by Scarlett Ray
Unfortunately, I wasn’t used to all that spinning anymore; by the time the song was over and we stepped off the dancefloor, I was nearly stumbling off my feet, and Noah chuckled as he caught me around my waist to steady me.
“Look at that,” he said, “you did just fine. Might’ve rattled your brain a little, though.”
“Ha ha,” I shoved his shoulder playfully, but not hard enough to push him away. “Mh, color me impressed. You still know how to give a girl a good time.”
“One specific girl, maybe. I wouldn’t try so hard for anyone else.”
He pushed my hair back behind my ear after our dancing had mussed it, and I couldn’t help myself anymore. I stood up on my toes and stole a quick kiss. Though his dark eyes went wide, he quickly recovered and leaned down to kiss me again—but I held him back, “Too bad for you, you’re not the only man in my life.” The flabbergasted look on his face forced me to hold back a snort of laughter as I stepped back starting to head over to Nicky, “Speaking of, where is that little devil? It’s past his bedtime.”
When I made it over to break the news to Nicky that our day was coming to an end, I found he wasn’t where I’d left him. His little group of friends was gone too. Frowning, I scanned the room quickly but didn’t spot any of them. Noah seemed to be picking up on my discomfort as I started wandering the room, looking through the crowd for a familiar mop of black hair.
“What’s wrong? Where’s Nicky?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I snapped without meaning to. “I’m trying to find him. Did you see him leave?”
“No, but he couldn’t have gone too far,” Noah said as he turned to head over to the other side of the room.
I was starting to get antsy. There weren’t any kids in the room anymore. Nicky wouldn’t have just run off with someone else, and this wasn’t the kind of crowd where kids got taken. So where in the hell was he? Where would he have gone?
Shoving my hands in my back pockets so I couldn’t fidget with them, I stopped to ask an older couple, “Excuse me, have y’all seen a little boy running around, about this tall, looks like me but with black hair?”
“I don’t think so, honey,” the woman said apologetically. “Everything all right? Do you need help looking?”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s right around here,” I told her with a forced smile. “Don’t worry about it.” I tried asking a few different people the same question, but none of them had seen him for the past twenty minutes or so. By the time Noah came back to me, I was fighting a panic, “Anything?”
“I found that boy’s parents from earlier,” he explained, every bit as tense as I was but calmer about it. “They said one of the volunteers came by and rounded the kids up to take them out to the sheep pens. One of those boys that run Mutton Bustin’. Nicky’s probably out there with them.”
We ran out to the pens right away, and the sheep pens were easy to spot by the group of kids gathered around. There was a boy in his late teens standing inside the pen, talking about the sheep and letting the kids pet them. And—thank God—there was Nicky at the edge of the fence, reaching inside to pet one of the ewes on her nose.
“Nicky!” I hissed as we reached him, and the way he flinched said he knew he was in trouble. “What were you thinking, coming out here without saying anything to me? You had me worried sick!” His face was already starting to crumple up, his eyes filling with tears to get some pity, but I wasn’t about to coddle him. “Uh-uh. None of that. You know better.”
“I was gonna ask!” his argument was interrupted here and there with sobs. “But you were busy!”
“Then you should’ve waited until I wasn’t.”
“But they were gonna leave without me…”
“Ma’am,” the older boy said timidly, “I’m real sorry if we worried you. I thought he was part of this group here and they all had permission.”
“No, it’s not your fault,” I told him, shaking my head. Trying to let go of my anger and anxiety now that I knew nothing had actually happened, I ran my fingers through Nicky’s thick hair. “I just need to know where you are, baby.”
“You gotta make sure you ask next time, bud,” the boy said, kneeling by the fence to address Nicky, who was staring at the ground and sniffling. “Look how scared your mama and daddy got.”
“Oh,” Noah cleared his throat, “uh, I’m not…”
“Thank you for keeping an eye on him,” I told the young man as I scooped Nicky up into my arms. “It’s time for us to get going anyway.”
“I wanna stay!” Nicki sobbed, more upset because it was late and he was tired. “I’m sorry! I wanna stay.”
“We’re coming back, honey,” I patted his back gently as we walked back to the truck, Noah bringing up the rear. “You need to get your rest tonight so you can be ready for tomorrow.”
He still sniffled and hiccupped and whimpered but didn’t bother arguing. It was shocking he’d even managed to stay on his feet all this time when he was obviously exhausted; he fell asleep in his booster seat on the way back to the hotel, and he didn’t wake up even as I was carrying him upstairs to our room.
Unfortunately, my responsibilities for the day weren’t quite finished.
“Hey, Noah?” I said, glancing back at him as we climbed the stairs. My heart was in my throat, but I figured the sooner I came clean, the better. He had been so helpful all day with Nicky, so helpful to me, and he still thought he had to argue against the idea that Nicky was his. It wasn’t right. “Uh, could we talk for a minute after I put Nicky to bed?”
A little smile quirked up the corners of his mouth, “Sure.”
We stopped off in the room I was going to share with Nicky, and I gently laid him down to keep from waking him. My mind was buzzing as I planted a kiss in my son’s dark hair, wondering how he would take the news once I brought it up to him. First things first.
“Could we go to your room?” I asked Noah quietly. “I don’t want to bother him.”
“Yeah, of course,” he agreed, leading me to his room next door. I tried to think of where I should start, if I should ease into the subject or just say it flat-out. But Noah took the choice out of my hands.
As soon as the door shut behind me, he had my back pressed against it, and he kissed me before I could get a word out. I tensed up at first—but when I’d spent all day thinking about how much I wanted this, it was hard to push him away. Despite my better judgment, I threaded my fingers through his hair and kissed him back, loving how he handled me so roughly, how his hands were already on my hips, then sliding down to grab my ass.
“Noah…” I started breathlessly, trying to think past the delicious fog in my head.
“God, I like hearing that,” he growled, sending a hot shiver up my spine.
He lifted me off the floor, leading my legs to wrap around his waist while he held me against the door and kissed down my throat. And it still felt just as good as the first time, just as good as the last night we’d had together. Again, there was that feeling of rightness, a feeling like this was where I was supposed to be, right up against him without even a breath between us. It would’ve been so easy to not argue, give in to what we both wanted, let him fuck me silly again and then give me the same bullshit excuse in the morning.
At that thought, I finally managed to push him away, and I wriggled out of his arms to the floor.
“Something wrong?” he asked, breathing hard.
“Yes,” I said firmly. “We need to talk, because I can’t keep doing this. I can’t do this vague on-again, off-again thing you’re trying to do. I won’t. It hurt the first time and if it goes the same way again, it’ll just keep hurting more.” I had to walk away from him to focus on what I was saying, shoving my hair back out of my face with both hands. His room was set up the same as ours but opposite; the bathroom was to the left, the bed on the right wall. I flipped a lamp on as I walked past him to stand near the window at the back of the room.
“I shouldn’t have assumed that was wh
at you wanted,” he muttered, obviously embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s the thing: I do want it,” I confessed. “But I want more than that. I’m not looking for a friend with benefits. If we’re going to do this, I want it to be real. I feel like we both want that, but you’re afraid of making it official.”
“I’m not afraid. There’s more to it than you think,” he said, coming over to sit on the edge of the bed, hands folded in his lap.
“Then explain it to me. Do you want to be with me or not?” I demanded. Maybe this was a sudden thing, maybe I was putting him on the spot, but the way he kissed me, the way he’d been flirting all day, it felt like the answer should be simple.
“Yes! Of course I do.”
“But…?”
“But…my family is against it,” he admitted quietly.
“Your family?” Where the hell had this come from? I knew plenty of Noah’s relatives, and I got along great with nearly all of them. Why should they have a problem with him seeing me? Was he just making up some other excuse so he didn’t have to admit he didn’t want me? “Since when am I not good enough for your family?”
“It’s not that you aren’t good enough. That’s not it.” He scrubbed a hand over his face with a frustrated growl, “It’s—”
“Do not tell me ‘it’s complicated.’” A couple seconds passed in silence. “If this is just about sex for you, if that’s why you don’t want it to go any further, then say so and spare me the trouble of fighting about it.”
“Dani,” Noah got to his feet and stepped in close to me, sliding his hands into my hair and forcing me to meet his eyes. His voice was low and earnest as he told me, “I. Want. You. Every single part of you. Not just your body, not just sex. I want everything.”
“Then why won’t you take it when I’m offering?” I asked, dropping my tone to match his, trying to ignore how close he was and keep my eyes off his lips. I couldn’t let my body get the best of me right now. This was something I had to know for sure before I gave in. He frowned hard, and his eyes drifted away from mine. I said, “You’re a grown-ass man, Noah. You can make your own decisions without getting your family’s permission.”
“There’s more going on than you realize.” Despite the pained, reluctant look on his face, he took a step back and pulled his hands away. “If there were anything, anything I could do to change it, I would.”
“But you can’t,”I summed it up for him. How was I supposed to tell him about Nicky after a conversation like this? Would it even matter if I did? Maybe the sort of family we could give him wasn’t enough. Maybe the family I had thought was so perfect didn’t mean anything to him. I could feel tears starting to pepper around my eyes. “You’re saying I should give up on you and move on. Right?”
He sneered slightly at the thought. But he didn’t get to be possessive right after rejecting me.
“It’s that simple,” I told him. “If you’re saying your family’s rules matter more to you than I do, then there’s no point talking about it anymore. There won’t be any more conversations or situations like this one in the future. We’ll forget everything that has happened and move on with our lives. Separately. Is that what you’re saying?”
He didn’t answer me. Didn’t even look at me. Coward.
“Good night, Noah,” I said as I strode to the door.
Chapter Fourteen: Noah
I flinched at the sound of the slamming door. I should’ve known it would come to this eventually. Dani wouldn’t just let me string her along without making a decision. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the decision she wanted. And now it seemed like I’d lost any chance I’d ever had of being with her. As if there had ever really been a chance to begin with.
There won’t be any more conversations or situations like this one in the future, she’d said.
This is your last chance, was what she meant. And I’d just let her walk away.
For once, my beast wasn’t raging at me for watching her walk out the door. For once, he was as conflicted as I was. In most cases, he knew what he wanted, what I really wanted, deep down. But this was a matter of two opposing instincts. My loyalty to my pack had always been the most important thing in my mind. It was what I was taught and what was in my blood: always protect your family, always put them above all else. On the other hand, if there was any one thing that could come before them, it had to be the most important individual person in my life, my mate.
If I was completely honest with myself, I knew Dani was the one. I could meet every shifter girl on the planet and none of them would ever be what she was to me. Despite all reason, she was the only one my inner wolf wanted, the only one I was drawn to. So shouldn’t my loyalty to her be able to override my loyalty to Jared’s rules?
Not if it meant putting the others in danger. I would spend my whole life alone before I would put any of my pack at risk. And I couldn’t be with Dani without telling her my secret, my whole family’s secret; if I let her get that close, it would come out eventually, one way or another. And if the information got into the wrong hands somehow, if my pack was threatened because of me, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
There was just no way to reconcile the two and have both. There was no way for me to be a Wright and be with Dani at the same time. Some part of me had always known that, but having it thrown in my face—after Dani had said she wanted me too—stung even more than usual. And I was only hurting her by trying to keep her attention when I knew it couldn’t work.
God, I’m such an ass.
* * *
The following day went about as well as I expected. Dani was quiet and distant. Nicky noticed and fell into a funk as well, probably thinking she was upset with him even though it was entirely my fault. Shouldn’t have kissed her, idiot.
The drive back to Palo Verde was quiet and uneventful, and when we got back to the Vasquez ranch, she took Nicky and their things inside without a word to me. Worst of all, I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Was she angry I’d led her on? Was she hurt that I’d rejected her? Could she possibly care about me enough that being “just friends” wasn’t doable?
I knew I didn’t have the right to ask. So I headed back home without argument. When I got in and finally bothered to check my phone, I saw that I had about twenty missed calls from Luke, all from the night before. That was weird, considering he preferred face-to-face conversations. When I tried calling him back, he answered with a, “Where the hell have you been?”
Shocked, I stammered, “Uh. Well, I was…”
“Shut up. Are you home now?”
“Yeah.”
“Stay there,” he growled and hung up. So he wanted an in-person conversation after all. But what could have gotten him so riled up in the first place? It wasn’t like he called me up for favors often, so why now? I stayed where I was, like he said, trying to figure out what could’ve happened, until his pounding on my door drew me out of my thoughts. He didn’t bother waiting for me to answer and stormed in on his own, red-faced, furious.
“Where were you?” he snarled. I’d seen him irritated before. I’d seen him disappointed and offended and shocked. But this kind of raw fury was something I’d only seen a few times, and it had me a little shaken.
“Kingman.”
“Why?”
“I…” Shit. He was not going to like this answer. “I was with Dani and Nicky.” Luke let out a furious growl, and I could’ve sworn he was going to shift and tear into me right there.
“Do you not listen?” he demanded. “Do you really not fucking hear it when everyone tells you to leave her alone? Or do you just not care?”
“Nothing happened between us,” I lied. “You told me yourself it was fine for me to be around her as long as it was just friendly. That’s all it was.” And I’d still managed to fuck it up somehow.
“Great. Well you wanna know what was going on here while you were off being ‘friendly’ with that human girl? One of our pack—your pack—was nearly killed
on the preserve.”
My blood ran cold, “What are you talking about? Who? What happened?”
“Miguel. He was out in the closed-off section last night and he was attacked,” Luke’s voice had turned cold, dangerously calm.
“Will,” I growled immediately.
“That’s what we assume, but we have no way of proving it. Miguel’s not exactly in a state to be talking at the moment.”
A shiver of rage and pain ran down my spine. Will had maybe five years and at least fifty pounds on Miguel; if they were shifted, it would’ve been no contest. “Goddamn it,” I muttered, raising a hand to my temples.
“Did you have patrols yesterday?”
“What? No, I took off to go with Dani.”
“But you were supposed to?” he asked. “If you hadn’t gone with her, you would’ve been there on the preserve?” Finally realizing what he was implying, I looked up at him in horror and outrage.
“Are you saying this is my fault?”
“Miguel would’ve called for help. If you were there, you could’ve gone to him,” Luke insisted. “You at least could have found him before he lost so much blood. You could have helped.”
“Do not fucking blame me for that northern pack bastard’s actions,” I snapped.
“I’m not saying you caused it. But you sure as hell didn’t help either. We had to bring Miguel to the hospital, and now the police are thinking about investigating the wolves on the preserve. Our whole pack could be in danger. And you could’ve helped,” he was looking at me like I was the scum of the Earth, and I couldn’t meet his hard eyes for long before mine dropped to the floor. “You need to forget about her, Noah. The more you keep hanging onto whatever you think is between you two, the more it’s going to end up hurting the things that are actually important.”
He left, the door slammed, and my fists clenched. With so much evidence against me, how was I supposed to keep arguing?
Chapter Fifteen: Dani