Page 55 of Fated to the Alpha

Turn back. We need her. Go back.

He growled at himself and came to a stop. Everything stacked against him and logical thought soared out the window. He couldn’t bear it, and his wolf would likely give him no peace, maybe even refuse to shift at all.

Shane finally pivoted on his heels, and took off like a shot, employing his inhuman shifter speed to carry him down the path, no longer encumbered by whatever mysterious force held him back. He leaped back into his truck and his tires kicked up showers of dirt as they struggled for traction to get back on the road to Kimberly.

He maintained almost ten miles over the inner-city speed limit, begging for unending green lights at every intersection. He didn’t want to waste a single second outside of Kimberly’s embrace.

It was senseless. Pure need and instinct changed his plans so compellingly as if being alpha meant nothing to him anymore. If his father were in the back seat, he would have rebuked him every mile.

She’s just a woman. She doesn’t come before the pack. You are alpha. She is nobody. Worthless. A liability. She will be your downfall, nothing more than a distraction. Don’t be so weak and stupid.

Shane’s strength and sanity returned the closer he came to the hotel, and he finally felt strong enough to fight back against his father’s influences from beyond the grave.

Alone in his truck, he let out a beastly roar to overwhelm the noise in his head, to drown out Isaac’s voice. This was his life, his choice. And tonight, for better or worse, he chose Kimberly.

*

Kimberly stepped into the cool hotel room, emerging from a cloud of mist from the bathroom, her naked, damp body wrapped in a plush white towel. One upside to short hair was that it dried incredibly quickly.

She hated that she had to turn down Shane’s invitation to shift and run. She remembered how much fun they had as teens, running across open farmland and playing in patches of woods as wolves.

That sort of fun sounded perfectly cathartic, but her wolf was still pretty quiet and mostly dormant. All the time spent with Shane was definitely improving her chances of a full recovery, but she didn’t want to take the risk and push her wolf too much just yet. They were both empowered and a failed shift would not help her confidence.

She told herself that she would tell Shane about that extra flaw soon. She knew better than to keep another secret from him, but part of her hoped she could fix it on her own before anyone else had to find out.

Yet, she knew the moment he left the building. It was as if a piece of her became pulled thin. She acutely felt the absence of his masculine presence. It made the room feel bigger, more vacant, and her smaller and hollow.

All day, she tried to convince herself that this trip didn’t mean what Shane thought it meant. After their talk in the diner, Kimberly fought the doubt and anxiety that this thing between them was getting too serious. All the feelings she was catching for Shane pounded away at her shores, chipping away at the lie that this was nothing more than two friends reuniting, a brief affair with an old flame that she could douse anytime. She couldn’t allow herself to believe this was anything more than it really was, or she was likely to make a terrible mistake in leaving Gage’s pack.

But at that moment, that pull to be with him and the aching loneliness deep in her chest all ate away at that lie. It had once been a life raft keeping her afloat through the waves of emotions she wanted to deny since she first laid eyes on him. Now, it was little more than a splinter that dug itself deeper and deeper into her flesh. Every tender look, every little brush of the hand, or quick kiss hurt all the more. The more comfortable they became with one another, the more certain she was that her heart would be obliterated when he left Tolstone.

Kimberly stood just outside the bathroom door and looked at the neatly made bed and her luggage on the floor. It was a standard hotel room with a queen bed, two nightstands, a dresser, and a television mounted to the wall. Somehow, it felt more like a prison with a view of the city that would become Shane’s new home … without her.

As if to chase away that hopeless thought, Kimberly sensed Shane’s return. It wasn’t in a sound, a smell, or any other tangible clue, but in a visceral sensation in her soul. He was close again, maybe somewhere in the hotel.

It spurred her into motion. Maybe she could go to him, and the numbness would go away, just for a while. She managed to slip on a loose pair of pajama pants and socks before a heavy, rapid knock rattled her door. Heedless that she was still in a towel, Kimberly rushed to answer Shane’s call.

He stood before her, hands braced against the door frame and looming in the opening with a hungry, desperate gleam in his eyes.

He smelled of tangy sweat, forest soil, and the crisp night air. He smelled like a true and proud wolf shifter. He smelled like an alpha, and her spirit came alive under his stare. Despite all her stormy thoughts, she realized that she needed him. As painful as it was, she needed him in every sense of the word.

“Tell me to go away,” Shane growled in a low, dangerous voice. “Tell me to go back to the woods, that you don’t want me here. Because that’s the only way I’ll walk away from this door.”

She couldn’t. Keenly aware of her partial nakedness, the relief upon being with him again, and the way her body responded to his scent, Kimberly only opened the door wider, welcoming him inside without a word.

Faster than a blink, Shane was in her hotel room, the door shut and bolted. In an instant, his hands were on her. He captured her against him, giving in to that desperation.

Her arms rose to hang around his neck without a single thought, and his mouth descended upon hers with force. Lips moved, wild and reckless as the kiss deepened. All rationality left her, and Shane pinned her to the wall.

Shane broke away for only a second, his breath coming out in bursts as if he had just run a dozen miles at a full sprint. “Stop me whenever you don’t feel comfortable, and I will. No questions. No explanations.”

Kimberly only had enough sense to nod, then pulled him down to resume their kiss with a hunger she didn’t know she was capable of. It was as if the pain of their past, the loneliness of her present, and the dread for their future amalgamated into a fiery lust that only he could satiate. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed except them, this room, and this moment.

Shane must have taken that as a sign to plunge ahead. He gripped the towel and pulled it from her body. The slow drag of fabric from her chest made a shock of anxious need pierce her core. The towel dropped in a puddle beside her, leaving her bare from shoulder to hips.

Instead of letting his eyes feast upon her nudity, Shane let his hands paint the picture of her body. He found that spot on her ribs that made her shiver and gasp, a spot no man had touched in ten years, a spot he had discovered when they were teenagers. Roaming down the slope of her spine to her sides, he explored and teased the tender spots he must have remembered from their dating days. They had never gone this far before. She had never been this naked with him before. Every passing second was a new experience, forging new memories.

When his hands cupped her breasts, Kimberly let out a moan that allowed Shane’s tongue to slip between her lips. His thumbs circled her nipples, coaxing them into hard peaks.