by Amanda LeMay
And, he knew it. Somehow, he felt those things I tried to hide.
“Baby, you’re heart’s racin’. I can hear it bangin’ away like a big ol’ drum. And you’re breathing like you can’t get enough air, or...you’re scared half to death.” He leaned toward me. “Did you hold something back? Something important?”
“No.” Yes.
I didn’t tell them about my mother. What she did was between me, her, and no one else.
His brows bunched together as he studied me.
With a deep sigh, his face relaxed. “You did the right thing. Tribunals are damn ugly business, but they’re nothin’ to be scared of, especially if you’re on the right side.”
I nodded, not really knowing how to answer. I wasn’t afraid of the tribunal.
“Do you recall what Ralph said about me grounding myself in you?”
“Yes.” Though I didn’t fully understand what he meant by it.
“Well, that goes both ways. You sense what’s going on inside me, the same way I sense you. Grounding yourself in me means you stay by my side. You take my strength and make it yours.” His fingers lifted my chin. “You take whatever you need from me. Understand what I’m sayin’?”
“Yes, I think so.” Take whatever I needed? I needed a lot. The thought had my heart racing again.
A soft, sexy smile curved his lips. “This is some scary shit, isn’t it?” His hand dropped away from my face and traced my arm to my wrist, where his thumb brushed gently over my racing pulse.
Yes, whatever this was between us frightened me more than anything I had ever done. And, yes, I was afraid—afraid of staying with him as much as I was of losing him.
Still...he was mated to another and even though she no longer lived under his roof, one day, she would come back.
“It’s a different kind of fear.” I looked away, out the passenger window.
“Simone.”
I swallowed and turned back to him.
The soft smile that curved his mouth spread all the way to his eyes. He was so gorgeous. Whenever I looked at him, it was as if I was seeing him for the very first time, all over again. Everything about him was all I craved. His green eyes, his lips framed by his silver goatee, the square shape of his jaw, his immense, powerful shoulders, his muscular chest, and farther down his torso, several inches below his belly button...
My face seemed to catch fire along with the rest of my body. My skin tingled with heat as Gunner’s scent coated my tongue and filled my lungs.
“That’s right, baby, ground yourself in me.”
His hand slipped around my neck and he drew me toward him, closing the gap between us. His lips met mine. I clutched on to him as his tongue slipped into my mouth.
A blaze built steadily between my legs. If I moved just so...if he’d kiss me a little longer, harder, deeper...if he’d touch me right there...I would fly apart.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
I strained toward him. His hand moved and I heard a click. He pulled away only long enough to untangle me from my seatbelt, then his mouth claimed mine again in the next breath. I leaned forward, up out of my seat, crawling onto him, grasping at his clothing as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, slipped my fingers into his hair.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
I kissed him harder, deeper, sucked his tongue into my mouth, and for one split second wondered how his lips, teeth, and tongue would feel on other parts of my body...
Like...right...there...
And then, it happened.
His phone rang on the console between the seats, jerking me out of my bliss-induced state. His hands let me go as I settled back into my seat and tried to catch my breath.
He was a busy male. An Alpha in demand. His phone rang quite often, to which he always answered with a sharp “Yeah” before listening intently to whomever was speaking, asking a question or two, and giving his answer in a no-room-for-argument tone before ending the call.
He stared at the little screen in his hand. A small, happy smile curved his mouth and it silently spoke of the love he held for whoever was calling. He tapped the screen and brought the phone to his ear.
“Hey.”
His eyes caught mine and all that love was looking right at me. I couldn’t breathe.
“Yes.” He didn’t take his eyes from me, and I couldn’t look away, even though I was certain the love coming off him couldn’t possibly be for me.
The fingers of his free hand smoothed across the crease that must have formed along my brow, and slipped down, tucked my hair behind my ear, and kept going until he reached the curve between my neck and my shoulder. His eyes trailed the movement, locking on to the spot where his thumb stroked back and forth.
He listened and swallowed hard, making my stomach flutter and my heart race from anxiety.
Whoever was on the other end of his conversation seemed to have a lot to say and with every word, Gunner seemed to relax more and more. With each calming breath he took, the tension running through me settled as well. The white-knuckled grip he’d had on his little phone eased up. His smile spread even wider as his fingers moved to brush softly against my cheek. He moved closer. Parted his lips as if to speak, but nothing came out.
His eyes watered and misted over. He blinked...blinked again. A deep breath made him shudder before he licked his lips.
My fluttering stomach and hammering heart started up again, seemingly for no reason at all. A wonderful and surprising euphoria filled me and stole my breath away.
His green eyes sparkled as he gazed at me.
“Thank you.” His words were rough and choked. He cleared his throat and tried again, “Thank you...yeah...see you soon.” His thumb touched the little screen, ending the call.
His chest expanded with a huge breath. When he smiled at me, it was as if the sun had burned through a dense fog I hadn’t realized was even there, until it was gone. Still smiling, he sat back in his seat, his fingers wrapped around my hand, his thumb stroking my wrist. His free hand shoved through his hair, not in frustration, but more like something he’d been worried about was no longer an issue.
“Gun...”
“You hungry?”
Hungry? “What?”
“You hungry? I’m starving.”
I sat there blinking at him like a fool. “Yes, I’m hungry.” Though I wasn’t sure it was for food or for more of the taste that lingered in my mouth. My cheeks tingled. I looked down at his hand still wrapped around mine and swallowed. “Gun...”
“Nobody calls me ‘Gun’, ’cept my brothers,” he murmured as his thumb continued to smooth over my wrist. “I gotta say, it sounds so damn good coming out of your sweet mouth.”
I smiled as my cheeks tingled with heat. “No one has ever called me ‘baby’, or anything other than my name.”
He shook his head as worry crossed his face. “I won’t call you that, if it bothers you.”
“Oh, no, it doesn’t bother me.” How could it? It made me feel...precious. Sexy. Desired. “I...love it.”
He leaned closer, his eyelids going half-mast. “Baby?” His warm breath touched me before his lips touched mine.
“Yes?” I moaned against his mouth.
“You are amazing.”
My heart did a little flip. My skin tingled as my blood rushed to flood every female part of my body. I wanted to hold on to this...to this, whatever it was, between us.
“Baby, I hope you’re ready for this—ready for me, ’cause I’m sure as fuck ready to give you everything I got.” Gunner sat back in his seat.
My heart wasn’t done flipping somersaults against my ribs when he put the car in gear and sped off down the highway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
WE PULLED IN THROUGH the wrought iron gates with two buckets of fried chicken in the back seat. When the dirt road forked, instead of heading off toward the house on the right, Gunner took the road to the left, curving around the pecan trees. We passed the house and left it behind.
“We’re no
t taking the chicken up to the house?”
Gunner chuckled. “Hell no. Derry would pitch a fit if I walked in the door with fast-food fried chicken.”
“Ooookay,” I said, a little confused. We’d already eaten. I’d never had fried chicken before. I’d eaten four pieces, plus mashed potatoes, corn, coleslaw, and two biscuits with melted butter and honey dripping from them. I was stuffed. Gunner ate more than I did. “So...what are we doing with all this chicken?”
“There’s a few more members of my pack I want you to meet. They don’t get into town much. Fried chicken is kind of a treat for them.”
The native trees peppering so much of Gunner’s property seemed to grow thicker and closer together until suddenly, we were driving through the middle of a forest. The aroma of green, well-watered foliage surrounded me, along with the scent of water.
Around the next curve, Gunner pulled up in front of a small stone cabin. Rocks and boulders of all sizes had been carefully stacked one on top of the other and cemented together to form the base and walls. Small windows dotted the outside, and a large rock chimney rose up in the back of the structure. Curtains covered each window, keeping me from getting a peek inside. A wood-shingled roof covered the structure with a slightly larger than normal overhang.
Gunner came around the car and opened my door. I glanced to the left to see water flowing in a lazy current nearby.
“Is that a river?”
“Yep, the Guadalupe.” He pulled the two buckets of chicken from the back seat, walked over, and set them on a rough wooden table. A single wooden chair sat next to the table.
“The cabin belongs to your pack members?”
“Nope. This is mine. My safe house.”
“Oh.” I didn’t want to think about the little room I had spent one night a month in, every single year of my life. “Your pack seems to truly enjoy their wolf side. Growing up the way I did, it’s a difficult concept to grasp.” I walked down a dirt path to the river’s edge. The water flowed past slow and easy, slipping over several huge boulders that lay mostly submerged near the shoreline. The ripples and waves sparkled in the afternoon sun.
Gunner’s arms came around me from behind. “You’ll learn to love your wolf side, too.” His lips touched my cheek.
Shivers broke out all over me.
“Is taking me to meet more of your pack a secret code to get me alone?”
“We’re not alone.”
His fingers swept my hair aside, exposing my neck to his mouth. He didn’t waste any more time talking. His lips traced little kisses from my shoulder to behind my ear and back down again. I trembled a little more with each soft kiss. My breath came in sharp, short pants. Every inch of my skin tightened while my insides fluttered in excitement. My legs went weak and if his arms hadn’t been holding me up, I might’ve collapsed on the ground.
The soft, almost silent footsteps across the dirt and gravel behind us startled me.
“Gun, we’re not alone.” I gasped as his teeth nipped at my skin.
“We never were, baby,” he murmured before his tongue licked the spot his teeth had tasted only a second before. He stepped back and turned me to face our visitors.
Wolves. Real wolves.
They were much smaller than the wolves of Gunner’s pack, but only slightly smaller than the wolf-males I’d seen in Rule’s pack. Every one of these true wolves was beautiful and perfect, with eyes so intense, so wild, for a moment, I thought of stepping back and hiding behind Gunner.
“They won’t hurt you.” Gunner’s arm slid around my waist. “They want to meet you. They sense...I...belong to you.”
I stared up at him. “You...belong...to me?”
“That’s the way they see it.” He nodded and smiled, crinkling up the little lines fanning out from his eyes. “When I met you, my scent changed, took on a bit of your scent, making me more irresistible to you, while every wolf I come across gets the message I’m spoken for.”
“Your scent changed?” I continued to stare up at him as I backed away a step.
“Yep.”
If he could turn this scent-change thing on, could he turn it off when or if he became bored with a lover? Was what I felt for him some Alpha male trick? I didn’t want to think it was possible.
“By changing your scent, you can make someone want you?” I backed away another step. “Make someone love you?”
“No, baby. It doesn’t work like that,” he said calmly as he reached out to me.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t.
“Fucking Rule.” He grumbled as he shook his head. He sighed. “C’mere.” His fingers curled up, motioning me closer. “You’re workin’ yourself up over something you obviously didn’t know and don’t understand yet.”
Tears filled my eyes as my throat tightened in fear. “Is this a trick? What I feel? Did you do this on purpose?”
“No, Simone, no tricks.” His hand motioned for me again, but he didn’t advance. “What’s happenin’ between us is not something I can do on purpose, it just happens. I can’t change my scent at will. I can’t make you feel what I feel. I can’t make you love me. What’s going on between us is called a ‘sakana bond’. Have you heard the term? Do you know what it is?”
“Sakana bond. Jessy said it’s a bond she and Dain share.” That little spike of fear flittered around inside me. “She said it was rare.”
“Yeah, it’s rare. One of those evolutionary perks, along with extreme survival skills, extra-long life and...well, a few other things you’ll learn about soon. We’d have all died out a long time ago if our ancestors hadn’t been so smart. Back in ancient times, whenever our kind got close to humans, once they knew what we could do, they’d get scared. They’d work themselves up, then go on a killing spree, because to them, we were monsters. The humans just fuckin’ forgot they used to be animals, too.”
Tears dripped down my cheeks. There was so much I didn’t know about our culture, so many things Rule hid from his pack. “Rule said we had to hide because changing into a wolf with the full moon was like an incurable disease. A curse! Just like in the movies!” My voice rose with each word as anger spiked through me.
“Oh, baby, being a wolf is not a damn disease. It’s not something to be ashamed of. The only reason we hide is because humans are fucking scared of their own shadows, and have wiped so many of our kind out in the past, that very few humans can be trusted.”
“No tricks? This is real?”
“No tricks, and yeah, this crazy gotta-have-you thing between us is very real.”
I ran the few steps into Gunner’s arms, pressed my cheek into his chest, and held on tight. “The lies. All the lies Rule fed us. Why would he hide so much from his own pack?”
“The only thing I know is when the other Alphas find out what kind of bullshit Rule’s been up to, there’s gonna be one hell of a shake-up, once this tribunal is over and done with.”
A high-pitched whine came from behind Gunner. The lead wolf closest to us sat with his head cocked to one side. His eyes darted from Gunner to me and back to Gunner.
“Everything’s good,” Gunner said as he patted his thigh. The wolf trotted forward and stopped a foot from where Gunner and I stood.
Gunner let me go and I moved to his side.
“What’s his name?”
“It’s not something I can say. It’s not a word.” He let out a yipping sound from deep in his throat. The wolf’s ear perked and his thick, bushy tail wagged back and forth like a happy puppy. He jumped up, his front paws landing on Gunner’s chest. He spent a moment sniffing Gunner’s mouth, licked his face, whined, and jumped down. “Yeah, go on ahead—say hello to her.” Gunner lifted his chin in my direction.
The next second, I was eye to eye with a real wolf. His paws landed lightly on my shoulders as if he understood gentleness was needed when introducing himself. He sniffed my mouth, licked my cheek, and then he was done. His paws were back on the ground, his body circling my thighs. A short, low growl came from Gu
nner, and the wolf backed away a step and snorted before the rest of the wolves padded over to me to say hello.
“It’s very rare someone or something gets past them,” Gunner said. He picked up one of the buckets of chicken and every wolf backed away except the lead wolf. Gunner popped the top off the bucket and tossed out a leg. The wolf caught it in his jaws, took two bites, crunched bones, swallowed, then stood, waiting for more. “They run the perimeter and let off a howl if something’s not right.” He tossed another piece and it disappeared just as quickly as the first.
I sat in the wooden chair and watched as Gunner threw one piece after another to the lead wolf, and none of the other wolves came near until their leader had eaten his fill. Once he was done, he trotted over to where I sat, then laid in the grass next to my feet and began grooming himself while the others took turns catching chicken pieces.
Gunner opened the trunk of his car, set the empty buckets inside, and closed the trunk lid. I stood up. The wolf beside me rose and nuzzled my thigh with his nose. I stroked his soft coat.
“I guess this means I’m an acceptable addition to your pack.” I rubbed the wolf behind the ear as he leaned into my leg.
Gunner settled back against his car and smiled. “Come here, Simone. I’m gonna kiss you silly.”
“Oh, how romantic.” I laughed.
It wasn’t romantic. Not really. It was hot. He was hot. He made my pulse pound and my breathing erratic. He made my cheeks flush and my female parts throb. He made me wonder if there was a bed in this safe house or just a bare floor. It didn’t matter. At the moment, I seriously couldn’t have cared less.
His green eyes flashed. His voice deepened into a growl. “C’mere, baby.”
His gaze roamed every inch of my body as I walked toward him. Once I got within arm’s reach, he pulled me to him, then traded positions with me, pressing my back against his car as his hard body pressed into mine. And he was hard, all over. I gasped as he lifted my chin with his fingers. Then I wrapped my arms around his waist and held on. His lips moved over mine, almost a tease of a kiss.
