Chapter Two

The fourth stumble Emily took made her officially done. Done with the wild. Done with the great outdoors. Done with the alphas.

Their scent had teased her the whole time, worse now than even in the limo. She’d have figured being in an enclosed space would make it stronger, and it had, but out here? In the trees and nature? The scent made them seem untamed, and it called to a wild part of her she hadn’t known about before.

Emily was a lot of things, but wild had never been one. She tried for wild. She bent rules, she ignored advice, she argued—a lot—but wild was something more. It was what she’d always wanted to be even as she knew, deep down, she only managed to be the rebelling rich girl.

However, around them? With the way each of the alphas moved through the trees, the bushes, she felt some strange primal part of her that had been asleep until then. She wanted to indulge in it, to give in to the instinct so much older than any of them.

Her toes caught a stick, pitching her forward. Her mind had been so focused on Levi’s ass and the mouthwatering scent of the three alphas that she had no chance to catch herself that time.

Instead of the face full of dirt she’d expected, something hard caught her around the waist. She was pulled up against a body, very solid and far too warm.

Emily twisted to find not Grant, as she’d expected, but Maddox. He caught her not just with his strong arms, but with the intensity of his gaze. Dark eyes met hers, his stern features too sharp to be handsome. No, Maddox was all utility. He was the bodyguard she would want to scare off anyone who might wish to attack her. Anyone with half a brain would take one look at the hulking male and reconsider their life choices.

And yet, that tantalizing scent struck her, every inch of her curvy body against the hardness of his. Emily set her hands on his biceps for balance, the hard width of them firm beneath her fingers. Wow.

Her security details before had been fit, since the job required it, but Maddox was a whole different matter. His body was incredible. Beneath the dirty and tattered suit was a physique that Greek gods would have envied. He had broad shoulders, that seemed impossibly wider since he’d removed the jacket of his suit. It left him in a button-up white shirt. His arms were so large they were thicker than her thighs, and she wasn’t tiny by any stretch.

“Careful,” he said, the first time he’d spoken. His voice was rough, dark, like a beast whispering from shadows and trying to draw her in.

And she wanted to be drawn in. She wanted to hear that voice rumble out the filthiest demands, and damn it, she wanted to follow every last one.

Get a hold of yourself. Emily shook her head, taking a step away no matter how difficult it was to do so. She had problems bigger than this guy’s arms, and she sure as hell didn’t need any complications.

I am not a hormone-driven idiot who is stupid enough to be distracted by the people who are supposed to keep me alive.

Maddox’s hands fell away from her as she pulled back. He didn’t hold on to her as she regained her footing and moved out of reach.

“So how is this little outing supposed to go?” Emily stepped over the branch that had tripped her up, trying to ignore the aching in her feet, trying to focus on conversation instead of how the alphas made her body rebel.

“Your file says you work out often. I’m surprised you’re this winded.” Levi slowed, bringing him from the front spot to beside her.

Did these alphas ever tire? What else can they use that stamina for?

She shoved the thought away. “I do spin class and yoga. I don’t hike.” A whimper threatened to leave her lips, but Emily smothered it. This was just like that hour-long Pilates class she’d somehow kept up with no matter how peppy that perky little instructor had acted. It was like those eight-hundred-dollar heels she’d bought and worn, no matter how large and painful the blisters on her feet had gotten.

She’d made it through those things—she could damn well keep up with the never-tiring alphas.

Maddox’s grumbled voice spoke up. “Let’s call it.”

Levi turned back. “We’re only a few miles away from the crash. I wanted to put more distance behind us before stopping.” Something seemed to pass between Maddox and Levi, because he turned his gaze to Emily, his stern lips flattening to a thin line. Finally, he nodded. “Okay, we’ll stop for an hour.”

Fifteen minutes later, they’d settled in. Maddox had pulled over a large log, which, despite the dirt and twigs stuck to it, was better than sitting on the ground.

It wasn’t chilly yet, but the sun had started to drop, casting the forest in a sinister, dark glow.

Levi sat across the small distance, going through one of the packs. Grant sat on the ground, just to her left, his long legs stretched out.

Sitting was almost orgasmic. It took the weight off her feet, which she’d put into kitten heels because they’d been cute, not because they’d been practical for slogging miles through the underbrush.

Emily tried to straighten her legs, pointing her toes to ease the tension in her muscles, burning from overuse.

Fingers wrapped around her ankle, and Emily jerked at the unexpected touch.

“Jumpy?” Grant’s voice held amusement, but he didn’t release her ankle.

“Why are you touching me?”

“Shy all of a sudden?” He asked the question like a dare, as though he knew Emily would never admit to being scared of anything, shy about anything. He didn’t wait for an answer, slipping her shoes off.

“I just don’t let my employees fondle me,” she snapped.

“Well, maybe if you did, you’d be a little nicer.” Grant tugged her foot into his lap, then dug his strong thumbs into her insole.

She wanted to argue, she really did, but she melted into a content little puddle when he did that, when his unyielding hands massaged her aching feet.

He let out a rough chuckle, dark and wholly amused. “Look at that, she can be nice.”

Emily offered a glare that was not even half-hearted before giving in to the touch of his talented hands.

Levi tossed a small foil-wrapped granola bar into her lap. “You should have said something if you were in this much pain.”

“Like you would have listened.”

His emerald eyes narrowed. “I would have. Your safety is what matters.”

“Aching feet aren’t a safety matter.”

Maddox spoke up this time, so silent as usual that she’d nearly forgotten his presence to her right. “No alpha worth the title would let you suffer if they could do something about it.” Damn…that voice. It was so deep and full of gravel, even better because he so rarely used it and it surprised her each time he did.

Still, his words sank in. Emily tore the foil as she shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’m never around alphas.”

“Is that why you light up every time you get a whiff of one of us?” Grant paired the personal question with a smirk, as though he didn’t already know the answer and just wanted to see her squirm.

“I do not.”

“Yeah, you do, brat. You think I can’t smell it? Bet if your feet ache the way they do after that walk, your cunt can’t feel any better, as wet as it’s been since the limo ride.”

Indignation swamped Emily. How dare he speak to me like that! Doesn’t he know who I am? Even as she wanted to deny his words, though, it was their truth that really made them embarrassing. She couldn’t even say he lied, not as a subtle shift on the log made her all too aware of the drenched state of her panties.

Then again, could they blame her? She was twenty-two and had spent so little time around alphas. She had no idea how to control her reaction to them, hadn’t learned to contain it.

Before she needed to come up with a response, Levi interrupted. Saved by the asshole. “That’s not why we’re here, Grant.”

“So? Are you going to really tell me you aren’t tempted?”

“She’s a client, and she’s in danger. What part of that makes you believe this is appropriate or smart?”

Grant released an unhappy huff. It said that while Levi might be right, Grant wasn’t going to totally give in. Just a token protest.

The only sounds for a long while were the chewing of the granola bars Levi had and the occasional moans from Emily when Grant hit an especially tender area of her foot.

Once even that couldn’t buy them any more time, Levi packed again. “We should get going. I’d like to put another few miles between us and the limo before we stop for the night.”

“Are we walking toward anything in particular, or just enjoying the scenery?”

Not even a twitch of his lips, the stoic bastard. “There is a small town with an airstrip another eight miles that way. When we get closer, I will contact my boss, who will ensure a trusted plane can meet us there. Once you are safely off the ground, I will call your father and update him.”

“Why the secrecy?”

“Because someone knew when you were leaving. Someone knew the route we took. There was no other way they could have set such an ambush. It means someone is betraying you, Miss Pitch, and it means I can’t trust your father’s people.”

She pulled her foot back, her features pinching into a frown. Those people were the closest thing to family she had. She couldn’t believe one of them could be involved. He had to be wrong.

“Miss Pitch—” Levi’s voice dropped, almost as if he were sorry he’d had to tell her that.

I don’t need his pity. She cut him off. “I need to use the restroom.”

He lifted his eyebrow. Right. No restroom out here.

“You know what I mean,” she muttered.

Levi’s lips blanched again. Nothing made that male happy, did it?

Maddox stepped forward. “I’ll take her.”

As much as Emily wanted to argue that she didn’t need an escort to go pee, she didn’t feel particularly up to the task, and from Levi’s set jaw, she wouldn’t win.

A few minutes later, when they’d moved far enough away from the makeshift camp that she could no longer hear Grant and Levi, Emily allowed her shoulders to slump. She ran her fingers through her hair to push it back, wincing when she found knots in it. And a leaf? Wonderful.

“I can handle this alone,” she snapped when Maddox wouldn’t give her more than a few steps of space.

She waited for him to say something, the way Levi would, the way Grant would. Instead, he only stopped, reached into the pack he had and handed over a tissue.

What’s this— Heat crept up her cheeks. Right. She was in the middle of nowhere, peeing in the woods. She took the tissue and ignored the embarrassment, thankful when he gave her privacy as she ducked behind a rock.

After relieving herself and cleaning up, Emily wandered around the other side of the rock, needing a moment to herself. She wasn’t a stupid woman who would skip her protection when she was actually in danger, but a few feet of space couldn’t hurt. She couldn’t think when the alphas watched her, and they never seemed to not be watching her.

Had she been betrayed? By who? All the people who worked for her father had worked there for years. Yes, the threat this last time had seemed more forceful than others, but to think that someone she’d trusted had sold her out…

Maybe she wasn’t as nice as she could be all the time, but those in the household, those who had the information needed, had been in her life for years. She treated them like friends, like family.

She leaned against one of the trees, closing her eyes and wishing she were back at her father’s house. She wanted to be somewhere familiar, with people she knew and trusted. Instead, she was out in the middle of nowhere with three alphas she didn’t know. Sure, they were in charge of her security, but she wanted more, wanted people who cared about her for more than the paycheck she earned them.

“Em?” The nickname on Maddox’s lips was far too personal.

No one gave her nicknames, and yet already she’d been labeled brat by Grant and Em by Maddox.

Levi called her Miss Pitch, which many did, but he said it with a tone that was anything but professional.

She opened her eyes to find the hulking alpha just in front of her. How could a man that large move so silently? His shaved head made him look even more dangerous, as if his size hadn’t done enough. He stared down at her with his oak-colored eyes, as close as he’d been before, so near that his warm breath heated her forehead.

And his scent? Yeah, she gave up on pretending it didn’t affect her. She tried to inhale, a small sniff that he wouldn’t notice, just enough to enjoy the way it caused sweet chaos in her already tuned-in body.

His cheek twitched before he set one massive hand on the nape of her neck and pulled her in. She had to go on her toes, and he had to crouch slightly, but he pressed her face to his hot throat.

Emily drew him in. His scent was like an awakening, as though something carnal that had slumbered was rising. It crawled into her lungs, then spread through her body, filling spaces inside her that had atrophied due to lack of use.

She tilted her head up and nuzzled his heated skin, burying her face against him.

A soft sound rumbled from his chest.

A growl? No. It took a moment for it to register that it was too soft for that. A purr?

Alphas could purr, but few did. That whole macho thing they liked to play kept them from it, and yet the sound eased her. The soft vibration went along with his scent and made everything a little more bearable.

Well, everything except the ache between her thighs. Everything except the way more slick gathered in her cunt. It hadn’t even been that long since she’d had sex. Her last bodyguard hadn’t been a great lay, but she hadn’t minded finishing herself off afterward. She’d gone to bed satisfied, and that had only been a few weeks before.

“You smell good,” Maddox rumbled in that deep, sandpaper voice of his.

It was then Emily realized he was rubbing his thumb against her pulse, a sweet stroking as if to temper her racing heart.

“I don’t understand this,” she whispered.

He pulled back to meet her gaze. “You really don’t know much about alphas, do you?”

She shook her head. She’d have never remained so passive for Levi or Grant, but somehow, Maddox didn’t make her want to argue. Maybe it was that he didn’t seem to judge her, to laugh at her, to want to fight. He let her relax, giving her nothing to push against.

He moved his hand so he dragged his fingertips over her jaw then to the fullness of her bottom lip. “There’s a reason your father wanted you to stay away from alphas. We’re drawn to one another. Everything inside me took one look at you, one sniff, and I knew.”

“Knew what?”

His lip curled into a smile so slight it would have been easy to miss. “Your instinct says it, too. You’ll figure it out.”

Emily’s hands were resting on his broad chest for balance. When did I put them there? It let her feel his heart, the steady, rhythmic beat.

Dizziness swamped her. Confused by everything that had happened, out of her element, and feeling more alone than she had before, even as close to his warm, sinful body as she was.

Someone she trusted had sold her out. She had no one to lean on, didn’t even have her father to call.

So Emily did the only thing she could think of, the only thing her scattered mind and chaotic body kept returning to. She rose higher on her toes, slid her hands up Maddox’s chest to the back of his thick neck and pulled him down for a kiss.

And while Maddox might not talk much, he proved his lips were good for other things. He met her kiss, his lips firm against her soft ones. He moved his large hands to her back, again reminding her how much smaller she was than him. He kissed with her a strength that said while everything else in her life was falling apart, he wouldn’t.

Which was stupid. She didn’t know him. Then again, if someone had betrayed her, did she know anyone really? It all seemed like a crapshoot right then, so why not take a gamble on something she wanted, at least?

So she kissed him to wipe away the uncertainty, or at least distract herself from it. And, damn, did it work. She moved one hand to where his white shirt was tucked into his slacks, and she yanked at the fabric. Once she had freed it, she ran her hand up his hard stomach, feeling the broadness of even his waist, wrapped in hard muscle. Each dip made her mouth and her cunt water.

When she found the button of his slacks, however, he stopped her. He placed his large hands over hers, stilling her progress.

Emily met his gaze, confused. What sort of man turns down an easy fuck?

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Come on, Em.”

“Why?” And why did she sound like a pouting child, yet again? Like the brat Grant called her?

Maddox retucked his shirt, despite the fact that it seemed pointless, given the general disarray they all were in after the crash. “Things are more complicated than that.”

“What, because we’re on the run?”

He shrugged, and it brought attention to his shoulders again, to where she wanted to hang on for dear life as he pounded into her.

What would his knot feel like? While she’d never been with an alpha, she had taken basic omega sex-ed. She’d sat in the classroom with all the other female students, since they had no idea who would grow to be a beta or an omega, and listened to how sex worked. For most combinations, it was the same. Alpha-beta, beta-beta, beta-omega. It was all plug-and-play.

However, that wasn’t the case when alphas and omegas decided to have sex. The pheromones that were released, the hormones in the wetness of an omega’s pussy would cause an alpha’s knot to expand. It meant the base of his cock would grow when he came, locking him inside the omega. It was a strange hold-over, a way for an alpha to increase his odds of breeding a female omega.

So despite all the times Emily had had sex—and she hadn’t been a prude—she’d never experienced the way an alpha’s knot would stretch her tight body, or the way she’d react to it.

She used to say she didn’t miss it. She didn’t need an alpha. However, in the darkness of her room, when a need she couldn’t ignore or sate consumed her, she’d used her fingers to press shallowly into her, to try to replicate the stretching sensation that would happen. It was never enough, but right then?

Right then she wanted the real thing. She wanted to feel Maddox deep inside her, to feel the base of his dick swell, to be trapped by biology and him and milk his length as he filled her.

His gaze darkened, and damn if his scent didn’t increase until she drowned in it. She expected him to move forward, to forget whatever complications he had spoken about and just fuck her.

They both wanted it.

Maddox didn’t seem an easily swayed man, however. He shook his head, hard, then backed up another step. “No. There are other complications, but now isn’t the time to discuss them. We should get back.”

Emily’s gaze dropped, and the way his slacks showed exactly how much Maddox wanted her made it better and worse. At least she didn’t have to worry that he didn’t find her attractive, right? Some useless win. It also made her realize that he was quite proportional in other areas, and as experienced as she might have been, it gave her delicious pause.

A growl so deep and wild that she sucked in a breath left him before he silenced it. He held a hand toward where the small clearing had been, waiting.

Emily forced her legs to move even though all she wanted was to drop to all fours and feel him over her, behind her, inside her, everywhere.

Since that wasn’t seeming likely to happen, she followed his directions and tried to pretend she didn’t want it so badly.