Wade let Taryn take him by the arm and pull him inside the house. She took him to the kitchen and forced him into one of the kitchen table chairs. Before he could take a good look at the kitchen, Taryn had grabbed a handful of tissues, bent his head back and held them to his nose as she applied pressure.
“Do you make it a habit of smacking men in the noses? That’s twice now you’ve gotten me.” Wade’s gut clenched when Taryn took her bottom lip between her teeth and looked at him apologetically. With her standing this close to him, with her scent wafting around him, it was taking all he had not to pull her into his arms.
“Sorry, for both times. Today was a complete accident.”
“And yesterday? That was no accident.”
“Well, no, it wasn’t. You do have to admit you came on a little strong.”
Feeling that his nose had stopped bleeding, Wade pulled the tissue away and flashed his most charming smile. “When I see something I like, I tend to go after it.”
Taryn scowled at him. “You can save your charm for another girl. It won’t work on me. I know you aren’t serious.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Taryn rolled her eyes. “I do own a mirror you know.”
“And?”
“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? Fine. With my looks, and the way I dress, there is no way a man as good-looking as you would be attracted to the likes of me.”
“So you think I’m good-looking?”
Taryn rolled her eyes once again. “Do I have to add conceited to the list?”
Unable to stand having her next to him and not touching her, Wade reached out and pulled Taryn onto his lap. He wrapped his arms loosely around her waist. Taryn stiffened in his arms for the briefest of seconds before she let herself relax. “For your information, you are exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
“Now that I find hard to believe.”
“It shouldn’t be all that unbelievable. I can prove it as well.”
Shifting Taryn on his lap, Wade pressed her bottom against the hard evidence of his arousal. Her eyes widened slightly, but she made no move to pull away. Wade took that as a good sign. It was killing him, but he sensed the only way he was going to get anywhere with Taryn was to take it slow and easy.
*
Taryn felt the hard length of Wade’s cock nestled against her bottom. Oddly enough, she couldn’t force herself to move away, let alone get off of him. Sitting this way on his lap, she felt protected. She was still finding it hard to believe that a guy with Wade’s looks was actually attracted to her. But there was no mistaking the longing in his ice blue eyes, nor the hardness pressed against her.
Finding it no easy task to think straight, she changed the subject. “So why have you come to The Pines?”
“To see if I could get you into bed.” When she cocked a brow at him, he chuckled. “Okay, I can see you aren’t open to that just yet. I also wanted to discuss business.”
“Has Beowulf decided to buy my wine?”
“Not yet, but he’d like to know more about you and your winery. Such as what types of grapes you grow and how your wine is made, that sort of thing. So, if you’re agreeable, I’d like to stay here a few days and get my hands dirty, so to speak. I know it’s almost harvest time and I’d like to help out with it. Then when I return to San Francisco, Beowulf will make his decision.”
“And if I refuse to have you stay?”
“Then I can’t promise you Beowulf will buy your wine.”
The idea of having Wade stay at the winery was appealing, but made her uneasy at the same time. She did need the extra pair of hands at harvest time, and it would give her a better chance to get to know Wade. But the thought of having him stay at her house, just the two of them, made her a little apprehensive. Not since Nigel had she actually had a man sleeping under the same roof with her, except of course for her Uncle Colin.
Not wanting to lose out on the business arrangement she could have with Wulf’s Den, Taryn ignored her uneasiness and nodded her head. “All right, you can stay. But there have to be a few ground rules.”
“Such as?”
“If you want to help with the harvest, you have to do what I say. And I can promise you it will be no walk in the park. The grapes have to be harvested by hand, which takes many hours to do.”
“I’m up to the task. Now what about us?”
Taryn shook her head. “There isn’t any us, Wade. No offense, but you aren’t the type of guy I usually date.”
“I know you’re attracted to me as well. Why not let nature take its course and see what happens?”
“That has no bearing on my decision.” She tried to slip off Wade’s lap, but he wrapped his arms tighter around her, not allowing her to move. She felt the inevitable panic start to rise up inside her. Pushing at his chest, she looked at him, hoping the panic she felt wasn’t showing in her eyes and muttered. “Let me go.”
Wade quickly let her off his lap. “I can sense your fear, Taryn. I would never hurt you.”
“It’s not you, Wade. I’m the problem. If you weren’t so dominant, I’d be fine. I have to be the one in charge or I panic.”
“What happened?”
“It’s nothing.”
“I think it’s far from nothing, Taryn. You can trust me. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
Taryn sighed. She had no idea why she believed Wade wouldn’t do her any harm, but she just knew he wouldn’t. “A boyfriend I had when I was younger didn’t take rejection too well. When I broke up with him he didn’t … react … too kindly to it.”
Wade stood up and looked down at her. “He hit you, didn’t he?”
She heard the anger in his voice. “Yes, but I never gave him the opportunity to do it again. And it was a long time ago.”
“But he marked you on the inside, not just on the outside. Does he live around here? I’d gladly show him the error of his ways.”
Taryn shook her head. “Nigel doesn’t live here. I met him when I was living in Los Angeles. I haven’t seen him since that day, and I’m sure I’ll never see him again. I never told him about my uncle or the winery. My Uncle Colin patched me up and made sure I would never find myself in such a predicament again.”
“He taught you how to defend yourself.”
“Yes. He had done a stint in the army for a few years. He left it when his parents died and took over the winery. Now it’s mine through him.”
“When did your uncle die?”
“Almost a year ago.” Taryn missed her uncle and still found it hard to talk about his passing. “He had cancer. I don’t want to talk about it. Just try and understand that this will be a business arrangement only.”
“I’m not willing to just let you slip through my fingers, Taryn. Now that I know about your past, we can work through this together. You were fine with me kissing you last night when I wasn’t holding you to me. How about we try it again? I’ll keep my hands to myself and you can stop me if you start feeling panicky.”
“I don’t think that’s a good…”
Wade cut off her protest with his lips and started to kiss her as if he had all the time in the world. He stayed true to his word and kept his hands behind his back so he couldn’t touch her. Taryn’s eyes fluttered shut as she enjoyed the feel of his mouth on hers, but soon it wasn’t enough. There was something about Wade that affected her on the basest of levels.
Taking the step needed to bring their bodies within touching distance, Taryn placed the flat of her hands on his muscled chest. His heart thundered beneath her hand. He shook with the effort it took to hold himself back. Her body reacted to his closeness. Her breasts grew heavy as her nipples tightened into buds. Sighing, Taryn increased the pressure of the kiss.
Wade swept the seam of her lips with his tongue. She opened for him, allowing him entrance. Fisting her hands in his shirt, she clung to him as his tongue twined with hers. She felt her body liquefy with need as he sucked her tongue into his mouth. When
he put one hard thigh between her legs, Taryn moaned and ground herself against it.
It was then that his control slipped. One arm snaked around her waist and pulled her hard up against his chest. The flames of desire that had been licking at her body quickly changed to panic. She whimpered. Wade growled in the back of his throat, but he released her before he turned his back to her.
Taryn placed her hand on his back. She could feel how stiff Wade was holding himself. “Sorry.”
Wade moved away until she was no longer touching him. “Don’t. Don’t apologize.” His voiced sounded strained, almost as if he was on the verge of growling again. “Just give me a minute to get myself back under control.”
Without saying a word, Taryn left the kitchen and went outside. She wouldn’t blame Wade if he gave up on her. Hell if she were a man she would give up on her. No sane man wanted a head case for a girlfriend. That was part of the reason why she had given up looking for that special someone for herself. She really didn’t need a man in her life. She had the winery and that was all she needed to make herself happy. But she couldn’t quite ignore that small part of her that screamed at how unfair it all was. Pulling herself together, Taryn stepped off the porch and headed for one of the outbuildings. The day was slipping away and she had work to do.
Chapter Three
Once Taryn was out of the house, Wade let loose the growl of frustration he had been holding in. It had been too close. When Taryn had begun to panic, the wolf inside him had risen up demanding he claim her has his regardless of how she felt. If he hadn’t turned his back on her, she would have seen how his eyes were glowing, and that wouldn’t have been a good thing.
Now that he knew about her past, it only made things that much more difficult. He had known his being a werewolf, and Taryn not one, would be hard enough to deal with, but with an abusive ex-boyfriend who had left mental scars, Wade found himself up against a rock and a hard place. The more time he spent around Taryn, touching her, tasting her, the harder the mating urge would ride him.
Finally getting a grip on himself, Wade went in search of Taryn. Not seeing her anywhere out at the front of the house, he took in a deep breath. He easily picked up her scent and followed it to one of the outbuildings.
Going inside the larger structure where her scent was the freshest, Wade was hit with the strong smell of grapes and wine. To a mortal the smells wouldn’t have been as powerful, but to a werewolf’s sense of smell, it was almost overwhelming. Judging by the machines sitting idle and the empty space, Wade figured this was where the harvested grapes were brought to be processed.
He walked further inside until he came to a small office. There, he found Taryn sitting behind her desk. She was scowling down at a piece of paper sitting in front of her. “Bad news?”
Taryn looked up when Wade spoke. “Not really, more of an inconvenience.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“No. The extra crew I usually hire on to help with the harvest won’t be coming this year. Now I have to see if I can find another one to replace them. It’ll be cutting it close.”
“If you need extra hands for harvesting, and experience is not a necessity, I can manage to get you some help.” In some ways it was nice living in pack society. Other members of the pack could be counted on when help was needed, usually with no questions asked. And it helped having an older brother who happened to be the pack leader. If Taryn couldn’t find the workers she needed, Wade had no qualms about calling Beowulf.
Taryn nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind, but I should be okay.” Silence fell between them. When the silence grew too heavy, Taryn stood up. “If you want, I can show you around the vineyard. Or would you rather wait until later?”
“I’m fine. I’d love to be taken on the official tour.”
Wade stepped back and let Taryn lead the way. His eyes were automatically drawn to her bottom. The jeans she wore were tight in all the right places. Distracted, Wade at first didn’t realize Taryn was speaking to him. “Sorry, what was that?”
She stopped walking and turned to look at him. “I said this is the building where we crush the grapes and then put the juice in oak barrels. And when the wine is ready for bottling, we do that here as well.”
“I smelled them both when I came in.”
“Really? I don’t smell anything right now. You must have a sensitive nose to have picked up on those smells.”
“Yeah, you could say that. Sort of runs in my family.”
“I may have to put that nose of yours to work then.”
Taking a step closer, Wade buried his nose in the crook of her neck and took in a deep breath. “If it involves smelling you, I’m game.”
“Wine. I meant I’d get you to smell some of my wines.”
Wade bit back a smile as Taryn swallowed audibly and then continued on with her tour. Once they were outside, she headed for the vineyard where the grapes were growing. He smelled their ripe sweetness even before they came into view.
Seeing all the grapevines growing, row after row, Wade knew harvesting would be hard work as Taryn had claimed it to be. Doing it all by hand made it seem like a monumental task. Never one to shy away from hard work, he had to give the winery owners their due for doing it year after year. Owning a winery took a lot of commitment to keep it producing quality grapes. The sense of pride that came with the product of hard work must be enormous. Looking at Taryn, he saw the pride she felt as she looked out at the fields.
“What kind of grapes do you grow?” Taryn’s face became animated as she spoke of the vineyard. He could tell this was an occupation she loved doing.
“We grow three types of grapes—Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and red Zinfandel.”
“And it is the Zinfandel wine you want to sell to Wulf’s Den?”
“Yes. Growing the red Zinfandel grapes to make White Zinfandel wine was my pet project. Uncle Colin kept the family tradition of making Cabernet Sauvignon, but I wanted to expand. This year will be the third year that we’ll have enough grapes to make a large amount of White Zinfandel wine. They did really well this year.”
They were now walking between the planted rows of grapes. Wade looked at the variety Taryn pointed out as red Zinfandel. The grapes were large and grew together in tight bunches. He smelled the juice inside them, which was a lot sweeter than the juice in the other two varieties.
As Taryn continued to speak, Wade looked over at the sweeping hillside of tall pine trees. They appealed to the animal side of him. He decided that after Taryn went to sleep tonight he would go wolf and go for a run through the trees. Being around Taryn all day, and not being able to claim her, would take its toll on him. There was nothing better than shifting into his wolf form and running in the night to work off some excess energy. And he had a feeling he would have a lot of pent up frustration to work off as well.
* * * *
Taryn settled herself down on the loveseat in the living room and looked at Wade who sat in the large plush chair across from her. It had been a long day, and having Wade follow her around as she went about her chores had made it feel that much longer.
It wasn’t that she disliked having him around. The problem was she liked it far too much. She had caught him staring at her as if he wanted to devour her more than once, and each time a wave of desire shot through her.
By the end of the day, she had felt on edge with thoughts of all the things she would like to do to Wade filling her head. The man was total sin, and well he knew it. He had used every opportunity that presented itself to stand close to her. So close that at times she felt the heat radiating off his body. And the few times he had inadvertently brushed up against her, she had gloried in the feel of having his hard body flittingly pressed to hers.
Even now, Taryn felt as if her body were on fire. Wade hadn’t so much as tried to kiss her after the one they had shared that morning, but that didn’t stop her from being all too aware of him as a man she was attracted to. She knew if he looked at her one
more time with longing in his eyes, she would more than likely jump on him and kiss him until they were both breathless. And that would only lead to disaster, again. Wade was not the type of man to let a woman completely have her way with him. He’d proved that both times he had kissed her.
Taking a sip from the glass of wine she held in her hand, Taryn’s glance skimmed over Wade. She couldn’t help staring at him as if she were a lovesick teenager. With his looks, she was sure he was used to having grown women drooling over him, and fantasizing about what they would do to his hard body if they managed to get him into their beds.
Her gaze drifted up to his face and found him staring at her with a look that said he knew exactly what she had been thinking about. Her face flushed, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Wade.
He drained his glass of wine and came to her. Kneeling on the floor before her, he took her wine glass from her and placed it along with his, on the small table next to the loveseat. With Wade kneeling in front of her, Taryn had to look slightly down at him. This way he wasn’t as intimidating as he would have been standing at his full height. She knew part of her panic stemmed from Wade’s large size. In the back of her head, she knew he could snap her like a twig if he wanted to.
Drawn to him, Taryn moved until she was sitting on the very edge of the loveseat. Wade shifted forward until he was kneeling between her legs. He then rested his hands on her thighs. He stared up at her, waiting for her to make the first move, looking as if he didn’t want to do anything she wasn’t ready for.
With a none too steady hand, Taryn reached out and ran her fingers through Wade’s hair. At her touch, Wade made a gruff noise that sounded almost half growl, half moan. For a split second, she swore his ice blue eyes took on a muted glow before he closed them. When he opened them again, the glow was gone.
Wade spoke in a low tone. “You can touch me as much as you want, Taryn, but you’re going to kill me if you don’t kiss me.”
Taryn’s Wolf Page 2