Filed to story: The Alpha’s Pen Pal Book
I nodded, enjoying the sound of the water under our feet as it echoed against the pier and savoring the smell of the sea air.
“I do,” I confirmed, pulling her into my side and wrapping my arm around her shoulders. “And now I have some new memories to add to them.”
Goddess, damn it, cheesy Wes had struck again. I groaned internally, but the smile on her face told me I’d said the right thing.
We reached the restaurant on the pier and ordered our food after a brief wait in line, then took it to the railing, where we ate and continued talking.
“So, how did you end up with Maya as your roommate?” I asked her.
“Peter made a social media group for the company members and other employees and added us to it as they hired us. I made a post asking if anyone was looking for a roommate because I couldn’t afford the rent on an apartment by myself, even a studio, and Maya was the only one who responded.”
“Of course she was.” I chuckled.
Haven laughed as well. “I know. She told me later she didn’t even need a roommate for financial reasons, but she’d never lived alone and was hating it, and it had only been a week or so when I made my post.”
My lips twitched, and I nodded. It wasn’t surprising Maya hated living alone. She was a werewolf. We lived in packs. It was part of our nature to want others around us almost all the time. Plus, she’d grown up with a twin, meaning she was even more used to having someone around all the time.
“Maybe fate had a hand in it, too?” I asked.
“It was just coincidence, Wes,” she said with a shake of her head as she finished her fish and chips.
“Was it, though?” I grabbed her trash and mine and tossed it in the trash can. “I mean, I still can’t believe you didn’t even realize you were that close to where I live.”
“Honestly? I was so glad to leave Salt Lake and be truly independent that I jumped at the first job offer I received that was far away. I didn’t even do any research other than plane ticket costs.” She shrugged as I came back to her side and tucked her body under my arm. “I think if I knew it was near you, I actually would have turned it down,” she confessed.
I breathed out a sigh and pulled her closer, pressing my nose into her hair. “I’m glad I didn’t, though,” she added, leaning her body into mine. “I’m glad I came to California.”
“I am too,” I murmured against her head.
I wrapped my other arm around her and kissed the top of her head as she stared out at the ocean and the sun setting on the horizon.
The breeze from the water swirled around us, whipping some loose strands of her braid into the air. Her natural scent of jasmine mixed with the lingering scent of sunscreen and the salt of the sea on her skin, creating a heady, intoxicating perfume my lycan kept making me inhale. He rolled around on his back in my mind, like a cat who had just sniffed catnip.
And I was just as affected by it as he was. It was addicting. I wanted to roll around in it too, wanted to embed it into my skin and my clothing so I could breathe it in all the time. I wanted to be selfish and hide her away so I didn’t have to share her scent with anyone else.
I didn’t bother trying to calm myself, my lycan, or my growing desire for her. There was no use denying it, no use fighting it, no use hiding it from her. She knew how I felt about her. Or at least I hoped she did.
My hand traveled up to her neck, leaving little goosebumps on her skin and making her breath hitch. I tilted her chin until her head was angled perfectly for my lips to kiss hers, our eyes locking for a moment before our mouths touched.
Like at her apartment the night of our date, there was so much unsaid in that one look we shared. That night, it was us admitting there was a connection, that there was something there—a spark or a tiny flame—that we wanted to explore and bring to life. But this look, the one we shared on the pier, was so much more.
It was the recognition of something deeper. It was the undeniable truth, an agreement, that what we felt wasn’t something small anymore.
Her blue eyes sparkled, and her red hair burned against the backdrop of the sunset, taking my breath away and setting my heart aflame.
I lowered my mouth to hers, and her answering kiss was the response to the question I didn’t even need to ask her. Our lips moved in perfect sync, twisting and pouting and teasing without pause. Her body melted against mine, and I held her there, reveling in the feel of her soft lines meeting the hard, muscular planes of my chest. Our hearts beat in unison, sending ripples of anticipation through me.
She broke away first, catching her breath, her eyelids fluttering. “Kissing on the beach at sunset? Kind of cliché, don’t you think?” she asked in a whisper.
I dipped my head and nipped at her earlobe. “Hush, Sugar Plum, you’re ruining the moment,” I chastised.
“Nothing could ruin this moment,” she replied, her voice almost undetectable under the wind, the waves, and the footsteps of tourists on the pier.
In fact, had I not been a lycan, I doubt I would have heard her at all.
And as I held onto her under the setting sun and my lips moved back to hers, I found myself agreeing with her. Because it was at that moment that I realized—I was in love with Haven Kenway.
WESLEY
At some point between the kiss at the pier and us getting ready to settle in to sleep for the night, I realized that spending the night in a tent with Haven was a terrible idea.
Especially once I found out there was only one sleeping bag in my truck.
I didn’t know if Seb removed the other one I could have sworn was in there or if there was, in fact, only one in there in the first place, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was there was only one, and there were two of us.
Well, it actually didn’t matter. I could sleep without the bag—the temperature wasn’t cold enough to affect me. But, I had to keep up pretenses, and that meant acting as though I needed a sleeping bag.
As I came back into the tent with our bag of extra clothes, the camping pad, and the one sleeping bag and pillow, the second reason it was a bad idea reared its ugly head at me in the form of Haven’s words.
“I don’t have anything to wear to sleep in,” she muttered as I put the pad and pillow on the floor, her cheeks turning pink.
I stopped my movements and stared at her, my throat closing up. What was she trying to imply? Was she saying she was going to sleep naked?
Images of just that flashed in my mind’s eye, too fast to catch a clear picture of, but each snippet enough to feed the growing desire in my soul. And my pants.
“Wha-What?” I stammered, shaking my head to clear my thoughts.
“I don’t have any pajamas,” she said with a nervous laugh.
“Pajamas. Right,” I mumbled, mentally smacking myself on the forehead. Of course, she didn’t mean she wanted to sleep naked.
I fumbled in the bag of extra clothes, keeping her new outfit hidden from her because I didn’t want to get yelled at yet, and grabbed one of my old T-shirts.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?