by Rebecca Main
“It’s not that easy, Ryatt. You’re asking me to dump my old life completely in order to live with a pack of wolves. Literally.”
“Would that really be so bad? No more stealing or putting yourself in compromising positions.”
“I like my compromising positions, thank you very much.”
“I'm sure I can think of a hundred compromising positions to put you in,” I promise, not bothering to hide the hunger in my voice. Quinn takes two steps back, minutely shaking her head. I sigh. “Why don’t you run along and find Irina? I’ve some work to do before the day’s end.”
She scampers away, her lips splitting into a cautious smile before leaving. In a few quick strides, I make it to the door and push it gently closed.
That was progress, right? Acknowledgement.
I would just have to find a way to capitalize on her confession before we completed the heist. Only time was not on my side. My feet steer me back towards the bed, and I pick up her robe once more, holding it against my nose. Her scent calms me and the wolf. Lulling it into a state of tranquility so that I can have some peace of mind and think without its commentary. I needed a plan. A way to prove my case with her. Show her that we could be so much more together than we could ever be apart. I grin as I inhale her scent once more. I had just the idea.
+++
Quinn
It had been a long day. Between the witches, Ryatt, and being roped into helping Irina plan some party, I barely had time to collect the rest of the information I needed from Big Bear and my other contacts. This shower was just what I needed.
The hot water shot straight between my shoulder blades, its persistent stream easing the tension away. The nozzle was turned almost fully to the left, delivering an almost unbearable heat, but God did it feel good. My eyes open lazily to see that the steamy fog, once relegated to the shower stall, has ventured to envelop the entirety of the bathroom. To any other, the room might be mistaken for a sauna. My hands grope along the wall until they find the soap and loofah, then jasmine and orange blossom fill the air.
I can’t remember the last time I have felt so relaxed. I make sure to drench the loofah in soap to achieve maximum lather before tracing it over my front. Across the shoulders and down my chest. Lower past my stomach to swirl around my navel, then a quick swipe down both legs, before repeating the process.
I’m not quite sure when the other set of hands comes into play, but they do not frighten me as I would have expected them to. My hair is smoothed over one shoulder, and lips press themselves against the nape of my neck. I gasp. A sudden passion and bliss engulf my senses before slipping away just as suddenly as it came.
“You’ve been in here for ages,” Ryatt teases, lips barely skimming over the surface over my over-sensitized skin.
I let out a small hum of acknowledgment, taking a moment to catch my breath. “Women have more to do in the shower. I shampoo and condition. I shave.”
“Lather, rinse, and repeat?”
“Exactly,” I tell him with a Cheshire cat smile and lean back into him. He gently pries the loofah from my grip.
“Well then, let me help you finish so that you can come back to bed.” I receive a small nip of admonishment on my neck. His tongue darts outwards to catch the droplets at rest there.
The loofah drags down my spine, fingertips following in its wake. I let out a breathy sigh, back arching delicately as the loofah is dropped to the floor and hands take up the task. They spread the lather. Taking their time to give attention to every inch they meet. His fingers rubbing out the knots and kinks that lie between my shoulders. Ryatt's hands stop low on my waist, thumbs digging inwards in small circles.
“I’m glad you decided to give me a chance, Quinn,” he whispers, nuzzling his head against mine with a pleased exhalation. “You won’t regret it. I’ll make every day a new adventure for us. Show you pleasures you’ve never experienced before.”
My focus falters even as I slip deeper into his touch. Is that how my day had ended? I couldn’t quite remember the exact conversation, but it explained why I no longer felt the heavy weight of indecision in my heart. One hand slips around to my stomach, fingers flaring to touch as much skin as possible. I shudder a sigh.
“But don’t think I’ve forgotten about your punishment, Quinn,” he purrs in my ear, pulling me back till I’m flush with his chest. The hand around my middle tightens minutely as the other trails to my ass. I feel my heart give a sudden lurch, nipples hardening in excitement and anticipation. “It seems you haven’t either,” he breathes harshly into my ear. A second later a sharp slap is delivered to my ass. I gasp at the stinging sensation, body flooding with need so strong I tremble.
Ryatt's breath skates over my soulmark in steady exhalations, which only drives my need further. His body shifts to the right, hand caressing the abused cheek before pulling back. My breath stalls. A crack resounds in the shower followed swiftly by my lust-filled cry. Once more his hand soothes the ache it creates, fingers slipping lower.
"Ryatt," I whimper, pushing back into his hand wantonly. He groans, his length digging into my side.
"As much as I would love to finish this," he tells me, lips coming to brush along my ear, "now is not the time or place, little lamb.” He shushes me as I release a desperate whine, then he drops to a knee behind me.
The loofah is back in his possession, making slow circles across my calves, the heat of his breath fanning across my inner thighs. A short moan of appreciation slips past my guard as he pursues my thighs with the soapy sponge.
“What is it the time and place for?” I murmur, hand reaching out to the wall to steady myself. Once more he casts aside the loofah in favor of his hands, rubbing the soap into my heated flesh, the water making quick work of what suds stay behind.
“Love,” he whispers, his voice taking on an almost faraway quality.
“Love?” I whisper back. The word strikes me with a painful jolt, bringing with it a startling dose of reality. I didn't recall any talks regarding love. Love was…love was out of the equation for me. I didn’t need it. I didn’t need…Ryatt's fingers dance along the apex of my thigh. Caressing and gliding over the slick flesh but never quite touching where it’s needed.
“Stop thinking,” he tells me, running his lips up and over my ass to the small of my back. “Just feel.”
Feel? Feel what? A strange nervousness settles in my stomach, the outskirts of my vision vibrating. Love? I gulp down the thick air. Why was it suddenly so difficult to breathe? My hands reach desperately along the wall to turn the shower off and end our encounter to find some clarity. They find nothing but cool tile. That's not right, I think.
“Quinn,” Ryatt growls, suddenly in front of me, hands cupping my face. His blue eyes sucking me in effortlessly. There is a summer storm raging in their depths. “Just feel,” he begs, tilting his forehead to rest against mine. The bond between us pulses with something almost otherworldly. It is warmth and sweetness, security and wicked promises all wrapped up in one.
“Please stop,” I whimper, unused to such foreign feelings.
“Let me in. Let me love you.” My head twists from side to side fretfully, tearing out of his mild hold. I wasn’t meant for love. I wasn’t good enough for love. My past had proven it to me over and over again. “Please.” I stumble backward, feet slipping out from under me in my haste. There are no hands to catch me as I fall. The elusive pillars of steam slip through my hands until I—
—lurch upwards from my bed panting.
My eyes are wide and frightened as they dart across the dark bedroom. I can feel sweat beading on my forehead and the back of my neck along my hairline. My pajamas are soaked through. Dear God, what was that? And why had it felt so real? Still the bond pulses, even though Ryatt is rooms away. I whimper as the fragments of the dream slip from my grasp, leaving me only more confused. There would be no more sleeping for me tonight.
Chapter 11
Quinn
Friday is unbearab
le. I can barely look Ryatt in the face as we go over the details of the heist with last night’s dream stuck in my thoughts. It had been so real. So vivid. Part of me wondered if he had used some kind of spell, but the notion struck me as being more hysterical than logical. I might begrudgingly admit to some supernatural force in the world, thanks to the display Zoelle’s “Coven” had demonstrated the day before, but it hadn’t washed away all my doubts.
Apparently, seeing was believing.
In the afternoon Maureen drops by with our aversion elixir. She encourages us to use it wisely while wearing the most peculiar frown. After a brief hesitation she relays to us the two premonitions from Kymberly Moon. One, that we would encounter more than one foe on Saturday night. Two, that there would be a casualty. Ryatt had gone into a fit close to rage, demanding the whole thing be called off, which left me only one choice: to go to his brother. I couldn’t afford to miss my opportunity to slip away.
Xander had ordered with cool authority that it would continue as planned, though extra precautions would be taken as to the detailing of our security. Ryatt had stormed off after giving a strained affirmation of his Alpha's order. Even I felt pulled under by Ryatt’s worry and anger, finding it hard to breathe for a scarce moment as Xander’s heavy orders passed over to me as well. I whimpered my agreement, Irina catching me as my legs trembled beneath me. Ushering me to a chair, she proceeded to thoroughly shame her eldest brother for his heavy-handedness until Xander had muttered an apology. I wish she had done so for Ryatt, but I was informed he’d have a hard time listening to anyone but Xander or Atticus so close to the full moon.
That being the case, Xander followed begrudgingly after Ryatt while the Beta stayed with myself and Irina. His presence had an oddly calming effect, one I had noticed dimly before, but even more so now.
“All I want is a little bit of excitement in my life, but with Ryatt and Xander breathing down my neck I'll never have the chance. All I want is to date a little—what harm is there in that? But no! Not me, their baby sister. They’re purposely cock-blocking me, Atticus!” Irina ends her rant with a dramatic sigh, throwing the best puppy-dog eyes I’ve ever seen Atticus's way. “You’re the Beta. Can’t you do something?”
“You want me to tell my Alpha how to treat his sister?” Her shoulders slump in defeat, her pretty pout turning into a pretty scowl.
“What about Ryatt?”
Atticus looks at me pointedly, eyebrows shooting upwards. “The only way to run Ryatt off your trail is to put something else in his path.”
“Hey!” I say, my handful of popcorn stopping halfway to my mouth.
Irina’s eyes brighten once more. Switch flipped. Puppy-dog eyes activated and trained on me. “You have to distract him,” she tells me primly, “with sex. It’s been known to do the trick before.”
“I am not having sex with your brother again,” I respond back tersely, throwing my popcorn at her. “We’re just friends now. Okay?”
She scoffs, “You don’t actually believe that, do you?” She swats away the kernels in a flurry, directing her ire back on me once the task is complete. “You’re already marked. You’ll be bound soon enough. And! Every time you two are within five feet of each other I’m afraid I’ll be privy to a porno,” she snarks, nose scrunching in distaste.
“Not true!”
Zoelle walks into the room, her arms filled with grocery bags and a soft smile on her face. Atticus catches her eye immediately and shakes his head.
“Wait, don’t go!” I call after her retreating form. “Rude,” I mutter beneath my breath.
“You’re really not going to have sex with him?”
“Of course I’m not,” I tell her, flushing with embarrassment.
“But don’t you want to be my sister?” I look to Atticus for help. He offers me a kind smile then slips the popcorn bowl out of my grasp, giving me a quick shrug as his apology.
“You’re wonderful, Irina, but I don’t need to be your sister in order to be your friend.”
“But I need another sister so that both of my brothers are fully preoccupied. I’ve barely even lived as it is! I’m always under their watch or some other wolf lackey.”
“I take offense to that,” Atticus chimes in via a mouth full of half-chewed popcorn.
“I take offense to you never bothering to help me!” Irina cries.
“I help,” he says indignantly. “I’ve helped you sneak out a few times. Remember?” Irina groans.
“Yes, but I was only a teenager then. I never even got around to doing anything serious with a boy. And now that I’m ‘of age’ as they so like to put it, I’ll likely never get the chance unless my soulmark pops out of nowhere. With my luck, it will be on some ten-year-old and by the time he’s ‘of age’ I’ll be a wrinkly spinster.”
Atticus chews slowly. “You’d be in your thirties. I’d hardly call that a wrinkly spinster.”
“Useless,” she bemoans, standing from her chair dramatically. “The both of you.”
“Well, that was interesting,” I comment once I believe her to be out of earshot.
“It loses its interest after the sixth or seventh time,” Atticus tells me dryly. “But I get why she’s frustrated. They do keep her on a pretty tight leash, and she just wants to have fun before she finds her soulmark. If she finds her soulmark. She also doesn’t want to be a virgin anymore,” he tells me with a quirk of his lips, “but no wolf from the pack is brave enough to face the wrath of her brothers, and she’s too watched to make off with some random human.”
“Holy shit, she’s a virgin?” I whisper, aghast. “No way. Irina is a straight-up 10. Sure, her attitude is a bit bratty sometimes, but she also wears her heart on her sleeve. I can’t believe she’s never had sex. I’d probably have an attitude if I weren’t getting laid on the regular too.” Atticus snorts as I nod my head knowingly. “What? Maintaining a healthy and somewhat regular sex life is good for a person. It gives you happy endorphins, it’s fun, and it can also be a real workout. If you know what I mean.” I tick off my logic on my fingers, then wiggle my eyebrows for Atticus, though not very well.
He lets out a boisterous laugh, "Aw man, you're pretty funny."
“I know,” I chirp, entirely too pleased with myself.
“You know you’re perfect for him right?”
My pleasure vanishes with a groan. “Not you too, Atticus. I was just beginning to think being a prisoner here wasn’t so bad with you here to keep me company.”
He munches on a handful of popcorn thoughtfully, eyes scrutinizing me. “Do you honestly believe you’re a prisoner here? That he would force you to stay if you didn’t want to? You could have gone to the Baudelaires’. You could have tried to make off during your little shopping trip with Irina and Zoelle. You’re the one who decides to keep yourself locked up in that bedroom all day.”
“Yeah, so that I don’t have to run into Ryatt and deal with his—his weird wooing attempts.”
“Or because you’re scared of him.”
“I’m not scared of him!”
He shoots me a disapproving glare. “You’re afraid of what you could have with him. Security. Love. A family. All the things you probably didn’t have when you were growing up, if Ryatt’s information was correct.”
I feel my face flush unbearably red, and traitorous tears begin to swim in the corner of my vision. Point to Atticus. There seemed to be no running away from my past with this group of wolves. It was becoming far much more than an annoyance. Would I ever have the upper hand with them?
I take in a couple of deep breaths, willing my emotions away. Atticus lets out a small whine, moving to the seat next to me before I can find my feet and leave. His large hand takes mine. “You don’t have to be afraid, Quinn. Change is scary, but taking that leap of faith is worth it.”