Page 23 of Alpha's Chosen Mate (Wolf Billionaire #2)

CHAPTER 23

LEILANI

H eat.

That’s the first thing that registers as I surface from unconsciousness. Scorching, blistering heat crawls under my flesh and I moan, twisting against the silk that brushes against my skin. The slight movement sets my body on fire, and my next moan is almost guttural.

My breaths are shallow and quick, the air too thick, too heavy. I blink slowly, wincing at the sudden brightness that hurts my eyes. I recognize the tinted ceiling mirror, reflecting my small form in Asher’s large bed.

Asher. He came for me.

The heat creeping under my skin takes a dive for my veins, setting every nerve in my body alight with ravenous hunger. I roll out of the bed, slamming into the cold floor with a thud, and the chill slips through my back briefly, providing a second of relief, before it’s overwhelmed by the crackling monster in my veins.

I’m on fire .

I try to sit up, but the robe around me clings to my skin like chains, suffocating me. I rip it off with a frustrated growl, tossing it onto the black screen of the TV. It’s unbearable, as is the pulsing ache between my thighs. Primal need takes over, forcing me onto my hands and knees. I try to stand, but my legs are too weak.

How long have I been out? What the hell is wrong with me?

I gasp as my hips arch against the phantom touch of the wind, my clitoris throbbing. My nipples rub against the silky material of a short blue chemise and I breathe heavily, clamping my thighs together. I have no idea what’s happening, but being surrounded by Asher’s scent makes the musk of my arousal deepen, filling the air. My nipples pebble, my breasts ache for his touch?—

Yeah, I need to get out of here.

I push to my feet but fall almost immediately, my legs unsteady. My attempt is successful on the fourth try, but walking…I feel like a child learning to use her legs for the first time.

“You’re awake!” a voice chimes as soon as I step out of the room. I blink at Enya. She’s smiling at me. I swear I’m losing my mind or having another nightmare. I wobble slightly, and she reaches out to steady me, but I snarl before her fingers can touch me. The slightest touch makes my pussy clench. It’d be weird as fuck to have an orgasm because Enya touched me.

She backs up, glaring at me. “Get back in bed, young woman. I’ll get the alpha?—”

“Stop treating me like I’m an invalid!”

“Well, you most certainly are—” Enya stops talking and sniffs. Her lips pull down in a frown and she steps into my space, sniffing again. Her eyes widen and she points down the hallway. “He’s in his study, but there’s a meeting going on and…” Her eyes drop to my chest and her voice trails off, her lips twitching. I swear she’s laughing at me, which makes me wonder how quickly I can snap her neck. I shove down my heightened irritation and bolt down the hallway.

I twist the doorknob without a thought and barge into the room, slamming the door shut. I lean against the door, panting, and only then do I notice the silence. I find eight pairs of eyes on me. My heart slams into my ribcage, my skin tingling and flushing. My eyes travel from one face to the next. Talon. Cayden. Morris? Odd, but understandable. Gavin? Even weirder. Two men I don’t recognize stand by the bookshelf, blueprints in hand. Beside them are two familiar faces—twins—who I’ve seen around the pack and during Asher’s parties, but I’ve never spoken to them.

Finally, my gaze locks on the man behind the large desk. Like the others, Asher is dressed formally. His suit jacket hangs on the chair behind him and his maroon shirt is crisp and clean, as always. His sleeves are rolled up his forearms as his fingers hover on the keyboard of a laptop. He has a preternatural stillness about him as he stares at me.

His hair...Goddess, it’s shorter now, the cut sharp and severe, accentuating his chiseled jaw and the dangerous beauty of his face. It’s a professional look, but something about the severity of it makes him look impossibly more masculine and stunning.

And...I clench again at the sight of his chin. He has a beard. Gone is the freshly shaved skin, and I stare and stare the well-groomed beard that frames his face in a way that makes my pulse pound between my legs. I imagine what it would feel like against my entrance, scraping against my pussy lips as he tastes me with his tongue .

A moan crawls up my throat before I can stop it, and Asher shuts his laptop with a single word: “Out.”

I shuffle away from the door as the men file out, almost bumping into…oh. Sasha uncurls from the couch, patting her wrinkled brown slacks. My eyes narrow, something hot burning in my chest at the sight of her in my husband’s office. I expect her face to mirror my threatening expression, but when she catches me openly contemplating murder for the second time in five minutes, her teal gaze lights up with humor and she tips her a head a little, murmuring a word I have to be imagining: “ Luna .”

Either I’m still dreaming, or something’s wrong with everyone today.

The door shuts, leaving Asher and me alone. I can’t tear my eyes away from him. He rises from his seat and shadows fall over his face as his broad back blocks the sunlight. But that’s all he does. He stands right there, as though closing the distance between us would be a deadly move.

I plant myself against the wall farthest from him to rest my shaky limbs. If he won’t make the first move, maybe I shouldn’t. After all, I’ve never sought out a man because I wanted him to fuck me. This isn’t like me. “How long was I out?”

His blue eyes sear into mine. “Six weeks.”

I nod, exhaling a hot, trembling breath. “Christian?”

“Dead.” The lethality in the single word makes my nipples pebble, and I expect guilt, or even a tinge of sadness or grief, to follow. But I feel satisfaction instead, and I wonder what that means.

I want to ask him about our baby, but I wonder if it’ll be better not to speak of it. It’s a touchy subject, and now that I’m thinking about it, the sadness comes over me in a crushing wave. I change the subject instead. “I...” My cheeks flush. “I feel... weird. Hot. I...ache.”

His fists clench. “It’s normal. The medications helped counter the poison’s effect, but in doing so…” He pauses. “Even I don’t understand the shit the doctor said, but it’s something about your hormone levels being suppressed while your body worked overtime to ensure your recovery. She said to expect that once you woke, it would rapidly catch up to the pregnancy’s progress?—”

“The pregnancy?”

Asher says nothing.

Tears spring to my eyes. “I didn’t…we didn’t…”

His shakes his head, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “No. You’re both in perfectly good health.”

“Oh my Goddess,” I gasp into my palm. “Oh my…thank you.” A tear rolls down my cheeks as I repeat the words yet again, muttering unintelligibly as a sob wracks my body. My hands run down the length of my torso, my fingers splaying over my belly in an attempt to make me believe this is real.

Laughter slips past my lips as my heightened senses pick up the faintest pulse from within. I barely register Asher moving until he stops, still leaving significant distance between us. “I’m sorry. I should have been there.”

I glance at him. “No, don’t say that. You came for me. You saved my life, and our child’s. You couldn’t have known it would happen, or where I was. Hell, even I didn’t know where I was. You saved us.”

He still won’t look me in the eye. “None of it would’ve happened if I didn’t let myself doubt you.” He explains what happened after I disappeared, and I listen, watching him try to hide his shaking hands from me. As I listen to his heart race too fast as he speaks, I realize that Asher is frightened.

And somehow, the sight of him like this, completely undone and scared of losing me because of his “foolishness” makes me feel warm inside. I’d be mad, but I’ve done the same thing. I’ve never truly trusted him. I didn’t fully believe he didn’t kill my parents until Christian told me the truth. I didn’t trust that he had nothing to do with Sasha until Talon said so, and even a few minutes ago, I was still so fucking jealous when I found her in here. I’d even had a fleeting, unforgivable thought that while I’d been fighting for my life, he’d been with her.

I close the distance between us and wrap my arms around his torso. He stiffens, his hands twitching by his sides. I know he wants to hold me, but he won’t, because he feels like he doesn’t deserve to. Goddess, I adore this man so much. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “We’ve only just begun to understand what a real relationship should look like. You’ve never really opened up to anyone, and I’ve trusted all the wrong people so many times that it’s hard for me to trust anyone else. It’s going to take some time to work on our issues, because those don’t just magically disappear after watching a movie together or eating your very delicious pancakes.”

He huffs a laugh, his breath ruffling my hair.

Listening to his heartbeat is therapeutic. “We’ll learn. We’ll walk through this…together.” My arms tighten around him. “I missed you so much, Asher.”

His hands wrap around me in a tight embrace and he’s trembling and kissing the top of my head. The only time I felt this loved was when I snuck into bed with my parents, wedging myself between them and stealing the covers. This is different, though.

This is Asher, and I’m in heat.

Shimmying out of his grip, I fall to my knees.

“What are you doing?” Asher asks, eyeing me suspiciously as I push my hair over my shoulder and lean back on my knees, getting comfortable between his legs. “Leilani…” His voice shakes as I reach up for his belt buckle.

I bite my bottom lip shyly. “Let me do this, okay?”

He looks at me, long and hard, before dropping into a chair. He leans back like a king on his throne. He pats his thighs, and his blue eyes are dark with hunger. “Come here, Leilani.”

Gods, his voice sounds so good...

I crawl to him, kneeling between his thighs. I don’t plan to, but I kiss him first, long and deep. He grunts, grabbing the back of my neck roughly as his tongue plunges into my mouth. He tugs on my lips as he lets go, a canine grazing my bottom lip. “You have no idea what you do to me. Kneeling like this, tempting me with that pretty mouth of yours. You’re going to kill me one day, princess.”

Licking my lips, I unbuckle his belt. “I’d say you were exaggerating, but I’m embarrassingly good at this.”

Asher chuckles darkly, but it becomes a grunt when I reach into his briefs and wrap my fingers around him. His cock swells and when I squeeze him hard enough to hurt, he exhales sharply. “Gods, you beautiful crazy woman.”

I reward him with a massage, and his jaw tightens. I stare at his tip, my mouth watering with hunger. I run my tongue along his length, avoiding his tip. His cock pulses in anticipation that he hides well under his half-lidded stare. I stroke him slowly, lowering my lips to his tip, just to breathe on it. His hips buck and he cusses softly, gripping the edge of the chair.

He’s hot to the touch, and he smells like leather and man. I bring my lips down on him, taking his engorged tip into my mouth. Asher wheezes out a “ fuck ” and pushes his hips forward, his cock hitting the roof of my mouth.

I stroke his cock gently, pulling him deeper into my mouth. And then I suck. Hard .

Asher growls, fisting my hair. He pushes my head down gently, coaxing me into taking more of him. My throat closes around him and he swears, suddenly pulling me off. “Incredible,” he breathes, before standing and tugging down his pants. And his briefs.

Rising up on my knees, I take him in my hand while he fists my hair again. I stare up at him as I swallow him inch by inch, until he’s hitting the back of my throat. My eyes water, but I don’t gag.

My pulse pounds between my legs and I whimper as my throat closes around his cock.

“Goddess, Leilani,” is all the warning I get before he plunges in, his fingers tightening against my scalp. Sloppily, I move up and down, swirling my tongue over him, tasting his saltiness as my mouth makes loud slurps that send wetness trickling down my thighs. The ache between my legs intensifies and I feel moisture running down to my knees. I’m practically leaking and…I gasp around his cock as I orgasm.

“You came?” Asher grunts, but I hear the amusement in his tone.

I shudder, clutching his thighs for support. My body trembles as I try to comprehend what’s happening. Apparently, that was just an appetizer, because an even stronger wave of lust hits me. As if he knows exactly what I’m feeling, Asher pulls out of my mouth and lifts me off the ground.

My legs are too weak to go around his hips, but he easily holds me against him. He eases into his chair, giving me a few seconds to get comfortable in his lap. He cups my cheeks and looks into my eyes. “Are you alright?”

“No,” I breathe, my hips rolling of their own volition, trying to get his cock inside me. “Far from it. I feel like...” I whimper, grabbing his hands and planting them on my ass. “I might die if you don’t touch me.”

He barks a surprised laugh and drops his forehead down to mine.

My skin flushes, but I don’t have it in me to feel ashamed or embarrassed anymore. He runs his hands up my sides and I moan loudly, my skin hyperaware of the silky chemise rising up my thighs, over my ass and hips. I have no panties on, and I blush again when I feel a trickle of wetness soaking into his pants. “Sorry,” I whisper huskily.

“If I was even remotely disturbed by your scent on my pants, I wouldn’t be fucking you with them on.”

Another blush spreads across my face, and I lean in to kiss him. His hands go between my ass cheeks, molding them, squeezing, fondling. I yelp when he spanks me lightly, but my pussy quivers in response. My sore nipples graze a button of his crisp shirt. My world narrows to only him, and I cry out as I come down from yet another high.

Asher lifts my hips and buries himself deep inside me with a single plunge. I make unholy sounds as my hips roll up and down. Fingers dig into flesh. Hard clenches. Quivers. A scream. A growl. I trail bites along Asher’s neck—he bares his throat for me. The length of his cock pushes against walls it shouldn’t. I orgasm again, but I’m nowhere near done with him.

I’m starving, devouring a meal that’s only beginning to sate my hunger.

I roar at some point, and I have to commend my husband—his stamina is unmatched. He picks me up at some point and presses me against the window, slamming his cock into me as we overlook our beautiful home—a home I’m willing to nurture and protect with my life. A home I’m willing to build with him.

The next couple of months are intense, and I have no one but myself to blame for that.

I told Asher I wanted to be involved in everything with the pack. We had an argument about it. He thought I needed to rest and take things easy, because of the baby. I thought that if I had to spend one more day lying around doing nothing while I grew rounder, heavier, more hormonal, angrier, hornier, and depressed for no fucking reason, I was going to smash his head against the wall.

Well, that did it. Overdid it, actually. The prick tried to discourage me by sending me off with Jules and a retinue of guards to handle the situation at what had previously been Christian’s pack. The elders and some of Christian’s distant relatives were trying to take power, and they saw me as nothing but a whore who couldn’t possibly be their luna.

I was close to calling him and taking my words back, like he expected, but I didn’t. I had to put a dagger to an elder’s throat and cut off someone’s thumb to establish order, but no one died. It was a testament to my self-control, despite my constant stare of irritation. On the bright side, Jules and I bonded during that trip. Apparently, all I needed to do to win her over was ask her to slice off a man’s thumb. Violence must really run in the family.

By the third month, the pack was divided into colonies governed by betas and gammas, with checks from Asher and me on random occasions. In truth, it wasn’t easy convincing Asher to let me out of the pack. As the months counted down to my due date, his territoriality tripled.

Sometimes I stayed home for his sake. He punched Talon once because he thought he looked at me wrong, and he yelled at Jules for accidently knocking me on my ass during training. Another time Cayden got reprimanded for helping me up the stairs, and Enya nearly lost her job because I walked on a floor that was still wet after she’d just mopped it. And then he nearly tore Sasha’s head off when she snuck in and brought me so many sweets, I’d gotten ill. Yes, we’re friends now. It was odd at first, but when we started having conversations without trying to kill each other, we decided that we enjoyed each other’s company too much to be enemies.

I’d been pissed about Asher’s territorial nonsense, but Morris told me it was normal. My father had been way worse. He wouldn’t even let my mother use butter knives that weren’t plastic when she was pregnant with me. Alpha males, I guess.

But I’d be lying if I said Asher wasn’t sweet too. He prepared all my meals and snacks himself. My cravings kept getting more outrageous, but by the time the food was ready, I wouldn’t want it anymore. Asher had no problem doing the cooking—why would he? He put the baby in me, after all .

He tucks me in at night, washes my hair even if I tell him I can do it myself, talks to my belly every morning and night, saying nonsense and making odd cooing noises. It’s a side of him I’ve never seen before, and I’m absolutely obsessed with it.

And when our little Mal finally arrived, he held her and stared at me with wonder as he said, “I love you, Leilani.”

I didn’t respond, because I wasn’t sure if he said it because of the emotions flying in the air, or because I’d chosen to name our daughter after his sister. But whatever the reason, he hasn’t said it since.

My heels squeak against the marble floor as I hurry across the hall. I’m late. But these days, I’m always late for everything.

“You look beautiful, luna,” a maid tells me, and she blushes when I thank her and tell her she looks beautiful, too.

Asher’s standing by the door, talking to Mallory as he tickles her. She giggles, pawing at his face and tugging on his beard. “Mommy’s late again. What do you say we leave her behind and go on this date by ourselves? Just you and me, Mal?”

She squeals, lurching forward to kiss him smack on his lips. He laughs as she nibbles on his cheek. As if sensing me with her heightened senses—I swear she can pick up my scent and Asher’s from miles away—she turns and starts to twist out of Asher’s arms. “Mama…” she coos, and starts fussing when I kiss Asher’s cheek. Sometimes, I’m frightened at how possessive she is of my husband. That might have something to do with Asher promising that he loves her and Mommy is just his wife.

“Sorry, honey,” I say, taking Mallory into my arms. “Give me a minute. ”

“Sure,” Asher says, but not before he pinches my butt and winks at me.

I hurry down the hallway. It’s our anniversary today, and Asher made a reservation at Clyde’s. I told him I’d always wanted to go to a rooftop restaurant, and he made it happen, even if he had to book it five months ahead of time.

“Sasha!” I yell. “We’re leaving…”

I pause at the door, my mouth dropping open. Pure instinct has my hand flying to cover Mallory’s blue eyes, tucking her red-haired head under my chin as I stumble in on Sasha bent on all fours, Talon kneeling behind her on the bed, both butt-naked. We all stare at each other for a long second before Sasha picks up a pillow and hurls it at me. “Get out of my room, Lei!”

“It’s beautiful,” I whisper, staring at the sky with Asher’s arms wrapped around me. Soft music plays in the background, and the evening breeze carries the scent of wine, steak, and Asher’s cologne. I shiver, leaning back into his wall of heat, and his chin rests on my crown of braids.

“You make it even more beautiful.”

I twist in his arms to look at him, and his brow arches. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“You want another present?” As if I could ask for more after he made me laugh my head off by giving me his latest masterpiece —a painting of him shirtless, so I can stare at it when he’s not around. He gave me a locket too, with a tiny painting of us, our parents, and six children—five of whom I couldn’t identify. He then said we would have six children—one queen and five knights to protect her. I swear he has a rather creative mind. And then he proceeded to give me another black card. Buy a house. A pony. The ocean. Whatever you want, my heart.

Me? I didn’t know what to give him. I’m a terrible wife.

“No.”

He looks around. “You want to do it here? Right now?”

I punch his arm. “Pervert.” I bite my bottom lip. “You haven’t said you love me in five months.”

Asher blinks and even in the dark, I see the tips of his ears turn red. “You looked uncomfortable the first time I said it. I thought that…perhaps, it was too soon. I didn’t want to make you feel pressured. If you aren’t ready, I’ll wait. I’ll wait for you forever, Leilani. Always.”

“No. No, it wasn’t that,” I snap. “I was startled and before I could say it back, you went in with the classic, ‘you don’t have to respond right now.’ What was I supposed to say?”

Asher’s eyes narrow, something mischievous glinting in his eyes. “That you love me too?”

Irritation sparks in my chest. “You’re not taking me seriously. If you laugh at me right now, I will hurl you off this balcony.”

He plants a kiss on the corner of my lips. “Falling to my death at the hands of my lover on our wedding anniversary? How poetic.” A chuckle rumbles in his chest when I glare at him. He holds me close, staring at me meaningfully. “You want the truth? Sometimes, I think love isn’t enough to quantify what I feel for you anymore. I look at you, and I think there’s not a place you could go where I wouldn’t follow. I look at you and forget how to breathe. Every time you laugh, it feels like a punch to the gut. I have an audio of you snorting and yelling at me, and I listen to it every time I get stressed out and you’re not with me. I have your picture in my back pocket, and I drool over it like some crazy teenager pining after a woman way out of his league. The boundaries of the word ‘love’ don’t even begin to define this anymore.”

My eyes sting and he leans in, shutting his eyes. “I love you, Leilani, beyond the boundaries of love itself.”

My heart melts, and so do I. I nestle deeper into his arms as I stare up at this dazzling, perfect man. My mate. My alpha. My enemy turned lover. “I love you too, Asher. Beyond the boundaries of love itself.”