“Sure about that?” Lindon asks, a teasing smirk putting a dimple in his perfect cheek.
“Hey now, I resemble that remark,” Hawes says, grinning. “So, you just need me to keep an eye on your girl for a while so you can get a nap or something?” He stands up and goes to Lindon, looking for the first time like a concerned older brother. He puts a hand out to Lindon’s forehead. “You look like you aren’t sleeping well.”
He takes a deep breath and lets it out, pulling away from Hawes’ hand. “No, I haven’t slept well. Every time I turn my back, another idiot is putting his hands on Misty.” He gestures at me, and I blush, embarrassed to be talked about like I’m not even here. “Misty, Hawes. Hawes, Misty,” he says, gesturing between us.
Hawes comes over to shake my hands. His are calloused, a little rougher than I would have expected. “Nice to meet you, Misty. I apologize for my brother. He’s not usually this annoying. Well, he’s usually annoying, but when he’s stressed…”
“Hawes,” Lindon growls. “Back to the point.”
“Oh yeah. Sure, whatever you need. Want me to take her downstairs or something?”
“Like I said, I just need a few minutes where I can focus.”
“I’m sorry he called you,” I interject. “There’s really no need. A. I can take care of myself and B. There are other guys here who can be trusted.”
Hawes eyes me with pursed lips. “Hm. I can see why this one’s trouble, bro.”
I glare at him. “I’m not the problem here.”
He shrugs. “Well, I’m guessing if Lindon trusted the men the way you seem to, he wouldn’t have called me.”
“Hawes has super strength, like me,” Lindon says. “And he was a cage fighter for a while. And he’s mated.” He ticks off each point on his long, tanned fingers. “If he’s with you, I can be one hundred percent sure I’m not letting Rowan down.”
Hawes nods. “You get some rest, bro. Maybe I’ll take Misty down and show her the gym.”
“Sounds good,” Lindon says. “Maybe some self defense training wouldn’t be out of place either.” But he’s already crawling under the covers, looking exhausted.
My poor, vigilant protector.
Hawes catches me watching Lindon with soft eyes, and gets an odd gleam in his.
“What?” I ask defensively.
“Nothing,” he says, shaking his head. “Let’s get out of here and let him sleep.”
Chapter 4
Hawes leads the way downstairs, and when we get to the ground floor, he gestures to a door down at the end of the hall.
“Wait there, I’mma get a volunteer.”
“Volunteer?” I raise an eyebrow. “What for?”
“Self defense,” he says, baring a fang. “It’ll make Lindon feel a little more confident I think. Which is good, because this level of stress isn’t good for him.”
“Ah,” I say. “I’m not sure why he’s going so nuts about it, though.”
“Well, Lindon is odd around females. I think he’s a little scared they’re fragile, after losing his mom and a female friend all in one season, when a bad illness swept through the pack.”
“Oh,” I say, heart sinking. I should have known. There is almost always a reason behind a person’s odd behavior. Too bad Lindon’s is such a sad one. “Makes sense.”
“Yup,” Hawes says, not seeming overly concerned. He pops his head into the living room where some of the guys are talking, playing chess, or reading. “Any of you have any fighting experience? Ah, you, come here. I need you for something.”
“Why do we need a volunteer?” I ask, eyes widening when Asher comes into the hall to join us, followed by catcalls and boos from the other alphas. Well, they’ll have to wait a while. Somehow I don’t think Hawes is going to let them come around until he’s sure Lindon’s not going to have a heart attack. Hopefully after some sleep…
“Well, being that people are gonna be trying to mate you, we’ll definitely want to go over ground work.” He grins. “And my mate isn’t about to let me climb all over another female, even in the name of teaching.” He turns to Asher as he opens the door for us both to go in. “What’s your background?”
“My pack owns a martial arts studio,” Asher says. “And we train MMA fighters.”
“Ah,” Hawes says. “I’ve done a little MMA on the underground circuit.”
“I know,” Asher says. When he glares sideways at Hawes I swear I can see a little bit of awe in the eyes of the usually belligerent shifter.
“Why did you let Lindon throw you at the wall then?” I ask Asher.
“Testing him,” he says, shrugging. “If he was going to run things, I wanted to know just how he was planning to. Good to know other’s strengths. I wasn’t seriously intending anything, but at the same time I wanted to know that he was capable of keeping anyone else from trying anything either.” He flashes a grin at me. “Not that I don’t want to try something, but I have no need of forcing a female.”
“Oh right,” I say, rolling my eyes as Hawes opens a door at the bottom of the stairs and flicks on a light. “All you alphas have crazy seduction skills,” I say.
He just shrugs, like it’s obvious. A fact of life. Oh, if only he could see the world I came from, where a drink and a bad pick-up line is about the most foreplay a woman can expect.
Asher lets out a yell of enthusiasm and pumps a fist in the air when we reach the gym. Luckily he’s already wearing gym shorts and a tee (which he was probably relaxing around the house in) and is ready to go.
Me on the other hand…
“Should I change?” I ask, gesturing to my skinny jeans and lack of fitness clothing.
Asher is ignoring us, circling a standing punching bag and peppering it with quick hits. He pauses and then does a stunning spinning jump kick that hits the standing bag so hard that it tilts and then falls over with a slam.
He looks up at us with a grin, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Nice one,” Hawes says. Then he turns to me. “No, you’ll be fine in that. Chances are you’ll be in street clothes if you need to use any of this.”
“Right,” I say.
“I thought Lindon was head protector or something,” Asher says, pausing in torturing another bag to come over to the mat Hawes is pulling out for us.
“He’s tired,” Hawes says.
Asher puts his hands behind his head, displaying large biceps. I’d put him at a couple years younger than me at twenty-five or twenty-six. His body is taut and gorgeous, taller than mine even if it’s shorter than the tallest males like Lindon and the twins. But he has a very thickly muscled build, which makes sense as he has probably been working out from a very young age, given what his family does. He looks great with a thin sheen of sweat on his muscled body, and his dark eyes flick over me, heated and reveling in my perusal of him.
He struts like a peacock, back over the weight stand, picks up substantial looking dumbbells, and raises them, doing sets that show off impressive, bulging biceps. I swallow.
“Alright, stop showing off and get over here, doofus,” Hawes says, but there’s humor in his voice. “We need to work on getting out of different mounts.”
Asher shakes his hands off and brushes his thick, dark hair out of his face, tucking some behind his ear. He still has that sort of not-put-together, bad boy feeling to him, but there’s something more attractive about him, having seen him do what he’s talented at.
“Actually, I think I know your brothers,” Hawes says. “I’ve trained with them. Good gym.”
Asher’s expression darkens slightly. “Maybe.”
“So why are you the one here then, aren’t you the youngest? I didn’t even know about you.”
“Who would? With Blake and Hanson around?” he grumbles, avoiding my eyes. “Anyway, I’m more full alpha. My father married an alpha after they were born. So they’re half brothers. So here I am.”
He sends us a look like he’s daring us to question it, but Hawes just shrugs and
gestures for him to get in a position on the ground. Then he tells me to lay on my back, and then for him to get over me.
Awkward. Even Asher blushes slightly as his thighs straddle mine. His scent is spicy and slightly bitter, like licorice.
He has a very square jaw, I like the look of it with those round, big eyes. So dark I can’t really make out his pupil from his iris. Deep, long lashes that flutter as he looks me over. And those thighs… He could probably squat three of me.
His shoulders are huge, bulging out of his tank, and I try to stop perving as he listens to Hawe’s instructions with an intent, focused face that is very unlike him. After a moment though, he winces and looks at me.
“Um, oh gosh. Can you control that at all?” he asks.
“No,” Hawes says. “No, I’m afraid unlike my brother she hasn’t figured out how to get a handle on it.”
Both Asher and I look at Hawes with interest, and Hawes frowns and blushes slightly.
“Um, never mind. Anyway, no, she can’t. So you’ll just have to try and overlook it.”
“I can’t,” Asher whines, running his tongue over his full lower lip in a way that makes a shock run down the length of my body. I want to see him do that spinning kick again. “It makes me want to lick her. Damn, how can anyone smell like that?”
“Like what?” I ask, almost worried for what I’m going to hear.
“So good,” he says. “Like summer.”
“And summer makes you want to lick me?”
He tilts his head. “Like sex on the beach in the summer. Like the best sex you’ll ever have, like sex every day for a year condensed into one moment.”
Oh damn, I think I’m getting wet.
He inhales deeply. “Yeah, like ocean breeze.”
He’s oddly poetic when he wants to be. Purely on impulse, I reach up to touch his hair, something I’ve been wanting to do since I met him, but didn’t think the prickly shifter would allow. He does though, leaning his head slightly forward as if I commanded him, and letting me run a hand through the hair at the side of his face.
His eyes watch me tentatively, and I bite my lip. His hair is thick, soft, perfectly matched to his face, an odd mix of masculine (jaw, brow, nose) and feminine (eyes, lips). He growls softly, closing his eyes as the licorice smell in the room heightens.
His wolf, calling to mine.
“Um, should I leave you two alone?” Hawes asks, grinning.
“Don’t you dare,” Asher says, getting off me.
“Hey, I need you for demo-ing,” Hawes says.
Asher folds his arms and turns away. “She’s too precious for what I want to do when I sit on her like that. Sorry, use a dummy or something.”
I can’t tell if what he just said was really sweet or really rude. Maybe a mix, like he is. But he turns to look at me over his shoulder, and when I grin, he blushes and storms off. So I at least think we’ve made some progress.
“Well, he’s kind of a difficult one, isn’t he?” Hawes says, scratching his head. “I guess I’ll just have to teach by example. He rolls onto his back a bit away from me, and starts going through moves, demonstrating both sides. It’s a little bit harder to follow, but I think I get it.
Plus, I kind of agree with Asher. It’s a little too dangerous to have any one of these sexy men on me. Dangerous for them as well as myself.
I try to pay attention to Hawes’ instructions, though. If only to keep my mind from wandering to thoughts of Lindon losing his mother and friend, and how it affected him.
Stop trying to figure him out, Misty. He’s still not going to want you.
I grunt in response and Hawes looks over and studies me with narrowed eyes.
“What?” I ask.
He sits up, leaning back on his hands with his feet out in front of him. He stretches, but keeps eyeing me.
“Come on,” I say. “Just staring is creepy.” That gets a grin from him and he finally sits back, seemingly ready to talk.
“It’s just…I get the feeling you’re into Lindon,” he says carefully.
I shrug. “Does it matter? He’s not participating. He’s been clear on the matter.”
“Has he?” Hawes asks, raising an eyebrow. “Because I’m not sure he’s always the best source of truth when it comes to himself. You can trust him otherwise, but not about himself, I think.”
“That’s confusing.”
“Well, if you don’t want confusing, then you definitely want to look elsewhere than Lindon.”
“And what if I wanted to look at Lindon?” I ask. Then a light bulb goes off, one I didn’t get before because Asher was distracting me by being on top of me. “Wait, you said he was like me, like scent wise?”
Hawes presses on the bridge of his nose and takes a deep breath. “Maybe I spoke out of turn. Lindon’s spent a long time getting away from that. But yeah, he used to have kind of out of control pheromones. I think that’s why he likes living alone most of the time. Before, it used to affect both males and females, I think. That’s how strong it was.”
“Is that why there’s a lock on the outside of his door?”
“No, that’s because he’s paranoid about being able to lock it when he’s gone so we don’t snoop around. No, Lindon’s fully capable of defending himself from unwanted advances. I think what’s killing him right now is having to constantly suppress his pheromones since his house is full of people and he’s always interacting with them. That and suppressing his own response to your pheromones.”
Sweat is beading at my forehead now. I kind of feel bad for him. More than before. “Is that why he passes out sometimes?”
“Yeah, exhaustion. Poor guy,” Hawes says. But he doesn’t look overly worried. It doesn’t seem like much worries Hawes. “Well, when it’s over he can rest.”
“If he has to do that for the rest of his life, why doesn’t he just take a mate?” I ask.
Hawes shrugs. “I’m not sure. None of us really get what’s going on with Lindon there. There’s really been no one he’s interested in. I mean, our pack mate Aspen, he was willing to be considered for her, but it didn’t really seem to bother him much when she didn’t pick him or me, but Rafe instead.”
“Ah,” I say, trying to keep unwelcome jealousy from pooling in my stomach.
“But yeah…” He folds his arms over his knees. “I guess if you want to figure him out, you’ll have to be patient. What I can tell you is that my brother is an incredible person. Oh, and that one of the ways to his heart is through food.”
“What?” I ask.
Hawes shrugs. “Try it and see.”
We get up and head out of the gym together. He gives me a friendly pat on the back that I’m sure even his mate would approve of.
I can’t help but think that he’d make an awesome brother-in-law. Him, his mate, Rafe and Aspen would make good family members, if only I could win Lindon over.
He’s the one I wanted from the start. Before I’d even met him.
Too bad I can’t cook.
Chapter 5
When Hawes and I come up the stairs and into the living room, a pissy-looking Asher takes one look at us and goes brushing past, heading for the stairs. Hawes just shrugs at me and I stretch as I walk forward, enjoying the sunlight streaming in through the open blinds of the bay window in the living room.
Jack is leaning against the front door and listening to Fifi and Bradley as they do something in the kitchen, but his green eyes flash to mine, to my midriff as I realize my shirt is coming up from the stretch. I immediately put my arms down and smooth the shirt, self conscious of my flab, but Jack just flashes a bright grin at me, and then gives me a wink. I don’t know how anyone can have such pitch black hair and brows and lashes and such amazing eyes. Truly the color of perfect emeralds in the sun.
He takes a look at the kitchen and then walks forward. He takes my hand, which gives me a little pulsing thrill, and presses a soft kiss to the top of it. He has to bend over to do so.
“Nice to see y
ou again, Misty. What are your plans for the day?”
I blink at him as he regains his full height, looking up from his impressive pecs to that handsome, squared face that is rougher, more masculine than Lindon’s. I notice for the first time that there’s a slight bump on the bridge of his long nose, like it’s been broken once before. It gives him a rakish look when combined with those lush green eyes and full lips.
I can’t forget our first kiss either.
Slow down, Misty. You can’t fall in love with all of them.
Or can I?
“Sleeping beauty has finally arisen?” Fifi asks snottily from the kitchen, walking toward us while wiping his hands delicately on a dishcloth.
“I wasn’t asleep. I was downstairs with Hawes.” At my last word, Fifi comes to an abrupt halt and takes a long slow look at Hawes.
“Damn. Rowan’s genes aren’t fair,” Fifi says, shaking hair off his face.
“Your hair,” I say, looking at the lavender ponytail. “When did you dye it?”
“You like it, princess?” Fifi asks, flipping it over his shoulder. “I just went out this morning and got some box dye. I was already bored with the blond.”
His hair is now a gorgeous, light lavender pastel color that matches his scent perfectly. I can’t tell if his eyes are really purple or just a very deep, vivid blue that looks purple in some lights. His angelic features light up as he looks behind me.
“Well, don’t you look like hell,” Fifi says, eyeing Lindon as he comes through the doorway to the living room. But I can tell he means it affectionately.
“Thanks,” Lindon says tersely.
“No,” Hawes says firmly, putting an arm around Lindon’s waist and pulling him back toward the stairs. “You go rest. I told you, I got this.”
“Calm down, asshole. I was just coming for breakfast,” Lindon snaps.
Hawes’ eyebrows go up and he looks at me, as if hinting at something.
“I got it,” I say, ushering a confused Lindon toward the stairs. “I’ll make breakfast for you.”
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