by Layla Nash
It didn’t work.
I moved to my other side, glaring at Dodge’s back. He remained motionless, facing away from me. He had impressive shoulders, even larger than I remembered. I couldn’t believe he was really in my apartment, in my room, in my bed. Right next to me. Fully-dressed, but still. I drew my knees up, wanting a little barrier between me and his ass. I couldn’t believe what the fuck he’d said about my ass and me not being his type. It had to be a lie. The way he’d been looking at me that morning while I spoke with the Evershaws...
My lips pursed and I adjusted the pillow under my head, trying to figure out what to do with my arm. And there was still a shitload of things to worry about with them. Having someone... chopped up right in front of me kind of distracted me from all the bullshit from that morning. A wolf-man and whatever it was that Deidre did. Crazy shit.
If I went to the police, would they even believe me? What was more dangerous – taking my chances that the body-choppers would chase me, or sticking around to see why Evershaw and his wife sent Dodge to fetch me back?
“Would you settle down?” he grumbled.
“I’m not going to be able to sleep,” I said. He was stupid if he thought I could somehow magically turn off my brain and just drift off to dreamland.
He sighed, sounding totally put-upon... like I was the asshole keeping him awake. I scowled at his back and thought about just pushing him off the bed. “You can go sleep on the couch if you need your peace and quiet.”
“If you had some liquor in this place, we could have a couple of drinks and maybe that would... help you sleep.” From the pause, it sounded like he’d intended to say ‘shut the hell up’ or something equally offensive.
And then it struck me that he sounded pretty damn certain that I didn’t have booze. Which meant... “You searched my kitchen?”
A long pause answered me, so I figured I’d struck home. It just made me angrier. He’d broken into my home and just... riffled through my things, no doubt judging me and making assumptions. I swung a leg over his side so I could clamber off the bed and get the hell away from him. “Fine. I’ll sleep on the couch, you can go straight to hell and fuck yourself on the way, and –”
“Nope,” he said.
Strong hands caught my waist in a firm grip and held me captive, and then suddenly he was laying on his back and I straddled his hips. My heart jumped to my throat as I looked down at him. Dodge gazed up at me with a surprising lack of interest.
So maybe he didn’t find me attractive.
The opposite was definitely not true. My palms rested against the hard planes of his chest, and not even my flannel pajama pants and his jeans were enough to disguise the iron muscles of his thighs. I concentrated on breathing. “Let me go. Now.”
“You stay here,” he said, calm. Implacable. As unmoving as a fucking boulder. “It’s not safe.”
“Nowhere is safe,” I said. I meant it to sound furious and aggravated. It was true – the entire world felt too dangerous to survive. How the hell was I going to get up and keep going the next day? I’d always be looking over my shoulder, looking for... badly-dressed guys chopping up bodies? Wolf-men? Dark-haired women who could wave their hands and make the air turn into a wall?
But my fury disappeared in the way my voice cracked on ‘safe,’ and my throat burned with tears. Damn it. I did not want to cry in front of him. Again.
I slammed my fist into his chest in frustration with my own emotions. I didn’t know what else to do. There wasn’t anything to rage against or run from or fight. I just had to... endure it.
Dodge’s hands remained on my waist, though they slid lower and dangerously close to my hips. He took a deep breath, his chest expanding, and I felt the movement of his body all the way through me. His hazel eyes studied me but it seemed like a mask had fallen over his expression. He wasn’t the same guy who’d laughed and joked about me doing squats to thank him for saving my life, and he wasn’t the same man who’d squeezed my knee when I sat in the car and tried to keep my shit together when I thought I was going to die any second.
His right hand rested on my thigh, his fingers curling around to the back while his thumb moved restlessly over the top of my thigh. Thunderclouds moved in his eyes, hiding the real Dodge as I gazed down at him. The air got very thick and close around me. I felt like I was floating in some other reality.
Dodge’s grip tightened on my thigh. “This world sucks, babe, I’m not going to lie. You thought you knew how the world worked; you thought you knew the rules. And today you found out that there are some things that are very, very different from what you knew. It happens. It happens to all of us. There’s nothing to be ashamed about being thrown off your game.”
“It happens to you?” I asked. I desperately needed to know that the incredibly dangerous, incredibly capable man in front of me had his world shaken once or twice.
He hesitated, studying me for a long time, then nodded. His eyes almost reflected the soft glow of the nightlight in the bathroom, sparking gold. His other hand settled low on my leg, just behind my knee where it dug into the mattress at his hips. My breath caught. I couldn’t believe I was still sitting on him, still straddling him like – like –
My cheeks ached and I started to slide off him, to move back to the safety of the mattress without a mountain of muscle between my legs, but he caught my waist and kept me where I was. His tone went husky and rough. “Stay.”
Smoke must have curled off my face as everything heated up. I swallowed hard but stayed where I was, trying not to tense my thighs against his, to test whether he’d react. His fingers slid under the back of my t-shirt, ghosting over my bare skin, and goosebumps peppered all over me.
Dodge watched me, head tilted, as he did it again. “There’s been a couple of times I got knocked for a loop.”
“Wh-what was the worst?” I almost arched my back as his caress repeated and his fingers curled down to the waistband of my pants.
At least it took my mind off the events of the day. It was hard to remember the wolf-man and Deirdre’s weird powers with Dodge teasing and touching my bare skin.
He made a rusty noise, as if weighing how much to tell me, then relaxed his arms so his hands once more returned to my knees. I missed the caresses with a sudden ache. Dodge cleared his throat. “My father’s family was rich. Really fucking rich. So rich I didn’t – I still don’t understand how rich they were. They were the kind of folks who had vacation homes – multiple ones. A few in the mountains, a few on the beach, some overseas in Italy and Greece, a whole island in the Caribbean... Rich people.”
I nodded, mesmerized by the rhythm of his speech. The words came reluctantly, like he hadn’t ever said them out-loud before. “They sound like it.”
“They were.” It sounded grim, more a curse than a grandson’s appreciation. Dodge took another deep breath and though his gaze remained on me, his attention drifted. “My father was their only son, their heir. Their golden boy. They sent him to all the right schools, lined him up with the right job, the right country club, put all the richest bitches in front of him... And he had the terrible fucking judgment to fall in love with my mother.”
Bitterness twisted his voice and my heart jumped to my throat. But I couldn’t find words. I didn’t want him to stop talking.
Dodge frowned and absently tugged at the front of my pajama pants, where the drawstring had knotted and tangled. He toyed with it, apparently unaware that I held my breath and fought not to wriggle and squirm at the teasing, glancing touches. “My mother had the audacity to be trailer trash. The absolute worst pedigree they could have imagined. She was worse than the help.”
He threw the words out in some East Coast, upper crust accent, but his grip tightened on my knee and he yanked on the drawstring. When I tensed, he abruptly shook his head, growling. “Sorry. Sorry. I won’t hurt you.”
“I know,” I said quietly. I meant it. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. He’d been careful with me, at least physically,
even if some of his words were sharp as fucking daggers. I rested my palms on his chest, wanting to smooth away some of those edges for him.
Dodge’s gaze drifted back up to my face, like he remembered who I was for the first time, and his eyes turned even more golden in the dim light. Half of his mouth dragged up, though the expression didn’t last long. “They didn’t even know she was a shifter. That would have pushed them over the fucking edge.”
“A shifter,” I said. “Is that what – what you’re called?”
Again, his attention sharpened and his grip tensed and then all of him eased. He shifted into a gentler, almost teacher mode. “Yeah. Shapeshifter, shifter, wolf.”
“Not werewolf?” I braced for ridicule or laughter, more sharp words with a teasing but half-meant endearment on the end. I couldn’t decide if I liked when he called me ‘sweetheart’ and ‘babe,’ or if it was too annoying to tolerate.
His face softened in a smile. “No, not werewolves. Unless – is it a full moon?”
I tensed, staring at the wall as if I could see through the fucking drywall and brick to the sky outside. “I don’t – don’t know. Do you...”
As I prepared to launch myself off him and into my closet before he went insane with bloodlust, his smile broke free and he squeezed my thighs. “I’m kidding. There are some who lose control, but it’s got nothing to do with the moon.”
I whacked him lightly again, wanting to be furious at some fucked-up teasing, but the grin softened the hard edges of his expression and made him look younger. I pointed the “I mean business” finger at him. “I don’t like that.”
“That I’m not going to succumb to moon-madness and ravish you?”
The thought left my mouth dry and my thighs aching just a bit. When I didn’t immediately snap at him and instead considered the possibility, Dodge’s grin spread like wildfire and his hands slid all the way under my shirt. “Oh really.”
I smacked him again but couldn’t swallow a nervous laugh as I arched away from the delicious friction of his palms. “Stop it. That’s not – I don’t like when you make fun of me like that. I don’t know about this – this shit. If I ask a question, I mean it. I want – I deserve – a straight answer.”
He was still grinning as he laced his hands behind his head and just watched me. “Fine. No such thing as moon madness, not for shifters. Can’t speak for witches or fae, though, they’re not my people.”
I almost went light-headed. What the fuck? Were all the fairy tales true? “W-witches? Fae?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and I could tell he hadn’t meant to say it, that he’d somehow fucked up. Dodge tugged on the drawstring of my pajamas once more. “Do you want to hear the rest of my sob-story, or you want to quiz me on the supernatural encyclopedia?”
“There’s an encyclopedia?”
He laughed, a sudden guffaw that ran through his whole body and almost launched me to the floor. Dodge shook with his mirth, barely catching me and pulling me tight to his chest before I rolled off. Dodge’s massive arms linked around me, holding me close. His fingers slid into my hair as his head turned and he breathed in from my neck. He chuckled, his beard tickling my cheek and throat. “No, babe, there’s no encyclopedia.”
I closed my eyes and resisted the urge to nuzzle into him. “Don’t be a jerk.”
He sighed and the hand not massaging my scalp slid down into the back of my pants, squeezing my ass under my panties. “I’m trying really hard to be a gentleman.”
I snorted and reached back to retrieve his hand from my so-called ‘six, maybe six and a half’ butt. “Not a chance. Thought you didn’t want to waste your time on a mere six?”
“Baby, you’re a perfect ten,” he grumbled, taking my earlobe in his teeth at the same time his hips moved in a slow, deliberate thrust that made it clear, even through his jeans, how very much he liked having me sprawled across him. “Every inch of you.”
“Thought you were going to keep on with your story,” I said. I dragged my attention away from the distracting friction where our hips met and the rough drag of the calluses on his palm up my back and around to my side so he could hold me even tighter. I pushed away from him, up on my elbows, so I could study his face.
Dodge’s eyebrows arched as he looked up at me, and those storm-clouds passed over his expression again. But he smiled with half his mouth and tugged on my hair. “Well. If you’d stop distracting me, Persephone, I will keep on with my story, thank you very much.”
He waited but I just smiled. Dodge went back to stroking my back but didn’t speak until I exhaled some of the tension and relaxed against him. I rested my cheek against his shoulder and listened to the thumping of his heart, the rough rasp of his voice as he went on. “They didn’t know she was a shifter, and they didn’t know I was. My father did, though. He’d considered having my mom turn him, but in the end, they didn’t have enough time.”
I didn’t know what to do with my arms. I didn’t want to dig my elbow into his shoulders or just splay across him like a deboned chicken. I slid my arms under his shoulders so I could touch his neck and play with his hair. Dodge growled in appreciation and his hands got bolder on the small of my back, returning to my ass without hesitation. He was totally, completely, and unapologetically an ass man. I closed my eyes and tried not to push my butt into his strong grip.
Despite the distractions, he managed to go on in a remarkably calm voice. “My father died before she had the chance to change him. If he’d been a shifter, he might have survived. As it was, he was there one minute and gone the next.”
I stilled, pushing up to see his face. “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “It was a long time ago.”
“Doesn’t make it less hurtful and awful,” I said. I rested my chin on his chest. “Were you close?”
“Yeah.” His gaze went far away and he went quiet for a long time. Dodge finally shook himself and offered me a tight smile. “He was a good dad, especially because of the bullshit parents he had.”
“What happened after he passed?” I asked, when he didn’t immediately go on. I got a tight knot of anxiety in my stomach, like I didn’t want to know what had rocked his world as much as mine had been. If it compared to finding out that some people got chopped up and fed to retired circus tigers, maybe I really didn’t want to know.
Dodge toyed with my hair, his fingertips tracing along my cheekbone. “His parents found out about it, paid for the whole funeral, acted real nice to me and my mom. It lasted a few months. That was all they needed.”
I swallowed the knot in my throat. I didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to push, but it seemed like... he needed an audience. He needed someone to ask and pull the information out of him. To help excise those wounds, to get the poison out. It was a fucked up thing to talk about lying in bed together, but it had been a fucked up day. “All they needed to what?”
His jaw clenched and the muscles ticked until I feared for his teeth. “To get all the paperwork together so they could take me away. They had her found incompetent and unfit as a mother. Planted drugs on her, had other people file false claims about her beating me, lined up all kinds of character witnesses to show that they were the only people who could take custody of me. They put themselves out there as my saviors, since they hadn’t saved their son from my mother’s claws.”
His fingers dug in as his anger heated, and I sucked in a breath. Dodge immediately gentled his grip and smoothed his hands over where he’d squeezed, muttering something like an apology as his lips brushed my forehead. I concentrated on breathing. “Surely they didn’t...”
“They did. They won. They had money. Lawyers. The judge was in their pocket.” Dodge took a deep breath and I rose up on his chest. “They took me away from her. Her pack fought, or tried to. It didn’t matter. My father’s parents locked me away in their mansion. I was their do-over, their second chance. They thought they’d failed their son by letting him marry my mother, so they would...
correct the mistake with me. They wanted me to be the perfect heir – go to the right schools, take the right job, marry the right woman.”
When he fell silent again, my fingertips walked down his chest to a hideous scar just under the collar of his t-shirt; the ridges felt like an awful stab wound or something terrible that had probably almost killed him. I murmured, “I’m guessing you didn’t get this at some hoity-toity boarding school, though?’
The corner of his mouth turned up and his hazel gaze found me even in the dim light. “You’d be right. I still went to the hoity-toity boarding school. I did everything they wanted me to. I played along. I tried to help my mother when I could, but the grandparents were very controlling. When she died...”
His voice trailed off and he took another deep breath. I waited, working my fingers into the hair at the back of his neck. He rotated his head so I could reach a particular spot, and I smiled against his chest as I obliged. And I waited.
The silence stretched until I feared he wouldn’t go on, that he would just let it end there.
Dodge’s eyes closed and his voice went rusty once more. “When my mother died, none of it really mattered. I wasn’t there with her. I wasn’t able to protect her from their hatred and their money. I vowed I would live and escape from their clutches, that I would find some way to – make it up to her.”
He shrugged, irritated, and I stilled. Dodge shook his head and stared past me at the ceiling. “Walking into the first boarding school as a ten year old wolf shifter who’d grown up in a city neighborhood that was still up-and-coming turned my world on its fucking head. I’d just lost my father. I didn’t know why everyone thought my mother was a criminal, and I didn’t know why the fuck my grandparents claimed they wanted me but immediately sent me to England to some fucking hotbed of abuse and inbred elitist classist bullshit. And I hated the uniforms. That turned my universe around, Persephone. I thought I was lost. I thought I wouldn’t survive, that I wouldn’t be able to control myself or be myself ever again.”