Claimed by Alpha Price

Chapter 05

He’s down to a pale-blue silk dress shirt, jacket left somewhere behind in the main office. The top buttons are open, giving me a clear view of smooth, tanned skin stretched over hard muscle. I don’t need to touch it to know how solid it would feel under my hands.

What really steals the air from my lungs and sends an embarrassing rush of wetness between my legs is the way he’s looking at me.

Like he wants to eat me alive. The tension between us is thick enough to choke on.

I can’t look away.

His nostrils flare. “You smell…”

My face goes cold.

Is he saying I stink?

“I’m sorry,” I manage, voice thin. “It was boiling on the way in this morning.” I want to crawl into a hole and die. I’ve never been this mortified.

Frustration flashes across his face, followed by something sharper. “That’s not what I meant. I can smell” He cuts himself off, shakes his head, and takes a step closer.

I retreat automatically. Whatever he thinks he smells, I don’t want him getting a stronger dose of it.

“I hoped,” he murmurs, almost to himself, “but I didn’t dare count on it.”

Yuck. Does he have some kind of weird thing for body odor? Instant turn-off. I give a tiny shake of my head.

“What?” he asks, sharp.

“Nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing.” Another step forward.

I take one back and nearly swear when my shoulders hit the wall. Cornered. He closes the last of the space, and with that face inches from mine every thought about strange fetishes evaporates. All I can do is try not to hyperventilate.

God, he’s hot.

God, God, God, he’s hot.

He dips his head and brushes his nose through my loose hair. “You left it down. Why?”

It takes a second for the questionand everything behind itto register.

“I… couldn’t find the elastic,” I stammer, words tripping over how tightly wound I am. He lifts a strand, brings it to his mouth, and closes his eyes like he’s tasting something rare. My knees go soft.

Another fetish?

“You smell incredible.”

Oh. So that’s what he meant earlier. Not that I reeked. That I smelled good.

His mouth drifts lower, nuzzling the side of my neck, drawing in another slow breath. “So good,” he says, almost reverent, and inhales again.

It feels like worship. The idea that this man wants me this badly rips a soft moan out of me. He’s too close, too intense, too everything. My body arches toward him before I can stop it.

“Maya.”

My name in that voice snaps the last of the chains.

My arms wind around his neck at the same moment he pulls me flush against him. His mouth claims mine in a deep, open, unapologetically hungry kiss. Tongues meet, tangle, chase. His hands dig into my backside and haul me tighter; I groan into his mouth when I feel the hard, thick length of him pressing against me, pulsing. It’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever experienced.

I want to throw every rule I’ve ever made out the window and let him take me right here on the bathroom floor. I’ve never felt anything like this. I finally get why women beg.

I should push him away. That would be the smart, decent move. I can’t. He’s too much. My first real hit of lust is already addictive. My hands roam, and I can’t stop the sound I make when my fingers finally sink into that short, soft hair.

He never stops kissing me. He knows exactly when to gentleness and when to roughen it, lips and tongue working together until my head spins and my body goes pliant. Sculptor and clay. The spell is so strong my thoughts slide from sensible to pure cheese.

A lightheaded wave hits me.

He breaks the kiss with a low curse. “Breathe, Maya.”

I blink, dazed, then drag in huge lungfuls of air when I realize what happened.

Awkward.

And revealing.

I literally forgot to breathe while he was kissing me. When I look up, his expression is a mix of amusement and something softer.

“I was right,” he says, eyes openly possessive as they travel over my face. I force myself to keep inhaling when an unexpected, tender smile curves his mouth and softens the sharp beauty of his face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smilenot in any of the hundreds of photos online. I would’ve remembered.

“You’re unbelievable,” he murmurs, thumb tracing my lower lip. Another smile. Two in a row. That unguarded, sensual curve turns my brain to mush. The tabloids would kill for a shot like this.

“I need something from you,” he says, voice dropping husky again.

“Y-you do?” Hard to think with him looking at me like that and his erection still pressed hard against me.

“You’re the only one who can give it to me.”

Oh, hell. He had me at “you’re.” The heat in his gaze makes my already-soaked panties even wetter. Shick. I’m pathetic.

“I need you, Maya,” he whispers.

“For what?” I whisper back.

His eyes lock on mine, bright and fierce. “Say you’ll marry me.”

The flash of pure fury on Maya’s face only stoked the fire higher. She would make a spectacular princessand one day an even more spectacular queen. Fire and ice. Rare. Royal.

The angry sway of her hips as she shoved him back and stalked out of the washroom was hypnotic. He wanted to catch those hips, hold them still, tear the skirt away, rip the panties off, and drive into her until she was shaking and begging for harder, faster, deeper.

He’d expected the misunderstanding. He’d studied every corner of her life, every quiet detail of her personality, because he refused to choose wrong.

His kind mated for life. There were ways to sever a bond, but he had no interest in them. Failure was not a word he allowed near his name.