by Helen Scott
With one swift movement, he lifted me up by my hips and moved me so he was lowering my feet to the ground. I released my shins and straightened slightly as I felt him line his cock up with my entrance, spearing me with it a second later. The sudden fullness after being achingly empty for so long pushed me over the edge into my orgasm. My pussy clenched around his cock over and over again as he held me there without moving.
When the first waves had eased, he began to move me, easing me up and down on his cock until I was ready to take over. As I tried to move on my own, he stopped me and moved so his legs were either side of mine, with my own spread as wide as the pants around my thighs would allow. Now I could move on his cock without any impediment, and I began to ride him, hard. If it weren’t for the fabric of his pants, I was sure that the night air would’ve been filled with the sounds of skin hitting skin in the way that it only ever did during sex.
I could feel another orgasm building within me from the pace I’d set and the angle at which Roman’s cock was rubbing inside me. I couldn’t go any faster though, and it felt like that was what I needed to push me over the edge. My thighs were already on fire from the half squat motion of my movements.
“That’s it, angel, fuck yourself to your orgasm on my cock,” he growled out as he began moving to meet me, thrusting into me harder than I’d been coming down on him.
The change pushed me even closer, until I felt like I was standing on a knife edge. When I felt him speed up, I knew it would push me over the edge, and it did only a moment later, the pleasure crashing through me like a tsunami.
I didn’t register what happened next until it was too late. Roman pulled one of my legs free from my scrub pants and switched the places of our legs, so my knees were on the outside of his as he rocked his hips, rolling his cock within me. Not really wearing pants anymore meant that I was completely exposed, anyone who saw us would be able to see how Roman’s cock was slamming into me as he held me just above his lap. They would also see the hand that slid around to play with my clit once I was able to hold myself up again.
Supporting myself for long didn’t seem to be in the cards though as Roman’s rough pace plus his talented fingers sent me hurtling toward another orgasm. The last one had been like a rollercoaster climbing up the biggest hill, one click at a time until it goes over the edge, while this one was more like the second hill of the rollercoaster. It may not have been as high as the first, but the speed with which it hit was just as breathtaking.
“That’s it, angel, show everyone how magnificent you are,” Roman growled out in my ear as he prolonged my pleasure as much as possible before finally finding his own release, my name a prayer on his lips.
We both sat there for a moment, panting as we floated on a sea of dopamine fueled bliss. Eventually, as his cock began to soften inside me, I pushed up off of him. I quickly pulled the other pant let back on and rolled the material up on both ankles once more before slipping into the flip-flops that Roman had found for me somewhere. I didn’t think too hard about where, just glad to have something to protect my feet.
“What time is it?” I asked as I stretched, by body feeling languid and relaxed.
Roman twisted his wrist so I could read what the watch there said. My heart dropped into my stomach.
“I have to go, otherwise they might think I’m abandoning Blake. I love you, Roman. Always will.” I spun and ran. I only had a couple of minutes before it was the twenty-four-hour mark from when I first met the wolf by the vending machines. I could not be late for this.
25
Nina
When I got to the vending machines, the shifter was there, leaning against the wall and tapping away at something on his phone. I was panting from running all the way there, terrified that he’d be gone and Blake would be dead because I’d been too busy getting fucked. I knew Roman had needed it—hell, I’d needed it—but we probably should’ve picked a better time.
What was done was done though, and it wasn’t like I hadn’t enjoyed myself. I mean, I’d had more orgasms today than most people have in a month. I was very lucky to have such talented mates, and I’d be even luckier when they were all back together.
“I’d almost given up on you,” he said as he finally looked up from his phone. “Had the text prepped and everything.” He held the screen up for me to see he wasn’t lying.
She’s a no-show. Kill him.
I had to fight the urge to vomit. After a few seconds of just breathing and trying to ignore the stench of death and cleaning products that was assaulting my nose once more, I said, “I’m here. If Jax wants to talk, then let’s go.”
“Are you sure you’re ready? You don’t want to get cleaned up first?” The guy wrinkled his nose as though he could smell something bad.
A blush rose on my cheeks when I realized that he could scent that Roman and I were together. He thought I should clean up first? That I should wash away the scent of one of my true mates and our joining? Fat fucking chance. Pushing any embarrassment I felt aside, I smiled at him and said, “No, I’m ready to go now.”
He shook his head and replied, “If you say so. Follow me.”
The two of us walked away from the vending machines, my stomach giving a slight protest as we did so. I probably should have had a snack for the road, but somehow, I didn’t think my escort would want to turn back around and pay for my food. I’d meant to bring a phone with me, something, anything that might help me get in contact with the guys, but it wasn’t like there were a lot of pockets on scrubs, and the ones that were there? Let’s just say that having so much as a penny in my pocket would have been painfully obvious to anyone looking me over. It wasn’t like the clothes I’d abandoned in the bathroom would have been much better though. Some jeans and a slim fit T-shirt? Not so much when it came to storage.
As soon as we cleared the hospital doors, the guy I was following strode toward the parking lot like someone had lit his tail on fire. I wasn’t sure what had caused it, but I suspected that he wanted to spend as little time alone with me as possible. After all, what if I told Jax he tried something? I felt like that would basically be signing his death warrant at this point.
There was no question in my mind about Jax’s obsession. It was real, and it was dangerous. My question was, what made me special? Was it that we grew up together? I was a symbol of his past or something? Was I something he had to destroy and rebuild the same way he’d done with the rest of his life?
Soon enough, the questions that were plaguing my mind disappeared because we got to the car. Everything seemed too real, too dangerous. Was I making a mistake in going to see Jax? If I didn’t, then he’d kill Blake, so no, I didn’t think I was. That didn’t mean it wasn’t going to be a shit journey until we got Blake free, and hopefully myself as well. I doubted Jax would just let me walk out of there. He’d already offered that and lied about it once. Now I didn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth. If it weren’t for the mate bond telling me that Blake was alive, then I’d probably assume that Jax would kill Blake whether I went with his beta or not.
As we got closer, I saw two other men get out of the car, the night breeze telling me that they both scented of Jax’s pack. The man closest to me held a black bag. The other held some rope. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to dealing with either of those things.
“Here, wolfy, wolfy,” the guy holding the bag said as he patted his thigh. His smile was all menace.
When I didn’t step forward, he and his friend both smiled wider.
“I love it when they fight back,” the guy holding the rope said. “Please, fight me.”
“What would Jax say if I showed up bruised and bloody, hm?” I asked politely.
They tried not to show it, but both of them paled slightly, fear tugging at their features just a little. That’s what I thought. If I showed up beaten to hell and back, they’d get their asses handed to them. It didn’t give me a lot to work with, but it was something. And in this case, something wa
s most definitely better than nothing.
“Listen, it’s not that we want to tie you up and blindfold you, but this is what Jax told us to do. Clearly, you understand the kind of man he is. So either we leave here with you wearing the hood and rope, or we take this as a refusal and we text them your answer, at which point Blake will be executed. Is that what you want?” The one who’d spoken to me by the vending machines ran his hand over his hair, mussing it up in frustration.
Okay so I had a little something I could hold over them, but they had a big something they could hold over me. Why was life so damn complicated? Part of me wished I could go back to just being an car mechanic and live the way I had been before all this started. That would mean living without my mates though, and as much as I wanted a simpler life, I couldn’t live without them, not now I knew how it felt to have them, how it felt to be loved.
With a sigh, I stepped forward and held out my hands, wrists together. The one with the rope didn’t hesitate to bind them, while his buddy slipped the bag over my head. It made getting into the car awkward, and we all realized that they probably should’ve waited until I was inside before putting the bag on.
Once I was in the car, I felt one of them get in next to me and the other two get into the front. The engine roared to life, and we pulled out of the parking lot. At each stop sign and light or whatever it was, the breaks squeaked and the sound of metal grinding on metal filled the car. The whir of a window being rolled down pricked at my ears, and suddenly, the car was cleared of the scent of stressed wolf shifter and filled with the scent of the forest, but not just that, farm land as well. No, I didn’t mean manure either, I meant the scent of crops growing ripe enough to harvest, of some decaying where they hadn’t been picked, of the seasons blending together as well.
It didn’t matter what was going on in our lives, the world kept turning, everything going on with or without us. Nature didn’t care one way or another. It was that thought that made me realize why some shifters gave themselves over to their wolf completely, never becoming human again.
That wasn’t what I wanted, don’t get me wrong, but if all my mates were taken from me, then it might be something I’d consider—if my wolf cooperated—since there would be nothing left for me in this world without them. I’d been a husk before, just the outline of a person waiting to be filled in, and that was what my mates did. That’s not to say I wasn’t my own person, I definitely was, but that person had been focused on survival before, on getting through the next day, the next hour. Now I was looking ahead, wishing I’d had more time with all of them and that life wasn’t so complicated so we could just be together, reveling in our bonds the way mates are supposed to when the bond first hits. We didn’t have the opportunity though.
As we traveled, I realized that we were going somewhere other than the main compound for the pack. It sent a spike of fear through me, but I couldn’t let fear stop me, not anymore. It may have once, like when I didn’t leave the city because I was too scared of what was out there, of having to live on the streets somewhere new, but I was a different person then. It didn’t hurt that I had a life depending on me either. Being scared wasn’t an emotion I could afford to indulge in, so I locked it away, asking my wolf to look after it and to lend me some of her strength.
I could see her much more clearly these days, feel her closer to the surface of my mind and body. She was still locked away, but it wasn’t deep down like it used to be. Part of me wanted to try and shift sometime soon, just to see what would happen. I doubted it would be successful, but it never hurt to try occasionally. Because she was so much stronger and so much closer, I knew without a doubt that I could find my way back to the hospital with just the scents I’d been paying attention to. If they’d kept the windows shut, that may not have been an option. Now, whether or not I would have the opportunity to leave Jax’s care and make the trip back was an altogether different question.
Finally, the car slowed, and I picked up that familiar metallic, oily, almost gasoline-like smell that I’d come to associate with Jax and his men. The brakes squealed as we came to a stop. Whoever owned this car really needed to invest in some new brake pads. The car rocked back and forth as all three of them exited, the doors slamming shut behind them. When my door opened, a hand grabbed me and the rough skin of someone who did manual labor for a living wrapped around my own, pulling me out and into the fresh—well, somewhat fresh—air.
Whichever one of them grabbed me from the car walked me forward, around a few turns and then into a building. Though it didn’t feel quite like a building, there was something more airy about the space. I heard metal hitting metal, followed by a scraping sound that could only be a key in a lock, then hinges squeaked as though they needed to be oiled.
The bag was pulled from my head, and I was shoved forward before I could gain my bearings or let my eyes adjust to the light. The door slammed shut behind me with a clang, and the key grated against the metal of the lock once more.
I was in a prison cell. It was maybe six feet by six feet, a perfect square, and as I turned to look at what was around me, I saw the man who’d shoved me inside, the one that had been carrying the hood in the parking lot, smirking at me. “Won’t be getting out of here with fire, slut. Try and burn this down, and you’ll burn with it.” With that, he turned and left.
From the venom in his voice, I was willing to bet that some of his property had been destroyed from my last escape. I wondered how many more people were going to get hurt in this battle between Jax and myself. I hoped not many. As much as I wanted my freedom and to be able to choose who I spent my life with, I hated that other people were getting hurt because of my actions.
Now that I was alone, I could look more carefully at my surroundings. I was locked up in my cell, which was the only one there, and there was a big, almost circus-like tent surrounding the area. It was almost as though he wanted to keep me out of sight. All of the fabric was staked down hard into the ground, and it looked thicker than canvas. I knew if I was going to try and escape at some point, I’d be forced to use the door. Anything else would take too long.
There were no windows, but the fabric wasn’t black so I could roughly tell what time it was, just based on the lighting in the tent. There was a camping lantern that was hanging from a hook on a big pole that was basically a tree trunk. The mast was at the center of the tent, holding the whole thing up. There was no way I’d be able to take that down, not with how it looked like it was anchored into the ground like an actual tree. Hell, maybe it was a tree and they’d just taken the bark off it so they could get the rope around it or something. I honestly didn’t know or understand or really care. If it wasn’t going to get me out of there, then it didn’t matter.
The first thing I needed to find was something that could cut through the binds on my wrists. I wandered around the edge of the cell looking for any sharp bits of metal or screws or anything that I thought could work.
“You won’t find anything that will help you.” Jax’s voice sounded from behind me as I was looking at the back of the cage.
I turned and looked at him. “Jax.”
“Antonia.” A smile grew on Jax’s face, making him look almost handsome. Or it would have, if I didn’t know the darkness that hid underneath. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, mate.” His gray eyes looked black in the low light, and his head appeared to be recently shaved with just enough regrowth for the hair to be visible.
He wanted a reaction, an outburst, but he wasn’t going to get one.
I stayed silent, biting my tongue to the point of pain to stop myself from yelling at him. Instead, I just asked, “Where’s Blake?”
“Now, I know that Mama Matsen taught you to be more polite than that. What would she say if she could see you now? Hm?”
I could not rise to his bait. For whatever reason, he wanted me to blow up, to scream and yell and rail at him, but I wouldn’t. Whatever he wanted, I wanted the opposite. I wanted anything that would get m
e as far away from him as possible, anything that would make him leave me and my mates alone, but only once I had Blake safe and sound.
26
Nina
“You’ve calmed down quite a bit since we last spoke,” Jax said, sounding impressed, as though I’d been a raging teenager last time and now I was a mature adult. Fat chance of that change happening so fast. I was still stuck somewhere between the two, though the adult side had been surging ahead recently.
“Jax, why do you want me? You know I have mates, right?” I asked, exasperated. I didn’t feel the same pull toward him that I’d felt to Tate and Blake so I took a risk, probably a stupid one, and looked him in the eyes. Nothing happened. A breath of relief released from me, and I felt more confident that I would actually have to want to mate with him for the bond between us to forge. With the others, it was just there. I could almost feel its potential between myself and Jax, but it wasn’t as forceful as it was with the others. With them, I’d had no choice, but with Jax, it was different. Maybe because I’d mated with Roman first and not Jax?
He rubbed his hand along his jaw and came closer to my cage. “I do know that, but I also know that if you let yourself, you could be my mate. You’re just resisting, and I don’t understand why.”
“There doesn’t have to be a reason. Some people just don’t work together, and we would be those people. I would be forever trying to be more independent and self-reliant than you wanted me to be. I will never bow to you, Jax. You can torment me, my mates, whatever, it only makes me dig my heels in more. Surely if Sam told you anything about me, or if you remember anything about me growing up, it’s that I’m as stubborn and contrary as they come.” I was honestly exhausted from this conversation already and we’d only just started. He could torment me, I hadn’t lied about that, but if we kept talking, he might drive me crazy.