Page 73 of A Wolf in the Garden

She takes another sip of her wine, swirling the dregs of it around in her glass, the furrow still present between her brows as she looks at me again. “Don’t get me wrong. I love being here. I love using your fancy shower and having a soak in your big bath with the luxury French soaps. I love all the food and wine and all those creature comforts.However, I want to feel like my money has value, too. That I cancontribute. I know I don’t have as much, believe me,I know, but… I want to feel likeIhave value. That’s the crux of it.”

“You do have value. You are the most valuable thing to me. By far.You.You’re the treasure. And your value hasneverbeen tied to money.”

“I don’t think you really get what I’m saying.”

I stop myself from saying that I do. My ego doesn’t have a place here. “Explain it to me again.”

She buries her head in her hands, groaning. “I just want to feel like I have equal power in this relationship, that’s all. When I go to pay for something and you step in front of me with your fancy credit card and tap the payWave before I can, it doesn’t make me feel powerful, Van. It has the opposite effect. I need to feel like your equal.”

“You are my equal.”

She stares at me, hands still pressed to her cheeks. “Says MrI assume you’re moving in with me.”

“I assumed that because of our earlier discussion. But I hear what you’re saying — you want to make the decisions.”

“I want to make the decisionstogether. I’m pretty sure that’s how most successful relationships function.”

“Well, here’s a red flag for you, I’ve only ever been in two relationships — us, nine years ago, and us now.”

She opens her mouth only to close it again with a small shake of her head, her eyes sparkling in the candlelight. “That’s not a red flag. Not to me.”

“No?”

“No,” she says softly, rising from her seat and stepping around the table until she’s standing between my legs. “It makes sense to me, mymate.”

“You are my better half,” I tell her, pulling her onto my lap. “We are partners. I’m not going to get it right, all the time, so tell me when I fuck up. Just know that I absolutely see you as my equal. Your power has nothing to do with money, baby. And you have so much power over me, I don’t think you even realise.”

Her robe falls open as she wraps her arms around my neck, pulling herself over me until she’s straddling my lap. She kisses my forehead, her pretty tits a mere inch from my face. “I think I have some idea, because you have that same power over me.”

“Well see, we’re equals.” I run my hands over the curve of her waist and hips, down to her ass, my dick already hard again. It’s impossible to not get turned on by the sight of her, by the feel of her body in my arms. I press a kiss to the curve of her breast. “Now, tell me what you want to do for the rest of the night. You’re the boss.”

She huffs out a laugh against my hair, her hand reaching between us, slipping inside my loosened robe to stroke my cock. “I don’t want to argue.Thisis what I want.”

“Here?”

“Why not?”

I pull the front of my robe open, then slide my hands back around her waist. She’s dripping wet, the smell of her arousal and my cum from earlier thick in the air, and she sinks down on my cock with ease.

She’s perfect. “You have all the power, baby,” I tell her, meaning every word as she rocks herself on me. Her wet heat feels like heaven around my cock. “You hold my heart in your hands, every moment of every day.”

Fifteen

ELLIE

The thing about the countryside is that itseemspeaceful, but it’s often noisier than the suburbs at dawn. I wake to a sound I recognise instantly, and beside me, Van groans. It’s still fairly dark, but through the glass panes of the magical little house we’re in, I can see the shape of the hills in the distance, black against the slightly lighter sky.

“What the fuck is that noise?” Van grumbles, eyes still shut. I bite my lip to stop myself from laughing and slide closer to him, his arms coming around me, holding me tight. I breathe in the scent of his skin, planting soft kisses on his chest while my hand drifts down his stomach, following the trail of hair to his groin, my fingers curling around his morning wood. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him soft first thing in the morning; the man is a machine in terms of his ability to get and stay hard. The ache in my pussy this morning is testament to that for sure; I probably shouldn’t have begged him to knot me for a third time last night, but past me was feeling particularly needy, and she was definitely not thinking about making practical choices.

I think he’s fallen back asleep, but then the loud series of cries pierce the air again, and hegrowls, the utterly inhuman sound rumbling under my ear. “Seriously, I’mthis closeto running out there and murdering that thing, whatever the fuck it is, deranged creature yelling at this time of the morning.”

“I’m surprised you don’t know. It’s a peacock. Or, peafowl, as in plural; it sounds like multiple peacocks and peahens.”

“What?” He sounds so unimpressed, and I smile against his skin.

“Yeah. They’re noisy fuckers when they get going, that’s for sure. I had a client who keeps them on his private island, and I had to stay for a week, working on the garden there — it was too tricky to commute back and forth, because the only transport is private water-taxi or helicopter. I could never sleep past 5AM even though I didn’t start work ’till nine. This farm must have some, for some reason.”

“You had a client that owns an island? Here in New Zealand?”

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