Possess: An Alpha Anthology Read online

  "Maybe I don't mind as much as I thought I did."

  His eyes flared at me and he reached for me. He winced as he pulled me in for a kiss. I kissed him back, running my hands over his strong chest and shoulders.

  I sat up abruptly, feeling his arms go limp around me.

  Daniel had passed out again.

  He would be alright though. The doctor had already come to check his eyes for a concussion. We were supposed to 'keep an eye on him' but that was all. Obviously, I had volunteered to do so.

  I grabbed the melted ice pack and empty pitcher of water and headed back to the kitchen.

  I was in the hallway when I felt him grab me from behind. He spun me around so fast I nearly lost my balance. He looked calm but his eyes were seriously. Deadly serious.

  He tilted his head, staring at me with those warm golden eyes.

  "Where are you going?"

  "To get you some more ice."

  He grabbed my wrist and started pulling me backwards.

  "I don't need any damn ice."

  "Daniel! You're injured. Be careful!"

  "I'm fine."

  I was giggling helplessly as he propelled me back into the room, slamming the door behind him. I watched as he locked the door then walked over to the window. He opened it, never taking his eyes off of me.

  I reached out my hand to stop him as he held his hand outside and let go.

  He'd dropped the damn key into the bushes.

  "Daniel!"

  He smiled at me. Something about his face reminded me of a shark's face. It was predatory. And determined. He started walking towards me. I was suddenly very, very nervous.

  "You aren't leaving me again."

  "O-okay."

  "I'm keeping you."

  "Daniel, you sound crazy!"

  He kept backing me up until I was pressed against the wall. There was nowhere left to run. And I didn't really want to run anyway. I wanted to stay.

  "I am crazy."

  His smile widened as he straddled me, running his hands over my body.

  "And it's all your fault."

  "My fault?"

  He nodded slowly.

  "You made me fall in love with you."

  "Daniel..."

  "No. You don't get to ignore me. I want to talk about the future."

  He was touching me all over. Teasing me with all his skill. I could barely focus on what he was saying. All I heard was the word 'love.'

  "Please, can't' we do this another time?"

  He shook his head, his hands working their magic on my curves. Just touching me though my clothes. I was speechless, just feeling his touch was driving me wild.

  "You are in love with me too. I know it."

  I tried to look away, to avoid talking about this. But he wouldn't let me. He held my face in his hands.

  "I'm going to make you say it."

  I shuddered, knowing that he could break me down with his hands and mouth. He was smiling again. This time it was a smile of pure anticipation.

  "And I'm not letting you out of this room until you admit it."

  I watched as he unbuttoned my blouse. Then he kissed my chest, thumbing my nipples through my lace bra. They stood up for him immediately. He pulled one into his mouth and flicked his tongue against it, making me moan in pleasure. He pressed my legs apart, rubbing me through my riding pants. I moaned, feeling myself get instantly wet.

  He didn't do anything else for the longest time. Just rubbed me softly through my clothes. I wanted more pressure. I wanted him. I was already on the edge as he kissed my throat and breasts, suckling my hard nipples again and again.

  "Anything you want to tell me?"

  I moaned and he laughed, pulling my bra down to feast on my breasts. He kept the same maddeningly slow pace as he stroked me between my legs. I was rocking my hips against his hand but it was futile. He was going to keep me on the edge like this for hours. He was going to make me say it.

  It was going to be a very, very long night.

  Two Weeks Later

  Daniel

  Francesca stood in my bedroom in an ivory silk dress, looking like a statue. Her golden hair was loose, her tawny skin glowing, her deep blue eyes subtly lined, and her lips a dark red. She looked good enough to eat. In fact, I'd been trying to take her to bed and gobble her up. But she wanted to talk.

  Now of all times, she wanted to talk.

  "It's been four weeks. Hand it over."

  I grumbled as I pulled the chain over my head. Francesca may have admitted she loved me that night two weeks ago, but she was still a flight risk. The girl was as skittish as a foal.

  The past few weeks had been bliss. We rode together. Read the paper in bed. Argued and discussed things. And had mind boggling sex. Lots and lots of sex.

  I did not want the four weeks to be up. I did not want to give her the key. I wanted to marry her and make a baby with her. I still needed time to convince her. Or knock her up, whichever came first.

  But a deal was a deal.

  I dropped the key and the chain into her hands. She smiled at me coyly before walking to the door. I thought she was going to leave. Instead she bent over. It took me a moment to realize she had used the key to lock it.

  My mouth was open as she turned to face me. She slipped the chain over her neck as she started to pull her clothes off. My jaw dropped as she stripped for me, making me hard in an instant.

  "Now it's my turn to keep you locked inside."

  Relief flooded my chest.

  "You aren't leaving?"

  She shook her head slowly.

  "For how long?"

  She shrugged.

  "As long as you keep me satisfied."

  I grinned.

  "Woman, that is not going to be a problem."

  "If you say so."

  "I damn well do."

  She walked past me and lay down on the bed. I was still frozen in place as she crooked her finger at me.

  "Prove it Cowboy."

  I growled and climbed on top of her. I didn't need to be told twice. Like I said, I was not a stupid man.

  Note from Joanna

  Thank you for reading Bound To Me! If you enjoyed this book please let me know by leaving a review. You can also find me on Facebook, Goodreads and Twitter, or you can email me at: [email protected]

  Credits:

  Pincushion Press

  Other works by Joanna Blake:

  Wanted By The Devil (Devil's Riders MC Club)

  Still Waters (Devil's Riders MC Club)

  Safe In His Arms (Devil's Riders MC Club)

  Devil's Riders: Before You (A prequel to the Devil's Rider's Trilogy)

  Slay Me (Rock Gods)

  Dare Me (Rock Gods)

  Cover Me (Rock Gods)

  Ride With Me (The Delancey Brothers)

  BRO'

  A Bad Boy For Summer

  PLAYER

  GRIND

  HEAT

  <<<<>>>>

  HICKEY

  Cora Brent

  Copyright 2015

  All Rights Reserved

  Chapter One

  These people. I swear, they are going cost me the remains of my sanity.

  The deal was two semesters of free room and board in exchange for acting as a Resident Advisor to a floor full of freshman. If you’re already up to your eyeballs in unsubsidized loans and regularly eating Ramen noodles with the occasional treat of boiled chicken thighs that’s a no brainer, right?

  On the other hand, I realize now that maybe I should have thought the idea through a little more.

  Only a few days ago I was excited for them, a pack of gawky eighteen-year-olds who tiptoed to their rooms all uncertain and gulping in the company of teary-eyed parents. They listened politely during the very first floor meeting and even looked up from their phones long enough to read the Pyramid of College Success I’d spent two hours inventing and then kindly scrawling for them on the white board. They bought stacking crates at Target and
created bedside tables that balanced clock radios, liters of soda pop and unopened packages of fluorescent highlighters. They thumbed little gumballs of blue poster tacky to the walls and decorated their rooms with music and Disney and motivational sayings, like ‘Be the best YOU that only YOU know YOU can be.’

  They were (almost) charming.

  But now that the parents have left and the freedom has been tasted, all hell has broken loose. Now they suck gallons of Schnapps in their rooms, pound on my window at 3 a.m. screaming ‘Boogie boogie boogie!’ and suck on each another’s genitals in the study lounge. One of them even defecated (swear to god!) on the bottom step of the east stairwell.

  I think I’m starting to hate them.

  Not really. But they are kind of trying out my patience.

  When there’s a knock on my door tonight I’m almost afraid to open it. But it turns out to just be a girl named Maura. She lives three doors down, twists her hair around one finger constantly and has obviously been crying. Maura manages a watery smile when I invite her in. She sinks down into the cheap beanbag chair in the corner and stares at her splayed legs. After a few minutes of gentle prodding she starts talking.

  Maura misses the prim Chicago suburb she came from. She even misses her older brother, an unwashed drummer in a heavy metal band who huffs paint and sleeps in the bathtub. She says she so homesick it hurts to breathe sometimes. Adding insult to injury, Maura’s roommate, Michelle, invites one of the ‘TFH’s’ to their room every night and poor Maura doesn’t get any sleep because their orgasmic shrieking is so loud.

  I bob my head in sympathy and say things like, “Oh gosh,” and “That’s just terrible.”

  But then I have to stop her and ask what a TFH is because I have no idea and it might be an important part of the story.

  Maura releases a twisted curl from her forefinger and then begins winding it around again. “Third Floor Hottie. Have you seen the guys on the third floor? OMG! This one’s name is Dean. Or Kenneth. I’m not sure.”

  I haven’t paid any attention to who lives on the third floor, but I do know the third floor RA. She – like every fourth person around here- is a psych major. On Tuesday I ran into her on the Panda Express line down at the Union and we shared a table. Her name’s Dorritt. She’s full of long legs and blonde sunshine and doesn’t hold back on details. Details like the number of times she’s fucked her next door neighbor since orientation week and how his dick tastes like root beer.

  I can’t say I really approve of being a Resident Adviser and screwing around with the people you’re supposed to be ‘advising’. That seems like a line crosser. But hey, it’s Dorritt’s life and Dorritt’s conscience so I said nothing. I just nodded my head and tried to imagine what a guy has to do to obtain a root-beer-flavored dick. Then I decided I’d rather not know.

  Anyway, I’m remembering that conversation while Maura blubbers on my floor. I’m wondering if Dorritt’s Root Beer Boy and Dean/Kenneth know each other. It even crosses my mind that maybe one of these days I ought to take a stroll up the third floor to see what else is up there. After all, the only intimacy I’m familiar with these days involves batteries. It’s been quite a while since I let myself get broadsided by lust or emotion or any of their close relatives.

  Reflexively I glance at my left hand and then squeeze my fingers into a fist. I always try to see how long I can last without thinking of him. Sometimes it’s a day, sometimes three days in a row. It all happened a long time ago, when I was someone who could better relate to the impulsive people now in my midst. It’s occurred to me lately that the age of eighteen really ought to be known as the age of volatile idiocy. And you’d have to be a damn fool to give an idiot the keys to anything.

  I’m not mocking them when I say that. If I search through my past I know I can understand them much better than I would like to.

  Maura makes a noise that sounds like water struggling through a half clogged drain. She looks around and swipes at her nose with a crumpled pink tissue. There is still a nodule of snot hanging from her right nostril.

  “It smells like peaches in here,” she says.

  “Vanilla,” I correct her and gently hand over a fresh box of Kleenex.

  Maura makes another pass at her dripping nose and is more successful this time. “Do people call you Connie or just Constance?”

  Actually, until a few short years ago, people called me neither one. I don’t feel like explaining that though. It’ll just open up a whole rusted can of worms that are currently in a coma and buried a mile underground.

  “Constance is fine.”

  “And you said at orientation that you’re a senior?”

  “Yes. I really have two more years left though because I’m in a concurrent MBA program.”

  Maura nods. “What are you going to do after that?”

  “Hopefully something that involves shuffling money in the downtown financial district in exchange for a decent paycheck.”

  “Oh.” She seems confused, almost disappointed. “Is that what you always wanted to do?”

  No. Not even close. Not even in the same hemisphere of what I always wanted to do. But I’ve learned a few lessons along the way. Ideals are fine for youth. Adulthood requires a little more practicality. However, Maura doesn’t need to explore that kind of headache right now.

  She doesn’t wait for my answer anyway. She balls up her tissue and shoves it in the pocket of her jeans. “How old are you, Constance? Twenty-one or something?”

  “I was once. Now I’m twenty-five.”

  Something flickers in her eyes. The age probably sounds ancient to her. I know what she’s thinking. She can’t imagine what the passage of seven years will bring. Seven years ago she was a kid, probably still running around at lunch recess and sprinting home after school to devour cookies and milk. She’s probably thinking about the difference between then and now. She’s wondering what in the hell is going to happen between where she is and where I am. I wouldn’t blame her for wondering that.

  But all she says is, “Cool.”

  Maura hangs around for a little while longer. She talks about how she’s not sure what major she’s going to pick but she wants to major in psychology. Her parents want her to major in economics.

  By the time she leaves, her nose has stopped running and she seems almost cheerful. I’m glad. It makes me feel useful to have helped, even a little. On Maura’s way out the door she nearly collides with a shaggy-haired kid named Perseus who’s riding a skateboard down the hall.

  I flash him a stern look with my arms crossed and he gives me a sheepish grin. Maura laughs and the two of them strike up a “Hi, I’m…” conversation before wandering away together. I really hope I do not encounter them in the study lounge later, dispensing exotic hickeys.

  As I stand there in the hallway staring fondly after the pair of freshman I feel kind of guardian-like. It’s not a bad way to feel. I really want to help these eighteen-year-old people with their eighteen-year-old problems. I know what it’s like to take a misstep that’s hard to undo and if I could spare them that agony then I would. I absolutely would.

  All my warm and fuzzy feelings are interrupted when I’m smacked in the head by a golf ball.

  “Oh, shit!” yells some guy with a silver club in his hand and a busty brunette clinging to his waist. “Fuck, I’m so sorry!”

  Then the two of them start giggling and pretend to wrestle noisily for control of the golf club. Since the whole scene will likely end up with someone getting porked right here in the hallway I roll my eyes and return to my room.

  After adding a few drops of lemon essential oil to my room diffuser I relax and dive into a forty-pound textbook called Principles of Financial Modeling. It’s about as much fun as it sounds. I keep nodding off. An hour later I realize I have only waded through about three paragraphs.

  After pinching my arm for the fourth time in an effort to remain awake, I give up and slam the book closed. I drum my fingers on the cover and listen to
the distant echoes of the first floor freshmen.

  Maybe it would be a better idea just to live and let live, remaining in here with my room diffuser until May. Maura and Perseus and whoever else lives out there will be fine without me. After all, I didn’t have me when I was their age and I’m just fine. Most of the time, anyway.

  However, this RA gig is still kind of a job that can’t be ignored. So when a flurry of commotion ending in a scream happens right outside my door, I need to go see who is screaming and why.

  It’s Cinnamon from Portland. She’s in the arms of some hulking slice of manliness that’s facing the opposite direction. Frankly, at first glance it looks like she’s being abducted and I start looking around for something to bludgeon the would-be kidnapper with.

  But then she screams, “It hurrrts! Oh god, someone, Percocet, Vicodin, anything!”

  If she was being hauled away against her will she would probably be screaming something different. Plus I notice now that the guy carrying her is doing so quite gingerly and that her feet are oddly swollen and faintly purple.

  “She jumped off the balcony,” explains a voice at my back. It’s Cinnamon’s roommate, Peggy. She stands there casually eating an apple while Cinnamon wails and pleads for something pharmaceutical.

  A newcomer might be a little stunned by the news that a girl jumped off the balcony. But I am not surprised. This dormitory, Agave Hall, is a converted Motel Six. The second and third floors have balcony corridors that over look the pool. The kids hang on them and vomit from them. They shave their heads over the railing and let the shorn fragments fly away into the night. The most reckless of them jump from the third floor balcony into the pool, despite having to clear a wide stretch of concrete below.

  Cinnamon jumped.

  Cinnamon didn’t make it into the pool.

  Cinnamon is fucked.

  Despite being annoyed over her dumb stunt, I wince over the sight of her feet. They look bad. They will look worse.

  “Let me get my keys,” I tell her, hoping she hears me through her howling. “We’ll go to the ER.”