Oh God. He’s . . . ashamed. So wrong. Although he had to be more upset by the revelations she knew Agent Gallagher had shared with him, by the news of the terrible crime committed against him. She took him in, his shoulders hunched, head hanging low. He looked like a wounded animal. Lost. Her heart twisted, cracked.
She took a deep breath. “Yes,” she confirmed. “I saw.” She moved closer, putting her hand on his arm, though he still didn’t turn toward her. “I saw pictures of you surviving in ways that will never be erased from my soul. Not because they disgusted me, but because my heart bled for you, and rejoiced with you, and found awe in your courage. Your will to live. The pictures I saw broke my heart, Jak, but more than that, they made me proud and deeply humbled by your strength. They . . . made me love you even more than I already did,” she finished, her voice filled with the heartfelt passion that lived in her heart for the man in front of her, feeling shame for things he was not responsible for.
He turned then, though slowly, his face filled with wary surprise, a glimmer of hope. But as quickly as she saw it, it disappeared. He shook his head. “He described me as a possum sometimes, other times a deer.” He stepped back, away from her. “He also called me the wolf.” He let out a deep tortured breath. “And . . . I’m all of them, Harper.” He said it as though his heart broke to admit it, such sadness in his eyes that she almost couldn’t bear it. “I’m each one. I tried not to be but I am.” He shook his head. “I haven’t been the possum for a long time. He was the scared boy. But the other two . . . they’re who I grew to be, and I can’t leave either one behind.” He took a shuddery breath. “Do you want the buck who will shake hands and use table manners, or the wolf who might tear you apart? And what happens if I can’t promise you the wolf won’t come out when you least expect it? I can’t be just one or the other. I’m both.” His voice broke on the last word, fading away.
She stood straighter, his words bolstering her. Yes, she’d known that, hadn’t she? She’d sensed him holding back, for her, felt him trying to suppress that part of him—the wolf. She’d been glad for it because that side of him was an unknown and it scared her, but beyond her fear, there had been the spark of . . . disappointment, hadn’t there? Disappointment at his restraint. And she understood what he was telling her. She couldn’t have him in pieces. He’d spent his life surviving because of that wild, beastly part of him. To reject it would be to reject the very core of who he was.
“I want the wolf,” she said softly. “I want you. I don’t need you to hold back.” It was the truest thing she’d ever said, she realized. She was willing to cast away any fear because she trusted him. There was no part of him she didn’t want. Each piece of him had been hard won. Hard fought for, and she’d take them all.
He studied her, his eyes narrowing, watching. “Before I lived in that house, I lived in caves, Harper, or sometimes holes animals dug in the ground.”
She nodded, raising her chin. “Good,” she said. “Those places kept you warm.”
He turned his head slightly, still studying her with such intensity, she began to shake. He took a step nearer and she held her ground.
“Sometimes I was so starving I ate bugs. One after the other. I searched the ground for them, crawling on my hands and knees.”
He watched, waited to see the disgust come into her eyes, she knew. Testing her. She swallowed, the picture in her mind—the knowledge of his excruciating desperation—hurting so much she wanted to fall to her own knees. She took in a breath, the vast respect—the immense love—she had for him filling every part of her soul. “Good,” she whispered. “It kept you alive so when I walked into the sheriff’s office that day, you were there. You were there.”
He paused for so long, she wondered if he’d speak again, wondered if he’d bring up one more horrifying element of his survival to try to determine if she really wanted what she was saying she wanted.
“The wolf is not like anything you know. He’s wild, Harper. He’s the very worst of me.”
“Good,” she said one more time, the intensity she felt wavering in her voice. “I want wild. I want you. All of you. The best and the worst and everything in between.”
His eyes narrowed and the air changed very suddenly, her awareness spiking, breath stalling. He was going to strike. Going to test the truthfulness of her words with action. Do it, she whispered in her mind and his nose moved, very slightly as though he’d caught the scent of her acquiescence. Her need. They stared at each other, and she was trembling now, her entire body charged, her heart pumping blood through her veins, faster, faster. “I want wild,” she repeated. She wasn’t afraid. She would willingly surrender to him because she had faith in his goodness.
With a low growl, he stalked toward her, slowly, slowly. When they finally stood toe to toe, he moved quickly, grabbing her. She sucked in a breath. His mouth came down on hers, hot, demanding. He was holding nothing back, and a thrill spiraled within her, ending between her legs with a burst of wet pleasure.
He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the front of the empty house that wasn’t his anymore, opening the unlocked door and kicking it closed behind him. The blanket he’d slept in for most of his life was still folded on the bed and he threw it on the floor, pushing her gently so she was on her knees.
Her breath hitched, arousal hot and heavy in her veins as his body came over hers from behind, so much bigger, harder. He could hurt her if he wanted. No fear moved within her. Only breathless anticipation. He leaned over, his mouth close to her ear. “Do you want this?” he asked, his voice gravelly in her ear.
“Yes,” she moaned. It was the only word she could manage.
He tore at her clothes, the grunts and animal sounds coming from him making her lust spiral higher and higher. When he ran a finger through her wet folds, she thought she might come right then and there. She was panting, she realized, like an animal, like a woman being taken by the man she loved. This was mating. Elemental, ungoverned by any civilized laws or strictures. It was ordained by nature, by miracles, by the tides and the moon and the blood pumping in unison through their veins. Their bodies sang to each other, the same tune, melody and harmony, the notes pulsing, suspended around them.
He sniffed at her, licked her, his face probing between her thighs from behind as she gasped and moaned and clawed at the floor. Yes, yes, yes. She might have said it out loud. He was controlling this, she knew, and yet she’d never felt so powerful, so free. She let go, gave in to him completely. He was devouring her body, her soul, her shame-filled memories, yes, tearing her apart, piece by piece by piece until she melted into him and they were one. This was how it should be, she knew it in her bones, in the echoing pleasure of women through the ages who had been wholly loved and worshipped by their men.
She felt his hot naked skin at her back and dazedly, glanced over her shoulder. His face was a mask of wild lust. The wolf. He had given in to the wolf, and she gloried in the knowledge that he trusted her enough to take him. To love him. To keep him.
His hands rubbed her breasts, fondling them, growling with reverence. Then his palms were moving over her ribcage, and his tongue found the spot that made her scream, licking, probing. She undulated her hips, rubbing herself on his face, begging for more. So close, so close. When he pulled away, a whimper escaped, a cry of frustration.
; But as quick as that, his hardness was probing at her entrance and the whimper melted into a deep groan of ecstasy.
He impaled her on one quick thrust, grunting his male pleasure loudly, the sound sending her over the edge before he’d even begun to move. To thrust. To take what was freely being given. And when he did, she came again, the pulsing bliss making her knees give out, her sobs mingling with his growls.
He grasped her around the waist to hold her steady, one hand gripping a handful of her hair to keep her from falling, pounding into her again and again as aftershocks of rapture shimmered through her. His fingers raked at her scalp, his arm clutched tightly around her, his hardness plunging into her mercilessly, his tight belly slamming against her backside. She was dying, dying a slow death of pleasure overload. The bliss. The euphoria. Him.
Their rhythm increased, his grunts growing louder, closer together until he howled with pleasure, gripping her hips, slamming into her, then slowing, slowing until it was only their mingled pants, the heat of their sweat-slicked skin. The sky and the earth and the ground beneath them, still moving, rocking, pulsing in the same gentle undulations as their bodies.
The world returned slowly, dreamily as though they had been awake and only now were falling back to sleep.
He turned her, his eyes probing hers, moving over her face, looking for . . . what, she didn’t know. But whatever he found made his lips turn up, made his gaze gentle as he pulled her to him, nuzzling her neck, her hair, kissing her lips, licking the tears from her cheeks that she hadn’t realized were there. “You’re crying,” he said, but he didn’t sound upset.
“Yes.”