“Owners of repair shops give out a lot of free advice, do they?”
“Bartenders. Repair shop owners. Psychiatrists.” He smiled. Bantering with her proved to be a lot of fun. He wanted more. It wasn’t his nature to go slow. Waiting for Lilliana would either make him a better man or destroy him in the process.
“Would you do something for me?” He pulled at the necklace he always wore around his neck. Most of the time he kept it hidden beneath his shirt, as all the Wolves in his pack did if they were lucky enough to have their own totem.
“If I can.”
“Smart girl. You don’t make promises you can’t keep.” On the string, he had two figurines, one female wolf, one male. They lay side by side. If he’d had any siblings one of them would have the female wolf, but as he’d been an only child, he’d inherited both totems when his parents had died. He’d found his mate, and although she wouldn’t understand the significance of what he offered her, he wanted his mother’s ancestors to watch over her when he couldn’t be with her.
“What did you want me to do?” She stared at his hand.
“I want you to wear this. Don’t take it off, not even in the shower. It belonged to my mother, and it’s kind of a…good luck charm.”
“Oh.” Her eyes got huge. “I can’t take your mother’s necklace.”
“Yes you can. We need to get to know one another, but I can tell you’re going to be very special to me. Call it instinct. I want you to wear this. I want to know it’s keeping you safe.”
Her hand came up to touch her neck where the female totem would touch it.
He put his male totem in his pocket. He’d find a new chain for it later. She turned and raised her hair off her neck. “I should be saying no.”
“Then why aren’t you?” He tied the necklace beneath her blonde strands and admired from his vantage point behind her the way it sat right above her breasts. Beautiful, supple….
“Because, until recently, I tended to have good instincts too. I want to be important to you.”
She turned around and leaned up to kiss him. He knew she meant it as a light thank-you, but after that beautiful answer she’d given him, how could he treat it as such? Travis kissed her back, deepening the kiss in the moment until she melted against him.
He pulled back to look at her. “That’s one kiss. You said no sex, so I need to respect that.”
She growled, but he doubted she recognized the sound for what it was. “I take it back. I take it all back.”
Lilliana leapt at him.
****
He stumbled but didn’t fall. She had to give him credit. Travis was strong. And he smelled like…. She took a deep breath to confirm the scent she’d gotten earlier…sandalwood. What was it about that smell that made her so horny?
The thought brought her up short. She leaned back so she could see his face. He held her in her arms, and he hadn’t uttered a word when she’d stuck her nose against his body to get a good whiff. He must have noticed, and now she’d have to explain.
“I’m sorry.”
He raised a dark eyebrow. Really? So much perfection shouldn’t be allowed on one man’s face.
“For what?”
“You know.” Her cheeks heated up. “Launching myself at you. Sniffing at you like some kind of animal.” Her cheeks heated up, and she squirmed until he set her down. She wiped away the errant sign of weakness and busied herself moving around her apartment. There had to be something to straighten up while she waited for him to get the hint and leave her to her embarrassment. “I’ve always had behavioral problems. I simply can’t act like everyone else all the time. Then I slip into some kind of weirdness I’ve never been exactly able to manage—”
Travis interrupted her speech with a loud growl. He pulled her against him. “You will not speak of yourself that way again. Do you understand? I have a good mind to throw you over my shoulder and take you back to Philly with me until I’m sure you won’t.”
“Look, that’s very nice of you to say but…” She paused, his words sinking in. “Philly? You’re all the way from Philly? Did it take you two hours to get here?”
He shook his head as though he wanted to clear it. “About that. Have you never been there?”
“No. You came to New Jersey to have a meeting at Matilda’s diner?”
“It serves my purposes.” He walked toward her. “Can we get back to the subject at hand, please? You do not have behavioral problems, and any time you want to go ahead and sniff at me, you do so. I really like it. When you did it a few seconds ago, I got hard as hell.”
Her eyes traveled downward to the evidence of his hard cock bulging through his pants. He wasn’t kidding.
“You got hard like that because I wanted to get your scent deeper into my body?” She wished she hadn’t used that phrase. It sounded weird. Why did she do that? Why couldn’t she simply say because I wanted to smell you?
“Yes.” He crossed his arms, and she admired the way his muscles looked when he moved. Bulk on Travis worked. She might start drooling if she wasn’t careful.
Maybe she had finally found a crazy to match her own. Lilliana grinned. When was the last time she’d felt so completely happy in another person’s presence?
She walked to him. “You’re pretty fantastic, aren’t you? Too bad you live so far away.”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. I’m going to come see you every day.”
“How—” Travis cut off her question by pressing his mouth gently to hers.
He tasted of mint and iced tea. After a few seconds, he deepened the kiss. She’d never been so okay with letting another person dictate an encounter. She grabbed onto his shirt, wanting to be closer to him.
Travis pushed his tongue into her mouth. She moaned. How could he feel so completely right when all he’d done was kiss her?
With his hands on her cheeks, he pulled back. “I should go.”
She blinked, trying to clear up her head, which had gotten foggy. “Did you just say you should leave?”
“You want to wait. I don’t want to take advantage of you.” He shook his head. “Although you can’t imagine how hard this is.”
Lilliana suspected she could. Her panties were soaked, and she ached to find completion in his arms. “I take back that statement.”
“No.” He grinned. “The side of me that just wants to rip your clothes off could deal with that, but my conscience would never let me forget. You’re going to see me every day, and I hope that doesn’t freak you out because you’re simply going to have to get used to it.”
She shouldn’t like that he spoke to her like that…except she did. He kissed her, pushing her up against the wall while he did. She moved against him, loving the way his cock pushed at his pants. He must be huge for her to feel him so completely while they were both dressed.
This time when he pulled back, he was breathing hard. “You’re going to make me shove all my good intentions out the window.”
Lilliana had never felt so powerful before. If she wanted him, she could have him, or he would go home because she preferred that. Maybe other people were used to having their wishes obeyed, but to simply know they would be struck her as a rare gift.
“He rubbed his nose against her forehead, and she shivered. “What time do you have to be at work?”
“I worked twelve hours today. She’ll only let me work eight tomorrow.”
He snorted and shook his head. “Not for much longer.”
“What?” Did he know something she didn’t? Had Matilda decided to fire her? “Do you know something about my work schedule that I should know?”
“No. Not at all. I’m sorry, I’m muttering to myself. Go on. So eight hours tomorrow. Starting when?”
“Ten.”
“I’m going to be here at eight in the morning. I’ll pick you up. Don’t worry. Your car will be here and fixed when you wake up.”
“Please don’t do that. I can’t possibly afford it.” The though
t of money descended on her shoulders putting an end to the la-la land she’d resided in for a few minutes. “It will cost a fortune, and I’m not sure I can—”
He waved his hand in dismissal. “It’s being done for you by my people, and I can assure you that it is their pleasure to make this happen for you. More than you can yet understand.”
“Only—”
When he kissed her neck, nipping down lightly, all thoughts of arguing went away. “No buts on this matter. I want to take care of you. It’s part of who I am, and you may not know understand what I mean by this yet, which is why I’m picking you up tomorrow morning. I need to begin to show you. Okay?”
His voice moved over her, a warm blanket covering up her strained nerve endings. “Okay.”
“Come on.” He picked her up. “I’m putting you to bed before I leave.”
She didn’t even remember her head hitting the pillow. She dreamt of wolves, two of them, a male and a female, running together through thick, lush woods. When she awoke, her pillow was wet with tears.
She wiped at her face, looking at the clock, which told her she had a half-hour to get ready before Travis would arrive. Why had a dream about wolves, so clearly brought on by the necklace he’d given her, have made her weep in her sleep?
Darting from the bed to head for the bathroom, she stopped in her tracks to look out the window. As he had promised, her car, which looked like it had been washed, sat outside of her apartment building in her space.
How had he known that space belonged to her?
She shook her head. The romance of the night before shifted inside of her. Why had she fallen so head over heels for him so fast? What did she know about him other than he was Matilda’s special customer and he lived in Philly? Maybe it had been the fact that he’d also lost his parents or the way he hadn’t flinched when she’d unleashed her temper on him.
Now all she could focus on was the way she’d launched herself at him. Where had her resolve gone? Thank goodness he’d been respectful. She rushed into the bathroom to take a shower. Hopefully, she’d know more about him today and would also be able to keep her clothes on in his presence. Maybe they made a medicine that helped with this kind of a thing. Not that she’d be able to afford to take it.
She bathed, dressed, and made herself as presentable as possible before he rang her doorbell. As he requested, she’d not taken off her wolf talisman. It was beautiful, but she had to give it back. How could she have taken it to begin with? Still, as she walked to answer the door, she fingered it. The wolf felt right around her neck.
Already, she knew it would be hard to let it go.
Chapter Three
Travis could tell she’d gotten nervous. He’d expected it. The night before had been insane. He could barely make sense of what had happened, the way they’d clicked, and how she’d reacted to him, and he understood mating—or at least that Lilliana was, in fact, his. Now he had to make her understand that one, she was a wolf, or half one, and two, that she belonged to him in a way that humans would never understand—completely, the other half of each other’s soul.
He pulled up the car at his destination. The wolf preserve made him conflicted, but it seemed the best place to bring up this topic. He’d prefer the creatures got to run free. They shared an ancestor with him. Yet, he knew that couldn’t happen when humans continued to destroy their habitats. Better they have a chance to survive at all, and the wilderness experts were good people.
“A wolf preserve?” Lilliana got out of the car and looked around. “This is beautiful. I had no idea there was something like this so close by.”
“You like wolves?” He took her hand and sipped his coffee. Having not gotten back to Philly until one in the morning and then done three hours of Pack business before getting to bed, he hadn’t gotten much sleep.
“I don’t have much experience with them. They seem smart to me, you know? Like they have a lot going on behind their eyes.”
He walked her toward one area where they could get a better look at some of the gray ones. Having given a lot of money to keep this place going, he had privileges others didn’t on the ground. Keeping her with him, he walked to the gate where he could cross inside.
“Is this okay?” Lilliana looked left and right like she thought they might get caught.
“I’m a special member here. It’s fine.”
Once he’d secured the gate behind him, he paused to enjoy the silence of the area. Nothing around except wolves and the wildlife that lived here with them. Bending over, he extended his hand, and one of wolves came over to sniff him.
She gasped. “Careful, he might bite you.”
“This is a female.” He petted the wolf on her head. “And she’s not going to bite me. Now, that one over there, the Alpha, he’d take off my hand if he thought I’d hurt her.”
“You really know quite a lot of about wolves, don’t you? It’s crazy that you’re petting them. They’re wild creatures.” He could hear excitement in her voice. “Can I touch them? Do you think they’ll hurt me?”
“They won’t bother you, Lilliana. In fact, this lady is friendly. I think she would like it.”
“This is nuts.” Still, she smiled and bent down. “How did you learn so much?”
“That’s a good question.” He smiled. “And the answer is a bit complicated, but I guess the truth is that I learned all things wolves from my grandmother.”
“Yes? I never had one. They were both gone by the time I was adopted.”
He could hear the wistfulness in her voice. Somewhere on the planet a pack had suffered by not having her in it. If he could ever find out where she’d come from, he’d bring her home to see it. Wolves needed pack. To be without it must make Lilliana feel half empty all the time.
“My grandmother told me that once, in a time before time, there had been a woman who had been lonely for her true love.” He stood up. “She’d not found him yet, and none of the boys in her life understood her true nature. Loyal, strong, kind. They laughed at her sweetness and mocked her sense of right and wrong.”
Lilliana laughed. “Nothing much changes, does it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Some things can be altered rather drastically actually.”
“Oh yes? Did the heroine of this story find a nice guy?”
“In a sense.” He took her hand, leading her farther along. “Nearby a wolf pack lived quietly. For the most part, they didn’t bother the humans, and sometimes the humans had enough sense to not bother the wolves.”
“What happened then?” She smiled up at him. Did part of her know he wasn’t simply telling her a story? Did any part of Lilliana recognize the truth in how this pertained to her?
“One day, the mean men she lived with chased her into the woods. They had bad intentions, and before the end of the night, they would terrorize her, rape her, and leave her for dead.”
“This is a terrible story, Travis.”
He nodded, his stomach clenching. If anyone ever hurt Lilliana like that, he’d wage a war that would make the current Alpha Wars seem tame in comparison. “It is. I agree. Nearby, while she watched the moon, waiting to die, aching for it, three of the strongest wolves in the pack saw her. They came to her in those moments, tried to lick her wounds, to embrace her. Somehow, although they were animals, they understood her pain.”
He could still hear his grandmother telling this story, and even though it should shame him, one lone tear slipped from his eye in deference to the amazing woman she’d been.
“So she wasn’t alone.” Lilliana didn’t comment on his tear, but he heard the catch in her voice.
“No. And the wolves made a wish too. They wished for the ability to keep her, to love her. They were animals. They did not really understand their wish. However, as her tears spread out before them, a remarkable thing happened.”
“Let me guess, the moon-god came down and boom, bing, bang she’s fixed, and now she’s a wolf to run free with them?” She shook her head.
> “Look at what a cynic you are.” He smoothed her hair off her forehead. “No, the wolves became men. All three of them. Our heroine would live as well. And every full moon, they would shift into their wolf form. Forever both. They would, of course, kill those men who had tormented her. And the other two wolves would go on to find worthy women. To this day, however, the children of that first woman and her mate are the Alphas. Forever in charge.”
“You’re talking about werewolves. I’ve never heard this tale in regards to them before. I always just heard about the moon and the fangs and the blood.” She looked away from him.
He picked her up in his arms and spun her around until she squealed. “Oh, there are wolves and fangs and blood all right. There’s also hot animal sex.”
She laughed, and the wolves in the preserve howled. For a second he could see her as the heroine in that story. Alone, afraid, misunderstood. He smiled. If he’d been the Alpha wolf watching her, he’d have also wished for humanity. Anything to be with her.
“Did I tell you her name?”
She shook her head. “Our heroine? No. What was her name? Something mystical I bet? Tatiana. Cassandra. Cleopatra.”
“Her name was Lily, and her beauty tamed wolves.” He kissed her on her nose. “Come on, I’ve got to take you to work.”
****
She smiled, holding the rose Travis had given her in her hand. Catching a thorn, she hissed and stuck her finger in her mouth to stop the blood. For the last week and a half he had been the most attentive, respectful boyfriend she’d ever had. They hadn’t actually discussed whether or not he was her boyfriend, but she’d decided he was, and when she’d used that word, he hadn’t objected.
“Listen.” He lay on the floor of her living room with her, staring up at the ceiling. She’d told him how she liked to look at star patterns when she was a little girl, and he’d arrived with a device that created them on the ceiling. Together, they stared upward as though they really looked at the night sky. “I’d like to take you to do this next week in Pennsylvania. We’ll really be able to see the stars.”
Ever After Page 13