Chapter 552
I lean into the comfort of Cam’s arms and lace the fingers of my right hand with his. Where Oliver has always seen me and been able to read me, Cam has always been constant. He’s a steady and calm leade moving forward but bringing everyone along with him. Then it hits me, literally hits me in the center of the chest and I fall back into his chest.
“Whoa, you alright, Love?”
“Yeah. Do you feel that though? It’s like a pulse.”
He takes a deep breath and when he lets it out I smile as it blows stray strands of hair around my face. “Wow! Is it like this all the time?”
“What do you feel?”
“I can feel…something…flowing up into one of my feet and through my body and back down through the other foot, but it is like a pulse. Like a circuit with a pulse, but it isn’t energy or electricity, it’s more fluid. Does that even make sense?”
“Yeah. Try pulling up on it, I have an idea.”
He does and I can feel the swirls of cool and hot in my arm. The fire that seems to want to live in my skin is being caressed by the cool water swirling from him. I lift our arms together and take aim… “AH!! What the hell?!?”
“AHAHAHAHA! I am so glad you didn’t tell me what you were doing! There’s no way he wouldn’t have known.” Cam is still holding me, laughing his ass off, along with Oliver and I, while we stare at a very drenched Dakota. I can’t help the thought, encouraged by my wolf, that I really like a water logged, shirtless Dakota very, very much.
“Where did water even come from? We aren’t near a lake or stream or anything!” He shakes his hair out like a GQ model and tries, and fails, to look irritated.
“We were able to pull it up from the ground, but I have to admit it is a good look on you” I wink at Dakota and his eyes go from his blue with hazel swirls to almost black in an instant.
Cam’s intake of breath and Dakota and Oliver’s quick movement to me, let me know I am in big trouble, but I don’t think it’s the bad kind. Dakota scoops me up by my butt and wraps my legs around his waist, then smashes his lips to mine and I can feel my entire body heat up and I don’t think it’s the fire magic.
All three of them growl in surround sound and then Dakota pulls away enough to look in my eyes. “Keeping my hands to myself is becoming more and more difficult and it’s only been, what an hour or so, since we whata marked you? How in the hell are we supposed to get anything done? You told me I looked good after you tried to drown me, I should be angry or irritated at the least, but all I want to do is take you up to our room and you are so not ready for that.” He rests his forehead to mine and takes a deep breath. “How do you wind me up in one second and have the power to calm me down in the next?”
I give him a small kiss. “Let’s be honest, it wouldn’t be me if it wasn’t complicated kiss him again and he lets me slide down his body. He makes sure that I can feel the state I left him in though and I just roll my eyes and look at Oliver. “Dakota wind, Cam is water, you must be earth then.” He still looks unsure, but I don’t know what he would be unsure of. I marked him and let him. mark me. He’s a part of me, of this, of us now. I don’t know if I will ever get past this one insecurity that he has.
Unlike the twins, I face him and slide my palms over the backs of his hands. I keep eye contact with him as I lace our fingers together. I could feel the deep, bass-like rumble the minute our skin made contact. We don’t have to say anything or even
us
think about it. The dirt around our
starts to crack and swirl around our feet. He gives me one of his rare, blinding full smiles and I’m pretty sure my heart stopped and by the wink he gives me, he knows what
that does to me.
“That should not be hot, but it. so. is!” Dakota groans. “And it does NOT help that now I can feel both of their feelings for you.” He points an accusing finger at Cam and Oliver. “I’m going to have a permanent hard-on!”
I start laughing. “It’s not that bad, is it?”
“Are you kidding? Every time you say something smart, which is all the fucking time, this one lights up.” He points to Cam. “But, I was, at best, able to ignore it. Now there’s no hope. And then you go and fight someone, anyone, even the pups, he gets excited and starts fidgeting around so no one notices the tent he’s pitching. And to top it all off, you get a rise out of me every time you just say my damn name!” “Dakota, seriously?!” He’s just being dramatic.
“See!” He basically yells and points down at himself and I laugh. That’s all I can do.
“I thought you said you liked it when I say your whole name.” I feel bad if it makes him uncomfortable. I’ll have to watch it. I actually like calling him by his full first name when everyone else uses the nickname. It feels special, but I won’t if he was kidding.
“Oh, he does like it, Bitty. The problem is, he likes it too much.” Oliver laughs in my ear, then kisses me on the neck. My whole body shivers at the contact and he laughs again.
“Well, I don’t regret marking all of you and I can’t take it back, so deal.” I stick my tongue out at him.
“I’ll give you something to do with that tongue once we figure out how to get out of here.” The comment came from Cam this time and now I know we are getting into dangerous territory if his will is starting to crack and he’s making innuendos.
I shake out my head and step back. “Can you all feel your element? My guess is we have to use them independently to get rid of this thing. We will probably have to figure out how to combine them too to deal with Adrielle and the Rogue King. Then we need to decide what to do with Mike and the rest of his goons. I feel like our to-do list doesn’t get any shorter, even with all of the things we keep checking off.”