Page 56 of The Pack Next Door
“No one’s going to see what belongs to you, Briar.” She didn’t want to look at me, but the fact she did had me grinning. “No one has thus far, and I can’t see a reason why that would change.”
Unless she gave me that reason. Plucking the pen from where she’d used it to tie up her hair in a bun and letting it tumble over her shoulders, before easing the thin strap of her dress down. I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell Briar andJace got up to last night. Something I’d be happy to repeat, when her heat hit her again. Right as the room filled with the scent of roses, I thought she might be feeling the same way, but instead her fingers stabbed her keyboard as she copied down my email.
“All the instructions have been sent,” she told me. “If you can work out what to do, that would be amazing, but if you want to return to the park, I’ll understand.”
“Send emails, not dick pics.” I glanced down at my phone, reading through the instructions. “You got it, boss.”
Chapter 28
Briar
Mads was being very distracting.
Pay that tax bill, I told myself, my eyes straying over the top of the laptop for what felt like the umpteenth time.Pay the bill and that invoice, then contact the web developer about the…My train of thought promptly derailed, going crashing through the bushes as I watched Mads’ bicep flex.Tap, tap, tap. Each time he moved his hand, the muscles tensed and then relaxed.
The catering budget for the launch needs to be approved.
It felt like a war was being waged between my senses and my logical mind, and I wasn’t sure which one I wanted to win. Then a thin trickle of sweat slid down my spine. I was hot and clammy when we arrived, the sun already perilously hot, but it wasn’t summer that had me overheating.
Shit.
I could almost feel the cool of the forest. It tried to lure me out like a siren might a sailor. Just like a sailor, part of me wanted to dive right in. Take fur, launch myself out of my bedroom window, and run and run until the gloom of the shadows between the trees swallowed me.
Knowing Mads would follow hot on my heels.
What would’ve happened if he was the one to find me last night? Those hands that held his phone, that strove to lighten my load. What if they spanned my waist and swept upwards? His eyes staring into mine, his head dropping down by increments, right before?—
Shit, my heat was coming back.
Jace had told me that his solution would give me some respite, not resolve my heat altogether. Only… My hand slapped down on my water bottle and I drank down greedy mouthfuls as I remembered exactly what he said. Each raspy word, every stroke of his fingers, the hot, hot feeling of his seed as he worked it up inside me.
“Everything OK, omega?”
I couldn’t snap at Mads using my designation, not my name, because right now Briar was offline. She was one of the passengers who met a fiery death as my train of thought went up in flames. Perhaps that’s why I was so damn hot.
“Yeah.” My attempt to put him off came out all warbly. “Fine. I’m fine.”
Except if I was, I wouldn’t be sitting on the bed, rubbing my thighs together, would I? Off the bed, dumping the laptop behind me, I strode out of the room and into the nearby bathroom. My hands slapped down on the blessedly cool sink. My claws raked the old enamel, making a disturbing screech of a sound, right as Mads appeared in the doorway.
“You sure about that?”
Fuck, he had to put that hand of his up on the top of the frame, gripping it, his tank top falling away to reveal every damn muscle in his arm and some of his chest. Suddenly, I had images of me pressed against the frame, him looming over me. A perfectly sensible response rose and died on my lips, replaced by a whine.
He was mine.
Whatever the fates actually were, they’d decided that he and his brothers were the perfect men for me. That hot flare of lust deep in my pelvis. He could fan the flames higher and higher, until I was screaming from ecstasy. There were reasons, very good reasons, why that was a bad idea, but when he let go of the lintel, eyes burning silver, I forgot every single one of them.
“Because right about now.” He settled behind me, one hand by mine on the sink, the other tilting my head upwards, forcing me to look at my reflection. My eyes were as silver as the moon. “You don’t look fine.”
That could’ve been a rude observation, and I had a sharp reply ready, but he had to look down. Those eyes of his, just as silver, seemed to inspect every inch of me with a kind of possessive air that took my breath away. A quick glance at me and that cocky smile was back, making clear he knew I was watching.
“Fine is a small word, Briar.” The sound of my name on his lips was like beautiful music to my ears. “And you deserve something far grander. Beautiful.” The skirts of my dress were slowly inched upwards. “Intelligent. Accomplished.” His fingers burned a trail up the back of my thighs, forcing them to slide open. “You’re perfect, my mate, and right as you’re trying to keep it all together, you’re falling apart.”
“Yes…” I gasped, chest heaving. There wasn’t enough air in the room, the scent of sandalwood and citrus filling my nose. Somehow that was exactly what I needed, sucked in with every breath. “Mads, I?—”
“I know.” The rustle of my dress being bunched around my waist had my thighs rubbing together. He separated them. A hand was pushed between them, fingers discovering the terrible state of my underwear. “Omega, you’re soaked.” His eyes metmine in the mirror and I watched that smile form. “I mean, Briar.”
No, omega was right. Whatever was left of my consciousness was burned away by the intensity of my heat sweeping through. The businesswoman, the friend, the daughter, they were all gone, just leaving this. My legs spread wide, my cunt grinding helplessly against his fingers, a whole-body shudder wracking me as he gripped my underwear and tore them off with a sharp tug. They were gone and then there was only him.
