The Walls of Jericho

Alpha

My eyes bug out, widening in shock, then my jaw drops open like a cartoon character and practically clangs on the ground. I can’t remember the last time I heard Mr. Adriani call me by my actual name. It’s usually ‘mom’ if he addresses me by a name at all.

Now that I think of it though, I’ve heard him call me by a whole host of other women’s names over the years—like ‘Michelle’, just now. I’ve never found any pictures of him when he was younger, but I get the impression he was a good-looking guy in his youth. It makes me harbor the same secret grudge I do against Channing, that maybe he played with women when he was young.

Then again, who am I to complain about Channing? The guy just told me I’m his One and what I gave him in return was a snarky comment. I’ll think about that later.

It takes another few seconds I can hear tick off loudly in my head since, for once, the room is quiet. “Wa—wa—what?” I sputter and finally manage to collect myself. “What did you say?”

He smiles. “I really like your cat.”

Just like that, lucidity gone. Flown the coop. Out the window. Bye, bye, bye.

As I study him some more, I suppose I should be careful with my assumptions. Mr. Adriani knowing a lot of women over the course of seventy-nine years of life wouldn’t really be a surprise. He’s lived a mostly normal life. He’d have met female neighbors and coworkers, grocery clerks and dental hygienists and all the other people we brush past daily and never think of again. At this point though, the plain-dressed truth is only God knows what’s happening in his head.

A new thought strikes me suddenly, and it’s a whopper. If I can sense human presences, pick up those faint one-hundred-ten millivolt chemielectric net charges that exchange between the axon membranes of neurons during a nerve impulse, why couldn’t—

Hearing our voices, Channing calls from the kitchen, “Dinner’s ready.”

“Smells awesome! Be right there,” I reply, glancing at Mr. Adriani. My hands are suddenly clammy and cold. The old man’s stroking the sofa arm again, muttering to it softly in a babying voice.

“You’re such a good kitty, Tiger.”

God, I’m a horrible caregiver. Not to mention what an exceptionally lousy creep I am for even considering I might be able to poke around in his head—for pity’s sake, he’s not lucid long enough to explain what I’d be looking to do and get his actual consent. I wonder when my personal ethics hit the bricks and beat a hasty retreat out of here.

“I’ll bring you some dinner,” I mumble, blindly turn and head back into the kitchen.

“Garlic bread, and my grandmother’s recipe for spaghetti and meatballs,” Channing tells me, a smug little smile curling his mouth and making that single dimple of his really pop. The electrical buzz between us flickers as he reads my expression.

Without another word, he pivots. He selects a bottle of wine from the built-in wine rack on the cabinets, then opens a neatly arranged drawer and removes a corkscrew. Before I know it, there’s gorgeous glass of black cherry colored liquid resting in front of me.

“Drink that,” he orders, but not bossily, “while I take Mr. Adriani a plate.”

I stare at the beautiful fluid, semi-hypnotized by its vibrant youthful ruby in the light-kissed portions that darken to an opaque and rich garnet in its depths. Across from me, the food and dish noises as Channing fixes Mr. Adriani’s plate slow, then still entirely.

“What’s wrong? It’s a good blend—should go nicely with dinner. Do you not like red wine?”

Uncertain how to answer, I suck my bottom lip between my front teeth. God, he’s gorgeous. Lithe and strong, with soulful eyes and a heart-melting smile, his tousled brown hair dusted with gold in this light. He’s also nearly as wiseass as I am. Which means I may as well suck it up and accept that he’s got me on this one.

“I don’t know if I like it.” The words come out a little testily—it rankles when someone gets the better of me, you know? Especially before we even get started. “I’ve never had it before.”

As soon as I see that scarred brow quirk up infinitesimally, I know it’s coming. Instinctively, my eyes close, awaiting the death blow.

Against my eyelids, I can see the faint yellowish glow of his string-doll nervous system. It’s tinged with a pale tangerine that morphs to pink as he comes around the kitchen island with Mr. Adriani’s plate, then swivels my barstool towards him with his free hand. He brushes his kiss of death across my lips before delivering the killing blow. “I background checked you. You’re a legit twenty-one. Try it. It’s good.”

I loose an exasperated sigh that’s met with an amused chuckle from Channing. He’s enough to drive me to drink.

A sweet heady aroma hits me first as I lift the wine glass to my lips, an intriguing meld of florals and berries that actually starts my mouth watering. From the other room, I can hear Mr. Adriani telling Channing all about his imaginary cat—probably while he continues to pet the sofa arm—and it’s enough to push me to tip a small sip into my mouth. The semi-sweet taste blooms inside my mouth, warm and rich, and slides down my throat easily, then leaves a nasty bitter woodsy aftertaste.

“Don’t you dare make that lip-curled scrunched-up face. That’s an excellent vintage.”

“Then there’s more for you,” I retort, setting the glass down with a deliberately ornery clink and a pointed glare. “’Excellent vintage’,” I mock. “Elitist snob.”

“It’s because you’re doing it wrong.” He zips the barstool to face him again.

“Would you stop doing that? I’m going to fall off with you making me dizzy—.”

Channing cups the back of my neck beneath my hair with one hand, then tips my chin up with his other. “I intend to make you a lot dizzier.” His fingers tangle into my hair and he murmurs, “So soft,” before he dips his head, nuzzling the hollow behind my collarbone.

His hollow.

And my body makes sure I know it. The sparks leap between us and an entire migration of Monarch butterflies takes to wing inside my belly. Then he starts the heat rising in my slow burn. His lips are magic—unadulterated magic—as he catches the tender flesh between his teeth.

My core slicks to the tune of a soft moan. “God, that feels good.”

“Um-hmm.” His tongue trails hotly towards my ear.

At first, I think he’s acknowledging my praise of his mind-erasing ministrations. Then I realize my own fingers are caressing over his broad shoulders, curling around his neck and threading into his dark hair. Maybe, instead, he’d meant he was enjoying my tactile explorations.

When he emits a low groan, warm and breathy over my ear, I hard-shiver and seriously think I might be coming unglued. Beneath my wandering fingertips, Channing peppers with gooseflesh and a hot flush of pride sweeps over me—I feel like a superhero. And not because I can manipulate technology. If he’s going to stir up a fierce lust in me, then I intend to return the favor—he needs to feel heart-revved hyperventilating hot-under-the-collar too.

Lifting my hair away, he plants a wet kiss in the soft behind my ear. I melt against him, oozing into an ice cream soft, sticky-sweet puddle down the front of that sculpted chest of his, clinging to his shoulders like a wet paper towel.

When he lifts his eyes to mine, they’re bright with that alpha glow and the white-blue whorls swirl madly about his dilated pupils. His head dips again, but this time, his perfect lips tug at mine, teasing in soft bites and flicks of his talented tongue.

The fire in my belly hits flashpoint when I open my mouth and his tongue connects with mine.

“Mmmm, you taste so sweet,” he murmurs, his mouth becoming more demanding.

He doesn’t have to say it, or—you know, alpha voice it. I’m already mush against him long before his hands cup my bottom and lift me into him. 

I’m not fool enough to think he doesn’t know it too. He wants my answer, my acquiescence. My surrender.

And hey! What do you know? It’s the same thing I want.

The hot flare of desire that ignites in him rolls in scorching waves over me too.

As I snake my way deeper into Channing’s embrace, the magnetic door behind us opens for an interloper to our private seduction, but there’s no stopping the inferno raging between us.

Vaguely, I hear Ferdi. “Oh. Hey Adriani. What? I’m sure there’s more. Wow. Jesus, Chan,” the raw blister of annoyance in his deep baritone would be laughable if I didn’t have Channing’s tongue teasing my tonsils. “Take that crap to your room. You’re ruining people’s appetites.”

I gasp in air like I’ve been underwater too long when he releases my mouth, then it’s forced out in a hard whoosh when he ducks his head under my arm and hoists me off the barstool into a fireman carry. “Channing!” I squeal.

But he’s all business now.

It’s a matter of long strides, then the ugly tile disappears beneath the thick padded carpets in his quiet bedroom. The door clicks shut, then locks with solemn finality. A few seconds after, I’m dumped unceremoniously on the bed.

Then a ravaging wolf is upon me.

He moans out loud, his hands rough at my clothes. His mouth drags in their wake, lighting up my system with reciprocating vibrations. Vaulting upward into a sit as he yanks my blue jeans down my legs, I clutch the back of his t-shirt with knotted fists, tugging it over his perfect shoulders.

There are hands all over the place, their frenzied efforts accompanied by a lively tune of frustrated groans from wriggling, twisting bodies trying to accommodate each other, from snapping threads, and a few slithering fabric tears. Then Channing pins me by the shoulders, pressing me into the mattress while his mouth teases mine in a strangely gentle kiss. He breathes a moan feeling my silky softness snuggling against him.

It’s almost more than I can bear.

My arms wind around beneath his, clutching his broad shoulders and holding him to me. He’s so deliciously lean, hard and smooth as living marble, I can’t stop my bare body from pressing tightly against his fiery warmth. He kisses me like a master, little stinging nips sending sweet surges of endorphins into the complex cocktail of s****l hormones surging through me, then confusing the tiny shots of pain with soft lips and his rough-soft tongue.

“Mmmm, mine, mine, mine,” he whispers, dipping his head to draw a searing wet circle with his tongue around first one, then the other of the cherry tips of my otherwise non-existent breasts.

The ache as they tighten sends a wave of flushing heat and goosebumps over my skin. My feminine core writhes in churning knots, throbbing with delighted anguish as his hands move to my breasts to enjoy the products of his handiwork. With a gentle nudge of his temple against my jaw, he exposes the length of my neck and fixes his hot mouth there.

Closing the hard little tips of my breasts between his thumbs and index fingers, he squeezes and twists. I gasp at the exquisite, delightful agony, another wrenching twist from down below slicking the inside of my thighs with warm welcoming fluid. “Channing,” I urge in a whisper, arching my hips towards his hard body and the throbbing heated length of him pressing against my hip.

“Down, girl,” he chuckles at my obvious impatience. Then cruelly, he takes his maddeningly sweet time, playfully teasing only my breasts until I think I might implode or explode—or something— from the torture of being denied his attention everywhere else.

At last! I pant heavily, on the brink of losing my mind, as he shifts his weight and inches his hand lower, resting it on my belly.

And then—damn him—he lingers.

“Nice and easy, babydoll,” he whispers, pressing my arching hips back down, then laughing softly at my frustrated groan. “Don’t you want to make it last?”

“Last?” I half-pant half-snarl. “I openly admit, I don’t have much in the way of experience with this, which you well know.” I run my hand down his delectably bumpy muscular ribcage to his narrow waist, tuck it between us and make a slow, circuitous return along the smooth-coated steel shaft resting like a hot iron on my hip.

“However, I’m one hundred percent certain that you, lover, “ I give the raised head in my hand a stroke that draws a vindicating raw groan from him, “do not—under any circumstance—have to worry about being available for a second, or even a third or fourth showing. Not even a little.”

Chuckling at my evident displeasure, Channing dips his hands lower, but only circles, occasionally brushing lightly between my spread thighs before flittering away all too quickly to touch my belly or hips again.

At my wit’s end, I silently curse him for this astounding feat of control. I can’t recall a time I’ve been in such a position, forced to wait impatiently. Or to beg. 

Oh yeah. That thought rankles.

Plead. I'm going with plead. It sounds less— desperate and needy. Maybe. 

Damn him.

His teasing is driving the coiling ache between my legs to a throbbing awareness that prickles across my nerves, raising goosebumps, and leaves me feeling deprived, irritable and seriously frantic. The desire inside me is voracious now, and his delicately teasing butterfly touches have exactly zero possibility of satisfying me, no matter how expertly administered.

No possibility. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

He draws another anguished moan out of me, glazing over the eager swollen hypersensitive flesh damp between my thighs, then chuckles again when I shamelessly arch my hips towards his hand.  God! Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! He laughs softly as he drives me to distraction, genuinely enjoying himself, and subduing my struggles with his large warm paws.

Nudging my jaw aside, he presses his lips to my ear and whispers, “I love how every time I touch you here,” his fingers tease the wet opening between my thighs and I jerk hard towards him, “you just get wetter and wetter. I can’t wait to bury myself in you and get us both lost in the pleasure.”

“Then what are you waiting for!?” I groan in agony.

“Because I love touching you. I love exploring you. Finding each and every sensitive spot, then testing its pleasurable limits.” With one hand, he spreads my thighs further apart, then shifts his weight to lay between them.

I nearly leap off the bed when he plants a firm kiss on the sensitive bud tucked into its damp hood,  anxiously awaiting his arrival between my legs. Channing chuckles a moan, propping himself in the position he wants, then slipping one massive paw under my bottom to support and control me.

"Channing, I'm dying. Would you please do something?" 

Immediately obliging, his tongue trails the wet sensitive flesh, exploring each soft petal with agonizing thoroughness and probing my opening with the firm tip. Beneath me, he gently snakes one finger between my rounded cheeks and lightly strokes my puckered rear hole. An overwhelming rush of taboo pleasure crashes over me and all my body goes rigid, too stunned to move. Knotting my fingers in the bedsheets, I spread my legs wider for him, gasp and then moan, my head thrashing.

With astounding expertise, his tongue tickles my hooded happy button with exactly the right amount of pressure to send wave after thrilling wave of sparking pleasure through me. But he always stops as I near the explosive threshold of release, returning to the frustrating torturous dance of teasing me somewhere else. His finger lingers at my backside, circling, teasing, pressing, finally entering as I shudder and groan. Instantly, he withdraws, leaving me gasping at the feeling of emptiness and eager for the next time he enters, probing deeper into the sultry forbidden entrance with each retreat and return.

Barely able to move at the sheer volume of sensations he’s flooding through me, I shudder and shake, frustrated, impatient, chafing at his control over us both.

As if recognizing me crumbling to pieces, Channing rolls to my side. He plants his palms and heels and drags himself into a semi-reclined position against the pillows, his head and chiseled chest propped up on his elbows beneath him. “Come on then,” he urges in a low seductive growl, his eyes focused on me like a hungry predator tracks game. That scarred brow flicks up, just once. “Come and get it.”

Exhaling in a relieved and stunned gasp, I roll to my belly. It’s only once I’m there I realize the sheer volume of energy he’s sapped by withholding what I so desperately need. With a supreme effort, I get my hands and knees beneath me without relinquishing his deep blue eyes. They’ve gone nearly black since the pupils are so widely dilated and their white-blue alpha whorls are crashing into one another in his feral frenzy.

I crawl up those gorgeous muscular legs of his, prepared to mount him like a cowgirl.

And then—God damn him for real—Channing stops me.

The lights flicker as my fury draws upon their energy and the room dims noticeably.

Except between us.

His eyes locked with mine are fierce, the white-blue alpha glow growing painfully brighter, like the white-hot flash when magnesium burns. Just as intense, the pale yellow sodium glow of the technomage fires back at him, illuminating every sculpted line and bulge of his beautiful body.

He reaches out, stroking my hair and then cups the back of my head, pressing it downward.

“Channing Stark,” I hiss wrathfully, my eyes locked on his, “I absolutely loathe you right now.”

His scarred eyebrow flicks, then a lazy smile curls his lips.

I’m pretty sure—no, I take that back—I’m absofuckinglutely positive that he has no idea how close he is to becoming buck-naked werewolf toast right now, no matter how damn pretty he is. And he would be, if he hadn’t driven me to such a heightened state of arousal that I’m not sure I wouldn’t go supernova and the clean-up crew would be scrubbing that smug smile of his off the ceiling for a week.

He’s going to pay. Oh how he’s going to pay.

Indignantly, I open my mouth and accept his hard shaft, my hands cupping him at the rigid base. He presses gently at the back of my head, pushing me past the point of comfort. His fingers fist in my hair when we both feel him at the back of my throat.

“Oh, yeah.” His sighing moan is raw with the pleasure that rolls off him and into me in pulsing waves. “Like that. Keep doing it like that.”

Like that? Brace yourself, beefcake. It’s about to be a bumpy ride.

I swallow around him and dip lower, taking the entire enormous length of him in my mouth. His violent curse is also a strangled moan, and the hand knotted in my hair trembles slightly. Though he gives me little choice but to comply, guiding my head up and down his rigid member, his hips are jerking to me in little involuntary thrusts and the sensitive sack at his base is tightening in my gently kneading hands.

The heat between my legs throbs with each stroke. I desperately want him inside me, but not as much as I want my vengeance. Dangle pleasure before me like some kind of prize, will you? We’ll just see about that, Channing Stark.

I don’t know when during the process his hand releases my hair, and with it’s mirror opposite, gently cups my head, desperate for something to hold onto. Fully reclined beneath me, he twitches, struggling for control so he doesn’t disappoint me and shame himself, but even the body of a werewolf has its limitations.

Snarling, I struggle against him as he pulls me off, trying to take him back in my mouth. A soft string of curses escapes him. Lightning fast, he grabs me under the arms, physically positioning me over his throbbing member.

We both groan loudly as I slide over him, wet and welcoming. The fierce aching inside me recedes, stretched and filled with his hot hard girth. Channing waits, his hands tenderly caressing my hips, as I wiggle, adjusting my position to settle onto him exactly right. 

The languid fluid rhythm between us is so. damn. good. As I perch above him, his clever fingers return to my breasts, fondling and pinching their aroused tips, driving me to a higher frenzy.

With one hand, he caresses down my belly, his fingers slipping between my legs to help me.

I gasp, stunned again at all the clever things he can do with those fingers. My movements slow to rocking and I plant my palms on those divine abs of his, letting his gifted fingers manage the rest. Between my hips, my core clenches tighter as the pleasure climbs toward its precarious peak, hovers agonizingly, then tips me into the shattering abyss. I shudder, twitching and spasming around the groaning Channing. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? As it overwhelms me, I no longer know.

When I collapse onto his chest, he wraps his arms around me, holding me firmly in place as he thrusts up repeatedly. I gasp, the sound catching in my throat, as another wave of pleasure surges between us. Clinging to him, trembling and exhausted, I ride Channing’s rising tsunami, then cry out with him as he spills himself, hot and thick, inside me. I slump in an exhausted heap astride him, luxuriating in the tingling afterglow.  

“Jesus, Jericho,” he pants, his exhalations stirring my hair. “This just keeps getting better and better.” The lights flicker around us, and I feel rather than see as he twists his neck, trying to grasp what’s happening.

Payback, big fella. Payback.

“Jerich—aaah!”

Beneath me he jerks rigidly as the jolt of a cattle prod surges through him. His hands clench painfully about my upper arms, but I’ll heal.

That was worth the tiny amount of pain. Well worth it.

“What the hell was that for!?” he snaps as I lift myself to a sitting position atop him. “Are you crazy!?”

I shrug, then fix him with a bland stare. “Might be. It’d be your fault, of course, for teasing me to within an inch of my sanity about a zillion times then leaving me hanging.”

His fine mouth gapes, then the corners curl and that single dimple cuts deep into his cheek. “Did you just punish me?”

What. A. Smug. Brat.

“Consider it a warning shot across the bow.” I ease my exhausted body up and off of him, rolling onto the pillows at his side in a boneless heap. “The way I see it, if we’re truly partners, then if you’re alpha, I’m alpha. Don’t get so carried away again. I almost didn’t enjoy it.”

Channing rolls up onto his elbow so he can look down into my face. I’m expecting to see him angry. Instead, he looks like a lovesick puppy. His free hand cups one breast for a few seconds, then makes a beeline for command central between my legs, his gaze following. “I can fix it if you didn’t enjoy it,” he growls seductively, fingers stroking the still swollen and hypersensitive damp flesh he finds there.

Covering his hand with mine, I make him still. “Right now, I’m hungry, and whatever you cooked smelled heavenly. How about you fix that first?”