“I will not let you go, Addie,” Forest whispered.
I could barely breathe with him so close, and I couldn’t feel anything at all, except the strong hand holding my wrist aside and the fingers attached to my chin. If only I had a jacket on—I hadn’t had time when I’d changed to find another. Only a shirt and a pair of shorts separated us, and it was not enough material to block out his heat, his strength, his…everything.
“Noted,” I managed to say, my stare fixated on the hallway wall to my left.
“I won’t lose you,” he murmured, sighing against me seconds before breathing me in. “I won’t.”
And then, of course, I made a mistake.
The worst mistake of all.
My eyes shifted, meeting his, and my breath caught in the back of my throat. When had he gotten so close? Why was he so close? Was this how he normally talked to his pack, or was I the only special one? And why, why did he stare down at me like I was…
Like I was his?
He’d worn a similar look at the clearing, when we’d dug up Hannah’s body. Heavy eyelids, slightly creased brows. A look that shook me to my very core, rattling each and every bone. A look that made my heartbeat skyrocket and my face flush. It was a look that made me forget everything, even common sense.
Forest leaned down, his nose grazing my cheek as he moved his face into my hair, which was still pretty wet from my unplanned dip in the lake. The hand on my chin fell to my side, holding me firmly, with resolution. I couldn’t squirm out of his grasp, even if I wanted to.
Hell, at this point I wasn’t sure what I wanted.
“I can’t lose you. Please…” His voice, barely a whisper, sent shivers down my spine, and before I knew what I was doing, I pressed against him harder, his belt buckle digging into my stomach. “…don’t make me.”
Don’t make me lose you.
Well, when he said it like this, how the hell was I supposed to deny him?
I didn’t want to.
Just as I was attempting to mentally formulate a response, the hand on my side slid up, beneath my shirt, touching my hip. The tiny, agonizingly slow touch sent butterflies fluttering about in my stomach. The hand snaked around to my back, an iron grip as he held me as tight and as close to him as he could.
He was…a man in every sense of the word. Tall and strong, his voice alone enough to make me lose myself, every part of him hard and unyielding, with an emphasis on the hard. He was everything I shouldn’t want, because I had three mates downstairs who I liked, who needed me.
Forest was my alpha. He was my mom’s intended mate. He was too old for me, closer to Sarah’s age than mine. This was wrong in so many ways, but the way he touched me, the sensations rising in my body, the way my form melded against his—it felt, strangely enough, right.
“Forest,” I murmured, finally finding my voice. “I’m sorry.” The hand holding my wrist released me, only to weave its way through my hair. Such large hands, rough and firm. Who in their right mind could deny a shifter like this?
“No,” he whispered, leaning his forehead against mine, shaking his head just a bit.
“It’s the only way.” My hands seemed to move of their own accord, roaming up his chest, along his defined pectorals. His touch was not the only one with power here, for everywhere my hands went, I felt his skin tingle and harden, as if he did not want me to know what I could do to him. “I won’t let this entire pack die for me. Not Maze, not Dylan, not even Landon.” Watching his reaction, I added, “And definitely not you.”
Forest exhaled. “It’s my job to protect you.” A rumble came from his chest, and I felt it reverberate beneath my fingers, the sound and the motion making me feel even hotter. My wolf liked the dominance, liked the growling. It was kind of disturbing, but at the same time, natural. “And you make it difficult.”
It was his job to protect the whole pack. Every single member, shifter or not. Human mate or not. The children, the elders—even my asshat of a grandfather—Forest protected them all. Which wouldn’t have mattered so much, I wouldn’t have felt so different, had we not had this conversation while pressed up against each other. Because of it, everything was just too sensual. I had to break free, somehow, untangle myself from him and walk away.
His hips ground into me, and I let out a sound that was halfway between a squeak of surprise and a moan of pleasure. It wasn’t a sound I was proud of, but it came out all the same, and once it was out, I couldn’t take it back.
As long as I focused on the feeling of the belt against my stomach and not…the other thing pressing into me just below it, I would be fine. I could walk away from this encounter with my dignity intact.
Oh, who the hell was I trying to kid? My dignity was long gone, out the door, and it didn’t even wave goodbye as it went.
“Addie,” he whispered my name, saying it in a way only he could, husky and ragged.
What could I say—that’s my name, don’t wear it out? Yeah, that saying had been gone for a long time, and if I was honest, my brain was also not part of this equation. It was only my body and his, and my blasted, traitorous heart.
He moved against me confidently, not at all like a man with a grievous injury to his back. “Tell me,” Forest spoke to my neck, nuzzling me, making me squirm against him as his hips kept up their pressure, “tell me to stop.”
He almost begged me, as if he hardly had any control over what he was doing, as if I had to be the one to end this, whatever this was. He begged me to tell him, and if I didn’t, he wouldn’t stop. This would keep going until…until what? Until we did something we most certainly shouldn’t?
I had to stop this. I knew I had to.
His lips connected with the tender skin on my neck, causing all thoughts to disappear. I melted in his arms, losing whatever tiny flecks of willpower I had left the moment his lips roamed the soft, sensitive skin there.
Forest moved his lips up my neck, my skin burning up, a fire in my belly, a deep ache somewhere lower. “Tell me,” he spoke, his voice cracking on the final word, “you’re not mine.”
I wasn’t his.
Other than the fact I was a twenty-first century kind of gal—so technically I didn’t belong to anybody—I was with the three shifters downstairs and not the alpha whose arms currently held me, whose body grinded against mine, whose lips were both torturous and entrancing.
He begged me to stop him, but what if I couldn’t? What if I didn’t want to stop him?
This was wrong, and yet it felt so right.
The hand on my back traveled up, his fingertips brushing against the lower fabric of my bra. The hand in my hair loosened its hold, going to my other side, sending waves of a feeling I was trying hard to fight shooting up my body the second he touched my stomach. His words and his actions were at complete odds, and I had to be the tiebreaker.
My own hands began to move, running up past his neck, wrapping around him, holding myself to him as if he didn’t have a good enough grip on me—which he most definitely did. He held onto me, possessive and assertive.
I let out a soft moan. Telling myself to focus on the belt buckle wasn’t helping, because there were other things down there calling to my attention. Specifically one thing, and it was a hard reminder this could not continue. This had to stop…somehow.
Between nuzzling my neck and showering it with kisses and gentle bites, Forest murmured, “Tell me you don’t want to be mine. Addie, stop me, because I can’t…” Again, begging me to be the bigger person, the better person.
Talk about irony.
“I…” It was all I could get out before someone coughed in the hall. I froze, my heart practically bursting out of my chest, and not in a good way. I knew the cough too well, had heard it multiple times throughout my life. I couldn’t even say it, for my voice eluded me like a rare beast—but I thought it.
Mom.
Chapter Twenty-Two – Addie
Sarah stood at the top of the stairs, her arms crossed, a wild look in her ey
es. More like a glare, really. A death glare that could kill any creature, man or shifter, with a single look. Her thin shoulders rose and fell with fuming, angry breaths, her teeth grinding as she watched us.
How long was she standing there? What had she seen? What did she hear?
And how the hell were Forest and me so wrapped up in each other neither of us had heard her approach?
To say I was mortified would be the worst understatement of the year. If I could pop into a puddle and seep through the cracks in the floor and stay there for a while, that would be great. A good escape, the only escape I could possibly have from Sarah’s wrath.
Forest’s head currently blocked out most of my view, but a little was more than enough for me to get the gist. I was in so much trouble, and the fact that neither Forest nor I had moved an inch surely wasn’t helping anything. My mom was going to kill me.
“Get off of my daughter,” Sarah spoke, her voice like ice, sharp and jagged. “Disentangle yourselves, now!” She rose her voice, loud enough so the entire household could hear. Just as well, I supposed. Not only would I die of embarrassment, but I also had a lot of explaining to do to the guys.
They deserved better than me, really.
Forest’s hands dropped to my sides, no longer beneath my shirt. I felt cold where his hands had been, missing their warmth. Stupid Addie, I told myself. Bad Addie. His head was sluggish in drawing away from my neck, his dark blue eyes resting on me, not Sarah.
Maybe he was thankful my mom had stepped in, because apparently my willpower was shit when it came to the alpha. If Sarah hadn’t stopped him…
He took a step back, and while I could breathe without feeling claustrophobic, I felt his loss, too. I felt cold, empty almost, like I wanted to curl back up against him and block out the world and all of my worries.
My inner wolf, on the other hand, wanted to do a lot of other things, things which I could not think about while in the presence of Sarah.
I didn’t want to go, but I knew I should. Plus, no one could take Sarah’s wrath, not even me, and I had nearly twenty years to deal with it. I kept my eyes averted, refusing to call any more attention to what Forest had going on beneath his belt buckle. If my mom saw the imprint of his dick against his pants, I might just have an aneurysm.
I walked in the hall, heading towards the stairwell, where Sarah stood, arms still crossed and still very much furious. I met my mom’s stare, but Sarah was too busy glaring at Forest, who stood half in the bathroom, half out, having not moved an inch. Which meant, I realized in horror, she had to see it. His erection.
Oh, God. Everything was suddenly ten times worse, now.
I turned and hurried down the stairs, hoping I could somehow get away from it all, but my mom easily caught up to me, taking me by the arm and dragging me outside through the front door. She was so mad, so upset, she didn’t even glance in the direction of the flaming skeleton watching us from the road. Sarah only had eyes for me.
Not good for my sake.
“Forgive my language, but what the hell were you doing?” Sarah swore, stunning me. The night, prior to her outburst, was silent. No more, though. “Answer me, Addie. Now is not the time to spend ten minutes thinking of an answer.”
“I don’t know” was all I could come up with, which I immediately realized was the wrong thing to say.
“You don’t know?” Sarah shook her head, her blonde hair held back only by the bandana, otherwise it’d be flying all over the place. “What the hell do you mean, you don’t know? That was wildly inappropriate. That was…I never thought you’d do something like that—”
Like what? Did my mom think I threw myself at Forest?
“I didn’t do anything,” I cut in. “I didn’t—”
“I heard,” Sarah said. “We all heard. Shifters have good hearing. You know this. Everyone in that house heard what went on up there. You didn’t deny him once, didn’t try to stop him at all—do you have any idea how it’s going to make your other mates feel? Did you think about them once while you were getting dirty with the alpha?” She was practically fuming at me now, and I couldn’t recall the last time my mom had ever been so upset at me.
The intensity of her voice, not to mention the hard truths she said, nearly brought tears to my eyes. Call me a goodie two shoes, but I didn’t like to disappoint her. I said, “I didn’t—”
But she would let me get no words in, edgewise. “That’s right. You didn’t. You didn’t think at all. You just let him touch you like that, talk to you like that, like some kind of two-bit wolf in heat.”
I blinked, shocked. At that point, I didn’t know what to say. It seemed every wolf could have multiple mates except her. Heaven forbid I ever act on any of my sexual urges; my mom would literally keel over and die.
Sarah instantly cooled down, quickly saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that—”
But I had enough. “No,” I bit back, “no, I think you did. Sorry, Mom, we can’t all run off on our mates and find true love with a high freaking warlock. Sorry I can’t be just like you, and I’m sorry I chose the pack over you.”
“Honey, I didn’t—”
No. She didn’t get to act repentant. She didn’t get to change tunes so fast. Sarah had brought this on herself, and I was too upset to stop now.
I wanted to cry, but when I blinked, I only saw red. “You did. Don’t lie to me, Mom. It’s not flattering. Don’t be mad at me because I want the life you hated and don’t you dare judge me for what I did. You might not be able to see it, but Forest is a good man. He doesn’t deserve any of this—none of them do. So yell at me all you want, but it’s not going to change anything. It’s just going to make me want to drop my phone in the lake and never talk to you again.”
God, okay. That was a bit too far, wasn’t it? I had never fought with her before, and I instantly regretted the words the moment they were spoken.
Sarah sighed, exhaling a giant, sorrowful breath. “I hope, for all our sakes, honey, you make the right decision here.” She turned her head upwards, at the blackened sky. The moon hung overhead, illuminating the world in a silver glow. “Even if you didn’t have the others, he would still be too old for you. It’d be like coming home from college with a professor as your boyfriend.”
Did my mom not realize these things happened sometimes? Granted, I wasn’t trying to make excuses, and I knew I’d regret it, but what was done was done. I couldn’t change the past.
“Either way,” I spoke slowly, drawing my gaze to her hazel stare, “it doesn’t matter. I’m going to Clay before sunrise, and I might not come back.” Listen to me, talking about my own death as if it was a normal, everyday occurrence.
Man, it sucked.
Sarah inhaled, looking like she wanted to argue, but she said nothing. She only shook her head and went inside, leaving me to wonder just what I planned on telling the others. I knew it was stupid to go, but it was our only option. A levitation spell wouldn’t be nearly enough to defeat Clay. I was foolish for even wasting my time trying to practice my magic.
The skeleton in the road seemed to watch me, and I wondered what Clay would do to me once he had me. Would he cut me open, experiment on my blood—or were the secrets he wanted still locked up in my mind?
I heard the door open again, and I was about to whirl on Sarah and demand to know what else could be said about it when I saw it wasn’t her. It was someone else I really, really didn’t want to talk to right now.
Landon.
He was busy running a hand through his light brown hair, glancing at the skeleton on the road as he moved beside me. I fought the involuntary urge to step away from him, both because of our last encounter and what I’d just done with Forest upstairs. I didn’t need to get into another shouting match right now.
“Go away, Landon,” I hissed, frowning to myself. Suddenly the night air felt so suffocating.
“Wish I could, but for some reason, I want to be out here, with you.”
My eyes rolled of t
heir own accord. I remembered his drinks; the wolf was probably drunk. “I just want to be alone,” I told him.
“Then I’ll stay out here with you, even if you’re an ass.”
“I’m the ass?” I echoed, turning to face him. “You’re the ass!”
Landon tilted his head, debating. “I don’t think I am, no.”
“Do you even remember the first words you said to me?”
Nodding once, he said, “I do. You’re not even that pretty. From what I recall, we talked about it before. I would recreate it for you, but maybe you got what you needed from Forest.” A half smirk, half sneer grew on his face as he let his words sink in. His breath smelled of alcohol, but he seemed to be holding it in well.
“You…” I couldn’t say anything else. I groaned, spinning to head to the door, but he grabbed my arm, pulling me back. I sent a glare his way. “Are you drunk? Why do you have to be such an ass?” No matter how I pulled, he would not release my arm.
“I’m not drunk,” he said, moving me so that my backside was against the porch’s railing. “Trust me, Addie, it takes a lot more to affect me.”
“Oh, good for you,” I spat, finally realizing he had me cornered. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you what Forest couldn’t, since your mother interrupted.”
I swatted at his chest. “Don’t you dare, Landon.”
“What? I’m only thinking of you—”
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. I didn’t…” I stopped my stumbling when I locked eyes with him.
He wasn’t mad. An ass and a jerk, but not mad. Unamused at my apparently unwitty retorts, but definitely not mad about the whole Forest thing. Landon had been the one to call me naive.
What Caitlin said at the funeral…was all of it about Forest?
Landon studied me. “Your mom’s just trying to look out for you. I’m kind of jealous. Before Forest, I never had anyone to look out for me. She wants what’s best for you—and she thinks that’s being away from us. But she’s wrong. You belong here, with us. With all of us.”
Crystal Lake Pack: The Complete Series: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance Page 35
