It made Mag’s blood burn hot with frustration and rage. Where did Janelle get off lying about them running into each other? And where did Kenny get off questioning him about her cover story like he was the fucking Lupine P.D.?
But he could practically feel Janelle pleading with him to play along behind her fake unicorns-and-rainbows expression.
“Luminous Beings,” he answered, the name of the superhero indie now a sour taste in his mouth, even though he hadn’t been lying to Janelle when he told her he’d really enjoyed it.
Kenny’s eyes narrowed. “You came over here to see Luminous Beings by yourself?”
“Sure,” he answered, holding Kenny’s gaze. “It’s got superheroes in it, don’t it? I wouldn’t have minded if it had some more action scenes, but it was all right.”
“What are you and your friend going to see?” Janelle asked, sounding like she was going for gold in the Being Fake Olympics.
Kenny answered with the name of an action flick but his eyes stayed on Mag. “So you guys ran into each other in the movie theater? Then what happened after that? You got something to eat?”
“Just dessert at a diner Mag knew,” Janelle answered. “And now he’s walking me to my hotel before he heads back to campus to meet up with a girl. So sweet of him! I really appreciate it.”
“I can walk you back,” Kenny said, stepping forward.
Janelle shook her head. “No, I’m already delaying Mag from his date and I couldn’t possibly rip you away from yours just because I’m a little neurotic about walking at night by myself in a big city. That would be so rude!”
“It’s okay,” Kenny said. “She can wait.”
“Naw, I got it man,” Mag said. He ended the conversation by walking off. “See you later, K. C’mon Janelle,” he called over his shoulder, like he was just doing what she said and couldn’t wait to get back to campus to hook up with his imaginary date.
He didn’t look back to see Kenny’s reaction, but soon enough Janelle’s heeled footsteps fell in besides his.
They walked back to the hotel in total silence.
“Mag, I’m so sorry,” she said as soon as the hotel door closed behind them.
“Save it,” he said. “I just came up here to get my stuff. Then I’ll leave, yeah?”
“You don’t have to go. I mean, don’t go. I don’t want you to go.”
His heart actually lit up with a pitiful little firecracker of hope because she said she wanted him to stay. But then he reminded himself those were just words, and her actions had just proved how she really felt about him—loud and clear. He hated himself for the way he was feeling right now, like an insecure sorority girl, wondering if a frat guy likes her even after he’s made it obvious he doesn’t give a flying fuck one way or the other.
“I have a date, remember?” he sneered.
She flinched like he’d hit her, but quickly recovered, saying, “We can fix this. The weekend’s not over yet.”
“What’s there to talk about? You don’t want to be seen with me. I get it.”
“No, no, that’s not it at all,” she said, fanning her hands toward him, like she was trying to figure out how to keep him there without touching him. He wanted her to touch him, reassure him, and make the ugly, doomed feeling inside his stomach go away. That made him even angrier.
“Then what is it?” he bit out. “Why the sudden interest in acting like you don’t know me from Adam when Kenny showed up?”
She inclined her head to the side. “Mag, you think I don’t want to be seen with you, but I would love to be seen with you. You are so wonderful, so beautiful, believe me, if it was up to me, I’d be seen with you everywhere. But it’s not up to me. And Kenny knows my parents. If this got back to them, I’d be in a lot of trouble.”
Mag shook his head, confused and angry he was still having this conversation with her. Why didn’t he just leave, walk out the door?
“Wait, did I get your age wrong? Are you a minor? Because if you’re over eighteen, you can do what you want.”
Janelle’s eyes flashed with something he’d never seen in them before: irritation. “No, you can do what you want. People in my parent’s income bracket do not let their daughters run around with wolves they don’t know. I’m twenty-two, but that hot chocolate we had at the hotel? That’s the first time I’ve ever been alone with a male wolf who wasn’t related to me. My younger sister has to take my cousin, Vince, with her everywhere she goes when she leaves our kingdom town, like an escort, until she turns twenty-one. And my middle sister had to agree to live in an apartment with one of our aunts until she turned twenty-one or my parents never would have let her go to college. I know you have a lot more experience than I do, but there are some things about my class of wolf you don’t understand, that you’ll never understand.”
But then her face softened. “However, please believe me when I say I like you, Mag. I like you so much. I wouldn’t be down here if I didn’t really, really like you.”
Mag didn’t know what to say. She was right, he didn’t understand. He didn’t hang out with any girl wolves other than Chloe, who was lower class just like him and could come and go as she pleased. But it sounded like Janelle was involved in some intense shit with her family, like she was in one of those human news stories he’d seen about countries that didn’t allow women to go anywhere by themselves or so much as talk to a male who wasn’t part of their family.
He put his hand on his head, fisting his hair. “That’s really how it is?”
“That’s really how it is,” she assured him, her voice serious for real, like a heart attack. “If my parents found out about you and me, it would be bad for me. Really bad.”
“Rafe says he can help me get a wild card from the Council,” he said.
She blinked. “What?”
“The Lupine Council doesn’t want too many wolves on human football teams, but every year they clear a few to play professional ball. They call them wild cards.”
“I know what a wild card is, my dad’s a Seahawks fan, and he’s always complaining that they need to recruit a wolf—he says they would have won the Super Bowl if they’d had a wolf on their team like the Steelers,” she said. “But what does that have to do with any of this?”
“I got a few teams scouting me right now, including the Los Angeles Suns. If I play good for the rest of the season and get a wild card from the Council, I’ll probably go top five in the human draft.” He took her hand in his. “A year from now, I could be rich, baby. Good enough to bring home to your parents.”
Understanding dawned on Janelle’s face. “You…” She covered her mouth with her free hand, and for a moment it looked like she would cry. But she got a hold of herself and said, “You are the kindest, sweetest, most decent wolf I have ever known. I acted like I didn’t know you in front of Kenny, and you’re trying to think of ways to be acceptable to my parents?”
“It’s okay,” he said. “Please don’t cry, baby.”
She shook her head, blinking back her tears. “No, it’s not okay. I don’t deserve you.”
He had thought the opposite thing so many times over the past two weeks. Telling himself not to flirt with her at the club. He didn’t deserve her. Trying to convince himself not to take her virginity since he didn’t deserve her. Chastising himself for calling her on the phone every single night, because who was he to bother her just because he didn’t want to go to sleep without hearing her voice?
After all that time spent telling himself he had no right to chase after her the way he was, it was a shock to hear Janelle say she was the one who didn’t deserve him.
“Baby…” he said, pulling her in for a hug. “One year, that’s all I need. One year, and I’ll prove to you we deserve each other.”
JANELLE HATED THAT MAG had to go down on her before they could make love that night. But he insisted, at least once, and as always, his skills were beyond phenomenal. He had her coming undone, her hips rocking up into his face in record time.
And he must have felt the same desperate neediness she did, because he was buried inside of her before she even finished coming.
His entry sent another spasm of waves through her body, extending the climax she was having even as he began to carefully construct another one, his hips rolling, rolling, like a well-oiled machine as he pistoned inside of her—but then he abruptly stopped and pulled out. “Can I…? I want you in wolf position.”
Wolf position. What humans called doggy-style. His request sounded like an apology. But he had nothing to be sorry about. Nothing whatsoever. Janelle got on her hands and knees, more than happy to try a position she’d only heard about.
When he pushed into her from behind, stretching her out and filling her up at the same time with his thick length, she understood why this position was so popular. Soon she was undulating her hips on his shaft and she heard him expel a rough hiss of air above her.
“Hell, Janelle, this view!” His fingers tightened around her hips. “And the way you’re using me to get off. I wish I could just stay still and watch this all day. But I can’t, and I’m not going to last long, baby, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said, loving the rush of power that came with the possibility of making a wolf as experienced as Mag come in this new position before she did.
However, she didn’t outlast him. At first she thought she might as his groans increased in size and became louder. But at the last minute, he reached down and covered her clit with his fingertips, and suddenly it was the Bad Princess show all over again as she climaxed with crazed moans. Only then did he start pounding into her.
“Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!” she heard him whispering behind her.
And then he came, his fingers digging into her hips as he released. She could feel him shuddering as he emptied into her, and he was still shaking a little when he collapsed beside her and pulled her into his large arms. Her arms were nowhere near as large as his, but they were long and she wrapped them around him as best she could, all but gluing herself to his wide chest.
They lay there like that, coming down, enjoying the feel of each other as they did so. And when everything was quiet again, she asked, “Why did you say ‘don’t?’”
“Hmm?”
“This morning and just now, you kept saying ‘don’t’ when you were getting close to coming. Why?”
He was quiet for a long time, and she wondered if he would actually answer, but then he admitted, “I was telling myself not to bite you.”
“You wanted to bite me?” she asked.
“Yeah, but in Freedom Town we have rules about that kind of stuff. Not like laws or anything, more like a code everybody sticks to. You don’t bite an unheated she-wolf. You save that for your mate.”
And there came that shiver again, the one only Mag gave her. It would be a disaster if she went into heat in Denver. In a city she didn’t really know. In a hotel room with a wolf to whom she hadn’t been pledged. She knew that. Yet she’d never wanted anything so much as she wanted to go into heat at that moment. She wanted his teeth on her shoulder, she wanted him to feel safe to lose control with her, to do with her as he pleased. She wanted his every dream to come true, getting onto a professional football team, becoming rich. All of it.
“I want to go down on you,” she said.
He jerked away from her. “Whoa, what?”
“I want to put you in my mouth.” She sat up. “I want to make you feel the way you make me feel. Can you tell me how?”
He seemed to be both amused and perplexed. “Janelle, you don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.” She kissed down his stomach, just like he had kissed down hers that afternoon during their pre-movie round of sex.
Then she took his member in her hand, wrapping her fingers around it on pure instinct. Apparently, she’d gotten the touching part right, because it swelled in her hand, rising to stand at attention, the hood stopping just an inch from her mouth.
“Now what do I do?” she asked him.
She could see the hesitation on his face. He felt guilty about letting her do this for some reason, but he also wanted her to pleasure him. He needed this after the argument they’d just had.
“Okay, just move your hand up and down.”
“Like this?” She stroked his cock and quickly became mesmerized by how easily it slid up and down on his shaft, thanks to the copious amounts of lubricant their combined lovemaking had left behind.
“Yeah, like that. Faster though.”
She moved her hand faster. “And does the next step involve me putting my mouth here?”
She took the tip of him into her mouth, marveling at the feel of the bulbous head. Her tongue explored it, and she must have hit a nerve, because when she ran it around the ridge where the head met the shaft, he seized up. “Fuck, Janelle!”
It wasn’t an admonishment.
His hand found the back of her head and despite his earlier hesitation, he guided her, bobbing her head up and down on his length. “Yeah, just like that baby, fuck!”
She knew she’d found the right rhythm when the hand that had been guiding her head reached over to pull her hair back, pony-tailing it behind her neck. She peeped up at him, and found she couldn’t look away.
He was watching her. Watching her service him. And the look on his face was… she could tell he was nearly overwhelmed by the sight. But like her, he couldn’t look away.
For a long time their eyes stayed locked, her watching him watch her: a circle of reverence so captivating that when he came, it seemed to surprise him. He yelled out and his warm ejaculate shot into her mouth and down her throat without warning.
She didn’t stop stroking, though. She remembered how good his thumb had felt rubbing her clit as she came, and she swallowed as much as she could, appreciating the salty taste of him. But it kept coming and coming and eventually she had to take him out of her mouth. They both watched him geyser, load after load spilling onto his stomach.
It was the sexiest thing she had ever seen, and it made her clench below, the instinct to touch herself while she watched him cum appearing in her mind like a thought that had always been there, even though she had never masturbated in her life. She rubbed at her sex helplessly, unable to believe what she was doing.
And that only seemed to make it worse for Mag. “Oh, Janelle…” he said, shoving both his hands into his hair, his biceps bulging out as he watched her doing exactly what he’d done countless times that weekend to her. His cock spasmed in her hand, and yet another load roped out of him, joining the rest on his belly, just as her own climax arced through her.
She had to let go of him then, her forehead falling to his thigh, her back curving up like a cat’s as she came against her hand.
After that, she had nothing left. She collapsed unto her side, feeling like a mold of unset gelatin. Would she ever be able to talk again or even move? She had no idea, and she only vaguely registered Mag getting out of bed.
The sound of water running came from the bathroom, and a few minutes later, he returned with a washcloth. She could feel it between her legs, warm and gentle, as he cleaned her up, like he must have already cleaned himself up in the bathroom. Then she was being lifted and resettled under the covers before he got into bed himself and pulled her into his arms, his body once again a cocoon around hers, his beating heart now a tender pattern against her ear.
8
MAG had to work hard to leave Janelle alone as she brushed her hair into a ponytail before wrapping it around into a soft bun.
She’d already showered, and he couldn’t send her home to her parents smelling like him. Not if he wanted her to keep her promise to come back the next month after she went to Detroit to judge another pageant. But he hated that she now smelled like her expensive perfume, instead of him. Hated that even though she’d be hugged up on him when he took her back to the airport, between their jackets and the time it would take to get back to Alaska, every trace of him would be gone from her by the tim
e he called her tonight.
He thought of his parents, who always smelled of each other, even when they were apart, and he wished with a fervency he had no right to that he and Janelle were mated, that his scent was strong enough to be left on her, even after she showered. He wished for what they’d just done over the past two days to be legal in the eyes of Lupine law.
Then he berated himself for feeling this way. Not only for that, but also for wanting to tell her how he felt when the only thing of value he had to his name at the moment was his football scholarship.
So to keep from fucking her against the bathroom counter, and also to keep himself from telling her how deeply he felt about her despite having only known her for less than a month, he told her something else. “I’m a prince, too. Like Rafe.”
She went very still, before turning to look at him, her eyes wide with astonishment. “Are you… um… trying to say you’re part of the Alaska royal family?”
He shook his head. “Naw, nothing like that. If I was the official king’s son, you’d probably know about it since you live in the kingdom town, right?”
“Uh… right,” she said, even though her expression remained on wobble effect.
“I’m just saying my dad used to head up my pack, and when he died, my brother took over. We call him the Freedom Alpha, but since we’re our own pack, that makes him the king, right? So technically, I’m a prince.”
Janelle continued to stare at him, saying nothing, as if she were waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I mean, we don’t have major dough or even any dough. We all live in trailers and we hunt to survive, but I’m still the prince, yeah? After my dad died, I should have stayed in Alaska and served as my brother’s beta, like my uncle used to do for my dad. But I stayed here because I didn’t want to live my uncle’s life. I wanted the chance to make something out myself, and my pack was pissed when I left. My brother’s the only one from Freedom Town still talking to me. That’s why I don’t go back there for breaks anymore. Not just because it’d be a hassle to fly up there.”
Wolf and Punishment (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 1) Page 6
