“Then what are you waiting for? Huh?” Dustin’s eyes flashed with anger. “Why are you here trying to be a Blackwing instead of shacking up with your beloved coven and getting your throat ripped out by one of your loving parents?” Dustin was shaking, but she didn’t understand why.
“Why are you so offended by this? If you were really my friend, you would at least try to see it from my point of view.”
Dustin snarled deep in his throat, and his words came out too gravelly. “I’m a fucking werewolf, Emma. Have you not heard anything about us? You really live in the supe world and don’t see what is standing right in front of you? You think you befriended a werewolf, really? Friendship isn’t our gig. Blind loyalty to our alphas is. That’s it. There’s no room for humans or vamps.” Dustin stepped up to her and curled his hand around her throat like he wanted to squeeze, but he didn’t. His eyes flashed those bright colors, and then he strode off toward the woods, removing his shirt as he went.
“What about the food?”
Dustin turned and walked backward, his face snarled up and terrifying. “Eat it all. Enjoy, Emma. You’ll be on a boring-ass blood diet soon enough.”
And then he shoved his jeans down to his ankles and Changed into his black-furred massive wolf before he was even done undressing.
Emma sat heavily on the blanket as the tears that had brimmed in her eyes trickled onto her cheeks. She’d never seen him like that. Never seen him open up about his hate for being submissive or his disgust for vampires. Her heart felt like it had been severed from her body, but why? It was just Dustin, and this shouldn’t be a surprise. He was right. Werewolves were psychopaths at best, and she’d been mistaken to think he was different.
The haunting note of a howl lifted on the wind, rising and rising, and she closed her eyes against the world and just listened to his song.
Dustin’s howl was the saddest, most beautiful sound she’d ever heard.
Chapter Six
Emma wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and lifted Dustin’s shirt from the pile of wild grass where he’d discarded it. She folded it and then checked the tree line before she lifted it to her nose and smelled the fabric. It smelled like cologne and Dustin. So good.
What if he was watching her from the shadows? The hair lifted on the back of her neck as she hurried to pick up his jeans. Movement on the edge of the woods caught her attention, and there he was, human, naked, muscles rippling as he strode directly for her. His eyes were still glowing blue and green, and his mouth was set in a grim line that said he wasn’t through with his tirade yet. Shit.
She clutched his clothes to her chest and readied to strip him down right back. Testy werewolf, judging her life choices—and whoa, he wasn’t stopping. Back up! Dustin was coming in hot!
Eyes sparking with intensity, he cupped her neck and pulled her to him. His lips crashed onto hers, shocking her completely. He pushed his tongue past her lips, forced his way into her mouth, and hell balls, a post-Change, riled up, oversexed Dustin was hot. He ripped his clothes from her arms and threw them away, then gripped her waist hard, dragging her against him.
“I’m sorry,” he growled against her lips.
An apology from a werewolf? Maybe she had been right about Dustin after all. Perhaps he was different.
He gripped the back of her hair, not too tight, not too gently…just perfect to get her revved up. With a soft moan, she slipped her arms around his neck and allowed him to lift her off the ground. She thought he would get rough in his hurry to get to the blanket, but he didn’t. He cradled her in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all, working her lips with gentle sucks and nips. Overwhelmed with feelings she didn’t understand, Emma pecked his lips, then buried her face against his neck, inhaled deeply. He smelled of fur.
Dustin must not have minded the affection right in the middle of their kiss since he rested his jaw on her forehead and sighed a relieved sound. Then, and only then, did he carry her slowly to the blanket, keeping his gait smooth and steady.
He laid her down as though she was fragile. As though she was a flower with thin petals. Trailing a finger down her tear-stained cheeks, he shook his head, his eyes filling with regret. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, and she got it. Words were hard for her now, too. She didn’t like fighting with Dustin. Didn’t like arguing. Didn’t like upsetting him. She drew his hand to her lips and kissed his palm. He watched her lay kisses along his wrist, up to the inside crease of his elbow.
Inhaling deeply, he pulled the hem of her silk blouse until it slid over her hair, and then he cradled the back of her head and laid her down gently. Emma wanted to laugh and cry and grin and cry some more. Dustin was capable of great gentleness—something she would’ve never guessed in a million years. Oh, this man didn’t know it, but his tenderness right now, right when she needed it, was earning her devotion.
His triceps was flexed as he locked one arm by her head, and with his other hand, he unclasped the front fasten of her bra and pushed it aside. He blew out a shaky breath as he drew his touch lightly around one of her breasts, raising gooseflesh where his heat met her skin.
“The first time I saw you,” he murmured, speaking carefully, “I thought you were beautiful. I thought something was wrong with me because there were two shifter females right there, right near me, and I couldn’t keep my attention off the human.”
“You did not,” she said low.
Dustin dipped down and sipped her lips, then rested his forehead against hers. His hair tickled her cheeks, so she tucked it behind his ears.
“You wore a blue shirt, no logo, hugged your curves. Dark blue jeans with holes at the knees, and your hair was down in waves. When the sun peeked out from the clouds, it made your hair look like it had gold streaks. Your eyes looked so green with Kane’s woods behind you. I thought you would be sweet. Too sweet, but then when you flipped me off and turned off one of your hearing aids, my wolf sat up straight inside me and couldn’t stop watching you.” He kissed the base of her throat. “Little human who knew how to posture. Who knew how to handle herself in the middle of all those monsters.” He kissed her right under her earlobe. “You were writing in that journal, and I wanted to see just one page, so bad. I wanted to see what you were writing, and if it was about me. I hoped it was about me, even though we were strangers. But every time I got too close, you closed it up and lifted your little chin. You glared me down like I wasn’t scary to you. I knew you wouldn’t let me push you around, and my wolf sat up a little straighter.” He kissed her lips, nibbled her bottom one. “Remember when I bought all that Chinese food and the D-Team sat around eating, waiting on the call-backs from Kane?”
“Yes,” she panted out.
“I bought the food for you. I wanted you to eat with me, and you did. And then I wanted you to eat after me. I wanted your lips to touch what mine did. I couldn’t stop watching you. And still, you didn’t take my shit. You saw through it. You giggled when the others wanted to murder me. And my wolf sat up a little straighter.”
Was this what it was like to fall in love? Emma ran her knuckles along the underneath of his defined jaw. “What else?” she whispered.
He smiled and bit her wrist gently. Emma gasped and rolled her hips in an embarrassing reaction. Dustin didn’t seem to mind, though. His eyes turned wicked, and he sucked hard right where his teeth had been.
“Remember when my arm got dislocated at the stables?”
She dipped her chin once. His hand was tracing her body, curve by curve, and it was harder to focus now.
“I was going to bite Winter. I couldn’t help it. I was hurting and she was snarling, riled up, calling my animal out to battle, and then you came running over. I couldn’t stop watching you as you instructed her how to put my shoulder back in its socket. My wolf, at the peak of wanting to attack, just…stopped…to watch you.”
“Has this happened to you before?” she asked, risking it all. Risking this moment for an answer she wished for more than
anything.
Dustin shook his head slowly. “Never. You’re terrifying. You’re a hellion. You’re fragile and outspoken and flawless.”
“Even hearing impaired?” she whispered.
Dustin leaned down and kissed her again, then rested his cheek on hers and said against her ear, “I’ll hear for the both of us. You’re perfect to me, Emma. Human or vampire, I’ll still be your friend.”
And that right there—that was exactly what she needed after their fight. He was accepting her no matter what. She didn’t know how he’d done it, but Dustin had seduced her mind, body, and soul. He’d bound them in ways he probably didn’t understand. He’d changed the way she thought about werewolves, about the crew, about people, about men, about everything.
Emma reached down and unbuttoned her jeans. Dustin frowned and looked down at where he was pressed between her legs.
“Emma,” he said in a tone that said he was denying her.
“I’m on birth control,” she whispered, pushing her pants down her hips.
He shook his head back and forth, back and forth, as his breath deepened and his eyes turned bright like blue and green flames. “That’s…” He swallowed hard. “That’s not like kissing in the woods, Emma. Sex will change things.”
“For the better?”
“I don’t know. There are things I haven’t told you about me. About why I’m here…”
Emma pressed one hand over the angel wing on his chest. “But you will, right?”
His nostrils flared as she brushed her fingers down to his erection. “Yes. Eventually.”
Good enough. She wasn’t surprised at all that Dustin was slow at exposing secrets. He’d hidden how affected he was by her this entire time. She’d had no idea, and now she was fine with being patient because some deep instinct told her Dustin is worth it. “That’s good enough for me now.”
There was a loaded moment where they locked eyes, and the air sparked between them with something just above her senses. Some animal magnetism or…something.
Dustin slid his hands between her legs and dragged his fingers up her wet folds as he kissed her again. She let off a helpless noise and rolled her hips against his hand. Dustin smiled against her lips, then nipped her with a growl.
Needing to explore his body, she ran her fingertips over the swell of muscle on his shoulders, his biceps, and forearms, then back up to his chest. Down, down his chiseled abs and lower. As she gripped his shaft, the growl in his throat got loud enough for her to hear, not just feel. He bucked into the hold she made with her hand, and his kisses suddenly got harder, more urgent.
His lips drifted to her neck, and he sucked hard enough to sting, then grazed his teeth against her sensitive skin. Tease. He wouldn’t bite her, surely, but just in case…
“Don’t bite me, okay?”
“Someday you’ll beg me for it,” he said in a low voice she almost didn’t recognize. “I’ll wait for you to ask.” The promises of a werewolf. I’ll only bleed you when you beg. Dustin didn’t understand humans. Pain wasn’t sexy, and she was nobody’s prey.
Dustin rocked forward in her hands. He was so close to her entrance, brushing into her shallowly. Emma released him, and when he slid deep inside her, she gasped, arched back. So big. Almost too big. Relax. So good anyway, but she hadn’t been ready for him to stretch her like that. Dustin eased out of her slowly, then bucked into her again. She was ready this time.
Cradling her head, he buried his face against her neck and pushed into her again, bumping her clit just right at the peak of each thrust. God, he was good. Perfect pace, perfect biting kisses on her throat, perfect body against hers. So strong, so snarly, so sexy. His lips were back on hers again, and as he pushed into her, he groaned a soft sound into her mouth. Well, fuck it all, she was gone now, clawing at him desperately while he built the pressure between her legs to blinding.
She bit his lip hard and then arched back against the blanket when he worked his lips over her collar bone. So close. The stars were so bright. His lips were urgent on her breast now, and she dug her nails into his back desperately. Stars, stars, blinding. Stars in the woods. In the woods? She was looking at the trees upside down. Four stars. Eyes? No…
“Aah,” Dustin groaned out, bucking into her faster. He was close, too, and that was a good thing because she couldn’t hold her release back any longer.
Orgasm blasted through her, and she curled around the sensation, clung to his strong shoulders. Dustin slammed into her and hesitated. Warmth shot into her, and when he pulled back and rammed into her again, she could feel him emptying himself deep within her. So. Damn. Sexy.
They crashed against each other like two storms colliding. She couldn’t believe how good this felt, how deeply satisfying every drive of his dick was. Sex had never been like this, not with anyone.
Dustin gritted his teeth. His chest wasn’t rattling anymore with his growl, and he settled against her, laid his full weight on top. He was much bigger than her, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
What a strange question. Of course, she was okay. “You make me feel safe,” she said, too loud in the dark. She winced, but Dustin eased up and smiled down at her. “Say that again.”
Pleasure heated her cheeks, and she ducked her gaze. In a softer voice, she said, “You make me feel safe, Dustin.”
He exhaled a long breath, and when she looked back up at him, he had his eyes closed and a sweet smile curving his lips. “No one’s ever said that about me before.” His grin stretched wider. “You owe the compliment jar.”
Emma laughed and rolled her eyes upward. The stars in the woods were gone. Maybe they’d been lightning bugs.
“What?” he asked, stroking her hair away from her face.
“Nothing. Everything is perfect.”
Dustin traced her lips with the tip of his finger. “I like this smile on you. It’s my new favorite.”
“What was your old favorite?”
“The one you get when you think I’m funny. The one you give when everyone else is annoyed at me.”
“Well, you’re horribly annoying.”
“Fucking tell me about it. I think Beast has choked me a dozen times.”
She cracked up because that was actually a really accurate number. “Yeah, you never learn your lesson with him and Logan. They’re going to lose their minds and kill you someday.”
“Nah, I’m safe enough with them.”
The smile slipped from her face, and she played with the ends of his sandy-blond hair. “What makes you so confident? They feel like monsters to me, and I’m human.”
“It’s the one advantage to being submissive. Dominants think twice before killing you. It’s instinct. Their animals tell them to protect shifters like me.”
Slowly, Emma moved his hair back and traced the scars on his neck. “Your brother doesn’t have that instinct, and he’s dominant.”
Dustin’s smile faded in an instant, and he rolled off her. Not away though, just beside her, where he rested his hands on his stomach and sighed up at the night sky. “It’s complicated with him. He’s sick right now, but he’ll get better, and this stuff won’t happen as much anymore. He’ll be able to stop himself.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
Dustin rolled his head back and forth on the blanket denying her an answer.
“There’s a vampire in my coven, Lorren. He’s very old, even though he looks like he is my age. He’s losing his mind, getting dangerous. The coven calls it The Sickening. Is it like that?”
Dustin rolled toward her and traced a line from between her breasts down her stomach to her belly-button. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “My brother’s sickness is caused by the need for vengeance. Vengeance is poison for werewolves. It rots them from the inside out. People think we are just bad. Genetics, or bad wolves breeding bad wolves. The truth is the animals are to blame. Too many dominants, not enough submissives. It’s like a mob. One or two people get ril
ed up about something, and that energy breeds more violent energy. Werewolves get caught in the energy, and their animals make it impossible to escape.”
“But not you.”
“No, not me.”
“Because you’re different.”
He bore his teeth in a flash. She could feel his snarl all the way through his fingertips when he dragged his touch across her hip. “Being different isn’t good for a wolf, Emma. Being different will get me killed someday. Early. There’s nothing I can do but draw my life out as long as I can. For a wolf like me, a broken one, my life invited pain from my first shift to now, any time I encountered one of my kind. It’s not like with Logan or Beast, or even Kane. Werewolves don’t have an instinct to protect me. There is instinct to remind me of my place at the bottom of the pack. And the way to remind me…is to bleed me.”
“But you aren’t in the pack anymore.”
Dustin frowned and didn’t answer. Instead, he sat up, cradled her in his arms, and pushed up. He strode with her toward the water.
“Hell no, it’s cold!”
Dustin stopped in a flash. “Shit. I forgot you’re human. You have chilly bumps.”
She snickered and wrapped her arms around her middle to try and keep some warmth there. “Chilly bumps?”
“That’s what my mom called them.” Dustin walked her back to the blanket and dressed her like she was an incapable toddler, all the while wearing such a serious expression.
“I’m not going to die because of a little cold weather you know,” she said, amused.
“You could catch a cold.”
“And take some cold medicine.”
“Or pneumonia. I heard that’s a serious thing.” He shoved the bags of cold food off the blanket and wrapped it around her until only her eyeballs showed.