbling with my belt loop while I press kisses all over her chest and down her belly until I’m forced to rise and undress myself, my hand pressed down on her stomach to keep her pinned on the table exactly where I want her. I pull her apron off. Her skirt is next. I hook my thumbs in her panties and pull them down over her knees, tossing them to the other side of the room. My pants are a heap at my feet that I kick to the side, but I’m out of breath, thrumming with desire so strong I think I’ll come before I’m even inside of her.
My hands travel up her smooth, soft thighs.
“I’m going to knot in you. I’m not going to be able to help it,” I warn, breathless, my voice ragged. It’s the only warning she gets.
My cock splits her folds. The resistance is insane. Her beautiful, wet pussy hugs me so tight I can’t breathe until I’m buried to the hilt, and her muscles quiver around my length. Her breathy, shaky inhale of breath makes me see stars.
“Is this okay?” I whisper, bracing a hand on the table and leaning over her to press my lips to hers. Her mouth parts in a moan. Her legs are already shaking, and she’s so tight. Fuck, I’m not a fucking marathon runner by any means.
The knot is already happening. I thrust in deep, grinding to find the perfect spot, the perfect depth. Posey trembles, her body flushed and tight. She grips my arms, and I slowly move inside of her, her clit throbbing like a drumbeat.
“Does it hurt?” she whispers.
I choke on a rough laugh. “This?” I move ever so slightly. She’s full of me. There’s no more space. She fits me like a glove, and I could die right here, right now, a happy man. She gasps when I pull out and press back in until our hips are flush. Her legs tighten around my waist, ankles interlocked. “I’ve never felt anything like you, Posey. You’re a fucking dream.”
Another hard thrust. I grab the edge of the table, my chest only inches from hers, and press in again. She arches her hips to meet each thrust while I suck and nibble on her breasts, leaving a sensation she’ll feel for days, and then I’ll give her new ones.
I wrap an arm under her back and hoist her upright. The new position is like liquid heaven–molten–and I’m so deep she’s crying out my name.
Her gasp of shock rocks me back to myself. The room around us is still blurry, and my heart thunders as the knot expands. Pleasure like I’ve never known soars through me, and then I’m coming, and she’s crying my name, her muscles spasming.
“Good girl,” I pant against her temple, the pleasure almost edging on pain as I fill her to her breaking point. “Take it. You’re doing so well.”
“It’s so big,” she moans, shivering, her arms wrapped around my neck and fingers tangled in my hair. She shimmies her hips, and the movement rockets down my spine and explodes into another orgasm that has me crying out her name this time. I grip her like my life depends on it. Maybe it does. Losing this woman… I can’t even think about it without wanting to scorch the world to ash and embers. If anyone even looks at her funny, it will be the last thing they do. I want to keep her here, where she’s safe. Where she’s safe with me.
“I love you,” she whispers against my cheek.
“Prove it,” I dare, my voice strangely stern. “Give me your mark.”
She whimpers with heat, burying her face against my shoulder. I move in slow, rhythmic jerks, unable to thrust into her again with the knot keeping us together, but every slow movement has her grip tightening, and body her tenses when she comes again, I’m right there with her.
“Fuck! Posey!” I growl, grunting. Her pussy clamps around my knot in rhythmic spasms, so tight I could shout.
But then she bites down on the ridge of my shoulder so hard it breaks the skin, and she holds on, riding out our bliss while leaving her mark on me. Her mate. Her man. I’m going to marry this woman. Tonight. I’m taking her to the temple right after this, everything else be damned.
A distant chiming sound barely registers in my brain. It fades but then comes again.
“What is that?” Posey asks breathlessly, resting her cheek against mine.
I’m out of breath as I look over my shoulder at my discarded pants and the flicker of blue-hued light lighting up one pocket.
A few minutes later, after cleaning us up and making sure I haven’t maimed my own mate beyond repair, I pull on my pants and whip out my phone, slightly annoyed that anyone would dare to call me and interrupt.
A single line of text from my mom lights up the screen. I can sense how frantic she was when she wrote it, and every sense tightens when I slowly turn back to Posey.
She notices, her eyes widening as she scans my face while simultaneously tying her apron strings. “Aris? What happened?”