Double The Alpha: A Paranormal Menage Romance Read online

  *

  The moment that the text I’d typed began to send, I stared at my phone screen in shock, disbelief, and horror, realizing just what exactly the text said. “No. No, wait!”

  It was too late. Despite me furiously tapping on the screen, the text couldn’t be unsent, of course, and I knew it, though that didn’t stop me from trying in a knee-jerk reaction.

  “Delete! Reverse!”

  Needless to say, the text didn’t delete and it didn’t reverse. While two elderly garden caretakers, a married couple named Mary and Charles, looked up at me from where they were pruning roses in the distance, my phone made a quiet little tone to indicate that the text had officially sent.

  “Oh, God.” Lowering forehead to palm, I looked at the phone screen while the reality of what I’d done continued to sink in. “Oh God.”

  I’d meant to text Jackson I need to talk to you. But, it seemed that in my current state of anxiety, I’d typed too fast, hitting a few letters I hadn’t meant to, and I could only guess that auto-correct had changed the words talk to to the word touch. I’d texted Jackson that I needed to touch him. And I truly hadn’t realized my mistake until it was too late.

  Swearing under my breath, I began tapping out another text, this time selecting letters slowly and carefully. I was going to text something to the effect of Please excuse auto-correct. That was meant to say “I need to talk to you.” But before I could even type Please excuse, my phone began going off. It was Jackson.

  Cringing inwardly, outwardly, and in every other possible way, I answered, ready to explain, but Jackson didn’t even let me get a word out.

  “Where are you right now?”

  I cringed again, still determined to explain. “I’m in the gardens. But, Jackson? That text I sent—”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  He ended the call, and I pocketed my phone, sighing. Mary and Charles instantly went back to tending the roses, each of them humming quietly, like they’d been doing before my texting gaffe. I figured they were probably trying to act like they hadn’t heard a thing, hadn’t even been interested in hearing a thing, but if they were, they weren’t fooling me.

  Everyone in The Arch, everyone living in the whole city of D.C. for that matter, from what I’d heard, had become intensely interested in me, and specifically, in me and Jackson. And even more specifically, in our personal matters, such as if we’d mated yet, and how soon I might become pregnant with an heir. The night before, Irene told me that even the older folks had become a bit wound up by all the speculation.

  “And honestly, especially the older folks. See, there are many of us who’d like to see Commander Wallace have an heir before we pass,” she’d said. “Not that I’ll likely be passing anytime soon, I hope. I hope I still have another good ten, twenty years left in me if I stay healthy... but some of the very old folks would like to see our nation’s much-loved leader have an heir relatively soon, before they leave this world. But, you know...” Irene had paused, giving me a little wink. “No pressure or anything.”

  Averting my gaze, I hadn’t responded, and after assuring me that no matter what, if anything, I ever shared with her about Jackson and me, she’d keep it just between the two of us, Irene had quickly changed the subject back to Celeste and the current state of her health.

  Little did she know that I was actually contemplating going back home. Little did anyone in D.C. know that Jackson had basically said he was fine with me going back home in the time machine, even before giving him an heir, if that’s what would make me happy.

  Before I knew it, he’d already made it to the gardens. When I heard the double doors swing open at the entrance, I turned my head and saw him striding in with the confident, purposeful way he always moved; head up, broad shoulders back. However, at present, he seemed to be striding a bit faster than he usually did.

  Dressed in his all-black military uniform and black boots, and with his thick, dark hair glinting in the bright overhead lights, just the sight of him made my heart do a little stutter-step. One of the things I liked best about his uniform was the way the fitted black shirt showed off his muscular chest and arms to their best possible advantage, although the uniform showed off every single part of his body to its best possible advantage, really. I flicked my gaze from his chest to his long, powerful thighs, not even sure which body part I wanted to look at most.

  But Jackson’s body wasn’t the only thing I feasted my eyes on as he strode over to the koi pond. I also surveyed his handsome face and his deep-set eyes with a funny little twinge in my chest. I’d realized it the day before, and it was still true—I wasn’t just enthralled by his body; I cared about him and his heart, too. Something about his humor, his whole general way of being, and his caring about me and my happiness, too, had made that so.

  When he reached me, eyes twinkling just the tiniest bit, he didn’t say hello or talk to me right away. Instead, he turned his attention to Mary and Charles, who were still over by the roses, humming a bit louder now and doing a pretty good job at feigning interest in their gardening task. Charles was actually so into his act that he was getting a little too spirited with the pruning shears, lopping off several perfect blooms.

  Standing in front of me, Jackson addressed Charles and Mary, his deep voice carrying across the gardens easily. “If the two of you wouldn’t mind resuming your gardening duties later, I’d be very grateful. I think Vivian and I would like some privacy right now.”

  “Oh!” Eyes wide, Mary glanced at Charles before returning her gaze to Jackson. “Oh! Oh, of course, Commander Jackson. We’d be glad to give the two of you some privacy. Oh, of course.”

  Already yanking off his gardening gloves to leave, Charles chimed in, echoing the same sentiments.

  After the two of them had very effusively wished Jackson and me a good day, he and Mary began heading for the double doors, and Jackson called out after them.

  “Please lock the doors if you wouldn’t mind, so that Vivian and I can have privacy to visit.”

  Mary said, “Oh, of course, Commander Wallace,” with something like an excited little lilt in her voice.

  Hot-faced, I looked at Jackson the moment I heard the double doors being locked. “They think we’re going to have sex in here.” Incredulous, I saw a faint flicker of confusion, possibly mixed with disappointment, cross his features. “Oh, God... You think we are, too!”

  Frowning, he took a seat next to me on the stone ledge. “Well... your text did pretty clearly say that you need to, um... touch me... and I thought the gardens might be a beautiful, relaxing—”

  “That text I sent was a mistake.”

  He frowned even harder. “So... you don’t want to touch me right now?”

  I wanted to say that that was correct; I didn’t want to touch him right then. But the problem was that I did.

  With him sitting next to me, I could faintly detect a hint of his intoxicating scent, even above all the fresh, sweet, floral scents of the gardens. All forest and leather notes, with maybe just the smallest amounts of spice and soap, Jackson’s scent was downright intoxicating. Potent. All man. The kind of scent that a woman could fill her nostrils with for an hour and yet never quite get enough of it.

  Also, with him sitting next to me, I now had an up-close view of his square-jawed face and his long, muscular thighs, which were only inches away from my own. With a little jolt of something that felt like an electrical current racing through my body, I recalled how his strong legs and powerful thighs had helped him to thrust his manhood so deeply inside me just the night before.

  I didn’t just want to touch him right then; I wanted to touch him badly. I wanted to just about rip his clothes off and take his thick shaft in my hand right there in the gardens. And then, once I’d had a chance to revel in the feel of his hardness in my palm, I wanted to guide it inside of me and make love with him again, maybe with me straddling his hips right on the edge of the koi pond, facing him, so that we could look into each other’s
eyes this time. I wanted to do this so badly at present, that my pulse had accelerated just from thinking about this scenario for a single moment.

  However, even feeling like some kind of a sensual spell had been cast on me the moment Jackson had entered the gardens, I hadn’t yet lost my head completely. Considering what I had to tell Jackson, and considering that I may soon be taking a little trip in the time machine, either because of him wanting that, or me, or both of us, I knew that another lovemaking session would only complicate things. It would only make things harder than they already were. And so, in response to Jackson asking for clarification whether I did or didn’t want to touch him right then, I just stood abruptly, not wanting to answer truthfully.

  “Sorry, it’s just really warm and stuffy here in the gardens today. I just feel like I need some air. Maybe just some fresh, outdoor air. So, I’m going to go out on the balcony for a while, and you can just go back to whatever—”

  “I’ll come with you. If you don’t mind, that is.”

  Considering that I wanted the temptation of his body as far away from me as possible at the moment, I kind of did mind. I knew it would be rude to say so, though, and besides, I remembered that my whole intent of texting Jackson in the first place had been because I wanted to talk to him. So, I told him I didn’t mind at all, and he followed me through a fern-lined path to the balcony. I didn’t walk beside him, where I could easily see him, because I wanted to give my racy thoughts a chance to simmer down a little.

  However, once the two of us were outside in the bright spring sunshine, standing face-to-face with the balcony railing at our sides, the carnal-thinking part of my brain kicked into overdrive once again. Jackson just looked too damned handsome. Almost maddeningly so. To the point that I started talking right away, because I was slightly afraid that if I didn’t, I might rise to my tiptoes to try to kiss him.

  “I’m not going to lie. I want to touch you just about every single second that I’m with you. But that text I sent was a mistake. I meant to text that I need to talk to you about something. I need to tell you something. Two somethings, actually.”

  Jackson leaned against the railing, crossing one long leg over the other, which somehow made him look even more tempting than he already did. “Well, what are they? You can tell me anything.”

  “Well, the first thing is that I recovered some more memories while dreaming yesterday afternoon after the Gorgolians’ attack. I remembered more about my abusive ex-boyfriend. And, well, I put a few things together, and I realized he’s none other than Drago Stone. Only, back in the day, hundreds of years ago, he used to be called Dan. But it’s him. The man who used to punch me and terrify me. It was him that I saved Celeste from here on this balcony yesterday. He seemed to maybe even recognize me just before I tried to stab him in the eye. He looked... I don’t know. At the time, I thought he maybe just looked surprised, but now I think it was more a look of surprised recognition to see me after all these hundreds of years.”

  While I’d been speaking, Jackson had listened with a clenched jaw, eyes growing wider and wider.

  Now he finally unclenched his jaw, straightening up from the railing. “And you didn’t tell me yesterday afternoon that Drago Stone is none other than your ex-boyfriend?”

  Shrugging, I sighed. “I didn’t want to distract you from leading your men and looking in on the wounded. I knew that a few remaining Gorgolians were still being driven out of the city, and everyone needed you. And, besides does it matter that I waited a day to tell you?”

  “Well, now a few things make a little more sense. Just this morning, some of my scouts reported to me that Drago Stone is not heading north to go back to Blackblood, the Gorgolians’ capitol city, as we thought he might. He and some of his men have been lingering just a couple of miles outside of town, not even bothering to hide themselves from the eyes of my border patrol men. And now I think I know why. He recognized you, surely figured out that you became one of the frozen women, and now he probably intends to get you back. He’s probably going to try to attack the city with his men again and kidnap you, or, if he can’t do that, which he won’t be able to, because I won’t let him, he might try to destroy the time machine so that you can never use to it to go back home to a parallel of Detroit where he isn’t present.”

  “Which means....”

  Stomach churning, I turned my gaze from Jackson’s face to the several dozen skyscrapers across from The Arch. I didn’t dare look over the railing, down at the city streets, knowing it would make my stomach churn even more.

  Jackson finished my thought. “Which means that very soon, you need to make a decision about whether you’re staying here or going back to your home. You need to make a decision about where you want to spend the rest of your life. Back in a parallel Detroit where the world was never blown to hell in a nuclear blast; Drago Stone doesn’t exist, nor do any shifters; but your mother, and anyone else you ever knew and loved, does.”

  Turning my gaze back to Jackson, I nodded. “I’ll make a decision soon; I promise. Just maybe give me three days. But first, I want to tell you the second thing I need to tell you. And maybe after I do, you won’t even want me to make a decision after all.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “When you used the time machine to go back to just after the nuclear disaster to pick one of the frozen women to bear your child someday, when you picked me....” Hugging my arms to my ribs, I took a deep breath before continuing. “You picked me based on who you thought I was—what kind of a woman you thought I was—but it was all a lie. You were kind of tricked, in a way. And I guess I’m telling you this, because I just feel like you deserve to know.”

  While several of his men in dragon form flew around The Arch nearby, Jackson knitted his dark brows together. “What are you talking about?”

  “You thought I was brave. You thought I was bold, fearless, and confident. That’s why you chose me to be the mother of your heir, because you admired those qualities. But none of it was true. It may have appeared that I was confidently volunteering to be frozen for the good of humanity, but that wasn’t the real reason. I was volunteering because I was scared. Terrified, actually. I was fleeing Drago, well, Dan at the time. I was just trying to get away from him. I was just running like a coward. And I knew he’d probably never find me in a cryogenic tank, and if he did, he wouldn’t be able to properly thaw me. Either way, I’d never have to face him again. I just wasn’t brave enough to. I was a coward. So, I did another cowardly thing. I ran. And in doing that, I unintentionally deceived you by leading you to think that I—”

  “Not one more word, Vivian.”

  Jackson scoffed, giving his head a shake, wearing a most unusual expression, dark brows still closely knitted together but angled upward in the centers. It was an expression that struck me as a strange mixture of sympathy and exasperation.

  “Not one more word. You didn’t deceive me, even unintentionally. Not in any possible way.”

  “Well, how do you figure? Because—”

  “Because you were brave, and you still are. You may have been terrified back then, and understandably so, but I’m positive it took an incredible amount of bravery for you to leave a man who was hurting you and try to get to someplace safe. A person taking steps to save their own life, even in the face of danger, is always brave, and that was you. A woman making a choice to possibly save her own life by being cryogenically frozen? I can hardly even imagine the guts that must have taken.”

  “But I was running from Drago, though; I was fleeing. Do you consider someone fleeing to be bold and gutsy?”

  Jackson scoffed, brows raised, as if incredulous. “Well... yes. Of course. In this particular instance, definitely yes. Brave, bold, and gutsy. A woman taking steps to save her own life is all of those things. What do you think would have been a gutsier move than the one you made? To stay with Drago Stone and try to physically fight him in one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat? He would have been a shifter by the time you left him
to save your life, so obviously, that wouldn’t have been the wisest choice. It wouldn’t have been wise even had he still been a human man.

  “The wisest, and most practical, and bravest choice is the one you made. You chose to get out and find safety, any way you could. That was brave. Not to mention...” Raking a hand through his thick, dark hair, Jackson scoffed for the third time. “Vivian, you do realize that you performed an incredible act of bravery up here on this very same balcony yesterday, don’t you? You were absolutely heroic, and I think so, and everyone in this entire city thinks so. I was unbelievably impressed by your actions, though I can’t say I was surprised.

  “I did recognize bravery and boldness in you the day I saw you with the other soon-to-be-frozen women from afar. I saw a spark in your eyes, and it gave me a little glimpse of who you were and still are. I didn’t make a mistake when I saw that spark. No matter what your reasons were for volunteering to be frozen, it doesn’t matter. I still think it was a brave choice.

  Even before you told me exactly why you volunteered to be frozen, I kind of inferred why you might have, after you told me that you remembered being in an abusive relationship. And it didn’t change my thinking about you one bit. However, now that you’ve told me how you perceive your choice to be frozen, I’m starting to get a clue as to just how profoundly Drago Stone’s abuse probably changed your opinion of yourself over time. He probably all but brainwashed you to think of yourself as helpless and cowardly, unable to survive without him. Which...” Jackson paused briefly, jaw clenched. “Which makes me want to kill him even more now than I already did.”

  Jaw clenched again, Jackson surveyed the clear blue sky over the city, where his patrolmen were now circling, as if he expected Drago to break through their line of defense right then. I stood contemplating all he’d said, realizing that he was probably right about one thing for sure. Drago probably had really done a number on my perception of myself over the years. Now that Jackson had pointed it out, I realized that some of my thinking, specifically my thinking about my actions before being frozen, probably had been pretty distorted.