by Maddy Barone
Amanda stared at the door. Well, that went easier than she’d expected. A small part of her was almost disappointed he’d given in so easily. Not even a demand for a last kiss!
With a twitch of her shoulder she went to her vanity to re-do her makeup. Her next appointment was still over an hour away, but she could get ready for that, and then go downstairs to mingle until Paul arrived. The makeup she applied was darker and more dramatic, and she took off the erotically prim nightdress and put on the black leather shorts and bustier that showed off her tattoo, then pulled on the thigh high black boots with the four inch needle heels. It took her only a few minutes to release her hair from its feminine arrangements of loops and tease it into a mess. This was Paul’s favorite look. He liked being dominated by his partner, and Amanda knew she did it well.
With a last glance in the mirror, she went to the door to join some of the other girls to mingle and flirt with the guests. She hadn’t gone one step before she saw Sand leaning crossed-armed next to her door. When he saw her, he jerked straight with his eyes springing wide. She gave him a small smile and sashayed to the rail to wave down at the people below. They applauded enthusiastically. Knowing her legs looked a mile long in the boots, she sauntered to the stairs.
Somehow, Sand got there first. “Where are you going?” he demanded in a growl so sexy she shivered.
“To play with the visitors,” she replied.
“Play? Will you kiss them?”
The jealousy would have been cute if he wasn’t so damn scary. “Of course not.”
“Will they try to kiss you?”
“Not if they’re smart.”
He eased up on the scary. “I’ll go with you to be sure no one bothers you.”
She tapped a glossy red nail against her chin. “You know, that could work. Every dominatrix needs a sub. Wait here a minute while I get a collar to put on you.”
“Collar?” he said, but she ignored the outrage on his face. That eerie shimmer of gold that filmed his eyes made her blink, but she decided she must have imagined it and turned to stalk back to her room with the heels of her boots clicking on the floor.
He roared after her, “Do you think I’m a lap dog?”
Chapter 3
He jerked his head around at the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. Sky appeared. Sand inwardly shook his head at the slick city suit and short hair. Well, the short hair wasn’t so weird. The Chief wore his hair short in memory of his white mother’s preferences. But that suit, so perfectly fitted and precisely pressed, was nothing any of the Clan or Pack would have worn. It was too many layers to shed to let their wolves out.
“Hey,” said Sky. He unbuttoned his suit coat to tuck his hands in his pants pockets and leaned a shoulder against the wall. “How’s your first monitor shift going?”
Sand was half distracted by listening to his mate move around in her room. A terrible thought struck him. “You knew!” Suppressing the quick rage was hard. “You knew Amanda was my mate.”
Sky lifted his free shoulder in a light shrug. “She was one of the possibilities.” Sky straightened, the aggression of an Alpha showing in his face. “I’m told you decided to cancel Amanda’s appointments for tonight. Given who she is to you, I can understand that. But you need to understand that Amanda is one of my pack. You don’t give orders about her without consulting me.”
Neither Sand nor his wolf was Alpha, but he immediately bristled. “She’s my mate!” he growled.
“Has she accepted you?” At Sand’s frown, Sky laughed softly. “Of course not. It’s too early for that. Until she does, Amanda is mine. My sister, moron,” Sky added with a snort, sounding suddenly much more like the young wolf Sand remembered. “I have a mate.”
“Has she accepted you?”
Sand regretted his taunt even before he saw the black rage burst in Sky’s blue eyes. Amanda’s door opened and she came out carrying a wide leather collar studded with silver spikes. “I think this one might … Oh, hi, Sky.”
Sand forgot Sky, forgot their argument, forgot everything except how much he wanted his mate. The strip of skin between the tops of her outrageous boots and the hem of her too tight black shorts looked pale and soft. He had to clench his fists to keep from stroking her there. He wanted to feel those thighs clamping his hips when he drove inside her. Her lips, painted a false dark red, smiled at Sky, but the smile died in concern. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Sky smiled at her and bent down to give her a hug. It was an appropriate hug for a brother to give a sister, but Sand had to swallow a growl. “Mandy, we need to talk. Do you remember what I told you about myself two summers ago?”
Sand didn’t think Amanda’s uncertain expression matched her gaudy facial enhancements. “You mean about you turning into … That is, the …” her voice dropped to a low whisper. “That wolf thing?”
“Yes, that. Let’s step into your room. This is a private conversation.”
Amanda opened the door and led the way into her room. She sat on the bed while Sky pulled the chair at the vanity close to the bed and Sand leaned against the wall near the headboard. He inhaled the precious scent of his mate in the room, but there were other scents there too. Scents of other men that made him half crazy.
Sky crossed one leg clad in silvery blue over the other. “What I’m going to tell you is private. You can’t talk about it to anyone.”
Amanda darted one glance at Sand before nodding at Sky. “Okay.”
“Those of us with wolves can’t be with just any woman. That is, we can, until our wolves choose a mate for us. Yes, the wolf chooses. Once a mate has been found, we can never be with another woman.”
“Yeah,” Amanda said slowly, testing the sharpness of a silver spike on the collar with a fingertip. “I remember you telling me that before. That’s why you never accepted any of our invitations for sex. And you explained about Sara’s husband being like you.”
“Sara?” Sand interrupted. “Sara, Stone’s mate?”
Sky nodded. “Amanda is Sara’s cousin.”
That made Sand smile. Although Stone had sent Sara to live with her uncle until she was old enough to accept his mate claim, she was still part of the Pack. Even before his wolf had chosen her, Amanda had ties to the Pack.
Sky must have known what he was thinking, because he nodded before turning back to Amanda. “No man would ever hurt the mate his wolf chose for him.”
“And?” Amanda shot another quick glance at Sand. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because Sand’s wolf has chosen you for his mate.”
Sand was afraid his mate had forgotten how to breathe. She went white, then red. It looked odd with the rouge on her cheeks. He straightened from his lean against the wall, but her head whipped around to stare at him and finally she gulped in air. “Are you shitting me?”
Sand stared, confused by her words. Sky shook his head. “No.”
“He’s a—” She looked at Sky, then turned to stare at Sand. A trickle of fear soured her scent. “You’re a werewolf?”
“No!”
Sky shook his head. “Just go with it,” he advised Sand. “It’s easier.”
His mate’s acrid scent of fear hurt. “I have a wolf, but he wouldn’t hurt you. Never. He chose you for me.”
The fear scent faded into something confused but cautiously curious. “That’s kinda cool. Kinda.”
“Whether or not you decide to be his mate is your choice. If you don’t want him, I’ll send him back to Kearney.”
Amanda was staring at him. “I don’t know. I don’t even know him. I just met him an hour ago.”
Sand’s breath was hot in his chest, hot with urgency and yearning. “We can take time to get to know one another. We can talk, or do whatever you like.”
“The thing is,” Sky said, leaning forward on the small chair to take her hands, “our wolves are very jealous. If they see another man too close to our mates, they don’t like it.” One corner of his mouth puckered sourly
and Sand wondered if he was remembering the man who sat far too close to his mate, Rose, back in Kearney. “So while you decide whether or not you want to accept Sand, you can’t make appointments.”
“You’re touching me,” she pointed out.
Sky waved that away. “I’m Pack. His cousin. Pack doesn’t count. So what do you say? Will you give Sand a month to court you? To try to persuade you to be his mate?”
Sand felt his mate’s gaze burn over him as she examined him carefully. For the first time in his life he wondered if his clothes were good enough. His jeans and blue cotton shirt were clean but rumpled from days in a saddlebag, his moccasins worn. His gaze went to Sky’s stylish suit and shorn hair before he straightened his shoulders proudly. His mate would be accepting or rejecting him, not his clothes or hair.
Amanda stared at him wordlessly for long minutes. Sand forced himself to not twitch, determined to let her make up her own mind, but it took so long that he finally blurted, “Do you want me to cut my hair? Get other clothes?”
“Don’t you dare cut your hair!” she answered immediately, looking genuinely horrified. “I like your hair. As for clothes…” She trailed off to look him up and down again. “I’d love to see what you look like without them. And,” she added her voice going from seduction to hesitancy. “What does the wolf side of you look like?”
Relief at being able to keep his hair loosened his shoulders. “I hate wearing these tight clothes,” he said with a smile, reaching to undo the buttons on the shirt.
“Wait a minute!” Sky said quickly. “There are still two more things for Mandy to know. One, we can’t let our wolves out where anyone can see them. No one can know. You have to promise to never tell anyone.”
Amanda smelled of confusion. “Okay, I promise. But why?”
Sky shrugged. “I have enough enemies in Omaha without giving them more ammunition against me. No one wears their hideout weapon where everyone can see it.”
Amanda lowered her brows and gave Sky a confused look. “Okay. What’s the other thing?”
“If you have sex with him, you’ve accepted his claim. You’ll be his wife.”
Her face fell almost ludicrously. “I can’t sleep with him?”
Sky laughed softly. “Sure, you can sleep with him. You just can’t have sex with him.”
Her face still looked unhappy. “But what if I want to have sex, but don’t want to be his mate?”
Sand’s heart twisted violently in a knot of such pain that his knees almost hit the floor. Having her would be bliss. Losing her after he’d known the delight of her body would leave him a useless shell around a broken heart.
“No,” Sky denied. “For wolves, it’s all or nothing. It’s your choice. Do you want to allow him to court you, or should I send him back to Kearney?”
Amanda licked her painted lips while she stared at him. He could count her breaths sliding in and out of her lungs. “I want Sand to court me.”
Sand threw his head back and screamed a howl of victory.
*
Amanda shivered at that feral howl. When Sand tilted his fiercely smiling face back down toward her, she jabbed a finger at him. “Okay, I’m giving you a chance. For tonight, let’s just keep this cool. I want to go downstairs and visit with people. You just keep your distance.”
“Okay,” he said softly, which really contrasted with his expression.
Sky nodded. “And don’t bite anybody,” he said deadpan.
Amanda wasn’t sure he was joking. She went out of her room and down the stairs. When she was spotted by the twenty or so men in the reception rooms a cheer rose. She tilted her head at its usual jaunty angle and gave them a wave. She strode across the room to an empty armchair, Sand looming like grim death behind her. Even without the spiked collar, and wearing his worn jeans and rumpled blue chambray shirt instead of black leather, he intimidated the visitors. He stood a step behind her chair and glared with arms folded over his chest. Most of the men learned right away to not flirt with her. The almost sub-vocal growl Sand let out each time one of them tried to touch her clued them in. Only Paul, her second appointment of the night, hadn’t caught on right away.
“Miss Amanda,” he called when he first entered the reception room. “You look gorgeous!”
He hurried through the knots of people, tall and broad in his well fitted tan suit, his thinning brown hair impeccably groomed, his pale face flushed and sweating from the heat in the room. She knew from a dozen previous encounters that his body was fit for a man of forty who spent hours at a desk. He looked for a moment as if he wanted to try to squeeze into the chair beside her, but a glance at Sand apparently changed his mind.
He knelt on the carpet before her. “I had expected to meet you upstairs in your room.”
Habit made her put on an imperious sneer. “If I choose to allow you in my room—”
Sand came around the chair in a blur of blue cotton and black hair to grab Paul by the collar and jerk him up to his feet. “You will never see the inside of her room again,” he said in a chillingly conversational tone.
She could see that instead of frightening Paul, Sand’s domineering warning excited him. His pale blue eyes rolled to Amanda, his face shining with delight. “Are we having a threesome tonight?” he asked breathlessly.
She wondered if Sand even knew what Paul was talking about. “Paul,” she began, but Sand cut her off.
“Amanda is mine,” he snarled.
“Yes, Master,” Paul said in that same breathless voice. “Of course. I’ll be grateful for whatever crumbs you allow me to have.”
Amanda had to laugh at Sand’s bewilderment. “Paul,” she said kindly, “I’m afraid there’s been a change in my schedule. This is Sand Wolfe. I’ll be spending my time with him exclusively for the next month.”
Paul looked from her to Sand. “But … I am very good at fellatio,” he offered.
“At what?” Sand said, still holding Paul’s collar in a fist.
“Fellatio.” Now Paul’s voice turned slightly condescending. “Giving head. I can suck your cock all the way down my throat while you finger fuck Amanda. Or you can ass fuck me while I fuck Ama—”
Sand’s fist jerked Paul off the floor. The man clawed desperately at his strangling collar while his feet searched frantically for the floor three inches below his toes. Amanda jumped up but wasn’t sure what to do.
Sand dragged Paul’s ear close to his mouth. “If you ever speak her name again I will kill you. You understand me?”
“Yes,” Paul croaked.
“Good.” Sand lowered the other man down to his feet with frighteningly gentle care. “Now get out and don’t come back.”
Paul stumbled when Sand loosened his collar with a little shove, and hastily pushed his way through the whispering people who were staring at them. Amanda sat back down in the armchair, aware that her fingers were trembling. She drew a calming breath and looked up at Sand. There was a faint flush in his lean cheeks when he turned to look down at her.
“Do you do that?” he asked. “Have two men in bed at the same time?”
For no reason that she could think of she felt heat rise to her face. “A few times,” she said quietly, stroking the nap of the upholstery of the chair.
“Do you like it?”
She paused to consider it. “No, not really. I don’t dislike it either. Actually, it doesn’t matter to me one way or another. It’s just part of the job.”
“I can never do that.” Sand dropped to one knee in front of her chair. “My wolf would never accept sharing you with anyone that way.”
“I know.” Maybe she shouldn’t have, but she cupped his face in her hands and leaned forward to kiss him. “I would never share you either.”
He kissed her back, his lips more gentle than she’d expected. He pulled away after only a few moments and stood up to meet Sky, who was approaching with that smooth, unhurried gait of his that ate up the distance far more quickly than it seemed to.
“Sand, you have to stop throwing our guests out.”
Before Sand could snarl a reply Amanda stood quickly. “Considering what Paul said, Sand behaved himself very well.”
One of Sky’s elegant brows rose. “And what did Mr. Harper say?”
“Paul thought a threesome was a good idea, and described who would be doing what to whom.”
Sky’s other brow shot up. Amanda wondered how he did that. “I see,” he said smoothly. “I think you’re right, Mandy. No blood was spilled, no furniture broken. I believe I will need to send notes out to your usual appointments to inform them you will be unavailable for some time.”
“Forever,” Sand snapped.
“Perhaps. Good night,” Sky said pointedly.
Amanda sighed. “Alright.” She sashayed past Sand. “Coming?”
“Where?” he asked suspiciously.
“To bed, of course.”
Chapter 4
Sand all but leaped to his mate’s side. “Bed?”
Sky caught his arm. “To sleep,” he said sternly. “Right, Mandy?”
Sand saw a twitch disturb Amanda’s face, almost a wince. “Yeah,” she agreed.
There were so many scents in the room that Sand couldn’t identify her emotions. Dare he hope she was disappointed by the idea of merely sleeping with him without more? He walked close behind her as she went up the stairs, blowing laughing kisses to her admirers below. She kept that breezy smile on her lips until the door of her room closed behind them.
Sand watched from the door while she sat down in front of her dainty vanity. He wanted nothing more than to pull her up against him and feel every lush curve of her body pressed to his.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
She glanced over at him, surprise plain on her face. “Nothing. Why?”
“You frowned. Downstairs, when Sky spoke.”
She dipped a square of fabric in the wash basin on the vanity to wipe away the paint on her face. He was glad to see it go, but his focus was on her words. “I didn’t frown.”