Page 98 of Pack Rivals, Part One

I swallow. "You're teasing me."

"I'm not." His tongue sweeps along his bottom lip. "You're the one teasing me in this dress. Coming to this dance with another pack. Infiltrating my dreams."

"Infiltrating your dreams?" I giggle.

"I'm serious," he says with a smile. "I've been waking up hard and fucking frustrated every damn morning."

I chew on my lips. I know the feeling. I've had a few of those dreams myself.

He examines my face, perhaps reading my thoughts. "Want to know what we've been doing in my dreams together?"

"Knitting? Crosswords?"

He throws back his head and laughs, his chest rumbling in a way that makes me want to rest my hands there.

"Yeah, that's right, knitting and crosswords." His eyes flick down my body. "Only, neither of us are wearing any clothes."

"Sounds dangerous," I say, his hands dancing lower from my waist to my hips. "Knitting needles can be pretty sharp."

"I have to confess, in my dreams, we don't get much knitting completed. You're pretty damn distracting." He blows out air through his teeth. "You're pretty damn distracting in real life too."

"Angel," I say, and he drags his gaze back to mine. When our eyes connect, it's like electricity spits into life, my body jolting as I sink into those eyes, inky black dissolving into silvery gray.

"Bea," he groans, "let me take you home." He leans down to whisper to me, his beard tickling the shell of my ear, his fingertips drawing circles on my skin. "Let me take you home, sweetheart, and help you out of this dress."

"You don't like this dress?" I whisper, my words all a tangle in my head as his mouth moves from my ear to press against my throat, to the point where my pulse jumps.

"I like this dress more than you could ever imagine. I'd like it even better on my bedroom floor."

He licks a sudden wet strip up the column of my throat, and my eyes roll around in their sockets and my belly swoops low.

"Oh lord," I murmur.

"You like that, little one?" he growls, nibbling on the lobe of my ear, nipping it between his strong teeth and making me moan.

"Y-y-yes," I say, eyes fluttering shut as I dissolve into the sensations he's conjuring from my body.

A body that lay dormant and subdued for all this time. A body now responding to the caress of his lips and the play of his fingers.

I bet I'm not unique. I bet he seduces all his women this way. I bet I'm going to be used all over again. Only this time the men are better at their con, better at fooling me.

Because, oh good god, when he kisses my neck like that I could believe he does want me. Truly and honestly.

He growls some more and tugs me even closer so I can feel him hot and hard against my belly.

"Going to kiss you now, little one."

"Okay," I murmur, parting my lips for him.

He chuckles and his hands trail down to squeeze my ass. My lips part further on an extended 'oh' and he captures the sound with his mouth.

My first kiss with Karl all those years ago was sloppy and unpleasant and not very satisfactory. We got better with practice and then gradually he stopped kissing me. I never really missed it. Kissing had never been all that good to begin with.

Now, I see what I was truly missing. Kissing this man – kissing those other alphas too – is like being caught up in a tornado. My head spins. My heart races. My thoughts knock around in my head. I don't know which way is up and which way is down. Who I am or what I'm doing.

All I know is that I never want him to stop kissing me, never want him to stop pressing me against his hard cock, never want him to stop gripping my backside.

It's pretty shocking if I were to think about it. But I'm far too busy feeling. Feeling everything as my blood thrums and my body sings.

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