The Alpha Won't Be Denied (6 page)

              They were staying in a small cabin close to the main lodge. Their cabin looked like an adorable little Swiss chalet, white and brown, with exposed beams and decorative molding.

              There was one bedroom with a big, sturdy bed. The posts of the bed were topped with carved wooden hearts. Virginia glanced through the doorway and quickly backed away, dropping her suitcase on the floor, but not before she saw the big wicker basket on the bed, filled with various types of naughty honeymoon gifts. She spotted edible underwear and chocolate body butter before she shut the door.

              Damn it, of course a honeymoon suite didn’t have a guest bedroom. Well, someone was sleeping on the couch, because she could not sleep next to Carver all night long, fighting off her raging hormones.

“I’m going for a run,” she said to Carver. She hurried into the bathroom to strip off her clothing. Normally she wasn’t shy about stripping in front of shifters, but she didn’t want to do it in front of Carver. It seemed too intimate.

When she walked into the living room, however, Carver was there, stark naked. She concentrated very hard on not looking at his enormous cock, thick and erect and thrusting up from a thatch of dark, curly hair.

“What are you doing?” she asked, shielding her eyes, which made Carver roar with laughter.

“Going for a run with you. It won’t look good if you go for a run by yourself on your first afternoon here. People might talk.”

She nodded, still avoiding looking at him.

She stepped outside and he followed her, closing the door. Then they both shifted to wolf form. Her wolf was white and had one blue and one green eye even in her shifted state. His was an enormous gray wolf.

She turned and ran into the forest. Carver kept pace with her. They streaked through the quaking aspen and ponderosa pine, leaping over fallen trees and scrambling over rock outcroppings.  There were only a few inches of snow on the ground, but it was enough. It smelled so clean and fresh, Virginia couldn’t resist. She stopped to roll around in it, her heart racing. Carver dropped to the ground and rolled too, and she struggled against the feeling of rightness, of connection. Her wolf wanted to be in his pack. She thought she was Carver’s packmate.

She leaped back to her feet and headed back to the cabin with snow clinging to her fur.  Carver was right alongside her, panting happily as he ran, and for just a brief moment she let herself pretend it would always be like this.

As they ran, an odd scent drifted in the air, and she felt herself sniffing hard, trying to figure out what it was. It was some kind of animal scent, but she couldn’t figure out what kind of animal it was. She’d never experienced that before. There was something about the scent that she didn’t like, an odd sense of something unnatural.

She put it out of her mind when they got back to the cabin, rushing into the bathroom so she could get dressed in privacy.

When dinner time came, they had the option of having their meals delivered to the room or eating at the lodge with other couples.  Virginia was torn between not wanting to have to keep up the charade in front of other couples and not wanting to spend another minute in the room with her husband. Carver was annoying her greatly by sitting there reading a book and being sexy.

Finally, getting out of their room won out.

They trudged up to the lodge as a light snowfall dusted the air like powdered sugar, making everything sparkle under the glistening street lamps that illuminated their way.

The lodge was like a much bigger version of their cottage, with latticework and exposed beams and a steeply pitched roof. Everyone was gathered in the dining room, near a flagstone fireplace with a roaring fire.

Carver and Virginia took their places at the table, where a dozen other couples were chatting happily.

Under other circumstances, this would have been fun. Virginia loved meeting new people, and everyone was glowing with joy and they all had that freshly sexed look about them. Dinner was delicious, with big slabs of prime rib and fluffy baked potatoes dripping in butter and sour cream.

If only she wasn’t living a lie. Carver kept touching her, leaning against her, feeding her bites of his food, stroking the back of her hand, and she couldn’t shake him off in front of all these people.  Every time he touched her, she felt lightning bolts of desire shoot through her body. 

“You two are going to have quite the night tonight, I can tell,” a young female coyote shifter named Tricia said to her.

“They sure are,” her husband Devon said. “Smell those pheromones!”

“Um…uh….” Virginia muttered, and kicked Carver under the table. Hard.

“Oh, we’re embarrassing you. I’m sorry. Devon and I are still in that ‘doing it all day long every day’ phase, and I can tell you are too. Isn’t it wonderful?” Tricia leaned over and passionately kissed her husband.

Then she giggled and looked back at Virginia. “Did you hear about that other couple? All locked up in their cabin, and they told the management that they weren’t planning on leaving their room the whole time they’re here. They just want their meals left on their doorstep three times a day. Now, that’s a honeymoon!”

After dinner, the owners of the lodge, Clifford and Delores, insisted they all go into the lounge area. It was a huge room with a cathedral ceiling, massive picture windows, and flagstone flooring. Plump leather sofas and love seats were grouped in a big half circle facing another fireplace.

Then they all had to play “How well do you know your spouse?” games, with fill-in-the-blank questions like, “Something my spouse doesn’t know about me is…” The host would read the question, then each spouse would write down their answer on a card and see if their answers matched.

Ha,
Virginia thought. If she answered that one honestly, she couldn’t even imagine his reaction.

Something my spouse doesn’t know about me is…my life is nowhere near as safe and predictable as everyone thinks it is. And I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Instead she gave a nice, safe answer. 
I’m petrified of thunderstorms,
she wrote on her card. Oddly enough, Carver got that one right. How had he known that?

She was mortified by the end of the game when she’d gotten more than half the questions wrong.  She didn’t know what his favorite color was, or his favorite dish, or his favorite movie. And Carver had somehow kept getting all the questions right.

She’d scored the absolute lowest on the game. She shouldn’t have cared, but it made her look like a woman who couldn’t care less about knowing what her husband liked or wanted.
Argh, everyone must be pitying Carver right now,
she thought, mortified.

Carver jumped in gallantly. “I’ll be honest here, folks,” he announced, “We didn’t date that long before we realized we were so in love that we had to get married right away. But we’ve got the rest of our lives to learn everything about each other.” This brought forth a chorus of
awwwwws
from all the couples there.

Then he leaned forward, cupped her chin in his hand, and kissed her. She had no choice but to go along. Her lips parted and he kissed her hungrily, his tongue swirling around hers. He tasted of the port he’d been drinking, and he smelled of sex and his bergamot-scented cologne.

Carver pulled away first, and she sat there with her eyes closed for a second before she leaned back in her seat, flushing.

They were sitting across from an older couple on their second honeymoon – a pair of silver-haired wolf shifters. The man had his hand on his wife’s thigh. They were gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes.

              Carver nodded at the older couple.  He leaned in close and breathed in her ear, “Look, honey, that will be us in twenty years.”

              Virginia shot him a look of derision. She leaned in close to him in return, looking as if she were whispering sweet nothings in his ear.  “In your dreams,” she murmured. 

His hand settled on her thigh, and she jumped.

              “You’ll eat those words someday.” His voice was low and he smiled at her, a lazy, knowing smile that sent a rush of moisture between her legs.

“I think we’ll go back to our room now,” she announced. “Thank you for a lovely evening!” She stood up quickly and headed for the lobby without bothering to see if Carver was following, but of course he was.

* * *

              Carver leaned back in his chair and pretended to read, but all the while he watched Virginia with a smile of satisfaction. She could pretend all she wanted, but he could tell how much she wanted him. And he was willing to wait.

              Her pupils were dilated with desire. Her breathing was fast. The delicious scent of her arousal perfumed the air, and she was doing everything she could to avoid him. Hanging out at the other end of the room.  Trying not to walk too close to him.

              He kept finding little ways to get close to her and brush up against her, because he enjoyed her stifled moans of frustration and arousal. Then he’d walk away. He’d told her he wouldn’t push sex on her, and he’d meant it.

              She was sitting at the other end of the room, pretending to be reading when she’d just been staring at the same page for the last ten minutes, when her phone rang. He saw the look on her face when she saw the number. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and she stepped out onto the front porch to take the call.

He partially shifted so he could eavesdrop with his enhanced wolf hearing.

He heard her explaining the fake marriage to someone. Interesting. He knew she didn’t want her family to find out, and he knew that if she told anyone in Timber Valley, word would be all over town by the next day. So who was she talking to? It sounded like a male voice on the other end, but he couldn’t make out what the person was saying.

A lover? One whom she was reassuring she wasn’t really married? That thought made the hair sprout on his face and sent his fangs shooting out.

He frowned, concentrating. There was no passion in her voice; she was all business. He really didn’t believe that Virginia would deceive him on that level. If she had a man in her life, she would have told him.

“You’re sure you can find a replacement? I could come if it’s a real emergency… All right then,” he heard her say.

So it was work-related, he thought with relief, forcing his wolf back down.

              She came back in with snow dusting her long, shiny brown hair.  “Isn’t this snow amazing? There’s something about mountain snow that’s just better than regular snow,” she said. “We should go for another run tomorrow.”

              “Yes, we should. Who was that on the phone?” he asked.

              “Nobody.” She shrugged. “Just the clinic back at Timber Valley.” She avoided his eyes when she said that.

              So she was lying. Interesting. Part of him wanted to push it, but he was consciously trying to avoid being the big bossy Alpha she perceived him to be.

              Instead he got his revenge on her for the little lie by seizing her hands between his, bending down and running his lips over the back of her hand.

              She let out a small, pained gasp, and her pupils grew huge.

              “Don’t,” she choked, backing up against the wall.

              He looked at her with big, innocent eyes. “Don’t what?” he asked. “Your hands are cold. I’m just warming them up.”

              “You’re a bastard.” She stifled a whimper but didn’t try to pull away.

              His cock was swollen and straining against his pants, and every time he moved, the friction of the fabric sliding across it drove him mad. But he refused to give in.

              “All you have to do is say the word.” He smiled down at her. “Ask me for it.”

              “Never,” she groaned, her cheeks flushed.

              Good God, he was going to split her in two when she finally gave in. He’d pound her so hard that the walls would shake.

              “That’s not the right word,” he said with a wink, and turned and walked away.

              “I hate you!” she screamed after him as he headed for the bathroom.

              “I’m going to take a shower before I hit the hay,” he called. “Plenty of room for two!”

              “I hope you drown!” she shouted after him as he walked into the bathroom. “And I won’t heal you, either!”

              He let out quiet laughter as he stripped off his clothes.  Of course she’d heal him. She’d healed the dirtbag jackal shifter. She had a deep well of compassion that would never run dry, and it was one of the many things he loved about her.

              He turned the shower on full blast and climbed in.

              He was surprised to see the door to the bathroom open a minute later.

              She walked into the shower, her magnificent body stoking the blazing arousal that roared through him. She kept her pubic hair shaved into a neat little triangle of brown curls, and her pussy lips were bare. Her nipples were swollen and he yearned to take them in his mouth and torment them with his teeth, to hear her moans and shrieks as he suckled her.