Alpha’s Claim (Bad Boy Bears #1)

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

P aloma

Darius makes a strange growling sound and steps on the accelerator. I thought we were going fast before, but now he’s actually flooring it. I hang onto the door handle of the sports car he “borrowed” and glance at the speedometer. One hundred and fifteen miles an hour.

Is he racing to get me to a bed?

My heart speeds along with the car.

This is really happening. The Viking is going to bed me.

Pluck my flower.

Breed me.

I know–I’ve definitely read way too many historical romance novels. Still, the horror of Thom’s plan becomes way more palatable when my Viking is the stud in question. Maybe this is just my way of taking back control in the only limited way I have. Making sure that there’s no virginity left to auction when Thom gets to me gives me satisfaction.

But it’s not just that.

I’m twenty-four years old. I’ve been imprisoned for the last ten years of my life, with no television and limited internet access. Riding Starlight and reading romance novels have been my only pleasures. And yes, those novels may have inspired a healthy interest in sex.

I want to know what it would be like to be claimed by this marauding Viking.

I want to guide his pulsing member into my quivering quim, or whatever the words are. I want it.

With him.

And judging by the tent in his tuxedo pants, he wants it, too.

We whiz past a sign, and he hits the brakes, then takes a turn at a speed that makes the tires screech.

My body pitches against the door, and I hang onto the handle. I would be alarmed, but he handles himself with such surety, such efficiency, that I’m confident he knows what he’s doing. I feel strangely safe with him, despite the fact that he’s put me and Wren in terrible danger.

I’ll just go with him for the night. I’ll deflower myself with his giant Viking cock and then escape back to Thom.

That’s the only way to make sure Wren stays safe.

Besides, I’ll need my medicine within forty-eight hours, or I could die.

The dark trees whip by my window. I twist to look over my shoulder, but Thom’s men are far behind. We may actually get away.

Speeding away from Lockepoint, I feel safer than I have in the ten years since my parents died.

–Were killed .

But just because I’m momentarily free of Thom and his dastardly schemes doesn’t mean the nightmare is over.

Still, it’s a momentary reprieve.

With an extremely hot Viking who literally carried me off over his shoulder. It was remarkably similar to the fantasy I had of him carrying me off to the beach.

It’s both exhilarating and terrifying to leave Thom’s property. I haven’t been off that plot of land since I tried to escape five years ago. That time, I broke into someone’s summer house down the road. I knew the neighbors never used their vacation homes. I holed up there overnight, trying to get through to Wren at her boarding school, but the nuns wouldn’t let me speak with her.

That was before I knew how dependent I was on the medicine. I passed out the next morning. Thom’s guards found me that afternoon and brought me back to Lockepoint. The doctor said I nearly died.

“While I absolutely love that taking your virginity is on the table, that’s not why I claimed you. Er–grabbed you. Whatever.” His eyes glow with some strange trick of the light.

God, he’s gorgeous. His hair seems longer than it did last night, almost like it grew to fit my fantasy. Being in this small space with him is doing crazy things to my body. There’s a slow thrum between my legs that grows more insistent with each moment.

“I sort of prefer the term claim.”

His brows pop, and he chokes a little. “What?”

“Yeah, it goes with your marauding Viking vibe.”

His lips twitch. “My what?”

“Listen–this is my fantasy. I get to control the narrative of my deflowering.”

“Absolutely.” The word rockets out of his mouth. “Absolutely, you do.” His cock is thick and fat along one leg. I’m tempted to reach out and touch it through his pants.

“I will” –he clears his throat– “be your marauding Viking, if that’s how you want me. But, like I said, that’s not what this was about.”

All I can think about is sex–what it will be like with Darius. Will he be on top? Take me from behind? Or should I control the whole scene and straddle his waist for my very first time?

But his words finally sink in. “What is this about, then?” But as soon as I say it, I realize I don’t want to know.

I managed to get away from Lockepoint, at least for the night.

I’m going to have sex for the first time with this beautiful stranger.

I don’t want to think about all the rest of the ugliness of my ugly life. I reach out and put my fingers on his luscious lips. “No wait.” I stop him from speaking. “Don’t tell me. Can I just have this fantasy? Just for tonight?”

He parts his lips, and I feel the golden stubble around them as he takes my fingertips into his mouth and sucks.

Fingers aren’t erotic. At least, I wouldn’t have thought they were. But I feel an answering tug between my legs, as if my fingertips and quim are linked.

A soft moan comes from my lips. My sex gets slick. I wish I had panties on because I fear my arousal will get all over the seat of the car.

“You want me to play Viking for you tonight?” Darius’ voice is rough.

When I take my hand away, he catches my wrist and holds it.

“Is this the medication talking?” He tugs my fingers back to his mouth and nibbles on my knuckles.

“No! Definitely not. This is me controlling my own destiny. I get to choose who I give my virginity to, and I choose you. ”

He takes my index finger into his mouth and sucks, his tongue swirling around it.

I cry out. My nipples are hard points, my breasts feel heavy. My God–I might come from finger-sucking alone.

“You choose me to take your virginity?” His voice is an octave lower than before, which seems impossible since he was already a baritone. Something about the light in the car makes his eyes look golden. “A guy you don’t even know?”

He seems to be at war with himself because at the same time he argues with me, he slides my hand down his muscled body until it reaches the tree trunk that makes up his thigh. From there, I know where he’s headed. It’s where I wanted to go. I slide my palm over the thick outline of his cock, marveling at how hard and long it is.

“I choose the Viking.” My voice is husky. “That’s you for tonight.”

“Ah.” I feel his belly shudder in and out as I stroke my fingers slowly up his length. “I see.” His breath is ragged.

I remove my hand and sit back. “But if you’re not willing…” For the first time, ever, I have a sense of a woman’s power over a man.

This is the reason men like Thom hold women captive or force them to breed. They’re working so hard to master something that frightens them. That could control them if they’re not careful.

He catches my wrist again and pulls it to his mouth. This time, he parts his lips and moves them across my pulse, inhaling deeply like my scent has some erotic power over him. Which is strange because I’m not wearing any perfume. Why would the girl in the tower need to smell good?

“I’m willing, princess. I’ll be your Viking. I’ll be whatever you want me to be tonight. Like you said, it’s your fantasy. Who am I to deny a woman her deepest desires?”

A tiny orgasm ripples through me at that. My ass lifts off the seat, and my thighs slap together as the muscles grip and spasm.

The Viking looks over. “Did you just come?”

I’m breathless. This fantasy is fantastic. “Yes.”

He shakes his head slowly and tsks, all the while still driving twice the speed limit and passing the few cars that are out on this highway tonight. “Naughty princess. You’re the Viking’s prize. Don’t you know?” His eyes gleam in the headlights of an oncoming car. “You don’t get to come without permission.”

The flesh between my legs lifts and tightens.

“If you do it again, I’ll have to take you across my knees for a real Viking punishment.”

Darius

I’m about to come in my pants, too.

Let me out.

My bear claws to free himself.

My dick is harder than stone. I should pay more attention to the road and keep a lookout for law enforcement, since I’m driving a stolen car at one hundred over the posted limit, but Paloma just said she wanted me to claim her.

I know she has no idea what that means to me, but my bear heard what he heard.

And he is more than on board.

Fuck. I have to be careful. My bear is wild. Totally uncivilized. Savage.

If he gets control while I’m touching Paloma–if he tries to permanently mark and claim her as ours–she could be in real danger. Not that he would mean to hurt her, but she’s a fragile human. He’s a feral beast. If he tried to mark her, she could die.

I can’t let him free near her. Not ever.

Paloma moans at my words. I need to get control of this situation.

“Here’s what I want you to do, princess.” I use my boardroom voice–the one that makes my employees jump to please me.

“Lean that seat back.”

She obeys, fumbling with the buttons on the side of her seat until she finds the right one.

“Good girl.”

“Now, put your fingers between your legs and close your eyes. Get that pussy nice and wet for me while you think about what your Viking is going to do when he gets you to his keep. Understand?”

Her fingers slide into her satin pajama shorts, and she lays her head back on the reclined seat. “She’s going in protest,” she warns me as she closes her eyes.

“Then I’ll have to force her to obey. How does she like to be forced?”

“She likes to be carried off over his big brawny shoulder. Maybe she needs to be tied up–loosely, of course. And…” –her voice waivers a little– “maybe that other thing you mentioned.“

I hide a smile. “A good, hard spanking, over my knee?”

“Maybe not that hard,” she says in a small voice.

I chuckle. “She’s going to have the night of her dreams.”

Paloma follows my instructions, keeping her eyes closed and her fingers moving between her legs. But eventually, as I hoped, she slides into slumber .

Thank fuck. It’s at least another three hours to the safe house, and my dick was going to explode if we kept up the foreplay.

I speed through Connecticut, keeping an eye out for highway patrol. As I drive, the insanity of my actions sink in.

I let my bear instinct rule when I snatched Paloma from Thompson’s claws.

I’m not sorry–not even remotely. Just having her beside me in the car brings out a wild exhilaration. But I realize there will be drastic consequences. Thompson is a powerful man.

I just picked a war with an eccentric evil billionaire who clearly has no moral compass. Unlike Thompson, I’m not well-connected. I don’t have cronies in every high office whose pockets I’ve lined to be sure they’ll lie, steal, and cheat for me.

I’m a newcomer to Wall Street. I wasn’t born into wealth—I made it from nothing. And I only recently got my company to nine figures. I don’t even have the power of a pack behind me like Brick Blackthroat and the werewolves of Wall Street.

I come from a small, rag-tag adoptive family in the rural mountains of New Mexico. Sure, I can call on my brothers back home for protection or fire power, but if anything happened to one of them, it would break our mother’s heart. And I've already broken her heart enough.

My feral bear and his wild rampages in my adolescence wore her out so much that she went into hibernation. My own twin brother won’t speak to me over it.

I could keep it local and call on Brick Blackthroat and his wolf pack to help, but it’s a lot to ask, and he has no obligation to give me his support. They just had a terrible internal conflict over Brick choosing a human as his luna, and they lost hundreds of members due to the infighting.

Either way, if I can’t prevail against Thompson, this could end not only with my own financial and professional ruin, but, as Paloma has warned, in both of our deaths.

I can’t even think beyond the immediate dilemma of keeping Paloma safe. My bear wants to claim her. Even if she were willing, I can’t mate a human. My bear is way too volatile. Human females are far too fragile.

No.

I’ll just have to figure out how to free Paloma from her evil foster father and then let her go.

My bear snarls–not a snarl echo beneath the surface, but an actual ferocious roar that comes out of my mouth and rattles the car.

Paloma startles awake, sitting forward and sucking in a gasp. “What was that ?”