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My wolf starts to whine, and I clamp down on him, refusing to give in to panic. Stay in control. She just needs to know more, that’s all. “BMI is a company and also a wolf pack. I’m the head of both—as President and CEO of the company, and Alpha of the pack. My wolf has been acting up, more like a rabid dog, and my pack assumed that it was because I hadn’t found my mate yet—we usually can identify them by scent. So Cairns decided to try to find a mate for me, and somehow he lucked into you and persuaded your parents to bring you to BMI.”
Bellamy’s eyes are glistening, and her mouth is drawn tight. Despite my best efforts, dread is starting to claw into me, and my wolf won’t stop whining and scrabbling. “So there never was an admin job, was there? My parents just sold me to you, the fuckers.”
“I don’t know the details, but essentially, yes.” She winces, and I hastily add, “You’re not a prisoner here—if you hadn’t wanted to stay, no one would have forced you to.”
“But that was before, right? Before you discovered I’m your mate?” She looks at me straight in the eyes. “If I want to, am I still free to leave?”
I stare at her. No! I want to scream. You’re mine, and you’ll stay mine forever. I’ll never let you go. The wolf howls his agreement. Mate!
But even as I start to tell her, hell no, you’ll never leave me, I falter. I can smell her incipient terror, panic and pain clouding her scent, and knows she fears the beast after all. To have my mate fear and hate me will break me utterly. It already has. I have no choice.
“Yes. If you want to go, I won’t force you to stay.”
At my words she rises in a flash and scrambles out of the tub, stumbling in her haste to get away from me. She rushes into the bedroom, and I look away, pain already tearing at me.
No! howls the beast. She can’t leave! Go after her!
But I can’t. If she can’t bear to be with me, I have no right to force her to stay. A wolf only has one mate and will choose to die rather than to be separated from his mate. But I would rather die than know that she loathes and fears me. I close my eyes against the sight of her leaving me forever.
Chapter Nine
Her
“Wolf? Alpha? Marriage?” I sputter as I race around looking for my clothes. My skirt and torn top are on a coffee table. My shoes are near the doorway. I can’t find my panties. I drop to my knees and find the pair tangled around a chair leg.
I jerk the underwear on, only to have them fall right off. In dismay, I snatch the cotton off the floor. Holding the pair up, I realize that the sides are totally shredded and my single pair of good underwear has been ruined.
Tears prick my eyes. I collapse on the bed and press the heels of my hands against my eye sockets. I feel overwhelmed. My internal circuits were blown out by the sex I just had, and then the world as I knew it was lifted and shaken like a glass globe. Instead of snowflakes falling around me, my beliefs and understandings of how things work are raining down on my head.
The easiest thing to do would be to leave. But if I’m being honest with myself, do I really want to? If I leave, I’ll lose Garrett. I don’t know if I’m ready for that. On the other hand, am I prepared for the alternative, which is becoming a wolf, mating with a man I just met, leaving the life I’ve been—
What life? The one where I have no job? Where I have parents that are so selfish and awful that they sold me to strangers? Where my so-called friends are there only when I’m flush and abandon me when I’m not available to help them?
I was empty before, and here I’m offered something more. And I’m not referring to Garrett’s giant package or the mind-blowing sex we just had. Staying gives me a family I’ve always wanted, friendship that I’ve longed for, and a partner I never dreamed I could have. A partner who’s made me feel more in a day than I ever felt in my entire life before, and that’s no exaggeration.
The thoughts settle on the ground, watering the longing I’ve felt for something magical to happen to me again since I first saw that fairy. That long-ago fairy who turned out to have been real and not something I imagined and now will change my life completely with just one wish…
It’s too soon to fall in love, I tell myself. And though fairies may be real, life still isn’t a fairy tale. You can’t fall in love in a day. Sure, there’s this thing called love at first sight, but that’s what girls tell themselves to make sleeping with a guy right after meeting them okay.
But…what if it is love? Maybe I was upside down in the globe before and Garrett is setting me upright.
I’ve always been accused of being a dreamer—by my parents, by teachers, by friends—but now, I’ve been given the chance to make my dreams come true. I just need to be brave enough to do it.
I stand up, testing my legs. They’re surprisingly strong. I blink my eyes. The tears are gone. I press a hand over my chest. My heartbeat thuds steadily.
A cough at the door grabs my attention. I look up to see Garrett staring at me.
“Still here?” His golden eyes are shuttered, but there’s a vulnerability in his expression that I’ve never seen on a man’s face before—as if the answer to this question is the most important one he’ll ever hear.
When he said before that I could go, I knew instinctively that he was lying. My entire being strains toward his. I take a step forward. “I’ve been considering your offer.”
He nods briskly. “About that. I wanted you to know that the admin position is yours regardless of what you decide to do with the rest of it. And I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you need.” Beside his thighs, his fists clench and unclench. He doesn’t like the idea of leaving me alone, but I adore him for giving me that space.
It’s space I don’t need now that I’ve made my decision. I press my lips together to hide a smile. His noble gesture is so adorable. “I’m afraid I don’t like the terms of that deal.”
“Write up the terms that you want. I’ll agree to them,” he says hoarsely. “So long as you are here. That is my only requirement.”
I take another step forward. “I’m greedy. I want more.”
His eyes widen. “I’m ready to negotiate.”
“I’d like—”
Before I can move another inch toward him, he has me swept up in his arms. He tosses me on the bed and follows me down. “You were saying?”
I palm his face. The stubble on his chin feels delightfully rough against my fingers. I squirm slightly as I remember how the abrasion felt between my legs. From the hungry look on his face, I suspect I won’t have to rely on memory for much longer. He’s ready to devour me.
“I want it all. You, the pack, the job.” I reach between us to palm his hot shaft. “Your wolf.”
He bares his teeth in triumph and then sinks them into my collarbone. “You get it all,” he says. “You will get it all and more.”
His fingers part me, shoving inside my wet core. His mouth latches on to one nipple, drawing hard enough that I feel the suck all the way to my pussy. I spread my legs wider, wanting more of his touch, his kiss, his love.
And he doesn’t hold back. His fingers fuck me fiercely as he tongues one taut bud and then the other.
“You’re perfect, Belle,” he groans against my breasts. “Perfect for me. I lied when I said you could go. I wouldn’t be able to let you go. Even if I were without my wolf, I’d chase you to the ends of the earth and make you mine.”
They’re words that I shouldn’t want to hear. They’re archaic sentiments of ownership and possession, but they thrill me. In their own way, the words reveal the intensity of his desire, the capaciousness of his need.
The urge to claim him back swamps me. I tug on his hair until his face is above mine. “You’re mine now, too. There can’t be anyone else.”
He smiles ferally. “There was never anyone in my life but you.”
He takes my mouth, eating my lips, kissing me until there’s no breath inside and then giving me back the air I need. I rub my breasts against his chest, and he growls into my
mouth, and I know he’s about to sink that massive cock in me again. But before he does, I need to put my mark on him as well—and torment him just a little. I nearly giggle—whaddya know, payback really is a bitch.
I break off the kiss, and before he can protest I slither my way down his body, lips following that yummy treasure trail to the real prize below. Garrett realizes my destination and sinks back on his elbows with a moan, parting his tree trunk thighs to allow me room to settle in between.
Before I get to the main event, though, I nip him quickly on his inner thigh, enough to leave a mark. Not hearing a reaction from him, I look up to find him looking amused. “You’re going to have to bite me a lot harder than that if you want to punish me.”
I huff. “That wasn’t punishment, you ass, I was marking you!”
