by Dannika Dark
Where am I? Oh yeah, a motel.
I recalled my brief encounter with food poisoning, coming to the motel, taking a shower, Lakota bringing me food, the nightmare, and… oh holy hell.
The kiss.
My body tingled just thinking about it. I stretched, then it hit me like a sledgehammer what that rumbling was against my back. It wasn’t a dream or even a pillow. It was Lakota Cross, and he had me in a firm grip.
I glanced down at a tangle of arms and couldn’t tell where mine ended and his began. We looked like a human pretzel. Lakota was spooning me from behind, his bare chest pressed against my back, his face nuzzled against my nape—and I only knew that because I could feel the heat of his breath in a steady rhythm. Every breath he took seemed to travel all the way down to my core. My bottom was snug against his groin, another unexpected discovery.
Lakota had come into my bed the previous night with great reluctance. He’d clung to the edge of the mattress on the other side as if it were a lifeboat. Eventually he rolled onto his back, hands locked behind his head as his gaze drifted to the ceiling.
He assumed I’d fallen asleep, but sleeping would have been an exercise in futility. Eventually I stopped rolling around and altered my breathing so he would at least think I’d drifted off. Through my tangled hair, I watched him—the way his chest rose and fell with each breath, the way he would simultaneously frown and purse his lips when deep in thought, the way he periodically turned his head to watch me. I would quickly shut my eyes until I heard the soft rustle of his head shifting away. We played that game for what seemed like an hour, and Lakota kept his hands locked behind his head the entire time. After a while, my eyelids grew heavy, and the sound of gentle rain outside lulled me to sleep.
Now a man with the body of a warrior was holding me tight as if I mattered. I had no recollection of wandering hands during the night. His arms felt like iron, and they held me protectively. Everything about the moment was so tender and affectionate that I didn’t want to move, afraid that one cough or shift of my body would cause him to sever contact. Would he recoil? Run away? Roll me over and bury me under his weight?
I wasn’t sure which option was the best one, and that left me even more confused. Only two men had ever held me in their arms when falling asleep, and by morning, they were on their side and I was on mine.
Never had I woken up feeling so safe and protected. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe it meant anything. Lakota was undoubtedly craving the feel of being close to another wolf. He’d never really experienced pack life on a daily basis, and I wondered what that kind of separation would do to a wolf. I felt lonely being away from my pack, but at least I had Hope to keep me company. Sometimes our wolves would curl up together, fulfilling that need to bond with other wolves. But Lakota lived and worked alone. Our connection would probably scare him enough to leap out of bed and hit the road.
“Morning, Freckles,” he murmured.
I pretended to be asleep.
He called my bluff. “Can’t fool me. Your heart’s beating faster, and you stopped snoring.”
“I don’t snore.”
“Of course not. You breathe with gusto.”
I turned my head. “I don’t like that name. Freckles, I mean.”
“I do,” he said with a throaty growl.
When his arms relaxed, I rolled over to face him. “You were always good at teasing me,” I said, a smile on my lips.
He looked at me lazily, his voice a silken caress across my skin. “I like your freckles.”
I liked the way I felt in his arms, but I kept that to myself. “Did you learn something last night?”
His lips eased into a grin. “That you snore like a little mouse.”
I poked his chest. “I don’t snore. I’m serious. Here I am, in my bra and panties, and all you did was hold me in your arms. Not only that, but I had my back turned to you while in bed. I was vulnerable, and you’re more powerful than I am. I hope this convinces you that you’ve been wrong about yourself this whole time.”
“Maybe it’s because I know you.”
“If you had it in you, it wouldn’t matter. In fact, you might feel more entitled, probably the way your father did about your mother since he was the beta in the pack. Don’t you feel differently about yourself?”
He nodded slowly. Lakota was still struggling with coming to terms with his true nature, but there was something in his expression I hadn’t seen the night before—relief.
“Just promise me something,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Promise me you won’t keep running from sex.”
His blue eyes twinkled. “I’ve never met a female like you before.”
Female. Sometimes he used that word interchangeably with woman. Chitahs often used it as a term of endearment. It wasn’t something I was used to hearing, but I liked it every time he said it.
“I’m serious, Lakota. I don’t want it to hold you back. Promise me the next time you meet someone, you won’t hold back.”
“Does that include maid service?”
I gave him a look of reproach.
His eyebrows drew together, and he pressed his forehead against mine. “You have my word. The next woman who makes my heart beat fast, I’ll invite her to my bed.”
I began to regret pushing him, but it was the right thing to do. Wolves in a pack could smell an Achilles’ heel, and they would challenge him as a second-in-command. Lakota deserved a better future than that.
He drew back and swept my hair away from my face. “Can we talk about something else? We don’t have much time left together.” His thumb grazed along my cheek before he wrapped his arm around me again. This time there was nothing sexual in his touch. It was friendly and tender.
I wanted to tell him to keep holding me like that. Once we let go and got out of that bed, we might not see each other again for a long time. We would go back to being friends who ran into each other at the occasional peace party whenever he came into town. Why that mattered, I wasn’t sure.
“Jelly sandwiches for breakfast?” I asked.
When he smiled, his eyes crinkled at the corners. “Something better.”
And with that, our tender moment crumbled away as he rolled over and sat up. The paper bag rustled, then Lakota held out something for me—a package of cinnamon donuts.
“I remember you buying these once when I drove you and Hope to the gas station to buy ice cream.”
Once? He remembers something I ate once a million years ago? And the crazy thing was I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d eaten those donuts.
I placed the package on my chest and ripped it open, crumbs scattering as I shoved one into my mouth. They were a little stale, but he’d probably picked up the groceries at a nearby convenience store.
Lakota stood up, his jeans unbuttoned but the zipper still fastened. He moseyed into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Meanwhile, I continued eating donuts and pondered how I was going to win over Shikoba.
The water shut off sooner than I’d expected. Lakota sauntered into the room in his jeans, his chest glistening. He hadn’t bothered to dry off, and his hair was dripping wet.
“What are you thinking?” I asked around a mouthful of donut.
He lifted his white T-shirt off the floor and put it on. It fit snugly and clung to his body as it soaked up the water. “I’m wondering if we’re going to argue this morning.”
“Over what?”
He flipped his hair out from inside the collar. “I think we both know.”
Maybe it wasn’t worth bringing up. I had no intention of leaving until I spoke with Shikoba one last time, and Lakota knew there was no way he could stop me. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.
When he turned a sharp eye toward my donuts, I became self-conscious about the mess I’d made. Then again, maybe he was taking another gander at how I didn’t quite measure up in the breast department. They looked even flatter when I was lying down.
>
“Let me have one of those,” he said.
I felt my cheeks flush, confused for only a nanosecond that he was asking for a donut. Lakota rounded the bed, shoved a donut into his mouth, and turned his attention to a rather uninspiring painting on the wall of a deer standing in the woods.
“Why do you care so much about my sex life?” he asked, still positioned with his back to me.
Setting the donuts aside, I sat up. “Well, you cared enough to share it with me. I don’t know. It’s something everyone should experience, and the reasons you chose for avoiding it aren’t worthy of you.”
Lakota’s jaw kept working on that donut as he stared at the painting. I wondered if I should shower, but part of me didn’t want to if that meant washing away his smell.
And wasn’t that a silly thought?
Maybe my uncle William was right. Being away from a pack too long could put some crazy ideas into a woman’s head, and here I was, giving sex advice to my best friend’s brother. What would Hope think if she knew how quickly I’d lured her brother into my bed? Given that she never dated, she would probably think I was a slut.
And as I sat there in silence, I realized that was what Lakota must think of me as well. Jericho’s little girl grew up to be exactly like the man her daddy once was. And even though Lakota and I hadn’t done anything sexual, would I have said no if that offer had been on the table? Probably not.
I jolted out of bed and yanked on my jeans.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as I shot past him.
“Nothing.”
He gripped my arm. “No, not nothing.”
I wrenched away and hurried into the bathroom. After sliding on my tank top, I began brushing my teeth.
Lakota filled the doorway behind me, hands gripping the frame above his head. I glanced at him in the mirror while I brushed my molars.
“You’re the first person I’ve ever slept with,” he quipped.
I rinsed my mouth out. “Was it as good for you as it was for me?”
His jaw set. “Who are these men you’ve slept with? Do I know any of them?”
Was he trying to start something with me so I would get mad enough to leave town? I ignored him and put on my turquoise necklace.
His hands lowered so he was holding the frame on either side. “Are you seeing anyone now?”
I took my clean panties from the towel rack and stuffed them into my purse, leaving the toothbrush and toothpaste behind since they were travel size and not mine. “Move. I need to leave.”
“Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”
Flustered, I adjusted my purse strap. “Maybe you should ignore everything I’ve told you about relationships. I can’t tell you how to live your life. Women are complicated, and if you can’t handle a mood swing, maybe adding sex to the equation is doing more harm than good. I just… I didn’t want you to go around thinking that you were broken.”
I immediately wanted to retract my words. “Broken” was too harsh, but that had been exactly the look shadowing his expression when he bared his soul about his real father. That knowledge had broken him—stripped away the promising future he had as a man, a Shifter, and a lover.
Tainted it.
I couldn’t even look him in the eye. As lovely as the previous night had been for me, it was probably terrifying for him. Or embarrassing. I’d behaved like some kind of half-naked temptress, hoping to slap a Band-Aid on a problem that was probably bigger than I could comprehend, a dark truth that had cast a shadow on his entire life.
When he reached out to touch my face, I shrank back.
His brows knitted. “What changed between us?”
“There is no us. There’s just you and me living separate lives. We both took a detour, but I need to get back on the road. I have to go.”
He stepped aside to let me out. “Afraid a wolf will tie you down and make you quit all your big dreams?”
I shouldered past him.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” he asked. “Casual sex is fine because no strings are attached. You’re afraid to mate.”
I impulsively hurled a pillow at his face. With lightning-fast reflexes, he knocked it away.
“That’s not who I am!”
He folded his arms across his chest. “Then how come Hope never mentioned that you had a steady boyfriend? If a wolf doesn’t put a claim on you, sex is casual. I thought they were the ones who didn’t want to get serious, but maybe I was wrong.”
“You just know everything, don’t you?”
He leaned against the wall, his hands tucked beneath his biceps, pushing them out. “Maybe.”
With a heavy heart, I gave the room a final inspection and took a deep breath. Sometimes I had a fiery temper, so I gathered my emotions and smothered them before I said something I would regret. “Let’s not go away mad at each other. Can we pretend this never happened? I love Hope too much to have friction going on in the background every time we have a get-together.” I approached him but kept my distance. “You don’t want a relationship with me. I’m so sorry for meddling in your personal life the way I did, but you opened up to me with that secret, and I felt like I had to do something or say something about it. I don’t want to fix you, and I don’t want you to fix me. I’m not perfect by a long shot. We’re just two old friends who got caught in a rainstorm and sought shelter under the same tree. Or in this case, a bed.” I gestured behind me, then slapped my hand against my hip. “The storm’s passed, Lakota.”
An almost imperceptible smile touched Lakota’s lips. He tilted his head to the side, his voice just as soft as the look he was giving me. “You’re poetic.”
I bit my lip and held on to my purse strap as if it were a lifeline. “Next time you’re in town, we’ll go out and grab some barbecue.”
He lifted his chin. “I can do you one better. We’ll camp out like old times.”
I chuckled. “In your father’s backyard?”
“Promise you’ll come?”
The tension between us melted away, and I gave him a wistful smile. As much as I would have liked to roll back the years, we’d changed. “I’ve got a business to run now. Not as much time on my hands, so we’ll see.”
“You can always hire help. How about Wheeler?”
A laugh bubbled out, and I covered my mouth. “Are you trying to kill my business before it even gets off the ground? He’s great with numbers, but if you put him behind a cash register, he would fill up a swear jar, not a tip jar.”
Lakota pressed a chaste kiss to my forehead, and my heart clenched. “Take care of yourself, Freckles.”
This was goodbye. We led separate lives, and that meant we might not see each other again for months, maybe years. Suddenly there seemed no appropriate way to say farewell. This was new territory—a night I would press into my heart. It would rank with some of the greatest moments in my life, and it was special because it was ours alone. I hoped he wouldn’t become resentful toward me for thinking I could cure his lifelong trauma in one night, but that was always a possibility.
Uncertain what to say, I did the only thing that came naturally. I curled into his warm embrace and hugged him goodbye.
Chapter 8
Lakota waited impatiently outside the motel, his arms warming in the sun and his T-shirt now dry. After their embrace, Lakota had been the one to leave the room, and Melody hadn’t come out since. She’d probably changed her mind about a shower, or maybe she was practicing avoidance since he hadn’t budged from the spot outside her door.
When a horn blared, he stood up from the walkway and waved at Tak, who suddenly hit the gas and made the black pickup lurch forward.
Lakota had been sent here on a job, and he’d learned rather quickly how difficult it would be to acclimate. He’d met Tak in a bar one night when Tak hustled him in a game of pool, only to find out that Lakota was a better hustler. Lakota offered to buy him a beer, but Tak wanted tea instead. They had a good conversation and hit it off. It was a good thing too—Tak wa
s a big guy who could have been a Viking in a past life. Lakota needed to immerse himself in the community, and Tak was his way in. The local Shifters were standoffish, and it hadn’t taken long for him to see the division between the packs and the tribes.
Tak rolled down the window and stuck his head out. “I could get used to this ride,” he said, a robust laugh setting off his remark. “She’s small, but she’s got spirit.”
Feigning annoyance, Lakota slowed his pace and folded his arms. Despite Tak’s brutish appearance and the ink on the left side of his face, the man carried a sense of humor that his father frowned upon. Understandable. His father just so happened to be Shikoba, the chief, and he probably didn’t think his people would respect an alpha who was always hamming it up. Lakota noticed how the tribe looked at Tak differently, but he wasn’t entirely sure it had to do with his friend’s personality traits. His alpha power wasn’t weak—that was for certain. It practically vibrated lampshades whenever he entered a room. But Lakota couldn’t pry too much into Tak’s personal affairs, not if it meant jeopardizing their friendship. He’d worked hard to get in good with the pack, and he needed to solve his case.
Lakota tried like hell not to look back at the motel room to see whether the curtains were still drawn or if Melody was watching him leave. The way they’d left it, he didn’t know what to think. He’d spent the past fifteen minutes debating on going back inside and throwing caution to the wind, but she was right. He had a job to do, and this was neither the time nor the place—especially not if it meant putting her in danger.
The passenger door squealed when he opened it and hopped in.
Tak leaned toward Lakota and pulled the air to his face with a cupped hand. His eyes closed. “Do you smell that?”
Lakota slammed the door. “Smell what?”
“A woman.” He patted Lakota on the chest and belted out a laugh.
Lakota knocked his arm away and called him a donkey in his native tongue. When he glanced up, his breath hitched. Melody was standing in the open doorway, and by the looks of it, she hadn’t showered. Her hair was dry, and the wind picked it up while she dug around in her big purse. She looked stunning in those jeans. Everything she made was an extension of her personality, and he immediately regretted not having said something about them. It wasn’t just the patchwork that caught his eye. It was the way the fabric wrapped around her slim legs, showing off the curve of her ass.