Chapter 85

Alaric’s POV

It’s not right. She’s drunk…. Isn’t she?

We can’t do this…

“Can’t we?” But Cara whispers to me.

I keep breaking our embrace, trying to get a good look in Cara’s eyes. I need to see, I need to know, if she’s too drunk to do this in good conscience. I don’t want to take advantage of her…

She’s suddenly kissing on my neck.

Oh, Goddess.

I may actually come undone. I’m trying to do the right thing. I’m trying to be the good guy for once. But she’s not giving me an inch.

“I love you, Cara...”

The feeling has never been so clear. After I say those words, I even feel a sense of relief—relief from being honest with myself.

I should have done this a long time ago. I should have realized that I’ve loved her all along. All of it, all the misunderstandings, maybe I’ve loved her since six years ago. But how foolish I was, to only say these words now!

— I’ve hurt her too much.

"I love you, I love you, Cara..." I keep kissing her, repeating it in her ear. “Please let me make it right. Please be my Luna! ...”

She probably finds it a little ticklish, laughing and gently stroking my hair, as if she didn’t quite catch it. "...Hmm, what?"

It’s sexy as hell. And fucking irresistible.

My body doesn’t care what my mind thinks. My body is only fixed on her. On Cara.

“She’s the one we’ve been waiting for….” I hear my wolf Grey whisper in my mind.

I push him back, far back, into the corner of my mind. The last thing I need is his voice in my head, interrupting this moment. This moment that feels like it’s been building between Cara and I for years now.

When I knocked on her door tonight, I truly never expected things to turn out this way. I didn’t even expect her to open her door, let alone invite me inside. She had said she’d been drinking wine, maybe that was all the lubricant she needed to finally open up to me.

Emotionally, I mean…

After the way she’d looked in the hospital, when she asked me if I love her… when a stupid sense of self - preservation forced me to lie to her… Well, I never expected to be back in her arms ever again.

But now I’ve done it. I’ve told her that I love her. She didn’t respond to my statement. She didn’t gasp, or pause, or even react at all.

But I’d said it. I finally told her I love her.

And I told her again and again that night. With the way my body melted against hers. The way my hips pumped, driving myself into her. Planting myself deeply into her, into her heart and soul, I’d hoped.

I made love to her that night, like I’d never made love to anyone before. It wasn’t fucking. It wasn’t just sex.

I laid my heart bare for her, pleasuring her body in a way that the woman who had my heart truly deserves. Tonight, I treated her like my Queen, worthy of only the grandest pleasures that life has to offer.

And I’d done it again.

And again.

And again.

Until her eyelids drooped with a kind of happy exhaustion that couldn’t be faked, I satisfied her in every way that a man could satisfy a woman. I gave her all that I had to give, plus just a little bit more.

After all, she is worth it.

But I couldn’t sleep afterwards. My body hummed with the electric energy of a long - standing wish now fulfilled. I was full of adrenaline and happiness and… hope. With a laugh, I realized that unfamiliar sensation was hope welling up inside me.

Hope for the future, now that I’d revealed my true feelings to Cara. Now that I’ve finally told her how I really love her. After everything we’d been through, now I could finally be hopeful.

I watched the sun come up through the window, soft light kissing the curves of Cara’s hips, sloping in such a tempting way. I planted a kiss there, eliciting a soft moan from her sleeping lips.

I ran a caressing, loving hand over her smooth skin, touching all the parts of her normally covered by her professional clothing. It was only me who got to see her this way. Only me.

Why did it take me so damned long to realize that I love her?

“That’s the question I’ve been asking for years now,” Grey chirped inside my head with a smug chuckle.

I internally rolled my eyes at him, not wanting to spoil the moment with my wolf’s bitter gloating. Yes, I know he had tried to get me to see reason before. But for some reason, I never could…

Until now.

Now, with the object of my affections softly, very cutely in fact, snoring into her pillow, I wonder how on earth I could have missed it? How on earth I could have hidden from myself this great big well of love inside my chest, reserved for one woman alone: Cara.

Yes, I’m a fool. There’s no doubt about that. But I’m a damned lucky fool. Lucky enough to share Cara’s bed.

And I don’t even have to stomach the guilt of her having a husband! She doesn’t have any such husband. I’d never been so happy to misunderstand something in my life!

My stomach grumbles, reminding me that it’s been many hours since I’d last eaten. After all the calories we burned last night, I have a feeling Cara will be hungry, too. I plant one last kiss, tender and gentle, on Cara’s hip before rising from the bed.

The motion must have caused the mattress to stir. In a flash, Cara’s eyes snap open.

She stares up at me, at first with confusion, then with intense horror.

.......Horror...?!

“...Wh - what?!” she screams, stuttering from the shock.

“Shhh… shhhh… it’s alright,” I try to reassure her, keeping my voice soft and mild. “Shhh…”

“Don’t ‘shhhh’ me! What happened?!” Cara yells at me, grabbing the bedsheet that had gathered near her ankles. “You, you, and I....!”

She pulls the white sheet up over her body, covering herself from the neck down. She’s hiding herself, I realize. Hiding herself from me.

“Cara, I can explain. Last night—” I start, but she backs away from me further, leaning hard against the wall behind her bed.

It’s like she’s trying to put as much physical distance as possible in between us. I don’t understand. We had a perfect night. I’m sure that we both crave each other...

Maybe She's confused now. I just need to remind her, to refresh her memory…

A sudden sting erupts from the side of my cheek. The skin feels hot, and it burns terribly.

She slapped me.

Cara Wilson actually slapped me.

How could this have gone so wrong?! I need to fix this, and fast. I rub my cheek, trying to demand the pain go away.

I look at Cara and fresh pain hits my heart. She’s clutching her hand, clearly in pain herself from the contact of the slap. I almost apologize to her for how my face has hurt her hand.

Then I look back at her, the way she has crumpled herself into a ball, arms squeezed in closely, legs tucked under tightly. Like she’s protecting herself.

From me.

"...Get out." I hear her whisper softly.

“What...?”

“— I said, get out of my house!” She says, "NOW...!!!"

And when I look at her face, something inside my heart cracks, creating a hole of despair and self - loathing.

Cara is crying.