times fast and froze for a moment, groaned as his dick throbbed streams of warmth into her. As he drew their releases out, his body jerked while emptying himself completely until she was filled with his warmth.
So. Good. Purring. Wolf was sated and quiet. Smiling inside of her in a stunned way. Summer’s body was buzzing like she’d taken three fast shots of tequila. And her heart…her heart…it was full for the first time in as long as she could remember.
Wes was still staring right at her, a soft smile commandeering his lips. He released her hands, and for a moment, she was sad at the absence of his warmth, but he traced her cheek right under her silver eye and whispered, “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than you.”
The smile that stretched her lips felt so good. There was a little piece of her old self. He was unlocking the same doors that she’d locked herself away in, releasing the parts she’d loved about herself. Releasing the parts she’d missed. The smiles. The hope. The joy in simple things.
She scratched his whiskers gently, then traced a red scar on his neck. “I haven’t either.”
Old Wes would have left right after sex. Busied himself with cleaning up. Found some chore to do to avoid intimacy. She expected that, but he didn’t run. Not this time. Not now. Instead, he rolled to his side and took her with him, hugged her tight against him like he would never let her go, and she couldn’t help the tears that burned her eyes. Whatever he’d done to them, to her, she didn’t regret it. Something inside of her had changed in some life-altering way. She would never be the same again. Summer didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. Something had changed on a wolf level. Her animal was quiet, allowing her to enjoy a moment with the man they adored. Adored. That word. She’d thought she would never feel that again, that she couldn’t. But look what Wes had done?
She wasn’t the one with the sledgehammer, shattering her own walls anymore.
He had taken the handle from her tired hands and had begun demolishing them for her.
Summer nuzzled her face against his chest, basking in the sound of his drumming heartbeat. It was the only soundtrack that meant anything to her now. The most important song in her universe.
“That was different,” she breathed.
Wes drew her hand from his chest to his lips and laid a kiss on her knuckles. “For me, too.”
Resting her head on his strong bicep, she looked up at him and asked, “What did we do?”
Wes’s smile fell from his lips, but his eyes were still steady as he murmured, “We made it so we can’t leave each other anymore.”
The burning in her eyes released one tear out of the corner. “Good.”
“I want to know this new you. Some things are the same, but that was like being with you for the first time.”
“You’ve changed, too, Wes. For the better.”
When she touched the red scars on his ribs, he winced. Not completely healed then. He played it off quick, though. Moved a strand of flyaway hair from her face and asked, “Favorite color. It was blue. Bright blue like a picture you’d cut out of a magazine of Bora Bora beaches. What is it now?”
“Black,” she whispered. “Yours was green. Like moss. What is it now?”
He grinned. “Still green. Favorite food.”
She turned her head and kissed his bicep. “Still the same as it was.”
“Oh, gross.”
“Gross? What?”
“No one lists Spam as their favorite food.”
Summer giggled. Giggled. Her. Summer the Dark. Summer the Wolf. She giggled like a girl with a schoolyard crush. “It’s my favorite food because of my favorite memories.”
The smile fell from his lips, and a slight frown furrowed his eyebrows. “Back before everything went to hell, me and Hunter and Sam made a tradition. Every Thursday, after we all got off work, we had dinner. A special dinner. Is that the memories you’re talking about?”
“Maybe.” Summer couldn’t help her smile because he’d remembered. “Go on.”
“We cooked your favorite food and ate out by this old rusted firepit my dad found at a garage sale. Hunter would find these Spam recipes and different side dishes to go with it, and I cooked them up every week.” His eyes went wide and he touched under her left eye. “Summer,” he whispered. “Your eyes.”
“What about them?” she asked, concerned.
“They’re both brown again.”
With a gasp, Summer sat up in bed