The Alpha Crowned the Orphan, So Both His Betas Followed Me Out novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Cabin

In her father's hunting cabin with the stove lit, Shyla tells the Warden nobody has touched her in two years, sets her terms and takes his mouth on her at the plank table; then she sends him to fetch the healer.

My father built the hunting cabin on Sinking Creek the year I was born, and nobody had lit its stove since he died.

Tobe lit it in four minutes.

He did not talk while he did it, and he did not ask where the kindling was.

He had come up here with my father every November for ten years, and he walked straight to the box.

The cabin was one room with an iron bed, a plank table and a window over the creek.

There was no power, so Jubal lit the lamp and said it was very romantic and he was sorry about that.

"I'm going down to the creek to fill the water cans," he said, and went out talking.

I heard him all the way down the path, still telling the dark about his insurance.

Then it was only Tobe and me and the fire catching.

I stood in the middle of my father's floor with the Hearth Chain around my neck and my hands shaking.

"Say something," I said.

Tobe looked up from the stove.

"Nobody hunts on Moot night," he said. "It's the law, and Kenton likes the law. We're safe till morning."

"That's not what I meant."

He shut the stove door and stood up, all six-four of him, and the roof beam was close above his hair.

"You took it off her neck in one go," he said. "I've waited eight years to see somebody tell that barn no."

"Why did you walk out?"

"Your daddy asked me to watch you."

"That's duty," I said.

"It was," Tobe said. "Once."

The stove ticked.

I found out I was crying only because he reached over and thumbed the water off my cheek.

His hand was rough and enormous and very careful.

"Kenton quit coming to my bed two years ago," I said. "I never told anybody that."

"I know," Tobe said.

"You know?"

"I'm the Warden. I know who sleeps where."

"Nobody's touched me in two years," I said. "Not one hand."

"Then they're fools," Tobe said, quietly.

I went up on my toes and kissed him.

He went absolutely still.

For one second I thought I had made a mistake, and then his hand closed in my braid and he kissed me back.

It was not careful at all.

He kissed me hungrily, with eight years of waiting in it, and I felt every one.

I got both hands in his flannel shirt and hung on.

He pulled his mouth off mine and held my face an inch away.

"Tell me to stop," he said, rough and low.

"Don't you dare."

His eyes closed, and he made a sound I felt in my own ribs.

"Terms," I said, because I needed to say them before I lost the sense to.

"Go on," Tobe said.

"Tonight, and nothing named. Nobody says mine. Nobody says his name in this room."

"All right," he said.

"And whatever I ask for, I get twice."

He almost smiled.

"I can do that," he said.

I shrugged out of my father's coat and let it drop.

I pulled my sweater over my head, and my bra went after it.

The fire was warm on my back, and Tobe looked at me for a long time.

"Shyla," he said, and nothing else.

He picked me up under the arms, easily, and sat me on the plank table.

The wood was cold through my jeans.

He knelt down on the floor in front of me, still in his flannel and his boots, and undid my belt.

"Lift," he said.

I lifted, and he drew my jeans and my underwear off together and set them aside.

He put his hands on my knees and opened them.

I had never been looked at like that, not once in eight years, with the lamp turned up.

"Tobe."

"I've thought about this more than I'll ever tell you," he said.

He put his mouth on me.

I cried out, and my head hit the wall behind the table.

He licked me slowly, a long flat stroke from my entrance to my clit, and then he did it again.

His beard was rough on the insides of my thighs, and his tongue was not rough at all.

I got my fingers in his black hair and pulled.

"Like that," I said. "Right there. Don't stop."

He didn't.

He found the spot and stayed on it, circling, patient, with his big hands holding my hips to the edge of the table.

When I tried to move, he held me still.

When I swore at him, he made a low sound against me, and I felt it all the way up my spine.

He pushed one thick finger inside me, then two.

He curled them, and I came off the table.

"Oh, God," I said. "There. Tobe, there."

He hummed, and I could feel it.

I came hard, with my heels in his back and my hand over my own mouth.

He kept going through all of it, gentle now, until I was shaking and begging him to quit.

Then he lifted his head, and his mouth was wet and his eyes were black.

"Twice," he said.

"Tobe, I can't."

"You said whatever you asked for," he said. "You haven't asked."

I laughed, or sobbed, and put my head back against the wall.

"Twice," I said. "Please."

He bent his head again, and this time he went slowly.

He held my clit between his lips and flicked it with his tongue, and his fingers worked inside me, and I came again almost at once.

It was a deep one, and it rolled for a long time.

When it was over, I couldn't lift my head.

He rested his forehead against my thigh and breathed.

I saw that his hands were shaking.

"You're shaking," I said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"You haven't even had your shirt off."

"I know," he said. "Give me a minute."

I slid off the table and went down on my knees on the boards in front of him.

I undid his belt, and he caught my wrist.

"If you touch me I'll finish in my jeans," he said.

"Then finish."

"Shyla."

"Twice is mine," I said. "That was one. Let me have the other."

He let go of my wrist.

I got his zipper down and took him in my hand, and he was thick and hot and already hard enough to hurt.

He said my name again, ragged, and put his palm flat on the wall over my head.

I stroked him slowly from the base, and I watched his face.

He looked at me the whole time, and it was the most naked thing I had ever seen a man do with his clothes on.

I tightened my fist, and he groaned.

"Slow," he said. "Please. Slow."

"No," I said, and went faster.

His hips jerked, and his head dropped.

He came in my hand with a sound he tried to swallow, and his whole big body shook with it.

When it was over he went down on one knee, put his forehead on my shoulder and stayed there.

His breath was ragged against my neck.

"Eight years," he said into my skin. "I'm sorry. It's been eight years."

"Don't be sorry," I said. "Not tonight."

Down at the creek, I could hear Jubal coming back up the path, whistling loudly and badly.

He was giving us time, and he knew it.

I kissed Tobe on his wet mouth, and I stood up with my knees shaking.

"Go get Jubal," I said.

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