Andra’s eyes drifted shut and a weak moan passed through her parted lips as I pulled the shirt from her arms.
“Andra?” I said, and shook her shoulders, but she didn’t respond. I was going down soon, too. Fuck! I had no time left.
With the last burst of adrenaline that I had in me, I forced myself to move down her body to remove her jeans. Thank God, she had already taken off her shoes. I struggled with the button for a moment, and it finally released. I gripped both sides of the denim at her hips and tugged until they were at mid-thigh. Getting into a woman’s pants had never been so difficult for me before.
I slid off the bed, fighting hard not to collapse to the floor as I felt around with my hands until I found her feet and the bottom of her jeans. My sight was gone and my breathing was shallow, but I refused to fail her. I gave one hard tug and jerked the material from her legs.
The momentum of the action caused me to sway on my feet. I lost balance and fell to one knee beside the bed. Chaos cold-nosed my arm, and I batted him out of the way. “No,” I growled in frustration, and then grabbed at the comforter to keep myself upright.
Reaching out with my other hand, I laid it on her leg, praying the contact would give me enough strength to get back up on my own. I had no clue where Andra had placed my cell phone, not that I would be able to get to it if I knew.
The contact between her flesh and mine gave me a bit of my vision back and a little energy. That was all I needed. With the comforter gripped in my other hand, I pulled myself up to my feet. Stars flashed in front of my eyes, and then all went black.
Thursday, February 5th 2015 3:10 a.m. PST
Las Vegas, Nevada
Ace
It wasn’t the first time I had woken up with a raging hard-on, but it was the first time that it had happened with Andra’s ass grinding against my junk and soft moans coming out of her throat.
I tried to sense if I was dreaming. I’d had dreams about Andra every night since our bonding, and this one was nothing compared to how hot some of them got, but it seemed so real.
Dream or not, I wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass me by. I lowered my head and kissed her neck just below her ear. She pushed back against my dick and let out a loud moan of approval.
Sweet Jesus, I’m really not dreaming… I sighed as my good mood plummeted. …But Andra is, and she’s probably dreaming about that damn vampire.
“Ace…” Andra whispered breathlessly.
I went totally still. Did she just say my name? Mine? My name sounds nothing like Phoenix. That was definitely my name. I quelled the manic warnings in my head telling me that this wasn’t going to end in my favor, that as soon as she woke up and came to her senses, she would hate me for taking advantage of her, but I couldn’t stop myself; she said my name, not his. Nothing could wipe the grin off my face.
Feeling maybe a bit too high, I lightly ran the tip of my index finger from her wrist up to her shoulder and watched the goosebumps rise where my touch had been.
A sigh escaped Andra’s parted lips as she turned her head toward me, her lips seeking mine in the dimly lit room. My tongue slipped out to wet my lips as I stared hungrily at her mouth. She wanted me. Her subconscious was clearly telling me that. Even if she couldn’t admit it out loud, I knew she wanted me just as much as I wanted her.
With her eyes still closed, she shifted in my arms. Her hand fell on my bare hip, and it was then that I realized my towel had slipped off at some point while we were passed out. Too late to worry about modesty now, I thought. Unfortunately for me, her fingers didn’t explore that area. Her hand slid up my forearm, my tricep, over my shoulder and chest, and then came up to my neck where it snaked around to my nape and gripped my hair, tugging my head closer to hers. It appeared she was taking control and making the first move, and I was so gonna let her.
What was I supposed to do? Not give her a kiss? I almost laughed at the thought. If Andra’s mouth hadn’t been inching closer to mine, I probably wouldn’t have, just because this was funny as shit. The only thing that could have topped it was if her boyfriend had been in the room, seeing it for himself.
The same powerful and amazing feeling I’d felt when we’d kissed in Alabama coursed though me the moment Andra’s lips brushed over mine. Our groans collided, and I sucked her breath in as she breathed it out. The tip of her tongue touched mine and I was done for. The game was over. I couldn’t play anymore. This just got real.
Without breaking contact with her delicious mouth, I fell to my back and pulled her with me until she was lying on top of me.
Her legs parted naturally, and my erection pressed against her sweet heat through those pink satin panties. My hands dove into her hair and I kissed her hard as she rubbed herself up and down my shaft.
Her long, heavy breaths became short and loud as she began to move on me faster. I knew she was about to have an orgasm, but I wasn’t about to help her with that. If that happened, it was all on her. I’d promised her a kiss, and that was all I could be accused of giving her.
Breaking away from my mouth, she panted, “Ace… Ace… Ace…”
“That’s it, baby.”
“Ace!” she screamed as she threw her head back, and then every muscle in her body tensed. At first I thought she had met her climax, but after a moment she began to tremble, and guilt washed through me so fast that I became nauseated. I studied everything about her in that moment: the rise and fall of her chest, the underside of her chin, the way her hair fell over her breasts, barely touching the lacey fabric that matched her pink panties. She couldn’t hate me. It would kill me if she hated me for this. It had been all her.
“Andra—”
“Stop,” she said in a low voice, and that’s when I felt her anger.
“We didn’t do anything wrong, Andra!” I shouted, letting her rage fuel me. Her head jerked down so that I could see the fury in her eyes, but she didn’t say anything. I drew in a deep breath then swallowed. “We only kissed.”
“We only kissed?” she threw my words back at me, and then screamed, “Would Phoenix think we only kissed if he’d been in the room and watching us?” She scrambled off me, and I grabbed the towel by my left knee and wrapped it around my hips as I stood. I was ignoring the fact her words echoed the thoughts I’d had only a few minutes ago.
“I really don’t give a flying fuck what Phoenix’s opinion of what we did would be, Andra. Why don’t you call him up and explain everything in detail, and then ask him if you want to know,” I said as I strode to my closet.
Her screams didn’t stop even after I was out of her sight and grabbing jeans and a shirt. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? You think if I screw up and sleep with you, that he’s going to break up with me, don’t you?”
I slipped the jeans on then buttoned and zipped them before walking back into the bedroom. I pulled the shirt over my head, and then shrugged, like I didn’t care. That couldn’t have been further from the truth, and I knew she knew it, too, but I was angry. I was angry because she was angry, and she was angry because I was angry. It wasn’t a good combination. Nothing would be settled with this much tension in the room. “It obviously doesn’t matter what I think. I need to get out of here for a while.”
Anxiety came next, but I had been expecting it. I just hadn’t been sure whether it would stem from me or her first. This time it came from her. “Where are you going?” she said quietly as I put socks on.
I looked around for my shoes without answering her. The worry inside me grew, and I knew it came from her. At that moment, if anybody had told me there was a way to break this bond, I would have killed to make it happen. I wiggled my left shoe on, and then followed suit with the other. I spotted the keys to the truck on the end table beside the bed. As I went for them, Andra crawled across the bed and snatched them before I got there.
My fingers curled into fists. “Give me the keys, Andra,” I said in frustration.
She gripped the brass and steel in her palm and tuc
ked her hand behind her back. “Tell me where you’re going and I might.”
“Out!” I shouted. “I’m going out, okay?” After running my hands over my face a few times, I came to the conclusion that she needed a little dose of reality and a taste of what she had been putting me through ever since this damn bond took hold of us and strapped us together. “Unlike you, I didn’t get to finish a few minutes ago. I’m tired of having blue balls when I’m around you. I’m going to find someone who actually wants to fuck me and won’t be ashamed of what we did when she wakes up and I’m in her bed in the morning.”
My cell phone rang from the other side of the bed, and I looked at it. She didn’t; her eyes were still on me, and disbelief of my intentions was still whirling through her mind.
“You’d better answer that. It’s probably your boyfriend. Be sure and let him know I collected on the kiss you owed me,” I said, and then turned, walked across the room to the bedroom door, opened it and slammed it shut on my way out.
There were other vehicles I could drive. She could keep the damn keys.
Chapter 10
Thursday, February 5th 2015 3:38 a.m. PST
Las Vegas, Nevada
Andromeda
As it turned out, the call wasn’t from Phoenix after all. The name on the screen read Clay.
Andra stared at the phone with a mixture of emotions. She was still upset about the argument with Ace, but the guy calling Ace’s phone was more than likely Clay Hays, Rock God and lead singer of Salacious Limerick. At any rate, her bad mood lightened a little at knowing Ace was friends with someone she idolized. Maybe she’d been too hard on him. After all, it was mostly her fault that anything had happened in the first place. Okay, it was all her fault, she thought as she blew a strand of her hair off the phone screen.
Her hands shook as her thumb hovered over Accept, and then the cell phone stopped ringing.
“Crap!” she whisper-shouted, then dropped the phone to the comforter in front of her and rubbed her hands together. “What now?”
Calling Ace to tell him to get his butt back up here to call said Rock God back wasn’t an option; his phone was here. Guess he wanted some alone time. She sighed. No, he wanted time away from her so he could have sex. Just thinking that made her sick to her stomach. The thought of some other woman’s hands on him…
Sweat broke out on her brow and her palms turned clammy. Grabbing the phone, she jumped from the bed and ran for the door. She wouldn’t forgive herself if she let him do this. She would feel his desire for the other woman and it would drive her mad before she got her hands around the girl’s neck to kill her. She was positive that she would do that. She already wanted to murder her and he hadn’t even had time to find someone to have sex with yet.
The fact that she was only in her bra and panties barely registered to her as she jerked open the door and ran for the stairs, but she didn’t care who saw her or what they thought. She was almost sure stranger things had happened in Vegas before. A crazy woman in her underwear wouldn’t be anything to look twice at.
Watching her feet so that she wouldn’t trip as she ran down the stairs, she nearly fell over a man sitting on them about mid-way down the curving staircase. He looked up and stood to catch her, but not before her ankle twisted as she tried to stop.
“Ahhh…” Andra groaned, and then sucked in air through her teeth as the pain shot up her leg.
Two strong arms wrapped around her, and Andra opened her eyes to look into bright amber-colored ones.
“Andra? What the hell—”
“You can’t go, Ace,” she said shakily as her eyes fell to look at his mouth, and then she swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “Please… I know I’m being selfish. I know how you feel. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to fix it yet, but I’m willing to try. I just know that you can’t walk out of this house without me losing my mind.”
Ace inhaled deeply, and then let it out fully before picking her up in his arms and carrying her back up the stairs to his room. After shutting the door behind him, he walked to the bed and eased her down on the mattress then put an extra pillow behind her head.
“Your ankle needs ice. I’ll be right ba—”
She rose up and reached for him. “Ace—”
He held his hand up to stop her protest as the stern look on his face kept her from touching him. “You heal quickly as a shifter, but ice will help it heal faster. I’ll be right back, Andra. Stay here,” he said, and then turned and ran from the room.
Hot tears stung her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. He had every right to be upset with her. It was her fault that he was even bonded to her in the first place. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. It had actually been her pack’s fault for not informing her that she needed to name her wolf, but now wasn’t the time to point fingers. Now was the time to figure out a way to cope with the hand they had been dealt.
That was her biggest problem. She knew the only way to make Ace happy was to end things with Phoenix. Phoenix had been right: Ace was a bonded male, and, when Ace had walked away and threatened to lie with another woman, the bonded female in her had woken up. No way was that ever going to happen. He was hers.
But she couldn’t expect him not to have sex with someone else when she was sleeping with another man.
“I’m such a hypocrite,” she muttered.
“What was that?” Ace said as he closed the door behind him.
Had he ran all the way to the kitchen? He wasn’t even out of breath, but he had been gone only seconds.
Andra pushed herself up to a sitting position on the bed as Ace gently placed the ice pack on her ankle. She winced as the cold bit into her skin.
He chuckled, and grinned over at her. “We have a small conference room a few rooms down from mine. There’s a fridge in there, as well as some refreshments to snack on while we convene meetings and such.”
She blinked at him a few times. “Huh?”
He smiled. “You were wondering how I got to the kitchen and back so fast. I didn’t go to the kitchen.”
Her expression turned solemn. “How long has my mind been open to you?”
The corner of his lip twitched as she put her walls back up around her thoughts. “Long enough to know that you’re rethinking your relationship with the vampire. It’s only been a day, Andra. Imagine what I could do with twenty-eight.”
“Is this a game to you?” she said.
He sighed as he adjusted the ice on her ankle. “No, it’s not.”
“So you didn’t just act like you were going to leave and screw someone else to trick me?” she accused. He placed his hand on her leg and she leaned forward and knocked it off. “We get nothing settled by letting the bond calm us down, Ace. All joking aside. Just talk to me.”
“I was going to leave,” he said.
“What stopped you?”
He was quiet for a handful of seconds, and then he crawled up on the bed and sat beside her, with his back rested against the headboard. He held out his hand in invitation. She only looked at it. “I need your touch, Andra. Hold my hand.” After she took it, he looked over at the nightstand closest to him and spotted the plate with the fruit and cheese on it. He reached and picked it up and laid it on his lap. “We’re going to eat cheese and fruit and get to know each other. I have some secrets to share with you.”
Chapter 11
Thursday, February 5th 2015 5:42 a.m. CST
Outside City Limits of Montgomery, Alabama
Phoenix
“Are you going to call Mena or should I?” Roel said, from the driver’s seat.
Phoenix glanced up through the rearview mirror at Roel’s eyes, and then just shook his head as he looked back out the window. “She’s probably sleeping by now. We should wait and call her after we’ve found refuge for the day. It’s almost dawn. She’ll want to know that I’m safe from the sun.”
“Yeah, there’s only one small problem with that idea,” Roel said. “She gav
e me an order that someone is to call her every hour to give her an update. If you don’t call her, someone has to.”
Phoenix cleared his throat. “There’s no sense in waking her up just to tell her that we’re safe.”
Heath snorted. “Tell her that when you talk to her next. We have to do what the Alpha says. No way around it.”
Soft snoring came from the seat beside Phoenix, and he looked over to see that Rhodes was passed out cold. Phoenix shook his head. “Someone else call her. I can’t bear to hear the sadness in her voice right now. Ace was right. She needs to focus on being the best Alpha she can be and her training. When I call her,” he huffed, “she just wants me to tell her to come home. I can’t do that, and it kills me that I can’t. Until we find a way to break that bond, Ace will make her stick to the deal she offered him, twenty-eight days there and twenty-eight days at home.”
“Wake Rhodes up and make him call her,” Roel said. “If that lion answers the phone with one of his smartass comments, I’m liable to put us all on a plane to Vegas tonight instead of hunting this moonrising wolf. Peanut’s scared to fly, so he can listen to the asshole.”
Phoenix slapped Alex in the chest with the back of his hand, and Alex came awake swinging his fists, accidently hitting Heath in the back of the head.
“Shit, man!” Heath yelled as he rubbed the growing knot.
“What’s wrong? Where are we?” Alex turned to glare at Phoenix. “Why the hell did you hit me? You’re lucky I didn’t draw my gun on you.”
Phoenix rolled his eyes. “Those bullets won’t hurt me. Call Mena. It’s time, and it’s your turn.”
Rhodes grunted as he adjusted himself better in the small backseat and took his cell from the pocket of his leather jacket. “Her phone or Ace’s?”
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