“Nope,” he said as he stood up offering her his hand. “I fully intend to re-mark my territory the first chance I get.” She raised her eyebrows at him as she took his hand and he pulled her up into his arms. He held her tightly to himself and breathed her scent in. “But I haven’t had a shower in a day or so and, while you might not care, there are a few people who might. I just thought it would be fun to bring you with me. Though, I would be just as happy if you wanted to walk around with my scent all over you, advertising that you were in my bed. Less competition that way.” He grinned at her devilishly.
Aislinn’s face fell a bit. “Something occurs to me,” she said. “I mean it’s not like I didn’t know you were in charge around here. But I guess I just didn’t really think about it in terms of where things have ended up. I mean. What exactly am I dealing with here?”
Cullen looked at her carefully. She had the right to know. He was impressed that she knew the right questions to ask and worried that the answers might scare her off at the same time. Well, I guess it’s my turn to be worried about being dumped. He had never been in that position before. “How likely are you to run away from me if you don’t like what you hear?” he asked only half kidding.
It was Aislinn’s turn for the reassuring smile. “Pretty unlikely as long as you tell me that you want me around and prepare me for whatever is going to happen when we leave this room. Or we could just stay here forever?” she suggested hopefully.
He grinned at the joke. We may be too close of a match, he thought and wondered what the fates were getting him into with her. “If only. I wish we could hide up here. But seeing as we can’t…” He considered his answer carefully. “Alright, you were honest with me and it’s not like I’ll be able to hide the kind of thing you’re asking about. Let’s jump in the shower and I’ll explain while we get cleaned up. I don’t have much more time left before I need to get downstairs.”
Aislinn finally took his hand and stood up to go with him. He nodded toward a door on the far wall and Aislinn headed for the bathroom. Cullen grinned devilishly as Aislinn walked in front of him toward the bathroom. He loved the swing of her hips and the fact that she was naked certainly added to it.
She glanced back at him and chuckled when she saw his huge erection. “That didn’t take much.”
“With you it never does,” he smiled.
As they walked into the bathroom Aislinn looked around at the enormous room. She had never seen a bathroom so big. There was an entry area with a small couch and a plush navy carpet on the floor. The tiles were gray marble looking and they led up to a large tub in a raised platform with steps leading up to the edge of the tub. The tub looked like there were Jacuzzi jets in it and it was impossibly deep. Cullen noted the impressed look on her face as she examined the tub. “Maybe later,” he said as he read her mind. “We don’t have time for what would happen if we got in there.” He grabbed her around the waist and drug her to the shower stall on the far wall. “I actually don’t tend to us the tub much. But with you around I might be inclined to spend some leisure time in there.” As he was talking he turned the knobs on a walk in shower that was in the back corner of the bathroom and put his hand in the stream to see if the water was warm enough.
Aislinn let him pull her into the streaming water of the shower. “I just haven’t had a real bath in a while and that is some tub. But don’t let that change the subject. You were going to tell me what’s downstairs.”
Cullen thought about making joke about the casino and restaurant being downstairs but decided that he didn’t have time to mess around at this point. He grabbed up the soap and lathered his hands then much to Aislinn’s delight started to run them over her body instead of his own. She giggled as his hands slid over her and he started talking. “How often do you watch the discovery channel,” he asked more seriously than she liked.
“Not often in the past seven years. I haven’t had cable. You don’t really mean-”
Cullen cut her off. “No it’s not quite that barbaric, but the principle is the same. And you, mo mhúirnín bán,” he added making her smile and working his way over her breasts with his soapy hands, “are in the pack alpha’s bed. Unfortunately I’ve been around for a long time. After a certain point I stopped thinking I was going to find one woman I wanted to commit to,” he paused trying to think of how to put the rest of what he was going to say.
Aislinn was a little amused by the way he was staring at her breasts and running soapy fingers around her nipples. He looked like he was concentrating on something vastly important. She couldn’t believe he was that nervous talking to her about it. He reminded her of a high school kid trying to ask a girl if she wanted to go steady or wear his ring. She leaned into him and reached down to his erection. As the soap from her body ran over it she began gliding her hand up and down along its length. “So I get two things out of what you’ve just said. Firstly, there are several women, who might want to beat me up. This being a pack of wolves and the strongest of them is the one who should be in the alpha’s bed. And secondly, that maybe you think that you might be interested in making some kind of commitment to me,” she said tentatively, afraid to hope.
He finally looked her in the eyes. “You are certainly clever. I’ll give you that. You can turn me down,” he said. His stare was intense. It was like he was trying to get inside her head. “But really that’s a conversation for when we have more time than we do now and for when you really understand what you’ll be getting into if you agree to it. Just think about it,” he said hopefully. “But as far as the first one goes, yeah there’s a number of women who’ll try to put you in what they think your place should be. I personally don’t care if you end up an omega. But they’ll think that if they make you look bad enough in that respect then I’ll lose interest. So they’ll try. The rest of the pack will probably be curious and inquisitive but not dangerous. I suggest you stay away from any women who seem to be trying to pick a fight. It’s worse than an actual wolf pack in the regards that it’s not just physical prowess. There’s an element of mental prowess that goes along with it. Brute strength can really only get you so far. And I have had a tendency of preferring the higher ranking females who’ve offered over the lower ranks. So you can count on the ones trying to cause you trouble being good fighters and thinkers as well. As far as the men go, you shouldn’t have any real trouble with them. Except that since I’ve shown interest in you they might try to find out why.” Cullen seemed to growl the last part.