“When she agreed, I took her at her word. It never occurred to me that she would lie.”
I scrambled closer to Max,going to his buttons to let my fingers touch his skin, but he captured my hands in his.
“Don’t do this,” he said, looking down at me with deadly seriousness. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I’d rather go crawling back to Crystal than to have a woman touch me out of pity.”
“Pity?” I bit the word off. “I want to kick their fucking arses for being such oblivious pricks. You think I don’t know?” His eyes searched mine, gleaming in the darkness. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to be disregarded, ignored, and then when your friends’ backs are turned, have someone unleash all of their bile on you?”
I sucked one breath in, then another, catching the rich woody scent of Max’s with every breath.
“Fuck, my own mother can’t find it in her heart to say something nice to me.”
“Sage—”
“You don’t want my pity and I don’t want yours, but…” My hand moved slower now, plucking one button and then flicking it open, then the next, then the next, slowly revealing his body as he watched me like a hawk. “You want this, right?”
I wished I’d slid my hand across his chest, all confidence, but there was something tentative there. Was this OK? Would he persist in thinking I did so as a sop to his bruised ego? Except he took over, of course he did, as all that alpha bullshit rose in him, even if it was expressed in a way that some people seemed oblivious to. He was the quiet one, the one who snuck up behind you and had you doing what he wanted, despite your intentions. I leaned over then, and he smiled as I presented my mouth to him before he took it with his.
This might have been the point where I wondered how Chloe could turn her nose up at kissing Max. His hands sank into my hair, holding me still as he devoured me slowly, thoroughly, his tongue sliding into my mouth and reminding me of just what else he could do with it, making my thighs shift restively. Only I didn’t give Chloe a second thought.
I probably should have.
Instead, I turned to the others, who looked like looming shapes in the darkness.
“You asked me who I wanted in the bed tonight? I want Max—that’s who’s staying with me.” I turned back to the man in question. “As long as that’s what you want?”
He rolled me over with a wicked smile, the sight of it lightening something inside me. Then there was the press of him, forcing me to sink into the mattress.
“I’ll always want everything you’ve got to give, omega.” His nose slid down the line of my neck, making me shiver in response. “Every damn thing.”
39
“You need to be sure, though.”
My head jerked up, and when I met Max’s eyes, I saw something had changed. They were silver, but they had been since we walked in here. He stared, but he always did, and I wondered then if that was what had pissed off Chloe. It didn’t make me mad, not one bit. He shifted then, looming over me, becoming a dark figure in the night air, one with glowing eyes and sharp teeth.
“If you want to make sweet love, gentle love, then we’ll put a pin in things for tonight and wait until tomorrow.” He shook his head then, as if to dislodge something. “I can’t be him right now.” His teeth were bared, and I found myself scrambling back on the bed, but he shook his head. “Don’t do that. I’ve got him under control, but only just.”
“Max—”
“Shut up, Tobias. I’ve got this, and you’ve got to trust that I have.” But those alien eyes swung back to me. “He’s pushing me hard, wanting to get to you, to soothe you and hold you tight…”
That didn’t sound so bad.
“But part of me… Part of me…” His words were broken by a couple of rough pants, his chest heaving with the effort, but then suddenly, something shifted. He tilted his head to one side and smiled wide, flashing too sharp fangs. “Part of me wants to set you running through the halls of this fucking house. I’d give you a head start so you can skitter away like a damn mouse, let you find a bolthole you think will hide you from me, and then I’d hunt—”
“Jesus, Max, after everything Sage has been through?” Lucien asked in a scathing tone, and that was when I started to piece things together.
“Is that how it works, Max?” I went to my knees before him, and he just stared, thrumming with some kind of primal energy. “Your wolf, he gets closer to the surface than your brothers’.”
A hand shot out to bury itself in my hair and haul me closer, forcing my eyes to meet his, to stare into the face of this…creature—the one that lived inside ostensibly gentle Max. His grip didn’t relent, keeping me pinned to the spot, and suddenly, I didn’t want to go anywhere else.
Sort of.
My body seemed to recognise I was facing down a predator, one with imperfect control. He wanted to slide those big hands down my body, prick my skin with the claws I could feel against my scalp, and drive his cock inside me, right as his fangs clamped down.
He nodded then, slowly.
“I was too gentle for Chloe, and then I wasn’t gentle enough. She was dismissive, right up until the point she couldn’t—when he took over.”