“You okay?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
I leaned in and kissed him, then laid my face and arm across his broad chest. He held me close and stroked my back with tenderness unbefitting such a powerful male. I discovered the reason for my tears before I drifted off to sleep.
I love you, Aric.
• • •
Sunlight hit my face from the crack in the blinds. I slowly opened my eyes to meet Aric’s grin. He’d gotten his wish; he’d awoke with me naked in his arms. I returned his smile, still amazed he lay in my bed. His messy hair hung over his light brown eyes, and his five o’clock shadow had darkened into a thin beard. He looked sleepy.
He also looked sexy as hell.
“Good morning, sweetness.”
“Hi, wolf.”
I climbed on top of Aric, our lips immediately meeting. Good heavens, he tasted so good.
The rising pressure between my legs made me jerk. I tilted my leg and peeked below our covers. Turned out, Aric was extremely happy to see me. He smiled with slight embarrassment before reaching for a condom. I took it from him and disappeared beneath the sheets.
• • •
“Sorry about last night,” I told him.
We lay facing each other as he played with our intertwined fingers. “I don’t want you to be sorry about anything you did last night. I know I’m not.”
I smiled and gave him a small kiss. My God. I really do love you.
“I don’t mean to be an asshole,” he said after a moment, “but can I ask why you’re not on the pill?”
I hadn’t expected this talk so soon, and I supposed my rising temperature announced that loud and clear. “Aric, I’m not—well, I mean, I wasn’t sexually active. I’ve only had two lovers. There was no reason for me to be on it.”
Aric lifted his head from the pillow. “I’m only your third lover?”
I squirmed against him to hide my blush. “I meant two, counting you.”
Aric gripped my shoulders and pulled me away from him. He seemed to piece the puzzles of the night’s events together—my timidity, his difficulty penetrating, and likely my tears. Understanding spread across his face, softening his features until his brows knitted into a deep frown. “Why didn’t you tell me? We could have taken things slow.” He huffed. “And I sure as hell would have been more gentle.”
I shook my head, perspiration building between my breasts. “You were gentle. And trust me, I didn’t want to take things slow.”
Aric’s voice deepened. “That makes two of us.”
He drew me to him. I traced a line along the ridges of his muscles, smiling diffidently when I focused on his nipple. I’d finally gotten to taste it, and more, last night. “I thought we were going to, you know, make love sooner. But things always seemed to stop before they could get going.”
“Like the first night we slept together?”
I tilted my head upward, surprised he brought it up. “Yeah. Like that night.”
Aric’s hand slipped down to my backside, sending goose bumps across the length of my back. “I was already getting a lot of shit from my Elders about associating with you. But when they scented your aroma and our passion on the night we first kissed, Martin told me to keep my distance. I didn’t like it. As my Alpha, though, I felt compelled to heed his words.” He kissed the top of my head. “Except things weren’t so simple. You got hurt and almost died. And even though Emme healed you, I couldn’t bear to leave you that night. So I stayed. I kept telling myself I’d leave when you woke. But the longer I was with you, the more I wanted you, and the more Martin’s orders haunted my thoughts.” He sighed. “My loyalties to my pack tell me I should obey my Alpha. But I can’t. You’ve been impossible to resist, Celia.”
I bit my bottom lip, trying to keep from crying. I’d finally fallen in love, but it wasn’t enough, and wasn’t so easy. “My selfless side wants to tell you to obey your Elders. But I can’t.”
Aric’s jaw tightened. “Then don’t.”
My arms slipped around his waist. “What will they do to you for being with me?”
“There’s no law saying I can’t be with you.”
But from what Bren had once explained, pack loyalties and blood bonds ran deeper than laws. I rested my head against him, and asked God to keep him safe from his kind.
Aric’s hand massaged my backside. “You know, I was starting to think you didn’t want me.”
I blinked back at him. “You can’t be serious.”
Aric tugged on my bottom lip with his teeth. “Celia, when you wouldn’t look at me yesterday after I changed back, I questioned whether you even found me attractive.”