by J. L. Wilder
“The baby,” she said. “Will the baby be all right?”
“The baby is going to be fine,” he said. “We shifters have babies all the time. They’re perfectly healthy. Look at me.”
There was plenty she could have said to that. She didn’t know anything about him, after all. How could she hold him up as a specimen of good health? How could she assume anything about her child based on the man before her?
But he was big and strong. She traced the line of his bicep.
He inhaled.
“I think I can smell something,” she said.
He shook his head. “Humans can’t smell it.”
“You don’t know what we can smell,” she pointed out. “You only know what you can smell.” It was nothing like she’d ever smelled on any other man. A sort of woodsy, wild, spicy scent. Without thinking, she leaned into the tender spot along the side of his neck and sniffed.
“Amy,” he whispered.
“Maybe it’s not off the table.”
What had prompted her to say that? She knew immediately that she meant it. Her body craved his, hungered for his. But what had changed her mind?
It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to make her say it twice. His hands slipped beneath the hem of her shirt and lifted it over her head. She unbuttoned her pants, shoved them down, and kicked them away.
He lifted her off the ground, into his arms. His skin felt so hot against hers. “I can’t believe you came back for me,” she whispered.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” he murmured against her jawline. He lifted her hips and slid inside her.
Their first time together had been so raw, so animal. This was completely different. It was as if he wanted to reassure her that despite what she had just seen, he was a human man and not a beast. He held her, arms wrapped tightly around her back, and pressed his forehead to hers as he fucked her slowly.
The intensity of it built as gradually as a growing fire. At first, Amy couldn’t believe it was happening. The wind brushed against the tops of her breasts and shoulders. Words evaded her. Her thoughts felt like a river of pleasure, rushing downstream, getting closer and closer to a waterfall.
“Amy,” he whispered. “Fuck. Amy. You’re amazing.”
She could have gone on forever, she thought. She could have lost herself in this. She could have lived in his arms for the rest of her life and been perfectly content.
She wasn’t even thinking about her orgasm—just the pleasure of being with him was enough, and she coasted deliriously and happily on that for several long minutes. But then he slipped a hand between their bodies, leaning her back against his other arm.
She had only a moment to marvel at his strength before his nimble fingers found their way downward.
“Oh—” she moaned, arching her back, trusting him to hold her so that she could grind herself into his fingers, increasing the contact.
He removed his hand.
She looked up at him, betrayed.
He had two fingers in his mouth, sucking, a wicked grin on his face.
Amy thought she might die of pleasure or anticipation. Maybe both.
His fingers descended again, stroking, working her, moving expertly. Amy’s legs shook with pleasure, and she locked her ankles tightly behind Vince’s back to keep herself from falling.
“Oh fuck,” Vince hissed, his thrusts growing harder, the movements of his fingers growing more vigorous. “Oh fuck, Amy, fuck, fuck—”
Amy’s entire body shuddered as she came. It felt as if she had been given an electric shock and couldn’t control her muscles. At the same time, Vince let out a cry that reminded her of the howl she’d heard that night in the woods. The night she had freed the wolf.
“DID YOU KNOW IT WAS me?” she asked.
They had crawled back into their clothes and were lying on the ground, entwined in each other. Vince was playing idly with a few strands of Amy’s hair as she cuddled into his chest.
“Did I know what was you?” he asked.
“At the bar, when you saw me there,” she said. “Did you know I was the same girl from the woods?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I knew it was you.”
“And you fucked me anyway? Or...because of that?”
“Neither, really,” he said. “I went with you at the bar because I wanted you, and I could see that you wanted me.” He trailed his fingers over her scar. “I do feel bad about this, though.”
“Don’t lose any sleep. I’m all right, and it’s kind of cool looking.”
He laughed. “You think your wolf bite scar is cool?”
“Don’t you think so?”
“I don’t know, I’ve got a dozen of them.” He pulled his shirt collar aside and showed her a mark on his shoulder. “That’s from Dax.”
“What’s a Dax?”
“You mean who is Dax. He’s a member of my pack. We were just play fighting, but he gets toothy sometimes.”
“He could have hurt you!”
“Nah, Dax would never. Besides, wolves heal fast.” He grinned. “You can look forward to that with the baby, probably.”
“How fast?”
“Well, I didn’t have a broken leg from an animal trap the night you met me at the bar, did I?”
She gasped. “You were limping!”
“Yeah, exactly. I was still off my game, but I was healing.”
“Wow...”
“Amy, listen,” he said, and the tone of his voice had changed. He was serious now. “I need you to show me the other shifters. The men who were following you.”
She swallowed. She had been afraid it would come to that. “There are at least four of them, Vince, and only one of you.”
“I know. But they’re not going to leave you alone. I need to make it clear that someone has a claim on you.”
“A claim?”
“It’s just wolf talk. Don’t worry. It doesn’t mean anything as far as you and I are concerned. But it will mean something to them. It’ll make them go away if I can convince them you’re mine.”
Amy nodded, understanding.
And feeling slightly afraid.
Vince had thought she was offended at the idea that he might have a claim on her. But she hadn’t been offended at all.
She had been intrigued.
Chapter Sixteen
VINCE
“There,” she said. “Those are them.”
Vince was sitting at the bar in the restaurant where Amy worked. She was busy waiting tables, but she had swung by a couple of times to talk to him. He had hardly been able to keep his hands off her, even though he had known it wasn’t appropriate to touch her in the workplace. She seemed to exude heat.
If he hadn’t known better, he would have been sure he had found his omega.
But she couldn’t be. She hadn’t even known about the shifter world. If she’d been any sort of shifter, she would have experienced a shift by this point in her life. It was inevitable, if you had any emotions at all, and she definitely did.
Besides, he would have been able to smell wolf on her if there had been any, and there just wasn’t. Or rather, there was the slight scent of the baby she was carrying, but that just smelled like Vince himself. It certainly didn’t smell like omega. He didn’t know exactly what omega smelled like, but he’d had it described to him before. Intoxicating. Powerful. Absorbing.
Amy definitely had all of those effects on him. They just weren’t scent-based.
Unlike the men who had just entered the restaurant and taken seats at one of the tables. They definitely had a scent. They were a pack, although not one Vince could remember having come across before.
And they had their eyes on Amy.
He didn’t like it. It made his hackles go up. How dare they look at her, he thought, even though the thought didn’t quite make sense. Don’t they know she belongs to me?
Of course they didn’t.
Because they had never met him before. They had never even seen him before.
They couldn’t possibly know anything about him.
Also, because Amy didn’t belong to him.
She didn’t belong to him, but he wanted her to.
He wanted to have the right to march over to those men and tell them to keep their roving eyes to themselves. Of course, Amy had told him he could do it, so in that sense he did have the right. But he would be lying when he staked his claim.
He wanted his claim to be real.
That was a hell of a thing to realize, and this was a hell of a time to realize it. But there was nothing he could do about it right now. He got to his feet and crossed the room to the men.
“Excuse me,” he said.
One of them looked up at him. This was the alpha. The command positively radiated off of him. He was a powerful alpha, and it occurred to Vince to wonder if he would be able to lead his own pack with that kind of strength.
A problem for another day. The man was watching him. Waiting.
“That girl you’re looking at,” he said.
“What about her?” the alpha asked.
“She’s claimed.”
“Yeah? By who?”
“By me. Who do you think?”
The alpha leered. “I don’t see a bite mark. I don’t think you claimed her.”
But that wasn’t right, Vince realized suddenly. Joyfully. There was a bite mark. Maybe he hadn’t claimed her during sex, as was standard, and maybe he had never intended it to be a claim...but there was a mark, wasn’t there? There was something he could show.
“It’s on her wrist,” he said. “If you ask her, she’ll show it to you.”
“So what if it is there?” another man asked. “Means nothing.”
“Shut up,” the alpha growled. He looked as though he was thinking. “What pack are you with?” he asked Vince.
“Hell’s Wolves. Oregon.”
“Right.” The alpha nodded. “I’m John Harren. Claw Rakers. Your alpha, Griff, helped us out of a jam a few years back.”
“That right?” Maybe this was going to be easier than Vince had thought.
“Yeah,” Harren said. “We’ll stand down. Sorry to cross into your territory.”
“Not at all.” Vince bobbed his head. “I appreciate it.”
And in that moment, he believed the problem was solved.
BACK AT THE MOTEL, he nipped playfully at her neck as he undressed her.
“What are you doing?” she asked, batting him away halfheartedly, arching her body toward him even as she did so. “Don’t we have things to do? Plans to make? Shouldn’t we be talking about the future?”
“Oh, there will be plenty of time to talk.” He got her out of her shirt and eased her down onto the bed. “Do you know how hard it was watching you at work all day? Not being able to grab you, and kiss you, and—” He lowered himself between his legs and ground his hips into her, and she gasped and wrapped her legs around his back, pulling him down.”
“I could just not go to work anymore,” she suggested, rocking against him. “We could just stay here and do this all the time. You’re independently wealthy, right?”
He laughed. “I’m going to fuck you senseless, is what I am.”
“Do it, then, and stop talking.”
He flipped her over so she was flat on her stomach and eased himself inside her, covering her, pinning her down. He thought this would render her helpless, but after a moment, he felt her begin squeezing around him, milking him.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “You’re going to kill me.”
He sat back on his heels, reaching around her torso to pull her upright so her back rested flush against his chest. His left hand came to rest on her right breast, and he cupped it gently, then squeezed, reveling at the fullness. She moaned happily and leaned her head back to rest on his shoulder, spreading her knees as wide as she could.
Vince knew an invitation when he saw one.
He trailed his right hand across her collarbone and gripped her left breast briefly, then flicked her nipple, causing her to clench even harder around him. His head swam, and for a brief moment he was in danger of coming right then and there, but he took a deep breath and managed to hold off. He was going to make this last.
“I want to claim you,” he whispered huskily in her ear.
He expected her to ask what it meant, maybe even to stop their love making and insist on a conversation about it, but she didn’t. “Do whatever you want to me,” she moaned. “Do anything you want to me, Vince.”
Fuck. Fucking hell. This woman would be the death of him.
“Tell me when you’re going to come,” he said softly.
She nodded, her breath coming in little gasps.
He dragged his fingers between her breasts, along her sternum, then lower, across the flat plane of her stomach.
She whimpered.
Lower, to the crease of her hip.
She whined.
Lower still. Between her legs now, where she was hot and wet and Vince could actually feel her throbbing with desire and need.
She sobbed at the first touch of his fingers and rocked her hips so hard she almost came off his cock. He seated himself more firmly and pressed the palm of his hand into her so that she wouldn’t need to move in order to receive maximum stimulation.
“I want you to do it,” he said. He heard how husky his own voice sounded and couldn’t quite believe it. Sex had never been like this. So amazing. So otherworldly. “I want you to use me. Take what you need.”
“Vince—”
“Are you afraid?”
She couldn’t speak. She nodded.
“Do it,” he said. “I’m ordering you to do it.”
She wasn’t a member of his pack. He didn’t have the authority to give her an order at all. But it was his first time flexing as an alpha, and fuck, it felt amazing. He felt himself grow harder just at the prospect that he was telling this beautiful girl what to do, and that he was using his authority to make her pleasure herself.
He held his hand still against her. She whined again, and he could feel how much she wanted it. She ached for it. But she didn’t quite dare.
“You’re so hot,” he said. “Baby, I feel how hot you are. You need it. You need the relief, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she sobbed. “I need it. I need it.”
“It’s right here. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. Fuck me. I want you to.”
And at last, with a sigh that turned into a groan of pleasure, she began to rock.
Forward, into the rough pressure of his hand.
Backward, onto the thick length of his cock.
Forward.
Backward.
Then faster.
Vince could hardly contain himself. He felt as if he were seeing stars. He was going to come at any moment. But he couldn’t He needed to hold out. More than anything, he wanted to wait for her. He wanted this to be perfect.
“I’m going to claim you,” he moaned, giving her one last chance to object, or to ask questions if she had them. But she only nodded vigorously.
And then her hips snapped forward into his hand and she cried out, “I’m coming!”
He leaned forward, thrusting deep into her, and sank his teeth into the tender skin of her neck.
The bite seemed to drive her orgasm higher. She screamed and her entire body shook, practically convulsing in his arms, and then she collapsed forward, exhausted.
VINCE’S OWN ORGASM swept through him like a tidal wave and he let out a groan that was more animal than human before collapsing on top of her.
“Wow,” she whispered. “Fuck. Vince. Wow.”
“Was that okay?” he asked.
“Was it okay? I’ve never had anything like that in my life. God. Are you always that amazing?”
“I’m better with you,” he said quietly. “Does your neck hurt?”
“A little.”
“Are you okay with it?”
“You claimed me.”
“Yes.”
&nb
sp; “What does it mean?”
“You didn’t want to know beforehand?”
“I can probably guess, to be honest with you.”
“It means you’re mine,” he said. “My mate. It means no other shifters are allowed to touch you.”
“Mmm. Well, I’m definitely fine with that.”
“VINCE. Vince.”
He smelled it as soon as he snapped awake. Other shifters. They had the place surrounded. No matter which way he turned, the scent was invading his space.
Amy was trembling. “They’re outside,” she whispered. “They’re hiding, but I saw one of them. They’re going to come in.”
Vince blinked, trying to clear his head. John Harren had said they would let Vince and Amy go.
He must have lied.
He must have seen that he could overpower them and decided to do it.
He hadn’t even begun to think about the idea of taking Amy back to Oregon yet. But now his hand was being forced. He couldn’t leave her here, in this kind of danger.
And if he was honest with himself, he was glad. He wanted to bring her with him. He wanted them to raise their child together. He wanted her for his mate.
There was still the fact that she was not an omega—not even a shifter. And he was an alpha.
But it didn’t matter. Not when she was being hunted. He had claimed her, and that made her his. He would do whatever he had to do to make sure she was safe.
“Follow me,” he said quietly, slinging his duffel bag over his shoulder and leading her out the door and down to the motorcycle.
Chapter Seventeen
AMY
Disappearing into the night should have been more difficult than it was, but by the time they had coasted out of the motel driveway and reached the highway, it occurred to Amy that Vince had probably done this sort of thing before.
She was definitely going to have to call her parents eventually, not to mention her boss at the restaurant, and explain her disappearance. But for now, she clung to Vince’s waist, the night air seeming to part around them to permit them through. To swallow them whole.