CHAPTER 17

"You taste so good," he crooned as his tongue delved into her warm, wet mouth.
She chuckled excitedly, her tongue duelling with his.
That had been their routine after work for the past week and Shana was loving evey moment of it.
Although it all still felt like a dream
It was not everyday she had the gut to carry out an office romance with no other person but her boss. And she still could not get over the fact that a man like Asher could desire someone like her.
Asher felt like she was going to be the death of him. He could not get enough of her, his wolf wanted more than the few kisses she seemed to take so seriously. He wanted to speed things up but he did not want to risk scaring her off and he still had not told her he was a shifter.
"She is ours. She is going to accept us." He wished he could be as certain as his wolf, whose refrain had become those exact words but he was not ready to take the risk. Humans could be very unpredictable by his own judgement.
A week ago, she had been nothing but a female he desired to have between the sheets and be done with. But right now, she meant a whole lot more to him. With her, he could almost felt like he finally has a place he belonged, something he thought he would never have within his grasp.
Shana made him happy, she made his work driven life fun.
"I've to go," she whispered but made no move to remove her arms from where they were wrapped around his neck. Instead, her hold on him tightened, belying her words.
"Come home with me for a candlelit dinner?," he said carelessly, not wanting her to see how much the question meant and how much he wanted her to agree to his offer.
But the question in itself shocked him.
He did not do candlelit dinners or otherwise with women. She was definitely bringing out the softy in him.
She went rigid at his question. She never slept out, never ever. She could not risk him discovering her little, or not so little secret.
"Not tonight. I have some errands I need to run...for my grandmother," she lied quickly, not meeting his eyes.
"Oh. I wouldn't want to keep you then."
He did not need to look into her troubled brown eyes to know she was lying through her teeth.
He had gotten Armando to run a background check on her; he no longer felt bad about that since she was going to be his mate. The check on her had been clean, no past criminal record.
"As if she could commit one," his wolf growled to him and he chuckled. The animal was definitely taken with her.
"What's funny?," she asked with a delicate raise of her brows.
"Nothing," he replied, dropping a reluctant parting kiss on her lips and letting her go with even more reluctance.
He knew she did not have a family. He knew a lot of other weird details about her he was going to be asking her about someday. But he was not going to press her about anything yet.
"I'll see you tomorrow." He could see the relief in her eyes when he did not press her for details. He wondered why she had to lie to him. Maybe she was just scared he was going too fast. She was still innocent after all and probably was not ready to go all the way with him.
That left him wondering further why no one had taken the time to debauch the alluring woman before him all these while. It was either the entire male populace around her were blind or she had been truly good at covering up how fascinating she was under all those dresses. But thank the goddess that had not worked with him. And it was all the better that she was untouched. He was going to take sweet pleasure in debauching her himself.
He decided to toy with her to see her reaction. "Why don't I help you with your errands?"
"No!," Shana screamed before she could check herself. "No, it's fine. It's nothing I can't handle myself," she said in a gentler tone, wishing she had not acted so suspicious with her vehement reply.
"If you say so. See you tomorrow." She almost ran out the door after that.
She was definitely hiding something. He hoped to God it was not another potential lover because he was going to catch the bastard and make him regret ever touching what was his.
Shana made a hasty retreat to her office to retrieve her things and left her office as soon as possible. She did not want to risk Asher changing his mind and coming after her. It was a big miracle he had not pressed on about her grandmother and that, she was grateful for.
When he had asked her to dinner with him, her heart had done some somersaulting in her chest and she had wanted so much to say yes but there was the rule of never sleeping out. She knew she did not have to worry so much about going into a trance since she still had an uncompleted assignment on her hands but she did not dare take the risk. Sometimes, getting a message just did not follow a pattern as she used to believe.
She wished she was back with him in the office and taking her pleasure in touching him and letting him touch her. She had not planned to go home for at least the next hour but his question had sent her running. She regretted it but it was a wise decision.
And if she had decided to go home with him, she was not so ignorant that she did not know what was going to happen afterwards. She did not think she was in anyway ready for that yet.
As Shana made her way out of the building on the ground floor, heads turned in her direction and most greeted her with nods and a smiles on their faces while some others just stared at her stonily.
It had become the trend for a while now, way before anything started between her and Asher but she could not help but wonder if that was the cause.
Had anyone caught them kissing recently? She reasoned that was most unlikely, since they occupied the last floor with his receptionist and she rarely ever left her desk or paid anyone that much interest.
Unknown to her, the receptionist did pay her a whole lot of attention. A lot of the staff already knew she was frolicking with the boss and most still could not believe it since they knew Asher Anderson never mixed business with pleasure. And even if there was a slim chance of that happening, it was never going to be with a scrappy looking secretary when all her predecessors had had the killer look and he did nothing with them.
But the wolves among them knew better. They could not avoid staring her down whenever she passed by them and they got the strong whiff of their Alpha coming off her.
Shana really never dwelt much on why she got the looks but she would really love to know the reason behind it all.
★★★★★★★★★★
"Can you not see what is happening Dad?," Mark asked passionately, not understanding what his father was going on about.
He had come to him, seeking help as to what to do. His father had been the Beta so he expected he was more experienced than he was and he could give him answers about what to do concerning Adele. Besides, it was his daughter they were talking about and he should be worried about her going rogue but instead, he looked relaxed and almost tranquil.
"Wolves don't turn rogue that easily. You must have seen wrong. She just loves him." Thomas replied flippantly.
"No she doesn't. It's become an obsession and you know what happens after that. She's lucky Asher didn't pay much attention to the look in her eyes," he said quietly. How that had happened, he could not explain. Asher was the most observant person he knew but yesterday, he had ignored what was right before his eyes.
Maybe a mate made one go soft like every unmated male believed.
"Take this from someone who's seen the world and knows more than you do about this. She's going to be fine. She's a Luna. She's strong."
"Luna? No she's not. Asher would soon take a mate and it's not Adele," he argued but the news did not move his father.
Thomas did not correct his son's wrong assumption. Asher was not going to be the Alpha his daughter ruled with, it would be Collins but he kept that knowledge to himself. His son was like a life wire at the moment and he did not want to trigger him unnecessarily.
It was better if Mark was left in the dark. He knew his son well enough to know he was big on honour and as a honourable man, he would sabotage his plans for Asher if he knew anything about it. Instead, he shrugged his broad shoulders and said nothing.
Realization dawned on him. "So all these while, it has been your ambition feeding her obsession?"
"Don't be ridiculous. Don't you want your sister to be the Luna? That gives our family more power in the pack and that dear son, is all I've ever wanted. This isn't just about me, it's about you and your future."
He shook his head in denial. "I don't need the power and you can leave my future and all the worries that comes with it to me. I can take care of that. All I want is my peace and I'll only have that if my pack does."
"Power makes a man....son," his father replied with a smile that warned Mark that he was up to something but he convinced himself that he had nothing to worry about. His father was not going to do something stupid, he was just greedy. He shook his head at the greed blindsiding his old man and left angrily, seeing no point in trying to reason with him.
After that, Mark knew he was going to have to fight for his sister alone and God help him if he had to fight against his father in that process. He owed it to their dead mother to protect her no matter what.
He knew sooner or later, he was going to have to make a tough choice between being a loyal brother or a loyal Beta.
Time would tell.