He leans down and nips my neck, his beard tickling the side of my face. “You don’t like that, huh?”
“No.” All the pain in my head and arm are forgotten as I roll my hips beneath him.
“What do you like, sunshine?” His voice is gravelly. He moves down and bites my shoulder. His cock settles between my legs, right where I need it, and I lift my hips to rub over it.
“I-I don’t know. Sunshine is nice.”
“Okay, tell me what it’s going to take, sunshine. You need a threat of punishment, or a promise of reward? What’s going to keep you here?”
I pretty much melt into a puddle at that.
I lick my lips. “Um… both?”
He nods and lifts his torso. He unbuckles his belt and draws it slowly out of the loops.
Tingles run across my skin. I forget to breathe.
He captures my good arm and loops the leather around the wrist, pulling it taut. I’m suddenly his prisoner when he attaches it to the headboard. “You’re gonna stay here while I get breakfast. Now what do you want?”
I sulk. “I want to go with you.”
“Nope. You need rest. Tell me.”
I consider him for a moment. Think about where we are on the main drag and what’s nearby. “Huevos rancheros. Green chile, corn tortillas. You can get them at the diner right across the main drag there.”
He nods, apparently satisfied and all business. “I’ll be back in a few. Don’t move.”
I tug on the bound wrist. I’m sure if I wanted to, I could extricate myself, but it would take some work and the use of the fingers on my broken arm, which I don’t feel much like jostling.
“Be a good girl, and I’ll think about a reward.” His gaze drops to my beaded nips and I squirm.
“It had better be a good one,” I throw back at him, and he lets out a pained laugh.
“We’ll see.” He’s giving off that angry vibe again, which I think means he’s sexually frustrated. Actually, I think it’s more complicated than that. He wants me but doesn’t want to want me.
I know the feeling, buddy.
He casts one more glower down the length of my body and adjusts his cock in his pants before he stalks out and I hear the front door slam.
Titus
I DISCONNECT one of the wires to Sunny’s alternator, just in case she’s serious about leaving. I don’t think she will, but the woman is pretty stubbornly independent.
And it wouldn’t be the first time she’s run off on me.
I rub my forehead as the testier part of me grumbles that I should let her leave if she wants to leave. I’m not looking to get tangled up with her again anyway. But there’s no way I can let her fend for herself like this.
A few days until she’s out of pain and I can get her bus repaired. Then we can part ways before things get intense again.
It’s the only decent thing I can do.
I walk over to the diner and pick up three orders of the huevos rancheros (two for me, because I have a wolf’s appetite), and I get a couple giant bear claw pastries too.
My wolf gets cheerful on the walk back, like the idea of providing for a female makes him frisky.
She’s not our female. Definitely not our mate, I tell him, but he doesn’t give a shit. In fact, he was ready to mark her this morning the moment I caught the scent of her arousal. Which doesn’t make sense. I never even marked Barbara, Titus Junior’s mother. Just never had the urge. She wasn’t my true mate.
In retrospect, I don’t even know why I took her as a mate. I think it was because she wanted it from me.
I got sucked into her world.
Or maybe because I wanted a kid.
I did want Titus Junior, even though it sucked raising him without a mother or a pack. He’s the only thing that ever made sense in my life.
Fates know females never did.
I open the door, and sniff the air.
She’s still here.
I’m surprised at how relieved I am. This woman gets under my skin far too quickly.
I bring the food into the bedroom, and I’m instantly hit by her scent. She’s still aroused. Moreso, even, than when I left.
What turned her on? Being tied up? Anticipation of a reward? I vow to get to the bottom of it, but after I feed her.
“Were you good while I was gone?”
“Nope,” she says immediately. “I was definitely not.” She squirms around on the bed.
Fuck. She’s so hot like that.
I set her free and help her sit up, then place the food in her lap.
“Thank you,” she purrs. “This smells amazing.” Because she’s Sunny, I know she means every bit of the glow of appreciation she infuses into her words.
My wolf preens.
I get us forks from the kitchen and perch on the side of the bed to eat with her. I don’t know why-I could just as easily leave the food with her and eat mine at the table, but it’s like I have to watch her eat the food I brought home.
For one moment, I imagine how it would’ve been to have Sunny as the mother of my pup instead of Barbara.
I somehow know she would’ve cried over the pup, never would’ve wanted to let him out of her arms. Not like Barbara, who barely bonded with our son.
“Are you thinking about babies?” Sunny asks with that uncanny habit she has of reading minds.
I screw my face up into a grumpy mask. “What are you talking about, woman?”
“You want grandbabies, too, don’t you? I seriously can’t wait.”
I throw her a dubious look. “Why? What’s the rush?”