by Aidy Award
"Hmm. I like the sound of that, kiska." Max's eyes flicked from hers, down to her lips, and back. He slid one arm around to her back and pulled her in close, so their bodies were pressed together.
He was going to kiss her. Holy crap. He was going. to. kiss. her. Max freaking Troika, the boy, now a man, who she'd had a crush on for about a thousand million years was going to--
His lips touched hers, softly brushing over them, teasing her until she lost her breath. She sighed and wrapped her arms around his neck. All thoughts of etymology, nerds, and wolves flew right out of her head and were replaced by all the tingly fun sparkles they were lighting up in her brain.
Max slid his tongue along her bottom lip asking her to open for him. She met that challenge by nipping at him lip and pushing her tongue into his mouth to taste all he had to offer.
A low, sexy growl rumbled up from his chest.
Who needed wolves to spice up her life, when she had a Troika?
Max
The sweet taste of Galyna was a sharp contrast the the scent of her fear from earlier. Max would bet money that she didn't know three wolves from the Grimm pack had been in her library hunting her. Her instinctive sense of self-preservation had though.
Galyna's fear smelled like fruit that had gone bad and was starting to ferment. It paired perfectly with the taste of Grimm enforcer blood in his mouth. He'd taught them a lesson and sent them running back to their alpha with enough wounds to make for a good warning. What the fuck did those guys think they were doing attacking a human?
Max didn't care if he and his family had murdered the entire Volkov family for shits and giggles, humans were off limits in pack politics. The Volkov's were the biggest proponents of keeping the secret. These Grimm's were risking everyone's lives by threatening a human in Rogue.
Pack and wolfkind aside, he was going to rip any other man or beast to shreds that threatened Galyna. He'd make sure everyone knew she was under his protection.
His wolf had known something was wrong tonight, and he knew better than to ignore those instincts. He'd been resisting his urge to go to the library and spend all of his time there, but something had set him in that direction tonight anyway. There hadn't been a minute to himself all week, but he'd still had her on his mind.
Running through the Reserve he could still scent her on the walking path. He couldn't even go behind the bar at Sleepy Folk without getting a hard on. He fell into bed each late night or very early morning, exhausted, but with his hand wrapped around his cock, her soft sweet lips, or that round ass in his mind's eye.
She was driving him to distraction and tonight he'd decided to do something about it. He knew exactly what time the library closed and crossed his fingers she didn't have plans after she got off. He only had until midnight before he had to go on his patrol, but even a few hours with her would help take the edge off.
Instead of getting to make out with her in the stacks, fulfilling all his dirty librarian fantasies, he'd caught the scent of Grimm's and their ill intentions wafting all around the little brick library. He'd tossed his clothes under a flowering bush and shifted into his wolf form to hunt the intruders down.
He should have gone home then, reported to his father and the teams of enforcers that the Grimms were crossing the line. He couldn't until he checked on her and made sure there weren't any more dangers waiting for her.
It all went downhill from there. He'd spoken to Gal with his mind. He hadn't even known he could do that with anyone other than other wolf-shifters. He didn't think it was even possible.
But she'd heard him alright. He was sure of that. The touch of her mind to his had felt like heaven. Now he was going to hell.
He was no better than the Grimms. He'd let her see his wolf. No humans had seen a wolf in Rogue for a hundred years. Not and lived to tell about it. Sure there were rumors, but every wolf was trained from birth to make sure it stayed that way. He was a leader now, and should be the model of what to do. Instead he was here making sure his scent was all over a human woman.
He didn't know if marking her in this way would make her more of a target or less, but there was no denying the instinctual drive from his wolf to make sure any other male knew exactly who she belonged to.
God. He was such a douchecanoe. Gal was a smart, savvy, strong independent woman. She would hate being claimed like that. He was going to do it anyway. Again and again.
Not like it was a real hardship.
Gal moaned into his mouth and pushed her tongue against his, asking him to dance with her. She was so fucking hot he was going to lose his mind and if he was really unlucky, his heart.
Nope. Worst idea ever. He needed to keep his emotions out of this. Think with his cock, sure. Think with his heart? Never.
He could stand here in the middle of the sidewalk all night kissing her, or he could take her home and kiss her all over. He really liked that plan because not only would he get her in his bed, but he'd also know exactly where she was and that she was completely safe. He broke their kiss and pressed his forehead against hers and ran his fingers through her long dark hair."Forget burgers, I'd rather eat you."
She sucked in a short gasp and licked her lips. "You're so dirty."
He couldn't tell from her whisper if that was good or bad. Please let it be good because he was going big. "I'm holding myself back trying my damndest to impress you with my restraint. Because I can't even tell you all the filthy things I've imagined us doing together. I haven't thought of anything else besides fucking you since you came into my bar that night."
"Tell me."
Oh, fuck yeah. He wondered if he could get her talking dirty too. She was so adorably prim and proper in her little sweater set and ponytail. She was the whole delicious innocent package minus the pearls. He must just come in his pants if she told him to fuck her.
"Every night I go to bed with my hand on my cock and you on my mind. When I wake up hard as steel in the mornings it’s because I've been dreaming of you. I can't even leave the house without a tent in my pants unless I've jacked-off at least twice, usually three times."
Gal grabbed the front of his shirt, fisting it and whimpered so quietly he might not have even heard her except for his heightened wolf's hearing. The deep rich scent of her arousal was sweet like fresh baked peach pie, and it had his cock screaming at him to fulfill some of those fantasies. His wolf howled at him to mark her with more than his scent. It wanted him to bite her and mark her as his mate.
That thought, that pressure, made him back off. He'd learned long ago that allowing his beast to rule him was a dangerous path. It operated solely on instinct. Without his brain and human reasoning he was nothing more than an animal. That was no way to protect her or his pack.
He was an asshole for leaving her so needy. Sometime soon, when he wasn't operating on the adrenaline high from fighting the Grimm enforcers and having her in his arms for the first time, he'd make it up to her. If he could help it he'd never leave her unsatisfied ever again. But tonight he had to, for both their sakes.
It was the right thing to do. He needed to get a whole hell of a lot better at doing the right thing if he was ever going to be the pack alpha someday. It sucked that he had to figure that out right this second.
Max pressed a gentle and chaste kiss to her temple. He accidentally kept going and nibbled his way down to her ear and sucked her earlobe into his mouth making her moan and lose her balance. A quick mental note that she had a weak spot there that he was going to exploit very soon, and he pulled away just enough to whisper in her ear. "I want nothing more than to take you home and fuck your brains out, but we're not going to do that."
She whispered right back. "We're not?"
God, he loved that she sounded disappointed. They were going to be explosive when he did get her in bed. Max took one step away to get some needed space between them. This was already hard enough to put a stop to without her body pressed against his. "No. I like you, Gal. More than some one-night stand with an
inevitably awkward morning after."
Gal dropped her arms to the side and shuffled her feet. "Oh. I, uh, I didn't, I mean, I guess we got a little carried away."
Shit. He was fucking this up, making her feel bad. "Don't for one second think I don't want to be buried so deep inside of you we both forget our names, but I'm trying to do the right thing, and if I don't stop now, I'm not going to be able to. You're too fucking sexy for me to resist for very long."
The small frown and notch of worry in her forehead that had appeared when he started talking smoothed away. She touched her lips, hiding the smile there, but it was obvious in her eyes. "That's actually really sweet. Especially since it's probably really obvious right now that you don't have to."
Phew. He took her hand and kissed her palm. "So let me seduce you the good old-fashioned way, with a burger and fries."
She looked up at him through her lashes and bit her lip in the cutest way before answering. "Make it curly fries and you're almost there."
Now they were headed back on the right track. Some flirting, later down the road sex, when he didn't have this Grimm thing hanging over his head they could do more. "What if I throw in a vanilla milkshake too?"
Gal took a couple of steps, dragging him along behind her toward town again. "Baby, I'm anything but vanilla."
Max's heart went into overdrive. His cock tried to send the alert to the rest of his body that this was about sex, but his heart wouldn't hear it. She was the girl for him and he was fucked. Not in the fun way.
He'd just fallen a little bit in love with her. Or maybe realized he already was. Shit.
On the way to the best late-night burger joint in Rogue, Max caught another whiff of Grimm's nearby. Some of the pack were occasionally in town, because they were on the force over at the sheriff's department. He could easily differentiate scents of different wolves just like a human could tell a different person by their looks. These were two of the ones he'd chased away from the library and one of the wolves with a badge.
They weren't simply hanging around town either. They were scouting for something or someone. The path of scents had a pattern to it. A search pattern. He hadn't noticed that when he'd been in a panic that they were at the library. Here in the middle of Old Town, it was really fucking obvious. The library had been one stop on their hunt.
They weren't looking for him or any of his family. They knew exactly where to find them. The Troikas had several businesses in town including the bar, his mother's coffee shop, and the strip club Niko and Kosta had opened a few years ago. If they weren't at one of the businesses, it wasn't like their homes were a secret either. The family home had been in the same place for almost two-hundred years.
Max knew exactly what his patrol would be doing tonight. He'd set half of his wolves backtracking and the other half following the bastards. If they didn't get back to their own territory there would be hell to pay. He was already in a fighting mood, especially since he couldn't allow himself to be in a fucking mood.
"Wanna grab us a table and I'll order?"
"Yep. Don't forget my chocolate milkshake." She waved him off and grinned, heading toward the only open table at the fifties style drive-in restaurant."
Max ordered the food and eyeballed every single car sitting in the place on his way to their table. There were Grimms here, but he couldn't quite pinpoint them and that in itself worried him. They were purposefully making their scents disguising themselves, hiding themselves in with the humans.
He sent a quick text to Kosta asking him to meet them here. Something was brewing and it was bigger than just the other packs poking at them because of Niko and the assassination. A sheriff's car slow-rolled down the street and one of the officers stared right at him from the passenger side.
He'd already gotten a speeding ticket, three parking tickets, and ticket for a busted tail-light that certainly hadn't been broken when he'd been pulled over. His Impala was hidden away in his garage for tonight. Until things cooled down he'd be hoofing it around town. Which would probably be until hell froze over the way the Grimm's were behaving.
Gal waved from their table. She was surrounded by a group of young women and when he walked up three out of the four went all giggly.
"Miss Shirvan, is this your boyfriend?" The girl asking drew the boy in the word out all sing-songy. The rest of their little gaggle went into hysterics.
"Ladies, this is my friend Max Troika."
Max gave a silent wave which only sent them into another eruption of giggles. The waitress on roller skates brought their tray of food over and Gal laughed too and waved the teens off. "Off you go. I'll report back tomorrow after school."
The gigglers moved away and Max couldn't say he wasn't relieved. He shoved Gal's milkshake toward her with an eyebrow waggle. "Don't be giving them too many juice details, you'll make their hormones explode."
"I don't know about that. They gave me some romance novels to read today and I think they know more than I do about how to make a wolf fall in love with them."
Max choked on his burger.
What the fuck? Was there a young member of the Rogue pack telling his or her packmates secrets that no human should know? Maybe that's what had the Grimms doing double duty in town. He had no idea how to handle a situation like that. The days of executing wolves who let others find out about them were long gone. Mostly because the Volkoff's had ingrained into their culture how taboo that was.
Shit. Niko would know exactly what to do. He'd probably have the kid dressing up as a wolf and parading around town to make a joke out of it. No, Niko would have known exactly which pups had recently hit puberty and their first shifts. He probably would have shifted with them and make them feel that their secret was too cool to share.
It's what he'd done when Max had shifted the first time. He needed to do better about becoming a real leader, and not just an enforcer.
Gal patted him on the back, laughing. "I know, crazy, right?"
He swallowed hard and took a sip of his cola. "I don't think I heard that right. Did you say fall in love with a wolf?"
"Yep. Turns out it's a very common romance novel premise. Although some of the girls would prefer to fall in love with dragons, or bears. I'm kind of fond of the idea of getting busy with a vampire." Gal waggled her eyebrows at him. "You don't happen to have fangs, do you?"
Oh thank the moon. Max's laugh was both relief and humor. "I can think of something I'd like to nibble on."
Flirting with Gal was fun. He wished he could take her out on a real date. He could, but at risk to her life. He'd thought he could date her casually, that he could even have sex with her. She was an itch his libido really wanted to scratch and he'd go crazy wanting her, but after everything he'd seen tonight it he knew better than to think they could do anything more than have a burger together.
An alpha would know better. He was the future alpha.
Damn it. He was going to have to get his mother to set him up with some prospective mates.
After he kissed Gal one more time. Max twirled a stray wisp of hair that had escaped her perfect little pony tail around his finger and stared into her eyes. He could get lost in them. He wanted to. He couldn't.
One last kiss.
Max leaned in and Gal parted her lips. Such soft delicious lips. He was going to dream of those lips the rest of his life.
Whoop-woop-woop. Whoop. The sound of a police car's warning siren blasted almost right next to his ear. The sheriff's department car had pulled into the drive-up spot right next to their table. A deputy leaned out the passenger window and pointed at Max.
He was a Grimm pack member alright. Max caught his scent even over the burgers and Gal's sweet floral aroma. This guy had been in the Reserve.
"Gimme a sec, huh?"
"Of course. I've got these fries and a milkshake to keep me company." She dipped one of her french fries into the chocolate ice cream and took a bite. Some of the shake dribbled on her lip and Max had to keep his groan of need from
escaping.
He made a promise to himself he wasn't sure he'd be able to keep, then made his way over to the car. "You're pushing your luck, Grimm. What are you doing in Rogue?"
"Making sure you Troikas aren't planning any more coup attempts. The whole wolf world is begging us to take you boys out."
The rage Max had kept bottled up for far too long seethed under his skin and his wolf pushed at him to start a fight. "You know better than to talk pack business around humans, you douche. Shut your face and get out of my town before I decide to do something about it."
"Hey," the deputy nodded toward Gal, "I'm not the one shacking up with a juicy human. You're the one endangering us all."
Gal
Gal walked into her house on a cloud and leaned against the door behind her. Max was just on the other side. She wondered if he was leaning against the door too.
She touched her lips and re-lived their last kiss. His lips on her, his hands in her hair, tugging her tight to him. All those flutters that started in her belly, rapidly moved south. If the bulge that had been pressing against her was any indication, Max's blood was running hot below the belt too.
Then his damn phone rang again. His family sure had a tight leash on him lately. She could relate. It had been approximately three whole hours since her mom had called and left a voicemail checking in on her. It wasn't like she'd moved to Antarctica. She was on the other side of the Reserve.
In a house, with two roommates that probably wouldn't mind if she brought a man back to the house and had wild monkey sex all night long in her room.
"Gal? What are you doing?" Heli glanced out the front window and her face lit up like a firecracker. "Oh my, you were just with Max Troika, weren't you?"
"I'm not even going to bother with the blushing and skip straight to the gushing. Yes." It was hard to keep the teeny-bopper squeal out of her voice. "He just showed up at the library and asked me to go get burgers with him, and then he kissed me, and I thought I was going to melt into a gooey mess in his arms."