When the Wolves Cry (Twin Flames Duet #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

TALA

I’m glued to the black house tucked away in the woods. If I didn’t have a giant, strong hand bracing my waist, I’d collapse in utter awe. It’s striking and not at all what I was expecting. I didn’t think he lived in an underground bunker, but I definitely didn’t think he lived in a modern mansion that has no privacy.

The windows are massive with nothing to cover them. I can see straight into his open layout that’s very bare in comparison to my own taste. Before I can question him about the bleakness, the silhouette of pointy ears at the door steals my attention.

“Do I get to love on Sirohi at all?” I ask naively, bootsthunkingup the wide concrete steps.

“While I pour the drinks you can. Once I’m done, you’re mine.”

His tone makes me nervous.

I use a shaky hand to brush my hair over my shoulder, watching him enter a long password into the keypad on his front door. Every beep makes my mouth run drier and I’m somehow sweating against the freezing air.

I should’ve gone home. He’s going to split me to my ass.

His warm, whiskey scent runs over me as I walk into what looks like a minimalist show home. The black walls are full of windows and the furniture is either concrete or black. There are no decorations or anything personal filling space. It’s open, clean, and massive for it just being him and Sirohi.

The dim lighting creates a cave-like ambiance. I would make a Batman joke, but the hunter eyes eating me up make me swallow my humor down.

“It’s… huge,” I marvel, scratching Sirohi’s head.

Beckoning me to follow him, he starts going up the glossy black staircase with my shaggy bag. “There’s plenty of room for your stuff,” he implies, smiling over his shoulder.

“I’m not moving in with you, Jax,” I say tonelessly.

Turning down the hall, he draws his brows together, looking at me as if he’s offended. “Why’s that?”

Studying the black and white martial arts posters andkatanaslining the hall, my train of thought starts smoking. “Because… I like my house,” I drone distractedly. “You really like martial arts, huh?”

“You can split your time half and half,” he proposes eagerly. “And yes, ma’am. My father owned adojoin Savannah. I was raised in it.”

With questions rattling around in my mind, he leads me into his dark bedroom, the only light being the moon. The walls look like textured, black cement, and aside from his massive walk-in closet, all that sits in the vacant room is a black platform bed that’s neatly made.

I don’t think he sleeps. His home is way too clean for a normal human to live here.

He sets my bag down on his bed while I spin around looking for a sign of life. “Put your sexy, little bikini on,” he orders. “I’ll be downstairs.”

He eye fucks me in passing, grinning at the confusion overtaking my face, and walks out with Sirohi.

“Jax, what the fuck? You said I’d get to love on him and you’re taking him away!”

Not a word. Not even a retreating footstep fills the silence.

I comply though. I fish out the tiny andstrappy, black bikini he put in my bag, whip my clothes off, and step into the bottoms while stumbling into his bathroom.

The walls in here are the same textured cement look. His shower is all glass with a jaw dropping rainfall shower head in the center. I’d definitely play around in there if he wasn’t expecting me to model my bikini or some shit.

While looping the neck strap over my head, I catch a glimpse of a little box sitting on his bathroom counter. A black note sits next to it, reading: Put them in.

I open the box to two metal barbells. Instead of metal balls, two diamonds sit on either end. They’re beautiful, and not at all what I was expecting to be in the box.

I quickly change my nipple rings and finish tying my swimsuit, then retrace my steps so I don’t get lost trying to find him.

I kind of feel vulnerable walking around in an unknown house in something so skimpy. The starved eyes he gives me from way across the kitchen turns it into nerves. It doesn’t help that he’s shirtless, dog tag hanging over his tattoos, and wearing swim trunks that stop mid-thigh.

You’re so fucking fucked.

Even though I’m sure he’s reading me like an open book, I play it calmly and keep my face straight while closing the infinite distance. He just watches me. And once I get to the concrete island, he turns around and opens his fridge.

I walk around the island, shamelessly looking down at the Japanese art that fills his legs and flows over his somehow pretty feet.

No one has pretty feet. But why wouldn’t he?

“You like what you see?” he asks cockily, opening a black bottle of Stella Rosa.

I move closer to the dripping sight, sandwiching Sirohi in between us. “I’m convinced Venus and Satan eavesdropped on my wet dreams to craft you,” I purr.

After filling a glass, he lifts the bottle up to my mouth with desire written all over his face. “Sounded like a confession.” He watches me take a desperate drink, intently analyzing the movement. “Don’t swallow.”

I hold the sweet wine in my mouth, gaping at him as he reaches over Sirohi and grabs my waist. In a quick, methodical movement, he lifts me up and sets me on thecountertop. My inner thighs rub against his hips as he moves in between them, igniting a demanding thrum in my core. “If it’s on your tongue, I want to taste it, little wolf,” he says vehemently.

He bends down, hands exploring up my curves, and he aligns his bottom lip with mine at a tilt. I watch him open his mouth for me, and the rush has me running my hands up the back of his head and letting the wine fall from my tongue—to his. A red drip rolls over his bottom lip, running into his scruff. I lap up it while he swallows, feeling the coarse hair rub against my tongue, finishing with the smooth skin of his lip.

“So fucking sweet,” he drawls lazily, eyes fixed on mine.

“That’s why it’s my favorite,” I smile.

He nods to the bottle. “Grab it,” he urges, scooting me into him.

Hooking an arm around his neck, I reach back and grab the bottle. His fingers dig into my hips to lift me up, and I fervently squeeze my thighs around him, flattening my body against his.

He’s so fucking warm.

I can’t decide to keep my gaze on his close face. Or go Exorcist and watch where he’s taking me to.

My weight shifts into one arm, and a sliding door opens behind me. The cold air attacks my back, drawing me even closer to the Devil. “It’s cold and snowing, Jax. Yet you have me in a little bikini outside.”

He closes the door behind us, giving me a heavy-eyed grin. “It’s not cold where we’re going, baby girl. Your heart rate would keep you warm anyway. I can feel it slamming into mine and I haven’t even eased inside you yet.”

Yet? …

I gulp, taking another drink of sweet blackberry. The sound of running water and bubbles has my head swiveling around, the wine sliding right down my gullet.

Black rose petals and tea light candles litter the concrete around his in-ground hot tub. The snow lightly falls on top of them, waving the flames around and collecting gently on the petals.

I turn back to him, astonishment lighting my eyes up. “Did you do all of this for me?”

He takes the steps down into the hot tub, the warm water barely reaching my ass from how tall he is. “Flowers and candles are nothing. If you said you wanted the moon, I’d figure out a way to pull it down. Even then, I can’t confidently say that’d be impressive. You, TalaAkiraHuxley, are a magical goddess to walk this Earth. People should be bowing to you in passing and you deserve everything and more. I mean that.”

If he looked closely, I’m sure he’d be able to see the flames burning in my eyes. It’s not butterflies I feel. There’s a fire burning in my stomach, spitting embers through my veins.

I faintly shake my head as he sits down, submerging us in the warm water. “So, you made the effort… just because?”

He weighs his head. “Well, I was going to try and be a gentleman and ask you to be my date to the gala. But it’s not a question. You’re going with me.”

Setting the bottle down behind him, I blow my cheeks up with air and let the bubble filter through my lips. “I’d like to go with you. But I always go with Nads. It’s been our thing since Mayor Jenkins fixed the castle up four years ago.”

“What did I say, Tala?”

“It’s not a question.”

“Good girl. So, you’re going to put the dress I got for you on, hold my hand the entire time, and exchange fake pleasantries with irrelevant fucks with me while we wait for Brutus to show his face.”

He adjusts his hips underneath me, planting my desperate vagina right on his monster hard-on. My cheeks grow warm with nerves, flushing and calling me out. And the hot water isn’t fucking helping at all. Neither is the one drink I guzzled down.

“Are you just wanting to go to kill him?”

Working his hands up my sides, he says, “I want to show off my siren girlfriend too. And I won’t be killing him there, baby. I’m going to swallow down my rage and figure out where the fucker lives.”

“Girlfriend,” I whisper back, watching the water’s reflection on his tattooed pecs. I tilt my head, looking closer at the jagged lines and bumps that hide under the black ink. “Are you comfortable with telling me what happened to you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he nods, taking a breath before starting. “Victor was a coked-out piece of shit that picked on me just because he could. I was too scrawny and young to defend myself for a while, so I had to take the punishments he dealt me. My mother didn’t give a fuck. She wanted a baby girl and resented me, even when my father was around. She was honestly a ghost to me up until my father got murdered… for her fuck up. So, she would sit in the recliner with a needle in her arm and just watch the torture unfold. Fuck, I was pulled out of public school because there was always something broken, busted, or bruised. The dude didn’t let me out of a shock collar for three years. I was constantly thrown into the pit with starved and abused dogs, beaten with break sticks… But I started focusing on the training my father gave me. Once I was around fifteen, I got bigger and stronger, and he started leaving me alone. Only because he knew I’d knock his teeth down his throat.”

I’m not entirely sure how long tears have been spilling in front of him. He wipes them away with wet fingers as they stream out. And I just analyze him, trying to think of something to say other than, I’m so sorry .

I sniffle, running my hands down his scarred arms. “Is that why you’re covered in tattoos? To hide the scars?”

“To cover the constant reminder, yes. I chose art that I knew would make my father proud.”

“Did he have tattoos?”

“Yeah,” he laughs. “He was bald, had this serpent that wrapped around his entire head. He looked like a mean motherfucker but had the kindest soul.”

I smile, running my hands into his messy hair. “So… like you?”

His fingers trail up my spine. It feels like a feather tickling me, making me sit taller, my chest arching into him.

“Hmm, I think my little wolf is starting to get the wrong idea of me.” His face falls serious, but seductive, and his hand travels up the back of my neck to grab a fistful of my hair. He tilts my head back, exposing my throat to him. “Are you, baby?” He kisses my neck. “Are you getting the wrong idea of me?”

He kisses over my throat, working his way over to the side where he slowly sucks on my carotid, and a breathy moan drifts from my parted lips.

The heavy sensation of crimson blooming to the surface of my skin is making me too desperate. “Do you want me to think you’re a bad man?”

He pulls away, lips rosy and slightly swollen. And I don’t let him answer. I lean in and eagerly seal my lips with his, feeling the immediate fireworks that pop over every inch of my skin.

I draw back, heart racing and mind spinning. There’s no way he’ll fit inside me—and I know that’s what he wants.

“Come here,” he growls, pushing back into me and taking my lips like he owns them.

The kiss is hungry, starving even. It makes my heart patter heavily against his, seemingly strong enough to form cracks in the Earth. The cold air rushes to my wet skin as he stands, tilting his head and sliding his tongue inside my mouth.

Kissing him is explosive in colors and elements, like the Big Bang playing behind my eyes and radiating in aura around us. It warps everything and time stills. I know he’s walking us somewhere, groans of contentment and pants falling from both of us and echoing in his vast home. I’m just so fucking caught up in kissing him, I pay no mind to my surroundings.

I get a quick glimpse of the hallway as I pull away for a deep breath. But he pushes right back in and claims my breath as his own. The rushed oxygen has static running under my flesh, making my head and eyelids heavy.

None of this feels real. His tongue is too silky and sweet. It’s intoxicating me further than alcohol ever could. And even though the grip he has on my ass and hair is firm and dominating, it’s still tender and full of binding passion.

His hand falls from my hair, and he starts messing with the knot on my hip. The fabric tightens across my lower stomach before it falls loose, the strings hanging limp over my thigh and down my ass.

I pull away again, this time turning my head so I can keep my breath. “I need a moment,” I say breathlessly.

His warm breath fans down my chest as he begins kissing my collarbone. I’m trying to figure out why the hell we’re in his closet, but the sensation of his tongue running through the notch of my collarbone is only allowing me to pay attention to how heavy the pressure is in between my legs.

A drawer opens behind me. I check over my shoulder, his scruff rubbing up my neck with every kiss, and I watch him pull red rope out of the top drawer.

I can’t help but overthink.

Realistically, Jax is a grown man with plenty of sexual experiences. I too have some notches on my belt and it’s unfair to mentally hold something like that against him.

Why was that already there? How many women has he used that same rope on? And how long ago? How did he feel about them?

The plaguing thoughts and images—ruin my mood.

I do this shit to myself and I’m aware of that.

I can’t help it. I wish I could.