Lycan Christmas

Chapter Sixteen

She loved him? Lorent wanted to jump up and shout in joy to the heavens, wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, wanted to make love to Melony right then and there, but hadn’t she just said she couldn’t be with him if he didn’t tell her about his past? How could he do that? If he did, she’d hate him. And did he love her? He wasn’t sure because he didn’t know what love felt like. He cared about her, didn’t want to lose her, would protect her with his own life, but was that love?

“Melony, please don’t ask this of me.”

“I’m sorry, but I have to. I’m doing it for both of us.

He stood, tugged her to him, framed her face with his hands, and brought her lips to his. She tasted sweet, but the sweetness was tinged with sorrow—sorrow caused by him. Just tell her. He couldn’t.

He deepened the kiss, and she whimpered, but willingly opened her mouth to him when he ran his tongue along her bottom lip.

Suddenly, white-hot need and fear shot through him in equal measures.

Claim her. Claim her now before it’s too late. The wolf cried out in his head, and the instinct and urgency was too hard to deny this time as it overwhelmed his sensible brain. Everything she’d just said to him rushed from him, replaced by the need to touch her, take her, make her his in every way. He skimmed his hand under her shirt and cupped her breast over her bra. When her nipple pebbled instantaneously under his fingers, he sank to the floor, dragging her with him, and pinned her under his bigger body without breaking the kiss.

She felt good under him, as if she belonged there, and he wished time would stop at this very moment so he could stay like this with her forever.

How could one tiny woman make his guilty soul soar free in hope that it had been washed clean of past sins and was worthy of the love she offered him?

He drank from her mouth, breathed her scent into his lungs, absorbed each cry he tore from her with every caress.

Her hands came up between them, and just when he thought she might push him away, she stroked her fingers over his biceps and linked them around his neck, drawing him closer, welcoming his touch, silently asking for what he craved. He slid her shirt up far enough to expose her breasts, and when he trailed kisses from her mouth, along her jaw, then nibbled his way down her neck, his breath hitched in his lungs when he saw the lacy scrap of pink that barely hid the treasure he sought.

He flicked the front clasp open and groaned when her breasts popped free. She gasped, and he looked up at her, knowing his eyes were glowing brightly, reflecting the same passion-glazed fire that burned in hers. He’d never wanted anything more in his life than he wanted her right now. Before he let reason invade the moment, he bent and sucked her nipple into his mouth, curling his tongue around the tight little peak. She cried out, he growled low in approval, and when she scraped her nails against his scalp, he insinuated one of his thighs between her legs.

She arched up against him, and his cock throbbed and pulsed in need.

He’d never been this out of control, never felt such urgency about anything in his entire existence. He had to have her, had to claim her, had to love her.

Melony felt as if she was flying, soaring in a sky of ecstasy. Every time Lorent sucked her nipple into his mouth, her legs clamped around his thigh, and she throbbed low in her abdomen with each pull of his lips. He pinned her to the floor with his bigger frame, but she didn’t feel trapped. His weight on her was a delicious aphrodisiac, a perfect blend of his dominance and her willing submission.

He laved one nipple and then the other, over and over, until she was sobbing in pleasure, digging her nails into his scalp, encouraging him to continue with the sweet torture he was inflicting upon her with his tongue, lips, and teeth. Suddenly he reared up and took her mouth again in a hot, demanding kiss as he ran his palm down her belly and stopped when he came to her navel piercing.

He ran one finger around the tiny pink butterfly and growled in her mouth. His touch seared her, and she barely noticed when his palm continued lower or when he undid her jeans and slipped his hand inside, under her panties. But when his finger slid over her slick folds and rested on her clit, her eyes flew wide.

He broke the kiss, but stared at her with glowing eyes, his face so close to her own she could feel his hot breath fan over her cheek with each ragged exhale. They stared at one another, frozen in time for several moments, and then he moved his finger again. She moaned—a long keening sound, a strange sound to her own ears, a sound she instinctively knew only Lorent could drag from her—and clutched at his shoulders.He dipped his finger, the tip entering her then sliding up and over her clit once again, and growled low and long.

“You are so hot and wet, just for me,” he whispered. He dipped his finger again, then trailed it back up over her clit, where he danced it around the tiny bundle of nerves in a slow, lazy circle.

She panted hard. “Lorent! I feel like I’m going to explode into a million pieces.”

He kissed her gently, swirling his tongue around hers, mimicking the movement of his finger on her core. She bucked against him in wild abandon, forgetting about why they shouldn’t be doing this, yearning for what he offered.

He kissed her ear. “Then shatter for me, sweet Melony. Let me give you pleasure.”

His finger dipped and stroked and dipped and stroked until she thought she might pass out from an overload of pleasure surging through every nerve in her body. The delicious ache in her lower abdomen built, and when he bent his head and took her nipple in his mouth, she flew apart into a million pieces. She clung to him as he wrung every last cry from her lips, and lay quivering under him in numb bliss. Yet while her climax had been mind-blowing, she felt empty, as if something were missing. And it was. Lorent hadn’t been inside her, where she’d wanted him, where she’d craved him most.

He stared down at her, his body taut and ready to take her. His erection pressed boldly against her as if demanding what it wanted, and she wanted to give him what he wanted so badly it hurt. But suddenly, good old kick-you-in-the-ass logic stormed through the passion-glazed wall in her brain like an army laying siege to a castle. She tried to sit up, but he refused to move.

“Let me up, Lorent.”

“That’s not what you were saying a minute ago,” he said through gritted teeth as if he was in pain.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let this go so far. I meant what I said earlier.”

She gently shoved at his chest.

“Don’t shut me out.” He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, and when he opened them, the glow was barely discernible.

“I’m not shutting you out.” She reached up and cupped his jaw. “I would never shut you out. That’s the whole point.”

When she shoved at his chest again, he rolled off her and was instantly on his feet in a smooth, fluid moment she envied. He held his hand out to her, and she hesitantly took it and let him pull her up.

She turned away from him to fasten her bra and right the rest of her clothing with shaky hands.

“I don’t know if I can ever give you what you want.”

She faced him, tears burning her eyes. “I’m not trying to be unfair by asking this of you, but I’m begging you to make an effort to understand my point of view. If I make a commitment to you, if we are to be together, I need to know you, Lorent. The real you. I need to know that you can trust me. I need to know that you can come to me and tell me anything. I expect nothing of you I’m not willing to give myself. I told you about my mother.

I’ve never told another soul. No one knows my true feelings or the guilt I feel over her death.”

She stepped back when Lorent came toward her.

“I love you, Lorent. I’ll always love you no matter what you do, no matter what you’ve done. I have to know that you will never doubt that.”

He held his hands up and shook his head. The sorrow in his eyes, the defeat that burned in them nearly made her cry out. She wanted to go to him, hold him, pound some sense into his thick skull.

But if he couldn’t trust her, she couldn’t commit her life to him. If he couldn’t believe that she would still love him after hearing about his past, she didn’t see how they could have a healthy relationship. She would never be able to prove to him that she’d love him, all of him, mistakes and all.

“I understand. I’ll think about it, but I can’t promise anything.”

Tears fell down her cheeks. What if he refused to tell her? Would he really throw away what they could have just to keep his secrets? Maybe he didn’t love her. After all, he’d never said it back.

“I can’t continue these lessons, Lorent. I’ll talk to Rose and tell her . . .”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll tell her something. You’ve been nothing but kind to me, and I’ll make sure she knows that. Thank you for what you’ve taught me.”

She turned to go, but when she reached for the door, a warm hand came down on her shoulder.

Lorent nuzzled her hair and took a deep breath as if trying to get her scent deep into his lungs. She almost turned around, flung her arms around him, and begged him to forget everything she’d said, that nothing mattered as long as he never stopped touching her again, but she couldn’t. She had to stand firm for her own good, for the good of their future . . . for Lorent.

“Please don’t go,” he pleaded.

She choked out an “I’m sorry” before hurrying out the door and away from the man she’d fallen in love with.

She stopped by Rose’s on her way home in hopes to talk to her about what had happened, but didn’t get to discuss anything in detail since Knox had shown up halfway through their conversation. After a halfhearted attempt at eating a spaghetti dinner they’d invited her to stay and share with them, Knox walked her back to her cabin as the sun sank from the sky.

Puss greeted her when she got home, and she scooped the cat up, hugged her, and nuzzled her nose against the soft fur of her neck.

“I don’t know if I’m going to get through to him, Puss.” Melony felt the tears building again and choked back a sob.

She let Puss down after deciding to do a load of laundry and to give her place a good scrubbing. The place wasn’t all that dirty, but she needed something to occupy her mind. She scrubbed every nook and cranny, found every tiny cobweb, and several hours and a sparkling home later, she stepped under the hot spray of the shower. She was exhausted both mentally and physically. While she still felt she’d made the right decision about Lorent, her heart argued the point.

After the shower, she sank into bed and burrowed under the covers, where she fell asleep almost instantly with Puss curled up next to her, purring contentedly.

She stared at Lorent, torn between the urge to run away and the need to fling herself into his arms. She hadn’t been all that surprised when he’d shown up in her dreams yet again since it had become a normal, nearly nightly occurrence.

“Melony.” His voice was low, gravelly, etched with longing and a hint of . . . pain?

“Go away, Lorent. I can’t bear being with you in my dreams when I can’t be with you in real life.” If she wasn’t so sad, she’d find it amusing that she was once again arguing with her own subconscious.

When hurt flashed in his eyes, she nearly caved and apologized. She couldn’t stand the thought of him hurting, especially when she’d caused it.

He sat on a boulder and patted the space next to him. “Come. Sit by me. Give me a few moments of your time. After that, if you still want me to leave, I will, and I will never bother you again.”

She looked around, just now noticing that they were once again in Lorent’s secret place in the forest. There was no snow on the ground this time, but the trees were leafless, and the shrubs were bare. Undecided on what she should do, she sighed and went to him. When she sat down beside him, he reached for her and took her hand. His fingers more than spanned the width of her small palm, and she fought hard not to moan at how good his touch felt.

“What do you want?” She watched him expectantly as his apparent inner struggle played over his features. She wanted to smooth the frown lines from his face, but forced herself to remain still as she waited for his response.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I did horrible things while I was a rogue, Melony. I witnessed so many terrible things, and never did anything to stop any of it. I was never aware until I came to Sanctuary that intended mates had two scents, hadn’t understood that all the women marked with the main scent were destined specifically for one of our males. I was brought up to believe that any woman with the main scent was fair game for any of us.”

She nodded silently, encouraging him to continue.

“It never felt right to me, and I swear to you that I never hurt a destined mate, or anyone else, for that matter. I learned to keep to myself, had to, or risk being abused or killed. The one time I tried to help a woman being tormented by some of the rogues I was running with at the time, I was beaten so badly I nearly died. Beating a lycan to death is no easy chore, and I learned quickly to keep my mouth shut after that.”

“Oh, Lorent.” She tried to reach for him, but he stopped her.

“No. Let me finish,” he pleaded, and she nodded. “I saw so many women hurt in so many ways. It makes me sick to think of all of our males who will never know their mate, disgusts me to know that I might have been able to save even one of them if I had tried harder. After a few years, I became a master at blocking everything out around me, shutting down and pretending I didn’t see what was going on.

“I became lonely. I tried to ignore it at first, block it out like I did everything else, but the need to feel loved, to have someone who cared about me even a tiny bit became overwhelming. That’s when I tried to take Rose. She had the main scent, and I thought I had a right to her. I was wrong, and that’s when my life changed. Knox gave me two choices: Sanctuary or death.”

Melony squeezed his hand and fought the urge to cry. She wanted to be strong for him, but the horrors he’d told her of his life made her heart hurt for him. He hadn’t known any better. He’d been a kid led astray by all the wrong people, but when worse came to worst, he’d made the right decision. He’d come to Sanctuary, realized, and had learned from his past mistakes and become an honorable, trustworthy man.

“I’ve never told anyone about my past, and I don’t know if I can ever give you any specific details about it because I don’t want to remember it that well. I hope what I’ve told you is good enough because I really can’t imagine losing you. Remember when I said I’d always keep you safe? Protect you with my life?”

“Yes.”

“I meant it, every word of it. I will never let anything happen to you as long as I have a single breath left in my body. I’m not good with expressing emotions, not sure I even understand some of the ones I have when I’m near you, but you mean everything to me. If I have to spend the rest of my life without you, it will be a dark, gloomy existence for my soul because you are like the sun to me. I’m drawn to your warmth, the awing beauty of your glow, and ability to encourage growth and understanding.”

“Oh, Lorent!”

“I can’t tell you I love you, Melony. I don’t know what love feels like, and that’s one thing I want to be sure of before I say it. I can only promise to try to make you happy and spend the rest of my life cherishing you. I won’t lie, though. The intense need I feel to make love to you, claim you is overwhelming for me at times. I will always try to be gentle with you, but the predator in me craves dominance.”

Her body heated, and she leaned toward him and kissed the shallow cleft in his chin.

He shook his head when she tried to move to his lips next. “I want you to think about what I’ve told you, understand exactly what I’ve done in my past. If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, to accept me and what I am offering, I would be the happiest man on Earth. But, Melony?”

“Yes?”

“Be sure. Because if you tell me you want to be with me, there will be no going back.

Do not doubt for a second that if you accept me, I will never let you go again. You will be mine forever.”

His forever. At the moment that sounded like heaven. He’d confided in her, finally trusted her to tell her about his past. He’d done something just for her that he’d never done for anyone else. And as far as him loving her was concerned? She wasn’t worried about that. She believed that he already loved her, or he never would have laid his soul bare to her. She just needed to figure out a way to make him see, and if she couldn’t? He’d figure it out for himself in time.

She started to tell him she wanted to be with him, but he stood and backed away from her, into the woods, where he disappeared.

Lorent sat on his porch and watched the moon disappear then reappear through the passing clouds. He’d told her. Yes, he’d confided to her in a dream, but that dream would be as close as he could come to telling her about his past. Maybe that wasn’t good enough.

Yet he couldn’t help but feel hope when he remembered the serene acceptance on her face. She’d not been appalled at any time, nor had he gotten the feeling that she blamed him for the things he’d witnessed or allowed to happen. Maybe he’d been harder on himself, more unforgiving than others might have been. He’d always heard that the worst critic of oneself was oneself. But that still didn’t fix the other problem.

She loved him, but he didn’t know if he reciprocated. What was love?

What did it feel like? He wanted to give her his love, but what if he had none to give? What if that part of him had died long ago? But to be completely honest, if she accepted him, past and all, he’d claim her as his mate. He was too selfish to walk away again. He needed her, wanted her, longed for her.

When she wasn’t with him, he felt the emptiness inside eating away at him.

When she was nearby, when her scent enveloped him, when her tiny hands touched him, he felt whole, healed, and happy.

He stood and sucked in a lungful of the cool night air. If you say yes, Melony, you will be mine forever.