Reflections of the Wolf (22 page)

“This is crazy, Caro. You know that right?”

“I know it sounds like that, but you have to trust me. If you love Liam, you have to tell him. I know what you went through when Esteban was killed, but that was a random act of violence. He was in the wrong…”

“I know I know, the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ve heard that from everyone since the first police detective showed up at my hotel room door that morning. Listen, I think I need a break from all of this. I’m going to go see Mom and then hit the studio. I have an extra class to teach tonight, and I always think better when I’m in my toe shoes.”

“Okay, but please don’t wait long to call him. Or at least check in with me so that I know you’re okay.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll call you later.”

“Love you, T.”

“Bye.”

* * * *

Caroline hung up the phone and met Damon’s intense green eyes.

“Do you think she will tell him?” Damon asked as he pulled her over into his lap on the sofa. She didn’t question who or how he knew. With wolf senses she knew that he had heard the whole conversation, and she just responded.

“Not yet. She hasn’t accepted that she loves him and needs him yet. She’s scared of it,” she said with a heavy sigh.

“Is she scared of love or scared of my cousin?” Damon asked.

“About six years ago, her boyfriend took her on a weekend trip to Los Angeles. He wined and dined her and then surprised her by asking her to marry him. She of course said yes. I think they had been together for a couple of years by this point. The next morning he got up to go get her bagels for breakfast from a bakery near the hotel. He was mugged, and the mugger shot him in the chest twice. He died at the hospital in surgery. She went through a period of deep depression just like I did, so we kind of bonded over our shared experiences. She has grieved, but the fear is still there. I can relate, but I don’t know how to help her through it.” Caroline’s eyes welled up with tears as she told Tina’s story. Damon kissed her forehead, and held her tightly just listening. She was so blessed to have her mates, and she knew that Tina had happiness within her reach. She hoped she was strong enough to grasp it.

The front door opened, and Devin’s dark head appeared.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, moving toward them. With their mating bond firmly in place, they could usually sense each other’s emotions. They could even share conversations in their head, but she could always count on the guys searching her out if they sensed she was sad or scared.

She quickly explained the situation and the backstory to Devin while he stroked her hair. Damon’s arms held her comfortably against his broad chest.

When she finished her story, Devin sat back pensively. “Does Liam know about Esteban?”

Caroline shook her head. “Tina doesn’t share that with anyone. I only know because we helped each other through the grieving process. I hadn’t dealt with my parents’ deaths, and she was reeling from his.”

“He needs to know, sugar. If she won’t tell him, then you have to,” Devin said.

“I know, but I’m afraid she will hate me for betraying her trust.” Caroline pulled away from Damon and moved to the spot between her two men so that she could touch them both.

“Once she realizes the benefit she will forgive you, beautiful. We can’t risk the consequences of her denying him now that they are truly mated,” Damon said. “I hate seeing you sad, and I want to help bring a smile back to that beautiful face. Maybe we should remind you of all of the benefits of having a mate so that it’s fresh in your mind to make the decision.”

She returned his smile and let her desire for him show in her eyes. As she kissed Devin and Damon started to remove her clothes, she sent a silent prayer of thanks to God. She had never been happier in her life. With that thought she let her body take over and cleared her mind.

Devin’s tongue ran along the inside of her top lip and then he nibbled at the bottom one. She growled softly in her chest as Damon’s hands softly caressed her inner thighs, spreading her for his eyes.

“You are so perfect,” Damon muttered before he leaned down to kiss her pink mound. Her back arched off of the sofa as electricity zipped through her system. She was on fire as his tongue fluttered over her clit, teasing her. After a few moments, he flattened it and licked her long and deep from top to bottom before thrusting his fingers into her sopping-wet pussy.

Devin continued to dominate her mouth as his twin devoured her pussy, his own hands occupied by Caroline’s full breasts. She loved how he would pinch and tug at her rose-colored nipples and then surprise her by gripping both breasts tightly and squeezing them together hard. She moaned against his mouth as he moved over her and opened his jeans.

“Oh, sugar, don’t tease. Suck me off while Damon fucks you,” Devin said in a husky voice.

His thick, hard cock oozed a pearl of pre-cum, and her tongue darted out to claim it. She opened her mouth as he thrust the head of his dick in, and she hollowed her cheeks to suck him. She relished the musky, salty taste of his cum, and the brown flush on his cinnamon-colored cheeks as he watched her swallow him.

She could feel the fringes of her first orgasm just as Damon shifted his own body up between her legs and thrust into her. Filled at both ends by her men, she let the first orgasm crash over her like a tidal wave on the beach, her body jerking and spasming around the two hard cocks inside of her. Careful not to bite Devin, she put her hands on his ass and pulled him closed so that she could get more of him down her throat. Her finger nails dug into his tight ass cheeks, and he threw his head back and growled. It vibrated all the way through her, and she clenched down on Damon’s plunging cock causing him to shudder and growl as well.

“Fuck yes, do that again, beautiful! You feel so good!” Damon gasped, and she purposely clenched her pussy muscles on him again and again.

In a pile of arms and legs and sweaty bodies, they came almost simultaneously. Devin shooting his thick cream down her throat as his hands gripped her long mahogany-colored hair and pulled her tightly against him. Devin showered her womb with his seed as his hands gripped her thighs, and his pubic bone ground hard against her throbbing clit. She shivered and screamed around her precious mouthful as her own release tore through her.

She felt the two men move off of her, and then one of them used a warm, wet cloth to wipe the sweat and cum from her body before Damon’s strong arms lifted her.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Bedroom,” they both said in unison, and she chuckled.

“Perfect,” she replied and let herself be carried away for more loving.

Chapter 18

Liam stood in the shadows of the auditorium. It was silent in the huge room, and he was almost afraid to breathe in case someone noticed him. There were at least thirty young girls of varying ages, sitting cross-legged on the floor. They sat in a semicircle around the back edges of the stage, and they were all focused completely on the slim figure in the center of the stage. Tina’s slender frame was taut as she waited for the music to begin.

His eyes roved over her full breasts bound by the black leotard she wore and took in the muscular arch of her legs as she dipped into a plié and then stretched one leg out behind her with her tiny foot pointed. He could smell her apple-cinnamon scent in the air, and his cock hardened. It never ceased to amaze him how quickly his body responded to this slim dynamo.

The soft strains of music drifted to him, and he thanked God for his wolf sense of hearing yet again. She must have had the music playing on a small stereo on stage. His ears perked up trying to hear the words that went with the haunting melody, but his mind froze when Tina began to move. She was elegant and graceful as she twisted and turned across the stage. Her body created artistic images like nothing he had ever seen before, and his heart lurched.

The lyrics of the song were about a woman missing her lover. It was a beautiful ode to the feeling of loneliness and lost love. The emotional message matched the tight expression on his woman’s face, as she moved to her own beautiful rhythm in time with the song. She jumped across the stage and landed lightly on the balls of her feet, giving the illusion of weightlessness. Liam was stunned. She was beautiful all of the time, but seeing her like this—in her element—she was magnificent. She was a siren that called to his soul with her beauty.

The thoughts of anger and frustration that he carried when he first walked through the door of the auditorium were whispers in his brain now. He had been crazy with frustration and anger after Caroline and Devin told him about Tina’s past.
She
should have been willing to tell him. He bared his soul to her that night at the lake, sharing his personal tragedy with her, and she still withheld that piece of herself. He thought that they were beginning to feel something for each other, and even when he had accidentally bitten and claimed her, he hadn’t really been worried by her reaction. He figured she was angry and hurt, but that it would all eventually blow over, and she would accept it as she should. Now, with this new information, he wasn’t sure.

A tremor of fear went through his chest, because he knew now why she held herself back. She carried guilt over her fiancé’s death around with her like a suit of protective armor. She blamed herself for his death. It was absurd, because she wasn’t the one to pull the trigger, but if anyone could relate to her feelings of guilt, it was him. For the last two years, he blamed himself for making Roxy mad before she drove away with his daughter in the car. He had blamed her for the accident, but at the same time he held onto the feeling that, if he hadn’t upset her so much, she wouldn’t have lost control.

Recriminations of blame were meaningless at this point. Wondering
what if
wouldn’t change what was, and he had just come to that realization recently. He wanted Tina to learn that as well, because he knew that, if she didn’t let go of her own guilt, she would never be able to love him as deeply as he did her.

He was startled out of his thoughts and memories by the sound of applause. Tina had completed her dance, and the music was fading away. The girls around her jumped to their feet laughing and clapping as they praised her dance.

Over the din of their voices, he heard Tina speaking to them, “No more. I promised you
one
dance today. Perhaps at the next class I will dance again, but now you all need to get back into the studio and change. Your parents will be here shortly to pick you up.”

The girls began to file out of the room through a doorway off the stage with Tina in their midst. Her arm was around a tall child with a gap-toothed smile, and she held a tiny little girl on one hip grinning at her as she chattered. It looked so natural that an unexpected longing filled his gut. He wanted to see her with a child in her arms that was theirs. He wanted a dainty little girl with black hair and chocolate-brown eyes to match her mothers. He needed a future with Tina and everything that brought with it, but first he had to address her past. As the door closed behind them, Liam felt the air rush back into his lungs. He couldn’t speak with her right now. He wanted it to be private when he told her that he loved her.

* * * *

Like déjà vu, Tina found herself driving to the lake after class still wearing her leotard. Her eyes automatically searched for Liam’s muscular build and old red truck as she pulled into the gravel parking lot. She knew he wouldn’t be there, but she had hoped. One half of her wanted to see him and explain her angry reaction last night, while the other half wanted to smack the arrogance right off of his face and damn him for forcing her into the life he wanted.

She sighed as she climbed from her car and meandered down the dock. The soft breeze off of the lake was refreshing, but didn’t help her sense of melancholy. She missed him. Damn the man for getting under her skin.

She slipped her sandals off of her feet and set them with her purse so that she could sit on the edge of the dock. Her bare feet dangled in the cold water, and she could see fish darting around under the glassy surface. A laugh brought her head up, and she smiled as a family floated by in a fishing boat. A small boy with a life jacket on held a tiny fishing pole in his hands as he mimicked his father’s efforts over the side of the boat. The mother sat nearby with a book in her hands, watching her husband and child with a small smile. It was the most beautiful sight that Tina had ever beheld.

If Esteban had lived, they would have been married, and would probably have had a couple of children by now. She could almost feel her womb clench at the lost opportunity. He always said he wanted at least four children, and she would argue back that two were plenty for her. He would smile and tell her that she would change her mind once she saw how beautiful their children were. Her heart ached with the memories of his smiling countenance.

An image of Liam flashed in her mind, and unintentionally she found herself smiling. The two men were like night and day. Esteban had been serious about his goals and his career, but there was a softer side of him that she loved. However, he didn’t take her seriously, and because she was a woman he tended to place his own wants and desires above hers. She would never have spoken to him in the same demanding way that she could with Liam. Sex with Esteban was sweet and tender most of the time. There was no heat in their passion, and she hadn’t realized it was missing until she met Liam.