by Treva Harte
Her hands scrabbled on the floor as if to find a place to rest while he worked his fingers fast and hard up deep within her body. Red-hot lust and jealousy clouded Dek’s vision for a moment. He could smell the other men—all of them—on her, mingled with her sex and his, and the mixture triggered something too complicated and too fierce to be borne.
That was when Leila came. Beyond shame or fear or thought, she ground her cunt against him and let everything go. Weeping, shaking, she thrashed her head back and forth and rode his hand until she gave one last, pitiful moan and collapsed.
Done. Dek swallowed, fighting the need to cover her…with a blanket, with his body. Instead he let her legs relax, left them spread for the others to look. Almost finished now. He gritted his teeth.
Dek pulled out his hand, wet with her juices, and stuck his fingers into the pool between her breasts. He lifted his hand to his nose and then stretched the hand out, fingers shaking, to the other men. They bent, sniffed.
Lowell did more than scent. He licked Dek’s hand, growling deep in his throat. Dek snarled, snatching his hand away. For the first time, Lowell stared back at Dek, still growling, not giving up.
“Are you ready to try something, pup?” Dek let just a tenth of the anger and confusion out with those words. Lowell shriveled back to his old self.
“N-no. No, boss.” Lowell flattened himself back down on the ground.
“Good enough.” Dek took a deep breath, trying for calm. Then he placed his hand under Leila’s nose.
“It’s done. You’re one of us now.” Dek let her take a long whiff of what their mingled scent was like. Her eyes flickered open, and she stared at him. There was no threat there, though. She looked almost frightened. Dek understood. He knew what the smell of it was like to her and him both. Arousing. Disturbing. He sensed her guilty pleasure mingled with regret. He knew all those emotions because they mirrored his own.
Dek stood, fastening his pants, looking down at the rest while he did. “And that’s as close as you’ll get to any of my packmates again. You’re one of us, but above everything, you’re mine. Does everyone understand that?”
“Yes, sir.” If there was something new, some faint menace in Lowell’s tone, it was well concealed with prompt deference.
“Understood.” Grey bit off the words.
Dek turned to Leila, who sat up, still looking a little weak.
“Leila?”
She got to her knees, swayed a little. Dek pulled her the rest of the way up, letting her rest against his body. God, she felt so good like that. They stood together, just that way, for a long moment, Dek shielding her from the rest.
“Yes.” She whispered her acceptance, just loud enough for everyone to hear.
Dek relaxed against her. It was done. The toughest thing he’d ever had to do was finished, and it had worked out the way it was meant to. He buried his face in the nape of her neck. It was the two of them now, just the two of them. He lost himself in the softness, the warmth of her.
Then she pulled away from him.
“Just everything I understand is better said away from the rest of this pack.” Leila’s voice was getting back under control. Her chin firmed, and Dek almost snickered as his world righted itself. “You can come to the next room with me, Mr. Top Dog, while we discuss a few important details.”
She turned on her heel and, still mussed and tumbled, stalked away from their audience like an offended queen, refusing to give any of them another look.
“Dear heaven, she’s made to be an alpha b—” Lowell hastily stopped his babble when Dek turned to glare at him.
“Show is over, boys.” Dek straightened his shoulders, getting ready for battle. “Button up and back to work.”
Chapter Four
Leila took the washcloth Dek held out to her. She knew where he expected her to wash, but she took it and buried her face in it first, savoring the coolness and buying herself a little time. She didn’t want to look at him and explain…well, how did you explain what happened?
What did you say once you’d come so hard and so noisy that your insides nearly shot out of your mouth while you screamed? And you came that way in front of three werewolves…because of all three werewolves. She was still shaking inside, still trying to curb the animal that had run a little too free in the last hour or so.
“So much for the good-girl image. I gave it a really good try.” Leila slipped the washcloth between her breasts at last, letting a trickle of water run down her stomach as she wondered how long it would take to wash the memory from her mind. “I don’t have anything to wear. You ruined my shirt, and the rest are all home…are all at my apartment.”
Dek’s mouth was hot on her neck, his tongue nuzzling her fine hairs.
“Who cares about your image?” He bit her neck for good measure. “You look damn sexy like that.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a vampire, too.” Leila swatted halfheartedly at him. “And I care about my image.”
“You’ve traded it in for a new one. A much better one. You’re the alpha bitch now, baby. Whatever you want, the pack will do their damnedest to take care of it. You want shirts? I’ll send Lowell to fetch your clothes and things from the apartment.”
“Huh. Alpha bitch.” Leila blinked at her image in the mirror. “Well, who would’ve thought?”
“I’m ready to explain now. If you want to listen.” He looked more interested in the water still trickling down her skin. In fact, he still looked aroused and dangerous and angry. He looked ready for anything except calm conversation.
Was she ready? Could Dek really make sense of everything that had happened to her—to them all? Leila put the cloth down, very carefully, on the sink and braced her arms on the countertop. “All right. Try.”
They stared at each other. She knew how he hated that. But damn, he did look tasty. How could you blame a woman for looking at that rumpled hair and those pretty eyes? The body was damn good, too. All those muscles and power…She licked her lips, and his eyes sparked.
“I—shit, it will have to wait.” He pinned her to the wall smoothly and removed her pants. He nudged her legs apart while his fingers fumbled at his waistband. “I thought I could last after jerking off, but I can’t. You reek of sex and I want you.”
“What a smooth talker—Oh, damn it, Dek!” He slid into her with one sure thrust, she was up against the wall, and everything inside her melted.
Neither of them should have needed sex quite this badly, but they did. Watching Dek throw his head back, face contorted in desire, always flicked her switch. Leila gripped his shoulders with her hands, his waist with her legs, and hung on.
He was sweaty and she was damp from her quick washing, and their bodies, slick and hot, slapped against each other with hard, smacking noises. She thumped against the wall and briefly realized the rest of the adults in the house could hear them, before she lost track of sense and sound and everything but Dek.
Dear, sweet God. Dek.
Years of learning to do without him, and in one night he’d come roaring back, changed her careful life and—Leila let her fingernails dig into his skin, not sure if the gesture was a punishment or a reward for the way he made her feel as his hard body slapped against her once again.
“That’s right, baby. Let me feel your claws.” He panted the words in her ear. “Just like that. When you do that, you get tighter around my cock…God, yes, milk it.”
She shuddered, desire coiling up inside her until she could hardly breathe. When Dek talked dirty to her, she always came.
“Yeah. Moan for me. You know you want to make noise when I have my cock inside you. Squeeze me. Tighter. You’re always so wet for me, so good.”
He filled her, then reached to tweak her clit. That was the match that set her primed body on fire. Heat licked over her body as she jerked against him. My God, it was too much…
“Dek!” She heard herself scream as if she were far away from her own body, for a moment lost in some other world o
f pleasure and need.
He groaned, and she came as sensation rushed back into her body, sweeping over her with blinding force.
* * * *
She opened her eyes, grateful the wall was supporting her now aching back. Her legs slowly gave way, letting her slither more or less gently onto the floor.
“Whew.” She stared at her lover, who looked only slightly less shell-shocked.
He shook his head and then took the washcloth to wipe himself. She wondered how he had the energy. She was a blissful, exhausted pool of goo.
“Well, now that you don’t have the strength to jaw at me, I guess I can talk.”
Leila watched Dek pull his jeans back on for what had to be the tenth time that day, too sexually sated to even protest that comment.
She watched him pace back and forth as he began, admiring his tight butt more than concentrating on the words at first. “Above everything, whatever we do is about the pack. You wanted to kill me before, when I told you family was the most important. But that’s how it is with weres. The pack comes first. Has to. Once I took on Grey, I had a pack and I had responsibilities to him.” Dek eyed her and took a half-step away.
“I’m not going to hit you. I was mad because you already had a family started when you took off for another.” Leila took a deep breath and watched Dek’s gaze flicker down to her still half-naked body. To his credit, he looked right back up into her face. She saw the regret there. She was pretty sure the emotion was for his past actions, not because he had to stop ogling. “Some of that was my fault. I didn’t say anything to you. Then again, I was young and I didn’t know anything. Not even that I was pregnant.”
“I’m sorry, though. I should have been with you.”
“Well, sorry isn’t going to change anything. You might as well keep talking.”
“No matter what happened before, I made you family tonight. Each of us, not just me, knows you’re one of the pack. That’s how we do things. Given that you seem so human, doing this the right way is important.”
“You’re telling me that’s how you welcomed Grey and Lowell to the family?”
“No. Well, not exactly. We—They—” Was Dek actually turning red? “It’s different for weres than humans. Lower-ranking wolves don’t mate. They concentrate on taking care of the alphas and their kids. We all have to care for the kids. That’s why I’m so sorry to have left Lin.”
Strength from outrage poured back into her.
“Sorry to have left Lin and not me. I see. All right, buddy, we can talk about that later.” She struggled to her feet and raised her hand when Dek opened his mouth. “You just finish up explaining everything else first.”
“I’m in a lot of trouble, aren’t I?” He ran his hand under the edge of her torn shirt and felt her shiver at his touch. “But you’re right. Some things need to be talked over, like it or not. Grey and Lowell, they can’t mate. But we agreed—pack rules—they can have other men. That’s the way Grey likes it anyhow. And Lowell? Well, Lowell is our omega, so I don’t know what he likes, and it doesn’t make much difference. He doesn’t complain about the arrangement, anyhow.”
“Dek?”
“Yeah?”
“Grey didn’t have just Lowell before this, did he? I saw how he looked at you.”
Dek swallowed. “I had Grey. Lowell, too, when I wanted. Mostly during a full moon. Things get—ah—crazy then. You have to have heard some of the stories. Hell, you’ve seen me during a full moon.”
Leila shivered. Oh, yes, she remembered those nights.
“I’m the alpha. Whatever happens in the pack is what I say happens. I’m not denying it.” Dek shifted his feet. “But that’s just a were thing, Leila. Mostly it was to quiet them down. I’m not gay. Not the way you’d understand it. I’m top dog, and that’s how things work sometimes. You have to show them who is alpha.”
She could almost wrap her mind around that. Especially after tonight. Dek was sex. Walking, breathing sex. She’d always seen that. Now she’d seen how the others responded to him. Hell, she responded pretty close to the same way. Shoot, he’d screwed her silly a few minutes ago, made her mad enough to rip him apart after that, and she was getting turned on all over again. At least she hadn’t taken to bowing before him.
“I’m going to have a lot of problems keeping you in line, aren’t I?” Leila touched his chin, feeling the stubble. She wondered if it was normal beard or incipient werewolf. “Don’t think you can go running to the other boys for help whenever I give you trouble.”
Dek’s smile was all wolf. “I wouldn’t dream of it. But don’t you think you can run to them, either. We’re bonded now, sweetie. It’s you and me, one on one.”
“So that was sort of the were version of a wedding? Huh.” Leila tapped him on the chin. “I want a legal ceremony, too, if we’re in this for life. But we’re not having the best men grab for my garter.”
“Hell, no. There’ll be no more grabbing by anyone except me. Wolves mate for life, but if you want some damned human wedding to make yourself feel better, I guess we can manage that. I might have to fake the blood test, though. My blood type doesn’t exactly fit the standard.”
Dek bent his head and kissed her. He was gentle at first, tenderly drawing out the kiss and bringing her near to tears. Gradually the kiss turned more fierce, with his teeth grazing the tender underside of her lip, promising more.
“So, are we done explaining? Can you kiss me again?” Leila could have smacked herself in the head the minute she asked that. Never show a man you’re more interested in him than in having him grovel. Those were basic human rules. He was already throwing her off stride. She’d had him right where she wanted him—promising a wedding and a lifetime together—and then she’d changed the subject. Dek sighed and reluctantly moved his hands from her shoulders.
“I’d love to. But—well, there are more things you need to know right off.” He ran his hand through his hair. “You and Lin—you’re the women.”
“I figured that part out.”
“I wasn’t kidding when I said it was dangerous to be were. It’s most dangerous for Lin, because she’s so young. But it’s dangerous for you, too. You need to be a lot more careful than you’ve been up to now.”
“I’m not planning on going to bars to get beat up like Grey.”
“You damn well aren’t going to any bar. But that’s not what I meant. It’s not just humans we need to worry about. It’s other packs.”
“Other packs? How many weres are there in West Texas?”
“Not so many. Female weres are scarce. That’s one reason packs are so anxious to raid other packs and get a few. But if they can’t get the females for their own, then they’ll take or kill the other pack’s women and children. If they can’t survive, the other pack can’t, either.”
“You’re kidding. And if you’re saying I have to spend the rest of my life not able to go where I want, you’d really best be kidding.”
Dek’s stare turned lethal rather than sexy. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a billfold. He rummaged for a moment and then handed her a yellowed, folded newspaper article.
“Read it.”
“You don’t have to give me orders, Dek. I—” Leila gasped as she read. “My God! That’s awful!”
“That was my mother, Leila.”
“She died from a wolf attack? In her own home?”
“That’s just the way humans told it because they didn’t know any better. It wasn’t wolves that killed her. It was weres. She was driven from her own pack, and when she was left alone, another pack attacked her. She didn’t have a chance.”
Leila read a little more and realization hit. “My God, Dek! The little boy left alone in the house for days before someone arrived…that was you?”
Leila held him close, felt the tightness in his body. After all these years, it was still almost too much for Dek. He still had to brace himself. No wonder. She couldn’t imagine a toddler, alone and traumatized, with the body
of his mother still there.
“Yeah. That’s how I discovered I was part of the were. It was kind of a tough welcome to the neighborhood.”
“Don’t try to joke,” Leila whispered against his neck, trying to absorb some of his lingering pain with her embrace.
“Right. Bad joke anyhow. Well…I remember Mother hiding me under the bed, saying not to make a sound when she heard them start to break in. I don’t remember everything else. Not entirely.”
Except in his nightmares. Leila remembered certain nights. Remembered Dek crying out, struggling, and then getting up to roam for hours.
“I’m so sorry, darling.”
“It’s nothing to do with you, Leila. I’m just telling you because I know what would happen if I didn’t. You’d nag and poke at me—”
“I would not! And you were the one doing all the poking just a few minutes ago, mister.”
His smile flickered on and off again. “All right. No nagging. You’d persist until I told you anyhow. You never just take orders.”
“Well, that part is true enough.”
“But that’s why I’m telling you to stay near the ranch and close to the pack. I can’t let that happen to you or our baby.”
“I understand now you’ve explained and didn’t order.” Leila stroked his back, trying to silently show how sorry she was for that little boy and his mother. “And I understand the rules better now.”
“Well, then—”
She could hear the rasp in his voice, the one she was starting to think of as the alpha tone. She even knew what he wanted her to promise. Well, she wasn’t stupid and she was going to stay safe, but she couldn’t promise to never leave this isolated ranch or to have weres as her permanent bodyguards. Promises like that were just meant to be broken. It was probably time to change the subject before he got all dominant and made her want to jump him…for sex or for murder, depending on the situation.
