Billionaire Alpha Romance: The Proposal (Mature Gentlemen Book 2)

by Maurice Bedard

“How did this happen?” Edgar asked, still confused.

  “You got caught one night while we were out in our shifted form,” Jase told him. “We were not sure what had happened to you until we followed some tracks.”

  “Wow,” said Edgar. “I don’t remember any of it.”

  “Well, they gave you something that made you basically forget what it was to be a human,” said Robert.

  Edgar shook his head.

  “And who are you two?” he asked Dylan and Amanda.

  Robert and Jase laughed.

  “This is Dylan and this is Amanda,” Jase said, pointing to each of them. “Amanda helped save your life. So did Dylan.”

  “Thanks,” said Edgar.

  “No problem,” said Dylan.

  “So you’re supposed to know where Dylan and Jase’s other brother is?” Amanda asked, pointing out the elephant in the room.

  Everyone grew quiet.

  Finally, Edgar spoke.

  “Yes, I know where he is,” said Edgar.

  Amanda and Dylan waited for Edgar to speak as did the rest of the group.

  “He is with the Kodiaks in Alaska,” said Edgar at last, but he seemed saddened.

  “What’s wrong with that?” Amanda asked.

  “The Kodiaks aren’t like us,” said Robert. “They like war. They like blood. They like to kill. They hunt humans for sport. And they’re huge. They’re impossible to defeat in physical combat.”

  “Then what are we going to do?” asked Dylan.

  “I don’t know,” said Edgar. “All I know is that your brother is there. He is among them and he believes that he belongs with them. They have him brainwashed. The last time that I saw him, he turned his back on the Kermode Spirit Bear and our ways. He’s grown cold. He’s different.”

  They all sat in silence for a bit. Amanda debated on what to say.

  “We’ll figure something out,” she said at last.

  “I’m going with you,” said Jase with finality.

  Dylan just nodded to him and then they embraced.

  Chapter 6

  Amanda and Dylan left and went back to the cabin shortly after that. She snuck Dylan inside so that no one would see that he wasn’t wearing any clothes. She tended to his wounds much like she had on their first night together, though this time he wasn’t nearly so bad.

  When they were done, she asked him if he wanted to enjoy the hot tub.

  “Let’s go,” he said with a smile.

  With the snow falling all around them, they climbed into the hot tub.

  “Some adventure,” Amanda said.

  “Some adventure, indeed,” said Dylan.

  “Did you know they would be looking for you?” Amanda asked.

  “I didn’t even know they existed,” said Dylan.

  “Crazy, isn’t it? To think that you have a family you’ve never even met,” said Amanda sitting across from Dylan in the hot tub.

  “Yeah, it kind of is,” he agreed.

  He smiled at Amanda with that crooked grin of his, clearly indicating that he was done wondering about how crazy that was.

  “C’mere,” he growled.

  Amanda slid over onto the seat beside him and he put his arm around her. He pulled her close and rubbed his thumb over her shoulder.

  “Dylan,” she said. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

  Dylan stopped and grew stiff.

  “No, it’s not bad,” said Amanda.

  She turned to face him.

  “I wanted to tell you this. I didn’t tell you I loved you when you said it first because I wasn’t sure that I felt that way or if I was ready to tell you,” she said.

  Dylan nodded with trepidation.

  “What I’m trying to say is that I know now,” she went on. “I love you, Dylan.”

  A smile came to his lips. He brought her in to kiss her and slowly parted her lips with his tongue. Amanda kissed him back, passionately. She let him explore her mouth as though it were the first time all over again.

  She pulled away for a second.

  “Things are about to get crazy, aren’t they?” she asked him slightly sad.

  “I think so,” he said.

  “I’m going with you to Alaska,” said Amanda.

  “You really don’t have to do that,” said Dylan.

  “I know I don’t have to. It’s something I want to do,” she said.

  Dylan smiled again and brushed some of her hair out of her eyes. He pulled her into his side and put his arm around her again, holding her tightly.

  They sat there in silence, enjoying the contrast of the ice cold weather on their exposed skin and the heat of the tub underneath the water. Amanda leaned her head onto his naked shoulder and placed a hand on his chest under the water. She felt for his heartbeat and slowly began to count its beats. Things might have been about to change, but Amanda knew some things would always remain the same.

  The End

  Senior Sex Ends at 50

  By: Maurice Bedard

  Prologue:

  Faith is a beautiful sophisticated lady, whom figured she would spend the rest of her life reading books and snuggling with her husband watching movies on TV. She was always sexually prudish and although her and Roger had not had sex for several years, she always felt that this was just the natural way of things.

  Then suddenly after 32 years of marriage and one day after her 50th birthday, Roger announces he is suddenly leaving her. At first Faith is devastated, but after a bit of snooping, she discovers he has a secret life of affairs and mistresses.

  This news awakes and rekindles her sexual spirits and she embarks on a journey to find intimate relations again.

  Chapter one

  Faith sat back in the dining chair that Roger had picked out when they'd bought the house, and surveyed the items she'd laid out in front of her. There were three: a bottle of white wine, a slice of birthday cake as big as her head, and Roger's laptop.

  Normally, she didn't drink wine before dinner, she didn't eat more than a small sliver of cake at parties, and she'd never have considered snooping in Roger's laptop. For thirty-two years, she'd told herself that marriage was built on a mutual sense of trust and respect. She'd told herself that the slow cooling of her marriage was the natural order of things. Women got older, men got older, and if all she and Roger shared now was a mutual desire to have a lovely home and someone to watch television with, well, that was what growing older was, wasn't it?

  Apparently not. At least, not according to Roger. No, according to the almighty Roger, he wasn't dead yet, and he didn't know when his wife had turned into a cold fish – those had been his actual words, the bastard – but he wasn't going to spend the rest of his life on the sofa, cuddling.

  At least he'd waited until her birthday party was over. That was something, she supposed. Not much, but it was something.

  Faith poured herself a glass of the Chardonnay, took a sip, and flinched at the taste. Other people talked about bouquet and legs and whatever the hell else with wine, but all she could ever taste was sour grapes.

  Her fingers clenched on the glass, and she forced herself to set it down before she snapped the delicate stem in her hand.

  Thirty-two years. Thirty-two years of supporting him, and working with him, and putting his career before hers, even though her mother had said, had told her that it didn't have to be like that anymore. The way Faith had sneered at her own mother, insisted she wasn't one of those women. God, how could she have been so naïve?

  The delicious chocolate cake she'd ordered from her favorite bakery turned on her tongue and she thought she might be sick. She slid back from the table and put her head between her knees, pushing back the tears that wanted to streak her face.

  When she had herself back under control, she stood. She picked up the bottle of wine and the delicate crystal glass that Roger had picked out. She carried them both into the kitchen. More than anything, she wanted to smash the glass in the sink and indulge in a primal scream, bu
t that wouldn't actually change anything. She set the glass down carefully, then upended the bottle of Chardonnay into the sink. The glug of the liquid was strangely pleasant.

  With that horrible drink gone, she thought perhaps she could enjoy her birthday cake.

  On the way back to the dining room, she passed Roger's sideboard. He'd amassed quite a collection of bourbon over the years, and had been able to talk extensively about the aging techniques and barrels and flavors. As a girl, she'd loved bourbon, loved the smokey bite of amber liquid on her tongue, but back then, drinking wine was the feminine thing to do, the upper-class thing to do, and Roger had wanted nothing so much as to be upper-class. She'd been devoted to giving him what he wanted.

  Her fingers shook as she poured herself a glass of bourbon, neat. Raising it to her lips made her body tremble, just a little bit. But the sweet-sour bite on her tongue was worth it.

  She went back to her cake, and to the laptop.

  Roger had taken a full suitcase with him, carrying everything he considered deeply important. She would have let him take more. It was her money that had funded both their educations, kept him afloat until his career as an entrepreneur finally began to gain some traction, but she'd never particularly thought of it as hers. Not until he screamed at her that she lorded it over him.

  She pushed up the laptop's screen and typed in Roger's password without hesitation. She'd known it as long as he had the laptop; he'd insisted on her knowing it, in fact. She'd just refused to use it.

  Was it meant to be an invitation? Did he want to share something with her, and she'd misunderstood all these years? In a strange way, that would be an easier thing to find out than that he was just tired of her.

  Her heart pulsed with – something, she wasn't entirely sure what – as she stared at the screen. Either Roger had closed it in the middle of an – activity, or he'd left it open specifically for her to find. The browser was open in front of her, and the website it was on was some sort of...Faith struggled to find the right word. Dating website suggested that someone was looking for a relationship, and based on the pictures that were filling the screen in front of her, these people were looking for something more elemental.

  Something deep inside of her stirred, twisted, and broke apart.

  She and Roger had stopped having sex years ago. She couldn't remember now exactly who had called it quits. She thought it was him, when he started to find it took longer and longer for him to orgasm, and she was sure he'd blame it on her. But really and truly, the truth was that they'd stopped paying any attention to each other. The sex was perfunctory, and boring. She'd left it behind gladly, because it felt like an obligation. Not a need, not passion.

  She eyed the glass of bourbon. She'd added about three or four fingers to the glass, and there was barely one left now. Was that responsible for the warmth that was spinning through her body? Or was there something else entirely. Was it the bodies that flared over the screen, splendid in their perfection? Men and women, he'd been contacting, talking to, engaging with. In text, but also, in at least two occasions that she saw as she clicked through, in person. One woman talking about how naughty he'd been, fucking her on his wife's side of the bed.

  She expected to feel anger. Disgust. Fury. But what was spinning through her now was something much closer to – desire. It was an unfamiliar feeling, but it wasn't unpleasant. No, not in the least.

  Chapter Two

  A knock at the door jolted her out of her ponderings. She snapped the laptop closed and stood, finding that she swayed just a little on her feet. She was still wearing the heels she'd worn when she taught class earlier in the day; she stepped out of them now and went to the door.

  Through the window by the door, she saw a tall, slim man, his back turned to the house. She recognized him easily, though; Jackson was one of Roger's partners. He was about ten years younger than her, fifteen younger than Roger, and had worked far harder than Roger had for the firm's success. The number of times Roger had come home saying that Jackson was taking care of whatever emergency had arisen had infuriated her.

  And it would have been a lie to pretend that there hadn't been something in Jackson's dark brown eyes that drew her attention. He always watched her carefully, almost gently. Almost hungrily. The way a person watched someone that they wanted, very much. She'd always put that thought aside, because she thought of herself as an old, married woman, but now. Now, everything was different. Now, it turned out that her husband had been carrying on multiple affairs with both men and women, and maybe she didn't have to be so damn old already.

  She opened the door, and Jackson turned quickly at the sound. Offhand, Faith wasn't sure if it was the shock of Roger's leaving, the heat generated by the images she'd seen on the computer, or just sheer loneliness finally coming to the forefront of her mind, but she couldn't stop noticing what a handsome man Jackson Pierce was. His eyes were a warmer brown than she remembered, but still incredibly deep, and he had a smattering of freckles over his dark nose and the tops of his cheeks. His skin was a light brown, and the contrast between his darkness and her pale tan was striking as she took the hand he extended to her.

  It was less a handshake, and more a quick and comforting grip between friends. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Desaultels," he said, and she was already shaking her head.

  "Jackson, I've been Faith to you for a decade. There's no need to change that now." She released Jackson's hand, trying not to notice the little thrill that ran through her at the warmth of his touch. She stepped back so he could walk past her into the house.

  He hesitated for just a moment. His voice still contained a touch of the London accent he'd picked up during his education, and the way he looked at her from under his eyelashes as he said "Are you sure?" twisted something up inside her. In a good way; she felt like someone had broken a chemical glowstick inside her torso, and heat was spreading through her as desire and opportunity combined into a glowing, heady mix.

  "I'm sure," she said.

  "I feel like I'm here under false pretenses," he said, running his hand through the soft waves of his dark hair. "Roger asked me to come get some of his things that he forgot. But quite frankly, Faith, if it were up to me, I'd throw it all on the front lawn and help you light a bonfire. He'd no right to treat you that way, and I've been disgusted with him for-"

  He broke off, his eyes darting to the side, and Faith felt something sad loosen in her. "The affairs, you mean?"

  Jackson looked at her, but he didn't say a word.

  "How long have they been going on?"

  He shook his head, his lips pressed tightly together.

  "Please. I need to know."

  "Too long," he said. "That's all. Too long."

  "And you knew?"

  He shrugged. "Roger did nothing to hide them. At first, he told us all that you'd agreed to an open relationship, and then when that became patently untrue – well, none of us quite knew what to say. To him or to you."

  Puzzle pieces clicked together in her mind. "Is that why you watch me like you do?"

  Those dark eyes turned to her, and Faith was quite sure she wasn't imagining the hunger in him. He had it walled far away, but it wasn't gone.

  "You thought that, if Roger and I had agreed to an arrangement, that you and I might-"

  Jackson shook his head fiercely. "I never," he said. "A man like me is not allowed to desire a woman like you, especially not his partner's wife. The consequences-"

  Yes. She'd never thought about it like that. Roger had the opportunity to ruin him. She'd been wrong to think that she could use him in that way, take him and ask him to wake something within her. "Of course," she said. "I'm sorry."

  She turned away, and her knees were just a bit unsteady again. She forced herself to walk, heading into the big dining room where she'd left the laptop open to answer the door. She took another long sip of whiskey and tried to breathe.

  For the first time since Roger had left, she felt tears burning at her eyes. She presse
d the heels of her hands against her eyes, focusing on the colors that sparked there, willing the sadness away. It was all right. This wasn't some do or die moment. If she chose to reclaim this aspect of herself, she could do it. She didn't need to hurt someone else to get what she wanted.

  She sensed him, walking up close behind her. He was standing there, so close that she could feel the heat of him against her back, but he didn't touch her. "I'm sorry," he murmured, "Don't you be sorry, I'm sorry."

  She lifted her hands from the table and turned. Jackson was so close to her that in her 20s, the tips of her breasts would have brushed against his well pressed shirt. This close, it was clear that they would have been about the same height if she'd stayed in her heels. Looking up at him, with the table pressing into her hips, made her forget that she wasn't a girl anymore. "I don't want either of us to be sorry," she said.

  He didn't move. "What do you want, Faith?"

  She ordered herself to take a leap, even if it was terrifying. "It's been a long time for me. I'm scared of trying again. Would you – do you think you'd be willing to kiss me?"

  He gave a soft chuckle, shaking his head, and for a moment, she was sure he would deny her. And then his left hand traced a path up her arm, trailing soft heat even through the sleeves of her sweater, and then moved up to cup the back of her neck. She looked up at him, meeting his eyes, and tried to show him with her expression that she wanted this. That she wanted it more than anything. But it had been so many years since she'd worn that expression, she didn't quite know how to reshape her face.