I set my glass on the deck, held tight to the railing, and leaned over to see if I could figure out what was going on underneath the back porch. For years, the shaded space had been a catch-all for yard tools, wood scraps, the kind of stuff most homes accumulated without knowing how it got there, stuff you didn’t want to throw out, just in case.
Freshly poured concrete formed a floor, complete with a French drain. The rectangle didn’t look like it would house more than one bed, but who knew what the guys were planning. At the far end of the yard area, stakes and string marked the footprint of a larger structure.
I’d have to remind Christoph and Wes to get a proper building permit, especially if they were planning on adding electricity to whatever was going up in that spot. Or maybe the outbuilding would wear a magical cloak.
None of the building activity mattered when the man who’d snuck up behind me glided his hands down my arms and circled my wrists. I wanted to press his front to my back, but words came first.
“Why did you leave me at the Pearmains’ without telling me where you were going and why?”
Tanner pressed his forehead to the back of my head. “Do you want the long answer or the short answer?”
“I want the truth.” I wriggled one wrist loose, bent to retrieve my glass, and sipped at the beer. My taste buds soaked in the cool liquid’s memories of summer days spent curling up and around the tall string trellises supporting row after row of hop plants. I took another sip, grateful for whatever I’d done to deserve this new ability to taste a food or drink’s lineage.
“My ability to shift in and out of my wolf at will was compromised by my relationship with Jessamyne. The choice I made to pursue her without you was made by wolf, not by me.”
“Don’t you have an override mechanism?” I asked, genuinely curious. My knowledge of shifters was scant.
“She hurt him, and he wants retribution.”
Tanner rested his lips against the side of my neck, made a line of kisses to just underneath my earlobe, and lavished the same amount of attention on the other side.
“I missed you,” he said, molding his palm to the side of my rib cage, just under my breast. I’d gone braless, and as he cupped me, his thumb and finger teased at an alert nipple.
“Picking up where you left off?” I asked. The last time he’d kissed my sensitive neck like that, he’d been helping me choose what to wear for my party.
“Mm-hmm,” he murmured, bringing the heat of his chest against my back.
After all the input I’d had today, and the day before, and the weeks before that… Ever since I’d stepped across the threshold to Rowan’s clinic and left with life-altering information, life had worn me out.
The one and only thing I wanted to say to Tanner was “Yes.”
“Yes what?” he asked, taking both my breasts and nipples into his palms and drawing me tight against his chest.
“Yes to whatever you want tonight because I am tired of fighting and planning and—”
Tanner pressed a finger to my lips.
“Shh,” he said. “You can always say no, but let’s go explore that yes.” He took the glass from my hand, steered me inside, and slid the door closed. I grabbed at the handle, turned the lock, and allowed our dance to continue, down the hall and into my bedroom. I locked that door too.
I had no condoms. I had no stashes of personal lubricants or sex toys.
My desire went into overdrive as Tanner peeled off my T-shirt and his, wrapped his arms around me from the back once again, and undid the closure on my pants. He shimmied the linen over my hips, planting slow kisses over my butt and down the backs of my thighs. I stood naked, facing my bed. His skin brushed mine as he finished disrobing, tangled his fingers in my hair, and pressed himself against me.
I didn’t want to say words, but I could make noise. With no one home, I could make a lot of noise. I moaned as Tanner dug his fingertips into my scalp and massaged away at least twelve layers of tension.
“When I imagine making love with you, Calliope Jones, I…” Tanner stopped working on my head and wrapped both arms across the front of my shoulders. “I imagine us in a different place. Somewhere neither of us has been before.”
I touched his forearms. His skin was roughened by a light layer of scabs from his encounter with the Apple Witch. I didn’t shy from touching his wounds. He was healing on the outside and, I hoped, healing on the inside.
Someday, his wolf would heal too.
“Somewhere without friends and family.” His soft laugh moved through his belly muscles. “I love them all, Calli, I truly do, but there are times when Wes and Kaz can be a little too watchful of me.”
“They love you,” I whispered.
“Yes, they do.”
His cock pressed against my backside. I reached up and behind to run my fingers through his unbound hair.
“I said yes to you, Tanner, yes to whatever we have time for tonight. I have no expectations,” I added, spinning in his embrace so I could wrap my arms around his waist. “Other than honesty. Honor me by being honest with yourself. And I’ll do that too.”
The necklace—his necklace—warmed from being pressed between Tanner’s chest and mine, became more than a pouch filled with magic seeds. Its presence was palpable. Tanner leaned away, lifted the cords off my neck, and placed the pouch on my desk.
“There,” he said, “now we’re both completely naked. Shall we get to know each other’s skin?”
When I slid across the fresh cotton sheet, air-dried in the sun, I could almost imagine Tanner and I truly were in a new place.
I
