He clapped his mouth shut. Aaron and Francis exchanged glances, but they didn’t look quite as sympathetic as he’d expected.
Instead, they both advanced, coming down the steps toward him.
“You mean, you slept with her?” Aaron’s pointed tone left no question. This was his alpha talking.
“I did. And she made some good points, about my plans—kids and things. She was right, only I didn’t see it, not really, until…” he stopped, biting his lip. It wasn’t appropriate to talk about fucking a man’s daughter in front of him. But that had been it. The moment he knew he wanted Reyna. And then everything just made sense.
He could tell, from how carefully Aaron was watching Francis, that his brother understood what had changed. After being inside her, after coming in her, after feeling her that deeply, Allan couldn’t ignore it anymore.
No destiny was worth losing what he’d felt with Reyna in his arms.
Complete.
“So you’re going to mate my daughter?” Francis seemed disproportionately calm as he continued to advance on Allan.
“I, um. Yes, sir. I had planned to bond with her when I found her.”
“But she just slapped you?” Francis asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Francis was so close, Allan could smell his aftershave. The New Orleans alpha kept walking, and Allan had to fight not to back himself up all the way to the woods. He had the uncanny sensation that he’d done something wrong, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was. He stood his ground and pulled the boots and corset behind his back.
“Do you think she slapped you for no reason?” Francis still showed no emotion, just kept moving closer, inch by inch.
“No, sir.”
“That’s right.” Francis stopped his forward motion and cast a side-glance at Aria. “What would you say happened, my dear?”
Aria’s voice was sharp like a knife. “She thought he was going to bond with her. But he just wanted the sex, I’ll bet. He doesn’t care about Reyna.”
Allan felt that blow deep. He deserved it. All he had done up until that point was try to get rid of Reyna. He didn’t know what kind of gift he was throwing away by being so stubborn. “I…” He let out a breath. “I care.”
“Did you tell her that?” Aaron asked from somewhere behind Francis.
“I told her she was right.” He shrugged. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
As though on cue, everyone groaned at once. Adam, Aaron, Francis, Aria, and the peanut gallery of Oklahoma and East Texas wolves who all crowded out the door to watch the drama unfold.
Allan narrowed his gaze. “What? I told her she was right.”
Francis’s face softened and the old alpha patted his shoulder. “You meant well, m’boy. Aria, maybe you should set him straight.”
The other wolves streamed around him, all making their way toward the woods so they could all have their spot to undress in peace when the shift took them. Some clapped Allan’s back, and some just offered him looks of condolence. He laid Reyna’s clothing on the stoop and stood her boots beside the pile of black.
Aria clucked at him from a spot at his side. “You really don’t deserve her, you know.”
Allan ran his tongue around his mouth. He never liked to admit he’d been wrong, but he felt this so deeply, he couldn’t stop the words from coming, “I know I don’t deserve her.”
Aria studied him with her deep, intense stare, and then rolled her eyes. “She loves you, still, somehow. You lucked out there, buddy.”
“She does?” He touched the hot, still-stinging skin of his cheek. “It doesn’t feel like she loves me.”
“Well, I know Reyna, and she loves you. It pisses her off that she still does, but she does.” Aria’s brows knitted together. “I guess you can’t help but love your mate.”
Two days ago, he would have argued with that statement, but not this day. This day, he could do nothing but agree.
They both looked out into the looming woods, backdropped by the low, orange sun, and Allan sighed. “I guess there’s nothing I can do until tomorrow morning. I just don’t like the thought of her out there alone, without me.”
Aria lifted a brow, and Allan chuckled when he heard the irony in his own words. He’d had his chance. He only hoped she was into second chances. Or seventh.
“Well, she’ll be back here in the morning, anyway. Whether you find her or not, which you shouldn’t even try, because you probably won’t. She likes to sulk when she’s angry.”
“She wouldn’t leave without letting me try again, would she?” He chewed the side of his cheek. He was supposed to work on Monday, which meant he wouldn’t just be able to follow her to New Orleans without a major bump in his schedule, and some kind of explanation to the guys at the station.
Her cousin shrugged and walked across the yard, calling back over her shoulder, “She’s pretty stubborn.”
Allan worked his jaw and pursed his lips. “That makes two of us.” He turned to walk up the steps and his eyes locked with Aaron’s. He froze as his alpha stalked toward him, hands in his jean pockets, boots making hard footfalls on the patio.
“You had sex with her.” The disapproval in Aaron’s voice cut through the silence and sliced Allan open. He hated to disappoint his brother, even if he wouldn’t say as much aloud.
“It’s a good thing I did.” He toed the edge of one step, keeping his gaze fixed on the ground. “I might never have known, otherwise.”
“You felt it, then?”
Allan pulled his lips hard against his teeth, trying not to let the words come out. “Dad was right. You were right. Your whole world changes.”
Aaron grunted and put his hand on Allan’s shoulder as he walked by. The gesture was a simple one, but it clenched his throat closed with the emotion that had been building inside him since Aaron became the alpha.
“I just want you to be happy.” The hand on his shoulder was warm and affectionate—something that hadn’t passed between the two brothers in years.
Allan swallowed hard. “You were right about something else.” Emotion burned behind his eyes, but he couldn’t stop. He needed to say it. “You said I don’t have to choose one or the other. That I could have both.”
He finally looked up and met his brother’s eyes. He saw the same emotion reflected in Aaron’s dark gaze as he felt in his own. “This has been a long time coming.”
“Ten years,” Aaron said, his voice breaking.
“It’s all Reyna. I feel like a different man.” He looked out across the yard, where most of the wolves had disappeared into the woods. The sun was almost gone, and the big, green expanse of the Manzano Hills stretched along behind the ranch. Reyna was out there somewhere.
“I will say, I like the effect she has on you.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Maybe she’ll get you to tone down the John Wayne a little and be a functioning member of wolf society again.” There was an edge of humor in Aaron’s voice as he unbuttoned his collar.
“Don’t push it.” Allan pulled his t-shirt over his head and walked beside his brother, toward the woods. Toward Reyna.
Chapter Twelve
The next morning…
Allan secured the rope around Reyna’s wrists while her limbs were still heavy with sleep. Instead of Adam’s tractor, he’d had to makeshift a rig around the old water pump out by the horse barn, because that had been where he’d found her, asleep, after she shifted back.
He’d run the hills in Manzano Park all night, trying to catch her scent, but wherever she’d gone, she hadn’t left one for him to follow. He had stayed a wolf just a bit longer than he needed, because the wolf allowed him to smell her human form, and he needed to find her.
Her body was all long lines and curves, and with her arms tied over her head, her breasts stood almost at attention, her nipples pointing up at him. Damn, he wanted to put his mouth on those breasts…his hands, his dick…everything.
But he’d decided. She needed to
wake up with his mouth on her clit. So Allan knelt beside her, running his hands down her thighs and coaxing her legs apart. With a breathy sigh, her legs opened and the scent of her arousal filled him with desire.
He lowered himself between her legs and spread her pussy open with his fingers. She was already pink and budding, as Allan latched his tongue onto her clit and sucked. Her aroma was all he could think about, as her arousal grew.
Her thighs tightened and closed around his head, but he hooked his hands around them and forced her to open for him. She moaned and whispered something he couldn’t quite hear.
He groaned into her, the vibrations of her body echoing all the way to him. She tried to clench her thighs again, but he was ready for the response.
Reyna was waking.
Allan slipped his hand up, over the plane of her stomach, and to the curve of her breast. His fingers found the point of a nipple and squeezed. She gasped and her eyelashes fluttered.
His hands returned to open her, and he licked up her slit and continued to suck at her bud, moving his tongue around until she moaned again.
Her hips bucked at him and he saw her stomach muscles tighten. Her eyes fluttered once more, and this time, her mouth came open as well.
“What the—” She blinked and looked down.
Allan met her gaze with earnest appreciation and smiled up her body.
Her hands clenched against the ropes and her gaze flicked up to the restraints. “Allan… what are you…” she managed, but then a sigh took her.
He could feel himself lengthening, hardening, with each noise and movement from her. “Shhhhh,” he quieted, drawing his lips up from her clit. “Don’t want to wake the sleeping house.”
“Please…” She sucked air between her lips and sighed. “Oh, fuck.” Reyna rolled her tongue and looked like she was fighting something hard. “Will you…will you…get your head…fuck.”
Her body tightened again, and her legs clamped down on his hands. When he released her to add his fingers in to the orgasm mix, her legs flailed around his head, but he did his best to ignore her. He could feel her response as she sighed and flexed her legs, arching up to meet him.
Her hips bucked against him. “Harder,” she demanded. “I’m… I’m almost…”
A shudder overtook her and all her muscles tensed, then relaxed. Her strained cry made him hard as fucking granite. He wanted to be inside her.
When she relaxed, he kissed up one hip and across her stomach, and latched on to one breast. Her gasp urged him forward and he sucked until the pain of his erection being pressed into the ground made him surge up and take possession of her mouth.
With nimble fingers, he untied the ropes and was just about to reach down to guide himself inside her when she pushed him onto his back and straddled him. Her pussy was a wet trail against his stomach and his cock ached for her.
He gazed up at her with a smile, lust and desire hazing over everything but the urge to push her down on to his cock and fuck her until they couldn’t walk any more.
She put one hand on his chest and leveraged herself, leaning back, until her momentum brought her forward and the flash of her fist came out of nowhere.
“You fucking asshole!” Reyna’s punch missed his face by centimeters as he ducked out of the way. Her body shook from the amazing orgasm she’d just had, but mostly anger and pain seethed inside her, partners in her torment. How dare he think he could come after her when he’d made it perfectly clear he didn’t want her as his mate. A fuck buddy, maybe, but not a mate. She shoved against his chest and tried to stand, but he was too quick.
His big paws wrapped around her wrists and she found her back against the ground once again. Her legs were pinned by his and the hard line of his erection ground against her pubic bone, sending messages to her brain that she had to fight to dismiss.
Instinctually, she wanted nothing more than to fuck until they were so tired they couldn’t move…but he didn’t want more than that right now. He didn’t want her to be a wolf, and she wouldn’t let him trap her into a life where she never got to enjoy being the creature she was.
“I was trying to apologize.”
“For what! Taking advantage of me? Making me give up everything about myself that I love in order to be with you?” She growled from deep in her chest. Her wolf was with her on this. “Get the fuck off of me. I’m going home today and I never want to see you again!”
His eyes widened and released her hands immediately. “You can’t leave.” He pushed from the ground on either side of her and stood, staring down.
Every gorgeous beautiful inch of him was right there, but the need to hurt him as much as he’d hurt her was overwhelming.
She never let anyone get close to her before. Somehow, this clod of a cowboy sheriff had crawled under her skin and taken up residence. Fate had given her a glimmer of a promise and then ripped the rug out from under her.
“The fuck I can’t. I can do whatever I want.” Reyna scrambled to her feet and took a step backward, just in case he felt like securing her to anything else. Smartass. Figures he’d use my own trick against me.
“Please don’t leave, Reyna.”
“Why? You want something I can’t be. You don’t want me —not the way I am.” Tears welled and she sucked in a quick breath, trying to will them away. She turned and made a fast getaway toward the main house. He didn’t have anything to say that would change her mind.
He hadn’t changed.
Allan followed, his footsteps thundering behind her. “Will you stop.”
A smile curved her lips for a millisecond. It must be so hard for him to walk across his brother’s front lawn naked as the day he was born. Heaven forbid if someone actually saw him behaving like a wolf after a moon run.
“Leave me alone.” She stopped on the front steps of the house and whirled to face him. “I gave you every chance, and you stomped on me each and every time. You can go back to your matchmaker and pick out a blonde bimbo to cook and clean and suck your dick.” The words sliced her heart as she said them. The image of another woman with Allan tore her apart inside.
She loved him. She would always love him.
“Reyna…” His voice was barely a whisper.
“No!” she screamed. “I won’t let myself believe in Fate again. Ever. I’m done.” The tears she’d fought to banish rolled down her cheeks, burning trails of regret as they fell. She wasn’t weak. Crying made her look weak, but she couldn’t make them stop. They kept flowing, turning from a trickle to a flood. He’d ruined the best thing that would ever happen to either of them. “Just let me go.” She opened the front door and stepped inside, but he followed her again.
“Look, I said you were right, and I meant it. I’m a good sheriff because I’m a wolf, and you showed me that I’ve been looking at this all wrong.”
He reached for her and she recoiled. They were words, just words, even if they were the ones she’d been waiting to hear.
A couple of people walked into the foyer and made a one-eighty the second they saw them. At least she didn’t have to worry about stupid human stuff, like her naked ass showing up on Facebook or her conversation with Allan being tweeted to the world. Wolves were loyal and private. The pack might gossip between themselves, but that’s as far as it would ever go.
“I want you, Reyna. I came last night to run with you. To ask you to stay with me. I want to be your mate. I want you to be mine.”
A sob tore through her chest and she lunged for him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She wanted to scream and cry at the same time.
He enveloped her with his arms and lifted her from the floor. The slant of his mouth over hers took her breath away.
She pulled away and growled deep in her chest. “What took you so fucking long, Allan VonBrandt?”
A long gust of air huffed between his lips and he set her down. “I can’t explain all of it. Something happened between us yesterday, when you came to my house.”
“An orgasm?�
�� She raised one eyebrow.
“Among other things.” He took her hand. “You showed me that I could have what I’d wanted without saying no to Fate.”
A breath of uncertainty caught in her throat. “The cowboy hooker Barbie stuff?”
Allan laughed and pulled her against him. “If you agree never to wear that getup again, I promise that I’ll tell you all about it.”
Reyna pressed her lips to his, stopping him from talking anymore. She just wanted him to be inside her again and she opened her mouth wide for his plundering tongue. He grunted, slid his hands to cup her ass, and walked forward toward a door in the foyer she hadn’t noticed previously.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, reveling in the feel of his hard cock against her pussy. Squeezing her thighs, she tried to relieve the building need throbbing inside her.
He opened the door and carried her into a dark room that smelled of leather, wool, and cedar—coats. Not a bedroom, but it would do.
The latch closed behind him and they were in complete darkness, except for the thin strip of light that glowed from beneath the door. He fumbled around the closet, reaching for something above the racks of coats.
“What are you doing?” she asked, nibbling along his earlobe.
“Getting a blanket. I intend to have a picnic.”
“I like picnics,” she purred.
“Good cause, I’m going to eat every fucking sweet inch of you.” He flapped the blanket a couple of times with one arm and then laid her down on top of it.
She pulled his head closer for a kiss. He obliged, taking her mouth long and hard. Their tongues twisted together and her core throbbed. Reyna rocked her hips against his, but he wasn’t going to be prodded into moving any faster. Even his tongue was slow and methodical, like he planned to take his sweet time savoring her. Just like he’d said.
Reyna smiled and slid her hands up his arms, along his broad shoulders, and cupped his face, centering it in front of hers. Even though it was dark, she could see hints of light reflected in his irises.
The glow of his wolf.
To Catch A Mate: Somewhere, TX (VonBrandt Pack Book 5) Page 8
