Untamed: An Alpha's Promise (Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance) (4 page)

CHAPTER
EIGHT

He almost didn’t hear the phone call, and when he did he assumed it was his mother asking why he’d let his father walk in alone. He wasn’t in any mood to discuss the doctor’s visit. He just wanted to be alone and get his head together. But when he glanced at the phone he saw there was a message from Charmaine and he listened to about three seconds of it before answering her call. Everything else went on hold when he heard the fear and fragility in her voice, and he couldn’t push the gas pedal fast enough to get to her.

Parker had barely arrived at the hospital and said hello when one of the nurses interrupted to give an update about César’s progress. Restricted blood flow to his brain had caused him to slip into a coma, she explained, and the prognosis was still uncertain. Charmaine’s face dissolved into a puddle of panic as the nurse spoke, and Parker recalled his own feelings of helplessness in the oncologist’s office with Dominic earlier that day. In those little moments, the medical details meant nothing. He knew she didn’t care about the science of it all; she just wanted her father alive and well. A dull ache tore at his gut because she was unhappy and he was powerless to fix it.

Scottie glowered at him from the other bench. Parker had shaken his hand and thanked him for helping her out, tried to be the bigger man, but the sulky ginger bastard just kept throwing daggers at him with his eyes. No matter how hard Parker tried to engage him in conversation, Scottie merely growled abrupt answers in return. Parker was determined to be polite, but he was getting pretty tired of having to look at Scottie across the room, and it appeared the feeling was mutual.

He tried to be sympathetic and imagine what it would be like to have Charmaine snatched away from him--not by his choice or hers but the randomness of the universe--and that softened him a bit toward her jealous friend. If he was in Scottie’s place and couldn’t look at her every day, see her smile and hear her laugh and touch her--yeah, that would be painful. He should cut the guy a break. After all, this was her best childhood friend, her lifelong buddy.

The man who proposed first
, a jealous little voice in his head reminded him.
The guy who’s spent the better part of the last two decades by her side, every day.

But his rational side won.
I’ve experienced plenty of things with Charmaine that he never will,
he thought, gazing down at her sleeping in his lap. He brought the curled fingers of her right hand to his lips, aware of Scottie’s jealous stare as he kissed her fingertips. Charmaine stirred and smiled up at him, so beautiful it made his heart ache, and he smoothed her hair back from her forehead, wanting to keep that peaceful smile on her lips as long as he could.

Sorry, man
, he thought as Scottie shifted in his seat and averted his eyes.

“I’m so glad you’re finally here,” she murmured.

“I’m here.” A tender lump rose in his throat.

“Thank God Scottie was with me,” she said as she shook off her grogginess. “I couldn’t have driven myself. I was a mess.”

“It’s a shock,” he agreed. “I’m glad he was there, too.” He nodded politely at Scottie, who was trying not to watch them but couldn’t tear his envious eyes away. When
Parker met the other man’s eyes he saw raw rage reflected back. Scottie clenched his jaw and stood up, and Parker watched him go, never saying a word, until Charmaine sat up to talk with her mother. Then he quietly excused himself and went after Scottie.

“We should talk.” His calm voice rang down the isolated hallway where Scottie stood like a statue, gripping the window frame as if he was seconds away from tearing it straight out of the wall. He walked closer and saw Scottie staring through the window, taking shallow, ragged breaths. Wisely Parker stopped a few paces away and held his hands up to indicate he had come in peace.

“I’m… just…” Scottie gritted his teeth and forced the words out even as he struggled with his composure.
He’s trying not to phase
, Parker realized.
Jesus, he’s that upset
.

“I’ve always been taught that it helps if you fix on a point with your eyes,” he offered, “but I’ve personally found it more effective to close my eyes and focus on an image in my head. It helps with the noise.”

Scottie said nothing, but his eyelids squeezed shut and after a moment his breathing regulated. He relaxed his grip on the window sill and eventually muttered, “That actually does work better, thanks.”

“I’m not your enemy, Scott.” He walked a few steps closer to Scottie, his body language purposely neutral. “I’m not after you or anyone else in the Vella pack, I swear. I love Charmaine and I’ll do everything in my power to make her happy and protect everyone she cares about. That includes you.”

Scottie was silent at the window. “That’s very noble of you, Parker,” he finally managed, his tone icy.

Parker ignored his sarcasm. “I just love her, man. It’s really that simple. I’m not trying to make any grand gestures.”

“And you’re sure you can protect her? When the others find out about you two…”

I can sure as hell protect her better than you can
, he thought, recalling the night Scottie had nearly landed Charmaine in the hospital right alongside himself. “I’m doing everything in my power,” he vowed.

The other man fell silent again, his entire body tense. “If you really wanted to do everything in your power,” he said softly, “you would leave her, and then she wouldn’t be in any danger at all.”

Parker shook his head. “You know about Mates. How that works. It’s not a choice we make. You have more of a choice not to love her than I do.”

Scottie stared at him for a minute before he finally spoke, his voice strained and confused. “I’ve known her for her entire life. We went to school together, we were together every day, we’ve spent all our time together for years…” he trailed off, shaking his head as if trying to forget the memories. “It should have happened for us that way. Charmaine and me. Not…” He gripped the window sill again and choked on his own words, but both of them knew what he’d wanted to say.
Not Charmaine and you.

“I’m sorry that you’re hurting,” Parker said honestly. “No one chose this. But I love her, and she loves me, and we’re meant to be together. It’s natural law.”

“Right.” Scottie straightened himself and swiped at his eyes before storming past Parker. He’d gotten about ten paces down the hallway before he stopped and turned back to look at Parker, his amber eyes narrowed. “You better hope to God nothing happens to her,” he warned, his voice shaking, “because if it does, I’ll kill you myself.”

CHAPTER NINE

César was released from the hospital to a rehabilitation facility four days later, and Charmaine felt horrible for wondering how she would ever be able to broach the subject of the treaty with him when he was in such frail health. Torn between her concern for her ailing father and her anxiety about the treaty, she was distracted and clumsy and a few times even impatient with Parker, which made her feel especially guilty. She was in love for the first time in her life, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. Things were falling apart around her just when they should have been running like clockwork.

It didn’t help that she spent most of her time at Parker’s. The desert house was far from town, which meant an extra-long drive on work days, and though she had a ton of things at his place, it still wasn’t her home. Not quite.

He’d asked. Many times, in fact, and though she loved him and wanted to be with him she was reluctant to take the plunge and move in with him. Without the approval of their packs, she wasn’t sure they should invite that kind of trouble. And things were still so new. He was the first real boyfriend she’d ever had. Mate or no Mate, they were still getting used to each other.

But then she’d spend the night with Parker and things would be so perfect between them, so right, and she knew it was more than sex, more than infatuation or the flush of new love. They were connected, destined, meant to be together for some greater purpose. Both of them knew it.

So what’s your problem, then?
she chastised herself.

There were no easy answers. It seemed too soon, she was too young, her parents would be upset, someone would find out and start a war between the packs - all excuses that Parker had already gently refuted every time they discussed it. She worried about her job and the pressure to have children so soon and the responsibility of being and Alpha’s wife and Parker talked her through all of it:
Keep your job, or find something new, or don’t work - it’s entirely up to you, Baby. We don’t need to rush the family. I want to just enjoy you. We’ll have kids when it’s right, not when they expect it. Alpha’s wife? That’s no big deal. You’re an Alpha’s daughter - you were born for this.

And he was right. He was right about every bit of it. The bottom line was, she wanted certainty and there was no certainty in love. Parker had never given her any reason to think he wasn’t in it for the long haul, but doubts she couldn’t name came to her when she least expected it, whispering in her ear that things were moving too fast.

So she packed overnight bags every time she stayed, and the closet he’d cleared out for her remained empty but for the hangers. One lone bottle of her conditioner sat beside his shampoo in the shower, and on days she slept over she went to work smelling like an odd combination of eucalyptus and fruit. He was patient with her and told her over and over that they could move at her pace, but every time she packed her things and walked out the door she felt him tug at her, as if they were invisibly connected. The disappointment was too easy to see in his face and it haunted her all the way home, every single time.

She had no one to talk to about it, either. The only people who knew she was with Parker were her parents and Scottie, who were all on the same side. There was no talking to them about her great betrayal; they all tried to pretend it hadn’t even happened. It was imperative that she keep their relationship a secret, but she wished she had someone--a sister, a sympathetic mother, a best girlfriend--to hash it out with.

Things would be so much easier
if
…

If
she and Parker weren’t from rival packs.

If
her father wasn’t sick and it was just a matter of discussing the treaty over coffee.

If
she’d been allowed to participate in pack business starting as a teenager like her brothers had been, because maybe she’d already have enough clout to broach it with the Council on her own.

And most importantly, if she could just get out of her own damned way and enjoy the fact that she had a sexy, intelligent, capable Mate who loved her and wanted to share his life with her. It should’ve been just that easy. Instead, she felt like she was barely hanging on.

CHAPTER
TEN

The next morning, Parker was unusually quiet. For about the twentieth time it was on the tip of her tongue to ask how the oncologist’s appointment had gone earlier that week, but he hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with the information, so she didn’t dare ask.  Dominic’s medical appointment had loomed on the calendar for a month now, an angry red scribble that she’d caught Parker staring at every time he walked past the refrigerator, as if somehow he could imagine it away. She wished he’d just talk to her about it, especially since both their fathers were sick, and they were really going through it together. But talking through his anxieties was not his style.

He was visibly shaken when he returned home that night. Charmaine saw his car pull in, but he came through the door so quietly that she didn’t hear him. She rounded the corner to find him standing in the hallway, his coat crumpled in his hands, staring at his favorite photo of himself and his dad. She only needed one look at his stunned face to know that grief had finally sunk its terrible teeth into him. She drew him into her arms, soothing him with soft kisses as he clung to her.

After a minute he whispered hoarsely, “I just need to hold you.”

She nodded and gently unclasped his jacket from his hands, hanging it carefully on the antler coat rack before leading him to their bedroom. Parker cooperated as she sat him on the bed and pulled off his shoes one by one; administering more slow kisses as she slowly undressed him to his t-shirt and boxer briefs.

“I don’t know why it hit me so hard today,” he finally managed in a strangled, halting voice. His throat worked as he told her as much as he could about the appointment before burying his face between her breasts and falling silent. “Three months,” he whispered into her shirt. “I can’t stop thinking about Maddie.”

She ached for him trying so hard to keep it together. He hadn’t said a word when her father was in the hospital, and she knew it was because she had needed him. That was Parker--always looking out for everyone else before himself. He didn’t say much else, but she was grateful he’d opened up to her even that much. They fell asleep with Charmaine holding him to her breast like a child, her arms wrapped protectively around his body.

It was only a few short hours later when she woke to his hands caressing her, peeling her t-shirt away and covering her skin with blazing kisses. Through her sleepy haze she felt his mouth land on hers, insistent and raw. Her brain was still struggling to wake up even as he stripped her naked and pressed his fevered skin against hers. Her body roared to life, instantly sensitive to his touch.

“Baby,” he breathed against her lips, “I need to be inside you.”

She shivered at the contact and wrapped herself around him in glorious defeat, loving the way he whispered her name as he slid easily into her.  Everything was slick and hot and aching and she sighed his name over and over as she took him in. For a moment he paused and she felt him twitch within her, causing her walls to contract in response, milking him. He growled and latched his teeth onto her shoulder, holding her fast but not moving inside of her.

“Being like this makes everything better,” he murmured against her skin. “Why is that?” His fingers gripped her so tightly that she feared he’d mark her skin.

“Because this is where you belong,” she whispered fiercely. Her nails clawed the smooth swell of his tight ass and she sucked his earlobe between her teeth, making him gasp and shiver. “Give it to me,” she begged, trying to make him forget everything and just lose it all in her. She knew it would clear his head to be a bit more primal. Still he held her hips down, resisted her writhing. “Please, Parker. Don’t be gentle.”

Even if she’d had forever she wouldn’t have wanted it any slower. He rumbled deep in his throat and moved inside her. She raked her nails down his back, bucking impatiently against the steady measure of his hips, seizing his nipple between her teeth. He grunted in agonized delight as she closed her mouth over it, sucking it hard as she clawed at his buttocks and squeezed him tightly from within.

“Ahh, you’re getting too good at this,” he groaned, breathing deeply and holding it, which she knew to be his little trick for staving off orgasm.
Huh-uh, not this time
, she thought, right before he seized her wrists and pinned them to the bed with one powerful hand. He chuckled at her gasps of shock before lowering his mouth to her neck and lightly nibbling. One strong hand scooped under her ass and tipped her hips up to his as he mouthed that little erogenous spot like he was devouring her cunt, flicking his tongue against it and licking it and nipping it with his teeth, all while he worked her from the inside.

Damn him!
Within seconds she felt it out of nowhere, that sweet unbearable itch, and he watched her face closely as it built in her. The delightful buzzing spread low in her groin, making her thighs quiver around his hips. He clutched her even tighter and picked up the pace until she whimpered his name with every deep stroke. A sharp buzzing traveled along her spine and she felt herself opening up and up, blooming, turning herself inside out with pleasure.

Parker braced one arm against the wall and pulled her against him with the other, fucking her so that with every stroke his cock hit some amazing place inside of her. She gasped and bucked against him, urging him on as he rode her hard, her hips rising to meet his over and over again, her inner muscles clutching at him as he plundered her depths. His chest rumbled with deep sounds of pleasure as they rutted and she answered with satisfied sounds of her own. In her brain, the low buzzing resumed with greater ferocity, and she could feel the flush in her cheeks as signals sparked out to every nerve in her body. A fine sheen of sweat covered their skin and pooled where their bodies touched.

The exquisite pleasure grew inside her, twisting, and twisting tighter, and twisting even tighter. When he abruptly pulled out of her she was almost frantic. “No… no!” she cried out, but in an instant Parker was spreading her legs impatiently and dipping his head between her quaking thighs. He plunged his tongue into her, lapping at her puffy folds, teasing her swollen clit, until she arched her back and cried out his name. He answered by sucking her bud into his mouth.
Hard
.

Laid bare by the animal urgency of their lovemaking, she surrendered herself entirely to his hands and mouth, shutting out everything but the feeling of his tongue on her sensitive flesh, the thrill of him feasting on her, reveling in the taste of her. The scent of their combined musk hung above them like overripe fruit, pungent and palpable. She wanted it to last forever as he drove that delicious itch from her, coaxing it with his talented tongue, teasing her with one finger in her sopping depths. Her thighs shook uncontrollably as she chased that pleasure, finally overtaking it just as she jerked violently against his mouth. And while she shuddered in the aftermath of her climax, sobbing with the spasms that racked her body, Parker slipped back inside her and gave a few quick thrusts before he braced himself with one trembling, muscular arm and pinned her beneath him. Over the pounding of her own heart she heard the ragged groan of his release - “Ah, fuck… Baby!” - before he was still.

Still catching his breath, he smoothed damp tendrils from her forehead and planted kisses across her eyelids, her jawline, and the pulse in her temple. “I love you, Charmaine. I want it all to stay just like this.”

Yes
, she thought, stroking his back and holding him close, exhausted but never more satisfied.
Please, please, let everything stay exactly like this.