by Olivia Arran
Watcher
Alpha Protectors
Olivia Arran
Arran Publishing
Contents
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
14. Chapter Fourteen
15. Chapter Fifteen
16. Chapter Sixteen
17. Chapter Seventeen
18. Chapter Eighteen
19. Chapter Nineteen
20. Chapter Twenty
21. Chapter Twenty-One
22. Chapter Twenty-Two
23. Chapter Twenty-Three
24. Chapter Twenty-Four
25. Chapter Twenty-Five
26. Chapter Twenty-Six
27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
Epilogue
From the Author
Copyright © 2016 Olivia Arran
All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and all characters represented as 18 or over.
Edited by CM Editing
Cover Design by Jacqueline Sweet
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Chapter One
Scarlett
The taxi cab swept up the long circular driveway, loose gravel crunching under the wheels. Throwing out an arm to catch myself, I narrowly avoided bashing my head against the front seat as the driver jammed on the brakes with an efficiency bordering on savage.
“Keep the change.” Tossing him a couple of notes, I grabbed my case and slid out of the car, slamming the door behind me with a resolute thud.
Seconds later, he was speeding off down the driveway and disappearing into the tree lined distance.
The large house loomed in front of me, the facade covered in gray stone, the roof steeply vaulted and clad in dark slate. It was as impressive as it was oppressive. The stormy clouds swirled around the gable ends, pushing it over the line and placing it firmly in creepy old house territory—the surrounding forest not doing it any favors either. Silence pressed in around me, the sound of the nearby city muted by the couple of acres of woodland that made up the private estate.
Home of Freelance Undercover Resolutions. Or team F.U.R, as the guys liked to call themselves.
Looking closer, my heart sank into my boots. No lights. Nobody looked to be home.
The cab had long gone.
But I had nowhere else to go.
Crunching my way over, I climbed the steps to the ostentatious porch, the large columns standing on each side doing little but adding to the haunted house kind of feel, and dropped my case to the floor. Hand hovering over the large, brass door knocker, I eyed the small camera mounted in the top left corner. A red light winked at me, registering my presence, but nobody burst through the door. Nobody was watching me on their wall full of screens, kicking back his heels and twisting his eyebrows in knots.
Otherwise, he’d have answered the door by now.
Just knock on the damn door! Wrapping my fingers around the cool metal, I swung it against the door. Once. Then again, for good luck. The sound echoed behind the thick slab of wood, into the humongous room the guys mockingly referred to as the foyer.
No footsteps. No lights flicking on. No sound of life. And, as a wolf shifter, my hearing was pretty damn good.
Fishing my cell out of the front pocket of my jeans, I thumbed open my phonebook and scrolled through the depressingly small number of contacts. Nope, nope… My finger hovered. Nope. There was only one thing for it: I had to break into the place.
Tasha wouldn’t mind, and if my sister didn’t mind, then her new mate, Cole, wouldn’t either. And since Cole was the unofficial leader of F.U.R, it wasn’t really breaking and entering. More like … borrowing. Firing off an appropriately vague text to my sister, I stuffed my cell back in my pocket and eyed the large columns with new appreciation. Built of stone, they looked easy enough to climb, then it would be a short skip and a jump and I’d be able to jimmy one of the first floor windows open.
People always forget to lock their bedroom windows, right?
Yanking off my jacket, I rolled my head, loosening up my shoulders. Rubbing my hands together, and finding them clammy, I wiped them on my jeans, then wedged them into the gaps between the stone. Hoisting myself up, I shimmied up the column, bracing my boots against the rough stone as I ascended, working my way up to the overhang that laughingly declared itself a porch.
With a grunt, my fingers crept over the edge, slipping on the gray slate. I dug my nails in, swinging my legs up and over and rolling onto my back. Climbing so wasn’t my thing. Wolves weren’t born to climb, and anyone who tried to tell me otherwise, could take my finger and swivel on it. I was more of a gentle exercise kind of girl, swimming, yoga … baking. Hey, I got hot and sweaty in the kitchen, that had to count, right?
Oh, and sex. The best kind of exercise ever. Not that I’d got any in a while. Okay, a long time. But I was still counting it.
Giving myself to the count of three, I dragged myself up, onto my feet, and studiously avoided looking at the ground. Whose idea was it to climb a zillion feet off the ground? I didn’t like heights. The whole ground-a-million-miles-away thing always made me dizzy and a little nauseous.
Spotting a window only feet away, I edged out onto the small ledge, pressing myself against the wall like a long lost lover. Please be open, please be open, please be—
It was my mouth that dropped open, my breath fogging up the glass as I stared into the shadowy room.
Someone was home. A man laid on the bed, one arm tucked behind his head as a pillow, his bicep bunching under the strain, and his other arm resting on his stomach—his very naked, ripped beyond belief, stomach. Light flickered from a TV, picking out and highlighting the hard line of his body in exquisite, tantalizing detail. Every detail but his face.
I sucked back the drool that had formed, sliding an inch to the side to see past the foggy glass.
Oh, crap-on-toast! He was naked. Wait. Not quite. My eyes zeroed in on the despicable article of clothing, my childhood dream of being able to fire lasers out of my eye surging back to life with a bang. Darnfangled boxers. A thin layer of cotton clinging to his groin.
Clinging oh so lovingly.
A squeak echoed through the night.
I clamped my mouth shut, sliding as fast as I could to the edge of the window, but the damage had been done.
The man snapped to attention, vaulting off the bed.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away; the light cast his face in a soft glow. His dark hair was tousled in familiar spikes. Thick, heavy brows framed wide eyes that I knew to be a soft blue. A square jaw, that was at this moment in time clenched within an inch of its life. And lips with a
perfect cupid’s bow that on anyone else would look silly.
“Greg?” My disbelief was evident in my breathy whisper.
His eyes snapped to me. “Scarlett?” His eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened, as he strode toward me.
I was mesmerized. The smooth slide of his muscles moving under his skin, and the ripple of his stomach as it flexed and bunched with every determined step, captivated my attention. The heat in his eyes as he stared at me sent a flame of desire shooting through me.
My heart fluttered in my throat, tingling flooded my body in great waves of rolling heat, spreading out through my limbs and stealing their strength. Suddenly, I was airborne, my arms pinwheeling and feet kicking as the ledge slipped out from under me.
I heard the faint scrape of wood sliding, then firm fingers closed around my wrist, yanking me forward. I catapulted through the window and landed with a soft thud, on top of a hot, hard body.
One hand was still held by the wrist, while my other laid trapped between us. It seemed to have a mind of it’s own, my damn fingers petting his hard chest without a whisper of shame.
Mine… My wolf chose that moment to pipe up, having cowered in the corner for the last ten minutes. It was her fear of heights that had almost sent us plummeting to our death.
Okay. Slight exaggeration. I’d probably have broken something, but it would have healed. Still. I didn’t do pain. Not if I could help it. I was all about the pleasurable things in life.
Like this man laying beneath me. The one who was, right now, looking at me like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to devour me, or throw me right back out of the window again.
I vote for devouring. I licked my lips.
His eyes locked onto my tongue, his pupils dilating and his eyelids lowering.
I sucked in a deep breath, and melted against him. Over six feet of hard muscle cushioned my softer curves, his scent of bourbon and the wild outdoors wrapping around me and holding me tight. I took another sniff, wallowing in his scent. With a wriggle, my nose met his naked chest, and my mouth was left hovering over his skin—mere millimeters away.
His muffled groan sounded almost like pain.
I glanced up, distracted from my goal.
“Scarlett…” His jaw was set in a grimace, tension bracketing his mouth. His hand snaked between us, catching my hand and placing it on the floor next to us.
“What?” I leaned back to meet his eyes, my legs sliding around his as I lifted myself into a semi-crouch. As my lower body pressed into his, I knew exactly why he’d been grimacing. “Oh!” His muscles weren’t the only thing that was hard… “How the hell did you manage to hide that?” That was me, through and through, speaking my mind without a second thought. But, it was a decent question, given that what I could feel between my legs was a goddamn monster.
He blinked at me, then burst into a chuckle. “It was hard, but I tried.”
“Well, I know that…” I replied slowly, dragging out each word with enough innuendo to sink a battleship.
“You don’t change, do you, Scarlett?”
I didn’t like his wistful tone, or the way he stared at me as though trying to see into my mind. My heart. “Why would I?” I quipped, flashing him a grin. Unable to resist, I wriggled into a seated position, resting my knees firmly on either side of his hips. With my wrists still held tight, it meant I was leaning over him, giving him an eyeful. If he chose to look.
He did, his eyes flashing the pale silver of his wolf as his lips parted.
Score!
He closed his eyes and released my wrists. “Why are you here?” His eyes were still closed.
Cold crept in and I resisted the urge to hug myself. Wolves were good at reading body language, and no way was I showing any sign of submission. “Why didn’t you know I was here?”
He shrugged. “You’re on the list of approved people.”
The warm glowy feeling came back. I was approved. Yay! Go me! “Is that why the alarms didn’t go off?”
His eyes flashed open. “Put it this way, if you weren’t approved, you wouldn’t have gotten this far.” This was said with a predatory smirk, the hardness in his eyes reminding me exactly who it was I was dealing with.
A member of F.U.R—a team of five specialist undercover operatives, each highly trained and equally deadly. All male alpha wolves in their prime.
And I had one between my legs.
Chapter Two
Greg
I was in hell. Trapped in a cocoon of heat that threatened to engulf what was left of my sanity. Which wasn’t much, but it was mine. I’d worked hard to keep it.
Forcing myself to relax, and not to react to the steady pressure of her hand clasped in mine, let alone the feel of her pressing down on my aching— Focus! “You didn’t answer my question; why are you here?”
She pouted, “No need to be all grumpy.”
“You’re being evasive.”
“I need a place to stay. I’m sure Tasha and Cole wouldn’t mind if I crashed here.”
“They’re not here.”
“Oh.”
“They won’t be back for at least a week,” I added, gritting my teeth as she rocked back in thought. Grinding herself against me.
This is Scarlett, remember? The one woman I can’t get friendly with. But my wolf—and my body—appeared to have other ideas. I froze, fighting the urge to pull her down and pin her to the floor. It would only take one slice of a claw and her jeans would be off. She would be open to me. Ready for taking. Images crashed into my mind, of her crushed beneath me, writhing on the floor as I fucked into her ruthlessly, hands bound above her head, lips parted on a throaty moan as she begged me for more. Begged and pleaded, my particular brand of music.
“Greg?”
“What?”
“I need to stay here.”
Was that a tremor in her voice? “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” The speed of her answer raised a red flag, but I bit my tongue at the look of desperation on her face.
I was going to regret this but… “Okay.”
Before I had chance to brace myself, she’d thrown her arms around my neck, her soft, rounded breasts crushed against my chest. Soft breath feathered my cheek, sweet and minty. “Thank you.” There it was again, the catch in her voice. The tiny tremble that had my hackles raising and mind whirring.
But that was all secondary to the surge of heat as my wolf leaped to the fore, pummeling my willpower with brute force in a frenzy of need. In a snap, I had rolled, crushing her beneath me. Need roared in my ears, demanding a taste of this woman. Sliding her arms up above her head, I gripped them in one hand.
Her back bowed, head tilting to reveal her slender throat. Not a sound from her, no breath, no words.
Just a taste, to satisfy what I already knew to be true. My mouth watered. Grinding into her, I pressed my aching cock to her jean clad pussy.
A soft gasp.
Music to my ears. But I needed more. I needed her to beg. Her wrists strained against my hand where I held them, her legs spreading to cradle me. Welcome me. I fell forward, nuzzling her neck, dragging her scent deep inside my lungs. One I already knew, had locked into my DNA the second we had first met, of cherries and smoked paprika.
The scent of my true mate.
Half a second later I was on my feet, my skin crawling as I waged a war with every cell in my body, the unrelenting demand that I return to her screaming in my head. “No.”
“No?”
Her voice drew my gaze back to her, to where she laid still sprawled on the floor, her body soft and inviting. Eyes wide, she blinked at me as though coming out of a dream. “No?” she repeated, her eyes dropping to my crotch.
I shrugged, not bothering to try and hide the obvious tenting in my boxers. Where the hell would I hide it anyway? “It’s just biology. I’m a man and I like sex. You’re very attractive; I reacted.”
Her face fell, along with her mouth, then she snapped it back shut. “I see,”
she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “But not with me.”
Definitely not with you. Not with my true mate. I wasn’t traveling down that road. “It’s for the best,” I said, offering her a hand up.
Ignoring me, she scrambled to her feet, her eyes set firmly on the wall behind me.
Grabbing a T-shirt, I pulled it on and stuffed my feet into a pair of jeans. Not bothering to even try and button them, I gestured to the door. The sooner we vacated a room with a bed, the sooner my other head—and my wolf—would stop trying to wrest control from me.
Following her out of the door, I bit back a soft groan at the sight of her ass swaying in front of me, the blood that had been dissipating surging back to my cock with a force that had me staggering. How the fuck am I going to get through the next couple of days? With a lot of solo action, that’s how. Something I’d more or less given up as a teenager, once I’d discovered women and their soft, welcoming bodies.
We turned down the stairs, my eyes still locked on her bouncing ass.
Soft, with voluptuous curves I could sink my teeth into, spend hours exploring with my fingers and my mouth, dragging out every last moan until they begged and pleaded.… I had a type. And, fuck, the woman in front of me was the epitome of everything I worshiped in a woman. Apart from the sass; I liked my women a little more … agreeable. Which was why I only fucked humans. She-wolves were always vying for dominance.
Pulling open the front door, I grabbed her case and pulled it inside. Heavy, but not too much. From the little I knew about Scarlett, she wasn’t a party girl, didn’t go in for changing her outfit ten times a day. I was guessing she’d packed for—I bounced the case in my hand—a week. Setting it on the floor, I leaned back against the wall. “It was open, by the way. Probably an easier way to make an entrance.”
Rolling her shoulders back, she met my eyes. “The entrance I made was just fine by me. Quite pleasurable, actually. Though the finish was a little … disappointing.” Pushing a lock of dark hair over her shoulder, the corner of her mouth turned up in a telling smirk.
