Free Midnight Dare (A Paranormal Romance) (Golden Pack Alphas) by Laurel Cremant

One
     
    A mosquito buzzed around the room. The drone of its wings whirring above the soft humming of the air conditioner.
    Georgia lay tangled in the sheets of the plush hotel bed, focusing on the sound in an attempt to wrangle her mind and body into some semblance of control.
    The clock on her phone read five a.m. and the darkness of an early morning pressed shadows into the room.
    She'd given up all hope of sleep hours ago. Her body thrummed with unfulfilled need, and her mind raced at the implications of her encounter with Marcus.
    "A lesson in kissing."
    His gravelly voice whispered through her mind, sending a sizzling wave down her already too heated body.
    She clenched the sheets at her sides, her nails digging into the mattress.
    It shouldn't have happened, yet every moment since he'd left, her lips tingled as if his firm mouth had left a phantom imprint on hers. The moment he’d shown up, she should have found another hotel, another island. Hell she should have found another country—anything to put as much distance between them while she went through heat.
    But he'd known and like any hunter he'd found her weakness and exploited it to his advantage. On some level she had to admire him for that—on another she wanted nothing more than to hate him as much as his knowledge deserved.
    Damn him and his all too seeing eyes.
    She raised her fingers up to touch her lips and cried out at the sensation of the cool cotton sliding against her naked flesh.
    His kiss was more damaging than any taunt or touch and he'd delivered it like a calm surgical strike, cutting through her defenses and making her feel .
    She avoided kissing for a reason. She couldn't ignore her heat cycle, but she always made sure to control how much of herself was exposed. Sex had never been a chore for her—she enjoyed it. But on her terms. Her cycle, forced sex on her as a necessity—an urge she couldn't ignore, but one she had no intention of letting cage her.
    As daughter of an alpha, she had more than her fair share of men intent on trapping her into a mating bond. So she chose her sexual partners with care. They were always humans, unaware of her status and interested in the occasional physical release and temporary companionship she was willing to give them.
    With them she never had to worry about power grabs or whether they'd see too much when they looked at her. And that was her problem.
    From the beginning Marcus had seen too much.
    Unlike her pack mates, he didn't look at her with suspicion or wearied tolerance, and that scared her almost as much as his kiss did last night.
    He looked at her as if he knew exactly who she was and that knowledge threatened everything she'd strived to accomplish—blending in.
    Flicking the sheets aside with a quick jerk, she sat up and flung her legs to the floor. She sighed as her feet absorbed the coolness from the smooth marble tile.
    As a hybrid born between a werewolf and strong witch, she'd always walked the tight line between two species. Her mother's coven disowned her and refused to recognize her existence—and her father's pack...they loved and feared her.
    Growing up within a wolf pack it was impossible not to feel the love and affection the group had for each other as a whole. That affection linked them all together and gave the pack its strength. A strong alpha solidified those ties and kept the group together.
    Georgia never felt as if she wasn't welcomed within the pack, but from the moment her powers first began to manifest as a child, she felt her friends begin to pull away.
    Hooray special powers.
    Being able to read truths and get occasional glimpses of the future wasn't as fun as the comics portrayed. She didn't get a kick-ass leather costume and flowing cape. She got searing headaches and friends who refused to look her in the eye.
    She held her hands out in front of her face stretching her fingers wide. What would they do if they knew the truth? The full extent of what she could do?
    On