The lingerie was pure torment. And now they’ve put her in a dress with a single tie to keep it up.
“It’s official, Astrid and Trista are sadists out to torture me.”
I feel my nerves light with heated desire and have to glance over at the beaded curtain-covered doorway to distract myself.
“Need to pull a Ruger and go for a run?” Noah mocks.
I look back, the cheeky glint in her eyes making me grin. “Nah, I don’t need to run. I like to live close to the edge. Edging is kinda my thing.”
I wink at her and Noah chokes on air, coughing for a second until she’s recovered enough to laugh.
“Dammit, Perth. You’re killing me.” She shakes her head, and her features soften as she looks at me, expression changing from amusement to wonder. “How’d you get to be so normal?”
My barked laugh bounces around the room, and Noah’s beautiful eyes glimmer with pleasure. “I hate to break it to you, but I turn into a wolf. I don’t know how normal that is.”
She giggles and swats playfully at my chest. “Fair point,” she admits, trailing off as fervor slowly seeps into her features. “But you’re just so happy…how?”
The longing in her voice almost cleaves me in two. I don’t want her to want for anything. So, I give her the only thing I can in this moment—the truth.
“It wasn’t me. It was them. When I met Ellery, Ruger, and Gannon, I struggled to accept them. On some broken level, I convinced myself that they couldn’t fully accept me. I mean, the people who were supposed to love me and care for me unconditionally didn’t, so how could these strangers?”
Her eyes tell me that she knows exactly where I’m coming from.
“I wish I could tell you that it was easy, that it all just clicked one day and we’ve lived happily ever after. It was hard. My insecurities fucked shit up for a long time. But my den, my brothers, they always showed up for me. No matter what happened or how I pushed them away, they didn’t budge. And slowly, the voice in my head that kept telling me they were going to leave, that I wasn’t enough, stopped sounding believable because their actions relentlessly proved it was a liar.”
Noah gives me a small smile, but sadness marks the edges of it. She looks away, her gaze buried in uncertainty and doubt, and pulls in a deep breath, using my scent to ground her without even realizing it.
I automatically step closer, scenting her in return. Wanting her. The perfume of fear that tainted her earlier is gone, but sadness still lingers the way that humidity thickens the air after a storm.
“Shall we?” I put my hand back out and she takes it. We resume our dance. She easily follows my steps now, though I don’t think she realizes it. Her self-consciousness is gone, and her body is doing what feels natural.
Her eyes study mine for a second, and when she takes a deep breath, I tense, expecting her to fortify her defenses and lock me out like she has before. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and then like a flower that just needed a little light to bloom, she opens up.
“I don’t know how many homes I lived in after my mom died.” Her intense gaze is fixed on mine, pleading for me to hear and understand what she’s saying.
I don’t breathe. I almost stop moving, but I force myself to continue because I don’t want to interrupt her finally letting me in.
“As I got older, they stopped trying to fit me into cozy little family units. It became group homes or larger centers for unwanted kids. Time after time, I’d think I found something, found where I belonged, only to have it yanked away. Even as an adult, when I could control where I lived, what I did, who I let into my life, I kept seeing over and over again that unconditional love and acceptance is a fucking myth. I’ve been chasing this thing my whole life, Perth, but I’ve had to accept that, for some people, it’s impossible to catch.”
God, I want to wrap her into my arms and never fucking let go. She’s wrong, so goddamned wrong that I want to put my teeth on her neck and nip at her for even thinking such a thing. Primal urges surge through me and I push them away, pushing her at the same time. I expertly spin her and then twirl her back into my arms, pulling her in tight.
She squeals in surprise, eyes darting up to mine shocked and playful, like she thinks I’m trying to silly away her sadness. But I’m not playing.
Tension grips me as I pull and push her, dominate her through this dance, show her that she’s wrong—show her what she’s capable of if she just gives in to her instincts.
Finally, I pull her close. Fitting her against me like we’re two pieces forged from the same steel, meant to fit together seamlessly and become stronger as a whole. Dropping my lips closer to her ear, I lower my voice, lacing it with certainty.
“They weren’t your people, Noah,” I tell her smoothly, and I watch goose bumps trail up the side of her neck as her scent deepens. “They couldn’t give you what you needed, what you deserved, because you were never meant to be theirs. You were always going to be ours.”
Her quiet gasp rings in my ears, and the scent of her arousal floods the room. Her body knows the truth of my claim, and I fucking press my advantage. I step in closer, wedging my thigh between hers as I lean down. “I know you don’t believe me yet. Talk is fucking cheap—we both know that—so let us prove it. Let us fight for you, claim you the way you deserve, because we will. We’re desperate to.” I pull her up against me tighter, until she’s straddling my thigh. When I release her, she slides back down slowly, panting.
Stunned.
Need courses through me like an unstoppable tidal wave, crashing over me, pushing my hands to touch her. I cup her face, my thumb brushing across the flushed apples of her cheeks.
“Let us show you that we can be your forever.” The whispered words skim both of our lips as I lean closer. Her breath catches and the flickering golden light from the chandelier glimmers in her eyes. We hover, our vulnerabilities perfuming the air as we trade breaths for a moment, inhaling one another’s scents, devouring each other with our eyes, neither of us daring to move closer or away.
It’s all I can do not to kiss her.
My wolf roars at me to pull her into my arms and let my body show her that she’s mine, that there’s no running from this, that everything is going to be okay, but I stop myself. Barely.
“Don’t let what’s in here”—I reach up and run a finger down her temple, her skin softer than satin—“overpower what you feel here,” I whisper as I drop my hand to the top of her chest and press my palm over her heart.
I can feel it hammering against my touch as though it wants to reach me as badly as I want to reach her. Her heart recognizes me, even if her head doesn’t yet.
I press us forward, leaving one hand over her heart while the other clasps her shoulder blade. My feet find the quick-quick-slow-slow cadence of the two-step again, and Noah matches my movements seamlessly.
A slow smile stretches across my face as I stare down at her. “You’ll be surprised what you can do if you just let go. Ten minutes ago you’d never danced like this before. Now look at you,” I point out. “Who we are, the power we possess, it’s no different. You can make everything harder on yourself by braining your way through this, or you can trust your instincts. You can do this, Noah. You were always meant to. If you let yourself, you’ll feel the truth of that, here,” I tell her, pressing softly against her chest once more before dropping my hand, releasing her, and taking a step back.