Midsummer Heat (2 page)

“Oh, behave. You’re cute and you know it. Here.” She slid her glass across to him as she stood up and grabbed her purse. “Get us both another drink while I nip to the ladies.”

She was just coming out of the ladies room when her brother barreled through the swing door ahead of her. His gaze swept the length of the corridor that separated the bar from the restrooms, locking onto her instantly. Her wolf, normally silently, snapped to attention as she noted the tension running through his tall, rangy frame.

“Kelli, thank fuck.” He rushed toward her, turning her with large hands on her shoulders and hustling her back down the corridor toward the fire exit at the end. “You have to leave. Now.”

“What? Don’t be stupid, I just got here,” she laughed, slapping his hands away but even though he was her baby brother, Riley was a full-grown wolf. He corralled her easily, blocking her as she tried to get past him toward the bar.

“Riley, you’re gonna piss me off. Now mov—”

“Max is here.”

Max. A rush of heat was quickly overwhelmed by irritation. She looked up at her brother, chin lifted in challenge.

“And?”

Frustration swamped Riley’s features. He let out a sigh, blowing his overlong bangs out of his face. Like most wolves, his hair was long, a shoulder length pelt normally caught at the nape of his neck but loose now. When wolves went out to party, they really let their hair down. Literally.

“Listen. I am not afraid of Max Daniels,” she told him, poking a finger into his chest to make her point. “He might be the pack alpha, but he’s an overbearing bully who always wants his own way. It didn’t work on me ten years ago and it certainly won’t work now. Besides, what does he want with me? I’m sure he’s married with a bunch of brats now. And old, and bald.”

The door hidden behind the bulk of Riley’s shoulders banged shut, and a voice broke the sudden silence in the corridor.

“Bald is it? Why don’t you take a look for yourself, little wolf?”

Max. His deep, smoky, silk-over-satin voice was unmistakable. She’d heard it in her dreams for years, alone in the big city with none of her kind around her. Memories of the dangerous and sexy alpha’s son that she’d had a crush on for years haunting her. She snorted. Dreams didn’t remember that the sexy son had become an asshole of an alpha or the fact that he called her ‘little wolf’ pissed her off so much.

“Well look at what the cat dragged in,” she drawled, a hand in the middle of Riley’s chest to shove him to the side so she could get her first look at the reason she’d run from Stratton all those years ago. “If it isn’t hotshot Daniels himself.”

The sight of him took her breath away. Leaning against the frame of the door, his arms were folded over his chest. His very broad chest. She bit back the whimper trying to escape her throat. Ten years ago he’d been a kid taking over from his father, but in the intervening years he’d filled out. Nicely. More than nicely. The surge of heat and thrill of feminine interest winding through her pissed her off all the more. How dare the bastard still do that, make her interested, after trying to re-arrange her damn life?

He smiled, golden-brown eyes warm as he swept an assessing glance down her body. “Nice to see you haven’t let yourself go living in the big city.”

“Screw you, Daniels,” she snarled before she could stop herself. Great, less than thirty seconds into conversation and he was already pushing her buttons. And she was damn well letting him…what the hell was wrong with her?

“I wish you would, but I doubt it’s going to be that easy,” he said as he pushed off from the door, nodding to Riley, who beat a retreat as fast as his legs would carry him.

“Coward!” she called after her brother, but the door had already slammed shut behind him. She returned her attention to the wolf stalking toward her and narrowed her eyes in warning.

“Too frigging right it’s not going to be that easy.” She backed up as he approached, something deep inside her thrilled by the dark look in his eyes, until her back hit the fire exit. Shit. Nowhere left to run. “What do you want Max?”

He reached her, looming over her and so close she could feel the heat of his body beating at her skin right through her clothes. His dirty blond hair glinted in the overhead lighting, caught back from his face with small braids, the rest falling to cover his broad shoulders, inviting her to run her hands through it. She’d always loved his hair.

Heat, passion and male triumph filled his eyes as he reached out to plant a hand on the wall over her shoulder. Leaning in, he cupped the nape of her neck in the other hand.

“You,” he whispered, bending his head to claim her lips.

A groan welled up from the depths of Max Daniel’s throat as he leaned down and did what he’d been dreaming about for years. Kissing Kelli Copeland, and making her his, had been a goal as long as he could remember. She’d been around since he was a kid just figuring out what the difference was between girls and boys, right through to the jealousy and possessiveness of being a teenager around the most popular girl in school. Boys had buzzed about her like bees around a flower and he’d never been able to tell her how he felt. After all, she was descended from Stratton alphas, a line that went back as far as the records themselves, and he was the son of a bitten alpha, his dad hadn’t been born a wolf but plain old Homo sapiens. A mongrel compared to her blue-blood.

That was then, this was now. Now
he
was the Stratton Alpha, and he had her, her slender body trapped between him and the wall, as her soft lips trembled under his. They were softer than silk and more addictive than crack cocaine. He pulled her closer, hand angling her head for better access to her lips as he parted them with a decisive sweep of his tongue.

She started, her soft gasp lost in his mouth as he thrust into the silken sweetness beyond her lips. God, she tasted fantastic. He groaned and moved so that he had her cornered, sheltering her from the rest of the world and keeping her all to himself as he plundered her lips. For all her fight, the sass and cheek she’d always directed at him, she melted as soon as he touched her.

Triumph snaked around the heat blistering through his body. Another moan hit him as his cock, thick and painfully hard, rubbed against the inside of his jeans. His wolf, sensing the woman they’d both been obsessed with for years within reach, yowled and clamoured to be free. With iron determination he fought the creature down, sweeping his tongue along hers in a lingering caress before breaking the kiss and lifting his head.

“I’ve wanted to do that for years,” he admitted in a soft voice as he waited for her to hit him.

Her eyes were wide and dark, the expression in them stunned as she lifted a hand to her lips.

“God, don’t look at me like that, little one,” he begged, the primal need to press her up against the wall and take her there and then, to claim her as his mate, almost overwhelming him.

Grimly he held onto control. Thanks to a chance comment ten years ago she’d heard that he wanted to claim her and she’d run. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Oh, he still intended to claim her, there was no question of that. She was his, she’d always been his, and now that she was back in Stratton, he didn’t intend to let her slip through his fingers. He just wouldn’t make the mistake of letting her know what he was planning this time.
Softly, softly catchy monkey,
he reminded himself, or in this case, she-wolf.

Quickly, too quickly, she recovered herself, and shoved hard at his chest. “Get
off
me, you great oaf!”

He smiled at the push, holding his ground easily for a moment before he let her get her way. He was strong, much stronger than she was, even if she was a feisty little thing, but he wasn’t a bully. No man worth the name physically threatened his lady.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the sparring and potential for violence and sex that hung in the air between them. With wolves one was never far away from the other, particularly not with an alpha pair.

Even though she’d never identified as an alpha, he knew in his bones that’s what she was. She’d been little more than a kid when she’d left the pack for the big city, too young to have found herself, pushed herself forward. But she came from a long line of alphas and her bearing and manner screamed an attitude and feminine dominance that had both wolf and man sitting up to take notice. He knew, they both knew, that she was the female alpha to his male. And by the moon, he was going to prove it to her.

“Pretty words from a pretty lady.” He stepped back a little, not much, to let her pass then grinned as she shook her head at him and stalked past.

Her hips swayed as he followed her down the corridor, the cheap lighting overhead highlighting her curvy figure like a catwalk spotlight. The denim of her jeans hugged her hips and ass below a tiny waist he could probably wrap his hands right around. Tiny wasn’t the right word. No, she was delicate, in a porcelain doll kind of way, if china dolls packed enough strength to snap the average human in two without breaking a sweat.

“Asshole. Compliments will get you nowhere after that…that…after damn well mauling and pawing me like that,” she shot back as she shoved the door open, an adorable little pout on her full lips.

Lust bolted through him again as he imagined catching her against him and licking it from her mouth. That thought led to others of her mouth, his body tight with ten years and more of frustration. She had a mouth made for loving, her lower lip slightly fuller than the upper, tempting him to nip it, to suckle it into his mouth as he pulled that pretty little lacy top from her shoulders, baring them for his touch.

“Pawing?” He followed her through into the main bar, striding ahead of her to clear a path through the crowded room and talking to her over his shoulder. “Little wolf, I do
not
paw. I make love better than Casanova.”

“Casanova? Only if he was a frigging Neanderthal,” she snorted. Had anyone else made the derisive little sound, he’d have growled at them, his wolf responding aggressively to the challenge to his dominance. On her, it was cute.

It was less cute when she plunked herself down in a chair next to one of the pack’s younger wolves.

“Thanks Kyle, just what the doctor ordered,” she said as she pulled the glass toward her, smiling at the guy like he was the sun, moon and stars.

Mine,
Max’s wolf snarled, fury surging through them both as she patted the younger guy on the arm. A growl, low and threatening, rolled from his lips. The room silenced, an area subtly clearing around them as he stood over the pair, anger rolling off him in waves.

She started and looked up at him in shock, instinctively lifting her hand from Kyle’s arm. Then replacing it with defiance.

“Sorry, man. I didn’t realize…” Kyle started, the color blanching from his face as he looked up at Max. Hastily he pulled his arm free, backing up and stumbling over his chair for a second before he righted himself. His eyes were wide as he looked between the two of them. “Didn’t know you had a cla—”

“He doesn’t have a claim,” Kelli snapped back, anger in her voice as she surged to her feet to get in his face.

“Look you. I don’t care who or
what
you think you are, but you don’t own me. You don’t have a claim. You never did and you never will.” She stabbed him in the chest with her finger to punctuate each word.

Behind her, Kyle took the opportunity to slip away. Wise man. Max turned his attention back to the little she-wolf spitting fire in front of him. She was challenging him, in front of a bar full of pack members. The growl returned, welling up from the centre of his chest, low and warning as it threaded through his words.

“Never will? We’ll see about that.”

Before he’d finished speaking, he bent down and threw her over his shoulders. Her squeal of outrage nearly burst his eardrum and she became a wildcat, struggling and fighting to be free. Max simply looped his arm over the back of her thighs and ignored the blows raining down against his back to turn to her brother.

Riley’s face was set somewhere between amusement at his sister’s predicament, and a warning expression. Max nodded, unspoken communication passing between the two men. If he hurt her, Riley would hunt him down and make him pay. Even if Max was bigger, older and meaner, as well as being the current pack alpha, Riley had the same alpha blood as the little hellion over Max’s shoulder. The sort of blood that meant he would kill anyone who mistreated a member of his family.

“Behave, or I’ll spank you,” Max warned, big hand swatting her rounded ass in warning as he strode through the silent bar into the darkness of the night. Once outside, he carried her around the side of the building out of sight, then dropped her to her feet and pinned her up against the wall in one swift movement.

She gasped, eyes glittering in the darkness as power rolled around them. Her wolf was close to the surface, the creature looking out of her eyes as amber leeched into the chocolate brown he remembered so well. Max grinned. Both woman and wolf were pissed off with him. Just the way he liked it.

* * *

“Fuck you, asshole!”

Kelli, slapped Max’s arms and chest as she tried to slide out from between him and the wall but he was too quick for her. Within a heartbeat he had her pressed back against the wall with her hands pinned above her head.

“I told you before, I keep trying.”

His chuckle, deep and rich, wrapped around her, tugging at her body’s responses as she pulled on her wrists to test his hold. His hands tightened, a warning gleam in his eyes as he looked down at her. Awareness surged, heat spinning a web between them as his gaze dropped to her mouth. The dark look in his eyes stole her breath.

What was it about him? Why was she reacting? The ass had staked a claim in front of a bar-full of people and carried her out over his damn shoulder. Anger hit her again, fuelling the heat marching across her cheeks as she struggled against him. But it was no use, even with her wolf-enhanced strength, he was stronger than she was. His hard body pressed into her, all that lean strength and solid muscle making her weak with need and longing. Both of which she’d wanted to feel, longed to feel…with another man, any man. Not him.