Safety (3 page)

‘Please.’

Taylor had sounded so vulnerable. She had been scared and apprehensive and she had come to him for help.

Him
.

Not Alder.

Hale stared at Alder and for just an instant, he wasn’t staring at his brother, his twin, or his closest friend. He was staring at the competition. Taylor had come to him, not Alder. The realization settled within him as pride bubbled up, making his chest swell.

“Are you going to answer me?” Alder asked. Irritation marred his expression, making him look older than he was.

“You need to wait until she’s ready,” Hale found himself saying. “We both do.”

“She’s nervous,” Alder said. “It’s normal. But she’ll adjust and she’ll be a great mother.”

Hale frowned. “She’s not going to be a great mother if she resents her children. We both know that.”

“If our mother resented anything, it was our father,” Alder shot back.

Hale sighed. He didn’t know which side he was on anymore.

The selfish part of him wanted to mate with Taylor tonight and the selfless part of him knew that after everything he’d been through, Alder deserved a family of his own.

The selfless part of him wanted Taylor to be happy and the selfish part of him hoped that he never had to see Alder become a father to a pup that could very well be Hale’s.

What had seemed so simple a few nights ago was becoming increasingly convoluted.

Hale said, “Look, you should really talk to her about this. I’ll go along with whatever you decide.”

Alder gave the barest of nods.

“Do you mind leading up the hunt?” Hale asked. “I need some time to think.”

“Fine.”

Alder left without another word.

Hale was never one to brood, but he knew that Alder was. Alder would head up the hunt, all the while ruminating over how he would handle the situation with Taylor. In the meantime, Hale was going to deal with his erection. Once that was handled, perhaps he’d be able to think straight.

Smile and nod
, Taylor reminded herself for at least the fifteenth time since she’d been saddled with Tulip.

After giving Tulip the grand tour of Taylor’s property, Lark had announced that she was going to build a hammock. She disappeared ten minutes back, heading off in the direction of the cavern where Glenn had stored her junk. Taylor suspected that Lark was intentionally trying to give Taylor and Tulip time to get to know one another.

The friction between them was palpable, though it was all originating from Taylor. Despite Taylor’s self-admission that Tulip had done nothing to deserve her anger, it was impossible to shake the feelings of animosity she felt towards Tulip.

Maybe, just maybe, this had something to do with how Tulip was constantly talking about Hale. How brave he was, how kind he was, and how caring he could be. Taylor wasn’t sure if Tulip was talking about an entirely different Hale, or if Hale was only a jerk to Taylor and her friends.

Taylor sat on the steps of her porch, chin resting on her hands and forcing a smile as her blood simmered within her veins. In her peripherals, she could see Holly in her fox form, curled up beneath a tree, sleeping.

“Are you nervous?” Tulip asked. It was the first time she’d asked something Taylor couldn’t simply nod or shake her head at.

“About what?”

Tulip wet her lips. “The mating thrall.”

Taylor didn’t care to explain that there would be no mating thrall, so she replied, “Nope. Not at all.”

Tulip smiled. Her smiles were so pretty and genuine. They made Taylor dislike her even more.

“I wouldn’t be, either. I admit, I don’t know Alder well, but if he’s anything like his brother, he’ll take such good care of you. And it’s so good that Hale is willing to share his territory with the both of you.”

Taylor turned her head away, feigning interest in the quail coop to hide the irrepressible look of incredulity that had overtaken her face. She didn’t know whether she should despise Tulip or pity her. The woman was absolutely clueless.

“Um, yeah, Alder’s great.”

“The two of you will have such beautiful pups.”

Taylor cringed. The fact that she didn’t disagree was one of the numerous problems plaguing her existence.

Motherhood had always been chief on her list of things she wanted to avoid, landing somewhere between heroin and dark alleyways at midnight. Having a child was an incredible responsibility, and even before she became a fugitive, Taylor had recognized that she wasn’t strong enough to be anyone’s mother. She had no idea who she was or what she wanted out of life.

It could have been her desire to make Alder happy, or maybe it was because a naïve part of her believed everything was going to work out for her, but Taylor could see herself having Alder’s children someday.

“We’ve known each other for less than a month,” Taylor said, more to herself than to Tulip.

“That’s the way it is with most alphas and their mates,” Tulip said. “You’ll get to know Alder while you’re carrying his pup. It’s a beautiful experience.”

That sounds like the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard
.

Tulip went off on a tangent, recounting the story of her parents and how they fell in love. The story wasn’t half-bad, Taylor had to admit. Tulip hadn’t been born to Whiteriver, but rather, she was the daughter of a lone beta wolf and his human mate. They had raised her on the outskirts of a fringe town. When she was eighteen, she’d left home, hoping to live amongst her own kind. She’d joined Whiteriver shortly after they split from Halcyon.

“It was tough living out in the wilderness, especially with how rough things were for Whiteriver,” she told Taylor.

“Why did you stay?”

“Silas,” Tulip said with a wan smile. “He was always trying to be strong for the sake of the pack, but I saw a different side of him. I wanted to be strong for him and I did everything I could to help him. But I suppose I wasn’t enough.”

“What do you mean, you weren’t enough?”

Tulip shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I have Hale now.”

Taylor wanted badly to pity her. She wanted to feel anything besides the hot coals of jealousy and resentment that burned in her stomach. Taylor knew that it wasn’t fair for her to cling to Hale when she had Alder, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“How about you?” Tulip asked. “How did you come to live here?”

“It’s a pretty long story,” Taylor said.

“She’s an assassin on the run from the government.”

Taylor twitched at the sudden appearance of Lark. By now, Taylor was almost immune to being startled, even when it came to the raccoon shifter, who was by far the sneakiest of all the shifters she’d encountered.

“An assassin?” Tulip repeated, her mouth hanging open.

“Like I said, it’s a long story.”

“Alder rescued Taylor from her people.” Lark squeezed herself between the two of them. “You should tell Tulip the story of how you met him. It’s so romantic.”

Taylor thought back to the night she met Alder and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. There had been very little romance, though she did remember lots of terror.

Before Taylor could be pressured into recounting the awful night, her companions turned their heads towards the lake, where Hale was walking up the path. He was wearing a pair of his brother’s jeans, but Taylor recognized the predatory gleam in his eyes. Eyes that were focused solely on her.

“Hello, Alder,” Tulip said in greeting.

Hale didn’t correct her. He flashed her a smile that was so close to Alder’s that it gave Taylor pause. Was it Alder after all?

He stopped in front of the porch, his gaze moving around the area. “Where’s Holly?”

Taylor pointed to the ball of orange fur that was curled up near the quail coop.

A muscle ticked in his jaw, but he turned back to regard Lark and Tulip without comment. “Why don’t the two of you take Holly and go back to the den? Taylor and I need to talk about a few things.”

Taylor immediately tensed. It
was
Alder and he was probably angry. It had been cowardly of her to make Hale tell him that she didn’t want to go through with the mating thrall.

The two females complied, Lark leaving with obvious reluctance. Taylor gave her an encouraging smile, one that faded as soon as her gaze fell on Alder. His face hardened with blatant displeasure as he stared at her. Once the others were gone, he offered her a stiff hand.

Taylor let him help her up but kept her eyes down. Unsure what to say, she busied herself with brushing invisible dirt from her dress.

“Let’s go inside,” Alder said, walking past her.

Taylor took a deep breath and then followed him inside, bracing herself for the worst. She was going to be honest with him, like she should have been from the beginning.

She shut the door behind her, leaving only the dim glow from the closed curtains to light the room. No sooner did she turn to face Alder, he was on her. His large body pinned her against the wall and she could feel his hard cock jutting against her stomach.

He brought his mouth to ear and spoke, his voice thick. “You have no idea how badly I want to fuck you right now.”

Hale
. Definitely Hale.

For Hale, there was no better position than having a female pinned against a wall. It excited him to know that she was caged between his flesh and at his mercy. It made him feel in control—something that he desperately needed to feel when it came to the human.

Now, more than ever, she made him feel powerless—powerless to stop thinking about her, powerless to stop craving her, and almost powerless to stop himself from fucking her.

She pressed her hands against his chest. “Hale, we—”

“If you tell me to stop, I think I’m going to lose my mind.”

To Hale’s amazement, she reached down between his legs and grasped his cock. The denim of his jeans separated her hand from his turgid organ, but he groaned all the same, sensing that relief was imminent.

He needed to come.

Her free hand stroked the back of his neck. It was an intimate gesture he would not typically accept from a female, but today, Hale found himself arching his head back into her touch.

She whispered, “I was going to say that we can do other things.”

“Other things?” he asked.

Her pink tongue flicked over her lips. “Other things.”

As realization dawned on Hale, Taylor stood on the tips of her toes to press her lips to the side of his neck. Slowly, she trailed her mouth down, sucking at his flesh as she went. His hands fisted as her tongue moved from the hollow of his neck and down between his pectoral muscles.

She closed her mouth over one of his nipples as she fumbled with the button of his jeans. In spite of his desire to be free of the pants, Hale kept his hands against the wall. There was something far more satisfying about seeing her small hands eagerly seeking to disrobe him.

After tending to both of his nipples, she sank lower, her lips kissing each of the hard muscles of his abdomen. Just as she settled onto her knees, she managed to undo the button of his jeans. The second she tugged the zipper down, his cock sprung free. She wasted no time in wrapping her hand around him.

Hale’s vision blurred as he released a sound of raw desperation. Her hand was warm and soft,
so soft
, and he had to bite down on his lip to keep himself from thrusting against her.

When he was finally able to focus, Hale saw that she was staring at his cock. She handled him tenderly, her thumb rubbing the underside of his crown. With her other hand, she began tracing the thick veins of his shaft.

She was exploring his cock.

Hale’s knees trembled under the gentle exploration. He knew from her scent that she was aroused and he yearned to drop to his knees and take her from behind. But even though she was going at a maddeningly slow pace, Hale knew that he would come.

As she began to stroke him, a small droplet of liquid formed at the tip of his cock. She noticed it right away, her brown eyes scrutinizing it with curiosity. Hale expected her to wipe it away and she did—with her tongue.

The simple action set him off and he grabbed her hair, forcing her mouth over the head of his cock. Rather than pull away, she accepted his need, taking his hard length deeper into the hot cavern of her mouth.

Growling his approval, Hale allowed her to suck him at her own pace, despite his strong urge to thrust into her.

She was unpracticed, that much was certain. She seemed to have no median between being agonizingly gentle and far too rough. He suspected that his cock was too big for her mouth, which would explain why her teeth kept grating on him.

Another day, these things may have bothered him. He would have taught her how hard she could suck and he would have told her how to put her teeth behind her lips as she did so. But today, Hale cared about neither of those things. He wanted anything and everything she could give him.