Alpha by Jasinda Wilder

you’re even more afraid of me. But you don’t need to be afraid.” He placed both of his palms on my cheeks. Tilted my face up. “Now…kiss me.”
    I obeyed his command. I kissed him. I pressed my back against the wall and lifted up on my toes, touched my lips to his. Our mouths met as I sighed. It was an outbreath of need, of eagerness, of relief, of frustration. He sucked my sigh into his mouth and pulled my face to his, gently yet irresistibly. Our mouths, and his hands on my face, these were the only points of contact between us, yet…I felt him surrounding me. I felt as if he’d somehow blocked out the whole world, including my own fears. As if one taste of his lips erased my nerves and my fears and my hesitation, so all that remained was his mouth upon mine.  
    That in itself terrified me.
    My hands once again betrayed me. They rose and reached out, touched a hard, broad human wall. Silk, cool and smooth, met my touch; a tie. My fingers splayed out, and my palms flattened against his chest. I felt thick muscle beneath his clothes. My hands drifted up and discovered broad shoulders. Far, far up. This man was very tall. I found the column of his neck and let my hands travel up to touch his jaw, rough and scratchy with day-old stubble. I began to search upward, attempting to learn the features of his face as if I were blind, but one of his hands pinioned my wrists together, drew them down, held them between us. My fingers fluttered in his grip like a wind-tossed sparrow, and the kiss continued. Deepened. The fires of my passion, once drowsy, were sparked. I lifted up higher on my tip-toes, leaned into him, and now it was not merely a meeting of mouths, this kiss, but a giving and a taking.  
    No longer just a kiss. An agreement that yes , I want this . I shivered as his mouth moved on mine, his face twisted to the side, our noses brushing, bumping, and the shiver was also an admittance that said yes, I am afraid of this . Even so, the kiss continued, driving, demanding. Becoming more and more, until this kiss shattered all the others, drowning the memory of any other kiss.
    The tip of his tongue slid across the seam of my lips, yet before I could open my mouth, he was stepping away, freeing my wrists. From a foot or two away I could hear his breathing was harsh and labored.  
    Good to know that at least he hadn’t been unaffected.  
    As for me? I was shaking all over, hands pressed flat to the wall beside my hips, my back arched, my shoulders against the wall, head still tilted up as if in memory or parody of the kiss—The Kiss.  
    I heard a knob twist, the whisper of a door opening across the carpeting. His hands grasped my shoulders, and he guided me to the doorway. I felt his front against my back, and his hands slid down my arms, crossed over my stomach. He held me to him, just briefly. By the feel of his chest rising and falling with his breath, I was aware of his height. So tall. I barely reached his chest.  
    “Close your eyes,” he murmured.
    “I have a blindfold on,” I reminded him, even as I closed my eyes behind the cloth.
    “Close—”  
    “They are, they are,” I interrupted him. He made a sound of disapproval at my insolence, but said nothing.  
    His fingers caught the ends of the blindfold, pulled them apart, untying it. “Do not fail this test,” was all he said, as the blindfold fell away.  
    I kept my eyes closed, facing forward, listening carefully, so attuned to every sound. I heard him take a single step back. Two. Three. I wanted so badly to open my eyes and spin around, but I didn’t. Why didn’t I?  
    Because I was enjoying this game.  
    “Goodnight, Kyrie.”
    “Goodnight….you.”  
    He chuckled, the sound growing distant.  
    Silence.
    I opened my eyes and found myself in the living room of my quarters. On impulse, I spun around, tiptoed to peek around the edge of the door. I was just in time to catch a glimpse of someone extremely tall, a flash of blond hair,