Desired by the Pack: Part One: A BBW Paranormal Romance (2 page)

But she couldn’t bring herself to kill, either. She had dreams of bringing life into the world, not sending it out.

As she thumped the shot glass down on the bar, she remembered the glass-fragile feel of her elderly patient’s hand trembling on her arm. Tears and other fluids pooled at the bottoms of his cloudy blue eyes as he begged.

She could have ended it for him. She’d had the syringe in her pocket. One little poke, one little bubble of air, and he could have known peace. Maybe on a different night she would have been able to do it for him. The full moon messed with her hormones. Heat was a super-charged sort of counter PMS, filling her with physical and mental urges to create instead of destroy. Grabbing the condom to stuff inside her boot had been almost physically painful. Her Heat wanted a child, and so did she. In the end, reason won, because pregnancy for her was suicide. Besides that, she had no desire to pick up a disease from the stranger she would choose that night.

But the want didn’t fade.

It burned in her gut, fueled by whiskey, confused by the cocktail of moon-stirred hormones swirling in her system.

“Want another, sweet thing?” The bartender raised a half-full bottle of whiskey.

January nodded and paid him with the wrinkled cash she’d stashed in her bra. Turning away from the older man’s wink, she scanned the crowd, searching for her night’s diversion.

Bikers weren’t her usual preference. They had a strong group mentality that made her yearn for things she couldn’t have. Like the pack of werewolves she’d been trying to ignore from the moment she’d felt their energy pulse through the crowd.

Unable to help herself, she cast a sidelong glance in the pack’s direction.  She’d noticed the tall, lanky one first, maybe because his ginger hair, goatee, and a permanent smirk made him look like he was up to no good, and no good was everything she wanted that night. He hung back with one whose muscled biceps displayed enough ink to keep her eyes busy a while. The tattooed man was just about as tall as the red-head, but he filled more horizontal space with his broad shoulders and deep chest. His astute gaze didn’t miss anything. Short, dark blond curls would have softened any other man’s features but only made his seem more harsh.

They both appealed to her on different levels, but the two men who walked in front like leaders held her attention. One of the two looked almost too young to be in a bar like this. He had a smooth, model-handsome face that could sell millions of mp3s to teen girls and their moms. She wouldn’t mind running her hands over his strong, athletic body, but doubted she would have the guts to get that close. As pretty as he was, his golden eyes shot daggers everywhere he looked.

It was the dark-haired leader who kept pulling her attention back to him. He didn’t wear any markings that labeled him the pack’s alpha, but she instinctively knew that to be true. He radiated authority even though he didn’t seem any older than the other men. He wasn’t the tallest or the broadest but those details didn’t matter a damn to her core, which flexed every time she saw him move in her peripheral vision. January forced herself to breathe and look for someone else to leave with that night. The bar was packed with masculine specimens, but she’d stopped seeing any of them once
he
snared her. That kind of draw was bad news…but as bad as it was, she couldn’t stop sending glances down the bar.

The alpha looked familiar in profile, which was all she caught of his face before his pack banded around him. There was no way she could know him, though. She didn’t make a habit of fraternizing with werewolves because she wanted more from them than she deserved to have. She’d tried to shut down the pang of desire before it had time to grow, but
so far she was having zero success. With one of her furtive glances, she caught him looking in her direction. Heart pounding, mouth dry, she ducked behind a burly man who conveniently stood up from his stool.

“Stop it,” she whispered, reminding herself that she’d done something terrible, and now men like these weren’t meant for her.

She’d allowed her roommate and co-worker, Prince Duvall, to drag her into a bar tonight for the sole purpose of picking up a stranger to help her through the frenzy of her Heat cycle. It was time to choose and haul ass before she gave in to temptation and did something she would regret. Even though she and Prince had arrived together, her friend was nowhere to be seen. She had no intention of cooling down with her long-time friend so his absence wasn’t necessarily a problem, but she wanted to let him know who she’d be leaving with.

As she locked gazes with a moderately appealing man wrapped in leather and standing under a neon outline of a saxophone--as if a place like this would ever set up stage for a jazz band--she figured Prince’s disappearance might actually be a good thing, since Prince probably would have stopped her from flashing a full-lipped smile at the biker. When the biker inclined his head, January pushed away from the bar.

Finally, some relief. The condom tucked inside her sock felt like a winning lottery ticket. As she worked her way across the room, squeezing her ample hips between wobbly tables, she noticed other women staring at her. Self-consciousness bloomed but she refused to show it to the thinner women eyeing her with judgment twisting their lips and fueling their snide remarks to one another. Another night would’ve told a different story, but sexual power had booted her self-esteem issues into the next county.

Tonight she knew her ass filled out a pair of lace cheeky panties like nobody’s business, and she had a rack that could make a blind man drool. But as she joined the biker who’d caught her eye, she wasn’t imagining
his
appreciative gaze on her curvy profile.

“
You looking for some sugar, sweetness?” Biker raised his arm, inviting her to tuck her shoulder into the curve of his pit.

After verifying a lack of sweat stains, January moved into place. She resisted the urge to check in with the wolf pack at the bar, but couldn’t help wondering if they were watching her. A woman always wants what she can’t have.

“Just a little bit,” she said as his muscular arm settled around her. The neon sign buzzed overhead. A few other guys in Biker God’s crew checked her out but lost interest quickly.

He gave her a squeeze,
then let her go. “Walk your juicy ass over to the bar and get me a beer. I’ve got your sugar as soon as I wet my mouth.”

January inhaled, irritation flaring. Human men didn’t call the shots with her. With a snort, she said, “Get your own beer.”

She pulled away, shaking her head. A meaty hand landed on the back of her neck.

“Sass is a bad idea, sweetness. You’ll behave in front of my boys.”

She realized she was in trouble when all those previously disinterested eyes focused on her. Trying to think past the broad fingers digging into the sides of her neck and the whiskey warming her blood, she threw a searching look around the bar. Still no sign of Prince, not that she thought he would deter these hard-edged men.

Beautiful, fine-featured Prince might just make these guys a little happier.

“Some of us like our women mouthy.”

The way the hand at her nape tightened, January guessed the deep-voiced newcomer wasn’t an invited guest. She tried to get a look at him but Biker God seemed dead-set on breaking her neck. Her pulse kicked up, sending hot waves of blood to her face and ears.

The entire bar seemed to still. January tried to hold her breath but she was panting instead. A heavy throb of interest pulsed between her thighs, and a distant memory broke through the fog of Heat.

She knew that voice.
Knew that man. But how? From where?

“My brothers have no business with yours,” Biker God said. “Why don’t you walk away and we’ll all keep moving in our separate corners?”

“Can’t do. Maybe if she was one of yours, but she isn’t. Get me?”

The biker jerked his hand away like she’d burned him. No longer held by his mean grip, she stumbled forward. The other men in the leather-wearing bunch tripped over each other in their hurry to avoid touching her and she fell into a table. She caught herself on the sticky surface. Embarrassment momentarily pierced her fear and arousal.

“Let’s go, baby.” A strong arm hooked around her waist. Her rescuer drew her close to his side.

“That was an interesting choice you made.”

As his fingers dug into her hip, possessive, like she already belonged to him, her good sense started to unravel like a cheap sweater.

Her reproductive hormones were all for losing the sweater. “Must have been thinking with my clit,” she mumbled.

She’d meant the dry comment for her own benefit, but somehow he heard her in the noisy din of grating, rough masculine voices and the high, shrill squeals of drunk women. The sound of his laugh felt like velvet over her skin. Calming, soothing. Promising.

If she had a functional brain cell in her skull, she would run hard and fast.

Instead, she looked up at him.

And if catching that biker’s eye was the mistake of the year, allowing herself a look at the man beside her was the mistake of the century.

Dark stubble lined his strong, square jaw and framed firm, full lips. He wore his hair on the longer side of respectable. Waves fell against the tops of his ears and across his forehead, which furrowed as he glanced down and caught her staring.

Gray eyes mesmerized her. She could have spent the rest of the night studying the nuances of color there.

Somewhere deep in her body, the sleepy pale shadow of her wolf stirred, submissive and wanting.

January swallowed hard.

Alarm warred with anticipation as she swung her head left, then right, counting her escort. The wolf pack had lost a couple members since she last checked them out. Instead of the five who’d walked through the door, two others flanked her and the man whose spicy scent flipped her body into overdrive.

The young-looking one, shorter than the others by a couple inches--not that those couple inches made a difference to her own five-seven--eyed her with an intriguing combination of lust and hostility shifting back and forth across his smooth, classically handsome features.

“What’s his problem?” She nudged her guardian and angled her head toward the angry one.

“He doesn’t like crowds.” As one entity, they all moved toward the exit.

January’s sense of self-preservation prickled. A sexy wolf pack was bad news for her. She could have handled the biker if she’d kept her derision to herself, but these men were different. They compelled her in a way human males didn’t.

A glance over her shoulder met watchful, disgruntled biker stares.

Limited options. She sighed.

Cool night air washed over her when she stepped outside. Even though the crowd inside had thinned a bit, the parking lot was packed.

Drawing a cleansing breath, she stepped away from the hand on her hip. She couldn’t see Prince’s car from the door, but she knew it was in the lot somewhere. Locked, but she’d deal with that bridge when she came to it. As she pivoted to voice her thanks, the bright, pregnant moon caught her eye and a bolt of lust slammed into her. Gasping, she reached for something to brace herself.

The young-looking one grabbed her elbow and hauled her close. “Do not touch the bikes.”

Trembling in the aftermath of her body’s reminder of her physical needs, January groaned and buried her nose at the base of his throat. He smelled like snow and forest. Wild. Exciting. She wanted to crawl up his body, wrap her legs around his hips, and grind herself against him until she came.

“Got to do something with her, Beck.”
His voice was a rumble against her breasts, teasing her nipples, which had gone painfully hard.

“Put her in the truck. She’s a danger to herself here.”

So the lovely-voiced one’s name was Beck. Gray-eyed Beck. A good, strong name, perfect for gasping in the throes of orgasm. After another deep breath of snow and forest, she tilted her head back to look into the angry one’s golden eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Do something with her,” he said again, but he held her gaze and didn’t push her away.

Driven by the moon-madness, she slid her hand across his chest. Rock-hard all over, from his pecs to the ridge of flesh pressing against her belly.

Before she could vocalize a request for all that maleness, Beck drew her close, enfolding her in his warm embrace. “Come on, baby. You’re in my hands for now. Anders, ride in the back. Cross, get those doors unlocked.”

The automatic locks beep-beeped and the one called Cross opened the passenger door.

“Wait.” As she peered into the cab of the truck, a moment of clarity overcame the lust-drunk fog that had rendered her stupid. Shaking her head, she retreated until she stood on her own.

None of the men advanced but they didn’t back off, either. They stood watching her with patient, knowing expressions on their faces.

Except the angry one, who still looked
pissed. And
hungry
.

“You all…you’re…” She couldn’t say it, but she needed to be sure before she went any further. A pack of werewolves were dangerous to her in some ways, but not as
dangerous as a pack of human men could be. At least she could trust werewolves to take care of her if she completely lost her head.