The Triplet Alphas' Secret Mate

Chapter 174: Lost Control

Scarlett’s POV

​Fuck. What was wrong with me? Scarlett, stop this. Stop this right now, I screamed at myself in the silence of my own mind. I was playing a dangerous game, dancing on the edge of a blade that could slice my entire life open. But Goddess help me, I couldn’t stop. The moment I felt him—the moment that heavy, thick heat of his hardened cock pressed against my core—every bit of logic evaporated.

​I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I continued to roll my waist in slow, agonizing circles over him, grinding my weight down until I felt the friction sparking like live wires between my thighs. Leonard let out a guttural groan, his large hands shifting from my waist to my ass, gripping me with a possessive strength that made my breath hitch. I looked down at him, and for a second, the mask of the cold Alpha slipped. I saw the brutal war raging in his eyes. There was a raw, starving desire to take me right there, to bury his grief in the body of a stranger, but it was fighting a losing battle against the suffocating wall of love and guilt he carried for a woman he thought was dead.

​I was that woman. And yet, I was the stranger.

​The irony burned worse than the whiskey on his breath. I leaned down, losing myself in the scent of him—the sandalwood and the salt of his tears—and pressed a lingering, wet kiss to the corded muscle of his neck. I didn’t care that we were in the middle of a VIP lounge. I didn’t care that any shifter in the room could catch the scent of our combined heat.

​Leonard let out a broken moan, his head falling back against the chair. Then, as if a dam had finally broken, he slapped my ass—a sharp, stinging hit that sent a jolt of pure pleasure straight to my clit. I moaned loudly, the sound lost in the thumping bass of the club. Taking his hand, I guided it beneath the hem of my short skirt.

​He didn’t need me to tell him what I wanted. His fingers found the lace of my panties, shifting the fabric aside with a practiced, ruthless intent. The moment his skin touched the entrance of my dripping pussy, he stiffened. He froze for a heartbeat, his nostrils flaring.

a low, vibrating growl against my skin. "You’re

beyond words. I was a mess of nerves and need. I watched through

from my throat,

how to reach. "So tight," he hissed,

too heavy. I leaned in, my heart screaming for the comfort of his mouth, for the taste of the mate I had missed with every fiber of my being. But just as my lips were about to

his head back, pulling his hand away from me as if he’d been burned. My arousal was slick on his fingers, glistening in

cold again, but shaking. "I can’t

physical blow to the chest. He was willing to finger a stranger, willing to use

pulled away from his lap, my legs feeling weak as I smoothed down my skirt. My body was still thrumming, pulsing with a climax that had been cut off

was trying

distance between us feeling wider now. I looked at him

you, Alpha," I said, my voice

heart heavy with a grief that matched his own. I couldn’t go to the backstage area; I couldn’t face the