17. KATIE
Chapter seventeen
KATIE
I am caught between Loren’s chest and Max’s arms as the car slides across the highway, swears erupting from both men’s mouths.
Were they trying to run us off the road? Why?
My body shakes, and a whimper escapes my lips.
A fucking school girl whimper . I didn’t fucking cry when they dug out shards of glass with tweezers and only half the necessary lidocaine. I’m not going to whimper in a car accident.
But I do. And a strange instinctive need to curl into Loren overwhelms me.
Get it together, Wilder .
Sargent Sedwick would be appalled.
I try to press away, at least enough that I can sit up and assess the situation. We’re still moving, the driver zig zagging through traffic. There doesn’t seem to be any other motorcycles coming after us.
Loren’s phone pings, picking up a call seemingly without him answering. His arms wrap protectively around my waist, Max’s arms a cage over my shoulders.
“Where are you?” Inspector Murphy’s voice is a deep rumble, somehow even more thunderous than when we first met.
“In the car, on the way home. Do they know she’s with us?”
“No one knows except Aurelia and her Beta staff. I haven’t even told Zhao.”
“Is it targeted, or just their way of saying hello?” Max asks, not moving from the protective barrier he’s created around me.
It’s too much, and I try to push away from them, out of their embrace. But both men growl, and I freeze.
“You know MCs. They don’t play gentle. They could have just seen the car and wanted to fuck with the pretty boys they assume are inside.” Max runs a hand through his hair, pulling out the bun and letting it fall back around his chin. There’s a light wave to the thick dark mane. I want to run my fingers through it.
I force my hands to stay in my lap. Why do I want to touch him so badly? My pulse still races, but not from the adrenaline of almost being in an accident. No, this is all lust.
I blink. I need to assess the facts. Motorcycle gangs; was this a common problem? Could they get in the way of my search for a portal that could take us home?
“No one is following us. They headed back toward uptown.” Loren lightly strokes my arm.
“Just fucking with us. They don't even know who’s in here.” Max shakes his head. “Imagine if they did, an Omega and one of pack Bellrose….” A growl from the phone cuts him off.
I look up at Loren. Was Pack Bellrose important? This is intelligence I need. He could have connections that know a way home.
“Are you okay, Katie?” Loren speaks gently, brushing his fingertips over my cheek. I want to lean into the touch, want to nuzzle into his hand and let him stroke those feather-light fingers over my naked back, over each sensitive inch of my skin….
I bite my lip. Hard.
“Fine,” I say.
Max nuzzles the top of my head, and I pull away. This is too much. All this touching. All of this care .
“Why were they trying to cause an accident?” I ask, keeping my tone firm.
“For the fun of it, I expect.” Max shrugs and pulls back, his dark eyes watching me. My shoulders relax as he gives me room to breathe. I’m still practically in Loren’s lap.
I should move back to the center of the seat, but my body does not want to follow the directions of my brain.
“How is causing an accident fun?” I snort.
“It is if you don’t care about people getting hurt and get off on shows of dominance, no matter how petty.” Max reaches out to stroke my hair, but sees my tense shoulders and halts halfway. He drops his hand and shrugs again.
“Motorcycle Clubs… there’s a lot of Alphas who don’t come from families of Alphas and Omegas. Repressed genes that pop up in Beta families sometimes, or from Alpha packs that never quite accepted that our former animalistic nature is gone. They are more aggressive, more… feral .”
Max frowns as if he’s trying to find the right words to describe something that is such basic knowledge that it’s beneath him. Loren, to his credit, holds my hips lightly without allowing his hands to wander. I need to get out of his lap.
“Not all MCs are like that, though. Sure, they like a good fight–I started in fight rings with MC guys. They have their own code of honor and they stick to it. Most of them are fucking loyal to a fault. They’re just regular packs like ours without all the gilded edges. But some of them lean into the animal.”
I nod, and the car turns onto a shady street lined with three-story brownstones. It’s eerily similar to a street I lived on for a few months when I was on a semester exchange to Washington D.C.
“So they just wanted to show you that they could kick your car’s ass?”
The idea is so ludicrous that I giggle. Like, school girl crush giggle.
Fuck.
Max’s smile is immediate and infectious, softening the rough angles of his face. I catch the edge of my own lips quirking up, wanting to match his smile with my own.
“Something like that,” he murmurs, but I see the ways his nostrils flare and his pupils dilate. The Omega classes I’d had before being shipped off had warned us that these were signs of Alpha arousal. As well as them releasing more of their own scent.
I slide back a little further into Loren’s lap and feel the stiff pressure of his own arousal.
Oh Christ. Not now.
Loren swallows thickly. “We’re home.” He nods as the driver turns up a gated drive. I force myself off his lap and into the middle of the seat, heat in my cheeks. I knew that sex was part of the package, but I didn’t think it would come so quickly. I thought I had days, maybe weeks before we’d work up to that. But it’s all different here.
I cross my legs at the ankles. A tug of desire heating in my core and flooding me with need.
Omegas are horny bitches.
“We’re not one of the packs that have to worry about voyeurs,” Loren smiles at me, easing the tension between the three of us with a subject change. “Though, before Max retired we did require double the security.”
“I can’t help that women–and men–wanted a piece of the four-time final knockout champion.”
“You were a prize fighter?” I raise my eyebrows. “Aurelia said you owned a gym.” And, honestly, Max looks a little like a greasy gym rat that’s been forced to clean up for company. He’s pulled his dark hair back into a tight bun at his nape. His shirt sleeves are rolled up to the elbow, the top two buttons of his shirt undone. He looks the picture of a Jersey Shore gym bro.
Max snorts, lifting my rucksack easily and motioning for me to go ahead of him into the house. At least he’s a gym rat with good manners.
“I do own a gym–the best martial arts gym in Halvassa, and the Conservatory knows it. I've trained half their Betas in hand-to-hand combat techniques. Well, Loren and I…”
Loren growls softly in his throat.
Max shrugs, following me as we snake through what looks like a mud room, up a short flight of stairs to emerge into a sunny kitchen with clean granite countertops and dark mahogany cabinets. A wall of windows faces east. From my limited observations, the sun still rises in that direction, so that’s another similarity to home.
The room is comfortable: leather couches and a few plaid blankets folded in a neat stack. Rustic wood and wrought iron, with hints of softness–a thick-pile rug, a painting of a cabin in deep woods, a case of well-worn books.
A sophisticated bachelor pad.
For three men. Three.
My thighs clamp together instinctively. Something pulses deep inside me — like a warning. Or a wanting.
Jesus Christ and the donkey! I can’t start lusting after them now. Not on day one. Not before I know them, trust them. Not before I get more information about Travelers, and portals, and potential ways home .
But my body doesn't care. It wants what it fucking wants. And that is their cocks and heat and possession.That is their tongues over my nipples, and their fingers in my pussy, pulling pleasure from me.
Goddamnit. I need a drink.