Free Wild Card by Moira Rogers

gave it to you. What you do with it is your call, Ginny. Just… don’t cry. Jesus, please don’t cry.”
    “I’m not,” she insisted through her tears, still shaking. “I -- Christ, Jack. I don’t deserve it. I’m bitter and I don’t deserve it, and I love you, too.”
    She threw her arms around his neck, and he buried his face in her hair and tried not to clutch at her too tightly. “If you don’t want to do the alpha shit, you don’t have to. Even if you just talked to me sometimes about it, it’d be more than I have now.”
    “I’d do it,” she whispered in his ear. “For the pack.”
    “And you’d be amazing.” He pulled back and threaded his fingers through her hair. “You would make my life so much easier. But I could probably take life being hard if it meant I had you.”
    Ginny sniffled and laughed even as she kissed him. “I’m going to make it hard enough, so I’d better help you with everything else.”
    Honor demanded he tell her she didn’t have to decide that night. That he give her time to think. The wolf demanded he accept what she was offering. Now.
    In the end, he settled for a compromise. He nipped her lower lip. “Be my mate for now. We’ll worry about the rest later.”
    “Yes.” She laid her hand on his cheek and kissed him again, slowly, her tongue sneaking out to touch his. He groaned and pulled her closer, and the kiss was just getting interesting when his stomach let out an angry grumble.
    He pulled back and kissed her forehead. “I suppose I should eat before I let you distract me.”
    Ginny laughed and bit her lip. “I should go away, then. I’ll be upstairs… in the bedroom.” She brushed one last kiss over his cheek and walked out.
    Jack polished off the food she’d put on the table and a second serving from the pot before the edge of his hunger had eased. In any other circumstance he would have collapsed again into much needed sleep, but the thought of Ginny waiting for him in bed made sleep the least appealing prospect ever.
    After a brief stop in the bathroom to clean up, Jack climbed the stairs and stopped in the doorway. Ginny sat on the bed, propped against a pile of pillows, reading the same book she’d had downstairs. Now, though, her red hair tumbled in a wild cloud around her mostly bare shoulders, and she wore a thin gown of green, lace-edged silk.
    “Wow.” He leaned against the doorjamb and smiled. “This is a sight I could get used to.”
    “Not in the least.” She tossed the book on the floor and rolled to her knees, her expression playful. A slit in the gown bared her leg to the top of her thigh. “I mostly sleep naked.”
    The things he could do to her… His cock hardened as he stepped over the threshold and let a slow, wicked smile curl his lips. “Well, where’s the fun in that?”
    “You seemed to like it well enough last night.”
    “That?” He was glad he hadn’t bothered with a shirt. The borrowed pants hit the floor and he stepped out of them before curling his fingers around his cock. “Oh, honey, that was just getting to know you.”
    Ginny’s gaze dropped to his hand, and she whimpered and fidgeted on the bed. “You already knew me.”
    “Not as well as I wanted to.” He fixed his gaze on hers again. “Turn around and brace your hands against the headboard.”
    She didn’t move at first, just twirled a lock of hair around one finger and licked her lips. Finally, she turned away and crawled up the bed until she reached the iron headboard. Her hands curled around it slowly, and she glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Like this?”
    He stepped forward and ran his hand down her back and over the green silk, rubbing it against her skin. “Just like that.”
    Her back arched, and she hissed in a breath. “Jack.”
    The bed dipped as he set his knee on the edge, then knelt behind her. He indulged himself with a slow caress, feeling the curves of her body beneath expensive silk as he traced over her hips and