by Michele Hauf
“No, but I need you to not say those things.”
She shook her head in wonder. “Not tell you what I need?”
“Not like that, I mean…”
She stroked his lips with a fingertip. So she had pushed when he hadn’t been prepared for such a shove. Bad witch. “It’s all right, Ridge. Just show me how desperately you need me.”
She kissed him again, this time nibbling his firm lower lip and sucking it in to taste and lick and claim. He chuckled in a rumbly, sexy baritone that turned her on more, if that was possible.
“Always cold to hot with us,” she said, and kissed his jaw, licking the prickly stubble. “Nothing slow and easy.”
“It seems so. I like you crawling all over me like you can’t get enough of me.”
“You’re some kind of fire,” she explained. “The only kind I dare touch for any length of time.”
“Your mouth is like poison, Abigail. It’s something I’d love to kill myself with. You got your magic holstered?”
“Yes. Don’t tell me you still worry about that?”
“Always.”
“As long as you don’t wolf out while I’m kissing you, we should be fine.”
“I’m not that out of control. Hell.” He set her down, and the lack of his mouth at hers brought her down from the cloud she’d been floating upon.
“What is it? What did I say? Can’t a girl speak the truth without freaking you out?”
“This is never going to work. Not until you can trust me.”
“I do trust you. It’s you who needs to trust me. You won’t let go, Ridge. There’s a beast inside you who wants me. Why can’t you let it loose?”
“I suspect you’re not asking me to wolf out.”
“No, not that. I’m asking you to be the man you are.” She bit her lip and looked aside. This was not good. She sensed that he read her encouragement as a challenge against his manhood. She didn’t, but how else to put it? Time to get back to the fun of it all. “Forget I said that. We were just kissing. Just a little flirtation.”
“That’s all it was to you? Nothing more than flirting?” He tugged her to him and kissed her hard and deep. His mouth bruised hers sweetly and she could not breathe, so she had to take in his breath in a gasp.
Oh, but she preferred it hard like this. He controlled her, which sent shivers up her spine. To succumb completely was out of the question, but to surrender to his strength was now as simple as sighing.
“Whatever is going on between us right now,” he said, “you don’t trust it to be the way you want it to be. The way I want it to be. You need control. You need to push me away because of some stupid rule you made and now you think you need to follow it.”
“So do you. You need the control.”
“Was that kiss I gave you controlled?”
“No, it freakin’ rocked.” She touched her lips, feeling they were swollen and pulsed with a lush ache. “But you’re like me. You also like to keep people at a distance. I’m not the one who flinches every time he sees me wave my hand.”
“As I’ve explained…” He tilted his head sharply.
“I know, I know! And once again, I apologize.” She blew out a breath and stretched out her arms to tilt her head toward the setting sun. Then something occurred to her. “But your penis still works. You can still have sex with women, so I didn’t damage you so terribly. That thing about you being unable to father a child—”
“The damned spell.”
The spell she had never put on him. Seriously, she hadn’t time to conjure a decent spell. It had merely been a reaction, accidental magic combined with the leylines and the hotel electricity.
She couldn’t tell him that, because he didn’t want to believe the truth. He wasn’t ready. And she wasn’t ready for her own truths, either.
What were they doing? Playing at what they didn’t know they wanted?
“So you said it could be the way you wanted it to be. Does that mean you want us to be more?”
“Yes, I— He’s on his way.” Ridge swung around and scanned the line of trees about half a mile across the field. “He’s not running full bore, so things must have gone well enough.”
Her heartbeats racing with anticipation, Abigail ran around the side of the truck to wait for the wolf.
Dean Maverick’s bow-legged trot took him quickly to the truck. He nodded at her, and then looked to Ridge, who joined her side and put an arm around her shoulders. He was always showing her his gentle side. Or was it a possessive move?
If only he would possess her with his kisses again. She wanted more from him, rough and wild, and dangerous.
“Have any trouble?” Ridge asked.
Dean kicked a tire, shaking off the crusted snow from his pack boots. “None. Spoke to Don Pritchard, the principal. There’s only one vampire on site, and he’s not the one you’re looking for.”
“How do you know?” Abigail tugged from Ridge’s hold and went to Dean. “You didn’t use his name? I told you not to do that.”
“Chill out, pretty lady. I didn’t let on to anything. I casually mentioned some of my members had been asking about the sport and he offered to show me the one vamp they had in captivity. He won last night’s fight. The other did not.”
“He’s dead?”
“Ash,” Dean said.
“You’re sure?” Ridge asked.
Dean nodded. “I don’t think it was your vamp, Miss Rowan. In fact, it sounds like the pack is going cold turkey after this one. The principal doesn’t feel the fights are as well attended as usual. And after Ridge’s visit last night, sounds like he’s rethinking things.”
“No kidding?” Ridge nodded in satisfaction at that.
Abigail felt a thrill to know perhaps he’d been instrumental in changing the River pack over. But it was only a momentary excitement. “Now what do I do? I can’t show at the meeting tomorrow without a vampire. They’ll never make the trade. My son!”
Ridge grabbed her by the shoulders and made eye contact. “We’ll find him, Abigail.” As panic began to take hold, she maintained contact with his gentling stare. Her wobbling lip settled, and a touch of calm traced her spine.
“I don’t think this is going to work.” She sank against Ridge’s solid form. “I want my son back!”
“I can go along too, if you need me,” Dean offered. “I’ll give Sunday a call and let her know I’m going to be a little late. If any pack in the area is involved in the sport, I’d suspect the one up in Ely.”
“Ely is a good four-hour drive from here,” Ridge noted, looking north. The small town was located in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area of Minnesota.
“I’m in it to win it, if you need me.” Maverick bent before Abigail’s face and offered, “Sorry. I wish he would have been in there, too,” then wandered around the back of the truck.
“It’s not what we hoped for,” Ridge said as he rubbed her shoulders reassuringly. “But we can work with it. When’s the meeting tomorrow?”
“Four in the afternoon.”
“And it’s six now. We’ve got twenty-two hours.”
“I don’t know if I can last that long. I’ve no way to contact them. I don’t know if Ryan is safe, or what he’s thinking. He must be so frightened. If we could get this done with…”
“All things in time,” he said and led her around to the passenger door. “We’re going on a road trip.”
* * *
“How did they learn you had a son in the first place if you’ve been so protective of him?”
“I don’t know.” Abigail closed her eyes for a moment. “I’ve been so careful over the years to keep him concealed.”
“Why the big secret?” echoed from the backseat.
Ridge glanced in the rearview mirror at Maverick, who offered a shrug.
“Yes, why keep him such a big secret?” Ridge asked. “You must have enemies you fear.”
“I’m on the Council. That’s reason enough. Do you know how many enemies we have?
”
“Everyone has enemies. Still doesn’t explain why you’d fear for your son’s life.”
“I’m a fire witch,” she said defensively. “If I were to have a child with another fire witch, do you know what the child would become?”
“No.”
“He would not only have the power of fire to his arsenal, but he’d be impervious to fire. There’s not been a witch like that for thousands of years.”
“And someone would want to get control of him?” Maverick posited. “If he’s so powerful, how could that happen?”
“He’s just a kid, and he’s not completed puberty yet, so I don’t know…”
Ridge’s jaw flexed at her abrupt silence. “You don’t know? Don’t know what? If he’s going to come into his magic?”
“Yes and no. Most boys don’t inherit their magic from the mother. But if both parents are witches that increases the chances. But if his father is not…”
“If his father is not…a witch?” Ridge asked.
She winced, and then nodded.
They drove in silence for a few miles, before Ridge finally worked things out. “That means you’re not sure who the father is.”
“I’m ninety-nine percent sure.”
“What? How old is Ryan anyway?”
She looked out the window. Ridge’s fingers squeezed the leather steering wheel. “Abigail.”
“He’s twelve.”
“Twelve. That means…” Ridge did the math. Thirteen years ago he’d been driving down the I-15 in Nevada, looking for a good time. Which he’d found, courtesy of Elvis, vodka and flames.
Hell. That meant— Could it possibly be?
Ridge slammed on the brakes, put the car in Park and jumped out his side, slamming the door behind him. He marched around to the passenger side and opened it. Tugging Abigail out, he pushed her against the hood.
“Am I Ryan’s father?”
Chapter 8
Ridge’s eyes were hard as stone. Once she’d seen golden highlights within the liquid brown, but now they were solid, cold and deadly. This was the stare other werewolves cowered from and tried to get away from. His intensity felt powerful, commanding—yet right.
And when she should have been frightened of his suspicion, Abigail grew even more eager to spill all.
To finally have it all out in the open, for good or for ill.
The werewolf slammed his palms against the hood of the pickup, pinning her between his body and the truck. The diesel engine growled as angrily as the wolf.
A car rolled by, stirring a cloud of icy snowflakes into the air, but this time they didn’t immediately melt when they landed on her cheek.
She held his gaze, determined to hold her own against whatever wild thoughts were stirring in his brain. A brain that could be half animal at times, and that made him instinctual and swift. Such instincts couldn’t help him now. Or her.
It could not be possible. Much as she wished it so. How many times had she considered it over the years? Hundreds. No, surely thousands. Every moment she caught Ryan looking into her eyes, she had wondered if his were the same color as the man who had rescued her.
But, thanks to the vodka, she’d never been able to remember his eyes.
Now she narrowed her gaze on Ridge’s stare. Ryan’s eyes were hazel, with tiny spots of brown.
No reason to start thinking different after twelve years. She’d made peace with her actions, and could not conceive of creating a new future when it was based on ridiculous dreams. “I doubt it,” Abigail finally said.
“You doubt it? But you don’t know for sure? When was he conceived?”
“The doctors never really know for sure. They give you an estimate that could be off by a week or even two or three, but—”
He gripped her upper arm. The beast inside him was in control. “You know, Abigail. You know things like that. Witches are all about the calendar and seasons, and knowing themselves and the cycles of every freaking living thing. You know exactly when he was conceived. Was it in Vegas?”
What happened in Vegas…
…had gotten out of Vegas, and had been with her ever since.
“Ridge, listen to me. I had been dating Miles for months before you and I had our silly vodka dance down the aisle. We probably had sex every day, right up until that nasty night he tried to burn me at the stake.”
“An upright candidate for fatherhood, if you ask me. But you can’t know for sure then, because we did it that same night.”
“Drunk out of our minds. Even ask Elvis!”
“Alcohol does not prevent one from becoming pregnant. And it’s ridiculous if you try to make me believe it. In fact, I’m sure it contributes to more pregnancies than most women will take credit for. The boy could be mine!”
Yes, there was the smallest, most minuscule, infinitesimal chance Ridge could be Ryan’s father—if Ryan had been born late. Which he had not been.
“I did the math,” she said. “Ryan would have had to be born a month late for such a thing to be true. I know I wasn’t overdue. I never even got that big.”
Not big enough for a month overdue.
Maybe… Ryan had been a tiny baby. Or was it hope upon hope?
No, she wasn’t about to buy into desperate dreams and fantasies now. To change over a decade of thinking, in which she had convinced herself to believe Miles was the father, and that Ryan was destined for fire magic, and a life so complicated he could never wrap his mind around it all.
“He’s not,” she said softly. “The possibility of it being so is minuscule.”
“Says who?”
“Ridge, why are you so upset about this? You wanted a divorce!”
“That was before I knew I had a family. A son and a wife!”
“Don’t you dare give me that. He’s not yours to claim.”
The wolf reared with gaping disbelief, but kept her close, not allowing her to dash aside.
She didn’t want to dash. She liked standing up to this side of the man, the angry, wanting man, determined to get what he felt he deserved.
“Family implies spending time with people,” she said. “Knowing them, caring about them. Even if the minuscule possibility were in fact true, we could never be your family. The title of father is not awarded following one night of crazy drunken sex. It has to be earned. You don’t know what family means.”
He shoved his hand along her jaw. She felt his forceful intent and sensed that he reined in his anger. She stood defiantly, not about to show him her fear, or her need for him to be right.
“Damn it, Abigail, family is all I have ever wanted. All I have ever dreamed to have,” he said through a tight jaw. “Do you think growing up in a pack without parents is like family? It’s not. I had to fight for every scrap I could get. I did all the grunt work in hopes of Amandus looking favorably upon me and maybe allowing me to sleep in a bed one night instead of out in the shed on a cot. But still I tailed around behind the others, allowed them to shove me around, push me into the muck and deliver a playful but painful punch for laughs. I was a stupid wanting pup, hungry for a morsel of attention. I eagerly did as they asked for one look of kindness, of appreciation, of feeling like part of a family.
“I once thought Amandus’s wife, Persia, looked upon me as a son. Fuck. Many times I put myself between her and Amandus to keep the old bastard from hitting her. Not once did she thank me. Not that I needed the thanks. Then finally, I earned Amandus’s respect when I figured out that doing his dirty work was the thing. What a bastard he turned out to be. And me? I’m just like him.”
He released her and turned a shoulder to her. His muscles were tight and she could feel his tension and see it in the rapid breaths huffing in the air before him. But she didn’t need to see it. His words had cut through her heart and opened it to his reality. His horrible, tragic reality.
He’d protected the Northern principal’s wife from beatings? How awful to have felt that he had to do that. And then, to compare himself to Maste
rson?
“I had no idea. You come off as confident and put together. You’re so strong, Ridge. And now to know you struggled for everything and protected Persia? I am in awe. Growing up that way has made you the man you are.”
“Yeah?” He huffed and punched a fist into his open palm with a smack. “Well, I don’t want my son to live one more day without a father.”
“He’s done quite well with only a mother. Despite rumor and outward appearance, I do know how to take care of a child.”
“Yeah, but you said yourself you like to push people away. Look what you’ve done! You’ve pushed the boy all the way to Switzerland.”
The accusation hurt because it was true. She’d pushed everyone away in a futile attempt at changing her life around, becoming less wild and wicked and more…well, more what? Respectable? That was a label she’d never accept even if she had earned it. Responsible? Ha! She’d sent her own son away to another country under the pretense of protecting him.
How dare she use that excuse? What mother did that? Maybe she hadn’t been ready for a child and single motherhood, but she’d accepted the role and loved Ryan from the tip of his head down to his pudgy little toes. She loved him so much, no man would ever have him. No man.
Abigail exhaled heavily.
No man.
That was it. She was punishing all the men who’d ever made her fall in love and then dumped her by keeping her little man away from them all, even the ones who meant well and might even love Ryan.
Like Ridge?
Her son did need a father. He often asked if she was dating someone she might bring home so he could toss around a football with the guy. She’d always looked away, and changed the topic. Easier to turn a blind eye.
Goddess, but she’d been far crueler to her son than the unseen entities she’d strived to protect him from. But the facts remained…
“Don’t get your heart set on this, Ridge. I’ve told you, the chance you are Ryan’s father is small.”
“I heard you. Minuscule. But tell me this: Has he shown any signs of coming into his magic yet?”
“No, but—”
“Then until he does, my chances are fifty-fifty.”