I lift the cup closest to me, take a sip as I sit, and I decide I like the sweet, warm drink.
She pulls her feet up to the seat and curls into a ball, resting her head on the arm of the sofa. I sit close, rubbing her hip with my free hand as we stare into the flames and I sip more of the drink. The warm feeling in my body comes from not just the fire and the tea but from something else. From happiness.
“You’re purring again,” she says with a smile.
“I’m happy,” I tell her and set the mug down so I can pull her to my lap and hold her close. “I’ve found you. I want to know everything about you.”
Her smile slides off her face and she looks conflicted. Little lines form over her nose as she seems to ponder a problem.
Me. I’m a problem to her.
“I have a job and responsibilities. My car is in a valley all squished and I have no way to pay for it if I’m here getting sexed to death by you. It’s like my mind keeps blocking my responsibilities and I just get lost… in this.” She gestures toward me. “My parents, my friends are gonna worry about me.”
I feel something ugly crawling through my veins at her words, at the distress in her voice. She’s still trying to figure out how to leave me. She says get lost in ‘this’ like it’s not something she should get lost in. Like being happy to be with me would be wrong.
She made me food. She washed my hair. She said my name with sweetness. She laughed for me. She’s making the kitchen clean. Even when she’s in my arms, warm and cuddled into me, at the same time she’s thinking about needing to go.
How do I make her not want to leave me?
“What am I doing wrong, Ivy?” I can’t help but ask. My chest hurts. She climbs off my lap and puts her face in her hands, her nearly dry golden and blueberry locks falling over her face as she lets out a big breath.
“Maybe you think I won’t be a good mate, but I will. I’ll keep you safe, I’ll provide for you, and I’ll do whatever it takes to show you that your happiness is linked to me.”
“Tyson,” she says, her voice sad.
She doesn’t believe me. She’s not the same as me, so of course she doesn’t. She’s not wired the way I am. I just need to show her.
I grab her hips and pull her short pants down, snatching her underwear to yank them down too as I quickly haul her onto me.
Now she’s straddling me.
“Ty, don’t,” she orders, with her eyes all angry.
I growl at her. She’s called me Ty, like she does when I’m inside her. That’s where I need to be now. She rears back as if frightened.
I grab the back of her neck and use my other hand to free my cock from my soft pants without the button and zipper. This is much easier than fussing with the typical man jeans I wear.
I slam into her heat and she cries out. I’ve still got her by the back of the neck and her neck is so small that my thumb can graze my mark on her while I continue to hold her where I want her. I ram my hips up as I glare at her with anger and frustration. I only want to make her happy, make her know she’s mine, make her feel like no one and nothing is more right than this, than us.
She looks both horrified and aroused. I growl into her ear. “You’re mine. I’m yours. You’ll learn this. Forget everything but this. This is all that matters.”
She cries out as I feel my knot swell inside and I begin climaxing inside her.
I can’t wait until she goes into heat and I can fill her with my children, bind her to me in that way so she will know it’s real, that we’re a family.
A family. I wanted that as a child. I wanted it with a fierceness I took out on the environment around me. It washes over me, the memories. I remember wailing at the sky for the lost family I didn’t have, though I didn’t know what I was howling for until my uncle told me. He was in one of those dark moods where his words jumbled, and he smelled like whisky. He talked about loss, about having things taken away by evil. He looked me in the eyes and told me that evil took the things you wanted, that being alone was difficult, but better than seeing what others had that should be yours.
Alone isn’t better.
I wondered if I should be lone wolf or should be with a pack. He told me lone was better, that our former pack was too corrupt.