Taking the Beta Male

"It's wonderful." Her hands were tugging down the waistband. "Nice and thick, but not too much. Long enough so I can really ride on it, you know? But not too long. There is such a thing as too big, no matter what your pornos say."

"I never cared that much for them," he said, setting his hands on the narrow expanse of her waist. He stroked the flat curve of her belly with his thumbs.

"I...you...oh, screw this," she stated, and pushed him back onto the bed. He sprawled on his back as she yanked his boxers off, his erection springing into view like an obscene jack-in the box. Before he could do more than gasp, she was on him, her hands fisted in his hair, her mouth on his, her tongue thrusting deep inside. She ran the hot wet heat of her sex up his straining length, and he groaned into her mouth at the unutterable pleasure.

"Hard," she panted into his ear, her teeth nipping at the tender lobe. "You're so hard. Hard for me." his hands found her breasts, their flesh wonderfully soft and firm at the same time, her skin like silk. He raised his head and licked one straining nipple, suckling on it like he was a child, and she shouted hoarsely, demanding more, more, more!

Laura was in ecstasy. She ran her lips up and down the hot length of Calvin's cock, feeling her sheath getting wetter and wetter. After every stroke, she gave a twist, grinding the throbbing nub of her clit on the tip of his penis, and had to bite her lips from screaming her pleasure. It was too much. His hands on her back, her shoulders, her ass. His hot mouth licking and sucking on the buds of her nipples, and most of all, his gorgeous cock, only inches away from filling her up.

He'll never know. He'll never know that he was the first man I ever chose. She'd had a few brief affairs before she came to Graham's bed. But there had been no love and little liking between them. It was the way of some shifters, for the males to assert their dominance over the females.

Graham had been a considerate lover. And she couldn't pretend she couldn't have refused him. But he had treated her as a subordinate, not an equal. And her acceptance of him as a lover had been a cold-blooded thing, almost as much for her own protection as for any real desire for him.

Calvin was different. She loved him for himself. Around him, she felt no need to disguise who she was or how she felt. And he loved her for her, accepting what she was without trying to change her. Cal, she knew, would never try to hem her into a domestic cage.

She smiled down at him as he kneaded the globes of her rear. "I love you, beta male," she whispered.

"I love you, too," he replied, smiling up at her. His hips rose, pushing his cock deeper into her cleft, and she moaned.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"Fuck, yes," he said, his eyes glinting behind his glasses. "If I was any more ready, we'd already be done."

She plucked the offending spectacles off his face and set them on the bedside table. "That's better," she said with an air of satisfaction. "Now I can see those sexy eyes of yours."

She rose a final time, then sank, the gates to her channel opening wide. She took her lover inside her body, and moaned in sensual pleasure, her breath coming in a series of high-pitched gasps. Under her, Cal uttered a low, guttural groan, his hands tightening spasmodically on her buttocks.

He felt...amazing. His cock filled her, stretching her, until she felt full and replete. For a long moment, she simply lay on top of him, savoring the incredible sensations. The curly tuft at the base of his groin tickled her nether lips. His hands roamed from the top of her thighs to her neck and back again, making her shiver. The skin of his chest, slightly sweaty from their exertions, was warm against her breasts, which felt hot and heavy.

And, of course, there was his shaft, a throbbing, pulsing bar of heat between her legs, twitching in time to his pounding heartbeat. Experimentally, she squeezed him with the muscles of her channel. A hoarse gasp tore loose from his throat, and his eyes pinched shut.

"Witch," he whispered.

"Mmmm," she murmured, not disagreeing. She began to move on top of him, her hips rising and falling. Cal's hands moved hesitantly to her nether-lips, but she brushed them away.

"Later," she said, smiling. "I'll show you how I like to be eaten. And how you can play with my clit and make me come over and over again. But now...I need...to concentrate."

Her breath began to come in rapid pants. God, it had never been so quick! But she had been on the hair trigger of arousal for days, riding an emotional roller-coaster. She gave in, relishing the seldom-indulged feeling of being completely in control. She leaned down, kissing Cal hard, their tongues and lips mingling in a fevered dance of desire.

"Are you close, baby?"

He nodded wordlessly.

"Good." She guided his hands to her breasts. "Squeeze." She began to move harder, quicker, with determined purpose. Her buttocks slapped the muscles of Cal's thighs on every downstroke. She kissed him hard, her teeth nibbling his lips. She felt her climax begin, cresting over her body like a wave, mighty and implacable. "Oh, baby, my incredible beta, I'm coming. Coming!" she groaned, the words almost jerked out of her. Her channel clutched his cock, pulling at it as she climaxed, and she felt a flood of warmth as her lover gave her his seed.

*****

"What will you do?" Laura asked, her voice low.

"Huh?"

She kissed the line of his jaw as he caressed her back. They were lying in bed. He had to stifle a sense of incredible smugness at her reaction to their lovemaking.

Really? As far as I can tell you just lay there while she did all the work.

Shut up. She liked it. That's the important thing.

Her hand played with his limp penis for a moment, still sticky with the evidence of their recent activities, then drifted to her belly. "If we made a baby. And he-"

"Or she," he said reasonably.

"Or she," she agreed. "If she turned out to be a shifter."

He blinked at her. "I would love her. I love you, you crazy wolf-woman. You're an incredible person. Despite your foul mouth and your lack of respect for the glorious traditions of disco. I'm sure any baby you have will be just as extraordinary, shifter or human."

Her grip on him intensified. "You're just too damn good to be true."

"I'm not perfect," he said, embarrassed.

"Really? What terrible sins have you been hiding from me?"

"Well, I'm not very good with money," he admitted, thinking about the pile of bills on his desk. "When I lose my temper, I really lose it. I'm not very sociable. I don't like hanging out with people, especially ones I don't know. I don't make friends easily..."

"So you're kind of a lone wolf?" she asked, her voice teasing.

He snickered, and hugged her close. She returned the gesture, her arms clutching him to her body. To his surprise, his cock gave a healthy twitch and started to grow. Laura felt it, and her eyes grew wise and wicked.

"Mine," she said smugly, reaching down between their bodies to stroke him. "All mine."

A thought flashed across Calvin's mind, and before he could think twice, he had rolled them over so he was on top of Laura.

"Ownership," he said, kissing her with tender thoroughness, "is a two-way street, wolf-girl. If I am yours, you are also mine."

"Do you think you are strong enough to take me, Cal?" Her eyes glinted at his challenge.

"I don't have to be stronger than you," he replied. He nudged her thighs apart with his knees. God, he wanted her again, and he was ready, far quicker than he would have ever dreamed. "I don't even want to be stronger than you. I just want to be your lover. Your mate. And you to be mine. Isn't that enough?"

"God, yes," she groaned, as he kissed her breasts. She arched up, demanding more, as he laved her nipples with his tongue. At the same time, he lowered his pelvis, until the head of his cock was slipping along the dew-wet petals of her nether lips. "Please, Cal. Take me. Hard, this time. Please!"

He pulled back slightly, searching her face. "Are you sure?" Laura had told him the story of her near-rape by Tate, which earned him, Cal had decided, absolutely no mercy when the time came.

"Yes!" Her face was flushed, her hips rolling up toward him, seeking to draw him into her body, even as he held himself teasingly out of reach. "Cal, please, take me!"

His answer had no words, and needed none. He slid into her, his hips thrusting forward, each stroke harder and swifter than the one before. The pleasure was indescribable, bare and sweet and terrifyingly intimate. He kept his eyes locked on hers, searching for some hint that he was being too rough, too harsh.

Instead, he was overcome by the passion of her response. Her knees drew up. Her legs curled around him, her heels digging into the backs of his thighs. Her hands gripped his back, her nails scoring his skin. And with every thrust, every push he made into her, she doubled it, redoubled it. Her groin pounded up into him, and the silky wetness of her sheath gripped him, her hidden muscles milking him until he thought he was going to lose his mind from sheer pleasure.

Her buried his face in the crook of her neck, panting hot breath into the honey-blond curls of her hair. "I love you," he gasped. "Forever and always. I love you. I love you." Sweat dripped down his neck, to mingle on their joined bodies. From far away, he could feel the thunderstorm of his orgasm approaching, and his pace quickened.

"I know," Laura replied softly in his ear. Somehow, he pulled far away enough for his eyes to focus on hers. They were filled with happiness, tender with love. She cupped his cheeks in his hands and drew him down for a kiss. "I know."

The declaration sent Cal careening over the edge. With a piercing pleasure so pure it was almost pain, he came into her, his body shuddering in the throes of a tremendous climax, spending himself in burst after burst of his come, spattering the walls of her womb with his seed.

*****

They had their first fight the next morning.

"No," Cal said flatly, his arms crossed. "I'm not staying here."

"You're not coming with me, either."

"Fine," he shot back. "I'll drive up there myself. I know where it is."

"You...stupid man," she fumed. "Why do you have to be so fucking dumb? What do you think you can do up there that three alphas can't? Do you want to get killed?"

His face grew hard. "And why do you think everything is about you and your damned pack, Laura? This isn't about you. This is about me. If you think I can stay here and let you go up to face that animal, and the only protection you have is three alphas who look at you like a game-piece rather than a real person, you're dumber than you think I am.

"I love you, dammit. There's going to be four of you, and about forty of them. And if they decide not to play nice, you're going to need all the help you can get."

"Trouble in paradise?" asked a wry voice, and they both spun around to see Clark Two Horse, the alpha from Pine Ridge, standing in the doorway.

"He wants to go up there with us!" Laura shouted, pointing at Cal as if she had caught him molesting a goat.

"Huh." He raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Should have thought of that before you went and ensnared him with your feminine wiles."

"What?" she stammered. "I don't even have any feminine wiles!"

"It's true," Cal put in. "She doesn't."

"You," she snarled, "are not helping."

"Now, now, lovebirds." It was clear the older man was enjoying their predicament. "Laura, if I've learned anything in my life, it's this. You ain't never gonna keep someone who loves you from wanting to be with you. Sure, he ain't one of us. And there's shifters up there who could take him apart quick as a blink. But he don't care about that. Because he wants to try to protect you, even though he knows he can't." He looked at Cal. "Isn't that right, boy?"

"Yes, sir. It is."

"Humph. Awful polite. Makes me wonder what you're up to."

Laura looked back and forth between the two, and threw her hands up. "Fine. Fuck it. If you want to go up there, I can't stop you." She moved closer, glaring at him. "But if you do something stupid and get yourself hurt, I swear I'll kill you myself. Got it?"

He smiled down at her. "Got it."

"And might I suggest the two of you take a shower before we leave? The folks up there aren't going to take it kindly if you show up smelling like the inside of a whorehouse." He colored as Laura spun around angrily. "My apologies, miss."

"Laura?"

"No. I want him to smell me on you. And you on me. It'll drive the stupid fuck crazy, to know you've had something he didn't. Something he'll never have."

Clark refrained from commenting. Instead he sighed and looked out the window as two more cars pulled up. "Are you two ready to go?"

"Yes," Laura said.

*****

My life, Cal thought as he and Laura climbed out of his truck, has become unbelievably weird.

Two weeks ago he had been the owner of an independent, if financially precarious, veterinary practice. The biggest worries in his life had been about his student loans or whether he might have to deal with a particularly stubborn sheep. Now, he was the boyfriend of a gorgeous wolf-shifter with a death-wish, standing in the middle of a pack of people who looked at him the same way his young nephews looked at a particularly tempting piece of candy. He could see them eying him and Laura. Not hungrily, he thought. More...speculatively, as if they wondered if he would even be worth the time and trouble it took to kill him. It made him shiver. These were people who thought that the rules of society simply didn't apply to them.

"So what are the rules?" he asked Laura quietly, trying to ignore the way the shifters prowled around the clearing.

"Rules? There aren't any."

"So, Tate can show up with an Uzi and blow us all away? Good to know."

She gave him an exasperated glance. "Fine, smart-ass. We go into the clearing." She pointed with her chin. "We can choose the forms we want, and we can shift at any time. The only weapon we can bring in from the outside is a knife." She fingered the metal blade, borrowed from Garrett, she wore strapped to her thigh.

"Once we start, the only way it ends is if one of us dies. Or yields. Winner take all, best out of one."

"So, basically Thunderdome. Two shifters enter. One bad-ass woman leaves."

Despite the writhing knot of tension in her stomach, she smiled, then rose up to kiss him. "You know, we really have to do something about those glasses," she said. "Have you ever thought about getting your eyes lased? Or even contacts?"

"I-" he was interrupted by a coarse, rancid voice.

"So, the little slut's back. And this time she's brought some friends." Tate stalked naked into the clearing, flanked by several other shifters, both in human and wolf form. He held a wickedly long knife in his left hand. "I knew you'd spread your legs for anything that moved, whore. But a human?"

"Better him than you, Tate." She gave a pointed look at his bare groin and grinned mockingly. "Much better, in fact." A female titter, quickly silenced, ran around the clearing, making Tate scowl.

"After it's over, and she's dead, human," called a dark-haired man, "we'll give you a head-start down the mountain. "Who knows? You might make it."

The alpha of Lodge Creek stepped into the clearing, radiating menace. "After it's over, and Tate's dead, you are each going to answer for what has gone on up here for the last few weeks. And if by some chance he wins, Lodge Creek, Pine Ridge, and Medicine Bow are prepared to declare war on you. Think about that before you open your mouth again, boy."

The man stepped back, trying to maintain his composure. But Cal thought if had been in his wolf form, his tail would be between his legs.

"Here is the situation," Lodge Creek continued. "Laura Hudson is challenging for the position of Alpha of the Lupe Mountain pack. She has already agreed that after she wins, she will bring in Alex Graham as an alpha-in-training, and Howard Duncan as a senior adviser. When the two of them judge Alex is ready, they will hand over leadership of Lupe Mountain to him.

"Tate, as the challenged, it is your call. To the death, or until the defeated yields?"

"I don't give a shit," said Tate, spitting on his blade and wiping it on one hairy buttock. "Ain't no way this bitch wins. Let her crawl back to her human if she loses."

"Laura, is this acceptable?"

"I have no desire to kill today," the golden-haired woman replied, pulling off her shirt. "I will accept his surrender, if he offers it."

"Very well." He waited until Laura was naked.

"Begin."

*****

As soon as the word left Garrett's lips, Laura threw her knife to the ground. It sank deep, point first, as she reached within herself and shifted.

Less than ten yards away, Tate faced her in his wolf form, black and monstrous. ~Here we are again,~ he gloated. ~I think I'll fuck your corpse after I've killed you. And then I'll drink your boyfriend's blood while he's still alive.~

~You're mad,~ she stated, circling to her right. Tate stalked her across the clearing. ~Completely fucking insane.~

He faked a leap, but she saw the ruse for what it was, and held her ground, slowly circling, looking for her opening. ~Cowardly bitch. Are you scared to fight? Or did that pathetic beta you're fucking infect you somehow?~

I've talked enough, she thought. Her heart pounded as the joy of battle came upon her. She felt suddenly, incredibly, alive, as if she had been created just for this particular moment. Spears of light angled down between the trees, and dust motes filled the air. Around the clearing, she could sense the presence of dozens of shifters. Standing among them, his back to a tree, Cal watched them anxiously. He shone in her inner sight like a star on a foggy night, and her heart swelled with love.

Now, she thought. It's time.

*****

Cal stood with his back against a huge pine tree on the edge of the clearing. All eyes were on the battle, but he didn't trust Tate's cronies to not come up behind him and slit his throat while he wasn't looking. He was surprised to find Clark Two Horse beside him. The older man was a comforting presence at his shoulder.

"Why aren't they doing anything?" he asked softly. Laura and Tate had been slowly circling for several minutes. Tate had faked a rush multiple times. Laura, on the other hand, was calm and quiet, keeping low to the ground, her forepaws spread wide. Only the coiled readiness of her muscles betrayed her inner tension.

"Because this is a real fight, son," Clark answered. "When it begins, it ain't going to last long."

"Who has the edge?"

Clark's face settled into grim lines. "Your girl there has youth, speed, and smarts. That helps. But that animal she's up against is twice her size and half again her weight. And that counts for a lot. But..." he trailed off.

"But what?"

"Look at Tate," he said quietly. "Look at the scars on him. He's tangled with a lot of folks. Won most of them, or he wouldn't be alive now. But he can't be a very good fighter. Good fighters don't get hurt. They win quick, before the other one can get their licks in.

"He's probably won most of his fights by strength and weight, not skill."

He frowned, this time more deeply. "Your girl's favoring her left front."

"What?" He looked, and saw that Two Horse was right. It was barely visible to his eyes, but to a shifter, it had to be plain as a shout. Laura was limping, putting less and less weight on her left foreleg with every step. "But that can't be right. She's fine. I took the stitches out days-"