© Amber Kalkes 2014
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"Dig Me Out" By Sleater-Kinney
< T E N >
You never really realize the many shapes one can see in wood until your forced to look at it for almost an hour. Usually I am not one to simply stare into space, or a wall in this case. I like being busy and doing something and despite appearances I guess I am actually doing something right now. I am trying to play dead.
I woke up a bit ago to the bizarre sensation of something being wrapped around me like a vine. Peeking my eyes open I found that the something was in fact a large blonde werewolf dead asleep with his head on my chest and his arms wrapped around my waist. I was frozen and nearly an hour later I still am.
I don’t want to make this awkward by making a big deal but also a big part of me doesn’t want him to move. That pleasurable prickling is happening across my skin that seems to only happen when he touches me but also this feeling of rightness is also settling in me that also makes waking him up seem impossible. Instead, I do something I would never of thought I would do in a million years.
I run my fingers through his hair, just like I’ve been itching to do.
It probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to you and to most I’m sure it wouldn’t but it shouldn’t surprise you that I’m messed up. Displays of affection are not my forte in any sense. Most of the touches I’ve felt in my life have been harsh and most of the time the idea of others touching me makes my skin crawl. I could probably Google something about some trauma-based phobia to explain it all but who has the time and besides I have something way more interesting to focus on.
Jack’s hair is just as thick and soft as I imagined it would be. It’s honey blonde strands, lighter it seems in the early morning sun, look so beautifully contrasted to the sun kissed skin of my hand. The hair tickles the sensitive skin between my fingers and I’m so caught up in the sensation that I don’t notice Jack’s awaking up until he groans into my chest.
Quickly I remove my hand and close my eyes, trying my best to make fake sleep look convincing. Jack slide up my body until I could feel his breathe tickle my eyelashes and the bed dip beside my head. Then I gave myself away. When I felt the approach of something towards my face I flinch making both of us freeze. Knowing that I’ve given myself away I slowly open my eyes only to meet a pair of intense ice blue ones staring right back at me.
“Hi.” I whisper, feeling the tension in the air.
Jack’s brows furrow as he continues to look at me, “Your bruises look better.”
“Do they?”
I internally curse as my voice comes out in a husky whisper. I can’t help it. He’s so close to me, his apparently natural scent of dark soil and rain filling my head and making it swirl with all kinds of dirty thought. God, he really needs to back away from me before I just push him on his back and have my way with him.
Jack lifts his hand slowly and with a deliberate caution towards my face. His expression lets me know what he’s planning to do and in preparation I lock all my joints. My breathing becomes harsher the closer his fingers get to me until the callused tips make contact with the skin of my healing cheek. Any soreness that I may have been feeling immediately fades into the background as I close my eyes, letting the sensation of it sink in.
“I want to kill him for doing this to you.” Jack says hoarsely as his fingertips glide their way towards my bruised eye. I close my eyes and let him soothe the bruised flesh. “Wren, open your eyes.”
I do as I’m told.
“I would never hurt you. I would never raise a hand to you in anger. I would never cause you harm like this. Do you believe me?”
My head is screaming no but my gut is saying something else. I bite my lower lip, nearly all the way healed now and nod once. Jack’s expression melts from one of sincerity to one of relief as he lets out a breath as his body relaxes against mine. Again he moves slowly as he dips his head towards mine.
“I’m going to kiss you now.” He warns me. “Is that okay?”
“Yes.”
His lips are mine in an instant. The brief lip lock in the motel was like a granny kiss compared to this one. My toes curl and my hands lock into his hair as he tenderly holds my face in his hands. His fingers caress my cheekbone and I moan a bit when his tongue comes out to smear his taste on my lower lip. Everything is just so amplified and oddly enough I start to shake.
He pulls back abruptly to look down at me, “Too much?”
“Why does it feel like this?”
“It’s the mating pull.”
“What are you talking about wolf man?”
Jack smirks a bit, “The mating pull. It’s why you feel so drawn to me and me to you. It’s supposed to help us skip all the boring human uncertainty and get to the forever part of our relationship. Of course marking you has probably made it more intense for you.”
I lift an eyebrow, “But not for you?”
“It’s been intense for me since day one.” He tells me softly, “You can’t imagine how hard it is for me not to touch you.”
“Speaking of which. Do you feel the…prickles?”
He frowns a bit. “Prickles?”
“Yeah like the goosebumps and the weird feeling on your skin when we touch.”
His face lights up with understanding after a second, “Oh that. Yes, it’s…well to put it bluntly it’s the sexual tension.”
“I’m sorry?” I say flatly.
Jack clears his throat and gives me a sheepish smile, “It’s the sexual tension. Its another part of the mating pull.”
“So if we fuck it’ll fade?”
Jack’s eyes double in size making me want to laugh, “Jesus, Wren!”
“What?”
“Don’t say it like that!”
“What?” I ask completely caught off guard by his reddened face. The man is twenty-six for shit’s sake. Why is he getting all flustered over something so everyday? “Why are you being so uptight about this?”
“I’m not uptight.” He nearly snaps shooting me a sullen look.
I roll my eyes at him, “Okay your not uptight. Happy?”
“No.”
“Well shit.” I sigh, “Tell me how to make you happy then.”
“Don’t call it that.”
“Don’t call what, what?”
“When we do mate it won’t be fucking, Wren. It’ll be making love.”
I groan and shake my head, “Tomato, Tamato, Jack. Seriously.”
“No, it isn’t. Calling it that is just cheapening it.”
“It’s just a term.” I tell him seriously starting to get confused why he’s pressing this issue so hard. If I knew it was going to be a full on argument I would have just kept my mouth shut. Jeeze.
He shakes his head and lays a distracting caress on my cheek again, “I know. I just don’t want you to think it won’t mean anything to me. You are my forever, Wren.”
I squirm a bit under him, “This is all getting really serious, really fast.”
“I know.” He says smiling softly. “But you need to know how I feel about you. For me there will be no one else.”
A bit more of my icy heart melts at his words making me want to cry and hug him like any other joyful girl but I don’t. Instead I just lean up and give him a little peck on the cheek. I linger there long enough to get a good lung full of his scent before pulling back to study his reaction. Is it too little? Will he think I’m being a prude?
A grin splits across his face, “Thank you.”
Um…what?
“Huh?”
“Thank you.” He breathes.
“For what?”
He shrugs slightly. “Being you, I guess.”
Cute. It’s cheesy but cute.
“Well. Likewise, I guess.”
“You guess.” He scoffs.
“Whatever.” I drawl with an eye roll. “Now get off me I have to get ready to talk to your ex-fuck buddy.”
He winces at my lovely word choice, “God your brutal.”
“I prefer the terms honest or straight forward. Now release the chew toy and go back to your side of the bed like a good boy.”
“I’m not a dog.” He says flatly as he rolls off me.
“And I’m not interested in any of your logic so early in the morning.” I tell him before doing my own ninja roll off the bed. Jumping to my feet I glance over my shoulder to see Jack laying there shirtless and looking all too tempting for his own good. Forcing myself to focus I quickly escape into the bathroom with his chuckle following after me.
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I am so fucking nervous.
I keep bouncing my leg and chewing on my nails as I try too keep myself from bolting at the next given opportunity. Jack suggested we do this whole meeting thing in private and though the move is a smart one it has me even more nervous. So here I am with Jack sitting beside me in the closed off dining room in the mega mansion sweating bullets. This has to be on of the dumbest things I have ever agreed to in my life.
Okay maybe not. But it’s up there!
Jack’s hand clamps down on my bouncing leg, “Calm down. It’ll be fine.”
“Why are you not nervous?” I demand narrowing my eyes at him, “You should be shitting your pants right now.”
“I am nervous. I’m just better at hiding it than you.”
“Well stop.”
He chuckles before kissing my cheek, “You’ll be fine. Lily isn’t some psycho. She’s a normal understanding woman.”
“As if I wasn’t feeling inadequate enough.” I grumble before letting my head slump onto the long cheery wood dining table. “This was a bad idea.”
“It’ll be fine.” He soothes, rubbing my back. “You’re being dramatic.”
“Oh go fuck yourself.”
“Why would I when I can have you do it?” He asks innocently.
My jaw drops and he begins to grin. “Why you little—“
“Jack?”
I snap my head off the table and straighten my back in my chair. A blonde cheerful head catches my eye as it leans in through the door to grin at Jack. She gives me a fleeting glance before walking all the way through the door and I instantly wish I wore something more…feminine.
Lily, the dreaded ex, is wearing a navy and white striped knee length pencil skirt, a white tucked in dress shirt and a navy blazer on top. Her long golden hair is perfectly wavy and brushes her breasts making me want to pull on my own spikey brown pieces of hair nervously. She walks like a model on the runway on her matching white high heels as she saunters into the room.
“You look all dressed up.” Jack observes.
Lily smiles sheepishly at him, “I had a morning meeting.”
A meeting? Oh this just keeps getting better and better.
“Lily is a lawyer for one of the neighboring packs.” Jack informs me casually.
I plaster on a fake smile, “Well that just great.”
Lily’s dark blonde eyebrows lift as she purses her lips at my obviously fake tone. “Yes well, Jack mentioned you wanted to speak with me this morning so I didn’t stop home to change.”
“Understandable.” I nod. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
“Sure.” She smiles, a bit tightly before sliding into a seat across from Jack and I. She folds her hands before her primly before lifting her hazel eyes to pin me with a curious stare. “So what did you want to talk about?”
“I assume you are aware of what I am to Jack.” I begin.
She nods once, “Yes. Jack mentioned you but it wasn’t until yesterday and with Brandon’s conformation did I have a face to match the name.”
“So you had a clue who I was yesterday then?”
She snorts, “It took me a minute but after seeing that you were wearing his clothes and the way he ran after you it wasn’t too hard to figure out.”
“Great. Then there’s no confusion on that front.”
“Is that what I’m here for?” Lily asks, a bit snidely. “To confirm that I’m not going to try to come in and try to steal him from you?”
I scoff, “Please. I’m not that insecure. I just want to make sure you understand that after this day if I ever see you even breathe on him in a way I don’t like I’ll rearrange that pretty little face of yours.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Absolutely.”
She turns to Jack who is as tense as a two-by-four beside me with a pissed off look on her face, “Is this seriously what you asked me here for? To deal with your emotionally immature mate?”
My blood boils but Jack’s hand starts caressing my arm making me stay in my seat. Which for her is a good thing because currently I’m just dying to smash my fists into her uppity little bone structure.
“Lily, She has a right to be concerned. We were in a serious relationship for a long stretch of time. You would want the same thing.” He reasons.
“No I wouldn’t, Jack. I would take your past like a grown woman.” She snaps before getting to her feet, “If this is what you have to deal with I wish you all the luck in the world.”
I stand up from my chair and lay my hands down on the table as I lean forward. Lily’s now narrowed eyes zero in on me and I watch her straighten herself, trying to appear unaffected. Sucking my teeth I smirk at her and make sure to put on my most unsettling look as I address her.
“You have no idea how much control I’m exercising right now, Lily.” I tell her lowly, “But with respect to your relationship to Jack I’ll try to contain any violent tendencies I have towards you right now to deliver this message. If you ever disrespect me again and I mean in any form, I will come for you without mercy. I will show you what its like to feel fear and I will make you think twice the next time you start shooting your mouth off. Am I understood?”
Lily’s eyes go wide and I see her step back a bit from me. She looks over at Jack apparently for help but soon speaks, again directly to him. “She’ll make a good Beta Female, Jack.”
“I know.” The pride in his voice is as clear as a bell.
“At least you’ll have that.”
I don’t even think about it. I lunge. Jack grabs both of my upper arms as I try in vain to get to wring her skinny little neck. She stumbles back with a small squeal before bolting out the door and presumably out of the house. My breathing is harsh as I struggle against Jack’s hold. I want to fuck her up so bad I’m shaking with the need.
“Calm down.” He whispers in my ear as he pulls me closer to his chest. “Take deep breathes and calm down.”
I do as he asks and about five minutes later I’m still pissed but no longer murderous. Realizing this Jack loosens his grip on my arms and instead wraps his arms around my waist as he nuzzles my neck. I let him because it just relaxes me more and I lean into him making him hold me just a bit tighter.
“For your benefit I’m going to assume the attraction was purely physical.”
Jack chuckles as he moves his nose up the side of my neck, “She had her moments.”
“What was she saying about Beta Females?” I ask as a way to distract myself.
Jack stiffens behind me before sighing, “I was hoping you’d ignore that for now.”
“Well tough shit.”
“Fine.” He mutters before taking a deep breath, “You know how I mentioned that I don’t live with this pack?”
“Yes.”
“Well that’s because it’s by choice.”
I turn my head to look at him, “Explain.”
“I was ten when my father died. My mom only hung on a few years after him, they both had me pretty late in life and she was always a bit sickly. I was on my own by thirteen and I wasn’t even sure that there were other people like me out there. Then one night when I was on a run in the woods I ran into Brandon. We fought since I was a rogue and he was on patrol at the time.”
“Wait. What the hell is a rogue?”
“It’s a pack-less wolf.”
“Oh.”
“Can I continue now?” He asks as I feel his grin against my neck.
I roll my eyes but smile a bit, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll shut up.”
“Good.” He nods. “Now I didn’t realize it until the fight was over that the Alpha was watching the whole thing. I also didn’t realize that Brandon was his son. See, in our culture the title of Alpha is passed from father to son when he can prove he’s is strong enough by challenging the former Alpha.”
“So, Brandon is Alpha in training?”
Jack nips my ear lobe making me yelp, “I thought you weren’t going to interrupt.”
“Well sorry.” I drawl.
“Apology accepted.” He says before sitting in one of the dining table chairs and making me sit in his lap. He wraps his arms more securely around my waist before beginning again. “But yes, Brandon is a Alpha in training. The current Alpha allowed me to stay with the pack though, seeing I had some natural fighting skill. He allowed me to train and being among his pack but I was never formally accepted into the pack.”
“So what does this have to do with you living away from them?”
“Well I wasn’t part of the pack but I needed to be kept close enough to be kept an eye on for security reasons. Unofficially Brandon has chosen me to be his Beta and until he takes helm of the pack and I am still not made an official member of the pack I choose to live separate from them. It eases tension and besides I grew up in a human atmosphere. I wasn’t used to pack life.”
“But you said that the gene was random.”
“It is.” Jack confirms. “Brandon isn’t the Alpha’s blood son. He’s more like adopted or a chosen heir.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“So, if we do this, I’m going to be Beta female?”
“Yes and what do you mean ‘if’?”
I smirk at him, “Gotta keep you on your toes, Cowboy.”
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So I hoped this explained some stuff for you guys about Jack's positon in the pack. It's a lot to take in but If you have any questions feel free to shoot them my way. What did you guys think of the 'Lily, the dreaded ex'? Did Wren overreact? Did you like the cute little moment between her and Jack in the beginning?
Your comments make me geek out like every time. No joke.
VOTE, COMMENT AND FOLLOW :}
P.S: I have another werewolf story out and going called: The Forgotten. If your looking for a fix between updates for this go and check it out and don't forget to send the love!
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