Alpha Moon (The Cain Chronicles) (Seasons of the Moon) (3 page)

The scent was overwhelming. She swayed on her feet, and he caught her by the arms, holding her in place.

But when Abel straightened, he wasn’t smiling. “Where’s Gwyn?” he asked.

Rylie’s pleasure at seeing him evaporated immediately. Worst case scenarios whirled through her mind: death, dismemberment, arrest by the Office of Preternatural Affairs. “What happened? Are Seth and Abram okay? Did Nash leave?”

“They’re fine,” Abel said. “Just out of money, is all. We need to send them more.”

Her breath gusted from between her lips. “Thank God.”

“Haven’t been worrying, have you?”

“No,” Rylie lied. “But if they’re okay, then why did you come home?”

“It’s almost the moon. You and me, we’re doing it together.”

She glanced at the calendar on the wall. The full moon was circled—Monday night. “You’re early.”

His eyes sparked. “I wanted a couple nights with you first. It’s been a while.” His expression spoke volumes about what kind of plans he had.

Rylie’s jaw dropped.

He brushed past her, heading into the kitchen to greet Gwyn. Their voices echoed through the halls. Rylie looked at the calendar again and saw the full moon circled on Monday, with “Jessica” written on the Friday before.

It was going to be a hell of a weekend.

GWYN’S TOWNHOUSE WAS
a two bedroom, one bath house intended for retired couples and young families. It was not equipped to handle a werewolf pack getting together for dinner. Even with Rylie’s boys on a hunt and most of the pack in California, the dining room was packed tighter than the teeth in a wolf’s jaw. There was no room to move, much less relax. But they squeezed in corners or sat on one another’s laps, and everyone somehow managed to fit.

The sounds of happy conversation filled the dining room, except for Rylie’s end of the table. She was mashed into Abel’s side. Their arms were pressed tight together, hip-to-hip, thighs in full contact. It was distracting on the best of days.

This was not the best day.

Rylie didn’t really have enough elbow room to cut her food, so she stabbed at it half-heartedly with a fork, imagining her mother’s face in the middle of the prime rib.

“Eat,” Abel said.

She sighed. “I’m not hungry.” That wasn’t strictly true—the wolf was always hungry, and her stomach growled at the sight of the meat—but she had no real appetite.

“You know you need lots of protein before the moon.”

“I guess,” she said.

Rylie managed to saw off a bite of prime rib. It was ash on her tongue.

It was too crowded in the dining room. The conversations and laughter that normally warmed Rylie made her feel hot and miserable tonight. She wanted nothing more than to be alone, away from everyone, and out of the city—where Jessica would never find her.

She stood. Summer moved to follow, but stopped when Rylie shook her head. Sir Lumpy was in Summer’s lap, as he always was when she was horizontal for longer than two seconds, and Rylie didn’t want to disturb him.

The back yard at Gwyn’s townhouse was kind of a joke. It was a twenty-foot by twenty-foot patch of overgrown grass that mostly served to jack up real estate costs. Gwyn had been making good use of the narrow flower beds by planting an herb garden—more than any of their neighbors could lay claim to—but it wasn’t nearly enough space for a werewolf. The evening air felt suffocating.

It was only going to be worse once her mother arrived. All of those normal werewolf behaviors that she let herself engage in normally, like sniffing other werewolves in greeting and growling in annoyance, would have to be suppressed. And if Jessica was still in town Monday night, then they would have to give her the slip before the transformation hit, too.
 

The idea of getting through dinner with Jessica a few short hours before she was due to turn into a werewolf made Rylie feel something very close to panic.

The back door opened. Abel’s smell flooded Rylie’s senses.

“Summer says your mom’s visiting,” he said.

Annoyance pressed Rylie’s mouth into a thin line. “Oh, did she?”

“Yup. Funny how I heard it from her and not from you.”

“That’s because I’m trying to pretend she’s not coming, and I don’t want to talk about it.” She finally faced Abel, and immediately lost her train of thought. The opalescent moonlight on his skin brought out a deep copper undertone, highlighting every curve of muscle from his shoulders to his bulging forearms. The wife beater clung to his chest, outlining the cut of his abs.

Her mouth dried. It had only been a few weeks since she had officially broken up with Seth, and she still wasn’t used to the idea that she was allowed to look at Abel—more than look, actually—and the sight made her feel as guilty as it did aroused.

Rylie cleared her throat. “I think I’m going to bed. I’m tired.”

She stepped around him, careful not to touch him. Once she started with that, there was no stopping.

But he followed her down the hall, past the kitchen door, to the bedroom. When she stepped inside, he did, too.

Abel leaned on the door, shutting it. The lock audibly clicked, and Rylie’s heart leaped.

They were alone.

With a full house, Abel and Rylie hadn’t had much time to be intimate since they returned from the Haven’s door. Just thinking about it Rylie’s entire face burned. It didn’t help that intimacy looked to be number one on Abel’s mind, judging by his expression. His golden eyes bored through her.

She was shocked when he said, “I’m going to the airport with you tomorrow.”

Disappointment sank into her bones. “Oh,” she said, hanging her head. “No, don’t worry about it. It’s really early, and you’ve been traveling. You should sleep in.”

Rylie might as well have said nothing at all. He leaned against the door—a casual gesture that she knew was meant to communicate that she wasn’t going anywhere until he was done with her. “Why don’t you want your mother to visit?” Abel asked. “Is it because you don’t want her to know who you’re dating?”

Rylie’s cheeks flushed, and the heat burned all the way down her neck to her chest. “I live with a bunch of werewolves, Abel. And I’m the leader. Everyone practically orbits around me all day and night, and that’s not even during the moons. Jessica is going to notice something funny is going on.”

His gaze cut straight through Rylie. “Did you send her a wedding invitation?”

“Abel…”

“Did you?”

“Yes,” Rylie said, hugging her arms tightly around her ribs. “I sent her a wedding invitation when I planned on marrying Seth.”

Abel pushed off the wall, bringing him dizzyingly close. “You don’t want to tell her that you’re not with Seth anymore.”

“It’s not like that.”

“You don’t want to tell her you’re with
me
.”

Rylie’s frustration spilled over with a low growl. “We’re not really
together
, are we? I mean, Summer, Abram—they were an accident.” His mouth dropped open with shock, but she kept talking before he could say something that would make her feel guilty. “We’re mated Alphas, but it’s not like you’re my boyfriend.”

Abel bristled. “You said you love me.”

She did. God, did Rylie love him. Her heart ached with the weight of it, like she needed to grow twice the size of her beast to contain so much emotion. That wasn’t the wolf. A wolf didn’t yearn like that. It was entirely her human side.

And yet…

“I don’t want my mom to know anything important about me,” Rylie said. “You’re important, Abel. Really important.”

Abel grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her roughly against his chest. Rylie had been a werewolf and Alpha longer than he had, so she was stronger, but his body mass was so much greater that it put them on equal footing. With her fingers splayed over his pecs, she could feel the pounding of his heart.

It thrilled her inner wolf to feel that excitement in him. A heart beating so quickly meant adrenaline, and so many interesting things could cause that reaction. Fear. The hunt. Lust.

His smell was overwhelming. The rich smell of testosterone rolled over her, tinged with the odor of fur. It flooded her mind with images of distant mountains. Chasing deer. Catching, killing, eating.

But the wolf wasn’t the only one excited, and those smells didn’t make Rylie think of killing.

“I don’t think I’m that important, if you don’t want her to know about me,” Abel said. “If you aren’t ready to accept it, then that’s just goddamn fine. You can keep running, keep fighting, keep telling everyone that you don’t need me as much as I need you. But even a wolf can’t run forever. The truth’s gonna catch up with you one of these days.”

She wet her lips, and his eyes dropped to the place her tongue darted out. “What truth is that?”

Abel’s fingers tightened. “You’re mine,” he said, burying his face in her neck.

Rylie’s head fell back with a gasp as he scraped the bristles on his jaw down the tender skin of her shoulder. He inhaled deeply, as if savoring her smells.

“Mine,” he said again.

Their lips crashed together, and his tongue explored her mouth as if he owned her, like he might steal her breath away.

Rylie’s hands had minds of their own. She pushed his shirt up, tracing the ridge of his abs, curving around his ribs to his spine. Abel pulled away long enough for her to yank the shirt off over his head, and then they were chest-to-chest again.
 

He hiked up her sundress. His fingers bit into her hips, dragging them hard against his, and Rylie felt Abel straining, bulging between them.

She wanted him—
needed
him—so badly that it almost made her forget the guilt. She almost wasn’t even thinking about the way it had been with his brother, how much gentler Seth had always been, how he had been sweet and soft and worshipful. Abel was never sweet. He was rough, claiming her with his hands and mouth, marking his territory with sharp bites on her shoulder. Alpha injuries didn’t heal as quickly. When he bit, she was marked, and she
stayed
marked.

“Wait,” Rylie tried to say when he sank his teeth into her shoulder again.
Oh, God, don’t stop.
“I don’t want my mom to see bruises.”

A chuckle shook Abel’s chest. “She’s going to know you’re mine. Everyone will know.”

That was the end of Rylie’s ability to stand. Her knees melted. Abel lifted her, fingers digging into her backside, and Rylie twined her legs around his hips.

They stumbled into the dresser with a
thud
. The mirror was cold against her back as he jerked down the straps of her dress, baring her breasts. He licked a hot path down her shoulder, closed his mouth around one peach-pink nipple, and sucked.

Rylie muffled a groan into her wrist, biting down to keep herself from being too loud. Their breaths thundered in her ears like the roar of the wind through the forest on a stormy night. He ground himself against her, all desperate urges and mindless heat.

Their family was just in the other room—barely twenty feet away. It was bad enough that they had to have heard the lock click, much less Rylie and Abel thudding against the dresser.
 

“Wait,” she said again. She didn’t really mean it. Abel was as attuned to the subtle shifts in her smells as much as Rylie was with his, which meant he could tell how aroused she was, how much she didn’t
want
him to stop, and he was far more interested in what her body language said than what came out of her mouth.

He bit her shoulder. Every nerve in her body cried out.

“Wait, Abel, it’s just kind of—kind of fast,” Rylie said.

Abel reared back to stare at her.

Oh God, could she have said anything stupider in that moment? She struggled to catch her breath, hands braced against the dresser, while Abel’s hands relaxed on her thighs.

Mischief glinted in his eyes. “Fast? We’ve already mated, Rylie. I’ve made you mine. We had two kids. And you wanna talk fast?”

His first finger hooked in her underwear and pulled them aside.

“I don’t mean this,” she said. “I mean, our whole relationship isn’t normal. And my mom is going to think…” As soon as she realized how dumb that statement was, she stopped talking.

What did that word even mean?
Normal
? Was it possible to have a normal love life, and date like a normal person, when her inner wolf was already permanently bonded to his inner wolf? Maybe he was right—maybe it was stupid to act like Rylie could hide her life, her destiny, from her mother.

Rylie certainly felt more animal than human, with Abel trapped between her thighs and his hand sliding up the inside of her thighs.

“I don’t care what your mother thinks,” Abel said, like he could read her thoughts. “But if you don’t want me to touch you like this…”

He started to pull away. She grabbed his wrist and stopped him. “That’s not what I was saying,” she said.

“Then what?”

It was so hard to think of a coherent response when his palm was grinding circles between her legs, shooting hot spikes of pleasure straight to her brain. Her toes curled. One of her heels slipped off the drawer, almost sending her tumbling to the ground, but the weight of his body held her in place.

Rylie wasn’t sure if she was groaning or growling or both. Her fingers twitched on his back, digging her fingernails into the meat of his shoulders.

“It’s not fair,” she gasped. “I can’t have a conversation like this.”

“I’ll make it easy on you.” Abel nipped her earlobe. “Do you want me? Right here, right now, do you want me?”

Like he even needed to ask. “Yes,” Rylie said.

“Good.” Abel’s middle finger slid inside of her. She was hot and ready—she had been from the moment he locked the door. He began stroking out a rhythm, even as his hot breath whispered into her ear. “You’re going to introduce me to your mother.”

Were they seriously having this discussion
now?

Rylie kissed Abel to keep him from saying anything else. His fingers worked inside of her, first one, and then two, and the motions turned her flesh into raw electricity.

“Rylie,” he groaned.

Whenever he said her name like that, it had a way of making Rylie forget everything else that was happening in the world around them. Like she was starving to hear his name on her lips. But it hadn’t been that long since she had been groaning his brother’s name, sent out wedding invitations that said
Seth Wilder and Rylie Gresham
. How in the world could she ever introduce him to her mother?