BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) (143 page)

“What’s wrong, daddy?” he asked. I sighed. There was so much wrong right now, and he could feel it. He could feel emotion the same way I could.

“Dad’s just a little stuck,” I said.

“Sometimes I feel stuck too,” he said. I smiled and looked at him.

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “When I play with Carla at auntie Charlene. She’s nice but she doesn’t know. And then when we play pretend it feels like I’m the one that pretends, not her. Because she’s just one person, and I have to fit because I’m two.”

“When did you get so clever?” I asked.

“Yesterday, I think. Auntie Charlene said I was a smart aleck. That means I’m clever, doesn’t it?”

I laughed. “It does,” I said. “Even more than people think you should be.”

“People always think I should be something. And then I don’t know how.”

“Don’t be anything else than who you are, and you’ll be okay.”

He nodded and smiled.

“Is mommy different?” he asked.

“From other mommies, yes.”

“And from us,” he said and it wasn’t a question.

“That’s why we fit. Have you seen your puzzle pieces? They don’t look the same do they? They’re all different, but they have a place where they fit and then they make a picture.”

“Except when I chew on them and mom gets mad. Then the picture is broken.”

I smiled and nodded. He didn’t fully understand, but he would one day. He was so much older in so many ways, it was nice to see him just be a child now and then. I wished I could do the same for Allegra that I did for Kurt. If I could explain things to her the way I could explain it to him, it would be so much easier.

It was ironic that I’d been so terrified of having a child, and now I found it easier to relate to him than to Allegra.

“You know what, daddy?” Kurt said again.

“What?”

“Sometimes mommy feels like you do.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “When I close my eyes sometimes,” he demonstrated, “then I can imagine she looks like a wolf. But then I open up my eyes and she just looks like mommy.”

“I know. I feel that too sometimes.”

“Why?”

“Because mom is special.”

He nodded. “She makes better biscuits than Auntie Charlene.”

And that was it. Allegra was special because she was herself. And that was the fact that Kurt followed. It was in all the small things, and love was simple. Life was simple. Mom equaled happiness.

The problem was that it became the big things when you grew up, when you married a werewolf, when you were part of a pack, when a wolf wanted you dead. Wife equaled worry.

Chapter 6

Allegra

I was upset about Reid treating me like he owned me. I knew that there were rules in the pack, hierarchies that had to be followed and the female followed the male’s lead. I got that, and I respected it when we were with the pack. That was my job, to make the alpha look good.

But when it was just us? I wasn’t a werewolf. I was pack, but he didn’t own me. He couldn’t tell me how to live. And he couldn’t pretend to tell me how to die. I was furious that he’d come into the kitchen and told me how it was going to be.

Kurt was already asleep, but he was restless. Only the first night of full moon was a problem, when the moon was well and truly full. But the second night the moon was full enough to have the wolf inside them still awake and breathing, thinking about showing himself.

I didn’t know what last night had been like for Kurt, but it seemed different now. He seemed different now. I was scared I’d lost a part of him. I was scared that little boy that I was supposed to be able to hold onto for a lot longer still, was slipping through my fingers.

Reid finally came back into the house. It was late, but not late enough for him to have been in the forest. He didn’t have that wild smell clinging to him, the smell that came with the change.

I didn’t look up when he walked into the room. I stood by the window and stared out at the dark of night, wondering what was out there. Who was out there.

I stiffened when his arms wrapped around my body from behind, but I didn’t stop him or pull away. His warmth enveloped me, flowed through me, and I found myself leaning in to him.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, mouth by my ear. He pressed his lips against my shoulder.

“I just can’t imagine what I’d do if something happened to you.” He mumbled against me. “This isn’t about the pack, you’re right. It’s about me. I’m not strong enough to lose you and still survive.”

I turned in his arms.

“If we do this together, if you show me everything you’ve been trying to hide from me, you won’t have to,” I said.

He sighed, a shudder against my body. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close. He hugged me and I felt small against his muscled body.

He pulled away and kissed me. His lips were soft and there were questions in the kiss. Reid was alpha werewolf, but he was also human. He could feel and fear the way we did even if he was still the purest wolf out there.

The kiss changed. It became urgent. I could feel his power building, a different kind of power. His body hardened against mine. I felt the heat wash over me, and I knew he wasn’t thinking about losing me anymore.

I broke the kiss and let go of him, pulled my own shirt over my head. I wasn’t wearing underwear. I pushed the baggy pajama pants down and I was naked in front of him. An offering of sorts. Myself, his wife. His eyes roamed over my body like hands and I could feel everywhere he was looking like he physically touched me. There was hunger in his eyes, and the power prickled over my skin.

He pulled off his shirt and pulled me against him. His skin on mine was even hotter, almost searing. He kissed me again and hands followed the rise and fall of my body until he came to rest on the swells of my breasts, and then cupping them full. I sighed into his mouth.

There were times when I didn’t have all of him, he was distant and absent, his mind with the pack or on the battle field. But tonight it was just me and him.

I pushed my fingers under the buckle of his jeans. “Take it off,” I murmured. He did as I asked, fumbling with the button and zipper. When he couldn’t get it he just broke it like it was plastic. I smiled, but he was on me before I could finished the thought.

He picked me up like I weighed nothing. There was nothing between us now, it was my skin on his, and the length of him pressing hard and hungry against my hips, leaving a slick trail of lust.

He walked to the bed with me and held me up as he crawled onto the mattress. He was pushing into me before he’d put me down properly, and I cried out. No matter how often we did it, his size and his strength always surprised me.

His body curled over mine and every muscle bulged out. I had my hands on his shoulders, nails gripping into his skin with every thrust and I could feel the cords ripple under his skin.

He looked at me and his eyes were a light blue, burning like fire. The wolf slid behind them. But his face was filled with love, and despite his size he was gentle with me.

He wormed his arm underneath my body and lifted my hips so I lay at an angle. He pumped harder into me, and the way he was holding me, the way his body bucked over me, made me think of an animal despite the fact that I wasn’t on all fours. His power surged through me with every hip movement, and I was getting hotter and hotter.

An orgasm built inside of me, but something else was there, too. Something that I’d never felt before. It felt like part of me wanted to rip out, break free from the confines of this body. It was almost like I had an animal, too. A wolf. I knew what I was feeling had to be Reid, but I’d never felt his animal before like it was my own.

He grew inside of me, bigger and harder still, and then he jerked inside of me. He pulled me body hard against him and his body convulsed. I felt him pump deep inside of me, making me his mate, claiming me as his female. His breathing was hard in my ear.

The power surged through me and it felt like every vein was on fire. I felt like I was going to split open and power and magic was going to pour out. It pushed my own orgasm over the edge and I gripped his shoulders. My nails bit into his skin, scratched lines on his back but I couldn’t stop it. If I drew blood he would heal in a few seconds. I could never hurt him.

I cried out and curled around his body. He wrapped another arm around me and pulled me against him so tight that we were one being. The power built, getting hotter and hotter, until we were inside a furnace of power and sex.

When it felt like I couldn’t hold it anymore, it started dying down. The heat drained away, and the power dimmed to something softer, something almost soothing. The animal slipped away again until it was just me in my own skin. I breathed hard, still clinging onto Reid, and I felt his heart thunder against my chest, echoing my own. He laid me down gently, and lay on his side next to me. He wiped strands of hair that clung to my sweaty face out of the way, and smiled at me.

His eyes were green again and drowning deep.

“What was that?” I asked.

“What?”

“I could feel your wolf.”

He thought for a moment, then shrugged. He looked into my eyes and I could see his thoughts drift to somewhere else. It wasn’t strange to him to feel an animal. Just to me.

“No matter how difficult things get, I never would have done anything differently. If I could I would choose you all over again.”

I smiled and kissed him. There were times when I felt like maybe he’d just made a mistake. There were times when I didn’t think I belonged in his world. But if this was what he wanted, we would keep doing it. Because I wouldn’t do it differently if I had the chance, either.

“I’m surprised Kurt didn’t wake up from that,” I said. Reid’s face when serious and he looked like he was listening.

“I don’t hear him,” he said.

“Let me just go and check on him,” I said rolled away from Reid. I got up and pulled on my robe, tying it in the front. It wasn’t easy doing it when we had a child that had sharper hearing than a human child, but we managed.

I opened Kurt’s door and tiptoed to his bed. The sheets were thrown back, and in the dim light from the window I saw the bed was empty.

I looked on the floor. It had happened before that he’d fallen off. Or gotten up to drink water and fallen asleep again halfway to the door. But the room was empty.

“Kurt?” I called and walked back to the door. Reid came out of our bedroom, boxer shorts riding low on his hips.

“Kurt’s not in his room,” I said and walked down the passage. I checked the lounge. The television was off. Reid had walked to the kitchen.

“Kurt, get here, boy,” I heard him call.

“This isn’t like him,” I said. “Kurt!”

Reid stopped in the middle of the dining room and looked at me. The green bled slowly out of his eyes until the blue flame of his wolf’s eyes was all that was left. Then he closed them, and I could feel his power. He pushed it out all around us, searching.

“He’s not in the house,” he said, eyes still closed. “Or in the neighborhood.” My throat tightened and a sharp pain wedged itself between my ribs. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“Where the hell—“

Reid held up his hand and I stopped talking. I could feel the magic pull back, and his face changed. Deeper concentration. He wasn’t searching actively with his power now. He was feeling for the bond.

“He’s in the woods,” he said. “Close to the clearing. He’s not alone, but it’s not one of ours. I would feel that.”

“Oh no,” I said. There was only one person it could be. Reid opened his eyes and they glowed like real fire. He yanked off his boxers and forced a change, going from human to wolf so fast the magic left me dizzy. He ran toward the front door. I was left behind feeling helpless. Reid would call the pack as the alpha. I wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t do anything. All I could do was wait.

And it killed me.

Two hours later and I was about as unraveled as I’d ever been. I kept pacing. I couldn’t sit down, I couldn’t think. I kept walking to the window and looking out without anything to see.

My phone rang and I answered almost immediately.

“Allegra,” John’s voice crackled over the speaker. “We found him. I’ve taken him home. Charlene’s watching him, you can go pick him up.”

I started crying. “John, thank god. Where was he?”

He hesitated before he answered me, but I think he understood that it was something I needed to know. This time he wasn’t going to ask Reid for permission to tell me.

“Sarelle had him,” he said and the phone clicked dead. I felt numb. I couldn’t feel my fingers or my toes, but I got in the car in my gown and drove to Charlene. I couldn’t stop crying. By the time she opened the door I was hiccupping through my sobs.

“Come on, Allegra. He’s right here,” she said and I stepped into the house. Kurt ran to me. His cheeks were stained with dirt and crying lines, and I could see he felt like I did.

“Oh, baby” I said, holding him tight.

“A bad wolf got me, mommy,” he said and squeezed his arms tighter around my neck.