BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) (136 page)

An orgasm started to build inside of me, starting between my legs and spreading through the rest of my body. Everything felt warm, and then hot. It was like he was filling me with light, and at some point it would be too much for me and tear me apart.

That moment came. I felt him building inside of me, getting harder and bigger. He pumped into me, panting in my ear and his chest pressing against mine forced my breathing in the same rhythm.

He was the first to lose it inside of me. I felt him pumping, and he filled me up, reaching every corner, claiming me as his mate. The first time this had happened the whole pack had felt it. The bond had been forged. Since then we’d had our privacy, thank god, but the power was still the same. It surged through me like a tidal wave and I cried out, almost drowning in the strength of it.

It pushed me over the edge and my own orgasm rocked through my body. I wrapped my arms and legs around his body, my body bucking against his. He growled low in his throat, a sound that a human shouldn’t have been able to make.

We were melded to each other and stayed like that until the magic finale retreated. Reid collapsed on top of me and I struggled to breathe. He rolled off me, slipping out of me, and we lay gasping on the bed.

“I still have to get used to that,” he said, echoing my words from earlier and I smiled.

After we’d gotten dressed I started on supper. We carried on with business as usual, but there was an electric hum between us that stayed there even when we didn’t touch each other. It was like a current that had started when we’d slept together, and hadn’t faded again.

We sat down together and ate.

“I think we need to stop in at John and Charlene’s tomorrow and see the new baby,” I said. Reid nodded, not looking up at me. He was suddenly switched off, like something was on his mind, but I knew better than to ask. He would tell me if he needed to. Or he would sort through it himself and get back to me when he was ready.

When we knocked on their door the next morning John opened the door, already smiling.

“I’m so glad you came,” he said.

“How is Charlene?” I asked. She’d been discharged from the hospital the day of homecoming.

“She’s just great. It’s a bit hard adjusting to the new baby, I feel like I don’t know what to do. But she’s so good at it, it’s like she’s always done this.”

Reid didn’t say anything. I gave John a hug.

“Congratulations to you both,” I said and we walked into the house. John brought us to the nursery. Charlene sat in an armchair next to a crib, the baby in her arms. She looked comfortable, natural.

I walked to her, crouched next to her.

“We’ve just done feeding. Nap time soon,” she beamed down at little Carla. The baby looked a lot better than when I’d seen her last. She wasn’t so squashed anymore. Her face had puffed out and she was adorable. My heart constricted. I wanted a baby too. Since I’d been at Carla’s birth I’ve been broody.

“Come look, Reid,” I said, looking up at him. He was standing in the door, as far away as he possible could be from Charlene and the baby. He gave me a tightlipped smile and walked closer to us like he was scared, like if he were a wolf he’d have his tail tucked between his legs.

I watched him, and realized that he was completely uncomfortable. Who would have known that the strong, wild alpha had a weak point?

“She’s cute,” Reid said, and the way he said it made me think that was the last thing he believed. If Charlene picked up on his tone of the voice she didn’t show it.

She smiled. “Thank you,” she said. John was in the room too, and he smiled like only a proud new parent could. I looked at Reid, and he looked like he wanted to run away.

I looked at the baby again, and wondered how he could be so threatened by something so small.

Chapter 4

Reid

At first I thought that the new addition to John’s family was going to throw everything out of balance. I was nervous that he wouldn’t be able to keep his place in the pack. He may not have been my second anymore, since Allegra had stepped into place as my mate, but John was still number three and quite high up in pack hierarchy.

But everything turned out to be okay. Within days everything was back to normal. John came to pack gatherings and he came out hunting with us like nothing had changed. I knew he spent time at home a lot more, but it didn’t affect the pack.

And it didn’t affect me.

Everything that had gotten to me with the whole baby business around homecoming was forgotten. Four weeks later and creeping up to full moon I was in the lounge trying to focus on a television talk show. It was so much easier to have the damn thing off, but I tried to resemble being normal now and then.

Not having the television on and just staring at the screen sometimes unnerved Allegra. I knew she didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t expect her to.

She came in and sat down next to me, body half turned so that she was facing me and not the television.

“Baby, can we talk?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said. She took the remote from my hand and muted the sound. That made me sit up and take notice. When I looked at her, her face was serious. She had her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and it made her look young. Somehow the uncertainty in her eyes added to how young she looked.

“What’s wrong?”  I asked. She took a deep breath, and hesitated. “Babe?” I asked when she still didn’t speak.

“I’m late,” she said.

“Late for what?”

She shook her head. “No, I mean I’m late. That time of the month. My period hasn’t started.”

I frowned at her. I wasn’t really sure what she was talking about, but her intensity scared me. She looked up at me and her eyes were almost black. She took a deep breath and blew it out in a shudder.

“I’m pregnant,” she said, and she held my stare. I looked at her and tried to make sense of the words that had come out of her mouth. Pregnant? Late, as in she missed something vital. I opened my mouth, and closed it again, ran my hands over my face and then into my hair.

“Reid?” she asked.

“Are you sure?” I asked. She nodded.

“I’m almost three weeks late. I got a pregnancy test for the shops yesterday. Three of them. They’re all positive.

My ears started ringing. It felt like the room was closing down on me, and I struggled to breathe. My wolf squirmed like it was leashed when it didn’t want me to be. And I couldn’t break away from this.

“We can’t have a baby,” I said. My voice was hard, and she flinched away from it.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

I shook my head. This was too much, too soon. I didn’t want to do this. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t John. I couldn’t be happy about a family the way he was. “I can’t do this, Allegra. I’m not ready.” My chest hurt, like someone had stabbed me.

She came to sit next to me, put her arm over my shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay. I know this is unexpected… it’s not like either of us planned this. But we’re going to be okay. Surely with all our power we can manage to deal with something as normal as a baby?”

She smiled at me, and I forced a smile. All of this bothered me. I’d been talking about how I never wanted this since John’s baby was born, and now it was happening to me. Here I was, big bad werewolf alpha and I was having a panic attack about something regular men dealt with every day.

She put her hand on my leg, and the power suddenly surged. It was stronger than usual. The heat flowed from her like she was a source of power. I looked down at my hand, and frowned.

“What’s wrong, honey?” she asked. She moved her hand away, and the current stopped. It was like it cut off, like someone had flipped a switch.

“Did you feel that?” I asked.

“Feel what?” She looked confused.

“When you touched me… it’s never been that strong.”

She looked at her own hand like she would be able to see something. When she looked at me again there was heat in her eyes. Not the kind of heat that came with anger or sexual desire. It was the kind of heat that came with being a lycanthrope, the equivalent of a beast behind those eyes. And my wolf saw it as a challenge.

I forced it down, pressing against it, fighting his will with my own.

“This is just… not what I saw for our future at all,” I said. I wasn’t really concentrating on the words coming out of my mouth. I was trying to concentrate on the power inside of me, trying to contain it again. I couldn’t keep it together and that scared me. And it wasn’t because of anger or rage, it was because of a challenge.

My wolf that his mate was challenging him.

I stood up. I couldn’t sit down anymore. My skin was burning, I wanted to peel my skin off. I felt uncomfortable. I pumped my hands open and closed, tried to channel some of this energy. This wasn’t the kind of power she was in sync with. This was the kind of power that pushed me over the edge, led me to losing control. I recognized it from the days when we weren’t together on this the way we were now.

I paced the room. Allegra sat on the couch, knees together with her hands flat on top of them, like she was trying to keep it together too.

“We never said we were going to do children,” I said, still rambling. I needed to get rid of this. This was not like a regular panic attack and it was damn unnerving.

“We never said we weren’t,” she countered, but her voice was gentle. When I glanced at her she looked concerned.

“Are you alright?” she asked. “You’re sweating.”

I laced my fingers through each other behind my head. Maybe if we carried on talking like everything was normal I could keep a lid on it. If I distracted myself from the magic maybe I could get a grip.

“It never came up. We were too busy figure out how we were going to make this work in the preternatural world that is my life to talk about normal things like having children.” I let out a groan that sounded very close to a growl. Pain ripped through my body, and out my throat. The next words were real. My fear was busy manifesting itself and the baby wasn’t even here. “I’m not a father. I’m an alpha. I’m a werewolf. What kind of life is that for a child?”

“And what about me?” she asked. “I’m here, and I’m not a werewolf or an alpha?”

“No, you’re my second which is damn close to the real deal. How are we going to explain that once a month we run on a different source of power?” I pulled a face, clutched at my head. “How are we going to explain this? It’s happening right now.”

She shook her head. “The same way you explained it to me. It’s not something that’s completely farfetched. This is who you are. This is what our life is like. If a child grows up in it, that’s all they’re going to know.”

She made sense. What she was saying was right. John had said it too. That’s what they all would have said if I asked them. I think I was the only werewolf that was unsure about having children. But then again, I was the only wolf I knew that wasn’t created. I didn’t know where to start, teaching someone about something they weren’t by default.

“John and Charlene seem to think that they can figure this out. And John’s a werewolf just like you are,” she said.

“I don’t want to hear about John and Charlene!” I shouted, and my voice thundered through the house. Allegra snapped her mouth shut and I could see in her eyes that I’d scared her. It had been a long time since that happened. I hated doing that to her.

The last time this had happened I’d nearly killed her. I could feel the power inside me building, and I knew that I couldn’t get a hold on it, not this time. I was losing control. I felt the wolf inside of me, felt it snarl and growl and claw it’s way out.

“I’m losing it, Allegra,” I said, and when she looked at me again I could see that she knew what I was talking about. The fear in her face told me what mine was showing. There was very little human left.

“I have to get out of here. Now,” I said. “I have to get away from you.”

Her face was a mixture of shock and fear.

“From me? What?”

My head was killing me, a headache had started between my temples and grown until I could barely hear myself think.

“Something is very wrong,” I said.

“What’s going on?”

I shook my head. For the first time, I just didn’t know.

She had goosebumps on her arms, and I knew she could feel the surge of power in the room.

“I need to get away from you. You’re wrecking me,” I said. My voice was a growl now, but even though the pain and the change that was forcing itself down on me I saw her recoil from me, reacting to my words, misunderstanding me. I couldn’t see properly anymore everything felt like it had a white shine on it. Allegra’s face floated somewhere in the middle, and the hurt was so prominent I wanted to take it away.

I took a deep breath. If I didn’t get everything under control soon things were going to go a lot more wrong than they already were.

“Reid?” she asked, taking one step closer to me. The power surged like a wave around me, threatening to drown me.

“Get away from me!” I shouted.

I closed my eyes, forced my voice calm. It was a low rumble when I spoke – the change was very close – but it was still my voice.