When she closed the door on her way out, Allan could almost feel every step she took, as though the distance would snap the cord that had wound its way around him.
He punched the last number and waited for Laurel to pick up. It was more imperative than ever that he meet with her. He needed to find the person who would ground him to this world. And make him forget about Reyna Dubois.
Chapter Six
It was well past midnight, but the VonBrandt mansion was still very much awake. Driving around the dark countryside hadn’t cleared Reyna’s head at all. She breezed through the unlocked front door and down the main hallway, passing several wolves from out of town. She recognized one of the enforcers from Oklahoma and nodded to her as she walked by.
“Hey, Deirdre. Seen any VonBrandts?”
“The study. The moon tomorrow night has everyone antsy.” The Trewitt enforcer made a steady pace for the stairs, like she was in a hurry. “I’ve got… I’m gonna head out for a run, too, once I find… William. Once I find William.”
A run. That would be nice. But she really needed to grill someone about Allan and any VonBrandt would do.
“The study. Thanks,” she said, and pushed open the large door barring the entrance to the VonBrandt study. She needed to know why he would deny his mate so she could fix whatever his problem was and get down to the business of bonding. No wolf on earth would run from a Fated match, but that’s exactly what the big sheriff was doing.
Allan’s scent was strong in the room and she breathed deeply, taking in as much as she could. This was the last placed she’d expected him to turn up after their encounter at his office. But there he was, standing at the back of the room, staring out the window. All tall and handsome and hers…eventually. He was a lock and she just needed to keep trying keys until she landed on the right one.
For the moment, she wanted to relieve some pent up frustration.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Allan?” Reyna surged into the room, her quick strides eating up the distance between them.
He turned just as she was about to grab his arm. The eyes were the same. The hair was the same. Even a similar face stared down at her, but it wasn’t Allan.
Air whooshed from her lungs and she halted her approach, stopping cold. Allan’s scent was on the man. Recently too.
“You must be Reyna.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Adam?” she asked, searching her memory for relevant information about the VonBrandt alpha’s youngest brother. The man in front of her was dressed like a farmhand—flannel shirt, tight wranglers, and ropers—and besides smelling like he’d recently been around Allan, the man was covered head to foot in horse dander and hay dust.
“That’s me. What can I help you with?”
Reyna crossed her arms. “Maybe you can tell me why your brother won’t have sex with me.”
Adam coughed and put his glass of scotch down on the windowsill.
“Not that I’m a nympho, but he’s being a jackass. Sex between mates is about the bond and I’m his mate.”
“You’re sure?”
Reyna nodded. “Positive. No doubt.”
“Well, Allan is a jackass. No doubt about that.”
“Thank you. I was starting to feel like a crazy person.”
“Allan is stubborn. And he’s turned into a bit of a loner lately.” Adam slid his finger across the edge of the glass.
“Lately?”
“When we were kids, we were all inseparable. But when mom died, he sort of changed.”
Reyna’s breath caught in a hard stop. His mother died, too. Tears that were half angry and half sad bubbled behind her eyes. I’ve been there. “I’m sorry about your mom.”
“Thanks. It’s been ten years. But Allan never really got over it. He stopped being an enforcer and took a job with the sheriff. Moved into town. He hides from us, I think.” He picked up the thick-sided glass and swilled some of the brown liquid.
So he’s hiding from me? “But why doesn’t he want a mate? I’ve never met a wolf that was so against it. It’s not like Fate comes knocking on our doors every other week.”
“Allan likes his life the way it is. The more you show him what life will be like with you as mate, the faster he’ll come around. For some reason, he’s hooked on this human thing. Aaron would probably know more about it than me.”
“He’s a wolf. Not a human. He may have a human job, but he’s still a wolf.”
Adam nodded and lifted the glass through the air toward her. “And that right there is the problem. A wife who’s human would complete his fantasy. Like the wolves of old, or some shit. A wolf mate? Well… that’s not part of the fantasy.”
“So you’re telling me, he doesn’t want me because I’m a wolf. If I were human, he would?”
Adam opened his mouth to speak and then snapped it shut again.
“What?” Reyna asked. “Spit it out.”
“It’s not like you made a great first impression. What with the bar fight and him having to cover for you with his office. I’m sure that’s part of it, too. Just give him some space. With Allan, that’s always best.”
“Yeah,” Reyna sighed. “That’s not my style.”
Allan threw his truck into park in front of his house and swiped open his phone. Laurel’s text had come through while he was driving back from the ranch, and he wasn’t about to look at his phone until his vehicle had come to a complete stop.
9am at Wild Crumb works for me. See you there.
He turned off the engine and stuck the phone in his pocket. He wasn’t much of a texter, but that had been Laurel’s preference. He could be flexible.
The air outside was almost what you might call cold. Not quite the bite that it would get by January, but not warm anymore. He preferred the cold, rainy winter, anyhow. Kept everyone indoors.
Hell, it would be great if it would snow. Cut down on crime for a day or two at least. But that likely wasn’t in the cards for Somewhere. He couldn’t remember the last time it had snowed.
Still, there was something in the air that he couldn’t place. It wasn’t cold, or the promise of rain. He walked up the sidewalk toward his front door and paused on the stoop.
Allan scanned the street. Dark. Deserted. Then what the hell had his hackles up? He put his hand on the door, but the nagging feeling wouldn’t let him relax.
Reyna.
Of course, it was Reyna. She was probably laying in wait somewhere inside. No doubt his chat with Adam had produced the opposite results. Hell, he’d probably called Reyna right up and told him all about how Allan had warned them off his private life. Adam’s sympathetic ear had apparently been a ruse.
His house, of all places. A man’s home should be his fortress. Like fucking Superman. He shouldn’t be able to smell aroused she-wolf all over his door. His door should be his. It should be safe.
And it was open! What the hell? Had Adam made her a key or something? Shit.
Allan stepped backwards, his own momentum propelling him off the steps and into the wet grass. He shifted his weight back and forth, swearing to himself.
She was probably rubbing her scent all over his bed, or his couch, or his fucking letter openers or whatever she was touching. He wasn’t sure how much more of her scent he could ignore for one evening.
He stalked back to his truck and opened the door, glancing at the house. Dammit. All he wanted was to be able to come home at night and have a woman there to share his life with. That had been the whole reason for calling Laurel in the first place.
But not a wolf. He did not need one more reason to be tied to his secretive family and their pack life. If he married a human, he would finally be fulfilling the purpose of the Moonbound curse, and the meddling of the VonBrandt family would be limited to orders from the alpha only.
Besides, Reyna was too much a wolf. Her sexuality, her wanting to be naked, her wanting him to fuck her in public. He didn’t want that.
Although someone should’ve told that to his dick. Just sm
elling her had made his heart speed and his blood race and thicken and harden. He couldn’t deny they had magick between them. He’d never been so overwhelmed with the need to be with a woman before. Wolf or not.
She was in his house. Probably naked on his bed. And he was walking away from her. From his mate. From the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen before. From the sex he wanted more than he wanted anything else.
Fuck. Just how big an idiot am I?
Allan turned on his Blazer with a hard twist. The bright swath of his headlights flooded the front of his modest little house, and a half-smile tugged at his lips. This was home now. He liked being home. Not tonight, of course, but soon.
Once the summit was done and all the wolves retreated to their territories, and life could go back to being normal again. Then, he could go home.
Reyna was committed, he had to give her that. She was also damn hot, but he would eventually forget about how good she’d looked naked. His dick would forget as soon as she was back in New Orleans. Life would settle down and normalize. Coffee with Laurel the next morning would open up a whole new world for him, and after the moon, Reyna would be gone and Allan would get some fucking sleep.
The ride out to Adam’s house gave him a chance to ice his erection into compliance and by the time he pulled up behind his brother’s barn, he was flaccid and calm, just the way he preferred. Controlled, peaceful.
He grabbed a wool blanket out of his travel kit and looked around for somewhere to bunk down. The hay would be itchy, and would get stuck in his clothes, but it would be preferable to getting a crick in his neck in the cab of the truck. He’d parked far enough behind the barn so that he was out of sight from the road. There wasn’t room in the barn to park the whole thing, but he just needed to keep Adam from coming out, thinking there was an intruder. If it hadn’t been almost two in the morning, he would’ve knocked and slept in the house.
He rolled out the blanket and laid down between the big tires of Adam’s tractor. That way, if he got cold, he could always jump up the stairs and sleep in the cab.
The barn was dark, and the horses moved uneasily around him—this interloper in their space. He knew what they felt like and cooed at them, poor beasts. He was unexpected, and that would unnerve them. Allan stretched his arms behind his head and gazed up at the ceiling, talking out loud to the horses and trying to calm them.
“It’s just Allan, you know me. Bess, Stag, Arrow. You’ve smelled me before. I won’t hurt you.” He settled his shoulders down into the blanket, and the hay underneath. “I get it, I promise. Having something loose in your barn while y’all are trapped in here, ripe for the picking. Trust me, I feel you. But I promise, my intentions are honorable.”
He cracked his neck first one way, then the other, and tried to relax. “I promise, all I want is a good night’s sleep.”
But that wasn’t all he wanted. The dark and the wild, it got to him. This was the danger of Adam’s ranch, just like the home he’d grown up in. The wildness out here got under his skin and then he felt like scratching the itch.
No scratching the itch, Allan.
None.
Chapter Seven
Allan was having the best dream in the history of dreams. Reyna’s wet mouth on him, sucking, bobbing. He was hard as a diamond and ready to cut whatever sweet, hot, wet place inside her that would bring him release.
The banshee-scream of a horse whinnying near his ear cut through the haze of black behind his eyes and he blinked out of the fantasy. But the wetness and the exquisite friction of a tongue on his dick did not go away. The barn was too dark to make out much, but he didn’t need to see. He could feel the pressure of her suction encircling him, driving him. Shit. So good.
His hips bucked against her mouth and her lips tensed around the base of his shaft. The pressure on the head of his cock set off sparklers behind his eyes when he pressed them closed again.
Even when he blinked wide again, he couldn’t see anything but shadow, and he made to grab her head. He wanted more…needed to force her down harder, but…
The rough roll of rope bit his wrists as he fought against it. Shadows developed more definition and he could see the steps of Adam’s tractor hovering above his head. The rope had been wound around the lowest step, then tied to each of his wrists in cinched knots.
Allan wriggled his arms first one way, then the opposite, then back, then forth. He couldn’t get even a touch of looseness that he could use to slip the knots.
Damn, this girl was good.
And her mouth on him was… fuck. His fantasy of a mouth. The wetness slicked the way for her to pitch easily up and down, then the pressure of her hand and her lips, stroking smoothly the whole length of him... The same cord of magick drew him up and into her, and he wanted nothing more.
“That’s right, baby,” she groaned over his cock. “You don’t have to hide anymore.”
“Reyna,” he whispered in a ragged breath as her words resonated through his groin. He tensed his arms, and tried to draw himself up, but she lay over his legs, pinning him to the scratchy blanket.
“You feel the magick, don’t you?” There was a softness to her voice that he hadn’t heard before and it tugged at him. Filled him.
His eyes had adjusted a little better and he hauled himself up so he could get a good look at her. She’d pulled her hair into a messy bun that bounced every time she went down to take him all the way into her mouth.
“I… feel… it…” he managed to croak out. The squeezing tension gathered low in his abdomen, and in his balls, but he pulled himself back from the edge.
He wasn’t going to fucking come in her…
Oh shit. Yes, I am.
She pulled her mouth off his dick with a pop and smiled up at him, her teeth baring themselves with wicked precision. “I knew you would feel it.” She licked the underside of his shaft. “I love the way you taste.”
He shook his head. “Please, Reyna.” More desperation edged into his voice than he’d anticipated, but he had to make her stop. He couldn’t come with her, no matter how much he wanted it. Sex was part of bonding. Mating. He couldn’t do that.
“Yes, Allan?” She cocked her head. “Do you really want me to stop?” She gave his dick one long, tight stroke, and his balls tightened. “Do you really not want to come?”
“Don’t stop.” Allan let out a roar and pulled at his bonds. “Fuck. I need to come.”
Reyna took her hand off his dick completely and came to stand over him. He could see for the first time that they were both completely clothed. But even through her pants, he could smell her. And himself. And fuck it all, he wanted her.
That wicked smile was back, and she knelt, her eyes and lips just inches from his, dripping with his scent.
“Ask nicely.”
Heavenly. No other word summed up the taste of him on her lips. As much as she didn’t want to stop, she needed him to ask. She may have tied him up and sexually aroused him to the point of pain, but if he wanted her mouth or any other part of her on him again, he’d damn well better beg for it.
“Please. Fuck, yes.”
That’s better.
She moved to kneel between his legs and smiled up at him before taking his cock in her hands and the head into her mouth. Salt and tang cascaded over her tongue and she swirled it around the head before taking him deeper.
He groaned and thrust his hips up to meet her mouth. “More,” he growled.
She hummed around his thick dick and obliged, taking him all the way to the back of her throat. Sliding her hands up his abdomen, she raked her nails along the lines of his stomach, loving the tension and desire that oozed from every inch of him.
He’d been fighting her so hard, he’d ignored his wolf and what his nature truly longed after.
A mate.
She was his. Totally. If he’d just reach for her.
His body tightened and he shouted her name as he found his release.
Reyna took everything he gave
her and continued to stroke the underside of his dick with her tongue, eliciting several more moans before the tension flowing through his body fell away.
She slipped her mouth off him with a teasing pop and crawled up his body, so that her thighs were squeezing either side of his hard chest. She could feel his body heat burning through the denim of her pants. When her mouth hovered just above his she smiled.
He’d accepted her. He wanted her.
“Reyna.” His gravelly voice made her insides turn to mush. She lavished a kiss on his mouth. For one brief sweet moment he kissed her back. Then it stopped. He turned away from her. “Untie me.”
Hurt sapped her joy. She backed away and held his gaze. The haze of his lust had faded and frustration glowed in its place.
“I said. Untie. Me,” he growled.
A shiver of fear skittered down her spine. She blinked back the tears threatening to fall. He didn’t seem to care what this was doing to her—what it would do to her if he didn’t want her. He was the one who was supposed to pull her out of the lonely pit that had been her home since she’d lost the one person who belonged to her. The aching cavern in her soul that made her go to bars every night. Search the face of every male she encountered.
Her mother had always told her a mate would heal all her wounds. Like Daddy had done for her. Reyna had spent so many years looking for the one and now that she’d found the answer to her every prayer…it was being stolen away.
She climbed off his chest and backed away, leaving him tied to the tractor. “You know this is right,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Fate is—”
“Who I’m with is my choice, not Fate’s. It’s not that I don’t feel the magick. I have to do this. I have to choose someone else.”
Each sentence stripped away another piece of her heart, crushing her hope. The bastard wasn’t just rejecting her, he was rejecting his wolf, too. He was denying them both a chance to be truly happy.
She crossed her arms and heaved a sigh, still fighting the tears she felt pooling in her eyes.
To Catch A Mate: Somewhere, TX (VonBrandt Pack Book 5) Page 4