ROMANCE: BIKER ROMANCE: Werewolf Rider (MC Shifter Pregnancy Romance) (New Adult Paranormal Romance Short Stories) (342 page)

              Tristen's eyes shot towards Derek, then he bowed his head and huffed a sigh.

              "Right. Just be nice, okay? She's been through a lot."

              Without any more argument, Tristen brushed past her and headed up the three stairs leading to the exterior porch. He opened the front door and slipped into the house, and Stella thought she heard voices raise to greet him from inside. Was this a prostitution circle? A drug ring? A gang hideout? Whatever it was, she was starting to feel more and more uncertain. There was a reason they wanted to keep their secrets, and if Will was caught up in this somehow, then Stella didn't know if she wanted to hear it.

              "Let's sit." Derek gestured towards the porch stairs, unzipping the front of his jacket to take advantage of the night air. Beneath he was wearing a tight white t-shirt, so tight Stella could see just how toned he was. Derek had nothing to hide or be ashamed of. His was the body women dreamed of, and men spent hours in the gym attempting to achieve. Stella wasn't so blinded by Will's loss that she didn't take notice. Derek was a distraction — maybe the distraction she'd been waiting for.

              Stella took a seat upon the porch, feet planted on the steps leading up to it, and Derek settled down beside her. He fixed either of his elbows on his knees and plucked the cigarette from his lips, exhaling deeply.

              "So, Will," he began. The words trailed off and got lost into nothingness. "We knew Will. We knew Will really fucking well. You might say he was family, in an official-unofficial way, and when he died, all of us were wrecked by it."

              Even now the memory stung. Stella bit down on her bottom lip to keep from thinking about it.

              "I've never heard about any of you," she told him point blank. "Will was always isolated. He didn't really hang out with anyone. Where did you know him from?"

              Derek snorted and flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette.

              "Maybe that's the Will he led you to believe was the real deal, but that's not him at all. All that work he did? All those times he was out of time on business? Those times were with us."

              Drug dealers or gang members. Stella set her jaw. Will had told her he was a business representative for one of the big companies in town, and she'd always thought it was strange that he was so successful at only twenty-seven years old. Although Derek's story was strange, it wasn't out of the question.

              "And the business we do isn't conventional business. None of us are really conventional guys, by your standards. Neither was Will." Derek cleared his throat and sat for a moment, thinking. When he spoke again, there was no humor in his tone.

              "We're werewolves. The whole lot of us. And Will was, too. But now he's dead. And that means trouble."

              Werewolves. Had he not sounded so serious, Stella might have laughed. But as Derek spoke the words, she remembered the shadows and the red eyes behind her. And Derek had snuck up on her effortlessly. Uneasiness settled in the pit of her stomach, and she looked at Derek as he puffed on his light.

              "What kind of trouble does that mean? Are you talking about the shadows that have been stalking me?"

              "Yup. That's a big part of it. You see, Will wasn't just a werewolf. He was kind of our boss. Our alpha, if you will. And without him, well, no one really knows where they stand. And the problem with that is, other packs of werewolves know that we've got our heads on backwards right now, and they're moving in on our territory and trying to make sure we never get back on track."

              Maybe she was still at Missy's house, and all of this was a surreal dream. Stella inhaled deeply, the scent of Derek's smoke and leather on the air. The night air was crisp, and her face still tingled from the whipping of the wind after their high speed escape. As far as Stella could tell, this was real.

              "So why are they after me?" she asked. "And why did you swoop in to save me like you did?"

              "You're Will's girl." Derek fanned his fingers out against the night, stretching his arms. "You're all that's left of him now. Whoever you choose amongst us is who's going to lead the pack as alpha. That wolf will be our new boss. If the other pack of wolves got a hold of you, did you in, we'd probably never figure out who would lead without destroying each other in the process. But the decision of the alpha female is absolute. You get the first and final say."

              Fantasy and reality wove one amongst the other, and Stella looked across the vast plains and to the night sky that stretched across the horizon. Stars hung like specks of paint flicked across a canvas there. What a picture Derek had painted for her.

              "Then I choose you," she said without looking at him. "You were the one who came to my rescue when I needed it the most, and without you I'd be dead. You've got the courage that it takes to lead, so I pick you."

              "Not so simple, girlie," Derek said with a little sigh. He tugged on the collar of his jacket and settled it anew against his shoulders. "It's more than that. You don't choose with your words — you choose with your body."

              The ruffle of leather and of his solid body shifting upon the groaning wood of the porch broke through the night. Stella turned her head to look, and found Derek staring her down from an arm length's away.

              "My body?" she asked. It was little more than a whisper. Will had died more than a year ago, and since then she'd never seriously considered another man. Will. Tall and strong, but with a kind, sweet face and a sense of humor a mile thick. He'd been perfect for her, and she was sure they'd be together forever. But a year was a long time to be alone — Missy was right. She'd been suffering by lingering on his memory as obsessively as she had. Maybe it was time to move on. Maybe this whole mess was beneficial for her sanity.

              Maybe Derek was the right kind of guy to fill that immediate need.

              "You'll take a new wolf as your mate," Derek told her. The words were as delicately put as hers, but they were loaded with subtle heat, "and that new wolf will lead us all. All of us are depending on you to make the right choice, Stella. It's up to you to lead us right."

              Beneath the moonlight, the cut of his jaw and the slope of his brow cast gorgeous, dangerous shadows across his face. Derek snubbed his cigarette on the back of the stair he sat upon and flicked the stub aside. A last plume of smoke curled upward from between his lips, his eyes upon her.

              "So if I wanted to choose you," she muttered, the words toppling from her lips one by one, hesitant to spill forth, "then I'd need to..."

              Little by little he'd closed the distance between them without her noticing, and now their thighs nearly brushed together. To make her choice, she was going to have to take one of the wolves as her mate. Derek was asking her to give herself over entirely to one of them, asking her to make a choice Stella would have never sought to make on her own. And Derek, so sure of himself and strong, was the most irresistible of them all.

              Stella turned her head to look towards him. Even the small gesture felt difficult, as though she moved through syrup instead of through air. Stella swallowed hard, letting her eyes trail over his sharp features as he ate her up with his eyes. It was the same kind of gravity she had felt when she was with Will, and Stella began to wonder if it wasn't an attraction to werewolves rather than a unique attraction to the man. Right now it didn't seem to matter. For the first time in a year she wasn't thinking about Will, wasn't mourning him.

              Derek had filled his space, even if only temporarily.

              "Yeah," Derek murmured. Around them, crickets chirped and in the distance an owl hooted. The landscape was alive with music, as though nature existed just to serenade them. A tremble ran through Stella's core. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or maybe it was the realization of her mortality after her confrontation with the shadows, but she felt ready to make a decision. A rash decision. It had been a long time since she'd done anything so mindlessly.

              Full lips parted, and Stella brushed a strand of her brown hair nervously behind her ear. The last of her inhibitions fled. The smell of leather and tobacco were thick on the air now that Derek had drawn closer, and she couldn't get enough of it.

              "Then let me make my choice," she murmured. Little by little their faces drew close, Derek's lips her only focus. Thin, hard, and masculine. How acrid would the smoke leave? What might his mouth taste like?

              Their lips brushed, but Derek did not give her the pleasure of kissing her in full. Instead, he grabbed her by the wrist just as he had back in the city.

              "Let me take you somewhere a little more private," he whispered. As he spoke, his lips brushed against hers and promised intimacies the likes she hadn't experienced the course of a long, lonely year.

              Derek propped himself up from porch and pulled her to her feet, and together they strode from the front of the house and forward a barn across a vast stretch of land in the backyard.

              Today had been the stuff of storybooks, but Stella's fantasy had just begun.

Chapter Three

              Derek's strong hands grabbed her by the shoulders, was with a ferocious shove he pushed her to the ground. A pile of loose straw broke her fall, and strands of it caught the air stirred by her ungraceful topple backwards. In the dull light of the night, streaming through the cracks between the wooden slats that made up the barn and through the open door behind them, Stella could see Derek's mischievous smirk. Above her he was little more than one of the shadows that had hunted her back in the city, but Stella felt no fear. Derek had rescued her once before, and although his intentions were not pure, she knew them to be in her best interest.

              "I was his right hand man, you know," he rumbled from in front of her, catching her eye as she sank down amongst the straw. It was much more coarse and uncomfortable than she'd anticipated, but Stella found she didn't mind. Derek had her heart pounding. "I'm the strongest in the pack now, and the most able. You aren't making a mistake."

              Then he was upon her. As smooth as frost settling across a field of grass, he dropped down over her and lowered his body atop hers. In him she saw Will's passion and heart. In him was a taste of the recklessness Will had always had, and Stella craved to call those traits hers again.

              "Honestly," she whispered, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him close, "I don't care right now. You were the one to save me. You were the one to take charge. Now, you're the one who's going to get the reward."

              A low, pleased growl rolled in the back of Derek's throat as he looked down upon her. He had himself propped up on his palms, his torso pressed against hers to purposefully let her feel his stirring erection. The atmosphere between them still felt thick, and Stella felt the arousal stirring deep within her in correspondence. Missy was right. It was time she got out and met some people. Tonight, she was going to meet Derek's every inch.

              "Mine," he uttered. Derek shouldered off his leather jacket and tossed it aside. Hay crinkled beneath its weight, and for the first time, Stella felt the true heat of his body. Just like Will, Derek ran hot. She'd always found it so strange how a human body could feel so heated without being sick. Now she understood. Will had never been completely human, and Derek wasn't human, either.

              With his jacket removed, Derek no longer hesitated. Their lips met at last, full and hard. With one broad hand he gripped her hair and held her down amongst the straw as he claimed their lips. It was the same ritual she'd always shared with Will, but now, without the gentle redeeming qualities her deceased love possessed, the act was wild and raw and exciting. Harsh. Lustful but void of emotion. It was everything she needed.

              Thick smoke flavored his lips and mouth, but it did not stop her. Derek was a bad boy, exactly the kind of wild man she'd never want her mother to know she was attracted to, let alone curled up with in a hay pile. But when his tongue pushed its way into her mouth to meet hers, Stella thought of nothing else but the feel of his body.