She could have argued, yet right then he was so Alpha she didn’t want to. Not even a little bit.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m frustrated, sweetheart. You’re driving me crazy, and, as anyone here can tell, I am not easily rattled. So I’m going to do what I am convinced we both need.”
He tugged at her pants, and she wished she could force her heart to slow down. It thudded so hard in her chest she thought it might explode.
“We’re not mating. I told you. No. You do get the word don’t you, Alpha-boy?”
Beaux laughed, which had not been the response she’d expected. What the hell was so funny?
“You’re right. We are not mating. We will. Mating means the biting, the connection. Now isn’t the time. You’ll beg me to take you before I will.”
His eyes changed to wolf and then back again. As per usual, the shift amazed her.
“Beaux, I’m afraid you’ve gotten delusional. Too much time spent with the other Alphas has rotted your brain. I’m not going to beg you for what I don’t want.”
He shook his head, the smallest smirk on his face. She was torn between wanting to punch it off him and kiss him until she melted into the table. Why did he have to be so confusing?
“You will. Not today. Right now, it’s all about you, sweet wolf.”
Her mouth went dry. “What do you mean?”
“You need release and I need to give it you.”
He yanked, and, with a snap, her panties ripped in two. Beaux flung them over his shoulder, and her body heated up. Her womb clenched. His eyes had turned wolf for a moment, and then he looked up at her again.
“You’re wet. Simply from me talking about doing this to you.”
“It’s biological. I can’t help it.”
Beaux grinned wider. “Liar.”
He stroked the outside of her pussy, and she shuddered.
“You aren’t going to lie to me anymore, Lake. You don’t have to tell me your reasons; you aren’t going to tell any more untruths. I won’t have it.”
Beaux held her eye contact when she wanted to look away.
“Not about why we can’t wait, what you don’t want me to know, or how your body responds. You want this. I can feel it.”
If only she could claim he was wrong. But he wasn’t. She wanted him. By the Moon, she did.
Beaux pressed her further back against the table, and she didn’t resist. “Close your eyes, Lake. I don’t want you doing the thing you do where you overthink when you should be feeling. This is only a moment. It’s for both of us. No mating. No ramifications. Nothing for you to be afraid of.”
She should argue she wasn’t afraid. Why bother when he would know she was lying? His power pulsed at her; she felt the Alpha in him press at the wolf in her. She didn’t know if she could shift. Hour by hour, she was feeling her wolf more and more. He was more dominant than she was, and she wanted, no needed, to obey him.
He pushed one of his fingers inside of her and swirled it around. Her back arched from the invasion. She loved it, yet not being able to see what he did left her vulnerable.
“Relax. Nothing will happen to you when I’m with you. Ever. Nothing except pleasure.” When he touched her clit, she gasped. “That’s right, sweetheart. I know where to touch you.”
Lake let the sensations moving through her body take over. Sometimes he touched her clit, sometimes he didn’t. She wasn’t sure how many fingers he had inside of her at one time. All she knew was it felt…incredible.
“Keep your eyes closed.” He stroked the back of her neck while he lifted her head.
She hadn’t planned on opening them. “What?”
“Don’t let your lids open while you ride my hand.”
“Oh.”
Without being able to see, she couldn’t initially do as he’d instructed her, but, after a few seconds, she got used to the feeling of his hand inside her pussy, stretching her, with what she guessed was his thumb stroking her clit.
The need to feel what he offered overruled any weirdness of keeping her eyes shut. Slowly but surely, she stared to move. The rhythm wasn’t the same as it would be on his cock. Still, his fingers were hard, and they were right where she needed them.
She rocked against him.
“That’s it, that’s just what I want you to do, darling. Find your pleasure. Take it. Own it.”
His voice sounded strained and she could feel the tension in him pushing at her. It wasn’t painful, not like an injury, and, instead of wanting to fix it, she wanted to revel in it. Beaux was powerful. He might be gentle for a wolf and old-fashioned, yet there was no doubt in her mind he could wield tremendous strength. And, right then, he wanted the fuck out of her.
She drove herself harder against him as pressure squeezed inside her body. Her muscles clenched, dying for the completion she needed but couldn’t quite reach.
“You’re mine.” He breathed in her ear, a growl to his statement. “And I want you to come. Do you understand? I’m telling you to grasp it. It’s yours.”
With a surge of electricity pulsing through her, she shattered into a thousand pieces. Or maybe not, maybe her soul simply left her body, and she floated into the heavens to fly with the wind. There weren’t words for the feeling of heated peace consuming her. Tears fell from her eyes, and only Beaux’s arm, holding her steady, pressing her against his chest while his other hand wrung the pain-laced pleasure from her body, kept her from toppling over.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered in her ear. “I always will. I promise.”
Tears continued their path, and she opened her eyes for a moment while she grabbed onto Beaux’s shirt like he was a sudden life raft in seas that were drowning her. Unable to stop the flood of tears, she gave into the sensation and went for it. Why not? Didn’t all other wolves get to explode whenever they wanted to?
“Let it out.” He kissed the top of her head and drew her closer so her ear was pressed up against his heart. “Let me fix it.”
He couldn’t. There would never be anything Beaux could do to make all the wrong things right. For now, his warmth was enough, and, as her sobs stopped, she closed her eyes again and pressed up against the man who had made her shatter. He smelled like the woods and home. When had sandalwood become home to her?
Without knowing she was going to, she fell asleep right there in his arms.
Chapter Nine
Alexei leaned against Beaux’s truck like he had the right to be there. For the moment, he actually did, but Beaux doubted the other Alpha would ever wait for an invitation to make himself right at home.
“I thought you were coming right back.” The other man raised a dark eyebrow. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I got detained.”
The picture of Lake losing herself in the moment when she’d come played over and over in his head. Never had anything been so sweet. His cock ached, and he would have done anything to have taken a few minutes to relieve the pain using his own hand, only there had been the problem of Alexei waiting. He’d really only meant to come inside to get his cell phone.
Then he had smelled her, and her need had cried out to him throwing any thoughts of anyone and anything from the universe. Only Lake had mattered.
He’d had to leave her asleep on his bed when all he’d wanted to do was crawl in next to her and pretend the world didn’t exist. Except there were children to find, and if Alexei needed to show him something to make the recovery happen, then Beaux would do whatever he had to do to save them.
Beaux would do it if Lake hadn’t asked him to, but it helped to have the incentive of her trust to fuel him forward. If she saw how he managed this, she might come to believe he could take care of whatever was making her so nervous.
Maybe she’d still be asleep when he got back.
“You have a funny look on your face.” Alexei motioned toward the car. “Is there something on your mind?”
Beaux snorted. “Are we sharing now? Go find Cyrus if y
ou want to talk.”
After a moment, Alexei threw his head back and laughed.
“Your ability to be a blowhard never ceases to amazes me. I thought I’d give you the chance to unburden yourself. It can’t be easy to try to mate Cyrus’ sister. She’s always come across as temperamental to me.”
“Don’t discuss her. You don’t know her. She’s brilliant, talented, kind. So many things you can’t possibly imagine. If you talk about her again, I’m going to break your nose.”
“Right then.” Alexei motioned toward the car again. “Then let’s be on our way.”
Why did Beaux feel as though he had passed some sort of test? Alexei looked smug and not at all ticked off. They got into the vehicle and Beaux started the car.
“Where are we going and why are we going there?”
Alexei leaned back in his seat. “Forty-five minutes northwest of here. Some of my people are waiting. I brought a…present for you.”
“Your instructions when you were invited to Montana was to come alone. Why are your people here?”
Alexei’s words had thrown all of his good feelings about the meeting out the window. Of course not all the Alpha had followed the rules. Why had he been so stupid as to think they would? They were all Lucian-trained power hungry….
“Don’t get your panties twisted up.” Alexei shook his head. “They’re not here. They’re not infringing on our meeting. Trust me, when you see your gift, you’ll be glad for it and see why I bent the rules. A little.”
Beaux pulled the car out onto the small dirt road that was the only way in and out, by car, to his pack’s housing area. It was easy to defend and they always had someone guarding it. Silent sentinels only he could spot.
“You set me up earlier.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he maneuvered the car. “Why did you make the comment about Lake? To get my temper up?”
“Because she’s extraordinary and I don’t know you well, so I wanted to see how you would react. Cyrus muddles through relationships. I wanted to see for myself.”
Why would the Alpha from Boston care about the sister of the Alpha from New York? The word “extraordinary” bounced around in his head for a second. Like Cyrus, Beaux had never been good at the feelings game. Only he wasn’t totally dense. If Alexei was going to be honest, so would Beaux.
“You’re in love with her.”
Saying the words made his blood boil. They weren’t mated, and, although he could still taste her sweet nectar on his tongue, she didn’t belong to him enough. If Alexei made any moves toward her, he’d rip out his throat.
“I don’t love anyone. Ever.” He shook his head. “I won’t lie, I’m attracted to her; I always have been. She’s never looked at me that way. And I don’t chase what I can’t have. There are enough women wanting me between their thighs—humans who don’t know what I am and females who’ve gone into heat. I don’t need Lake.”
Alexei’s words should have spurred on some anger, only they didn’t. Beaux glanced over at the other Alpha. The man was alone. He didn’t have a True Mate, at least not one he had found yet. Whatever rationale Alexie needed to get through the day, he could have it.
“You might think about asking the Moon for help.”
Alexei looked out the window. “It’s been many years since the Moon listened to me.”
Beaux shook his head. He heard this so many times before wolves joined his pack. The total and complete feeling of being alone led many back to the true wolf ways. “Not true.”
Alexei still didn’t look at him. “I heard you were a fundamentalist. Tell me, are your beliefs the reason Lucian kicked you out all those years ago? Did you go moon happy on him?”
Having never heard himself described as a fundamentalist before—and he wasn’t exactly sure the term fit—the word caused him to take a second to digest the whole of Alexei’s question. “You want to know why Lucian kicked me out.”
Apparently feeling the need to be more comfortable, Alexei adjusted his seat until he could stretch his legs out entirely straight.
“I’ve always wondered.”
“Spent a lot of time on the subject?”
Beaux didn’t have to be snide. Only sometimes it felt so good, and, since he wasn’t rising to a fight over Lake—she belonged to Beaux and both he and Alexei knew it—he needed to get a jibe in where he could.
The other Alpha shifted in his seat.
“Actually, lately, I’ve spent an unusual amount of time contemplating the demise of the late Alpha Prime. Something about his demise has set the memories off. Why didn’t you get asked back?”
“He and I disagreed, loudly, in his barn about the role of the Alpha. Back then, I actually wasn’t as sure of my beliefs as I am now.” He’d been young, confused, and looking for direction from their “great leader.” Lucian was Alpha Prime. Shouldn’t he have known everything?
“My dismissal wasn’t because I was going on about anything to do with the moon.”
He wouldn’t come to feel the moon-need strongly until after his mate died. Then it would all become clear.
“Then what was it about?”
Beaux shook his head. “No one ever understands when I try to explain it.”
“I’m bright and capable of understanding many things.”
“Everything we were doing felt wrong. It didn’t seem like wolves. Why were we being taught to use guns? What purpose in life did knowing how to point and shoot serve? We were supposed to be learning how to be better werewolves so we could learn how to be Alphas.”
He paused. All those years later, talking about the day he no longer held favor with Lucian brought on the edge of a headache.
“I asked him. He didn’t like that I’d even had a thought his teachings were inappropriate. We argued. I guess that was it.”
Beaux had left out some specific details. He wouldn’t share with Alexei the words Lucian had hurled at him. Loser. Unworthy. Ungrateful. Trash.
He’d actually come to believe for a while Lucian had been right, that he’d had no business leading. Beaux had taken years to let go of the notion Lucian had actually known what he was talking about.
“And yet you have the Healer Prime as your mate.”
Beaux whipped around and slammed on his breaks. The car came to an abrupt halt.
“How the fuck did you know? Cyrus gossiping?”
The son of a bitch. With Lake not ready to deal with it, he thought her brother would at least have the decency to keep it to himself.
Alexei held up his hands. “No one had to tell me. I think a better question is how did they not know, assuming now they do.”
He tried to call back his temper. Lake needed her privacy until she herself said otherwise. Beaux wouldn’t lose his cool over a lot of things—the Moon wanted calm from them between shifts—but, on this, he would be vicious. Claws out, fangs bared. He didn’t care who it was. Alexei would feel his wrath….
“You done? Got it back under control?”
Beaux gritted his teeth. “You’re lucky I don’t claw out your eyes.”
“I’d make a snide remark. Alas, I can’t stop dwelling on the fact the Moon gave you Lake. You. Not me. Not Savage. Not any of the big Alphas. The Moon picked two souls to be together, as they once paired those who created us, and it was you and Lake.”
“What’s your point?” If Alexei had been trying to cool Beaux’s temper he wasn’t doing a good job. “Jealous?”
“I’m a man who likes history. You like faith. I know yours because it coincides with mine.”
Beaux started the car back up. The road was usually untraveled, but he didn’t want to count on it. The faster he got wherever Alexi wanted to go, the quicker he could get away from him.
“Am I supposed to be following this conversation?”
“The Healer Prime is, or will be when you stop dicking around and get to it, yours. She’ll spend her life at risk to other people’s pain, after her own powers come in, and someone will have to take
care of her. She’s always mated to one of the strongest wolves around.” Alexei closed his eyes. “Make me wonder if Lucian got it wrong throwing you off the farm. Or if he was the smartest werewolf ever.”
Beaux let Alexei pretend to sleep for a while. When he needed directions, he would wake him up. In the meantime, the other Alpha had left him with a lot to think about. He didn’t know how strong an Alpha he was. His strength had always been enough to manage his pack, to take care of his people. His first mate had died. That was on him. He’d lost his senses, and she had paid the price. He had to believe there was a reason and that Sara was happy with the Moon now. Beaux hoped she didn’t blame him for his mistakes.
He wouldn’t lose Lake. She belonged to him. End of story. So the question of ability seemed pointless to dwell on. He’d be as strong as he had to be. The Moon had thought him worthy. He would not let anyone down.
****
Alexei roused from whatever bored half-sleep he’d been in long enough to direct Beaux to a warehouse. They pulled up next to the building, and Beaux took a deep breath. He smelled snow, dirt, and salt in the air. The weather wasn’t going to be getting any better any time soon.
Another sniff through the car window told him there were three other werewolves inside the building. They must be Alexei’s men. But it was a secondary scent that caught his attention.
He got out of the car, slamming the door behind him. Fucking Alexei had a fucking human inside that place and he, if the sour, acrid scent of pain indicated anything, wasn’t doing well.
What the hell had the Alpha from Boston done?
He stormed toward the door, calling over his shoulder, “I don’t like surprises.”
Alexei had the nerve to laugh. Why was the other Alpha always finding things amusing when there was nothing funny at all happening?
“Oh, sure you do, Beaux. And, besides, this isn’t a surprise. It’s a present. Gift wrapped for you.”
Beaux yanked open the door, hearing the rusted hinges creek as he did so. The faintest scent of sawdust assaulted his nose. It wasn’t new but rather an old scent no human would discern in the room. The place had been empty for a long time, and yet Alexei had located it within Beaux’s own territory while Beaux hadn’t know anything about it.