Winter's Dawn (24 page)

He let out a low growl against her lips when he felt a tidal wave of desire wash over him and he got weak-kneed. He slouched back against the door as his fingers tightened in her hair.

“Too far?” Susie asked in a breathy whisper.

“Way too far,” he groaned. “You aren’t supposed to do that.”

“You did it,” she argued, pulling back to frown at him.

“Yes, but I’m the most dominant,” he reminded her.

Susie shook her head, grinning at him. “Not for long, big wolf.

“Okay, get off me.” Max set her down on the marble floor of the front entry way to the palace. “Stop tormenting me.”

“I liked it, Max,” Susie whispered. “I don’t need to be in heat to enjoy kissing you like that.”

“Yes, but you need to be in heat for the rest.” Max ran a hand through his hair and shook his head roughly to slake off the desire that was still pulsing through him. “It all goes hand and hand.”

“Tell me what you do on the full moon.” Susie arched an eyebrow at him. “I think I want to know.”

“No way. We’ll discuss it when you get some hormones.”

Susie laughed. “I know what you do. I’m not dense.”

“Can we go look at your car?” He pointed to it. “Your very expensive car that I picked out personally.”

“Oh, yes, fine,” Susie sighed dramatically. “Do you have the keys?”

“They’re waiting for us at breakfast.” Max pulled her new car keys out of his pocket.

“Let them wait.” She grabbed the keys and ran down the steps. “I want to take the king for a ride.”

That was something Max couldn’t say no to and it would be a very long time before they made it to breakfast.

****

“Why are you afraid to sleep?”

Max glanced up from the proposal Serena had given him about shelters for homeless werewolves. He tilted his head back to look at Susie, who was leaning back against a pile of pillows. Her fingers were twisting his hair as he rested against her in bed, his head laying in that sweet spot between her breasts. He still had on his suit pants and black socks, but was bare-chested and very relaxed as he sat with Susie in their large bed. He came up to braid her hair and got distracted by the invitation to lay so close to her, with parts of her bare skin brushing against his.

He frowned, his concentration affected from going for days without sleep. “What?”

“Why don’t you sleep?” Susie asked slowly. “What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid.” He looked back down at the proposal. “I’ve just got lots to do. Guarding the moon is a hard job.”

“You’re lying, Max,” Susie whispered, pulling at his hair to emphasize her point. “I can smell it.”

Max rolled his eyes. “You know, this whole thing about werewolves not lying is highly overrated. Some lies are good.”

“Tell me what you’re afraid of,” Susie said, this time more forcefully.

“No,” he huffed, not looking up from what he was reading. “I’m asking you kindly to drop it.”

“Then get off me.” Susie pushed at his bare shoulder. “If you aren’t here to rest, you have no business in my bed.”

“It’s our bed, Sue,” Max reminded her as he flipped a page. “I can lay here if I want.”

“You’re a grouchy alpha wolf,” Susie complained, her fingers twisting his hair again despite her attempt moments ago to push him out of bed.

“Yes, well, the full moon is three days away,” Max said, still reading the proposal. “I am always a grouchy wolf at this time.”

“Then go to Serena.”

“No, I’d rather stay right where I am.” Max flipped the page. “Speaking of Serena, this proposal is brilliant.”

“Ask me if I care.”

“I’ll pass.” Max picked up the page he was reading, holding it closer to his face because the words were becoming blurry. “If you say no, I’ll be angry and I don’t want to be angry.

“Why will you be angry?” Susie yawned. “Is it because you’re a grouchy wolf?”

“No, it’s because you should care,” Max growled as he turned around to glare at her. “This is an difficult project and Serena has come up with some very good solutions for it. It’s important to me and you should care about it.”

Susie sighed, her body falling limp against the pillows. “I know it’s important, but I’m worried about you. The running is in three days. If you don’t rest now, when will you?”

“When I drop,” Max set the page down and picked up another one, holding it close to his face again. “If I drop at the running, all the better.”

“For whom?” Susie snorted. “You’ll be miserable for a month and make everyone else miserable along with you.”

“Can I just enjoy your company and read in peace?” Max growled as he squinted to read. “Why are you pestering me?”

“Because I love you and I want to know what you’re afraid of.”

Max growled again and set the page back in the folder. He tossed the folder aside and tilted his head to look up at her. “I have nightmares. You know that. If I can stay up, why do you want me to suffer through them?”

“Then tell me your nightmares. Maybe if we talk about it—”

“No.” Max fought off the urge to close his eyes as he fell back against her. “Drop it.”

Susie’s fingers ran lightly over the hair at the back of is neck and then trailed around to caress his cheek. Her touch was feather light and teasing as she sighed, “Kiss me again.”

Max growled and pushed her hand away.

“Don’t do that.” He turned around to glare at her. “Don’t try to manipulate me with that.”

“I want you to kiss me,” Susie said, her eyes wide. “I like it and maybe it will help you relax.”

Max picked up the proposal again, needing to focus his mind somewhere else, because he wanted to kiss her. “It won’t help me relax. It never does. It has the opposite affect.”

“You want to go and kiss Serena instead?” Susie asked, her voice low.

“No, I want to sit here, read this proposal and enjoy your company.” Max looked at the words, but didn’t really see them. “Why are you being like this? I don’t want to talk about my nightmares and I don’t want to torture myself with tasting something I can’t have.”

“Maybe if we did more than kiss,” Susie whispered, her fingers back in his hair. “It’d help. I can do more than kiss. Jessica told me that—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Max growled, still staring at the proposal with wide eyes as lust pulsed through him.

“She said if you touch a man. He can, you know—” Susie shrugged her shoulders. “Relax.”

Max jumped off the bed and turned to stare at her. “I am not a man! I am not one of those little high school boys that Jessica Carver jerks off in the back seat of expensive cars. I am an alpha wolf and toying with a full-grown alpha male will sink you into territory you don’t want to be in!”

Susie glared back at him. “Maybe I do want to be in that territory. I want you to kiss me. I like when you kiss me.”

Max ran both hands through his hair and growled again. “Everyday now you want me to kiss you. Why? You aren’t in heat. You don’t need it.”

Susie lowered her gaze and reached over to pick up the papers he had scattered. “I don’t have to be in heat to feel it, Max,” she whispered as she sorted the papers, turning them the right way, her gaze still downcast away from him. “All my friends have boyfriends. They go out on dates and fool around in the back of cars. I feel left out. I just want someone to kiss.”

Max’s shoulders slumped and he covered his eyes with both hands. “Buying that car was a mistake.” He shook his head in misery. “You have been tormenting me since your birthday.”

“I feel it when you kiss me,” she reiterated.

“Feel what?” He lowered his hands to stare at her in confusion. “Love? You need me to kiss you now to prove I love you?

She shook her head, still looking at the folder. “No, it’s not love. I mean, it is—but that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Then enlighten me because I don’t get it!”

Susie finally set the folder aside and raised bright blue eyes to his. “Here,” she whispered, bringing one hand up to cup a bare breast, her fingernail tracing the nipple until it tightened. Her other hand moved lower, over her flat stomach. “And here.”

Max surged forward and grabbed her hand before it could reach its destination because he knew that he would lose his control if she touched herself like that. As it was, she had spread her legs and white-hot desire pulsed through him painfully. He shook his head, completely flabbergasted, because he would have never done something like that before he had gotten the call.

“Susie, this is not nice. You are being a real—”

“Bitch?” Susie asked, her voice sharp. “Were you going to call me a bitch?”

“I was going to say pain in the ass, but if the shoe fits! You are fucking torturing me! What color are my eyes now?”

Susie raised her gaze to his and then bit at her lip, looking abashed.

“What color are they?” he screamed. “Tell me!”

“They’re silver,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Maybe now wasn’t the best time to discuss this.”

Max was furious, because he had been calm. He had been completely in control of himself. He hoped to make it clear to the running, but that plan was completely shot. He wanted to break something. He had the urge to destroy the whole room, but he went to the bed instead.

Susie choked back a gasp of surprise when he fell over her, pinning her hands to the bed and kissing her the way she wanted to be kissed. The way she had begged him every night to kiss her since her birthday. Only this time, he wasn’t playing. He was completely overwhelmed with a terrifying desire for her. He had never wanted her so badly. The dominant wolf had leaped to the forefront of his consciousness the moment he realized where exactly she felt it when he kissed her.

Susie moaned, parting her lips to his, letting his tongue push roughly into her mouth. Desire blinded him and it didn’t matter that she had no hormones, that she did not smell like a female in heat. He ground himself against her, letting her feel how she affected him. He was painfully hard for her.

“Max, stop.” Susie turned her head away from him and tugging at her hands. She gasped again when she realized she couldn’t free them. “Stop! You’re scaring me!”

Max lifted his head and narrowed his eyes at her. “That’s what I thought. Go find a human to play puppy games with because you can’t handle my games, little girl and you can tell Jessica I said that.”

“You’re an asshole!” Susie growled, her voice also low and slightly inhuman as Max crawled off her. “You’re trying to scare me.”

“No, actually, I was trying to fuck you,” Max told her honestly. “You asked me what I do during the full moon. You just got a taste of it. You better learn real fast that I’m not one of those boys at school and stop toying with me until you are old enough to handle it.”

Max turned around and walked towards the door before he did something more awful than he just had. He would have left without another word if Susie hadn’t called out to him.

“Where are you going? Are you going to them?”

Max turned back with a glare. “Yes, I am.”

“Maxwell.” Susie gave him a concerned look. “You don’t do that, do you? You don’t treat them like that?”

“No,” he told her simply with a sad shake of his head. “I’m much crueler to them. There’s a reason I hate the running.”

Susie wilted and covered her face, choking back a sob. “I’m sorry.”

“Tell them that,” Max said as he turned away from her.

Max slammed the door, splintering the wood, but not caring as he stormed down the hallway. He walked into the rooms Serena and Katrina shared without knocking.

He found Serena sitting on their bed, working at braiding Katrina’s long hair. Her hair was still wet and unbraided. She had a towel wrapped around her, while Katrina was naked.

“Gods.” Serena eyes wide were as she stared at him. “What happened?”

Max realized that he must reek of sexual desire and his frustration was palpable in the air around him. Both Katrina and Serena knew by looking at him he had fallen completely over the edge.

Katrina made a move to get off the bed, but Serena stopped her.

“Rena, let me go to him. I get to go first,” Katrina whined as she shoved at her sister’s hand.

Serena shook her head, her gaze still on Max. “Not this time,” she whispered. “I’m going first.”

“Yes, you are,” Max agreed as he went to the bed and wrapped his hand around her upper arm. He pulled her off the bed and into the office before Katrina could complain further. He kicked the door shut, hearing more wood splinter. “Get me my pills. I want them to start working before I get to Kat.”

Serena ran to the desk and started looking through the desk with shaking hands. “Gods.” She fell heavily into the chair. “What happened? Who did this to you?”

Max shook his head and closed his eyes, hearing his heart beating rapidly in his ears. “Susie is trying to play human games with a wolf.”

“What sort of human games?” Serena asked, her voice stunned. “Not—”

“Find my pills!” Max yelled. “Do you want your sister to deal with this?”