Authors: Ava Frost
She squealed in surprise, almost ready to knock him away, when she realized he wasn’t biting so much as just holding her, letting her feel the pressure of his teeth. His hips arched up, the pressure of his teeth increasing just slightly, painlessly, as he moved around and adjusted his angle. He thrust up, inside her, hitting the exact perfect spot for shivers to go racing up and down her entire body. He shook with her, and she couldn’t believe how good his teeth felt against her skin.
I’m being claimed
, she thought wonderingly. Animalistic, as a wolf might mate with another.
From this position, her breasts hung down low and full inside her shirt, tender velvet peaks rubbing soft cloth as her body shook. Her legs were spread, held apart by his feet pinning her ankles, and even as she started to push back against his rock-hard member for more, his hands reached up and settled down over hers. He held her in place while she gripped the carpet, and growled wordlessly into her ears.
Arousal surged through her whole being as she gave herself up to him, growling back and whimpering for breath between sexy rumbles. Rhys moved with her, both of them thrusting and grinding together.
He cried out for her, and she echoed his name, the both of them arching again as passion overflowed. Their heads tossed back, voices rising to the ceiling, they were as one, as rejoicing wolves who found each other after being separated for so long.
The next three days together were heaven. They no longer drove but walked around the city, sometimes running, always keeping pace with the other for they never stopped holding hands. Rhys exclaimed at every unfamiliar thing like a handsome child, and Natalya let herself discover again some of the things she loved, seen through his newer eyes. They caught some glances wherever they went, as people she knew and people she didn’t judged not just their age but their origins, and she ignored them all.
For this one thing in her life, no one else mattered. Her opinions were her own. And she realized, sleeping curled up against his chest like a thing which belonged to him, she was very glad to have signed up for that bride service.
Chapter 4
“Will I ever see you again?” Natalya asked softly.
Rhys looked into her eyes, holding her hands between his and massaging them. They stood before the security checkpoint, just another couple about to part from one another. His heart ached abominably.
“My dear,” he said, and leaned in to kiss her, “nothing could prevent me from doing so.”
In only a few minutes he would have to get moving, if he wanted to just barely make his flight. They dawdled that morning, not for sex, but only to be in each other’s company as long as possible. But for now he took his time, loving on her lips with his mouth and tongue. He gave everything he had, so she might remember it for weeks to come.
“Promise to call me as soon as you are home?” She gripped him tightly, almost too tight.
“I promise.” Rhys ruffled his fingers in her hair, and then took a small step back as he saw what time it was on one of the flashing schedule screens. “I should be going, Natalya. I’m so glad we had this chance.”
“I am glad as well,” Natalya said very softly, and stroked her fingers over his cheek. “Take care.”
“And you,” he said. A lump rose in his throat, hot tears burning his eyes. Unwilling to let her see, to break the poise of strength he prided himself in, he turned quickly on his heel and marched away. Just before he disappeared out of sight, he knew she waved, but he couldn’t turn back or else let her see the streaks on his face. Or, he might run to her and never return to his home.
As it was, he began to formulate a plan while sitting in the terminal, and he brought out his phone to log onto russiandelights.com. A message from the site monitors enquired as to their trip.
Perfect
, he thought, and got to work typing out his reply as what would hopefully be the first step to spending more time with his young, exotic girlfriend. These types of arrangements took so much time, he simply had to get started immediately.
Chapter 5
Every day became the same over the course of the next month, unchanged as though the visit from Rhys never happened. Natalya thought of him often, whenever her eyes closed, whenever the train of her thoughts slid to a gentle conclusion.
There was slightly more depth to their relationship now, teasing pictures from them both and heat during the phone calls, but her own hands between her legs weren’t enough to satisfy her when she had experienced more at his. Her voice echoed alone in her apartment, and she thought very seriously about getting a dog –a big, shaggy malamute of some kind- to keep her company, and was halfway convinced she might as well when her phone burbled with a notification.
At a time completely unusual for him, Rhys had messaged her.
Natalya raced to her computer, heart pounding with wild excitement as she hurriedly logged on. “Rhys! You’re early!”
“I have a surprise for you,” he typed badly, nearly every word containing a mistake. Though she didn’t think it possible, her heart pattered even more.
“What is it?”
“My dear Natalya, I’ve been secretly working with the people in charge of the site. It hasn’t been easy and I’ve spent quite a bit of money, but it’s worth it. It’s all going to be worth it.” Rhys typed slower, and in her mind she heard him lower his voice. “You’re clear for a passport, Natalya. You can apply for one, and they will give it to you immediately. Everything is already set up, you just have to ask.
“I have worked overtime and now I am due for a week off. A full week to do nothing but spend time with you. I’m geared up to pay for your flight, for everything. All you have to do is say yes. If you want to.”
“Yes!” she said aloud. “Da!” Warm bubbles of joy blew through her, lifting her almost up out of her seat to dance around the apartment with her arms spread wide before she realized he still needed an answer he could see.
“Perfect! Will you do it now? Please?”
She did, and within two weeks the passport was hers, glossy and new and a beautiful gateway to her beloved Rhys. Only another week after that, and she boarded the same airline Rhys rode to her in.
Soon, she would catch her first glimpse of America, country of the free and home to the best person to ever enter into her life.
Once they hit America, the plane landed and she swapped flights to one headed for Helena, the capital of a state known as Montana. Most of what she glimpsed of the country through the plane windows resembled the population centers of Russia, even in areas she suspected were meant to be rural. That interested her in a way she couldn’t quite explain, for Russia to still have such an untamedness while even America’s mountains were carved, paved, reshaped by man.
This must be very different from where Rhys lives,
she thought –or hoped. For some reason, she didn’t want him to live in a city.
And she barely recognized Helena as being one. Where were all the gigantic buildings, the gaudy lights, the megastructures? Instead, this place barely resembled one sprawling neighborhood. The only distinctive features were the giant church, a single line of squat corporate buildings, and the mountains in the background –though they were gentle and green compared to those framing her home.
The moment the plane hit the pavement and rolled to a standstill, she grabbed her bag and leapt down the aisle. She ran past the endless hallway of outlet shops. She ran down the moving platforms. She raced the other travelers who didn’t know they were being raced against. There were no thoughts in her head now, only an image of Rhys’s handsome face and self-aware grin.
Natalya broke through the late gate and looked around.
Where is he?
“I’m here!” someone shouted.
She turned to look and what felt like a truck full of bricks hit her. “Rhys!” Her arms wrapped around his neck as he wrapped his arms around her body, engulfing her. Their lips met roughly, their bodies pressing together to try and get as much of each other as they could.
“Natalya,” he moaned into her hair, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Hard muscle cradled her softness, both of them beginning to sway together. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too,” she whispered back.
“Shall we go?” He pulled back enough to look down into her eyes. Natalya nodded and reached for his hand, peace washing over her as his fingers closed gently around hers.
“Do you live in city?”
“No. I’m closer to the mountains. I told you that before but it was quite a long while ago.”
The sensible part of her balked slightly at possibly being so far away from help if the unthinkable happened, but in all honesty the rest of her barely cared. And the beauty of the hills as he drove away from the city lured her further into a sense of wonderment and happiness, watching this American road cut through the country rather than weave with the lay of the land.
Such a strange place,
she thought.
They drove in silence the majority of the way, Natalya leaning her head against the softly vibrating window to watch the world pass by. Pastel meadow flowers dotted tall grasses, acres of backyard for single houses spaced far away from each other. Each home seemed grander than the last as well, some with barns and others with what seemed like entire playgrounds in the yards, rising up taller and wider than she knew what to do with. What people lived in such big spaces? And what could a person possibly have to fill up a house so large?
And though she already knew Rhys did very well for himself, it only hit her now just how well that must be if he lived out here.
And then the road ended just up ahead. Rhys turned left at the last moment, onto an overgrown and barely-visible path made of powdery dirt. Natalya saw nothing, and then they crested a hill, started down the other side, and his house was there pressed back into a cleft of the very land itself where the mountains met hills and formed a horseshoe curve. To her relief, it was only about half the size of the mansions they kept passing to get here, but it was still an immense place.
“Oh, Rhys. This is your home?”
“The house and the surrounding valley, and a good deal up the mountainside too,” he said softly, speaking into the gathering shadows of twilight which spiderwebbed across the windshield. “Not sure how high up it goes, though. No one’s ever come all the way out here and said anything to me.”
“It’s beautiful.”
They parked in the driveway, right in front of the garage. “And it will be even more so with you inside.”
They came together around the front of his truck, holding each other sweetly and kissing as though they couldn’t get enough of each other. Natalya thought she could stand there for eternity and be as a statue, carved into that moment forever.
“Natalya? Might I show you something?”
She looked up into his eyes. He looked very grave but also troubled, as though this something he spoke of was either very important or a trap of some kind.
But she remembered how he bit her when they had sex, so carefully as to keep from actually hurting her when he could easily have overpowered her if he was any other man, and knew she trusted him.
“What is it?”
Rhys looked away, the collar of his shirt ruffled up his neck unevenly by the chilled wind rolling down from the mountains. “It might make you change your mind about me. It’s a secret I’ve had for a long time.”
There is no way he’s about to tell me what I think he’s about to tell me,
she thought.
“It’s the reason I gave up on American girls. Everyone here is just so much the same as the next.”
“You wanted someone different.”
“Yes.” Rhys lowered his head, looking stoic and tragic. The sun sank down closer to the horizon, casting hazy golden rays over him. “From everything I know about you, I think you might be the only woman I’ve met who could understand. You’re so open with everything.” His shoulders shook. “I don’t want anything between us to change. I don’t want to lose you just because of who I am. I like you so, so much.”
Natalya blinked, taken aback. Until now, she hadn’t considered the depth of his feelings for her as being so expansive. He was always so stoic and perfectly polite, even after they warmed up to each other, that she simply shrugged and let it go so many times. After intense phone conversations, or intimate pictures of a different sort than sexual, showing the parts of themselves they dared not show anyone else, she felt a powerful surge of emotion which extended far beyond the realm of simply liking him. But she had not known until just now he felt the same way.
Stepping closer, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned against him. He did not hold onto her as he normally would, but leaned right back against her for comfort.
“No matter what,” she said quietly against his neck, “this won’t change how I feel.” Taking a deep breath and a leap of faith, she added, “I think I already know.”
His body stiffened. “You can’t.”
“Are you werewolf?”
And now Rhys jerked away from her and stared, eyes wide and chest heaving. Their eyes met and she knew now she’d been right all along. And she saw fear on his face, and astonishment, and knew from the way he held himself he now had no idea in what way to proceed from here.