I'm Not Leaving

**BLANCA**

...I kissed you..

The words play over and over again in my head and although I know better than to believe them, I can't help but wish for them to be true.

How cruel of him... to toy with me this way.

"You shouldn't say that, Max," I whisper. "Because it isn't true and you know it."

"It is true," he insists and again I feel the trace of his fingers on the outside of my panties making me shiver and that little mini hearbeat between my legs begin to thrum. "I was hallucinating and I couldn't see clearly. And when she climbed on top of me-"

"Max! Please, I do not want to hear it." I beg, just the image he is painting bringing fresh pains to my heart.

But he goes on, "-I asked her who she was and she said she was my mate, so I immediately assumed she was you and I reached for her. You had been on my mind all day and ever since what happened between us this morning... and Goddess help me, but I wanted you. Not her, Blanca... you... I have wanted you ever since the moment I saw you in the jail, before I knew who you were meant to be. So I... I made a mistake, Blanca. Please... Forgive me."

My body gives an involuntary shudder and I whimper, "A mistake... A mistake you intend to make a hundred times over in the end. Do you not?"

And despite that I know better than to believe him, despite that I know in the end he will turn away from me, I cannot help the tears of relief that leave me when he shakes his head no.

"No, Blanca," he whispers, leaning forward again to kiss my stomach and causing a flurry of butterflies to hatch about my middle as they begin to knit and heal all of the trauma within. "I have decided not to have her after all. I will not take her as my mate. I won't. I swear it."

"Don't lie to me," I cry out, even as the healing of his lips caresses my insides and a moan leaves my lips at the sheer pleasure that engulfs me.

"You like that, don't you?" he murmurs against my belly. "It's helping you, isn't it?"

I can't help the nod I grant him, because in truth, it does. It is as if his kisses are healing the damage done by him and his harlot. Whether he willingly had sex with her or not, the hurt incurred by his blasphemous encounter was just as much physical as it was emotional.

"Yes," I whisper, as I begin to warm from the inside out. "Yes it is."

All at once he stands and my body instantly feels the loss of him as it sends a painful shudder through me. But as he begins to undress, I see the intention in his eyes. He's not finished with me. Not yet.

"M-Max? What are you doing?" I whisper.

"I'm not leaving," he swears, eyeing my body with the fiery heat of his eyes as he strips down to his boxers. "It's said that only a mate can heal something like this and I won't leave your side until every blemish has left your beautiful skin."

"But Jared," I start, only to let the rest of my words die when I see the jealous hurt flash in the depths of Max's golden gaze.

"Jared is not your mate, Blanca," he practically growls. "No matter how much you wish for him to be. It's not him. It's me."

"Max-"

"No! Blanca... please," again he leans forward, placing an open mouthed kiss over my sex on the outside of my panties and causing my insides to curl as the heat from his mouth springs a new pulse to life at my center and I groan. "Let me heal you. Let me pleasure you. I promise I won't hurt you."

"P-pleasure me?" I stammer, watching, transfixed as he gingerly climbs onto the bed at my feet. The golden tan of his muscles in the low lamp light wink and pull with his every move and something inside of me purrs with anticipation as I watch the possessive way he curls his body forward, over me. “I-I don’t think we should-I m-mean-I don’t think this room would be the best place to-”

“Quiet, baby,” he orders with a smirk, fixing his gaze on the spot between my legs like a ravenous beast. He strokes his hands up over the bare skin of my thighs and my entire body shudders. “Tonight is all about you. I just want to heal you… just-” he pauses to carefully separate my legs and make room for himself between them “-just let me heal you.”

“H-how will this heal me?” I ask, my body shivering and my back arching off the bed involuntarily as Max strokes his hands up over my torso.

“I’m not sure.” Max admits, his golden eyes fixating on the bare skin of my stomach, “But it is.”

One glance down shows me that he speaks the truth. The ugly, terrifying bruises from an hour ago have lost most of their deadly purple coloring, flattening out into more of a red-violet hue. They are actually starting to look like more of a blushing than a bruising and for a moment all I can do is stare in awe.

“It’s really happening,” I say, shocked. My eyes fall toward Max whose animalistic smile lights something up inside of me. Something that has me gasping for breath and heat pouring from that wanton ache between my thighs in almost exactly the way it did this morning. “What are you doing to me?” I ask, watching him as if hypnotized, as he slides his fingers behind the straps of my panties and lifts them away from my skin.

Max grins at me, his fangs slicing out as he brings his nose to my core and I feel the tip of it graze the outside of my cotton covered folds. “I’m going to taste you, Blanca. I’m going to kiss you in the way I have been wanting to all Goddessdamned day.” 

Then, without another word, he fits one strap behind his fangs and slices them away just as Jared begins to pound on the door behind him.