Javier gasped in deep breaths, the hand in her hair gentling, his other hand cupping her breast now in a tender grip.
After a few minutes, their breathing slowed. Heidi didn’t understand what had just happened. She’d come from him playing with her boobs? Impossible. She wasn’t that experienced with men. There weren’t many in Leavenworth to choose from, and rarely did any she’d slept with actually give her one orgasm. Javier had given her multiple earlier that day, and now, with only his hand on her breasts, she’d come while giving a blow job—something, up until just a few minutes ago, she’d always found rather distasteful.
“Are you all right, chata?” Javier pushed her hair away from her face when she turned her head to look up at him.
“Yes. You?”
He chuckled. “I am all right.”
She grinned and pushed herself onto her knees. She was going to stand, go wash her face, but instead she threw her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder, hugging him hard, emotions too numerous and confusing to understand battering at her.
Slowly, Javier raised his arms and wrapped them around her in a loving embrace.
It took all of her will not to beg him to stay, holding her, forever. She didn’t know why he had to leave other than to fulfill his promise to Axel. She frowned at what was left of his cast in the trash can.
What was his hurry? She was sure they could work it out with her family.
They’d have to understand. The attraction had been fast, even for her, but she’d never been one to sit idly by when there was something she wanted.
Beyond her desire to have babies, she wanted him and no one else. More than she’d ever wanted another person. If he would just agree to stay, he would resolved all her fears of growing old alone or having to leave everything and everyone she knew and cared about for the remote chance of finding a partner, companion and lover. A mate.
He was so strong, yet behind that gruff shell he had a tender, albeit wounded, heart she wanted to know, to hold safe. Closing her eyes and resting her head against his chest, she listened to the steady pulse of his heartbeat.
She longed to share with him all her own secrets, her passions, her life. With him she need not hide who she was or fear discovery. With him she had hope.
Oh, God, she thought as she breathed in his scent. How would she manage the next fifty or sixty years of her life alone, or pretending with a mere human male, after she’d experienced Javier? When he left, her life would be empty.
Surely Axel would see that, understand that Javier could be her one. It wasn’t as if Axel had asked permission when he and Gunnar decided to take Dakota as mate. And he’d eventually accepted Beth as Kelan and Reidar’s mate despite his first confrontational encounter with the opinionated, well-armed scientist.
As Javier’s arms tightened around her, his big hands gently rubbing her back in a tender motion of comfort, she realized she didn’t want him. She needed him. And that scared the hell out of her. She was a Falke. The only female Falke in a hundred or more years, brought up alongside shifter brothers who’d made her into a rough and tumble woman who didn’t need anyone or anything to survive.
Yet she couldn’t bring herself to let Javier go.
Chapter Ten
Heidi called Beth to let her know she wouldn’t be home to help with dinner, dodging all the “where are you” questions rather effectively, though her sister-in-law was no dummy. Beth knew what she was up to, especially when Heidi asked her to cover again the next day at the clinic. Beth would call if there was anything she couldn’t handle, but her parting shot before hanging up was to tell Heidi not to do anything she wouldn’t.
She’d placed that call almost twelve hours ago. Dawn was just starting to highlight the hills outside the window, and though Heidi wasn’t sure she’d done anything her sister-in-law wouldn’t have done, she’d done a lot that was new to her.
Javier had touched, tasted, licked, suckled every part of her body, and she’d returned the favor with relish. Forget missionary style or even her on top, the only things she’d been familiar with in her otherwise limited sexual experiences. He’d taken her against a wall— God, he was strong—bent over in the shower and from behind while on her knees. That last position had been her favorite.
She’d surprised herself in how willingly she surrendered to his more dominant style of foreplay and sex. Who knew letting go could be so much damn fun?
And just when she was getting used to his wilder nature, he demonstrated his elusive tender side too. She’d awakened to his cock pressed to her pussy as he spooned her and fondled her breasts. When she whispered his name, he’d slid into her and spent the last hour rocking against her, nuzzling her neck, nipping her flesh, whispering how beautiful she was. Her orgasms were numerous. Fast ones, hard ones, slow-burning ones that seemed to last forever.
Heidi rolled over to lay her head against Javier’s chest, their bodies sticky with a sheen of perspiration. He pulled her tightly against him and kissed the top of her head.
“That was a nice way to wake up,” she murmured, wrapping her arm over his stomach and throwing her thigh over his.
“Mmm. Very nice.”
“Are you going back to sleep?”
“No. I am awake. But you go ahead. You must need your rest.”
Tipping her head back so she could see his face, she frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
He smirked. “I should think you would be exhausted.”
With a snort she dropped her head back to his chest. “You think awfully highly of your prowess, don’t you?” Her comment lost all heat when she yawned.
He chuckled. “Rest, chata.”
“I’m awake. Could really use some coffee though.”
Javier sighed. “In a few moments. Let me hold you for now.”
Heidi closed her eyes and reveled in the feel of his strong arm around her, his lips against her forehead and his warm breath ruffling her bangs.
“Do you believe your fathers will ever mate again?”
Heidi’s eyes popped open at the question. “Uh...”
“They still have each other, and they are not very old.”
Old enough that I don’t care to think of them having sex. She shook her head. Pushing up onto her elbow, she said, “My family believes there is only one mate for each pair of shifters. They call it the one. If my mom was their one—which we all believe she was—then no, they will never mate again.”
She’d never even contemplated the thought of her fathers dating again. They’d been with her mother for over thirty-five years. And they’d brought her and her brothers up with the belief in the one.
Axel and Gunnar had felt Dakota was their one the day they met her, and Kelan and Reidar had decided Beth was theirs, even though she had the scientific knowledge to destroy the Falke family and their way of life. Surely it couldn’t be a myth. The emotions were too strong. All four of her mated brothers had talked about it.
“Do you believe there is only one match?” Javier asked.
“You mean for me?”
He nodded.
Yes, and it’s you.
Instead of saying so, she shrugged and pulled away from him. “Axel says mate recognition is instinctual, like animals. I’m just a carrier of the gene. I can’t shift, so I don’t have the animal instinct males do. The one is who they mate with, the woman they want to have as mother of their children.”
She glanced into the trash can next to the bed to see several used condoms, and her heart clenched.