In Control (In With The Pack), page 5
I shrug, rinsing my hands under the hot stream of water. “Claire, was nothing serious. I was a rebound after her ex-husband. She was a bit of companionship for a while.”
“You don’t have companionship with your pack?”
“This is different.” I shake my hands over the sink. “So come on, where would you take them?”
“Liam, you earn about five times what I do. I’m sure you can think of any number of fancy restaurants.”
“I’m not interested in fancy restaurants,” I scoff. “This woman’s not interested in that.” I lean against the sink, waiting for him to finish cleaning his hands. “I took her to Hussain’s for our first date.”
Marcus’s head snaps towards me. “You’re fucking kidding me?”
“Nope. And she liked it.”
“This one does sound different.”
“She is.”
He leans his forearm against the tap handle, turning off the torrent of water. “So we’re talking somewhere unusual.”
He follows me through to the theatre, the anaesthetist nods at us, the patient already laid out on the table.
“There’s a fair just pulled into town, over in Victoria Park.”
“A fair?”
“Yeah. I saw the lights as I was passing by last night.”
I smile. A fair. I’d bet my last penny, Sophia’s never been to a fair.
* * *
“You look beautiful,” I tell her, outside the door to her apartment block.
She stares down at her jeans and trainers. “You think so?”
I smooth the hair from her face and kiss her cheek. She isn’t perfumed in the scent of an omega or an alpha, but she smells heady. Jasmine on a summer’s night. Besides, I like it. My head is clear. I’m not distracted by my fucking hindbrain trying to decode every hidden message in her scent, instructing me to do this and that.
No, while my alpha instincts may be piqued by the proximity of this woman, I’m in control.
“I’m very intrigued,” she says, kissing my cheek in return. Her lips are soft and slightly wet, and fuck it I’m not in as much control as I thought, because I have a strong desire to bundle her back inside and take her to bed. “I’ve never been instructed to dress down for a date.”
“Your date never took you to a football match or the cinema?”
“Those sound like fifth or sixth kinda dates. And I never got that far before.”
“I’m going to have to question you later to understand how that can be.” I screw my brow up in mock suspicion. “Is there something hideous about you that you haven’t declared?”
“You mean my outie belly button?”
“Revolting.”
“Or the fact I never floss.”
“You witch.”
She giggles. “Come on. I’ve told you mine. Fess up.”
“My mother tells me I’m perfect in every way.”
“Oh I bet she does. Major red flag, Mr Stand.”
I offer her my arm. It’s only a short walk to my car but I’m taking any excuse to touch her. “How’s the ankle?”
“Fine now. You can rest assured I won’t be suing you for medical malpractice.”
“It has been keeping me awake at night.”
At the car, I open the door for her and watch as she slides into her seat. There’s something seductive about a woman climbing into my car, especially when that woman is a pretty little thing like Sophia.
On the drive across town to the park, she flicks through the radio stations, changing it to some station playing dance music from the news channel I always listen to.
“Fuck, Sophia, this is awful. You’re assaulting my eardrums.”
“It’s what all the young kids are listening to, Grandpa.”
“Then the young kids have fucking miserable taste.”
She flicks through the channels some more, landing on a station playing rock’n’roll hits from the fifties. “More to your taste?” she asks.
“Hey now,” I warn her, “I’m not that old.”
I jab my finger at the radio controls until I hit upon a station I like.
“Oasis,” she moans. “You’re really old.”
“I was sixteen when this song came out.”
“I don’t think I was even born,” she mutters.
“I think you require some re-education when it comes to music. This was the best era.”
“Debatable,” she says.
“No, certain,” I correct.
The lively streets of the city start to thin as we head through suburbia, passing houses lit up from within.
“Where are we going?” she asks, practically pressing her nose to her window.
“Here.” I swing the car into the turning signposted for the park.
“The park? You told me last time it was dangerous hanging around with strange men in parks.”
“I think you’re misquoting me there, Sophia. But look.” Above the dark trees, their leaves wet with rain from the afternoon, lights from carriages rise and fall. The big dipper.
She swings her gaze to me, her eyes surprisingly full of excitement.
Thank fuck.
“A fairground?”
“You ever been to one before?”
“I mean, I’ve been to the big theme parks, but, no, not one like this. It’s not somewhere my mum would ever want to come.”
“And how about you, Lady Sophia? Happy to grace this fairground with your presence?”
She frowns at me. “Are you making fun of me?”
“No,” I say seriously, “I just suspect our upbringings were slightly different.”
She rests her head back on the seat. “What makes you say that?”
I unbuckle my belt and turn in the seat towards her, lifting a lock of her hair behind her ear.
“I know you probably assume being a surgeon simply involves slicing and dicing people open,” she screws up her nose, “but it’s not. Being a doctor involves understanding people. Deducing what’s wrong with them, concluding what is in their best interests. I’m good at my work, Sophia, and I’m good at understanding people. You come from money. I knew that the moment I saw you.”
“Is it a good or bad thing?” she asks me, her mouth slightly parted.
“Neither. But I suspect it means you’ve missed out on certain things. And I would enjoy introducing you to them.”
She smiles wickedly at me, her palms coming to stroke down my chest and setting my skin tingling. I can’t help myself. I lean across the gear stick and, cupping my hand around the back of her neck, I kiss her. I kiss those warm, wet lips of hers, loving the way her body melts towards me and her mouth moves to meet mine.
I kiss her slowly and lazily. A kiss I know will have her wanting more. This woman will take everything at once if she can and I intend to make her wait.
Her fingers trace across my chest and she sighs into my mouth.
I lean away, watching as her eyelids flicker open and she gazes up at me.
“Come on, sweetheart.”
I hold her hand as I pay our entrance and lead her through the fairground. Bright lights flash and swoop, people scream as they’re thrown through the air and loud pop music thumps into the night.
“What do you want to try first?” I ask into her ear.
Her deep eyes swing across the scene, lingering on each ride.
“That one.” She points to the haunted house, its exterior painted like a crumbling old, gothic manor. Cartoon ghosts and vampires peer out of the windows and bats flocking around a sliver of moon.
She tugs on my hand and skips towards the queue.
“It’s going to be scary,” I warn her.
“I love scary,” she says.
“We’ll see.”
A rickety carriage pulls up alongside the queue and once the current riders have vacated, she climbs onto a seat near the back and I follow her in, wrapping my arm around her shoulder and drawing her close.
An attendant walks down the train, lowering bars and flicking through her phone at the same time. Then the carriage jerks forward and Sophia squeals, swinging her gaze my way and grinning.
The cool, sophisticated act has vanished and I suspect I’m being offered a momentary flash of the real woman beneath the layers of practised charm.
As the carriage lurches forward into the chasm of darkness before us, she snuggles back into my arm and I lean forward, inhaling the jasmine aroma of her hair as it tickles against my nose.
Unfortunately, though, there’s no time to savour the moment, because in the next second, we’re being spun around and a howling witch swoops down from above to cackle in our faces. Sophia screeches right back then laughs as we spin again. This time bats rack their wings in a swarm above our heads before a ghoul leaps out at us making everyone on the train scream. All except me. When you’ve seen true horror laid out on the operating table in front of you, when you’ve seen lives slip away through your fingers no matter how hard you try, there is not a lot that frightens you.
Sophia digs her elbow into my side. “Not scared, Alpha?”
I swallow. That’s the first time she’s called me that and, fuck me, it’s a turn on. Betas use the phrase, the name, all the time, and usually it leaves me cold. Usually it’s only a little omega whispering that name that gets me hard. But Sophia, she’s special.
“No, sweetheart,” I say as she flinches when something wrapped in bandages pops up behind me.
She covers her hands over her mouth, her whole body shaking with laughter and I watch calmly as more ghoulies dart out at us, everyone around us screaming.
Just when I think it’s all over, the carriage comes to an abrupt halt. Cold mist creeps in around the carriage and a faint howling plays out over the speakers.
“Now what?” Sophia whispers, squeezing on to my bicep. I’m enjoying this far more than I ought to.
Sophia swings her gaze about, searching the dark space. Others in the carriage are whispering. The mist creeps close.
And a huge ghost crashes through the darkness, screaming right in our faces.
Sophia yelps and buries her face in my chest. I wrap her in my arms, holding her that way as the carriage trundles on again, emerging into the brightly-lit night.
When the train grinds to a halt, she looks up at me with a huge grin on her face.
“I can’t tell if you hated or loved that,” I confess.
“Loved it.”
I climb out and help her after me, our seats quickly taken by a pair of excitable children.
“Where next?” she asks.
“Come on.” I drag her towards the candy stall and buy her a giant stick of pink candy floss.
She picks a bit with her fingers and holds it up to her face, examining it with suspicion.
“Come on, try it.”
She slips it between her lips and I can tell the moment the sugar melts on her tongue, her eyes widening.
She breaks off another piece, winding the strands around her fingers and offering it to me.
“You are a shit doctor, Mr Stand. So far you have introduced me to some very unhealthy food.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” I let her feed me the piece of candy, holding still as she wipes her thumb across my bottom lip and then caresses my cheek.
We stand there, in the middle of the fairground, the noise and light and people crashing around us, and it’s as if the rest of the world melts away. I lean in and kiss her again, ignoring the whistles and the irritated mutterings.
I grab hold of the collar of her leather jacket and pull her right up close to my body.
Afterwards, I kiss her on the big dipper, as we soar above the canopy of the trees, the city falling away beneath us. I kiss her in the tea cups and I kiss her on the dodgems. I kiss her on the walk back to the car and I kiss her in the car, pushing my seat right back and letting her climb onto my lap.
As she straddles me, hands gripping the front of my shirt, teeth raking down my throat, she asks me, “Are you going to take me home this time, Alpha?”
And fuck yes, I am. I’m taking her home to my bed.
I kiss her again and then I buckle her into her seat and drive her straight home.
6
Sophia
The alpha drives me to his home; a Victorian detached house that sprawls across a patch of land on the edge of the Greendale suburbs. I can tell it’s somewhere that probably cost his pack a couple of million at least and yet it isn’t the usual house the rich families in Studworth choose. Chimneys protrude from the slate tiles at haphazard angles and the front door is made from multicoloured-stained glass. The brick work is red and a covered porch runs around from the front of the house to the sides. There are several cars parked in the driveway and lights illuminate the place.
“Is your pack home?” I ask, suddenly wondering if I’m being brought back to his house for an orgy I never agreed to.
Not that I’m opposed to the idea. At least I don’t think I am.
My best friend, Rosie, has been part of her pack for coming up six years now and she’s always made the love-ins with her four alphas sound like something frankly heavenly. I’ve always been curious. But I don’t like surprises like this.
“No idea, sweetheart. But my room’s around the back.”
“You don’t want me to meet your pack?”
He holds my gaze. “Yes, but not yet. Not now.” He growls and I understand. This alpha has no intentions of sharing me. No intentions of having whatever electricity is sparking between us interrupted.
We walk around to the back of the sprawling house and he unlocks a pair of garden doors, pulling me inside a dark room and up against the cool wall. My lips are swollen and bruised from all the kissing, but frankly I don’t give a damn. I close my eyes and fall into his kiss, into his scent and his strong arms. It’s intoxicating. I think I could kiss him all night.
But he has other ideas. His fingers work down the zip of my jacket and he yanks it down, my arms catching in the sleeves by my sides.
His eyes flicker with mischief as he leans in to nibble on my throat, his hands swimming from my waist, up the sides of my body and then around to squeeze my tits. I whimper.
“Like that, sweetheart?”
“I’d like it even more if you’d let me touch you too.”
“But I like you at my mercy.”
I wonder if that is an alpha thing, or a him thing. But I’m not here to be some omega substitute, some poor imitation of the real thing.
I yank my arms from my sleeves and plant my palms on his firm stomach, tugging his shirt free of his trousers, and discovering warm skin underneath.
“Sophia,” he growls.
“I want to see you, Alpha,” I whisper, reaching up on my toes and sucking on his neck, sucking hard enough to bruise.
He presses into me, hard against the wall, and then with a tortured growl steps away. I hear the floorboards creak beneath his feet and then a lamp switches on, revealing the room in its faint orange glow.
I let my vision roam the room, taking in this alpha’s private space.
It has the Victorian charm of the house, dark polished floorboards, a battered leather armchair, and a wide double bed. A bookcase lines one wall and on the others are a mixture of family photos and small discrete art works.
On the back of the door hangs a white coat and a stethoscope.
I walk over to it and hook the device off the door, cradling it in my hands. The metal is cool to the touch.
“I didn’t think surgeons needed these.”
“Not often.”
Swishing my hair over my shoulders, I plug the stethoscope into my ears and step closer to him. Pulling the hem of his shirt, I slip the end of the stethoscope underneath the material and against his stomach.
He sucks in a sudden breath and stills, waiting to see what I’ll do next.
I come closer. Sliding the stethoscope up the ridges of his six pack, over his ribs and hovering over his solid left pec. Immediately my ears fill with the thump thump of his heart. Loud and aggressive. I realise just how powerful this man is. He has the bedside manner of an experienced doctor. He is charming. But he is an alpha nonetheless. Hidden behind his suits, beneath his white coat, is a body designed for dominance and violence. He could rip me to shreds if he wished. He could crush me in the palm of his hand. But that doesn’t leave me afraid. No, the opposite, it sends desire swirling in my belly.
I’m realising that being with an alpha is like playing with fire. Any moment it could soar out of control and engulf me, but that is half the fun.
I’ve always enjoyed playing with fire. But these days those fires have become harder and harder to find. Nothing excites me anymore.
This alpha, he excites me. What he could do to me, excites me even more.
I run my free hand over his torso, tracing the top of his jeans, holding his hot gaze in mine.
Carefully, he removes the stethoscope from my ears and tugs it from my hand. He places them in his ears and yanks down the neck of my top, exposing a slither of my lacy red bra. Another of those growls and he’s pressing the metal against my ribs. It’s not as cold as it was but it’s still cool.
“Your heart’s racing, sweetheart.”
“It is?” I ask, breathless. He glides the stethoscope down resting it on the curve of my breast.
Then, with an irritated growl, he’s yanking off my top and staring down at me. He rests the stethoscope back over my ribs and whispers, “Let’s see if I can make it race even faster.”
He cups the side of my ribcage with his hand and glides his thumb over my nipple, the rough lace brushing against the sensitive tip and making it harden with his attention.
“Hmmm,” he says, listening. “A little faster.”
He sweeps his thumb over again, then rings the delicate tissue, before squeezing the whole of my breast in his palm.
I tip my head back and his mouth meets my throat. He licks a wet stripe down my pulse and nips at my shoulder, his fingers inside my bra now, his thumb more calloused and rough than I’d realised.
It feels divine and I bite down hard on my lip, letting him pull me closer, his thigh jamming between my legs and pressing into my core. I rub against him, my fingernails digging into the plane of his stomach. He bites me in retaliation and then he’s chuckling.
