Chapter 58

JO

I hate waking up early.

It’s one of the worst things you can do to a woman.

Brewing my coffee, not happy with the amount of work that lay ahead of me for the day, I froze when I heard banging. Hammers? That didn’t make any sense, I’d locked up the door the night before.

Although, what good is locking a door when the window is just planks nailed over the hole.

Stepping out into the lobby, I followed the noise to the bar. There was a window.

It was stained glass, thick enough to make sure the bar keeps the dim lighting that works so well for it. The design was intricate, beautiful, a tree that seems to stretch on forever.

“Like it?” Kray.

I should have smelled him when I came in, the second I heard his voice the scent of fresh-cut grass and lemon slid across my senses.

“It’s beautiful,” I nodded. The floor was repaired, he was up fixing the wall now. “I thought I told you never to come back to my bar,” I half smiled. I couldn’t believe he was doing all this. He came back.

“If I left town how was I going to annoy you?” he joked.

“Mm, good point,” I sighed, but was smiling. “What is all this?” “Thought I should fix it some - oh, that’s from your brother,” he pointed

over the bar. I looked and the long mirror I’d been eyeing for months was hung up behind it. It looked exactly how I pictured, made the whole bar seem bigger.

“How did he -?”

“His girlfriend is the cashier at Rhonda’s Bath Goods,” he explained. “She told him you’d been looking at it since before it went on sale, he asked me to put it up.”

"Oh wow," I muttered. With these little changes, the bar was looking better than it did before the fire. I couldn’t believe it.

He stepped down from the ladder, towards me.

“Look, I don’t make great first impressions,” he explained. I laughed, and couldn’t look him in the face. “I just want you to know that I want all of you, it’s not a game.”

I nodded.

It’s not like I didn’t already know he wanted all of me.

That’s not what I feared - I wanted that, too - I just didn’t want to deal with the aftermath.

“Jo,” he said softly. “I’m not going anywhere unless you want me to, you drive me crazy, but you can’t drive me away.”

My heart skipped a little faster at this, not knowing what to say.

“I can’t just do this as some small thing,” I clarified. “I want all of you, too.”

“Then I’m yours,” he smiled.

He kissed me and I thought I might explode. I kissed him back, letting him pull me against him. He was mine, I never wanted to admit that I wanted him, but now he was mine and I’d never let that change.

One of his hands pulled free my messy bun, tangling and bunching in my hair as his other groped my ass and pulled me closer to him.

I’d needed this for so damn long.

Even if I couldn’t admit it to myself earlier, I had to be honest now.

We stumbled towards one of the unbroken tables, and he lifted me to set me on it. I pulled him closer, feeling the hot line of his arousal against my thigh. I hadn't had time to change out of pajamas, I probably looked like a mess.

“You’re gorgeous,” it was like he could read my anxieties. He pulled my shirt off, tossing it aside.

“No bra?” he teased. He cupped my breast, rolling one of my nipples between his fingers before pinching down slightly. I gasped against his mouth, our kiss becoming rougher and rougher. Stepping back, letting me

catch my breath, he pulled off my pajama shorts and underwear and came back for another kiss.

I stopped him.

“Your turn,” I pulled up the hem of his shirt and he got what I meant. His body was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen.

I knew he was muscular and large, but this was so much more. He was built like a house, strong and rippling with muscle from his shoulders down to the pants he was currently unzipping and pulling off. I followed the lines of his chest, wanting so much and only realizing it now.

As he pulled off his pants and underwear, I was overwhelmed with need.

He pressed between my legs, his thumb on my clit, rubbing circles as he teased my entrance with the head of his cock.

I’d waited so long for this and now he was going to tease?

“Kray,” I gasped. He kept teasing, barely pressing it against me, sliding his cock from my entrance to my clit, and back again. “Please,” I begged.

He kissed me, I could feel the smile on his lips.

“I told you that you’d beg for it,” his voice was deep and self-satisfied.

I would have rolled my eyes at him, but he started pressing in and nothing else mattered. Pulling back just a little, he pressed in again until he was deeper in me. The stretch was obscene, hot, so much and it felt so good I couldn't handle it. My legs fell further apart and I wrapped my arms around his neck to keep myself from falling backward onto the table.

“Oh, my God,” I moaned.

His hands were on my hips, bruisingly tight. I knew he’d leave fingerprints on my skin for the next couple days, and I didn’t care. He rocked back and into me again, building a punishing pace, and I tried to roll my hips back to meet his every thrust.

“I’ve wanted you so fucking badly,” he growled into my ear. “You’re mine, my mate.”

It was possessive and staved, and so true. I was his.

“Yours,” I gasped out in agreement.

His lips and tongue found my neck, marking over the already-purple hickeys from the night before. I moaned and came hard without even seeing it coming. The bar, the hotel, everything vanished away from me except for him still thrusting and going.

Releasing his neck, I laid back and he repositioned us. Pushing my knees together, he tilted my hips so that my legs were on his right hip while I lay on my back, and he pressed back in.

Holy shit, he got even deeper.

Supporting my legs with one arm, grasping my hip with another, he started going rougher than before. It still wasn’t enough, though, I needed more. I bounced back against every thrust, feeling sated and starved at the same time.

“Wait,” I gasped.

He let my legs go, and I rolled onto my stomach. Wanting to do this properly.

If he was going to mate me, if we were going to move forward, we had to do this right. I needed him as deep as he could go. He hissed out a sound of approval, sliding back into me with gusto. His hands roamed my body as he filled me again and again, and I leaned forward onto my hands to support myself.

Kray kissed my back, my neck, my shoulder, I lost track of where he left hickeys and where he was just kissing. All I knew was that he was rubbing something deep inside of me that made me feel like I was so close to orgasm on every thrust.

Kissing my neck, his movements became more erratic and I knew he was getting close.

Just the idea of him coming in me was enough to push me over the edge.

This orgasm was so much better than the first, better than anything I'd ever experienced. I could feel him filling me, emptying his orgasm, but my body felt like it was both seized up and also completely weightless. I couldn't catch my breath, couldn't form a thought, only pictures of him flashed through my mind.

God, he was mine. My mate.

When I finally came down from it he was kissing my back, my neck. I turned around, and we kissed slowly.

His lips, his scent, all of it were perfect, it felt like he completed me. Taking his hand, I led him back to my apartment behind the main desk. I wasn't nearly done with him yet.

Sure, I had a lifetime to show him how he made me feel, but I was going to start now.

The day passed, and Natalia agreed to watch the bar alone for her first full shift.

I never let myself have time off, it felt like a waste, like I could be doing something productive, but all I wanted to do was spend time in Kray’s arms. Or rather, with him in mine.

We were heading down the road towards the river.

My arms were tight around his waist as the wind rushed through my hair and over our bodies. I hadn’t been on the back of a bike in years, and I suddenly couldn’t figure out why. It was exhilarating, freeing. I felt like we were going a million miles an hour, the trees just whipping by us in a frenzy.

When we finally stopped, he helped me off the bike and started to undress.

I was nervous, more nervous than just having sex with him, I was terrified of this.

“You shifted last night in the bar, remember?” his voice was soft. “You can do this, I’ll be here with you.”

“You promise you’ll quit smoking if I do this,” I asked him.

"I'd do it even if you didn't shift, Jo, I'd do anything for you," he kissed my hand. I nodded, shy and embarrassed suddenly. "You can let go, you don't have to be so strong."

We kissed, and I wanted to cry, but I bit it down. “Can you do it first?”

"Yeah," he nodded. Letting go of my hand, he walked a couple of steps towards the water and shifted. It was like a rock had been thrown into a puddle, the shift rippled out from his core and, within a blink of an eye, there was a bear before me. I undressed slowly, my anxieties about shifting melted away with every moment.

I had him here with me, he would help me keep control. “Okay,” I took a deep breath and stepped forward.

The shift was easier than the night before. It took me slowly, like waking up on a calm morning. My front paws hit the ground delicately, and I shook to loosen up my body. My fur was darker now than it was ten years ago, and I regarded it with satisfaction.

Looking up, he was waiting for me.

We walked forward together, toward the water and a new life.