10 – She’s a Flight Risk

Troy crowded his female trying to catch the nuances twisting through her scent emotions, ignoring the people behind them, ignoring the music and the crowd and the competing scents. By some miracle, he got a mate and she was right there in front of him. She’d touched him, and in that moment, he had known her utterly. She’d been made for him, and him for her. They would fit each other’s pieces and smooth each other’s edges, if she would only stop rejecting him.

The only thought in his mind was pleasing her in any way he could and he tried to think of how to tell her that, but the words did not come. He tried to think where to touch her, but she didn’t want to be touched.

‘No’ continued to twist hard and strong through her emotions. She looked at him differently than she had a moment before, hard and closed off.

Destroyed, Troy took a step back, and another. He snarled in grief, but it was still a wolf snarl, which is to say a cool snarl.

Immediate feedback to the snarl came to him in his mate’s scent. The ‘no’ disappeared, and a ‘yes’, replaced it. The scent of his mate’s arousal reached him and he thought he might snap in half with the barely-deniable urge to fix that for her. Right now.

Her peppermint smell sweetened to thick peppermint candy, making his eyes roll back in his head as cool turned to sweet, so sweet. She was icy-stream-on-a-sweltering-day cool. He lost the thread of thought for a moment as the sensation rolled through him raising goose bumps. Her cool blanketed his heat until he couldn’t get enough of her in his lungs. He took a deep breath, inhaling all the cooling sweetness he could.

MINE! rolled through his mind and body, making him snarl again, deep and loud in his mate’s ear, getting closer to her. She let him in. She melted, going all liquid in front of him. He got in closer still and pressed her against the wall. “Mine,” he said again, confirming it, stating it, claiming it. Troy forgot himself slightly, seeing and scenting only his female who he’d just met, who he could not look away from. He fit her in against him and rocked her to the music. She moaned soft and low and like the clearest note in the universe.

Her hands fluttered to his chest, then his shoulders, then up to his neck and face. She smoothed her hands over his skin, like she was memorizing his features, her eyes passionate, but haunted at the same time. Her touch cooled him, her look heated him.

She ground against him so slightly, that at first he thought he was imagining it, but he didn’t imagine the light, sexy moan that came from her lips, or the sweet scent of her arousal, cool and overpowering, surprising her more than him.

The inset corner they were in was dark, the dance floor was lit only with colored balls of light, people were dancing, no one was paying attention to them.

Troy’s hands stole around his female’s waist, as his thoughts whirled and his wolf demanded and his lungs took in deep breath after deep breath.

He pulled his female’s hips tight against his body and stared into her eyes, one question in his mind, but he didn’t say it, because it had a W in it. Instead, he sent it to her in ruhi.

Will you be mine forever? he asked, pledging his heart to her in that moment. He would never look at another female, he would never give this female anything but sweetness and love from that moment forward.

***

Reed tried desperately to hold on to her right mind, but it was hard, so hard. His hands were strong and burning on her hips, his thumbs and fingers spanning her waist. He stared at her so intently she could almost imagine he was speaking to her. Passion poured off of him in waves. Some hard sense that she was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing filled her, stealing her will to get away from him, making her melt into him instead, making her raise her hands and draw him closer.

She had been so right about him. He pressed her into the wall and circled her ass with his big hands, drawing her in close to him, pulling her center against his thigh, leaning in like he was going to kiss her. Reed closed her eyes and leaned her head back, waiting for the kiss, her thoughts calmed.

Just this one time, with just this one guy…

He kissed her softly on the lips, almost chastely, with warm lips and murmurs that had no real form, just little growls that might as well have been dirty words at the way her body responded to them. Heat and pleasure built at her core and she didn't pull away, didn’t stop it. She forgot where she was, just let herself go for once. She pressed against him and slid her hips forward, legs straddling his leg slightly. He pulled her closer, worked her onto him more, then pushed her away, then onto him again, his big hands kneading at her ass, working with her motion.

Reed’s eyes flew open and she had one thought that she was going to explode and oh she better keep quiet but oh, she couldn’t.

Reed orgasmed right there at work, pressed into the lighting alcove by a man she’d just met, the orgasm coming hard and fast and easy like had never happened for her before. It surprised her and took her over, and she lost everything about who she was for just a moment, her own cries ringing in her ears. He covered her mouth with his quickly; less of a kiss, and more him trying to swallow the noise she was making.

As the waves receded, Reed came back to herself, remembering who she was and what she was supposed to be doing. She was Reed Ann Marion. She worked here at this bar, except she didn't anymore, because she was surely fired if anyone saw that, and if she wasn't fired, she'd quit.

Troy was staring down at her, a look of satisfaction on his face. He nodded once, sharply.

Reed pushed at Troy. Her center still throbbed, but embarrassment flooded her hard and fast, making her want to hide her face. She wrestled with it, determined to hold her ground. Troy was not moving his hands off of her ass. “Let go of me,” she demanded, pushing his chest again, trying so hard to recover.

He let go at once, watching her darkly, taking a step back. She didn’t know what to say and couldn’t find any breath to say it, especially when she saw Linda, the boss, staring at them from the bar, arms folded over her chest, eyes shooting daggers. Shame pulsed through Reed.

Reed stepped away from Troy. She snarled the name in her own mind, no longer liking the sound of it, heading toward Linda, feeling like all eyes were on her. Her cheeks heated as she blushed for the first time since childhood.

Behind her, she heard Troy say, “Hold up.”

Reed whirled and stalked a step back to him, giving him both barrels.

“I will not hold up,” she said, her voice tightly controlled. “Thank you very much for whatever that was back there,” She flapped her hands to the alcove. “But I don't date cops, and I don't return sexual favors I didn't ask for.”

She whirled again. Linda was gone. Reed headed behind the bar, through the door, into the back. When she got there, she was steaming, getting madder every second. Where did he get off getting her off? She should sue him. She should have him arrested. Better yet, she shouldn’t have rubbed against him in the first place. She shook her head and doubled her speed.

Through the swinging door to the kitchen she went, not slowing as she yelled, “I quit, Linda! Burn my last check and don't call me again.” God, she hoped there was a law against that and she got her check in the mail.

What a disaster. Only ice cream would help. Ice cream, and never seeing Troy again.

Reed ran and didn’t look back.