TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 31

Thirty-One

CAMERON POV

I stood under the shower with the water scalding hot, trying to wash away the restlessness crawling under my skin.

It didn’t work.

Nothing worked.

Evangeline was my mate. The woman the Moon Goddess had chosen for me. The woman I had sworn my life to Lisa meant nothing. She was a contract, a temporary solution to a permanent problem.

So why the fuck did I feel guilty?

Her words from earlier kept replaying in my head.

My body is exhausted. I need a few days to recover.

I should have been annoyed and reminded her she had signed a contract and didn’t get to make demands.

Instead, I felt concern when she said she was hurt, and then relief when she asked for a break, as if some part of me had been waiting for an excuse to stop.

I braced my hands against the tile and let the water pound across my shoulders.

The past week had blurred into nightly encounters. I told myself it was about maximizing the chances of conception.

That was a lie.

I was craving her.

The sex. The way her body responded to mine. Her tightness and the way she moved with me until I had to fight to keep control. Her scent, that intoxicating mix of vanilla and night flowers that made my wolf restless and hungry.

I had knotted inside her multiple times now, something that had never happened with Evangeline. If anything was going to get someone pregnant, it was knotting.

So maybe Lisa was right. Maybe we had done enough. Maybe I could give her a few days to recover and see if the pregnancy took.

My wolf pushed back.

He didn’t want to stop.

He wanted more.

I looked down at myself, hard and already leaking, irritation tightening through my chest as if the damn thing should obey reason.

It didn’t.

I wrapped my hand around the base and dragged it upward. A harsh breath slipped out of me.

It wasn’t enough. Not even close.

I forced Evangeline into my mind. Her face. The mouth I loved. My mate. The woman the Moon Goddess had tied me to.

Nothing.

The image twisted almost immediately.

Lisa replaced it without effort.

Her wide hips under my hands. The way her body moved when she was on all fours. The full weight of her breasts shifting with every thrust, nipples tight and flushed.

Her eyes half-lidded and unfocused, staring through me as if she saw the war inside my chest and didn’t care. That scent rolling off her skin when she was close, thick arousal coating my cock even now just from remembering.

My hand moved faster.

I pictured her on her back again, legs hooked over my elbows while I drove into her hard enough to pull broken sounds from her throat. The way her body clenched when I started to swell, locking us together.

I had never knotted Evangeline.

Not once.

With Lisa it happened every time now, as if my body had already made a decision my mind refused to acknowledge.

My strokes turned rough. My spine locked. A sound tore out of me as release hit hard, heat spilling across my hand and stomach while my hips jerked against nothing.

Then silence.

Only the rough pull of breath in my chest and the water running down the tile.

Shame settled in.

I looked down at the mess on my skin, my hand still around my softening cock, and felt sick.

She was a contract.

A surrogate.

A means to an end.

No resignation.

Desire.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

I crossed the room and pulled her against me. Her body fit easily against mine, warm and soft.

I kissed her.

The first time I had ever done it. The one boundary Evangeline set that I had never crossed.

In the dream there were no rules.

Lisa opened under my mouth, eager. Her hands slid up my chest and around my neck, fingers threading through my hair.

I lifted her and she wrapped her legs around my waist. Her heat pressed through the fabric between us and her scent filled the air.

I carried her to the bed and laid her down, following her with my body.

This time I didn’t rush.My mouth moved along her neck and collarbone. I pushed the nightgown up slowly, exposing her skin inch by inch.

When I settled between her legs she was already wet.

“Please,” she whispered. “Cameron.”

Hearing my name on her lips tightened something deep in my chest.

I entered her slowly and felt her body stretch around me. She arched up, drawing me deeper.

I started moving and she moved with me, meeting every thrust with a roll of her hips that made my vision blur.

“Don’t stop,” she breathed. “Don’t ever stop.”

I kissed her again, swallowing the sounds she made as the knot began forming.

This time I didn’t fight it.

I let it swell and lock us together while her body tightened around me.

She broke apart in my arms, crying my name while her body trembled.

And I followed her, buried deep inside her, feeling a sense of completion that settled into my bones.