In A Wolf's Embrace

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Toe Anderson entered the surgery waiting room, his wife, sons, and their families closing in behind him. He knew him the moment he saw the young man Jonas Wyatt had told him to look for.

Wearing black leather, streaked with blood, his face resting in his broad hands, as long, night-black hair flowed around them.

He sat alone. The other families awaiting word on their loved ones were gathered at the other side of the room, casting wary looks his way.

Matthias Slaughter.

Grace had told him about Matthias, of course. Not what he looked like, or about the air of danger that surrounded him. She told him things only a woman would think of. Things like his sadness, his wariness, and how he made her feel.

Joe sighed heavily. This man made his daughter feel alive. Grace had said, "As though there's adventure around every corner, Daddy." And she had laughed. But he had heard the love in that laughter.

This was his daughter's man. That made him family. No matter what.

Matthias's head lifted, and the scarred face looked around, as he swiped the overly long black hair back from his face. He was an imposing figure. Standing to his feet, Matthias paced over to the windows, looked out, paced back to the small table, sat down, and tried to blend into the shadows of the room.

Joe could see the man's attempts to become invisible, and it bothered him. Jonas hadn't said much about this Wolf Breed enforcer, but Joe had learned years ago how to read between the lines. And what he had sensed rather than heard, made him ache for the young man.

Joe fought back his own fear, his own anger at the thought of his daughter lying in surgery, a bullet in her chest, her life hanging on the line.

Daddy, I love you like the flowers love the sunshine. And you know they love it, 'cause they open right up and spread their petals like arms. Have you noticed that, Daddy? They hug the sun, because it keeps them safe and warm. That's why I love hugging you Daddy. You keep me safe and warm.

He had to blink back his tears at the memory of her, barely ten, trying to wheedle her way out of some trouble she had gotten into at school. Grace had been his wild child. She had fought and scrapped, climbed trees, and jumped into water that was invariably over her head. Just as she had this time.

And just as he had always known she would, she had picked a man strong enough to follow her into adventure. Grace loved adventure. She restrained it now, worked hard, and never got into trouble. But she still liked to climb trees, and she still liked the deeper waters.

"There he is. Joe why are you just standing here?" His wife, Janet, moved around him, her still-shapely figure drawn tight with fear for her daughter and worry for this Breed that their daughter spoke so highly of.

Matthias Slaughter was streaked with dirt and their daughter's blood, and his expression was haggard, bordering on savage. The sight of him broke Joe's heart.

As Joe stood there, Janet and his three daughters-in-law left him alone with his silent sons. Grace's older brothers were a lot like Joe. They watched and assessed.

Joe looked back and saw their eyes, and knew the boys saw the same thing he did. A man almost broken. The Breeds had lived horrifying lives. If that Jonas Wyatt's expression was anything to go by, then this Breed had known hell as few others had.

If he loved Grace as Wyatt said this man did, then the fear he would be feeling right now would be staggering.

He watched as Janet, with her mussed, shoulder-length gray hair and petite figure, fearlessly walked right up to that Breed.

The man's head lifted, and his eyes were alive with rage and agony, as he stared up at Janet. Joe knew the moment Matthias realized who she was. His expression clenched, his reddened eyes turned moist, and he whispered in a rough, growling voice, "She's my sunshine…"

Joe knew in that moment, Matthias Slaughter was family.

MATTHIAS wasn't ready for Grace's family. They would be angry, enraged at the danger he had brought to their daughter. There would be no buying or threatening their acceptance now. If she lived, they would demand his immediate removal from her life, and by God, he couldn't blame them.

He stared at his hands. He couldn't wash Grace's blood from them, it was all he had left to hold on to, her blood covering his flesh, reminding him that her love hadn't been a dream. It had been real. As real as the fight she was waging for her life right now.

When he looked up at the figure that moved to stand beside the table, he had immediately been snared by Grace's eyes. Soft, gray, tear-filled eyes in a lined face.

"Matthias, I'm Grace's mother." Her voice was soft, like a whisper of acceptance, and his heart clenched at the pain of it.

"I love her like the sun," he whispered, needing them to know before they accused him, before they raged at him. "She's my sunlight," he repeated.

And he could have never expected what happened next. Tears fell from those soft gray eyes, as she wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder.

His arms gripped her, as she began to cry. His eyes lifted to the other women surrounding him, and to the men who watched him silently.

There was no condemnation. They all looked at him with compassion, especially the older man, the father, whose eyes reddened from the tears he held inside.

"I'm sorry." He was, to the bottom of his soul, so bleakly sorry that she had taken that bullet instead of him. He would give his life to trade places with her. He had offered his life to God to take him instead. He had prayed, bargained, raged, and begged the Almighty not to take his sunlight.

The father nodded once. He moved forward then, drew his wife from Matthias's embrace, pulled chairs back from the table for both of them, and introduced Grace's family to him. As though he weren't the enemy. As though it was important he know who they were.

"Not the first time she's been in surgery." Joe cleared his throat, as he sat beside his wife and wrapped his arm around her. "Remember when she was six, Janet?" He cleared his throat as Matthias stared back at him in confusion. "She fell out of that tree and started bleeding internally. I thought we were going to lose her then."

The three sons nodded, the women smiled watery smiles.

Matthias stared at them. "I have money." He clenched his hands on the table. "I have some small connections." They stared back at him questioningly. "I know I didn't protect her well this time." He stared at the blood on his hands. "I'll do better." He lifted his gaze to the father. "I'll make certain I do better in the future." His teeth clenched. He had sworn he would beg if he had to. "Don't take her from me."

Joe blinked, lowered his head, and shook it.

"I won't let it happen again."

Joe lifted his eyes once again. "Matthias…"

"I can't live without her." He meant to beg, but it came out as a growl of fury. "She would be torn between us. I don't want this…"

"Matthias." It was Janet that reached out to him. She placed her hand on his, over Grace's blood, and caught his eyes with hers.

"We all love Grace. And if she loves you, then you're family. You don't buy acceptance, son. You don't bargain for it. It's there or it's not. You love her, and we accept you because of that. But, she loves you. Because of that, you're family."

"You don't know me." He shook his head, terrified and confused, certain they had to hate him. They had to be hiding it, for Grace's sake.

"We'll get to know you." Joe's voice was a warning.

Matthias latched onto that. A warning. He knew how to handle that.

He stared back at the father, whose lips suddenly quirked with hidden knowledge. "Trust me, we'll all get to know each other. Grace will make certain of it."

He could handle that. Matthias nodded sharply before sliding his hand back from Grace's mothers touch. He breathed out roughly, stared around the room, then froze as Dr. Armani, the head Wolf Breed doctor and scientist entered the room with her feline counterpart, Elyiana Morrey.

He jerked to his feet. Their expressions were pale, their lab coats wrinkled, and exhaustion marred their features.

"Nikki." He took a step toward her, then froze again.

They were watching him quietly, their gazes flickering over the family, who finally also came to their feet.

He had prayed over the past hours. He had bargained with God. He had begged for just one more chance and offered his life for hers. He had pleaded with a being that hadn't created him, but one Matthias prayed would bless him.

"It was close," Nikki finally said, a smile creasing her dark, exotic features. "But she's alive, Matthias…"

Two months later

"I told you to wear jeans." Grace was laughing at him, her gray eyes shining with happiness, as tears of mirth rolled down her cheeks. "Didn't I warn you to wear jeans?"

"Shut up, Grace," he growled, attempting to peel the wet leather from his legs as he stood in the middle of their bedroom, dripping from sweat and the pain. "Those brothers of yours are fucking insane," he snarled violently. "Have I ever mentioned they are fucking crazy?" His voice rose at the accusation.

She was laughing. She was standing in the middle of the floor, her arms across her stomach, and she bent over, struggling to breathe as she laughed at him.

She was barely healed from the wound she had taken the night the coyotes attacked them. It had been slow progress, until Dr. Armani had given her a transfusion of Matthias's blood. After that, her recovery had moved quickly. Although the blood they had given her in surgery saved her life, her body had attempted to reject it. The unique qualities of the hormones in her body had fought it, and fought her recovery, until Matthias's blood had been added to it.

It shouldn't have worked. Their blood types didn't match, and his Breed blood should have been an instant poison to her system. Instead, from the moment it was introduced, she had begun to heal.

Now, two months later, she was standing here laughing her ass off at him because he was coated with mud and grime and struggling to get his damned pants off.

"I told you, jeans," she reminded him, finally straightening. "Geeze, Matthias, you need a shower." Another peel of laughter left her, as a mud-sodden hunk of hair fell over his face.

He swiped it back and glared at her.

"Poor little wolfie," she crooned, as he kicked his pants free and stood before her, naked. And aroused. Horribly aroused. He had felt the mating heat returning in the past week, tormenting him with the need to possess her. To taste and touch her.

In the weeks since her surgery, as though her body recognized its need to heal, the heat had only been a slow simmer inside them both. Now it was blazing inside him, and the scent of her heat filled his head.

His lashes lowered, as he flicked a look over the shorts and T-shirt she wore.

"Shower with me." He moved toward her, his body tightening with hunger. He had been like this for days, and it was killing him. If he didn't touch her, take her, he would go insane.

Her tongue swiped over her lips, as she pushed her hair back from her face, sensuality marking her features.

Grace hadn't forgotten for a second what she had almost been taken from. Over the past two months she had made certain Matthias became an integral part of her family, so that, should the worst ever happen, he wouldn't be alone.

He fought her, of course. He knew what she was doing. But when she awoke in that hospital room, saw his pale, haggard features and his agonized whiskey eyes, she had known. Had she died, Matthias wouldn't have been long behind her. His soul was a part of hers. She wondered, even now, if either of them could survive without the other.

God she loved him.

She leaned against his damp, muddy chest, her eyes closing, as she felt the warmth of him surrounding her. She loved him like flowers loved the sunshine. They embraced it, drew in its heat, and basked in its approval. That's what she did with Matthias.

Her hands slid over his powerful forearms, as they enclosed her, his hands gripping the hem of her shirt and drawing it away from her body.

Tossing the material aside, his lips went instantly to the mark throbbing on her shoulder.

"Like the flowers love the sun," he whispered at her ear, echoing her thoughts. "That's how I love you, too, Grace. I can't survive without your warmth. Without your love."

She turned to him, her head tilting back, her lips accepting his, as his tongue swept into her mouth. Honey and spice. That was his taste, and she gloried in it. Her tongue wrapped around his, drew the hormone from the swollen glands beneath it, and she let the fire have her.

Kissing her, touching her, Matthias lifted her into his arms and carried her to the shower. He didn't take his lips from hers as he adjusted the water. He sipped at them, licked at them, shared his taste with her, then lifted her beneath the spray of the dual showerheads.

The glass doors closed behind them, wrapping them in steamy intimacy, as his hands coasted over her body. His lips moved down her neck, to her chest. Just beneath her collarbone, he licked the scars the bullet and subsequent surgery had left. They were still a little tender, but the stroke of his tongue was like the sunlight.

Grace lifted herself against him, her head tipping back, as water ran over her head, soaking her hair, running in rivulets over her face, down her neck, to his lips. Lips that were moving from the scar to her nipples.

He sucked the hard points inside his mouth, drew on them deeply, growled in pleasure as she rubbed her leg along his thigh. The tiny, nearly invisible hairs that grew there, soft as a whisper of silk, caressed her.

Her hands weren't still, and neither were his lips. As he sucked at her nipple, scraped it with his teeth, her head lifted to allow her lips to touch his brow. Her hands smoothed over his shoulders, over the bulge of his arms.

Warmth and pleasure filled her. Wicked, sharp pleasure that clenched her womb and had her breath catching with an overload of sensations.

She had missed this. She had missed his touch, his kiss, the heat of him flowing over her and through her, until she didn't know where he ended and she began. He was her dreams, her adventures. Her sunlight.

"Poor Grace," he whispered against her breast. "I can smell how hot you are, how sweet."

"So fix it," she demanded breathlessly, leaning back against the shower wall, as his tongue swiped between her breasts, followed by a hungry growl.

She loved that growl. A bit of a rumble, a latent vibration of pleasure. She could distinguish between the sounds. Matthias growled a lot. Especially when he reached the saturated, slick folds of her pussy.

"Oh, God." He shuddered beneath her hands. He did that a lot, too. "I could eat you for hours. For days." His tongue licked through the narrow slit, circled her clit, and had her shuddering.

She was supposed to stand when he did this? When his tongue licked and stroked, and sent fingers of electric heat whipping through her?

"I don't think I can hold out that long," she panted, feeling the excess juices that gathered and built between her thighs.

She ached for him. Ached with a need that went beyond the heat that seared their hungers, one that went to her soul. She wanted him inside her again. She wanted that affirmation, that proof that they were alive.

"You don't have to hold out long, Grace," he groaned, his fingers parting the tender flesh as he tongued her clitoris.

Sensation raced from the bundle of nerves, struck her womb, clenched it, and sent her arching, tilting her hips closer, as the need for orgasm began to thunder through her. She was desperate. Didn't he know she was crazy for this now?

"It's been too long," she cried out, as she felt his fingers fill her rather than the thick length of his cock.

It was good. It was wickedly good, the feel of his fingers caressing her inside, parting her pussy and rubbing against sensitive nerve endings. But it wasn't enough. It wasn't what she hungered for.

Even as his fingers slid deep inside her sex, flexed and stroked the tender tissue, she was begging for more. His tongue licked around her clit, tightening it with agonizing need, as the nerve endings pounded with the need for release.

He nuzzled his lips against it, drew it inside his mouth, and suckled her with firm heat and disastrous results. Grace exploded in pleasure, the clitoral orgasm whipping through her, jerking her muscles tighter, and causing her nails to bite into his shoulders, as he rose before her.

The violent contractions of release were still thundering through her body, when he gripped the backs of her thighs and lifted her.

Grace curled her legs around his hips on instinct, forcing her eyes open to watch him in drowsy pleasure, as he tucked the head of his cock against the mouth of her vagina.

"I love you," he groaned raggedly, as he began to press inside her, the silky preseminal fluid filling her, sensitizing her further. "Like the flower loves the sun, the earth loves the rain. You're my life, Grace Anderson Slaughter."

She felt her heart melt for him all over again. That happened at least a dozen times a day, and it was always fresh, always new.

"I love you," she gasped, as he continued to slide inside her, stretching her, parting her, burning her. "You're my soul, Matthias. My sun and my rain." Her back arched, as he seated his erection fully inside her.

Grace felt her muscles flexing, tightening around the width of his cock, and sending brilliant shards of exquisite pleasure racing through her. They raked her nerve endings, embedded her soul, and whipped through every cell of her body.

Words weren't needed now, only gasping cries of pleasure and the hard thrusts and acceptance of the heat burning through them. His cock shuttled inside her hard and deep in luscious strokes. Grace twisted in his grip, taking him, stroking him, tightening on the hard, heavy length of his cock, as she began to tremble in his arms.

She could feel her orgasm coming now. It was tightening in her womb, through her muscles. Her clit was distended, her nipples hard and aching, as they rake against his chest. She was on fire. Burning. Sweating, despite the water rolling over them, and exploding in his arms as she screamed out his name.

His release followed. The thickening in the center of his cock spread across her sensitive pelvic floor muscle, causing it to spasm and contract, to milk tighter at his flesh, as a snarl of pleasure left his lips. The additional swelling didn't affect the entire length of his cock, just that one portion, the section that aligned just above the delicate vaginal muscle, effectively locking him inside her.

The blast of his semen inside her triggered another orgasm, not as fierce or as hard. This one was gentler, easing through her rather than exploding over her nerve endings.

As it ended, Grace found herself still pressed against the shower wall, as Matthias trembled against her. Cool water sprayed over their overheated bodies, washing away the perspiration that would have coated them, but doing little to still the heat that had raged through their bodies.

Her hands stroked his shoulders, her lips pressed against his neck. Grace held him to her, absorbing the hard spasms that gripped his muscles with each spurt of his release.

With each eruption, the hard swelling inside her throbbed, pulsed, and sent tremors of response racing through her. Like mini-orgasms clenching her womb. With each spasm, she tightened on that thick swelling, causing another pulse of his release to blast inside her. Causing him to shudder and groan in her arms.

"This… this is ecstasy," he whispered at her ear. "This, Grace, is home."

She felt tears fill her eyes. Home. Matthias finally had a home, and it was her. She buried her head against his broad shoulder and thanked God for the Breed that had found her.

"That, was worth waiting for," she panted minutes later, as the swelling of his cock receded and he slid out of her, groaning.

"I couldn't handle having to wait like that again," he informed her, his breathing hard and heavy, as he lifted his hand and touched the scar on her chest. "Never again, Grace."

Her hand covered his. "I'll always be a part of you, Matthias. No matter what. Just as you'll always be a part of me."

He shook his head. "I took a job at the hotel. I'm head of security. You're assistant manager, and I have every assurance you'll be promoted to manager before much longer. We're going to live nice, sedate lives from now on. Do you understand me?"

He looked so arrogant. So dominant.

Grace grinned. "I still get to climb trees."