“He picked a hell of a time to go all barbarian traditional Alpha,” Zoe grumbled. “Right now is when we need to be taking action, framing the way our debut into the world is going to go. Not hiding out and bracing for the worst.”
She bounced into the cab, so caught up in her complaints she didn’t seem aware of what her body was doing. Tyler was aware enough for the both of them. He watched her ass in the tight jeans, the movement of her full breasts beneath the too-thin T-shirt. His mouth watered and his palms itched, but he just slammed the passenger door and rounded the hood.
As soon as he opened the driver’s door, Zoe started in again. “You could talk to him. He listens to you. If you told him—”
“Not my call,” he said shortly, cutting her off before she could get going. “Alpha’s decision.”
Zoe snorted. “Oh please. That isn’t you.”
Tyler ignored her, cranking the key until the truck’s engine sprang to life with a jagged roar. He shoved the truck into gear and pulled out onto the deserted country road, headed back toward the ranch.
“Caleb is the soldier in your family,” Zoe continued. “You’re the thinker.”
“I’m the mechanic.”
Zoe twisted toward him and he tried not to notice the way her legs draped over the bench seat between them, her knee brushing the outside of his thigh through two layers of denim. “You analyze everything,” Zoe insisted.
He couldn’t argue that. Right now he was analyzing exactly how long it would take him to get her jeans down around her ankles and her knees over his shoulders if he pulled the truck off to the side of the road. Twenty, maybe thirty seconds. That big-ass silver belt buckle she’d taken to wearing lately might slow him down some.
“You have opinions about everything. Typical alpha I-know-best-and-you-must-obey bullshit, even if you shove it all down and try to pretend it isn’t there. I bet you always get your way, right?”
Only rigid control kept Tyler from laughing out loud at that. He always got his own way, did he? Whoever Zoe thought she was talking about, it sure as hell wasn’t him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done anything just for himself.
“You’re more manipulative than the other he-man lions in the pride though. I bet you’re the one who taught Ava everything she knows about diplomacy.”
“Something you never learned, apparently.”
Zoe’s soft laughter rippled out to fill the cab. Not the reaction he’d expected, but Zoe rarely conformed to expectations. The brim of her cowboy hat knocked against the window, tipping it back so he had a better view of her face and the easy warmth of her smile. A knot tightened low in his gut.
“I never did see much point in tact.” She linked her fingers over the knee wedged against his thigh, the backs of her fingers pressing into his leg. His jeans suddenly felt tight, but he couldn’t remove her hand without acknowledging her touch affected him, so he tightened his hands on the steering wheel, keeping his eyes locked on the road ahead.
“What I don’t get is why you need to be Mr. Diplomacy. Ava, I get. She’s tiny and that’s like tattooing kick me on your forehead in the prides. But you’re one of the biggest shifters I’ve ever seen. Why weren’t you the Alpha before Landon and I showed up? Are you just a really crappy fighter or something?”
His lion sent a growl rumbling out of his throat at the insult before he could swallow it down.
Zoe chuckled and her fingers uncurled to pet his thigh. “Down, boy.”
He wanted her hands on him, petting, stroking. Just a little higher. Her skin would be soft, her hands firm and capable. Stroking him from base to tip, wringing need from him in juicy drops…
Tyler grabbed her hand off his leg and flicked it away from him before he gave in to the urge to grind himself against her. “Not everyone wants to rule the world.” His voice sounded odd—too rough and low.
She folded her arms across her stomach, tucking her knees in so they no longer pressed against him. He didn’t suspect for a second he’d hurt her feelings with the rebuff. With Zoe, a strategic retreat was much more likely. Feint and parry. Retreat and advance. A constant campaign to test for weaknesses in his defenses.
She tipped her head and the cowboy hat slid back farther. “I get that you aren’t power crazy, but my impression is that pride life was pretty much hell under Leonus. I’m surprised you wouldn’t take him out just to improve living conditions. Seems like that kind of noble shit would be right up your alley.”
He could have explained. He could have told her that he was Alpha of his own pride: Caleb, Kane, Michael and Ava. Protecting his younger siblings had been his top priority since his father left. Being Alpha of Three Rocks would have made him responsible for ten times as many lions. He couldn’t care for that many and still look after his four the way he needed to, so he had ruthlessly suppressed his frustration at the way the pride was run under Leonus. His family came first. Always.
“I never claimed to be noble.”
Zoe hummed her agreement. “Tricky thing, nobility. The more claims you make to it, the less you have.”
“So I must be noble because I told you I’m not?”
She shook her head and the cowboy hat gave up the fight, tumbling down over her shoulder. She caught it one-handed and tucked it into her lap, running her long, slim fingers over the brim. “It doesn’t work in reverse,” she explained. “But if you’d said you were noble, I’d have known you were full of shit. Denial is a good sign.”
He flicked her a glance out of the corner of his eye and had trouble looking away. They were on the ranch drive now, so he didn’t really need to pay much attention to the road, but looking at it was safer than watching her. Zoe King was a hazard to his senses.
Curled in the passenger seat like the cat she was, her green-gold eyes never wavered from him as her fingers stroked patterns in the hat, teasing him with thoughts of those same fingers branding patterns into his skin with a touch.
God, she was gorgeous. Tall and strong like a Viking goddess, with curves just where he wanted them. Her face was so actively expressive it was easy to miss the sheer beauty of it—the high cheekbones and lush, inviting fullness of her mouth. Tyler often found himself captivated by her constantly changing expressions. He could sit and watch her for hours, sucked in by the way each thought and emotion tracked across her face.
He yanked his gaze away and locked it back on the road.
She was quicksand. She’d suck him in and trap him here so he’d never be free. He just needed to keep reminding himself of that.
“Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to be gallant and noble.” Her voice was low and smooth, a purring invitation to sin. “Virtue is so overrated. I like my knights rough with their armor a little tarnished around the edges.”
The scent of her twined around him in the cab, the tang of ginger mixed with something dark and rich. Tyler rolled down the window, taking a deep breath of the dry, dusty air in an attempt to get some more blood flowing to his brain instead of diverting to his crotch.
Her knees inched closer again, brushing against the side of his leg. With every bounce along the rutted dirt drive, she edged toward him. If not for the seat belt keeping her back, she probably would have crawled onto his lap. Tyler’s brain began to melt at the thought of her straddling his lap, her lush curves rising above him.
Zoe’d never made any secret of the fact that she wanted him—she wasn’t exactly the coy type—but he’d ignored every hint and passed up every not-so-subtle invitation. If he acknowledged that she wanted him, if he gave her any clue that it was the thought of her he jacked off to in the shower every night, she would never give up.