Page 53 of Pack Nightmare

My trembling hands trail down her sides, seeking contact with her skin under the hem of her cropped sweater. As soon as my fingertip strokes the silky flesh of her ribcage she moans, biting my lip and trailing kisses away from my mouth and along my jaw.

Taking this as encouragement, I slide both hands up her sides, running my thumbs along the curve of her breasts and over the hardening peaks of her nipples. Just the sheerest layer of lace separates me from grasping them.

Desire, hot and fierce, is ripping through me now. “Lex,” I murmur into her billows of soft curly hair.

She goes completely still, her entire body clenching in an instant.

Cue panic.

“Lex, is everything okay?” I lower my hands from her breasts and try to pull back. I want to see her face, get a feel for what’s going on in her head.

“Don’t call me that,” she whispers.

“I’m sorry?”

She sighs, then pulls away to meet my gaze with sad eyes. “That name. Just, please don’t call me that anymore.”

A hard lump drops in my stomach. Of course. Because Derrek called her Lex, and after everything, it just reminds her of him. Not what I want her thinking about when we’re alone together.

“I understand.” I reach up and cup her cheeks, pulling her sad face down to kiss her tenderly. “I won’t use it anymore. You’ll have to give me a pass if I slip up once or twice, though. It’s pretty deeply ingrained in my head.”

She nods with a tiny smile.

“So, what should I call you, then?”

Her eyes are still sad, and it’s killing me. “I suppose you should call me Lilliana. That is my true name, after all.”

I lift one brow and tilt my head slightly. “Are you sure that’s what you want, Lilliana? It’s kind of a mouthful, if I’m honest. Lil-ee-ahhhh-nah,” I test it out, exaggerating each syllable.

That draws a giggle from her. “Well, maybe not all the time. But I’ve got to get used to using it as my name. She may have been odd, but Shuya seemed pretty insistent that I have to claim my ‘true’ name in order to have any power, and I keep wondering if that includes what she said about breaking the curse.” Her gaze was drawn away, lost in thought for just a moment while she spoke, but now it falls into sadness as her eyes meet mine once more. “Ignore me. It probably doesn’t matter. It turns out I’m a pretty terrible judge of character, so I probably shouldn’t trust her any more than I trusted him.”

She doesn’t need to tell me who she means.

I was reclining on the cushions, but now I sit up completely, which unfortunately moves Lex to sit on my legs instead of the much more interesting spot she occupied before.

“Le-Lilliana, I feel like I need to tell you something.”

She searches my eyes curiously. “Okay?”

“I know I didn’t say much about Derrek—aside from coffee and fashion, I tend to keep my opinions to myself, and I never wanted you to feel like I was questioning you. But truthfully, it wasn’t that I didn’t trust Derrek… I was jealous of him. I suspect it’s the same for all three of us. You and he had a connection that we had wished for, for so long, and then you’re finally here, and then he showed up and it felt like part of you was being pulled away from us when we’d just gotten you.

“But that doesn’t mean you were wrong to trust him. I don’t think you could have chosen any better, given the circumstances. I think, in every possible way, you are, and will be, a great alpha.”

Her eyes fill with tears, and I search for a way to lighten the suddenly heavy atmosphere quickly. Nothing like tears to kill a make-out session.

I tilt my head coyly. “Ooh, should I call you Alpha?”

She snorts, and I continue, drawing her closer to me.

“Alpha, how beautiful you are,” I press a kiss to her collarbone. “Alpha, how lovely you smell,” I trail kisses up her neck, and her breath hitches. “Alpha, I-”

“Okay stop,” she breaks out in a fit of giggles. “I can’t. You sound like the big bad wolf. ‘Grandma, what big eyes you have! What big ears you have!”

A chuckle bursts from my lips—she’s not wrong. “Hey, to be fair, that was little red riding hood who said that. The wolf is the one with the ears.”

“Still. We’ve got to be able to come up with something else.”

A scandalous thought crosses my mind, and I trail my fingers up to her shoulders and around her back. I press more kisses to her jawline. “Hmm, what if I am the big bad wolf?”

---