Chapter
3
Kent
The Next Day…
Hungover, Kent woke up to someone banging on his front door.
Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and trying to ignore his pounding head, he rolled over in bed and shouted, “All right, all right already! I’m coming. Hold on to your fuckin’ horses.”
As the banging thankfully stopped, Kent looked down at his boxer-clad self and decided, “Fuck it. If they’re going to wake me up, then they can see me in all my morning glory.”
He shuffled to the door, then whipped it open, only to find a blast from his past there on the doorstep. It was the reporter he had slept with months ago, dressed in one of her expensive skirt suits that clung to her curves and dipped low enough to show some cleavage. With her vixen red hair, glossed pouty lips, and seductive smile, Kent was quickly reminded why he had given in to her charms. She had made his dick hard in zero to sixty seconds. This time, though … nothing. And without even having to think about it, he knew exactly why. The damn Amazon!
If Chloe were a witch, he would have sworn she had cast some sort of spell over him. Which only left him to wonder what the hell was going on with him since he knew damn well she wasn’t a witch.
A delicate throat clearing brought his attention back to the reporter standing in front of him. “Good morning, handsome.”
Scratching his chin, Kent got straight to the point. “What are you doing here, Victoria?”
The devious reporter gave him a wicked smile, then ran one of her red fingernails down the center of his bare chest until she hooked it into the top of his boxers. “I came to get another exclusive from my favorite police officer.”
Kent grabbed her hand and pulled it away from his underwear. “Sorry, but I got nothing for you this time.”
Victoria tsked him while waving her finger back and forth. “That’s not true, and we both know it. You were at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington’s campus hostage situation a few weeks ago. And wasn’t it your partner who was shot? How is she doing by the way? You know I’d love to hear all about it. Plus, in return, you know I have something very exclusive to give you, too, as soon as we step inside, lover.”
Kent was shaking his head, while Victoria quickly became like an octopus, hands everywhere, grabbing him. He tried to block her moves, but one hand made it to his dick from outside of his boxers, cupping his package. She got in a good fondle before he managed to pull her hand away. It was too late; she had figured out his problem.
Kent wasn’t hard for her, and he had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t be able to, either. Not for her. The reporter wasn’t who he wanted, and his dick was on strike until he got who was.
Victoria pouted. “What’s wrong, Kent baby? You not happy to see me?”
Unwilling to admit that his dick didn’t want her, Kent gave her an excuse. “Maybe if you were here to see me and not just to get a story … But we both know that’s not true. Now, it was nice seeing you again, Victoria, but I think you should leave.”
The dismissal didn’t work. If anything, it only seemed to put a determined spark in the reporter’s eyes. She crowded closer to him, making him back up to put some space between them, causing the two of them to walk through Kent’s open front door.
Deciding he didn’t want her any farther in his house, he stopped moving backward and made a stand in his foyer. The next thing he knew, Victoria was all over him like a leech, kissing and sucking his neck while smoothing her hands all over his bare chest.
Kent grabbed her wandering hands, held her by her wrists, and forced her back a little to put some space between them.
It only made Victoria pout.
“Come on, Kentie-poo. I missed you. I swear you’re not just about a story.”
He snorted. “Right. And after not seeing me for months, you suddenly realize you miss me?”
Victoria was a determined woman, which was how Kent found himself with her lips on his a few seconds later. She was doing her best to kiss the daylights out of him, and he was just about to push her away, when disaster happened.
His partner showed up.
“Jesus Christ, Kent. Is there ever a time when you don’t have your tongue down some woman’s throat?” Jenna snapped as she walked through Kent’s still open front door.
Kent pushed Victoria away, but she only seemed to slither back next to him, wrapping her body around his own as he tried to face off with his partner.
“This is not what it looks like.”
Jenna snorted in disgust. “Right, and I suppose next you’ll tell me that Santa is real.” That was about the time that Jenna got a look at Victoria’s face and realized who she was. “Are you fucking kidding me? That bitch again? What story are you going to give her this time? It better not be about me, or I swear to God, I’ll shoot your nuts off.”
Kent pushed Victoria away one final time. “You need to go.”
Victoria huffed, but got the message.
However, Kent’s message wasn’t done.
As Victoria started to cross the threshold of his front door, he called her name, which had her looking back over her shoulder at him.
“And don’t come back.”
Victoria left without another word, and in her place was an angry woman. Kent was not happy about that at all. He could tell Jenna was about to give him shit.
“When are you going to stop sticking your dick in every woman who has a hole between her legs?”
Not wanting to put up with this right now, Kent exploded.
“For fuck’s sake, can a man have a cup of coffee before he’s bombarded in the morning?”
Rolling her eyes, Jenna walked past him and into his kitchen.
After Kent closed his front door, he followed her, finding her making coffee for him.
When she saw him standing on the other side of the kitchen counter, she snapped, “I don’t know why you’re so cranky with me. I came to talk to you, only to find you about to fuck that reporter again. Didn’t seem like you needed coffee then.”
Kent glared at her. “I was not trying to sleep with Victoria again. She showed up on my doorstep this morning.”
“Right, and I’m the Queen of England.”
He heaved a sigh, seeing that he wasn’t going to get Jenna to believe him. Time to change the subject. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
Bracing her hands on the countertop, Jenna looked him straight in the eye. “Adam’s worried that the Corvus pack in Germany will retaliate against us after our attack and us taking Minna back to the States. They probably know she’s turned against them and is worried about what we’ll do.”
Kent’s eyebrows drew down in confusion. “Don’t you think they would have already retaliated by now if they were going to do something?”
Jenna shook her head. “Adam says they needed time to regroup and now is the time we should be on the lookout for them. He wanted me to give you a heads-up so you could be ready.”
Months ago, back when Jenna had first met the McPhee pack alpha, there had been a string of robberies and hostage situations here in Wilmington that had been tied to a rogue pack of wolves belonging to the Corvus pack. While their main base appeared to be in Germany, they had sent wolves around the world to start their grand master plan—letting the humans know about the Others in the world. In essence, their goal had been world domination where humans would be treated like cattle.
Jenna had gone with her uncle Owen, the Pack Master of the United States, her brother Logan, and of course, Adam to Germany to see what they could find out about the Corvus pack. The trip had ended up with them coming back with a nearly dead Jenna and a submissive wolf of the Corvus pack named Minna.
Minna had given them as much information as possible, from news that the Corvus packs were pulling off big jobs all around the world toward their plan, to the major information that the Corvus pack alpha, Marcus Corvus, was in no way connected to or even aware of these events. The reason for that was because he was being held hostage by his own beta, Lars, who had managed to keep the alpha in a medicated coma so he could unofficially take over the pack.
Now it looked like they might need to go back to Germany to handle the Corvus pack once and for all while rescuing the comatose alpha.
“What are we going to do?” Kent asked Jenna, who was now pouring a cup of coffee.
She set the cup on the counter in front of him and said, “We’re going to have another meeting at some point on how to plan to infiltrate their compound in Germany. I don’t know when it’ll be, but I’ll give you the information as soon as I know. Now, drink your damn coffee, and then go wash the skank off you.”
Kent looked toward the ceiling and prayed for patience as his partner left his house, slamming the door on her way out. Of course, he prayed until he realized how fucking ironic it was that he, a demon, was praying. Yeah, that was just all sorts of wrong.
Looking back to his cup of coffee, he hoped the rest of his day would get better.
~~~
Chloe
Ready for a drink, Chloe walked into the McPhee’s Pub. It was risky to walk back into the same bar that she had pulled a gun in only days earlier, but she didn’t care. What was the worst they could do, kick her out? Good for them. Besides, she considered this trip a little test to see how Gage’s friends would react to her presence. First, she really needed to order a damn drink.
She didn’t drink often, but her family had gotten on her last nerves today. She loved her sisters and aunts, but none of them understood her. Elena thought she was nothing more than a whore, and little Delta was always waiting for Chloe to sprout some sort of freakin’ halo or something and change. She didn’t want to change, dammit. She was happy with who she was—a jaded woman who liked to use her intellect and charms for teaching men a lesson.
What was so wrong with that?
As she walked up to the bar, Chloe took notice of who the inhabitants were. Sitting across from the McPhee alpha himself, Adam, she believed his name was, was Jenna O’Conner, mate to the alpha and Kent’s own partner. Thank God she loved to read her aunts’ intel files or she would be completely lost to who was who in this town. And apparently, it was serendipitous for her to come into the bar today, because now she had someone to connect Kent to. Perhaps with a little digging into Jenna’s background, she would finally find some information on Kent, such as his first name, or his Other status. Looked like she would be doing some more reading tonight.
Chloe sat down a couple of seats over from Jenna, just in time to hear her say, “He’s driving me fucking nuts!”
The alpha laughed, holding his finger up to indicate she needed to wait a minute as he walked over in Chloe’s direction. This was it. Chloe would know if the Demos sisters were now considered enemies of the McPhee pack for what they had done. But, if she was looking for hostility, she didn’t find it. Instead, the alpha asked her in a friendly tone, “Hi, what can I get you today?”
“A Cosmo,” she grumbled in return.
The alpha cocked his eyebrow, looked back over his shoulder at the clock on the wall, and then pointed out the obvious. “Lunchtime drinking? Would you like some pretzels or something to go with that?”
Scrunching her nose up in distaste, Chloe shook her head. “No pretzels; just the Cosmo, please.”
Shrugging, he chuckled at her. “Guess it’s five o’clock somewhere.”
Tipping her head from side to side to try to relieve some of the pressure in her shoulders, Chloe mumbled, “Let’s pretend it’s five o’clock here, okay?”
Adam mixed the contents of the drink, poured it in a sparkling glass, and then set it down in front of her before walking back over to his mate.
Perhaps the man just didn’t consider one crazy Amazon a threat? Who knew? What she did know was she was too freakin’ stressed out to care. So, she picked up her drink and took a large sip while keeping her ears open to anything that might be said in her vicinity.
Once the alpha was standing in front of Jenna again, she could hear him ask, “What did Kent do now to piss you off?”
The name immediately had Chloe on alert. She had read what she could find on Kent, who she now knew was a demon, needing to know his skillset for when the time came to turn in her marker. Information was power, and Chloe drank it all up like she was about to drink this Cosmo.
Jenna threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. “What does he always do, Adam? He took his dick out of his pants and stuck it in the wrong woman again! I swear that man will fuck anything with two legs and a hole between them.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as the alpha shook his head. “You know he’s really not that bad, babe.”
The other woman’s reaction was to snort. “Right. That’s why he slept with the reporter who was looking for an exclusive?”
Adam cringed. “Not one of Kent’s finest moments.”
“Um-hm. And how about the time we went to speak with Gage and Alec Ivanov at the club, looking for information, and I turn around to find Kent motorboating some woman’s boobs?”
This time, Chloe watched the alpha bite his bottom lip in an attempt not to laugh. Finally, he couldn’t take his mate’s glare any longer and said, “Give the man a break. He was trying to impress upon Gage’s grandmother that he was not a ‘whore of men’.”
“Just a whore of women, then?” Jenna replied drolly.
The rhetorical question almost made Chloe snort. It sounded as if the handsome man she had been talking to last night was, in fact, a manwhore. That didn’t surprise her entirely. He’d had player written all over him the moment she had laid eyes on him. And it wasn’t lost on her how he had done his damnedest to pick her up the night before.
That didn’t mean some part of her still wasn’t disappointed to hear her suspicions about Kent confirmed. There was something about the demon that appealed to her. What it was, she had no idea. Whatever it was, though, she needed to firmly ignore it.
As she sat there and listened to Kent’s work partner complain about the many women who always seemed to track them down while they were working, looking for some sort of repeat with Kent, Chloe knew without a doubt that he was trouble with a capital T.
Jenna slapped one of her hands down on the bar top as she excitedly asked her mate, “Did I ever tell you that he hit on Babushka Ivanov?”
That wiped the smile off the alpha’s face. “Kent hit on Gage’s grandmother?”
Jenna nodded, paused, then shook her head. “Yes and no. When we first met her, we didn’t know who she was. Kent didn’t so much as hit on her as he eye-fucked her right in front of Gage. I thought Gage was going to rip his head off.”
Chloe tuned out the rest of the conversation. After hearing about how Kent hit on little old ladies, she was ready to write him off for good. The man must have no morals if he could eye-fuck someone’s grandmother right in front of them. Definitely not someone she wanted to get tangled up with.
As she took a drink of her Cosmo, Chloe told herself that she wasn’t surprised to hear that Kent was such a Casanova. Most men were, which was one of the reasons she was the jaded person she was.
For once, she wanted a man to be different from the others and prove her wrong.
Guessed it wasn’t happening with Kent.