Chapter 6 - RAYLYNN

I don't notice his presence as I walk out of the bathroom until I hear a low growl that makes me whip my head to the door.

“Alpha?”

My grip on the towel tightens as Zephyr steps away from the door. The click of the lock has my heart thumping harder as my stomach dips.

For every step he takes, I take one back until my legs hit the edge of my bed. His eyes rove down from my neck to where the towel ends just a few inches from my centre.

He moves into my space, his hard body meeting my soft one. His darkened gaze meets mine as his knuckles trace from behind my ear down to my cleavage where the towel starts.

“Tell me to leave,” his husky voice sends treacherous tingles down my body. “Tell me to stop.”

I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. His touch feels like being pulled into a fire knowing you'll get burned but you can't stop because the warmth feels too good to pull away from.

“Tell me I'm too old for you,” his lips brush my ear as his hands hold my waist. He kisses my neck, causing me to gasp in pleasure.

“A-a-alpha,” I struggle to form a coherent sentence. “Don’t do that, please.”

“Don't do what?” He kisses his way down to the top of the towel. 

“I–I–can’t… push you away.”

He raises his head to look at me, his eyes wanton. “Then stop seducing me.”

“I'm not.”

“You're aroused.” His eyes don't leave mine as his fingers find my thong. “Everytime I'm near you. Did you think I couldn't tell?”

“I–I–you—” My voice comes out in gasps as his fingers find my nub.

“You're a little minx, do you know that?” His other fingers find my ass, squeezing them, and pressing me into his rock hard erection. “This is what you do to me.”

My hands reach up and clutch his shirt like the lifeline they are because my legs have lost all strength. He lowers his face to mine, his fingers still teasing, until all that's left is a hair's breadth between our lips.

“You're not going to pull away?” Before I can work out an answer, his lips crash to mine, like a viscous wave to shore. His tongue invades my mouth with zero resistance from me.

I'm weak for him, and he knows it.

This kiss, it's everything I've dreamed of. But it's not enough, and my body wants more.

I can't stop moaning as his palm gripping my ass pushes me deeper into him, the other tugging my hair to allow him more access to my mouth.

“Mine,” he growls low into my ear and my eyes fly open.

I sit up to realise I'm in bed, drenched in sweat, in an unfamiliar room that some part of my brain recognises to be the guest room in Zephyr's house as I stare around.

I just had a steamy dream about Zephyr. In his guest room. My lungs exhale shakily as my feet find the floor.

This is bad. I just got here and I'm already dreaming about him. I have to get my head straight if I'm to stay in his house especially with his study just a door away from me.

My phone next to me reads 4.08 AM, which gives me some weird relief as the chances of someone smelling my arousal is down to zero.

Grabbing a sensible pair of indigo straight leg jeans, a black knit top and my underwear, I head straight to shower. 

If I'm to earn my place and work next to Zephyr as well as live in his house, dreams like that cannot happen again.

♣♣♣

By the time Martha walks in through the back door, I've got fresh cookies cooling in a tray, and some architectural drawings spread across the counter.

"Raylynn."

"Good morning."

"What time did you wake up?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"That's not what I asked."

I slide a cookie onto a plate and push it toward her. She looks at it. Looks at me.

"You're supposed to be resting," she says.

"I'm fine. Try one."

She picks it up. Takes a bite. Her eyes close for exactly three seconds.

"Oh, that's unfair," she says, still chewing. "You can't bake like this and expect people to be cross with you."

"I wasn't trying to make anyone cross."

"You woke up in the middle of the night and stress-baked instead of sleeping," she says, taking another bite, "and you made them perfect, which is the most annoying part." She points at me with the remaining cookie. "Next time, sleep."

"Yes, Miriam."

"I mean it."

"I know."

She takes a third cookie from the tray with absolutely no shame and starts unpacking her bag, still shaking her head.

Ivy comes down soon after, running to the cookies.

"Please tell me those are yours."

"Good morning to you too."

She is already at the tray. "I dreamed about your snickerdoodles last night. I genuinely dreamed about them." She picks one up and takes a bite before she has fully sat down.

I pour her a mug of tea and push it across the counter and turn back to my drawings.

"What are those?" she says.

"Preliminary sketches. I'm working through a load-bearing wall problem for my thesis project."

"At seven thirty in the morning?"

"I woke up early."

The kitchen door opens. Zephyr walks in, dressed in a black tight fitting tee and black joggers.

His eyes find me and I nod at him, “Good morning sir.”

“Morning.”

Ivy glances up at him then she looks back down at her mug without greeting him.

"Raylynn made cookies," Ivy says, without looking up. "You're welcome."

He crosses to the counter, picks one up, and takes a bite. His moan is low and it lasts less than a second. But it's enough for my face to heat up from my jaw to my hairline.

I turn back to my drawings and pick up my pencil and think about the load-bearing wall problem with enormous focus.

One. One. Two. Three. Five. Eight…

"These are good," he says.

"Thank you," I say, to my drawings.

Thirteen. Twenty-one. Thirty-four…

"Miriam."

"Already on my third," she says serenely, from the other side of the kitchen.

He takes a second cookie, which I do not look at, and sits at the end of the island.

"I need to explain the situation properly," he says. "Both of you. Miriam, join us please."

Ivy looks up, I put my pencil down, and Miriam hands Zephyr a mug which he wraps both hands around.

"Voss submitted a formal withdrawal from the Northgate project three days ago," he says. "Northgate is a community housing development on the northern pack border — shared housing for families living between pack territories. It's been three years in planning."

"And he pulled out because of me," Ivy says flatly.

"He pulled out because he is a sore loser who needed an excuse," Zephyr says. "You gave him one. There's a difference."

Ivy says nothing.

"We have a new partner signed as of yesterday morning," he continues. "The project moves forward. Voss no longer has any stake in it, any influence over it, or any professional reason to be in contact with this pack."

"So it's over," I say.

"The business side is over." He sets his mug down. "Voss isn't. A man like that doesn't absorb a loss quietly, especially not in front of his daughter. Sending those men after you yesterday—" he pauses, "—that wasn't strategy. That was a message."

"What kind of message?" Ivy says.

"That he can reach people close to me." He looks at her steadily. "Which means both of you stay here until I'm satisfied the threat is neutralised. That's not a discussion."

Ivy opens her mouth. Closes it. Stares at her mug.

"Okay," she says, quietly, which tells me more about how frightened she actually is than anything else she has said in the last twenty-four hours.

The quiet of the kitchen is broken by the buzzing of my phone. An email notification. I open it, read the first line:

“Dear Ms Hale, following a review of your submitted portfolio by our senior architectural team, we are pleased to confirm your placement with Blackwood Group's internship programme—”

I look up. Zephyr is already looking at me.

"The panel reviewed your portfolio independently last night," he says. "Their words, not mine, were that it was the strongest submission in the current cycle." He picks up his coffee. "You start Monday."

I stare at him.

"I didn't — there was no second interview—"

"Your work spoke for itself." He holds my gaze. "It usually does."

I look back down at the email. Read the first line again. Then the second.

"Congratulations," Miriam says, already putting another cookie on my plate.

"Congrats, Ray," Ivy says, her smile reaching all the way to her tired eyes.

I press my lips together.

"Thank you," I say, to all three of them, to the email, to the counter.

"One more thing," Zephyr says.

I look up.

"Given the current situation, you'll be riding with me to work until further notice. I leave at seven thirty. That works with your schedule."

It is not a question.

"Yes," I say.

"Good."

He finishes his coffee, takes a third cookie, and stands up.

"Starting tomorrow," he says, already walking out of the kitchen, “you girls would join me for daily self-defence training. Be up by six thirty, and not a second later.”

He disappears down the hall, leaving Ivy unable to retort, while I'm staring at my drafts.

I am going to be in a car with him every morning. In his building all day. In his house every evening. Fifteen metres down the hall from his bedroom every night.

I pick up my pencil.

I am going to need a lot of Fibonacci sequences.