Blondie’s 1998 with a Goat: Chosen Book 7 Page 4

  His hands moved down my body in a harried, choppy pace, his aim clearly for the front of our pants. I pulled back with a growl against his mouth, allowing him access, and nearly coming when he finally got me undone, and his soft, warm palm wrapped around my dick.

  "Oh shit! Hold on. I'm not going to last," I said, trying to pull back, resting my forehead against his neck. "We need to slow down."

  "The fuck we do," Marlow growled back, going to work on his own pants with one hand, while he continued to stroke me with the other. He gasped when he pulled himself from his pants. "I need to come, now. I've been waiting for you to come bend me over one of those fucking picnic tables since I forgot what the fuck I was supposed to be doing after coming face to face with that stupid fucking goat."

  I growled when our dicks brushed, whimpering when he wrapped his hands around his and mine at the same time. Unable to control myself, I punched my hips forward, dragging my dick through his tight grip and rubbing it against his hard cock.

  "Fuck, Arlington! Fuck."

  In the back of my mind, I knew we were in the hallway, and that anyone could walk by at any moment and see my beautiful mate in ecstasy, but I needed him like I've never needed anything. And for once we weren't sharing the room with several other people.

  But honestly, at this point, I don't know that people being in the same room would have had the power to stop me. I desperately needed to touch my mate. To be touched by him. And to feel and smell his cum, mixing with mine.

  "I'm about to go," Marlow yelled, clearly as unconcerned about the fact that we were in the hallway, in a house full of shifters as I was in his frenzied moment of lust.

  "Do it, Blondie," I growled in his ear before nipping the lobe. "I want to see you. Show me what you look like when you lose it."

  Looking down, he gasped, "Oh fuck! That's hot."

  I couldn't agree more, the sight making me punch forward again, making my mate bark out a harsh yell, as creamy, white seed shot out of his dick in three arching pulses.

  My balls rolled as I watched, and my own release drove my hips forward hard, as I shot between us, my cum mixing with his. My leopard growled happily, feeling victorious.

  Panting and leaning against each other, because our legs were jelly, I rubbed the side of our faces together, completely content to continue standing there in the hallway, snuggled up to my mate with our dicks out and cum soaking our shirts.

  "This," Bennett's voice came from somewhere behind us, but I was confident my mate and I weren't showing him anything he didn't need to see. "This is why I don't live here. You leap housers don't give a shit who hears you fucking."

  "Go away, Bennett." I groaned, not wanting to move, but being reminded that we probably should have taken that to a bedroom.

  "You don't want someone to see you boinking your mate against the wall, maybe don't pick the main hallway in the house."

  Sighing, because there was no way I could enjoy the afterglow of the best fucking orgasm of my life with Bennett's annoying ass quacking in the background, I reached between us, tucking first Marlow's and then my own junk away, looking into my mate's beautiful Caribbean colored eyes.

  There was a frown on his face, and his head was cocked sideways as he studied me, like he was trying to figure something out.

  Leaning forward, I pressed a soft, but lingering kiss against his warm, plush lips. When I pulled back, his eyes were dark, but he still seemed to be wresting with a question, making me a little nervous.

  "Are you okay, Blondie?"

  I was distracted a moment when he licked his lips, liking the way the kiss-puffed skin glistened against the whisker burn around his mouth.

  "Did Bennett just call me your mate? Does that mean what I think it means? Because we didn't finish that talk last night, and I'm starting to get a little nervous."

  Frowning also, I shrugged. "Yeah, that's what I was coming to talk to you about. What mates are, and that…you're mine."

  "No. Nope. Not possible. I am so not mate material."

  In that moment, I felt a pain in my chest, unlike anything I'd ever felt in my life. It felt like someone stabbed me with a hot blade.

  I stumbled back away from him, my breathing sounding harsh and not quite right. He looked stunned, reaching out a hand as I stumbled again, this time toward the stairs.

  "Arlington? Are you okay?"

  I couldn't answer, the room was fading, and I was pretty sure I was about to pass out. The next thing I heard was the shredding of my clothes, and then I was sprinting on all fours.

  I had no idea where I was going. I just let my leopard choose the course, and hoped for the best. I was going to need to let my mind shut down for a little while. I was going to have to block anything that had to do with Marlow out of my head until my mind could process it.

  Chapter Four

  I stared, shocked, down the stairs Arlington had very nearly fallen down just before he shifted and took off.

  "What the fuck?" I whispered, blinking repeatedly. "What just happened?

  "You rejected him," Bennett whispered back, pain evident in his voice.

  "I just said I don't want to be a mate. I'm not mate material. That doesn't mean we can't fuck around, or whatever. Surely he understands. I've been trapped by people's expectations for the last seventeen years. I'm not trying to be pinned down by yet another person's ideas about what I need to do with my life."

  So why was my chest hurting? Why did the idea of giving myself over to Arlington's whims sound like peace? Like a balm on burnt skin?

  "I can't say it's true of every mate," Bennett said quietly, as Thompsyn came up behind him, sticking his barely swollen baby bump against the shorter man's back, and wrapping his arms around him. "But my mate's worst fear when we were starting out––and probably still a little now––was hindering me from anything I wanted to do in my life. Arry would be a great mate. He would never, ever make you do something you didn't want to do or hold you back in any way. If you decided to move to Australia, where death awaits around every corner, he'd follow you in a heartbeat. Mates only want what is best for mates."

  "I don't doubt that he'd probably make a great mate, Bennett. But I'm positive I wouldn't. He'll find someone better to be mated to in time. Someone who can be exactly what he wants and needs. I have nothing left of that to give."

  "Mars," Bentley said, cresting the stairs, eyes far too sad. "You only get one soulmate. Davis and Rory explained it to me last night. Your mate is literally your other half. Your perfect compliment. If Arry was chosen to be your mate, that means he's everything you need in another human and you're everything he needs. And now that he's met you, there won't be anyone else for him."

  "What? No. There's no way." That would mean I'd just stupidly thrown something away I didn't even know I had.

  "Tell me this," Thompsyn said, chin resting on Bennett's shoulder. "Now that you've met Arry, can you see yourself with anyone else? Physically or otherwise?"

  Shaking my head, I felt a tear roll down my cheek and drip off my jaw. If what they were saying was true, I'd just broken Arry's heart. He wasn't going to just get over me. And he was never going to forgive me.

  "Where would he go?" I whispered, completely unable to get my voice to work. "Will he come back?"

  "I know where he would probably go, but I'm going to have to get permission from the alpha to take you, and I'm not sure how receptive he'll be to see either one of us there." Green's face was serious, and I couldn't help but feel like my ignorance had disappointed all these people.

  "Of course," Flynn said, also joining the group of people standing around me, probably all angry with me for hurting their friend. "But you have to be sure, Marlow. If you go after him, you need to make sure that you want to be mated to him."

  I looked at my brother, seeing the tears he was sharing with me.

  "It's not that I didn't want Arry. It was that I don't know how to be a mate. I don't know how to take care of someone else. All my life, I haven't even had to take care of myself. I've been directed where to go, what to eat, how to act. What if I can't do it, Bent? My ability to be everything for everyone else is done. I don't think I can even pretend anymore."

  Pulling me into a hug, my brother laid my head on his shoulder. "What do you mean you can't take care of someone? You've taken care of me our whole lives. You've distracted our parents from me because you knew they would only have terrible things to say to me. You picked me up and made me feel like my disability didn't have to hold me back. And you don't have to pretend to be anything for Arry. He's just going to be happy with you. The way you really are. No pretense. No acting. Just you."

  Nodding, I turned to the shifters in the room. "Do you think he'll forgive me for not knowing. Not understanding?"

  Both laughing, Bennett and Thompsyn spoke in unison. "Oh yeah."

  ***

  The nursing home was mostly empty except its residents and a couple nurses. Green had to follow me inside and make sure I was safe but once we found Arry, he was going to leave, so that we could have some time alone.

  I was nervous as we walked the long hall to a room that read Martin in an engraved plaque on the door. Whoever Arlington was here to visit, they'd been, and were expected to be, here for a while.

  I couldn't help but feel dread clawing at my stomach at the very idea that Arlington wouldn't be able to forgive me.

  Green knocked, gentle but firm. Just enough to make a noise probably only heard by shifters. No need to disturb the almost ominous silence of the place.

  When he opened the door, I'll never get over the way we found a sleeping Arlington. My gorgeous, witty, fun-loving, laid-back man was curled in a ball with his head lying in the lap of a woman who was smiling sweetly down at the man.

&n
bsp; He looked so small. So completely broken. And I'd done that to him.

  The tears, which had been falling off and on for an hour and a half, started again, and without stopping to think, I walked over to the bed.

  I reached out a hand, needing to touch him. To comfort him. But the woman, who up until then had seemed like maybe she wasn't all there, snapped her head around to mine, pinning me to the spot with the same eyes I stared into not long ago when I ripped a man's heart out.

  This pale, fragile woman, who didn't look a day over twenty-five, was his mother.

  "You must be Marlow," she whispered, smiling softly. "I tried to tell him you'd come, but I couldn't get the words out. That happens to me sometimes. My body doesn't always work the way it's supposed to."

  "I'm Marlow, yes," I said, whispering so I wouldn't wake Arlington up. "I'm hoping it's all right that I'm here. I really messed up earlier, and I don't want him hurting until I get a chance to explain. If he even lets me."

  "I think you'll be surprised what a shifter will do to hold on to their mate. The pain of losing one is just to great to give up because of a misunderstanding." Her eyes––Arry's eyes––held a terrible understanding that made my heart physically ache.

  "When I was young, I lived in a plantation home. My family owned slaves. They weren't evil to them, or anything, but they were still slaves. No rights. No say so over their entire life. They were told what to do, say and wear from the moment they woke up, until the moment they fell asleep every night."

  She looked back down at Arlington, running a tiny finger along the smooth skin of his forehead, smiling softly.

  "As a kid, I played with a couple of the house slaves when they weren't busy. My parents never even batted an eye. As a young teen, some of the same girls and I would sneak down to the creek and play in the water.

  "I didn't have friends among my 'peers.' I had people I was expected to be seen with at silly little parties that bored me to death. But not one of them I would call a friend, because I knew my whole life was fake. They didn't know the real me.

  "I had always seen the men working in the fields, or in the barn, but I wasn't allowed down there. At first, I didn't realize what was happening. I mean, in that time, mates and mating, especially among our class, was taboo. We were trying so hard to be like humans.

  "But once I smelled that smell, I couldn't stop smelling it. Even all the way back at the house, I'd sit in my room and it suddenly seemed so close. My body burned for whatever was the cause.

  "By the next day, I couldn't stand it anymore. I went back down to the horse barn, sure that if I actually made it passed the door this time, I'd find what it was."

  Clutching her fist to her chest, she swallowed. "He was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen," she whispered glancing back down at Arlington, a sad smile on her face. "He looks just like his father. His skin is lighter and he has my eyes, but he looks just like him.

  "Jacob was a little hostile at first. He was a proud man, and felt the wrongness of his role in life. Kept me at a distance for a few days, but eventually, I made him smile.

  "I was careful. I knew, even with my parents allowing me to be friends with the girls in the house, they'd never accept Jacob as my mate. Even though he was my actual soulmate. That just didn't matter in our society.

  "I'd wash his scent off of me in the creek every time I left him, and cry the entire time, because I didn't get to spend my nights tucked in his arms or even be comforted by his scent wrapped around me.

  "I was able to hide the pregnancy for a while, but there was one day I woke up, and felt like I'd grown ten inches around my waist overnight. I knew that morning, I'd have to tell my parents."

  She sat there a few moments, her breathing starting to increase as tears began to gather and then slide down her face.

  "It was my fault they found out about Jacob," she whispered, her fingers clutching the front of her gown in the center of her chest. "I had stayed away for weeks. But one night, I just couldn't do it anymore. I had to see him. I snuck out, not realizing my father had placed someone outside to keep an eye on where I went.

  "It happened so fast, I'm still not sure of some of the details. All I really know is Jacob was grabbed, and my father came in with a whip. I screamed until my voice gave out, and my father literally beat him to death right in front of me.

  "There were laws against killing slaves outright, but if a slave died in the process of punishment, the slave owner was free of guilt.

  "Losing my mate drained my will to live. That's when the incoherent episodes started. Obviously, I have lucid moments, but when I let myself think too much about the pain of losing him." She looked down at Arlington, and I followed her gaze, gasping when I saw his eyes opened and trained on me. "I wanted to name him James, but I didn't get the chance before he was taken from me."

  I was still listening to the woman, but my eyes were on the gorgeous man with his head in her lap like a child.

  "They were going to give him to one of the slave girls, but decided since he was probably going to manifest as a shifter eventually, he needed to be with someone who would understand his needs. They ended up giving him to a human widow that lived alone in a shack in the woods just outside our plantation.

  "She knew of shifters because her sister had mated one. She'd always wanted kids, but her husband had died before they could start. She named him Arlington, and I'm glad she did. He looks like an Arlington. James wouldn't have fit him."

  "That's funny," I said quietly, barely able to pull off my smirk. "I think he looks like 1998." At the woman's confused look, I shook my head. "Never mind."

  He watched me, as he rose, stopping to peck a kiss to the side of his mother's head.

  "What are you doing here, Marlow?" His voice was cold. Distant. It was hard to associate it with the Arlington I knew. And though I know he'd probably said my name before, I didn't want to be Marlow to him. I was Blondie. Or at least, I had been.

  I was nervous more than ever now that I'd been right in thinking he wouldn't forgive me.

  I opened my mouth to tell him, but the words wouldn't form, and I just ended up standing there with my mouth open.

  "He's starting to look like me when I have one of my episodes," his mother said, smiling. "I'm Sarah." She reached out a hand, and I took it gently, scared that even my miniscule musculature would crush her fragile looking hand.

  I could feel Arlington's eyes on me as I spoke to his mother. "I'm sorry to interrupt your time together, Sarah. I was just worried Arlington would take off or something after he visited you, and I wouldn't get the chance to talk to him."

  Nodding, she smiled sweetly. "I'm actually glad you came. I was hoping for a chance to meet you. Arlington told me about you days ago."

  "He did?" I whispered, my voice breaking.

  The thought of him coming and talking to his mother about meeting his mate, probably excited, only for me to turn around and carelessly, stupidly break his heart, made my chest constrict, and I felt the prick of tears for what felt like the hundredth time.

  "I didn't mean I didn't want you," I sobbed, suddenly, my body convulsing with the feel of absolute brokenness. "I didn't understand."

  I didn't even realize my body was starting to collapse until Arlington's eyes widened, and he rushed toward me, catching me just before my knees hit the ground.

  "I'm so sorry, Arry. I'm so, so sorry. I didn't know. I thought I couldn't be what you needed. I thought you would be better off with someone else." I buried my face against his neck, no doubt snotting all over him. "Please don't hate me. Please don't leave."

  There was a pause. Probably less than ten seconds, as Arlington took in the sobbing, gibberish I'd just thrown at him, and just continued to hold me loosely the way he'd caught me when my legs gave, but it was the longest pause of my life.

  His arms tightened, and I let out a keening sound of joy and relief, right before I started sobbing again.

  I'd messed up. I'd hurt him. Arlington. A man who should always only be happy and carefree. That's what he was meant to be.

  "Hush, Blondie." But I didn't miss the wetness I felt against my neck as he buried his face there, taking deep breaths of my scent. "I'm not going anywhere."