by Sam Crescent
She flushed the toilet and then moved through her tiny apartment. She went straight to the kitchen. She needed her coffee hit. First thing in the morning, coffee gave her a good boost to the system. The caffeine also helped to stop the shakes. If she wasn’t a virgin, she’d think she was pregnant.
No baby, no sex, nothing. She wasn’t even sure she liked Greg. He always came across as being a little uptight. She rarely liked hearing him talk, which is one of the things that were baffling her. Why did she stay with him even though she couldn’t stand him half of the time?
Why then had she accepted his marriage proposal?
For the past few months, she’d had bouts of this sickness. A bug she couldn’t quite seem to drop for a few days of the month. She couldn’t tell Greg how her body came alive and her pussy creamed for a stranger who visited her dreams.
In fact, the last time Greg had popped around for dinner, he’d tried to get her to have sex with one hand against the breast and another aiming for her crotch. His skin on hers had sent her heading for the toilet to throw up.
No man could get close enough to her without her suffering the same illness. She was twenty-four and hadn’t had sex yet. Even at college, she’d kept to herself and studied rather than gone on dates.
Picking up the phone, she called the office where she worked as an assistant to a manager and told them she wouldn’t be able to make it today.
“Look, Charlotte, this is getting to be a little predictable. I think it’s time you made some decisions.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“We’re letting you go. Your visa will soon run out, and we think it’s best if you make a clean break.”
“But I’m getting married. I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry, Charlotte,” her boss said and hung up.
Charlotte slammed the phone down and then stalked back to her kitchen. She pulled out the chocolate ice cream she kept for emergencies out of the freezer. Who cared if it was first thing in the morning? What the hell was she supposed to do now?
How could she marry a man whose touch repulsed her? How could she return to Rock Wood and face the sniggers from her old peers as she moved back into her parents’ house?
Someone knocked on her door. Charlotte cursed and turned the television up louder. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. For many reasons, least of all being she looked like crap.
Another knock.
She spooned more ice cream into her mouth.
“Come on, Charlotte. I know you’re in there. I can smell you.”
The spoon paused before it hit her lips.
Smell her?
A dollop of chocolate dropped onto her lap. She scooped it up and placed the tub on the table in front of her.
Her gut tightened, and her pussy pulsed. His voice called to her and easily aroused her. Could a man do that with his voice?
The shy girl inside her wanted to turn, run, and hide, but beyond that door lay something. She didn’t know exactly what that something was. In her gut, she felt the difference inside herself and the call within her to open it up and face the potential change in her future. She ran a hand through her hair and gulped down the nerves clogging her throat.
What lay beyond the door?
Her stomach twisted, and when she reached for the handle, she saw her fingers were shaking.
Licking her lips, she tightened her grip and opened the door.
One large man dominated the space at the front of her door. Six men stood behind him and down her corridor. She stared at each man and noticed they were larger than every other man she’d seen.
The man in front held her attention. His gaze was penetrating her to her very soul. He forced her attention on him.
“Hello, Charlotte.”
In two simple words, Charlotte felt as if she’d come home.
Chapter Seven
“Who are you?” she asked. The man stormed past her and into her small apartment. She stared in shock when the other six men entered her tiny flat. How they managed to fit was beyond her.
“He’s not here,” the leader said.
“Probably a good thing. Adding a human casualty for admiring beauty isn’t on my top-ten list of things to do before I die,” another man said.
Charlotte recognized some of their voices, but her memory was a little fuzzy.
“What are you taking about?” she asked. A headache began to build at her temple. The man, the leader, stalked toward her. His presence was powerful inside her small apartment. The men behind him stayed in their positions in her sitting room. One flicked through the television programs while another went to the kitchen. The man whose voice she recognized pinched her ice cream.
“Hey, that’s mine!” she yelled at him.
“If you ask me, you could do with eating more of it,” he told her, staring up and down her body.
Charlotte was aware of her weight. No matter how many diets she followed, it seemed to constantly increase.
“How dare you?”
“You’ve lost weight since I last saw you, munchkin,” the man stealing her ice cream said to her, seeming awfully familiar with her.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t place them. She knew they’d been at her graduation. So had many other people.
“Are you Kim’s friends?” Several of them snorted and turned away from her. What was wrong with everyone?
“You know who I am, Charlotte.” His voice drifted over her, startling her into full arousal.
“I don’t know.”
“One night four years ago you came to a bar. A bikers’ bar. Do you remember?”
Charlotte listened, and she recalled her sister nagging to go out and party. The bar was dark with naked girls dancing around. She remembered that sex was on display in every corner.
“I see you remember.”
“I don’t remember anything. It was all a dream. A bad horrible dream. Now get out before I call the police!” she screamed.
His men guarded the door while he moved her farther into the room.
“My god, you’re still innocent,” he said, sniffing the air.
“That’s none of your business,” she argued, covering her body with the robe.
Charlotte kept moving backward until her back hit the wall. She cried out as he pounced, trapping her between his rock-hard body and the brick behind her.
“Let me go,” she whimpered.
“I can’t do that.”
He pressed his body against her pelvis, and she gasped. He was hard as steel, scorching her through her clothing.
“Fuck. I’ve got to taste you.” He pressed his nose against her neck.
In the next instant, sharp teeth bit into her neck.
Charlotte caved under his attack. The pain and the connection with his body drove the images into a freeze frame. All the memories of that night four years before resurfaced and bombarded her mind. She remembered everything, including his name. Micah.
With a force she didn’t know she possessed, she threw Micah away from her. Blood trailed down her neck. She touched the blood with the tip of her finger.
“What the fuck are you?” she asked, outraged.
The other men in the room stared at her.
Looking down, she saw the confrontation with Micah had opened her robe, showing her nakedness.
“You’ve never seen a woman’s tits before?” she shouted. The vulgar words sounded harsh to her own ears.
“Not a virgin’s tits,” they all said at once.
Humiliated at her exposed body, she tied the sash and ran for her room. She slammed and locked the door.
She pressed her back to the door with her hand going to her neck. A small drop of blood dotted her fingers.
The man had bit her. No, not a man. Not from what she remembered from that night.
What the fuck had happened to her?
Storming around her bedroom, she grabbed her cell phone and slammed the door of her en suite bathroom.
<
br /> Charlotte dialed her sister’s number and waited for her to answer.
“Hello.” The voice sounded muffled.
“Who the hell is Micah, and what the fuck went down at that bar all those years ago?” she demanded.
Rarely did she raise her voice. With the revelation she’d just had, she didn’t think being nice about it would get her what she wanted.
“Charlotte?”
“The very one.”
A few cusses and she heard her sister yell at someone. Another curse and a door slammed.
“You mean to tell me you had no recollection of that night?” Kim asked.
“Nothing.”
“Then what brought on the attack of awareness?”
Charlotte ran her fingers through her hair and got up to check her wound out in the mirror. It looked like one hell of a love bite.
“You know a six-foot-plus giant and his pack have stormed my apartment, and the giant has bitten me.”
“Micah is there?” Her sister sounded panicked.
“Yep.”
“Shit. You’ve got to get off this phone. He’ll punish me worse if he catches you talking to me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Because of the crap that went down, I was banished from Rock Wood, Charlotte. I’m not allowed to set foot back in there ever again.”
“But we’re not in Rock Wood.”
“Yeah, but the banishment also includes anyone from there. I broke the rules when I started talking to you. Not only pack law. I also disobeyed my alpha and my queen.”
“Who’s your queen? And you’re not a part of this pack. Shit, what’s with all these words of wolves and packs and everything? I’m freaking out here.” Charlotte placed a hand over her chest. Her heart pounded inside her chest.
“You’re the queen, and there is still so much you don’t know about Rock Wood. I can’t believe Mom and Dad kept you in the dark. Even now, when your life is on the line.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shit, this is going to get me punished more. You’re the queen of the Rock Wood pack. The men in your apartment are werewolves, and the big one, Micah, he’s the alpha, and you’re his mate.”
Well, shit.
* * * *
“That didn’t go well,” Cade said to the men in the room.
Micah flinched as the door slammed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have been so demanding,” he suggested.
His men chuckled. Micah couldn’t help his response. Charlotte had been engaged for the longest time, yet she still held her virgin barrier intact. No dick had been near her body. Probably a good thing, otherwise he’d hunt the bastard who thought he could touch his mate.
Even on the other side of the door, she’d responded to his voice. Whether she liked it or not, Charlotte was his, and her body already knew it.
“I don’t like the fact she’d forgotten about us, boss,” Cade said in between mouthfuls of ice cream.
“She remembers. Not everything, just the night she first entered the bar.”
“You know, Brandon will be up to something if we take her back,” another of the men said.
Micah sighed. He couldn’t do anything about Brandon without starting a turf war. The ways of the wolves were always fucking pedantic. They were animals for fuck’s sake. Why couldn’t they settle their battles man to man? Brandon was a fucking coward, hiding behind their rules as some kind of shield. Brandon was a threat to the humans, but no other leader saw it.
“If he touches her, I’ll kill him.”
“It’s not just Brandon who’ll be a problem,” Cade said. “There are all the others in the pack who’ll have a problem with a human being queen.”
He hadn’t thought of that problem. Micah cursed. He had more problems on his mind over the last few years with rogue wolves than caring about a human queen.
“I can’t change what I did.”
“Not saying you should, Micah. Some of us won’t be as accepting of Charlotte. Especially some of the women who’ve tried to get in your bed since she left town,” Cade replied.
Would Charlotte be pissed if he punched a hole in her wall?
“She wouldn’t survive a challenge,” he admitted to himself. How would he keep her safe from the very animals she should be able to control? “Do any of you have a problem with Charlotte being by my side?” He may as well get their viewpoint before he restaked his prior claim. They were the strongest in his pack and the most loyal.
“I like Charlotte.” Cade responded first. I hope she can keep your temper down. You’ve been a fucker to live with these past few years.”
“I don’t have a problem. Be nice to have a woman who’s doesn’t have fucking issues besides the human kind.” This came from Jordan.
The other men nodded in agreement. A weight eased from his chest.
It would be far easier to stake his claim knowing other pack members didn’t mind Charlotte being high ranking. He hadn’t prepared anyone for Charlotte being his queen purely because he didn’t care what others thought. She was his mate, and that was final.
He was about to speak when his ultra-sensitive hearing caught onto Charlotte talking to someone.
Tuning in, he heard the voice of the woman he’d banished.
“Fuck me,” he growled. He threw open the door to her bedroom with such force it knocked it off its hinges. Charlotte wasn’t in sight, but he heard her clear through the door.
Careful with the next door, he used his strength to open it. He felt like a fool when he discovered the door wasn’t locked.
She sat on the toilet staring at him in horror.
“Give me the phone,” he ordered.
Charlotte cradled the phone closer to her tits.
His orders were being ignored.
“Give me the phone,” he demanded.
“No. I’m talking, please leave.” She put the phone to her ear, and he had to repress the need to snatch it away from her. Charlotte wasn’t one of his wolves, and he needed to remember that.
“Charlotte, give him the phone,” he heard Kim tell her.
“Kim?”
“Just do it, Charlotte. Don’t make this any worse than it already is.”
He watched Charlotte nod, and then she handed him the phone, staring down at the floor. Micah put the phone to his ear.
“Hello, Micah,” Kim said.
“Kim.”
“Look, I know I’ve broken the rules—”
“You’ve done far more than that. Why don’t you tell me what you told my mate?” he asked. Micah surprised himself by how calm he sounded.
He didn’t want to scare off his mate.
Micah listened as Kim told him as much as she knew about Charlotte. He got the sense Kim had been talking to Charlotte for a good while.
“Look, Micah. She got in touch with me. I love my sister even if I don’t show it all that much. She doesn’t understand anything about you or the pack. Mom and Dad kept her in the dark for a reason. I don’t think they wanted her to get involved. They intended for her to leave Rock Wood. Please, treat her right.”
“You’re in no position to be asking things of me,” he told her.
“Then I’m asking on behalf of your mate. I know more about the wolves and their customs than she does. If you push Charlotte too far, you will lose her.”
Micah disconnected the call and placed the device in his pocket.
Charlotte didn’t look at him, and a punch landed in his gut. He scented her tears. Fuck. He hated it when women cried.
Going down on his knees in front of her, he took her chin in his hands and tilted her head back.
A stream of moisture ran from each eye.
“Don’t cry, baby, please,” he begged.
“You’re scaring me,” she admitted.
Micah opened his mouth and then closed it. He didn’t have a clue what to say.
“I would never, ever, hurt you,” he said.
“Because I’m your mate?”
<
br /> You’re so much more than my mate.
“Yes,” he answered in response.
“I don’t know anything. I don’t understand. I’ve only just remembered you.” He saw the confusion and the fear in her eyes.
Her lips trembled. Micah ran his thumb over her lips, plump and gorgeous. He leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. Charlotte gasped and Micah deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue inside her mouth. Tasting her. He moaned, and his fist sank into her hair, pulling the long strands.
Charlotte gasped beneath his touch, and he relished the sounds of her little pants. He cupped her face and took more from her. Micah forced her to submit to his will and desire.
Her small body shook under him, and he had to calm his wits before he went too far and frightened her away. Micah pulled away and ran his thumb over her now swollen red lips.
“I’m sorry I was a little rough,” he whispered. He laid another kiss on her lips.
“You can’t seem to stop,” she said to him with amazement in her voice.
“I want you, Charlotte, always.”
“What the fuck are you doing in my girlfriend’s apartment?”
Charlotte tensed and looked to the door. The anger rose in Micah and growl echoed along the thin walls.
“Don’t hurt him,” she pleaded.
“He goes now.” It wasn’t an instruction or a question. Micah was warning her Greg would not be part of her life any more.
“What do you want from me?”
“Everything.” He kissed her once more and walked toward the sound of the commotion. Micah walked in to see Cade restraining the human man with one arm, still eating the tub of ice cream.
“Who the fuck are you, and where is Charlotte? Charlotte? Charlotte?” he yelled.
“I think you should turn around and leave right now,” Micah warned, holding his arms over his chest.
“Fuck you. Charlotte, baby, are you all right?” Greg called.
Micah growled.
“What the fuck?”
“I’m growing tired of your language. Charlotte is already taken. She’s mine. Leave now.”
“No way. Charlotte and I are engaged to be married. You’ve got no right to be in this apartment.”
The guy had guts. Other men would quake in their boots when Micah was present. Not this guy. He was showing he either had too much confidence or he had a death wish.