Reaching for My Angel [The Royal Wolves 5] (Siren Publishing Allure) (6 page)

Looking down at her he nodded doubtfully but decided to believe her. “All right,” he said softly. “Still,” he told her shifting slightly. “There is more to see of the Palace. We should go before morning comes and we end up waking. I doubt that I’ll be ever able to come back here.” The memories were just too hard on him.

“I’m sorry, Ben, do you want to leave now?” she asked realizing just how hard that might be on him. “I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t even think how hard it would be on you to come into here. I’m so sorry, let’s leave?”

Shaking his head he smiled at her. “It’s okay, love,” he told her softly. “Besides, I want to show you the place as it was, filled with love and family. If we ever get a chance to return it won’t be as it is in my memories. Let’s finish the tour and then I’ll show you where I loved to go and swim as a boy.”

“Only as long as you are perfectly sure, Ben, I don’t want you to cause yourself any pain at all, not on my account.” Evan spoke as she looked up at him and watched him. “Only do this if it is what you want to do, Ben, not because I want it, all right?”

“I’m fine, Evangeline,” he reassured her softly as he cupped her face in his hands gently. “It’s nice to see it again and I do want to show you the home of my early years. It is painful to realize it’s lost to me and mine, but I can see it here in our dreams this one time and remember the laughter and joy.”

“All right, Ben,” she whispered and nodded. “Then let’s finish looking at your childhood home. I would like to know your memories, know about the happiness that you had as a child, please?”

Reaching out he carefully took her hand and guided her out of his room and down the hall. Pointing out each of his brothers’ rooms, he showed her the nursery where he regaled her with tales of the various nannies and tutors they’d had and tormented, boys being boys and all that. He took her through the master and mistress suites and then down to the grand ballroom. “Christmas was wonderful here,” he told her softly. “We’d have a big tree that would fill the corner of the room and the fireplaces would be roaring brightly. We’d all gather around on Christmas Eve and open one gift from our parents to tide us over until the morning. Didn’t do much except gaining our parents sleep until about five in the morning instead of three when we really wanted to be up and down here tearing through everything.”

She laughed and shook her head. “That would be wonderful, to have children and live Christmas through them each year, it would be heavenly.” She wanted children, very much wanted them but in all honesty she didn’t know if she could have them or not.

“Well, we’ll have to think on that down the line, but not immediately,” he told her softly. “For a few months you will be safe from any pregnancy until your body gets accustomed to mine.” Totally the short version of how it all worked, but he wanted her to have the facts and not all the scientific mumbo-jumbo. “After that we will need to consider if you either want to change or go on birth control since I can’t exactly use anything as a human male would,” he told her apologetically.

“Benedek, honey, I am pushing forty, believe me when I tell you that while I want children so badly, I know that my child bearing days are coming close to an end so if it means that we can have longer together and increase the chance of children, I want to be changed.” She stopped in the hall and looked up. “In fact I would like that anyway so that I have as much time with you as I can get, Benedek. I want a very, very long life with you.”

Smiling at her he leaned down and brushed his lips lightly over her cheek. “We’ll talk about that much more later, but this is for us now. Let’s leave the heavy details for out in reality and just enjoy the dreams for what they are, love, a chance to know one another completely.”

“I like that thought.” She nodded and pulled back. “Now, where do we go next?” She wanted to stay in the warmth of the hall, the glow of the fire and the decorations that lined it made it seem a happy place to be.

“My swim hole,” he told her with a grin. “I figure since I got to see yours I’d show you where my favorite place to try and drown my family is.” Tugging on her hand he headed for the kitchens and the servants’ entrance there. Slipping out he pulled her toward the treeline. “It’s just past the trees in a small clearing,” he told her.

“I would like that.” She grinned and watched the trees as they walked by. “I would love to go back home sometime, take you there so that you can see where I grew up.” She touched branches and leaves as they walked past. “Since we can’t visit your home, I would like to give you a piece of mine to hold in your heart, it might not be where you grew up, but it is still lovely.”

Looking at her in surprise, he smiled slowly. “I’d like that,” he told her, gently pulling her close so he could wrap his arm around her shoulders. Hugging her gently he pointed out spots he used to use for the games of hide and seek he’d play with his brothers.

She saw the rope swing and grinned. “Let’s go for a swim?” she asked pulling away. “We will swing out on the rope and see who can go farther into the water.” Her hand in his she tugged him for the rope, willing her clothes away until just a swimsuit was in their place.

Eyeballing the suit he grinned and thought of just trunks as he picked her up and carried her quickly to the rope. “I should warn you,” he said as he caught it and pulled it back for her. “It’s sometimes a little chilly on first entry,” he told her with a grin. “Just don’t want you to have a conniption when you hit the water,” he teased kissing her nose and handing her the rope. “Ladies first.”

She snickered and shook her head. “Mountain fed, huh?” But it didn’t faze her. She still swung out and over the lake, into the water, and came out sputtering and laughing. “Holy shit you weren’t kidding!”

Catching the rope on the back swing, he laughed at her. “I warned you,” he said with another laugh when she shivered expressively. “Watch out, woman, master of the swing coming through,” he told her as he backed up as far as he could. Taking a good run he hitched up on the rope and swung up and at the apex let go before tucking into a ball and coming down in a cannon ball.

The water splashed and the wave dunked her but she came up laughing and shaking her head. “You win, but I think it’s because you are much bigger than me. Yep, that’s it.” She swam to him, long and sure strokes, the movements of a swimmer.

Turning in the water he wiped his hand across his face as he grinned at her. “I had a lot of practice in my early years, that and an older brother that could even swamp me. Laz is the master of the cannon ball and we have all been drowned under his water.” He chuckled taking her hand.

“Remind me not to be in the water when we swim with him.” She squeezed his hand and grinned. “I assume that I will get to meet him?” And there was that feeling of inadequacy, the feeling that maybe she shouldn’t meet his family because she simply wasn’t good enough.

“Hey now,” he said pulling her into his arms and holding her close. “No being sad. They are going to love you, all my brothers will love you, Angel. You are perfect and you’re my mate.” He smiled. “Can’t go wrong with that combination, now can you?”

She snorted and shook her head. “I’m not perfect, Ben. I’m too old, don’t even know if I can still give you children. I am scared and so much less than perfect.” She however let him hold her close as they tread water. “But no one will ever love you more than I can, Ben,” she whispered softly.

“Honey, I’m two hundred years old,” he said matter-of-fact to her. “When you get that old, then we’ll talk about being ‘too old,’ until then.” He snorted at her and shook his head. “Besides, if you want to have time with me and want the change, you’ll be able to have children for a great many years, too many for me to accurately tell you about, I promise.”

“Really?” Was it possible? She was pushing forty and her human body was at the end of its reproductive cycle. “I would like that, Ben, I want to be able to one day have kids, watch them grow up and have grandchildren and great-grandkids and so on. I want a family, one that is together in everything, loyal and helpful to each other.” She wanted a life with him.

“Really.” He smiled at her. “The wolf keeps us young and in our prime even if it’s a mate that changes later in their human life. You’ll be able to have children for a good four, five, maybe six hundred years if you want. It all really depends on you,” he said, gently kissing her lightly. She was so uncertain about so much and it hurt him to see. He was trying to give her everything in little pieces so she’d be able to easily accept it all.

She kissed him back, moving so that her legs were wrapped around him, relying on him to keep them from drowning. “I want that, Ben. I want forever or as close as I can get with you.”

“A couple hundred years with me might just seem like forever, love,” he pointed out with a grin. “You have no idea of my bad habits, my faults, my deficiencies. But, on a positive note, my brothers will be more than willing to inform you of all of the above, in great, long-winded detail.”

Evan laughed and shook her head. “Well I will make you take me traveling. We will find new lands to enjoy together and have fun with, that should keep me from being too bored with you, don’t you think?”

“It better,” he growled at her nipping carefully at her chin. “But I’m thinking I can probably keep you entertained for a while before we go traveling. I’ll take you to England to meet one of our really distant cousins.” He frowned and thought for a moment. “Or maybe Scotland, depending where he is at the time. We’ll have to skip most of Europe, but we could do Spain, Norway, Russia or whatever it’s called when we go.” He rolled his eyes.

She laughed and shook her head. “I have been from sea to sea, Ben, but that is all. I have always wanted to travel, which was why I drove a big rig with the ex-husband, but I have secretly always wanted to go overseas, to go vacationing across the world to see other things, to meet other people and learn new cultures.” She smiled at him and stroked her fingers over his cheek. “I love you, Benedek. I don’t think I will ever grow bored of you, sweetheart.”

“You’d better not, I think I’d have to do something drastic if you did,” he told her with a serious expression. He knew he wasn’t exactly the most exciting of his brothers and it was his biggest worry that she would be bored with him. But he also knew that he couldn’t go too overboard or he’d exhaust them and their choices too early in the relationship. Pulling her closer he kissed her gently. “Do you want to keep swimming or would you rather laze in the sun for a while?” he asked her.

“Ben, I don’t think I could tire or grow bored with you in a million lifetimes. I have a feeling that waking up with you each day is going to be more than enough for me.” She grinned and shivered. “Lazing about in the sun would be wonderful. Do you think it will be warm enough?” She wasn’t ready to leave the heat from his body. The lake was really and truly freezing and she was beginning to shake from it.

“I know it will, honey, and besides”—he leaned back with a sigh—“your lips are turning blue. I really don’t want you getting imagined hypothermia in a dream, god only knows the adverse reaction your body might take from it,” he said and headed for the side with her still wrapped around him.

She nodded as she shivered. “I feel cold even in my physical form. I really, really hate to be cold, Benedek, you should know that now. I have always arranged to be able to be over the road in the winter because I hate to be cold.” Because she had been made to sleep outside of the big rig more than once in the middle of winter in nothing but the clothes on her back.

“Well, darling, I should probably mention this so you love me even more.” He grinned, boosting her up onto the sun-heated boulder. “Wolves put out greater body heat than any mere human since we burn calories much faster. The resulting additional heat will keep you nice and toasty even on the coldest of nights. Especially if we get me good and worked up ahead of time.” He wiggled his brows as he pulled himself up next to her.

She grinned and nodded. “That’s a good thing, I can very much get used to having my own personal heater in you.” She was shivering and felt her physical body shifting closer to him even as her dream self did as well. “I will do all I can in order to make sure you are nicely worked up every single night of the rest of our lives, Ben.”

“Promises, promises,” he teased with a grin as he cradled her close to him. Rubbing her back gently he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Women say they’re all up for keeping their man entertained and warm, then they claim headaches, back aches, other aches.” He pinched her bottom gently.

“And other women have never had to live through hell in order to reach heaven,” she said with a smile. “I love you, Benedek, and you have no idea how much you are going to mean to me, how much you can mean to me.”

“I want you to tell me, I think,” he said, softly nuzzling her cheek as he rolled over slightly. Sliding his leg up between her legs, he rubbed against her lightly. “I think I want you to show me often, too. I want you to show me all of the time,” he whispered against her lips with a smile.

Her leg moved so that it circled his waist and she tugged him into her weeping pussy softly with a shuddered moan. “I will tell you often, always, I love you, Benedek, I will always love you.” She arched slightly and pulled him closer. “I want you in a way that I never believed possible.” She licked his lower lip before lightly biting it as he moved inside of her now. “Forever is not long enough, Benedek.”

“We’ll just have to make do won’t we?” he asked, softly nibbling on her lip and moving across her cheek to her throat. Gently biting her, he changed the scene to a pillow bed of feathers as he began to move slowly inside of her as his mouth teased her flesh.