by Milana Jacks
“So,” Belle says, “when am I leaving for Jason’s pack?”
“Hmm?”
“Jason’s pack?”
Careful, Jake. A sore subject with Belle, and she’s fuckin’ bating me. “In a few days.”
“Are you taking me?”
“Yeah.”
“So we’re going on a road trip together?”
I squeeze her hip. “I thought you’re upset about going. I’m happy to hear you’ve accepted the move.”
“I figured it’s not worth my time to be upset. You won’t change your mind. You never do.”
That last bit catches my attention, but I’m not gonna argue. I’m too busy thinking about what to do tonight. I consider kissing her goodnight. I could definitely do that. I want to kiss her. To taste her. I can have that in a way I can’t take her without mating her. I just don’t want to fuck her. Belle is special to me. She sees that my shit is always sorted right, my pants on after I change into human. Hell, sometimes she knows what I need before I do. She’s attentive and sweet, and I can’t play around with her feelings.
We round the corner and head past the main area, toward the female part of the sleeping quarters. Music is loud, and people are already moaning. At the door to the commons, Belle slaps my ass and says, “Later, Jake.”
“Your room’s down there.” I point as she grips the door handle leading into the mating room.
“I know where it is.” She opens the door.
I slap it closed and keep my palm on it, effectively trapping the little wolf between my body and the door.
Belle faces me, mouth pinched. “If you order me to go to my room, I will.”
“Good girl,” I say, wanting to bite her.
“But the second you leave, I’m going inside.” She hooks her thumb behind her shoulder. “Because I’m in heat.” She blushes at the last part.
And that’s how I know Belle’s into me. She doesn’t blush often. “You’re not going back in there,” I say.
“I am.”
“Not if I don’t let you.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
I grind my teeth. Her breath’s sweet, and her mouth’s sweet, and her scent clouds my judgement. I dip my head and peck her lips. Under me,
Belle nearly melts, her blue eyes wide and filled with hope.
“Do you want to climb on my face again? I wouldn't mind licking your sweetness. Hmm? What do you say?”
She narrows her eyes. “No.”
I step back. “No?”
“No. I want more.”
“How much more?”
“All of it.”
I run a hand over my scalp, my face, my beard. “What happens if we’re not mates?” I ask.
“What makes you think I’m looking for a mate?”
“Huh.”
She smiles and rises on her toes. “I want to know what all the fuss is about.”
I close the distance and lick her lips. I have zero self-control when it comes to this female. I can’t stay away, and I must. “I didn’t know there was a fuss.”
“Mm-hm,” she says. “There’s a fuss. Females talk. They say Jake is celibate.”
I shake my head. “And you want to know. Is that it?”
“That’s it. I want to have sex with you. Everyone wants to have sex with you. So what’s the problem?”
Belle is lying through her teeth. I know this girl better than I know Lance, my dragon lord—sometimes even better than I know my own wolf beast.
* * *
If I screw her, I’m screwed.
If I don’t screw her, she’ll screw someone else.
2
Belle
* * *
At this time of night, Jake’s room is warm and dark. A large candle in the corner by the bathroom projects his shadow on the wall behind him and makes him appear larger. On the bed, there are lots of burgundy and pale-blue decorative pillows. I make these, and he collects them.
The first one I ever made cushions my knees. The wooden furniture is mismatched. When they go on pack supply runs, Jake collects pieces of wood and makes things. He also collects stray wolves.
That’s how he got me.
Lance found me and asked Jake to take me in. I was thirteen when I came into his pack. He used to be like the big daddy I never had, then like the brother I never had, and now he’s my entire world. If we didn’t work out as mates, I wonder if he could put my heart together the way he’d pounded together the stray wood into the table sitting under the window.
Jake’s body is made to be worshiped. I want to lick him everywhere. There are so many lines of muscle I want to touch, I don’t even know how I let him tie me up and put me in the corner with one end of the leash bolted to the wall and the other attached to a collar around my neck.
I kneel with my legs spread, and my pussy is sopping wet, maybe making a puddle of heat on the floor.
Jake makes my body ache.
The fuss is about his celibacy. Jake used to do anal but reports say he’s not into anything anymore. Maybe he’s into wolf sex, but in human form. A bit of a taboo for us, but I don’t care. Whatever Jake gets off on, I’ll do, if only once. This is it. My night with the pack alpha, and I’ll make it count. I won’t let him sleep. I’ll bang him all night.
For now, I sit in the corner and do nothing but watch him sit on the bed, barefoot, his shirt discarded in the hamper.
We hear the music from the common room.
I also hear Jake’s low growls, as he watches me. I can’t make eye contact with him. I stare at his bare feet. They are manly feet, not like mine, and I find a strange sense of intimacy, though I’ve seen Jake’s feet a million times—though I’ve seen him naked more often than with clothes on.
His growls grow louder. His dominance is pounding in my head. It’s a wolf thing. It makes me want to submit, turn on my back, and present him with my belly. I frown. Maybe that’s what he wants me to do. That’s what my wolf would do.
So I get on all fours, then lie down on my back. In the castle, the heat comes from the floors, so I’m naked but warm as I stare at the ceiling.
Jake grunts and kneels near my head. His right palm is hot on my belly, and it travels up to cup my breast. The other hand reaches between my legs and cups my pussy. I’m wet. I’m in heat, and Jake’s the alpha. His big fingers flex and dip inside me, and I gasp. He takes out his fingers and sucks them. “You’re a sweet pup. Taste just as I remember.”
He remembers? My cheeks burn again, because that night I was shameless. He said I could do anything with his body except, land on his dick. He must have thought I’d suck him off or something. Oh no. I wanted his mouth on my pussy. I pushed him on the bed and straddled his face. I rubbed myself all over it and came three times.
I want to rub myself all over Jake now, but judging by the growling, Jake’s in alpha-wolf mode, and not in the mood to serve as my rubbing post. Just as well. I asked for this.
As he peruses my body, I watch his chest rise and fall. I hear his heartbeat. It is liberating to know this excites him as much as it does me.
He tucks the hem of his sweatpants under his balls, and his cock springs up. He fists it with one hand, and with the other, he cups my pussy again, two fingers penetrating my entrance. He pumps my pussy and his dick, and I lick my lips, wanting to put his hardness into my mouth. He must’ve read my mind, because he scoots over and invites me to lick.
I move my head, but the leash stops me from closing the distance. I only get to lick the tip of his cock. I whine in annoyance.
Jake pinches my nipple. “Open your mouth.”
I do.
He feeds the tip inside, when I want to swallow all of him.
This is part of the play. I can’t get all of him, so I’ll want more as he pumps his fingers into me without mercy. My breasts grow heavy, and I lick the tip of his cock, try to get my mouth around it.
“I like watching your small tongue on me.”
I move closer but choke o
n the collar around my neck. Then I try to yank the collar off, but he grips my tied wrists. “You will take only as much as I give you.”
I growl.
Jake’s eyebrows lift. “Is that so?’
Okay—probably shouldn’t have growled. My wolf wouldn’t growl at her alpha.
Jake raises his hand and drops it. Right on my pussy. I yelp and close my legs. My pussy swells and pulses with its own heartbeat.
“Open them,” he orders, his hand stuck between my thighs.
When I open my mouth to argue how much that hurt, he shoves his cock all the way to the back of my throat. I moan around the intrusion, as it stretches my lips, and I close my eyes. Mmm. Jake is so tasty and male, submitting to him is easy.
My legs fall open.
Slap.
I yelp, but nothing comes out. I roll my eyes and breathe through my nose.
Jake withdraws his cock. I gasp, and then he slaps my pussy again and shoves his dick into my mouth. He fists one hand into my hair. “Turn around.” He doesn’t wait for me to move; he picks up my body and arranges me on all fours. He unsnaps the leash but doesn’t remove my collar. He uses that and my hair to move my head, as he feeds me his cock until tears slide down my cheeks. He slaps my cheeks a few times too, then spins me around and puts my palms on the wall. I kneel, unsure what to do as Jake shuffles behind me.
Then I feel his hard chest connect with my back and his fist in my hair again. He pulls, and I stare at the ceiling. He bites my neck. I close my mouth hard, and my teeth snap together, but I don’t scream. Because my wolf wouldn’t scream either. In wolf I’d let this alpha wolf bite my neck all he pleased, because Jake doesn’t bite females. When a wolf bites a female, he marks her for a while. Even if we’re not mates, Jake will want me tomorrow. This is what he tells me now, without words, and it’s reassuring.
His dick is hard and warm on my ass. I want Jake to penetrate me.
I brace, as he positions himself at my entrance, and his hands come around me. He bites down harder and plunges inside my pussy. This is not the part where we mate. A male has to come inside the female and hope his scent is released.
My pussy flutters around his dick, and Jake finds my clit with his fingers. He rubs it as he pounds into me, our bodies never apart, only him lifting his hips up and into me. Jake is fast, his movements jerky, his dick so big I feel it on my belly, and his teeth are clamped on my neck, holding me in place. I can’t move. I can’t do anything but let him fuck me.
I roll my eyes at the back of my head and come all over his dick. Then I slump in his arms as he pumps into me, tightening his arms around me and releasing my neck.
My arms dangle as he lifts me.
He drops me on the bed, and I bounce.
What? In a daze, I blink up at him. Is that it? Are we gonna sleep now? Jake prowls over the bed. With his shaved head, the beard and those piercing gray eyes, he looks feral and positively the sexiest male I’ve ever seen. He takes my tied wrists into one of his hands and lifts them above my head.
I say nothing, because our gazes are locked. He’s all wolf, my alpha, and it’s natural for me to let him do whatever he wants. I inhale his wolf, the scent of him so potent, I can almost smell him as if I’m in my own wolf form, with a nose twenty times more sensitive than now.
Jake watches me from above.
He doesn’t move, and neither do I.
I want to look away but, with his eyes on me, I can’t.
Then he twists his body a little and positions the wet tip of his cock at the entrance of my ass. He pauses, giving me a chance to say something.
I say the only thing that comes to mind. “I love you.”
Jake shuts me up with his mouth, but the words are out. I’m not sure why I said them, but I also don’t care. It’s not like he doesn’t know. Jake knows everything that goes on in his pack, even if he chooses to ignore it.
Jake moves his tongue inside my mouth, and I stroke him back, anticipating pain, when he plunges back into my pussy and makes me choke on a gasp. He will try to see if we’re mates. Males didn’t come inside females in heat. This kind of intimacy is reserved for mating.
Does he want me to be his mate?
Jake lifts his head and watches me squirm. He enters me as if I’m gonna break. I lift my hips, wanting more. He rises on his elbows, looming over me.
He fucks me slowly, teasing as his pelvis rubs my clit, and within minutes, I’m panting and begging him to fuck me faster. He doesn’t. He locks his gaze with mine, as if trying to read my mind. His stare is invasive, intruding, but I can’t look away. His jaw tightens, and his growls intensify.
Instinctively, I know to give him my neck.
He bites it, his dick swells, and our fluids mix as we come together.
Jake releases my neck and buries his face there. We stay like this for a while, because we are wolves and we can’t separate yet. We have to wait for his dick to shrink back into a man’s dick, so he can pull out of me. I never feel more at peace than now, under him. In the back of my mind, I worry about the moment he pulls out and things become awkward.
You see, I can’t smell the mating mark. I have no idea if he released a marking scent or not. I’m not sure what he’s thinking, but I know he cares about me. “It’s okay, Jake,” I tell him. “If it’s not meant to be, it’s not. We have to trust Mother Nature and this strange mating process. Right?”
He lifts his head. Tilts it.
I hear footsteps.
A bang on the door.
Jake looks feral when he barks, “What?”
“You in there, bro?”
“Oh. That’s Jason,” I say. He’s come for me.
Jake cups my face, and as if he knows what I’m thinking, he says, “He’s not here for you. We’re sending out supplies.”
Relieved, I release a breath. “Maybe Cindy came.” I waggle my eyebrows. Cindy is from Jason’s pack, and she’s my partner in crime. They’ve just arrived from the south, so they must be tired. Mandy, our house mother hen, is gonna need me. Just as well. Their visit will keep me busy, and keep my mind away from Jake and this disastrous gap we made between us tonight.
Jake is not happy, and he unties me. I peck his lips when I feel him deflate and pull out of me. He vaults out of bed, as the pounding on his door continues. He jerks on his pants and crosses the room.
I grip the sheet and cover myself.
The moment Jake opens the door, his brother walks inside, mumbling something I can’t quite make out.
Jason stops when he sees me. He is basically Jake, with a scar on his face. “Oh shit,” he says.
“Hi.” I wave. My face is a tomato. The heat from embarrassment makes my toes curl. The room reeks of sex; even humans can smell that. Jason is the alpha of the southern wolf pack. He smells pussy in heat from miles away.
Jason lifts his nose and inhales so deep, he snorts.
I’m going to die from blushing and with nappy, well-fucked hair.
He jerks his head at Jake, who holds the door for three other males from Jason’s pack. They all stand there, noses up, sniffing and snorting, then one of them claps Jake on his back. “Congrats!”
Jake stares at the ceiling, probably counting to one hundred before he rips someone’s asshole.
“What for?” I ask.
Jason makes a sour face. “I think we came at the wrong time.”
“No shit,” Jake says.
“Still, gotta take it like a man.”
My head is spinning. I don’t know what’s going on.
White lights burst, and I squint. Jason and his pack mates change into their wolves right in the middle of the room. They’re all growly and pacing, waiting for something.
Jake rolls his eyes, then looks at me. “If I only had another minute, I’d have told you you’re mine.” He smiles wide. Even his gloomy gray eyes are smiling.
I say nothing, because I’m gonna cry.
It’s just as well, because a bright white light bursts out
of Jake, and in his place stands a big black wolf. The moment he changes, he sprints away, and the other males chase him. It’s tradition. The boys’re gonna go out and play. Probably rip some of Jake’s fur.
He’ll take it like a man.
I sit here, dumbfounded, and because nobody is watching, I pump my fist. “Yes! Jake is mine.”
* * *
****
Hi, Milana here. Thank you for reading Jake and Belle’s story. We first meet them as side characters in Rise the Seas, book one in Ice Age Dragon Brotherhood series. If you have not read it yet, read it HERE.
• If you read Rise then you know Cradle the Fire, book 2 is next. You are welcome to a teaser that continues from the teaser in the back of Rise’s copy. In the back of Rise, we stopped at “Would you marry me?” Flip the page to read her response.
Cradle the Fire
Uncorrected proof pending release
…I had no need to buy brides or even accept money for brides, and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna force myself on one. “Would you marry me?” I asked her.
Virgins were already banging on my doors, just as I thought they would be, but this one didn’t seem impressed. I could see she was fighting the urge to tell me off and accept her situation at the same time.
“I’d work instead,” she said.
I lifted an eyebrow. She would rather work than marry me? I reckoned women labeled me the hottest bachelor in the South. Apparently, not as hot as manual labor.
Her stepmom stared daggers at her. That’s right!
The girl continued. “I would like a job in exchange for a place to stay.”
I cocked my head. “You’re not interested in a marriage?”
“I’m interested in staying here and working, like George and everyone else I saw when we landed. If I go back, she might kill me.”
“Heavens, child,” the cyborg said, horror evident on her face. “Why would you say that?”
The girl didn’t pay her any mind. She watched me, her pretty green eyes wide and hopeful. I glanced at George. “Do we need help?”