Dark Awakening (4 page)

Alison crossed her arms tightly. John Dour had been her lover
during her
single
day
s
in her breeding cycle
.
He’d helped her for two years, then she met Conlin and was with him during her next cycle, and over the next two years John had been servicing her.
He was kind, simple, and completely happy to service her needs during the cycle.
Plus
he didn't mind wearing a condom, since neither of them wanted a pregnancy.

"Yeah, I'll call him tonight and see if he can come over."

"What if he can't?"

Alison laughed quietly. John was a simple man, but a man nevertheless. "Unless he's married
…He’ll
come.
”

"Oh, I'm sure he will," Sarina said smartly with a grin of her own.

"Listen before you go, do me another favor will you?" Alison hesitated, wondering
whether or not
she should tell her friend. Of course she could, she was always trustworthy. At her friend's
enthusiastic
nod, she continued. "Don't tell Rome about the breeding cycle, please. I'm going to hunker down in the cabin and stay that way until it's over.
Luckily
my cycles have never been as long as yours. Maybe it will even be over in
a few days
."

Sarina looked at her with a twinkle in her eye. "You like him, don't you?"

Alison sputtered and cleared her throat. "Not at all."

Sarina smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. "Listen
honey
, he's a good man. I know how you feel about handsome men, but you can actually trust this one. Not only is he a Kategan, but he's
Vane's brother, and I've gotten to know him a bit over the last mont
h
. I've also seen how he looks at you. A man only looks at a woman like that when he wants her,
baaad
. Maybe you should let your guard down a little with him."

Alison hugged her friend and said she would try, even though it was a lie. She could never allow herself to trust a man like
that;
already he was pushing down her steel defenses with brutal force. Hell, she hadn't kisses anyone besides John during her cycle in the last four years.
She couldn't afford to let the barrier drop. She'd already gone through what happens when you do.

Chapter
5

After
informing Rome that he was right and she shouldn’t go back to work so soon, she
usher
ed her guests out
and
prepared for the breeding cycle to come. It wasn't like her to forget something
s
o important. Hell, it was even marked on her little calen
dar at home.

But with the break-
in and the nasty letters she'd been receiving on top of the eerie, silent phone calls, she'd been on edge. Every little noise had her
turning
towards it with a
start;
each sound seemed to have taken on a sinister calling.

Paranoia. She knew
it for what it was, but couldn’t stop it.

She asked Sarina to gather a few items for her that she'd need for the next few days.
Six
bottles of champagne
was at the top of the list
.

She was trying something new this year. I
nstead
of calling John
Dour,
she planned
to try
a new strategy
—
get
really drunk
. With enough liquor and
self-pleasuring,
she should be able to stem off the throbbing roar of her hormones. Or at least that's what she was hoping
for
.

She knew she should call John, but the idea of him coming here was too weird to her. This wasn’t her home and she didn’t want pe
ople to know what she was up to, and
surely,
the guards would question him for coming to see her.

Seventy-two hours, that's how long she needed to last.

Unfortunately
, she only managed to last six of those seventy-two hours. After her breeding cycle swept like a fiery bur
n through body at around eight o
'clock that night, Alison managed to down more than half
a
bottle of champagne and pleasure herself twice.

She would not admit,
aloud
anyways,
that it was Rome's cock she pictured thrusting into her
. She pictured him taking her quick and hard, not
bothering
to undress her all the way before
filling her deeply. She came twice with the image of him buried inside her and growling his hot release into her.

Alison rolled out of bed, uncaring of her naked state or that her fingers smelled richly of her breeding heat.
She paced in front of the fireplace. Why couldn't she get him out of her mind? He was only a man.
Good looking, yes.
Funny, yes.
Absolutely delectable
, yes.
Her heart told her she could trust him.

She had trusted Conlin and ended up in a bad way, but that was her fault.
And her heart
’s
, which had been completely
in on the whole
deal.
She had been naive, not believing of the rumors about him. He'd played the part so well too,
about
how unjust it was that people said such horrible things about him. Even Sarina had told her to be careful, but she hadn't listened. She'd trusted a monster.

But Rome wasn't a monster. While she didn't know that for certain, a part of her
wanted to take a chance
. Damn it all, she didn't know what to do. Her nipples were crying out to be pinched, her skin was sensitized to even the softest of touches, and her core throbbed like a rapid pulse between her legs. She was so hot and wet.

God she wanted him. Like a dying plant needed water, like a woman needed a man.

Her mind made up, she dialed the one man she trusted, the one man who was safe, and that man definitely wasn't Rome Kategan.

She could hear the breathless excitement in his voice at her request. His voice wasn't deep like Rome's but it was nice. He promised to be there in thirty minutes and hung up. Alison made another call to the sentry guard. Sarina told her that if she needed anything to let them know, so she called to tell them to allow her male visitor when he arrived.

She grabbed her bottle of
champagne
by the neck and took a long gulp. The tangy bubbles
sizzled on her tongue and left a pleasantly sweet and crisp taste in her mouth. For a
moment,
she considered putting clothes on for when he arrived, but her skin was too sensitive
.
E
ach touch felt like it was supercharged a thousand times stronger than usual. She couldn't even bear the touch of the couch against her.

She paced in front of the fireplace.
She'd planned on lighting it and sitting by the fire with a book all night. That was until her breeding cycle roared to life.
She chewed on her bottom lip and ran a hand through her hair, probably messing up her bangs in the process. A dark feeling was eating at her like a parasite. She recognized it as guilt.

"God, I can't believe this," she muttered. She actually felt guilty over calling John. It wasn't
like
Rome was anything to
her;
in fact, she'd learned her lesson about gorgeous men. He was bad news. But then why did she feel like she wanted to go hide in the closet and not come out when John came to the door?

Her core throbbed, warning her of its emptiness, threatening her with its steady
pulse
to fill it or else. Already the painful stomach cramp started
.
I
f she didn't have sex soon she'd been in real pain. Masturbating only
staved
off the pleasure so much. God, just thinking about how Sarina had dealt with this without a man for so many years was horrible. Her father was monster for doing such a thing.

Just
then,
there was a knock at her door. Alison flew to it and flung it open. John's jaw dropped at seeing her flush, naked body. Her chest was heaving, her legs spread,
and the
scent of her sex filled
the air like smoke. He closed his jaw and she looked down his body to see his erection pushing through his
khaki
pants. A part of her pulled her back a little and told her no, but the animal inside her, the lykaen told her to rip off his pants and sit on his cock. She couldn't help it, the animal was out of the cage,
and she
leaped at him with a growl.

He caught her around the waist as she wrapped her arms and legs around him. He groaned as her mouth found his. His lips were thinner, his body not as strong, not as tall, didn't smell as good or feel right, but she didn't care. She was going to have him.

He stumbled back with her until the porch railing stopped him. Her tongue was in his mouth and her hands scratching over his back. She pulled back to tell him to pull out his cock, but she was interrupted. Well, interrupted was a tame word for what happened.

She was wrenched away by a strong grip, and in the next
blink,
she saw Rome slamming his fist into John's face.

"No! Stop it!" she yelled and pushed Rome away. He didn't look at her, just
panted,
and stared down at John who was having trouble keeping his eyes open. "What do you think you're doing?"

"He was touching you." He
jerked her up against his body and his pupils
darkened
and
dilated
as he looked at her. Then he took a deep shuddering breath. "You're breeding." He growled and her body wept at the sound.

"Y-yes," she whispered. Suddenly she felt like a deer caught in headlights. She was utterly captivated by him. His scent, his body, his voice, all of them pulled her towards him as if they were two polarized magnets,
irresistibly
drawn together.

"Tell John he's leaving and not to come back around here again." His hands grabbed her naked hips and brought her flush against his body. She moaned at the feel of all his hard strength and whimpered at the
unmistakable
hardness of his cock.

Somehow
she tore her gaze away to see John come to a stand, his legs a little unsteady. "I'm so sorry, John. Please
go
." He looked at her, his lips in a flat line then looked at Rome with a wounded expression before turning to leave. Alison wanted to cry out to him, she felt so awful
for everything, but she couldn't because Rome picked her up and was taking her into the house.
             
Oh my God, she thought her mind buzzing. I'm going to have sex with Rome Kategan.

Chapter 6

Rome couldn't think straight over the roar of blood in his ears. His cock was harder than it'd been in his life.

He'd received a call from the guards that Alison was having a visitor over, a male visitor. Rome had watched curiously, and
more
than a little angry, as the thin man knocked on Alison's door. But after he saw her launch herself at him completely
naked,
he knew two things.
One, that
he was going to kill this man and two, something was wrong. The shy, modest Alison would not fling herself naked at a man in public without reason.

That's the reason he gave himself for marching over to her cabin and planting his fist into the thin man's face. The scent of her breeding heat
hit him like a punch to the gut,
had his heart knocking against his ribs with a hard staccato
rhythm
. She smelled ripe and fresh like pure woman and honey. God, he'd never smelled anything so good.

He didn't feel like he was all there in his head. He felt overcome with lust and desire, feelings he'd already harbored in abundance for her. Looking down at
the
wiggling vixen in his arms, Rome knew he was going to take her good and hard.

Something stopped him though from just shoving in her like he wanted to, like she wanted to
judge
by her soft, needy eyes. "Alison, tell me you want me. Tell me you want this." He hated that he sounded like he was begging, but damn he couldn't help it. She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck, the movement lifting her closer to his lips.

"I've only wanted you."

Her soft words hit him like a sledgehammer to the head. His cock throbbed painfully and his sac drew up tight to his body. Before he realized what he was
doing,
he was kissing her. It was
all tongues, lips, and breaths
mixing together
struggling for dominance. He put her down on the rug before the unlit fireplace and followed her down. He pulled back from her lips to look down at her naked body.