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Breakthroughs
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2024-10-31 14:06:21Related chapters
The Alpha's Warlock Closing the Distance
Chapter 16 Closing the DistanceI’d been lying there wretchedly wide awake for long enough for the birds to start chirping outside when I heard the couch creak, its springs and frame protesting Colin’s densely-muscled weight.And then the floor creaked too. My bedroom door opened with a quiet squeak of hinges.I tensed, hoping Colin hadn’t come in to restart the fight about Meredith…or to tell me he was leaving.But he didn’t say anything at all. A gust of cold air hit my back as he lifted up the blankets, and then the bed dipped as he climbed in behind me.Now we had a literal gap between us, as well as figurative—and that couple of inches of space felt like miles. I couldn’t feel anything but the air between us, fraught with…I didn’t even know what, but it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and froze my lungs, making me hold my breath.We’d never cuddled before, even in that one-man tent. We’d lain down back to back, taking turns describing the way the tent walls looked
Last Updated : 2024-10-31The Alpha's Warlock Adjusting the Variables
Chapter 17 Adjusting the VariablesStaggering out of bed that afternoon, it felt like I’d been on a week-long bender. My mouth was like a desert, and my stomach was collapsing in on itself from hunger. And I was sticky, sore, strange all over—like being in someone else’s body.Colin had disappeared, and my room felt weird and abandoned. Too quiet, even though the usual sounds of a Sunday afternoon in an apartment building carried through the window and walls. Kids shouting outside. The slam of a car door. Someone running a leaf blower in the distance. I glanced at the phone I’d left on my bedside table. Nearly four P.M., ugh. I hated sleeping all day.The phlebotomy kit sat next to my phone, and I winced. Shit, I’d forgotten to draw blood.As exhausted as I’d been, it wasn’t surprising, but still. Hopefully the sample I took now would still be useful.I shied away from thinking about what I’d been doing instead of focusing on my research. The way I’d behaved…nope, not going there. N
Last Updated : 2024-10-31The Alpha's Warlock Tied Up in Knots
Chapter 18 Tied Up in KnotsI didn’t broach the subject of the magical straps and cuffs for nearly twenty-four hours. In the meantime, they lurked in my closet, the bright green plastic shopping bag seeming to gaze at me malevolently when I had to open the door to get a dress shirt for work in the morning.And Colin had me on edge, too, paradoxically because he’d been so goddamn normal.It was like our fourth experiment had never happened. He’d never climbed into bed with me, fucked me, knotted me, and lain there with me while I fell asleep with his cock still inside me.He acted like he always had: smiling, laughing, poking fun at me, hanging out on the couch and snacking, complaining about his pack council, and playing dumb games on his phone. No following me around—he barely stirred when I left the house for my morning class, just grunting and waving his fingers at me.And he certainly hadn’t spent the night in my bed again. He’d been already lying on the couch when I came home f
Last Updated : 2024-10-31The Alpha's Warlock No Tax Write-Off Is Worth This
Chapter 19 No Tax Write-Off Is Worth ThisMy mouth covered his for a long moment, just enough to feel the heat of him and the shocking softness of his lips, before he jerked his head back like he’d been electrocuted, leaving me open-mouthed and blinking down at him in shock.“Don’t,” he said hoarsely. “Newt, don’t do that!”I couldn’t possibly have been more flushed, sweatier, or wider-eyed than I already was. Maybe he wouldn’t see the signs on my face of the crushing, squeezing, agonizing pain that shot through my chest at the look on his.“Sorry,” I forced out through a throat that felt like he’d wrapped his hand around it again and choked me out. “I—sorry.”I turned away, desperate to escape, to run and hide—but I had nowhere to go. His knot held me in place as surely as those cuffs had held him, and if I tried to pull off of him I really would get ripped to pieces.Instead, I put my head back down and felt myself being ripped to pieces in a different way, facing away from him, s
Last Updated : 2024-10-31The Alpha's Warlock We Have It Handled
Chapter 20 We Have It HandledMeredith and I spent two hours hashing out a plan and working through all the possible permutations to make sure we hadn’t missed anything, but it couldn’t be put into action that night. For one thing, we both had some work to do creating a set of fake lab results and prepping some other documents, something she’d offered to do most of, since she had some bright ideas about how to falsify the data. For another, it all depended on my managing to be in the lab at the same time as Kyle. We had matching evil grins by the time we’d finished, though.Both of us were good at thinking through contingencies. And Meredith had a real gift for revenge, it turned out. She couldn’t stop chuckling and rubbing her hands together like a genuine villainous mastermind.Since she had actual work to do that didn’t involve plotting to take down a dastardly pharmaceutical executive and a lying, credit-stealing asshole grad student at one fell swoop, I reluctantly left the off
Last Updated : 2024-10-31The Alpha's Warlock Not a Trace
Chapter 21 Not a TraceI didn’t manage without him.Pretending only took me so far, and by the time I got home from work at the end of the day, I couldn’t keep up a front anymore.By early December, five weeks and four days (but who was counting) after Colin left for California, I’d still only managed to go to sleep in my bed four times, and each of those nights I ended up on the couch by the wee hours anyway.I’d bought a new mattress and thrown the old one away. The straps and cuffs went to the very back of my closet hidden in an old suitcase, because I couldn’t bear to throw those away—and you couldn’t exactly return, donate, or sell used sex toys. That ranked right up there with video chatting in a movie theater on the list of ways to go straight to hell.And I’d even moved the bed to the other side of the room, spending part of an afternoon shoving all the furniture around and completely rearranging.It didn’t matter.Nothing seemed to help. I’d almost stopped jerking off, beca
Last Updated : 2024-10-31The Alpha's Warlock That Plan Sucked
Chapter 22 That Plan SuckedColin manhandled me up the stairs and into the apartment, groping me and kissing my neck while I tried to get the door unlocked.Finally we tumbled through the door, and he slammed it behind us.For a moment, we stood staring at each other, eye to eye, both breathing like we’d been in a marathon.Colin took a step, slowly, his glowing eyes fixed intently on my face.He looked so good. He smelled so good, like rain and pines and alpha, and my mouth watered, my knees going weak.Screw it. He might still be all full of crazed mating hormones—he probably was, based on his behavior. But he’d stayed away so long…I was too weak to resist him. Too weak to follow my own better judgment.“Well?” I demanded. “What now? You showed up out of nowhere, you made me jerk off in your car, you’re—damn it, if you don’t get me spread open on your knot in the next five minutes I’m going to be the one hunting you down, and I’ll tie you up again if I have to—”He cut me off with
Last Updated : 2024-10-31The Alpha's Warlock Epilogue: I’ll Top Your List
Epilogue I’ll Top Your ListMeredith’s friend Tony called me in January, right after I got back from spending New Year’s with Colin’s pack. Colin had driven me home, and he’d spent one night in my apartment with me before he left again—a night that had probably scarred my neighbors for life.I had to invest in a decent gag, although I’d need to flip a coin to see who wore it. Maybe the awesome clerk at the adult store could help me figure it out.I answered the phone right as my coffee maker sputtered to a finish, and poured a cup as I said hello.A minute later, I dropped my cup, burned my toes, and let out a super unprofessional yelp.“Are you all right?” Tony asked. “Newton?”“Sorry, sorry,” I said, shaking off my coffee-soaked foot. “Just dropped—I’m fine. Did you really just say you’ve isolated a shifter healing enzyme? Seriously, for real?” Because that was incredible, world-altering, groundbreaking research—not to mention being potentially infinitely profitable, Nobel Prize-w
Last Updated : 2024-10-31
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The Alpha's Warlock Epilogue :You Don’t Want a Choice
EpilogueYou Don’t Want a Choice“Mr. Castelli,” Laura said, and smiled warmly. “Go right in. He’s never too busy for you.”“You know it’s Blake.” She shook her head, laughed, and went back to typing.I hadn’t yet given up on trying to convince Declan’s assistant that I didn’t deserve any particular formality; after nearly four months of trying, though, I’d started to fear it was hopeless.I set the double latte I’d grabbed on my way at the edge of her desk—if she insisted on calling me Mr. Castelli, I’d at least make sure she said it with affection—and stepped into Declan’s office.He glanced up from his laptop and then immediately back down again, which I knew meant “I’ll forget what I was typing if I don’t do it right now.” At first that’d hurt my feelings. Shades of being treated like an unwelcome and disliked inconvenience at Castelli Industries, of so many times I’d been called on the carpet in my father’s office only to be ignored until he deigned to notice me. But I knew it w
The Alpha's Warlock A Lucky Man
Chapter 21A Lucky ManIf I’d really tried, I might’ve been able to look at a calendar and count how many times Declan had laid me out on his bed, naked and waiting for him to take what he wanted.But I didn’t need to count to know that it’d never been like this.He settled me on my back, head carefully placed on a pillow, kneeling between my legs and leaning down to stroke a hand through my hair and down my cheek, coming to rest across my throat. Instead of a threat, it felt like safety.All right, a little bit of a threat.But that only had my cock perking up, getting harder every second that he pinned me down, glowing eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that would’ve had any sane man running away screaming.Or spreading his legs.I went with option two, letting my knees fall open to give him full access, my arms relaxed at my sides. Touching him—I wanted to, and I would. But right now I knew what he needed from me, and that was complete surrender, allowing him to re-stake his
The Alpha's Warlock Ten Years Ago
Chapter 20Ten Years AgoNo matter how many times I’d daydreamed about Declan kissing me, the reality far outstripped the fantasy—and how often could you say that about anything? His mouth took control of mine the same way his body had taken control of me so many times, opening me and tasting me and laying me bare for him to use however he wanted.Which happened to be what I wanted too, so badly that I ached for it. His tongue teased between my lips and twined with mine as his arms tightened, gathering me so close that not a millimeter of space was left in between us.Declan kissed me until I couldn’t breathe, my lungs hot and laboring. All the pain and fear of the last few hours melted away, a much better and more natural kind of magic than the ones I’d experienced so far tonight.I pressed against him, kissing him back with everything I had, trying to spread my legs and wrap myself around him and take him into me so that he’d never leave.Declan tore his mouth away and lifted his h
The Alpha's Warlock My Life Mattered
Chapter 19My Life MatteredWhen I woke up, the SUV was moving—but I couldn’t shift so much as a muscle. My head had gotten crammed against the door and my neck ached like a bitch. My arms lay limp, one dangling to the floor of the car and the other on my leg. I tried to twitch a finger.No go.I couldn’t open my eyes, either, or speak. My autonomous functions weren’t affected, though: I could still hyperventilate. Lucky me.Kidnapped. I’d been fucking kidnapped, and the first thing Declan would do would be call me. No doubt they’d gotten rid of my phone. Then he’d look for me. He wouldn’t find me. And then he’d probably request—and be allowed, professional courtesy and all that—to review the security footage of me leaving the party and the path I’d followed from there.For a brief, shining instant, I almost felt relieved. Declan would look for me, he’d see the video and know—despair squeezed my chest into a tight ball.He’d see me looking nervous and running out of the building as i
The Alpha's Warlock This Won’t Go On
Chapter 18This Won’t Go OnDeclan hustled me out the door the second I emerged from the bathroom, ushering me downstairs and into a waiting limo. A nice one: black, not too stretched, no neon lights or anything tacky, nothing I’d have to be embarrassed about riding in.I tried to focus on how good it felt to be wearing decent clothes, going somewhere in a respectable vehicle, and for fuck’s sake, actually leaving the Morrigan and going somewhere, rather than on being in an enclosed space with Declan and our combined scents of sex and alpha desire.If I focused on that, I’d end up begging him to knot me in the car after all.The limo pulled out of the Morrigan’s driveway and into traffic on the Strip. It was Friday night stop and go. Maybe we had time for a fuck after all?“Where are we going? Am I allowed to ask?”“Not far,” he said, putting paid to my hopes. “A few blocks. If I’d been going with Wa—colleagues I probably would’ve walked. I thought you might appreciate going in style
The Alpha's Warlock I Missed Your Voice
Chapter 17I Missed Your VoiceSince I’d never slept in Declan’s bed before, I woke up confused, disoriented, and with a mouth that tasted like someone had murdered a particularly sandy desert and buried its corpse under my tongue.Well, that last part didn’t have anything to do with Declan’s bed, to be fair.I rolled over and groaned, throwing an arm across my eyes to keep the sunlight out, because someone had left the blinds wide fucking open when he got up and went to work.I knew I’d be fine once I had a couple of glasses of water and a bite to eat; hangovers weren’t really that much of a thing for werewolves without serious effort involving multiple illicit substances, and I hadn’t been to a party that good in like, six months. But seriously. Close the damn blinds. Fuck.It crossed my mind to find my phone, make some coffee, and send him a text complaining about the window.And then I sat bolt upright, head in my hands, and let out another groan.I’d slept in his bed. We hadn’t
The Alpha's Warlock Kind of Endearing
Chapter 16Kind of EndearingI woke up the next day just after eight o’clock, early by my previous standards but late by the standards of the company I kept these days. The cold coffee pot, holding only a few teaspoons of dregs, told me that Declan had been up and gone for hours. The usual hundred dollar bill sat beside it.That felt a little bit like I’d been slapped. I’d sat there and worked on that stupid spreadsheet for three full hours the day before without even getting up for a glass of water. I’d only stopped when Declan stood, put on his jacket, and told me it was quitting time.But apparently he assumed I’d be right back to blackjack and vodka today.Well, fuck him.I made a fresh pot of coffee, ordered some room service—an omelet, because I knew if I had any carbs at all I’d fall asleep with my face in the keyboard—and dressed in the closest thing I had to what the other people I’d seen in the offices had been wearing, black slacks and a blue button-down. I couldn’t wear a
The Alpha's Warlock Try Me
Chapter 15Try MeLetting it all go seemed easy at first.I’d spent so many years showing—and allowing myself to feel—only the most surface of emotions: anger, entitlement, arrogance. Under the circumstances, I chose to temporarily trade those in for indifference, apathy, and resignation, but it was just as fake and just as likely to keep people from looking any deeper.My family hadn’t looked any deeper. Neither had Declan. Clearly, no one wanted to.And it worked. When I didn’t try to fight back, didn’t bother arguing or demanding answers, Declan didn’t go out of his way to humiliate or torment me aside from the rough, careless way he used me. He texted me at some point during the day to let me know when he wanted me available to be fucked, I awaited him obediently, and he fucked me. Sometimes he put me on my knees instead, or in addition to. I opened my mouth or spread my legs, and I moaned and cried out when he made me come, but I didn’t talk more than I absolutely had to.I took
The Alpha's Warlock What’s Worse?
Chapter 14What’s Worse?Declan’s knot hadn’t gone down at all by the time I blinked my eyes open and slowly came back to reality, lying on my side with Declan wrapped around me from behind. The bite he’d left on my neck throbbed in time with my heartbeat. I could feel his, too, syncing with mine and vibrating through my back.And I felt safe again, which made me want to throw up and then run away screaming.Well, he’d already made me scream. Running away was out. And it’d suck to throw up all over the bed and be stuck here.Unfortunately, that left me with nothing to do but lie there enclosed in his arms listening to his steady breaths in my ear, savoring the heat of his body and the softness of the bed.Ugh. Savoring. I really was, and it made me swallow hard against a wave of real nausea.But it suddenly occurred to me that maybe Declan felt something similar. Pheromones. Hormones. Borderline mating-magic. I couldn’t be the only one completely at their mercy, could I? He might not
