Stacy sat up and stared at her friend in horror. “Ew! That’s disgusting. TMI, Miss Thing, TMI!” She sighed. “I guess you’re right though. To all of them, what we did wasn’t a big deal. For real, I’m not a virgin. We all know that, but I’ve never gotten freaky in a mud room either, and especially not at someone else’s house. It’s depraved.”
Zandrea burst out laughing. “Oh crap, you’re picking up Nita’s vocabulary. Quick, get this girl some dick.”
“Witch!” Stacy threw a pillow at her friend, but Zandrea jetted to the side like she was a shifter herself. If they hadn’t told her the truth about their boyfriends, she would have known something was up by the changes that had taken place in the two of them. And while Stacy had at first thought wolf shifters was a sexy idea, she didn’t think she’d take to being turned into one, or whatever was happening to her girls. “All right, I’ll go down to dinner, but I’m not talking to that asshole. He used me.”
Zandrea held up a finger. “Correction, he seduced you, and got you off. If he was using you, he would have gotten him some while he was at it.”
Stacy thought about that, and her friend was right. If Nash had been all about getting his, he would have done more than go down on her. He would have pushed for her to let him between her legs, or asked her to go down on him in return. Not that she’d given him a chance since she slapped the mess out of him. He must think she was an ungrateful wench. She laughed. Poor man probably had gone up to wash the sweat off of his chiseled body and at the same time jacked off to get relief.
If she was any kind of a woman, she would go find him and return the favor, but the problem with that was that he scared her. Nash was different from any of the guys she’d been with in the past. Yeah, the obvious physical difference, but also it was how he drew her. Like when she’d been searching the room looking for a likely man to come on to, her eyes had kept returning to him. And it wasn’t like he was the finest man in the room either. They had all been fine, smokin’ hot with no flaws she could point out with a microscope. So it had to be all him, who he was.
Not to mention that mouth. Oh man, had he done some things to her body. What he had made her feel should have been illegal in all fifty states. She felt like she had become his slave and all she could do was give him what he wanted. Zandrea had told her they had some kind of ability, but she didn’t say what. Could he have used it on her, to make her give into him? All of a sudden, she was angry. If he did use some voodoo on her, she was going to do more than slap him. She was going to kick his ass.
In fact, right now, before they went to dinner might be as good a time as any to find out. She moved to the edge of the bed and dropped her bare feet over the edge. “I’ll see y’all later. I have to find out something.”
Nita grabbed for her arm. “Where are you going, Stacy? I don’t like that look on your face.”
“Yeah,” Zandrea agreed. “I know that look. It’s the same one you wore when you beat down Kevin that time he picked you up for work and grabbed your ass while y’all were headed out the door.”
Stacy rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and just like he walked away with a puffy eye, the one I’m looking for is going to have the same thing if I don’t like his answers to my questions.”
Nita laughed. “Aw, lord, now you know you ain’t right, Stacy.”
“Nita, stop trying to talk slang!” Stacy and Zandrea told her at the same time.
The mama-to-be poked her lips out and waved her hand at Stacy and Zandrea. Stacy had to fight to hold onto her anger as she let herself out of her room. Nita wouldn’t change. She’d keep trying to be more ‘black’ as they said, and Stacy and Zandrea would keep cracking up at her attempts.
As soon as she closed the door behind her, she forced her mind back to Nash and reminded herself that she was pissed off at how he treated her. She hadn’t missed the fact that he kept her panties either. She’d gone back down there after she was sure he had left, and she didn’t find them. After he explained what he did to her, she would demand he give her, her panties. She had a thing for panties, and those he had were a part of a matched set. Hell, they were Victoria’s Secret. For what they cost, he was damn sure going to return them.
By the time Stacy reached the first floor, she realized what it was she had been hearing all the way down here. Growling. Someone, or more than one someone, was snarling and growling like an animal. Her heart began to pound, and every muscle in her body locked up so that she couldn’t move off the bottom step. She gripped the railing until her fingers ached. Nearby a door opened, and she let out a small squeak, but it was just one of Brant’s guests, a seventeen-year-old boy. At least he looked like a seventeen-year-old. When he’d come on to her the day before, he’d said he was fifty-nine. She didn’t believe him.
He paused in front of her and held up a hand, his young face crumpled with worry and what she was sure was fear. “You shouldn’t come down right now, Stacy. Too dangerous. Why don’t you go to your room, and wait until we say it’s okay for you humans to come out.”
“The hell we will,” Zandrea shouted behind Stacy. “What’s going on? What’s all that growling about? Whatever’s going on, they better take it outside. If they rip up my living room, somebody’s balls are mine.”
Zandrea’s attitude snapped Stacy out of her fear. She laughed and moved ahead, brushing by the boy. “Yeah, they better look out. Z don’t play messing up her stuff.” She followed her friend out to the living room, and they stepped into the room just in time to watch two wolves going at it. The bigger of the two had the smaller by the scruff of his neck, and he yanked him off his feet and threw him through the French doors, splintering wood and shattering glass.
Zandrea screamed, but Stacy knew it was because of the damage to her home and not the possibility of the wolf being hurt. “Brant! What is going on? Why are you letting them destroy our house?”
Her boyfriend walked over and gathered her in his arms to keep her from rushing toward the fight. “It’s okay, baby.”
“It’s not okay!” She wiggled in his arms but wasn’t going anywhere.
While they argued, Stacy glanced around at the crowd of men and women present. Most of the guests had gone home after the party, but Brant and Zandrea’s closest friends had stayed for the weekend. Stacy found herself searching for Nash among the five or six men standing there, and he wasn’t among them. The other man that was missing was Alphons. He and Laila hadn’t taken the hint that the rest of the weekend was for family and close friends.
Stacy crossed the room to Laila. The first time she’d laid eyes on the sexy bitch, she didn’t like her. She was wild and super thin. All the guys had run up on her when she came in the night of the party, including Nash. Stacy didn’t want to admit she felt jealous of the woman, but she didn’t like lying to herself even if she did deny her feelings with others. She was jealous all right, and it ate her up to have to ask the wench anything about what was going on.
“So what’s up?” she asked through clenched teeth.
Laila didn’t spare her more than a glance, but seemed to feel the moment called for drama. She pressed a hand to her chest and sighed noisily. “They’re fighting over me. I didn’t mean for this to happen, but when you look like I do, men fall at your feet. I admit, I didn’t know which of them to choose.”
Stacy would have laid hands on the woman right there, and then two fights would be going on. Someone grabbed her arm. She tried to yank her arm free but found it trapped in a steel hold. Glancing back, she found Lucas behind her, anger in his eyes. “Don’t,” he told her. “We have enough to handle with them.” He nodded toward the wolves rolling over each other as their razor sharp teeth sank into thick hides. “Contrary to what you’ve just been told, they are not fighting over a woman, but over a position.”
“A position?”
He nodded. “Alphons has challenged Nash for the position of Alpha, and Nash had no choice but to accept. It’s our way, and we knew it was coming sooner or later. I
expect Brant will be next.”
He glanced over to where Brant was standing watching the fight, with Zandrea clinging to his arm. Brant must have told her the same thing Lucas had just told Stacy. Zandrea must be envisioning some mangy mutt ripping at her man. Stacy wanted nothing to do with that bull crap. Every woman liked a dangerous man, but this was pushing it way too far. They were wild, and from the looks of it, Alphons was doing everything he could to kill Nash. More than once he had lunged at the Alpha’s throat with his teeth bared.
Everyone had drifted behind the scuffling animals, and now they were all out in the grass at the back of Zandrea’s house. Stacy thought it was a good thing they had bought a secluded mansion with no neighbors close by. The entire property was surrounded with trees. She shivered in the early evening air and dared to take her eyes off the fight to glance up at the sky. The full moon was already high in the sky even though the sun hadn’t fully gone down, and she wondered if it affected them. They weren’t werewolves, but she didn’t know all the rules.
After what seemed like hours, the growls and barks became less frenzied, and the circling with heads low ready to attack had less threat. The smaller of the wolves actually bowed his head to the other one. Stacy blinked. Did that just happen? She had no time to think about it because they both began to change back to their human form, both naked. Everyone behaved as if it was natural, and Stacy had to put a hand up to her chin to force herself to stop swinging her lustful gaze from one man to the other and back again. Damn!
She was surprised that no one approached the men though. For real, they had to be cold with the temperature having dropped. The others began drifting back to the house, Brant and Lucas dragging Zandrea and Nita with them. Stacy didn’t move, and neither did Laila. At least at first.
Stacy jumped when Laila suddenly cried out “Nash! Are you okay, baby?”
“Laila, don’t! You know better,” Lucas called out.
She didn’t listen, and Stacy watched in shock as Nash growled at Laila. The moment she put her arms up to wrap around his neck, he caught them and squeezed, still growling. She cried out, but Nash wasn’t done. He yanked her to him and sank his still pointed teeth in her shoulder. Laila screamed, but she didn’t fight him off. Lucas and Brant both barreled past Stacy to rip Laila away from Nash.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Brant kept repeating, and Lucas tackled Nash to the ground.
Stacy tried to clear her whirling thoughts to try to figure out what just happened. After all, the wolves healed fast, and Laila despite how delicate she looked, was one of them. Surely, it wasn’t a big deal that the dumb ass had been bitten.
Nita and Zandrea moved up on either side of her, their expressions low.
“What?” Stacy demanded. “What the hell is the big deal?”
Zandrea met her eyes. “Sweetie, that’s how they take a mate. The male bites his woman twice, and it’s forever. She just got the first.”
Chapter Six
Stacy was behind the wheel of her car. Driving was what she liked to do when she had to work out the frustrations that were in her life. She loved handling a stick. The power, the control, under her hand, was a real rush. That rush was what she needed and a highway, somewhere the police wouldn’t pull her over if she was doing eighty or more.
Nash didn’t have a thing to do with her, and she shouldn’t let it mess with her head. She had told herself that over and over as she hurried upstairs to change from the cutesy dress she had intended to wear to dinner, and into a pair of low rider jeans and a T-shirt. She’d slipped her feet into sandals, so she could yank them off the minute she was in the car. Driving barefoot was another way to work out her anger.
She was halfway down the driveway, her lights illuminating the pitch black night, when someone stepped out of the trees onto the road. The light reflected in his silver eyes making her heart pick up its beat and her hands shake. She slowed down to pull alongside him and rolled the window down.
He bent to peer into the car. “Need company?”
She hesitated. Usually she liked to be alone in a time like this, but what the hell. She popped the locks. “Get in.”
He strolled around the front of the car and slid into the passenger side. Stacy barely waited for him to shut the door before she was off again.
“So where we headed?”
“Does it matter?” Glancing over at him, she was struck with how fast he had healed. When the fight was over and he’d transformed, his face had been riddled with small slashes like Nash had torn him to pieces. He would have been so messed up if he didn’t have that ability. Women liked a man’s scars, but that would have been ridiculous. “So what was that about, Alphons?”
He shrugged. “Simple. I have one goal in life. That’s to be an Alpha. Nothing else matters.”
She shifted to a higher gear and directed the car toward the highway. “What about Laila?”
“What about her?”
“Look, don’t play me, okay? I’m not stupid. You’ve been up in my face, but I know you’re still hitting her too.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And you’re innocent?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He didn’t answer but tapped his nose. She focused on the road, disliking him and regretting ever picking him up. If his attitude had anything to do with why he wasn’t leader of his own pack, then she could understand. Alphons didn’t care about anyone or anything. She didn’t have to know him longer than two seconds or have special powers to pick up on that.
So he had smelled Nash on her. Didn’t a shower mean anything? She guessed not, but whatever. He had only come on to her, and they hadn’t even progressed past that first kiss. Alphons acted like he was hot to get in her panties, but in all the times he found her wherever she was in the house over the last couple of days, she hadn’t lost all reason like she had at the 7-Eleven, and that relieved her big time. Being that out of control was too much. And yet, she had spread ‘em wide and fast for Nash.
Her anger coming to a boil again after it had simmered down, she shoved thoughts of Nash out of her mind. He was mated now. Or halfway there. From now on, they wouldn’t have anything to do with each other beyond casual interaction when they were around Zandrea and the others at the same time. That’s how she wanted it anyway. When she got a man to share her bed for a while, he would be someone she couldn’t fall for, someone who couldn’t break her heart. That man was not Mr. Big Shot, Nash.
Out of the blue, Alphons reached across the space between them and stroked her cheek. Stacy resisted pulling away. His hand fell lower to rest on her chest, his knuckles grazing her nipple. She bit her lip when the small peak pebbled beneath his touch. She was still horny as hell.
“We could go somewhere to be alone,” he suggested.
“I don’t know.”
“What’s there to know, Stacy?” He massaged her breast while she squeezed her legs together. “You’re a woman. I’m a man. We’re not attached to anyone.” At her frown, he continued. “Not seriously anyway. See, there’s a motel.”
Stacy took control of herself. Too much this past weekend, she felt like these men were jerking her around. She was not that type of woman, and Alphons needed to get that straight right now. “Look, you’re fine and all that, Alphons, but I’m just not feeling it. If you jumped in my car hoping we were going to be intimate tonight, you’ve got another thought coming. I’m sorry.”
She had figured her words would piss him off, but instead he grinned. He reminded her of Nash with his incessant smile in every freakin’ situation. Alphons moved his hand from her breast to her lips and tapped lightly. The intensity in his eyes made her nervous, and for the first time, she wondered how well Lucas and Brant knew this guy. Great, Stacy, this is the first time you thought about that? Way to go.
“Why don’t we head back,” she suggested. “I’m tired, and—”
Something came over her. She didn’t know what it was, but out of nowhere, she longed for Alphons with every
fiber of her being. The pull was so powerful, she’d even turned her head away from watching the road to watching Alphons, but he forced her head straight. “Watch the road, Stacy, and then take exit twenty-five. That’s a good girl.”
Stacy didn’t want a thing in the world except to please Alphons. He was her everything. When she pulled off the highway and directed the car to the parking lot he had pointed out, Alphons told her to shut off the engine. She did and then unbuckled herself to climb onto his lap.
Alphons laughed and kissed her. “Now, beautiful woman, you’re going to do exactly what I want you to do, aren’t you?”
Her lids drooped heavy over her eyes, and she nuzzled into his chest to rest her head on his shoulder. “Of course. Whatever you want, Alphons.”
Chapter Seven
Alphons checked on Stacy, still sleeping at his side, and then rolled off the bed. He strolled to the door and stepped outside into the early morning. He couldn’t suppress the grin that spread over his face. How he loved being born a wolf shifter. They could release pheromones to the opposite sex and have them eating out of their hand. Of course, Alphons had taken it to new heights with a little genetic manipulation and some friends in dark places. He could push a woman to the point that she not only craved his touch, but she actually longed to obey his every command.
He supposed he should have more ambition for his life than to aim for an Alpha position. After all, he could seduce and enslave the richest, most powerful women in the world, and soon he would be the one with all the money. However, he wasn’t limitless in his ability which was why he had tanked last night after manipulating Stacy. Eight hours of sleep had never felt so refreshing. Now he was alert enough to carry out his plan.
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