Desired by the Pack: Part One: A BBW Paranormal Romance (4 page)

Beck would have preferred to stay and fight, as would Anders, but Luna knew the needs of her people and she needed guardians for the Moon gate that had shimmered into being behind a waterfall in Washington State. Now Beck led his own pack, guarding the Moon gate at Peace River…where they would stay, if they never formed a mate bond of their own.

“Jan, how are you holding up back there?” Cross’s strained voice dragged Beck from his grim thoughts.

“I think…home…now.” She gasped the last word.

Beck lowered his window another few inches.

Didn’t help. Her scent blanketed everything. His cock was petrified wood in his jeans, ready and willing to ease her suffering.

Choice. Me or you. I’d be fucking thrilled to do the job but I’m driving and you saw her first. Call it.

Beck swallowed a possessive growl. A pack alpha couldn’t afford to hoard his mate like a dragon squatting over treasure. Beck would share her, and she would enjoy being shared as much as the pack benefited from attending to her. Later. He would share later. For now, she belonged to him.
I’ll take care of her.

Her choked whimper shoved him into action. Turning in his seat, Beck catalogued the options.

He could contort his big body over the back rest and join her in the back of the cab, or he could bring her up front.

Her lips pinched into a pained line and she dropped her head back. She screwed her eyes so tight, her forehead creased.

It was her hands that decided him. The way she ground her fingers into her thighs, she was so far gone, he might not have the luxury of selfishness. If he needed Cross to help him bring her back down, the front seat would be easiest.

“Hey.” He reached over the seat and touched her cheek. Her eyes flew open, unfocused and glassy. In the dark cab, he couldn’t make out the color of her irises but he remembered the soft, stormy shade of blue. She blinked and her lips parted as she centered on him.

He was a shit for ignoring her need so long. Stroking his thumb across the corner of her lips, he said, “Undo that belt and come up here. Leave your jeans back there.”

Trying to undress her around the gear shift would be a delay she didn’t look like she could afford.

“Her name’s Jan,” Cross supplied, a low mutter.

Beck knew her name. He’d gotten that much out of her eight years ago.

“January,” she said, correcting Cross. The belt slid home with a thunk. She rolled onto her hip, already peeling the curve-hugging denim down her shapely thighs.

“Winter-wolf,” Beck murmured, enthralled by the smooth skin she brought into view. He caught a glimpse of black lace panties before she pushed them off, then nothing but smooth skin and a dark triangle at the apex of her thighs.

Her head jerked up. She dropped a boot on the floor. “No wolf.”

That set him back. He had to have misheard. Females--even Blood females--didn’t go into Heat the way shifting women did.

But she stood and threw her leg over the seat and the perfume of her arousal exploded in the cab. Cross groaned out loud. The truck swerved and January tumbled over, smacking Beck’s chin with the top of her head.

“Cross,” Beck growled.

His lieutenant’s laugh was strained. “She’s a little bit of a distraction.”

“Sure is.” Beck righted the soft, hot tangle of woman and Cross brought the truck back on course.

Someone thumped on the back window. January jerked her head up as Beck sat her astride his legs.

“It’s the angry one,” she murmured, with a tilt of her head that was more intrigued than put off.

“Anders.” Cross checked the rearview. “He wants to know what’s going on.”

“I know what he wants.” The whole pack was clamoring around in his head, more noise than Beck wanted to concentrate on filtering out. The only person he wanted to communicate with knelt astride his legs, large, sugar-scented breasts right in his face, begging for his mouth.

He threw up a mental barrier so he could focus on the curves displayed for his pleasure.

Her
pleasure, he corrected. For a wolf in Heat, sex couldn’t be for anybody but her.

Still, he couldn’t resist skimming his palms over her naked thighs. Unlike many werewolf females, who ran far and wild for the joy of it and had long, lean muscles as a result, January’s thighs were soft like the rest of her.

He squeezed the yielding flesh of her hips and looked up past her  breasts to catch her eyes.

“Give Cross your address while you can still talk, winter-wolf.”

And while Beck still possessed the willpower to see her home instead of spiriting her off to his den the way his wolf demanded.

“No wolf.” She recited the route and house numbers to Cross.

While Cross dealt with the GPS, Beck memorized the address. He had no intention of losing her twice.

Above him, January groaned and rocked against him. Beck allowed himself one last sweep of her silky, shapely legs. At her ankle, a sharp corner jabbed his palm.

Plucking the foil packet from the top of her sock, he held it up between them. “You want this?”

“I don’t want a disease.” She drew a breath and closed her eyes, obviously wrestling with something.

Beck raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to decide. Werewolves didn’t catch STDs, maybe because of genetics, maybe because ninety-nine percent of them kept their dicks out of humans. The only thing he could give her was life.

His wolf clamored for just that, stirred by the instinct to create. Beck ignored the animal. The choice was hers.

He knew the instant she made it. She breathed a shuddering sigh and opened her eyes. Her scent deepened, becoming more complex. With a sad tilt to her mouth, January pinched the condom from his grasp and tore it open. His wolf’s objection was almost a physical thing, testing the limits of Beck’s control.

“Clear enough.” He pushed her shirt up to get at her breasts, thinking to soothe the wolf with a taste. The shadow across her soft belly stopped him and his control slipped. The growl that rumbled up in his chest sounded inhuman to even his ears.

“Don’t!” She scrabbled for the hem of her shirt but she was too late.

“Goddess.” Cross swerved again.

Beck didn’t have the breath to bark an order to watch the road.

All the oxygen had fled his lungs the instant he laid eyes on the dark symbols arranged in a circle around January’s navel.

He lifted a finger to trace the ring of moons, each representing one of the lunar phases.

January slapped his hand away before he connected with her skin.

“I said don’t.” She yanked her shirt back into place.

Like a thin piece of cotton could erase that mark from his mind.

“Turn around.” He opened his jeans, freeing the erection straining the zipper’s limits. January handed him the condom. Beck stretched the latex to its limits as he sheathed himself. His body had begun to change, intent on taking her before any other wolf could, and his cock lengthened and thickened like all his other muscles.

January stared down at his hand wrapped around his shaft, indecision in her eyes. He waited patiently, leaning in
for a taste of the pulse racing at the base of her throat. Alpha sigil or not, her body pleaded for relief. He could sense her new reluctance, fear gathered around what he’d discovered. Beck dragged his lips along the curve of her neck, waiting. The choice was still hers, and he knew the one she would make.

“Fine,” she muttered. “Do it hard, and hurry up.” Breath rasping, she moved, maneuvering around until her plump, heart-shaped ass settled on his lap.

His cock speared straight up from his open fly, framed by her pale cheeks. “I wouldn’t insult you by going slow, baby. I know you can handle everything I’ve got.”

At a touch of his fingers, she leaned forward and lifted her hips. He guided her back. Her slippery folds drew him in, hot even through the uncomfortably tight condom. In a different time and place, he would take his time, tease both of them with anticipation and promise. He wanted to taste her, to learn her curves with his mouth and hands.

But January had no patience for play. She angled until he notched at her entrance, then dropped onto him, so wet and ready, his size didn’t matter. Her sheath gave around his flesh, squeezed tight, and he groaned.

Full.

She felt so blessedly full. Gripping the dashboard, January lowered her chin to her chest and sighed as relief swept through her. So much better than a vibrator. So much better than anyone else she’d ever had, and he hadn’t even moved beyond the initial penetration.

But oh, she wanted him to move. Her inner muscles clamped down hard and she followed the reflex by deliberately fisting around Beck’s cock.

Behind her, he breathed steady and deep. The washboard expanse of his abs fit tight against her ass as he wrapped his arms around her waist. Then he flexed inside her, and no other place on earth was as good as this warm, humid cab. She could have stayed there forever, clutching and releasing until Beck gave her the release she craved.

Beck was not so content. Broad fingers slid over her thigh and into the soaked space between her legs.

“Ride me,” he growled, breath hot against her ear. Circling his thumb around her clit, he bucked up into her. Pleasure rippled out from her core, a drugging taste that made her want more and more.

“Don’t stop doing that,” she begged. After a small adjustment, she balanced with her arms folded on the dash, her upper body angled forward, away from his lips.

His breath on her neck was an intimacy she couldn’t afford. An intimacy soon forgotten as she lifted her hips and dropped back down, establishing a hard, urgent rhythm. The muscles in her thighs bunched and eased, making her feel powerful, but Beck’s gripping hands didn’t let her forget he was in control. She surrendered gladly, losing herself in the magic of knowing the man behind her was strong enough to take what he wanted and still give everything she needed.

The highway stretched on and on, white broken lane markers whipping past as the truck ate up the pavement. The tantalizing promise of release seemed to hover on the horizon, coming closer and closer as Beck met her thrust for thrust, sweet, satisfying friction inside and out.

Her first orgasm broke fast, brutal because she’d denied her body too long. Beck grunted as her inner walls clamped around him. He swelled inside her, growing longer and bigger.

“Don’t come yet,” she pleaded, afraid he would leave her once he did, and she wasn’t ready for their frantic coupling to end.

“Bossy.” He bit out the word but his touch was gentle as he settled one hand under her shirt, over her navel.

That damn mark.

A wet, thick sound drew her gaze to the driver’s seat.

Cross’s fist flashed up and down his cock, which jutted at an angle, the mushroom-shaped tip nearly touching the bottom of the steering wheel.

Saliva pooled on her tongue. She wanted to taste him.

“Don’t you come either,” she said.

Cross chuckled but didn’t look up from the road. “Bossy and greedy.”

Screwing her eyes tight, she reached between her knees and shoved his fingers harder against her clit. The second
orgasm burst faster than the first, a hot flash behind her closed eyes.

Snarling, Beck banded his arm around her ribcage and hauled her to his chest. An instant later he stiffened, grinding the sharp blades of his pelvic bones against her ass. He flattened his hand over her mound and cupped her, squeezing a shriek from her throat and a bright, sharp climax from her body.

This time, the orgasm stuck and she soared, all her tension and need carried away by her fluttering, contracting sex and the slow, heavy pulse of Beck’s cock, filling her so, so deep.

He didn’t shift her off his lap and she was too weak to move on her own. Boneless, she sagged against him. Not even his open mouth at her shoulder, teeth on her skin, marred the bliss that wrapped around her.

3

Beck continued to hold her long after her heart rate slowed. He held her long after he softened inside her, although he didn’t seem to lessen in size. She’d never been with a man who didn’t shrivel up after the main event.

But then, she’d never been with a werewolf, either.

The sex was undeniably different. More energetic, yeah, but the aftermath was different, too. Her Heat actually felt soothed after only one round. With the human men she picked up to suit this purpose, true relief always evaded her. She could fuck a human male until he begged for mercy and she would still be wanting when the wrung-out man wobbled, weak-kneed, away from her.

A sigh slipped past her lips. She could get used to this.

No.

January jerked upright and pitched off Beck’s lap.

“I am not getting used to this,” she said in the face of his stunned, puzzled expression.

That kind of thinking would only break her. She should have fetched that biker a beer.

Not allowing a thought for dignity, she flung her half-naked body into the back seat. Her jeans and panties were a tangle on the floor. She shook them out and had her foot jammed into one leg by the time Beck spoke.

“How many more nights?” The teeth of his zipper rasped together.

“Tonight’s the last,” she lied. “Thanks for the fuck. And for everything else tonight.”

Cross snorted but didn’t say anything.

Beck wasn’t so silent with his disbelief. “See,” he said, twisting to face her. “I think you’re just getting warmed up and you’ll be out again tomorrow night looking for someone to satisfy that need.”

“Not your problem.” Why bother with another denial? The seventy-two hour Heat cycle was no secret, and she wasn’t going to whip a calendar out of her cleavage to defend her lie. It really wasn’t his problem. And if anything came of her choices, that wouldn’t be his problem either.

Beck narrowed his eyes. “Don’t go back to that bar again. Ever.”

She finally finished tugging her jeans into place. Beck’s gaze followed her hands as she zipped and buttoned.

“You’d better be staring at my muffin top.” But she knew the span of her waistline wasn’t what held his attention. The mark on her stomach tingled, as if it was a sentient thing, and Beck the object it desired.

Beck didn’t dignify her remark with a response. He just kept staring, as if his alpha will could laser through her clothes and reveal the treasure below.

He would be disappointed to find out she was gold-plated, not solid to the core.

Since she had no intention of letting him test her any further, she changed the subject. “Why would hunters be on Prince? He’s never shifted.”

And he probably never would. Wolves that hadn’t emerged by adulthood were unlikely to ever manifest. January had given up on hers long before her twenty-first birthday.

“A question I’d like answered, too. What were the two of you doing there?”

“We had a shit night at work.” Her chin jutted defensively.

“And?”

“And we were there for different reasons. Me to score some…company, Prince to score some weed or a few pills. He stepped outside to make his deal and the next time I saw him is when you saw him.”

“I’ve never known hunters to give a damn about who’s snorting what.” Cross slowed to exit the highway.

“Maybe they were looking for you guys.”

“No. Mav saw your friend with that group when he had a walk around. It was a drug deal, not a hunt. He didn’t draw their attention until I sent him back to grab your friend. By that point, Prince was up to his ears in shit.”

“How do you know all that?”

Beck tapped his temple. “Pack.”

As she was eyeing him, wondering how much of their interlude in the front seat had filtered out through the mental link he shared with the others, a sign whipped past. January craned her neck to read the white letters. Not too far from the farmhouse she and Prince shared. Thank the Moon. She needed out of this truck, with the wolf pack well on their way back to where they came from. Which begged the question…

“What are you all doing this close to city limits? Was it one of you in that video the news blogs are blasting all over the internet?”

“Meeting up with a contact. About that video, so no, not us. You? How is a female shifter living and holding a job among humans?” Beck lodged his shoulders against the window glass.

Tell him the truth or not? The truth would dim that interested light in his eyes, but she wasn’t proud of her reality.

Just no longer hopeful it would change.

Well, what was a little humiliation in exchange for her coveted solitude?

“I told you I don’t have a wolf. No animal spirit. No shifting. I don’t trigger anybody’s danger instincts.”

“Yet you’re in Heat.” His gaze dropped back to her stomach.

She covered the dip of her navel with her hand even though her shirt hid the mark. “Sometimes you don’t get to have the good and the bad. Sometimes you’ve just got the bad.”

Cryptic, but she needed to protect her shame since she hadn’t protected anything else. The tendons in his neck stood out briefly, then relaxed. Her answer didn’t satisfy him. Well, too damn bad.

But he wasn’t ready to let it go. Lowering his chin, he fixed his gaze on hers and bared his teeth.

January raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to intimidate me?”

Beck made a noise of surprise.

“Not used to the ladies resisting that trick?”

“He’s the alpha of an alpha pack,” Cross said.

“Ah. That was The Look.” A ribbon of fear wound through her. She’d picked up on the alpha vibe, but an alpha and an
alpha
were two different werewolves. No wonder he’d fixated on her mark. He would have the same symbols she did, a mirror image that would align perfectly if they were locked together, bodies joined. Under different circumstances she might have welcomed some of that power into her bed on a repeat basis. Maybe even a permanent arrangement.

But her circumstances weren’t and never would be different.

She couldn’t be an alpha’s mate. She couldn’t be anybody’s mate. Her inability to shift didn’t render her useless. Nothing that simple. She still held value. Packs needed at least one mated pair in order to complete the spirit bond that allowed them to cross into the Light Realms. January hadn’t told the whole truth when she said she had no wolf. She did have one of the animal spirits, but she’d broken her relationship with the wolf and no amount of glue could repair the damage.

So she could unite a pack but she wouldn’t be able to bear werewolf young, unless she wanted to die in the process.

In the dark of the cab, she pressed her hands to her abdomen. She hadn’t wanted to use that condom. She’d wanted to sink into Beck’s eyes and give herself over to the possibility of knowing the weight of a baby in her arms, and self-preservation had saved her at the last minute.

Closing her eyes to avoid his--and because her lids were twenty-hours-awake heavy--she rested her cheek against the rear door panel and fought a wave of tears, silently wishing for the life that could never be hers.

A while later, gravel crunched under the truck’s slowing tires.

“Good morning, beautiful,” Cross said as he braked to a stop behind her red compact, which was all alone in the drive that ended at the foot of the big, sprawling farmhouse
January had purchased with a small inheritance and the mortgage assistance of Prince’s monthly rent payments.

“What time is it?” She hadn’t fallen asleep, but she’d lost track of the time while anxious thoughts spun in her head.

“A few minutes past four.”

The shade of the sky supported Cross’s estimation. Her peaked roof and the tops of the trees behind her house were a darker purple than the night itself. The state of her body was at odds with the sky. Heat hadn’t afflicted her since she left Beck’s lap. The lust usually grabbed her five or six times between sundown and sun-up, when it finally abated until the next moonrise.

While she worried over what that meant, Cross killed the engine. He and Beck both swung out of the truck. As Cross opened the rear door for her, she heard three more sets of boots hit the gravel.

“So much for sending you on your way,” she muttered, exiting to stand beside Cross.

He flashed a grin. “Have to check the place out for you. What kind of heroes would we be if we turned you over to a boogeyman after all that work to rescue you from the lion’s den?”

Rolling her eyes, she turned to check on Prince. He wore his black hair in thin, beaded braids, usually tied back from the sculpted angles of his face. The braids had escaped their knot and now hung around his shoulders, messy and disheveled. His skin, a dark, glossy signature of his Haitian
heritage, appeared drawn and ashen in the pre-dawn morning.

“Are you okay?” She asked softly, reaching for him.

“Fine.” He turned away without looking at her, but she knew a lie when she heard one. His narrow, fine-boned features were pinched, his shoulders stooped forward.

He was shaking, too, possibly from riding around for hours in the back of the truck with only his thin, short leather jacket, which he’d selected for fashion instead of utility. True winter had yet to set in but the Pacific Northwest didn’t need a date on a calendar to give permission for uncomfortably cool temperatures.

“Let’s go inside so they can leave.” She jerked her head toward the big porch that spanned the front of her house.

“I’m good a while longer.” Prince looked after Maverick, who was walking away from the truck.

Beck said something to Cross and headed in the opposite direction. She hugged herself.

“You know how I feel about this. About them.”

Prince focused on her, his voice a whisper. “I don’t know what went wrong. That got bad fast. Maybe it would be smart to ask them to stay a few hours.”

Her throat went dry. “No.”

“Jan, those were hunters,” Prince hissed.

“I know. What I don’t know is what you were doing with them. Was one of them your dealer?”

“I didn’t know she was a hunter.” He looked away from her.

“Obviously not.” She blew out a breath.

Cross, unlike the others, hadn’t stalked off to inspect her property. He didn’t even pretend to be respecting their privacy. “That’s some bad news you walked into, man.” He glanced at January, then fixed Prince with a hard look. “Don’t bring that trouble to her doorstep. You won’t like the consequences if you do.”

“We’re fine,” she snapped. “There’s nothing about us for hunters to know, let alone want.”

“Nothing at all, least of all that alpha sigil you’re wearing on your belly.”

January inhaled sharply through her nose. “If I could laser the damn thing off, I would.”

Cross straightened, drawing up to his full, broad-shouldered height. Speaking in a hard, dangerous voice, he said, “That mark’s not for human eyes. Keep it to yourself.”

“What’s he talking about?” Prince asked.

“Nothing.” Up until a short couple hours ago, it had been her secret and hers alone.

With a meaningful look at Cross, she started walking toward the house. Weariness weighted her limbs and the longer she stood in Cross’s vicinity, the warmer her body grew. While she was cold standing out in the pre-dawn autumn, sexual heat wasn’t her first choice in a source of warmth.

On the porch, she slid her fingers into her hip pocket, but came up with nothing. She’d left her keys in Prince’s car.

“Great,” she mumbled. Cross still watched her from the driveway--she could feel his gaze between her shoulder blades--but she crouched and felt along the siding slats until she found the spare.

Inside, she escaped the intensity of Cross’s examination. The interior of the house was dark, too dark to see with the sun still below the horizon. Running her hand along the wall, she felt her way up the stairs and into her bedroom. If the Moon possessed a glimmer of mercy, the wolves would be gone by the time she woke up.

And they wouldn’t come back.

But she didn’t have much faith in mercy. She couldn’t shake the bad feeling that things were going to change.