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The cold March wind howled around the house and the fire crackled in the fireplace, sending warmth all the way over to where he sat on the couch. The internet was spotty again and he slammed the laptop closed, setting it on the coffee table before he ran his hands through his hair.
The lights flickered, and Hunter glanced towards the kitchen. “How close is dinner,” he called and glanced at the mountains of papers spread across the kitchen table. To say the council was a mess was an understatement. Winters had been cooking the books and skimming off the top for years, which explained his stash in his bedroom. So, not only was the prick a serial killer, but he was also a thief.
The committee had paid for the remainder of his physical therapy down in Virginia and sent him home with Alessandra, an architect, and what had to be some of the fastest builders on the planet. It had only taken them a month to renovate the first floor with a master suite so he didn’t have to try to navigate the stairs.
They also sent them with all the shit that needed sorting, from valid crimes that needed to be addressed, to the nitty-gritty requests that flooded in daily. He had only been home for two weeks and he was ready for a vacation. On top of that, the bitter cold had settled over central Maine, which made the Florida Keys sound better and better.
Alessandra came out of the kitchen with two plates and took a seat at the other end of the couch, handing him one like a sacrificial offering.
“We might be eating by firelight,” Hunter said taking the plate. The meatloaf weighed the china down and he took the offered silverware before setting his dinner on his lap desk. As if on cue, the lights flickered again.
Alessandra was quiet and focused on her food, which was unusual. She was normally the one to pull conversation out of him, not the other way around. He studied her profile, and the tension in her posture.
“What’s wrong?” he asked around his first bite of the thick meat.
“Six months, today,” she whispered.
His gaze flicked to the calendar and his appetite vanished. Their life had taken a turn into hell six months ago. All at the bidding of Ken Winters. Hunter had uncovered all the documentation in emails and the money trail leading to Alessandra’s rape while he had been sequestered to the hospital in Virginia. The sick fuck even had the video those monsters took inside the van. Hunter could only stomach a few minutes of the brutality, but the video, along with the evidence he supplied the newly formed council, absolved both Alessandra and him from what they did to those boys.
But that event didn’t take away the nightmares; although, they had evolved for both of them. Now the nights were filled with ripping flesh, silver and other horrors he would rather not focus on.
He glanced back at Alessandra, slid his plate onto the table, and dropped his lap-desk on the floor, before spreading his arms wide for her. He signaled with his head for her to come to him and she crawled into his grasp. After all this time, she still shuddered when he wrapped his arms around her, but he knew it was because of this particular date and the unwanted memories, and he couldn’t blame her one bit.
Hunter kissed her forehead, keeping silent because there were no words that would wipe out what she’d lived through. Only time would heal her wounds. Time and his infinite patience. She hadn’t actually been in his arms since the night in the hotel, and the physical sensation of her body against his stirred something deep within him.
She inhaled and glanced up at him. “Salted caramel,” she said, and he smiled, shrugging in response. “I haven’t caught that scent since the hospital.”
“I’m sorry,” he started, but she stopped him, planting a kiss that sizzled. Every muscle in his body tensed with the intensity, and his arms tightened around her. Her tongue explored his mouth, teasing at first, but it soon escalated into a burning need. He groaned under it.
The lights finally succumbed to the weather, flickering out, leaving them with only the fire casting shadows. She pulled away and straddled his lap as she stared into his eyes. “I honestly thought...”
Her gaze moved away from his, but he hooked her chin, forcing her to look at him. “I’ve been a little busy trying to figure things out.”
“Including me?” she asked, her eyes wide with the fear he smelled coming off her.
“No. You’re the only thing that’s right in my life at the moment.” He cupped her cheek and the fear in her eyes abated, turning into a fiery storm of desire.
She blessed him with a beaming smile and then leaned in for another soul-searing kiss. Again, that tingle spread through his entire form, as if kissing her was a reprieve to the numbness. Her tongue twirled with his in a magnificent dance that sucked the air from his lungs. Her hands skimmed over his shoulders and before he had any awareness, her fingers had already unbuttoned his shirt. The sensation of her palms on his chest nearly drove him mad.
Alessandra pulled away from his lips, and trailed kisses over his cheek to his earlobe before her teeth nipped, creating another shock of tingles. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, enjoying the sensations of her hands and mouth moving down his body. “You know, when you touch me like this, I can almost feel tingling in my toes,” he whispered and opened his eyes. “It happened in the hospital when you whispered in my ear, too.”
She looked up from his chest. “Really?”
He met her gaze and nodded. “So, don’t stop. I like that tingly feeling. It makes me think their diagnosis was wrong.” He had studied the x-rays, he knew it was wishful thinking, but there was still a slight chance of the impossible, especially with the wolf blood in him.
She ran her fingers down the center of his chest, down to the elastic waistband of his sweatpants. “How much of that theory do you want to test?”
It wasn’t so much the words as the sultry tone of her voice that stalled his brain. His legs were a shadow of what they used to be with almost two months of non-use, and that played with his confidence. She hadn’t seen how much his lower half had wasted away. The desire that swept though him moments ago, disappeared. It was his turn to look away.
“Jake?” she asked, pulling his attention back to her.
“I don’t know what I can... do,” he said, meeting her gaze. Being this exposed felt unnatural to him. It was as if the tables had turned and he was the one afraid to explore this attraction. “I mean, I know what I can do with my hands and mouth,” he added, with a twist of a smile as he wiggled his fingers. “But as far as anything else...” He shrugged.
“And if I said I wanted to make love to you?”
“I’d be flattered, and I’d wonder what you had been drinking in the kitchen,” he answered, and his gaze moved to her hands, now gripping his pants. “But I’m not sure if I have the ability to follow through.” Heat filled his cheeks and he met her gaze.
“Then let’s just view this as relationship experiment number two.”
“What was number one?” he asked, stalling as a measure of panic bit at his skin.
“The hotel,” she said, and pulled his pants clear to his ankles, freeing one foot and leaving the rest bundled around his other ankle. She took off her shirt and pants, leaving on only her sheer underwear.
The flames of desire returned, turning his heart into an aching throb that echoed through every cell. Her hands slowly slid up his legs. The sensation was lost on him, but even in the dim light he could see her progression, and when she dipped down and kissed the inside of his knee, he cursed the gods for not allowing him to feel this. She didn’t turn away from the atrophy in his muscles nor the non-response from his body. Instead, it just seemed to fuel her.
She glanced up at him. “Any tingling?” she asked.
He slowly shook his head.
She dragged her tongue from his knee to the middle of his thigh, and while his breath quickened at the visual, his legs didn’t bother sending the right signals to his brain. He thought his mind would crack when she took the tip of his cock in her mouth. His wildest dream of having Alessandra Tate giving him head was happening, and he couldn’t feel anything but a distant tingle.
She looked up at him and smiled. “Now?” she said.
He shrugged a single shoulder and licked his lips. “Maybe,” he whispered with a voice like sandpaper.
“Well, somewhere there’s a reaction,” she chuckled, and her mouth covered the tip of his growing cock.
Hunter thanked the gods that something was working. They had told him it was a slim chance and to catalogue what triggered an erection if he was able to get one. Alessandra’s mouth. Check. He’d keep that catalogued for a very long time. Her slow head bob sent another wave of tingles through him as did the hollowness in her cheeks as she sucked.
What he wouldn’t give to feel her lips sliding up and down his shaft. His heartbeat picked up and he gently ran his fingers through her hair. “Leigh,” he whispered, and she pulled away, meeting his gaze. He cupped her cheeks and pulled her to his lips. He needed to feel her mouth, her breasts... her pussy. God, he wanted to taste her, but before she allowed his mouth to cover hers, she slid her underwear off and positioned herself over his hard shaft.
His gaze remained glued to the space between them as she guided his cock into the folds of her pussy. She moved down his shaft with a moan. He glanced up at her and her eyelids were at half mast, her mouth opened in a sexy pout. She took his hands and placed them on her hips.
Her slow rock turned his breathing into something akin to a pant. The flush of her skin and the hardness of her nipples pulled a smile to his lips. She was enjoying herself. He slid his thumb to her clit, circling at the same speed her hips moved. Alessandra nearly purred and despite not being able to actually feel her pussy milking him, the simple act that Alessandra had given herself to him completely, especially on the anniversary of her attack, brought him closer to his own release.
He leaned forward and took her breast in his mouth, sucking the hard nub while he still massaged her clit. He moved to her mouth, capturing her tongue in a frantic dance. His entire form tingled as she rode him. Heat pooled in the center of his abdomen and then exploded, yanking a groan from his lips. She pulled away from his mouth arching her body as she let out a howl that sent a shiver through him.
Her body shook with her release and finally her breathing slowed and she relaxed into him.
He stared at the ceiling as she nestled on his chest. “I think I came,” he whispered, astonished by that mere fact. That was something the doctors were sure wouldn’t happen.
Alessandra started to giggle. “I think you did, too.”
He pushed her away from his chest. “I wasn’t supposed to be able to do that,” he said, and her giggles subsided a fraction.
“Well, you did. I clearly felt it.”
He started laughing. There was only one other explanation, but he didn’t smell urine, so it clearly was an orgasm. His toes were still tingling from the power of it and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a bear hug.
“I love you, Alessandra Tate,” he said through his laughter.
“I love you, too, Jacob Blaez.” She kissed the curve of his neck and another rash of tingles flowed through him.
“Marry me?” he blurted. His eyes widened as much as hers at the sudden question, and then he dropped his forehead to her shoulder, cursing himself for such an awkward proposal. It certainly wasn’t how he’d ever envisioned asking her. He had exchanged the idea of him kneeling in the center of a bunch of rose petals for hiding the ring in a dessert. Never had he imagined he’d just blurt out the question after sex. She deserved so much better. Jesus, he didn’t even have her ring yet.
“Did you just ask me to marry you?” She pushed him away so he would have to look at her.
He glanced up at her with his cheeks on fire. “Yeah, well, it just kind of... you know,” he stumbled.
She threw her arms around him and squealed. “Yes! Yes, I’ll marry you!”
Stunned didn’t begin to describe it, and when she pulled away, he asked, “Really?”
“Hell, yes.”
“You do realize that was the lamest proposal in this hemisphere, right?” He raised an eyebrow.
She laughed. “True...” She leaned in and kissed his nose. “Do you want a do-over?”
It only took a moment for him to think it over, and then he shook his head. “No. I got the answer I wanted. Besides, if I had to make it big and fancy it might take years.”
“I’m not waiting years to marry you,” she said, and yanked on the collar of his shirt, pulling him to her lips.
As their tongues intertwined, his heart sang in response.
THE END
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