The Alpha's Choice (18 page)

Charles held her until sight and sound
returned and as she dozed in his arms, she heard him murmuring
above her.

"You are so beautiful, Katarina. You are all
I ever wanted, a precious gift meant only for me."

Kat felt as if she could spend eternity right
where she was, in Charles Goodman's arms. It didn't matter who he
was or what he was. She knew this was where she belonged. With
him.

Kat might have stayed there forever, but
Charles had one more thing on his agenda. When she had recovered
enough to smile at him and draw circles in the hair of his chest
with her fingers, he rolled her from his lap and into the
straw.

"I want you all fours, Katarina. I need you
on all fours. This isn't punishment and I promise you'll enjoy it.
Please, do this for me."

It was the please that did it. She heard it
in his voice and when she looked up at him, she saw it in his eyes.
He needed this and what he needed she would give. She rolled to her
hands and knees. Charles wasted no time in stripping off his jeans
and entering her from behind. He groaned with pleasure as he seated
himself firmly inside her and covered her body with his.

"One night when the moon is full, I'll chase
you again, my Katarina. I'll chase you through the woods and fields
and when I catch you, this is how I'll take you."

He began to move inside her, slowly at first,
and Kat knew he was trying to be gentle with her after what he put
her through, but she didn't want gentle. She wanted Charles. She
wanted to fulfill his wants and secret needs as he had filled hers.
Braced on her elbows and using her arms for leverage, she drove
herself onto him, increasing her backward thrusts until he met her
pace and pressure.

Once Charles understood that she wanted this
as much as he did, he increased the force of his thrusts until he
was pounding into her. The slap, slap of their bodies meeting in
sensual pleasure echoed in the confines of the stall.

After what he'd put her through, she didn't
think she could rise to the height of orgasm again, but she was
wrong. He was pounding into her now as if he had a need to join the
two of them into one. The magic surrounded them and she could feel
the pressure building in him as it built in her. His body tensed in
readiness for release and the hands that had been gripping her
hips, curled around her body, one to her breast and one to her
clit. One touch and she exploded and he followed on the wave of her
orgasm into his own. She heard him shout her name, before she
collapsed down into the straw.

Charles didn't withdraw from her, but again
covered her body with his. He pressed his lips against the tender
place where her neck joined her shoulder and kissed her there.

"Someday soon, Katarina Bennett, under the
light of the full moon, I'll mark you here where my lips are now.
I'll mark you here and you'll no longer be an Alpha's Mate, but the
Alpha's Mate, my mate, Charles Goodman's Mate and being your Alpha,
I promise to make you proud."

"You already do that, Charles Goodman," she
mumbled drowsily through the blissful exhaustion that followed her
orgasm. "You'll always make me proud. But Charles?"

"What is it, kitten?"

"Can you come down here beside me? I can't
kiss you from this position and the straw is poking holes in my
belly."

"You stay right there. I'll be right
back."

"Bossy, bossy, always giving orders to the
ones who will obey," Kat giggled sleepily, "You should start
bossing the ones who don't."

"What did you say?" Charles asked
quietly.

Kat was so tired she couldn't remember.
"Whatever was in my head," she mumbled. "Are you coming to bed
Charles? I'm cold without you."

"I'll be right there, kitten. I'll keep you
warm."

"Charles?"

"Hmmm?"

"What's a…?" but she forgot what she was
going to ask because Charles was back with a blanket to cover them
and curling his body around hers, he was kissing her again.

Chapter 17

Kat awoke with a smile on her face, a solid
chest under her head, a strong arm around her and itching almost
everywhere on her body. The coarse straw beneath her scratched her
hip and legs. The coarse blanket Charles pulled from the work truck
to cover them scratched her other hip and shoulders. Her butt
didn't itch or maybe it did, but in its frozen state, she couldn't
feel it.

She'd learned a lot about her lover during
the night, including the fact that the man lying flat on his back
beside her was a blanket hog and there was only one cure for that.
She pulled the blanket from him and straddled his knees, throwing
the blanket over her back like a cape and laying herself down along
his body. Now her back half might itch, but her front had a warm,
firm mattress. She snuggled her head back into his shoulder and
closed her eyes.

Until thirty seconds later when her mattress
flipped her onto her back and covered her body with his. He left
just enough space for his hand slid between them and work its way
downward over her belly.

"Good morning, my beautiful kitten," Charles
murmured in her ear.

"No." Kat followed the hand working its way
down her body and stopped it in its tracks.

"Now, kitten, is that any way to greet your
Alpha in the morning?"

"You're not my Alpha, Wolfman. You're my
lover and the answer is still no." Kat stretched up to kiss him on
the chin and soften her refusal. "Good morning."

"Your greeting is supposed to be…" Charles
raised his voice to a falsetto. "Good morning my lord and master.
Let me spread my legs for you so you can start your day with a
smile."

Kat started to laugh. "You've been dreaming
again or you're thinking of your other lover."

Charles looked offended. "I don't have
another lover."

"Good answer! You get to keep your balls for
another day."

"Geesh! You weren't this mean last night." He
slid down her body until his mouth reached her breasts where he
suckled first one and then the other. After several minutes of this
he looked up at her and smiled. "You're purring."

The man just didn't give up. He'd let her
sleep for a little while after she collapsed in the straw and then
he'd taken her again, that time so sweetly, his gentleness made her
cry. She'd pleasured him with her mouth the time after that and
he'd returned the favor the time after that. The man had the
stamina of a horse… or maybe a wolf?

She relented and stroked the hair from his
forehead. "Of course I'm purring. The spirit is more than willing,
but the flesh is beyond weak. It's plum wore out. I'll be walking
funny for the rest of the day."

Charles rolled off of her onto his back.
"Tell me about it," he muttered, staring down at his bobbing
erection.

"I can fix that for you," Kat offered.

"You would too, wouldn't you?" He turned on
his side to face her.

Kat closed her eyes and nodded her head,
refusing to say aloud what she already knew. She loved him and she
would be willing to help him in any way she could. It couldn't be
possible in so short a time, but there it was. She loved him.

What she didn't understand and tried not to
think too deeply about was why the whole wolver business didn't
send her running for a point a thousand miles away. The whole idea
of it should worry her a great deal more than love at first sight,
but it didn't. Any normal person would have run screaming to the
nearest psychiatrist, but then again, she wasn't normal. She'd
never belonged to that world out there. Maybe, just maybe, she was
where she was meant to be.

"Talk to me, kitten. I can see the thoughts
swirling in your head. Tell me what you're thinking."

"I was thinking that I must be stark, raving
mad, but I'm happy. I'm also thinking that you're not. Happy I
mean." She, too, turned on her side to face him.

"I'm happy with you."

"I kind of got that," she laughed and then
she sobered. "It's the rest of your life that worries me. You are
not as at ease with them as you are with me. Why? You're their
Alpha."

Charles closed his eyes and waited a full
minute before he spoke. "I'm a fake. I'm not the Alpha it all."

He was waiting for her to say something, but
Kat only smoothed his sleep tousled hair and smiled her
encouragement.

"Do you want to know why I started this
pack?" he asked and when she nodded, he continued. "It was revenge.
Revenge, because my father gave my brother what should've been
mine. I was the oldest. I was the one who was raised to be the
Alpha. I was the one he lectured. I was the one he pushed and
punished to make me into what he wanted me to be. But he failed and
so did I. When he was sick and knew he was dying, he turned to
Marshall, my youngest brother.

"I started this pack to show the two of them
how wrong they were about me. I rejected everything my father stood
for. My goal was to make enough money to finance my vengeance. I
recruited other wolvers and convinced them to follow me. I didn't
give a damn about them. The only damn I gave was the one I thought
would show my father's pack how wrong he was in his choice of a
successor."

Charles closed his eyes and steadied his
breathing and Kat could see how hard this was for him. She
continued to stroke his hair to comfort him and let him know she
was listening.

"Don't get me wrong. Marshall fought for his
place as the Alpha of the Rabbit Creek Pack and now that I'm older
and wiser, I know he earned the right to serve. For a long time
though, I hated him for it and if it wasn't for the lovely lady who
became his mate, I might have destroyed him for it. That's the kind
of man I became. Don't get mad, get even."

Charles leaned forward and kissed her. Soft
and sweet, it was almost like saying goodbye. Kat could feel his
sadness as if it was her own and her heart broke for him.

"And now?" she whispered against his lips,
"What now?"

"Now I've met you and it may be too late.
Now, when I see before me what it really means to be the Alpha, I
also see it slipping from my grasp. The mantle hasn't fallen on my
shoulders, Katarina, and without the mantle, I'm still a
fraud."

"You are not a fake or a fraud, Charles
Goodman. You're only a man or a wolver," Kat smileded and shrugged,
"Who lost his way for a while. Where is this mantle? How can we
find one? We can make this right."

"I have no money you know," he confessed.
"That old truck out there is the only thing I own, that and the
land. I owe more money on the cars than they're worth and the house
is mortgaged to…"

"The hilt," Kat finished for him. "I know. I
know. Why does everyone keep bringing up the money? I don't give a
damn about the money. I never had any money. I don't know what it's
like to have money. I do know what it's like to work hard to earn
it and that's all I know about it, so can we drop the money
business and talk about what's important? I want to know about this
mantle."

"Who told you about the money?" he demanded.
The hesitant, remorseful Charles was gone. The Alpha was back and
he was pissed off.

"Jo did. She's worried about you, too, so get
off your high horse and tell me about the damn mantle." Kat punched
his chest to show him she meant business. The punch had no effect
except to make him smile.

"You're cute when you're mad." He caught her
small fist in his big hand when she tried to punch him again.
"Okay, okay. The mantle isn't a piece of clothing that's kept
hanging in your closet. It's a symbol, an expression used to
describe the weight of the responsibility to the pack." Charles
tapped his forehead with two fingers. "You can feel them and hear
them. Literally. Their worries become your worries, their joys,
your joys. You have to learn to control it or it will overwhelm
you. Knowing each member of the pack so intimately is what gives
the Alpha his real power to control his pack. It's a heavy burden
to carry the mantle and in the wrong hands, it can be used to
manipulate the pack into doing what's best for the Alpha instead of
what's best for the pack."

"You can hear what people are thinking? Can
they hear and feel you?"

Kat was thinking of the things they'd done
during the night. She could feel the blush rising and was pretty
sure it was turning her purple with embarrassment.

"Don't be ashamed of what we did last night,"
Charles said as if he could, in fact, read her mind. "We had fun.
We gave each other pleasure. We made love. That's never something
to be ashamed of." He tapped Kat's nose affectionately. "But no, if
it will put your mind at rest, the mantle isn't like some kind of
all-seeing eye. It's an emotional thing and I guess you'd call it a
telepathic thing, though the speaking isn't done with words,
although Marshall claims he can hear Elizabeth called his
name."

Charles lifted her hand and turned her wrist
until he could see her watch which was the only thing she still
wore from the night before. "We better get back into the house and
into our bed before the rest of them are up. We wouldn't want to be
caught playing naked in the barn."

He arose in one fluid motion and pulled her
up with him though she didn't have his animal grace. He grabbed his
jeans up from the floor and slid them on.

"Uh, beastie boy? I think we have a problem."
Kat rubbed her arms as stamped her feet all too aware of the chilly
air now that Charles' body heat was gone. "My clothes are all
outside and probably soaked with dew."

"I can fix that," Charles said, already
shaking off bits of straw from the blanket.

He placed it over her shoulders and wrapped
it tightly around her and then bent at the waist. One arm beneath
her arms and one beneath her knees, he lifted her to his chest
where she wrapped her arms around his neck.