This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.
To Marry an Alpha copyright @ 2013 by Joanna Wilson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
To Marry an Alpha
"Miss!" The clerk behind Cara yelled as he caught up with her.
"Crap! I’m late!" Cara whispered angrily as the staccato of her heels and her own panic drowned out the man's voice. "Dad's is going to kill me!"
Her father was a man of very few words, but when he did speak it was usually to issue a command to Cara. That had been her life for the last twenty-four years, an obedient dog to her father's whims. He told her to speak and she recited Othello, he told her to sit and she crossed her legs, sat demurely and smiled up at him.
"Miss! You forgot your purse." He tapped Cara's shoulder, finally getting her attention.
"Huh?" She checked her shoulder only to feel empty space where her bag had been. "Oh my God, thank you so much! I'm so scattered this morning because of the wedding." She rambled embarrassedly as she took the offered purse.
The clerk smiled politely. "Maid of honor?" He asked, eyeing the hastily thrown on dress and flats.
Cara turned and hurried to the town car's door being held wide by her bodyguard. "The bride."
***
"You're cutting it close, Cara." Her bodyguard Riley grunted from the front seat as he navigated them through the busy streets of Portland.
Cara sighed and pulled out the lipstick that she'd ran out of her house to buy. Ravishing, her favorite color. She couldn’t see herself not wearing it at her wedding.
The minute she'd woken up and been unable to find the familiar peachy shade, she'd nearly lost it. Yes, it might be lipstick, but for Cara the shade had carried her through many difficult times. Most recently, her surprise engagement to a man she'd never met until the minute her father had declared he would be her husband with three days time.
Cara crossed her arms and thought back to the afternoon when Mark had gone from beat-up stranger to future husband. As all things of extreme importance, it had started off innocent enough, with a knock on her door.
***
Three days ago.
"Cara? Your dad wants to see you." Riley cracked open the door.
"Wonder if he wants to tell me that I need to have my first child by spring, and it's got to be a boy." She muttered sourly as she climbed from her bed and walked to the door to follow Riley to her father’s study.
The burly guard threw her a knowing look over his shoulder. She knew what it meant. Cara could write a book on Riley's looks. He'd been her babysitter since she could remember. Forbidden to utter a bad word about either Cara or her father, Riley filled the lack with his looks.
The look was clear as day: deal with it.
That was a succinct summary of her life: deal with it.
Biting her lip, Cara winced at Riley before she pushed open the doors to her father's study and entered the room. As always, her father sat behind his desk in an impeccably tailored black suit and silk tie befitting a crime boss like himself. The only thing slightly peculiar was his slightly pale complexion and eyes rimmed with dark circles. But he always looked tired, so Cara wasn’t really surprised.
But what surprised Cara was the disheveled man sitting adjacent to her father, staring at her like she was the devil incarnate.
What'd I do? Cara wondered as she moved closer and noticed the patches of black and blue bruises around the man's eye and the cut on his lip. "Hello, Daddy." Cara said sweetly and took a seat in one of the chairs across from her father next to the stranger.
"Cara." Her father acknowledged her before waving to the man sitting beside her. "This is Mark. Your new fiancé."
Must have heard him wrong, Cara thought. "Excuse me?"
Her father gave her a quelling look, that made her feel like she was somehow in the wrong. Taking a deep breath, Cara decided to rephrase her question. "I thought Ryo was my fiancé." The guy you already chose for me, she added silently.
Six months ago, her father announced that she must be married on November ninth sometime in the afternoon. To say she'd been shocked, confused, and upset, would be a pretty good start. After that it had been a flurry of dates in her attempt to find someone. Four months later, she received another unsettling pronouncement from her father. She'd be marrying Ryo, the son of a family friend.
Cara had known Ryo since they were in diapers and the thought of marrying him was akin to incest for her, but it was either marry him or risk her father's wrath. While she wouldn't be touched, all of her credit cards, jewelry, cars, and money could and probably will disappear overnight. Her father has threatened that to Cara before should she ever consider challenging his word and she didn't doubt it for a second.
"Ryo forfeited the marriage--” He broke off on a cough and hacked for a few seconds before continuing. “--when he became addicted cocaine and heroin."
Cara nodded dumbly, still a little shell shocked with the latest turn of events. Ryo was a drug addict. A stranger was going to become her husband. And she needed to come to terms with everything in three days time. Nice.
"So I'm marrying…" Cara trailed off and turned to the man sitting next to her.
She watched him turn, and take a deep breath. Something flared in his eyes before he turned away from her and covered his nose. Cara blinked back, a little outraged. She knew for a fact that she smelled fine. She'd taken a shower about an hour ago.
Her father coughed again. "Him. Mark’s with Blackwater."
Cara looked at her father’s graying complexion but his eyes were still the rock-hard brown that never showed signs of pain or distress. She shifted her worry away from her father and took a long hard look at her future husband. Thick brown hair came in waves past his ears, streaked with blonde. His cheeks were high but not angular, and his chin was square but not overly pronounced. When he finally turned, Cara got a better look at him. He had a slightly crooked nose, with two nicely arched eyebrows and pouty lips that Cara was a little jealous of. But she found herself drawn to his mossy-green eyes, clear and straightforward.
From the look in them, it seemed that Mark didn't like what was going on either. Like her, he was barely tolerating it. Cara's father knew something about Mark, something serious. Cara knew that her father would never marry her to a man he didn't trust. All of that meant he trusted Mark, and whether Cara liked it or not, he was going to be her husband.
"I'm Cara." She introduced herself.
"Mark." He returned and gripped her hand. A spark shot up her hand, like she was touching an outlet. It shook her but there was no pain.
***
Sighing, Cara dropped back to the present where she was in a car that was late for her own wedding. She still felt no thrill at the prospect. Wasn't a bride supposed to be happy for her wedding day? "Can't you step on it, Riley?" She asked.
"We'll get there." He said.
Cara flopped back in her seat and searched in her purse for her mirror. Opening the compact, she uncapped her lipstick to put on her war paint. Today was going to be a long day, but there was no reason Cara made to look as miserable as she felt. It's what makeup was made for.
***
"You're late." The sing-song voice of her hair stylist Jacque greeted Cara as she
rushed into the room and sank into the chair.
"Yeah, I know." Cara muttered as Jacque artfully rolled up his sleeves and began meticulously combing, twisting, and styling her hair. His two assistants came to do Cara's makeup and nails. In no time, she was ready to slip into her dress.
Standing up, Cara let the three stylists help her out of her day dress and into some barely there lingerie. Having spent the better part of her life naked in front of strangers at her various spa appointments, Cara didn't bat an eye as she was stripped and dressed.
But then Mark burst through the doors to the room and he did a lot more than just bat an eye. "Cara, I need to--" He began but the word hung in his throat.
Jacque was just securing the last clasp of Cara's corset when Mark stopped, frozen at the entrance with his mouth hanging open. "Close the door!" Cara yelled, embarrassed for the first time in her life.
Mark turned and growled at a leering guard before slamming the door shut. Jacque tisked lightly as he moved to get her dress. "Out." The word was whispered low and forced.
Cara stared curiously at Mark, who hadn't yet turned around. "Mark, I’m getting dressed. It's not like I can--"
"I said out!" Mark raised his voice. Jacque and his two assistants scrambled out the door.
Cara had grown up around loud, angry men. Mark's raised voice was nothing new. As soon as the door closed behind Jacque, she looked over at Mark and crossed her arms. "Something wrong?"
He strode over quickly to stand in front of her. Even in three inch heels, she still had to look up to him. Mark wasn't wide but he was big in that larger than life sort of way. Cara felt that if he walked into a crowded room, everyone would stop what they were doing and follow him. There was something about the aura he gave off.
"You shouldn't show your body to other men." Mark said.
"They're my stylists! It's their job." Was he really this clueless? She turned around. "Help me with the dress since you just sent them away."
Mark hesitated. "I've never help a woman put on clothes before." He held the dress awkwardly.
Cara didn't know whether she wanted to retort with something sarcastic or just take Mark's words at face value. In a way, he seemed too innocent--and maybe a tad too gentlemanly--to say something raunchy.
Motioning him to lower the dress so she could step into it, Cara reached out and balanced her hand on his shoulder. A sizzle of awareness jolted on her skin as Cara made contact. It was the same feeling from the first time she'd touched him. She looked down to see if he was affected by the weird jolt, but his head was bent and she couldn't tell. "Did you feel that?" Cara asked.
Mark's words sounded strange, like they were spoken with different vocal cords. "Yeah, I felt that.”
Cara reached with her other hand, and tilted Mark's head to look up at her. "Oh!"
Stark desire stared back at her through mossy-green eyes. She'd had a lot of men stare at her like they wanted her, but none with such a base, nearly animal hunger in their eyes. The desire to run away raged against the desire to rip off every bit of her clothes clashed inside Cara.
In only a few hours, they'd be husband and wife, but staring into Mark’s eyes, those hours were as good as days. For some inexplicable reason, Cata couldn't think of waiting another second to have Mark. This is ridiculous, I've only known him for three days... less, even.
Mark sensed the shift in the air. Maybe he read her body language with the subtle parting of her lips and thighs. Perhaps it was something else. Whatever it was, he dropped the dress, dragged Cara close and kissed her with the same ferocious desire she felt for him.
It wasn't lost on Cara, that she should fall into lust with a man she'd known less than three days, when she'd known Ryo practically all her life and had never been sexually attracted to him. To say nothing about the tenuous relationships she'd had in the past that had never had her want to do more than just kiss.
Mark banished every other man from her mind, erased all her failed relationships, and consumed every corner of her mind. Cara hoped that they wouldn't be late for their wedding, but with the way he was kissing her, she didn't care if they made it at all.
***
"I should stop." Mark whispered against her lips. His hands stroked down her back and over her bare ass.
"Should." Cara agreed as she pushed into him to lick his lips until he was kissing her again. He lifted her up and unto him, entwining her limbs with his.
“Ok, I’ll stop then.” Mark said, as his hands played with the ties of her thong until the material loosened and slid down to the floor.
“Good.” She said hotly, molding her body into his. Her hands ran over his tuxedo jacket and slowly pushed it off his shoulders, feeling the hand planes of his back flex against her palms. With a few more deft flicks she had the buttons of his shirt undone.
“Cara.” Mark growled, his hands went to her hips and locked. “You need to stop.”
Drawing back slowly, Cara looked Mark directly in his eyes, watching his pupils dilated until the nearly consuming his mossy-green irises. In that moment he looked dangerous and hungry.
Mark pulled her to him and kissed her, the kiss unlike any of the ones before. This one was hot and spicy, tinged with the lingering taste of some kind of liquor. It was exactly what Cara wanted.
“We can’t.” Mark pulled back, panting. “I can’t mess up your hair and make-up.”
Cara rolled her eyes, and reached between them to find the zipper of his pants. “The hell with them.” She whispered and lowered the metal.
With ease, Cara unwrapped her legs from around him and lowered to her knees in front of Mark. Reaching inside his boxers, it didn’t take her long to find him, silky, hot, and hard, the head slick with pre-come.
“I know I’m going to regret this later.” Mark grumbled as he reached down and freed himself the rest of the way.
Laughing softly Cara bent forward and ran her tongue against his tip, swirling and collecting the drops on her tongue. For those few brief seconds when she sucked, licked, and pulled on Mark’s cock, holding his very world in her hands.
But it was all over too soon. Mark’s hand was drawing her head back, lifting her up to kiss her, devour her. And Cara let it happen. She let herself be swept up in a haze of lust, feeling the arms of the chair she’d vacated as Mark sat down with her on his lap.
Yes! She couldn’t be sure if she said it out loud or in her head. But she meant it. Despite her father’s flippant change of groom and his habit to completely control her life, Mark was good. Not perfect but good.
Thoughts ferried across her mind, as she felt Mark’s fingers grip her thighs and then slide between. His thumb rubbing in slow circles against her clit, until Cara drew back from the kiss and gasped in air.
“God, Cara, you’re fucking wet!” Mark’s voice was awed, his fingers sliding sensuously between the lips of her sex.
Cara mewled helplessly and thrust her lips as he grazed her clit. Mark’s hands were mesmerizing, finding all of her hidden places. Sounds that Cara didn’t even know she could make began to tumble from her lips, and for a few long minutes he was a maestro to her symphony.
Sex had always been good for her, even though she’d only had it with two other men. But good might have been god-awful compared to Mark. She wasn’t sure if it was her own emotional attachment to him that made it so much better, or the fact that it was Mark.
“Cara!” He forced out, sweat coating his forehead.
Before she could think to stop him, Mark had leaned forward and licked at the spot just behind her ear. An orgasm hit her hard, making her dig her nails into the thick fabric of his jacket and scream. It was powerful, it was unexpected, and it was absolutely fantastic.
Slumping against him, Cara panted, absolutely boneless. “Um...” She shivered as Mark's fingers spread her lips, the rounded head of his cock probing at her entrance.
“Cara, I need to-” He broke off as she clenched down tightly on the head, just barely inside of her.
“Go. I’m ready.” Cara whispered softly, her throat a bit sore.
Mark didn’t enter her in one quick rush, but in a slow drive that Cara loved and hated all at once. But she knew why he did it, any other way would have caused her pain. He wasn’t exactly long, but wide in the extreme. He stretched her like no man ever had, or ever would. It was painful. It was sensational. It was all consuming.
A pained smile flashed across his face before he lowered his hand and gripped tightly onto her hip. Cara tightened her thighs in anticipation, crying out softly when he thrust fully unto her, buried to the hilt inside of her body. “Mark!”
Words were beyond her as he moved them, lifting her hips and yanking her down when he thrust up. All Cara could do was hold on and wish for the worst, because there was no way it could get better. Everything she’d ever wanted was right underneath her fingertips, surrounding her, consuming her, staking his claim in every way he could.
To Marry an Alpha (Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance) Page 1
