Cinder's Wolf: A Shifter Retelling of Cinderella (A BBW Shifter Fairy Tale Retelling Book 2) (18 page)

“Give it your best shot,” she rasped, high.

Oh yes, she was going to be well fucked tonight.

As he bent over, he brutally made her look up at him, bruising a kiss against her lips, as if to convince her she was absolutely fucking perfect the way she was. Spittle and all. Taking her hand that he still held imprisoned, he placed it on his hot, throbbing cock. He ended the kiss, but still remained close enough to her lips that he only had to whisper. “If you had kept going, I would’ve come in that sweet little mouth of yours. We couldn’t have that now. Could we?”
Then, with no warning, Rex scooped her up in his arms and took her back to one of the small rooms in the jet. As always, he held her as if she weighed nothing at all, except Cynthia felt heavy. Not just because she was curvy, but because if she looked too closely, all of Rex’s little quirks and superpowers edged dangerously close to something that shouldn’t have been possible.
Am I just hallucinating this?

Rex must’ve sensed her unease because he cradled her closer to his chest. “You need to trust I can handle you, darling.”

She craned her neck to look around. While the bedroom of the jet wasn’t a perfect replica of the bedroom at the penthouse—there was no way to fit a bed that big even in a Dreamliner—the comforter looked silky and fluffy enough to make up the difference.

Rex laid her gently down on the bed before sliding on top of her. His dark blue eyes weren’t just ravenous for her, they were desperate. Not in the same blank animal manner they had been when they fucked in the office or the many times since, but with a man’s need. To touch. To hold. To capture. His hand ghosted around her face.

“I’m going to touch you somewhere I haven’t touched you before,” he said, standing up. “It’s going to feel very good. And probably a little overwhelming.” The fact that he was clearly trying to be gentle and not freak her out only succeeded in making her body feel more trembly with nerves.

“A-all right?”

“But first, I’m going to tie you up. Are you okay with that?”

She nodded.

Slowly and deliberately, he undid his tie from his neck, as if he were trying to make sure she saw the workmanship of his knot. “There are some difficult things I’m going to show you this week. For the both of us. I think we both need this release.”

“Rex, do I look like I’m saying no?”

His fingers paused on the knot as he looked her over.

She knew the picture she painted, splayed out on the bed, the hem of her dress longer in the back than the front, so that when the front hem rolled up far enough he could see the tip of her blue, striped panties. Dragging one finger up her thigh, she brought the hem up higher. She didn’t want to just play with fire. She wanted to burn so that for one second she wouldn’t think about the mess of Boxes & Broom or how fragile the peace between her and Rex really was.

“You look like a naughty girl.” He smirked, his eyes icy blue, his body as still as a hunter lying in wait. Not looking down, he tugged his tie down in a single yank, the knot undoing, the silk pooling in his hand. “Who’s going to stop trying to tempt me and put her hands above her head…”

Refusing to be intimidated, Cynthia didn’t break eye contact even as she raised her arms.

“Good girl,” he praised in a low, very male voice.

Her heart thudded in her chest. She suddenly felt how exposed she was, with her dress riding up, revealing all that skin ripe for him to kiss and bite and suck. And once she was tied up, there would be nothing she could do to stop him.

Her arms started to fall. Lunging forward, he caught them halfway, moving them back up to the headboard and crossing them over each other. With one hand, he pressed her wrists against the wooden headboard, and with the other, he wove the tie around them, once, then twice. When he was done, he tightened it.

“Try to get out.”

She gave an exploratory tug at the bindings.

His eyes darkened and he shook his head. “Harder.”

She grunted and threw her shoulder into it. The silk slipped against her wrist, but it didn’t give. There was no getting out of this.

His hot breath washed over her face, his nose almost touching hers. “Good. If you take them down, I’ll spank you.”

At a pace so slow Cynthia could feel his fingers push down the microscopic bits of stubble on her legs, he brushed his hand down her thigh, then her calf, until he reached her ankle, right over the Band-Aid.
The patch of fur burned, suddenly tingling. “Rex, you don’t want to touch me there. It’s just a weird—”

“Hush.” His voice held a strange fusion of his velvet-cultured drawl and the gruff animal command she usually only heard during some of his more primal sex noises. “Right now, in this bed, you don’t tell me what to do. Understand?”

“Y-yes.”

She said nothing else. There wasn’t really anything else she could say. Her clit beat in time with the pulsing of her mark. Slowly, he pulled away the Band-Aid. It should’ve hurt, but it didn’t.

Oh God.

His thumb pressed down on the mark, and she saw stars. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. She needed more. She needed…

“Please,” she begged.

“Feel it,” he said roughly, although the line of his shoulders didn’t break. “Whatever happens this weekend. Whatever you decide. I want you to remember this moment. I want you to remember how you belonged to me. How I made you come with just a word—with just the knowledge that you’re mine.”

Before she could object to the ridiculous notion that he could make her come by just holding her ankle and speaking to her, he tilted his chin, opened his mouth, and said in a tone that seemed to find the same harmonic frequency as her soul and shatter it. “Come. Now.”

She obeyed. It was an odd sensation. At first, the orgasm felt as if it was happening to someone else, and she was floating just outside of herself, watching. Then it was all she could feel—the waves of pleasure slamming through her blood and bones and brain and heart. Oh God. Her heart beat so hard and fast she thought she was dying.
“Rex!” Her back arched, her body twitching. Now that she felt the pleasure, she couldn’t do anything else but feel it. Her neurons were like neon wires burning her retinas blind. Her toes curled. Oh God, it felt so good.

“Tell me you’re mine.”

“Rex…” She had no air left to scream, only whispered it.

“Tell me. Now.”

“I’m yours.”

She slumped back down onto the bed, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Her joints felt like jelly. When she tried to move, it was too hard. “Rex.”

Holy fuck.

Blonde hairs tickled her sweat-drenched face before sticking against her skin. Her eyelashes fluttered, the interior of the bedroom strobing before her.

“Look at me, darling,” he coaxed. Just a hint of worry slipped through his calm facade.

She forced herself to focus. When she met his gaze, his brow furrowed, but his blue eyes were wide as he slid down to her level and gave her a tender kiss. When they parted, he turned away, speaking down to the comforter, one hand on her shoulder. “Gods. You…”

He looked up at the ceiling, trying to hold something back, but failing. “I love you, Cynthia Cinders.” He laughed, the sound hollow. “And here I thought could keep myself in control until we landed. But I never can with you, can I?”

“Rex.” She knew with him looking so mournful that she shouldn’t smile, but she couldn’t help it. She was grinning so big her gums showed.

Someone loved her.

He
loved her.

This strange, beautiful, wonderful mess of a man loved her. And there were a million things she wasn’t sure about when it came to Rex, but she didn’t doubt him when he said that. She hoped he wouldn’t doubt her either.
“I love you, too,” she whispered.

He fell into her, bowing his head, burying himself in her hair and kissing her neck. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say that to me. “

As an answer, she spread her legs and arched her hips upward. She wanted to take off her own pants or his, but with her hands still bound, that was impossible. She’d have to ask him. “Rex—”

“I know. I need to be inside of you too, darling. I’ll take care of you, I promise.” Quickly, Rex undid his own pants, then hers, pulling her panties down over her legs and placing them on the side of the bed. They were scrunched up instead of folded, and worse, damp from her own juices.

Cynthia’s nose scrunched. “Rex, would you—”

Rex noted her line of sight and grabbed the panties, but instead of folding them, he brought them up to her nose. She darted backward at the pungency of her own aroma, but his hand resting on her arm stilled her eventually, and he didn’t move them away.

“I want you to smell yourself, darling. I want you to see how delicious you are to me. Their wetness just proves how much you want me. And you like that, don’t you? Even if it’s a little messy.”

Bound and cornered as she was, there was nothing else she could do but accept the panties near her face. She had thought that her own smell would be unpleasant. Fishy, maybe. But it wasn’t. It was as raw and sexual as his own. Without realizing it, she rubbed her thighs together, her wetness dripping down her skin to ready herself for him.

“Say it.”

“I like it,” she said, moaning.

“Good girl.”

Cool, recycled air from the plane brushed against her swollen lips and she sighed, her wrists sagging against the bonds. It felt good, like being held without him even touching her. Like hearing him say he loved her without any sound.

“Now close your eyes and just feel me,” Rex ordered.

Cynthia closed her eyes, the encompassing blackness broken only by strange shapes and lights moving behind her eyelids. It reminded her of the dreams she had of him every night. When had those stopped? Right when she met him at the ball. It was odd.

Before she could think more about it, he was inside of her, and like he promised, all she felt was the way his cock made her core stretch to welcome him. Ridge by ridge, he plunged into her. She heard his breaths come infrequently and sharp. By the second thrust, he tenderly pushed her legs farther apart.

“I need you to open wide for me.”

She stretched herself until her pelvis ached, and he encouraged her by plunging into her until his balls slapped against her clit, sending a scattered shockwave of lust rippling through her curves. He ground his hips in a circle, giving her more friction against her clit as a reward.

“You’re going to think about this tomorrow with every step you take,” he promised.

With those words, Rex began fucking her in earnest. His tempo was slow and regular at first, the way he had taken her the night after the ball. But as she began to grunt in counterpoint to his rhythm, his movements became wilder. Instinctively, her hands pulled against the restraints, if only so she could scratch her fingernails down his back, but she was bound good and proper.

He threw his head back and upped his pace. Much like his voice, the way he took her was a hybrid of wild animal sex and cool control. One moment, he was slamming into her. The next, he was gazing down at her with that burning, analytical stare, clearly making sure that she was driven over the edge of pleasure.

Already, she was about to come again. Her walls clamped down on his penis, squeezing it as hard as she could; her hands were fists, knuckles bumping into each other with her wrists crossed. She rode the edge of an oncoming orgasm like a surfer on top of a tsunami. Eventually, it would drag her under. And she would let it.

Sweat trickled down Rex’s forehead and onto his collar.

“I’m—I’m—” she stuttered.

“Let go,” Rex commanded. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m here. I have you. I promise.”

“Oh God!” she screamed, her thighs squeezing around him, her orgasm finally dawning over her body at the exact same moment his did. “I’m yours, Rex. I’m yours.”

“Fuck yes, you are,” he groaned, collapsing down onto her as his cock finished its final thrust, letting out a stream of his seed deep inside of her. Once again, she was grateful for her IUD. Although she knew Rex wanted children at some point, she had made her family plans clear, and he respected them.

As he placed a kiss on her sweat-drenched cheek, she couldn’t keep herself from whispering, “Can we put the rest of your plans on hold for the weekend and just do this for the next couple of days? Or forever.”

“Oh, darling,” he said. “How I wish we could.”

H
is mate slept
through the plane ride. After strapping her in for take-off, Rex left her to rest. She’d need it to face what was ahead. They both did, although Rex couldn’t sleep. He gazed out the dark window at the wispy clouds drowning in the endless night sky. Sometimes flying at night felt like taking a voyage at the bottom of the ocean, land and light so far away. Something about the air pressure and the drone of the engines made his wolf silent. Or maybe that was just Cynthia.

He loved her.

He wasn’t sorry he had said it, although he did feel guilty she had said it back. How could she say she loved him when she didn’t know the truth? After the weekend, when he took her home to Crystal Creek to show her his true nature, she might regret it.

Because you’re a monster she’s thought has been extinct for the past two hundred years… Because all she wants is a life free of chaos, and no matter how hard you try, you are anything but…

“Is Ms. Cinders buckled in?” the pilot buzzed over the intercom.

Rex pressed a button on his chair to communicate his reply. “Yes, I made sure of it myself.”

“Good, then we should be landing in the next twenty minutes, sir.”

“Thank you, Mark.” He let go of the button, gazing at his phone on the table.

His new phone that he had purchased a week ago lay askew on the table. It was off, and he didn’t want to turn it back on.

He had sent his eldest brother Samson a text, saying he was coming home with her in a month, but nothing more than that. He had been ignoring his calls ever since. Well, truthfully, he had been ignoring Samson’s calls ever since he had returned to New York from Michigan after they tracked down Luther.

He didn’t want to know how many missed calls he had from Samson, now. It was weak and cowardly, sure. But there was always some part of Rex terrified that faced with Samson’s natural alpha dominance, he’d lose his hard-won humanity.

And yet, in the end, it hadn’t been Samson to ruin his control at all.

Rex’s finger flirted with the phone’s power button, but he decided against pressing it. He would see Samson in only a few hours. What difference would a conversation now make?

So Rex forgot about the phone. After they landed, he had to carry his darling out of the plane because he didn’t want to wake her. Then, picking his Maserati up from beside the airport, he blasted through the curves of desolate country highway toward Crystal Creek.

The house was like something out of a ghost story. Located at the end of a dirt road, surrounded by the now-abandoned Camp Kikanoo, their backyard was overgrown trails and their only landscaping was the woods. In autumn, the leaves were painted in such bright jewel tones that when the sun set, it all looked on fire. But now in March, with the sun having set long ago and the woods just beginning to sprout, the silhouette of the mansion and greenhouse was a light purple bruise against the ragged black line of trees behind it.

The greenhouse. A hollow ache grew in his stomach. He remembered when Samson had first told him that he was buying back their childhood home in a bid to help track down their wayward brother, Luther. Samson had made him promise he wouldn't turn the house into a memorial for their parents. But despite his brother’s best efforts to make it his own, how could it be anything but?

Cynthia slept in the seat next to him. Her lack of sleep yesterday, coupled with the exhaustion from their mating, had kept her unconcious for the entire ride. As he shifted from manual into park and eased onto the dirt driveway in front of the farmhouse, he knew that it was time to wake her up. He needed her beside him for this.

“Darling.”

“Mm.” She swatted at him with one hand, her eyes trying to open, but drooping with sleep.

Rex unbuckled his seatbelt and left the car behind him. Slamming the door with more force than was necessary, and if judging by the screech of metal, safe for the vehicle, he opened Cynthia’s door and gestured for her to exit. He tried not to behave angrily, because he wasn’t. His wolf was just nervous and not ready to face tomorrow or the lingering ghosts of many yesterdays past.

Stretching upward, her cleavage jiggled pleasantly as she smoothed out her rumpled dress. She moved with no self-consciousness after their months of sleeping together. The hollow ache grew. Just when she’d finally learned to trust him, to love him, he would have to reveal exactly why she shouldn’t have.

He scooped up her hand in his, and without further ceremony, he began to lead them to the house. They were quiet as they walked, Cynthia still shaking off some of the lingering sleep if her slow pace was anything to go by, and Rex relishing the dual sensations of the brisk spring air and the warmth of his mate on his arm, however fleeting.

She let him lead her with little protest as they climbed the steps up to the porch. The soles of his shoes caught on the treads Bel had added to the stairs last year after she kept tripping on them in the icy winter.

The inside of the mansion was just as dark as the outside, and the smells freshly turned dirt and tentative green shoots lingered here too. It immediately reminded him of the greenhouse. Of his mother. Above that were the twin scents of Samson and his mate.

Careful to avoid the creaking floorboards, Rex, herded Cynthia up the stairs and down the hallway that led to his old childhood room. When they got to the door, she hesitated.

He thought she might ask him again why he had brought her back to his old home. If she did, he wasn't certain he could lie anymore.

But all she asked was, “What about suitcases?”

“I’m going back down to get them, and then I'll be back to join you. You can settle in. The Wi-Fi password is CarvedDeerofDarkness, if you want to get some work done before you sleep.”

She winced. At what, Rex didn’t know. “Thanks. I think I’m probably going to go to bed too.”

“All right.” Rex stroked down her bare arm. The goose bumps from the outside cold had almost completely faded. He squeezed her hand. “Sleep well.” He tried to turn to go, but she didn’t let him.

“I meant what I said, you know.” Her voice was husky with sleep, but clear. “I love you, Rex West.”

Rex’s throat swelled up in gratitude, but he couldn’t echo her statement. His wolf was quiet but restless inside of him, and for the first time, he wished it wasn’t. He wished it would overwhelm his mouth and let him tell her the truth.

“I’ll see you soon.” He pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek and let her close the door while he went downstairs.

He only made it two steps.

“Welcome home, brother.”

Two green eyes gleamed at him from the darkness. It was a testament to his brother’s abilities as a hunter that Rex hadn’t heard him walking through the hallways. It was also a testament to his brother’s strength as an alpha that Rex’s first instinct was to cringe away from the rumble of anger hiding in the base ranges of his brother’s voice.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” Rex said.

“We’re going for a walk,” Samson said, not bothering to conceal the werecall laced through his tone.

Rex bristled. Rex was pleased to find his reaction to his brother wasn’t blind obedience, but annoyance. That was new. Having had let his wolf free had some benefits. “Let me get changed then.”

“No, we’re going now.” Samson was dressed in one of the same outfits he wore every day, jeans and a flannel shirt, and his muscles practically popped out of both. Rex was fit as well, but just because you had biceps didn’t mean you needed to show them off.

“Fine,” Rex said through gritted teeth, gesturing ahead of his brother toward the door. “Lead the way, alpha.”

Samson’s eyes narrowed, but if he noticed the sarcasm—and it was possible he didn’t—he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he prowled toward the door and threw it open, sending it banging.

Rex found his own wolf snarl in response to the show of force as he followed. Yes, he hadn’t called his brother. But other than that, what did Samson have to be uppity about? Rex not telling him about Cynthia?

Rex hadn’t mentioned her before because no doubt his brother would’ve laughed at him and called him an odd wolf, as he always did. Which was his brother’s way of saying he wasn’t really a wolf at all, something that until now, Rex would’ve taken as a compliment.

The coldness of the early March air hit him square in the face. The moon was full in the dark sky, gilding the first leaves of the trees in silver. Small animals and night birds were beginning to wake in the distance, hooting and scratching.

Samson was already halfway down the driveway by the time Rex had finished closing the porch door and walking down the steps. “Are we going for a walk or for a run?”

Dirt dusted up around Samson’s feet as he pushed forward, practically stomping like a child. “Don’t be smug with me now, Rex.”

Samson never could control his temper, and at the moment, it was catching. Rex fought back a sneer, although he didn’t try hard enough to keep from showing the hint of his canines. “Are you upset because I didn’t return your calls, brother?”

“I’m upset because I had to hear from a cat that you apparently turned in the middle of Central Park.”

“Bane,” Rex hissed.

Samson grunted, turned, and strode back to Rex. “Don’t make this about Bane. You’re the one shifting where any human could see you. If I’d known you’d be an idiot, I’d have never let you go back to New York.”

“Let me?” Rex laughed and was surprised by the bitterness of it. “You’re not my father.”

“No, but I am your alpha.” Samson crossed his arms, his snarl subsiding into a calmer expression. Although his wild black hair and feral thick eyebrows seemed to be in motion even while still.

Rex clenched and unclenched his fists, just to make sure claws wouldn’t sprout from his fingertips. If he shifted now, he would get in a fight with Samson. That wasn’t a fight he could win.

Moonlight dusted the dirt road that curved into the woods, tendrils of it calling to Rex, urging him to crane upward, much the way the guests at his party had gaped up at the chandelier all those weeks ago. For all his love of the old-world trappings of human culture, it was the moon that spoke the language his heart knew. Unobstructed as it was now by skyscrapers, he realized how much he had missed it.

“I lost control,” Rex said finally.

“Why?”

To Rex’s surprise, there was none of his brother’s trademark gruff scorn, but he didn’t look away from the moon to confirm it. “I mated with Cynthia, and then she ran away.”

“Astrum and Terrum,” Samson swore.

This time, Rex did glance away from the moon. Samson’s thick brows were furrowed, and he looked almost… guilty. It was puzzling.

“I should’ve flown out with you when you left,” he said. “I knew there was something strange with you.”

“You’re not angry at me for lying to you?” Rex asked.

Or disgusted by the fact that my wolf was so weak I couldn’t find my mate immediately after mating without some cat’s help.

“I’m angry with myself for making you feel like you couldn’t tell the truth.” Samson shook his head.

The wash of pale moonlight seeped through Rex's skin into his blood, mesmerizing him so much, he couldn’t even pull away. “You’re very honest tonight.”

“You have Bel to thank for that. She’s taught me to be more aware of my own faults.”

Privately, Rex thought Bel should perhaps be a bit more aware of
he
r own faults, especially where messiness was concerned. Although his brother had once hired her as his pseudo-maid after her father stole one of their mother’s roses, she was perhaps the most disorganized person he had ever met.

In fact, not too long after she had moved in and Luther had left to roam the country looking for his mate, Rex had jetted back to New York. The dreams hadn't started then, but Rex had been unable tolerate Bel’s clutter. He wondered what Cynthia would make of her. Annoyance, probably. The same annoyance he had for his brother.

Still.

If Bel could get Samson to see beyond his simplistic worldview of hunting and woodcarving and admit that there was more than one way to be a werewolf, perhaps her disorganization was worth it.
“It wasn’t your fault, Samson.” Rex swallowed down the stiffness in his throat. “Do you remember that day when I went for a walk and Bel broke into the backyard?”

A wistful smile tugged at his normally stoic brother’s mouth. “How could I forget?”

“Right,” Rex said. “Well, just before that, I met my mate too. Cynthia.”

Samson finally looked down from the moon and then glanced over at Rex before starting to walk again, guiding them both down one of the side trails that ran along the outer perimeter of their house, edging against the woods without entering. “Did you know then?”

“Immediately.” Rex followed. He wanted to turn and look over his shoulder at the moon again, but he resisted. He would be a man and talk to his brother without the sedative of the silver orb. “But I lost her after a girl shot an arrow at me.”

“Red,” Samson said sourly. “I’d ask you to sic your lawyers on her for all the annoyance she’s caused us, but Bel says she’s disappeared.”

Rex closed his eyes, searching for calm. “After that, I couldn’t track her. My wolf wasn’t strong enough. I had spent too much time trying to push it down and away, so I could work on Father’s business.”

He was not yet brave enough to state the real reason why he hated his wolf so much. But he had a feeling his brother knew. Just like Rex had known why Samson flew into such a rage when Bel’s father stole one of the roses. It had nothing to do with the fact that each bloom was worth a little over a million dollars.

“When you lost her, it took control.” Samson’s strides were long and fast, but Rex easily kept up. It was a relief, not having to worry about hiding the extent of his strength.

“Yes.”

To Rex’s surprise, Samson began to laugh. A low booming sound that could’ve blown the newborn leaves off the oaks huddled around the trail.

“What’s so funny?” Rex asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious of his suit and expensive shoes.

“I’m just relieved.”