The Things We Water

“I’m sorry, but what?”Sienna practically screeched into our video call.

At her side, Matti stared blankly at the screen. That was his stunned face. It took a lot to get to him, but with this, that would be twice in the last few months I’d rendered him speechless.

Who would have known that a magical puppy and me mating his relative would have that effect on him?

I cleared my throat and let my eyes stray to the empty spot on my bed where Duncan usually slept. Instead, tonight, he was passed out in Agnes’s room. I’d had to take a picture of him curled up in a ball, snoring away, with Agnes tucked under her comforter, and her newest sleeping nanny, a very nice woman who was Pascal’s aunt, reading a book on the twin-sized bed along the wall. She’d waved Henri and me off when we’d snuck inside to see what they’d been up to after finding Franklin passed out in the media room with a kids movie playing in the background, abandoned.

In my head, I moved him to the bottom of my nanny list. Then again, if I’d been alive half as long as he had, I’d be tired too.

We had barely backed out of Agnes’s room before a soft “Henri” had us both turning to Franklin peeking around the corner of the hall, awake. We’d split up at that point, with Henri saying he wanted to give Franklin our news, and me wanting to call Matti and Sienna. I didn’t think I could wait until tomorrow.

Which was how I found myself in my room after everything that had happened that evening.

Henri and I had kissed a little before wandering around the waterfall, where he’d pointed out up close the majestic and otherworldly trees with their shimmering trunks and three-times-larger-than-normal leaves. He’d tugged one toward my nose, and I’d been amazed at the fact they’d smelled like maple. The whole night had just been… a meteor shower in my heart, especially when Henri asked if I’d be willing to get mated sooner rather than later. Then he’d asked if I’d be willing to do it there, at the bottom of the waterfall, where so many of his brothers and sisters had done the same.

All of them, actually.

That might have been the easiest “yes” of my life, other than Duncan.

I was still struggling to accept just how fast things had escalated, but I wasn’t complaining. If anything, it felt like a load off. More than that, it just felt right.

“You’re mating Henri?” It was Matti who stuttered the question out, stunned face still engaged. Not even his mustache had twitched.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever gotten him to stutter as an adult before. “Yes,” I confirmed.

“When?” Sienna screeched, but at 50 percent power, leaning forward, her face this weird mixture of a dozen different emotions, like her body couldn’t pick one to focus on.

“The next full moon. We said soon, as long as neither one of us changes our minds between now and then. My three-month period here is going to be over in about two weeks.” It said something to me that I didn’t see us changing our minds. I wasn’t wishy-washy, and neither was he. Plus, I’d been the one to bring up that last stipulation, and Henri had just about rolled his eyes. He hadn’t agreed or disagreed, now that I thought about it. “The sooner the better, if you know what I mean.” I winked.

Matti’s expression told me that he either wasn’t paying attention or he was letting all mentions of his cousin having sex go in one ear and out the other. I’d bet it was the first option.

Sienna, though, formed a triangle with her hands. It was her “thinking face.” “Set a date. I can take off work to be there, or I’ll call in sick.” She fake coughed.

That got Matti to snap out of it. He gave his wife a hurt expression. “You’re going to leave me?”

She shrugged, smiling while she did it. “If you can’t take time off, yes. My best friend only gets married once.”

“We’ll be there if I have to call out sick,” Matti claimed, like I’d expect anything else. “But Henri? Really?”

I blinked, thinking he had to be joking.

He wasn’t.

“It was your idea in the first place!” I reminded him. “Did you start having second thoughts and didn’t tell me?”

It was Matti’s turn to shrug. “I didn’t think you’d listen. He doesn’t like being told what to do either.” He sat up straight. “You’ve always been family, but now it’s going to be legal.” Just as I started to touch my chest in pleasure, he ruined it. “Also, I’ve seen his dick by accident once, and I don’t want to know anything else about it. Deal?”

I was laughing while I agreed, and I remained smiling as we talked for a little while longer before getting off our video call. It seemed like they were both planning on coming to visit for the mating, we just had to look at the calendar. And I needed to get in contact with my parents to give them the news. This whole thing was surreal to even think about, but in a good way.

I’d known we felt something for each other. I was still smiling as I turned off the light and snuggled in bed, even as I wondered what Henri had gotten wrapped up with. A small part of me had expected him to spend the night since Duncan was with Agnes, but I managed to fall asleep a lot faster than I probably ever had. It had been a long, emotional couple of days.

And almost instantly, at least it felt like it, a voice spoke into that familiar dream-that-wasn’t-a-dream.

Child

Nina

It is I⁠—

I sat up gasping, like a zombie coming back to life in a horror movie, blinking awake a moment before my bedroom door opened and a familiar body barged in.

Henri kneeled on the hardwood floor, his hands finding my upper arms, and I leaned forward into him, right against his warm, bare chest.

“You okay?” he asked, rubbing his hands up and down my triceps.

I slipped my arms around his waist like I had its location memorized. “I’m okay,” I whispered as he pulled me out from beneath the covers. He sat on the edge of the bed and set me on his lap, like I wasn’t a full-grown adult.

“What happened?” he asked, stroking a hand down my spine as he did.

“It was the same voice. He said my name, and right before I woke up, he started to say something else, but….” I already couldn’t remember what that had been. Not that it mattered, because it didn’t. “What’d you hear?”

“Only ‘child.’ Franklin told me the other night that he could control it so only those in the clubhouse heard him, if that makes you feel better. I think he ends the dreams when they reach him.”

“I didn’t know that. We haven’t talked about this whole situation enough.” I rubbed my hand across his back, from one side of his ribs to the opposite set; his skin was smooth. It made me feel so much better. “This is pissing me off now. Franklin said they’re not immortal. He keeps this up, and I’ll find him in Alaska, and when he’s sleeping, I’ll drag him into a lake.”

A hand stroked the back of my head as his pecs rose under my cheek. “A river would be better.”

I smiled against his chest. “That’s a good idea.” I hugged him tighter, really eating up the fact he was shirtless. Was this what I had to look forward to every night? I slid my palm a little higher, from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, enjoying the feel of all those grooves and valleys his muscles constructed and the silky-smooth skin over them. “You think it’s true? About Franklin making him feel bad? And that that’s probably why he’s reaching out now?”

“I think it could be. He keeps trying.”

A grunt went through my throat. Seemed a little too late to me, and I didn’t think I was really the type of person to hold a grudge, unless we were talking about Dominic and Duncan’s would-be kidnappers.

And the Jenny Greenteeth.

“We can find him, if you want. After the snow melts next spring, the water levels will be high, and it gets flowing fast with the runoff; it’ll take him far from wherever he is. Around here, you’ll get some distance. I’m sure the rivers in Alaska are the same if not more powerful.” He paused and lowered his voice. “That’s what we do to trespassers around here.”

Was he being serious? “How many bodies have you put in it to know that?” I laughed.

“A few, but they were alive, and it was to teach a lesson.”

“Did it work?”

“They never came back.”

“So how do you know they were alive afterward?” I snickered.

He stroked my back, and I felt like a cat on the verge of purring. “I didn’t say they were alive afterward, but they were when we put them in.”

I laughed even louder. “BS. You probably fished them out a hundred feet down the river.”

Henri didn’t disagree, but he made a soft puffing sound that had to be a dry chuckle as his hand went up higher than it had before, coming up to the middle of my back. “If he wakes you up again, we’ll start figuring out where he is or how to do something about him in the spring.”

“You think we can do something about him?” I whispered.

“We can give it our best shot. We’ll talk to Franklin, see what he can do. I know a lot of people,” he replied, his hand still stroking, still soothing.

I want in. I reached for his shoulder and swept my hand downward to his wrist and back up. “That’s a good plan.” Leaning back, I pulled his arm between us and drew my thumb down one of the prominent veins on his forearm. “What happened with Franklin?” I asked.

Henri’s sigh said it all.

“That crappy, huh?”

“Franklin asked if we reached an agreement. I told him the news. He had a question about a situation we’re having with the well.”

That didn’t sound so bad. “What’s wrong with the well?”noveldrama

“We’re going to have to drill for another one sooner than we’d planned,” he explained. “While we were talking about that, he got a phone call from Alaska.” His eyes met mine, and I was sure he felt my whole body freeze. “They’re coming to visit at the end of the month.”

That was two weeks from now.

I let out a long, deep breath from my nose, and Henri gave me a look. “Is that why you didn’t come upstairs?”

He blinked. “No, I didn’t want to ruin the night, but I told Franklin I would give you the news. It’s Ani’s night off, and there was an intruder that I had to help Randall with. By the time I got back, you were asleep, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“You can wake me up whenever you want,” I told him, back down to holding his thick wrist. I tried to think about the notice Franklin had given him and decided I really wasn’t in the mood to talk about it. Tackling it tomorrow would be soon enough. “I want to come back to the Alaskan people visiting later”—I was going to pretend it wasn’t happening until then—“but did everything go okay with the intruder? Who was it?”

His hand kept going up and down my back, and it felt like he’d spread his fingers. “Two leprechauns. Your gnome fan club has been spreading the word about you. I’m going to need to have a talk with them.”

“Leprechauns?” I squeaked.

“Mm-hmm,” Henri answered, watching me as I pet his wrist and forearm. “They wanted to meet with the ‘fertile one’ they’ve heard about.”

“You don’t think it was the bogeymen?”

“No. The gnomes work at a mine not too far from here, and they somehow told the leprechauns, who also want to procreate, and they decided to give it a shot, even if they ‘got eaten,’” he muttered, not sounding excited about it. “We’re going to have to set up a hotline for you. Maybe when Pascal’s done being grounded he can be your secretary. He’s got good people skills.”

I reeled back. “That’s crazy, Henri,” I told him. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, his expression fond. “There’s nothing for you to apologize for. It’s not crazy. Our numbers, as magical beings in general, have gone down a lot in the last century.” Soft lips pressed against my forehead. “Told you your magic is a gift.”

“But that’s not how it works!”

“You tell them that, and they’ll do with it what they want. Nothing wrong with some hope.” His palm went further up right then, and he wrapped his hand around the nape of my neck. “Or maybe it does work that way and you haven’t tried yet. Maybe instead of pinching flames, you blow on them?”

I’d never thought of it like that. Hmm… maybe that was something I could ask Franklin about.

Henri shrugged. “It’s your decision if you want to do anything with it or not. You don’t need to meet anyone you don’t want to. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” he emphasized. “If it was up to me, I’d kick everybody out of here that doesn’t belong, especially when they’re looking for you. Eventually, someone’s going to trespass, and I’ll need to make an example out of them, but I’m only being forgiving because I understand how bad some of the magical out there want to continue their lines. I can’t blame them for their desperation.”

“Did you tell the leprechauns to come back?” My most important question was: were they dressed in green? Did they wear little top hats? Sienna was going to scream when I told her about them.

“I told them to come to the gates and they’d get their answer. Otherwise, I’d eat them for dinner.”

“I see.” I smiled and leaned over to press my cheek to the spot where his shoulder met his neck. “You smell good, Fluff,” I murmured.

What had to be his cheek pressed to the side of my head. I could hear him inhaling. The hand on my neck gave it a gentle squeeze. “I think the same about you.” The arms around me closed in. “About the best thing ever.”

“What’s better?” I asked, rubbing the tip of my nose along the tendon of his neck.

“Not better, but I won’t complain about a grilled medium rare T-bone,” he deadpanned.

I laughed. “Thank you?”

Both of his hands smoothed up and down alongside my spine. “I’m hungry right now.”

I slid my own palms over his upper arms. “I never understood that saying about wanting to climb someone like a tree, but I get it now.”

His chuckle was soft and puffy. “You can climb me anytime you want.”

I leaned back and looked at him. He didn’t need to tell me twice. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how he’d said before I could do whatever I wanted to him.

Hands flat, I stroked over his arms, over bulging trapezius muscles, and then went forward, briefly holding his powerful pectorals, skimming on down over his ribs, the flat plain of his hard stomach, and meeting his eyes as I trailed a line with my thumbs along the band of his sleep pants.

Henri’s abs flexed when I did that. There was no six-pack or eight-pack, but instead it was all firm, bulky muscle for me to touch, and that’s what I did, holding his rib cage in my palms, dragging my hands up to just beneath his armpits and back down to his waist, grabbing, molding. And it felt so mine I didn’t want to share.

I met those intense eyes. “How do you feel about premarital sex?”

His eyelids fell over those clear, bright irises, his lips parting just a little.

“Because I’m for it,” I told him and paused. “It’s been years since my last relationship, for the record.”

“I’m for doing anything with you.” Before I could mentally prepare, he picked me up and sat me on his thighs, straddling him. “I can count my partners on one hand, and my only relationship was while I was in college.”

I tried not to frown at his admission, since I was the one who’d started it, but I was pretty sure I failed. “Is it weird I’m jealous over people I’ll hopefully never meet?”

Henri’s hands molded around my hips possessively. “No, because I’m jealous as hell, and I don’t think I want to know anything about that part of your life.” His hands pulled me up higher on his lap. “You’ll never have a reason to be jealous over my life before you, Nina. I wouldn’t have done that to my future mate.”

Right, because most werewolves didn’t mess around much.

I knew that well. Matti and Sienna hadn’t been virgins when they met, but neither one of them had ever been that casual about sex either. Maybe there had been a one-night stand or two, but that was the extent of it, other than the relationships they’d had. Werewolves were too possessive, and some of them hotheaded, and relationship drama was something everyone tried to avoid.

Henri dragged his nose up my neck, done with that part of our conversation. “The more you smell like me, the better.”

This might be the best day of my life, I decided, taking his bottom lip between my teeth and giving it a suck, his grumble so deep I felt it between my legs. “I want you to smell just as much like me as you want me to smell like you,” I admitted in return. “Before you leave for work, I’m going to rub my cheek all over you, mark you up real good every morning.”

His groan in response was going to be burned into my core memories. “How did you know that’s exactly what I was thinking about doing to you every day? Cover you up so there’s no doubt you’ve got a possessive, obsessive mate at home.”

A little whimper rose up my chest.

But he wasn’t done. “You can mark me up all you want, Nina, any time you want. The more, the better.”

“Anybody messes with you, they’re messing with me,” I groaned, rocking against him, scrambling even closer to him. I buried my face into his neck and bit his trap muscle, earning a savage groan and a buck of his hips I had to cling to, to hold on.

Henri’s hands went down to my ass. “I guess we’re starting tonight?”

Lowering me onto my back on the bed, his hands slid under my shirt, palms flat on the band of my underwear at my hips.

I arched my back. “Yes, please. Right now would be great.”

Those long fingers slipped between my underwear and the tender skin there, and he tugged the plain gray underwear down my legs before dropping them on the floor. I let my thighs fall apart as he kneeled on the mattress, one palm shaping my right inner thigh, his thumb rubbing a circle inches from my center. A deep grumble filled his chest. “How can you be this damn perfect?”

Before I could argue with him, he slipped his forearm under my thighs, spread my legs even wider, and his mouth went straight to sucking between my legs.

I almost levitated off the bed, slapping a hand over my mouth to keep from crying out at the sensation of his tongue dipping low, tasting. Licking. Henri’s hands hugged my thighs to his cheeks, his mouth moving to suck my clit.

My hands went to his head, cupping it, crushing him against the middle of my body. “Henri,” I choked.

He shook his head right where he was, literally rubbing his stubbled cheek against my seam, his tongue licking up one lower lip, then the other. Sucking one, then giving the other the same attention. “You taste so goddamn good, Nina,” he murmured.

Henri sucked and thrust his tongue inside of me until I was coming straight into his mouth, my stomach muscles clenching and unclenching over and over again. One brawny arm hooked under both my thighs, the other going low around my back, picking me up. “I don’t trust myself to notice if the kids come up here,” he explained, standing up. “When we get our own house, we’ll get one with a puppy door we can lock.”

Our own house. The sound of that was almost as good as the orgasm he’d just given me. It made all this seem so… real. So wonderful.

I nodded and kissed him, feeling the dampness on his cheeks, knowing it was me he was covered in, and I loved it. I brushed my tongue against his, fully aware he was heading toward the bathroom door, opening it and kicking it closed in a smooth motion behind us before locking it. Bathrooms were the only rooms in the clubhouse that didn’t have a small doggy door at the bottom.

My butt landed on the counter with the sink, a moment before hungry hands took over. His and mine yanked. I pulled his sleeping pants and underwear down as far as I could and met his eyes just as he wrapped a fist around the erection that I’d worked up and down the other night in my trailer. The head was fat, thick veins lining the length of him. He was in perfect proportion to the rest of his incredible body, and I felt like the luckiest person in the whole world.

His voice was hoarse as he worked his hand up and down. “I don’t have a condom.”

I shook my head, eyeing the length of him, the girth, the pretty pink and lilac color flushed throughout it. “I don’t either.” I pressed my forehead to his sternum, wrapping my hand around his, his fingers flexing beneath mine. “I don’t take birth control either,” I admitted shakily, lifting my gaze to find him looking at me with an expression that turned me on even more. His features didn’t say he was disappointed, if anything he liked the sound of it. “But I have this thermometer that tells me when I’m in the clear and when I’m not….”

His lips parted, his eyelids dropping even lower over his incredible irises. “You know what you are.” His palm squeezed his length tight. “I could still get you pregnant.”

I did know what I was, and I hugged him tighter with my legs, urging him closer. “We can wait, if you don’t want to risk it. But the idea of your bare cock⁠—”

His growl made my nipples hard.

Under my fingers, he notched the big tip of his penis between my legs and pushed. Henri’s broad head made its way inside of me, slowly, inch by inch, seesawing in and out, dipping a little before retreating, filling me and filling me, as he took my mouth. When he was halfway in, he pulled all the way out and pushed back deeper, this shaky, monumental grunt going through his chest and into mine.

His hand went to my hip, under my shirt, palming the bare skin there just as he….

He was in, every inch, his pelvis flush to mine, and I was gasping, and he was grunting, low and fierce. Grinding our groins together deep, my clit rubbing against the trunk of him. I wrapped my arms around his neck, clung.

“Once we get married, we can do this all time,” he growled against my ear, licking the shell of it. “In the bed, in the shower, on the floor….”

“Bent over the sink?”

The sound he made in his throat was barely human as his hips snapped forward and he ground his pelvis against mine. “On my face, on my lap.” He pulled out, then thrust deep, so dang deep. He moved his head so his lips were at my other ear. “But I’m coming in this perfect pussy every⁠—”

I grabbed his face and kissed him hard, and he met my kisses, tongue touching tongue, and between our bodies, I shoved my shirt up so I could feel his skin against mine, my nipples rubbing against his chest. His hand came up and gave one a light pinch as his hips worked and he kept pumping away.

I drew back from his mouth as an orgasm had my muscles spasming almost violently around him, my ab muscles flexing so hard, I pressed my lips to his chest to muffle my cry.

“Next time, I’m not pulling out,” he let me know, dipping his head, nipping my shoulder with those strong teeth right before he pulled out just as my orgasm eased, and with that plump head to my mound, his hand wrapped around that tremendous width, it took two pumps of his palm for him to come, for him to shoot a thick, white load between my thighs, a loud choke tightening his entire body. Henri shook, his guttural groan low through the bathroom.

His fingers moved between us, massaging the white cream into my thighs, over the shaved area at the center of me. Marking me with him. There was so much of it too.

I rubbed my hand over his arm, watching him work, watching him cover me with his scent, my thighs still twitching. “I like your artwork, Picasso,” I whispered.

He looked up, his eyes bright, pupils wide… and he smiled. “Looks good, doesn’t it?” he asked, drawing his finger up the crease between my middle and my thigh. “Smells even better.”

I groaned and tugged him down again, kissing him, massaging my tongue against his as he held me close to his damp, sweaty body.

“I think I pulled a muscle in my stomach,” I told him when we pulled away from each other.

His smile was even softer and dreamier that time. “My glutes are spasming right now,” he countered.

I snuck my hand around to cup one of his cheeks, and sure enough, it was. I leaned back and smiled. “Want me to massage ’em?”

I did—massage them, that was—in the shower right afterward. Gave them a little bite too.

And when we went to bed after that, I slept deeper than I ever had before.

Just me and Henri.