9. Orion
CHAPTER 9
Orion
W e ate dinner together before Lycan busted out a bottle of whiskey he’d been keeping for special occasions.
“It’s Friday night,” he said, lining up shot glasses before pouring the liquor to the brim of each and placing them down in front of us. “And since Princess can’t drive anywhere, there are no limits on how much we can drink.”
Isolde laughed, and I focused on the way her smile lit up the rest of her face, erasing the damage she’d done to herself over this week.
“Just one rule,” Poe said, raising an eyebrow at me. “We don’t play for money.”
“Pfft.” Lycan sat back in his seat before lifting the shot glass over the table. “This is the Fiver. Money’s no good here.”
“Then, what are we betting?” Isolde said, holding hers up as well.
We clinked them together while Lycan said, “Clothes,” and I swallowed mine.
Isolde gasped and choked, her cheeks turning bright red as she coughed and tried to clear her throat.
“Think of something else,” I growled, shaking my head as I turned my shot glass upside down in the middle of the table. Poe shuffled the cards and Lycan let out a howl at the shock on Isolde’s face.
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “It just surprised me, that’s all.”
“Lycan wants everyone to be naked all the time.” Poe shook his head and rolled his eyes at our would-be prankster.
“It’s the natural state of being,” Lycan said, winking at Isolde. “Clothes are so confining. Besides, it ups the ante.”
Isolde shrugged and smiled wider. “Sure. I’m in.”
“I knew I liked you.” Lycan slammed his hand on the table with a loud hoot. “Poe?”
“Fine, fine,” Poe said. “I can never resist you.”
“That’s why we get along so well. Ry?” Lycan glanced at me with those cool blue eyes, and I stared at him, reaching out through the pack bonds. When I found nothing nefarious, just him being playful and unruly, I ran a hand over my face and remembered what Kodiak said about not touching her.
But perhaps the one shot of whiskey had already gone to my head because I just sighed and said, “What the hell.”
“Fuck yeah!” Lycan flipped our shot glasses over and poured another round while Poe dealt the first hand. “To crossing enemy lines.”
I took a deep breath and shot my liquor back, reminding myself not to get too tipsy. Isolde was a Vanderbilt, and I could not repeat that amazing kiss in the bathroom. Could not. Would not. Even if her family hadn’t been able to get up here to pick her up these last few days, eventually she would go home. Anything she learned here could be used against us, and I’d be damned if I let that happen on my watch.
A few rounds later, I sat in my gray sweatpants and my black T-shirt, waiting for Poe to put in his final bet. I’d lost my socks and my hoodie, but the liquor coursing through my veins, combined with the naturally higher body temperature of being a werewolf, kept me warm.
“Read ’em and weep, suckers!” Isolde laughed while she flipped over two queens, completing a full house based on the cards in the middle of the table.
“Man!” Lycan threw down his hand and stood to take off his jeans.
Poe groaned and shook his head, fiddling with the waistband on his gym shorts so he could do the same.
I smirked and narrowed my gaze at her, raising an eyebrow when I flipped my cards over to reveal a four of a kind, beating her full house.
“Sorry, Princess,” I said with a grin. “Guess I’m gonna need those pants off you, too.”
“Ohh!” Lycan laughed and grabbed the half-empty whiskey bottle, pouring us another round. I bit my bottom lip and leaned back in the chair while she gaped at how the situation had unfolded.
“Fine,” she said, standing so she could pull on the drawstring holding my sweatpants around her hips. My heart raced as she yanked it free and shoved them to the ground, leaving her standing in nothing but my oversize white T-shirt. Her nipples pebbled through the material, and her thick, tangy scent permeated the space between us, drawing my wolf to the surface. He panted and pawed at my self-control, begging me to tug her into my lap so I could bury my nose in her neck and take. “ But just so you know, I only had one pair of panties when I got here, and I threw them in the wash after working in the barn today, so…”
She let that dangle there while she sat down and grabbed her shot, slinging it back like she had the same tolerance as the three of us. But I could tell by the flush in her cheeks and the heat radiating off her that the alcohol had taken its toll.
“You’ve been sitting here commando this whole time?” Lycan raised his eyebrows and threw his head back to let out a loud wolfish bellow, reminding me the full moon was only a few days away. “Isn’t your ass cold?”
She threw a teasing comment at Lycan that made both him and Poe burst into laughter, but I took a deep breath to calm the raging beast inside. He didn’t want the other two looking at her long, beautiful legs. He didn’t want her scent filling the small kitchen with such a delectable display of femininity. He wanted to save all of it for himself, just him, and the thought of that was so fucking foreign and outrageous that I had to clear my throat to shake the notion from my head.
“One more round?” she asked, her voice light and hopeful.
“One more,” Poe agreed. “I don’t have much more to bet, anyway.” Both he and Lycan sat in just their boxers, and if I wasn’t so damned secure in myself, I’d worry over the way she stared at the two of them. But they’d promised not to touch her, and they knew I’d tear their throats out if they tried.
Unless she makes a move first. Unless she’s interested in them.
I ignored those thoughts and the quick anger that followed while Poe dealt another round, and when I beat all three of them again, Poe and Lycan made identical groans of disappointment.
“You cheated!” Lycan shook his head and emptied the bottle into our shot glasses before tipping the glass over his mouth and swallowing down the last of it.
“I would never,” I said, pretending to be outraged by the accusation. “How dare you.”
“C’mon, Lycan,” Poe said, grabbing the blond brother by the back of his neck and pulling him in so their foreheads touched. “You never had a problem losing before.”
“That’s when I was losing to you.” Lycan bared his teeth at me before shoving to his feet and dropping his boxers to the ground. He stepped out of them, bent over to grab them, and threw them at me with an indignant guffaw.
I laughed and held my hand up to block them from hitting me in the face, but by the time I’d lowered them, he and Poe had taken off bare-assed through the house and out the front door, chuckling and shouting out into the night.
Isolde sipped her whiskey, watching the two of them with a grin before glancing back at me with those mysterious emerald eyes. I’d never seen such a decadent shimmering color on a person before, and something shifted in my gut when her stare turned sinful.
“Where’d you learn to play poker?” I asked, leaning forward on my elbows, enjoying the pleasant buzz from the whiskey.
“I’m the second youngest of seven,” she explained. “If I didn’t learn to bluff, they would have eaten me alive.”
I grunted low in my chest, imagining a younger Isolde surrounded by her older siblings, dealing cards in that monstrosity of a mansion.
“Do you have any siblings?” she asked, taking another drink.
“No. I’m an only child.” I shook my head. “But Kodiak and the MC, they’re like brothers to me. P—” I cleared my throat and stopped myself before I said the word pack. I’d drank too much to toe that line, and even if Lycan suspected she might be one of us—a latent one of us—I wouldn’t break our most sacred vow before I knew for certain.
“Kodiak?” She raised her eyebrows and leaned in. “That’s the president, right?”
I nodded. “He’s in charge. It’s his ass on the line if something happens to you.”
She snorted and shook her head. “Nothing is going to happen to me. Not as long as I don’t take off into the woods again.”
Giving her my best wolf stare, I leaned in and whispered, “How can you be so sure?”
“I’ve met evil men,” she said, glancing down at the shot glass in her hands. “None of you are evil.”
That’s because she doesn’t know the real us. She doesn’t know the demons she’s dancing with.
“Like you said, if you were going to do something to me, you would have already done it.” She gave me a sheepish grin.
“Yet, here you sit, wearing nothing but a shirt.”
Her scent plumed at my words, growing more pungent and intoxicating, roping me to her, making me want to lean in farther and inhale it in one long pull.
“Well, that’s not exactly a bad thing, is it?” Her delicate pink tongue darted out and swiped over her lips, and I zeroed in on the movement, imagining what it might feel like traveling down my body. Her mouth was as soft as a cloud, as warm as heaven, and to caress it again…to have it on other parts of me…I’d bet she’d moan my name when she came. I’d bet I could?—
The front door burst open, revealing Lycan and Poe, sweaty and red-skinned and naked, with their arms slung over each other’s shoulders. In order to transform into our werewolf counterparts, we had to take our clothes off, so I’d seen it all before a thousand times. But Isolde carefully kept her gaze on her whiskey when they came into the kitchen and slid their boxers back on.
“Oh, c’mon, Princess!” Lycan put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “You’re still in your shirt? You didn’t even give him a peek at his winnings?”
Her cheeks flushed a deeper shade while she steadily avoided looking at me, but I heard the skip in her heart as her thighs clenched together. Ignoring the mental images that coasted through my brain at Lycan’s words, I stood instead and grabbed the empty whiskey bottle to toss it in the trash.
“I gave her a pass,” I said, “seeing as she doesn’t have a clean set of panties.”
Lycan shook his head, but the deep, husky sounds of a popular singer filled the night as Poe attached his phone to one of the speakers.
“Ly, come dance with me,” Poe whined, throwing his arms up over his head while he swayed to the beat.
Lycan raised his brows, a hopeful expression in his eyes, as he held out a hand to Isolde. “You coming, Princess?”
She stuck her tongue in her cheek and glanced at me with a question in her eyes, seeming to ask if she should. I nodded, and she shot back the rest of her whiskey before grabbing his palm and allowing Lycan to pull her to her feet. Isolde’s squeal of delight rang through me, and even though I should have put my foot down at the sight of those two hanging all over her, I liked seeing her smile. Poe pulled her in between him and Lycan, and mixed with the heat billowing off the fire, the whole scene vibrated with the warmth of pack…of home…of family.
Despite the lust between my fellow Bastards, they kept it relatively PG with her. I sensed that neither of them had anything untoward on their minds, just having a good time. Poe put his hands on her shoulders and pressed his forehead to hers, while Lycan held her hips from behind her, swaying back and forth to the music. When the beat picked up into something faster, they jumped up and down, shouting the lyrics at the top of their lungs. I leaned against the pillar separating the living room from the kitchen, sipping my whiskey and watching while they enjoyed themselves.
The familiarity between them should have startled me. It should have made me pause and question why the hell I felt so comfortable around her so quickly. It had only been a few days, barely a week, and this close to the moon, my wolf should have been on edge with a stranger so near our secrets.
But instead, it all seemed so domesticated…like she belonged with us and we belonged with her. Hell, her interaction with Nemesis was proof enough that she fit in. That horse didn’t even like Lycan, and he got along with almost every animal he met.
Something stirred in the back of my mind, my wolf begging me to take notice, but after the long day and the whiskey fever, I couldn’t figure out what it was. Isolde laughed and smiled, playing with Poe and Lycan while they hopped around. She was so damned gorgeous, from her ginger mane to the cute freckles across her nose to her womanly curves and her adorable little toes.
At the thought, I cleared my throat and straightened, telling myself it was time for bed. But Isolde turned and caught me, skipping over to close the distance between us.
“C’mon, Ry,” she said, grabbing my hands. Her skin radiated such fucking warmth, tantalizing me, and at the connection, a thrum of electricity shot up my arms and into my gut, clenching my muscles tight. “Dance with me.”
Lycan burst out laughing. “Ry doesn’t dance.”
“He’s right,” I said. “I don’t.”
“Make an exception?” She pouted, sticking out her lower lip and staring up with big green eyes. “For me?”
Fuck.
“Sure, Trust Fund. Only for you.” I let her pull me into the center of the living room, moving my shoulders back and forth while she interlaced her fingers in mine, a huge grin on her face. If I forced myself to forget who and what I was, I could disappear into this night forever. I could wrap my arms around her waist and put her hands on my shoulders and inhale her strawberry scent for the rest of my life.
Eventually, the rock ballad ended and something slower echoed through the living room. Inhibitions lowered and, sucked into this intimate moment with her, I damn near moaned as she slid her palms up my arms to my shoulders. I rested my hands on her hips and stepped closer, staring down at her hypnotizing eyes. Up close like this, I saw flecks of gold and honey mixed into their forest green depths. Lycan and Poe danced together a few feet away, but wrapped up in her, we could have been alone.
“You’re so beautiful,” she said, reaching up to run the back of her fingers along my cheek down into my beard.
It was the first time in my life anyone had called me that. Rugged, sure. Scary and silent, definitely. But beautiful?
I shook my head and bit back a laugh, staring down at our bare feet and the inches of space between us. Heat flared up my neck and into my cheeks.
“What?” she murmured, touching my chin to tilt my face back to hers. “Why are you laughing at me?”
“I’m not laughing at you,” I said. “No one’s ever said that about me before.”
“Well, everyone you’ve ever met is an idiot.” She bit her bottom lip, curling the ends of her mouth into a smile. My canines tingled and extended, and I had to physically stop myself from leaning down to sample her tender flesh for myself again. Kissing her in the bathroom yesterday had been a huge mistake, but this was pushing the extent of my restraint.
My wolf nudged me forward, begging me to taste her again, to take her, to make her mine in every way that mattered to a shifter. But I shoved him back, reminding him we’d all had a lot to drink and this closeness with her would disappear come morning.
Giggles echoed from Lycan and Poe when the song ended, and they disentangled themselves from each other as Lycan pulled Poe toward the steps, leading the younger brother upstairs. Their arousal thrummed through the pack bond, echoing toward me, sinking inside my veins. I took a deep breath and forced it back toward them, determined not to let it affect me. If I did, I’d make a really bad decision.
Isolde broke away from me and giggled, watching them disappear into their room with a soft click of the door closing behind them.
“Woo, I’m dizzy.” She rubbed at the space between her eyebrows and collapsed on the sofa, yanking the oversize T-shirt down to her knees.
“Do you want some water?” I headed to the kitchen to pour a glass anyway, no matter what she said. When I came back, she accepted it with a smile and took a sip, and I focused on her delicate throat muscles as she swallowed it down.
What I wouldn’t give to sink my teeth into that skin and claim her, to let everyone know that I had. I suppressed a groan and turned to the fire, adding another log before stoking it with the cast iron poker.
“Why do your eyes do that?” she said, narrowing her gaze on me when I stood and came back to the couch.
“Do what?” I swallowed, trying to play it cool like I didn’t know what she meant.
“Sometimes, you look at me, and your eyes—” She shook her head and took another sip of water, and I chided myself for being so reckless with my wolf. He’d been riding the surface extra hard since she’d showed up, not to mention the upcoming moon. “Never mind. I’ve had too much to drink.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re safe here.”
She smiled and sat her drink on the coffee table, crossing her legs as she turned to face me. “Thank you.”
“Of course, Isolde,” I said. “I’d never let anything hurt you.” I meant it. I couldn’t explain this strange attraction to her, other than to say she’d gotten under my skin faster than any person in my life before her.
“Do you really mean that?” She leaned her head to the side as she waited for my answer.
“Yes, I mean it.” It was true, and the blatant reality of that smacked me in the face. If I hadn’t had so much whiskey, I would have read more into it. If I hadn’t been lulled in by the warmth of her skin and the familiar ache of our closeness, I would have realized what this was at the start. But I didn’t, and I sat there like a schoolboy with a crush while she grinned at me.
“What did you want to be when you grew up?” she asked. “Did you always want to belong to a motorcycle club and work a ranch?”
I shrugged. “I was born into this life. I didn’t have much of a choice.” I told her about my parents, about how they’d been in the Royal Bastards before me, and how I always knew I’d end up here no matter what.
“Did you have a good relationship with them?”
She seemed genuinely curious, so in a rare display of vulnerability, I talked about them. I left out the parts about turning into a wolf and roaming the Montana countryside with my pack and anything to do with their deaths. “My parents were good to me. They loved me, and they loved our family.”
Her features fell, and despite not bringing it up, I could tell she’d been thinking about when I’d accused her father of killing them.
“It was the Scorpions, wasn’t it? He hired them to—to do it,” she said, her voice soft and tender. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want?—”
“It was,” I said with a somber nod. “We don’t know for sure that Uther had anything to do with it, but the Scorpions we captured afterward said they’d been hired by him as revenge.”
“The Scorpions aren’t good people,” she said, and the foul stench of regret and disappointment filled the space between us.
I almost told her they weren’t people at all, but again, I bit that back. I wasn’t sure what would happen once the weather cleared and her family came for her, but I knew that either way, she’d have to be mated to a Bastard before she could learn the truth about us. And since she was a Vanderbilt, that day would probably never come.
“I’m starting to think my father wasn’t, either.”
He wasn’t.
“What about you?” I asked, trying to draw her away from that depressing topic. “What did you want to be when you grew up?”
“I always knew I’d end up working for Vanderbilt Holdings,” she said, a spark of excitement replacing that fear in her expression. “I went to university to get my business degree, but if I had my way, I’d be a writer.” She laughed, but I didn’t like the thought of her being too entrapped in her family’s politics to do what she loved.
“You can still do that,” I said, reaching out to brush a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “You can be more than what your family wanted for you.”
She turned into the movement, brushing her cheek along my palm, keeping her gaze locked on mine. The touch sizzled up my arm and down the center of my chest, ending in a jerk right to my cock, the knot at the base pulsing in time with my heart.
“I feel so…different with you,” she murmured.
“What do you mean?” It was a stupid question because I understood exactly what she was saying. I was comfortable with her in a way I’d never been with anyone else, except for maybe Kodiak.
“You’re supposed to be my enemy,” she said, running her nose along the inside of my wrist, inhaling deep like she could smell the possession leaking out of me. “I’m supposed to hate you.”
“Do you?” I teased, surprised at the grin that stretched my lips.
“No,” she said, and the small word forced her mouth to brush across my skin. “Do you hate me?”
My stomach tightened and a zap of frenetic energy coasted down to my balls, urging me to lean her back against the couch and slot myself between her legs and take take take. But I shook it off, reducing it to primal instinct and nothing more.
“No,” I said, keeping my voice low. The moans and sounds of the thumping headboard upstairs hid our conversation well, but I still didn’t want the others to overhear. This moment was meant for us alone, and both me and my wolf yearned to keep it that way.
“If I said I wanted you to kiss me again, would you?” She chanced a tiny peck to my forearm, holding my stare while she did.
That sensation radiated everywhere all at once. I went still, debating my options. This wasn’t some adrenaline come down in a confined space. This was lust, pure and simple. I had wanted her in the bathroom yesterday, and I wanted her again here on the couch.
“I would love to kiss you, Isolde,” I said, “but we’ve both had a lot to drink.”
She laughed and nuzzled her face deeper into my hand, reaching up to lace her fingers between mine to hold it in place. “So?”
“So…you’ll regret it in the morning.”
“I didn’t regret it yesterday,” she whispered, detaching herself so she could stand. “Besides, I still owe you your winnings.”
What?
Before the word could leave my lips, she’d grabbed the edge of her shirt and yanked it over her head, revealing her beautiful naked skin, radiant in the firelight. The thick decadent scent of her arousal permeated the space between us as she moved in between the V of my legs, and I gripped the back of the couch to keep myself from touching her…ravaging her.
Instead, I stared. I traced the lines of her body from the shadows of her collarbones over her breasts and perfect pink nipples that I ached to suck. Her curved stomach gave way to a patch of hair between her thighs that begged to be spread and speared with my tongue. She had legs for days, and I wondered how soft and fleshy they would feel against my ears as she came over and over again in my mouth.
“Fuucckk,” I groaned, and she smiled, resting her hands on my shoulders so she could steady herself when she put her knees on either side of my hips and sat in my lap. Goddamn, her natural aroma was intoxicating, roping both me and the wolf into a trance. My canines dropped, throbbing in time with my racing pulse. It took every ounce of restraint I had not to grab her hips and rock her over my painfully hard dick, to grind her down on the most sensitive parts of me. And when she bucked her pelvis, bringing that fiery cunt in contact with the ache in my pants, I sucked in a breath, hissing between my teeth.
“Is this okay?” she asked.
“Yes.” The word came out hoarse and clipped, like I’d swallowed an entire beach’s worth of sand and forgotten how to speak. She ran her hands up my neck to my cheeks, holding them in place while she rolled against me, dragging that delicious pussy along my ridge, leaving a wet spot that I’d likely never wash out.
“Do you feel me?” She leaned in to brush her lips along my forehead and over my eyebrows.
“Yes,” I said again, this time lower and deeper in my chest. My hands trembled as I struggled to keep them in place, to not take control of the situation. I wanted to flip her over and force her to present her ass to me. I wanted to pin her down by the back of the neck and slot myself deep inside her, all the way to my knot, and pump until she smelled like me… only me. I wanted to wear her scent around like a perfume so all the other shifters would recognize that she owned every part of my soul and always would. But fuck, those were just drunk thoughts of a sex-deprived werewolf so close to the shift.
She continued her exploration down the side of my face, nipping at my beard and jaw before tucking her head into the space between my head and shoulder. I shuddered when she licked at my pulse point, my entire body tensing at the heat of her soft tongue dragging across my neck. I wondered what it would feel like on my stomach, on my dick, on the rest of my body.
“You’re shaking,” she murmured, leaning back so she could stare me in the eyes.
“You make me nervous,” I said, which was true. Kodiak said not to touch her, and though I’d already kissed her, the alpha’s orders ran deep in the magic in my bones. Even if I wanted to do it again, Kodiak would know, and he’d have my fucking ass for it. There was only one instance in which a wolf could disobey their alpha’s command, and it was when one’s mate was involved. That was an idea I didn’t want to consider while I was under the spell of her and whiskey and this sensual night between us.
“I think I like making you nervous,” she said, rubbing herself harder against me. My cock responded, springing into action as she trapped it between her cunt and my pelvis. Fuck, how I ached to pull the waistband down and bury myself deep inside her.
“Oh, yeah?” I canted my head to the side as she brought her tongue back to my throat, dragging it up my windpipe and over my chin, pausing at my mouth.
“Yeah,” she said. “Big, strong man like you afraid of little old me.”
“I didn’t say I was afraid,” I said with a laugh, which steadily turned into a moan when she rocked harder against me, and I clenched my eyes shut, my control teetering on the edge of something vast and destructive.
“If you’re not afraid of me, then what’s holding you back?” She brushed her nose against mine in a move that was entirely too adorable for the sexy vixen currently naked and straddling my lap.
“If I do this, Princess, there’s no undoing it,” I said, and she froze to blink up at me, her lips full and her cheeks flushed. “You’re drunk and I’m the enemy, remember?”
“I’ve done worse things when I’m drunk,” she said with a girlish giggle.
“Oh, I’m aware.” Like crashing her Range Rover into a tree and going home with a fucking Bastard.
“Fuck me, Ry,” she said, rocking harder against me, grinding her pussy into my lap, filling the air with that decadent aroma that made my mouth water. I wanted to devour her from head to toe and back again. I wanted to lap up everything she emitted, including her dripping cunt and the hormones emanating out of her neck and wrists. I had a passing thought that Lycan might have been right about her being latent, but it vanished when she murmured those words again. “Fuck me, Ry. Please. I want you to.”
God, forgive me.
I crashed my lips against hers and let the feral side win.