Page 12

twelve

ASPEN

The drive went by painfully slow. My foot started to ache halfway through, but I forced myself not to move it much. If Enzo realized I was in pain, he would force me to put my feet on his lap, and I didn’t want either of them anywhere near his cock. He was almost always hard around me, and feeling his erection against my foot definitely wouldn’t help me want him less.

His words rolled through my mind every few minutes

“I’m spending your heat with you because I want to. And when I get to fuck that sweet little cunt, it'll be because I want to.”

I seriously hoped I was keeping my lust under control enough that he couldn’t smell it, because wow. It was excessive. Really excessive.

It didn’t help that the book I was halfway through featured a female main character with an over possessive fae king as her love interest. That shit wasn’t supposed to be sexy. I wasn’t supposed to like it.

But I was a sucker for it every time.

When the pain distracted me so much that I couldn’t focus on the book anymore, I stretched my foot out in front of me as far as it could go, wincing.

Wow.

Yeah.

That hurt.

Enzo lifted the console and patted his thigh.

He didn’t have to say a word.

I reluctantly turned, lifting my legs up onto his lap. He moved my feet a little, gently enough that it didn’t hurt. I unzipped my jacket and pulled it off, rolling it up so I could tuck it behind my back to ease the discomfort of resting against the door.

It wasn’t particularly safe as far as positions went, but werewolves were harder to kill than humans, and the roads were pretty much empty.

“Do you ever read?” I asked him.

“Sometimes.”

“What kind of books?”

“Action, mostly. Some fantasy.”

“What’s your favorite?”

“Spies. I’d kill to be a spy,” he admitted.

“You could never blend into a crowd of humans.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t dream.”

“So in another life, you’d be an average-sized human with a penchant for stealing government secrets?”

“Yup. Based on your books, you’d be a pint-sized human abducted by some kind of mafia kingpin.”

“Hey, sometimes they’re fae kings,” I tossed back.

The look he shot me was skeptical.

“Look.” I showed him the cover of the one I was reading. “ Dark & Beastly Fae . Hard not to say that’s a fae book. I read fantasy romance too, not just mafia. Though if you combined mafia and fantasy romance… You could make a lot of money.”

“Or no money.”

“Yeah. Might be a risk.”

“So what’s it about?”

“The book? Oh, this fae king is being hunted by a monster and has to steal a human girl with magic to hide himself. They’re in the process of falling in love. It’s fun.”

“Have they screwed yet?”

I sputtered out a laugh. “I never said it was steamy.”

“Your scent said that for you, Princess.”

So he could smell it when I was turned on.

Great.

“They’ve gotten close,” I said, my face hot.

“How close?”

“We are not talking about this.”

Especially not after what he’d said earlier.

“I’m spending your heat with you because I want to. And when I get to fuck that sweet little cunt, it'll be because I want to.”

Crap.

I was thinking about it again.

Enzo chuckled. It was the first time I’d heard actual humor from him, and it definitely caught me off guard. He didn’t push me for an answer, thankfully.

I tried to refocus on my book, and after a few minutes, managed to get lost in the story again.

It was 2 AM when we finally reached the cabin, and I was struggling hard to stay awake. My wolf loaned me her vision, letting me make out the cabin’s exterior despite the darkness. It was made of wood and massive windows, much bigger and nicer than I expected.

“I thought it was going to be a little run-down thing like Silas’s,” I mumbled, as Enzo opened my door and unbuckled my seatbelt for me.

“I wouldn’t make you spend heat in a shack.”

“Apparently not.”

He pulled me into his arms, not bothering to put my feet on the ground as he carried me into the cabin. He typed a code into the door to unlock it, and the doorway was tall enough that he didn’t have to duck his head.

The air was so cold that if not for my wolf, I would’ve been shivering. All I had on was my spandex shorts and sports bra, and we’d gone much higher into the mountains.

Thankfully, I was only a little bit chilly.

Enzo carried me into the building and to a large bedroom. It smelled faintly of him, and a little of dust. He tucked me under the blankets on a large bed, and smoothed a hand lightly over my hair. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I mumbled agreement, snuggling into the blankets so they would start warming up.

I dozed off while he was gone, stirring a little when he came back. His shirt was off when he slid under the blankets with me, and I rolled on top of him immediately, seeking his warmth.

He eased my ankle into a comfortable place with one hand while he pulled me closer with the other. I fell back asleep wrapped in his arms and wondering why I was against mating with such a yummy wolf king at all. The characters in my books never seemed to regret it.

I woke up with one giant hand splayed over my ass, the other one on my thigh. The sun was bright as it filtered in through the windows, and I peeled my face off of Enzo’s chest so I could see through them.

The forest around us was gorgeous, and my wolf stirred immediately, wanting to explore.

I rubbed the center of my chest lightly.

Exploring would have to wait until my foot was all the way better.

“How’s your ankle?” Enzo asked. For once, he looked just as tired as I was.

“Still fine, Alpha.”

His fingers dragged lightly over my backside, making my hips rock the tiniest bit. His erection was pinned against my inner thigh, so I felt it respond to the motion. His chest rumbled in warning, but we both knew there was no real heat behind it. He wasn’t going to do anything. Not to me.

His lips brushed my cheek as he kissed me there, lightly. “I’m taking you to breakfast.”

My eyebrows lifted. “I thought you were holding me captive.”

“I’ve told you repeatedly, the door is unlocked.”

“An unlocked door doesn’t mean much when I don’t have money, a vehicle, or a guarantee that you’re not going to come after me.”

“You could get the first two things from my office, down the hall from our room.” He sat up, pulling me with him. “The third is never going to happen.”

“What good will it do me to leave if you’re going to track me down?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know why you’d want to. I provide everything you need.”

“Other than freedom. And a job. And my own money. And my own bathroom supplies.”

He made a noncommittal noise. “The bathroom stuff in your cabin at Creek smelled awful. I tried to find an unscented version of the same ones, but they don’t have it. Mine works.”

“My hair feels like straw. It definitely doesn’t.”

His forehead creased, and he lifted a hand to my bun, which had many pieces falling out around my face. “Feels fine to me.”

I scowled, climbing off his lap. I stumbled on my way, and he caught me by the waist before my injured foot could crash against the wood floor.

“Easy, Princess.”

“Thanks.” I slipped his hands off my waist, and he reluctantly let me go.

My bag was on the floor next to a door that stood open. I pulled the flap up to find my clothes, and frowned when I realized they were gone. The ones I’d packed for him were still in the bag, but mine were missing.

“They’re in the closet,” Enzo said.

It seemed to be the room right in front of me, so I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Oh.

Enzo had even more clothes in his cabin than he did at the Lodge.

“I keep clothes here so I don’t have to carry them back and forth,” he said, stepping into the closet behind me. His cock was hard, tenting his sweats, but neither of us brought that up. “I used to come up every month to get away, but only manage it once a year lately.”

“How many years is lately?”

“A decade or so.”

Wow.

I had never really considered what the near-immortality of a werewolf would mean for me. I’d known a few men in the pack who had lived through losing a human mate, staying with them through the woman’s entire life, but they were all… sad.

Mentally tortured.

Scarred, inwardly.

I’d been lonely ever since my heat began and destroyed my family, but that was an entirely different kind of pain. To choose someone, have kids with them, and watch them grow old and die while you stayed the same age. To watch your daughters grow older than you.

I couldn’t do it.

And most werewolf men had no real choice. They could choose that, or they could stay alone. Forever.

He grabbed a pair of jeans off a shelf, and my eyebrows lifted.

Since when did he wear jeans?

A real t-shirt followed. And, after a moment’s pause, a pair of underwear.

Who was this man, and what had he done with the Alpha?

“Are we meeting your girlfriend or something?” I asked, skeptical.

“I don’t have a girlfriend, Princess. Just a mate.” There was a growl in his voice that told me his wolf did not like that suggestion.

“Then why are you dressing up?”

“Jeans aren’t dress clothes.”

“For you, they are.”

He scowled and stepped out of the closet. I wanted to follow him and bug him about it more, but decided against it.

There was no point in making him angry before we went to breakfast. The last time I’d eaten out was probably two years ago, with Fletcher. We’d been out all day dealing with a fallen tree that was in the middle of a dirt road a long way from the pack’s land. It was a three-hour drive on the roads, and another hour down a dirt road, but there were a bunch of vacation homes there that some pack had built to make some money on the side. The vacationers were trapped there, and we were the forest service, so they’d called us.

We probably could’ve made the other pack deal with it, but it had sounded like fun. So, we went.

By the time we got back to Crimson River, it was late and we were starving, so we stopped at one of the bars in town and spent a few hours there. Fletcher had slipped away with a groupie, leaving me alone for half an hour, and a cute werewolf guy had flirted with me.

I knew I couldn’t go home with him. I couldn’t hook up with anyone who had a good nose. They could probably figure out what I was. Which meant werewolves had been off limits.

But it had been fun to flirt anyway. Fun to feel attractive.

Since Enzo was dressing up, I put one of my new, nicer sweaters on with my leggings. It was a fuzzy, off-the-shoulder piece that was literally just the expensive version of one I had owned and doused in perfume, so I knew I loved it before I even put it on. It was white, so it made my hair look darker and my eyes look bluer.

Made my highlights look yellower, too, but I ignored that bit.

It would be nice not to have to follow the humans’ trends to fit in anymore.

I’d add that to my mental list of the things I liked about having been abducted by the Alpha. Even if I couldn’t actually acknowledge that list aloud.

I stepped into the bathroom to fix my bun while Enzo headed into the other room for something. I found him talking to someone on the phone quietly when I made it into the living room, and looked around with raised eyebrows.

It was big.

Comfortable

Expensive.

There was a massive kitchen, a large dining table, and the world’s biggest couch. Bookshelves dotted the walls in various places, all of them packed full of books.

I walked over to one of them and dragged a finger over the spines, reading the titles and series names.

Lord of the Rings.

Eragon.

Game of Thrones.

Wheel of Time.

He had said he liked fantasy books. There was my proof.

I pulled one out and flipped through the pages. The easy way it opened told me it had been read more than once.

I heard Enzo end the call, and his hands were on my waist a moment later. “How’s the girlfriend?” I asked, only half teasing.

“My brother is fine.”

“If it was one of them, they would’ve mind-linked you. Everyone knows not to contact you over phone.”

When the doctor had asked for my blood again, I told him to text Enzo about it. He’d responded that no one called or texted the Alpha except me. The mind-link was for everyone else, and they had to go through Clay and Hunter to avoid causing him pain.

Mostly, I think he just wanted me to say yes so he could use the excuse that I told him he could take it. I still wasn’t entirely for or against it, so I couldn’t give him full permission, and I wasn’t going to risk the small amount of freedom I had by pissing Enzo off.

“Usually. But before I left, I told everyone to stay out of my head until I was back. My brothers asked me to leave my phone on.”

He lifted it in front of me, holding up his phone so I could see every call he’d received recently.

The only names on it were his brothers’, and there were no unknown phone numbers.

He maneuvered to his text messages, and once again showed me that the only conversations he had were with me, his brothers, and…

“Fletcher? You texted Fletcher?”

“I told you I got information about you from him.”

Right.

The chocolate.

I didn’t even want to know what else they’d said about me. Or how pissed Fletcher was after the conversation. He hadn’t even mentioned it to me, which stung.

He put his phone in his pocket and lowered his lips to my ear. His hands were still on my hips, his thumbs dragging lightly over my lower back. “You are the only female I want, Princess.” His lips brushed my bare shoulder with a quick kiss. “I don’t even have time for our relationship. Another one is out of the question.”

That was a good point. He spent a lot of his time with me, and I knew he spent the rest of it with his pack or hunting rogues. He definitely hadn’t been in anyone else’s bed at night, or making food for them.

I had no idea why I was jealous in the first place.

It wasn’t like I really wanted him.

He was just… acting weird.

I’d blame it on that.

He released my hips and took my hand. When his fingers laced through mine, my throat swelled.

What was he doing?

Why was he holding my hand?

He towed me back to his truck, walking slowly to give me time to make the trip in my boot. When we reached the vehicle, he lifted me into the passenger seat.

“You’re not acting normal,” I said, eyeing him as he turned the truck on.

“What’s normal for me?” he asked.

I guess I didn’t really know.

“Choking your packmates and breaking people’s bones for knowing me before you?” I suggested.

He snorted. “Sure, Princess. If you want to pretend that’s all there is to me, go ahead.”