Page 76 of Harvest Moon

Instead, he got the strangest look on his face, intense and wild and...alphain a way I’d never seen Ridge act before.

In a fraction of a second, he’d sat up and flipped us so my back was against the mattress, shoving his cock deeper into me over and over, sending shockwaves through my body. At the same time, he kept right on stroking my cock with one hand.

The other hand, he put right over my heart.

“Never gonna leave you alone again, Lexis,” he murmured. “Never. Be right here for you. Always. Can’t live without you.”

The sparks overtook me then, my whole body going white hot with electricity and my control shorting out as I clenched, coming in thick, sticky stripes over his hand. Somewhere outside myself, I heard him moan, felt his forehead fall against my chest, but I was completely lost to anything but the sensations of his hand around me, his knot filling me so full I couldn’t move, other than to tense around him.

The blinding white swallowed me whole.

44

Ridge

Something I’d been so worried about turned out to be the best few days of my life. For once, I wasn’t scared I wasn’t doing the right things—everything I did, Alexis loved, so long as it involved touching him and keeping him close.

When we were both too spent to go at it rough, we’d lay on our sides, my arms wrapped around him. And when he needed me again, his round, perfect ass would wiggle into the bend of my hips. My cock’d rise for him every time, and I’d sink inside, and we’d just move together like that, real slow, just needing each other.

It was nice, made everything else seem less important. For a while, the two of us were all that mattered to each other. There was nothing outside of Lex’s room that could come between us.

We’d been together almost three days when I woke up one morning to a growling stomach. I’d left the room a few times to bring us food—water and stuff that’d keep, because every time I left for even a minute, the first thing Alexis wanted when I came back was me.

I was a blissful kind of sore when I grabbed my pants and stuffed my legs in. We needed breakfast, then I was going to stroke my fingers down his arm and tell him stories just because I wanted to.

My head was finally starting to clear up, so I figured maybe Alexis was coming out of it. Didn’t mean we couldn’t snuggle and feed each other grapes though.

It was late in the morning, so I figured Claudia would be in bed and Birch would be at school already. I’d been making a quick habit of poking my head in on her, just so Alexis wouldn’t worry.

She’d been doing just fine, far as I could tell. But that morning, she wasn’t in her room. She was seated at the round table in the kitchen, Linden sat beside her with a couple mugs of tea steaming in the middle of the table.

I wished I’d grabbed my shirt.

“Good morning,” I muttered, keeping my head down as I went to the fridge.

“Hey there, Ridge,” Linden said. I looked back over my shoulder, and Claudia was frowning at me beside them.

I couldn’t shake the idea that I’d done something wrong. Neither one of them seemed entirely pleased to see me. Maybe it was just that I didn’t have a shirt on, but werewolves weren’t usually that shy about skin.

“Something the matter?” I asked when I stepped back from the open fridge with a bowl of grapes.

The two of them gave me the strangest look, sad and sorry, and I couldn’t account for it, but it was putting me on edge.

Claudia’s lips pursed. She ducked her head. It was the first time I ever saw her let somebody talk over her, and only when it was clear she didn’t have anything good to say did Linden Grove step in.

“The Sterling Corporation approached the pack with an offer on the Hills’ farm,” he said real slow.

I blinked. “Well, okay. But Barbara and Henrik would never take it.”

Mind, I’d never thought my parents would take that kind of deal either. I wanted to reject the whole prospect right off, blow it away before anybody gave it any credence.

I hugged the cold glass bowl of grapes against my chest and stared at the pair of them. Nobody was doing this, so there was nothing to worry about. But all that cool glass against my flushed skin sure did help me keep my head on straight.

“It’s not entirely up to them. The Hills put the farm in a conservation land trust for the pack,” Linden explained calmly. “Ford’s—” He took a second to grimace. “Nobody knows what Ford’s going to do when the Hills are gone.”

As much as I wanted to think Ford would be there forever, I understood what he was saying. Ford’s moods were already irritable. He was lost. And in all likelihood, when he felt nobody needed him anymore, he’d go out into the woods and wouldn’t ever come back.

I just figured after a while, he might figure out that the pack did need him. I’d never had a brother, but Ford and I could work the farm together. Look out for each other.

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