“Please don’t talk like that!” It upset me to see him looking like this—talking like this.
“Well, it’s true! After what I did—” He broke off, shaking his head. “Look, we need to talk. Do you want to come in or would you rather meet in a public place? There’s a pretty good coffee shop down the road.” He gestured vaguely in a direction away from his house.
“Meet in a private place?” I looked at him in confusion. “Why?”
Nick frowned.
“I thought you might not…feel safe with me after…after what I did the last time we were together.”
I stared at him in disbelief. He really believed that his beast had forced me. He must think I wouldn’t want to be alone with him, because I was frightened of him now!
“I’m not scared of you and I’m not talking about anything private and personal in the middle of a damn Starbucks,” I snapped. “I’ll come in if you’ll let me.”
“Oh—of course.” Looking surprised, he stepped to one side, allowing me to enter.
Inside the architecture was exquisite but there was almost no furniture. Also, his house was filled with cardboard boxes, as though he had been packing.
“What’s all this?” I asked, looking around as he led me to the large, bare living room, where a plush leather sofa had boxes stacked around it.
“I have to move,” Nick said in a low voice. “Part of the Council’s ruling,” he added. “I have to go into exile away from any other packs that might be affected by my beast.”
“What?” I demanded, looking around. “They told you to pack up and move and you’re just going to do it?”
He shrugged unhappily.
“It’s a very mild punishment, actually. The actual penalty for breaking the Unbreakable Laws against incest and breeding in Fur Form is death, but they ruled that since my beast isn’t completely aware of what it’s doing, I was to be given a lesser punishment.”
“What you did in your beast form wasn’t incest because we’re not blood related!” I said fiercely. “And it wasn’t rape either! Nick, what your beast did saved my life. I was deep in Breeding Fever—I would have died if he hadn’t bred me!”
“So you said before,” he murmured, sitting stiffly on the couch and indicating that I should do the same. “But…do you still feel that way?”
“You mean now that the ‘Breeding Fever fog’ has left my brain?” I demanded. “Yes, I still feel that way.” I leaned forward and put my hand over his. “I’m not angry with you, Nick—except for leaving me again after you promised not to,” I added. “But I’m not upset in the least about you breeding me in your beast form.”
He frowned and shook his head.
“If you’d been raised in the ways of the pack like I was—”
“But I wasn’t,” I interrupted him. “And I have no interest in them now except that they seem to be making you miserable.”
Nick shook his head again, a haunted expression on his face.
“I just…can’t forgive myself. I still remember taking you while…while you were tied down to the damn breeding bench, helpless.”
“It’s true, I’m not usually that submissive during sex,” I said coolly. “But to be perfectly honest, I found it incredibly hot.”
“What?” He looked up at me, startled.
“You heard me,” I said evenly. “I would have said I didn’t have a submissive bone in my body, but what happened between me and your beast makes me question that.” I bit my lip. “Nick, I might not have been quite sure at first but I really got into it once we, uh, got going.”
“But my beast is so big! I must have hurt you,” he protested. “Are you telling me you’re into pain, too?”
“No, I’m not and no you—or he—didn’t hurt me,” I told him. “In fact, you made sure I was ready before you, uh, bred me in your beast form.”
“I did?” he frowned.
“I thought you remembered the details,” I said.
“Some,” he admitted. “They’re like flashes of nightmare for me—watching myself do things I had sworn never to do. Things that are forbidden.”
“Forbidden or not, it felt pretty damn good,” I said, raising an eyebrow at him. “What I’m trying to tell you is that your beast was actually quite considerate. He—or you—knelt down behind the breeding bench and, er, tasted me for quite a while before you did anything else.”
I thought of the long, hot tongue curling around my sensitive clit and then sliding deep into my pussy. Just the memory of that made me feel hot and needy all over again and I had to squeeze my thighs together hard.
I saw Nick’s nostrils flare and then he looked at me incredulously.
“You’re not lying,” he said. “In fact…just talking about this is making you hot, isn’t it?”
I thought of how the beast had been able to smell my “Heat.” I wasn’t in Breeding Fever right now, but was it possible that Nick could still tell by my scent that I was getting horny? The thought was both embarrassing…and arousing.