Page 9 of His Runaway Mate

“Step away from the lady,” a third voice follows.

I let out a laugh of relief. Finally Laura must have gotten word to our security. I bet they were playing video games. They probably forgot to look at the monitors. Actually, that would be good if they’d forgotten to do that. I don’t want anybody to ever see what just happened to me. I’m going to have the footage showing the events between us deleted.

I reach back and pull up my pants as quick as I can. The feeling of my jeans rubbing over the belted flesh is not good, but it’s better than letting those three catch a view of me without them. The second I get them all the way up I feel so much better. More like myself.

I take several steps away from Rex, toward my security team. They’re all young guys, not one of them older than twenty-one, but all over eighteen. The sweet spot for being just the right kind of bold and reckless, in my opinion.

Simon (twenty, dark hair, dark eyes, I found him trying to rip off pizza joints), is wearing flipflops and no shirt. We’re fortunate he bothered with shorts. The boys can all shift already. Females can’t take their wolf forms until they’re bred, and the reason I just tried to eviscerate Rex Regent is because I have absolutely no intention of allowing myself to be bred ever. Sex seems like fun, but I won’t be shifting. I might be a wolf, but there’s no need to get all physical about it. I intend to keep my human form.

Then there’s Cal. He is wearing sweatpants on the bottom half, and a Master Chief cosplay chest piece. He’s tall and blond and probably the closest to Rex in terms of height. He’s also broad, built like an absolute unit. When he’s in a good mood, he has the sunny demeanor of that baby on that TV show. When he’s not, he’s as intimidating as any Viking might be. That fits, as he’s a stray out of Minnesota, chased out of his pack at thirteen because the older males wanted to get rid of future competition. He would have been real competition, too.

Then there’s Sam. Sam has sandy brown hair, a lean build, and almost as much height as Cal. He can be overlooked, compared to the other two sometimes because he does things like wear clothes. He has jeans and a hoodie on. Almost makes the crocs on his feet forgivable.

Individually none of these guys look terribly concerning. Together, with handguns, they look concerning.

“And here’s the pack you have at your disposal,” Rex says. He seems unconcerned. He turns from me to look at them.

“Not at my disposal. They’re who I serve,” I say. “This is the future of our kind.”

“Well,” Rex drawls, looking them all up and down. “The future is bright.”

He’s being sarcastic. He’s also rolling his sleeves back down. I didn’t know that he had rolled them up. He also took his coat off at some point. It’s hanging over the back of my chair. He must have held me in place, squirming for freedom, and somehow managed to remove his attire and get his sleeves up.

However he did it, I am now viewing his brawny, muscular arms with a hunger I didn’t know how to possess before he touched me. This asshole has made me feel things I’ve never felt before. Things I could have gone a lifetime not feeling. It’s not fair to be this aroused and this unable to do anything about it.

“What do you want us to do with him, boss?” Cal asks the question.

“I’ve got this,” I tell them. I might be lying. I am feeling lightheaded and absolutely ravenous at the same time. There’s a part of me that almost wants to be swept up in those big, brawny arms and carried off to his den. I’m fighting it with all I am.

If Rex gets control of me, everything we’ve been doing here, everything we’ve worked for is a complete waste of time. We might as well have laid down and joined the main pack from the outset.

That is not the point of this pack. We call ourselves the Runaways for a reason. We are outsiders. Rebels. We are a new generation who doesn’t wear fancy suits like Rex’s, and we have values that don’t match his. We believe in the new world we live in. Not the old one we were promised. It’s all a fucking lie.

He looks back at me and I actually feel my pussy clench in response to his eye contact.

Oh, fucking no.

This is it, isn’t it. This is what girls gossip about. This is what I’ve been mentally trying to warn myself off for my whole life. I feel a draw to this man, a kind of chemistry that is setting off reactions inside me that I cannot control.

Not him. Anyone but him.

I could resist someone else. I was hoping, honestly, that it would be one of the Runaway guys that I’d watched be an idiot over and over again and no longer found attractive in any way.

But it’s not. It’s the richest, most powerful man in the city, who is standing in my office looking like he’s about to come bursting out of his suit. He’s my enemy, well, as close to an enemy as I get anyway. And right now, all I want is for him to carry me off and fuck me until I’m bred with his baby.

Fortunately, I do have one thing on my side: myself.

As good as I am at fighting others, I am just as good at fighting my own needs. I can go eight hours without water if I have to. I can need to pee and not go until I almost wet myself. I can forget to eat until I nearly faint. Some people call that undiagnosed ADHD. I forget to call it anything. Point being, I can absolutely be so much of a menace I drive away the mate fate herself picked out for me.

Hell, I bet, even if I did want him to be my mate, I’d fuck it up somehow. I’m not single and virginal because I’m ugly. I’m single and virginal because no man of any species can handle me. They take an interest in me, thinking I’m going to be fun and hot. And I am fun and hot. Right up until the crashing out starts.

I keep telling myself that, even as my ass continues to burn inside my jeans. Rex didn’t seem to have much trouble handling me, but there’s more to relationships than pinning people down and whipping their ass. At least, I assume there is. Someone has to make dinner at some point. I bet someone does it for him already, though.

I am very aware that the three guys who are looking at me have probably seen more than they should have. If I show any signs of softness now whatsoever, I’m fucked.

So I draw myself up, I override my desires, and I talk to him the way I know they expect me to.

“Mr. Regent, I don’t know why you thought you could walk in here alone and tell us what to do,” I say. “Maybe you’re getting soft in your old age. Maybe you’ve forgotten what real wolves are like. We claim territory. This is ours. Now. For the second and last time. Get. Out.”