I Am The Alpha (14 page)

“Wizard’s tower?” she asked looking up at it with a small smirk and I grinned at her.

“Even better,” I said but refused to elaborate as I led her up to the front door. A dozen large, flat, river stones created a path leading up to the door and I stooped and dug my fingers into the dirt by the last one before the porch, lifting the heavy rock up to reveal a key hidden underneath.

After I put the rock back and straightened up I noticed Chloe giving me an amused smile.

“What? No one other than wolf-kind would even think to look under there and anyone else wouldn’t even be able to lift the damn thing.” Okay, so I might have been a bit defensive but I wasn’t used to bringing normal people around my house.

She laughed and I growled and jumped for her. Grabbing her around the waist I threw her over my shoulder carefully and marched up the steps to the door.

“Put me down, William!” she shrieked, laughing.

“Nope! You mock my hiding place, I get to have a little fun with you,” I reached up and gave her gorgeous ass a little slap. “Now hold still or you’re going to fall.”

I got the door open and set her down in the front entrance. The door shut behind us plunging the room into darkness and I heard Chloe let out a startled gasp next to me.

“Crap, sorry Chloe. I forgot your eyesight isn’t as good as mine, hang on just a second.” I darted across the room, skirting around the large structure in the center and on the far side found the switches I was looking for. Flicking all four of them into the ‘on’ position brought up the lights. Long fluorescent tubes buzzed to life, giving a soft white glow that illuminated the large space.

Chloe gasped again and I moved back to her to find her staring, shocked, at the contents of the room. A pneumatic hammer stood near her with a welding helmet hanging from it. Oxyacetylene tanks stood in a rack against the wall, just beside the door. Numerous other hand and power tools dotted the room. Each neatly, precisely put away in specific places on peg boards, racks, and tables.

In the very center of the room stood the structure I had moved around on my way to and from the light switches. It looked like the trunk of a tree, an old, gnarled, oak or something. If trees came with odd, straight angles and were made out of chunks of metal welded together. Roots spread from the base of the tree, giving it a realistic look as well as adding support for the structural integrity. On one of the large tables in the cavernous room that took up the entire first floor of my home, there lay, what would eventually be, the canopy of the tree itself. I hadn’t put it all together yet because my ceiling wasn’t tall enough. The piece would have to go together on-site where it was to be erected.

“What in the hell is that?” she asked, cute little nose wrinkling.

“It’s a tree,” I said with a smirk and she absently back handed my shoulder again.

“I see that,” she chided. “What’s it doing here?”

“I haven’t finished making it yet.”

Her eyes widened in astonishment, “You
made
this?”

I nodded, a proud smile on my face as I looked at her looking at the tree. “Yeah. That’s what I do, I’m a sculptor. Some of my pieces have sold for as much as low six figures. This one was commissioned by a wealthy local client. He wants it to stand on a section of his private property. I’m hoping to have it ready and delivered to him by the end of the month.”

“You’re a sculptor?” she asked, a mixture of awe and confusion filling her tone.

“Yeah. What? You didn’t think I had that fancy black credit card for nothing, did you? I’ve gotta pay the bills and fifty plus years since I was bitten, is plenty of time to perfect a skill. I like working with metal, I like art, just seemed like a logical transition.”

I took her hand, shaking her out of her shock and she turned to look at me, her eyes glittering strangely. The half-finished tree couldn’t have brought on tears, could it?

“Are you okay?” I asked and cupped her cheek with one hand, rubbing my thumb against her skin.

“I’m fine.” She gave me an unconvincing, watery smile, but I let it go. I wasn’t sure it was the right time to push her really. She’d been through enough and there was still a lot left to go.

“Come on, let me show you upstairs.” She followed at my gentle tug of her hand, moving along calmly. To the far right from my front door, a simple staircase led from my work room to the second floor, where I lived. The second floor was as different to the ground floor as night was to day. Instead of the cold concrete floor below, the floors upstairs were a mixture of polished hard wood and plush carpet. The front entryway upstairs had thick, dark red carpet and brown wood paneling on the walls and ceiling with a large skylight directly overhead letting in the last vestiges of sunlight as night began to come on.

A long hallway split the upper floor in two as it ran the length of the house. At the far end of the hall was a large living room, comfortably, if sparsely furnished with the same red carpet running the entire length. A well-appointed kitchen stood directly opposite the stairs with a full bathroom next to it. A study broke the left hand wall half way between the stairs and the living room and on the right was the door to a guest room with an adjoining bath.

I explained all of this to Chloe as I showed her around. At the words ‘adjoining bath’ she let out a small groan and I grinned. She had complained a few times about the poor quality of the showers at the motels we’d stopped at, and I agreed entirely. Plus we hadn’t stopped in the last two days except for food, gas, and restroom breaks.

I pulled open a hidden cabinet door, built to blend into the wall in the main hallway, and pulled out a thick red towel and handed it to her. She arched an eyebrow at it but took it from me anyway.

“What?” I asked, confused by her reaction.

“You sure do like red don’t you?” she asked and I blinked a couple of times, my mind not quite catching up to the comment for a moment.

I started laughing when it finally clicked though. “Honestly, I just grabbed the first towel off the top,” I told her and she shrugged.

“Not a big deal, I just found it interesting.” She glanced around, a brief look of confusion crossing her face before she spoke up again. “You said this was a guest room?” she asked, indicating the door next to us and I nodded. “Well, where’s your room?” she asked hesitantly, almost timid.

“Did you want to see?” I asked and she nodded.

“You still haven’t explained that tower either.”

“Bring your towel.” I took her hand again and led her back to the living room. To the right of the TV was a simple dark wooden door which opened into dimly lit space. I led her inside, closing the door behind us and held her hand as I reached out in the dark and flipped a single switch.

The shocked gasp that escaped her was one of the most satisfying sounds I had ever heard. I designed the place because I enjoyed it, but sharing it with others was an absolutely wonderful feeling.

We stood on a second floor balcony that ran the entirety of the inside of the tower wall. The center was an open space looking down onto the first floor, were several plush couches and armchairs sat in a haphazard arrangement across beautifully detailed, hand-woven carpets from cultures all over the world. The walls were lined, floor to ceiling on both floors with shelves and each shelf was stuffed nearly to over flowing with books.

“It’s a library?” she asked, eyes wide and her towel hanging almost forgotten in her hands. “You have a
library
in your house?”

“I like to read,” I said and pulled a book from the shelf nearest to me. An early edition of
Jane Eyre
, and held it out to her. “There’s a lot to be learned from books. There’s a lot that has been shared by people wiser and greater than us. Honor and integrity. Books tell us a lot about ourselves and about the world we live in and the way others view the same things that we see and take for granted. It’s nice to know how they see things differently depending on their own thoughts and experiences. I like other perspectives.”

She seemed at a loss for words when I finished talking and I shrugged, suddenly feeling self-conscious. I put
Jane Eyre
back on the shelf and led her to the left along the balcony. Half way along the wall the balcony ended in a wrought iron spiral staircase that led up to the third floor.

“What’s up there?” she asked, trying to see up through the gaps in the staircase.

“That’s my bedroom.”

She arched an eyebrow at me. “You live at the top of a tower?” she asked, almost disbelieving.

“Hey, it isn’t reserved for Disney Princesses. Besides,” I said with a wink. “This isn’t that kind of tower,” I gestured up the stairs. “After you.”

She took the steps ahead of me, her footsteps echoing slightly on the metal stairs until she disappeared up through the ceiling and stepped out onto the floor above. I turned on the lights as I joined her and watched as she took a few steps out into the room and spun in a slow circle, eyes trailing around the circular space.

“Go shower,” I said and pointed at the door across the room that led to the master bath. “I’ll explain what’s so special about this room later. You’ve got your stuff right?” She patted the bag she’d brought in with her and nodded before she disappeared into the bathroom. I stared at the closed door for a moment before I turned and started back down the stairs.

Chloe Young was in
my bedroom
.

Two days since that night and subsequent morning of amazing sex and now, here we were in my home. My bed not far away. I was going to get her into that bed soon enough, I promised myself.

While she showered I went through the house, making sure everything was as I’d left it. I had been away for almost two weeks altogether with driving to New York then driving back. My cleaning service was definitely worth every dollar I paid them though. Everything was immaculately clean and my fridge was even freshly stocked with food.

My stomach rumbled and I sighed, for once I was annoyed with my body’s insistence on packing away ridiculous amounts of calories. I pulled open the fridge and pulled out a few ingredients. Chicken breast, bell peppers, an onion, and a half a dozen links of Italian sausage, and got to work.

By the time Chloe came back into the main part of the house from the Library, I was putting the finishing touches on a simple meal. Spaghetti smothered in sauce with diced chicken and Italian sausage.

“So you’re an artist, a scholar, and a cook, huh?” Chloe asked as she slid into a seat at the small table I kept in the kitchen. God, I loved her scent. Sweet, like sun-ripe peaches, and I didn’t know what was worse, her in that nightgown or what she was in right now. Just one of my shirts. I smiled and set a plate in front of her along with a can of coke from my fridge.

“I dabble,” I said and handed her a fork.

“Eat Sugar, I’m going to jump in the shower.”

She mumbled something around a mouthful of pasta and waved her fork at me in a shooing motion, which just made me laugh as I made my way down the hall and up the stairs.

I’ve known plenty of people that like to spend their time bathing. They luxuriate in the hot water for like an hour or more. I’ve never been that type of person. But I couldn’t help taking a few extra minutes just to stand beneath a scalding spray of water, letting the jets beat down on my back and shoulders. A level of tension that I hadn’t even been aware I’d possessed melted away under the heated water and my muscles felt loosened and limber when I finally stepped out. The bathroom floor was grey ceramic tile with thick rugs strewn across it to ward of the natural chill of the floor material.

I left deep footprints in the plush red rugs as I walked out into the bedroom, still dripping, in search of the towel I had forgotten to grab when I went in to shower.

I found Chloe waiting for me, an appraising little smile on her lips, a towel in hand. My lips quirked up into a smirk and I held my arms out to my sides.

“Well?” I asked.

“Well, what?”

“Are you going to give me the towel? Or should I just drip dry?”

She seemed to consider it for a moment, her eyes constantly moving across my body. “Well I wouldn’t want the towel to ruin the view,” she said with her trademark little smart assed smirk that I was pretty much growing to adore. I growled and stepped quickly across the room toward her. She tried to back pedal but I had a definite advantage. I was faster, and I knew the layout of the room. She didn’t.

The backs of her legs hit the edge of my queen sized bed and she let out a surprised yelp as she tumbled backward, landing heavily on the soft mattress, laughing. I yanked the towel from her hands as she tried to crab walk away from me. I dove onto the bed, trapping her beneath me, one knee between her thighs, holding her legs open, the other planted next to her hip.

“Now what are you going to do, Sugar?” I whispered, our faces inches apart and she leaned up and kissed me as her hands stroked my skin. Water dripped from my hair as I returned the kiss, plunging my tongue into her mouth. I groaned into her as I felt her hands roaming lower until she wrapped them around my cock, stroking me, quickly, to full hardness.

I’m not entirely sure how she ended up naked. The loose tee shirt she had thrown on after her shower was bundled on the floor and I let my hands and mouth wander across her body. I counted each rib beneath her skin with my fingers and my lips as she writhed and moaned beneath me. She was too thin.