Wild Embrace (34 page)

Not only that, she had to remember that if she had a powerful maternal instinct, then Kenji had a paternal one just as wide and deep. He'd always wanted a huge family, been adamant his pup wouldn't be an only child like he'd been, no matter what he had to
do to make that happen. Even though she'd had to force him to join in her games, he'd only ever complained when Steele was around. Otherwise, he'd play patiently with her, coming up with all kinds of activities her pretend family could do.

Hurting for the pain he'd suffered in silence, Garnet kissed him again, hard enough to draw blood. “Soon as I was old enough to really start to understand what it meant to have children,” she said, wanting him to have zero doubts about this, “I wanted them with you. Why do you think I was so angry when you started dating Balloon-Tits Britney?”

A startled laugh burst out of him, but it faded too soon, his expression solemn. “It's a big decision. It'll change all your plans for the future.”

“You were the only constant in my dreams, Kenji.” She had to make him understand that, understand who he was to her. How could he
possibly
not know? How could he possibly think she'd rather have pups than live a life with him? He was her other half and she was dead certain the only reason they weren't already mated was because he was blocking the bond with his aggravating, protective, loving need to give her the life he thought she wanted.

“And you know changeling fertility isn't the best,” she continued when he stayed stubbornly silent. “Yes, I had hopes of having a ton of pups, but I never counted on being able to fall pregnant.”

“Can you give up those hopes?” It was a hard question, but there was something broken in it, in him.

“We don't have to.” Withdrawing her claws, she petted his chest, coaxing this wolf who was her own. “And no, I'm not talking about the one percent chance,” she added when he stiffened. “I'm talking about Sam and Kieran and Ju and Tanya.”

He sucked in a breath as she listed the names of four of their human packmates. All adopted into the pack as children by couples
who had love in their hearts and the desire to shower that love on a pup who needed it. “Does their humanity make any difference to you?” she asked Kenji as he unbent enough to lower his head so she could kiss and caress him more easily. “Do you see them as different?”

“Of course not. They're pack.” His fingers dug into her skin, his beautiful eyes devoid of defenses and so deeply vulnerable that it hurt. “I just . . . Ruby, the way she is. You wanted that.”

Sliding her arms around his neck, she held him to her. “Sure,” she said, because she had to accept her dreams so he'd know and accept that some dreams were critical, others flexible. “But loving a child, bringing her or him up?
That
I want more, and that we can do.”

There were always children in need of love in the world and, given the pack's established and healthy nature, as well as its track record with adoptions, SnowDancer couples rarely had trouble with the process. No SnowDancer had
ever
returned a child to social services. Once a child was brought into the pack, he or she stayed pack. The end.

Kieran had once joked to Garnet that it was like being in the mafia, but there had been nothing but joy in his expression. A troubled kid of six when he was adopted, his biological mother having died of a drug overdose after his father went the same way two years prior, he'd expected to be dumped as he'd been on three previous occasions. So he hadn't even tried to be good.

“I didn't know then how possessive my new family was,” he'd told her. “Or how any stunt I pulled, the maternals had already seen it ten times previously.”

Laughter had spilled out of him. “I'd scrawl all over the walls of our family quarters with a permanent marker and my dad would tell me my artistic technique needed work. Even after I threw down the cleaning supplies and kicked holes in the walls, I still got a kiss good
night as they tucked me into bed. And the next day, once I was calm, the three of us would fix those walls together. It took a while, but I finally figured out they wanted me even if I wasn't perfect. They loved me.”

Garnet knew she and Kenji could love other hurting and lost children just as much. “When we're ready, we'll adopt as many pups as we can handle,” she told Kenji. “But, baby, is that something you want?” He was perfect to her, but he'd been unbearably hurt and she'd never do anything to exacerbate the wound.

Kenji wrapped her up in his arms, his voice rough when he spoke. “You're enough. Anything else would be a bonus—but yeah, I still want rug rats. Human or wolf, they'll be ours to love.” A shuddering sigh. “It was never about fathering them myself. I just . . . I didn't want to steal your choice.”

“You are my choice, Kenji.
You
.” Gripping his hair, she made him look into her eyes. “I have missed you for seven goddamn long years.” Tears, hot and wet, rolled down her cheeks. “I'll always miss you if you're not with me. So don't you dare walk away again.”

“I won't.” It was a rasp. “You live in my heart, Garnet. Multiple times a day, I'd see something and want to tell you, only to realize I'd given away that right. Then I'd want to kick my own ass.”

She laughed wetly. “That ass is now mine, so I'll be the one doing any ass kicking. Got it?”

“Got it.”

She heard the conviction in his tone, saw it in his eyes, in his smile, and it was as if that was all the mating bond had been waiting for. It just . . . opened on his side and was a hurricane slamming through her. Because her own heart had been open to Kenji Tanaka for one hell of a long time.

She clung to him, he held on to her, and when it was over, she laughed in giddy delight.

“Wow,” Kenji said, that smile she loved lighting up his whole face. “You pack a punch.” A ravenous, possessive kiss that melted her bones, her calves straining as she rose on tiptoe to follow his mouth. “I'm not giving you back.”

Breathless, she said, “Ditto.” She went down flat on her feet again. “You're far too tall. How are we ever going to make this work?”

She'd been making a silly, happy joke, but his responding look burned.

A heartbeat later, she was hard up against the back wall of the shower and Kenji was pressed up against her stomach, his cock a rigid brand. Forearms braced on either side of her head, he looked down at her with eyes gone wolf. “Garnet.” His voice was all growly. “I'm on edge.”

Nipples tight and skin hot, she reached down to caress him. “We'll go slow next time.”

Shuddering, he dropped his head as he thrust into her hand. It made a moan ripple out of her throat, her body primed and ready for him. But he didn't do what they both wanted and plunge into her. Pulling out of her possessive hold before kissing her with a raw ferocity that had her claws slicing out to scrape his shoulder, he bit at her lower lip, squeezed her breast, sucked on a pouting nipple on his way down her body.

Then he was pulling her leg over his shoulder and oh—

Her blood turned to honey as he used his tongue, his lips, to do delicious, wicked, exquisite things to her. He ate at her as if she was his final meal and he was starving. Clenching one hand in his hair, she came with a scream. He bit her inner thigh on the heels of it; it just made sated pleasure curl hot and warm in her gut.

Sliding his hands up the backs of her thighs as he rose to his feet, he hitched her up with a bunching of his arm muscles that made her feminine core flutter. And then he was pushing the hot steel of his
cock into her. It stretched her almost beyond bearing, but the discomfort was a sweet, welcome one.
There he is,
her body sighed,
there he is.
At last.

Trusting him to hold her up while her hands roamed his shoulders and chest and her legs locked around him, she went for his throat. He growled but didn't stop the intimate caress as he thrust deep into her body over and over again, his rhythm ragged. Not really thinking now, Garnet pulled his head down to her own, took his mouth.

Kenji Tanaka was hers, and he was delicious.

That was the last rational thought she remembered having.

Lying in bed
afterward, sated and loose limbed as Kenji spooned her—they fit so well that way—Garnet sighed. “How the mighty have fallen.”

Nipping at her shoulder, her mate growled at her. “You don't have to be so smug about it.”

She laughed and flipped over onto her back so she could look up at his slightly sulky face. “I was talking about me.”

A raised eyebrow.

“Never will I be a notch on Kenji Tanaka's bedpost,” she said, paraphrasing the words she'd flung at him the night of Hawke's mating celebration. “Yet here I am, butt naked and with your hand oh-so-close to doing sinfully bad things to me again.”

That hand moved in slow circles low on her navel, wolf eyes watching her with unhidden satisfaction—and raw happiness. “So, how do we do this?” A kiss on her dimple.

The caress made her go all mushy inside. Especially when he did it a second time around.

“We can't amalgamate our two dens and Hawke needs us where we are,” he added with another mushy-making dimple kiss.

She'd never stop smiling if he kept doing that. “Yes.” SnowDancer couldn't afford to put the two of them in the same den, not
with the widespread nature of their territory. “We can rotate—I spend two days in your den, then we each have three days on our own, after which you come to my den for two days. Our seniors are capable of handling anything for forty-eight hours at a time.”

Kenji nodded slowly. “Yes, and that way, we'd each have five-day stretches in our dens.”

“Yep.” That continuity was important for the health of the pack and for those who looked to them for leadership. “A two-day break won't bother anyone, and we'll be able to spend four days a week together.”

It'd be hard, she thought, but doable. Neither one of them would be comfortable away from their dens and responsibilities for long periods, but being separated from her mate for longer than a few days was not happening.

Kenji brushed her hair off her face. “You sure, Garnet?”

She knew he was no longer talking about the mechanics of their relationship. Cupping his gorgeous, beloved face, nuzzling at him, she said, “Yes. I'm sure.” Her mind suddenly recalled something she'd learned back during their first go-around.
“Dai suki, Kenji.”
In Japanese culture, the words “I love you” were rarely spoken, so the fact that Kenji had said them to her just broke her in two.

This, what she'd said, it was technically far less potent: I
really
like you. But technicalities weren't everything in a language. Her words were as much a declaration of love as his roughly spoken
aishiteru
. It was all in the tone and when Kenji's eyes lit up, she knew she'd got the tone exactly right.

Brain fuzzy from the kiss he laid on her, she didn't understand all of his response, but she didn't need to: the bond was wide open on his end, and she knew his heart, it beat only for her. To her, their bond tasted of the wickedness and wildness and laughter that had always been Kenji and that told her he'd be all right.

He'd been bruised but not damaged on a fundamental level.

“We're going to have an extraordinary life together”—she gripped his hair hard, pulled—“and if you
ever
try to hide anything from me again, I will claw you to shreds.”

Kenji's grin held pure delight. “All these years, we had fun, though, right?” Laughter in the wild green. “We managed to grow up together despite my best efforts to keep my distance.”

Garnet thought of the countless times she'd called him up for a comm conference when she could've as easily shot him a quick e-mail and realized they'd never been out of contact for much longer than a week. He'd never chided her for those calls, either, had made many a spurious call of his own.

Then there were the postcards he'd sent her each time he had to go to an international destination to deal with a business matter. Taunting and flirtatious and designed to make her see red, those postcards had compelled her to respond. She'd once had a weed bouquet delivered to him. Another time, she'd changed his accommodation reservation so that he ended up having to stay overnight in a nudist colony.

Never had they actually talked about any of those tricks or postcards, the game played under the surface of their ordinary lives.

“Hell of a lot of fun.” Smiling on that agreement, she ran her fingers through the heavy dampness of his hair. “Want to know a secret?”

“Always.”

“I like the things you do to your hair. I only acted like I didn't to mess with you.”

His cheeks creased as he used a thumb to caress her hip bone. “Want to know one of my secrets?”

“Always.”

Kissing her dimple, melting her bones, he said, “You have no
idea how many times I had to, um, take care of business after flirting with you.”

•   •   •

“Let's
just say a certain battery-operated boyfriend did a lot of heavy lifting thanks to you.” Throwing her leg over his with that sinful confession, Garnet ran her nails down his chest. “I know it must still hurt you—don't hide that from me, either.”

Kenji hadn't talked to anyone about his diagnosis, not after he'd completed the mandatory counseling sessions. Even then, he hadn't really opened up, had done just enough to get his medical clearance. But this was Garnet, the woman who lived in his heart. “Yeah,” he said, and then, for the first time, he spoke without shields about what the news had done to the twenty-three-year-old man he'd been.

Garnet listened, she never broke skin contact, and she loved him, the pulse of it a ferocious wildfire inside him, a wildfire that tasted of steel and Garnet. “I'm going to buy you a violin.”

Yes, this woman understood the beat of his heart. “I still have mine,” he admitted. “Couldn't bear to get rid of it.”

Smile deep, she pushed playfully at his chest. “When do I get a recital?”

“I'm going to be rusty as hell,” he warned.

“I'll rate you on a scale going from ‘my ears are bleeding' to ‘the angels weep.'”

A kiss from his mate, the sensual slide of skin on skin. The sound of his brain cells popping in delirious pleasure.

“I bought you a ring before your twenty-first,” he said a long time later, watched her eyes widen. “I wasn't going to give it to you then, but it was like my talisman for what I hoped we'd become.”

Poking at his abdomen with a censorious finger, she said, “You'd better still have it.” It was a growl.

He grinned, because damn, that was Garnet. Demanding and strong and his. “I keep it in that little wooden box you gave me for my eighteenth birthday.”

Her smile was luminous. “I made that box in woodworking class!” She kissed him. “It's awful. I was terrible at woodwork!”

“I know. The lid doesn't close properly and it's lopsided.” He laughed along with her. “But you gave it to me.”

“Stop it,” she muttered, lower lip quivering. “You can't make me cry. I'm a hard-ass lieutenant.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “You can cry with me.”

Tucking up her arms between them, she made a face at him. “I threw all the stuff you ever gave me down a big crevasse,” she told him. “I did it the night after my twenty-first.” Narrowed eyes. “I'm still not sorry.”

His shoulders began to shake. “Good thing I never gave you that ring. It cost me three-quarters of all the cents I had at the time.”

“Three-quarters? What happened to the last quarter?”

“I spent that on your twenty-first present. A bracelet from that designer you used to like—with the cut stones.” Bright and sparkly but not large. Delicate. To suit her bones.

“Is it in the box?”

“No.” The memory of the stones cutting into his palm as he stood numb and angry in the corridor outside the infirmary, it was as vivid now as the day it had happened. “I broke it I was holding it so hard . . . and it just seemed like a sign.”

She petted the side of his face. “I'll forgive you that one.” A nuzzling kiss. “Especially since I took a baseball bat to the snow globe you got me for my sixteenth.”

He burst out laughing. “Remind me to never make you angry,” he said when he could speak again. “I fucking
love
you.”

Growling playfully, Garnet tumbled him over onto his back. “I
love you, too, but I'm still mad at you for forcing us to wait this long. Make it up to me.”

He ran his hand all the way down her back, stroked up again. “Come here.”

A luscious kiss, then more, and more. Things were getting hot and sweaty and interesting when Garnet's phone went off and kept going off.

“Grr.” Grabbing it, she stared at the screen. “It's Tex.” She answered the call, started scrambling out of bed in the next heartbeat.

Wolf lunging to the surface of his skin as his brain clicked, Kenji got out and hauled on his own clothing.

•   •   •

Ruby's
pup might have been laggard to this point, but he was now in a tearing hurry. Garnet and Kenji made it to the infirmary with only two minutes to spare before a thin, angry cry hit the air. Lorenzo exited not long afterward, joy pulsing from him. “Strong little guy. Good lungs on him.”

Tumbling into the room after a delighted-sounding Tex invited them in once Ruby was ready, Garnet and Kenji took in the wrinkled and furious little peanut on Ruby's chest and grinned.

“Did Steele call already?” Garnet asked.

Tex was the one who replied, his tone holding a deep vein of affection. “Yeah. About a minute after the birth—said he'd restrained himself for sixty seconds, but that was his limit. He's already booking a flight across.”

Garnet's grin morphed into soft laughter. “I think this den is going to see an influx of Sheridans over the next week.” Tiptoeing closer, she kissed the top of her sister's head before gently touching the baby's back. “Good job, sis.”

Ruby's tired face beamed. “You, too, baby sister.” A thrilled glance that flicked from Garnet to Kenji.

Garnet's phone beeped right then; she'd had it in hand, having expected the call. Touching the screen, she turned it toward Ruby and Tex so the couple could see the face of the man on the other end. She and Kenji leaned in to be able to see the screen at the same time.

“Congratulations, Ruby, Tex,” their alpha said, his presence a punch of raw power no matter that he wasn't physically present. “I see my newest packmate isn't happy with his current environment.”

The baby stopped making grumpy noises at the sound of his alpha's voice, going very still on Ruby's skin, as if listening intently.

“Hello, pup. Welcome.” Hawke made a rumbling sound in his chest that had the baby's tiny body going soft and easy again, zero tension in him now that his primal core knew he was in no danger from the apex predator in the region.

“How do you
always
know about a birth?” Ruby asked with a mystified smile. “Wait a minute. Did Lorenzo call you?”

“Nope.” Hawke winked, the thick fan of his silver-gold lashes coming down over an eye of a blue so pale, it was immediately clear that Hawke was changeling, was wolf. “It's an alpha thing.” His gaze encompassed both Ruby and Tex. “I'll be there to welcome him in person within the week.”

That
was why Hawke was such a damn good alpha. He made it clear that every SnowDancer life mattered. Dominant or submissive. Old or young. Weak or strong. All were pack. All were his.

“Garnet.”

Turning the screen in her direction, Garnet raised an eyebrow. “Yes?” She had a good idea of what was coming.

Wolf-blue eyes gleamed. “Where's your mate?”

Kenji shifted so he could scowl at Hawke. “Now you're just showing off.”

An unrepentant grin. Their alpha's white shirt pulled across the breadth of his shoulders as he folded his arms, his exposed forearms muscled and golden. “You lovebirds want a honeymoon? I'll second two of the others to cover your dens while you canoodle.”

“We'll get back to you on that.” Kenji nuzzled at her, his hand possessive on her hip even though Hawke was no threat to his claim.

He
was the one showing off now, Garnet realized. Showing off his mate to a wolf he respected. Maybe she should've been annoyed by that, but what the hell. It felt good to have his skin rubbing against hers when he nuzzled her again, all warm and a little rough with stubble, while his hair was cool, damp silk in contrast. She was proud of him, too, would show him off to all her friends. Gorgeous, sexy, wickedly smart Kenji Tanaka was now all hers.

The mating bond pulsed on both sides, fire and steel and
them
.

Garnet and Kenji. Mated pair.

That sounded so good. Sounded
right
.

“We also have ideas on how we can balance our lives and dens,” she added as Kenji went behind her. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he held her firm against the length of his body.

She ran her hand over his forearm, her body aching for his again and her wolf wanting to simply lie side by side with his wolf. Feeling his heartbeat, maybe nipping at him now and then to remind him she remained annoyed. But mostly, just being with him.

“Let's talk when you're ready.” Hawke's grin deepened. “In the meantime, get a room.”

Garnet and Kenji both growled at him before Garnet turned the screen back toward Ruby and Tex and the pup so Hawke could say good-bye. Sliding away the phone afterward, Garnet said, “What do you need?” to her sister.

“For you two to go back to having fun while we three snuggle.” A dreamy, besotted expression on her face as she looked from her baby to her mate. “Come back with a burger and onion rings in three hours.”

“On it.” Kenji, who'd released Garnet to gently pet the baby's fist with one finger, saluted.