Untamed: an Alpha's Love (Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance) (11 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Charmaine woke to a tiny flutter inside herself, like the quickening of a fish in a stream. Only halfway awake, she thought she'd dreamed it because the sensation was so fleeting. She lay perfectly still, waiting for it to happen again, until Parker's warmth beckoned her from the other side of the bed and she nestled against him, sinking back into sleep.

A few minutes later it happened again. She sat up with a start.
The baby.
She'd waited for this moment for months. The tiny flutter brought a sudden shift to the perspective of things.
This is really happening.

Parker slept soundly, his hand stretched out between their pillows. She kissed his knuckles before clasping his palm over the rounded bump above her pelvis. When he felt her shifting beside him he moved to protect her before his eyes were even fully open. She felt his heart racing behind tightly drawn muscles.

"Shhh... It's okay, my love." She hadn't wanted to rouse him. It was rare these days that he slept so deeply. Most nights he was still wide awake when she drifted off, and though he tried to hide it she knew he didn't get nearly enough rest. There was no more threat to their safety, the treaty successfully renegotiated and the Vella Pack headed by her father's former Beta. Kevin Tyndall was as reasonable as Parker and they could look forward to a lifetime of harmony between the packs. She just hoped that in time her husband would learn to sleep peacefully again beside her.

"I thought something was wrong." His dark eyelashes fluttered closed again and he nuzzled her ear, breathing her in, before his lips found the hollow of her throat. At the same time, his fingers twined lightly in her hair, pulling her head back with the barest pressure. She felt his kiss on every inch of her skin and sighed as his tongue traced her collarbone.

"Everything's fine. I just felt the baby move."

His mouth stilled against her, but his hands gripped her even tighter. "He kicked?"

She nodded. "It was like a little flip-flopping, not really a kick. But I felt him, twice."

"Just now?" He sat up, pulled the sheet back, and gazed down her body as if seeing her for the first time. "Twice?" he asked, running his hands reverently over the little bump, his mouth curving into an awestruck smile.

"Yes."

"Do you think he'll do it again?"

"I don't know." She smiled to see him look so happy. Joy had been scarce in the past few months. Parker's strong fingers caressed her skin as he lifted her tank top and pressed his lips to the swell, murmuring inaudibly against her creamy skin. "Parker, stop, that tickles!" she protested.

He looked up, his green eyes flashing, and grinned. "
Shh
. I'm having a man-to-man with my son."

"Oh, is that so?" She giggled and playfully tugged at his hair.

"Mm-hmm. I read in the baby book that they respond in the womb to their parents' voices. Maybe he'll move again if I talk to him." His hopeful face was almost boyish. Charmaine couldn't resist tracing his jaw, rasping the stubble with her fingertips and then brushing them over his lips.

"Well, do your best. He's obviously wide awake this morning."

"Don't listen, though," he teased. "We've got a lot of important manly things to discuss. Guy stuff, you know how it is."

"Well, maybe while you're down there discussing all those manly things you can let him know that I've got to pee and you'll have to continue this in a few minutes."

He sighed and released her with a kiss, giving her backside a gentle squeeze as she climbed out of bed. "Hurry back," he grumbled as she slipped away.

"Wild horses couldn't keep me!" she sang as she scampered away.

Keep reading for a preview of
Rock Me
, a new adult contemporary romance by Evelyn Glass

I knock my schedule book off the desk. It flops to the ground, pages flapping like bird wings, and falls open to a section covered in scrawls. A thick, stamped phrase juts out, grabbing my attention like it had just a few weeks ago –
Garret’s Show.
I can’t believe how long it has been since then. Since that night. Since that kiss.

On second thought, maybe it hasn’t been that long. I count three weeks’ worth of pages, three weeks of endless, monotonous days parked in front of a computer screen at Bellamy’s office and or neck deep in textbooks that might as well be written in Cyrillic in terms of my ability to comprehend and retain their contents. Only a few weeks, but they have felt like years.

The weather outside the library window matches my mood: bleak and slate grey. I churn through the pages of a psychology text, growing more and more frustrated as the letters swim before my eyes. My neck is aching, my vision is blurry, and my whole body is thrumming with anxiety and impatience.

I still have a couple weeks until final exams begin, but I am already feeling overwhelmed with the sheer breadth of material I am supposed to have mastered. The semester has been such a chaotic blur that I can’t imagine how my professors expect me to understand this.

How can they? They don’t understand the things I have had to do this year. They don’t have to hustle and grind like I do. They weren’t in that room with Bellamy, sickly yanking his cock until white cum splashed in the back of
their
throats. No, they don’t get it. They don’t get me.

I have been catching myself on these haughty crescendos of thought more and more often of late. I find myself asserting
, I am different than most people. More hardened
.
Grittier
.
I can do anything.
A reckless confidence has bubbled up from some hidden internal reservoir, and every time that I reflect back on Garret’s kiss, I can feel it seethe and heat my viscera another degree more.

Sarah commented the other day that I walk differently than I used to – “prouder” was how she put it, “like you’re a sassy bitch who doesn’t give a fuck anymore.” I had laughed it off then as Sarah being her usual ridiculous self, which of course it was. But later that night, I had thought about it and realized that she was right. Garret’s kiss had changed me a little bit. It had shifted a weight off of me, a burden of expectation onto which I had been stubbornly clinging. Now that I had cast it off with a triumphant middle finger, nothing seemed to matter quite as much. I had even told a bill collector to fuck off the other day.
Old Jodie would never have done that.

I look across the room at a group of girls with their heads scrunched together over a table. They are laughing, casually flicking blond tresses over their shoulders with manicured nails. Their chins swoop elegantly into smooth necks and down into plump, teardrop breasts beneath tight t-shirts. Underneath the table, their jean-encased legs swell in all the right places.

A male student working behind the desk is agape, staring at them. A flash of irritation bubbles across the surface of my thoughts, annoyed at the girls’ giggling and the librarian’s amateurish fawning.
For God’s sake, put your tongue back in your mouth
, I want to tell him. He reminds me of a cartoon character with his jaw resting firmly on the ground.
They’re just some stupid sluts.

I repeat that thought to myself two or three times with forced conviction until it at least seems feasible, if not factual.
Stupid sluts. Stupid sluts. Stupid sluts.
But I can’t stop myself from fawning, too – just a little bit. Their perfumed naïveté reeks even from where I am sitting and the raucous mirth sashaying from between their lipsticked mouths pricks at the edge of my concentration.

I turn my gaze back to the words on the page, trying to make sense of the diagrams and explanations strewn liberally in fine print. Every time I get halfway through a sentence, though, another giggle from the girls across the room trickles into my ear.

I can feel myself sinking into my seat as every man that enters the room pauses to stare blankly at the girls. Each one that walks by drives me a little lower. They gaze and ogle the blondes, but their eyes skip over me as if I weren’t even there. That boiling confidence is nowhere to be found.

The door creaks open and another man walks in.

I know him.

I've kissed him.

What's he doing here?

Well-muscled arms jut out from the crisp edge of Garret Lyon's shirt sleeve. A curtain of dirty blond hair is drooped in front of his face, hiding his features.

He strides through the turnstile, nodding sagely at the library attendant as he passes by. The click of his suede boots echoes throughout the high-ceilinged room. A tanned hand rises and tucks the fallen bangs behind one ear, revealing green eyes that shine with a deep effervescence. The white sheen hinting between his pink lips is bright.

The girls pause, their conversation dropping to a dead halt as he breezes by them. In his wake, they thrust their heads closer together and add a frenzied edge to their gossiping, sneaking frequent furtive glances over their shoulders at his retreating back. 

My eyes have been fixated on Garret since the moment he opened the door. I remain riveted in my seat as he recognizes me, grins suavely, and saunters in my direction. Not a muscle in my body twitches, other than a creaky, grimacing attempt at a smile. My blood is coursing through my veins torrentially, its roar overwhelming the white noise of the girls and the hushed clinking undertones rippling throughout the library.

“Jodie, great to see you!” he purrs, blatantly disregarding every rule of appropriate volume and common decency. His lazy drawl, though warm towards me, radiates with the laconic heat of not giving a fuck.

“Good to see you too, Garret,” I smile. He draws up a chair across the table from me and straddles it backwards, leaning forward and resting his chin on his broad forearms.

“Haven’t seen you in a while. Where ya been, bookworm?” he jokes. He reaches over and flicks the back of my wrist.

I look down sheepishly. “Studying. Exams are pretty soon and I feel way behind.”

He laughs far too loud for the setting. His ease is contagious and I can feel myself relax in his presence, the girls across the room receding to mere flies on the wall. “Sure, sure, of course. Me too,” he says. “Exams suck.”

“What?” I blurt, confused. “What exams?”

“Oh, let’s see… economics, music theory, a bullshit accounting course… I think that’s all of ‘em,” he says.

“Wait, I don’t get it. You go here? You’re a student?”

He laughs again. “Yeah, unfortunately. Not for long though; I can’t say that my studies are my number one priority. I’m headed for the big time, girlie.” He emphasizes this last phrase in a goofy voice, prompting a girlish giggle from me.

I start to babble. “I can’t believe we go to the same school. Who would’ve thought that you were…” I trail off as a figure approaches Garret from behind. He starts to reply, but is interrupted by a tap on the shoulder.

The herd of girls has snuck through the labyrinth of desks and collected behind their leader, a leggy brunette with breasts pouring from underneath the hem of her cropped shirt. I shrink unconsciously as a devilish little voice in my head remarks on how flawlessly stunning she is. My posture slumps and I slide down in my seat.

“Um, excuse me,” she twitters. “Aren’t you Garret Lyons?”

He raises his head coolly and glances at her sidelong. “Yeah, that’s me,” he says. His voice is lower, metallic, more muted than it had been just seconds ago. “What can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to say that I’m such a huge fan and I just love your music and your band and all but especially you. You’re just great.”

Garret doesn’t move. “Thanks,” he mutters, clipping every word short.

She bends over towards him and asks “I’m sorry?”

“I said thanks.”

My eyes are tracking over the graceful contours of the girls. It almost sickens me how dramatically their busts narrow into waists I could practically wrap my hands around. The lust dripping from the brunette’s voice is painfully obvious.

How long until he leaves with her?
I wonder.
Is he going to bang her right here, right now? Behind the stacks? Which one of the four will he take? They’re all as good as one another. I bet he takes the blond on the back left. Yeah, her, definitely.
My thoughts spiral out of control. Memories of our kiss are distant, like I had dreamed it or seen it in a movie years ago. It feels insubstantial.

The girls’ eyes are round like dinner plates, begging for any scrap Garret will give them. I note curiously how detached he seems. The brunette seems a little flustered by the coolness.

“Well, anyways, I hate to be a bother, haha…” She pauses to gauge his reaction, but continues when he offers her nothing at all. She clearly is not used to being ignored. “Like I said, I don’t want to annoy you, I just wanted to tell you how much I… I mean, how much all of us love you.” The girls flanking her nod vigorously.

She pauses again and waits for Garret to say something. He stays silent. She fumbles for words. “And, um, we would love to, um, hang out sometime, if you’re ever around? Maybe?” Her voice rises to a pipsqueak and she squirms uncomfortably but stays rooted in place.

Garret slowly unfurls from his hunched-over position and throws an arm across the back of the chair. He surveys the girls, eyes glancing from face to face, soaking in their adoring expressions and eager, nimble fingers. I follow his gaze, wondering how long until he picks one and leaves to do the inevitable. A grimy feeling of despair crawls around in the pit of my stomach.

So much for New Jodie
, whispers something malevolent in my ear.
You’re the same fat, passive nobody you always were. He doesn’t want you. He never did.
I try to find something to fight back with, but I come up empty. The voice is right. Nothing has changed.

“Listen…” Garret starts.

“Carrie,” she fills in.

He nods. “Listen, Carrie. Here’s the thing: I’m having a conversation with Jodie here, not to mention the fact that we are in a library. The combination of the two makes you approaching me and asking to ‘hang out’ seem a little bit inappropriate, don’t you think? I’m glad you’re a fan and all, but I’d like to finish my conversation, if that’s alright with you.” He finishes sarcastically and pivots in his seat to face me again. 

Carrie looks like Garret just shot her dog. Her shoulders collapse forward, her knees buckle, and she offers a muted, rambling apology.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry, I never meant to bother you and I’m so sorry if I offended you…” She ellipses into frustrated silence as Garret pivots in his seat to face me.

“Now, what were you saying?” he asks me, grinning. The girls slink away.

I don’t know what to think. I would never in a million years have predicted that Garret would say what he just did. I feel my jaw drop to the floor. I stammer, flushed and puzzled and oddly pleased.

“I was just asking you about your exams,” I say dumbly.

“Right,” he replies, “Like I was saying…” As Garret talks, I steal occasional glances over at the huddle of girls, who have retreated to their former post. They are glaring at me in utter disbelief and whispering feverishly amongst themselves, punctuating every rant with another venomous glower in my direction. I hear the words “chubby chaser” and “Garret” peripherally bubble up from their conversation, but I ignore them and focus instead on the way Garret’s lips and tongue flow around his words, mesmerized.

We talk for a while, swapping stories of sadistic TAs and student-professor sex scandals. He mocks every one of his teachers with ruthless accuracy, making me laugh uncontrollably. More than one library attendant frown and shush us, but Garret flips the bird behind their back and adds impressions of them to his comic repertoire.

When one too many of them glares at us, we get up and stroll through the stacks of books. The sound of the door opening and closing dwindles into dusty silence as we walk. We wind around corners and down long aisles until even our breath is ringing loudly through the empty rooms.