Jesus, is it that obvious? My face grows warm. Actually, it was already warm. It’s probably stop sign red now.
“Yep, I’m good,” Bo calls back to him. He carries me into the storeroom and sits me on a stack of boxes. “Sorry—that was lame. Are you embarrassed? We don’t have to do this.”
I must still be blushing, but I don’t care. I don’t know that guy or anyone else here. And I want to show Bo my appreciation.
“I’m harder than stone for you, Legs. Feel it.”
I grab a handful of his cock through his jeans and squeeze hard. “Take it out.” My voice sounds husky.
“Fates,” he mutters, unbuttoning his jeans fast, like his life depends on it.
I move to slide off the box and get on my knees, but he catches me, turning me around to face the boxes and smacking my ass. “I want to be inside you.” He reaches around the front and rubs between my legs. “Is that okay, beautiful?”
“Yeah.” I consider telling him to be gentle because I’m still sore from last night and from getting punched in the ribs, but I don’t actually want him to be gentle.
I like it when it hurts a little.
I like it when he’s rough.
I like sensing the animal in him. To see him out of control with desire for me. The way his eyes change color—now I understand why they sometimes look silver.
I’m already wet for him. I cover his hand with mine and urge him on. He nuzzles my neck, his breath hot, his teeth scraping over my skin. He unbuttons my jeans and slides his hand in. I moan the minute his digits touch my sensitive bits, my pelvic floor contracting.
“Oh fates, Sloane. You’re so wet.”
“Fuck me, wolf boy.”
His movements gain urgency. He shoves my jeans and panties down and gives my ass a hard smack. If you’d asked me before if I wanted a guy to slap my ass, the answer would have definitively been no, but every time he does it, I get more excited. And I’m already burning with lust for him.
I hear the rustle of his pants, the snap of foil and then the prod of his sheathed cock at my entrance. I push back to welcome him. I’m sore from last night but also so ready, and he slides right in, the soreness only making the pleasure, the rightness, more delicious.
“Sloane,” he rasps, his fingers wrapping around my hips, his cock stretching me wide, filling me on each slow stroke. “You feel so good.”
I look over my shoulder at him, and he claims my mouth in a sloppy, sideways kiss.
“You’re so fucking hot. I don’t see how a human could be this hot.”
I’m absurdly pleased by that praise, even though it’s a backhanded compliment. “You’re the only one,” I tell him.
“The only what?”
“The only one who’s been here.” He knows that already—that he took my virginity—but I’m trying to tell him something else. “The only one I let in. The only one I trusted.”
I meant I can trust, but it came out past tense. Because I already know he’s supposed to wipe my memory, clear the past twenty-four hours from my brain.
His movements stutter, like he heard my slip, and he’s wondering if I know.
He lets out a curse and starts fucking me hard, bringing one hand round to rub my clit. He’s bringing us to a finish already.
The metaphor isn’t lost on me.
It’s what needs to happen.
I close my eyes and surrender to the intensity of his thrusts. A few more seconds, and I come, my body convulsing, my channel tightening and squeezing his cock.
He growls and slams harder, harder, harder until he shoves in deep and stays, his breath holding and catching, then releasing on a low, slow growl.
He’s wearing a condom, but I swear I feel the heat of his release inside me, and my muscles squeeze and twitch around him some more. Bo rubs my clit and gets a few more shudders out of me before he pulls out and pulls up my panties. There’s something hot about him reaching around to zip and button my jeans. Hot and sweet.
He kisses my neck. I don’t look at him. I can’t. It’s time to put walls back up. Re-erect my barriers, say goodbye to this incredible guy I want to keep forever.
“Hang on, I’ll be right back.” He disappears to dispose of his condom and returns with a bottle of water, which he cracks and offers to me.
I drink deeply and hand it back.
“Bo? I have your payout,” Trey calls, clearly giving us space in case he’s interrupting something. “Come on in my office.”
Bo grabs my hand, and we jog out.
“I’m going to run to the ladies room,” I tell him. “Meet you in the bar?”
He squeezes my hand. “Sounds good.”
I go to the restroom, then head out to the bar. It’s emptied of three-quarters of the people, but I instantly recognize the figure sitting at the bar.
Winslow.
And he’s not happy to see me. Not at all.
The guy still scares me, even now that Bo and I are an item, but I square my shoulders and walk over to him. “Hey. I’m glad to see you’re okay. Your family’s been worried.”
He narrows his eyes at me.
“I told you to keep him the fuck out of it.”
“I know. I did. At least, I tried. He’s a hard guy to put off, though.”
I forgot how big a guy he is. Bo seems big, but this guy towers over me, and he’s built like a tank. It’s hard not to flinch when he leans down and gets right in my grill. “I heard there was trouble last night. And I’m one hundred percent sure it was your doing. So I’m only going to tell you this once: get the fuck out of Bo’s life.”
I’m shocked by the sudden urge to cry. Like I have to blink quickly to clear the water from my eyes. “I will,” I warble. Because that’s been my plan all along.
“If you don’t, I will turn you into the cops as my accomplice on the stolen cars.”
He probably won’t because that would mean turning himself in, too, and I doubt he plans to do that, but I experience the threat viscerally, a wash of adrenaline kicking through me.
“It’s already done. I’m leaving,” I say, as Bo appears behind me.
“Winslow.” He looks past Winslow at the guy sitting next to him. “Ben.” Surprise and a little indignation ring in Bo’s voice. It’s not the happy reunion I might have expected. I sense tension radiating from him, and he slips something into the waistband of my jeans in the back—must be the envelope of money—like he doesn’t want Winslow to see it.
“Is this where you’ve been? Mom’s been worried sick about you. For fuck’s sake, you could’ve called.”
Winslow’s face contorts in anger. “That’s pretty ripe coming from the kid who might’ve killed a man last night.”
I take a step back, and Bo steps in front, as if to shield me from Winslow. His friend climbs up from his seat, like he has Winslow’s back. They look about the same age. And IQ. “Hey, go and wait for me at the bike,” he murmurs, patting my leg.
Don’t have to ask me twice.
I leave the building—a warehouse that’s been converted into a hip, industrial bar and stand out in the newly paved parking lot.
It takes me a few moments for my situation to sink in and then everything snaps into place.
It’s time for me to make good on my promise to Winslow. To leave.
Without Bo.
Chapter 14
Bo
Son of a fucking bitch!
I kick the side of the metal warehouse that houses Fight Club, my stomach stuck up under my ribs making it hard to breathe.
She left.
She fucking took the money and my bike…and left.
That bitch!
No, I don’t mean that.
Yes, I do.
Fuck!
I kick the building again, denting the metal and probably breaking a couple toes in the process. I can’t believe I just got played by Sloane McCormick. I mean, what the actual fuck?
I throw the door open and step back inside, blinking as my eyes a
djust to the change in light. Winslow’s still at the bar.
Really, I can’t believe that fucker, either. The whole time he was kicking it down here in Tucson with the rest of the wolves banished from our pack. I should’ve known he’d be just fine. The pack elders try to drill it into our heads that we wouldn’t survive without a pack. Lone wolves are in danger and all that shit. Here I was so worried about Winslow being banished, and he’s been just fine. Turns out, he already has a job working for Tank, another former Wolf Ridge pack member who has a motorcycle shop here.
He’s not starving and alone, wandering the human populace with none of his own kind around him.
And I’m an idiot for even caring.
I stomp over to him, pick up his beer and drain it.
He looks over at me with an indulgent grin. Yeah, pretty much our relationship in the last few years has consisted of him buying me and my friends beer because we’re not old enough yet.
“She’s gone. She took my fucking bike and left. Do you have wheels?”
“Good riddance,” Winslow says easily. Almost like he expected it.
I narrow my eyes. Shouldn’t he be pissed on my behalf that she stole the Triumph? I mean, he didn’t like her to begin with.
Winslow orders another beer. “Tank let me borrow a truck. But I need it.”
“Alpha Green said you had to show up to council or be banished.”
“Fuck him,” Winslow says.
I’m not surprised by that answer.
“Well, at least drive me home, go see Mom and relieve her mind about you.”
He raises his brows. “You paying for gas?”
Right, with all the money I don’t have, since Sloane just took it all. But I don’t have any option but to agree. “Yeah.”
He sighs and stands up, taking the beer the bartender brings him and chugging it. “Let’s go.”
I don’t speak the entire way home. I’m pissed at Winslow, and I’m pissed at Sloane. But mostly I’m just pissed at myself.
Why the fuck did I ever get involved in this bullshit? Because a hot pair of legs walked into the shop at full moon, and I’m still such a teenage horndog I couldn’t stop chasing?
What a fucking idiot.
I try not to think about any of it but instead end up examining every moment we spent together.
The first ride on my bike. Her paying me to teach her to drop an engine, then realizing it’s too much to pick up on the fly.
Her Homecoming dance.
Getting her off with the vibrator.
Sex.
That part was real. Fates, but I have to believe that part was real. This hasn’t all been a hustle.
And she wasn’t hustling me because I was the goddamn pursuer.
Didn’t stop her from using me, though, did it?
From letting me fight for her. Taking the money I earned her.
She’s desperate, the little whisper of reason reminds me.
Yeah, but I was right by her side the whole time. Protecting her. Keeping her from doing this alone. Hopefully coming up with some way to solve this bullshit she’s caught in.
Only she didn’t want me to be her knight in shining armor.
The rejection burns a tree trunk sized hole through the center of my chest. I really fucking cared about this girl, and she crumpled me up like a used piece of paper and tossed me in the trash.
I would’ve done anything for her.
And as that thought descends and lands, I feel it through all my limbs. Through every organ, through every blood cell moving in my veins.
I still would.
Even after her betrayal, I still would.
* * *
Sloane
I cry the whole way back to Wolf Ridge. I feel like an asshole leaving Bo with his dick swinging in the wind. And I’m a selfish bitch because I really I don’t want to do this thing alone. It may have only been twenty-four hours, but I sure as hell liked having Bo on my side. Picking up the sword and fighting my battles for me.
But, of course, I can’t let him.
And I’m going to have to keep bitching him over if I want him to stay away.
I ride his motorcycle to Wolf Ridge Body Shop, which fortunately, appears to be closed. I open the envelope of money and count it out. Eleven thousand seven hundred dollars.
That’s a pretty amazing take for a high school kid on a single day.
I wish I could leave it all for him. And I would, if I wasn’t also worried about my cousin. Instead, I leave him the seven hundred and take the eleven grand. I dig in my purse for a pen and write on the back of a receipt:
Bo,
Forgive me for ending things this way.
Please don’t come looking for me. I’ll pay you back when I can.
Thanks is definitely not enough, but it’s all I have.
And I know you owe me nothing, but I have one more favor to beg: please don’t wipe my memories of you. I need them.
—S
I want to write I love you, but it’s the wrong thing to do. It would open a door instead of close one. And I can’t have Bo in my life anymore.
I wipe my tears with my fingers and stuff the note and cash in the envelope to tuck in his saddlebag. Hopefully no one will steal it before he finds it, but I sort of doubt they will. After that small glimpse of the shifter community in Tucson, I have a feeling everyone in Wolf Ridge looks out for one another. They aren’t stealing money from each other.
Then I text the number I have for Vinny. I’m going to try to head off disaster by making a good faith payment of everything I have. I name a meeting place on a very public block in Scottsdale and call for a Lyft. I can stop at my aunt’s to get the rest of the cash I have from the first car sale. Thirty grand should buy me a little more time.
As I ride to Cave Hills and then Scottsdale, my stomach churns on emptiness. My body feels half-dead. No—make that all dead. Because I’m starting to wonder what the point of living is with all I’ve given up.
I thought I’d stopped living when my dad went to jail and I came to Arizona, but I was wrong. I never even knew living. I didn’t know it until Bo Fenton climbed in through my window and invaded my life. Declared himself my made-up boyfriend. Took me to Homecoming. Claimed my V-card and jumped in front of a firing gun for me.
And now that I know it, anything less than life with Bo is barely an existence.
But there’s no helping it. Even if my situation wasn’t seriously fucked—which it is—he can’t be with me anyway. I heard what the pack leader in Tucson ordered. He plans to have my mind wiped of what he is. That means he couldn’t be with me long term anyway.
Better now than after we have more time invested in each other. More of our hearts exposed and open for bludgeoning.
I make a quick stop at the townhouse, grateful my aunt and Rikki aren’t home to ask questions, then get back in the car. The Lyft driver pulls up at the designated corner, and I get out, clutching my bag with the cash. I look around, but don’t see the guys.
A whistle makes me look down the alleyway.
Fuck.
Of course they’re parked there, where no one will see this go down. I walk over and climb in the open door to the back seat. Tom climbs in beside me and shuts the door, and the car takes off down the street.
That was my first warning that something was wrong.
The second was the blow I take to the temple, which makes everything instantly go black.
* * *
Bo
Winslow and my mom sit at the kitchen table, my mom crying, Winslow covering her hand with his and promising everything will be all right.
I leave them to it and head down the hall to my room, where I flop face down on my bed.
All I feel is emptiness.
I should be happy. I accomplished the goal I set out to complete—find Winslow. Get him home to say goodbye to our mom. But there’s zero satisfaction.
For one thing, goodbye is pretty irrelevant when Winslow is living two a
nd a half hours away in Tucson. He may be hiding from the law, but he’s not in a cave in Utah or out in New Mexico, off the grid, where some shifters go to disappear. He’s in the next city over. With a job and a pack to take care of him.
But none of this is about Winslow.
It’s about what went down with Sloane.
That girl fucking destroyed me.
I don’t even know how it happened. I was calling all the shots. I bum-rushed her life. But here I am, the one who’s fucking shredded.
And she walked away unscathed.
Or did she?
I’ve checked my phone fifty times, but there’s no message from her, and I’m still too pissed to send one myself. If I did, it would further destroy everything we were, and despite it all, I’m not sure I want that.
My phone buzzes, and I yank it out of my pocket. It’s Wilde, checking on me: You coming to school tomorrow, asshole?
I ignore the text and close my eyes.
Will myself to fall asleep.
Hope to fate I’ll feel more like myself in the morning.
That I’ll know what to do.
I guess one thing is sure—I don’t have to feel bad about getting Sloane’s memories wiped. Not when she cares so little about me.
* * *
Sloane
My head throbs. I think I’ve been drugged because my body won’t move. My mouth tastes like cotton, and I want to puke.
I’m sprawled across the back seat of the Navigator, and the beat I hear is the stereo blasting Post Malone. There’s talking from the front seat, too, but I can’t make out what they’re saying over the music.
And it’s day time.
Which means we’ve been driving all night. At least, I think we have. I gained consciousness a few other times during the night, and every time it was the same. The car moving. My body too sluggish to respond to commands.
Where in the hell are we going?
Oh fuck.
They’re taking me to my new owner to be tortured and raped until… until what? I’m killed or sold again to someone else to repeat the same fate. Bile fills my throat, and I try to swallow it down.
Alpha Knight Page 15