Aaron's Kiss Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 7) (115 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

She had torn the phone out of the wall two days ago. It had never stopped ringing day and night the four days since the showing. She never carried a cell phone so it wasn’t an issue of anyone trying to call her that way. But the courier showing up today with a cell phone completely charged and already on to receive calls was too much. She was so going to fire Diana. When it rang two minutes after she signed the electronic device, and just as the courier was just pulling away, Airic was pretty pissed off. She’d just opened the box, for fuck sake, and she hadn’t even gotten back in the studio yet. Pulling it open, she lit into her.

“If this is not a matter of life and death then it will be once I see you again. If you think this is funny, then you are fucking nuts. If you think I’m going to keep this fucking thing once I give you a piece of my mind then you are stupider than the cow grazing in the next field. Oh, and by the way, you’re fired, and I mean it this time. You’re fired.” She was ready to lay into her once again when the voice at the other end spoke.

“What if I just wanted to tell you that it’s past time for us to be together? I’ve waited much too long and I want what I created. I’m coming for you, Airic the artist, have no doubt. You are mine. I told you that before. You will be my mate. We will have sons together. I will be there tonight. You will not run, my dear, or I will be most displeased.” 

]Airic froze; her breathing ceased to move through her lungs, and her stomach tightened as if would push its meager contents out. She looked up at the new car pulling into the driveway and whimpered. He’s here, her mind screamed. He’s already here and I can’t move.

***

Bradley saw her the minute he pulled into the drive. He had been trying to call her for a couple of days without luck. Just seeing her on the cell phone irked him a little. He’d asked if she had one when he’d had her investigated and had been told no. Damn it, was anything about this woman not complicated beyond reason? He watched her closely as he got out of the car.

The next thing he noticed was she was barefooted and dirty. The next was what he heard her saying “No, no, no, no” over and over again as she backed away from him, her ear still to the phone. He started walking toward her when she dropped the cell phone and pressed herself against the building. Something was wrong; he could hear her softly whimpering. Moving quicker, he was in front of her in seconds.

“Alastriona, what is it? Is it the phone call, is someone hurt?” He bent over and picked up the phone and was handing it to her when she crumpled to the ground. He knelt down to see if she was hurt, and he put the phone to his ear at the same time. “Who is this?” He snapped into the phone. He wasn’t trying to be rude, but damn it, she was upset.

“Who is this? Why are you with Airic? She is mine. I made her and she is mine. I will come for her tonight and she had better be prepared if she knows what is good for her. If you wish to live, you will leave her now. I will not tolerate her thinking she can thwart me. I will punish her for this, you tell her that. You should not touch her. You will not touch her. Do you understand me? Tell her to be prepared. I do not tolerate disobedience. I am her…”

“You are shit to her, you worthless excuse for a wolf. Yeah, I know what you are and what you’ve done. She isn’t yours unless you lay claim. You try to find her now, you slimy piece of shit.” He closed the phone and slipped it into his pocket. He saw the Fed-Ex bag and pulled it from her limp hand. There was no return address on it.
Well fuck, that would have been too easy,
he thought.

“Alastriona, honey, I need for you to stand up. Look at me, baby. I need for you to stand for me or I’m going to have to pick you up. You can’t stay out here in the open, all right?” When she whimpered again, he slipped one arm beneath her bent knees and the other behind her back. “Okay, honey, here we go.” Lifting her was simpler than he thought it would be, first because he expected resistance; second because he didn’t want to frighten her more than she already seemed to be. He tucked her body into his, pushed open the studio door, and carried her in.

He was surprised by how clean the room was, especially considering how dusty and dirty she was. There wasn’t a speck of dirt anywhere. He had assumed his whole life that working with, well, mud that everything would be dirty, or at the very least dusty. But it wasn’t. Pieces of her work were everywhere in different stages of completion. He spied another door and as it too was open, he pushed through it and found much of the same, only there was a couch. He took her over to it and set her gently down on it. Pulling the afghan from behind her, he wrapped her in it and then sat down beside her. Looking around the room, he saw a mini-fridge and when he opened it, he found bottles of water. Taking one out and opening it, he went back to her.

“Here, Alastriona, drink this. I need to talk to you. Can you understand me?” He needed to get her somewhere safe and needed her cooperation to do so.

“I’m not stupid, nor am I deaf; of course I can hear you. If you’ve come here to yell at me again, then get it over with and leave. I apparently have plans for the night.” She moved closer to the corner of the couch and further away from him.

Grinning, he leaned back to look at her. She wasn’t as pale, but she was covered in white dots. When he pulled one out of her hair, it crumbled in his fingers. “What is this stuff? You have it all through your hair.” She was looking at him now, well, glaring would be a better description, and he was shocked.
My God,
he thought,
she’s beautiful. Not just beautiful, but amazingly, incredibly beautiful.
It took him several moments to realize she was saying something else to him.

“I’m sorry, what did you say? I seem to have lost my train of thought.” Looking into her eyes that were the color of rich, dark chocolate, he waited for her to answer.

“I asked if you are here to take me to him. Because if you are, I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline.” He looked down at her hand when he felt the gun barrel poke him in the stomach.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Bradley raised his hands up so that she could see that they were empty. He glanced again down at the gun and saw that it was a Colt .45, an older one at that. He couldn’t smell any gunshot residue, nor could he detect any silver.

“Alastriona, this is not the route you want to go. I’m not here to take you to him; in fact, now that I have found you, I’m sworn to protect you. Put the gun away and let’s talk about this.” He had to work to make his voice sound as if he wasn’t afraid she’d shoot him.

“Protect me. You? I think not. I’d like you to go away, please. I have this, and I will shoot him when he comes here.” She stood up and waved the gun toward the door.

The second the gun was no longer pointed at him, he reached out and snatched it from her hand, disarming her as quickly as that. He opened the cylinder with one hand and emptied the casings into his other hand. He put the shells into his trouser pocket and snapped the cylinder back into the frame. He put the gun onto the table at the side of the couch. Ten seconds and she was completely disarmed.

“You bastard. Why are you here? I want you to get out of my house right now. I don’t want you here. It’s not safe, not even for me.” She walked over to the door and opened it for him.

“You wouldn’t have been able to kill him with that anyway, you know. There isn’t any silver in the shells and there are only six shots, not enough to kill someone with an alpha’s power. But he would have had you disarmed as quickly as I did, and you’d have only succeeded in pissing him off more.” He didn’t move. He couldn’t leave her, not now. He watched her for a minute when something occurred to him. “You weren’t going to kill him; that was your plan, you were just going to piss him off. You want him to destroy you.”

“Leave, don’t leave, I don’t care either way.” He watched as she walked out of the room and back into the yard. He stood to follow her and pulled out his cell phone at the same time. Time was running out and he needed to get her to somewhere safe.

“Hello, Bradley, how’s the meeting going? Has she made you grovel much? Sara had me crawl on my knees because I said something stupid to her the other night. It was quite fun. We had to…”

“Aaron, I need, can you meet me here? Remember the discussion we had about the other alpha? Well, when I got here she was on the phone with him. He had sent her a phone in order to contact her to tell her he was coming for her. And…well, she pulled a gun on me as well. She plans to have him destroy her instead of claim her.” He didn’t know what she was doing or where she was going, he just knew that he needed to get to her. He walked out to follow her, even if all he had was her scent.

“Yes, I’ll come to you, you know that. When did this happen, just today? Maybe we could get Pete to look at the phone and see what she can find out. May I bring her as well?” He could hear the seriousness in his voice and appreciated him all the more for his friendship.

“I was hoping you could help me convince Alastriona to come to the pack house with me. And if that fails, help me subdue her. It will piss her off, but she can be pissed off at the house with several other wolves around to help keep her safe. She’s one of mine now and I protect what is mine.” He had heard Aaron say the same words many times over the years they had known each other and he finally understood what he meant.

“Five minutes. Oh, and if you think she’ll only be pissed, well, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when she gets there.” Bradley could hear his laughter as he hung up.

By the time he hung up, he was at the back door of her home. Trying the knob and finding it locked, he simply pushed against the jamb with his shoulder and popped the door’s lock. There was no way she was staying here, not if he had anything to say about it. He opened the door and simply walked in.

Bradley prided himself on his ability to be quick on his feet. It was a good thing too because no sooner had the door opened than she had him thrown to the floor. He didn’t want to hurt her so he was careful how he handled her, but it soon became obvious that she was going to hurt him if he didn’t take a more aggressive stance against her.

He flipped her over onto her back, pulled her hands above her head with his hands, and trapped her body at her hips beneath his, this only because he was stronger physically and he outweighed her by nearly fifty pounds.

“Stop this right now. Damn it, Alastriona, you’re going to hurt yourself if you don’t stop.” She continued to struggle against this hold until he leaned down and bit gently into her shoulder.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It was a wolf’s submissiveness move, the neck being the most vulnerable part of the body besides the belly. Biting this way showed her he was the aggressor and she needed to submit to him or he’d bite her harder until she did. She stilled immediately; her entire body became stiff.

Bradley had an overwhelming need to taste her, the conversation he’d had with Aaron forgotten, and his claim that he was never mating again gone from his memory.

He licked his tongue across the skin that was caught between his teeth and moaned. He released the holding bite, moved his mouth along her bare shoulder, and nuzzled his mouth against the point of her neck that met the shoulder. He kissed the warm, silky skin and nipped at the pulse beating there. Need, his need to mate, dominated his thought process completely.

He felt her move beneath him, her fingers gripping his hand. Moving his mouth lower, he followed the vein along her throat, then he stopped at the base of her neck. Her own moan vibrated along her throat against his mouth. He ran his hands down her arms, caressing them as he went. His tongue licked the area there, taking more of her taste into his mouth. His body leaned closer to her and his legs tightened around her as he gently covered her with his length. He ran his tongue up the length of her neck, moving along her hot blood as he went.

When his mouth met her jaw, he moved up and gently swept his mouth against hers, brushing his lips across the fullness of hers, the heat. Once, then again, breathing her in as he went back and forth until he felt her respond to him. He nipped at her bottom lip and suckled it into his mouth, pulling more of her flavor in. He pulled back an inch and looked into her eyes, waiting for her to look back at him. 

When their eyes met, Bradley slowly moved the last inch to her mouth and rocked against her core with his cock. Moving his right hand down her ribs, he slipped it beneath her, spreading his hand wide, pressing her to him. His left hand moved to her head, angling her head, and held her to him as he kissed her. His mouth covered hers as he rolled over and brought her body over his, cradling her between his legs.

He moved his hands down her ribs and cupped her ass, pulling her tight against his hard cock. Moaning deep, he reached further, never breaking contact with the sweetness of her mouth, and grasped her thighs. Tugging her up and widening her legs, he settled them along his own hips this time. When she moved against him on her own, began riding him, he sat up, bringing her with him; they were chest to chest now. 

Grasping her hips, he moved her faster and harder against him. He slipped his hand to the hem of her shirt, pulled it up over her head, and tossed it aside. He felt her fingers move along the buttons of his shirt as he cupped her breast, still covered in the scrap of material of her bra. Pressing them together, he ran his thumb over the stiff peaks of her nipples as she ran her fingers through the hair on his chest.

“Alastriona, baby. I want to suckle; I need to suckle your breast in my mouth.” His voice had deepened; he felt that as much has he heard it.

“Yes…I, please. Please, Bradley.” She gripped his shoulders and lifting one leg up then the other, she wrapped them around his hips, anchoring her ankles at his back, and began riding him harder, tighter with his help.

Bradley pushed her breast up until it spilled out of the bra and bounced slightly. Her nipple was pink and tight. As much as he wanted to savor the sight, need pushed him forward and he took her into his mouth and suckled. Sucked hard and firmly, pulling the tight nub in as deeply as he could. When he scraped his teeth gently over the swollen peak, he drew a tiny drop of blood. As he licked the tiny wound, tasting her, Alastriona tossed back her head and came apart, screaming her sudden release.

He held her to him as she began to settle, his body screaming for its own release, but not here, he thought, not on the kitchen floor. He wasn’t going to take his mate for the first time on the floor. Because after his first taste of her skin, the first lick across her warmth, he knew he’d found his true mate. Before he could lift her up and take her to her bed, he heard someone pounding at the front door.

Aaron. He’d completely forgotten about his friend. Then he remembered the man on the phone. Her life was in danger and here he was acting like they hadn’t a care in the world, like a randy pup. Some mate he’d turn out to be if someone took her before he could claim her. He gently pulled her away from him and stood, reaching down to help her up as well. She heard the doorbell now, pealing along with the pounding, and stood as well. Her knees must have been a little wobbly because she leaned heavily back against the counter for support.

“It’s my friend Aaron; I asked…he’s here to help me get you home. Hummm, I…I’ll go let him in.” She was breathing hard; her breasts still cupped above the bra were heaving enticingly so. He backed up two steps and before he could pull her to him again, he turned and went to the front of the house.

“Someone is coming. Hurry, we need to get out of here now,” Aaron said as he opened her door.