Alphas of Seduction

by Victoria Blue

  On the other hand, I don’t necessarily want a strange, possibly dangerous man in the middle of my romantic getaway, either.

  Although when Snow and I roll him over, I almost have to revise that assessment, because even under the layers of fur and beard, there’s no denying that there’s a certain rugged handsomeness to him.

  He’s got the kind of severe—almost craggy—features one would associate with the term mountain man: the high forehead with the heavy brows; the obligatorily once-or-twice-broken nose; the lean cheeks disappearing under his beard that convey a certain amount of austerity and asceticism. But all those harsh features are balanced out by the dramatic eyelashes fanning over his cheek and the glimpse of soft, well-formed lips under his beard. Lips that are a little bit bluish with chill.

  Like me, he’s white, with the kind of fair skin that gets red and flushed in the cold. Snow drops a booping finger on his ruddy nose before starting to unbutton his coat.

  “He’s like a sexy Santa Claus,” she says, and I wait for a spike of jealousy to come, but strangely I don’t feel jealous in the least.

  Because we’ve finally kissed? Because I think he’s sexy, too? Because Santa Claus can only be so sexy?

  Hmm.

  I let out a breath and decide to chalk it up to being the cheerfully ravenous girl I am.

  “We should put him closer to the fire,” I say, unwinding his ice-crusted scarf. Now that we’ve unwrapped him, it’s easy to see that he’s shivering violently. “Do you think we can carry him over?”

  Snow stands up, tapping her finger against those perfect lips. Lips I was just devouring. She catches me staring, and the dark silk of her cheeks turns even darker. But she’s fighting a smile, too.

  Gah. She’s so pretty. I want to put every knuckle of hers in my mouth while my knuckles are occupied elsewhere. I want her navel under my tongue, I want her riding my fingers, I want her braids swishing against my thighs as she crawls down my body. I want her, her, her.

  But first, this bear-man, who’s still completely unconscious and now leaking snowmelt all over the wide wooden planks of the cabin.

  I take his arms, as the taller of us, and Snow takes his feet, and together we shift his huge form the ten feet onto the cushy rug in front of the fireplace.

  “Fuck, he’s heavy,” I wheeze out as we finally drop him. He still shivers uncontrollably, eyes closed, breath rapid.

  Snow uses a gold-ringed toe to ease up the hem of the thick sweater he wears, revealing a flat stomach, ridged with abs and dusted with dark brown hair. The sight is overwhelmingly delicious. Not just his perfect stomach—masculine as hell and practically inviting teeth and tongues—but also her delicate brown foot arching above it. Her curious little toes now stroking at his stomach, as if to test the firmness of his abs and tickle her feet with the crisp hair there.

  This is the problem with being ravenous. Now I’m shuddering with arousal at the sight of a damn foot on top of a stomach of a man I don’t know.

  “Yeah, he’s heavy. Heavy with tons of muscles and probably a giant you-know-what, too,” Snow says.

  We both look, we can’t help it. And even just coming from a blizzard, even unconscious, there’s a sizable bulge distending his zipper.

  “Dang,” Snow mutters. “They sure make them good up here in the mountains.”

  “His jeans are wet. Is it creepy if we take them off?”

  She nudges at his waist with a toe, and the black band of a pair of boxer briefs rises above his belted jeans.

  “He’s got underwear on,” she says. “So only like medium-creepy?”

  I try to rouse him before we take them off, but he’s really down for the count. I try testing his pulse again, not that I can tell anything from it, but it reassures me to feel it still going. But shouldn’t he be waking up by now? Shouldn’t he be shivering less?

  That decides it for me. I’d rather risk this stranger having his own #metoo moment at the hands of two graduate students than have him actually die of hypothermia.

  “You take his sweater and shirt, I’ll take his jeans. Then we’ll wrap him in some blankets, too.”

  We get to work peeling the half-frozen, half-sodden clothes off his massive frame, and it becomes more and more apparent that Snow was right. This man is built out of pure muscle. It’s not sculpted, gym-style muscle, either—it’s heavy, delicious layers wrung from hours of wrangling cattle or fallen logs or bales of hay. He’s come by these muscles honestly, and they’re further set off by the dark dustings of hair along his chest and legs. A line of hair leads down from his belly button like an arrow right to his dick, which, even nestled softly into his boxer briefs, promises to be a monster.

  I resist the urge to ogle, and instead, I get up for a blanket. Snow tugs off his wet socks, wrapping her slim hands around his bare feet to warm him.

  “What is it about a man’s bare feet?” I ask, mostly to myself, because I’m riveted by the sight of them, looking so pale and vulnerable compared to the rest of his big, sexy body. Or maybe I’m riveted by the sight of Snow’s hands on them.

  Or maybe I got interrupted in the middle of fooling around with my crush and I’m just at full-on levels of horny frustration.

  “It’s just his bare feet,” Snow says, taking one edge the blanket and helping me tuck it around him. She carefully tucks in his feet, making sure to layer extra fabric around his lower legs. “We wouldn’t be so happy to see Professor Stoller’s feet.”

  I think of our graduate advisor—a very old man with a very indifferent relationship to personal hygiene—and shudder. Nope, those are definitely not sexy feet.

  Soon, we’ve got the man all bundled up and his clothes in the washer, his fur coat hung up near the fireplace to dry out. The fire does its job, and the man’s shivers gradually begin to ease.

  I catch Snow’s eyes on the other side of him. “What now?”

  She chews on her lower lip a moment, thinking. Then perks up.

  “I have an idea.”

  Chapter 2

  Snow

  The man’s head is heavy in my lap as I brush his hair. Scarlett is next to me working on his beard. She’d muttered something about beard oil when she’d first started, but between my hair products and hers, she’s managed to tame his beard into something, well…something sexy. It’s only a little longer than his jawline, and very neatly trimmed. With it smoothed and groomed, it’s easy to see his strong cheekbones and the line of his squared jaw. And his lips! I can’t resist touching them when Scarlett sits back on her heels to admire her handiwork.

  She giggles as she watches me touch his mouth.

  “What?” I ask, feeling heat rush to my face. I start brushing his longish hair again.

  “Nothing, really,” she says. “I feel like we’re at a slumber party or something. Except instead of playing with each other’s hair, we’re playing with a complete stranger’s.”

  An irresistibly handsome stranger, I think, and then I decide that I must have some kind of fairy godmother following me around and granting me wishes, because not only do I have a hot man’s head cradled in my lap, but I’m next to the girl I’ve been longing for since the day we both started working as GTAs for Professor Stoller. I look up at Scarlett from underneath my lashes, my body aching to touch every part of her. Her little snub nose and her pouting mouth painted a shade of red that would send men, women, and bulls charging at her.

  The first time I saw her, her lips had been that same shade of red. Scarlett, like her name. She’d been in scuffed motorcycle boots and torn jeans, a plain white T-shirt slumping off one shoulder and knotted at her waist, and she’d been sitting cozily in another girl’s lap—straddling her, actually—playing with the girl’s hair while she regaled the girl with some hilarious story and the group around them laughed.

  “Who’s she?” I’d asked my friend Camille. I’d only just started the graduate program at UT-Austin that week, and I hardly knew anyone, except for Camille, who’d gone to my high schoo
l down in Houston.

  “Oh, her,” Camille said, her voice lowering to the I’ve got tea register. “That’s Scarlett Rosenthal. She’s slept with basically everyone in Austin.”

  “That’s a statistical impossibility,” I murmured, glued to the sight of Scarlett’s sleek, denim-clad thighs sprawling over the other girl’s. I felt heat everywhere on my body, so much heat that I was sure it would sizzle against Camille’s skin.

  “Well, she doesn’t do them one at a time, if you get what I’m saying,” Camille whispered, pulling back and giving me a raised eyebrow.

  “I don’t think I do,” I admitted, confused.

  “She’s poly,” Camille said with the smugness of someone with good gossip. “She likes threesomes, foursomes, that kind of thing. Guys and girls, wild stuff. Way too wild for you, Miss Snowdrop Lewis.”

  I’d looked away then, a bit embarrassed at how obvious my attraction to this Scarlett Rosenthal was. It was no secret to my friends that I identified as bisexual…but it was also no secret that I’ve only ever had one boyfriend and had spent the last year living like a nun.

  I couldn’t have found a worse girl to start falling for than the rowdy and shamelessly carnal Scarlett. But fall for her I did, doomed from the moment I saw her, even more doomed from the moment we were assigned the same freshman art history course to TA in. But I was so agonizingly shy. All I wanted was to tell her I needed to know what her neck tasted like, but all that ever came out was stammering small talk.

  Somehow, she still wanted to spend time with me, talk to me, and over the course of the semester, she managed to become both my closest friend and the sole thing dancing behind my eyelids when I touched my pussy alone in bed at night.

  When she invited me up here for part of the winter break, she’d added, “It’ll just be the two of us, Snowdrop.” And then she’d put her fingertips against the place where my heartbeat thudded against my chest, right above the teardrop curve that swelled and sang for her touch.

  I knew what she meant, I knew what agreeing to come would mean for the both of us, and I assented eagerly. Austin was crowded—between roommates and classes and other grad students and the inevitable amount of drinking and concert-going that came with being a grad student in art—there was never a moment between the two of us that could really turn sexy. And short of her showing up on my doorstep in the rain, being holed up in a snowy cabin in the middle of nowhere felt like the next best thing, even if I would be the only black person for untold miles around and I would have to make Scarlett walk with me inside every rural gas station whenever we stopped along the way.

  But after I agreed to come, I added in a brave rush, “It doesn’t always have to be only the two of us, you know. I want—I mean, I’ve never—I’d like to try—” I broke off, totally tangled up in my own inexperience and awkwardness.

  She gave me her signature Scarlett smile, the one with her tongue curled temptingly against the edge of her top teeth, and said, “You’d like to have more than two in a bed, you mean?”

  I nodded eagerly.

  “That’s like four-hundred-level sex,” she said after a minute of thinking and running her tongue along her teeth. “Let’s get you past your 101s first. Walk before you can run and all that.”

  But here we are now, with a beautiful male sprawled out on the floor in front of us, and I’m ready to run. Maybe Scarlett and I didn’t get much past kissing, but it’s hard not to feel ready for four-hundred-level sex anyway.

  Slow down, Snow, I chide myself. The man isn’t even awake. There’s no wedding band on his hand, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t already got someone or just plain wouldn’t be interested. And even if he is interested, it doesn’t mean that his body is ready for fun after near human-popsicle levels of cold.

  So instead, I focus on his hair. I finish brushing it, and then I start stroking his scalp, enjoying the feeling of his silky, soft hair moving through my fingers. I think I could pet him this way for hours, but maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe it’s better to let him rest.

  Except then I stop petting him and he growls.

  Growls. Like a bear.

  Surprised, I start petting him again and the growl settles back down into his chest. His eyes remain closed the entire time and his breathing doesn’t change.

  Scarlett giggles again. “Did he just growl at you?”

  “I guess so,” I laugh, testing it again by lifting my hand from his hair.

  Another growl. Deeper this time.

  “Shh,” I soothe, running my fingers along his scalp again. “Shh. I won’t stop, don’t fret.”

  The growl slowly tapers off and he seems at peace again, except Scarlett starts giggling uncontrollably.

  “Snow,” she whispers. “Look.”

  I look at where she tilts her head and can’t stop my own little gasp and giggle.

  He’s hard. In fact, he’s so hard that his erection is tenting the blanket.

  Scarlett sighs. “I’d pay lots of real American dollars to see that thing.” She pats his shoulder in a resigned, I’m too ethical to take advantage motion. “Maybe when he wakes up, he’ll want to thank us in orgasms.”

  He stirs with another growl, his eyes behind his eyelids moving restlessly, and he manages to mostly kick off his blanket. Scarlett reaches for it to pull it back up, but not before we both see that the plum-like tip of his cock is rising a good few inches above the waistband of his boxer briefs.

  “Shit, he’s big,” Scarlett breathes. “Look at that thing!”

  I am looking, and she’s not wrong. It’s long and thick as hell, with two tantalizingly plump veins snaking down the underside. At the tip of the wide crown, pre-cum beads up like dew.

  We yank the blanket back up to his chin, but I’m already breathing hard. So is Scarlett, her pupils wide and her lips parted.

  “He’s probably fine here,” she says breathlessly. “You and I could—”

  I’m already scrambling to my feet, all the lust in my cunt and belly and breasts throbbing like a sore tooth. “Yes, we could.”

  She reaches for my hand, and I think finally, finally, finally I’m about to have this need eased when the stranger awakes with a jolt so vicious and sudden that it has us both jumping back.

  Chapter 3

  Liam

  I’m dead. I know I have to be dead, because I’m looking at two sweet angels in front of me, and I vaguely recall hazy snippets of their merry chatter and bright laughter. The feeling of small hands petting me, warming me. Tending to me.

  It felt like heaven.

  I blink up at them now, the heel of my palm going to my dick out of sheer habit to press against it, and then one of them—the white girl, with lips painted the color of sin—giggles.

  And I realize there probably isn’t morning wood in heaven. Not that it’s fucking morning, judging by the dark windows and the dim room, filled with the light from two small lamps and the glow of a crackling fire.

  I stretch, feeling aches and pinpricks everywhere, and remember in fits and spurts the nightmare leading up to this moment. The truck breaking down. Having to choose between freezing to death in the truck or freezing to death searching for the nearest cabin along the way.

  Seeing the warm dance of firelight through a haze of snow and trees…

  I shake my body like a dog and lumber to my feet, tucking my eager cock away as I do. No need to scare the angels, especially after they’ve been so kind to me.

  “Hello,” I rumble. My voice is deeper and rougher than normal, no doubt from the three or four hours of inhaling frozen air and snow. “I’m Liam.”

  They glance at each other. I realize that they’re holding hands, that they’re standing as if they were frozen mid-motion and about to leave.

  “I’m Scarlett,” announces the girl with lips the color of sin. “This is Snow.”

  Snow bites her lip and nods, then glances away, like she’s having a hard time not staring at my erection.

  I like that.

&nbs
p; I intentionally stretch again, knowing how it pulls my briefs tight around my cock, as my mind truly begins to clear and I begin to absorb where I’m really at and who I’m with.

  First off, the cabin is spacious and newish, fitted out with the kind of furniture and appliances that scream money. I can’t recognize the shape of the windows, which makes me think I’ve never seen this place before—which makes me think I wandered way fucking farther than I’d originally thought. Christ knows how I’ll find my truck again.

  Second of all, the girls are younger than me. College aged, I’d guess, maybe a tiny bit older. Snow has dark brown skin, dark eyes, eyelashes so long they cast shadows. Long, skinny braids frame her face, and she’s petite and slender. Scarlett is milk-pale, with freckles dashed over her button nose and dark hair bundled up in a careless knot on her head. She’s as curvaceous as Snow is slim, and they’re both in pajamas that do nothing to hide their perfect little bodies.

  Actually…

  I look again at their clasped hands and then up to their flushed faces, a slow worry creeping through me. I know fuck all about women’s fashion, but I do know that women don’t wear these kinds of slinky camisoles and shorts unless they want to be seen in them. And the flush in their faces can’t only be from the fire…

  I swallow, trying to angle my body away as I look for something to cover up with. These girls are clearly together and I don’t want them to think I’m trying to wave my boner at them.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, my voice still harsh with the effects of the storm. “It’s a sleep thing, you know—”

  “Oh, I know all about sleep things,” Scarlett laughs, but Snow elbows her and then cants her head toward me in an obvious can’t you see he’s embarrassed gesture.