Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Nash
I’m grooming the horses at the end of the day when I catch a whiff of that honey scent.
Hollie.
“Hey,” she says, walking into the barn. “Mrs. J said you were out here seeing to the horses, and I thought I’d come give you a hand, if that’s okay.”
“Always appreciate any offer of help,” I tell her.
She smiles and goes to fetch a set of brushes, returning into the store and helping me with Bonnie.
“I don’t think I could ever get tired of this,” she says.
“No, me neither. I like it, especially at the end of the day. Kind of puts me at peace.”
“It’s mindful,” Hollie says.
“Yes, that’s it. Mindful,” I say, nodding my head.
“Is the job hard then – running a ranch?” she asks. “Is it stressful?”
“No. It’s freaking hard work, but most of the time it’s enjoyable. Obviously there are times when it’s tough – when we lose a calf, when one of the horses is injured – but the good times definitely outnumber the bad. And sometimes you have to go down through the lows to appreciate the highs.”
“I think you’re right,” Hollie says, dragging the brush over Bonnie’s rump and then stroking her hand over the smooth fur in a way that has me captivated. “Annie says you’re gonna be building a house.”
“Yeah. As soon as the spring comes, when the frost breaks and the snow melts. As soon as the ground is soft enough, we’re going to start.”
“Whereabouts are you going to build it?” she asks me.
“Next to our cabin. It’s the perfect spot. Best views of the mountains from there.”
“It sounds amazing,” she says.
And then I hear her shuffle on her feet. She wants to say something, but she’s nervous, and this causes me to look up at her face.
“Annie says you’re going to start a family.”
“In an ideal world,” I say, watching her expression. “Of course, we have to find the right woman first.”
She’s not meeting my eye.
“Oh,” she says breezily. “There isn’t a special girl at the moment then?”
“No.” I stop what I’m doing. I wait for her to flick her gaze to mine. “But I think there could be.”
“Clay kissed me,” she blurts out, which is not what I expected her to say.
My gaze automatically falls to her lips. Pink, plush, soft-looking.
“I don’t blame him. I’d love to kiss you too, Hollie.”
“You would?” she squeaks, her honey scent spiraling in the air – so sweet, so delicious.
“Very much so,” I tell her. “If you’d let me.”
“I’d let you,” she whispers, her pupils darkening.
I want to kiss her now, but there’s a horse between us. I walk round to the front of Bonnie, duck under her neck, and come to stand in front of Hollie. She peers up, her head tipping right back.
“Can I kiss you now?” I ask her.
“Will Clay mind?” she says a little shyly. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how it works with packs.”
“In packs we share. We share everything. Clay won’t mind me kissing you, Hollie, as long as it’s what you want.”
“It’s what I want,” she whispers.
I reach out and take a hold of her fingers in my hand, and for a moment I just stroke my thumb over her knuckles. Even just that simple gesture has everything in my body tingling, and I think it has the same effect on her too.
I take a step toward her, pulling her toward me as I do. She comes willingly into my arms and I wrap them around her waist.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you from the moment I met you, Hollie Bright,” I tell her.
“Because you’re a hopeless romantic and fall in love with every woman you meet,” she says, with a hint of a smile. She’s teasing me.
“No,” I say, deadly serious. “Because you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”
And then I lean down and I kiss her. And God, the woman tastes so sweet, I get a rush to the head. I groan, pulling her right up against me, feeling how soft and supple her body is against mine.
I kiss her like a girl ought to be kissed – deep, passionate, slow.
And she kisses me back, sighing into my mouth with such sweetness it has my knees almost buckling.
She reaches up, entwines her arms around my neck, and drags me down, kissing me with even more urgency. Beside us, the horse huffs and stomps her hooves, but we both ignore her, too wrapped up in each other.
I usually pride myself on being a gentleman, but Hollie Bright does things to me I can’t explain.
I can’t help myself. I slide my hands from her waist and take a grip of her fine ass, squeezing it between my palms. She gives a little whimper, and the next thing I know, I’m walking her backwards until she hits the stable wall, and I’m grinding into her as I kiss her needy mouth, my tongue brushing up against hers.
And to my immense satisfaction, she grinds right back against me, whimpering this time, and the scent of something sweet permeating the air.
Slick. Is that slick?
Fuck. I’m making her slick.
“Hollie,” I groan into her mouth, and then I’m kissing along her jaw to the shell of her ear.
I swirl my tongue around it, whispering her name again, and then I’m sucking on her neck, sucking as I grind into her, lifting her leg and wrapping it around my waist so that I can grind right into where she needs me the most, where I bet she’s throbbing.
“Oh God!” she mutters as I slide her sweater down her shoulder, my mouth following along, kissing the skin there and then lower, over her collarbone and her ribcage to the swell of her breasts.
“You smell so sweet, Omega,” I tell her. “And you taste even sweeter. I bet you taste, frankly, obscene between your legs.”
“Oh my goodness,” she squeals. “Where did you learn to speak like that? Not in any Jane Austen book.”
“Just saying what I feel,” I say, running my hands up her ass, her hips, squeezing her waist. Fuck, she feels so good – all of her.
Her hands are in my hair, and she’s scraping her nails against my scalp. The action sends me kind of feral.
I kiss her again, grinding into her more powerfully, seeing how it makes her legs shake.
She’s so sensitive – every little touch, every brush of my lips has her moaning, whimpering, shivering in my arms. I wonder how long it’s been since she’s been touched, since she’s been kissed, since she’s been pleasured.
And oh fuck, this woman deserves to be pleasured.
I want to pleasure her over and over and over again.
I bring my mouth back to her ear.
“Clay says you’re not a fan of Alphas, Hollie.”
“I could be changing my mind,” she sighs. “I think I could be a very big fan.”
“Have you …. Have you ever been with an Alpha before?”
She hesitates. “No. No, I haven’t.”
I groan like I’ve just been gutted. “You’ve never had a knot?”
The word has the girl shaking so violently in my arms, it takes all my willpower not to knot her here and now.
“N-no-no,” she says. “I’ve never been … I’ve never been knotted.”
What a fucking waste. A pussy like her deserves to be knotted. “Would you like to be?” I say.
“Oh fuck, yes,” she mutters.
I’m about to offer to take her home to our cabin right now and knot her all through the night, but the stable door flings open and Annie’s calling for her best friend.
“Hollie! Hollie, where are you?”
It takes all my strength to drop the Omega back down on her feet and take a decisive step away from her, although I’m unable to drag my eyes from the woman.
She takes a deep inhale and runs her hands over her hair, taming the fly-away strands. To me, it’s damn obvious the girl was seconds away from an orgasm – especially with me grinding into her pussy like that – but maybe Annie won’t notice what’s going on.
“I’m in here!” Hollie calls.
Annie races down the barn aisle and joins us a moment later in the stall. I turn back toward the horse, picking up where I left off.
“I knew you’d be in here,” Annie says. “You just can’t stay away, can you?”
“Erm, no,” I hear Hollie say, her voice a little strained.
“I was going to put a Christmas movie on. Can we start it now, or do you need more time?”
“Give me a minute,” Hollie says.
“Sure,” Annie responds. “Hey, Nash,” she says as she heads back toward the door.
“Hey, Annie,” I say, convinced she must hear all the testosterone that’s careening through my blood clear as day in my voice, that it must be obvious I was making out with her best friend only seconds ago.
“Geez,” Hollie says. I turn around and find her shaking her head and taking another of those deep breaths. “It’s probably just as well she interrupted. I think I was ten seconds away from begging you to knot me in the stables,” she giggles.
I suppress the very real urge to growl.
I was ten seconds away from knotting her against the wall of the stable. And that … that is not me.
The girl deserves more respect. She deserves to be romanced and wooed and all the good things.
She also didn’t come to the ranch to be harassed by a pack of alphas who can’t keep it in their pants.
The girl only just lost her mom. She came here for space, for the fresh air, to clear her head. She doesn’t need the distraction or the confusion of three alphas trying to wrangle her into bed.
And above all that, it’s Christmas. A time that has all the emotions swirling. An especially difficult time without her mom here.
She’s vulnerable. I knew that, and I still kissed her. I still pushed her. I feel like a class-A cad.
What was I thinking? Annie would skin me alive. Most probably, her mom and dad would help her out.
“I apologize, Hollie,” I say. “That wasn’t how we treat ladies around here.”
“It wasn’t?” she says, frowning in confusion. Or is that disappointment?
“Hollie, I’m sorry for my behavior.”
“Oh no, don’t say that. Please don’t apologize,” she says. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” She smiles at me. “In fact, you did a whole lot right. That’s the problem.”
I can’t help smiling back at her. Fuck, I want to kiss her again. But if I kiss you again right now, I’m not sure I could control myself.
“I better go,” she says, smiling again, and then, to my surprise, reaching out to squeeze my fingers. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Christmas Eve.”
“Christmas Eve,” I say, hating myself all the more.