by Roxy Mews
“I can feel you getting hotter. You like the thought of someone watching us? They could not help but stop. They want to see what I have. They might look, but they can’t touch. You are mine. This is mine.” His hands grabbed my hips, and he thrust inside me.
I called his name. No other words were needed now. He could take me wherever he wanted. He was my mate, my man, my Alpha. My world narrowed to our connection. I was so hot. I couldn’t move. I could only take what he’d give me, and at that moment, I wanted whatever he was giving me. I was his, and this was right.
I fell over the edge a second before him and I felt myself spasm around his cock, that pulsing rod of steel, as he shot himself into me. I was whole.
We stayed connected as he unlocked the wrist restraints, and he only pulled from my body when he had to reach my ankles. The loss of his heat sent the cool temperature of the room inside me. Getting rid of that blindfold was my first thought. I started to reach for the knot behind my head.
“I’m really glad you’re okay with public mating. My Family will expect to watch our first coupling once you are changed.”
“What?” I ripped the satiny material in half to break my vision free. My eyes adjusted to the dimness in the room to find him chuckling and the curtains still closed. I was going to beat him. As soon as my legs worked again.
“You were just screwing with me?”
“About the people watching us through the window, or my Family watching us have sex?”
“Please, dear gods, let you say both.”
He cuddled up next to me still chuckling. I wouldn’t go to sleep until he assured me that public fornication was not a vampiric necessity, but after he told me to take a joke a few dozen more times, I allowed myself to fall asleep wondering what I would have done if he had tried to take me with an audience. I knew I wouldn’t have minded as much as I thought I would.
A secret grin crossed my face as he spooned in behind me. Who knew I had a little exhibitionist inside me? Learn something new every day.
Chapter Fourteen
An alarm from my phone echoed in the room. I had it set to a foghorn. The ominous sound was fitting for why we were waking up at eleven at night.
Resting during the day and waking up at night. I already felt a bit more vampiric. Vampires didn’t fry under the sunlight, contrary to popular belief, but they did tend to be night owls by nature. From what I understand, it’s a performance issue. Having the cooler temperatures increases their strength, stamina and all the flashy-dazzling-eye things they could do. Kind of the opposite of solar-powered.
I realized that we would be chatting up my new Family while they were at the top of their game. I still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Jake and I got up and dressed. I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom as he dismantled the cuffs and ankle restraints.
“Are we taking those with us?”
“What do you think we are going to restrain you with?” He dangled the cuff from the strap and waggled it in front of his face before he continued packing. He didn’t act like anything about using a sex toy during my turning with his Family was weird.
“We can’t use those.” That came out more freaked out and much less authoritative than I had planned.
“Of course we can use them. They worked perfectly. I know you were trying to break free, and you were completely under my control.” His eyebrows bumped up and down.
“We had sex with those. I can’t use them around your Family.”
“You have also sucked my dick. We used your mouth during sex. Are you taking a vow of silence?”
I flipped him the bird. He just smiled again. I watched as his teeth lengthened and the front of his pants strained to contain what was growing beneath the zipper. So snarky banter worked as foreplay with hybrids? Hell, I might just fit in.
My body began responding as his was. I knew he didn’t have any underwear on beneath those pants. I had ripped the boxer briefs to shreds before he tied me to the damn bed.
“We don’t have time, do we?”
“Sorry, Amber. We have to go.”
“I really have to wear the bondage toys while your Family snacks on me?”
He just grabbed my hand and pulled me along.
The drive wasn’t a long one. Turns out our living quarters weren’t too terribly far apart in distance. In class level, though, we lived on different planets.
I lived with my dad, his beta and a few other key members of the Pack in a small apartment building. We had the whole freestanding unit to ourselves that allowed for six two-bedroom apartments. Not bad, but as I swallowed against my dry throat, I realized we didn’t know what we were missing. Daddy and I got bitten by the wrong supernatural being if all vamps lived like my new mate did.
“You look impressed.” What Jake meant was that I couldn’t close my mouth and the stupid was taking over my body.
“You do not live here.” I was not going to be comfortable in a place that probably had maids just to vacuum the curtains.
“Yes, we do.” His hand tucked under my jaw, and he helped me close my mouth.
“There is no way you clean the baseboards in that place without an entire crew.”
He just laughed. I was surprised at how lighthearted he could be. He held my hand as a butler—an honest to goodness butler—opened the front door. I watched the man in the doorway sniff the air. His eyes bulged from his head. I guess he wasn’t a human butler.
“Protector! Why are you holding hands with…with…”
“Peter, I’d like to introduce you to my mate, Amber. She is the reason the meeting was called, and we will talk to all of you in the conservatory.”
“The Matheo has no notice of this. You curse us all.” Then Peter turned and walked away.
“I thought you said this was going to go smoothly. I don’t know about you, but that does not look like how things start when they are going to go smoothly to me.”
He put our bags by the door. That was my next clue. You have the butler take your bags or put them by the stairway, if you are confident. You don’t leave them at your easiest escape. My third clue came about thirty seconds later when a chandelier-shaking bellow came from my left.
Jake resembled his father. Both had silvery-gray eyes. Both had strikingly sharp features and prominent noses. Both had serious power, too.
I could always sense the strength and power of other supernatural beings, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it and pretend I was normal. Even when Jake was across the football field, giving the world a reason to redefine water sports, he’d pulled me in. I felt smacked in the chest by the wave of strength in this room. The majority of it was emanating from Jake and Mr. Meyers. They were two hot coals among dim embers. Wow.
“How could you bring the reason for your mother’s death among us? You bring her to our home—and you bring her as your mate?”
Jake stepped in front of me and placed my hand on his lower back before releasing me. I kept my hand there. He wanted assurance I was okay, while protecting me if need be. His body was tight, and his back twitched under my fingers. I could feel that his wolf was as agitated as mine—we were both ready for action. Our beasts were ready to take over when what looked to be inevitable began.
“Father, Matheo, you told me you wished for me to find love as you did. No matter where love comes from, it should be cherished. Your words, Father. Yours. My wolf found his mate. And I agree.”
The Matheo’s power ebbed. “You’ve shifted?”
“Yes. And Amber was the only reason I did not do so on campus among dozens of humans. She has helped me control a part of me I never knew existed, and awoken a part of me I thought lay dormant.”
I felt a little rush of aww at his speech. That was quickly wiped away when Vampire Barbie made it to the party.
“And they had dirty monkey-sex all over the place.”
“Shelly!” Jake shouted her name as a growl rumbled up through my chest.
; I stepped back as the Matheo’s power pushed against me. He was trying to dazzle me. Great. Another way I could piss him off.
“You will not growl at my daughter like a beast ever again. You will leave here. You will walk back through that door and never return. You will not bring your threat upon this home.”
Should I play dumb or should I pretend to be dazzled? All the wondering was for nothing. Shelly was helping again.
“She can’t be dazzled. Some freaky wolf defect. I think it’s worth looking into. Maybe we can dissect her if you are bent on her destruction.”
At least that slowed down his rage for a second. “You are immune?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Were you before you mated with my son?” He made it sound like we were chewing on fetuses.
“Yes, sir. All my life. Well, all my wolfy life. Never met a vampire before my change.”
“And yet now you and my son come here to ask for help to become one.”
I nodded. He pulled his emotions into check. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to be decent to me or if he could tell that Jake was on the edge of his control.
I could—Jake’s skin was rippling beneath my fingers. I dug my nails into his back, because I knew the pain should help him gain control. A lot of the wolf crowd was into BDSM, and that was the main reason why. Pain was one of the best weapons we had to help with control.
“Father, I think it important that we conduct a Family meeting.”
“She stays here. I will hear a Family meeting, and there will be a vote, but she stays here.”
“I won’t leave her.”
“She’s not a part of my Family! She destroyed my Family!”
“Amber is my mate. She is part of my Family. And if I am to remain part of yours, she is to remain mine.”
Lasers of hate shot out of the Matheo’s stare. Every bit was aimed my way. He turned from everyone else and walked away. A grand archway decorated with dark wood trim swallowed his form, and I found myself allowing the breath to come that I had been holding.
Jake stayed in front of me, and I left my hand on his back. He was still tense, but his wolf was under control. We stood there, unmoving, until the last of his rather large Family followed his father out of the room. Only then did he turn his attention toward me. He grabbed the hand I kept on him and kissed the inside of my palm. That and a squeeze was all I got before jumping into the deep end.
I thought by walking into Jake’s Family home we would be ready to go, all done, finished with the tough decisions. But Jake’s strong confidence had been shaken, and I felt like the slight foundation we had built already had cracks in it.
Chapter Fifteen
The meeting was underway when we entered what appeared to be a den. This den was much more showy than ours at the apartment. The furniture was antique. The electronics were sleek and blended into the décor instead of being the feature. There wasn’t a single fingerprint on anything. Either these people were super clean, or this room didn’t get a lot of use. A semi-circle of vampires formed around Shelly as she faced off with the Matheo. At least the focus was on someone other than Jake and me.
“You told me—you told your Family—that our Protector was on a Blood Holiday. You spoke of this to us days ago. And you lied about not only his whereabouts, but his activities and his safety. In this, you put all of us in danger for the loss of our miasma. What have you to say for yourself?”
“I will say that I was trying to keep our Family together.”
“Why would our Family not remain together?”
“Because he won’t let you kill his mate.” Shelly said the words loudly. I felt the push of them toward us, even though her focus remained on the Matheo.
Jake grabbed my hand, motioned for me to be silent and began backing us out of the room. I followed his foot pattern. He was avoiding creaks in the floorboards. He picked up the bag he had left at the door.
How did it go so badly before we even had a chance for it to go even a little right? I guess the bright side was that my sis-in-law was getting reamed in there. She had warned us off.
I wasn’t positive that there could never have been a compromise, but by our pace and silence, Jake had put the happy ending out of his head.
The raucous conversation in the conservatory was the only thing that allowed our escape. Multiple voices rang out. The vampires were threatening various forms of punishment on Shelly for what was apparently a horrid crime. For the first time, I had a little pang in my chest for the bloodsucker. She had to be aware of what would happen to her by covering for us. Yet she did it anyway.
She lied to her Family for Jake. For me. I held tight to the most solid thing around me. Jake. We were going to start a really un-fun existence.
His eyes scanned the pictures and artwork that expertly decorated the walls around the house as we walked out the door. He was leaving behind a lot, just to walk out with me. I’m not sure how I felt. I have been a wolf longer than I was a human. This was the first time in the better part of a century that I felt scared.
Doc would always say any fear I had was the human left in me. Wolves were connected to the earth and knew that death was a part of life. If we did go out, we did it fighting. Daddy knew all about fighting. As Alpha, he had the responsibility of a Pack, sure, but he also had the support of one. He was covered. I was going to take that same security away from my mate. We hadn’t been together long, but I was growing to love him with the same passion my wolf claimed his with. Could I put this life on the man I loved?
We were only in the driveway when I planted my feet. “You’re not going to do this.”
“We can’t fight them all. We have to do it this way—at least for now.” Jake seemed to be giving up. Was he doing it to be sensible? Or if I weren’t involved, would he have stayed to fight?
“We have to go to see my Pack first. I have an idea.”
“You really think we stand a chance at changing the mind of the Matheo? The man has existed over a millennium.”
I pulled his hand. He allowed me to take him toward the woods. We would make better time cutting through these woods on four feet than we would on four wheels through the traffic. I stripped. He followed my example and we used his duffle to attach our clothing and belongings to my back. My wolf was a lot smaller than his, and it was less likely I would shred the handles with change.
It’s not a long trek to my Pack home. I did everything I could to drag it out just a bit. Jake and I needed to let our wolves take over. He might not recognize the restless urge to let the wolf free, but I had no doubt this run would do him just as much good as it was doing me. Fur sprouted. Bones cracked, and with the practice he had, Jake only took a fraction of a second longer than me to shift. We ran.
He cocked his head at me when I changed direction, but followed anyway. There was life in the cabin. I didn’t stop to identify the smell. It didn’t matter who it was, so my wolf just dismissed it and moved on. We needed to be alone. Just for a minute.
I found what I was looking for. That good ole bird-watching post presented itself at the perfect moment. Thank the gods it was unoccupied. I started to scale the pillar as a wolf, but was unable to make the climb and shifted mid-step on the ladder. It was a straight climb up wrought-iron bends as steps. The air behind me shifted, and I knew Jake was following me now, instead of the wolf.
“Amber, what are you doing?”
“Remembering what I’m fighting for. And reminding you.” Leaving his Family was not about giving up. He needed to remember that we were meant to be. I needed to show him how right this was, and maybe get his superbrain to ignore some of the excess crap we had to wade through to get where we needed to. I knew exactly how to distract him.
I didn’t turn around to see his reaction to my words. His eyes were on the prize, though. I felt him blow a puff of air between my legs as we climbed. The warm air lent to even warmer shivers. Guess I didn’t have to try too hard.
As soon as we hit the platfo
rm above, I dropped the bag from my shoulders, and he was on me. His wolf pushed to the forefront, and his wolf agreed with me. This was exactly how we needed to regroup. Jake backed me against the railing, and I wrapped around him. My arms around his neck, my legs around his waist, I ground myself against him. I could feel the coarse hair on his lower abs abrading my sex in the most delicious way. His hands were under my ass to support me. Then they spread my cheeks, and a finger began to work its way toward my aching pussy.
He slipped a digit inside, and I rode his hand and his stomach. The pressure building was incredible. I was wet. I was hot and I needed more. More.
This was my mate. I needed him. Adrenaline was coursing through my body. We were running for now, but neither of us were one to roll over and take our lashings. Fuck that. We were going to be together, and I wanted him to understand how much he wanted me, too. I could feel the length of him bobbing beneath my legs. The heat from his swollen head was searing my skin when he thrust against me.
“Please, Jake. Fuck me.” I pulled at his shoulders. Closer. I had to hold him closer. “I need you. I need my mate. We have each other right now.”
I had to believe that right now was all that mattered. No amount of running away was going to make our problems go away. I couldn’t ignore what was going on around me anymore. But I had Jake. He was worth waking up for.
“Remind me that this is all I need. Take me. I need it.”
He pulled his finger from me and sat me atop the railing. If anyone happened by, they would be getting a hell of a show. I could have dripped down the walls I was so wet with need. Jake had his hands on me, and there was no clothing or wolf’s fur that could compare with the way I wore his touch.
A breeze brushed against my heated skin. My nipples puckered and goose bumps sprang up everywhere. Jake’s hands brushed the chill away and the sensation was incredible. I let the moan escape from my mouth as my head fell back. He was on my neck and bit my matemark. Waves of pleasure flooded my skin. His teeth set off tremors that ran from my neck in a straight shot to my pussy. The orgasm hit me with no other touch from his hands.