by Kate Rudolph
“Why now?” he asked as he untied the tie around his neck. “I want you, I’ve wanted you since we met. But I would never force you.”
Jess stepped up close to him and laid a hand on his chest. Her fingers traced over the buttons as she looked at him. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes and her gaze instead focused on his lips. “No matter how sexy I think you are, I wasn’t going to sleep with the man holding me captive.” He held still beneath her, even his breath barely moving his chest. Emboldened, Jess looked up. “I don’t want you to think I’m doing this because I want you to free me, or because I’m playing some game. I don’t want you to think that you’re forcing me.”
He covered her hand with his own. “Then what do you want me to think, Jessica?”
“I’m here because I want you. Rafe Blackwood, not the Wolf or the alpha. Just you.” It felt like she was saying more, saying something she couldn’t quite imagine. And they were both still for a long moment, frozen by her confession. Jess wanted to ask him what he wanted from her, but she couldn’t force the words out.
The distance disappeared between them and his lips covered her own, slanting against hers, their tongues dancing together. The moment could not have felt more right. Jess wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer to her. She could feel the hard length of his arousal against her stomach. It only matched the hot wetness of her core.
Rafe tried to control the kiss, tried to control her, but Jess was nothing but his equal partner in this pleasure. She met his tongue stroke for stroke and let her hands roam down his back. She wanted to lose herself in the feel of him, let him take over and give her the most amazing pleasure that she could imagine. But she wasn’t here to be his plaything.
Her hands ventured between them, playing over the buttons of his shirt. She worked at each one, the process slow and fumbling as she wasn’t willing to break their contact. Jess could get lost in the taste of him. She’d kissed men before, but none had ever made it feel so right. None made it feel like coming home.
Rafe pulled away, kissing along her jaw and down her neck. He bit down on her throat, not enough to hurt, but hard enough so that she couldn’t forget him. As if that was possible.
She made quick work of the buttons and slid her hands across his naked chest and the taut planes of his muscles. He twitched under her, responding to the feather light touch of her fingers. Her hands crawled up to his shoulders where she was able to remove the white shirt and reveal his arms inch by precious inch.
Teeth nipping at her earlobe made her moan and Rafe took advantage of her exposed neck, trying to leave no inch untouched. He turned her around, his lips barely leaving her neck. "It's my turn," he whispered as he licked her ear.
She felt his fingers trace over the ribbons across her back. But instead of stopping at the tie, his hands trailed lower until they cupped her ass. "I'm going to make you mine, Jessica," Rafe promised. "Every sexy, beautiful inch of you."
With his hands on her there was no room for insecurity. Even though it lurked at the corners of Jess's mind nearly always, right now she felt more beautiful, more desirable than ever. It was a powerful, heady feeling. "Does that make every inch of you mine, then?" She asked.
"Always," said Rafe. He tugged at the ribbon of her bodice and she felt it loosen, the fabric sagging in front of her. The dress would have fallen off if it weren't for the strap. Rafe's fingers took care of that, sliding the strap off her shoulder and letting the dress fall down to pull at her feet. She was naked before him but for the lacy panties and the platinum cuffs he'd given her.
She turned around and froze when she took in the look on his face. Stunned. Awed. Blown away. Jess couldn't quite put her finger on it, but it was sure as hell gratifying. "I've never had a man dress me from head to toe before," she confessed.
Rafe laced his fingers with hers, "Silks, satins, diamonds. Say the word and they're yours." He tilted her head up to kiss her once more. This felt different, not any more intimate but desperate in a way she wasn't used to. Was this how a man drank after years in the desert? But his need brought out her own.
Her fingers were on the clasp of his pants and soon it was he who was completely naked before her. Her own panties disappeared, the laces at the sides untied. And then they were on the bed, her legs wrapped around his waist as he towered over her, an alpha before his woman.
He stroked her, his fingers playing against her moist folds. Jess felt him dip one finger inside, and then another. The feeling was amazing, but she wanted something more.
Rafe stroked her clit, bringing her to the razor's edge of pleasure before backing off. His fingers dipped in and out, the rhythm taking control of her and making her desperate for more.
"I want you inside me," she nearly begged. "I need you inside me."
Rafe smiled. "I'm happy to oblige." She felt his thick cock nudge against her cunt. With agonizing slowness, he pushed his way inside, making her feel every delicious inch of him. "You're so tight."
"Is that a complaint?" She grinned up at him. Connected like this, she didn't want anything else.
He moved in her, sliding in and out, his fingers working against her clit as his cock filled her. Jess surrendered herself to the sensation, letting her own instincts guide her. She didn't worry about thinking, didn't worry about trying to hold herself in the most favorable looking light. Being with Rafe let her be herself in a way she rarely got to share with another person.
She loved it.
The orgasm came out of nowhere, startling her with an overwhelming burst of pleasure. She cried out, her nails digging into his arms. Even when she drew the faintest hint of blood, Rafe didn't pull away. Instead he increased his pace, bringing out another orgasm even stronger than the first.
Jess was practically vibrating from pleasure, her thoughts a pleasant, viscous goo in her mind.
She thought she couldn't take any more pleasure, but Rafe wasn't done with her. Not quite. He leaned forward and placed his lips on her neck, his body pumping even faster into hers. His teeth brushed against her and then he bit, hard enough to mark. And that little pain took her over the edge, and this time he came with her, exploding within her with the force of his own pleasure.
They lay there silently for a minute, their bodies still entwined. "I'm not done with you yet, Jessica," Rafe promised.
Jess didn't know if she could take any more, but she was excited to try.
Chapter Ten
Rafe held her close. Any closer and she wouldn't be able to breathe. But Jess was so warm and comfortable that she didn't want to move an inch. A glance at the clock on his bedside showed her that it was only a little after four AM. The sun wasn't anywhere near cresting the horizon and the birds wouldn't chirp for at least an hour.
And yet Jess felt wide awake. The initial feel of comfort quickly faded, replaced by a growing sense of panic. She was in the alpha's arms, in his bed, and completely at his mercy.
The night before had been amazing, if she was willing to put aside the crazed werewolf who tried to do her harm. Really, it was only amazing if she focused on the things Rafe did with her. And to her. She was delightful sore and plenty pleasured and she was afraid he'd left some sort of imprint of himself on her soul.
She needed to get out.
Jess extricated herself from Rafe’s arms. It was a delicate procedure, she didn’t want to wake him. If she spoke to him, she knew she would stay. She wouldn’t be strong enough to go. Because even though she knew that staying was unwise, she really wanted to see what would happen if she did.
Of course, he could just wake up and tell her to get out. He’d taken his fill of her - several times as a matter of fact - and perhaps he was now sated. If she saw dismissal in him, it would break her.
So better to leave than risk it.
Jess gathered her things as quickly and quietly as possible. She slipped into her dress and held her shoes in one hand. Her hand was on the door before she remembered that her cell phone was still hidden i
n the alpha’s closet. The door to that closet was closed and on the other side of the room. She spared a glance at Rafe and then looked back at the closet door.
She couldn’t risk it.
Jess opened the door slowly and silently. She stepped into the hallway and closed it behind her. The click when it shut completely sounded as loud as a gunshot, but she couldn’t hear Rafe moving around in his room. She wasn’t home free, not yet. But she had cleared the first obstacle.
No one tried to stop her as she walked in near silence through the now familiar halls of Rafe’s castle. She’d only been there for a few days, but this place felt more comfortable than any home she could remember. Pretty fucked up considering she had been a prisoner here, she thought. But, then again, what girl didn’t want to live in a castle?
Jess expected the entrance to be guarded, but she didn’t expect that Mac would be waiting for her.
“I wanted to see if I was right about you,” he said without preamble.
If Jess hadn’t seen him a second before he spoke, she would have jumped out of her skin. “Were you?” What right did he have to make judgments about her? It was this damned pack that had done her wrong, not the other way around.
“Yes.” Mac leaned back against the stone wall and crossed his arms. In the dim light, he was more shadow than man.
“Are you going to get Rafe? Or are you going to let me go?” Despite Jess’s show with Martin earlier, she wasn’t a fighter and if Mac wanted to challenge her, she couldn’t win.
But Mac stepped aside. “You can catch a cab down the street.” He opened the door to the outside, “None of the guards will stop you. The alpha gave you free passage and we respect his wishes.”
It felt like a rebuke, but Jess stepped through the door and didn’t look back. She walked through the center of the nearly deserted town for several minutes until she was able to flag down a taxi and give the driver her address.
Twenty minutes later she was home. Her apartment seemed smaller after days spent in a fortress, but Jess was too tired to care. She took a quick shower, got into her most comfortable pajamas, and collapsed on her bed into a dreamless sleep.
Sunlight woke her up hours later and at first Jess was confused. It took her several moments to realize that she was back in her own bed in her own apartment. The pang of disappointment that the thought conjured was something to be ignored. A glance at the clock told her it was nearly noon and it took Jess several more minutes to summon the energy to push the covers off of herself.
As the urge to go back to sleep passed, Jess got out of bed and made a pot of coffee. She easily slid into her routine, cooking a simple breakfast and eating it while she looked out the window onto the street in front of her apartment. It was only as she went to check her phone that she got the first of the day’s reminders of where she had just spent her time.
Jess put her dirty dishes in the sink and then went to her desk only to discover that her computer was gone. Rebecca must have taken it days ago when she broke in. Jess hadn’t needed it that day before work so she hadn’t noticed. She opened her desk drawer and pulled out the flash drive. She had no phone, no computer, and nothing else that could read the contents of the drive. With no way of determining what it contained, she could think of three options.
One, give it to Rebecca and be done with it.
Two, send it off to Rafe.
Or three, destroy the thing and never think of either of those people ever again.
Number three was impossible for too many reasons. But it sounded incredibly satisfying. No, she knew what she had to do. The information was Rafe’s and he should have it. Rebecca would escape and be home free of the alpha’s reach within hours.
And Jess would get out of town. But she was sure as hell going to miss this town. And its alpha. With the little bit of distance and little bit of time that she had allowed herself, Jess could admit it. In the days they’d had together, she had fallen for Rafe Blackwood.
Hard.
And she was going to miss him for the rest of her life.
So why was she leaving again?
Jess sat down in her desk chair and leaned back, pondering the question. Why was she so insistent that she needed to get out? Was it her instincts urging her on? Or was it fear? She trusted her instincts. They had seen her out of more than one dangerous situation in her life. But the cost of those feelings was that she could be overly cautious.
Her mother would tell her to get out. Her sister would tell her to get out. But neither of them lived Jess’s life. Hell, Jess hadn’t spoken with her mother in years and Rebecca only showed up when she was out of other options. Both of them would tell Jess to run not out of any concern for her, but because it would be inconvenient for Jess to have a life where she wasn’t willing to drop everything at a moment’s notice.
She’d been moving away from that for years. Falcon Point was her home and she couldn’t imagine a city more suited to her. She was old enough now that starting over seemed more trouble than it was worth. She liked who she was and didn’t want to become someone else.
If she stayed, she would have to join the pack. She’d only been spared that duty because no one knew what she was. Now it would be impossible to avoid. But Jess could accept that.
Who was she kidding? From the second she had entertained the thought about staying it was all about Rafe. She didn’t want to leave him, not if whatever there was between them was real. And she couldn’t fool herself about it.
She stood up. She had an alpha to go see.
Chapter Eleven
Rafe hadn’t fired Mac. Not yet, anyway. Though when he woke up hours ago and found Jess gone from his bed and all trace of her removed from his room he’d strongly considered throwing his second in command from the battlements. Mac must have sensed it because the man had made himself scarce.
Wise move.
Some may have privately accused the alpha of brooding, but no one was dumb enough to say so. Rafe wasn’t brooding. He was merely thinking at length about why Jess had abandoned him without a goodbye and whether he could make her come back to him.
He’d tracked her down once and knew he could do it again. But he didn’t want a woman he needed to hold captive. At least, not in the long term.
Before Mac informed him that Jess had left of her own volition, Rafe had entertained the deranged thought that she had been kidnapped from his arms. But the only person who might have wanted to do that was locked in the dungeons.
Rafe had planned to let Martin stew for a bit longer, but with Jess gone and his mood incredibly foul, there was no better time to interview the man who had been plotting against him. There had always been whispers of Martin’s insurrection, but until last night he had never moved directly against Rafe.
So Rafe crossed his castle in quick steps, the dark cloud of his mood surrounding him and preventing anyone from approaching him.
The term dungeon was a misnomer for the set of rooms that held Rafe’s prisoner. As a matter of fact, the room was on the third floor in the keep. But the lack of windows and the chains in the cells made it feel as dungeon-like as any of its subterranean brethren.
The first sign of trouble came when Rafe saw there was no guard to the entrance to the third floor. There was always a guard when the dungeon held a prisoner, but Rafe thought that the guard had only momentarily been called away. That hope was dashed when he entered into the guardroom just outside the dungeon and found that it, too, was empty. From the dust on the floor, no one had been in the dungeon in days.
Rafe sprang into action, picking up the guard phone and calling in Mac and his team. He needed to know what the fuck was going on and where Martin had ended up.
Twenty minutes later he received the news that he’d been dreading.
Gemma walked into the command room, “Sir, he was spotted just after six AM headed east. A second witness spotted him a few hours later near the house of Rebecca Patrick. Our scout didn’t know that he was supposed to be detained
so did nothing. We now have reason to believe that he’s going after Jessica Patrick.”
That settled it. “Give me Jess’s address. I’m taking this bastard down.”
By afternoon, Rafe was searching the city, his wolf bristling beneath his skin. There was no sign of Jess anywhere, and no sign of Martin since Gemma’s update. Mac had tracked down Jess’s address and it was Rafe’s ultimate location. A team followed close behind, but they moved too slow for him.
Even if Jess wanted to leave, he would do anything to ensure that she wasn’t hurt, especially not by his enemies.
Jess lived in a small apartment building just outside the center of the city. Rafe rushed up to her door and his heart pounded faster when he saw that the door had been forced open.
Martin waited for him, sitting on Jess’s dark blue couch, and reading through what looked like a journal. He snapped it shut when he saw Rafe.
“I thought you would come for your whore,” Martin spat.
“Tell me where she is and you may get out of this alive.” Rafe could tell that she wasn’t there, her scent was a few hours old and the only sounds in the apartment were from him and Martin.
Martin’s eyes narrowed but then he smiled. “She’s dead.”
Rafe had been punched more times than he could count, but this didn’t feel like that. No, now he was gutted.
But Martin didn’t give him time to react. While Rafe froze, Martin pounced, changing form in midair and swiping Rafe across the chest with his claws.
The pain brought Rafe out of his daze. He jumped back, narrowly avoiding another swipe of Martin’s claws. Between one breath and the next, Rafe shifted, his own wolf tearing out of him in a burst of pain and rage.
Rafe let that feral beast at Martin, pouncing on him and tearing at him with sharp fangs and claws. Martin was not so easy to defeat. He had fought his way up through the pack and held onto position through more than one alpha. He fought back, his claws digging into Rafe’s belly and tearing open a wide swath of flesh.