Page 73 of Altius (The Scent of Victory #2)

Forty-Six

Morgan

T he best backdrop for destruction was a slinky bass solo and Joaquin’s raspy laughter.

“Damn, doc,” he said, wrapping an arm around my waist as he surveyed the remnants of the beer bottle pyramid that I’d just decimated with a crowbar. “Want me to go get another crate of those?”

“No, thanks. Think I’m good.”

Pulling off my face mask, revealing my sweaty face and hair, I offered Joaquin a satisfied smile—despite still trying to catch my breath—letting his touch linger for a moment before pulling away.

“Ever been to a batting cage?” he asked, trailing me out of the room into the lobby, where we began shucking off our protective gear.

“Not since I was a kid—maybe eight or nine?” I unzipped my coveralls and slipped them off my shoulders, winter air rushing to cool down my overheated body. “Audra and Ethan always had sporty birthday parties. Bowling, trampoline parks, go-karting. That sort of stuff.”

Joaquin steadied me as I stepped out of the coveralls, not seeming to mind that I had sweated through my top.

“Your parents went all out, huh?”

“More like the twins were too popular for their own good. I tended to opt for sleepovers or simple stuff since no one wants to do much the day before Halloween.”

“Wait a second.” Joaquin chucked our gloves back into the appropriately labeled bin. “We missed your birthday?”

“No.” I paused, wiping my sweaty hair out of my face before pulling on a knit hat. The gifts and flowers I’d received were from Wyatt, not the pack, and Cal’s sweater… That was personal. “I mean, not really. You were busy with the housewarming. I’m not big into birthdays anyhow.”

He held out my coat with a frown. “So, there’s no use in asking you to help me plan Alijah’s birthday party, I take it?”

“I might not be much of a party planner,” I said, slipping my arms into the sleeves, “but my siblings on the other hand…”

Joaquin paused, leaning against the half-open front door, quirking a hopeful brow. “Does Kelsey have time, with the move and everything?”

“Depends on when his birthday is,” I said, slipping past him into the fading afternoon light, not minding the chill for once.

Joaquin had indulged my temper for two full hours. I felt looser than I had in weeks.

“But even if she can’t make time, there’s still Piper and Rory. Or Papa.”

Joaquin’s arm settling across my shoulders startled me. He gave the top of my hat a noisy, overly dramatic smack of his lips. “And you wonder why we adore you.”

“Settle down.” I tried to elbow him away, prompting an outpouring of smooth laughter.

Joaquin only held me tighter as we headed for his truck.

“If you’re looking for connections,” I said, still squirming in his grasp, “I bet Cal knows a dozen event planners.”

“But they don’t know Alijah.”

Shooting a warning glance at him, I said, “Be very sure about what you’re asking for. Piper’s a big fan of drunken Twister and pin the tail on the beta.”

“I was thinking giant Jenga and cornhole, maybe a few pinatas, but drunken Twister sounds fun.” He leaned down, lips brushing my ear as he whispered, “But let’s save the beta-pinning for the three of us, okay?”

Rolling my eyes, I tried to pull away again, but Joaquin still refused to let me go.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he teased, pulling me in front of him, wrapping both arms around my shoulders as he slowly shuffled us the final few feet to the passenger side door.

“I’m not letting you slip away tonight. You might be physically spent, but your mind…

” He nuzzled the side of my head. “It’s still racing, too full of worries.

And I’m not letting you go until you smile at me like you did the first time we came here, when you were weightless, breathing easy—just Morgan—even if it only lasted a few seconds. ”

“Joaquin…”

I started to turn, wanting to face him, but found myself pinned against the side of his truck instead. Joaquin planted his hands on either side of my head, his suggestive leer growing ever closer.

“My patience ran dry some time ago, doc. But I’ve endured. Bided my time. Through three weeks of Wednesdays, when my mate comes back smelling like a floral and citrus fucking delight. Do you have any idea how fucking luscious your pheromones are together? How greedily I suck him—”

“Stop.”

“That would have worked in October or November.” The dark promise in Joaquin’s laugh made me shiver. “Before I tasted you.”

Long fingers captured my chin, forcing me to look up and meet his gaze.

“Or felt you clamp down on my knot like a fucking vise. Before you stopped giving my mate false hopes and half-promises.” His thumb traced the underside of my bottom lip. “But now? It’s too late. He’s fallen for you. We both have.”

Against my better judgment, devoid of any rational thought, I sucked a greedy breath through my mouth, getting a meager hit of the tantalizing peppery flavor I’d been craving since my heat.

“That’s it,” he drawled, trailing the tip of his nose across my cheek. “Take what you want, doc. Breathe me in. Drink me down.”

Joaquin’s hand slid from my chin, along the length of my jaw, until he cradled the back of my neck. His free hand settled on the small of my back.

“I might not be your scent match,” he whispered with a possessive gleam in his dark eyes, “but I have what you want. Spice. Heat. Certainty.”

Joaquin’s kiss was a potent demand, hot and urgent, nimbly bypassing my few remaining defenses. I was too far gone to fight back, inherently weak to the fiery undertones of his pheromones.

Besides, I couldn’t deny that I’d always known he and Alijah were a package deal.

Long before I returned Alijah’s kiss in the San Diego moonlight, agreed to Joaquin’s request to be his stand-in at that ballet gala, or entertained his silly request for three conciliatory lunches—I’d known from the moment he pulled back Alijah’s collar in the lobby of the football operations center.

When he fixed me with that predatory smile of his, alerting me that I was in his crosshairs…

and Joaquin wouldn’t be satisfied until he got his fangs into my throat.

Reality intruded, apprehension surging to the forefront.

“I—I’m sick,” I stammered when he finally came up for air.

“Yeah, I know.” Resting our foreheads together, Joaquin’s hands slowly caressed the outline of my figure. “But that’s what you have Cal and Owen for. They’ll fix whatever you can’t piece back together with your own stubbornness.”

Joaquin’s purr was a throaty scratch against my skin, making my omega thrum with anticipation.

“I’m the fun one, remember? Who’s going to take you axe-throwing sometime. And will sneak you into the lighting booth for a quick fuck during the ballet one day. That’s going to make you come so hard all over that damn gray chaise—”

Tugging on his coat collar, I shut him up with a kiss. “Spare me the details.”

“Sounds like I’ve convinced you,” he said, his smirk turning inquisitive the longer he looked at me. “But I don’t think you’ve been adequately distracted. Have you?”

I stared at him, taking shallow breaths, afraid of what I would say—or do—if I got another dose of his scent.

“If this was enough, and you’re ready to go home and face your sister’s stack of packing boxes, just say the word. Otherwise…”

The seductive promise in his brown velvet gaze was even more potent than his pheromones.

“Make me forget,” I whispered, “just for tonight. Make me forget.”

***

The front door to unit 602 hadn’t even clicked shut before Joaquin scooped me up, wrapping my legs around his waist.

His mouth was an absolute menace as he carried me upstairs, one hand planted firmly on my ass while the other gripped the railing. His tongue waged a preemptive attack, not giving me a single chance to hesitate or think my way out of this.

As we entered what had once been Jacobi’s art studio, Joaquin kicked the door closed behind him. He lowered me onto a sprawling but neatly made bed with a plaid comforter in earth tones, including a rust-colored leather bolster—Alijah’s handiwork, no doubt.

My bag landed somewhere near the nightstand. In a matter of seconds, our coats, shoes, and socks littered the floor. His shirt and my jeans followed in short order.

Kneeling on the mattress, I snagged Joaquin by his belt buckle and pulled him closer, running my hands along the tattoo-free skin of his stomach.

“How do you want to do this?” I asked a bit breathlessly.

“That depends.”

The rose-hued afternoon sun streaming through the skylights made the red spider lily on the back of his right hand even more vivid as he reached for the hem of my top, pulling it up over my head, leaving me in nothing but my bra and panties.

Trailing his fingers through my sweat-slicked hair, Joaquin tilted my head back, admiring the lines of my body, eyes lingering on my breasts and rounded hips—the inherent omega softness that neither training nor waning syndrome could take away from me.

“As much as I like you like this,” he said, lightly fisting my hair, “on your knees, ready to please your alpha—”

I shot him a dirty look, which only made him laugh and tilt my head farther back, exposing the column of my throat.

“You might not like it, Morgan,” he said, “but in here… I am your alpha. And I’ll give you everything you need.” Joaquin nipped at my bottom lip. “Now, be a good girl and take off my pants.”

I gave his buckle a half-hearted yank, earning a sharp tug on my hair, arching my neck even further.

“Refresh my memory,” he said, running his tongue across his front teeth, circling the tip of his right canine. “What’s your stance on spanking?”

“Only when I deserve it.”

His ever-present smirk intensified. “Edging?”

“Is that a promise…” Maintaining eye contact, I unbuckled his belt and slowly pulled it off, wrapping the worn leather around my fist. “Or a threat?”

“With this mouth, why not both?”