“You want me to stay? Even though I’ve bought nothing but trouble?”
“Trouble with Kray’s group has been a long time coming,” he said. “You weren’t the one to bring it. What you did was very courageous. And of course I want you to stay, or I wouldn’t have introduced you to my family and the whole town. Don’t you want to stay?”
“I…I haven’t let myself even really think about it,” I said. “I thought you were just letting me stay because you were trying to help Camille.”
“A woman I’ve never even met? Josephine, you’ve got to stop underestimating yourself. You are a wonderful woman. A hot, sexy, smart-mouthed, strong, kind, wonderful woman. I want you to stay here with me, but only if you want to.”
“I do,” I choked out. “I really, really do.”
“Really?” He looked at me searchingly, as if the answer was terribly important to him.
“Yes,” I said, suddenly realizing that I felt as if a hundred ton weight was lifted from my shoulders, a weight I hadn’t realized was even there. I was really staying?
“I’ll show you how much I want to stay,” I said, and sank down to my knees in front of him. I could smell his musky scent, that smell of arousal and masculinity that I’d become so familiar with. I could scent him from fifty feet away, these days, and every time I scented him it sent a thrill of arousal shivering through my body.
I began kissing his flat stomach, and he moaned aloud, and tangled his fingers in my hair.
His cock stood upright, thick and hard. There was a gleaming pearl of pre-cum on it.
I grabbed the base of his cock in my hand and ran my tongue over the head of his cock, lapping it up, and he caught his breath. Then I moved to take him in my mouth. He tasted salty and sweet at the same time, and he let out a low groan as he slid into my mouth and down my throat.
“Baby,” he moaned. “You’re so good.” He pumped into me, his breaths coming harsher and faster and his fingers tightening in my hair. When he exploded, rivers of thick come flowed into my mouth and down my throat, and I greedily drank it all.
As we drove back, I found myself idly thinking about the future, and how one mating during a full moon could fill me full of cubs. Good God, this man could father quintuplets. Birth control, I reminded myself firmly. It was way too soon to be thinking cubs.
Later that day, he insisted on dragging me in to town to the Mercantile, so I could start picking out fabrics for the new house. The whole time, he was chatting about what buildings we’d need, and which of the younger members would be coming to join us as part of the new pack.
I was standing outside the store in a haze of domestic bliss, and I paused when a text message from Aunt Prudence came through. “Are you all right?” it said. I texted her back “Never better! Max and I are planning out our new compound, we’ll be starting a pack together,” and then I looked up to see that Max had walked over to the truck.
Something was resting on his windshield. An envelope. He opened it, pulled out what appeared to be a photograph, and I saw his expression turn dark and angry. He ripped it to shreds and stuffed it in his pocket.
I walked over, staring at him. He scowled, and opened up the passenger door.
“What was that?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I was stunned into silence. Really. He didn’t want to talk about it. There was a mysterious photograph on the windshield of his truck, and he didn’t want to talk to his wife about it.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what kind of picture it was. If there were any kind of innocent explanation at all, he’d have told me.
He was quiet as we drove back to his house.
I couldn’t go on like this, with him keeping secrets from me.
When we walked into the living room, I stopped and put my hands on my hips.
“Listen,” I said. “I know something is going on. On the one hand, you’re telling me that you want me to stay here and you want this to be a real marriage. On the other hand, you’re getting these mysterious phone calls, and someone left a picture on your car that you’re hiding from me.”
“You’re my wife. You should trust me,” he said stubbornly. “As an Alpha, I am the one who runs the pack and makes the day to day decisions for the pack. You don’t need to know every detail of the pack business.”
I couldn’t believe it. He was trying to put this back on me, as if it were my fault.
“We barely know each other,” I said. “Trust takes time. It comes when somebody behaves in a trustworthy fashion. I’m asking you, Maxwell…what was in that envelope?”