Isabel's Choice

Chapter 51 - Isabel

"You are very good at this."

"I have had a lot of practice," Lars chuckles, his fingers gently parting another section of my hair and bringing it over the strands he's holding. "And your hair is so beautifully soft and easy to braid."

When he's finished tying it up with the blue ribbon I chose, his mouth rests for a second behind my ear. It's maddeningly warm, the lower lip trailing upwards demanding, insistent, until a shiver of pleasure moves my whole body closer to him.

"We have to...get ready," Lars notes as if it wouldn't have been him who initiated the distraction. "But if you want, we can continue this evening." His promise is spoken low, signed with a flicker of his tongue along my mark.

"Yes please," I sigh, pressing my head on his shoulder and looking up at him, at his icy gaze which I have been blind to, at his smooth lips that I haven't properly kissed in the last weeks.

I selfishly took the time to recover in the cocoon he filled with everything I needed.

And three days ago I shifted to Willow, to practice for the challenge I had accepted to offer. When I wasn't in wolf form, we spent the time analyzing and preparing for all possible scenarios of how today could go. With his brother's and his Luna's life at stake, Lars had suddenly lost his improv spirit and he ruthlessly forced us to go over every single detail. Meticulously. Obsessively.

My fingers rest on the muscular thighs that are cradling mine. His are so deliciously hard, so perfectly covered in wiry dark hair and I give them a small apologetic caress, for having so cruelly ignored them. I invite his arms to wrap themselves around my ribs and direct his hands away from the belly he so chastely held every night when he thought I was sleeping.

There are other parts of my body yearning for his touch. The right nipple, for example, welcomes his thumb rub which goes from chaste to rough in a second, exactly as long as it takes me to get from mildly excited to desperately randy.

"You are very good at this too," I repeat myself, but in a much more strangled tone than before. My back is flush against his chest and he's hard and throbbing against the lowest point of my spine. It would take only a small shift of my hips to feel him much closer.

"Did you change your mind about today?" His hand grips my waist tightly, ready to either encourage it in moving forward as it wanted or keep it locked in place.

"No."

"Then we have to...clothes. Now." Lars jumps from the bed with a groan, taking his warmth and the intoxicating mountain-heights smell of his arousal away from me.

I watch him hungrily as he slips into a skin-tight shift suit, and pout when he puts on his formal pants and shirt over it.

I absolutely must survive today, it would be unacceptable to die hot and bothered, with only a two-week-old memory of him inside me.

And I clothes also, put on the silvery gray dress Alejandra brought me as a "feel better" present. It's shapeless - a rectangle of fabric with two seams on the side which took her fifteen minutes to sew. She actually made one for herself also and one for Raya, and we tried them on when they visited me. We agreed that what they lack in style, they make up for in magic.

***

It's mid-morning when we walk to the car, to drive to Lower Pass. We're going with a big delegation because a transfer of leadership in a neighboring pack is a big deal. The ranked members and lambdas who are joining us have been informed about Lars's intention to challenge Peter and they are cautiously on board with it.

With the exception of Knox though, no one knows about the full extent of our plan.

Walking out of the door, I tug at the tight braid Lars made me, noticing that Eino's dreads are weaved together in a similar pattern. The young Beta also wears an elegant black jacket and pants, the charming overalls underneath perfectly concealed.