Billionaire Alpha Romance: The Proposal (Mature Gentlemen Book 2) (269 page)
Read Billionaire Alpha Romance: The Proposal (Mature Gentlemen Book 2) Online
Authors: Maurice Bedard
In the center, Edgar reared onto two legs and then began to charge at Amanda.
She pulled the trigger and hit him in the shoulder.
He was still coming.
She dropped the gun and started to run.
She could hear his roar changing into a scream and suddenly she was tackled from behind. She scrambled to get away and the guys came to her aid. They pulled a naked and confused Edgar off of her.
“Hey!” Jase said to Edgar.
“Jase?” Edgar asked, confused.
“Yeah, man,” said Jase.
“What happened?” asked Edgar.
“Poachers got you, man,” said Jase. “I’ll explain everything. We’ve gotta get you out of here, though.”
Amanda unpacked three wool ponchos that she’d brought for the guys and they put them on and began their hike back to the cave.
Dylan took her hand.
“That was really brave what you did back there,” he said.
Amanda smiled at him.
“It’s nothing you wouldn’t have done for me,” she said.
Dylan smiled at her.
As they walked back towards the cave, Amanda wondered if there was anything she wouldn’t do for Dylan. She did love him. She knew that now. She wondered if he would ever give her the opportunity to say it back to him again. She hoped so.
They walked until they came to the cave entrance where Robert was waiting for them.
“Come in!” he said and helped them walk Edgar into the cave.
Dylan held Amanda’s hand as they walked back into the cave. Once inside, everyone got settled.
“How did this happen?” Edgar asked, still confused.
“You got caught one night while we were out in our shifted form,” Jase told him. “We were not sure what had happened to you until we followed some tracks.”
“Wow,” said Edgar. “I don’t remember any of it.”
“Well, they gave you something that made you basically forget what it was to be a human,” said Robert.
Edgar shook his head.
“And who are you two?” he asked Dylan and Amanda.
Robert and Jase laughed.
“This is Dylan and this is Amanda,” Jase said, pointing to each of them. “Amanda helped save your life. So did Dylan.”
“Thanks,” said Edgar.
“No problem,” said Dylan.
“So you’re supposed to know where Dylan and Jase’s other brother is?” Amanda asked, pointing out the elephant in the room.
Everyone grew quiet.
Finally, Edgar spoke.
“Yes, I know where he is,” said Edgar.
Amanda and Dylan waited for Edgar to speak as did the rest of the group.
“He is with the Kodiaks in Alaska,” said Edgar at last, but he seemed saddened.
“What’s wrong with that?” Amanda asked.
“The Kodiaks aren’t like us,” said Robert. “They like war. They like blood. They like to kill. They hunt humans for sport. And they’re huge. They’re impossible to defeat in physical combat.”
“Then what are we going to do?” asked Dylan.
“I don’t know,” said Edgar. “All I know is that your brother is there. He is among them and he believes that he belongs with them. They have him brainwashed. The last time that I saw him, he turned his back on the Kermode Spirit Bear and our ways. He’s grown cold. He’s different.”
They all sat in silence for a bit. Amanda debated on what to say.
“We’ll figure something out,” she said at last.
“I’m going with you,” said Jase with finality.
Dylan just nodded to him and then they embraced.
Amanda and Dylan left and went back to the cabin shortly after that. She snuck Dylan inside so that no one would see that he wasn’t wearing any clothes. She tended to his wounds much like she had on their first night together, though this time he wasn’t nearly so bad.
When they were done, she asked him if he wanted to enjoy the hot tub.
“Let’s go,” he said with a smile.
With the snow falling all around them, they climbed into the hot tub.
“Some adventure,” Amanda said.
“Some adventure, indeed,” said Dylan.
“Did you know they would be looking for you?” Amanda asked.
“I didn’t even know they existed,” said Dylan.
“Crazy, isn’t it? To think that you have a family you’ve never even met,” said Amanda sitting across from Dylan in the hot tub.
“Yeah, it kind of is,” he agreed.
He smiled at Amanda with that crooked grin of his, clearly indicating that he was done wondering about how crazy that was.
“C’mere,” he growled.
Amanda slid over onto the seat beside him and he put his arm around her. He pulled her close and rubbed his thumb over her shoulder.
“Dylan,” she said. “There’s something I want to tell you.”
Dylan stopped and grew stiff.
“No, it’s not bad,” said Amanda.
She turned to face him.
“I wanted to tell you this. I didn’t tell you I loved you when you said it first because I wasn’t sure that I felt that way or if I was ready to tell you,” she said.
Dylan nodded with trepidation.
“What I’m trying to say is that I know now,” she went on. “I love you, Dylan.”
A smile came to his lips. He brought her in to kiss her and slowly parted her lips with his tongue. Amanda kissed him back, passionately. She let him explore her mouth as though it were the first time all over again.
She pulled away for a second.
“Things are about to get crazy, aren’t they?” she asked him slightly sad.
“I think so,” he said.
“I’m going with you to Alaska,” said Amanda.
“You really don’t have to do that,” said Dylan.
“I know I don’t have to. It’s something I want to do,” she said.
Dylan smiled again and brushed some of her hair out of her eyes. He pulled her into his side and put his arm around her again, holding her tightly.
They sat there in silence, enjoying the contrast of the ice cold weather on their exposed skin and the heat of the tub underneath the water. Amanda leaned her head onto his naked shoulder and placed a hand on his chest under the water. She felt for his heartbeat and slowly began to count its beats. Things might have been about to change, but Amanda knew some things would always remain the same.
The End
Faith is a beautiful sophisticated lady, whom figured she would spend the rest of her life reading books and snuggling with her husband watching movies on TV. She was always sexually prudish and although her and Roger had not had sex for several years, she always felt that this was just the natural way of things.
Then suddenly after 32 years of marriage and one day after her 50
th
birthday, Roger announces he is suddenly leaving her. At first Faith is devastated, but after a bit of snooping, she discovers he has a secret life of affairs and mistresses.
This news awakes and rekindles her sexual spirits and she embarks on a journey to find intimate relations again.
Faith sat back in the dining chair that Roger had picked out when they'd bought the house, and surveyed the items she'd laid out in front of her. There were three: a bottle of white wine, a slice of birthday cake as big as her head, and Roger's laptop.
Normally, she didn't drink wine before dinner, she didn't eat more than a small sliver of cake at parties, and she'd never have considered snooping in Roger's laptop. For thirty-two years, she'd told herself that marriage was built on a mutual sense of trust and respect. She'd told herself that the slow cooling of her marriage was the natural order of things. Women got older, men got older, and if all she and Roger shared now was a mutual desire to have a lovely home and someone to watch television with, well, that was what growing older was, wasn't it?
Apparently not. At least, not according to Roger. No, according to the almighty Roger, he wasn't dead yet, and he didn't know when his wife had turned into a cold fish – those had been his actual words, the bastard – but he wasn't going to spend the rest of his life on the sofa, cuddling.
At least he'd waited until her birthday party was over. That was something, she supposed. Not much, but it was something.
Faith poured herself a glass of the Chardonnay, took a sip, and flinched at the taste. Other people talked about bouquet and legs and whatever the hell else with wine, but all she could ever taste was sour grapes.
Her fingers clenched on the glass, and she forced herself to set it down before she snapped the delicate stem in her hand.
Thirty-two years. Thirty-two years of supporting him, and working with him, and putting his career before hers, even though her mother had said, had told her that it didn't have to be like that anymore. The way Faith had sneered at her own mother, insisted she wasn't one of
those
women. God, how could she have been so naïve?
The delicious chocolate cake she'd ordered from her favorite bakery turned on her tongue and she thought she might be sick. She slid back from the table and put her head between her knees, pushing back the tears that wanted to streak her face.
When she had herself back under control, she stood. She picked up the bottle of wine and the delicate crystal glass that Roger had picked out. She carried them both into the kitchen. More than anything, she wanted to smash the glass in the sink and indulge in a primal scream, but that wouldn't actually change anything. She set the glass down carefully, then upended the bottle of Chardonnay into the sink. The glug of the liquid was strangely pleasant.
With that horrible drink gone, she thought perhaps she could enjoy her birthday cake.
On the way back to the dining room, she passed Roger's sideboard. He'd amassed quite a collection of bourbon over the years, and had been able to talk extensively about the aging techniques and barrels and flavors. As a girl, she'd loved bourbon, loved the smokey bite of amber liquid on her tongue, but back then, drinking wine was the feminine thing to do, the upper-class thing to do, and Roger had wanted nothing so much as to be upper-class. She'd been devoted to giving him what he wanted.
Her fingers shook as she poured herself a glass of bourbon, neat. Raising it to her lips made her body tremble, just a little bit. But the sweet-sour bite on her tongue was worth it.
She went back to her cake, and to the laptop.
Roger had taken a full suitcase with him, carrying everything he considered deeply important. She would have let him take more. It was her money that had funded both their educations, kept him afloat until his career as an entrepreneur finally began to gain some traction, but she'd never particularly thought of it as hers. Not until he screamed at her that she lorded it over him.
She pushed up the laptop's screen and typed in Roger's password without hesitation. She'd known it as long as he had the laptop; he'd insisted on her knowing it, in fact. She'd just refused to use it.
Was it meant to be an invitation? Did he want to share something with her, and she'd misunderstood all these years? In a strange way, that would be an easier thing to find out than that he was just tired of her.
Her heart pulsed with – something, she wasn't entirely sure what – as she stared at the screen. Either Roger had closed it in the middle of an – activity, or he'd left it open specifically for her to find. The browser was open in front of her, and the website it was on was some sort of...Faith struggled to find the right word. Dating website suggested that someone was looking for a relationship, and based on the pictures that were filling the screen in front of her, these people were looking for something more elemental.
Something deep inside of her stirred, twisted, and broke apart.
She and Roger had stopped having sex years ago. She couldn't remember now exactly who had called it quits. She thought it was him, when he started to find it took longer and longer for him to orgasm, and she was sure he'd blame it on her. But really and truly, the truth was that they'd stopped paying any attention to each other. The sex was perfunctory, and boring. She'd left it behind gladly, because it felt like an obligation. Not a need, not passion.
She eyed the glass of bourbon. She'd added about three or four fingers to the glass, and there was barely one left now. Was that responsible for the warmth that was spinning through her body? Or was there something else entirely. Was it the bodies that flared over the screen, splendid in their perfection? Men and women, he'd been contacting, talking to, engaging with. In text, but also, in at least two occasions that she saw as she clicked through, in person. One woman talking about how naughty he'd been, fucking her on his wife's side of the bed.
She expected to feel anger. Disgust. Fury. But what was spinning through her now was something much closer to – desire. It was an unfamiliar feeling, but it wasn't unpleasant. No, not in the least.