I flicked him off. “Fuck you, Rooster.”
He grinned. “I’ll stick to the club whores, thanks.”
“When?” I asked, turning back toward Wraith with resignation settling in my stomach like a goddamn rock.
“Next week. Let’s lay out the plan. Make this a priority and remind all the brothers of all the damage those damn wolves have done over the past couple of years.”
“Think it’ll help if Ashlyn tells her story?” Holliday asked, and I shot him a scowl.
“No fucking way am I asking her to relive that day even if she can’t remember the actual raping.”
“Agreed,” Rooster added.
“Fuck.” Slash shifted on his chair, grimacing at Holliday. “Why the fuck would you even ask that, you prick?”
“Fuck off, Slash.” Holliday shot back with a middle finger. “I just know some brothers aren’t going to be on board for an all-out war.”
“They will be,” Wraith muttered.
Shadow glanced at our president, an eyebrow raised. Goddamn mind reader. “You’re serious?”
“Fucking dead.” Wraith glanced around the table. “If they value their patches, they’ll be on board,” he filled us in on what Shadow had heard whispered in his head.
“They still aren’t gonna like it,” Holliday grumbled.
“Not everyone needs to shed blood,” Slash said. “We’ll need guards. Drivers to get us the hell outta there once we’re done.”
“Diggers t’ take care of the shit we leave behind, too,” Stonewall added.
Holliday’s lips pursed, but he turned toward Wraith without further argument.
Our president slapped his hand onto the table. “It’s a fucking go.”
My lips twisted into a sneer most men would back away from. “One week.”
Wraith nodded, and we exited the room, our most subdued Church ever, adjourned.
179
Ashlyn
I woke, frustrated as hell, same as when I’d fallen asleep. Bryce had explained shifting to me over a dozen different times, different ways, but I didn’t feel the pull inside. He’d even claimed to chat it up with my inner cat—and while I couldn’t hear what his inner beast said, I listened to mine struggle to vocalize her thoughts, her desires.
We’d gone at it for hours—until my head ached. He’d grown frustrated, too, and I’d climbed onto his lap and kissed him until he calmed. Two hours later, sated and full of his cum, I’d curled against his side, ready to sleep.
Bryce had snored long before my mind allowed rest.
He stretched beside me, and I ran my fingers through his beard, smiling at the silkiness against the pads of my fingertips.
“Mmm.” He moaned, tipping his head to put his cheek in my palm. “Iubita.”
I slung one of my legs over his hip, ready to coax his morning wood into filling me up again, but he rolled me to my back, looming over me. Sleepy dark eyes blinked down at me, a slow smile squeezing my heart.
“You’re so beautiful,” I breathed with a sigh, my inner thighs widening to accommodate his hips.
“Mmm,” he moaned again, burying his face in my neck to lick and nibble. “And you’re fucking delicious.”
I tipped my head to the side, but he slid down along my body, licking and biting gently along my fleshy parts—the inches that didn’t bother me as much as they used to because he declared to be in absolute lust with the whole package.
For the first time in my life, I felt beautiful. Desirable. Needed.
Every fluffy inch.
He settled between my thighs, spreading them wider.
“What are you doing?” I looked down over my body to find him staring at my pussy.
“Breakfast.”
“I need to shower,” I argued—aghast—as he nosed up through my lower lips.
“Don’t give a damn,” he half-growled the words. “You smell fucking delicious, all musky and sweet … mine.”
He licked, and I collapsed back onto the bed, my eyes rolling and lower lip between my teeth.
Good Lord. Tongue, teeth, lips, and fingers—Bryce drove me out of my mind. I panted and writhed, grasping at the sheets beside me, my hips lifting in offering for his feast. He brought on my climax, and I shuddered and wept, needing him to fill me, but it wasn’t until I soaked his chin for a second time that he prowled up over my body, his dark eyes full of lust and danger enough to prime me fully for another climax.
One thrust seated him against my womb, and I grasped at his body, fingernails scratching, thighs clutching, heels digging into his flexing ass to hold him closer.
He captured my mouth with a groan, our bodies writhing as one—heart and soul.
My third climax of the morning pulled him along with me, and every spurt of his cum deep inside me sent shudders rippling over my skin. Full. Sated. Claimed.
“I’ve always loved you,” he whispered against my lips the second his hips stilled.
I squeezed him tight, nearly choking on a sob. “You stole my heart that day,” I whispered back, my eyes welling as he pulled back to peer down at me. “I’ve always been yours—your iubita.”
He took my mouth again—but with bruising force—and it was another hour before I managed to tell him I loved him too.
We walked through the woods, hand-in-hand, and my heart filled with happiness even though I hadn’t been able to shift in the five days we’d been at Wraith’s cabin. I’d come to the conclusion that I might very well be a shifter, but it seemed my cat had something blocking her, something from my human side I couldn’t figure out.
Even Bryce shifting to his sleek, black leopard form couldn’t entice her to join him. Every single time he returned to me in all his muscle and bearded glory, he claimed I’d made it easy. I’d become his strength.
He had given me purpose, a reason for living, a reason to choose outside the few phobias that still lingered.
The trickle of water twitched my ears, and I paid better attention to our surroundings than I did the beast of a man beside me. Coolness rose in the early evening air, the gentle breeze wafting past my nose with hints of wet earth and
