by Renee Rose
She held up a very long pair of black and white witch socks that would probably serve as thigh-highs. He must’ve bought this stuff on purpose to goad her.
Fine. If that’s what he wanted to see her in, she’d give him a show.
* * *
Cody unlocked the front door and pushed it open. And then stopped dead. Melissa was scrubbing his kitchen floor on her hands and knees wearing… holy shit.
He swallowed, his body temperature rising five degrees just looking at her. Melissa wore a pair of black and pink panties, which tragically covered most of her ass, but the backs of her thighs flashed bare above the long black and white socks he’d bought.
She turned and stood up on her knees, looking over her shoulder like a pinup star. On top she wore the ‘Princess’ tank top with no bra, the peaked tips of her nipples plain through the thin fabric. She’d pulled her hair into pigtails—pigtails, dammit—and she rocked the Harley Quinn Suicide Squad thing to a tee.
He groaned, readjusting his cock in his jeans to ease the ache.
She twirled one pigtail and affected an innocent voice. “Were these the clothes you wanted to see me in, Cody?”
His mouth went dry. He backed against the door, not trusting himself to get anywhere near her. “I warned you what would happen if you played this game, didn’t I?” His voice rasped scratchy and low, hands tightened into fists at his sides, fingernails dug into his palms.
The confidence on her face flickered.
“You’re going to get yourself fucked so hard you’ll forget your own name.”
She stood up, lifting her chest, the perky tips of her breasts pointed directly at him. “You’re the asshole who bought the clothes.”
Well, she was right about that. Except he’d bought them as a joke. Never in a million years had he imagined she would turn them into a sex kitten getup that would keep him perma-hard.
Do not move from this door. He willed his body to stay in place.
“You have three seconds to run for the bedroom and lock the door. Don’t come out until you’ve changed into…” he cleared his throat, “something I can handle seeing you in.”
She didn’t move, her blue eyes wide.
“Stay here and I’ll have you bent over the arm of that sofa with my cock buried between those fucking gorgeous thighs in less than five. Go.”
She edged sideways, keeping her eye on his face. When she reached the bedroom, she threw herself inside and slammed the door. Not until the rattle of the handle told him she’d locked the door did he breathe.
He stabbed his fingers through his hair. Fucking hell.
“Don’t come back out,” he yelled at the door. Not for a week, at least. He didn’t know how he’d get rid of his raging hard-on. He rubbed a hand over his eyes, trying to erase the image of her scrubbing the floor in that outfit, which had been permanently burned on his retinas. He wanted her so badly.
He stared at the bucket and scrub brush on the floor for a long time before he realized she had actually been cleaning. That hadn’t just been for show. A quick glance around his place revealed vacuumed carpets, dusted surfaces, papers straightened into neat piles. Even the furniture had been vacuumed.
Well, I’ll be damned.
He wasn’t sure how to reconcile the hard-working housecleaner with the stuck-up brat who refused to wear clothes from Walmart. Except maybe it stemmed from the same snobbery. His place had been too dirty for her royal highness.
Clean snob or not, she’d busted her ass to clean his place, which he appreciated. He had to admit he didn’t do a good job around his own place. If he lived with other people, he would pull his own weight, but since it was just him, it hardly mattered. He spent all day fixing up houses for other people, making them perfect. He didn’t feel that inspired about doing it for himself. But now, seeing his place through her eyes, he cringed. It had been pretty bad. Certainly not the place you’d bring a girl to impress her.
But he’d done absolutely nothing to impress this girl, had he?
He headed out the back door to fire up the grill. He’d bought a couple of steaks and the idea of cooking for her after she’d cleaned his place suddenly seemed important.
“You can come out now,” he called out when he returned, pulling the steaks out of the refrigerator and slapping them on a plate to douse with seasoning and Worcestershire sauce. “If you’ve put something else on,” he added hastily.
She emerged, dressed in a pair of jeans and a bold, hot pink t-shirt. He winced. “I see.”
She folded her arms across her chest. She had a bra on this time, saving him from the pain of staring at her nipples. “What do you see?”
“I should have let you pick out your own clothes.”
She still looked hot—because clothes didn’t make or break a female like her—but the outfit didn’t fit her right; the jeans were too big and the shirt too small.
He had to suffer through her superior nodding.
“Come here, Melissa.” He crooked a finger, half expecting her to tell him to fuck off.
She didn’t, though and the swing of her hips as she sauntered over undid all the effort he’d put into calming his raging libido.
He caught one of her wrists and spun her toward the kitchen counter, placing her hand, along with its mate, on the edge of the countertop. “Spread your legs, baby,” he murmured in her ear.
Shockingly, she obeyed.
He brought his hand down hard on one jean-clad cheek.
She gasped, but didn’t break position.
He smacked the other side, just as hard. “You know what that’s for, princess,” he growled. With far less force, he brought his palm up to spank her pussy.
“Oh!”
He shoved his hips up against hers, reaching around and rubbing the seam of her jeans against her clit. “Thank you for cleaning my house,” he murmured against her ear, then nipped it with his teeth. “That was nice of you. I’m sorry it was a mess.”
He didn’t often apologize, and it wasn’t easy, especially not with her. Fortunately she didn’t get high and mighty on him. Of course, she may not have even heard, because his finger kept working the seam of her jeans right up against her clit and she squirmed against him, her breath coming in quick sharp pants.
“I found out why you smell so good for a human.” He licked along the shell of her ear. “You have some wolf blood in you.”
“Does that turn you on?” The husky purr of her voice nearly made his cock turn bionic as it tried to punch right through his jeans to nail that sweet little ass she kept grinding against him.
His vision domed but he drew deep breaths to keep the beast at bay. “How long do you think it would take me to make you orgasm right here, with those jeans still on your hot little body?”
She trembled beneath him, grinding her pussy on his fingers. When she didn’t answer, he gave her mons another slap. “Hmm?”
“I don’t know,” she moaned. She sounded close. Very close.
He slid his hand up under her shirt and kneaded her breast. “Thirty seconds? More?”
She reached back and grasped his neck, digging her nails into his skin. The she-wolf move made him roar as once more the beast surged to the surface, so ready to mark her.
He rubbed his knuckle over her clit, slapped her pussy hard and fast.
She squealed, yanking on his neck, hanging from it as her legs gave way.
With another firm grind of her jeans into her clit, he growled, “Come for me, baby.”
She snapped. Her hips bucked wildly and he had to hang on tight to keep the pressure where it counted. Her head thrown back on his shoulder, she scratched at the back of his neck, cried out over and over again while her entire body shuddered with release.
His own body trembled, the effort of holding back his desire so great. He whirled her around, pinned her back against the cabinets. His eyes had changed color, he knew by the way she stared up at them, fear and fascination warring in her expression.
&
nbsp; “You… shouldn’t do that,” she said breathlessly. Even though she was right, it offended him. He wanted her sighing his name, falling against him with blissful gratitude.
But of course that wouldn’t happen. Not with Melissa and the lofty standards he’d never meet. With great willpower he pushed away from her and stepped back.
He grabbed the plate of steaks and stalked out to the backyard to throw them on the grill.
* * *
Like the last time Cody had brought her to climax and then abruptly left her, she felt unmoored. Her body missed his heat, his masculine scent, his growly voice hot in her ear. Her clit throbbed, raw after his torture.
He’d seemed offended as he stalked away.
What was he trying to prove? That he could control her as easily with sex as he could with the threat of punishment? Or could he just not help himself?
She secretly hoped it was the latter.
She’d seen the blatant hunger on his face when he first came in and saw her getup. His hands had closed into fists and he’d stayed glued to the door, as if he feared getting too close to her.
She opened the refrigerator and pulled out the fixings for salad, automatically getting to work as her mind turned over her six foot four inches of solid trouble.
Maybe this was the wolf form of courtship—hot sexual encounters littered with threats of far worse. And she’d rejected it with her warning after she climaxed. Which was probably why he’d stalked away, that tic in his jaw showing she’d succeeded once more in irritating him.
Their exchanges had almost become a game to her. Except it wasn’t one she was sure she wanted to win. Not if it meant Cody thought her a heartless bitch who only cared about herself, which she knew was how she came off.
But she didn’t need to show him her real self, either. This wasn’t a relationship—she’d already decided it couldn’t go anywhere.
By the time she finished putting two salads on plates, Cody returned with the cooked steaks, still looking pissed.
“Mmm, that smells heavenly,” she said in an attempt to ignore the tension between them.
“So you do eat meat?” he asked gruffly.
She wasn’t sure if it was another innuendo. Was he complaining that she hadn’t reciprocated with a blowjob yet?
She darted a sidelong glance at him and settled for an ambiguous, “Yep.”
He glanced at the plates she’d set out. “Thanks for making salad.” He sounded grudging, like it cost him to thank her for anything, or like manners were unfamiliar territory. It tugged at her heart. Was he actually making an effort to be polite?
“Thanks for the steak.” She tried to keep her voice light and friendly.
He added steak knives to their place settings and sat down on the sofa with her. “How much blood?”
She knew what he was asking—about her wolf heritage. “A quarter. My grandmother got involved with a wolf in Cheyenne. He had to leave her because she was human, and he never knew she was pregnant.”
Cody frowned. “Your grandmother couldn’t find him to tell him?” Surprise crinkled the lines of his forehead.
She stabbed a piece of steak with her fork and popped it in her mouth. “Mmm.”
Cody stopped eating, staring at her lips as she chewed.
“This is heavenly.”
He seemed to forcibly look down at his own plate for a bite of steak.
“She didn’t try. She said his pack made him leave her, so she didn’t want to interfere. He’d already made his choice.”
Cody wiped his mouth with a napkin. For some reason, she found herself surprised by how refined and cultured his table manners were. She’d assumed him to be a sort of redneck, but instead, he’d placed his napkin in his lap straightaway, chewed with his mouth closed, and ate neatly for such a big, hungry man. Not huge feats, but ones that neither Jeremy, nor any of the guys she’d dated in the past, had managed.
“It would’ve changed things,” he said matter-of-factly. “She should’ve told him. A wolf takes care of his own.”
Curiosity flickered, curling in her chest. She wanted to know how a wolf took care of his own, not in the hypothetical sense, but specifically, how a playboy wolf like Cody, who seemed terminally single, would take care of a female if he accidentally got her pregnant. She shook her head to clear that errant thought from her mind. Where were these thoughts coming from?
Cody went on, “He would’ve protected his female and that pup with his life, provided for both of them. Whose father was he? Your mother’s or your father’s?”
“My father’s.”
She swallowed another bite of savory meat. Cody had seasoned it and just seared the outside, so the rare meat melted in her mouth. She found herself vaguely surprised that he knew how to cook a gourmet steak, expecting him to be more of the type to drown it in barbecue sauce—or God forbid—ketchup. Instead, he’d produced better steak than she’d find at the best Colorado steakhouse.
“Your dad never shifted?”
“No, and he doesn’t know. Ashley and I didn’t find out until Ben marked her.”
Cody watched her lips again, that look of hunger flickering on his face before he dragged his eyes to meet hers. “What happened?”
Part of her didn’t want to tell him, it was Ashley and Ben’s story, after all. But some part she didn’t want to examine too closely thought he should know—that he needed to know, in case it became relevant for… them.
“It happened accidentally. Ben lost control and bit her here.” She indicated the place where neck met shoulder, remembering the horrific marks on her sister right after he’d done it. “She recovered much faster than they expected, which led one of his pack mates to question whether she had wolf blood. We realized we’re never sick or hurt and our father used to brag he’d never been sick a day in his life. Also, that the father line is blank on his birth certificate. So Ashley and I drove up to Wyoming to ask our Grandma Jane, and she told us her story.”
“Wyoming, huh? What’s his name?”
She shook her head. “She didn’t tell us. Why, do you know wolves in Wyoming?”
Cody nodded. “Yeah. The wolf community is small.” He’d finished his steak and salad and now he wiped his mouth again and set his fork and knife on the plate, like he was at a restaurant. “The Wyoming pack is coming to Estes Park next month for the annual games. Maybe you should go.”
She gaped in surprise. “Are you going?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “No. It’s my father’s gig, and we don’t get along.”
She filed that information away to chew on later. Somehow it didn’t surprise her that he didn’t get along with his dad. Even though he must be nearing thirty years old, he carried that ‘rebel’ vibe like a badge.
It was in her nature to serve, even a male who didn’t deserve it, so she stood, picking up both their plates from the coffee table and carrying them to the kitchen. Without checking, she knew Cody’s heated gaze followed her and she had to admit she loved it. She’d never been with a guy who made her feel so desirable. The fact that Cody seemed unable to control his desire—despite his obvious dislike for her—gave her a sense of pleasure and power.
Chapter Five
Cody put the gun in the waistband of his jeans again. “Come on, princess.”
Melissa had just finished hand-washing all the dishes, a sight that nearly undid him. Her acts of domesticity gave him a cock stand. Hell, everything about her made him hard. But her willingness to pitch in pleased him, and not because he cared about those things.
It went against his initial impression that she was a just a spoiled stuck-up human. But also something more primitive approved—his inner wolf found it proof she was mate-worthy.
Too bad his inner wolf was wrong.
A quarter wolf still meant three-quarters human. He’d grown up in Estes Park, Colorado, where the entire mountain town was made up of shifters. He hadn’t had to deal with humans. Even after being kicked out at age sixteen, he’d
stuck with his own kind. Apart from random gratuitous sex with human females, he didn’t find them good for much. And his father’s parting taunt had made him certain he’d rather die single than mate a human and prove his father right.
Melissa turned from where she was wiping down the countertops for the second time—who double-wiped down countertops? He wondered if she did that after every meal.
“Where are we going?”
“To the mall to buy you some clothes.”
Surprise flickered over her face. “Oh.” Then her expression clouded. “Listen, I don’t have my purse, so I don’t have my credit cards or anything.”
“I’ll take care of it.” He didn’t put it off on her brother-in-law this time. He was starting to get the idea she didn’t ask for money from him, which he could understand.
She arched a dubious brow and annoyance flashed through him. She thought he couldn’t afford it. If she knew he had a half million dollars sitting in the bank and close to another two-and-a-half million currently tied up in properties, she might not act so snobby around him. But he didn’t want to impress her with his money, mainly because she was exactly the type who would be impressed. Somehow, her superficial snobbiness made him want to be relentlessly himself—rough, crude, and blue collar.
“Aren’t you worried about me being seen out?”
He held open the front door. “A little. But I’ll be with you.”
She walked past him and turned up her little button nose. “You have a pretty high level of confidence in yourself, don’t you?”
He slapped her ass as he followed her out. “That’s why I’m alpha, baby.”
She snorted, then halted on the sidewalk, staring at the CJ Steele Construction lettering on his pickup. “You work for CJ Steele?”
He only hesitated for a moment before answering smoothly, “Yep.” It was not a lie. He was Cody Jack Steele—only he went by Cody, not CJ. So, yes, he owned the company and certainly worked for himself.