Chapter 5
Nicky
I wake up more comfortable than I expected to be. I thought I was going to be twisted up in a whole pile of limbs because no matter how tidily we try to go to sleep, everyone spreads out and stretches once they get really comfortable.
To my surprise, I don’t feel sticky polyester pajamas being all tacked to my skin, or my leg trapped under someone’s head. Instead, I feel cool and smooth sheets.
That’s weird. I’m sure I didn’t get the bed. I was going to take the couch, but then I decided to go with the cushions on the floor because they were actually more comfortable in the end.
The first moments of being awake are so odd, I muse. I take a deep breath, and feel a tremor of uncertainty run through me. This does not smell like my pack. This smells like…
“Morning, sweetheart.”
A deep voice rumbles as my eyes fly open.
“The fuck!” I shriek as I look across at the other inhabitant of the bed. It’s Rex. He’s naked. His chest is bare and bulging, his hair is falling in a silken curtain around his head, and his bright blue eyes are fixed on me while his strong features turn to a broad and triumphant smile.
“Easy,” he says, reaching out to put his big hand on my stomach. “I thought you’d be more comfortable sleeping in this bed rather than curled up on the floor like a pet dog.”
“How did you get me here?” My voice is high and pitchy as I screech the question.
“I came and I got you,” he says.
“How?”
“It was not that difficult. Your pack sleep deeply when they are in the presence of an alpha. My scent was effectively a sedative for them. They’re all very stressed. But nobody is as stressed as you.”
“I’m not stressed. I mean, I wasn’t. I am now. Because you’ve fucking kidnapped me, you psycho. You better not have touched me…”
“Relax,” he laughs, standing up from the bed. He is completely fucking naked, and I forget what the end of my sentence was going to be.
“I want you awake when I claim you,” he says, looking down at me from his impressive height with his incredible, uh, physique on full show. I stare at him. Every part is more impressive than the next, and the part of him that is unique to a man is particularly… wow.
He has thick thighs and a thicker…
“That…” I stop myself from talking because I am about to ask a question that will make me sound like a naive virgin.
Which I am. What I want to ask is how does that go inside anyone?
If I am not very much mistaken, it is getting bigger the longer I look at him and, well, it.
I try not to stare, but as much as my eyes range and roam his body, it feels like they just get drawn back to the thick dark thatch at the apex of his thighs and the monster that resides there.
* * *
Rex
She’s adorable. Blushing profusely with the blankets held up to her chin and a wide-eyed expression that is more flattering than a thousand compliments ever could be.
“Have you not seen a man without his clothes before?”
“Uh, yeah, I don’t know. Maybe?” she stammers.
“I sleep naked,” I explain. “I did remove your clothes because someone had dropped half a bottle of Midori on them. But I replaced them with something similar for your modesty.”
She looks down under the blankets, then looks up, blushing again. I managed to find her some pajamas here. They are pink and two piece, so not quite the baby bear onesie style she had on originally, but they serve the purpose.
“Cute,” I say.
“This is not what I would have chosen to wear to bed the first time I went to bed with you,” she mutters to herself, revealing that she had already accepted she would one day be in bed with me.
I did not expect to be so charmed. The first time we met she was rather charmless and artless. This time she is, well, I suppose she is being more herself without the bravado. Hard to keep up pretense of being a bad ass when you’re sitting in a man’s bed wearing pink pjs.
“Why did you take me?”
“Why did you think I took you?”
“Why don’t you just answer my question?” she whines, running her hand through her hair in a way that suggests she probably has a headache.
Some men drug women and carry them off. My mate took care of the drugging part herself.
Not that I would ever sedate her against her will.
I like her aware of everything that is happening to her. I want her sensitive to it.
“I took you because you belong to me, and because I wanted to finish what I started with you. Unfortunately, by the time I found you, you were in no position to do anything.”
“I need toast,” she says. “And something else to wear. And a shower. And coffee.”
I smile and pull on a pair of pants.
“You’re getting dressed?” She sounds slightly distressed by losing her view of my cock, and everything else besides.
“Fescue prefers not to encounter me nude.”
“You talk about him as if he’s the leader of this pack.”
“I talk about him as if he’s the one who runs the household, which he is. The first thing any good leader needs to learn is how to delegate.”
“Do you have a little bell to summon him?”
I laugh at that, imagining what Fescue’s response to being called with a little jangling bell would be.
I press the button that turns on a light in his private study. In that room there is a map of the house. A corresponding light will light up representing my room, so he knows where to come.
“He won’t be a moment,” I say.
Less than two moments later, Fescue comes sweeping in. His first action is to hurl the curtains apart and heave the windows open, as if the stale air in the room is offensive to him. I am sure it is. I enjoy the scent of my mate, but there is no doubt she also smells like a party in a vape factory.
“How can I help you, sir?” he says, standing by the window, clearly endeavoring to breathe in only the fresh air coming from the outside. His expression indicates he is not succeeding in this endeavor.
“Some alternate clothing for the lady, some coffee and some toast, please, Fescue.”
“And for you, sir? A shirt, perhaps?”
I hear Nicky snort with laughter. “I like him,” she says. “You’re right. I’m glad you delegated your authority to this guy.”
Fescue looks faintly scandalized. “What manner of clothing would the young lady… never mind. I will find something suitable.”
* * *
Nicky
And that is how we end up breakfasting on the balcony. I am wearing a light blue sundress with an A-line skirt that billows whenever I try to walk about, as if there’s a constant unseen breeze blowing specifically for me. It’s very dramatic. It’s not my usual style, but I do quite like it.
“Where did he find a dress to fit me so quickly?”
“He sent out to our tailors and dressers,” Rex explains. “They are more or less on standby for the pack. Fescue finds it distressing if anybody is dressed inappropriately.”
We can look out over almost the whole city here. We are at least twenty stories up, much higher than the loft I went to sleep in last night. Of course Rex has the best of everything, including an incredible height to fall from if anything were to happen to the balcony.
I don’t know what it is about very tall buildings that give me almost endless intrusive thoughts, but I don’t know that anybody should ever be up this high unless they’re in an airplane and then they shouldn’t be in a plane either.
I try not to show that being all the way up here is making me feel faintly ill. Besides, it could be the alcohol that did it. A bird flies past, because of course it does. We are at the same level sparrows soar.
“Once I mate you, all this silliness will be over,” he says.
“What?”
“This silliness with your little rebel splinter pack. It’s time you all came home.”
“We are home,” I say, immediately defensive of course. He really doesn’t take us seriously. I guess given he has walked into the heart of our pack twice now and done what he wanted, he probably doesn’t. “We are our own home.”
He gives me an indulgent look.
“I am sure you think that,” he says. “But the truth of the matter is, you are not equipped to lead a pack, and they need a firmer hand than someone like you is ever going to provide.”
He stands up next to me, about a foot away from my chair and looks down at me. He is so fucking handsome. I can feel my body reacting to him with that infernal chemistry that is so much worse than hating him.
He could have fucked me when I was in his bed. I could have woken up being mated. He could have ripped the choice from me, and he didn’t, and that’s almost worse because it tells me he knows how inevitable this is. We’re going to fuck, and he’s going to make me submit to his cock.
I know all of that without him having said a single word to me about it. He takes a step back and crooks his finger at me.
“Kneel for me,” he murmurs, his voice deep and dominant.
“Why?”
“Why is not the response I want from you when I give you an order,” he says. “Yes, sir is what I’m looking for.”
“You’ll be looking for it for a long time,” I say.
He lifts a brow at me and gives me a look long enough to make me squirm beneath it. Once he sees my discomfort, he smirks. He knows what he does to me. He knows I am awed and aroused. He knows that I want him to take me.
“I will give you three choices,” he says. “You can kneel for me here, or you can go and bend over the bed and present yourself, or we can start our life together the way you probably need us to—with me spanking your hot little ass until you’re so desperate for my cock you beg for it.”
“I am never going to beg you for anything,” I say, knowing even as I say it that those words are going to come back and bite me as ironic foreshadowing.
He smirks at me. “You are going to be so fun to tame,” he says. “And all of your little friends, too. I’m going to break all of you. I’m going to teach you how to behave. And it all starts with you, in this room, asking me nicely for my cock once I’ve turned your sassy ass red.”