Page 17 of Cruel Alpha (Nightfire Islands Alphas #1)

I’d dreamed of this so many times that I almost couldn’t believe she was real. None of those dreams had so perfectly captured the taste of her on my tongue, though, and my subconscious had certainly never chosen my sister’s kitchen as the setting.

Alyssa’s mouth was open in a sinful little “o”, her hazel eyes dark with desire, color high on her cheeks. I let my eyes rake down her body; her chest was still heaving as she panted for breath, the bunched-up material of her tank framing her breasts like the priceless art they were, with tight pink nipples hard and still shining with my spit.

My hands came up to trace the white stripes that stretched across her abdomen, and my heart ached. I bet Alyssa was beautiful with a round belly full of my pups. If I was lucky, if she let me, I would get to see the process with my own eyes one day. For now, though, I kissed her hard, trying and failing to convey how much I wanted her, admired her, adored her.

She was perfectly pliant in my hold, and it was easy to scoop her up and sit her on the kitchen counter. Alyssa blinked at me, surprised, and I pulled her against me so she could feel the hardness of my dick as it strained against my sweatpants. Her pussy was so hot, and I could feel how wet she was even through the fabric. I felt a proud growl growing in my chest, knowing that I was responsible for it.

“I want to be inside you,” I whispered against her lips, and Alyssa whined in return, rocking her hips against the marble. I was pretty certain that meant “yes”, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. Leaning in, I pressed a gentle kiss to her top lip and another to her bottom.

“Tell me what you want,” I breathed between kisses, and Alyssa pulled away to take several gulping breaths. Her eyes were glazed, and it looked as though it took considerable effort for her to say,

“I want you. I want you inside. Please.”

“Good girl,” I growled, shoving my sweatpants down just far enough to free my cock, hard and already leaking for her. Alyssa shivered at the praise as I lined the head up with her entrance, and I knew I would remember this image for the rest of my life: Alyssa—head thrown back, mouth open, dark curls spilling down her back—sitting on the counter with her back arched, my cock disappearing into slick pink folds. We moaned in unison as I pushed inside her; she was so wet, so hot, so tight, her pussy quivering and clenching around me like she was trying to pull me in deeper, and I couldn’t help but oblige.

Her arms flew around my neck as I bottomed out, and I buried my face in her neck, drinking in her scent as I pulled out and sank myself into her again. It would be so easy to bite her now; I wanted to feel her every emotion as if it was my own, wanted to feel the bond that tied us together, but I knew she wasn’t ready for that.

That frustrated desire had to go somewhere, though, and it went into the force of my thrusts. Alyssa muffled a scream against my chest as I plunged deep inside her, legs coming up to wrap around my hips, urging me on faster, harder, until she was coming again, her pussy clamping down around my cock, and I felt my own orgasm begin to tingle at the bottom of my spine.

I didn’t want this to be over. I wanted to keep going, wanted to fuck her through the aftershocks and up to a second peak, but she was too perfect, her pussy too soft and silky and hot. She was still twitching and spasming around me when she gasped,

“Pull out.”

I barely heard her. I was so close. Her voice came again, more insistent, and this time, it broke through the haze of my lust:

“Pull out.”

Shit. Shit. With enormous effort, I pulled back, letting my cock slip out of her and wrapping my own hand around it. A few hard, fast strokes later, I was coming over her chest and her belly, painting her skin with my spend.

For several long seconds, the only sound was our heavy breathing. Looking at her sitting on the countertop, utterly debauched, I felt triumphant. My wolf howled with satisfaction: this was my mate. Mine.

Then Alyssa spoke:

“This was a bad idea.”

She may as well have slapped me. Stunned, I watched her hop down from the counter, standing over the kitchen sink to wash off the mess I’d made on her chest. The silence that filled the room, broken only by the sound of running water, echoed in my ears. Had I managed to fuck it up already?

Alyssa pulled her tank back down and picked up her shorts from the floor where I’d dropped them. She winced as she pulled them back up her legs, and I realized abruptly that my own sweatpants were still down around my thighs. I pulled them hastily back up, feeling them stick to my skin, where I was still covered with the remnants of her arousal.

“What’s wrong?” I choked out. “Did I do something? Did I hurt you?” She’d seemed to like it when I went hard, but maybe I didn’t know my own strength. Her voice was flat when she replied,

“I can’t believe you have to ask me that.”

My heart dropped into my stomach, and I felt sick.

“I’m sorry I—I’ll be better. I can keep it under control, I swear, I just wanted you so badly I—”

“No. Not that.” Her cheeks flushed with color as if she was embarrassed to talk about it. “That was—it was fine. It was good. I wanted it. I just… one apology doesn’t just make it all go away. Even before the twins came along, you treated me like shit for years. Then when I finally thought you’d come around, you just—you fucked me, and then you acted like it never happened. It broke my heart before I ever realized I was pregnant.”

My heart was breaking right back at the sight of my mate wrapping her arms around her middle, holding herself together.

“You’re right,” I said, because she was. This clearly was not the answer she was expecting because her brow furrowed—even her frown was beautiful—and she said,

“What?”

“I was—I was awful, and there’s no excuse, but will you at least let me explain?” It might not absolve me, but she deserved the truth either way. “I need you to know what I was thinking back then.”

Despite the hurt still glazing her eyes, Alyssa did her best to pull herself up, her voice trembling only slightly as she said,

“You were thinking that I wasn’t good enough for you. You were thinking that the Alpha Heir deserved better than some chunky half-breed with a weak wolf. You were thinking that one night of being overcome by the bond wasn’t enough to convince you I was worthy of basic human decency.” Every word was like a cut, all of them of my own making.

“No,” I said. “That’s not what I was thinking.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Alyssa jerked her chin towards the couch. I sat, my leg bouncing with nerves as she curled up in the easy chair opposite me.

“Go on, then.”

Her shield had gone back up, and I hated that she felt she had to be that way around me. I had to do this right. It wasn’t in my nature to be… open about my feelings, but I had to be if I was going to stand half a chance of getting her back.

“You know the kind of Alpha my father was,” I started. “For as long as I can remember, he impressed on me that the Pack was more important than anything else, including my own happiness. I knew exactly the kind of mate he expected for me, and I also knew that what he expected was the only acceptable version of reality. When I realized it was you, I didn’t know what to do. I knew he’d be furious, but he was also the only person I could trust, the only one who would know what to do. It was stupid, but I was only sixteen, and I’d never imagined that—”

I winced, aware I’d made my first mistake. While it was true that I’d never imagined a mate like her, it had never meant I didn’t want her. I’d always wanted her.

I must have hesitated too long, though, because she continued for me:

“You’d never imagined a mate as embarrassing as me.”

I shook my head.

“Don’t say it like that,”

“It’s true, though,” she said, as if it really was a simple fact of existence. I wanted to rip out the throat of every shifter who’d ever made her feel that way, myself included.

“I was never ashamed of you,” I insisted. “I swear. When I told my father, I really thought that he’d find a way to fix it, to make it okay. He’d be angry, sure, but then he’d come up with some plan like he always did when anyone in the Pack needed help. I was wrong. He told me that I could fuck you if I wanted to, but I was never to knot you and never to claim you publicly. He said it was better to be unmated than try to install someone like you as Alpha female. He said it would destabilize the whole Pack, that I’d have a mutiny on my hands.”

As much as I hated to admit it, he’d probably been right about that. Alyssa knew it, too; we both remembered the incident with Leonard at the market.

“Seeing you at school every day—it was like torture,” I continued. “I wanted you so badly. I could hardly keep my eyes off you. I was obsessed with the way you rolled the end of your pencil across your lips when you were thinking; I read all the books I ever saw you holding just to feel close to you; I wanted to know you so badly, but I couldn’t. I mean—I guess I could’ve, but that felt worse somehow. I wasn’t going to ask you to be some dirty secret. I convinced myself that if I made you hate me enough, then you’d leave. You’d leave Lapine and go somewhere else, somewhere that embraced you for who you were, and you’d be happy.”

Alyssa looked at me as though I was profoundly stupid, and I didn’t blame her. I was so close to done, though, so I powered on.

“The thing is, I was weak. My Heir’s Tour was incredible, but I missed you so much it hurt. I—fuck, this is embarrassing—I stole one of your sweaters right before I left. It was purple with little white flowers.”

Something that might have been a smile tugged at the edge of her mouth, and some of the tension left her body as she leaned forward.

“You bastard,” she breathed. “I loved that sweater.”

“I mean—I’ve still got it,” I confessed. “It doesn’t smell like you anymore, but I liked having it anyway. When I got back, when I saw you, I couldn’t help myself. I only wanted to see you at the party, but then you were wearing that fucking dress, and I… well, you remember.”

Alyssa nodded, and the tension was back in the room.

“I remember.”

“After, I knew I’d fucked up,” I said. I didn’t want to linger on the subject, and I rushed to get the words out. “I had to keep you at arm’s length, but I knew what you tasted like, how soft your skin was, what you sounded like when you came. I was so out of it, so distracted by the memory that my father noticed. I told him that I’d—that we’d—and he asked me if I’d knotted you. I told him I hadn’t, and he said that was good. He also said not to let you convince me you were pregnant anyway. He said witches lie, that they trap shifters with spells. I’d thought it was bullshit, you’d never do anything like that, but then…” I tailed off. If I remembered every second of that awful conversation in excruciating detail, I was certain Alyssa’s memory was even clearer.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice rasping with emotion.

“Yeah,” I agreed. I wasn’t sure I’d ever spoken so much all at once, and I felt chafed, raw, and empty.

Alyssa seemed no less affected by it, leaning back in her chair and simply breathing for a few long moments. I hoped it was a good sign, a sign that she’d listened, that she was processing my words and realizing I meant every one.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said eventually. “It’s—it’s kind of hard to believe.”

“I know.”

“Not that I think you’re lying,” she clarified, and relief flooded me. “It’s just—it’s so far from what I imagined.”

I watched her hands as she fiddled with the hem of her shirt, wrapping the material around the first joint of her finger, only to release it and repeat the motion. She was gearing up to speak again, so I waited for what felt like an eternity before she finally said,

“I think I’m going to need some time. The version of you I knew then—or thought I knew—it’s so different from who you are now, and even if I should trust you, I just—I don’t know if I can.”

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, and my wolf protested at the thought of leaving. Now I’d had her again; every second that my hands weren’t on her skin was torture, but I swallowed down my desire.

“I get it,” I said. I might not like it, but I got it. I’d told her I would do anything it took to make it up to her, and I’d meant it. If she needed time, then I’d give her time.

Rising from the couch, I jerked my head towards the door, and she nodded. I wanted to lean in and kiss her, to taste her lips once more before I went back out into the cold, but I knew when not to push my luck. I was reaching for the handle when her voice made me stop.

“What was your favorite book?”

I turned back, confused.

“What?”

“All those books you read,” she said, “which was your favorite?”

Honestly, I hadn’t liked many of them. There had been a pretty cool one about a girl with magic powers, but mostly, Alyssa was into the classics—too many old people from a hundred years ago writing too many words about not very much—and in any other situation, I’d have put most of them down after ten pages. One had stuck with me, though.

“Persuasion,” I said. “I liked the idea of second chances.”

I let myself drink in the sight of her a few seconds longer—her hair mussed by my hands, her lips kiss-swollen, her skin covered in the marks of my mouth—before I let myself out.