The Alpha's Heart (Wilde Creek Two) (23 page)

Acksel walked with him to the front door and opened it for him as his sister’s mate carried her outside.  Then he locked up and went back to the bedroom.  The bedroom door was shut, and his wolf made an angry sound at knowing that Brynn was sleeping when he wanted to mate with her, but Acksel hushed him.  Their mate was pregnant and it had been a stressful day.  The wolf settled inside him, as unwilling as Acksel was to stress her further, and he opened the door and stepped inside.

Brynn lay on top of the covers, wearing one of his shirts.  The dark fabric fell to her thighs and barely covered her.  Her hands were behind her head and her legs were crossed at the ankles.  The light in the bathroom was on and the door was cracked, allowing him to see her fully.

“Have a good hunt?”

“I did.”  He scented her arousal and it beckoned him.  But she was tired, right?  She’d gone to bed instead of waiting for him in the family room.  He stalked cautiously around the bed and she followed him with her eyes.  “Are you…tired?”

She hummed non-committally.

Confused, he paused at the corner of the big bed.  He was a man at war with himself.  His body was strung tight and ready to pounce, but his mind encouraged him to ignore the sexy sight of her in his shirt with her body laid out like a buffet, and the scent of her desire that clung to his skin and saturated him to the core.

“Are you going to do something with that erection?” she teased, slowly uncrossing her legs and moving her hands from behind her head to beckon him.

He opened his mouth but only a low growl of need came from his throat.  He couldn’t articulate what he was feeling just then as he shoved his jeans down his legs and wrestled them off.  Want.  Need.  Love.  So much fucking love that it hurt when he wasn’t around her.

He prowled up the bed, his beast riding him hard to just take her, eager for the sound of her pleasure and the sweet bite of her blunt teeth in his neck.  The little bit of him that still felt human at the moment encouraged him to take the time to make her come first, but then she wrapped her legs around his waist and fisted his hair with both hands.

He let her pull him forward, his hands digging into the blanket on either side of her body as his cock slid inside her heat.

“Oh,
mine
,” she moaned, twisting his hair between her fingers as he flexed his hips and began to move within her.

He smiled with a growl.  He felt just a little less insane now that he was inside her, but another need drove him forward.  He wanted her to come.  Craved it like he needed air to breathe.

Releasing his tight hold on the blanket with one hand, he slipped it under her hips and lifted her lower body off the bed.  Immediately she grunted, letting her hands slide from his hair to his shoulders, where her nails cut into his skin.  He swiveled his hips until he found the sweet spot inside her, the one place that made her breath catch in her throat and her pussy fist his cock.

Almost.

Almost.

“Ack-sel,” she panted, her voice hitching in the middle.

Fuck, yeah.

“Mine,” he snarled, pulling her body higher against him and pounding into her pussy as his hand fisted the blanket.

Mine.

* * * * *

Brynn would never tire of hearing Acksel say she was his.  Even while her body was rushing towards climax as he fucked her hard, she reveled in the word.  It was a simple word, but contained so much: a claim, a promise, love, eternity.  One word that meant so much coming from him.

He pounded into her; the sound of their bodies coming together again and again mixed with the bed thumping against the wall and rapid tattoo of her heartbeat was a symphony in her ears.  She slipped her hands down his sides, feeling the tightening of his muscles as he moved within her, driving her forward as he hit the most amazing spot inside over and over.

She couldn’t speak; could only feel the heat that tightened and spiraled, making her stomach twitch and her heart race.  Tightening her legs around him, she urged him forward, lifting her hips even closer and gasping out a cry of pleasure as he went fractionally deeper.  Dragging her nails upwards from his hips to his chest, she marked her pleasure on his skin the way he loved.  He never faltered his driving pace, holding back his own pleasure until she had hers.

She was close.  So close.  Their bodies were slick with sweat, her nerve endings on fire as he pushed her to the edge of pleasure.

He grabbed her shoulders and she felt the bite of his claws into her skin.  She didn’t give in to her orgasm so much as she was shoved straight into it — pleasure bloomed through her and her body locked up as she screamed.  Acksel’s teeth sank into her neck, not like the mating marks, but a claim nonetheless.  He lifted his head from her shoulder and howled as he came, the swift movements of his hips jerking until he stilled, buried deep, their bodies wed as tightly as possible.

 She turned her head and kissed his neck.  He groaned in a way that told her he wanted her to bite him, so she did.  His cock twitched inside her as she bit down on his flesh, the salty tang of his skin firing her blood.  Releasing her hold, she licked the bruise and kissed it as Acksel nuzzled the mark he’d made in her neck with a contented sigh.

He rolled them to their sides and she cuddled into him.  No one had ever made her feel the way Acksel did.  And that was just the way she liked it.

“Brynn?”  He kissed her forehead.

“Yeah?”  She tilted her head back so she could look at him.

“Will you marry me?”

She looked at him in surprise and then laughed.  “Yes, but what will we tell our friends when they ask how you asked me to marry you?”

He chuckled.  “How about I take you out to dinner tonight and ask you properly?  We’ll always know the truth, though.  That we were naked and sated in bed, and the only thing missing from the situation was a ring.”

“A ring would be nice.”

He rolled away and got up, going to where he’d left his jeans on the floor and digging through the pockets.  She saw something glint in the bathroom light and her heart sped up.

She sat up as he climbed back onto the bed and took her hand in his.  “I love you so much.  For your courage, your heart, your friendship.  You make me feel whole, like a part of me had been dead and is now alive.  Be my mate and my friend, Brynn, but be my wife, too.  Please?”

She let out a trembling breath as he pushed the ring onto her finger and tears stung her eyes.  “Yes, I’ll marry you.  I love you, too.”

“You’re my heart, Brynn.”  Acksel pulled her close and kissed her.

“You’re mine, too.”

Chapter 22

Mia raised a glass of sparkling apple cider and toasted her best friend and her alpha’s engagement.  Luna’s had been cleared out for the party, which included their friends and family.  The only person missing from the attendees was Brynn’s mom.  When Brynn had called and invited her as an olive branch of sorts, the woman had apparently told Brynn she was making a mistake by getting married and hung up on her.  Brynn was hurt, of course, but she would get over it.  Her mother was nothing but bad news as far as Mia was concerned.

Mia took a sip of her drink and scanned the room.  The doctors from the clinic where Brynn worked were in attendance, and currently congratulating Brynn and Acksel on their engagement.  She knew that Acksel had asked Brynn to marry him after the hunt the night before, but she’d wanted an engagement story that didn’t involve sweaty bodies and activities not for children’s ears.

She also saw Nila, the nursing assistant from the clinic.  She had a little boy on her hip and a smile on her face.  Mia had met her once before when she’d gone to the clinic to have lunch with Brynn before she mated Acksel.  Nila was sweet and friendly, and her little boy was adorable.

Then she noticed that Malachi was hovering near Nila.

Well, that was odd.

He was close enough that it was apparent he was watching Nila, but far enough away so she appeared to not know he was there.  Her brother was definitely watching the human closely.  She thought that Mal had been acting a little strange lately, but she’d chalked it up to him settling back into the pack.  He’d had to fight his friends for his place in the pack the day of the full moon, and she knew that had weighed heavily on him.  Wolves normally didn’t take that kind of thing personally, though — the pack worked best when the members were ranked appropriately.

Brynn wiggled away from Acksel and excused herself from the small crowd to join Mia, stealing a drink from her glass.  “This stuff is like crack.”

“How would you know?”  Mia teased.

Brynn swallowed a mouthful.  “I’m guessing.”  Her voice lowered.  “What’s up with Malachi?”

“I was just wondering that myself.”

“He acts weird when he’s guarding me and Nila comes around.  He gets really tense and then he starts to smell weird and gets all twitchy.”

Mia looked at her.  “He smells weird?  Like how?”

Brynn rolled her eyes.  “It’s not like I’m smelling him for fun.  He sits near me and the reception area isn’t all that big.”

“And?” she prompted.

“I don’t know how to explain it.  It’s like he smells like himself but it’s deeper, spicier.  It reminds me of how Acksel smells in a way.  Similar, I guess, but different, because no one smells like Acksel does to me.  I love it.”  She growled a little bit, smiling, and Mia couldn’t help but grin.

If Mal’s scent was deepening, it was because he was aroused.  She didn’t want to think about her brother being turned on at all, but it explained his odd behavior and the way he watched Nila like she was the most precious thing he’d ever laid eyes on.

“Do me a favor, B?”

“You bet.  Just no more baby-naming favors.  Acksel is giving me a hard time about
what if we have a boy and you have to name him Mia,
and then I have to distract him with sex.  Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but still.  Give a girl a break.”

Shaking her head and trying to dislodge the image of her bestie and her alpha having distraction sex, she said, “Don’t mention to Mal about the scent thing.”

“Oh, is it something bad?  No wait, it’s something good, right?”  Her eyes lit up.

“I’ll tell you another time.  Right now I think you need to go to your mate.  He’s looking a little lonely.”

Brynn kissed Mia on the cheek and gave her back her glass.  Empty.  Zander, who was helping to serve drinks and appetizers along with his parents, stopped next to her and filled the glass.  Mia watched her brother as he watched the human and the baby and decided that she was glad that Mal had found his mate and that she wouldn’t give him a hard time about it.  Much.

Turning around, she saw Brynn’s dad and went to say hello.  He looked a little out of place among all the wolves, but he was beaming with pride at his daughter and her mate.

Someday that would be Mia with her mate and her parents would share in the special day.  She’d overheard Mal talking to Lucian the other day on the phone and the gist of the conversation was that Lucian was out of the country for work.  Her ‘someday’ probably didn’t include the human best friend of her brother, who still thought of her as the little kid who used to pester them and tattle on them.

Her wolf whined in her head at the thought of the sexy tattooed human, but Mia shut her up quickly.  There was no use wishing for things she couldn’t have, even if her heart ached at the thought.

She gulped down the cider, wishing it was alcohol, and decided to see if anyone had anything harder to drink.

* * * * *

Brynn snuggled against Acksel as he drove them home.  They were officially engaged, at least according to her, and the wedding date was set for Valentine’s Day.  Once Acksel had asked her to marry him, she’d been overcome with the desire to get married before the baby was born.  Or she was so big with the pregnancy that people would snicker at her if she wore white.  Which she was going to do anyway, damn it.

“So, Luna’s?”  Acksel asked.

“For the ceremony?  Are you serious?  Why don’t we just get married at Poke’s?”

“Well, there would be plenty of booze.”

“Oh no, mister, you’re not getting drunk on our wedding night.”

“I love it when you lay down the law.”  He shot her a grin and she rolled her eyes and gave him a light punch on the arm.  “Okay, fine.”  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel in thought.

“I want to get married at our house.”

He glanced at her in surprise.

“It’s the official start of our family.  I want it to be where we live.  We can have the ceremony in the living room and just have our family and close friends and then we can have the reception at Luna’s for the whole pack.”

“And then we’ll go up to my dad’s cabin for a few days for our honeymoon and get away from everything.”

“That’ll be nice.”  She leaned on his shoulder and rested her hand on his thigh.  He squeezed her hand with his own.  The cabin was a half hour away in the mountains and there was no cell reception, no TV, no distractions.  It would just be them.  And she’d love it.

Acksel parked in the driveway and came around to her side of the truck, opening the door and lifting her out into his arms.  She snuggled into him as he carried her into the house and straight back to their bedroom.  She was home now.  Not just home in the physical sense, but home emotionally, too.  In a short amount of time, Acksel had gone from being a fantasy to a reality, and she wouldn’t change anything about the journey.

Well, she might change a few things.  But not the destination.

* * * * *

After Acksel and Brynn made love, he tucked his sleeping mate into bed and watched her for a little while.  His wolf was content in his mind, happy to curl around her sleeping form and keep her warm and protected.  Acksel was content too, and not just because she was carrying his pup and going to marry him.  He had everything he’d ever wanted, and a few things he hadn’t realized he’d needed.  His mate had brought him a better understanding of his people in the way she dealt with them, and she smoothed out the rougher edges of his personality.  He’d been in darkness before.  A ‘strike first and ask questions later’ sort of male who led with anger and was always ready for a fight.  Brynn had shown him that being a leader who was loved was just as effective as being a leader who was feared.  He would have to prove himself the right leader from time to time with claws and fangs because that was their way, but it didn’t have to always be that way.