Chapter 1
I slammed the door of my pickup truck and hunched my shoulders against the bitterly cold wind that swirled around me. I hate winter. White powdered shit crunches beneath my combat boots and sticks to the soles as I make my way to the large structure that I’ve come to live in more than the packhouse down the road.
Why no one has bothered to plow the employee parking lot yet, I don’t know, but it pisses me off to have to trudge through this shit. Every year it’s the same damn thing and every year I piss and moan about the fucking snow. Why couldn’t we have had our territory somewhere in the south? I would have happily relocated to a southern branch of our company if it had been an option, but it wasn’t, so here I am.
The cold doesn’t necessarily bother me, it’s the icy wet crap that’s blowing down with it and settling between the upturned collar of my leather jacket and the back of my neck that sends an icy chill down my body as it melts before I can even make it inside the building.
Stuffing my hands into the pockets of my jacket, I quicken my pace and jerk my chin at the security guards who are stationed at the front entrance of the multistory Black Wolf Security building. They bow their heads submissively and mutter their typical morning greeting as I pass by, not even bothering to stop and walk myself through the metal detectors every other person aside from myself and my two partners have to shuffle through.
The glass doors close softly behind me, and I step through another doorway into a high-ceilinged rectangular lobby.
The fountain in the middle of the lobby bubbles up in the center, splashing down in waves to the pool below where the bright blue tiles give the water a false Caribbean coloring. It’s meant to be a warm and relaxing display – in the middle of fucking winter – and the noise of the water is supposed to act as a buffer to drown out the typical noise of the bustling space.
It’s too early for most employees aside from the security team that never leaves, the overachievers that think showing up early for work will put them in good standings with their bosses, and the tech team that rotates shifts who, much like the security team, never leave, leaving a constant flux of able bodies present twenty-four-seven.
A long, elegant counter stretches out before me below a flashy metallic sign displaying our company’s name and logo. On either side of the counter are a set of elevators but between those and behind the counter, a redheaded she-wolf looks up from her hidden computer screen. Her eyes shift with recognition when she spots me heading in that direction, and she stands up to make her greeting. I don’t have to look behind the counter to know she’s wearing her typical four-inch-high heels, and short, tight skirt. Those fucking heels give her ass a nice shape and her long legs are given the illusion of being even longer and sexier than they are.
“Good morning, Gamma Rhett,” she chirps fondly but I’m no fool. I can hear the underlying meaning behind her words, and I spare her a brief look as I pass by. Her obvious reminder of what happened last night flashes in the depths of her heated gaze. Her body could probably stop a freight train in its tracks but all I see are the ruby-red painted lips. I know where those lips were last night.
“Morning, Miss Evans,” I mumble in reply. I do not reciprocate the smile she’s giving me, nor do I allow any sort of underlying meaning to infiltrate the same greeting I give her every day when I pass on by like she does to me.
Her eyes trail my every step, and she follows me around to the end of the counter. She’ll try to intercept me at the elevator like always, but this morning I’m in no mood for her flirting.
I’m a man on a mission and I don’t have time to play games. Maybe tonight...
“Any calls?” I snap. I don’t worry about how my bark comes out; the lobby is quiet for the moment but in a few minutes, it’ll be bustling with the usual employees and visitors like every other day before it. I already know the answer to my question. There are always calls. Her footsteps pause just like I hoped they would, and she’s forced to turn back to her vacated seat to play the part of a front desk secretary.
We might be the only ones in the lobby, but there are cameras and I don’t need to raise any sort of suspicion, especially if someone comes out of one of the ground-level rooms. I don’t want the fucking questions or gossip. That would only cause me headaches I don’t have time for and piss me off in the end.
“I have your messages right here,” she confirms with a smile and saunters back toward me, an all too familiar glint in her eye and sway in her hips. “And I have your schedule printed for you as well. Alpha Eli-”
“Email it all to me.” I jam my finger into the elevator button and pray to God it doesn’t take long for my ride to show up. My personal secretary would already have all the important calls I would need to return. Her smile falters before it recovers. I know I’m being a prick but that’s nothing new. She’s been here a year, she knows how I am, so she should be used to it by now.
I should know better, too. Fooling around with employees is a big NO on the long fucking list of things not to do with your company's multi-million-dollar business. I need to cut it off with her anyway; she’s become far too clingy and it’s getting harder and harder to shake her off after we have our fun.
That’s the problem though, and a big one. They always hope for more and they always believe they’re going to be the one to tie you down. She’s hoping I’ll choose her as my chosen mate and that I’ll mark and mate her. She just likes the power and position that comes with someone like me but in reality, she’s just a good fuck, and her fantasy of this becoming more than what it is, needs to be snuffed out. I told her the rules before we even began fooling around, I told her how things would go, and I told her not to get attached. I told her this would never go anywhere, that I wasn’t looking for a mate, and that we were simply two consenting adults enjoying the sexual companionship of each other. There was no romance involved whatsoever, which is why I never allowed kissing. Too intimate in my opinion.
She’d been a willing participant at first, but now she’s showing signs of wanting more. I should have ended it a while ago, but because of all the recent bullshit that’s happened, I just never got around to it, and I took way too much pleasure in her physical company to tell her to move on. Besides, she kept showing up and, well, you can figure out the rest.
High heels clicked on the white marble floor on the prowl, once again headed in my direction. My head is already pounding in anticipation and the doors haven’t even opened yet. I glance up at the stupid little numbers as they light up while the elevator descends. It’s five goddamn floors, what the hell takes so long every morning?
The smell of her perfume surrounds me, and I choke back a growl. It’s the same shit she wears every day like she has to cover something up. She does, but why she feels the need to douse herself in it I can’t understand.
“There are rules in place for a fucking reason,” I say under my breath just before her hand can make contact with my arm. Those slender fingers would have tried to snake their way up my arm or interlace with my own fingers, staking a claim that she has no rights to. “Or have you forgotten?”
Her hand pauses in midair and I can feel her hesitation. No, she hasn’t forgotten, she’s just hopeful that I’ll change my mind. I never do. Every time we’re alone like this she tries the same damn thing. I’ve reached my limit with my patience, and it isn’t even six thirty in the morning yet.
“I asked you a question,” I mutter quietly. I don’t want my voice to echo any more than it already does in the sparse room.
“No, Gamma,” she sighs reluctantly. “I haven’t forgotten.”
No touching.
No display of affection.
No discussing what goes on behind closed doors at the end of the day – or sometimes during – with anyone. Ever.
Not that hard to figure out.
I give her a pointed look just as the doors to the horror box open and she steps back, clasps her hands in front of her and straightens her spine, suddenly all business.
Good girl.
I step inside, stab the fourth-floor button, and hold my breath as the doors slide closed. I hate taking the goddamn elevator. It’s like stepping inside my own coffin. The only thing needed is the nails to permanently keep it shut and for me to die in complete and total fucking misery. The air escapes my lungs the moment they close, shutting out any signs of the outside world. I close my eyes and allow my brain to wander to what happened last night, and to where exactly those ruby-red lips were.
Well, shit, maybe that’s not such a good idea. Miss Evans might be hot as fuck and a good fuck at that, but maybe right now isn’t a good time to play out my fantasies.
I can’t afford to step out of here with a hard-on, so I curse myself for my stupidity and imagine a wide, open field instead. It’s got rolling green hills, a blue fucking sky, clouds, and I imagine a breeze drifting through the tall reeds of grass. I even include a bunch of daisies and dandelions. Why the fuck shouldn’t I add color to my black-and-white miserable world? If I want to add fucking flowers to my fantasy, I’ll add the fucking flowers.
Fuck the flowers.
That damn field slowly turns into a scorching hot desert. The rippling reeds turn to sand before my closed eyelids, a heavy wind kicking up particles and swirling them around until they settle into every nook and crevice on your body imaginable. The stench of burning flesh fills my nostrils and I can feel the thump thump thump of my erratic heart pulsating in my eardrums. Beads of sweat pebble in my hairline and my palms become sweaty.
Not now...
I can almost smell the acidic tinge of burnt battery acid from the smoking Humvee behind me. It threatens to pour itself down my throat like a molotov cocktail and choke me until I can’t breathe anymore.
My hands ball into fists inside my jacket pockets and I know if I looked at them, my knuckles would be white as a sheet, and I would have indents in my palms where my nails dug into the calloused flesh. The space around me compresses. That fucking field could return anytime now but I know it won’t.
It’s gone just like all the air in this goddamned box I’m standing in.
A familiar ding echoes in my ears, drawing me out of my own personal hell. The second light seeps through the opening doors, I open my eyes, and I step out like I do every other time, just as calm, collected, and pissed off as ever.
No one needs to know my terrors, and as part owner of BWS and gamma to the Timber Ridge Pack, I can’t afford to allow my inner turmoils to show even the slightest.
No one needs to know.
To my left, another counter separates the secretary from the visitors, or in my case, the owner: me. Her dark brown hair is swept up into a bun and she’s already standing behind her desk, clearly expecting my arrival. The crisp black overcoat she’s wearing emphasizes the thin white blouse beneath, and the black bra beneath that. I mentally shake my head. One pestering secretary was enough.
I don’t let my eyes linger on the bra beneath the blouse that’s open far enough to draw attention to that specific area; in fact, I don’t even spare her much of a glance at all. It’s the same every day. I don’t double dip when it comes to the women I work with, so even though she tries to catch my eye every single day, she fails every time. Of course, I’m not the only one she’s hoping to sink her claws into, but then again, my brothers are much smarter than I am, and they don’t fuck the help.
