A Very Alpha Christmas

by Anthology

  Bel closed her eyes, remembering how in their second-to-last year, Red had stolen a crossbow from the archery range. She’d shot arrows into the trees, bearing messages like, ‘If you don’t clean your cabin, you’re next.‘. Thinking of Red gave her the courage to continue.

  “In our final year, we decided we’d check out the house, but they chickened out, and the owner caught me after I lost my glasses. He sort of came on to me, too, but I was only eighteen, so I think most of it went over my head. Thankfully, Red and Cynthia rescued me before it got too weird. Red even shot an arrow through one of the panes of the greenhouse. I felt bad about that later…”

  She trailed off, realizing that she had been dominating the conversation, spilling her guts to an asshole. She didn’t even have the excuse of alcohol. After the silence had dragged on for another ten seconds, she wondered if she had put him to sleep. “Sorry. I’m a lot better at writing stories then telling them,” she said.

  Mr. West’s smile was gone, which made Bel’s stomach drop, but he didn’t look angry. His finger was resting on his lips, and his head was cocked so that a strand of his dark hair was brushing his straight white collar. He looked…thoughtful.

  “It’s interesting to hear your perspective on the house,” he said.

  Bel let out a breathy chuckle, relief making her smile goofily. At least that confirmed that he wasn’t the old owner. He would’ve said something if he was.

  “Oh? And what’s your perspective?” she asked.

  Samson ignored her question and began to pour a golden liquid that looked like scotch into a tumbler. “Did you think he was a werebeast, too? The owner?”

  Bel’s mouth went dry. “What?”

  He tilted the glass, ending the flow of the liquor, not so much as glancing at her. “Your book. Mates of Darkness. I read it.”

  Bel buried her face in her hands. “Oh, God. When?”

  “This afternoon, after I caught the deer.” He swilled the drink, his eyes predatory as they peered over the top of the glass. “I thought, if I’ve got a New York Times best-selling author breaking all my dishes, I might as well read her books.”

  “Ugh.” Bel tried to smother herself further. Mates of Darkness was a YA book, and for every tween girl who shipped her characters, there was a male critic deriding it as the herald of the literary apocalypse.

  “It wasn’t bad,” Samson said.

  Bel perked up from her prison of fingers. “Really?”

  He took a sip of his scotch slowly, savoring it. “You did take more than a few liberties with werelore.”

  Bel fanned her fingers against her cheeks and rested her elbow against the table, sighing. “Yeah. I didn’t really do my research. I guess when something has only been extinct for two hundred years, it still qualifies as ‘not a myth.’ Man, you wouldn’t believe the shit people gave me about the ending of the series.”

  “The ending?”

  Bel waved loosely. “Oh I had her abandon her weremate and kill her other love interest, the werehunter, and then run off into the sunset alone. My readers who read for romance were pissed that I didn’t have a happy ending and my readers who read for the werebeasts were pissed that I ignored the one universal truth we know about weremates—that once they find their mate. they never part.”

  “Would you do it differently now?” Samson asked.

  Bel’s breath caught.

  The question itself was benign, and his tone even blander, but there was something unnerving about it. Maybe it was the fact that his glass was empty now, but he was still clutching it. Bel swore his gaze hadn’t moved from hers for the entire length of the conversation.

  From the kitchen, she heard the ticking of the antique clock she had gotten back from the repair shop two days ago. “I-I don’t know,” she said.

  Whatever answer he had been looking for, that satisfied him well enough, and he smiled at her gently.

  She couldn’t say why it made her shiver.

  He reached for the decanter of scotch and raised it toward her in offering. “Would you like some?”

  Definitely. “I should probably eat first.”

  “Yes,” he said. Then, before she could stop him, he stood from his chair and grabbed the entire tray of venison with only one hand. In two steps, he was behind her, forking a potato and three ribs of venison onto her plate before she could protest.

  Bel speared a potato and ate it. It was delicious, buttery and laden with the earthy taste of rosemary, but not enough to sate her. When she finished chewing, she noticed that Samson was still there.

  She turned in her chair toward him and smiled earnestly. “It’s really great.”

  “You should try the deer.” His voice was low; somehow without her noticing, he had gotten just near enough to impinge upon her personal space bubble without bursting it. This close, she was startled by how vividly green his eyes were; they looked like contacts.

  “A-actually, I’m a vegetarian. Factory farming and all that,” Bel said.

  “This wasn’t factory farmed.” He leaned in farther.

  “I know, but if I start eating this now, I won’t be able to stop.” She gave him a watery smile before patting her belly. “And this is big enough as it is.”

  He gritted his jaw, starting forward an inch before stopping himself. Bel pressed herself against the back of her chair, but there was nowhere to go, and Samson hadn’t actually done anything yet.

  “You’re beautiful just the way you are.”

  Well, so much for promises, Bel thought, inwardly both incredibly pleased by his compliment and a little ticked off. “Hey.” She swatted at his arm but was careful not to make contact. “I thought we said no hitting on each other.”

  He didn’t move. “Try the deer.”

  His commanding voice made Bel feel dizzy, and she was glad she was sitting down. The venison did look delicious, with a wedge of lemon next to it and a trail of lemon juice over its glazed skin. Her mouth watered.

  Gingerly, Samson took her fork from her loose fingertips and the knife from the other side. Bel watched as he deftly cut and pierced a square of tender meat before bringing it up to her mouth. It was warm and wet.

  He held it there for a minute, staring at her lips.

  Bel couldn’t breathe. She wanted to taste it, more than anything. But this was inappropriate in so many ways.

  “Open your mouth,” he said.

  Her lips parted so quickly at his command that she almost closed them again, but his unwavering attention stopped her.

  Never breaking eye contact, he placed the end of the fork in her mouth. Anxiety and need hurricaned through her blood. He was close enough that if she reached out she could kiss him.

  She was so caught up in the thought that she didn’t even close her mouth. Samson closed it for her with a gentle nudge of his knuckle under her chin. His hot breath scorched over her ear and down her neck. “Give the flavors a chance to meld.”

  Bel stopped chewing, her eyes closing naturally as the rich, gamey flavors melted into her taste buds. A tiny moan built at the bottom of her throat, and when she repressed it, it came out as a whimper.

  His fingers trailed up her neck, to her vocal cords, as if he wanted to feel the sound as well as hear it.

  “You have no idea how much I want to take you right now,” he said.

  Bel’s eyes flew open, and she swallowed, but before she could open her mouth to protest, his lips were suckling hers.

  She gasped into his mouth, and he pressed his advantage. His tongue thrust forward, dominating hers in a single stroke. Damn, he tasted good. A little boozy, but even more delicious than the venison.

  But this wasn’t right. He was her boss. And he had promised. How could she ever be intimate with a man who wouldn’t respect her enough to honor her wishes? Not to mention that he had basically blackmailed her into being his maid.

  Bel’s body, however, didn’t care about any of that. She tugged at his shirt, wanting badly to make skin-to-skin contact.r />
  He shuddered, and in an almost choreographed movement, pulled out her chair with his foot, spun it around, and pressed her to him so tightly that each of her curves was met with hard, unyielding muscle.

  “We really shouldn’t—”

  Again his mouth plundered hers, driving away all resistance with his tongue. His fingers found the hem of her t-shirt and tugged at it.

  He switched his grip so that he was cradling the small of her back with one hand. With his other, he pushed her dish and the entire platter of venison off the table and onto the floor in a horrible crash.

  Then, deft as a tango dancer, he maneuvered Bel so she lay back against the table, pressing coaxing kisses to her neck all the while. As they turned, Bel felt his hardness against her thigh. He can’t really be that big, can he? Bel wondered.

  Instinctively, she brushed his pants with her hand to see for herself.

  He became very still; so still, Bel wondered if he had discovered what a horrible idea all of this was. But a moment later, she realized that his quietness hadn’t been the end of the storm, but the eye of it, and he was on her once more.

  He pushed her onto the table. Bel tangled her fingers into his luscious mane of black hair. He captured her wrists and pinned them together above her head. That gave his other hand free access to her body. He took full advantage of it, reaching underneath her shirt and bra to cup her breasts. His knee rose up between her thighs, spreading her legs.

  Bel felt her throat start to close up, even as the rest of her opened for him, readying herself to be taken. Claimed. It was all happening too fast.

  “No,” she whispered, so softly she didn’t think he’d hear.

  He stopped his ministrations immediately and drew back from her, his pupils dark with lust but eyes wide with concern. “What’s wrong?”

  “I-I can’t,” she said, louder this time.

  He let her wrists go, and though she could tell he was trying to regard her dispassionately, his teeth gritted. “Why not?”

  Bel scooted to the other side of the table, pulling up her t-shirt and turning her back to him. “You’re my boss!”

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t want this. I tasted— “

  Bel hopped off the table. “And you’re only my boss because you bullied me into it.”

  “Bel,” he whispered.

  She flinched when his fingers grazed her shoulder. “Don’t.”

  She waited for him to apologize, telling herself she wouldn’t turn around until he did. As more and more moments passed, her chest constricted further and further, until she couldn’t stop the tears from rising up and spilling onto her cheeks.

  “Oh, beauty,” Samson said.

  Bel sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve, not caring how gross she looked. It didn’t matter now anyway. “Just go,” she said.

  And when she finally got the courage to turn around a few seconds later, she found that this time, Mr. West had listened.

  7

  For the first time in his life, Samson found his enhanced senses a curse. Each of Isabella’s pounding steps up the stairs to her room was like a shotgun blast to his chest. His wolf whimpered, wanting to do nothing more than curl up his tail and follow Bel’s example by retreating to his own room.

  Instead, he stared at the dinner table. Shards from the last of his good china littered the floor, and the juice of the deer was trickling between the floorboards like blood from a murder.

  How could he have lost control? He had tried so hard, from his foolish human formal wear to shaving his beard after Rex had said that females might find his unruly facial hair intimidating.

  He closed his eyes, wincing when she slammed her bedroom door. But it was the softer sound he heard next that worried him most. The sound of clothes rustling.

  She was packing. Her leaving wasn’t just a hypothetical.

  He bounded up the stairs three at a time and had to stop himself from pounding at her door to demand that she come out. Instead he took a deep breath and knocked once, lightly enough that Rex would’ve called it dainty.

  Isabella didn’t answer, and the rustling got louder.

  He knocked again.

  Still nothing.

  “Isabella?”

  “Please just go away.”

  He sidled up closer to the door, pressing his ear to the warped wood. A whiff of her scent had snaked through the crack, and having smelled its comforting dustiness, he needed more. He needed to feel close to her.

  “Let me speak to you.”

  “No.”

  He stroked the door, wanting to warm the coldness in her voice the way he had warmed her skin with his hands. “Let me speak to you…please.”

  Footsteps.

  He stepped away from the door just before it began to open a crack.

  Bel didn’t peer through the opening, but judging from the heat her curvy body was emitting, she was on the other side.

  “Well?” she asked.

  He fought the urge to say that he regretted nothing. That he would kiss her and touch her and please her again and again until she finally saw the sense of it, until she understood that she would never be anything else but his Isabella now.

  He clenched his fists. “I’ve been cruel to you.”

  “You promised –“

  “I did,” Samson interjected. “And it was wrong of me to break my word. It will never happen again.”

  He hoped she wouldn’t realize that he meant the breaking of his word – not almost breaking the dining room table as he ravished her.

  But she heard what he hadn’t said anyway. “Why did you hire me, Samson?”

  A bolt of pleasure shot right to his groin when she said his name, and his wolf perked up for the first time since her escape.

  “And please don’t bullshit me about cleaning. You saw the mess I made of your house.” She opened the door a bit wider and peered around it enough that Samson could see her eyes framed by her ridiculously large glasses.

  He gave a gruff chuckle. “Trust me when I say I’m as good at messing things up as you are.” He leaned in, not enough to make her nervous, but enough that his wolf stopped yipping at him to take her in his arms. “In the end, I was actually the one who ruined my last piece of china,” he whispered conspiratorially.

  Isabella snorted.

  He smiled wistfully, the hint of her happiness only making him want to hear more, feel more, to taste the grin on her lips as he told her some silly joke. But Bel still hadn’t emerged. He’d have to coax her out by opening his own door.

  “I’ve been lonely for a long time.”

  “That I don’t believe.” She snorted again, louder. Her nose peeked out around the door.

  “Why not?”

  He could feel her blush even through the door, smell the blood rushing to her apple cheeks. “Come on. Don’t make me say it,” she said.

  Samson decided he wouldn’t. Just that she was willing to be vulnerable enough to even hint at it was a good sign. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Isabella, but I’m a hermit. Other than my pa — family. “

  “You do have that ‘Hey, kids, get off my lawn’ vibe down pat. But what about your brother, Rex?”

  “We’ve only recently moved here, and trust me when I say that he’s not nearly as good company as you. He’s the least wol — down-to-earth man I know.”

  “I think that’s the longest sentence you’ve said to me so far. Well, the longest one that didn’t involve an order of some kind.” Slowly, so damned painfully slowly, the door creaked all the way open. Isabella was fully visible, leaning against the frame, trying far too hard to look casual. Her guarded gaze gave her away.

  He knew he had to reassure her. And fast. “I fucked up. When I broke the rose when we first met.” The swear left a bitter taste in his mouth, but he was running out of ways to express the intensity of his need for her.

  Isabella leaned against the door, the whine of its hinge her only reply at first. Although her plump pink lips did
loosen, she didn’t meet his gaze. “I don’t think I can work here anymore.”

  Samson’s wolf howled, its claws digging into his chest even as he tried to push it away.

  Bel risked a glance up at him, clearly waiting to see if he’d explode. When he didn’t, she continued, “Of course, I don’t want my father to go to court, and I understand he stole something from you, but…”

  Her hand nervously twisted the fabric of her ill-fitting pants. It was a gesture that would’ve worked better on one of the dresses he’d bought for her. He wished she had worn one. The dresses were designed to show her curves instead of hide them, and all Samson wanted was for her to feel comfortable enough to show herself as she really was.

  He hadn’t realized that fully until this moment. He wished he had understood it sooner. Keeping her here against her will was like cutting a rose. Eventually, she would wilt.

  “I won’t force you to stay here.” The words hurt less than he’d expected them to.

  Her brow furrowed. “Mr. West –“

  “Isabella — “ He wanted to ask her to call him by his first name since she knew it now. He understood now what an idiot he had been for keeping the barrier up in the first place.

  “And I won’t make you clean,” he said.

  An idea flashed through his mind, perhaps the only not-immensely stupid one he had had in her presence. Gently, he grabbed the handle and opened the door completely until it lay flush against the bedroom wall.

  “Let me show you something.”

  Bel took a step toward the doorway, but then sidestepped to grab the handle. “What?”

  Samson made sure to give her plenty of distance. “Just something you might have expertise in, because of your writing.”

  He couldn’t help but smile as her eyes glimmered with curiosity and her hand fell away from the doorknob. Yes, he was trying to be better, but his wolf was still a hunter at heart. And it growled playfully as it realized it had ensnared its prey.

  She smiled nervously at him, and it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I only have a couple of minutes. I’ve got to call a cab to pick me up.”