by Kim Fox
Grant jerked his head back in surprise. “What?!?”
“You heard me, Grant. Get out.”
The alpha turned to Amélie, looking at her in disbelief.
“Let’s just give them a minute,” she said, placing her hand on Grant’s forearm. She opened her eyes, pleading with him. “Just a minute.”
Grant’s jaw was tight as he turned back to Mack. He looked at him for a long tense moment that seemed to drag on forever before he finally grabbed the door handle and opened the door. “You have two minutes.”
Mack and his lion both took a deep breath as they left him alone with the girl.
Her eyes were more alert as she looked up at him. It was hot in the truck and Mack was sweating like a roofer in July.
He was relieved to see some color returning to her face and the blue was fading from her sweet lips. She blinked her eyes and reached up, touching her cold hand to his cheek and it instantly soothed his raging lion.
A heated charge filled the air in the truck, sizzling between them as she ran her soft hand down his hard cheek. Her touch was both calming and exciting, and Mack couldn’t get enough of it.
“Thank you,” she whispered in a frail voice. “For saving me.”
Her perfect lips curled up into the faintest smile as she watched him, and all of the anger and tension that was bottled up in Mack was suddenly drained out of him.
He realized that he pretty much just challenged his alpha to a dominance battle. He didn’t understand what had gotten into him. Did this girl have that much of a pull on him already? Was he losing control?
It was a good thing that Amélie had been there or who knows how far it would have gone?
“What’s your name?” he asked. He wanted to know everything about her, but she was weak and needed time to recover.
“Kara,” she whispered. “Kara Griffin. And you?”
“Mack Harris.”
“Mack Harris,” she whispered back with a smile. The sound of his name on her sweet lips was stirring something within him. Something deep and primal that he wasn’t sure if he could control.
“You’re staying with me, Kara. No one is going to hurt you ever again.” It wasn’t a question or an offer. It was a statement, pure and simple. She was his now to protect.
“Thank you,” she whispered as she started to move around. Her body seemed to be unthawing in the hot truck.
“How old are you?” She looked too young for him. Too innocent. People would talk, but Mack didn’t care. People could go fuck themselves.
“Twenty-one.” Her voice was getting a little bit louder, a little bit stronger. His little bird was going to make it.
“We’ll get you somewhere warm and get some food in you,” he said as he placed her on the seat beside him. It killed him to let her go, but he had too. “I have to talk to my friend for a minute.”
“Okay,” she whispered. He could see her body shudder when he released her. Was she feeling the same sense of loss, the same tortuous aching that was pining through his body?
He took one last long look at her angelic face and then forced himself to get out of the car. The bitting cold felt exquisite after being suffocated in the heat inside the truck.
Amélie was trying to calm Grant down who was pacing angrily. His heated eyes darted to Mack when he heard the door close.
Mack walked over with his head hanging low. He showed his neck to his alpha—a sign of submission—and then took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Grant. I don’t know what came over me.”
Grant’s body was tight. His voice came out choppy and stilted. “You ever challenge me or my lion again like that… be prepared to…” He was breathing heavily, trying to control himself.
Mack felt bad. Grant was a good alpha. He didn’t deserve that.
He lowered his eyes to the pavement as Grant paced angrily in front of him. “I don’t know what happened.”
Grant slowly stopped pacing until he was standing in front of him, taking deep labored breaths.
“We can’t leave her here,” Mack said. “She’s not leaving my sight.”
Grant huffed out a frustrated breath.
“We have to double back and take the girl into town,” Amélie said, jumping in. “She’ll die out here.”
Mack knew that his alpha wouldn’t let that happen. He was a good man with a good heart.
“I guess we don’t have much of a choice,” Grant said as he ran his hand over his shaved head, something he usually did when he was annoyed. “Let’s go back to that town we passed a while ago.”
“We’ll stay the night in a motel,” Mack added. “Make sure she’s okay.”
Grant and Mack stared at each other once again as tension suddenly filled the air.
The alpha walked back to the truck, bumping Mack with his shoulder as he passed him. “You just make sure that you’re okay.”
Chapter Five
Kara
Kara studied the mysterious man’s face as he held her close to his muscular chest. There was nothing soft or delicate about it. No nice or gentle lines. It was hard. A harsh face with rough edges and rugged features.
His name suited him. Mack. He was built like a Mack truck and Kara never felt smaller than she did at that moment in his arms.
She was alone in the truck with this hard-looking man, but she wasn’t afraid or feeling any of the usual warning signs that bodies sent out when danger was nearby. She felt safe and secure in his arms. Like nothing would be able to get to her while this brute was protecting her.
The other couple in the front seats had left the truck and disappeared into the motel that they were parked in front of.
Kara was still feeling incredibly weak. Her eyes kept drifting open and closed as the strangers turned around and drove down the long secluded road until they arrived in a small town. She was exhausted and feeling powerless. All of her energy seemed to have rushed out of her the moment that Mack picked her up in his big arms. It was like her drained body gave itself over to his protection completely, leaving her vulnerable and helpless to his every want, need, and desire.
She hadn’t slept much over the past couple of days, only drifting in and out through the long cold nights, and it had finally caught up to her. Keeping her heavy eyelids open was work and they kept sliding down.
His eyes were always on her, looking down at her whenever she opened them back up. She knew that she should have been scared with this rough-looking stranger who had the most intense brown eyes that she’d ever seen staring at her, but even though she barely knew him, she wasn’t. Inexplicably, she felt safe. She felt comforted and secure.
It was as if her body was attuned to his on a level she didn’t quite understand.
“It’s okay, sweet girl,” he whispered in a deep soothing voice. “Just close your eyes.”
She realized she had been fighting to keep them open, and as soon as he said the words, they closed on their own. His big arms held her a little tighter and she leaned into his chest, fighting back a little contented moan that was sliding up her throat.
He smelled good and she inhaled deeply, savoring his rugged scent. It smelled like the mountains in autumn.
“Everything is going to be okay,” he whispered as he stroked her cheek with his hand. His touch was so gentle for such a big guy, and Kara knew that he was holding back his strength for her, trying to be delicate, trying not to hurt her. It was much softer than she thought it would be and it made her body react with waves of warmth spreading through her.
This stranger was a mystery to her. After all she’d been through, she knew she should have been fearful of strangers, to be wary of anyone she didn’t know, but this stranger, this man, felt so comforting to her. Everything about this man felt safe and dependable, and the feelings inside were getting more and more intense with every second that she spent with him.
Kara always preferred the rough hero to the pretty boy in movies. Daniel Craig was her kind of James Bond. She preferred men like Vin Di
esel to Ryan Gosling. The kind of rugged hero who took what he wanted and had nothing but wild emotions until he saw the one girl who could finally tame him.
His grip on her suddenly tightened as the others approached the truck. He never took his eyes off her as they opened the door and called his name.
Kara smiled when she saw the possessive edge in his eyes. She was feeling the same, like she didn’t want him to look at any other girl with that intense gaze, or hold any other girl in his protective embrace. She wanted to be his only one.
“We got two rooms,” the guy with the shaved head said. There was an uneasiness to his voice.
“We’re taking one,” Mack replied in a firm voice.
The girl with the curly blonde hair and French accent who had been in the front seat stepped in front of the other man. “Girls in one room. Guys in the other.”
Mack didn’t seem to like that answer. Kara could feel his heart pounding furiously in his chest.
Kara didn’t like that answer either for that matter. She didn’t want to leave him. On a deep level, she knew that he would protect her at all costs, and she didn’t want to be away from that while she was in such an exhausted and vulnerable state.
But the French girl wasn’t having any of it. “She needs to soak in a hot bath, Mack. You going to give it to her?”
“Yes.”
It had been a sarcastic question, but Mack didn’t take it like that. His answer was firm and direct, and the thought of his big rough hands on Kara’s naked body began stirring things inside of her.
She didn’t want to leave him. She wanted him to carry her into the room, let him take off her clothes, and then gently sink her into a hot bath. She wanted to see the look on his face and the need in his eyes as he undressed her, but that wasn’t going to happen. How would that make her look? She had never been like this—so wanting of a man—in her life. She had never even had sex before. She was a virgin and had been saving herself for someone special. You were saving it for him, a voice whispered in her head.
The French girl rolled her eyes. “Mack, she’ll be fine. You can come see her after.”
“No. She stays with me. Always.”
The guy with the shaved head was back and the air became tense once again. “Mack,” he warned in a low voice that bordered on a growl. “Watch yourself.”
Kara swallowed hard as Mack held her close and moved toward the door. He climbed out of the truck and held her protectively to his chest as more strangers came walking over. There was a handsome one-armed man with dark features, a tall muscular man with tattoos all over his neck and arms, and a girl with bushy eyebrows and wavy brown hair who had an ax hanging from her belt for some reason.
“Put her down, Mack,” the French girl said in a soft tone. “She’s coming with us.”
Kara could feel a low rumbling emanating from Mack’s chest. Her ear was against his pec and she swore she could hear something growling in there.
“I already told you, she’s mine.”
Kara hated the tension, but something primal in her was enjoying the way he was making it clear that she was his and that it was final.
“And I already told you,” the guy with the shaved head said as he took a step forward, “that you better watch yourself.”
Mack’s eyes finally left hers and they hardened when they settled upon the man who was challenging him. The tension was thick between them and Kara could sense it. So could everyone else. They were all deathly quiet and shifting uneasily.
Kara didn’t want them to fight. She wanted to stay with Mack, but she also didn’t want him to lose any friends over her. She reached up and touched his cheek, bringing his eyes back down on her where they softened.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. Every word was a struggle. She was so weak and feeble from the past couple of days.
She turned in his embrace, trying to put her feet on the ground. He resisted at first, not wanting to let her go, but when she tried again, he let her. Her legs were wobbly and the powerlessness of them surprised her. She grabbed onto his thick forearm for support as she looked up at him with a smile.
She hadn’t realized how big he actually was until now. Her vision had been a little blurry when she had first seen him and then it was hard to get an accurate comparison while she was being cradled in his arms in the truck. But now, standing in front of him, she could see how big he really was. He was at least a foot taller than her and his body was massive. He really was built like a Mack truck.
Kara reached up and touched his proud chest, and his tight body seemed to loosen a little. She liked how her touch seemed to relax him, how it calmed and soothed the raging fire inside him. She wondered if any other woman had that effect on him, and she hoped they didn’t. She liked thinking that she was the only one who could soothe the beast in him like this.
“I’ll just go warm up inside with the girls,” she said, feeling a little bit stronger now. It was as if her body was absorbing the tremendous strength radiating off him. “Then I’ll come see you.”
His jaw clenched. He looked unsure.
The girl with the bushy eyebrows walked over and took Kara’s hand. “Thank you, Mack,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Your service is no longer needed.”
Kara was suddenly flanked by both girls and she walked with them to a room in the motel. It was a dingy motel with paint chipping off the yellow doors, revealing a layer of green underneath. The curtains were an ugly plaid and the tall neon sign in the parking lot was dark and long dead. But all of this seemed like paradise to Kara after the two nights that she had spent in the cold. This place had heat and that was all she needed.
“I’m Tempest and this is Amélie,” the girl with the ax said as they walked. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you all warmed up.”
Amélie fumbled with the key and then opened the door. Kara felt heavy breathing behind her and when she turned around, she smiled when she saw Mack right there behind them. He looked like he was in agony, like he didn’t want to let her go. His fists were clenched and he was taking deep heavy breaths as he watched her with a pained look on his face. Kara smiled at him, relieving some of it.
He tried to follow them into the motel room, but Tempest grabbed the doorframe and blocked the way with her arm. “Bye, Mack,” she said as she stared him down.
“I’m not leaving.”
Tempest leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms. “You’re not coming in here.”
Mack’s eyes narrowed as he stared her down.
“What has gotten into you, Mack?” Amélie asked, sounding exasperated. “She’s going to be fine. We’ll warm her up and then you can see her.”
The guy with the shaved head looked more upset than ever as he stormed over. He grabbed Mack’s arm, but Mack yanked it away and let out a noise that sounded like a growl.
The guy stepped back and lowered his head, growling too. What is going on?
Men growling? And…
Kara wasn’t sure if her eyes were playing tricks on her, but the guy with the shaved head’s eyes seemed to be getting brighter as they stared each other down.
Must be from the fatigue.
“Guys!” Amélie shouted. “Will you two stop?”
Kara rushed out before things got out of hand. She hurried over to Mack and stood between them, putting her hand on his chest. His heart is beating so fast.
“I haven’t eaten anything good in days,” she said in a low soothing voice. His hard eyes dropped to hers and the anger was suddenly replaced with concern. “I would kill for a hot burger and some fries. Would you be so kind and get one for me? Please?”
Mack looked at her for a long time and then nodded. “I’ll get you two.”
“Okay,” Kara said, chuckling in relief. “That sounds good.”
He touched her cheek softly and then looked around at everyone with hard eyes. “Don’t let anyone take her.”
Grant handed him the keys and he got into the truck and drove away.
/>
Tempest was shaking her head in disbelief as Kara walked back inside. “Don’t let anyone take her? Jeez, what a psycho!”
“He’s not,” Kara whispered as Tempest closed the door. Somehow she understood the possessive need he had. Just the thought of him out there without her was making her a little crazy.
“Let’s get you in the bath,” Amélie said from the bathroom. She was already running it. “Do you want it warm, hot, or scalding.”
“Scalding, please,” Kara said as she sat down on the bed. “My toes have never been so cold.”
She felt strange. Like something was missing.
And she knew it was Mack.
What is wrong with me?
It was as if she had been struck in the forehead with Cupid’s arrow or something. Here she was about to take a hot bath—something she had been dreaming of doing for two days—but all she could look forward to was seeing Mack again.
The girls chatted to her, asking her where she came from and why she was out in the cold while the bath ran.
“My car had broken down,” Kara answered, not wanting to say too much. Maybe these people worked for General Hunt. Maybe they would take her right back there to him.
“I didn’t see your car anywhere,” Tempest said with a tilt of her head.
“It was on a different road,” Kara said quickly.
Tempest’s big eyebrows scrunched together. “Hmmm.”
When the bath was finally finished she went into the bathroom and closed the door. She took off her freezing cold clothes and slipped into the warm bath, moaning as it burnt her cold skin. It felt like heaven. Pretty soon she was soaking in the hot tub and her body was returning to normal.
She couldn’t help but think of Mack and smiling at how territorial he had gotten around her. She pictured him here next to her and as she did, her hand slid down between her legs. She rubbed herself until the waves in the bathtub rippled angrily and her mouth dropped open.
“Fuck,” she whispered as she sunk back down in the water. This was crazy. She didn’t have time for a love affair.
Her family was still captured and she had to help them get out.
