After Cole leaves for work, I am suddenly inundated with everyone coming up to see me and spend time with me. I think the time traveling events have shaken everybody. Devon refuses to leave my side, and I am happy with that arrangement. Dawn went with Cole, to her delight, and Jess is locked up in her bedroom with the formidable Grayson watching her every move, so it’s just me and the boys.
I sit serenely while everyone does my bidding, but my mind is only thinking about that awful dream. I mean, I can understand the whole baby part, although I do dread the idea of gaining weight like that. Future me had better be right in saying it will be her and not me, but the Lance bit? I shiver in horror. I was happy in the dream, like it was everything I wanted. Somehow CK got replaced by his evil charge and I don’t like that, at all. Even in just a dream it seems s
o wrong and a massive betrayal, but thank the old gods, Lance is dead. Deader than dead by my own hand, I saw him go and that is a great comfort to me.
“What’s on your mind, little one?” Sebastian says to me, as Devon is called over by CK, probably to be berated about his lack of sire responsibility by the most responsible Vampire on the planet. Poor boy. But it had to be done. I do not need a rogue teenage Vampire on the loose to deal with. “You seem a thousand miles away,” he adds as I stay quiet.
“I am,” I say, remembering then being kissed and touched by him in the future. “Nowhere you want to be though.” And that’s another thing bothering me, this whole notion that future CK has with Sebastian and me “taking care of him.” I mean, what is all that about?
“I want to be wherever you are,” he murmurs to me. “I am calling on my third.”
“Already?” I snap at him, causing CK to look at us sharply but then he turns away, carrying on his conversation with Devon, and Cade who has now joined them. Interesting. “You know you have to wait until Friday again, right?”
“Let me worry about that. Meet me in my suite in about two hours. Make your excuses. And remember what you promised me,” he whispers to me and leaves me again.
I sigh as Lincoln shoves his iPad under my nose. “Here,” he says.
“What is it?” I ask as I take it from him.
“A list of six Wolf Shifters who have already asked.”
“Oh, sweetie. I don’t need to approve anyone. Just include them.”
“No, this is our Pack, our decision,” he says forcefully, to which everyone stops conversing among themselves and stares at us.
“Your Pack?” CK croaks out, looking upset.
I hand the iPad back to Lincoln and stand next to him. “Yes. Our Pack.”
“When did you decide this?” he asks softly.
Lincoln answers for me and says, “Dragon clarity is something else,” before he lowers his head to kiss me on the mouth. He would never disrespect Cole in that way but seeing that he is not around, he is exerting his authority as my Alpha in front of the others and it makes me warm and fuzzy inside. Can’t say that everyone else feels the same, though, as I pull away to mutinous glares, even from Sebastian, and he holds no claim over me, whatsoever. Strange.
“So?” he asks. “Will you look at it?”
“Of course.” I take it from him again and turn towards the dining table to sit and peruse his findings.
“Perfect,” I say to him after a few minutes, even though I don’t really have much clue what I am looking at. They all seem decent. Good jobs, I even recognize one of the names, an investment banker, but never had a face to place with it until now.
“Do you even know what you are looking at?” he says with an amused chuckle at me, clearly reading my thoughts.
“Not really,” I admit, abashed. “But I trust you completely, so I assume you have only picked the best and brightest.”
“That I have. No losers for us.” He laughs out loud and I join in before CK sidles over to us and asks quietly, “Aefre, can we have that talk now, about that thing?”
I shiver as he calls me that, remembering Lance called me that in my dream, but I nod. “Yes. We’ll go in the bedroom.” I squeeze Lincoln’s hand as I lead CK away and close the bedroom door. I lift my hand to the door and run my palm down it. I am creating a version of the shadow cover that stops people from being able to see in, only twisting it to make it so that no one can hear us. A soft zing followed by a shimmer, bubbles up around us. “Don’t want eavesdroppers on this conversation,” I say and step back straight into his arms.
“Yes, I want this to just be ours,” he whispers as he closes his arms around me, trailing his hands lightly over my breasts and bringing them together over my, thankfully still very flat, stomach. He sighs and takes advantage of being so close to my neck and drops his fangs straight into me to feed. I start to tingle all over, and I need him. I need to erase whatever it was that Vivienne did to him. He pulls back and I turn in his arms, kissing him. Before I can say anything, he pulls away and says, “I need you, Aefre. I can’t bear it any longer that the last time we were together was in that elevator.”
“And I can’t bear it that the last time you were with someone it was Vivienne,” I say hypocritically but he chuckles anyway, saying, “I told we didn’t…”
“Fuck. I know. Still…” I pull him to me, and he picks me up, pushing me back against the wall, hands already up my dress. I struggle to get him out of his jacket as he is reluctant to tear his hands away from me, but he does eventually, and it drops to the ground followed quickly by his shirt that I rip off him. I run my hands up his chest as he rips my knickers off me, and I work to get him free of his pants. The second I do, he is inside me. It occurs to me that we hardly ever engage in foreplay. It’s a good thing I am always ready for him. I decide to ask him about that, if I remember, as a wave of pleasure washes over me from his vigorous thrusts that has me coming quickly and him following shortly thereafter.
He spins so his back is against the wall and he sinks to the floor with me now sitting on his lap. “Better?” I ask him.
“No, it’s exactly the same,” he complains. “I need you in my bed.”
I giggle at him. “Why do we hardly ever seem to go slowly? Even in bed?”