Jared (River Pack Wolves 3) - New Adult Paranormal Romance (13 page)

“No.” It was a whisper. He pulled her in for a gentle kiss on her forehead, then he cleared his throat. “An alpha is the dominant wolf of a pack. Or a mating pair. Your wolf is saying… she’s saying she wants me to claim you.” His voice trembled, just slightly, and her arms automatically went out to hug him, hold him, beat back whatever was causing this torrent of emotion to run through him. She imagined he had locked away all his feelings for so long, and if he was anything like her at the moment, he was inundated with them. His large hands fanned across her back, holding her tight.

When they loosened, she pulled back to look into his eyes. “There’s so much I don’t know, but I don’t want you to explain if it’s going to… hurt you in some way.”

“It’s all right.” He cupped a hand against her cheek. “Although I will say that having you naked next to me makes pretty much anything bearable.”

She smiled, and her heart did that swelling thing again. Then she gave him a bashful look. “What does it mean to claim someone?” she asked softly. “Did we… I mean, we only made love, right? But it was incredible. Was that you…
claiming
me?” She shivered slightly at the word, and her wolf was back to panting and wanting Jared between her legs again. The sound of it was so… possessive and
male
and hot. Whatever it was, she was up for trying it.

She must be way off base because he just grinned. Not unkindly, but it made her duck her head, her cheeks heating with embarrassment.

“Hey,” he said softly, lifting her chin with a finger to peer into her eyes. “Never be ashamed to ask me anything, okay?”

She nodded. There was so much she didn’t know, she couldn’t afford to be embarrassed by that—not if she was going to embrace this shifter thing and live in their world. Because that was the leap she had already taken.

He stroked the long length of her hair spilling over her shoulders. “Claiming is the most intense sexual experience a wolf can have.” He grinned as her eyebrows lifted. “But it’s really much more than that. When a wolf mates, the female pledges her submission to the male, and—”

“Wait, what? Submission? Is that some kind of kinky thing?”

He laughed—the strength of his large chest heaving shook her entire bed, bouncing her along with it.

“Okay, okay,” she said, clinging to him, so he wouldn’t edge away with the shaking. “So, I’m clueless. I’ll shut up now and let you explain.”

He tamed the laughter then quickly rolled her on her back, pinning her to the bed and kissing her. When he let her breathe again, he said, “The only time I want you to shut up, Grace Krepky, is when your mouth is on mine. Or other parts of me.”

A warm gush of heat flooded her swollen and sore nether parts.
Holy Christ,
what would it be like to go down on Jared River? Her mouth watered just at the thought of it.

“What were we talking about, again?” she asked. “I’m feeling the need to have other parts of you in my mouth.” She gave him a dead serious look.

His eyes hooded. “You have no idea what that’s doing to me.”

“Let’s find out.” She licked her lips, hungry for him.

He groaned and rolled off her, but then drew her close again, cuddling. “Sweet Grace, we’ve already spent too much time alone in your room. We’ll have to get dressed soon. And wash the sex off us. Human ability to scent isn’t as strong, but it would take an idiot not to realize what we’ve been doing. And your father’s not an idiot.”

Her father.
Right.
She was going to need to tell him about all of this… at least the part where she was a shifter. But she had to make a plan before rushing into that. And before she could make a plan, she needed to know more about wolves.

She tried to put on a serious face and ignore the fact that an extremely hot shifter was lying naked in bed next to her. And that she wanted to have sex with him, many different ways, again and again. As soon as possible. “All right. Back to business. Tell me about this claiming thing. And I have other questions after that, but I’ll try not to interrupt.”

His smile was warm. “All right. Let’s start with submission. Any wolf can submit to an alpha—either as part of a pack or a mating. It’s a magical bond that ties them together: the alpha pledges to protect their pack or their mate, and wolves who submit are pledging their obedience.”

“Obedience,” she said coolly. “That sounds… yeah, I’m going with
kinky
again.”

He tapped her nose with his finger. “It’s not like that. The pledge strengthens the alpha in a literal, magical sense. When the alpha is stronger, the pack is stronger. Or the mate pair, including their pups. And the alpha would never hurt those who have submitted to him. It’s really in everyone’s interest, and it feels… amazing. You’ll have to experience it to see. For mated pairs, it starts with submission, but it goes beyond that. Once the female submits, they make love. And during the act…” He trailed a finger along her jaw, drawing a hot line down to the crook of her neck. “He bites her.” He leaned in and nipped deliciously at her neck.

She couldn’t help sucking in a hot breath.

The grin on his face was wide when he pulled back.

She swallowed. “Okay, that’s hot even when you’re not actually biting me.”

He licked his lips. “You have no idea, sweet Grace. When the male claims his mate with his bite and his love, his magic flows into her. The pleasure is like nothing you’ve ever experienced.” His face shadowed, and he suddenly grew quiet.

Her eyes went wide as she remembered. “You had a mate once,” she said softly.

His expression locked down. “She’s dead now.”

“I’m sorry.” She bit her lip, unsure if she should say anything more. But she couldn’t help herself—because she was falling in love with this hot, sexy shifter. “Can you have more than one mate? I mean… is it a one-time thing?” God, she hoped not. She wasn’t even sure what it meant to submit, much less be mated—was that for life?—but she needed to understood at least what the possibilities were, especially between her and Jared.

He hesitated, his gaze lowered, not meeting hers. “No, I could have another mate.” He raised his eyes to meet hers. “I just never thought I would.”

“You don’t have to tell me about her,” she whispered with a shake of her head, all while thinking,
please tell me about her.
This felt important—it seemed like part of what drove Jared to lock himself down. And Grace knew that
she
was part of what was opening him up again. She couldn’t do that—she couldn’t help him overcome his past—if she didn’t even know what it was that shut him down in the first place.

He held her gaze, but his eyes weren’t hard and his expression wasn’t that stone-faced look he’d worn so many times. “Her name was Avery,” he said, finally. Then he sucked in a deep breath.

She reached a hand to press flat against his chest, over his heart. He glanced at her hand and placed his over it, holding her to him, then looking up into her eyes again. “I like it when you do that.”

She smiled a little and waited to see if he would share more.

“I mated before I went overseas to serve,” he said quietly. “When I came back… I was different. Avery sensed it. She asked what had happened, and I told her, and…” He swallowed, and dropped his gaze again, avoiding hers. “She was horrified. Repulsed by it. I don’t blame her, not really. War is horrifying. She pulled away, and I didn’t have anything left in me to keep her. I was already dead inside—the war had done that to me. I couldn’t leave it behind, even though I was back home. I never really knew if that was what drove her away—not what I’d done, but who it made me become. In the end, it didn’t really matter.” He dropped his gaze to his hand holding hers against his chest. “When she left me, I had nothing but the war inside. So I re-enlisted, did another tour. While I was gone, she died. Simple car accident. Happens every day. I wasn’t there to protect her. Maybe I couldn’t have done anything, but I’ll never know.”

She cupped his cheek with her hand, tears threatening her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

He looked up, eyes glassy with tears that weren’t being shed. “When I lost her—my mate—I lost everything. I lost
myself.
Being alone and isolated is the worst thing that can happen to a wolf. It’s not
supposed
to happen. I still had my brothers and my pack, but I pulled away from them all. I’ve been dead inside for so long… and then I saw
you.”
He gave her a smile that seemed pained. “You were isolated, a wolf in hiding, and my wolf… he took one look at you, and he sent me tearing off into the woods to protect you. Because no one should be alone like that. No one.”

The tears were flowing down her face now. “Jared.” She didn’t know what to do, how to say the feelings that were bursting inside her, so she pulled him closer and kissed him, long and hard and hungry. “I’m not alone,” she said when she paused for breath. “I have you.”

He pressed his forehead to hers. “Protecting you is the best thing I’ve done in a long time.”

She searched his eyes. “I want more than just your protection.”

He smiled. “The lovemaking comes included. Package deal.”

She smirked and blinked away her tears. Then her gaze fell on their hands still clasped over his heart. “I want even more than that.” She pulled her gaze up to his eyes.

All humor had fled his face.

She touched his cheek with her fingertips. “I want you for my mate.”

“Oh, Grace.” Her words seemed to pain him.

“I know it’s fast, and I don’t even really understand, and this is all so crazy, but—”

He cut her off by rolling her on her back again and pinning her with his hot, sexy, naked body. “Shhhh…” Then he smothered her words with a kiss. “Don’t say it. Don’t say those words… not until I can do something about them.” Then he erased all doubt by nipping a line of small tastes down on her neck—just with human teeth, but it ran shivers of pleasure up and down her body. Her wolf howled in triumph. Grace was light-headed with panting by the time he raised his head from her flesh again.

“I want you so badly, Grace.” His breath was hot on her face. Before she could say
Yes!
he pulled back and said, “But we really can’t do this now.”

She willed her heart to stop pounding so hard. “No, you’re right. We need to… think. And not just have sex like crazed teenagers.”

He just chuckled and rolled away from her, rubbing his face hard and blowing out a deep breath. “Rain check for lovemaking at a later time.”

“Hell yes.”

He grinned at her, then gave her a serious look. “What’s your plan with this, Grace?”

She forced herself to sit up in the bed. That was the only way she wouldn’t simply throw herself at him again. “Shower. Fresh clothes.” She turned to face him. “Then a strategy to destroy my father’s anti-shifter legislation.”

His face went solemn, and he just nodded.

Grace took a deep breath and prepared to start the rest of her life.

As a shifter.

Night had fallen on his family’s safehouse.

Jared had been gone less than a day, but it had been a life-changing twenty-four hours. He pulled his car into the large, graveled parking lot—it was filled to capacity with all the shifters who were staying with them now. His family’s estate was large, but it was stuffed to the rafters with all the shifters who had been rescued from Agent Smith’s medical prison—and the experiments fully authorized by Senator Krepky. At least, that was their operational theory, even though they didn’t have definitive proof of the connection. And barring some smoking-gun evidence, Grace would be the key to bringing the Senator down—she’d embraced that fact, he was certain, but she needed time to act on it. Which meant waiting until the morning.

He hated leaving her in that house with her father—his stomach had been chewing itself into pieces ever since he left—but even as her personal bodyguard, he had no plausible reason to stay there overnight. Garrison Allied’s normal security was supposedly sufficient to keep the Senator and his daughter safe while ensconced in their estate. It was probably just as well—any more time in her presence, especially in her bedroom, and Jared would’ve been making love to her again and again. They had managed to get away with it so far, and soon enough she would be telling her father she was a shifter—after that, Jared would be free to spend as much time with her as he and his wolf could handle. At least, that was
his
plan… assuming she would still want him.

But just being separated for the night was killing him.

The plan was for her to come out to her father tomorrow morning and threaten to take it public if he didn’t back down on his legislation. Apparently, she and her father had some kind of strategy meeting in the mornings before they headed off for the day’s schedule of campaign activities. Jared would be back at the estate bright and early in the morning, standing by her side as she told her father she was a wolf. Grace claimed this was the best approach, the best way to bring down her father’s plans, and as nervous as it made him, he trusted her. In the meantime, he needed to report back to his brothers and make sure they were on board with the plan and not moving on some separate front without him.