Page 93 of Starting a New Life

Gray laughed. “Okay, yeah, maybe it’s a little far to see it, but my parents live just a couple of minutes that way. And Rhett actually lives close by too. Just in the other direction, further down the road.”

I nodded, wiping at my eyes. “It was still nice of her.”

“Yes. You can thank her when we see her again. But wait until we’ve seen the inside, just in case she decided to set up candles or cover my bed in rose petals.”

I laughed. “You think she’d do that?”

Gray shook his head, his hair swishing through the air. “On the one hand, not really. She’s good about boundaries. But she likes you a lot, so if she thought she’d be doing us a favour…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t need to. I got what he was saying. If she thought she was doing us a favour, all bets were off.

But when Gray opened the door, there was no trail of rose petals waiting for us, nor were there candles covering every surface. Okay, yeah, we were standing in a small mudroom filled with shoe racks and coat hangers, so maybe not the right room for candles.

We quickly stripped out of our shoes and coats, then walked farther into Gray’s home. A small, open hallway led us to the living space. It was all very warm, with exposed wooden walls, a big brick fireplace with a fire roaring in it, and a huge, slightly worn couch that looked like heaven.

“I always wanted a couch like that,” I said, and stepped into the living room. “But my apartment was basically a shoebox.”

I rubbed my chest, thinking of the way black smoke had coiled up from the building, heat radiating off the burning structure, flames swallowing it whole as it burned to the ground.

“What happened?” Gray stepped up behind me, wrapping his arms around my middle and resting his chin on my head.

“They burned it down,” I said, swallowing thickly. “When I escaped, the night they wanted to hand me over to the wolves, they… well, I don’t know if they thought I’d go back to pack or if they were just mad I’d gotten away, but they burned the whole building to the ground.”

A tremor went through Gray, anger burning bright and hot, his wolf snarling.

His reaction would’ve terrified me a couple of days ago, but now, I only smiled and reached out with my magic to soothe Gray—and thus the wolf living inside him too. Gray shivered, the air growing thick with emotion.

“What are you doing?” he asked, voice laced with tension, but also something else.

“I… uhh… sent a bit of warmth into your body?”

“Do it again.”

I complied, reaching for magic from the well within me and sending it out into Gray. He shivered, a low groan escaping his throat, as his fingers slipped below my hoodie, caressing my stomach. His hands were burning hot on my skin. Just having them there felt fantastic.

He pulled me against him, my back flush against his torso, and yeah… there was his cock, pushed against my lower back. His hard cock. I swallowed, almost choking on my own spit in the process.

Holy shit. That thing felt huge.

Or was it just proportionate? I mean, everything about him was huge. He was easily a foot taller than me, and where I was slender, he was broad.

“Sorry, just ignore that,” Gray rasped, his fingers skimming over my skin, leaving goosebumps in place as my own cock started perking up, twitching with interest every time Gray’s fingers dipped slightly under the waistband of my jeans.

Yeah, I wasn’t sure if I was able to ignore that.

Nor was I sure if I wanted to.

His fingers on me felt so good. I pushed into the touch, letting my eyes fall shut as Gray hummed and drew lazy circles on my abdomen. It was just him and me, our scents surrounding us, mingling.

It felt like a storm was about to hit us. Like I was about to be swept away by Gray and all those feelings bubbling up inside me. The bond was still pulling, urging me closer, even though I was already in his arms. It wasn’t satisfied, and neither was I. Maybe it wasn’t the bond at all. Maybe it was all just me wanting to feel closer, wanting more of the peace Gray gave me.

I turned in his arms and stared up at him, searching for permission in those dark, passionate eyes of his.

It was there. The want, the need, the… I didn’t know what exactly it was, but Gray was longing for me. Waiting for me to make the first move, just as he’d waited for me to be the one to take the plunge the last time.

Because he respected me. Because my feelings were important to him.

My throat clogged up. I should’ve known all along. And part of me probably had, it just hadn’t registered with me the way it hit me square in the face now.