by Lauren Dane
Rain smiled then and he returned it as he moved toward her. “You look beautiful. I really like the dress.”
“Oh this old thing?” She laughed. “Thank you, you look pretty good yourself.” She reached up and touched his hair and electricity ran through him on contact. “Your hair is so gorgeous. I like that you left it down.”
“I’m glad it pleases you, I had it back earlier and decided to free it.” He wanted to strut around the room at the compliment.
“Would you like a glass of wine or something?” she asked as he took her hand and tucked it into his arm. He walked her slowly through the gallery, wanting her to be at ease after he’d heard the undercurrent of nerves in her voice.
“No not now, I’ll have some with dinner. We have reservations at Matt’s On the Market for nine if that’s all right. He’s got a great wine list.”
“I’ve never been there but I’ve heard great things.” Heard and not experienced because it was totally out of her price range.
“You’re in for a treat. The food is amazing. Fresh local ingredients. It doesn’t look fancy, it’s the food and wine where all of the effort goes.”
“I like that. Food as art. Sounds heavenly.”
“So is this your friend’s work then?” He motioned to the walls.
“Yes. I met Sully when I first came to town and started painting. He’s been a huge help to me. He’s very good, this is his third show so far this year.”
It was good but Laurent had a feeling her work would be better. “So you mentioned taking your portfolio to a gallery. You’re an artist too?”
“Yes, I paint. The portfolio is to be considered for a series of gallery shows The Holt is going to host over the next months, all showcasing up-and-coming artists. It would be a big break for me to get a show.” He saw the passion for her work on her face.
“What kind of work do you do then? Modern, classical, abstract?”
“Modern. It’s eclectic. Not so abstract that you can’t see what I’m trying to convey. I draw upon themes from nature—mountains, rocks, the ocean, rivers, streams, the sky, stars, planets, big historical ideas and events. I don’t know how to explain it really, things that tug at the fabric of our existence.”
“I’d love to see it sometime. Good luck with the show.” As it happened, Andreas owned a part interest in The Holt. He might mention it to Kari and see if she thought it was something to bring up to Andreas. She was someone he could trust to give an opinion about what Rain would like. He wanted to help Rain but not to take over and make her feel she couldn’t do it on her own.
They enjoyed the showing and he drove over to the Market for dinner.
He opened her door, helped her over the cobblestones—not that he minded the chance to get his hands on her. Taking care of her calmed his wolf, allowed the man the space to woo.
“This place is just as great as you said it would be,” she enthused over her trout with wasabi crust. “The Gruyère leek tart was so good. I haven’t eaten this well in a very long time.”
He sensed that she’d grown up around some kind of money; she knew her wines very well and had spoken French with a man on the corner selling roses. It wasn’t the kind of French you learn in high school, it was the kind of French that you learned while in France. Laurent should know, he’d spent time there growing up before he’d come to live with the Phinney family.
He drew a fingertip over the delicate bones in her wrist. “So where are you from originally? Do you have family here?”
She shifted in her chair and looked out the window a moment. Avoiding. “What about you? I take it you and Andreas are close. Are you related? How’d you come to work for him?”
Laurent narrowed his eyes at her, smelling her evasion, seeing her body tense and her hands shake for just a moment when he’d asked. She was hiding something. What he didn’t know but he’d find out, help her through whatever it was that made her afraid. For the time being he’d let her hold back. Trust, he knew, had to be earned.
“Andreas and I have been best friends since I was eleven and he was thirteen. His family took me in and raised me.”
“Why? That is, if you don’t mind talking about it.”
Later he could tell her about the more specific reasons, but until she knew he was a werewolf, it was better to be general. “My mother died and my father didn’t feel he could raise me on his own. My mother and Andreas’s mother were like sisters so my father brought me to them, to be raised in a family setting. And that’s what they did. Treated me like one of their own children. My working for Andreas sort of grew from that. Back to you though. Do you have any family?”
“I’m, um, estranged from them. I still communicate with my mother on occasion but I haven’t spoken to my father in a year.”
“Why?” Laurent turned her hand over in his. She made no move to take it back so he kept it there, her warmth bleeding into him.
“He wanted me to be something that I couldn’t be. I...we couldn’t come to any agreement about my life so...” She shrugged but he saw the shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes.
Still, family was so important. He couldn’t understand how any man could turn away from his own child. “Have you tried to work it out? How does your mother feel about it all?”
She sighed. “My mother feels however she’s told to feel. No, that’s unfair really. She’s a loving woman but the world she lives in isn’t made for women who are strong and opinionated. She helped me es...er, leave home last year. She has to keep my contact with her a secret. My father of course thinks I’ll come back when I need money. And that’s really all I want to talk about that subject.”
Laurent wished she’d lighten her burden and share with him but he understood. The need to comfort was so complete it was only the decades of training to keep his control that enabled him to keep his shit together.
“Would you like to come back to my apartment and watch the ferries on the water?” The apartment was in the Harbor Steps complex and overlooked Puget Sound.
She hesitated a moment, clearly thinking. “Sure. That would be nice.” Her voice was soft but free of doubt. He relaxed a bit.
They walked back to the car and Laurent moved it the few blocks to the building and took her up. Among the little touches he’d made earlier that day had been to put new sheets on his bed. They were silky soft with a bit of flannel for warmth. He sincerely hoped she’d let him make love to her that night. Between Mates, the first time making love would create binding ties between them—he wanted to brand her in some way.
Another part of him wanted to fuck her hard and fast.
“This is a beautiful place,” she murmured as she looked around, her hands trailing over the spines of books, the curves of vases. Each touch a caress that incited his senses. She seemed to soak in everything she looked at. Examined. Sampled.
It seemed impossible for her to be a hedonist but also so shy and hesitant. But it was there. Another thing about her he ferreted away.
She looked back over her shoulder. “Do you mind if I take these heels off? They’re beginning to kill me.”
He shook his head no and watched as she sat and pulled off the pumps, exposing bright pink toenails.
The sound she made as she wriggled her toes and stretched her calves a little made him suck in air like a drowning man.
“So much better. Of course now I’ll never have the courage to put them back on because it’ll hurt even more.” And frankly, the way he looked at her made her weak in the knees and she had to sit down before they buckled. The whole evening had set her off balance. She’d never been so attracted and attuned to anyone in her life. It felt so natural to be with him that it freaked her out.
Everything about him was so intense. Intense was something she tried to avoid outside her art. She wanted him.
All during din
ner with subtle touches here and there he’d seduced her. Made her feel so sexy and confident.
She’d poured a lot of herself into her canvases. And now, he was there too, and she didn’t know how to not get sucked in by everything he was.
“I’ll carry you to your door if you need it,” he whispered and came to kneel in front of her.
“What is it about you? I feel like I’ve known you my whole life,” she said as he ran a finger around the curve of her bottom lip. Little zings of electricity sparked in the wake of his touch.
Her breath hitched as her heart kicked in her chest. She’d been wet and achy since she walked into the gallery earlier that evening. When it was his hands, his attention on her, it was like her skin came alive in a way it never had before. His very presence was totally overwhelming, it scared her even as she loved it.
“It does feel that way, doesn’t it?” he asked her as a smile edged up on the right side of his mouth. A mouth she really wanted on hers.
“Are you going to kiss me?” If he didn’t soon she’d swoon from want.
“You’re impatient.”
“Where you’re concerned apparently.” She needed to act bold. Needed to be bold.
“Okay then. I suppose I’ll make any sacrifice to please you.”
The tease sent a flutter of heat through her.
A long moment passed in delicious tension before he leaned into her body and touched his lips to hers.
Finally.
Her avaricious hands sought the muscled wall of his chest over the smooth material of his expensive dress shirt. He was so very vital, powerful and yet totally controlled as she slid her palms upward, seeking the silk of that long dark hair.
A low sound broke from her throat and he echoed it before grabbing her waist and pulling her to his body tightly as he walked on his knees to get closer. Her skirt rode up as she widened her thighs to give him room.
He hissed, dragging his nails over the edge of the stockings she wore. Her skin broke out in goosebumps.
Laurent felt the heat from her pussy as he moved to her and it drove him wild. He scented the honey there, nestled in the folds, and his mouth watered to taste her. “God, you feel good,” he murmured against her mouth and she sighed, opening to him, pressing her breasts into his chest, arching her back.
Need rode him and he groaned into her mouth as his tongue followed the sound. She tasted of cherries and dessert wine and her lips were firm and lush under his. He tried to hold back the fantasy of what that mouth would feel like wrapped around his cock but failed.
Control.
It shredded like wet paper at the touch of her skin.
When her tongue flicked over his, past his into his mouth, the sinuous dance of their kiss seduced him. She was open to him, gloriously inviting him to taste her, but he could also sense that she didn’t have a lot of experience. He’d be lying to himself—and denying that animal part of him—to deny he was thrilled. He’d be the one to show her erotic delights. He’d learn every inch of her body. He’d know spots that no one else had touched. Wanting to burn his name into her being thrilled him to his toes.
Pick up SWORN TO THE WOLF by Lauren Dane today,
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Copyright ©2016 by Lauren Dane
Acknowledgments
Thank you to the entire Carina Press team who are, as always, totally wonderful.
Thanks so much, Angela James, for putting up with me and always knowing what to say and how to say it so my author brain hears it.
My beta readers: Mary, Fatin and Renee—thank you for your advice and your time and all the love you give my books (Lillie, I add you to this list!).
The spouse who is my best friend, a great sounding board and the inspiration for all my alpha heroes in some way or other—I love you.
Also available from Lauren Dane
and Carina Press
Second Chances
Believe
Wolf’s Ascension
Sworn to the Wolf
Goddess with a Blade series
Goddess with a Blade
Blade to the Keep
Blade on the Hunt
At Blade’s Edge
From Lauren Dane and HQN Books
The Best Kind of Trouble
Broken Open
Back to You
From Lauren Dane
and Cosmopolitan Red-Hot Reads from Harlequin
Cake
Coming soon from Lauren Dane and Carina Press
Diablo Lake: Protected
Also watch for the next book in the Goddess with a Blade series, coming soon!
About the Author
The story goes like this: While on pregnancy bed rest, Lauren Dane had plenty of downtime, so her husband took her comments about “giving that writing thing a serious go” to heart and brought home a secondhand laptop. She wrote her first book on it before it gave up the ghost. Even better, she sold that book and never looked back.
Today Lauren is an award-winning New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of over sixty novels and novellas across several genres.
Find out more about Lauren’s books at www.laurendane.com.
Twitter.com/LaurenDane
Facebook.com/AuthorLaurenDane
Craving more sexy paranormal romance from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Dane? Don’t miss her Cherchez Wolf Pack series!
The Cherchez Wolf Pack Series
Follow the Cherchez werewolf pack in Washington’s North Cascades National Park as everything in their world changes.
WOLF’S ASCENSION (Cherchez Wolf Pack, book one)
SWORN TO THE WOLF (Cherchez Wolf Pack, book two)
“WOLF’S ASCENSION is paranormal perfection—with a sexy alpha werewolf who worships his queen, and a fast-paced story full of mystery and suspense.”
—Fresh Fiction
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Discover the fantastic adventures of Rowan Summerwaite in the Goddess with a Blade series!
Rowan Summerwaite was raised by the leader of the Vampire Nation and is a supercharged Hunter with the power to slay any Vampire who violates the age-old treaty.
GODDESS WITH A BLADE, Goddess with a Blade, book one
BLADE TO THE KEEP, Goddess with a Blade, book two
BLADE ON THE HUNT, Goddess with a Blade, book three
AT BLADE’S EDGE, Goddess with a Blade, book four
“If you have not tried the versatile and oh-so-gifted Dane’s absorbing [Goddess with a Blade] series, then you’ve been missing out. This ride is filled with high-stakes action, sizzling sensuality and devious politics!”
—RT Book Reviews
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ISBN-13: 9781459290242
Diablo Lake: Moonstruck
Copyright © 2016 by Lauren Dane
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