“ARE you sure you’re okay to drive all night?” I asked Seth.
He and Jonah were standing next to Bullet’s truck, their bags thrown into the backseat. A late cold snap meant they wouldn’t be able to ride motorcycles through the night, and the truck would attract less notice if the Hangmen were looking for us.
My beta pulled me into his chest for a hug, lips on my forehead and hands rubbing the goosebumps off my arms. The sun was setting in shades of pink and purple through the bare winter trees beyond the drive, and the truck was rumbling as it warmed.
“We’ll take turns. Don’t worry. We’ll text when we get back to the club, okay? Just get your rest.”
I tipped my head back, and Seth smiled before leaning in for a soft, savoring kiss.
“See you at the end of the week,” I said, trying not to whine and turn it into a question.
“Make sure you’re not too worn out for a warm welcome back.” He offered me a wicked grin, pressed another kiss to my forehead and then headed for the driver’s seat, leaving me with our alpha.
“Baby girl,” Jonah murmured, the endearment uncertain.
I sighed and then pushed myself into Jonah’s arms. He shook against me, folding himself around me, face buried in my hair and arms encompassing me.
“You’re gonna be a part of this pack,” Jonah said, words weak.
“I know I am.”
“I will bond you,” he said.
“I know that too,” I said. I opened my mouth to add more. That I was waiting for him to know that as strongly as I did. But I didn’t want to start the whole thing over again. “I’ll miss you. Thanks for staying through the heat.”
Jonah growled and squeezed me tighter. The hug was equal parts worry and comfort for us both, and I turned my face into his neck, kissing skin until he purred and softened.
“I love you, baby girl,” he said. I started to answer him but Jonah turned his head, lips slanting across mine, tongue delving in and purr rumbling through me.
I loved him too, stupid asshat. I squeezed the words out as he let me up for air, and accepted the second long, powerful hug, clinging to him just as fiercely.
“Coal will be here late tomorrow,” Jonah said.
Fuck. Cole. I almost told Jonah to have the other alpha stay home. I realized now I didn’t miss him, and that was a clear enough signal that he was not going to be one of my bondmates.
“And we’ll keep you all posted on the Hangmen. Gonna try and talk some sense into the club, even if I have to go to the other officials so they can make Buzz see reason. You’ll be home soon.”
The Cole conversation would wait. I’d have the rest of my alphas with me anyway. I nodded, stole a final bruising kiss, and then stepped out of his hold. “Send my love to the pack.”
Jonah’s face lit up, his smile finally shining through the stormy expression he’d been wearing all afternoon. “You got it.”
I stepped back and watched Jonah hop into the truck, Books and Tornado pulling me into their warmth.
“It won’t be so long without them,” Tornado said as the truck lurched forward and then lumbered its way down the long drive to the mountain road.
I smiled at him and nodded. “I know.”
“We just gotta put up with Coal till they get back,” Bullet muttered.
Ryan growled softly, and the others looked at him with raised eyebrows. When the tail lights on the truck finally disappeared, I turned and led us inside.
“I could use a massive cuddle. Today’s been long enough,” I said.
I FELL asleep on the couch in a softer and more casual den in the right-wing. There was a massive screen across from a deep couch, and my pack and I filled it up to watch movies together. When I woke again, it was to find Ryan laying me down on a mattress in an unfamiliar bedroom that smelled of ginger and rainfall in the woods.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” I murmured.
Ryan paused, braced on his palms above me. Then he reached past my head and turned a lamp
on. I winced at the sudden glare.
“Sorry, just wanted to see you.”
“It’s fine.” I shimmied up in the bed and looked around the room. It was paneled entirely in wood, and the four poster bed I was on was big enough for three or four. It was missing any personality as far as I could see, empty places left on the dresser and fireplace mantle as if whoever it had once belonged to had long since packed themselves away.
“How are you feeling?” Ryan asked, standing and stripping his t-shirt off over his head, throwing it carelessly onto a chair in the corner.
“I’m okay. Settled after earlier,” I said, figuring he was really asking about Jonah. “I like Rebecca, I’m glad she was the one to come.”
Ryan hummed, undressing out of his pants in an unconscious and casual way. It was a show for me whether he meant it to be or not, but I found his own lack of concern in the act wonderfully domestic. As if we’d been undressing for each other for a decade, rather than less than a month.
“Connor, her alpha, seemed okay. Kind of confused about us. It’s a bit of a head trip listening to Bull talk to a guy like that though,” he said.
“His voice changes,” I agreed. “He starts sounding kinda posh.”
Ryan snorted at the thought and then kicked off his jeans, wearing only boxer briefs. He turned back to me, head tipping and eyes skimming. “C’mere. You don’t want to sleep in that dress.”
I stood and spun, offering Ryan access to the zipper. He pulled it down slowly, thumb following the line down my spine to the base of my back. He reached inside, pushing the sleeves down my arms with a heavy caress of my skin all the way to my wrists. The dress sagged off my waist and Ryan shimmied it off, my panties nearly going with it. Every touch was thorough and elongated, the act
savored more than the quick and efficient strip he’d done for himself. I wiggled my shoulders.
“Bra too,” I said.
Ryan huffed softly, fingers gripping the softer flesh of my hips before returning to my back. The clasp was unhooked and his fingers skimmed my sides before sliding and covering my breasts. I sighed as he cupped and massaged them, taking the straps off and tossing it behind us. I leaned back and Ryan pressed his chest to my shoulders, arms circling and one hand playing absently at my nipple.
“Tired?”
I shook my head. “I missed you, I don’t want to sleep yet.”
Ryan purred, kisses pressed from my shoulder up my neck to my jaw. “Missed you too, sweetness.” His grip around me tightened, and then my feet were lifted from the floor, scooped by one arm and turned in his arms as he climbed onto the bed.
I sucked in a breath and stared at my alpha as he spread me across the bed. The lamplight was warm, fire orange catching on Ryan’s bronzed skin and in the gray strands of his black hair. He turned me beneath him, hands around my knees and spreading them open, before sinking on top of me, nose to nose and hip to hip. We still had our underwear on, and Ryan only took a brief kiss from my lips, tongue flicking out.
“I’m in no hurry,” he said, leaning back just enough to make eye contact. One hand lifted, pushing my hair back from my cheek as he smiled faintly. “And I’ve got no reservations, Baby.”
I sighed, reaching to pull him down to me again. “Kiss me,” I said, smiling.
I knew what he was saying, and I knew we’d end up there before the night was over. I was going to soak up every second of the moment first. Ryan purred, his smile wide until our mouths connected.
Then every cell of him was invested in the connection, lips caressing and tongue teasing and teeth skimming oh so gently. The kisses were languid, lazy touches, Ryan’s hands cupped at the back of my neck and around my hip as mine traveled the geography of his back. We rocked softly together, the muffled friction heightened by my still tender sex.
It was like being a teenager again, grinding with my crush on a couch. Except that Ryan was more than a crush, and my breasts were pressed to his bare chest, and he was a better kisser than any boy I’d known in my teen years. My legs wrapped around his narrow hips, holding him tight to me.
He growled, and the sound shivered through me as I pulled away to gasp. His lips latched onto my pulse, sucking in a steady beat that matched the gentle nudges of his hips against mine.
“More,” I moaned, reaching down to push away our underwear.
Ryan growled again, catching my hands and pinning them into the pillows behind my head. He worked his way from my throat to my collarbone, licking long stripes on sensitive skin and then nibbling over the spots. He slid down my body, flat planes of his stomach spreading my legs open.
When he reached my breasts he had to release my hands, and they dove into the silk of his hair as I moaned and arched. Teeth framed and pinched at the tip of my nipple as I ground myself against Ryan’s stomach.
“Please,” I whispered. “Please, I want to come on your cock.”
Ryan purred, and I lifted my head in time to catch his smile. “You will, sweetness. More than once. You can come on my stomach too.”
His hands left my breasts, hooking on the edges of my panties, tugging them off as he sucked on one nipple and then the other. When he settled against me again, the heat of his skin against mine made me gasp. It was an awkward angle, my clit barely touched as I tried to work myself against him, but my frustration and desperation made Ryan purr, and the vibration heightened my arousal in a constant cycle.
“You’re being mean,” I whined as satisfaction skittered away for the third time as he switched from one breast to the other.
Ryan’s laugh barked and his grin suddenly shined. He pinched one nipple between his fingers, took the other with his teeth in a tighter grip, and I keened, rocking frantically beneath him as he twisted the one in his fingers. His tongue flicked over the tip of the other, and it was that rough treatment more than the soft, smooth, glide of him against my pussy that made me shatter, a shallow orgasm rolling gently through me.
I sighed as he released my breasts, my eyes falling shut as I caught my breath. The bed rocked and then Ryan’s weight returned, this time with one notable difference. He was finally fucking naked.
I moaned, and my arms and legs closed around him as his cock slid through the slick of my release.
“Can’t help it, sweetness. Just love wrecking you like this,” Ryan said.
I bit my smile as it stretched over my face, and I opened my eyes to look at him. “You love me.”
“Don’t be shy,” he whispered, thumbing my lip free of my teeth. “I do love you.”
I hummed as Ryan covered me completely, cock still cozying against my sex. “Want me to present?” I asked, wiggling beneath him.
“Nope. Want you like this,” Ryan said, kissing me briefly. “Wanna see your face as I do this.”
And then he reached between us, fitting the head of his cock at my opening and sliding in slowly. My lips parted on a silent gasp, eyes widening as he sank in, stretching and filling me with a gentle thrust.
“Beautiful.”
I whispered his name as my eyes welled up. His sweetness was what wrecked me, and I only
wanted more. “Please. Make me yours.”
“You are mine, Baby.”
He kissed me, licking into my mouth as he started to take me in heavy, slow strokes. Our hands were restless, gripping at one another with every push in, traveling together with every pull out. I poured my need for him into the kiss, dug my nails into his shoulders and ass when I wanted him closer. It wasn’t an urgent fucking, but there was desperation to it, and every groan and growl and purr from Ryan’s lips reassured me I wasn’t alone in the need.
“You belong with this pack. You belong with me, sweetness,” Ryan panted into my ear as we came together in a constant rhythm.
“Yes. Ryan, please.” My back curved, and Ryan’s arm slid underneath and held me to his chest, cock striking at a new angle that made my jaw drop and a high sigh escape. “Oh god, yes, alpha. I need you. I need your knot.”
Ryan mouthed across my jaw, hips snapping slightly rougher as if he was losing control. His knot was striking against my opening and I was at the edge of my patience, ready to flip us over and take him down. His other hand fitted between us, distracting the thought, rubbing at my clit in fast encouragement that had me clawing at his back and crying out. Just before the touch forced me off the edge of arousal and into free fall, Ryan drove forward, filling me with one long thrust, knot lodging in place.
We came together, arms clasped tight around one another, bodies shaking unevenly in the aftershocks. It wasn’t the dizzy, delirious, fall of a heat, and I found myself glad of it. Instead of the frantic need for more, I enjoyed the hazy, calming moment of collapsing together.
“Love you,” I whispered.
Ryan kissed the corner of my jaw. “Love you, Baby.”
I sighed, certainty clear and still and crystalline inside of me. I tilted my head, throat bared to his lips. “Bond me, Ryan. I’m ready.”
His purr was low and rattling, and I shivered as he lifted his head away from me. His hand lifted to my cheek, fingertips damp from my sex, and he turned my face back to his, nose nuzzling against mine. His eyes were open, fixed to mine, and he looked so calm, but I wasn’t sure what that meant when it came to Ryan who always seemed calm.
His lips pressed to mine and I whined, afraid he was about to tell me it could wait. He licked the seam, and I opened to him on a sigh, grateful for the kiss no matter what came next. I stroked my hands up his shoulders, soothed my fingers through his hair, and answered every lick and pull with one of my own. He sucked my bottom lip between his teeth, and I shivered as I squeezed around his knot.
With a soft growl, Ryan bit the fragile skin of my lip. I gasped and froze as his teeth pierced the inside of my lip and full pad, a shallow and delicate bite, but no less effective. Trembles wracked my body and Ryan’s growl grew, his arm like a clamp around my back as he bucked inside of me.
He did it. Elation burned through my chest, up to my eyes, which grew wet with happy tears. The bite burned, but I couldn’t have cared less about the pain. I scratched my nails against his scalp until the growl became a purr and Ryan unlatched the grip of his teeth, immediately sucking and soothing at the bite. Every swipe of his tongue was like a stroke of his cock inside of me, tingling along the bite and echoing through me directly to my heart as if he could reach inside of me.
The bond grew slowly, the scent of ginger heavier on the air, tendrils of growth unfurling in my chest. Ryan’s calm. His satisfaction. An unexpected and pure joy at being in my arms. My breath shook in my chest, overwhelmed by the sudden connection, settled by the weight of my alpha in my soul.
“Baby,” he mumbled, still sucking and lapping at the bite, cleaning it and strengthening the bond.
I nodded in answer, twined myself around him as we started to move in unison, a wave rising between us that was stronger and clearer and more enveloping than sex.
Love. Connection. Home.
I pushed it back to him in answer until his purr rang through my head, a hypnotic calm and happiness carrying me into peace.
