by Hettie Ivers
“I understand it upsets you to find yourself attracted to me,” he appraised. I immediately shook my head in his hands. “Stop, stop, Milena,” he implored with a small eye-roll of his own. “No more lying. I know you’re attracted to me. I also know how much it sickens you. And I get it. I understand just how you feel.”
I suppressed a sniffle, regarding him with renewed interest.
“I can’t stand being attracted to you either,” he rudely confessed, an incongruously sweet, compassionate smile on his face.
“Believe me,” he said with a chuckle, “I’ve fought it. Hard. I’ve gone over all the reasons in my head why you’re not anything I should rationally ever want.”
His words should have reassured me rather than hurt my feelings, but I found they chafed nonetheless.
“Obsessed over all the ways you and I don’t belong together,” he continued. “Deliberated over all the aspects in which you’re innately lacking and fundamentally, genetically inadequate for me.”
O-kay, I got it! I wasn’t Alpha bitch material. I could live with that.
“And yet I do want you,” he said. “There’s no sense denying it. I want you so much it’s making me crazy—tearing me apart inside trying to suppress my wolf’s overwhelming instincts to claim you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I bit my lip and gestured in the negative.
“I’m not used to looking after human girls the way Remy is.” He sighed, the pad of his thumb rubbing over my tear-swollen lips, gently pulling my lower lip free from its captivity between my teeth. “Every time I’m with you, I have to make a focused effort to handle you as delicately as possible,” he explained, “just so I don’t hurt you.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners as they beheld my features, his irises softening to an irrefutably mesmerizing, smoky black that did funny things to the skittish butterflies in my belly.
“My wolf is even less familiar with handling a fragile human female.” His eyes followed his hand as it traveled indolently down the column of my throat, encircling it, his thumb coming to rest lightly in front at the juncture of my clavicle bones while his fingertips extended around to massage the base of my neck.
“Sometimes it takes all my concentration simply to suppress him,” he revealed. “Particularly when you’re aroused.” He raised ardent eyes to mine. “Especially when you defy me and deny it. It’s enough to drive him to the surface if only to dominate you and exert his rightful authority.”
I swallowed. Cancel butterflies.
His thumb skated back and forth over the hollow at the front of my throat as he observed me. “My animal side is inclined to follow instinct without concern for your human feelings and frailty. He’ll bite you,” he stressed, when I offered no outward reaction. “Mark you as his mate in every manner he knows how.”
I had to wonder if it was by design or coincidence that every time he almost successfully calmed me, he somehow turned right around and scared the bejesus out of me again.
“So I need you to cooperate with me and not draw out my wolf,” he cautioned. “Do you understand?”
Did it matter? Once again, it didn’t sound like there was much choice in it for me. So I gave him nothing, willing my features to remain blank. Knowing full well he could feel the wild pulse in my neck against his palm as it accelerated to warp speed. For a moment I swore I could almost hear it, though I knew that was impossible.
“I told you, this is new for me, and I’m trying to do the honorable thing by you, Milena,” he extolled his own virtuousness yet again.
I held my breath, awaiting the “but” to come.
“However, I need you to respect the fact I am by nature a predator.”
How I wished that I, too, had a convenient alter ego to pin threats of violence and other bad behaviors on. Anger roiled through my gut. But I nodded serenely and daintily cleared my throat.
“And I need you to respect the fact that I am by nature extremely emotional,” I threatened back, giving him a tight-lipped, saccharine smile, “and stubborn as fuck.” I was relieved and proud my voice hadn’t quavered.
“Instinctively, I’m inclined to cry hysterically for days on end—maybe hurl myself out of a window,” I added airily, “if your Neanderthal predator side can’t control his baser nature.”
His lips curved into the most delicious smile, his eyes reflecting a genuine amusement and admiration that almost made me stumble in delivering the next snarky remark poised on the tip of my tongue.
“So I need you to cooperate with me and not draw out my inner hormonal teenager side, ’kay?” I warned with a liberal slice of sarcasm and condescension.
His smile broadened and he nodded with a quietly spoken, “Touché.” His face moved subtly closer, his hand slipping up my neck to cradle the back of my head.
“Do … do you understand?” I confirmed with markedly less firmness than I’d planned to convey as I retreated from his advancing features, feeling myself slowly easing backward into the cradle of his shoulder and bicep, guided by his hand at the back of my head.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, leaning ever closer over me. “I’ll put my wolf on a leash if you put your more hysterical emotions on a leash,” he summarized. “Let’s seal this deal and go eat.”
My eyes expanded with panic as realization dawned that he meant to kiss me. But he silenced me with a pleading look that was all tenderness and longing and some other emotions I wouldn’t have believed him capable of feeling, much less projecting. And before I could get my wits about me, he spoke the magically seductive words that somehow overruled all of my many valid, yet unspoken objections.
“Please? Just once, Milena,” he coaxed, ghosting his lips over my own. An electric thrill of anticipation shot through me. “Just a little one? I promise to stop if you don’t like it,” he breathed against my awaiting mouth.
I should have pushed him away. But I closed my eyes and held my breath instead as tingles spread throughout my body. His lips felt softer than I’d imagined they would as they brushed lightly back and forth.
“Relax,” he entreated, his fingertips caressing my cheek, “it’s not gonna hurt,” he teased, “… promise.”
I realized my whole body had in fact seized up with apprehension. My muscles were contracted, and my hands were balled into fists in my lap. I felt his hand move to splay against my stomach atop my pajama shirt and noted my abdomen had also tightened up.
“Breathe,” he instructed, pressing a kiss to the corner of my mouth. I took a shallow breath and consciously tried to release my muscles.
“Good,” he approved in a barely audible whisper, his fingers stroking against my belly, drawing lazy circles. “Again. Into my hand this time.”
I complied, and he continued to press sweet, languid kisses to my closed lips, nothing more. As I relaxed and my breathing grew less shallow and strained, my lips eventually parted just the tiniest bit, and he began to nibble and suck gently on my lower lip before returning to my upper lip to brush lightly back and forth again.
He repeated variations of this action again and again until I began to feel so heady and enraptured with the sensation that I felt my lips unconsciously moving against his in anticipation and curiosity. Gentle and leisurely as the touch of his lips was, flames quickly began to lick up my thighs, and I soon felt warm and heavy all over with burgeoning need.
I wanted more. Though as I yielded, my lips slackening and my mouth opening to him, he stopped. I opened my eyes, bewildered and slightly … disappointed.
“There.” His lips curved into a lazy, sensual smile as his heavy-lidded eyes surveyed me. “Not so painful, was it?”
When I didn’t answer, he pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose. Then he landed another one to the side of my nose … then my cheek. Soon his lips were making their way over every centimeter of my face, landing soft, unhurried little kisses that collectively managed to melt my defenses and stir my desire even more than the one on my mouth had.
&nb
sp; “Feeling better?” he mumbled against my skin as he went. Again, I declined to answer the obvious. It was requiring all of my focus just to keep my eyelids semi-open and my eyeballs from rolling to the back of my head.
“S’bout a quarter to three a.m. now,” he informed me in his most hypnotically soothing baritone. “Most of the house is sleeping.”
I found it equally hard to follow or care about what he was saying as his lips burned a torturously slow path in the direction of my sensitive ear. “So you may go downstairs dressed as you are, or change into your clothes … if you prefer.”
Truthfully, I was struggling to think of a good enough reason to ever move from his lap, until he carelessly mentioned amid the next several kisses, “I put your suitcase and handbag next to the second chest of drawers … just past your first left inside the closet.”
Huh? My suitcase? Handbag? Holy blessed Mother Mary, he had my stuff?
I reacted so fast I would’ve likely tumbled out of his lap onto my head on the hardwood floor had Alex not employed such swift reflexes as I heedlessly pushed against his chest, simultaneously throwing all of my weight forward and to the side in my mad rush to get up and get to my things.
He seemed more entertained than miffed by my reaction as he steadied me onto my feet.
“Where?” I blurted monosyllabically as the room tilted and spots blurred my vision, my head working overtime to regain equilibrium after jumping up so quickly. “How?” I demanded. “Where?” I repeated. “When?”
He laughingly arose to stand in front of me, holding me steady by a firm grip on each of my biceps as I swayed, then bounced gleefully in recovery on the balls of my bare feet.
As my vision cleared to normal and I gazed up at his amused countenance, I was struck by just how tall he was. And big! He was suddenly vastly more intimidating than he’d been only seconds before when I’d been sprawled out across his lap with his lips leisurely branding their way over the contours of my face.
I stared up at him like an idiot. Dumbstruck.
“Why don’t I show you?” he suggested with such a wolfish, rapacious look in his eyes I wondered if I’d misheard and he’d in fact said, “Why don’t I eat you?” instead.
When I didn’t respond, he took me by the elbow and was soon guiding me through a walk-in closet reminiscent of the same manner of unnecessary opulence I’d discovered in his shower. It was easily the size of a normal person’s apartment. I tried not to gape like a hayseed or roll my eyes in obvious disdain at the rows upon rows of fine shirts and suits. I could’ve gotten lost in there without a tour guide. But I forgot my annoyance when we reached my suitcase and bag.
I fell to my knees on the plush, carpeted floor beside them, immediately rifling through my little backpack he’d so eloquently referred to as a handbag. To my disappointment, I found that my three most critical possessions—my passport, cell phone, and iPad—were all missing. But everything else, including my wallet, was there, along with my keys, which were attached to my treasured keychain that held two silly photos of me with my mom. I turned the keychain over in my palm.
She’d presented me with it the day I’d gotten my license. One side of the keychain held a photo of us at an amusement park. I was four years old in it, sitting on her lap inside a bumper car. She was laughing in the photo, whereas I was throwing a fit, clearly not thrilled by the ride. In the photo on the opposite side of the keychain, we were in the front seat of my crappy Toyota on our way out for one of my early driving lessons. I was grinning from ear to ear with excitement, whereas she was pretending to be sobbing with fright.
“Remy retrieved your handbag from the front seat of Felix’s van,” Alex supplied from where he stood behind me. “He found your baggage claim check inside of it and went back to the airport the following morning to collect your luggage.”
I nodded absently, hugging my bag and keychain to my chest while blinking rapidly to stem the threat of tears. I would forever be grateful to Remy for his thoughtfulness. I didn’t know when I’d make it back home again, or what would be left of my home by the time I did. The contents of the two bags in front of me represented every measly possession I had in the world. And without my phone or iPad, the keychain photos were the only ones I now had of my mother.
I didn’t hear him move, so I was startled when I felt Alex’s arms wrap around me from behind, his warm, hard stomach and chest pressing up over my spine.
“May I see?” he requested, his chin coming to hover over my right shoulder.
My first instinct was to deny him as he proceeded to tuck my hair behind my right ear and over my shoulder. He’d already demanded access to just about everything private and sacred I possessed, including my mind and my intimate memories. Nothing I had was off limits to him. He’d even seen me naked while I was comatose! I wasn’t fool enough to believe he hadn’t studied the keychain photos in detail already either, as there was not a bat’s chance in hell he hadn’t ransacked both of my bags thoroughly.
And while there was a small possibility that Felix and his cronies had either discarded or destroyed my iPad, cell phone, and passport, the greater probability was that all three items were simply now in Alex’s possession and being withheld from me. I decided to play the odds. And to test drive my untried feminine wiles while I was at it.
I held the keys out in front of me, unfurling my clenched right fist to reveal the precious keychain in silent offering to him. While he took it from my palm and began carefully turning it over in his fingers, looking at the photos on either side, I searched for any sign of him inside my head, just to be certain he hadn’t snuck up on me. I found no trace.
“You look like her,” he said of my mother. “How old are you here?” he asked of the one at the amusement park.
“Four.”
“You’re adorable.”
I shrugged one shoulder awkwardly, not quite able to muster up a good-natured “thanks.”
“You know, you still make that same face when you’re upset,” he quipped.
I gasped in mock affront before I could think better of it, jabbing my elbow back into his ribs as I giggled in protest, “Do not!”
“Do so!” he insisted, tickling me under the arm when I jabbed him with my elbow a second time.
I shrieked with laughter and a second later found myself on my back on the closet floor, being tickled by supernaturally fast fingers as I giggled like a hyena and begged in between squeals for him to desist.
Once he stopped and I regained my composure, I looked up to find him cheesing down at me with such an absurdly self-satisfied grin it set me snickering all over again. He shook his head, squinting down at me, a goofy smile still stretched across his face.
“This must be a weird side effect of having my blood in your system,” he ascertained, “because I never thought I’d hear genuine laughter from you so soon.”
My breath caught and my face fell before promptly heating with shame. I was an imbecile. What was I thinking? Laughing like a twit with my flirty rake of an evil, psychotic captor while my poor brother languished God only knows where?
Alex’s smile vanished as well as he watched me. Somehow he seemed to accurately discern that I was internally berating myself. As I knew he wasn’t in my head, it made his next words that much more shocking when he confirmed the exact cause of my sudden distress.
“Hey, it’s okay.” His fingers delved into the hair at my scalp to massage my greatest point of weakness. “Raul’s fine. No one is hurting him; I’ve made sure of that. And you’re allowed to laugh a little after everything you’ve been through these past few days,” he said. “Fuck, we almost lost you.”
His words were sobering on multiple levels, as they reaffirmed that I really had come close to dying, a fact I had strangely mixed feelings about. They also confirmed that Raul was likely only alive right now and not being harmed for the moment because of Alex’s wolf’s weird preoccupation with me—another disturbing fact he’d possibly also just confirmed thr
ough his use of “we.”
I nodded agreeably, while promising myself I wouldn’t let my guard down again with him for even a minute, and reminding myself that in addition to all of his other hateful crimes against me and those I loved, he was also the overbearing asshole who had most likely confiscated my passport, iPad, and cell phone.
“Thank you,” he said sincerely, to my astonishment, “for sharing the photos of you and your mother with me, Milena.”
My stomach flipped. My name was sounding a lot like exotic chocolate again. “You’re welcome?” I whispered it like a question as I fought against the seduction of his fingers still combing my scalp.
I was pretty certain I’d never heard him say thank you before—at least not with some degree of sarcasm. I was instantly stumped, and sure it was he who was experiencing weird side effects. But I realized he’d also given me an opening through which to test my influence and see if I could induce him to give me my iPad and phone back if he had them.
“I have better photos of us on my phone and iPad,” I bemoaned, gazing up at him through my eyelashes. “They were in my backpack when I deplaned, but they’re gone now,” I pouted when he offered no reaction.
His hand stilled and abandoned my scalp. His expression was unreadable as he sat back onto his heels. My heart rate ticked up a notch. I pushed up onto my elbows.
“You don’t um … suppose … Felix and his men stashed my phone and iPad in the van somewhere that Remy just didn’t think to look, do you?”
A smile played on his lips, even as his brows merged together. He shook his head. “No, I don’t,” he replied without hesitation. “I put them both in the top drawer of the dresser for you, baby.”
My mouth fell ajar.
He grinned. “I started unpacking your things earlier but was interrupted when I felt you begin to stir.”
I frowned in confusion, not even bothering to close my mouth.
He chuckled. “You’ll find your passport’s in there, too.” He was on his feet and striding away long before I’d managed to shut my jaw. “Get dressed or don’t get dressed,” he threw back over his shoulder. “I’ll be right outside waiting for you.”
