In the Van #2
She’s really pretty, but her dark eyes are glassy and wide, unfocused, as if she's looking through me at something behind my face. A bead of sweat slides down her temple and catches in the hollow of her throat.
"Do you need help," I ask when she doesn’t say anything. "Do you need me to get someone? A medic?"
Her mouth opens, then closes. Her brow creases like she can’t remember how to speak.
“No,” she finally mumbles as her hand slides off the crates and she sways to the left.
“Shit.” I curse when she stumbles toward me. “Let me find someone to help you.” I glance over my shoulder.
The path behind me is empty. The nearest cluster of people is a good sixty yards back, half-hidden by tents. There’s no one close enough to flag down without leaving her or yelling, and this is not the kind of place you want to cause a scene.
“Stay here,” I say. “I’m going to—” I turn back around and jolt, startled to find the young woman standing directly in front of me.
Her eyes are locked on my chest, her nostrils flaring. There's something about the trance-like way she's looking at me that trips a wire in the back of my brain.
I take a half-step back. Not because I think she's dangerous. But because she looks genuinely sick.
Her skin is flushed and damp, and her breathing is getting worse by the second, and there's a fine tremor running through her hands that tells me this isn’t heatstroke.
I need to get her help.
"Ma’am?" I angle my head down, trying to catch her eye. "Can you tell me your name? Or what tent are you working out of?"
But instead of answering me, she drops her head forward. Her forehead hits my sternum first, then her nose, then her whole face turns sideways and pushes into the fabric of my T-shirt. Her hands come up, pressing flat against my ribs as if she's trying to feel my heartbeat through the fabric.
Fuck.
My hands fly up. One palm open, fingers spread, the other still holding the clipboard. I hold them out like I'm being frisked. My eyes cut left, then right, scanning the tree line, the path, then back to where my pack is waiting for me.
I need Cliff.
I should have asked him to come with me.
He’d know what to do.
But my pack alpha is on the other side of the fucking camp, and I'm standing here with my hands in the air like an idiot while a woman I've never met trembles against my chest.
And then she inhales.
The sound she makes is something I've never heard before. It’s a low, shattered breath that turns into a whimper at the edges. Her fingers curl into my shirt as her body goes from trembling to rigid against me.
“Mine,” she whispers, the word slowly slipping into a moan.
"What?" The word comes out sharper than I mean it to.
“Mine,” she growls this time as her hands fist the fabric of my shirt, stretching it.
What the fuck did she just say?
My whole body goes still as she drags her face up my chest to the curve of my neck, breathing me in with these desperate, shuddering gulps, then a moan vibrates against my collarbone that I feel all the way down my spine.
Her arms wrap around my neck as she pulls herself flush against me, every line of her body sealed to mine as if she's trying to climb inside my skin.
Is she scenting me?
She’s inhaling like she's starving for my aroma, and I have no idea why.
Betas don't do this. We don't scent strangers.
We don't growl “mine” at people we’ve never met.
We're the even-keeled ones. The ones who nod politely and shake hands and keep a respectful distance from everyone else. Whatever is happening right now isn't beta behavior, and her disconnected behavior sends a cold thread of unease through me.
"Stay here,” I say, trying to lean back. "I’m going to—”
My words cut off when she launches herself up, thighs locking around my waist and hands gripping the back of my head. Then her mouth slams into mine so hard our teeth click.
The clipboard clatters to the dirt.
My hands grab her sides on pure instinct, as her weight shifts me sideways. My foot catches on a cable, and then I'm stumbling, two steps, three, and the canvas wall of the supply tent gives way against my shoulder.
We crash through the flap together. My momentum carries us to one side and I stagger, one foot shooting out to catch myself. For one lurching second I'm scared I’m going down before my shoulder blade connects with the shelving unit behind me, holding us both up.
Something topples behind me. Boxes and plastic containers. The whole rack shudders and screeches against the rough dirt. Pain flares between my shoulder blades where the shelf edge digs in, bright and sharp.
But she doesn't stop kissing me.
In fact, she doesn't even seem to register the noise or the fall or the metal biting into my back. Her mouth is still on mine, hot and open and desperate, her fingers twisting in my hair, her thighs squeezing my ribs like she's terrified I'll put her down.
Confused and a little shocked, my whole body locks up.
Legs, arms, spine, everything going rigid at once.
My brain cycles through my options and comes back with nothing. Absolutely nothing. I can’t move. I can’t even breathe. I stand here, holding her to me, like a deer caught in the headlights.
Finally, her mouth breaks from mine, and her tongue drags across my lower lip, slow and hot and deliberate.
Then up, tracing the corner of my mouth, the line of my jaw, then the faint stubble on my chin.
She licks me, tasting me, like she's trying to get deeper than skin, and a sound rolls out of her throat, low and satisfied.
Almost like an animal.
"Hey," I manage to say. "You need help. We should—" My words cut off when her ankles cross behind my back and her legs cinch tighter, pulling her hips flush against my groin.
There's no space left between us. She's sealed to me from chest to thigh, her heat bleeding through the thin scrubs and my T-shirt like there's nothing between us at all.
Her mouth finds my shoulder, and she bites down, right through the cotton.
I hiss, but it quickly slips into a deep moan. The sound is low and rough and completely involuntary. My fingers dig into her sides and my head tips back, hitting the shelf behind me with a dull thud.
Holy shit. What is happening right now?
The woman releases me, then drags her mouth upward, nose pressing into the curve of my neck, her tongue tracing a slow, wet line along the tendon.
She nuzzles into the space below my ear, inhaling deeply, then licks a broad stripe from my collarbone to my jaw.
Slow. Deliberate. Like she's trying to memorize my scent.
I’m stunned, holding this wild woman against me while she works her way up my throat, then over to the other side.
My brain is firing in six directions at once, and none of them are producing useful information.
But god help me, I don't want her to stop.
"So good," she purrs softly before nipping right over my mating bites. She nuzzles and sucks the overlapping scars, tracing both Cliff and Raff's marks.
And my body instantly responds.
It begins low in my gut, a slow, heavy pull that tightens and spreads, warmth pooling where her hips press against me. My cock goes hard, a sudden, shocking throb that presses insistently against the zipper of my jeans.
Without thinking, my fingers flex against her sides, feeling the dip of her waist, and plush curve of her ass.
It's been so long since I've touched a woman, I forgot how soft they are.
Fuck, I shouldn't be doing this.
Not because I’m forbidden from casually sleeping with people outside our pack, but because I’m simply not wired that way. I don’t do casual sex.
But right now, with this girl's hot body pressed against mine and her taste on my tongue, I don't give a single shit about any of that.
She feels too good.
The warmth of her. Her thighs, her waist, her weight against my chest. Everything about her is so wonderful and different, and I can't think straight.
You need to stop, I silently tell myself, but my hands move lower, cupping her perfect ass. These scrubs are doing nothing for her figure. They hang off her like a stiff curtain, but I can feel every tempting inch.
“More,” she moans as her tongue sweeps across my cheekbone. Then she kisses me again, and I close my eyes.
She tastes sweet. Too sweet. My brain snags on the taste of her lips and won't let go.
My hand slides up the back of her neck and into her hair, and I kiss her like my life depends on it.
Hard and deep and graceless, all teeth and tongue and the kind of desperate, reckless hunger I haven't felt in years.
She gasps into my mouth and I swallow it, tilting her head back, pulling her closer, kissing her like the storage tent is on fire and she's the last good breath of air.
"You taste too damn good," I murmur against her lips before kissing her again, slower this time but just as deep. My thumb traces the edge of her jaw as I suck her tongue out of her mouth, and she melts into me with a sound that makes my blood run hot.
She slowly breaks the kiss, pulling back enough to look at me.
Her lips are swollen and wet, and her breath comes in shallow, uneven pulls, but her eyes…her eyes are locked on mine with a focus that cuts through everything. There's no confusion there. No hesitation. Just dark, liquid heat and a certainty so absolute it makes my stomach flip.
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” I whisper, and she bites her plump bottom lip.
She holds my gaze as her hand leaves the back of my neck. Her fingertips trail down my chest, feather-light, tracing the line of my sternum through my T-shirt. I can feel every point of contact like a brand.
Down over my ribs.
Down over the soft curve of my stomach, where the muscles tense and jump under her touch.
She doesn't blink or look away. Those dark eyes stay fixed on mine the whole time, watching every micro-reaction cross my face like she's memorizing me.
I feel lightheaded and heavy at the same time, blood rushing south so fast it leaves my brain buzzing and useless.
I want her to touch me.
I don't know this girl. I don't know her name or why she was half-collapsed against a supply crate ten minutes ago. And I want her hands on me so badly my hips are already tilting toward her before she's even touched me.
Then her fingers reach my waistband and pause. Her eyes flash, and a soft tremble works through her before she pushes her hand inside my pants.
Fingertips find the swollen head of my cock, and a low, broken sound pushes from my chest. Her soft hand wraps around my shaft, squeezing hard, and the pleasure is so sharp, so unexpected, it whites out my vision.
“Please, don’t—” I pant when she begins to jerk me off, grinding her hips against me in time with her hand. The pressure is everything. “That feels…Oh, fuck…,” I stammer, but my words quickly slip into a moan. “Don’t stop,” I grunt when she squeezes the tip.
Thankfully, she doesn't stop.
And I stop pretending I want her to.