do you think it’ll be bad? The storm, I mean? The weather people seem to think we’re going to get dumped on, but they’re wrong at least half the time.”
“I think they’re right this time,” Alistair said. He could feel the approach of the storm deep in his bones, could smell it on the cold breeze. They would indeed get hit. One storm among hundreds he’d experienced, and one more he would spend without the warmth of his pack to surround him. He let himself wonder, just for a moment, how they were before pushing the thoughts aside. They were safe, according to his last conversation with Edwin. His nephew was doing a good job acting as Alpha in his stead, but lately, he’d begun pressing Alistair to come back. Edwin was increasingly insistent that with Alistair now healed, they could fight off whatever army Owain could muster. He was almost tempted...until he looked at his scars. And remembered the bodies—the friends—they’d had to burn.
Alistair’s guess had been right—his brother hated him even more than he wanted control of the pack. As long as that stayed true, he would stay in this self-imposed exile and keep this the way it always should have stayed.
Between the two of them.
“Well, hopefully the power will stay on,” Brienne said, drawing his attention back to her. “I’m not sure the landlord has a generator to lug over, even if he could.”
He frowned. “One never knows. Surely you have friends locally who’ve done this before.”
She shrugged, flushing a little. “I’ve had some pretty tight deadlines since I’ve been here. And, you know, it’s kind of harder to make good friends when you don’t work outside your house. Not that I don’t have friends,” she added hurriedly. “They’re just mostly not, you know, here.”
It hadn’t occurred to him until that moment that the woman wouldn’t have a backup plan that involved leaving. Or that she wouldn’t have dozens of friends lined up waiting to help her, even though he’d never actually seen any of them. It was a shock to realize they had something in common.
“But you seem so”—delicious, beautiful, irresistibly lickable—”friendly,” Alistair finally managed, nearly choking on the word.
Now she looked amused. “Oh. Well...thanks?”
“You may want to think about visiting your family Miss Fox, or at least getting out of town if you don’t want to go that far. There’s still time to pack a few things and start driving. It’s likely to get very bad. Have you looked at the news? This is nothing like the hurricanes I expect you’ve seen. When the storm moves out, we could be snowed in for days.” And I’d hate to see you caught up in anything that might happen, he silently added. Surely Brienne had safer places to go, places she wouldn’t be alone without heat or light. Places where she wouldn’t be compelled to ask to share an unfriendly werewolf’s fireplace.
One look in those intelligent green eyes and he knew that was exactly what she expected to do. That, and perhaps more. There was no ignoring the desire he saw simmering just beneath the surface...though the gods knew he’d been trying for months now. This would be so much easier if everything in him didn’t want to respond to her need by revealing his own. Alistair swallowed hard.
“Please call me Brie,” she said. “And thanks for the advice, but I’m sure I’ll manage. You’re staying put too, right? If things get sticky, I’m sure we can figure something out.”
It was spoken innocently enough, but Alistair found himself suddenly inundated with visions of how it might be if he drizzled honey all over her body and licked it off. Sticky, indeed. He fought back a shudder, glad he was wearing a coat that covered the hard, throbbing evidence of his thoughts about her. It was time to end this before he did something foolish. Fortunately, they’d arrived at the garage. Alistair opened the side door for her, and she stepped inside. He followed, but she startled him by stopping short and turning to look at him, a determined look on her face.
He only narrowly avoided crashing into her. As it was, they were less than an inch from being pressed up against each other—and Brienne stood her ground. Pride had him standing his own. Surely he could manage to be so close just this once without tucking his tail between his legs and running.
He’d always been supremely self-controlled. And yet with Brienne, and her alone, things had gotten infinitely more difficult all at once.
She tipped her head back to look up at him in the dim light, the steam from her breath mingling with his. Alistair could feel her warmth, enticing him to get even closer.
She knows I want her, damn it. She must. I should have stayed away.
“Is there something wrong, Miss Fox?” he asked softly, and then, when her brows drew together, remembered what she had just instructed him to call her. “Brie?”
The intimacy of being asked to use her nickname affected him more than he’d expected. Much like the woman herself.
“No,” she said, still frowning a little, as though he were a puzzle she was attempting to work out. “I just...I wondered...if you might want to get dinner sometime.”
“Did you,” he murmured, enchanted as much by the way her eyes went soft and hazy as he was by the innocence of the question itself. Before Alistair could think better of it, he’d lifted his hand, tracing the contour of her cheek with the back of his knuckles. She sighed, turning into his touch as he marveled at how very soft her skin was. Alistair’s breath caught in his throat. It was just a simple touch. But from the way it affected him, she might as well have pressed her entire body against his.
He brushed his fingertips along the path he’d just traced, then across the temptation of her lips, which parted at his touch. Alistair gave a strangled moan when her tongue darted out to flick over his finger before she sucked it into her mouth, hot, wet, impossibly sweet. Her eyes slipped shut on a soft, breathy sound of pleasure. He hadn’t expected it, and the light suction on his sensitive fingertip nearly buckled his legs beneath him. The rush of desire carried with it visions of her using that mouth on him in ways he’d only dreamed of.
Licking. Sucking. Biting. Every instinct roared to life, sending heat racing over his skin. The scent of her, each delicate pull of her lips around his oversensitive flesh, was suddenly overwhelming. The ancient beast that slumbered within him was awakened all at once, and when he groaned again, it sounded like the guttural growl of a wolf. A snippet of a rhyme from his youth drifted through his mind, just an ominous whisper.
The mating bond, when true and real, is soft as velvet, strong as steel.
Alistair didn’t know how he found the strength to pull away from her. As it was, it was a clumsy, frightened stumble, but there was nothing to be done for it. He could barely breathe. All he could do was feel, one sensation crashing into another until every inch of his body vibrated with need. All for her.
Even in the shadows, he could see Brie’s furious blush, bright pink on peaches and cream. She didn’t understand. And he didn’t have time to explain.
“I...I’m sorry,” she stammered, sounding as shaken as he felt.
“No, that’s...I have to go,” Alistair said, hoping his rough voice sounded more human than he thought it did. He fumbled his way into his car, hitting the garage door opener with such force he was worried he’d broken it. A claw, long and black and only halfway retracted, punctured his visor as he pulled his hand away. He backed out too quickly, unable to get his breathing under control...or his arousal, which coursed through
