Chapter 15
JAKOB
Louis is smaller than I remember.
Skinner, uglier, and currently dangling from my fist by the collar of his hoodie with his feet barely touching the ground and the stink of cheap aftershave coming off him in waves.
His eyes are bulging, mouth working but only gargled sounds coming out.
I’m standing in Claire’s back doorway at two in the morning with lock-picking tools at my feet, and one thought pounds through my skull like a war drum: What would have happened if I weren’t here?
What if I’d stayed in bed, ignored the sound? Or if Claire had come to the kitchen alone and found this piece of shit letting himself in through her back door?
My grip tightens until his collar cuts into his throat.
“Didn’t take you long to move in on her, did it?” Louis chokes, his face twisted, half fear, half the arrogance of a man too stupid to read the room. “Must be nice, fucking your way into her—”
I shove him outside and slam him against the exterior wall, hoping Claire doesn’t hear. His head cracks against the stone, and his mouth snaps shut. Now the sound that comes out of him is a whimper so pathetic it turns my stomach.
“You have no idea,” I snarl, my face inches from his, my voice so low it’s barely audible, “how much I want to rip you apart right now.”
He wrestles to break free, but my fingers don’t budge. I’ve got a hundred pounds on him, as well as years of rugby training and a fury that doesn’t burn hot. It’s cold and venomous.
“You trash her online. You gaslight her in front of a hundred people at a wedding. And now you break into her home at two in the morning.” I lean closer. “What’s in the bag, Louis?”
His eyes dart sideways. The backpack is lying on the ground where it fell, half unzipped, and I spot the edge of a coiled rope and the glint of a blade.
My blood goes arctic. “What the fuck were you going to do with that?”
He’s shaking now. “She just needed to be scared, as she’s getting all fucking cocky.” Yet his voice cracks. “But I didn’t know you were fucking her. Let me go and I’ll stay away. I swear.”
I snort. “Yeah. Like hell you will.”
“I mean it—”
“You don’t mean shit,” I hiss, the night breeze blowing past with a whistle.
I glance inside and no sign of Claire yet, thank fuck.
“You never have.” I think about Claire baking at two a.m. because his words got under her skin again.
Her hands shaking when she’s overwhelmed.
How she apologizes for existing in rooms she has every right to be in.
Damage done by this asshole and his cruelty.
“Jakob?” Claire’s voice, muffled, from inside the house. “All good out there?”
My jaw locks. I swallow the rage, shove it down into my chest, where it coils and waits. “All good, gorgeous,” I call over my shoulder, keeping my voice easy, relaxed, the opposite of everything happening inside me. “Just getting a drink. Make yourself comfortable.”
I turn back to Louis, whose gaze is darting between me and the door, then around the side of the house, and I see the moment he decides to run. His body shifts, his weight drops, and his fist swings into my ribs before I can block it.
Pain. Sharp, cracking, radiating outward. I wince. My grip loosens for a half second, and he twists free and bolts for the side gate.
I catch him in three strides. My hand closes in his hair, and I yank him sideways so hard his feet leave the ground. He groans.
“I swear to God if you make any noise, I’ll rip out your tongue.”
He trips and hits the grass on his side, gasping, and I’m darting to grab his bag. I’m back on him before he can roll, hauling him upright by his shirt, dragging him toward the oak tree at the back of Claire’s yard.
“You’re done,” I growl. “You’re so fucking done.”
His face blanches as I pin his back against the trunk, then wrench his arms behind it as he tugs against me. “Let me go, you fucking lunatic,” he sneers. The rope from his bag is in my hand, the rope he brought for Claire, and I lash his wrists together behind the tree. “Please—”
“Shut up.”
I grab the bag. Rip it open fully. A hunting knife in a nylon sheath. A roll of tape. My vision narrows, and my hands shake from the effort of not beating this man unconscious against this tree.
What was he going to do to Claire?
I wrench the tape from the roll. Tear off a strip and press it across his mouth. His breathing goes ragged through his nose, and he thrashes against the tree, wrists pulling at the rope.
“Now be a good boy,” I say, my voice dead calm, “and wait right here until I come back to deal with you properly.”
He’s groaning behind the tape, his eyes streaming.
“Because I swear to God, Louis.” I lean close enough that he can see exactly what’s in my eyes. “If you make one sound, I’ll come back out here and give you a reason to scream.”
I step back, the knife going into my hand. I’m not leaving it with him. Then I run toward the house and snatch the lock-picking tools up too. Once inside, I shut the door slowly and lock it. My pulse is deafening.
I stash the knife and tools under the sofa cushion, buried deep. Then I pull my phone from my back pocket and send Corey and Brody a message.
Get the hell up! Louis is tied to a tree in Claire’s backyard. He tried to break in. Had rope, a knife, tape. Come get him. Now. Don’t let Claire see. Keep him at our place until I return.
I hit Send. Switch to silent. Shove it back into my pocket.
For five seconds, I stand in her living room and let myself feel the full weight of what just happened. What would have occurred if I’d remained next door?
Breathe. Handle it. Don’t bring this mess to her.
I wipe the sweat from my face, roll my shoulders, force the tension out of my jaw, and walk down the hallway.
The bedroom is dark. Moonlit. Claire is on the bed, and I lose my breath.
She’s completely stripped for me, lying on her side, one hand resting against a pillow next to her, and the moonlight traces every curve. Her waist, the flare of her hip, the soft weight of her breasts, the flat plane of her stomach. The shadow between her thighs.
I grip the doorframe. My lungs empty and don’t refill.
“Thought you got lost out there,” she says, her voice lazy.
“I would have found my way back to you if aliens had abducted me.” I swallow. Hard. “Fuck me, Claire. Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?”
“Well.” She stretches, deliberately, her chest pushing out. “I’m currently naked, and you’ve still got clothes on.” Her gaze falls to my tenting jeans. “So I’d say the impact is visible but underperforming.”
I’m laughing, which is a miracle because thirty seconds ago, I was tying a man to a tree. So I toe off my shoes, my fingers fumbling with the button of my jeans, then the zip, and I shove my pants down. Nothing underneath.
Her gaze drops, and I stand proud, wanting her to see every inch of it, hard and aching and entirely hers.
“Come here,” she says, and there’s a purr underneath her voice that reaches into my chest and squeezes.
I go as a man possessed.
The mattress dips under my weight. Her arms open and I’m above her, my forearms braced on either side of her head.
Her beautiful legs curl around my hips, and the heat between meets my cock, and fuck, I’m not a strong man.
I grit my teeth against a groan that could wake the whole street as desperately I crave to drive my cock into her sweet pussy.
She pulls me down and kisses me. Deep, starving, her tongue slides against mine, her hands gripping my shoulders and dragging me closer, and every thought that isn’t of her disappears.
Louis. The rope. The knife. Gone. There’s only Claire, the taste of her mouth, softness of her skin against mine, those lush breasts, and her hips rocking up into me.
She whimpers with need, her wet folds rubbing against my cock.
Fuck, fuck!
No sex. She said no sex. Right. I’m going to die.
I break the kiss, my breath racing. “You’re incredible,” I murmur. “And you have no idea how much I want you right now.”
She smiles, grinding herself against me, knowing exactly what she’s doing to me.
So I take things into my own hands and slide down her body slowly.
My mouth traces a path from her jaw to her throat, pressing into the hollow below her ear where her pulse flutters, then lower.
Her collarbone. The valley of her breast. I take my time because I want to memorize everything about her.
When my mouth closes over her breast and my tongue circles her nipple, her back arches off the bed and she moans. Her fingers lock into my hair, her body moving, needing this. I take her other nipple and suck down on it.
“Oh, that feels incredible. Harder, please.”
And I obey, tugging, gently biting, sucking just as my Omega demands.
I work my way lower, kissing her ribs, her stomach, the dip of her navel. My hands slide down her sides, thumbs tracing the crease of her hips, and she’s trembling beneath me, her breathing ragged, her thighs parting wider as I settle between them.
Her scent is overwhelming here, not merely a smell but more of a force, and every inch of my body fires at once, confirming with absolute certainty what I already know: Claire is my fated mate.
Mine. The scent match is complete and irrevocable, and I’m so close to howling from the rooftops that I have to clench my jaw to keep it in.
I kiss her inner thighs, gliding lower, my fingers tracing the glistening seam of her offering. I push them in between the soft lips, where it’s an inferno and so sticky wet that my cock is aching to fuck her hard and raw.
My mouth finds her, my tongue jutting out, flicking, tasting… Fuck, she’s so musky sweet.
Her hips jerk off the bed, a cry tears from her throat that she tries to muffle with her hand, and I reach up and draw her hand away. “I want to hear it all,” I tell her.
My tongue laps over her clit, and I’m learning what makes her gasp and her legs shake.