Page 52 of Coming Home

Before Shelby could protest, Will spoke up. “Not you, Ben, the douche that would make up something so serious like that.”

“Grayson Ward,” Shelby sighed.

“He always seems so nice,” Troy said. “I can’t even imagine him acting like that.”

“He definitely grew up a little after that, but he didn’t really change until after he found his real true mate,” she said. I hated hearing her defend him even that much. It had taken a lot not to hunt him down and rip his throat out for what he had done.

“What is it you do in the army anyway, Ben? And isn’t that hard? Do you ever get to shift?” Troy asked.

“I couldn’t imagine being stuck around all those humans all the time,” Will added with a shiver.

“It’s actually not so bad. I was picked up for an elite Rangers team pretty early on and I’ve been working with mostly the same guys my entire career.”

“But they don’t know about you, right?” Troy asked.

“Actually, they do. My entire unit is made up of shifters.” I spent the next hour telling them a little about the guys I worked with and making them laugh with some of the crazy things we’d done.

When we hit a break in my stories, Will announced he was getting tired and going to take a shower and head to bed. He accepted the bag Shelby handed him and even leaned down to hug her before moving to hug me, too.

“I’m glad you’re home, Ben, even if it’s only for a few weeks. You’re much cooler in person than over video chat,” he said.

“I won’t be gone so long next time. I promise you guys that,” I said, making sure all three of them understood I meant it.

Troy followed Will back to their room as Shelby started cleaning up from our dinner.

“I think I could use a shower, too,” I told her. The evening had been fun but surreal, a reminder of everything I’d been missing in my life.

I gave her a quick kiss and headed for our bedroom, deep in my own thoughts. I had a lot of decisions I needed to make about my future, and I needed Shelby to be a part of those discussions. This wasn’t just my life anymore, it was ours.

I walked into the bathroom and stripped out of my clothes. I turned on the shower and stepped in. In the field we didn’t always know how long we’d have running water, so you never wasted a drop waiting on it to warm up.

The icy water hit me hard as it tensed my muscles, then when the hot water kicked in, all that tension began melting away.

I was deep in thought when the curtain began to rustle. Shelby stepped in behind me. I turned to look at her gloriously naked body. Everything within me surged to claim her, but I resisted.

The mating call heightened my awareness of her, but the levels of protective and possessive needs I felt towards her were only minimally increased, because I’d always felt that way about this beautiful woman.

Aggressively I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. She moaned and sighed against me. My tongue swept in to duel with hers in a dance as old as time.

I pulled back to stare down at her. “I love you, Shelby,” I said, and I planned to remind her of that every single day for the rest of our lives.

Shelby

Chapter 17

“I love you, too,” I told him with a smile.

I had waited a lifetime to be with Ben, and now he was a mine. All the heartache and pain I had faced paled next to the happiness and joy he brought to my life. I trusted him when he said we were in this together this time. I didn’t know what the future held for us, but I was excited to find out.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down for another toe-curling kiss. God, Ben could kiss.

He had always been handsome and confident. As a teen I had thought he was muscular and strong, but how very wrong I had been. The years in the army had done his body good. He was chiseled and hard, yet he melted against me with a softness he shouldn’t possess. He was once again careful to take care of my needs first, as I withered in his solid arms, breathlessly.

I tried to reach for him, but he stopped me with a growl.

“I’m not done with you yet,” he said, making my body quiver with anticipation. “And if you touch me right now, this night is going to end much too quickly.” There was so much promise in his voice. I doubted I could ever tire of the thrill I felt being with Ben.

He carefully washed himself, and then me, even taking the time to massage my scalp as he washed and rinsed my hair. Every nerve in my body was on fire by the time he turned off the water and dried us off.

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