by Debra Dunbar
“I need you to treat me as your Alpha around the others, Tupper. This isn’t going to work if you insist on behaving like this in front of other Alphas and our pack.”
The only reason I wasn’t reaching across the table to punch him in the face was the slip he’d made in calling Swift River “our pack”. It wasn’t just that he was acknowledging that I was a member, it was him saying he thought of me as a potential mate. Because as mate to the Alpha, Swift River would be my pack. A mate ranked above the second in the pack, and although there were occasional scuffles about whose authority was higher, the mate tended to win those arguments.
Besides, I could totally take Jamie in a fight. I wouldn’t come out of it unscathed, but I’d win.
“I thought we were heading in the direction of an intimate relationship,” I told him, my voice admirably calm and reasonable, especially for me. “You’ve implied that with actions and words, and I’ve made it quite clear I’m receptive. Are you saying that you’ve reconsidered?”
Because if he had, I was going furry and this hotel room was going to be trashed beyond the limit on Jake’s platinum MasterCard.
His fork halted on the way to his mouth, and he set it down to rub his face. “No. Tupper, don’t think that. I love being with you. You’re different, so very different. It shakes me up, which is a good thing, but it means I’m struggling to figure out how to be with you and not go crazy.”
Reassuring, if not somewhat insulting. But since I’d never really had a relationship before I could understand where he was coming from.
“I’m never going to be like Jamie, you know. I’m going to get in fights, break the rules, pinch your ass in public. There’s a good chance instead of calling you ‘sir’ in a meeting with all the other Alphas, I might call you Honey Buns.”
He grimaced. “I know. And in the spirit of fair disclosure, I’m still going to make you do sprints for stuff like that stunt you pulled in the dorm room with Stacy’s scent on your roommate’s things. I’ll still beat the crap out of you sparring, yell at you in front of the pack when you are disrespectful or break the rules.”
It might sound weird, but his speech made me want to rip my clothes off and screw him right here on the floor. “Babe, I wouldn’t love you if you didn’t do those things.”
“I worry that ‘those things’ are going to be the very things that make you decide you can’t deal with my overbearing self anymore,” he confessed.
I had the same fears, but hearing Jake voice them—confident, uber-Alpha, always-in-control Jake—made me feel better about this thing we were heading toward together. We were both lonely, longing for that special someone to connect with. He hid his fears by throwing himself into the governance of his pack. I hid mine by fighting and pushing away everyone that even tried to come close to me. Except for Mir, and now Jake.
What a pair we were.
“So what do we do?” I eyed the steak. “Besides screw like monkeys and get no sleep at all, that is. What do we do to make sure this thing we have between us doesn’t fracture the pack and kill us both?”
“We face it the same way we go swimming in October.”
What the everliving- fuck was he talking about? “Hypothermia and the possible need for limb amputation?”
“Just jump. If you stick your toes in the water, you’ll never get in. Just jump and get it over with.”
That didn’t sound like a good relationship metaphor to me. Get it over with. “And die of a heart attack from the shock.”
He grinned. “What a way to go.” Then he grabbed me and yanked me across the table onto his lap, plates of steak, potatoes, and apple pie crashing to the ground.
I gasped and laughed. “I’m not eating a cold steak off the floor once we’re done screwing. Just letting you in on that little fact.”
His hands roamed up under my shirt and unsnapped my bra. “We’ll order more. I’ll take it out of your paycheck.”
I traced the line of his jaw and leaned toward him, my eyes on his lips. “Like hell you will. You’re paying or I’m not fucking you.”
I was totally going to fuck him, whether or not he paid for dinner.
“Okay, I’ll buy,” he breathed. “And if I get that blow job, then I might spring for an extra slice of apple pie.”
Then his mouth was on mine, hot and demanding and just as intoxicating as a shot of hundred-proof whisky. I brushed my tongue against his and wound my arms around his neck, feeling my way down the nape to edge my fingers along the collar of his shirt and trace the ridges of his shoulders.
He pulled his mouth from mine, startled blue gaze meeting my eyes. Then he laughed. “Tupper Mills, you’re a handful. You know that, don’t you?”
My hands skated along his shoulder blades, feeling the powerful muscles under the soft cotton of his shirt. “Yes, I do. Now hurry up and fuck me.”
He bent his head to trace a line down the column of my neck. “Make love. I refuse to fuck you.”
By all that was unholy, the sensation of his lips on my skin was the best thing I’d ever experienced in my life. I felt hot and alive, that weird zing of electricity arcing through my body. He was hovering over me, his lips the only part of his body touching me, but I felt him. It was as if the eternity of him, the very essence that was Jake had surrounded me, enveloping me, teasing me with the promise of something that would transcend every sexual experience I’d ever had.
It turned me on. It scared the ever-loving piss out of me. It made me retreat into a defensive crudeness that felt totally inappropriate for the moment.
“Love. Fuck. I don’t care, I just want your cock in me right now,” I snarled, feeling strangely vulnerable and balking at the unfamiliar experience.
He hesitated. For a second my heart stuttered, thinking that he was going to get up and walk right out the door.
Then he turned me so I was straddling him, grabbing my ass and rubbing me forward against his erection. “Making love. I’m not fucking you, Tupper. I’m never fucking you. Don’t you ever forget that.”
Then he kissed me again, slow and languorous when I was desperate for him to be fast. I rocked against him, trying in vain with my hands to reach between us and undo his pants. Finally I gave up and tried to take another approach, running my hands across his chest and making desperate moans into his mouth. His one hand stayed on my ass, holding me firm against him, while the other came up to grip my wrists and still my roving hands. All the while, his mouth slowly explored mine, tasting every inch before easing back to nip my lower lip firmly.
That’s when I realized that nothing hurried Jake. He’d do things his way, in his own sweet time. The thought was strangely liberating.
“What are we doing?” he murmured, nibbling along the edge of my jaw to my ear.
My heart raced as he traced my ear with his tongue, pulling the lobe into his mouth and sucking gently. “What are we doing?” he repeated.
“Making love,” I panted, held so firmly in place with his hands and arms that I could only quiver. “Can you make love faster, though?”
He chuckled and it sent a bolt of need through me. I was wet before. Now I felt like I was soaking right through my jeans. If I could just angle my hips a bit and rock, I was sure I could get off right here on his lap.
“No. I want to take my time and enjoy you.” He bit down on my ear lobe and tugged, then continued to move lower, kissing, nipping, and licking his way down the column of my neck. I just closed my eyes and breathed, letting myself sink into the feeling of his body against mine, the sensation of his mouth on the sensitive skin of my neck.
I popped my eyes open as he scooted the chair backward and stood. I slid my legs down from his waist to stand still pressed against him, his one hand still firmly on my ass, the other still gripping my wrists tight against his chest. Then he freed my hands and brushed his fingers around my waist, edging me backward, his breath against my hair.
My knees hit the edge of the bed. I expected him to shove me backward
, but he stopped, his hand inching up my ribs to grab the collar of my shirt. With a sharp pull, the fabric ripped down the front.
Not to be undone, I did the same to his, running my hands across his warm skin, feeling the curve of his ribs, the sensitive skin of his waist, and the jut of his hip bones right at the waistband of his jeans. He eased my shirt and bra down off my shoulders, stilling the motions of my hands as the fabric bunched around my wrists and pushed my arms backward. I shook off the torn fabric, and he did the same, then traced his own fingers across my breasts and taut nipples, his eyes devouring every inch of me.
“Take off your pants. Slowly,” he commanded. Before my hands had unsnapped my jeans, he’d bent his head to pull one of my nipples into his mouth, laving and sucking as I shimmied my pants downward where they caught at my ankles.
His fingers were feather light as they traced my ribs, and I carefully eased my shoes off and stepped out of my pants, trying to keep my movements slow and easy, not wanting to disrupt the heat building up inside me at each flick of his tongue. I shivered when he pulled his mouth away and blew gently on my wet, swollen nipple, turning his attention to the other one.
Hesitating, I reached for his pants. When he didn’t grab my hands or protest, I worked the button loose, easing the zipper down, then sliding them off his hips.
It seemed we both shared a love of going commando, because there was nothing to keep his cock from springing free to knock against my stomach. And there was nothing hindering my hands from gripping his incredible, rock-hard ass. This guy had the best butt ever. Someone should create a monument to Jake’s ass. A Mount Ass-Rushmore or something, with only his glorious back-end on display for people everywhere to admire.
That was the moment when mouth returned to my lips, and his fingers strayed south, to brush through my wet folds, one finger slipping inside to curl and press confidently in that perfect spot just as his thumb smoothed along my clit rubbing against my strategically placed piercing. I hovered on the edge, sucking in a deep breath, my mind emptying of every thought. Right there. Just once more, right there.
Instead Jake pulled his hand away. Before I had a chance to do more than whine in protest, he’d pushed me back onto the bed and knelt down between my legs.
“Thought I was supposed to be the one going down on you,” I gasped.
“Raincheck,” he whispered. Then he teased my piercing with his tongue. “I want this more.”
So. Did. I. He worked magic with fingers and tongue while I fisted the sheets and tried to keep from thrashing around. Jake must have noticed because he slid his shoulders under my legs, using his weight against my hips to press me down into the mattress and hold me in place. I let myself go, shaking and twitching against him, all sorts of incoherent noises and fragmented curses pouring out of my mouth as he continually brought me right to the edge of orgasm only to pull back just before I peaked. When I thought I’d surely go insane, he took my piercing in his mouth and tugged, curling two fingers inside me as he pressed and slid his thumb upward against my clit. I shattered, crying out as I came apart in what had been the most earth-shattering orgasm of my life. My first thought as I floated through the aftershocks was that I was never going to let this guy out of the bedroom. Never.
He kissed his way up my body to my mouth, then rose up on his arms, looming over me a brief second before easing himself into me. I felt myself stretch around him, felt the ball of my piercing tip forward against my swollen, still-sensitive clit. We held there, him deep inside me, our eyes locked together.
My gaze drifted past his shoulder, to the weird gold tracings that came from his shoulders, shifting and expanding as if they were the remains of fireworks, dropping their sparks from the sky. Wings. Was this what they’d looked like when he was a baby? Would they never be fully physical, feathered and capable of supporting him in flight like I’d been told the real angels had. Suddenly I wanted him to have wings. Angel-light was hardly inadequate in my view, especially when that angel-light was Jake, but the thought of him taking to the skies was intoxicating.
Then he leaned forward, rocking his hips against mine and all thoughts of wings vanished. as he slowly moved in and out, shifting and exploring different angles and rhythms until he found the one that brought us both together with a gasp. I matched him thrust for thrust, tensing again with another approaching orgasm as I felt him swell inside me. With a sharp inhalation, Jake threw back his head and slammed into me, breathing out as he came. I followed, not as intense as the first, but wonderfully satisfying—and just as fulfilling as I watched the expressions sweep across his face.
Then something odd happened. I felt my beast yield—not to him, but to me. She rolled and vanished, sliding into every cell, integrating for the first time in my whole life. The electricity between us increased to near painful intensity, and I felt something beyond his physical self slide into me, expanding and enveloping every part of who I was until we were no longer separate beings. It wasn’t me looking into Jake’s eyes, it was us—fully together with only the tiniest fractions of ourselves anchored within our physical forms. The closest I could come to describing it was the feeling of freefalling-, or flying.
Jake grew hazy and indistinct, a blur of white around him like an aura. Then the gold tracings exploded in light, manifesting into wings of white and a shocking tangerine color—like a noonday sun bursting from the whitest clouds. They were huge feathery things, extending outward the entire width of the room. With a jolt of surprise, we snapped back fully into our physical forms, and Jake flexed the wings, sending lamps and furniture flying as well as punching a long dent into the drywall.
“Ow.” He grimaced. “That hurt. These things feel every molecule of air, every brush of fiber.”
“They’re way cool,” I breathed, reaching out to touch one. It was silky, and hummed with the same hot electricity that I felt deep inside Jake’s physical self.
He caught his breath as I touched the feathers and I felt his cock jump and harden against my leg. “Wow…that’s… I hope I can manage to hide them.”
“Why would you want to hide them? They’re gorgeous.” If I had big-ass feathery wings, I’d walk around flapping them all the time.
“Well first, I don’t think I can fit in the truck cab with these things.”
“Cool. I’ll drive, and you can ride in the truck bed with your wings.”
He shot me a narrowed glance. “Secondly, I’m not sure I can get out the doorway with them.”
“Dude, you just punched a hole in the drywall. Just smash through the wall like that Kool-Aid pitcher guy.”
“Did I mention how sensitive they are? I’m positive that punching through a wall with them would be like getting kicked in the balls. Which brings me to number three. They’re sensitive. If I can’t hide them, it’s gonna be like me walking around with my genitals exposed. I bend one, it’s gonna hurt. I whack one on a building because I misjudge the distance going around a corner, it’s gonna hurt. I get a wing caught in a sticker bush when we’re doing weekend games, it’s gonna hurt.”
I leaned forward and licked one, my tongue teasing the feathery filaments.
Jake shuddered. “Oh, God. Do that again.”
I did, deciding this was going to be just as much fun as a blow job. “Too much?”
“No,” he breathed.
I pushed him back and stood up, reversing our positions and shoving him down on his back this time, careful not to bend those gorgeous wings. Then I had my way with him, thrilled to see him lose control to me the way I’d lost to him.
The wings eventually faded back to the gold tracings, but not until we’d completely worn ourselves out fucking—no, making love—in every conceivable position. When we finally hovered at the edge of sleep, arms and legs tangled together, I couldn’t help but smile and place a kiss on Jake’s shoulder. I’d come home, and oh how sweet it was.
The sun had risen by the time we crawled out of bed and began to gather our things together. I
wanted to stay here for at least another week, but we had responsibilities back at the pack compound that couldn’t be put off any longer.
Responsibilities. Me with responsibilities. Go figure.
I felt mildly guilty about housekeeping having to deal with the plates and cold food all over the floor as well as the porn-flick mess we’d made of the bed. Oh well. I wasn’t cleaning it up. I wasn’t going to take a shower either. I loved having Jake’s scent all over me, imbedded into my skin and hair, each inhalation reminding me of him inside me. Let every pack member within twenty feet realize what we’d done. I was happy to carry such an announcement on my skin.
Jake seemed to feel the same because he made no move to take a shower of his own, nor suggest that I do so. I did brush my teeth after he did, though, and made sure to steal something from the bathroom on my way out.
“What are you doing?” Jake demanded as I shoved the logo-embroidered bathrobe into my duffle bag.
Should I take the towels? Maybe I should take some towels as well.
“It’s a present. I promised Mir that I’d bring her back a present, and I forgot to get one at the gas station. Not that I think she’d want anything from there since it was all covered in blood and concrete dust. Although she did say that red was her favorite color.” I eyed the bathrobe, which was white, but did have a lovely red on the embroidered logo.
Jake chuckled. “Fine. But just the bathrobe. And Tupper?”
I looked up at him as I struggled to close the zipper on the over-stuffed duffle. “Yeah?”
“I love you, you crazy freak-of-nature demon-wolf. I love you.”
Jake. I got the feeling he’d never been one to hold back anything, that all his insistence on rules and procedures meant that he also needed to be brutally honest about his emotions. Cool, calm, and collected, except when it came to me.
“Yeah? Well, I might sorta kinda maybe care about you a little bit too, Almost-angel.”
He smile was warm and intimate. Again I felt that zing of electricity, that sense of us touching even though we were across the bed from each other. And I knew then that no matter how much I tried to hide, tried to deny my feelings, Jake knew as well as I did that I loved him too.
