Page 71 of The Alpha's Gamble
Declan’s hand over my mouth didn’t stop me from trying to keep arguing, but it did silence me.
“They wouldn’t have helped you if you hadn’t been right, and I gave you the authority immediately after that, remember?” He didn’t remove his hand, so I nodded grudgingly.
The guy I’d tossed out had been such a dick, hitting on the cocktail waitresses in a way that didn’t quite catch the negative attention of the eyes in the sky but that made them visibly uncomfortable to someone close enough to notice. And Declan had made me a part of the security team after that—well, maybe more like a mascot. But he’d told them, and me, that I could eighty-six anyone who acted like an asshole.
He’d refrained, kindly, from pointing out his obvious reason for giving me this job, and that much authority: literally no one in the world was more qualified for determining how much douchebaggery from a casino VIP was too much douchebaggery to be tolerated.
It might’ve also had something to do with wanting me to stop trying to get him to give me a job at Lucky or Knot, the strip club he owned downtown. Either way, “security mascot/rich asshole wrangler” worked for me as a job title, even though Laura kept refusing to order me any business cards.
I’d stopped trying to talk, so Declan removed his hand and replaced it with his mouth, pulling back after he’d completed the process of short-circuiting my brain. Gods, his lips.
I blinked my eyes open.
The elevator dinged, and the door rattled open onto the hallway of the service corridor on the bottom floor, our route to the other elevator that’d take us up into the hotel tower.
I opened my mouth.
“Hold that thought,” Declan said, and dragged me out.
I managed to keep my tongue bitten until we got up to the suite, anxiety keeping me silent. He’d only addressed one part of my concern: that it might’ve been that one incident that put him off the idea of marrying me. Mating me.
Gods, Declan had wanted to mate me.
Fuck. And he’d changed his mind.
By the time the door of the suite thumped shut behind us, I’d started to hyperventilate so badly my vision blurred.
“Fuck, Blake.” His voice took on a tinge of worry. He gave me a shake, hands gripping my shoulders tightly. “Blake!”
His eyes blazed gold, jaw set and brows drawn together. I took a deep breath, focusing on his face.
“Blake,” he said more quietly. “You haven’t done a damn thing wrong. Why would you think you had?”
His total confusion at the idea went a long way toward calming me down, but he still hadn’t explained anything!
“No! No, of course there’s nothing. Declan, I’dnever. I would never.” I broke off, panting and closer to tears than I’d have liked. I’d been so confident, so determined to give Declan a piece of my mind, tell him what I wanted from him. But even if he hadn’t rethought his desire to mate me for any particular reason, knowing that he’d been waffling about this decision for such a long time made me feel so small, so insignificant. So unworthy.
Declan stared at me for a long moment, mouth in a hard line and eyes raking me over, obviously assessing me for…I had no idea what he might be looking for, actually.
“I was trying to give you a choice this time,” he said at last, releasing his hard grasp on my shoulders and stroking down to my wrists, taking my hands in his. “I wanted you to be the one to suggest taking the next step, because I’d walked all over you before.” The corner of his mouth quirked, not quite a smile. “But I was a fucking idiot, wasn’t I? You don’t want a choice, do you?”
Put like that, it made me sound so incredibly pathetic. Weak and needy and dependent.
But he was right. I didn’t.
I didn’t want a choice. I’d always choose Declan, always. But if he left the choice up to me I’d never stop wondering if he’d truly wanted me. I hadn’t even realized I felt that way until he put it into words, somehow knowing me better than I knew myself, as he so often did.
Agreeing aloud felt like more than my alpha pride could take. Instead, I shook my head slightly, and Declan let out a long, slow breath, as if he’d been more worried about my answer than he wanted to let on.
“Then I won’t give you one,” he said, very low. “Come on, sweetheart. Come with me.”
We went to our bedroom at the end of the hallway, and I knew to start stripping my clothes without even being told. I’d turned into Pavlov’s alpha werewolf, undoing buttons and zippers and kicking off shoes the moment Declan got that look in his eye.
Lately Declan had been taking more time with me, kissing me, touching me, bringing me to simmering delight before he finished me off, as if he wanted to make up for all the times he’d had me without any of that—and as if I didn’t want him no matter how he pleasured me, gently or roughly or anything in between.
This time he didn’t try to be gentle.
The moment I had my pants off, he shoved me onto the bed so hard I bounced when I landed. He was between my legs instantly, three slick fingers stuffed into my hole so suddenly I cried out, the other hand in the center of my chest, holding me down and at his mercy.
