Chapter 14: Alpha’s Secret: Chapter 14

Grizz

The second I walk into my home, my bear calms.

Jordy’s waiting at the table, dressed for the day in a skirt and button-down shirt that hugs the curve of her breasts. She rises, her face composed.

“Kit.”

“Grizz.” She’s still standing by the chair, looking me over. “You’re all right?”

“I am now.” I open my arms. Emotions scroll over her face—worry, relief, delight—and then she stops thinking and rushes to me. And as soon as her weight hits my body, her scent rushes over me, and I’m home.

I lift her in my arms, squeezing her tight.

I wasn’t rushing home because Jordy might be upset. I was rushing because I needed to see her. I needed to know she was all right.

I need her.

The realization doesn’t rock my world. It spins it right round and settles it firmly on its axis where it belonged.

“I was so worried,” she whispers.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m here. I’m here now.”

We hug a long time, and while I’m rock hard and aching against her, I can’t put her down to kiss her. I need her to know how much I need her, and until she does, I can’t let her go.

Finally, she raises her head. Her sweet smile is more potent than a punch. “I cooked for you.”

I let her wriggle out of my arms, gritting my teeth against the new surge of arousal. She takes my hand and tugs me to the chair. The kitchen smells lemony fresh and the counters almost sparkle. She waited for me. She cooked. She cleaned.

“Jordy.” I tug her back and claim her mouth. I feast, all that sweetness dissolving on my tongue like sugar, but when I grab her hips and set her against my erection, she laughs and tuts. “Not now.”

“Yes, now,” I growl.

“No.” She slips away. Damn wriggly fox. I go after her and she races around the table. If it weren’t full of food she made, I’d flip the furniture out of the way, drag her to the ground and claim her. She’s mine. There’s no need to wait any longer.

“You need to eat.”

“I will eat. You.”

Smiling and blushing, she shakes her finger. “No. You need real food. You were gone a long time. I know how much it took out of you.”

I start to growl and she puts her hands on her hips. “One plate. At least.”

“I want you now.”

“You’ll get me,” she soothes. “But first, I need to know you’re okay.” She pulls out my chair. “Sit.”

I hide a grin. “You giving orders now?”

“Yes.” She blushes as she says it and ducks her head. Well, hell, now I can’t refuse her.

“All right, Kit. One plate.”

“And then we talk,” she announces and starts uncovering dishes.

“That sounds ominous,” I mutter, but don’t push it. Now that she’s pulled the cover off the crock pot, I want food.

“Looks good, baby.”

“It’s cochinita pibil,” she says. “Slow cooked pork. My recipe.”

I grab her ass as she serves it up. She laughs and dances away when my hand strays between her legs. She didn’t say anything about me not feeling her up. I wait until she’s out of reach, sitting across the table from me, to pick up my fork. One bite and I’m plowing through the meal.

“Damn, Kit, this is good.”

She says nothing, but beams.

“You gonna eat?”

“I already did.” She puts her elbows on the table, resting her face against her folded hands. Almost like she’s praying, but her eyes are on me. She doesn’t speak. Her hands hide her expression.

As soon as my plate is clean, I reach for her. I could eat more, but first I need a bite of her. “Come here.”

She obeys, and doesn’t protest when I guide her to sit on my lap.

“Grizz—” she starts and I kiss her, drinking more of her sweetness. My fingers fist in her hair, angling her face the way I want it. For a long time she allows it, but then jerks back.

“Grizz, we need to talk.”

I nibble a little more at her lips. “Later,” I murmur.

A few more kisses and she shakes her head, rubbing her face against my stubble. “Now.”

I sit back with a sigh. Her face is so serious it turns the food in my stomach to concrete.

She strokes my hair as if soothing me. Cute little fox. “You were gone a long time.”

I almost close my eyes at the worry in her voice. “Is that why you cooked for me, Kit? Get me softened up so you could give me the third degree?”

She just looks at me.

I sigh. “Look, I—”

“You didn’t come back because you couldn’t. You passed out again, like after the last fight. Right?”

Fuck. I don’t want to lie to her. I nod.

She blinks and says to herself, “It has something to do with how you can blur.”

Alarms go off in my head. “Kit, I can’t tell you. It’s not safe.”

“It’s the flask, isn’t it? It contains something that helps you fight faster.”

I weigh the truth against the cost. “Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t tell you that.” Frangelico won’t want any word of this spreading. If I tell her the final secret, her life will be in danger.

Silence stretches like a chasm between us.

Her head bows and she mutters something.

“What’s that?” I raise her chin.

She meets my eyes unflinchingly. “I said, ‘it’s killing you’.”

I open my mouth but my protest dies under her direct stare. I can’t look at her, the woman I love, and lie.

And I love Jordy. I don’t know when I started but I know I’ll never stop.

So when she takes my hand and leads me to the bathroom, I follow. Big bad bear meek and mild around her. She tugs off my shirt and I stifle a snarl. Fates, that hurts.

“You’re not healing,” she says, grabbing down the mirror and angling it to show me the nasty bite on my shoulder, where the bear fighter bit me. “It’s slowing you down. And these blackouts? They’re getting worse. I timed them. Last one was — hours. This one was almost fifteen.”

“Look I’m sorry I left you—”

She slaps the counter. “I don’t want your apologies. You don’t owe me. But whatever you’re doing, you’re hurting yourself. You need to stop.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” she whispers.

I spear my fingers into her hair. How did I come to this moment? Where a lovely young woman looks me in the eyes like I hang the moon?

“I can’t, Jordy. I don’t do it because I want to. I do it for revenge.”

“Revenge for your mother?”

I nod, unable to speak.

“Revenge is a death trap. It’s hurting you. It could kill you.”

I lick my lips and tell her the truth. “As long as I take out my mother’s murderer, I don’t care.”

“Grizz.” She looks so sad. “I care.”

I jolt as if electrified. But she’s not done.

“I don’t want you to die,” she whispers, and I jolt again like she shouted it. How long has it been since someone cared whether I’m alive?

“Kit,” is the only thing I can say. I rub the red strands of her hair between my finger and thumb. The fine strands catch on my callouses.

She tugs me closer and lays her forehead on mine. “I wish I could give you what you want. I wish I could give you your revenge.” She slides her face against mine until we’re cheek to cheek. “How long until you get it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Soon?”

“I don’t know,” I repeat. “It never mattered before. I’m gonna get it if it takes the rest of my life.”

“What happens after?” she asks softly. “After you get your revenge?”

I try to answer, try to think, and there’s nothing. “I guess I never thought beyond it. I guess I assumed I’d…” I stop before I say “die”, knowing the word will hurt her.

She raises her head and studies me. “Isn’t there anything else you want? Something that will give you a reason to live?”

“There wasn’t.” My chest is tight, I can barely get the words out. “Until a few days ago, there wasn’t.” I cup her cheek, my thumb playing over her soft freckled skin. “And then I met you.”

She searches my face, nodding to herself. Then she pulls away, taking my hand and drawing me from the bathroom. “I have something to show you.”

Jordy

The cool depths of the bedroom swallow us and I force my breathing to calm. All night and morning I waited for Grizz and pretended I belonged in his home.

I decided: I don’t belong to Augustine any more. I belong to Grizz. I can only hope he wants me.

It’s time to show him my true feelings. Now or never.

I lead him to the bed. Another time it’d be amusing how our roles are reversed. I’m leading; he’s following. After today, I might never be so bold again. I’m shaking now, facing Grizz, smoothing the button-down shirt I’m wearing. After this he might decide he doesn’t want me. He might kiss my forehead, call Declan and Parker, and send me away forever. I don’t know what he wants. Either way, he’ll know my choice.

“I want to show you something,” I repeat.

He reaches for me and I step back.

“Kit, you’re scaring me.”

“Don’t be afraid,” I tell myself as much as him. My fingers fumble with the buttons on my shirt. “I don’t know if it’s too soon, but I want you to see.”

“Jordy, what—” I part my shirt and his eyes drop to my revealed flesh. Wincing at the bite of the tape, I peel the bandage away from my tattoo.

Grizz’s eyes widen and I let my hands drop. I straighten, letting him see what I drew for the artist, what I chose to put on my body. Over my heart, covering the ugly scar tissue.

“Kit,” Grizz swallows, not taking his eyes off my tattoo. The flesh around the ink is red. It’s still healing, but there’s no mistaking the design. A bear print.

“Is that—?”

I nod slowly.

“Kit.” Such warm depths in his voice, I can sink happily. I can drown. He touches the ink stain, gently. I jolt as if electrified. “Did you get this for me?”

“Yes. I want your mark.”

He lets out a shaky breath.

“I want to belong to you. That is, if you’ll have me.” I bow my head, partly in submission, partly because I can’t bear to look into his eyes.

Slowly, as if a sudden movement will frighten me, he extends his hand. I hold my breath as he spreads his hand over the mark. His touch is light but burns, a heat spreading through my body.

“Look at me,” he orders. My eyes snap to his. I force myself to keep breathing as his bright gaze swallows me. “You wear my mark.”

“Yes.”

“You belong to me.”

I nod. Everything I want to say clogs my throat, choking me up.

“Yes.” He seizes me. Fisting my hair, he draws my head back, lips sucking on my pulse until they release me with a pop. “Yes.”

My body instantly goes soft, my natural instinct for submission flaring to life with his commanding touch. I feel my pulse beating everywhere—at my throat, behind my knees. Between my legs.

“Grizz.”

He palms my backside, squeezing it roughly. In a flash, I’m up in the air, legs straddling his waist as he nips at my breast through my shirt. I arch into him, offer myself to his plunder.

“Little fox,” he murmurs, shoving my bra down to get at my nipple. “My Kit.” He uses his teeth on my nipple as he settles me on my back on the bed. I reach up to tangle my hands in his hair, but he grasps them, pinioning them above my head with one hand. I smile and wriggle, loving his domination.

His grin is feral. “You like that, little fox? You need me to hold you down while I make you scream?” He’s back to work on my nipple, worrying it with his teeth, flicking it with his tongue, sucking so hard I feel the answering tug right between my legs.

He unhooks my bra and pulls it and my open shirt off. Then he returns to my breasts. He kisses a circle around the tattoo, his facial hair brushing against the tender skin and making me shiver.

“Does that hurt, baby?”

“I like the hurt,” I tell him, voice thick with lust. My skin tingles everywhere with delicious sensation. My senses are on overload: the weight of Grizz pressing down on me, his intoxicating smell in my nostrils, his slow thrusts in the notch between my legs. All the while, his tongue circles my neglected nipple, flicking, teasing.

He sucks this one, too, and I choke on a cry, arching into his mouth.

Grizz thrusts against me, hard, almost like he couldn’t help it.

“Fuck, Kit. You don’t know what you do to me,” he growls, shifting to palm my mons. I moan and rock my pelvis into his hand to get pressure on my clit. He slides his hand inside my panties and fingers my wet folds.

“Is all this wetness for me?”

“Yes,” I breathe, wrapping my legs around his back to encourage him into the position I crave.

He screws one finger into me, then another as I squirm and gasp. Submission falls away as I grow more desperate. I twist my head and nip at his arm, trying to drive him into giving me what I need.

He chuckles. “Are you getting nippy little fox? I might have expected that more from a cat shifter. Or were you begging for a spanking?”

I smile up at him. It feels like a naughty smile—one I didn’t even know I was capable of. He grins back, rolling me over to my belly and slapping my ass. He drags my skirt and panties off and delivers five more slaps before he strokes my wet slit again.

I shiver with pleasure and roll my hips.

“You like it from behind, Kit?”

I never really considered my own likes before. I enjoyed submitting, so I liked whatever pleased my master. That’s still true. Anything Grizz wants from me I would offer in a heartbeat. It would bring me genuine joy to please him. But what do I like? Do I want it from behind?

“Yes,” I answer honestly. Because it sounds delicious. But also, “I like it any way with you, Grizz. I want it every way.” There I go making demands. Again, so not like me.

And yet I know Grizz wants to hear.

He shucks his clothes quickly and climbs over me, palming my butt with both hands and squeezing. There’s no need for a condom. Shifters don’t have sexual diseases and my bear is claiming me. So he wouldn’t be afraid of putting a cub in me.

Or a kit.

“Spread your legs, Jordy.” Grizz’s voice is thick with desire. The sound of a deep rumble makes my pussy clench.

I part my thighs to make room for his massive length and he lines up with my entrance.

“Who do you belong to?” he demands, right before he plows into me.

My muscles squeeze around his thick member and I lose my breath—not because it hurts. It’s more the sensation of being filled so fully startles me.

But it also feels so right.

“You, Grizz. I belong to you.” Tears sting my eyes at the honor of being claimed by this male. This brave, strong, loyal male.

He arcs in and out of me, filling and emptying me and every stroke brings new bliss. I turn my face into the pillows and moan softly. Grizz wraps his hand in my hair and lifts my head, leaning over to mate our mouths. His tongue twines with mine in a hectic, sideways kiss and then he’s ramming into me, slapping my butt with his loins, getting deeper with every thrust.

My moans take on a higher pitch—a keen—and desire starts to coil into restless need. “Please, Grizz. Claim me. Oh please.”

“Fates yes, I’ll claim you,” he growls, slamming even harder—harder than I would’ve thought possible.

I sob in ecstasy as he splits me in two, shatters me. He releases my hair and wraps a large hand around my nape to hold me in place for his brutal thrusts.

His movements grow jerky, breath short. “Fuck, Kit. Fuck! You better come now, little fox.” He slams in doubly hard for four more thrusts and then stays deep. I swear I feel the hot stream of his cum fill me as I shake and squeeze and scream out my own release.

Stars explode behind my eyes. Pleasure engulfs me. I sink into the total ecstasy of release.

I barely register Grizz pulling out and carrying me into the shower.

Grizz

Taking care of Jordy satisfies me as much as claiming her. I love the way she trusts me completely. There’s no resistance, no walls up. She stands under the spray of the water and lets me suds her from head to toe.

She’s still blissed out from her orgasm. Almost as drugged as the subs look leaving Toxic. Which is a relief, because I’m not sure I’m into giving her much more pain than a few spanks to color her ass.

I turn off the water and climb out. “Wait here, Kit. I’ll get you a towel.”

She nods, eyes still glazed, cheeks flushed pink from the steam and heat. I grab a towel, cursing inwardly that I don’t have any newer, softer towels. My little fox deserves something more luxurious against her delicate skin. I dry her off, then pull her back into the bedroom to get under the covers.

Yeah, I want to cuddle.

Me.

It’s fucking strange, but beautifully true.

“I want you to draw me something,” I tell her. “Anything. I want your mark on my body.”

“I thought you said bears don’t mark their mates.”

I smile under her fingers. “This one does.”

She smiles back, a little quirk of her mouth. “I’ll draw you something.”

“Or lots of things. I can cover all my scars.”

“But I love your scars.” With an impish wrinkle of her nose, she kisses down my chest, settling between my legs and browsing with her mouth at the slash across my abs until my body is tight and drawn up to the point of her mouth. Then and only then do her lips brush my cock. Her backside sways as she gets to work.

“Kit,” I grate out. No, she’s not a kit. She’s a beautiful, full-grown female fox.

A vixen.