The woman let herself in, strode over to the cot, and dropped the pile of clothes on the floor in front of Mila, who sat up.
With a sweeping wave of her hand, the woman announced, “These are all too big for me. I am certain they will fit you well, for now.”
Her pea green eyes were rounded and unblinking as she looked at Mila expectantly.
“Uh, thanks,” Mila said, shifting uncomfortably under the woman’s gaze. She had an oval-shaped face with pouty lips, and the bridge of her nose was dotted with tan freckles. She wasn’t the bombshell that Brae was, but she had her own look, one that many men would probably find attractive.
Averting her eyes from the unnerving stare, Mila glanced down at the pile of clothes. One piece immediately caught her eye. She yanked a peach nightgown from the pile, scrutinizing the floral stitching on the bodice.
“This is …” She reached inside to pull up the tag. “Couture.” She closed her eyes, rubbing the gown over her chest. “Oh my god, it’s chiffon.”
“I have jewelry, too, and hair pieces. You may borrow them whenever you like.”
Mila opened her eyes, and with considerable effort, fixed the woman with an even gaze. “Who are you, and why are you being so nice to me? Did Asch put you up to this?”
“You may call me Rosie, and I am here because of Caim.”
“Caim sent you?” Mila asked, hating the way her stomach flipped at the thought.
“He did not order me to come. I came because I wanted to express my gratitude to you.”
Mila frowned. “Gratitude for what?”
“For accepting Caim as the superior alpha of our pack,” she said, helping herself to a seat beside Mila. Brae snorted and moved farther back on the bed, distancing herself from the intruder.
Giving her a dry look, Mila said, “Sorry to burst your bubble, but the only thing Caim is, is a superior asshole.”
Rosie’s brows furrowed. “I do not understand. You went to Caim and pleaded he stake his claim on you. Are you upset that he injured you? You really shouldn’t have gotten in the—”
“Wait, what?” Mila folded her arms beneath her chest. “Who said that I did that?”
“Caim did. He told us all before he challenged Asch.”
Mila snapped her head over to Brae and hissed, “Why didn’t you tell me he said that?”
“I didn’t want to upset you,” Brae offered, chewing her lip.
Mila slumped, putting her face in her hands. She took a breath, and then another, letting herself calm down.
He was such an exhausting male.
“Is this not true?” Rosie asked, her voice rising in alarm.
“Yes? No? Ugh, I don’t know.”
“Mila is accepting the claim of both of our alphas,” Brae explained.
Mila looked up in time to see Rosie shake her head.
“I do not understand.”
Without much enthusiasm, Mila explained her plan to let both of the alphas take her as a mate. She realized that no matter how many times she went over the idea, either in her head or aloud, it still seemed very whimsical.
It was easy to say that she planned on letting both men claim her, but she couldn’t actually imagine herself doing it. Even if they managed not to bite each other’s heads off, how could she possibly please both men? Every ménage à trois she had ever heard of was between two girls and a guy. To her, that route seemed much more logistically sound.
Rosie chewed on the inside of her cheek. She gave a quick nod when Mila finished, but didn’t seem overly impressed.
“Perhaps Asch would be willing to share his mate,” she said. “Caim, however, is a true alpha and would never share you.”
Mila deflated a little, wondering if she was right. Caim had flat-out told her that he would kill Asch for her, and instead of exploring that further, they’d had torrid sex. Real problem-solver she was.
“I don’t know, we’ll just have to make it work,” Mila said wearily. She was so done with discussing her bizarre sex life. “Unzip me, will you Brae?”
Brae moved across the bed and helped Mila out of her dress. In the spirit of “fake it ‘til you make it,” she acted as though she was completely unbothered by changing in front of the two women. Once she was free of the tattered garment, she chucked it on the floor.
The chiffon nightgown was gorgeous. The bodice was a little snug, accentuating her full breasts. She spun in a circle, wishing she had a full-length mirror.
“Mila, that’s … lovely.” Brae’s praise was broken with a loud yawn.
Mila realized it was probably past noon now. The wolves were nocturnal and generally slept for the better part of the day. With a pang of sadness, she knew that conforming to their sleep schedule would be no easy task. She had slept in Caim’s room for the better part of the night and wasn’t the least bit sleepy.
“You should get some rest,” Mila said. She looked to Rosie. “Both of you.”
Rosie nodded. “You are right. Let us sleep, then.”
Mila watched in muted disbelief as she crawled into the cot, tossing one of the blankets over her legs.
“You shouldn’t presume on Mila,” Brae said, narrowing her eyes at Rosie as she climbed under the covers herself. The space between the women crackled.
“She accepted my gifts. What have you given to her?” Rosie countered.
Brae clenched her hands in the sheets, her face flushing with anger. “You are like a tick. You latched yourself onto Lotus and Sable and now Mila. She will never allow the likes of you around her pups.”
Mila watched, bleary-eyed, as the women went back and forth. Okay, now she was starting to get tired. Clearly, they had a history, and frankly, Mila couldn’t care less. She was already caught between two alpha males; she so did not need this.
Taking a page from Asch’s book, she puffed out her chest and pointed to the door. “Both of you, out.”
Sometime later, as she lay tossing and turning in the afternoon light, she reflected back on their dejected faces, feeling guilty. While their motivations for wanting to be her friend really sucked, at least they were trying. None of the other wolves had seemed interested in getting to know her.
It had only been a day since she’d arrived at the pack and so much had happened already. She had come there expecting that, by virtue of her position as the alpha’s mate, she would be instantly adored and cherished. She realized she was fighting an uphill battle but each day would bring her closer to the summit.
If she made it that far, what would be on the other side?
She flattened a hand over her abdomen. One thing was certain—no matter which male she ended up with, Asch, Caim, or both, by this time next month, she’d probably be pregnant and her place in the pack would be firmly cemented. Once that happened, there would really be no going back for her.
4
The sheer peach cloth of her dress billowed in the drafty room. Her chestnut hair had been combed and spilled in waves over one exposed shoulder. Her elbows were on the windowsill, cupped hands propping up her chin as she stared out into the valley.
Her back was to him, and Asch knew that she hadn’t heard him coming. He hadn’t been deliberately quiet as he made his way to her room, but she did not have a wolf’s hearing.
He watched her for longer than he should have. She seemed to be in deep thought, perhaps regretting ever agreeing to join his pack.
In the months he had spent dreaming of finding her, Asch hadn’t really considered what he would be bringing his human mate into.
Initially, he had thought that he and Caim would each take their own mate, much like they had their own favorites within the pack. When he had expressed this to Brae and Lotus, they swiftly rejected the notion. If one woman was more favored by the pack, the other would be isolated. If neither woman liked the other, it would cause friction between the alphas and, by proxy, the pack. If one woman was dominant over the other, the wolves would come to see her mate as the dominant alpha. The list of reasons wen
t on and on.
After weeks of trying to work out a solution, with minimal input from Caim, Asch had grown frustrated and impatient. His entire human life had been about denying himself what he needed. Now that he was free of that torture, he would not deny himself a mate.
The woman, he decided, would just have to choose between them. Naturally, a human would choose him over Caim, and the other wolf would either have to accept that and stay, or move on.
But she hadn’t chosen him. For some reason that Asch could not fathom, she had let Caim imprint on her first. Even if he said that didn’t piss him off, it did.
He couldn’t blame her. He had dragged her into a shit storm of pack drama, and she was doing what she could and what he couldn’t, which was finding a solution to their problem. If anyone was to blame, it was him, but as the breeze brought her scent to him, woven with the heady smell of Caim’s imprint, he felt his wolf thrash against its chains, voracious with the need to stake his own claim.
He knocked his fist on the stone of the doorway, letting the sound alert her to his presence so as not to startle her. She jumped a little and looked at him over her shoulder, her brown eyes misted. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of him. He went to her, not waiting for her invitation.
He drew her into his arms. She didn’t protest. She let her head fall onto his chest but kept her hands at her sides and her eyes averted.
“I don’t deserve this,” she said, blinking rapidly.
He caressed the hollow of her back in an effort to ease her distress. “You’re right,” he told her, gripping her chin. He brought her gaze up to his. “You deserve better.”
Her chin wobbled and she shook her head. “You and Caim both got saddled with me and I’m a total train wreck. You were looking for the future mother of your children, and instead, you got an impulsive, indecisive, commitment-phobic—”
Asch silenced her with a finger pressed firmly to her mouth. “I didn’t get saddled with you,” he said slowly. “I chose you.”
She blinked up at him. “Really?”
Tired of standing with her, he lifted her up and carried her over to the bed. He climbed onto the bed, sitting back against the wall with Mila in his lap, her back against his chest. Naked as he was, the material of her dress teased his cock. He was able to stifle his arousal, knowing full well that he wasn’t leaving this room until he’d mated with the curvaceous creature in his arms.
* * *
Predictably, Mila had been unable to sleep. She had tossed and turned and tried to bury herself beneath the blankets, and when all else failed, had tried to smother herself with a pillow.
It had been no use. Her body was just not made for sleeping during the daylight, at least not when she wasn’t hung over.
She had gotten up to stare aimlessly out the window. There hadn’t been much else to do. Yet another thing Marie du Luponte hadn’t mentioned: it was incredibly boring to live in a wolf pack, at least for a human. Mila had been miserable living in Terry Creek, where they still used dial-up and the only cell reception she could get was on the roof of Aunt Gina’s shanty.
And so it began again. She had gotten herself all hyped up about something only to hit a roadblock and immediately want to bolt. As she had looked out onto the valley and at the mountains in the distance, she had realized that for the first time in her life, she might have encountered a problem that she couldn’t run from.
Asch had come then. She must have looked like the wreck that she was, because he had immediately tried to soothe her. She hadn’t cried, even as she confessed her insecurities. Now that he was holding her in his arms, though, all bets were off.
Distressed though she may be, Mila was not impervious to Asch’s nudity. Positioned as she was on his lap, she could feel the thick length of him beneath her rear. She might have been able to ignore it, if his hands weren’t gliding up and down her bare arms or if she couldn’t feel his hot breath on the nape of her neck. Gently, he placed a kiss to said nape, and her body reacted as if he had pressed it somewhere much more sensitive.
“You were saying, about the, uh, you said you chose me, right?” she babbled, trying to distract him. She seriously needed to get her head straight before she let another man get between her legs.
Oh, but what amazing hands he had. They were masculine hands with long, slightly calloused, fingers. Where Caim’s touch had been rough and greedy, Asch’s was nimble and sure.
“Ah, yes,” Asch said absently, one finger tracing the floral embroidery above her nipple. “Tye County wasn’t the first to throw their hat in the ring—so to speak.”
“Oh?” she asked, trying to distract herself. She wanted to arch her back into his touch.
“Mm,” he affirmed. “We’ve rejected five in the past year.” Taking his hand from her chest, he held out a finger. “There was one from Carter, who couldn’t have been more than thirteen.”
“Oh my god,” Mila whispered. The fluttery feeling in her stomach was replaced with nausea. She had volunteered, and still, she had been nervous and afraid on the journey to their territory. She couldn’t imagine what the trip must have been like for that poor girl.
He held out another finger. “There was one from Massie who wouldn’t stop screaming when she saw the wolves. It was actually kind of funny.”
Mila grinned at this.
“And then there was the lovely woman from Johnstown,” he said wryly, holding out another finger. “She was a forty-something, chain-smoking prostitute. She was actually quite charming.”
“Oh, really?” Mila asked, laughing now.
Asch shifted her until he was cradling her in one arm. With a wicked grin, he slipped his hand up underneath her gown. She yelped in surprise as he cupped one rounded cheek.
“She had a wolf tattoo right here that she was more than happy to show the whole pack.”
Mila snorted with laughter, playfully swatting at his arm. Asch leaned in close, pressing his forehead against hers. She stilled and stared up into his eyes. They were such an uncanny hazel. The golden starbursts that ringed his pupils seemed embossed onto his leafy-green irises. They were eyes made to dazzle and enchant, and right now, they were focused entirely on her. She wet her lips. God help her.
“Nothing really stood out about the rest,” he murmured. “They were all young, frightened, and clearly coerced. And then there was you.”
Asch gave her a meaningful look before dipping his head and capturing her lips.
He kissed her like she had never been kissed before. His sensual lips moved against hers purposefully, pulling her own into a slow, smoldering rhythm that sent a liquid heat pulsing through her veins. With each pound of her heart, the heat moved through her, traveling to her center where it pooled between her thighs.
He pulled back to stare at her through hooded eyes. She let out a sigh of frustration and pursed her tingling lips. His grin was back.
“When I saw you, Mila, I knew you were the one.”
She winced at that. “You’re insane. How could you possibly know that?”
She liked to think of herself as one of a kind, or even one in a million, but the one? That was way too much pressure.
Asch rubbed his nose against hers, chuckling. “Relax. I just meant that you were finally the woman I was looking for. You were beautiful—”
“Well, I guess that makes sense.”
“And brave—”
“I was scared out of my mind.”
“You smelled good enough to eat—”
“I hadn’t bathed in days.”
Asch brought his index finger to her lips, silencing her again. “Hush,” he ordered. “Now, as I was saying, I knew that you were the one because even under the scents of fear and sweat, I could smell that you wanted me.”
She pulled his hand away from her flushed face. Softly, she said, “You have very low standards, Asch.”
Asch pulled his head back and laughed, a full-bodied roar of amusement that made Mila beam. In the midst of his aband
on, she thought she caught a glimpse of a much younger man. It was fleeting, though, and he quickly settled back into the mature sensuality she was growing accustomed to.
In a lowered voice, he said, “You were beautiful, brave, and you knew what I was and still wanted me. That, Mila, is why I chose you.”
Tears prickled her eyes again. She really did not want to cry twice in one day.
As much as she wanted to run far, far away and never look back, she knew it just wasn’t an option. She didn’t know how she was going to make it work. She just knew that she would.
Asch brushed his thumb over the corners of her eyes, and then his mouth was on hers again. His teeth nipped and tugged in ways that made her toes curl. If Caim was a raging inferno, Asch was a slow burn, and right now, that was exactly what she needed.
She put her arms around his neck, pulling him deeper into the kiss. He opened his mouth, delving into hers with his hot tongue. His tongue massaged hers languorously, his movements unhurried but still devastatingly effective. Her desire returned to her in full force. Her breasts grew heavy and the area between her thighs slickened with her need.
Keeping one arm wrapped around her, his hand gripped her side. His thumb rubbed slow circles into her flesh while his other hand glided up her leg, slipping beneath the fabric of her gown to caress her thighs.
She knew that he wanted her. His breathing had deepened and she felt him hard against her bottom. Despite this, he seemed perfectly content to keep kissing and caressing her. Hoping to incite him, she made a muffled sound of pleasure into his mouth and rolled her hips against him as she did so.
His lips curved knowingly against hers, his kiss becoming deliberately slow before he pulled back. He eased her back onto the bed until he leaned over her. He smiled down at her with a look that said her feminine wiles did not affect him. She pouted.
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