Desert Wolf (21 page)

“I prefer my own company.” Because she deserved a real answer, he added, “Too many in Sutter Butte would use closeness with me as a negotiating tool, another ounce in their bid for leverage and power.”

Facing him once more, she began to massage soap into her hair. “Forgive me, and I know we’re derailing from the reason we came up here, but why did you ever want to be Alpha if you hate it so much?”

“Why do you think I hate being Alpha?”

She didn’t answer immediately as she rinsed her hair slowly. The thick weight of it belied how big it had grown after their night of play and the swim in the lake. As she added conditioner, she stepped closer to the glass and asked, “Am I wrong?”

“I asked you a question.”

“I asked you first.” Defiant, and…playful. Her lips curved into a faint smile and a warm gleam shimmered in her eyes. Maybe it was the water, or the glass distorting her features, but it felt like she wanted to play with him.

Testing the unfamiliar water, he said, “If you answer mine, I’ll consider answering yours.”

“Consider?” she scoffed. “You’ll have to do better than consider, and why should I answer first? I’m the guest.”

Amused, he toed off one boot then the other before reaching for the clasp on his jeans. She ducked her head beneath the water, slowly running her hands through her hair. The effect threatened to leave a zipper imprint on his cock. “I’m Alpha. You have to answer me.”

Deep, throaty laughter dismissed his claim. From anyone else, he’d likely have broken a bone or three for such blatant disrespect. Yet Sovvan’s humor washed over him and he wanted to grin wider. “Sorry, I tasted the Alpha last night. He’s not so bad.” She gave him her back, and he laughed aloud at the tease.

Stripping off his jeans, he dropped them on the floor and crossed to open the shower doors. “Thank you for inviting me to prove a point.” The spray hit him from all sides, hot water soaking tired and sore muscles as he wrapped his arms around the middle of the most beautiful woman he’d ever had in his shower.

The only woman.

“I thought you’d never take the hint.” She leaned into him, trapping his stiff cock against the crack of her ass as she sighed. Cupping her breasts, he let the water wash over them while he began to massage her sweet curves. “But you played with me.”

“I did.” He pressed a kiss the slope of her shoulder. “I don’t play often.” If at all.

“I noticed.” Another roll of her hips, and she flexed the muscles along her glutes. It teased him and bumped him playfully at the same time. Provocative and sweet? Everything he learned about her gave him a new mystery to explore. “You should play often, Cassius. We’re wolves. We need to play.”

Hearing his name on her lips provoked an intimacy he didn’t think he’d ever experienced. “Play is for children.” Probably why he loved engaging with them.

“Play is for
everyone
. We teach children through games, but adults need to play, too.” Leaning away she retrieved the soap and twisted until they were face to face. Slowly, she began to rub the soap against his chest and over his biceps. Torn between pushing her against the wall and fucking her until they couldn’t stand, and wanting to see where she was going, he braced one palm against the tile. The smoothness of her hands on his skin aroused and soothed him in equal measures.

“Maybe you have time for games in New Orleans. The desert isn’t so hospitable to the foolhardy.”

She alternated the pressure of her strokes, lathering the soap over his shoulders, then along his arms only to return to his chest and smooth it over his pecs and abdominals. Every time her hand dipped near his cock, he found himself holding his breath only to release it in a hiss as she kept her distance, soaping his hips and even his thighs without quite touching him.

“Really? So what was last night then?” She drifted lower, running her hands over his legs from thigh to calf. He closed his eyes as relaxation and tension vied for control.

“Pleasurable.” Though… “Truthfully, seducing you hadn’t been my plan.” Honesty. She deserved all of that. “I didn’t bring you here for sex.”

Her nails raked over his ass, a gentle scrape with a hint of bite. “If you didn’t bring me up here for sex, you and I need to talk about your communication.”

The corner of his mouth curved upward, laughter cracking through his reserve. “My bedroom? Yes, here I brought you here to have sex and to talk and to plan—but also to protect.” If they lived in some other pack, he could make the excuse of hiding away with her for months until he’d…
Until I what?
The sobering thought jerked him from his reverie, and he scowled.

“Hey,” she whispered, rubbing his legs as the soap rinsed away. The dual showers didn’t let it cling to him for long. “No frowny faces or anger.” Then she kissed the tip of his cock, her soft velvety lips gentle and demanding in equal measures. Need spiked his pleasure, and he added his free hand to the wall, flattening both palms as his cock jerked under her gentle caress.

“Not frowning at you.” His voice went guttural and deep. “Sovvan…there is so much we need to discuss.”

“I know,” she soothed, wrapping a hand around him and stroking him from his base to the tip. His mind blanked for a moment. “Sometimes, you need to turn it all off, Cassius. One thing I know about Alphas and wolves and packs is that we need touch, we need play, and we need sex. I think you need all of the above more than you realized.” After another stroke, her mouth closed over him. She enveloped him in the hot suction of her gorgeous mouth.

He forced his body to still, otherwise he’d thrust into her, and he didn’t want to knock her off balance or harm her. The caress of her fingertips over his balls stiffened his spine, and then she bobbed her head. Reason fled as she took total control of the thrusting, dragging her lips over him and lightly teasing his sensitive flesh with her teeth.

Tension corded along every nerve ending, and his wolf flushed through him. Opening his eyes, he watched his cock vanish into her beautiful mouth, then met the gorgeous golden eyes gazing up at him.

The orgasm struck him hard and fast. His balls dragged up tight and he came, his growl becoming a groan as his legs threatened to grow rubbery. She locked her mouth around him, hands holding his hips still as he flooded her and she took every drop.

Shaking, he had no words when she released him and glided up to embrace him. Leaning on her more than he cared to admit, he pulled her into his arms. When her teeth sank into his shoulder, his world sundered. His cock stiffened and his wolf bucked. Seconds later, he had her up and pinned to the wall as he pushed her legs wide and sank into her.

Ferocious demand pounded in his veins. She dug her nails into his back, her mouth pulled into a grimace of a smile. Pleasure and arousal swirled in the hot steam as he froze. Had he hurt her?

“Fuck me, Cassius. As much as you want…have me and then talk to me.” Her plea freed him. He fisted her damp hair as he settled a hand beneath her ass to support her.

“Hold onto me.”

“I promise.”

Then he gave her what she and his beast both wanted. The white hot drive erased everything else. The only thing that mattered was the woman whispering encouragement to him as he sank into her again and again. His Sovvan.

Mine…

A
fter
playing
in the shower
, Sovvan had to wash her hair again to get rid of the rough tangles but since Cassius helped her, she didn’t complain. When they were done, she wrapped a towel around herself. She took the time to dry her hair, using the blower and a comb first then the flat iron to straighten it. Without the right products, it would likely frizz. Cassius threw a towel around his waist and walked to the door. Keying open the entry, he returned with a tray of food.

The scents were amazing, and her stomach reminded her she hadn’t eaten since sometime the day before. Oddly, hunger was her greatest weakness, yet she was still riding the buzz from sex. “Hmm, I think you’re better for me than…” she tested the air. “Oh, is that steak?”

“Fajitas.” Cassius chuckled, uncovering a sizzling pan. The combination of meats and veggies had her abandoning the hair dryer. “Maria is a wonderful cook.”

Biting her lip, she climbed proprietarily onto the bed next to him. He eyed her and then carried the tray over.

“I have a table and chairs.”

“I don’t care. I could eat on the floor.” He uncovered the dishes, revealing fried rice, tortillas, guacamole and sour cream. “How did she have time to prepare all this? We’ve only been up here…”

“Ninety minutes.” Cassius grinned, smug with pride. “You lost track of time.”

Had she ever. It seemed like only minutes. Then again, her body hummed from him pleasuring her. Every nerve seemed hypersensitive, and she was vibrantly aware of his every move. “Guilty. Do you need me to tell you how magnificent you are as a lover again?”

Snaring a piece of the steak, he teased it around the outline of her lips before offering it to her. She snared the piece and sucked on his finger. The world narrowed to the contact and her heart seemed to beat double time.

“You are an exquisitely beautiful woman, Sovvan. You show me with every touch, caress and smile how much you enjoyed our time.” Simple, sweet words and she sighed. “Thank you for being here.”

Warmth suffused her from head to toe, and she fought a sense of shyness encouraging her to lower her eyes. “Thank you for
having
me.” Though she meant it, the tease slipped out, and his laughter rewarded her.

“You are a bad woman.”

“I really can be so much worse. I’ve been on my
best
behavior for you.”

Brows raised, he paused piling some of the meat onto a tortilla with guacamole and sour cream. “Please don’t be good on my account. If you can be worse, I will happily take the hit.”

He did it.
Pride and joy bubbled through her at the remark. “No promises. I am still a guest.”

“Safe haven, forever and always.” The speed at which he offered to open his pack to her and guarantee her protection without restraint sobered her.

“Cassius…”

“It’s my call. As long as I am Alpha, whether it’s the next five days or the next hundred years…you will always have a safe place with me.”

Discomforted, she tried to cover it by fixing a fajita.

“Sovvan, look at me.”

Taking a bite, she met his gaze. A gentleness she never expected to see in the ferocious warrior settled over him.

“Safe haven isn’t disloyal to your Alpha or your pack.”

Swallowing the bite, she blinked hurriedly as he wavered in her vision, the sheen of tears not one she wanted to give into. Guilt nibbled on her soul, because for a moment, when he’d said the words
safe haven,
she’d been both excited and terrified. His pack wasn’t a safe place. It had so many issues—infighting, bloody retributions, fires, poisoning—and
Cassius.
His pack had the one important facet Delta Crescent didn’t have—him.

“I know it’s not disloyal, but it feels a little like it is.” She opened a bottle of water and took a long drink. “Being lovers is complicated.”

“Only if we make it complicated.”

“I’m the Omega for Delta Crescent.”

“An Omega.”

“What?”

“You’re not
the
Omega of Delta Crescent, though I admit, they may treat you as
the
Omega. But you are one of two, Sovvan.” Nothing insulting marred his tone.

“Fair point, and Johan is mated to a Hound.” Which meant, even if something happened to her, Serafina would still have an Omega. “Still, he is younger and he…and you are still Alpha of a different pack.”

“I am, but does his youth preclude him from doing what you do for Delta Crescent? Does he not provide support because he
is
an Omega?” No judgment or harshness discolored his question, only genuine curiosity.

“Well, his youth makes him a little more flighty. I was a little crazy at his age, too. I was lucky…my father was never affected by me, so he never treated me any different. It was a struggle for my mother sometimes, especially as I got older. She also was a good barometer for my control.” She hadn’t thought of those teenage years in a long time.

“How old were you?” He folded together another fajita and sat it on her plate. Surprisingly, she’d finished the first one, so she added rice to her plate then his and he smiled.

“Fourteen, I think. Well, fourteen when Poppa sent the first Hound to test me.”

Cassius frowned. “How does a Hound test an Omega?”

“Don’t get all pissy.” She wagged a finger at him. Tension stiffened his shoulders, and she’d worked damn hard to relax him. “Spoiler alert, my story has a happy ending, so you don’t have to get all growly protective at the suspenseful bits.”

Protest in his eyes, he opened his mouth, and she pushed a bite of steak between his lips. He sucked on her fingers, holding them captive. When he tickled her skin with his tongue, she laughed.

“Better.” Freed to resume her meal, she shook her head. “As I was saying, I was fourteen when Poppa sent the first Hound to test me. The Hound was someone he trusted deeply. He didn’t tell the Hound or me what he was doing. Then again, when do Alphas explain anything?” She made a face and released a long, tortured sigh. Cassius’ snort of laughter was worth a little melodrama. “The Hound arrived at my father’s restaurant—he’s a chef in the Quarter. Or he was before he retired, anyway. He still cooks from time to time if I beg, but he’s enjoying a life of leisure.”

“Retired?” The brief hesitation before he asked and the twist to his lips when he did warmed her.

“My father is human.” She gave him a moment to let it sink in. To her delight, he made no pretense of being pole-axed by the news.

“The fuck?”

“Hu-man.” She enunciated the word slowly then laughed. “Dad is human. He never took the bite. Loves my mother to pieces, and is absolutely her mate, but he doesn’t want to be a wolf.”

“But…she’ll age slower than him. He’ll die.” As if realizing his choice of words, Cassius grimaced.

“We know. But Dad always says a full life, well-lived, relies on quality, not quantity. He’s eighty-five years old, and happy as can be. The whole pack dotes on him and, like I said, he cooks for me if I plead with him. Him being human saved me, though. While other wolves see their weaknesses, and I begin to play off them—or I did before I learned control—he only ever saw me. The little girl he loved. I happened to turn into a wolf, and…he thought that was a hoot. He even took me for a walk once during Mardi Gras. He got me this fancy leash and trotted me all over the Quarter. It was funny…”

“How is it funny that he treated you like a dog?”

Was it wrong that his snarling intensity sent a pulse of desire straight to her sex? Indulging in a long drink of water, while getting her wandering thoughts under control, she suppressed a shudder. He covered her bare ankle with an extraordinarily hot hand, and the wild reaction settled—but only a little.

“It’s funny because he played a blind man. He wrapped a handkerchief around his eyes, so people would think he couldn’t see, and he wore a very dark pair of sunglasses, then he hooked a harness on me along with one of those guide dog flags and I took him everywhere in the Quarter.” It was so hard to explain. “When you’re fifteen years old, and you’re really different from every other wolf, and some find it hard to even be around you, it can be a blow to your confidence. My wolf is smaller than most… You saw me.”

“You’re adorable. Delicate. Beautiful. Utterly capable. Size doesn’t dictate strength or power.”

“Of course it doesn’t, but we’re adults. We get that. At fifteen, all I knew was I was an odd wolf. Odd and different and no one liked me. Even wolves I had crushes on treated me like a leper.”

He growled, and she grinned.

“Thank you. You’re hot, too.” That pulled another chuckle from him. After loading her plate with more food, she nudged him with her foot. “Stop distracting me, or I won’t finish my story.”

With an aggrieved sigh, he mimed zipping his lips closed then tossed away the key. Since he offered to play, she pretended to catch it then tucked it into the towel between her breasts. When he zeroed in on the swell of her breasts, she sat a little straighter. He made her feel as gorgeous as he kept describing.

“The point Dad was trying to make is that I was more than capable. He gave me utter trust. I was walking him in and around all these tourists, into shops and restaurants and places with so many smells it made me dizzy. But he believed I could do it. He believed I’d never let anything bad happen to him.”

“You didn’t.” Understanding kindled in his eyes.

“Not a scratch. I never understood what it was to protect someone else, to be responsible and to own every action and choice I made until that day. Dad believed in me and, when he was done, I believed in me, too.”

“He’s a good man.”

“Yes he is, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, what did the Hound do?” Her man was all predator, not letting any morsel of information escape.

“He was tasked with spending a few hours with me on what was probably best described as a glorified playdate. He escorted me from school to the library, stayed with me while I studied, then walked me to my dad’s restaurant.”

Stretching out opposite her, Cassius set his empty plate aside. “He wanted to test whether you affected the Hound or not.”

“Yes.”

“That’s dangerous if the Hound took offense.”

“I know, but what I didn’t know then is Poppa was also there. Poppa was always right within reach, so if something went wrong, he was ready to step in.” The information didn’t appease him.

“It’s still damn bad idea.”

“Do you want to hear the rest of the story, or do you want to be angry about something that happened more than twenty-five years ago?”

Cassius frowned. “You’re…”

“Old enough to know better, and so are you.”

His grin was fast and fierce. “Absolutely, please continue.”

“For the most part, it was pretty boring. The Hound was nineteen; I was fourteen. We had zero in common. I was also painfully shy, so I didn’t say much. At the time, I had a bad habit of always knowing the wrong things to say to piss people off. But his anxiety levels grew throughout the day, and it changed his scent, and I reacted to it. All very normal and stressful for a regular wolf, but when you add in the Hound’s dominance and my Omega tendency, it was downright unbearable. After dinner, he had to walk me home, and he kept pacing ahead, circling back. He was so agitated, and then the next thing I knew, he looked at me and said,
whatever you do, cher, don’t run
…and shifted. We were not that far from the Quarter, just inside the Garden District.
Anyone
could have seen him, and I had no idea what to do when I was suddenly facing two hundred pounds of wildly upset wolf.”

Caught up in the story, she began to tremble. It was like she could see it again. Etienne gazing at her, his mouth open and his sides heaving as he panted. His backpack lay discarded near his shredded clothing.

“I didn’t know what to do. He’d said don’t run, and he was so much more dominant than me. Even when scared, I knew better than to run. But he was also a Hound, and the Hounds protect us all. They come for us when there’s a natural disaster. If someone is moving, they’ll lend a hand. If there are repairs to be made, they help out. When troublemakers bother us, they protect us. I knew all of that, and I looked at him, and all I saw was how afraid he was of losing control, of not being able to live up to his father’s ideals and dreams. He was so scared, and he had no one to help him.”

Cassius brushed a finger down her cheek. Belatedly, she realized a tear escaped. “What did you do, Sovvan?”

“I hugged him. I hugged him, and I told him he didn’t have to be scared anymore. He was so brave, because he kept doing everything he was doing, yet he’d protected me.” The wolf had shuddered in her embrace then he tucked his head against her back, and she’d felt his hug in return. “It only took a few seconds, then his fear began to flee. I was shaking like a leaf, before I threw up—all over him.”

Mouth open, he stared at her with a mixture of disbelief and humor. “On the wolf?”

“Yes. All over Etienne.” The answer earned her a roar of laughter. True, belly shaking laughter, and she grinned. “It was horrible, and I wanted to cry, then Poppa was there. Etienne never teased me about it, not once. Nor did he ever comment on the fact I’d gotten sick all over him—and I’ve never told anyone what I said to him that day before, either.”

Still smiling, the Alpha traced a pattern over her bare calf. “I will never tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me.”

Believing him, she smiled. “It was the first time I embraced my gift, but it would take a few years for me to really understand how to block it when needed and how to manage it when I couldn’t block it. Poppa helped. He was very wise, and he’d known an Omega when he was a young man, but no one else had an Omega, so it was up to me to figure it out.”

“Now you’ve trained two others like you.”

“Well, as much as any person can train an Omega. As far as I can tell, it’s very individual. Who we are informs how we respond to the stress and the flaws, much like who you are as an Alpha.” Which brought them full circle to her earlier question. “Will you tell me now why you fought for Alpha if you never wanted to be one?”