She looks past me to the setting sun and whispers, “Yes.”
A gentle autumn breeze caresses the back of my neck, and I watch as Jinx closes her eyes to it. “Do they still whisper? The spirits?”
She opens her eyes, and around the rim of her irises, a gold ring glows, pulses, for a split second. “All the time.”
I wonder if it’s a burden for her. I wonder if she’d rather they leave her alone. Every day, the magic that lies inside her widens its eye a little more.
Slowly, I turn and face the view with her. This high up, I can see for miles. The clouds crawl across the sky, stretched to resemble pulled cotton or smeared layers of frosting lined with pinks and oranges and yellows tracing the edges. And the sun, a giant dulled orb at the edge of the hazy horizon.
Shadows squat in the slight dips and hills of the land, and what’s left of the crop stems remind me of a rotting battlefield of the fallen.
“It’s beautiful,” I mumble.
“Just wait.” She grabs my hand again and tugs me to the edge of the balcony. I follow her lead and sit. Both of us dangle our bare feet off the edge. The breeze whistling up the edge of the house tickles my bare toes. I flex them, using the sensation to further ease myself away from my self-blame.
Rex was right. I know he was. No one is to blame. No one could have known.
Seconds tick by – slow steady heartbeats as we watch the sun dip further and further, and in a blink, every cloud is highlighted in gold. A bright shimmering gold no part of nature can replicate.
I exhale, a whoosh between loose lips. I can’t believe this color exists.
Crows lift from the ground, taking flight as one, and soar across the artistic scene. They caw at one another, flapping their large inky wings as they give chase. I look to my left and try to peer past the house’s edge. On the other side, the sky is a navy blue, dusky, and the first star twinkles where the sky’s colors begin to darken.
“With the crop’s dust still rising . . .” Jinx leans over and rests her head against my shoulder. “It’s not often the sky looks like this. I thought maybe you’d enjoy seeing it.”
I hum contentedly as the world falls away until it’s just her and me, the sun and star. She nuzzles in closer, and I press a kiss to her still damp hair, breathing her in until my lungs are full of Jinx’s scent. Then, I tilt her head up to mine. She still shimmers with the anxiety of the day, but her gaze is solely for me. Only for me. There’s no judgment in it. None of the blame that I briefly held against myself.
“I love you,” I murmur to her and then press my lips to hers.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jinx Whitethorn
Jacob’s kiss does something to me. From my lips, to my heart, to my toes, an achy warmth seeps across my bones. It cuts through the whispers and doubts until they completely fade away. It is him and only him who surrounds me and my thoughts.
I kiss him back, slow, leisurely, glad the balcony’s offerings are setting him at ease. I know it isn’t easy for him to be here. I know he’s staying because he cares for me – because he loves me so deeply. I’m grateful for him – I’m grateful to him.
I angle my head so the kiss deepens, opening my mouth to twine our tongues. We tease and taste, using this moment to say everything words fail to. Words fail me often when it comes to him and how I feel.
A warm hand cups my cheek, and soon my back rests on the balcony rug. My damp hair soaks into my shirt, but I don’t care. I barely notice it.
His weight presses into mine, and he tangles his fingers in my hair, gently pulling back my chin to tenderly peck to my cheek, my neck, and my collarbone. Each one tickles, a good kind of tickle.
I arch my chest into his, urging more of this behavior, and he rumbles his pleasure to it.
I reach up and tug at the hem of his shirt. My fingers tremble with a building need against the rigid muscles of his back, but I continue to tug until he allows his head to slide through the hole. I toss his shirt to the side, and he quickly rids me of mine, discarding it in the same fashion. The pants come next, then our underwear, until we’re nothing but skin on skin. Lips sliding against lips. Hands roaming curves. Heavy breaths stroking cheeks.
Our bodies fit perfectly, and as his hand explores the curve of my back, I quiver. His hand continues until he’s heaving my thigh up and hooking it over his hip.
The breeze blows, and the sky darkens as Jacob settles between my thighs. One gentle push, and he’s seated inside me. I hiss at the stretching pain and moan to the filling pleasure.
With an arm under the small of my back, he angles me to settle deeper, deeper, until he and I feel like one person. One being. One love.
“I love you,” I whisper against his lips, and he groans, pressing his forehead to mine. He begins to move, to rock us gently.
“I love you,” I say again. “I love you.”
His eyes shift to mine, and the world stops. It slows and stops, and our breaths fill all the empty spaces. My breasts push against his chest as heat builds inside my core.
The heat swirls and banks, ebbs and flows like rain overflowing a pond, and with an exhale, I shudder underneath him.
“I love you, too,” he whispers back. There’s so much emotion behind the soft tenor of his words. So much emotion that my heart swells. His lips trail along the curve of my jaw, and with each inch, I feel the prick of elongated teeth. It doesn’t frighten me. It doesn’t make me want to pull away. There isn’t anything about Jacob that does. Not anymore.
My nails dig into his back, and I start meeting him thrust for thrust.
“Jinx,” he warns against my skin. He doesn’t have to finish his sentence. I know exactly what he wants. I close my eyes in concentration, pull the spirits’ voices back into focus until I see the white wolf behind my eyelids.
I’ve thought about this moment. I’ve thought about it long and hard – have even discussed it once with Sara. We don’t know what mating will do to the two of us. But at this moment, I can try to become something that helps this to resemble a shifter mating as much as possible.
Concentrating, I allow part of myself to wear what I desire of the wolf: only the eyes and the teeth. I blink in a vision of gold then tip my head back and angle my jaw away from his. My neck exposed, the breeze licks at it lovingly.
He stiffens on top of me then melts against me. “Jinx,” he whispers, my name taking on a whole different meaning.
“I love you,” I remind him again. Those three words mean so many things. And yet . . . not enough. Not enough for what I want to say. Not enough to fully explain. But he gets it. I know he does because he doesn’t try to take the choice from me. Instead, his teeth graze my neck, and I close my eyes, ready to step into a new life – a new me – a new destiny. I’m a pond ready to become a river.
Jacob bites, and I arch into his chest, eyes flying wide open to the now star-speckled sky. It’s painful. Painful and pleasurable and out of this world. Out of this realm. Out of my body and –
The gold in my vision intensifies as my fingers dig into the skin on his back.
Pumping faster, harder, he grunts as he latches onto my neck with more force. As if he can’t get enough of me. As if he wants to merge with me until we no longer know where I begin and he ends.