Once An Alpha (The S Files: Paranormal Investigation Agency – Book 1) (6 page)

Wild animal attacks. That was it. There was nothing else going on here; it just wasn’t possible. The girl must have been mistaken about hearing voices outside the tent, and that was that. There was no inexplicable mystery here, and as usual, logic and science would prove that.

And speaking of wanting to get my mind off things, holy crap…I also couldn’t stop thinking about Lyndon. Every second that I wasn’t thinking about the case, I was picturing sex with him….him pressing his weight against me…my legs wrapped around him...hands caressing me and roaming all over me.
Stop it,
I told myself.
You’re a grown woman, not a horny teenager.

But I was addicted.

Leaning forward with my hands flat on the tiled shower wall, I let the warm water slide down my body and closed my eyes, trying to empty my mind and relax. No such luck. The glass shower enclosure door opened a moment later, and Lyndon joined me under the water.

He lathered up the shower sponge and massaged a milk and honey scented gel onto my back, and I swatted his hands away. “I already washed myself!” I protested.

“I don’t think so,” he growled. “You seem like a very dirty girl to me.”

His hands were absolute magic, and I loosened up at his touch, every muscle relaxing as he caressed the soapy bubbles over my back and shoulders and then down to the rounded curves of my ass. A second later he bent down to kiss the back of my neck, and the sensation of his lips against such a sensitive spot made me shiver despite the warmth of the water.

I turned around and faced him, staring up into his lust-filled eyes, and I knew my skin wasn’t the only wet thing in this shower. My core clenched with a fiery need, and I clasped my hands around his back, our lips coming together with the same sense of desperation and urgency as last night.

“So are we quite sure a shower is all we need to get you clean?” he asked, pushing me up against the cool tiles of the shower wall.

His deep voice against my ear sent bolts of electricity up and down my spine, and I shivered again. My hair was flattening from the moisture, and I sighed in anticipation as his strong arms continued to hold me against the wall.

“Mmm… no, I need you,” I murmured.

He pressed harder against me at my response, and his hard cock pressed into the soft skin of my thighs as he began to grind his body against mine. I spread my legs, and Lyndon reached one hand down and slid his palm over my clit. As he began to gently rub me, he suddenly hoisted me up with the other arm. He slid his cock inside my pussy in one quick movement and began to thrust in and out me in earnest as I wrapped my legs around his hips. I gasped as I felt him enter me again and again and began to moan with delight as he moved in and out, in and out, over and over.

Every single little nerve ending was on fire, and my body felt as if it was going to melt right into the tiles. Lyndon grunted with contentment as he felt my warm tightness swallowing him up with each thrust inside my pussy, and he gradually increased the speed that he was using with his hand on my clit.

“Oh God… I’m going to come,” I said breathlessly.

“Good, I want you come for me now, baby,” he growled, thrusting himself into me faster and harder.

Fireworks were exploding throughout my entire body, and my lips parted in a soundless gasp as the waves of ecstasy rolled over me. His touch was as magical as ever, and I turned my head slightly, wanting him to kiss my neck as I climaxed. He obliged, pressing his lips to the delicate skin of my throat, and then he kissed me again, deeper and rougher this time. His tongue probed my mouth and entwined with mine, and he kept me held up against the wall.

He stopped for a second and withdrew, teasing me until I begged for more, and then he slid back into my pussy with a groan that echoed throughout the bathroom. He began to rock back and forth, filling me up as he bounced me on his cock and easily supporting my weight with his muscular arms.

I moaned and sighed with pleasure as he moved in and out of me, and I dug my nails into his shoulders as I clung to him. Using my muscles, I began to tighten my pussy around his cock as I fell into his rhythm of movement. Lyndon groaned again as he felt what I was doing, and I could tell that I was going to make him cum soon.

“Put me down!” I ordered. He grunted and thrust into me one more time before pulling out and setting me back down on the tiled floor.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, gasping for air.

The look in his eyes drove me crazy; they were burning with a pure primal lust. I slowly ran my tongue over my lips in a parody of adult film actresses and sank to my knees in front of him. Lyndon realized what I was doing and grinned down at me. He fisted his hands in my hair, and then groaned as I took his cock in one hand and started to stroke up and down his shaft. Then I took him in my hot mouth and began to suck and lick the head of his cock before sliding more of him down my throat.

I reached around and grabbed his ass with one hand, and bobbing my head back and forth, I moaned as I sucked and stroked his cock, knowing that the vibrations from my mouth would drive him crazy. I was right; within seconds his legs began to tremble and I felt his tightly-muscled ass clench underneath my hand.

Groaning with pleasure, his white, salty fluids flooded into my mouth, and I gently squeezed his balls. He had to lean one arm against the wall to stop himself from collapsing right then and there, and he stared down at me, a wild expression flickering in his eyes. I grinned up at him and then slid my mouth back onto his cock, licking up any extra fluids that were beading out of the slit on the top of his cock.

I rose to my feet and smiled. “Did you like that?” I asked, a devilish smile playing on my lips.

“Yes,” he replied. “You’re amazing. But…”

“But what?”

“I wanted to make you come again. You deserve to feel good,” he murmured, sliding his mouth back over my ear.

“Well, you still can,” I whispered.

Lyndon growled and pushed me against the wall again. Grabbing my small hands, he moved them up behind my head and pinned my wrists there with one hand. Using his free hand, he squeezed and caressed my breasts, gently pinching my stiff brown nipples. Then he began to trail his fingers further down my abdomen, lightly tickling me and making me squirm. He moved his face closer to mine, and I closed my eyes as I felt his warm breath on my ear again.

“Do you want me to touch you?” he asked, teasing me again.

“Fuck…yes!” I whimpered, desperate for him to move his hand further down. He smiled against my ear, and his fingers moved down to the line where my thighs bordered with my pussy. He began to stroke along the line, up and down.

“Please,” I begged, writhing underneath him.

Finally, he moved his hand directly between my legs and gently rubbed his palm against my slick folds. I moaned at his touch, still sensitive from my earlier climax, and I knew that it wouldn’t take much to make me come again. As I moaned, Lyndon suddenly jerked his hand away.

“Don’t stop!” I demanded.

“I changed my mind. I don’t want you to come just yet,” he growled.

“What? Why are you….?” My words trailed off as he pressed his body against mine.

He’s already hard again. Holy crap,
I realized as I felt something digging into my leg. I looked up at him in awe, and he grinned down at me before turning the shower off.

“Come on… we’re wasting water,” he said, before stepping out of the shower.

I whimpered in frustration and followed him. After quickly drying myself off, I grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the bathroom door and towards the main room. And then the magic started all over again, like it would never end.

When we were finally spent, we collapsed under the sheets, and with a wide yawn I fell into a deep sleep, Lyndon’s hand clasped in mine as I drifted off.

As I slept, I had vivid, incoherent dreams, and throughout them all I was acutely aware that I was sleeping. In them, I was standing in a primeval forest, shrouded in a thick white mist under a bright full moon that sliced through the fog like a spotlight, illuminating a small clearing in front of me. I was sure that I had never been there before, but at the same time it felt oddly familiar. Shadowy four-legged creatures stalked around the clearing and the nearby trees, and I had the distinct feeling that they were hunting.
Are they hunting me?
I wondered.

I awoke with a start, bathed in perspiration, and as I sat up, I glanced at the nearest clock radio and saw that I had only been out for a couple of hours. Dammit. This case was really starting to get to me, and now it was infiltrating my dreams. Even though I’d tried my hardest to convince myself the answer to the multiple disappearances was as simple as bear attacks, I could tell my subconscious was waking up to something and trying to tell me. But what was it?

I didn’t sleep another wink that night.

Chapter Six

Six days later, I was starting to get a sinking feeling in my stomach about our case. We’d been hit by a triple whammy. Firstly, the analysis from the blood spatter had proved inconclusive. I’d been sorting through what seemed to be a never-ending pile of police reports from previous vanished hikers when the call had come through.

“Agent Peyton? It’s Davey from the lab. We just finished up our analysis on the sample you sent us, and we’re sending through the full report now. Not much to say, though. It was definitely blood, and human blood at that, but it didn’t match the DNA samples we got from personal effects sent in by the families of the missing hikers. Could be anyone’s blood.”

“Okay. Well, thanks anyway, Davey. Appreciate it,” I’d replied with a sigh before returning to my paperwork.

And then for the second piece of bad news. The bears had been vindicated. After sending up another larger search team with experts called in from a wilderness society in Denver, there’d been zero evidence found of any grizzly bears in the area, let alone the hiker’s bodies or clothing fragments.

Someone had posited a wild theory suggesting that maybe some black bears had gotten over their fear of humans and developed a taste for blood, but there wasn’t even any evidence that black bears had been in the area for months. In fact, the area seemed like a proper dead zone for animal activity. No animal tracks or scat samples were found in the near vicinity of the missing hiker’s campsite; not even a squirrel’s. Odd, but didn’t seem to be relevant.

And then the third problem. Lyndon and I had tried to set up some interviews with townspeople, but they’d been of no help whatsoever. Some of them were nice, but the majority of them were rather standoffish and didn’t give us any information that we didn’t already know.

Our case was going nowhere, despite our working twelve hour days on it.

It was starting to affect our moods. Lyndon and I had still been practically joined at the waist for the last few days, and the sex wasn’t showing any signs of drying up anytime soon, but the stress and tension we were both feeling over the investigation was palpable. Director Armstrong had known it might take a while to solve the case, but I could have sworn I heard a tinge of disappointment in his voice when I’d called him to check in and told him we had nothing.

Beyond that, I was starting to become one of those women I couldn’t stand. Creeping thoughts bothered me every so often concerning Lyndon.
Where is this going? What am I to him? Just another conquest?
I knew I shouldn’t be worrying based on the way he’d been treating me and speaking to me, but I couldn’t help it. We hadn’t exactly discussed it, and I’d started to get some sort of intuitive feeling that he was keeping something from me.

After waking up to yet another sunny day, I sneaked out of the motel room, bought some takeout tea and coffee and then returned to wake Lyndon up.

“Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” I said, tossing a pillow at him.

“Yes, boss,” he grumbled, rubbing his eyes.

“It’s Agent Peyton to you, remember?” I teased.

He grinned. “So what’s the plan for today? More office time?”             

“Hmm. I don’t know. We do have to get through all those files eventually, but we need to change it up before we go completely insane.”

We discussed it while we got dressed and ready for the day, and we decided on spending half the day in the office going through the old missing persons files again to see if anything jumped out at us upon a second viewing, and then the rest of the day hiking back up to the mountains to camp for the night. The way we figured it, whatever was happening to these people, it was happening at night, so as the lead investigators on the case, the least we could do is put ourselves in the same place and see what came of it.

After reviewing the case files again, we headed back up the steep mountain trail, this time with a tent and sleeping bags in tow. I’d also stashed a bag of marshmallows in my backpack along with the other food we were bringing, because what could be better than toasting marshmallows over a campfire?

On our way up the trail, we ran into an Australian couple who were also hiking and camping in the area. We stopped to have a chat, and I asked them if they had heard about the recent case.

“Yeah, we have, but we’re pretty well equipped. Animals won’t attack us,” the tall blond man said. “And if they do, ehh. We’re kinda used to it, so we can deal with it. Back in Australia, there are about a million creatures that’ll try to kill you over breakfast if you aren’t too careful. We’ll be fine.”

His partner giggled at his blasé attitude, and I hesitated, wanting to tell him there was no evidence thus far that animals were responsible for any of the missing people. But then they’d want to know what else it could be, and I had no answers. I went against my better judgment and told them, but didn’t let on that I was an agent investigating the case.

“You know, I heard that they didn’t find anything to show it was animals attacking people out here,” I said. Lyndon gave me a side-eyed glanced and then nodded.

“Yeah, I overheard some cops talkin’ about it at a bar last night,” he chimed in, playing along with me. “Could be anythin’, really. You should keep an eye out for yourselves.”

The Australian couple’s faces crisscrossed with lines of confusion, but then they smiled. “We’ll be careful,” the man said. “Happy camping!”

“Yeah, you too.”

An hour later, we arrived not far from where the most recent vanished couple had camped, and a shiver went down my spine at the thought of sleeping in such close proximity to where it had happened. I also discovered that Lyndon was utterly useless at setting up a tent. Finally, something he wasn’t naturally good at!

“Seriously?” I said, dramatically rolling my eyes at him as I tied ropes to the tent poles. It was just a little khaki-colored tent that didn’t require much effort, and I couldn’t believe he didn’t know how. “Didn’t you ever go camping as a kid?”

He rubbed his temples. “Um, yeah, I did. We just never stayed in tents.”

“What did you stay in then?” I asked curiously. “It isn’t camping if you booked a cabin in the woods or whatever.”

He hesitated, then raised his hands in defeat. “Okay, I guess we didn’t go camping then.”

Laughing, I showed him just how to tie the ropes to the poles, and an hour later it was starting to get dark. Lyndon lit a fire, and we hauled a fallen log over to it so that we had something to sit on. I collected sticks to put the marshmallows on just like we had done in my Girl Scout days, and Lyndon was disgusted as he watched me toast them over the leaping flames.

“Couldn’t you use a skewer or something? Any animal could have pissed on those sticks. You expect me to kiss you now that you’re eating toasted marshmallows off them?”

“Yes, yes I do,” I said, waving a marshmallow in his face. “Go on, try it…or else I’ll kiss you right now. Won’t even brush my teeth.”

He grinned and tentatively slid his mouth over it, and he nodded a second later as he chewed up the sticky pink and white goodness. “Wow, this is actually good…wait…you hear that?”

We froze in silence. I thought I’d heard something like a twig snapping, but it was so small I figured it was just a roaming animal. “It’s probably just a squirrel,” I whispered to him, but then I heard it again and wasn’t so sure. The earlier investigation hadn’t even come across a single squirrel, let alone any other animals in the area.

“I’ll go have a look,” he whispered back to me, grabbing a torch from one of the backpacks.

“Hey!” I said, my voice tinged with urgency. “Practically every single horror movie in the world begins with people stupidly splitting up after hearing strange noises in the night. I’m coming with you!

“Fine, fine,” he said, turning his head over his shoulder and motioning for me to walk behind him.

We carefully walked over to the west to where we had heard the sound coming from, keeping our footfall as light and evenly spaced as possible. A second later Lyndon’s torch light shone over a squirrel, and it stared up at us, twitching its cute little nose before dashing away and hiding in the underbrush.

“Guess you were right,” Lyndon said. “Let’s head back. Hold on, do you see that?”

“See what?” I asked, my heart pounding. He stepped closer to me, concern etched into his features, and then suddenly he pounced.

“This!” he shouted, grabbing me by the shoulders and pretending to shake me. I squealed and then roughly shoved him away, storming back to the campfire.

“Hey, Myla…what’s wrong?” he asked, striding after me. “It was just a joke!”

I turned around and jabbed him right in the chest, glaring up at him. “Yeah, exactly! A joke. You can’t take anything seriously! There are people still missing, and some disappeared so recently that there’s a chance they’re still out there alive. And you’re playing pranks?”

He held up his hands. “Okay, okay, you’re right. I’m sorry. Just thought I’d try to lighten the mood a bit. You’ve seemed quite stressed the last few days.”

I sighed and sat back down on the log, and he followed suit, slinging an arm around me. “Come on Myla, tell me what’s going on,” he said.

“I just hate this. I hate everything that’s happening with this case. I like being able to construct some sort of rational explanation for things, but this… we just have nothing! It’s like we’ve been given a jigsaw puzzle to solve but with half the pieces missing. And I don’t want to leave my first case on this posting as a failure,” I said.

“Why?” he asked. “Not every case gets solved. That’s just the way it is. You can’t beat yourself up over it too much.”

“Yeah, but this is different! I can feel it. Something is not right here; it’s really like something is missing. It should be such a simple case, and when we had the bear theory, that seemed so plausible. But now? Nothing. Nada.”

Lyndon hesitated for a second. “Well…maybe it’s time for you to start thinking about alternative theories. Like Armstrong said…keep an open mind. Consider a possible shifter presence in the area.”

I turned my nose up at him. “Seriously? I was assigned to the S Files to prove that shifters and other paranormal things
don’t
exist. I guess as a foil to you, who clearly thinks they are real.”

He stared silently at the campfire for a moment before continuing.

“I’m just saying, maybe there are things we don’t know about yet, even scientists. Like how five hundred years ago they were all totally convinced that the world was flat.”

“Actually, that’s a pretty common myth,” I interjected. “Five hundred years ago, they were well aware that the world was a sphere.”

“Oh, shut up, brainiac. You know what I mean!” he replied, ruffling my hair. And I did. He was right. We didn’t know everything, so maybe it was time for me to accept that and start investigating more esoteric leads.

“I guess I’m just…I feel really stupid right now,” I admitted. “Can’t seem to solve this case no matter how much I think about it. We’ve been through all those files a million times, and nothing jumps out. None of the people really had anything in common, so there’s no pattern to these disappearances if they are abductions. The only thing I can think of is that they were all fairly young, but that can be explained pretty easily – younger people are way more likely to go hiking than older people.”

“You shouldn’t feel stupid,” Lyndon murmured, rubbing my shoulder blades with one hand. “Because if you’re stupid, then I must be a total idiot.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s you,” he replied, the campfire throwing shadows on his handsome stubble-lined features as he turned his face to mine. “You’re a genius. And you take charge. You know what you want and you go after it. Hell, I was a cop for six years before I even thought about joining the academy, and even then I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it. But you…you always know exactly what you want and you go right out there and get it.”

“So you don’t know exactly what you want?” I whispered, looking at him right in the eyes. A silent question lingered between us; the one I had really meant to ask.
Do you know what you want from me?
Firelight danced in his green irises, and he hesitated before leaning down and kissing my forehead and then looking back at me.

“Myla, I…”

He was cut off before he could say anything else by a strange sound that made my ears perk up and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It had almost sounded like a deep growl somewhere in the distance, but I had no idea what sort of creature could have made such a sound.

“What the hell? Did you hear that?” I asked, frantically looking around to see if I could spot anything. “Please tell me this is another one of your jokes.”

“It isn’t.” Lyndon shook his head. “Let me go look. Don’t come with me, though. Just stay here and guard the camp.”

“No, we can’t do that! We can’t split up!” I replied, but it was too late. He’d already grabbed the torch and dashed off into the woods, and I called after him. “Lyndon!”

It was no use; he was gone. I paced nervously around the campsite, wondering what was going on. Was he okay? Had he found anything? And what on earth was taking so long? I’d never been one to believe in any sort of religion, but when ten minutes had passed and he hadn’t returned, I found myself looking up at the sky and murmuring.