Free Amazon (The Ushers 1) by Vanessa North Page B

sagely.
    “Yeah, brother stuff.” He quirked a smile her way. “It makes me wish Ted were Alpha sometimes. He’s every bit as smart and tough as Paddy, but the dickhead gene passed him over.”
    “What about you?” she asked.
    “Oh no, I got the dickhead gene full force.”
    He grinned, and his smile did something wild to her insides.
    “No, I meant, why don’t you wish you were Alpha?” she asked, and he could tell that she was genuinely curious. She knew he was definitely capable. He was smart and well-reasoned, and if he was Guardian, he was obviously tough. All important qualities in an Alpha.
    “I’ve never wanted it.” He shrugged. “I protect my pack. I like what I do. I’m good at it. I was in the Navy, you know. In the forties, I served in the Pacific.”
    Her eyes widened. The pacific theater of World War II was horrific even in the history books.
    “Well, I learned how to fight, and I learned how to lead men. That’s the part I enjoy, the military side. The political part of being an Alpha isn’t interesting to me, I see how insufferable it’s made Paddy.”
    “You’re not a dickhead, you know.”
    “Oh, I can be. I can be insufferably arrogant, just like Paddy.”
    “But you’ve shown remarkable resilience and adaptability since you’ve arrived here. I’ve thrown ideas at you that would have sent ninety percent of the alpha males I’ve ever met into a tailspin, and you just roll with it. That’s not really dickheadish.”
    “Stop, you’re making me blush,” he teased.
    He enjoyed her companionship, riding in a car with her, talking shit about his brother. He realized that the more time he spent with her, the more convinced he was that their mating would be an act of love, not simply fate. Love. The word was like a sucker-punch in the gut. His brother Fionn used the word so casually, seducing females with his sweet talk. He’d never thought he’d use it himself—he figured mating would be mostly a sex-thing, biology. He studied Bianca’s profile and felt a rush of tenderness and desire.
    “Wow, if you keep looking at me like that, I’ll need to change my pants,” she said with a sweet little smile that sent his blood roaring before he’d even parsed the innuendo of her words.
    “Bianca, when I said earlier that I like you, you know I meant it, right?” He grimaced at the thought of putting moves on her.
    “Yeah. I like you, too, Jack.” She patted his hand with hers gently and then returned it to the steering wheel.
    He groaned. Even that casual contact had turned him on to the point of pain. His poor cock was straining at his jeans like a caged animal.
    “Tell me, Bianca, if I were free to claim you, right now, would you let me?” he asked in a low voice.
    “I don’t know.” Her eyes never left the road as she continued, “No, I think—well, actually yes, I think I would. Strangely, now that I’ve accepted it, it feels weird that we have to wait. Our wolves know what to do.”
    “Have you thought about it?” His voice was husky even to his own ears.
    “Thought about…Oh, you mean what it would be like between us when we mate?” She blushed. “Yeah, I have. And I can tell by the way you look at me like you want to eat me that you have, too.”
    “My teeth came out at the bar last night,” he admitted.
    “Oh god, that shouldn’t turn me on, but it does,” she confessed.
    “Why shouldn’t it turn you on? Is the idea of being my mate unappealing?”
    “No, it’s not that. But have you thought about how violent the claiming is?”
    “Violent?” He looked at her, shocked. He’d never thought about mating from a female perspective, but now that he did…of course she thought it was violent. He’d bite her. And hopefully, she’d bite him, too. But the mate-bite, it was special, sacred. Just the thought of it sent pleasure coursing through him.
    “Oh, it won’t be violent. It will be amazing. We aren’t human, Bianca. Why would we mate as if we