Chosen by the Beast Alpha

Chapter 117: Chapter 117

Lena’s POV

She picked a strappy dress from her suitcase, light and flowy, the kind that moved with the breeze.

When she stepped out of the bathroom, Dominic was already dressed. He leaned against the doorframe, eyes moving over her slowly, carefully, not missing a thing.

"Does it look okay?"

He didn’t answer. He just reached for her hand and led her outside.

By the time they got to the beach, the bonfire was already blazing. Flames leaped into the darkening sky, and sparks drifted up like fireflies. The air was thick with the smell of charcoal, salt, and sizzling meat.

Pretty much everyone on the island was there. Some were people she’d met at the hotel. Most were total strangers.

They lounged on blankets, leaned against pieces of driftwood, clinked bottles, laughed, and slipped into that easy vacation vibe strangers sometimes shared, like everybody had agreed to be friendly for one night.

The couple from next door waved them over. There was space left by the fire, two low chairs set side by side.

"So glad you made it!" the girlfriend said, handing Lena a bottle of beer. "The ribs are almost done."

Food kept coming out one plate after another: grilled shrimp, smoked ribs, charred corn, vegetable skewers, bread toasted over the fire. Lena ate with her hands, sauce on her fingers, not caring one bit how she looked.

Dominic barely ate, and he drank even less. He sat beside her with one arm draped over the back of her chair, watching the crowd the way he always did—quiet, sharp, sizing people up while somehow staying apart from all of it.

She finished two beers. The heat from the fire mixed with the buzz of alcohol until her cheeks turned warm and pink, and her voice came out a little louder than usual.

Someone cranked the speaker all the way up. Music rolled across the beach, bass thudding through the sand.

People started dancing. Firelight turned them into amber shadows, loose and fearless, moving like nobody cared who was watching.

The girlfriend next door grabbed Lena by the wrist. "Come on!"

Lena looked at Dominic. He didn’t move.

"Go on," he said.

She kicked off her sandals and let herself get pulled into the crowd.

The music was good—one of those songs that hit your body before your brain. She danced with the woman, laughing, spinning, warm bonfire on one side, cool sea breeze on the other.

A man drifted into Lena’s line of sight. Tall, tanned, easy smile. He moved in close and danced with her without actually touching her, like he was casually testing where her line was.

She wasn’t interested. But the beer had loosened her up, and the music was crazy infectious. She didn’t feel like getting hung up on some invisible rule nobody had even set.

Then a hand settled on her waist from behind.

She knew that hand instantly. The weight of it, the heat of it, the way his fingers pressed against her with that quiet, unquestionable sense of command.

“My turn,” he said, his voice low against her ear.

She turned and went straight into Dominic Voss’s arms. “You know how to dance?”

“No.”

“Then what are you doing?”

He pulled her closer. One hand stayed at her waist, the other slid over her hip and rested on her ass. “This.”

They swayed slowly, wrapped in the music. His thigh pressed between hers, his hand firm and steady against the middle of her back.

Firelight cut across the sharp lines of his face. In his gray eyes, the flames flickered, and when he looked at her, it felt like she was the only thing on that whole beach worth looking at.

She slipped her arms around his neck and leaned into his chest. The music softened, slower now. Around them, the other couples folded closer into each other too.

His thumb traced slow circles over her ass.

“Dominic.”

“Mm.”

“I’m tired. I don’t want to dance anymore.”

The tent was set a little farther from the bonfire, closer to the dunes, where the noise thinned out until it was barely more than murmurs. Canvas walls, thick sleeping pads, blankets piled high.

He reached back and zipped the tent shut. Firelight filtered through the fabric, washing everything in gold.

She changed into the oversized nightshirt she’d brought, then slipped under the blankets and curled onto her side. Dominic lay beside her, one arm tucked behind his head, staring up at the canvas ceiling.

The music from the bonfire still floated over now and then, faint and broken. The waves kept rolling in with that steady rhythm, brushing the shore again and again. Inside the tent, the air smelled like salt and warm canvas.

Just when she was about to drift off, Lena heard a moan. Clear as day. It came from the tent next door.

Her eyes flew open.

Then came another one. After that, a man’s low, rough grunt. Then the sleeping pad started squeaking in a steady rhythm, louder by the second.

The canvas walls were thin. Stupidly thin. Every sound felt like it was happening right beside them.

"Oh God—" the she-wolf gasped, sharp and needy, her voice climbing higher and higher.

Lena’s whole body locked up. Her cheeks burned as she stared at the dim canvas above her. Dominic didn’t move, not even a little, but his breathing had changed.

The noises kept building. She was loud. He was louder. The next tent shook with it, the woman’s cries rising without the slightest care about who might hear.

Heat rushed from Lena’s neck straight into her face until it felt like her whole head was on fire. Her heart was pounding so hard she was dead sure Dominic could hear every beat.

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think. The ocean. The stars. Tax returns. Literally anything. It didn’t help. The sounds kept going, raw and vivid, filling every inch of the silence between them.

Dominic’s arm shifted. In the dark, his hand found her waist.

Lena stopped breathing.

The warmth of his palm seeped through her thin shirt, his fingers resting lightly against the curve of her hip. He didn’t pull her closer. He didn’t move. He just left his hand there, the touch hanging between them like a question he wasn’t saying out loud.

Next door, the couple hit their peak. She cried out. He groaned. Then everything went quiet except for their heavy breathing.

Lena pressed her legs together. No one could listen to all that and stay unaffected. Every nerve in her body felt lit up, sparking under her skin. She could feel Dominic’s heat at her back, the tension wound tight inside him, and that deliberate stillness only made it worse—it was restraint, plain and simple.

Neither of them said a word.

His thumb slowly traced one circle over her hip. Then stopped.

Lena bit down hard on her lip, hard enough that she almost tasted blood.

The music from the bonfire faded further into the distance. The waves still rolled against the shore. The couple next door murmured to each other for a few seconds, then finally went still.

She lay there wide awake the whole night, aching, stiff, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything except listen to Dominic’s even breathing behind her and wonder how on earth either of them was supposed to fall asleep after this.

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