Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Oh boy, could that man kiss, and kiss, and kiss.
By the time he took a breath, she imagined her lips had turned from blue-tinged to glossy red.
Because she also needed a chance to breathe, he slowed down, forcing her with him.
He trailed a string of nibbles down her neck right to her pulse.
It was as if a light switch turned on and her entire sex drive doubled.
She didn't just want him at that moment. She needed him. Hard and fast, on the floor, on the desk, it didn't matter. Sitting in the guest chair was becoming more awkward, limiting her ability to press against him so she could feel every inch of his restrained muscles against her own.
Without warning, Kellen wrapped his arms around her back and slipped his hands under her backside.
That made her squirm closer, opening her legs as much as the chair allowed.
Realizing there was a sharp barrier between them, she reached under her shirt and unclipped her knife, letting it fall to the floor.
It still wasn't enough, but Kellen took care of that problem with one swoop as he lifted her out of the chair, settling her against his chest. Automatically, Samara wrapped her legs around him.
Now she could feel just how much he wanted her.
Sex on a desk sounded great in theory, but it was too small for any real activity.
Kellen must have realized that, because he whirled her around, his lips never stopping, until he'd maneuvered her against the back wall.
With her trapped between his chest and the wall, he released her backside and jammed one knee under her to keep her balanced.
With his hands free to roam, he skimmed up her torso and found her breasts.
For a fleeting moment, his hands massaged her soft flesh, but then he teasingly changed tactics, and used only his thumbs to rub her nipples.
Oh heavens!
The powerful desire between them continued to climb upward toward a peak she could reach without even removing her jeans.
The loud bang of a pot falling on the floor of the kitchen followed by some creative Navy cursing interrupted their bliss. Kellen pulled his lips away and stilled his hands. Samara could do nothing but moan her frustration and claw at his back, trying to regain the friction she'd lost.
It was too late; the connection she'd felt with him snapped.
"I'm so glad you closed the door," he whispered, his breath tickling her nose, slipping his hand back under her backside to keep her supported.
"Me too." She wiggled herself around, trying to get his hands moving again, but they remained annoyingly still. "I feel safe with you. Safe enough to close the door."
He waited another beat. "I'm going to lower you now. You'll want to drop your legs so you don't fall."
"Why?" It sounded like a cry of desperation to her ears. "This was so perfect."
He didn't respond, so she lowered her legs, and he released her from his embrace.
"What happened?" she demanded.
He stepped away from her leaving her cold, just standing there feeling stupid. Like she'd failed some sort of test. "I happened."
"You?"
"Yes." He looked away from her. At first she thought he was looking out of the window, but no, he was again looking at the pictures on the wall.
Repressing a frustrated huff, she marched around him while he stared, scooped her knife off the floor, and planted herself back in the guest chair, arms crossed with a loud huff. "I'm not leaving until I get a better explanation."
"It's complicated."
"No, it isn't. It shouldn't be." Was this stubbornness a male thing or a wolf thing? "I don't do things like this."
He circled around her, careful not to brush past her as he reseated himself in his chair behind the desk. The way he adjusted himself made her want to jump him again because she knew he was still hard with wanting her.
He'd had me, damn it. She doubled down on her determination.
"Like what?" he asked.
"Throw myself at my boss. Or a near stranger.
Or a wolf shifter, for that matter." Brief flashes of her mother telling her about the birds and the bees flitted through her memory.
Her mother always said to be careful, but wolf shifters were the stuff of the fairy tales she'd read to her daughter at night.
Little did she know how much of her advice Samara had taken to heart.
Still, there had been times like this when her mother's advice sounded oh so far away.
"That's not who I am. It's not how I...get what I want. "
"I never thought you were."
He did that head tilt thing again, making him look like the world's most adorable puppy. "Then what were you thinking when you stopped?"
"I was thinking of your safety." He rocked forward, placing his elbows on the desk. "If your wolf isn't dead..."
"Are we back to that again?"
Oh, the look he gave her would have set the whole forest ablaze. "Yes, we are and that's where we'll stay." He didn't turn away from her this time, his stare returning to its hard and cold look. "If your wolf isn't dead, then having sex with you while your wolf is unconscious is...inappropriate."
What the hell did that mean? "You're worried about date raping my wolf? I don't even believe it's still around."
"Like I said, my wolf wants yours, and wolves may not be as discriminating as humans or careful when they court, but I am. If you were to shift while we're together, I can't imagine how it could end without one of us or both of us getting hurt."
She could hear the layers of restrained emotion behind his words. "You don't just mean physically, do you?"
"No, I mean mentally and emotionally." He paused. "Stephen, Leo, and I are all omegas. We were assassins for our individual packs. For an entire decade we stalked each other, trying to fulfill our alphas' orders to kill one another."
Holy mother of God. "A whole decade?”
"That's how good we were. We are. All that time wasted trying to spill each other's blood."
"What stopped you?"
Kellen looked back up at the pictures on the wall. His eyes turned soft with wonder, but when he looked at the picture of the woman and the boy, a sadness rolled over his features.
"We were tired. Tired of the constant vigilance. Tired of the pain. Tired of not fulfilling orders we didn't understand. An alpha's orders are law, and in our three packs there were no exceptions. We were omegas and we blindly obeyed as expected."
"Wait, Leo and Stephen are from different packs? The three of you walked away from it all? Away from your alphas?"
Kellen nodded, turning away from the pictures, to focus on the top of his desk, but Samara kept looking at them.
Something bothered her, tickling the back of her mind. She was missing something, the clue was right in front of her, but she couldn't see it. "So, what's the other reason why we can't have sex? Aside from me shifting at an inappropriate time."
"We don't know if your wolf is an alpha, beta, or omega."
"What difference does that make?"
"It makes a lot of difference. If your wolf is a beta or alpha, she will reject my wolf. And if that happens, then we can't be together."
"You and I don't get a say in this?"
Kellen sighed, leaning back in his chair, one of his hands waving his frustration with her.
"You see, there's your problem right there.
You keep seeing yourself and your wolf as two different beings with two separate lives and goals.
They're not. I was born with my wolf shifter shadow.
I don't know what it's like not to have him inside me, walking through life with me, protecting me, working with me, laughing at me when I do something boneheaded. "
"Your wolf can laugh?"
"Metaphorically speaking."
Samara looked back up at the pictures, still not sure what bothered her about them.
"I wish my wolf had laughed. All she did was push me in directions I had no interest in going.
It felt like she wanted me to give in to Josiah, accept his dominance over me, and let him control me.
Not for anything in this world was I going to let that happen. "
"You don't know what your wolf wanted because you were too scared to listen.
Which is understandable. Josiah is one of those people who can get you to work against your own best interest without even trying.
He has that type of charisma when he tries and if he needs it.
He'll make you believe you're the most important person in his pack until he has what he wants and doesn't need you anymore.
If your wolf was trying to communicate with you and you misinterpreted what she was trying to tell you. .."
"No. There was no mistaking what she wanted.
She tried to stop me from killing those omegas, the ones in the mansion and the one in the garbage.
.." A brief flash of what she'd done punched her in the gut.
She could still hear the screaming, the violence, the pounding at the windows and doors of the wolves trying to get out before the fire overcame them.
She hadn't cared. She still didn't, and she had to fight to keep herself steady.
"It doesn't matter. I got away and it took me a week to get to a pharmacy for the silver.
She never tried to communicate after I did what I did.
She tried to fight when I drank the silver, but I beat her down until I swallowed the last drop. "
"My God." Kellen shook his head.
It didn't matter. Not if he didn't want her until he knew the rank of her wolf. If that was what held him back, then he wasn't the man for her. If she was going to sleep with someone she had to know that they wanted her, Samara, not some other creature.
"Look," she said. "This can go one of two ways. We can keep going around in circles about my wolf or talk about something else, or I can go upstairs to the apartment until my shift tomorrow."