“I saved it as Chance Encounter,” she said. With one last smile, she walked down the corridor and into the restaurant. Reaching down, he rearranged his dick which was begging for another taste of Darcey’s voice, then started back to his table.
Amy smiled at him when he sat back down. “I was about to send a search party.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I got a phone call as I left the table that I needed to take.”
“Work?”
“Yeah,” he lied. His eyes shifted over to where Darcey was sitting with the couple. Sensing his eyes on her, she turned her head and looked at him. Her mouth curved into a secret smile before she said something to the other woman.
“… Oliver?”
“Sorry. What?”
Amy followed his gaze to Darcey, then back to him. “Do you know her?”
“She’s a friend of mine,” he said. Fuck, when did he become such a fucking pathetic pathological liar?
“Do you want to go and say hi? I don’t mind.”
“No. I’m here with you, Amy.” Picking up his beer, he took a sip. “So, Casey tells me you’re a junior. What are you studying?”
“Journalism, actually. I’m particularly interested in human rights and equality.”
“It sounds like it could be a rewarding career.”
She bobbed her head, her dark hair swishing gently against her shoulders. “I think it will be. I’d love to travel to the Middle East and report on the equalities there. But what about you? What do you do for work?”
“Security with my brother’s company.”
“Well, that must be interesting, too. Do you mostly do clubs and stuff?”
“I look after our family businesses.”
“What kind of business are they in?”
Placing down his beer glass, he placed both hands onto the table and said, “A little bit of everything.”
She opened her mouth to ask something else when their food arrived. Thank fuck for that. Answering questions about his pack was always a tricky business. You never knew how someone else would react when you said you were a werewolf. Not that it was a regular topic of conversation you could bring up without screaming or admission to the mental health ward. He started on his rare steak, forcing himself to slow down, to chew.
“How do you know Casey?”
“We met at one of the new student socials, where I was volunteering. We kind of just clicked straight away.”
“Casey definitely has a way of making friends at the drop of a hat,” he replied, placing down his knife and fork.
“She’s great, though. She’s always there to help when I need it.”
“That sounds like her. She was always driving me and my brothers nuts when she was younger. She’d try to “help” us when in reality, she was just making things worse most of the time.”
They both fell into an uncomfortable silence. Oliver took a sip of his drink.
“Look, Oliver, I really like you, but I have to know… do you think this can go somewhere? Or is this one of those times where we say goodbye at the end of the night and never see each other again?”
Without thought, his attention was drawn back to Darcey for a moment before returning to Amy. “Honestly?”
“Please.”
He nodded. “I don’t think I’m ready to start dating. I came tonight as a favor to Casey. She thinks I’m lonely and need to get out more.”
Amy seemed to nod to herself, her eyes on the table, her lips pressing together as she took in a deep breath through her nose. “Okay. That’s good to know. I guess it’s dinner with a friend, then.”
“Yeah,” he replied softly.
They finished their meals making small talk that he hardly heard. His focus was firmly on Darcey, monitoring the progress of their dinner.
“Dessert?” he asked Amy.
She finished the rest of her drink and shook her head. “No, I think I’ve taken up enough of your time tonight.” Pulling out her purse, she took out some money, but he stopped her.
“Please, it’s on me.”
She hesitated. “I’d prefer to give you something toward the meal.” She handed over a twenty. “Leave it for the tip if you’d like.”
He wondered why he couldn’t be into a girl like this. She was smart, sensible, attractive, but she wasn’t the woman who had caught his and his wolf’s attention with a single look. He watched Amy stand, smoothing down the front of her dress.
“Thanks for a great night, Oliver. Maybe I’ll see you around with Casey sometime.”
“Thanks, Amy. I had fun.”
She gave him a vacant smile, slipped on her jacket, and left the restaurant. Toying with the twenty she’d given him, he placed it down on the table.
“Ready for the bill, sir?” his server asked.
“Please.”
She nodded and produced a slip of paper tucked into a leather binder from the front of her apron. Handing it to him with a smile, she excused herself once more. Oliver left cash, adding Amy’s twenty as a tip on top of his tip. Standing, he grabbed his leather jacket and slipped it on—not that he needed the extra heat. He ran a little hot because, you know, he was a werewolf.
As he walked from the restaurant, he pulled out his phone, seeing he had a text from a number not saved to his contacts. He read what it said, turning his head to stare at Darcey as he passed. The look she gave him almost made him change course, but he couldn’t interrupt her dinner. So, he kept walking, pushing out into the frigid early December air.
The snow that had fallen a couple of days ago was nothing but gray slush in the gutters and pushed to the edges of the sidewalk. Freshly laid salt crunched under the heels of his shoes as he walked to his car parked a block away. When he got in, he turned on the radio, and he waited.
Chapter Six
Darcey swallowed down her nerves as she walked toward Oliver’s car. The text she’d sent him after she’d returned to the table hadn’t been what she’d intended. All she wanted to do was apologize again for bumping into him not once but twice. Both times, she’d not been at her finest—the first being drunk and the second being a complete emotional mess.
But that was not what she’d sent to him.
She’d asked him to wait for her so they could talk.
Never before had she been so forward with a man. Before Zac, there hadn’t been many men. She was incapable of casual dating, each and every relationship being the long-term variety. She and Zac had dated for five years before they were engaged.
And what did he and all of those other men have in common?
They’d initiated the relationship.
Until now…
She slowed her steps when she saw Oliver’s car. He’d texted her his location, told her he’d wait, and he had. He got out of the car, his dark eyes traveling down her body in an almost physical caress. Her lungs spasmed as they tried to draw in some oxygen—she’d never had a man look at her like that before. There was a hunger in his eyes that whispered to the primal part of her mind. She knew this was a man who knew how to pleasure a woman and do it well.
“Thanks for waiting for me.” How she managed to get those words out, she didn’t know. “I just wanted—”
“Do you want to go and get a drink?” he interrupted, his low voice making her entire body light up.
“God, yes,” she breathed. “But wait.” She held up her hand like he needed the visual cue. “Weren’t you having dinner with a woman tonight? I don’t want to be stepping on anyone’s toes here.” She hoped he was a decent man who didn’t cheat on the woman he was dating. That was a deal-breaker for her.
He lowered his head, staring at her through heavy-lidded eyes. “Blind date. I’m not seeing her again.”
Thank God for that.
Holding out his hand to her, she closed the few feet that separated them. Locking his car, he led them farther down the street. His hand felt so right in hers, and she tried to remember to keep it all together.
This was just
a drink.
They were just talking.
They didn’t say another word to each other until he pushed open the door to a bar she’d never been to before. Directing her to a booth at the back, Darcey sat, shucking her jacket and scarf and placing them beside her on the PU leather seat.
“What would you like to drink?”
“I should probably stick to white wine, given all the champagne I drank with dinner.”
With a nod, he turned around and walked to the bar. Leaning out of the booth, she watched him go, admiring the way his jeans clung to his thick thighs and tight ass.
Oh, God, who was she turning into here?
Righting herself, she pulled out her phone and sent a message to Whitney, who then promptly called her.
“Girl, you’d better tell me everything.”
Darcey smiled. “His name’s Oliver. We ran into each other at dinner tonight.”
“Literally or metaphorically?”
“Literally.”
“You actually ran into him at dinner?” her friend asked. “How does that happen?”
“He was coming out of the bathroom as I walked past. I didn’t see him.” Okay, so that wasn’t exactly the whole truth, but she didn’t have time to give Whitney all the details right now. Her gaze shifted up when she saw Oliver making his way back to the booth carrying a beer and a glass of wine. “I have to go,” she said. Hanging up, she placed her phone back on the table, face-down. It began to ring immediately, so she silenced the thing.
“Everything okay?” he asked, eying her phone as he handed her the wine.
Darcey took a sip. “Fine. Just checking in with a friend.”
Oliver took a seat opposite her, moving his big body like he was a man a quarter of his size. She traced the slope of his shoulders and traps, wondering how much time he spent in the gym every week. Then she wondered what in the hell she was doing here. She didn’t know this man from a bag of sand.
“Who was it you were having dinner with tonight?” he asked. “Your sister?”
“Yeah, Steph.”
“You two look alike. I take it she’s the younger sister, though.”
Darcey bobbed her head. “By three years.”
“And the guy with her? Her boyfriend?”
“Fiancé.”
He took a sip of his beer, watching her over the rim of the glass. His brown eyes were dark. “Why were you crying in the corridor?”
Darcey immediately shifted back in her seat. She toyed with the idea of telling him everything, but she didn’t know this man even though she felt as if she did. He hadn’t earned the right to hear all her darkest flaws as a woman. “I was a bit overwhelmed,” she replied instead. “Steph and Juan are moving their wedding forward to next week.”
His brows rose. “That’s pretty soon.”
Darcey rearranged her hair, twisting it in her fingers and getting it off her neck. “Yeah. It’ll be fine. It means I have to organize a bachelorette party sooner than I thought I would.”
She watched him take another sip of his beer. His brown eyes tracked her face, lightening off until she could’ve sworn they were more hazel-green than chocolate brown. “I’m sorry if I’ve come on a little too strong with you.”
“What?” She blinked. “You… you haven’t come on too strong.” In fact, she liked his brand of forward.
He cast his eyes down to the table for a moment. “I don’t know what came over me.” When he looked back at her face, the air seemed to crackle with his need. Oh, who the hell was she kidding? It was both their needs that were making the air thick.
“I just knew I had to meet you,” he murmured.
“I’m glad you did.” She frowned as the words came out of her mouth. Not because she wasn’t glad, but because she was so emphatic about it. She wouldn’t have asked for his number or asked him to meet her if she wasn’t sure about him. Clearing her throat, she asked, “Why were you on a blind date?”
“My sister set it up. I try not to say no to her too much.”
“You have a sister?”
He nodded. “Three brothers, too.”
“Big family.”
Laughing, he replied, “You have no idea. It just keeps growing.”
Darcey cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
He swallowed a large mouthful of beer. He was quiet for so long she figured he wasn’t going to tell her anything more, and she was okay with that. “My eldest brother… remarried about three years ago, then my youngest brother got married about a year after that. It was quick and unexpected when it happened.”
“Why was it unexpected?”
“Riley was the biggest playboy…” he paused, “… a new woman every night, that kind of thing.”
“Oh, gotcha.”
“Anyway, he and his wife are going to be parents for the second time really soon. My third brother, the guy I thought would never settle down, also found a girl and got married.”
“Why did you think he wouldn’t settle down?” she asked, taking another sip of wine. Talking to him felt so natural like he’d been in her life for years rather than minutes.
“He was married to the job as it were. He never dated. Never slept around. Never spoke about any women in his life, really. Devotion and loyalty were all he needed until he met Gia.”
“That’s a nice name.”
“She’s a nice woman. She and Dylan actually announced yesterday that they are pregnant, too.”
“And your sister?”
“She probably won’t ever get married.”
“Why don’t you think so? Is she not interested?”
His eyes grew a little colder. “She lost her fiancé in an accident six years ago. It destroyed her.”
Darcey covered her mouth with her hand. “Jesus. I’m so sorry.”
Oliver nodded like he’d heard it all before. Maybe he had. Although there had been a lot of happiness lately, this tragedy still touched him. She could tell by the way his shoulders were rigid, how he wouldn’t look her in the eye. Reaching across the table, she touched his balled-up fist, making his head jerk up. She retracted her hand, worried she’d crossed a line, but Oliver reached for her again, holding her hand tightly.
“I like your hands on me,” he murmured. “Your touch seems to chase the darkness away.”
His truth made her smile. Nobody had ever wanted her like that before. It had always been the other way around.
“Tell me more about your family?”
“Okay. Hunter is my oldest brother. He’s married to Ava now, and he has a daughter from his first marriage. Grace will be four in the spring. Riley married a girl called Layla. They had their daughter about four months ago. Dylan married Gia about eight months ago. She’d escaped a very bad relationship. She fell in love with my brother, though, and he absolutely worships the ground she walks on.”
A little sigh escaped Darcey’s lips. It all sounded so perfect. “So that just leaves you and your sister?”
He grunted, fixing his heated gaze on her. “Yeah.”
She looked away suddenly, the desire to leave this bar and take him back to her place like an insistent craving. To cover the gasp that wanted to escape her mouth, she took another sip of wine.
“Tell me about you, Darcey.”
“Me? Well, I’m a realtor. I own my own business and have half a dozen staff working for me. I’m thirty-two…” She immediately regretted telling him her age. He looked like he was barely old enough to vote and legally drink. Why in the hell would he want to be with a thirty-something divorcée?
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop it,” he said.
“What? How do you know what I am thinking?”
“I could see the doubt on your face. So whatever it is, don’t think about it. It doesn’t matter.”
Draining the rest of her wine, she cleared her throat and wondered how to proceed. Did she address the elephant in the room or ignore that big pink pachyderm like it never existed?
; “You’re worried about the age difference,” he surmised, sweeping his thumb over her knuckles.
She looked down at their joined hands. “Yeah. You’re only in your twenties, right?”
“No, not really.”
Glancing up, she found him watching her with serious eyes. “So, how old are you?”
“Thirty-five.”
Darcey let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and laughed shakily. “Oh, thank God.”
“Why would our ages be a problem? We’re both consenting adults. I like you, and I think you like me?”
She nodded. “I do like you, Oliver. It’s crazy because we’ve only just met, but I feel like I’ve known you my whole life.”
The color of his eyes became lighter again, and she shook her head—too much champagne at dinner. Mixing it with wine now was a bad idea too.
“Tell me more about you,” he urged, his lids lowering on his eyes. His big hand was warm around hers, the heat settling into her bones.
She opened her mouth to say more but stopped herself. She didn’t want him to know everything about her yet because she didn’t want him to run before something could start.
“I want it all from you, Darcey. There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me want you any less.”
Bolstered by his declaration, she pressed on. “Okay. I was married before. His name was Zac. He cheated on me.” She looked around when a low-level noise buzzed in her ear. It sounded like growling. “Do you hear that?” she asked, still looking around.
“No,” he replied curtly, the sound cutting off abruptly.
Turning to face him again, she shrank back at the look of murderous rage on his face. “Is… is everything okay?”
“Fine. Just give me a minute,” he replied in a husky voice. He closed his eyes, his hand still tightly wrapped around hers, so she couldn’t put more distance between them. “I apologize,” he eventually said, reopening his eyes slowly. The murderous glint was gone, but danger still hovered in the air. “I would never hurt you, Darcey.”
His growly words settled against her and somehow, she knew he was telling her the truth. “I know,” she whispered.
The Helheim Wolf Pack Novellas: The Complete Collection Page 24