Accidental Alpha

by Laurel Curtis

  “Whatever comes to mind.”

  She looked me dead in the eyes. “At Last by Etta James.”

  Sun peeked through the rain clouds as a melody started to play in our heads, such was the fickle nature of sunny days and rainy showers in September in St. Thomas. It made the water on her face glisten and taunt me as I moved her back and forth further and trailed my hand up her sopping body, through a tangle of hair, and settled in on the soft cool skin of her cheek.

  Her arms came up around my shoulders, pushing her chest deliciously into mine, while my other hand settled onto her curved hip as a guide. She hummed softly to the imaginary beat, breathing the vibration and timing into me better than any speaker ever could.

  Together, we spun and moved, our surroundings nothing but a blur of color and activity.

  Neither of us knew anyone else in the world existed as my lips hit hers. Her long neck stretched to give me better access, and I took it, ravishing her mouth and never looking back.

  I didn’t care about anyone else or anything.

  At last, indeed.

  The sound of our feet pounded like a drum as we ran a path through the ship, headed for my room with a singular mentality that had us leaving our grown kids behind to fend for themselves.

  Once I’d put my mouth on her, we both quickly came to realize that we wanted it other places. Places that, while amazing, didn’t make a stay in a foreign prison seem worth it.

  So, hailing a cab, we’d made a mad dash back for the ship, our wet clothes becoming stickier and less comfortable with every step we took.

  “I can’t breathe,” Allison complained, holding a stitch in her side after having run from where we’d entered the ship, up four floors, and down the end of a very long hallway. We still had a ways to go, so I picked her up and cradled her in my arms, making sure to cradle the majority of her weight in my uninjured arm.

  She didn’t weigh much, but I wanted to have full mobility when we finally made it to the room.

  She squealed and squeaked like a cute little piglet, but I didn’t slow, jogging towards my room and shuffling around people when they got in the way.

  She’d call out “sorry” every once in a while when her foot didn’t quite clear someone as cleanly as everyone involved would have liked.

  Okay, when she kicked someone.

  Hey, sometimes that was necessary. And at least she was apologizing for both of us. Frankly, I didn’t have enough blood in my big head to do my part.

  “Jesus Christ. Did this boat get bigger?” I griped, my previously healthy jog starting to slow with exhaustion.

  “The boat didn’t,” she teased. “But the rod between your legs sure is poking my hip harder than it normally does.”

  “Fuck, Al. Do me a favor.” One perfectly groomed eyebrow arched. “Don’t mention my cock again until we’re closed on the other side of the door to my room. Then mention it a whole lot.”

  She smiled an evil smile. “Did I ever tell you my favorite animals? Peacocks, cockatoos, and cocker spaniels—”

  “Don’t be cute.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Well, you’ve got that right,” I confirmed with a squeeze as the glorious identifying number on my dark blue door came into view. Thank God.

  She reached undiscovered decibels when I flipped her up and over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry in order to free up my hands.

  “Grab the key out of my back pocket, would you?”

  Delicate fingers turned desperate as she worked at the button on my shorts, trying to get the pocket open and do my bidding.

  “Dear God!” she cried in frustration, when things didn’t go as smoothly as she would have liked. “What do you have in this thing? Maximum security inmates?!”

  My chuckle bounced her body. “I take it you’re having a problem.”

  “A problem?” she replied. “No. But I will here in a minute when I lose brain function from too much blood to the head.”

  “Here,” I said as I plopped her down on her feet, grabbing her hips to stop her sway. Her skin paled just a touch, and I feared I’d made a bad move tossing her around like that with no warning. After all, I knew about her motion sickness.

  “Sorry, Alli. I should have warned you.”

  “It’s okay,” she waved it off, thankfully looking less green by the second.

  I dug in my pocket quickly, flicking the button open and ripping the key from its spot.

  “That’s not fair,” she pouted, curling her lip down in a dramatic show of envy.

  “Don’t be discouraged. I’ll let you prove how good you are at opening buttons shortly.”

  “Hah!” she barked out a laugh. “You’re frisky today!”

  “Must be something in the rainwater.”

  Her eyes softened as she leaned against the door jam. “That was good.”

  “Thanks.” I winked.

  With the blink of a light, the door clicked and opened, clearing a path for us to the bed.

  I didn’t waste time, shoving through the opening and yanking Allison gently in behind me. Her squeal mixed with the turn of the hinges and ended with the sound of the heavy door slamming shut.

  Wet clothes clung to her skin and radiated a cloud of moist heat, but she still looked beautiful.

  She laughed as I reeled her toward me, slipping the entirety of my hands below the fabric of her tank top and grasping damp skin. It fought me as I lifted, clinging desperately to the flesh beneath it, but I wouldn’t take no for an answer. She lifted her hands automatically, dancing and prancing when the collar caught at the bottom of her head. Reaching down to help, she pulled it the rest of the way and then shivered as cool, air conditioned air washed over her skin uninhibited.

  Both of us reached for the other’s pants at the same time, knocking foreheads in an uncoordinated play for supremacy. She won—because I let her—working the button of my shorts and sliding both them and my boxer briefs down at once.

  Thankfully, I was wearing flip flops allowing me to kick them off with ease.

  Gentle laughter bubbled up from her chest, breaking the seal of her mouth, and hitting me like a wave.

  “Probably not a good time to laugh, Alli girl. You did just remove my pants.”

  She laughed harder now, bringing a hand to my cock and circling it.

  “Gaahhh,” I choked out, pleasure garbling any words beyond recognition.

  Free from obstacles, I reached for her shorts, unbuttoning them and sliding both them and her panties down just as she’d done mine. Meanwhile, her free hand worked the hem of my shirt up, fighting to maintain her stroke on my dick as she did.

  She fumbled a little—the idea of doing two different things at once much better than the actual practice. I moved one of my hands from her to me, eager to assist by reaching between my shoulder blades to eliminate the last of my wet fabric.

  “I’m pretty sure your cock is perfect,” she moaned, looking at my dick and making me smile bigger than a kid at Christmas.

  “It’s not too big—”

  Hey, wait a minute!

  “Not too small—”

  Well, I suppose that was better.

  “It’s just right.”

  “This is all reading a little too Goldilocks for my taste, Al,” I growled, subtly suggesting that calling any man’s cock small, even if it was a relative thing, in the midst of sex was not a good idea. In fact, it wasn’t a good idea ever. “I’ve got the hots for a brunette, not a blonde.”

  “Right. Sorry. It’s just that sometimes you see these pictures of dicks—”

  “Where are you looking at pictures of dicks?!”

  “And they’re, like, gargantuan. Like, whoa, I can’t ride that thing, I’ll die.”

  “Alli.”

  “Right,” she refocused with a nod. “But yours, it’s, like, I know it’s gonna hit all the right places, but I’m still gonna have a cervix afterward, you know?”

  As soon as she said it, her eyes dimmed.

 
; Fuck.

  “Which I guess won’t be a problem for me anymore, huh?” she asked, unshed tears just barely coating her eyes.

  Scooping her up into my arms, I dumped her on the bed with me on top of her, and then rolled.

  “Ride me, then. Bruise that fucking thing if you want to. Show it who’s fucking boss. Show it exactly what it’s gonna be missing.”

  She laughed a little through a teary smile. I reached up to her face, running my thumb along the line of her well-constructed jaw.

  “I might not be a mutant, but I’m pretty sure we can make it happen if we try really hard.”

  “Wade.”

  “You can have anything you want, Al.”

  She shook her head, but I moved my hand to stop it, grabbing at her chin and forcing it to still.

  “Yes, you can. You know why?”

  She shrugged her slender shoulders.

  “Because I’m gonna fucking give it to you.”

  I reached around to unhook her bra as her lips slammed down on mine.

  She rode me harder than anyone ever had, and I loved every determined minute of it.

  Click.

  Startled by the sound, Allison looked up with sleepy eyes to investigate.

  God, she was cute. Dreamland made her skin look even softer, the creamy pillows under her eyes swollen with peace.

  It disappeared quickly.

  “Are you serious right now?!” she shrieked, jingling the cuffs noisily against the corner of the headboard. Each corner had a swirl of rod iron, and that’d been the only place to attach her. I knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep like that—at least not without becoming an amputee—but I figured after I made my point, maybe I’d talk her into cuffing the other one on my wrist. I wouldn’t mind being attached to her while we slept.

  As soon as she collapsed, spent and pliable from our second round of sex, I’d made my move.

  All I’d known was that I wasn’t spending another night without her in my arms. Period.

  Okay, so my plan wasn’t foolproof.

  I could admit to that.

  But at least then if she tried to tamper with the cuffs in order to make a play for her escape, I’d know. Already entrenched in the plot, I had no choice but to push forward.

  “Oh, I’m dead serious. You’ll be staying in my bed tonight if I have to leave you cuffed the whole time.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “You’re right. It is. But this is what it’s come to.”

  She glared so hard I feared her pretty face might break. Mine had seen many a sneer before. They just bounced off.

  “If you want me to do kinky things to you, just to make the situation more comfortable, I’d be down with that,” I offered magnanimously, running my hands down the line of her waist and settling on both bare hips.

  “Kinky handcuffed things are going to make me more comfortable?” she yelped almost inaudibly.

  I didn’t let her high pitch stop me.

  “I know all about these books you read,” I waved with a cocky smile, bringing my hands down to her thighs and rubbing.

  “Oh yeah?” she breathed, her normal intake of air only slightly affected. “You do, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you’d be willing to make any of my fantasies happen?”

  Synapses fired so starkly in my brain, I felt my eyes light up. Excited fingertips dug into the flesh beneath them.

  “Anything.”

  “Okay, okay,” she murmured, turning her voice into a purr and rubbing her legs together enticingly.

  “This is a little embarrassing though,” she murmured, turning her eyes downcast coyly.

  “You don’t need to be embarrassed,” I coaxed, rubbing and teasing the skin of her legs soothingly.

  “Okay, well, it starts kind of like this, but then you crawl on top of me slowly. Straddle my legs, you know?”

  My imagination worked in overdrive, building her fantasy into a moving picture in an instant. I started to move in order to comply.

  “Yes,” I choked out, wanting her to keep going.

  “Then when you get really close, where your body lines up just perfectly with mine—”

  “Yeah?”

  “I knee you right in the balls for being an asshole!” she screamed, making me shuffle backwards and cover my worried cock.

  “Hey!” This thing was taking an unwelcome turn.

  “You howl and howl in pain, and just when it starts to lull, I hit you again.” Her leg kicked out violently in living example.

  “That’s unnecessary,” I chastised, tisking her with the wag of a condescending finger. “How dare you do that in the middle of a nice fantasy?”

  “Take these cuffs off right now.”

  “Don’t you see? I’m doing this because I like you,” I argued. “I don’t want you to go.”

  “Well, if you don’t uncuff me I’m headed somewhere, and the destination is Crazytown.”

  Her eyes told the tale, and it wasn’t a lie. Snagging the key from the nightstand quickly, I rushed to her side—keeping my dick and balls carefully turned away from her—and moved to open the cuffs.

  With the key inside, I paused, lowering my voice seriously and laying it all on the line. “Just . . . don’t leave, okay?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” she snapped back.

  “Because I’m tired of fighting and so are you. Because if we don’t sleep together now, we’re not ever going to. And if that’s the case, I’ll probably regret missing out on it for the rest of my life.”

  “Good God, you’re an asshole.”

  Shocked, my head drew back. “Why?”

  “Because now I can’t leave. And if Haley ever finds out she’ll never let me live it down.”

  Her emotional eyes told the real story.

  “I won’t tell her.”

  “Or Danny.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Fine,” she murmured as I finally turned the key. Rubbing her wrists to circulate the blood, I watched as she thought hard about asking one last thing.

  “What?”

  “It’s just . . . where did you get the handcuffs?” She searched my eyes. “Is it because of your job?”

  I laughed and winked, pushing her hands out of the way and circling her neck with mine.

  “I guess you’ll never know.”

  “I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

  “Come on,” I prodded. “Live a little!”

  “I’m happy to live, I just don’t want to die!” she argued at full volume. The people around us laughed.

  “It’s coming now. I can see it.”

  “Oh God!” she squealed, jumping and hopping with unrestrained anxiety.

  After waking up early to find her still wrapped in my arms, I’d felt it. The need to suck her in, trap her in my world, and convince her to spend the day with just me. I needed her time, her concentration, and I did everything in my power to sweet talk her into getting it. I’d whisked her away to Maho Beach as soon as we’d docked in St. Maarten, the rest of our brood still warm and sleeping in their beds. At least, I’d assumed as much.

  On any given day Allison was theirs. Her kids meant everything to her, and for the most part, I was happy for it to be that way. Even thrived on it.

  But today, just today, I wanted her to be all mine.

  Maho Beach is famous for its location adjacent to Princess Julianna International Airport. Planes land and take off just feet away, swooping in so low you’d swear you could touch the belly.

  I knew the idea would scare Allison half to death, so I’d paced my timing in telling her.

  Namely, I’d done it once we were already there, just about five minutes ago. Four of those five minutes had been spent talking her into not running away.

  But the mission had a purpose, and I was moments away from fulfilling it.

  With me, I wanted her to feel like she could do anything.

  Standing bravely in the face of an arriving plane w
as just the beginning.

  “It’s coming! Holy shit!” she screamed, turning from the plane to look at me behind her and back again. “Do you see this thing?”

  “Yeah, Al. I see it,” I confirmed with a laugh, squeezing her wiggling hips affectionately.

  The airplane’s descent became real, the nose tipping up just slightly from the back as its broad wings cut a path straight at us.

  Engine noise roared in our ears, a wind kicking up and alerting us to the disturbance in the approaching air. A shadow darkened the sparkling turquoise water, and my stomach rose in anticipation.

  “Ahhhhh,” she screamed, squatting with a bend at the knees and reaching back with blind haste in search of my hands. Easing her journey, I reached out to hers, the loss of her hips comforted only by the newfound feel of her hands.

  They were clammy and chilled, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt anything better.

  As the plane flew over head, my chest vibrated, the rumble of its power ours for the taking. Allison’s hands squeezed mine almost unbearably tight, and her scream could be heard from miles away.

  But her head slammed back and followed the plane’s path, turning and practically shoving me out of the way when I became an obstacle to her view.

  When the wheels touched down, I succumbed to my heart’s demand and touched my lips to hers. When my mouth left hers, I grabbed onto her hips again and looked down into her petite features.

  The wind whipped her hair out of her face, opening up my sightline directly into her soul. Laughter and life bubbled out of her every pore, and excitement tinged her perfectly golden skin peach. She was electrified and free and, hands down, the best thing I’d ever seen.

  THAT WAS THE BEST THING ever. I’d never felt so scared and elated all at once, the thrill of being so close almost making my heart beat straight out of my chest.

  I’d thought I would hate it, but God, I hadn’t. I’d loved it. Each exhilarating second had been better than the last, the whip of the wind driven salt water and sand making it feel all the more real.

  And then I saw Wade’s face.

  “What?” His intensity seared me, and I feared he could see all the way inside. Having been lost in my jubilation and thinking maybe the wind from the plane had ruffled me beyond repair, I looked down and asked, “Do I look okay?”