Lord of the Grrr's (54 page)

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Cam kinda prided himself on the self control it took to let that dog chew get away with slapping his woman. But the vibe between the two of them… Cam knew they weren’t friends. And there was only one kind of business it made sense for two misfit wolves to be talking about in low voices on the edge of a pack gathering. Cam now knew where to start looking. He’d seen it in her face before she shuttered her expression.

He waited until Rolf and Andraste were done with their foreplay and took off for the forest to look for Hayley again. The pack was distracted from the heat of the match. The energy between the Alpha and his mate was clear and immutable, a thick blanket of lust charged with their struggle for dominance. Cam knew Rolf had his claws full with that one.

He could see she thought she was going to slip away unnoticed from the way she was skirting the edges of the crowd. He stalked her, his own blood beginning to boil from the surreptitious chase. He’d give her one more opportunity to cooperate- and then they’d have to do things the hard way. He had to tamp down his natural urge to shelter her- she’d chosen the trouble she was in. No matter how bad her circumstances, she should have come to the Alpha for help rather than turn to drug dealing as a way out. Her own bad choices had landed her in the current predicament. He would help her straighten her life out, but he wouldn’t help her escape the consequences of her actions. Not with his sister in the hospital. He owed both the women in his life a just handling, and that was what he would give them.

He darted ahead of her, waiting behind a thick copse of trees as she emerged from the outskirts of the gathering, slender legs moving faster and faster as she thought she made her escape. He stepped in her path.

“This is a strange way of sticking around.”

She halted, shifter reflexes preventing her from running into him. She balanced on her feet, looking at him warily. It didn’t sit well with him that she looked at him like he was a potential enemy. It pricked his temper.

“What do you want from me?”

He stepped forward, liking that she refused to give into her small flinch and step away from him. Their bodies almost touched, the rising heat between them tangible.

“Now that’s a discussion. But for now, I want you to do the right thing.”

She lowered her eyes, mouth turning down. “What you think is the right thing will get me exiled, or worse,” she said, voice soft. “I can’t help you.”

“Who is Oscar?”

“A… friend.”

“If he’s a friend, I’d hate to see what you consider an enemy. You let him hit you.”

She peeked up at him through her lashes, shoulders tensing.

“
Let
doesn’t have anything to do with it.” She sighed. “Give me a week to think of something. No one can ever know it was me who ratted. It’ll be hard enough to convince them otherwise, anyway. Oscar knows I slept with you.”

The unhappy twist of her mouth tugged at his protective instincts, but he knew he had to be firm. If there was a cancer in the pack, it needed to be cut out. Hayley was the first domino. Once she tipped, it would be short work to tip all the other players.

“Alright, but you’re coming home with me tonight.”

CHAPTER

6

“What?”

Hayley gasped in outrage when Cam took her arm, guiding her along the path. It felt different than when Oscar manhandled her. Still possessive and dominant, but with an air of protectiveness.

“Don’t argue with me. I saw how that punk looked at you. Give him a day to cool off. If he comes looking for you tonight, he’ll be angry. And if you want me to give you time, it wouldn’t be good for me to step in.”

No, because if he did, then that would really seal her fate as a snitch. The thought of what would happen then… she couldn’t count on Cam. Life had taught her that lesson at least- make a man prove he was reliable, because usually he wasn’t. Not father, not Alpha, not employer.

“You ride, don’t you?”

She stomached the insult. Of course she could ride. She just didn’t own a bike anymore. They took off ahead of the pack, zooming down the dirt road leading away from the Alpha’s land and back onto the two lane highway. He took them to a part of town closer to the city, near the territory line with the Lykaon. Pulling up to a condo complex, Hayley looked around. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but a condo wasn’t it. He took her to a second floor unit. The manicured grounds were very different from what she was used to, clean hallway carpets and subdued artwork screaming discreet yuppie wealth.

He opened the door of his unit and she noticed that the entrance was tiled rather than carpeted. She toed off her battered sneakers, glad she’d just taken them through the wash a day before. Placing them neatly along the wall, she looked up to find Cam watching her with an odd half smile.

“My mother-” he stopped, smile fading a bit as his attention turned inward. “She was tidy like you.”

Hayley wrapped her arms around herself. The air conditioner must have been on full blast.

“I’m sorry about your sister.”

It was the wrong thing to say. It wiped the smile off his face as if it had never been there.

“Don’t go there, Hayley.”

She looked down. “So you want me to pretend that-”

“I want you to not go there right now. I’m angry, and you don’t want to deal with me while I’m angry.”

She leaned against the door. “Then why am I here?”

He moved into the kitchen. She followed him a few steps, taking in the open concept design of his place. Neutral shades, expensive pale leather furniture. A ginormous huge flat screen television and sound system. She wondered what the neighbors thought about that on game day. Or whether he solved the problem by inviting everyone over.

“It’s the safest place for tonight. Give Oscar time to think about any plans he has to retaliate.” Cam glanced at her, a gleam of approval in his eyes. “Nice shot, by the way. You want a beer?”

“Sure.”

“Go stretch out on the couch. Unless you want to go to bed.”

“I’m not really tired yet.”

She obeyed, sinking into the cool leather. It swallowed her. Hayley didn’t hear anything suggestive in the mention of bed, and his expression when he set a glass and open bottle on the coffee table was bland. In fact, if it weren’t for the subdued but never gone lust crawling through her body, she wouldn’t have thought they’d ever slept together at all. Or that he’d ever called her his ‘mate.’ Shouldn’t he be trying to sleep with her? What did it mean that he seemed so… relaxed? She felt like she wanted to burst out of her skin. The wolf itched to get out, and usually she didn’t make her presence known at all.

Hayley plucked at her shirt, wondering why it now felt like the heat was on when just a few minutes ago she’d felt as if she were standing in the middle of a blast chiller. She leaned forward and plucked the bottle of beer from the table, ignoring the ladylike glass, and took a long gulp. Pressed the sweating bottle to her head. Looked over, feverishly, to where Cam stretched out in a matching chair, long legs sprawled in front  of him, watching her as he sipped daintily at his bottle.

“Problem?” he asked, voice a soft rumble. In the distance a motorcycle rumbled, parked and cut off. Crickets sang, the sounds clear even though the windows were all closed. The moon shone through the wide glass doors that led from the living area to a balcony, revealed by blinds pulled to one side.

Feeling possessed, Hayley set the bottle down and rose, crossing the short distance to stare down at the Beta. He looked up at her, brow raised. A… dare, it seemed. She took the dare, lowering herself to straddle his lap even as her restless fingers tugged the hem of her tank over her head, revealing braless breasts. He cursed, and the bottle in his fingers lid to the floor. Distantly, Hayley’s rational mind was astonished by her boldness. She realized, perhaps belatedly, that her wolf was taking charge. Hunting.

She arched her back, hands burying in his hair and pulling his head towards her. His mouth latched onto a breast greedily, sucking hard at the nipple, rolling it between teeth and tongue. His hands grasped her waist, kneading her flesh, slipping under her jeans to cup the smooth skin of her ass. She felt his arousal beneath her spread thighs, a dark satisfaction roiling through her blood. He may be strong, powerful, wealthy, influential… but all she had to do was take off her top and he was hers.

“You want me,” she said.

He snorted. “I’ll always want you. You’re mine to take.”

“I want your mouth on me.”

Hayley pulled away from him. For a moment he resisted, but her hands went to the snap of her jeans and he allowed her the freedom to push the cloth down her legs so she stood in front of him completely bare. Throbbing, the muscles of her pussy spasming in anticipation.

Cam slid off the chair to his knees in front of her, pushing her legs apart and delving inside her folds with his tongue, lavishing her with erotic attention. Her bare toes dug into plush carpet as sensation traveled from the tiny bit of stiff flesh down her legs and back up her body like a current of electricity, hardening her nipples and stopping her breath.

Again, her hands disappeared in the silk strands of his hair, hyper aware of the length and texture as she rhythmically massaged his scalp, needing to move under the delicious torture of his ministrations.

“You taste like honey and smell like sex,” he said, looking up at her with ember bright eyes.

She could become addicted to this. An orgasm sighed through her, releasing juices even as his fingers slipped into her channel, reveling in her arousal. He shifted, pushing her towards the vacated love seat so her body was draped over the back stomach side down, again spreading her thighs, this time to prepare for his invasion. He took a moment to strip out of his clothing, Hayley twisting to watch him reveal the toned, golden brown body with its sleek natural muscles and satiny skin. His cock, freed from the constriction of jeans, rose towards her, a wide, veined monstrosity that looked like an implement to torture her rather than bring her pleasure.

Cam didn’t delay, covering her from behind and nudging at her entrance, finding her pussy and pressing in. Hayley gasped from the tightness, the sharp angle that felt as if her walls were still virginal.

He heard her gasp, pulling her head back with a fist in her hair. His teeth grazed the side of her neck.

“You like that, don’t you? Take all this fucking cock, baby.”

As he took her over, sheathing himself fully, she felt stretched and invaded, possessed by the man enveloping her, pressing her naked skin into the coolness of leather. He began to move, sliding in and out of her with an increasingly frenzied pace. Each stroke felt as if it brushed against her cervix, a tiny sharp pain mingled with a pleasure that continued to grow even as he hardened inside her.

“Cam,” she moaned. “Slow down.”

He laughed in her ear, a soft rumble of hot breath that commandeered the nerves in her spine and sent them spinning in a manic dance. She hadn’t known simple breath in her ear could be so erotic.

“I’m not slowing down, Hayley. I’m fucking you hard and fast and you’ll have to learn how to take it.”

His free hand slid around her body, finding her clit.

“Oh, shit!”

She wanted to rear back from the coupled sensations, her body on overload. His teeth sank into her neck just as an orgasm began to splinter her, the final tendrils of their bond snapping into place. She felt him inside her, his presence enrobing her in a way she’d never imagined, a solid comfort settling into her mind even as he possessed her body.

Glass shattered. Hayley had a split second to register the utter lack of night time noise and the sudden feel of a breeze on her skin before their instincts took over. Cam lifted her and flung her down the hall even as he whirled to meet an unknown foe. Her wolf took over and she landed lightly on her feet, snarling, furious with the invasion and furious her mate would seek to keep her out of the fight. Whoever attacked him, attacked her. She had the right to defend.

Hayley ran back into the living room where Cam struggled with a lean, dirt gray wolf. She halted, confused and then shocked. She recognized the wolf.

“Oscar!” she howled in outrage.

Her presence distracted Cam. Oscar got in a swipe at his chest, claws creating narrow furrows in the skin. Cam staggered back a step, just enough to give Oscar the room to leap at her. Instinctively, she pulled on Cam’s power through the bond, shifting her hands to claws with a skill she’d never before possessed. She didn’t have time to think, to register that she shouldn’t have been able to do that, mated or no. She braced, blocking the snap of his teeth with her wolf hands even as her claws returned his blow to Cam with interest. But her mate was there, throwing the wolf away from her so he hit the remaining glass door shards with a thunderous crack. Oscar staggered, unsteady even on four paws.

Cam’s lips drew over elongated incisors. “Come on,” he said.

Oscar launched. Cam caught him, snapping the wolf’s neck with an ease bordering on contempt.

“Not even a real fight,” her mate said, kicking the still wolf. In death, his body began to make the shift back to human. “That’s what happens when you fucking smoke your own product.”

Hayley couldn’t speak for several moments. When she did, it wasn’t eloquent. “What the hell did he do that for?”

Cam’s head rose, green eyes pinning her.

“Runt of the litter,” he said softly, straightening to his full height.

Hayley shrunk back, claws twitching. She waved them in the air frantically, trying to get them back to human.

“I don’t know what happened,” she replied, a thread of desperation in her tone. “I don’t know how I did that.”

“You can siphon.”

He stalked towards her. The gash on his chest, the tiny cuts on his face were healing. Minuscule specks of glass were pushed out of his skin- the control it required to do that, rather than allowing the wound to heal over the debris, frightened her.

She squeaked and locked her knees, closing her eyes to prepare for… what, she didn’t know. At least she didn’t run. She supposed it said something about her burgeoning courage that she didn’t run. She would have, a week ago. But then, maybe she was selling herself short. She’d never run from Oscar.

A hot hand wrapped around her neck. The tip of a human nose nuzzled hers. Her eyes flew open. There was a tired smile on his lips.

“Hayley, do you think I’m going to hurt you for pulling strength from me to defend yourself?” he asked. “You’re my mate. My strength is yours.”

Tears blurred her vision. “I-.” She couldn’t talk. The emotion wanted to overwhelm her but she forced a deep, calming breath.

“Mate.” She tasted the word, much as he had done hours before. He had bled for her, fought for her. Mate. “I don’t have anything to offer you.”

He just looked at her. “We’ll have to work on this self-esteem issue you have.”

His hand traveled from her throat to her bare breast, cupping the rounded flesh and squeezing.

“I need to fuck.”

The soft, half amused, half tired man rapidly faded. The mating heat, the aftermath of battle flared in his eyes. Hayley knew he would slake his lust, his rage, in her body. It was one thing she could offer. And maybe, in time, she could offer more.

“Hayley.”

She looked in his eyes, not understanding the brief sorrow she saw. He lowered his head and brushed her lips with his, a gentle kiss than soon deepened, turning into something more.

“I need you now.”

Her arms rose of their own volition, wrapping around his neck. Then she remembered Oscar.

“Wait, there’s a dead guy in the living room,” she protested as he lifted her into his arms, striding down a hall to a door at the end.

“He’s not going anywhere.”

She wanted to laugh. “But what if he wasn’t alone?”

The door swung open. Her eyes widened, taking in glossy black furniture and deep orange sheets.

“Nah. He was high.”

Hayley didn’t know if she should be relieved by his blasé attitude or alarmed. A corpse laying in a sea of shattered glass on an expensive pale carpet and all her mate could say was… the now corpse was high. Okay.

He sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh, still holding her.