Chapter 5 Kellan
KELLAN
I woke up slowly, the way you did after dreaming too hard, but I felt super rested, warm, and my limbs were reluctant to move.
For a full second I didn’t know where I was.
It kind of hit me slowly at first the ceiling above me wasn’t mine.
Neither were the sheets. Or the faint smell of smoke and cedar and something darker, sharper and undeniably alpha, that thick scent of pheromones my body recognized before my brain did.
Then my heart kicked against my ribs.
Right. I’d been taken. Kidnapped. I was in the Crimson Havoc compound.
In Lock’s room.
In Lock’s bed.
Panic fluttered in my chest, sudden enough to steal my next breath. My body wanted to curl in, hide… but I forced one breath in, then another, trying to ground myself. You’re fine. You’re alive. You’re—
I rolled onto my side.
And hit something warm. Solid. Human.
A body.
I froze so hard I forgot how to breathe.
Slowly—so slowly—I lifted my head.
Lock lay on his back beside me, one arm thrown above his head, the sheet riding low on his hips.
Morning light hadn’t fully reached the room yet, but the lamp glow was still enough to see everything: the thick muscle across his stomach, the tattoos curling up his ribs, the deep lines of his abs tightening and releasing with each slow breath.
His hair was shoved back from his face, and his jaw was shadowed with stubble.
He looked… peaceful.
Which honestly made no sense. He didn’t strike me as a man who slept much. Or at all.
My gaze drifted lower.
The sheet tented unmistakably over his morning erection.
Heat spilled into my cheeks before I could stop it.
I shouldn’t look. I absolutely shouldn’t look.
I looked.
Just a little. Just long enough for my heartbeat to climb up into my throat.
The sheet had slipped down far enough that I only needed my fingertips—one tiny, curious tug—to see more.
I glanced at his face.
Still asleep?
God, I hoped so.
I caught the edge of the sheet between my fingers and eased it back—
Damn it! Boxers.
Dark gray. Soft cotton. Unfairly modest for a man who looked like sin in broad daylight.
Disappointment hit me so fast I almost laughed.
Who got annoyed their kidnapper was wearing too many clothes?
Me, apparently.
He breathed out of again…warm, steady, and it brushed across my skin where I’d leaned closer without realizing it.
His scent wrapped around me, and it was heavy with alpha-strong, pheromones that filled the air.
And It tugged at something primal inside me, my omega instincts I’d spent years tamping down because Rowan hated when they showed.
A tremor rolled through my stomach. And I couldn’t even blame it on my heat—there was no fever, no slick, no three-day burn—just my body reacting to one alpha’s scent like it had been waiting for it.
I should move. I should get out of bed… find water…or better yet a way out, something.
Instead I stared, half in shock, half in… something else. Something low and hot and startlingly alive.
His arm was close enough that if I reached out, my fingers would touch his skin.
My hand twitched.
“Kellan.”
The voice came rough. Sleep-roughened. Angry?
Shit… so not asleep.
My stomach dropped straight through the mattress.
Before I could scramble back, his hand shot out and wrapped around my wrist, it wasn’t hard, just firm, just enough to make my whole body go still.
“Stop,” he growled, eyes still closed but brows pulling tight. “Stop looking at me like that.”
My breath skipped.
“Like… what?” I whispered.
“Like you want something I shouldn’t give you,” he said. “Not now. Not like this.” His thumb brushed once across my pulse. “You keep staring at me like that, omega, and I’m going to do something we’ll both regret.”
A shiver ran up my spine…fear and want tangled so tightly I couldn’t tell the difference.
I swallowed, throat dry. “What if… I wouldn’t regret it?”
His eyes opened.
Fuck why were they so blue? And full of something I didn’t have a name for.
Before I could flinch or bolt or breathe, he tugged me forward—slow but unyielding—until I toppled against his chest. My palms landed on warm skin, and my breath caught against the flat plane of him.
“You’re too young,” he said, voice rough as gravel. “Too untouched.”
The words hit like a slap.
“I’m not—”
“You are.” His hand slid to the back of my neck…not squeezing, just holding. “You’re a virgin. I can smell it on you. And I don’t do virgins.”
It stung more than I expected.
I tried to pull back.
But he didn’t let me.
“If you’re not going to touch me,” I whispered, embarrassed…defensive, “then why am I in your bed? Why are you holding me like—”
“Because you tempt me.” … “Because you’re perfect and it hurts.” His jaw flexed. “Because every alpha instinct I’ve got wants to put you under me and I’m trying like hell not to.”
My body trembled.
And I leaned closer without my permission.
“Then why fight it?” I asked softly. “We both feel it.”
For a second—one long, breathless second—I felt him break.
Everything in him.
His restraint. His control. His distance.
It cracked.
His grip tightened at my waist.
His gaze dropped to my mouth.
And the world shifted.
I felt every place we were touching. His chest under my hands. His thigh pressed against my hip. His fingers at the back of my neck, warm and steady and just this side of rough.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he said quietly.
“I’m not a kid,” I shot back, the words coming out more breath than voice. “I’m twenty-two, not twelve.”
One corner of his mouth twitched like that almost amused him. Almost.
“That’s not the problem,” he said. “You’re innocent. There’s a difference.”
Heat flooded my face. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough.” His thumb brushed the side of my throat, slow and maddening. “I know your body’s never had anyone on it. I know you still flinch when someone moves too fast. I know you fell asleep in my arms like I was safe.”
“You were,” I said before I could stop myself.
His hand tightened.
That flicker of something pained crossed his face, fast and sharp.
“You shouldn’t think that,” he muttered. “Not about me.”
“I do.”
The silence stretched between us. Heavy. Electric.
“If you want me to stop,” he said finally, voice low and rough, “you say it. Right now. You tell me to let you go and I will. No questions. No punishment. No bullshit.”
My heart hammered.
He meant it. I could feel it. The promise of it sat there, solid as bone.
All I had to do was say stop.
I thought of my father. Of the way Rowan’s voice turned razor-sharp when he talked about alphas who “took advantage.” Of all the rules about who I could be alone with, where I could go, how I should scent myself down to neutral so no one got “ideas.”
I thought of last night…the van, the way Lock had carried me, how the world had tilted and my body had decided without asking me that he was safe. How I’d fallen asleep in his arms anyway.
I looked at his mouth.
“Don’t stop,” I whispered.
Something in his eyes broke wide open.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
Then he was moving.
He didn’t drag me down so much as he rolled us in one smooth, controlled shift of muscle that put me flat on my back and him braced over me, his elbow by my head and his hand still cupping my neck with the sheet twisted around our legs.
“Fuck,” he breathed, staring down at me like I was the mistake he couldn’t stop making. “I shouldn’t fucking want you. I’m your fucking captor, Kellan. This is wrong.”
His jaw flexed like he was forcing every word out between his teeth. “But I can’t let go.”
My breath left my lungs in a rush.
“Last chance,” he said, hovering there, close enough that I could feel the warmth of his mouth against mine. “Say the word and I back off.”
My fingers curled in the sheets. “Lock—”
“Silas,” he corrected quietly, like it cost him. “You want to do this, use my name. Just this once.”
The sound of it in my head did something weird to my chest.
“Silas,” I said, barely above a whisper.
Every line in his body went tight.
“If anyone in this club saw you like this,” he rasped, his voice harsh, “I’d have to kill them.”
“His gaze dragged over my open mouth, my flushed skin. “And if any rival club caught wind of this, they’d come for you just to get to me.”
And then he kissed me.
It wasn’t soft.
His mouth crashed down on mine with a kind of hungry restraint, like he was holding back from something even harsher. Heat surged, shocking and sharp, and my whole body reacted at once, every nerve lighting up as if I’d been waiting for this exact contact without knowing it.
I’d been kissed before. Awkward mouth-to-mouth in dark corners. A fumbling attempt behind the clubhouse once that had ended with me apologizing for no reason.
This was nothing like that.
His hand on my neck tilted my head just right, and his mouth claimed mine like he had every right to be there. His lips were warm, his beard scraping my skin, his scent pouring over me like a blanket I hadn’t realized I was cold without.
I opened for him on instinct.
He groaned into my mouth, low and rough, and slid his tongue against mine.
My brain short-circuited.
I made a sound I didn’t recognize as mine…it was small, broken, desperate. My body arched up, pressing closer, every inch of me reaching for him, chasing the heat of him before I could think better of it. My fingers found his shoulders, then his back, sliding over hard muscle and ink.
He shifted his weight, settling more fully between my legs.
The friction was immediate.
Hot shock fired through me.
I was already hard, had been from the moment I saw him stretched out beside me, and now there was so much more of him, solid length, heavy weight, all of it lined up against me through thin layers of fabric.
I gasped into his mouth.
He swallowed the sound like he’d been waiting for it.