Alphas Unwrapped: 21 New Steamy Paranormal Tales of Shifters, Vampires, Werewolves, Dragons, Witches, Angels, Demons, Fey, and More

by Michele Bardsley

  It’s a job. Nothing more. The flare between them was chemistry. Sweeping, claiming, sweet oblivion. Use it.

  Sweet Lord above, did she want to use it—savor, crave, abandon herself in it—and him.

  His nostrils flared, the skin across his face tightened, creating an echo that thrummed through her. Arousal. Flushed skin. Increased pulse of her blood strumming top to toe. Tingling nerves.

  Man, she was a mess of want and he was still across the room, drinking her in with his look. That soul-stealing gaze sliding up her legs, caressing her stomach and breasts, brushing her neck. He ravished her with look alone and they both knew it. She fought the quiver rampaging through her, tightening her fingers around her glass, knowing any second she’d crush it.

  Call and response. Dare and promise. Taunt and threat.

  Good thing she had yet to run from danger. And man, oh man, he exuded danger, on so many levels.

  But he was also her ticket into a new life. As long as she remembered that, she’d retain the upper hand.

  CHAPTER 3

  Think job. Ignore the invasion of her senses. Get out of her body. Back into her mind. Wrest control, no matter what the cost.

  Jaylene tossed her earlier plans out the window. Herm Kane was not the kind who wanted a needy woman. Forget the helpless approach.

  Like tossing off skin too tight to hold the burn igniting her, she notched her chin higher, held his gaze, daring him. The fragile martini glass in her fingers forgotten. A come-and-get-it smile kicking up her lips. Lips she wet with a slow, unhurried sweep of her tongue.

  The light in his gaze flared.

  Oh, yeah, she knew this dance. A slow tango passed for seduction. Could control it. Could control him.

  Sweet baby, did she want to—tongue, touch, inside and out. The thrill of the hunt. The awakening of every inch of her body.

  One of the men who’d exited the room before Kane turned to speak to him. The honorable one.

  Kane raised one brow in her direction. Invitation? Promise? And so much more.

  She would not relinquish her power. Not yet. Not ever, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy the pulse through her. The burn starting low inside, the swell of skin readying.

  Herm Kane wanted her. The frisson electrifying her was not one sided.

  Halleluiah and amen!

  Her slight nod struck the bargain.

  His own slow, seductive, tormenting smile liquefied the heat already pooling deep and low inside. Thankful for the chair she sat on, she waited.

  The gauntlet had been thrown. And accepted.

  Game on.

  A game older than time. One a small part of her prayed that her choice to play wasn’t about to backfire and burn her.

  With only a slight tremble of her fingers, she slid her glass back on the bar, reminding herself to breathe. In. Out. Repeat. She refused to pant. Not her. Not yet.

  When had air become so scarce?

  Why did it matter?

  Control, Jaylene. The job. Nothing more.

  He raised a hand to silence the man speaking to him. A quick message, not of dismissal but of shifting priorities. He focused like a laser beam and she swallowed, aware of the dryness of her throat, the dampening between her thighs.

  Oh, yes, seducing Herm Kane would not be a hardship. Remembering her job might be. No might about it. When had a man given her an orgasm with just a look? If she didn’t get her head back in the assignment, she might lose before she started.

  By the time he crossed the room, his stride unhurried but possessive, she had herself back in control. Barely.

  Her instinct was to move toward him, reach out to touch, to claim. If she did…she’d lose her edge. Fling it away without a backward glance.

  Feeling the strain, she held still, perfectly still, aware of the sweat beading her skin, her body readying for him.

  Up close she scanned his face—chiseled, asymmetrical, sensuous. The sharp, high cheek bones of a Kikuyu or Masai ancestor. Her gaze lingered on his lips, the slight dip in the upper one making her want to touch. With her tongue.

  He paused, close enough that she could, if she dared, brush her leg against the nubby roughness of his suit, too aware that only cloth prevented her from stroking his skin.

  His gaze dropped to her ring hand.

  Nice. Except she doubted that, for this man, a ring would stop him from what he wanted. The heat in those deep, dark eyes warned her that what he wanted was her.

  Job. He was a job.

  He raised a casual finger, held it then touched, whispering it from her temple, slowly, oh, so achingly slow, down her cheek to the curve of her chin, leaving a searing brand in its wake. A mew clamored to be released. She fought it down.

  His finger, barely touching, tilted her chin upwards. Not forcing. A request. An offer. Until her gaze met his. No avoidance. Raw, heated need flared between them. The room faded. Noise subsided. Out of time and in a vacuum.

  Magician. Remember he was the magician. Weaving a spell around her.

  All came down to the arc sparking between them. Stealing her will. Her ability to think beyond that micro-inch of his fingertip claiming her.

  “Sorceress.” His voice the low roll of thunder on the horizon, promising release, promising destruction.

  Any words within her, all thoughts, fled. He knew it too as the corners of his lips tilted up. “So it’s not only me,” he said, sounding as caught off guard as she was. Surprising her.

  She expected arrogance, a presumption. What she heard was a wary question.

  Her impression of him tilted, skewing her own beliefs. The mental distance she needed to keep from crumbling.

  Pull yourself together. He wanted sex. Nothing more. It’s what she wanted, too. Remember that. Nothing else allowed. An itch to scratch as a side benefit. A devouring side benefit.

  Worked for her. The flash drive resided in a hidden wall safe in his penthouse kingdom. She needed to go there. Other needs clamored. She didn’t have to choose—either or—she could have both. Him and what he hid.

  Man, she loved win-win situations!

  Inhaling a forced breath, she slid from her chair, managing to keep a half-inch but no more between them. Physically at least. Tension arched and hummed from him to her and back again. A tactile need to breach the space. An awareness that once committed, there’d be no going back, for either of them.

  “Your place or mine?” She meant to sound worldly, assured, casual but could hear the hitch of desire, of neediness thread through what should have been a clichéd question. The huskiness worked, as he cut a quick look at the bartender.

  “Put Miss—” he glanced back at her, one brow over those yum-yum eyes quirked.

  “Smart.” It came on a whispered breath.

  “I have no doubt.” His smile tipped upward, not seduction but sharing, a private message between the two of them.

  Warning, Jaylene. A man who could laugh at himself could sneak beneath a woman’s defenses. It’d been a while, a long while, since she’d had a man who was more than a quick roll in the hay. Someone she could laugh with. That she could count on. When she thought about it, had she ever had one? Not that she wanted the home, hearth and happy-ever-after. Women like her never got those kinds of rewards. But even to have an equal—someone who didn’t despise her for what she’d done or who she was. Someone not intimidated by her strengths or afraid of her independence.

  What the hell was she thinking?

  Momentary blip. That’s all.

  He spoke again to the bartender but kept his eyes locked with hers, heating the room. “Place Miss Smart’s drink on my tab.”

  Arrogance or assurance? Probably both. A small skirmish she’d concede to him. A very small concession. Not a surrender. She wanted what he wanted— for now. No need to fight the desire bubbling so close to the surface.

  He eased back, enough to let her make the first move, still giving her the control, or the illusion that she still had a choice. Go with him o
r stay here? Public place. Among people. Safe.

  But there was no security. She’d known that for years. Realized it all over again the minute she’d spied him. Some men just spelled trouble. Herm Kane spelled it in capital letters.

  She brushed past him, the whisper of her silk rustling against his suit, giving her a chance to inhale.

  Hot damn, he even smelled sexy—sandalwood and something else. Dark. Seductive. Fit him to a T.

  He nodded, giving her the lead.

  If only she could keep it.

  CHAPTER 4

  They stepped into the empty elevator, no words spoken between them—none needed. A slow, bluesy jazz piece hummed through the intimate space as the doors whooshed closed. Soft music. Sexy vibes. Low trumpets and under-your-skin drum riffs. Making her edgy. Too aware.

  There was no room for anything except the raw, aching need filling the microscopic space. Volatile. A demand giving no room for chit-chat, for pleasantries. They could have been standing among the open skies of Montana, Nebraska, Iowa and the awareness would still be flaming between them, bringing everything down to one thing. Only that.

  He wanted her.

  She wanted him, even as she knew it came with strings. Strings that meant nothing between them was real. No matter what it felt like.

  He angled his tall, muscular frame against the back wall, a pose that should have signaled ease. It didn’t. Her stance mimicked his. The strained casualness. The tensile stillness. Mindful, as she knew he was, that if either moved, if either broke the tense balance between them, they’d be on each other in a heartbeat. Animal desperation over civilized restraint.

  The tightrope walk of desire. The razor edge between drowning and plundering. If she breathed in, his scent pulsed against her. Heady. Not a boxed cologne but him—skin, arousal, need. Headier than any manufactured replacement.

  Dear Lord, when would the doors open?

  It may have been minutes, but stretched like hours before the doors shuddered open at street level, sounding like an explosion, the frigid blast of night air slapping against her skin. Cold against heat. She caught her shiver, blaming it on the December night, nothing more. Only then did he look at her, his heavy-lidded gaze barely banked as he shrugged out of his jacket, slipping it over her shoulders. No words spoken. From either of them.

  Expediency not gallantry she told herself, even as she eased into his residual heat—spider to the fly—clutching the fabric between tense fingers, surrounded and consumed. His hand slid to her lower back, creating another shiver, this one she couldn’t deny.

  His jaw tightened as he raised his other hand, indicating she should exit, still giving her a choice.

  Not really. Not with the brand of his touch burning through jacket and dress.

  She stepped forward when she wanted to bolt, hesitating only when they reached the vapor-lighted emptiness of the alleyway. Cars revved past on nearby M Street, waves of sound, the never-ending background noise of a city in constant motion. Stars lay beyond the darkness, cocooning them together. Others were around. They had to be. So why the sense of intoxicating aloneness? Part of her wanted to reach out, break the restraint holding them in check, press against him, ravish him. Or allow him to ravish her. Either worked. She almost laughed but held back, afraid it might sound more like a whimper of need.

  A valet drove up in a sleek, titanium-colored Porsche. Low-slung, sexy, with a price tag nearing the one million mark. The vehicle of playboys and princes, not cops turned crusaders. She arched one brow at him. Big bad boy with toys? Or was he playing his own game, by his own rules?

  On the take? Oh, she’d love to believe that. Dyer hinted as much. The car gave proof. So why the niggle of something else at play here? Something just out of her reach?

  He shrugged. A take-it-or-leave-it gesture that neither flaunted nor intimidated. Interesting. Unexpected. Herm Kane was proving to be much more complex, and dangerous, than she expected.

  The seventh sense of survival that had kept her alive more than once on the streets flared. But why? An offshoot of desire? Easy to happen. Consummation meant being invaded, plundered, captured. Sex was not sweet and pretty. Not with the emotions raging through her. Not tonight. This intoxicating drive to nip, bite, taste and consume—all of him—left no doubt that there’d be little room for dalliance and wooing.

  He’d opened the passenger door for her, waited for her to slide into heated leather seats that offered a seduction of their own. She tamped down her hesitation, her wariness and, with a barely-there nod acquiesced to him. A private sigh escaped her as she watched him tip the valet and hurry around the car to slip behind the wheel.

  So he was riding the beast as hard as she was. Good. A small lifeline of sanity.

  The door clicked shut, enclosing them in a private world. Red holiday lights blinked somewhere nearby, casting a demonic glow over Kane’s face.

  “You can still say no.” The sexy depth of his voice a rasp across her nerve endings.

  He threw her once again. Ninety-nine out of a hundred men would be focused only on the how soon and how often. She hadn’t made him work. Beg. Seduce.

  Everything about her screamed sex. Everything about him screamed YES.

  So why the hesitation?

  “I think we both know my answer,” she murmured, aware of the dryness in her throat, the closeness of the space between them. Another minute and they’d be figuring out how to go at it in the car.

  Drive. Now. Fast. She didn’t say the words out loud. Didn’t have to.

  His jaw tightened, as if waging an internal war, even as he revved the engine and peeled out of the alley. The first ungoverned action from a very controlled man.

  Holiday D.C. flashed past her window, understated in some places, gaudy in others. She was nine when her mother remarried, from then on the celebrations changed, became show not substance. Santa Claus dissolved as quickly as the faint memories of her father—an honorable man, gunned down in a tragic accident four days before Christmas. Those were the words she’d heard then. Stark. Brutal. Final.

  He’d been in law enforcement. On the legal side. A good man. Doing the right thing. Paying the price.

  She wondered if he knew the cost to those he loved. Abandonment. Betrayal. Loss. That was his legacy to her. His holiday gift.

  “Changing your mind?” Kane spoke beside her, pulling her out of her dark, downward spiral. A perceptive man? Or one who demanded the focus be one hundred percent on him?

  The latter she could deal with—sometimes illusion was the only thing keeping her moving forward. Worked for her.

  Her answer was to reach across the inches separating them, lay her palm on his leg, sense the tensing of his thigh muscle, feel the heat of his skin beneath fabric, hear the intake of his breath.

  The Porsche sped up. Soon it’d be airborne. Or she would be. Orgasm by need alone.

  My, oh my!

  CHAPTER 5

  She ignored the last miles to his place. Blew past his building’s security measures that made getting into the White House look easy, bit her lip to keep her focus on the fact they were still in a public venue—parking garage, lobby, elevator.

  She might not make it to the penthouse. Only thing keeping her from doing the dirty right then and there was Kane’s control. If he could wait, she could.

  She hoped.

  “Nice place,” she murmured as the elevator doors finally whisked open to a living room that was double the size of her whole sublet. Subdued lighting cast puddles of warm amber light, just enough for her to make out tasteful furniture, art on the walls. Elegant but still comfortable, like someone really lived here instead of just passing through. She glanced at him, letting his jacket slide from her shoulders to her fingers.

  She held it toward him, feeling naked without it. Exposed. Vulnerable.

  He grabbed her offering and tossed it without a sideways look, his burning focus one hundred and twenty percent on her.

  If he kept that up, she’d comb
ust right here.

  “Want anything?” he asked, his voice husky, strangled.

  “Yeah.” She nodded, making him wait. Her too, as she took a small step forward, tossing her clutch to follow his jacket, not caring where it landed. She could barely think, do nothing but feel, blood rushing through her ears, the need pounding, pounding, pounding. “I. Want. You.”

  His face in the shadows taunted her, consumed her—nostrils flared, skin stretched razor tight across his face, his eyes hooded. He’d gone so still, she didn’t know if he’d heard her and hesitated. Or wanted something else.

  Time to make things happen.

  She raised one trembling hand, too heavy, not of her body but acting on its own, to reach the disguised zipper along the side of her dress. Her fingers connected with the pull and she tugged, slowly, oh so slowly, downward, watching the need in his gaze increase. With tenuous control she paused, hearing the catch of his breath, the low, aroused growl he probably didn’t realize he’d allowed to escape.

  A smile settled her insides. So she wasn’t alone. Was just as caught on a precipice. Just as desperate.

  He stepped closer, closing the space between them until she had to raise her chin to see shadows play across his chiseled face.

  Satan in the holiday season.

  “Tease.” His voice said control, the hands curled at his side, holding back, said another.

  She wanted to break that control. Force him to take the final step. She went to speak but his finger rose to her mouth, outlining the fleshiness of her lower lip, tantalizing in his restraint. Until she pursed and closed her lips over the roughness of his finger. And sucked.

  He was suddenly there, pushing her backwards, against the nearest wall, his mouth claiming hers. Punishing. Promising. Devouring.

  Sweet halleluiah!

  Kindling to fire, she wanted more and she wanted it now.

  His body towered above hers, his hands snaked up to cradle her head, to angle her mouth so he could consume her—tongue-to-tongue tangoing.

  A mewling sound erupted from her. More. More. More.