Authors: Morgan Fox
Shifting his weight on the bed, he twisted enough to grab the back of her head and held her mouth to his for a scorching kiss, sliding his tongue deep into the wetness of her mouth before pulling away breathless. He then sprung up from the bed and stabbed his legs into his jeans before leaving the room.
Dominic closed the bedroom door behind him, keeping Megan out of sight. His long legs ate up the remaining distance to the front door. He glanced down to see his Berretta still clasped in his hands, a force of habit. He tucked the gun into his jeans at the lower part of his back, stopping for a second to inhale a deep gulp of air and blow it out slowly. He unlocked the door and opened it.
“Megan slipped away last night,” Reyes said, shoving past Dominic to enter his apartment. “She must have gone down the…”
Reyes words faded off as he suddenly turned to face him. His gaze darted around the room as if searching for something. His nostrils flared as he sucked in several breaths. His dark, menacing gaze darted to Dominic’s.
“She’s here, isn’t she?” Reyes said through gritted teeth. “This is the last place I’d expect to find her.” He shifted his stance, shoulders broadening. A deep flicker of silver flashed in his eyes. “Why is Megan here, Dominic?”
Dominic stepped to Reyes’s left and entered the kitchen. He reached into the refrigerator and grabbed a carton of orange juice, chugging back a big gulp. “You don’t really want to know, old man.”
“Yes, I do and go fuck yourself and your old man bullshit.” Reyes entered the kitchen. “Where is she now?”
He returned the carton to the refrigerator, shut the door, and glared at Reyes. An unfamiliar tingle flopped wildly in his belly. Was it possession, ownership, or maybe even jealousy? Clenching his teeth, he told him coldly, “She’s in my bed.”
Reyes’s eyes sprung wide and then quickly narrowed. “You lie.”
“Do I? Would you like to smell my cock?”
Reyes’s chest enlarged as if shifting into his wolf, and his eyes flickered to a cold grey. “Why?” he growled. “Why did you have to go and entice her into your bed? Why couldn’t you leave her alone? She was off-limits to you.”
He huffed, almost laughing. “Just because you don’t have the jolly fucking balls to fuck her doesn’t mean I can’t.”
The moment Reyes’s fist connected with Dominic’s jaw, Dominic wished he had better control over his anger. He was quick to retaliate. His fists were like hammers as he pounded away at Reyes, connecting with everything in their paths. Their arms and legs were in a dance to the death as the two warriors fought.
Dominic slammed his fist into Reyes’s stomach with the force of a wrecking ball, empting the air from his opponent’s gut and chest. Capitalizing on the heavy wheeze, Dominic thrust several more punches to Reyes’s face, knocking the older lycan back on his ass.
Standing tall, Dominic snarled in anger. “Is this what you want? You want a woman to come between us?” Was he talking about Reyes or his best friend, Jonah? He shook the thoughts away. “You were never supposed to find your mate. What makes you so sure she’s yours?”
Reyes swept his leg out, knocking Dominic onto his knees. “I don’t have a clue, but the signs are there for me nonetheless, and you knew they were and still you cared so little for me that you went and fucked her anyway. What the hell is wrong with you, boy?”
“Boy? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me. Megan wanted me. She came to me last night. I just accepted her offer. If she wanted you so damn badly, why hasn’t she gone to you? You’re practically up her ass every goddamn day.”
Reyes stood, punching Dominic in the face and chest with back-to-back blows. Dominic fell against the dining room table, knocking over a few chairs. They were destroying his home, but he didn’t fucking care. His anger had been building for far too long over the unfortunate choices he made about Megan. He’d never had a chance to get his emotions in check where she was concerned. He glanced over at his friend, who stood huffing out heavy breaths, and realized this situation with her really had little to do with his friend and everything to do with himself. If he could kick his own ass, he would.
Spitting out blood from his mouth, Dominic rounded and landed his foot across Reyes broad chest. Winded by the fierce blow, Reyes slammed hard to the ground. There was no way in hell he was going to let the old man have the last hit.
Did he have a right to be with Megan as he once thought? She didn’t want him for more than a fuck. She admitted that much to him. Maybe Reyes was the one chosen to be with her.
“You can have her,” Dominic mumbled, leaning against the wall to his kitchen, dabbing his tongue over the blood seeping from his lips.
Reyes climbed to his feet, fist balled at his sides, his eyes locked with Dominic’s once more. “You knew she was my mate, knew I had feelings for her, but none of that mattered to you, did it?”
“I said you can have her,” he repeated. His tone was thunderous. What was he doing? He was surrendering the woman who held a piece of him no other woman had ever been able to possess. Growling, he couldn’t think about that now. He had to do what was right, even if he figured shit out too damn late. “Fighting with you over a woman is not worth it.”
“You want me to have her now, after you’ve defiled her?” Reyes pounded his fists against the counter in the kitchen. “Why would I want her now? She clearly has no desires for me, but you on the other hand…She clearly has a thing for assholes.”
Anger rippled inside him, splintering him in two. “I wouldn’t know that. I didn’t fuck her there,” Dominic shouted, and the moment he did he wished he hadn’t.
Megan cleared her throat, and the silence in the room was deafening. “Yes, I must have a thing for assholes.” Her hands dug into her hips, and seething fury dominated her stare. She locked gazes with Dominic and said plainly, “Reyes, please take me home. There is nothing here that I need or want.”
Dominic’s chest ached once more, and he had the impulse to rub the spot over his heart with the palm of his hand. Oh. no, what had he done? “Wait, Megan—”
“Don’t speak to me, Dominic. I think we can all agree that you’ve said and done enough.”
Casting a glance toward Reyes, she said, “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll meet you outside.”
Megan pushed passed Dominic on her way to the front door, but he reached for her arm and grabbed hold of her before she could take another step. Megan reared back and, with lycan strength, slapped him across the face.
“Don’t. Ever. Touch. Me. Again,” she said in a tone more lethal than anything Dominic had ever heard before.
Turning, she left the room and so did all the air from his lungs.
* * * *
Reyes sat rigid and stiff in the front seat of his truck, fingers squeezed around the black leather of his steering wheel, practically twisting the metal ring. Anger seethed inside him as he smelled the combination of both Megan’s unique scent and that of the arousal her body had experienced the night before at the hands of a lycan he thought was his friend.
How could Dominic have done that to him? He hadn’t kept his feelings for Megan a secret, from everyone else, yes, but not from Dominic. Dominic had always been his partner, the man who had his back in battle. Why now would he dare challenge him over a woman? His mate, of all creatures, was more than just a woman. She was a miracle.
When Reyes was a boy, he had been groomed for a life as a head figure, a political soldier among were-kind. His pack had chosen his family because the men were fierce, strong-minded, and able to mingle with humans without giving their true identities away. His family was recruited when there were differences between the were-societies. His job was to ensure that wars did not break out among their kind, as well as with the humans. He and his family had done a remarkable job over the last century, ensuring their secret stayed out of the public eye.
As the oldest member of Sebastian McCarthy’s pack, Reyes never thought he would find his mate. It wasn’t supposed to happen. Somehow, the men in his family had found a way to remove the instinctive mating bond. The only way they could reproduce was by choice. Female lycans who were breeders would volunteer for the honor of being the mother of a political solider, making the need for a mating bond irrelevant. These breeders would birth their children in privacy away from the pack. Once the child was born, it was immediately removed, and in most cases, the mother never saw her child raised into adulthood.
However, Reyes never wanted a woman because of who he was. He had no desires for just a warm body to nurture and grow his seed. He wanted to find someone who loved him, but that was not in his cards. Finding someone to love and cherish who would love and adore him in return was supposed to be an unattainable goal. His extensive travel schedule offered limited interaction with the opposite sex. He was always meeting with leaders, who just happened to be men. Discovering that special someone was near impossible.
Until Megan…
Remarkably, she had somehow landed in his lap, a breathtakingly beautiful woman who was also strong, witty, and sexy as hell. Sadly, she didn’t want him, and she probably thought he was too old. Hell, he was, but he looked no older than a man of forty-two. Shit, he was in his prime, physically powerful and mentally sharp. Why had she not considered him a candidate for her affections? Why had she fallen into bed with Dominic, a man who did nothing but insult her and stare at her as if she had cut his balls off?
Her presence was difficult to ignore, so close to him that he could smell the faint fragrance of her perfume far beneath the other imposing scents. He closed his eyes briefly and envisioned burying his nose against the crook of her neck, deeply inhaling the sweet floral scent he knew he would find there. The soft skin of her neck would tickle his cheek as he brushed against her, rubbing his jaw and lips along the delicate line of her throat and shoulder.
He groaned as his cock stirred awake in his dark blue jeans, reminding him that he had not slept with a woman in months. Sex was not something he desired a whole hell of a lot these days, but having Megan this close was like a knife to his brain. Dr. Megan Shaw offered him nothing but a total mind fuck.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I know this must be awkward for you.”
Awkward for me, as well.
She swallowed hard, folding her arms over her chest. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”
He nodded and continued driving back to her apartment. Once he pulled into the parking spot he always used, she jumped from the vehicle before it even came to a complete stop and stormed up to her apartment, pushing her way in.
Reyes stared after her, devouring her every step, lengthy strides that had his mouth watering for a chance to explore those deliciously long legs. She had no idea how difficult this was for him, being forced to protect and guard a woman who wanted nothing to do with him. He was tempted to call his alpha and tell him exactly what he could do with his detail, but that wasn’t Reyes. He was loyal to the end and would do his job until it killed him, and if he was lucky, it would.
His phone rang and drew his thoughts from Megan. He rolled his eyes in frustration as the name flashed on the screen. Speak of the devil. His alpha, Sebastian McCarthy, was making his daily check-in on the ravishing doctor.
He pressed the talk button and held the receiver to his ear. “Reyes,” he said sharply.
“Any news to report from Dallas?” Sebastian asked, jumping right into business.
“No,” he bit out.
A moment passed before he responded, “You sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“You don’t sound very sure. You sound distant.” A long pause filled the space. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with your feelings for Dr. Shaw, would it?”
His brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
Sebastian chuckled. “Look, my friend. You don’t always have to tell me what’s going on, but you’ve been my best friend for way too long for me not to see that something is rattling your cage and has since before you left McCarthy Ranch.”
Damn right something was rattling his cage. He’d found his mate and couldn’t have her. She’d rather give herself to her enemy than go to him for release. He was there for her, would do whatever she needed. She had to know, had to feel the connection building between them. That’s how it worked. The connection built, calling the wolf to mate, demanding the pair be together, an instinct that couldn’t be denied.