by J. L. Wilder
Then again, that was selling Jessica short. She had always been wonderful, and that hadn’t kept him from going his own way. Maybe it was just something he’d needed to get out of his system.
The important thing was that he was here now. He was back with his den, and he was ready to help shape their future.
And the baby in his arms was going to be a fundamental part of that.
He followed Emmett into his house. A select group of decision-makers for the den were in attendance today—the elder members, the fighters who had helped Emmett and Wes in reclaiming the den from Cody’s leadership, and a few others whose opinions were widely respected.
They all fell silent as Emmett and Wes came into the room.
“Thank you for being here today,” Wes said. “It means a lot to me and my wife that you came to see us. Lauren wishes she could have been here too, but—”
“She’s recovering from childbirth,” said one of the den elders. “We all understand. Please send her our best wishes.”
“I’ll do that,” Wes said. “Thank you.”
“We’re here to officially name Xander Simms as the heir to the alpha position in our den,” Emmett said. “Xander is the eldest qualifying male descendant of Arthur Wood, making him the best choice to ascend to the role. Is anyone opposed?”
Wes held his breath, looking around the table. He would fight for his son’s right to lead if he had to.
But it didn’t come to that. Apparently, no one had any objection. Heads around the table were nodding, and people were smiling at Wes as if to signal their approval.
“It’s settled then,” Emmett said. “Xander is officially named the rising alpha of our den, and when he comes of age, he will assume the role.”
“I thought you might like to meet him,” Wes said. “Those of you who haven’t, that is.” He placed Xander carefully on the table so that the meeting attendees could look at him.
Everyone leaned over to get a closer look.
“He looks like Lauren, doesn’t he?” an old woman said. “I remember her when she was just a baby. She looked just like this one.”
“He’ll be independent,” someone else said. “He’ll blaze his own trails, that’s for sure. Both his mother and his father are that way.”
“But he won’t go off on his own the way we did,” Wes said. “We’ll raise him to understand the value of the den and the importance of his role here.”
Of course, he knew the truth was that he wouldn’t be able to control his son’s decisions when the time came. There was every possibility that Xander would choose to go his own way. Wes would encourage him not to. But he wouldn’t be able to force him to stay.
And if he does decide to leave, I would support that. I’ll never make him feel like he has to choose between his family and his dreams.
“To our new alpha.” One of the men at the table raised a glass.
“Hear, hear,” someone else chimed in.
Sensing that the meeting was on the verge of turning into a party, Wes scooped Xander back into his arms. “I should get home to Lauren and the girls,” he said. “It’s just about Xander’s nap time.”
“Thanks for bringing him by,” Emmett said. “Always good to see the kids.”
By the time Wes was out on the street, Xander had already fallen asleep. Wes held him gently, determined to make it home without disturbing him.
My son, the future leader of this den.
He couldn’t wait to tell Lauren how well everything had gone.
Epilogue
Five Years Later
WES
“Dad!” Melody shrieked. “Carolyn took my acorns!”
Wes glanced at Lauren, standing beside him at the sink and drying the dishes he handed her. “Carolyn took her acorns? Are they squirrels now?”
“No, they’re just collecting them,” Lauren said.
“That’s weird.”
“Oh, really, is that weird?” Lauren laughed. “This coming from the guy who collected cicada shells when we were kids.”
“Oh my God.” Wes shook his head. “I’d forgotten all about that.”
“Jessica and I used to make fun of you all the time about it. We called you bug boy.”
“Mean.”
“You were collecting cicada shells, Wes. You would have made fun of a kid for doing that too.”
“Well, yeah, probably,” Wes conceded.
“Do you want to go see about the acorns? Or should I do it?”
Wes sighed. “I will,” he said, drying his hands on his pants. The kids seemed to be incapable of getting along these past few months—the girls in particular. It was a phase they were going through, he knew, but he would sure be glad when this particular phase was over.
He left Lauren to the dishes and went up the stairs to the playroom. Pausing outside the door, he listened to a bit of the argument.
Melody was obviously in tears, her voice hitching and breaking. “I collected them all day, Carolyn. They’re mine. Give them back.”
“They’re not yours.” Carolyn sounded near tears too. “You cheated. We said I would get all the front yard ones and you would get all the back yard ones.”
“These aren’t from the front yard. They’re from the side yard.”
“So they’re not yours! They’re anybody’s!”
Wes was about to go in and break up the argument, but then he heard a third voice. Xander.
“If you didn’t agree who would get the ones in the side yard, you should split them,” he said. “That’s what’s fair.”
Both of the girls grumbled a bit, but it was obvious that no one was going to dispute what Xander had said.
Xander spoke with authority. “Carolyn, give Melody back half of the acorns you took from her, and then you can keep the rest.”
“She should give back all of them,” Melody said, but there was resignation in her voice. “I was the one who thought of looking in the side yard.”
“Yeah, but if you split them with her, you get half of them back and you don’t have to fight about it,” Xander said. “And fighting is bad, right?”
“I guess.”
“Okay, then.”
There was the sound of a drawer opening, and then a rattling sound. “How do we know how much is half?” Melody asked.
“We’ll count them,” Xander said. “And if there’s a leftover one, Melody, you can have it because it was your idea to check the side yard.”
“Okay.” Melody sounded much happier than she had just a moment ago.
Seeing that his services weren’t needed here after all, Wes turned and went back down to the kitchen.
Lauren looked up when he came in. “What’s up?” she asked. “Are they okay up there?”
“They’re fine,” Wes said. “I didn’t have to do anything, actually.”
“What do you mean?”
“Xander mediated the whole thing. It was impressive. I didn’t know he was so good at that.”
“You know,” Lauren said. “I did see him handle a dispute the other day about which of the girls got to eat the last popsicle. He really is a born leader, isn’t he?”
“He’s going to make a hell of an alpha someday,” Wes said.
Lauren looked at him. Xander’s future was something they almost never talked about. They had agreed years ago to wait until he was ten years old to discuss it with him so that he could have a few years of unfettered childhood without having to worry about what lay ahead.
But seeing him take the lead with his sisters this way, falling into that role as naturally as he did—it gave Wes confidence that his son would rise to the occasion without any trouble when the time was right.
The den couldn’t have asked for a better leader, in Wes’s opinion. Xander would be perfect.
But he was even happier to see that it wouldn’t be a struggle for Xander. His son would be comfortable with power, comfortable with guiding those around him. He would be happy as alpha.
It was the one
thing Wes had never been sure of, even as he had accepted that future for his son. Now he felt like he could be sure.
Lauren smiled, her eyes filling with tears, and Wes knew that she was thinking the same thing.
“He’s going to have such a good life, isn’t he?” she said quietly. “He’s not going to have to spend years running around trying to figure out what he wants. He’s going to know who he is from the start, and the perfect role for him will be right there waiting for him when he’s ready to step into it.”
Wes nodded. “I think so,” he said. “I think he’s going to be great at this.”
Lauren embraced him, wrapping her arms around his waist and standing on her toes to kiss him.
“If this is the big accomplishment of my life,” she said, “it’s more than I ever dreamed I would do.”
Wes nodded. He felt exactly the same way.
He kissed her again, deeply, thanking God that he had given in to his impulses that day after her mother’s funeral. The best things in his life were built on that moment, and he wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.
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Here is your free excerpt from Chapter 4....
Bad idea. Bad fucking idea.
But damn, it was one he couldn’t resist.
He’d wanted to kiss Maddie from the moment he’d spotted her in the woods. And when she’d come into his home, all piss and vinegar, he’d had a feeling she’d felt the same way.
His lips lingered on hers, Maddie’s sweet taste intoxicating him like nothing else. He opened his mouth slightly, enough for his tongue to move past his lips and to hers. She responded with her body, her tongue teasing the tip of his.
Scorn’s cock was so damn hard, he could hardly stand it. And the mere thought of spreading Maddie’s legs and shoving it into her undoubtedly perfect pussy was enough to make him wild.
But in the middle of the kiss, he noticed something strange.
More specifically, he noticed the lack of something.
His rage. It was gone.
Scorn would’ve guessed that the nearness of Maddie, her body being pressed against his, would be enough to set his rage off, to make him lose total control. But it didn’t. If anything, the closer he grew to Maddie, the more...balanced he felt.
He focused on what was happening, on the kiss. Scorn wanted more, and the way she ground her body against his, he could sense she felt the same way.
“This is...insane,” she said as he took his lips from hers, Scorn kissing along her neck. “You’re...you’re a damn hobo in the woods. What am I doing?”
He opened his eyes enough to see that she was smiling, that the whole situation seemed crazy in an amusing way.
She doesn’t know the half of it. She doesn’t know that I am...was...a fucking king. And she doesn’t need to know.
“You’re doing what you want. And I’m doing the same thing.”
He raised his head, bringing his lips to hers one more time. But instead of their lips touching, Maddie raised her index finger and placed it over top of his mouth.
She changing her mind?
“Here’s the deal,” she said.
“Let’s hear it.”
“I’ve got...some history—with men.”
“Sure.”
“And that history was far from the best. Bad history—the kind that makes you want to swear off men for good. That’s what I’d done, as a matter of fact.”
“You’re really good at dirty talk; you know that?”
She laughed, placing her hands against Scorn’s chest.
“Seriously. I’d be totally fine with never being with a man ever again.”
“But here you are.”
“Here I am. But if this is going to happen, then I want to make it damn clear that it’s a one-off thing. We do this, I leave, and that’s the end of it.”
“Damn,” said Scorn. “And here I was planning on proposing to you.”
“Always with the smart-ass comments,” she said with a slight smirk. “But I want to make sure we’re both on the level here. This is sex, and nothing but. Got it?”
Scorn wanted to agree, but deep down, he knew that there was something more happening here other than two people about to scratch an itch.
But he wasn’t about to argue. The hottest damn woman he’d ever seen in his life was right there, telling him she wanted to fuck.
“Got it.”
“Good. Then let’s do this.”
She followed up her words by reaching forward and taking hold of his cock through his jeans.
“Someone’s eager,” she said.
Scorn did the same, moving his hand slowly up along her thigh, coming to a rest between her legs. He could feel the heat of her, that warm wetness, through the thin fabric of her pajama pants.
“Then I’m in good company.”
He rubbed her slowly, Maddie closing her eyes, her mouth opening slightly as he rubbed her pussy. He kissed her more as he touched her, starting at the top of her chest and working his way back up to her lips.
Soon Maddie began grinding her hips into his hand, guiding him to keep his fingers there, to not stop what he was doing. He brought his lips to hers, and they kissed deeply, their tongues intertwining as she continued moaning.
Scorn moved his hand up to the waistband, slipping his fingers underneath both it and her panties. As he traveled over the neatly trimmed patch of hair above her cunt, he realized right away that she was as wet as he’d guessed.
Maddie hurriedly opened up his jeans button and zipper, reaching underneath his boxer-briefs and taking hold of his cock at the precise moment he slipped a pair of fingers into her.
“Oh...oh fuck.” The moans poured out of her mouth as he fingered her. Scorn grunted hard as she stroked his cock up and down, teasing him with her fingertips.
Her touch was intense—more intense than he would’ve expected. It had been so long since he had been touched like this. With each moment that passed together, Scorn grew more and more certain that there was something between them, something powerful.
But he pushed that out of his mind as quickly as he could, watching as Maddie pulled his long, thick cock from his underwear, his prick solid and throbbing and dripping just for her. She stroked him as he fingered her, the intensity of the moans making it clear she was drawing closer and closer to orgasm.
His fingers curled inside of her, Scorn watched as she threw her head back in total delight, letting out a scream as he made her come. She gripped his cock hard, stroking him so good that he worried he might bust right then at the sight of this sexy-as-fuck woman in the middle of a powerful orgasm.
But he wanted more, and he was going to get it.
When Maddie finished, Scorn placed one hand on the small of her back, holding Maddie in place as he took off her shirt. Her breasts were just as gorgeous as they’d been before, and he was ready to see them in their full glory.
They kissed as he reached back and unhooked the clasp, her full, round, pink-tipped breasts falling out as she shimmied out of her sleeping pants and panties. Scorn pulled his mouth away from her for long enough to take in the sight of her naked before him, the pure perfection of her bare body.
He needed to be inside of her, and he needed it in a way that he couldn’t resist.
Scorn grabbed Maddie’s hips, pulling her down onto the couch in a laying position. Her breasts bounced as she settled, her hazel eyes flashing in surprise as he took control. Once she was down, he grabbed both of her legs by the ankles and spread her open, her pussy pink and wet and inviting.
“Come on,” she moaned, squirming her hips.
“You want this cock?” he growled, dragging the head of his prick against her opening, Maddie closing her eyes and savoring the feeling.
“So...so fucking badly.”
“Then ask for it. Ask nicely.”
Her mouth formed into a sly smile, and he could sense she hadn’t been talked to like this by a man in a long,
long while—if ever.
“Please,” she said. “Give it to me.”
It was all Scorn could stand. Still spreading her open, Scorn took his cock into his hand, teasing her clit a bit more before placing his head at her opening and pushing into her.
The sensation of her velvet walls gripping his cock was like nothing he’d ever known. He slid all of his inches into her, Maddie moaning and writhing as he filled her as perfectly as a key into a lock.
When he was buried to the root, he held fast, still coming to grips with just how good she felt.
Then he pulled back and shoved into her. Maddie’s body shifted, her breasts shaking from the impact.
He did it again, then again, Maddie sighing with pleasure with each full penetration.
And as he fucked her, Scorn noticed how different sex with her was, how it felt like something more intense than just a physical connection with another person. It felt like a bond was being formed, one that wouldn’t be easily broken.
“I want to watch you come again,” growled Scorn, still thrusting into her with wild abandon. “Do it. Now.”
Maddie opened her eyes, nodding at his words.
“You...you’re a real prick, you know that?” Her words were broken up by the thrusts, Scorn grabbing her leg and holding it against his powerful chest.
He picked up the pace, driving into her with deep, full strokes, his thick cock vanishing inside again and again. Maddie let out a soft shriek, and then she came again. He felt her cunt grow even wetter, her face wincing in pure ecstasy as she came.
Scorn couldn’t take it any longer. He reached the point of no return, her tight, wet cunt bringing him to the brink of pleasure and pushing him over. His cock throbbed hard as he came, his seed draining deep inside as the orgasm ripped through his body.
They came together, reaching their peak at the same moment. She arched his back below him, Scorn’s muscles going taut as the last pulses of orgasm worked through his body.
Then, when they finished, he fell to her side. The couch was wide, enough space for them both. Scorn wrapped his big, thick arm around Maddie and held her close.
