Page 25 of Out of the Darkness

Xavier joined her among the shadows, unable to keep the smile off his face as he lowered his hood. “How have you been, little dove?” he asked, lifting his hand and brushing his fingers down her cheek, loving the feel of her skin beneath his fingers again.

“Not good,” she admitted as she shifted on the balls of her feet. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all. But I can’t do this anymore. Surely, you realize how wrong this is; it’s completely fucked up. I can’t… I shouldn’t…Dammit. I don’t even like you.”

“Well, that’s a lie if I ever heard one,” he muttered, resting back against the side of the bar and propping his foot up behind him.

He took her words with a grain of salt because he knew they weren’t true. She may want them to be, but they weren’t. And this did seem to be part of the game they played, always one step forward and two steps back.

“It’s not a lie!” she exclaimed defensively, putting her hands on her hips. “I don’t like you.”

He loved this woman with his whole heart, he really did, but she was as stubborn as a mule. She had been so traumatized by her past, so blinded by pain and heartache, that she couldn’t even see what was standing right in front of her. It didn’t matter how many times she denied it or how ‘wrong’ she thought it was, it didn’t change the fact that she was his. He just needed to make her see that so they could stop with all this bullshit.

Pushing himself off the wall, he moved toward her until she was forced to take a step back. “Yes, you do. And you know how I know that?” he asked. When she only stared back at him without saying anything, he reached up and pinched a strand of her hair between his fingers. “Because you, Madelyn, are my fated mate.”

The only reaction he got out of her was a slight shift and a heavy swallow. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“It means that my wolf recognizes you as our mate. That you are my soulmate and the one person in the entire world that I’m meant to be with. Just like I am yours. I told you, little dove, we are destined to be together. It’s fate.”

There it was, the plain and simple truth out in the open just like she asked. He didn’t like the way it made him feel exposed and vulnerable, but legend stated that a wolf’s fated mate was the one person they could be vulnerable with and still trust that they were safe. He guessed he was testing that theory out now.

“You can’t honestly believe that’s true,” she said after a while. “That’s… that’s not possible.” Her voice had lowered to barely a whisper, and he could hear her heart pattering a rapid beat within her chest. Something he said got to her or, at the very least, was getting to her.

He raised an eyebrow in response. “Just two days ago, you didn’t think the existence of shifters was possible either. I can assure you, it’s possible. And it’s happened. That pull you feel? The fact that you missed me, even though you think you are supposed to hate me, that’s the mate bond. It’s trying to bring us together.” He reached up and cupped the side of her neck with his hand. “It’s also why I can’t stay away from you, little dove. I need you. And I know deep down you know that you need me too.”

Madelyn looked as though she were about to deny it on instinct, but she closed her mouth quickly as if she realized that she couldn’t. It was then that an odd feeling began to spread across his chest, a warmth that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Happiness. He hadn’t felt true happiness like this in years, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with the emotion.

But that was what Madelyn did to him. She made him feel things that he thought he was incapable of feeling anymore. Since he was a child, his life had been bloody and violent, and he had been trapped in the dark with no way out. He had suspected before, but now he knew that she was his way out.

“This is insane,” she tried to say instead. “All of it. It’s absolutely batshit.”

“It may be insane” he replied. “But that doesn’t make it any less real, Madelyn.”

Her eyes bounced between his for several moments as if trying to find any hint of dishonesty, but she wouldn’t find any. It was the truth, and it was very real.

Seemingly realizing that, Madelyn gripped the front of his shirt, and her mouth crashed against his in a rough and searing kiss that stole his breath and made his dick harden in an instant. His body always did have that kind of response whenever she was around, and when her tongue teased his, he knew he had to have her right then and there.

He grinned at her as his hands went to her waist and pulled her against him, and he quickly spun the two of them around before pinning her up against the wall. Needing to feel her again, his hands began roaming her body to try to memorize her every curve.

Nipping her bottom lip with his sharp teeth, his fingers tangled in her hair before he broke the kiss. “No more back and forth, little dove,” he growled, his eyes flashing. “If we do this, then we are doing this. You don’t get to pull away from me again.”

The sight of his glowing eyes didn’t seem to bother her anymore as she lifted her chin defiantly. “I agree to give this a shot and nothing more. This doesn’t mean I believe you. This just means that I’m done fighting you.”

Xavier grinned, his eyes darkening. It wasn’t exactly what he had wanted to hear, but he would take it. He knew, without a doubt, that she would accept him. Once she realized the kind of love and devotion that came along with being a shifter’s mate, she would be all in. It was only a matter of time. She was his now, once and for all and it was time to make it official.

He tugged sharply on her hair, pulling her head back so that she was looking up at him. “I’ll take it,” he murmured. “Now, get on your knees for me. I want to see what that pretty little mouth of yours can do.”

Madelyn licked her lips, and for a moment, he saw a flash of stubbornness behind her eyes, but it was gone just as quickly as it had appeared. She squeezed her thighs together and then slowly began to lower herself onto the ground as he’d told her to. Thankfully, he still had enough sense to stop her just before her knees touched the filthy concrete. He yanked his sweatshirt up over his head and handed it to her. “Here, kneel on this.”

Taking the sweatshirt, she shoved it under her knees while he worked the belt and button on his jeans. Within a matter of seconds, his painfully-hard cock was freed, and she was taking him into her mouth with no hesitation while her hand stroked what she couldn’t quite fit. It was heaven.

A deep groan emanated from the back of his throat as he braced himself against the side of the building with his free hand. His fingers tangled in his mate's hair as he reveled in the sight and feel of her mouth wrapped around him. If he died now, he would die a happy man because he now had everything he could ever possibly want.

Chapter Twelve

Madelyn

Madelyn wasn’t thinking as she took Xavier’s cock down the back of her throat far enough to make herself gag on it. Now that she knew the truth about what he was, his size made sense, and she had wanted to do this from the moment she had seen it in the video he sent her. Going down on a guy was one of her favorite things, and she wasn’t about to pass up this opportunity, even if they were in an alley.

It wasn’t like her to do something like this in public where anyone could walk out the back door and see what the two of them were up to, but she wasn’t in control of herself. Xavier had said everything that she had ever wanted someone to say to her, everything that she had spent her whole life craving, and that struck something deep inside of her that she had thought was irreparable.

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