by Erica Woods
“I . . . ah, I was actually looking for some soap.”
“Soap?” The casual way he was leaning against the counter was deceiving. Eyes narrowed, lips compressed, he was as far from relaxed as I was.
“For the floors,” I admitted, not daring to lie. Ruarc had a strange way of sniffing out untruths, and I knew he hated dishonesty. I had a feeling honesty—and honor in general—was very important to him.
“For the floors . . .” he repeated through clenched teeth.
The way he was glaring at me was unnerving. My hands twitched and I had no idea why. It wasn’t like I had a weapon handy, and even if I had, there was no way I would be using it on him. Disregarding the fact that I didn’t want to hurt him, I was fairly certain—no, make that one hundred percent certain—he could break my neck faster than I could so much as make a fist.
He wouldn’t hurt you, a small voice in my head insisted, although it sounded rather unsure.
“I . . .” The uncomfortable prickling in my chest warned me I better explain before my breathing became labored, something it always did when fear trespassed. “I-I wanted to learn what soaps should be used where so I can do a good job.”
A vein began pulsating in Ruarc’s temple. “Sit down.” His eyes flashed with warning when I hesitated, his jaw tightening.
I sat.
When his massive body followed, folded in a graceful crouch, my breath caught. How a man of this size could move like that was beyond my understanding.
“Shouldn’t be working,” he muttered under his breath and reached for my foot.
I yanked it back. “What are you doing?” I squeaked.
“Checking your injury,” he growled back, dragging my foot into his lap. The furious glare he shot me when I once again tugged against his grip was more terrifying for the stillness coming over him. “Don’t. Move.”
My hands grew clammy, and I suddenly felt trapped. If he uncovered the smooth, nearly unblemished skin beneath the bandage I only wore to lend credence to my deception, he’d also uncover a truth I’d protect with my dying breath.
I held on to the chair for dear life, not that it would do me much good if Ruarc decided to use his considerable strength against me. “Please . . . please don’t.”
He lifted his head,. examined my face. “Why?”
“I . . .” Yes, Hope, why? I said the first thing that came to mind, “It hurts.”
Shame threatened to drown me when he jerked back, letting go of my foot as though it was hot coals he was holding instead of flesh and blood.
“Shit! Sorry.” His gruff voice was hoarse, almost as if he was the one hurting.
“I-it’s okay,” I stammered. “It’s not your fault.”
He rose, movements stiff and stilted, the complete opposite of his graceful descent earlier. “How bad?”
“Not that bad, but—”
“Lucien!” Ruarc bellowed.
Lucien? Why would he—
“No!” I protested, heart beating so hard each thud felt like a hammer against my chest. “It’s not that b—”
“Lucien!” Ruarc stalked over to the door, kicked it open and repeated his bellow.
I jumped to my feet, legs rubber that tried their best to be stiff when all they wanted was to crumble to the floor. “Ruarc, don’t.” I rushed over to his side, grabbed his elbow with hands that shook so it would be impossible to miss.
The angry male turned. Lips firmed. Eyes narrowed. “What”—disbelief dripped from that one, clipped syllable—“are you doing?”
Can’t let him talk to Lucien. “Please . . . please don’t make a big deal out of this.” I searched his face, that proud, stubborn, harsh face, and saw not anger at my disobedience, but anger made hard by worry. “I’m fine. My leg is fine. It only hurts when its poked and prodded at, and if you call Lucien he’ll do just that. And only because you worried.”
The lie tasted bitter, but desperation made even the bitterest pill easy to swallow.
Ruarc stared down at my foot, the one now carrying my full weight. “Fine,” he bit out, and I sagged against him in relief.
Probably not my best move.
The hand that had found my arm sometime in the last minute tightened, and then I was lifted up and marched across the room until my butt once more met the hard wood of one of their kitchen chairs. Ruarc stood above me, arms crossed over his chest, glaring daggers.
“No cleaning,” he proclaimed, jaw jutting out with masculine conviction. “Stay off that leg.”
That . . . that wasn’t quite what I had expected.
Too ashamed to meet his gaze—each lie I told them another heavy rock on the grave of my conscience—I just nodded. I’d find the soaps when no one was around, and then I’d make their home sparkle. It was the least I could do.
A heavy silence followed. I chewed on my bottom lip, gripped the edge of my chair when nerves made me want to pick apart the seams on my clothes. My right eye felt funny, like it wanted to twitch but couldn’t quite get there.
After a few seconds that felt like hours, I finally darted a quick glance up, regretting it as soon as his fierce gaze locked on mine. Was he angry with me? Could he tell I’d lied about my foot?
No, he would have said something. Ruarc would never mince words. If he suspected me of lying he would surely yell at me and demand the truth.
“Teach me to cook?” I blurted.
He cocked his head. “Why?” The soft sound his fingers made as they tapped against his thighs distracted me.
“Why? Because . . .” I stared at him. How did I explain my need to feel useful, to not be the useless creature I had been my whole life, trapped and alone. Ruarc had a family. Even if the others weren’t his biological brothers, they were still his brothers. And he had a job, a purpose in life.
Not to mention the near miss yesterday had left me with an urgent feeling beating away at my skull. I needed to work so I could save up money and eventually make my own way in the world, leaving the guys safe from the Hunters’ wrath.
“I want to be useful. You guys . . . you’re letting me stay here, have given me a job and you feed me and . . . I haven’t held up my end of the bargain. You won’t let me clean”—I pretended I didn’t hear his rude snort—“so the least I could do is cook.”
Ruarc’s broad chest heaved with the depth of his sigh. “You don’t owe us.”
“I—maybe not, but I’d like to help.”
Five seconds ticked by. I knew, I counted them all. Then Ruarc grunted. As communication went, it was lacking, but the slight incline of his head accompanying the grunt had to mean yes.
“Thank you!” I jumped up, disregarding the glare Ruarc aimed at my leg as excitement made me careless. Finally, finally I’d contribute and have something to spend my time on other than obsessing over my bleak future! “When do we start?” Without thinking, I put my hand on his arm. Hard, bunching muscles greeted my palm, his skin smooth over the steel below. Heat fluttered in my belly, but I ignored it, giving the big male a smile to thank him for helping me out.
Ruarc stilled. Unreadable, silver eyes locked on my face, tracing the path of my lips until my smile faltered, drowned by a new wave of heat I felt straight down to my soul.
“Tomorrow.” The dark, husky tone drifted over my skin like tendrils of smoke, leaving me shivering with a feeling I didn’t understand. He cleared his throat, breaking eye contact, and I let my hand fall. It hung uselessly at my side, the weight suddenly uncomfortable and foreign.
“We’ll start with breakfast.” His abrupt command startled me out of the strange trance I seemed to fall into around him. “Maybe we can—” He cleared his throat again, looked down at the floor, ground his jaw. When he looked back up it was with a black scowl. “Don’t be late!” he snarled. Without another glance my way, he stormed out.
“You didn’t give me a time—”
He was already gone.
“Why is Ruarc so . . .” I trailed off, searching for the right word. The movie
Jason had invited me to watch kept playing in the background while I thought. The heat from his body might as well have been a bonfire, lapping at my skin like tongues of pleasant fire. Despite the huge couch, he’d chosen to sit close enough that our thighs touched every time one of us moved.
Head tilted, he watched me struggle to get my thoughts in order.
Angry? Volatile?
Wounded? The word drifted up through my mind, breaking free of layers upon layers of swirling thoughts before pushing at me with an insistence I found startling. The vicious scar slashing across his face was visible for the world to gaze upon, but what about the internal injuries, the emotional damage caused by things that leave scars? What had Lucien said the other day, something about—
“Vicious? Savage? Completely and utterly nuts?” Jason’s devilish grin sent my heart into overdrive and momentarily distracted me from thoughts of his brothers. As I fought the blush I just knew was trying to crawl up my neck, Jason stared straight ahead, seemingly taken with the movie playing on the big TV. But the way his smile grew, the way his eyes seemed to laugh at me as my face grew hotter and hotter, made me think he was very aware of what was going on around him.
“Jason!” I exclaimed, swiveling my head to make sure no one had heard. “That’s not what I meant! It’s just . . . he doesn’t seem very happy.”
Jason threw his head back and laughed. A deep, belly-aching sound that drew forth my own mirth. I tried in vain to stop my amusement from showing, but my mouth kept twitching with the urge to smile.
I probably looked like a lunatic having a stroke.
“That’s an understatement if I ever heard one,” Jason choked out between big gulps of air. “Ruarc not seeming happy . . .” Jason shook his head, a big grin plastered to his handsome face. “Just thank your lucky stars you haven’t seen him truly enraged.”
Really? I thought back to his brawl with Lucien. He seemed pretty enraged then.
“I can see your doubt, love, but I can assure you, Ruarc has been extremely well behaved around you.”
“If you say so . . .” My gaze slid back to the movie playing out on the big screen. “What is this, exactly?” A horribly deformed man-wolf was half running, half limping across the screen, big, ugly teeth bared in a fearsome snarl.
“It’s called, A werewolf in the city.” His amber eyes widened in glee as a particular nasty attack took place. “You can’t make this shit up.”
“Apparently someone can,” I sniffed, feeling strangely disturbed by his choice in movies. There was something about it that tugged on a dark corner of my mind, urging me to look closer.
I didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Jason just flashed me another one of his mischievous grins. “Don’t be scared, love. I’ll protect you.” Turning, he got to his knees in the couch and hovered above me, making claws of his long fingers. “Before the big, bad wolf eats your heart!”
I jumped back, heart thumping in my chest as a playful growl vibrated in his throat. “Jason!” I was torn between embarrassment—I didn’t want to be so easily scared—and a reluctant admiration of his knack for imitating sounds. “Don’t scare me like that!”
“Sorry, love,” he replied, not looking the least bit sorry. In fact, when he sat back down he looked rather pleased with himself.
“How do you make that sound?” I tried to keep the curiosity out of my voice, going for more of a huffy annoyance instead. I feared I failed miserably when his upper lip twitched, and he put thumb and index finger to his chin, striking a thoughtful pose.
“Well, love, it starts right here.” He put his hand over the middle of my chest, his thumb grazing the top of my breast and sending rivulets of shivers down my back. “Take a deep breath”—he followed his own instructions—“and let your chest contract lightly. Push the air up into your throat, and aid it by vibrating your vocal cords slightly.” A wolfish smile bared his teeth while a low growl rose from his chest. The shivers down my back multiplied.
From fear or something else?
“You try it.”
“No, that’s okay . . .” I didn’t want to make a fool of myself by snorting like a rabid dog.
“Come on, love, just try it. What’s the worst that could happen?”
That I fail miserably. Then you’ll have another reason to see why I’m not good enough for you.
Wait, where had that come from? God, I was pathetic.
“Fine,” I said, just to crush the idiotic thoughts I was having and to prove to myself I didn’t like Jason.
The object of my idiotic thoughts wiggled his eyebrows.
I took a deep breath, thought about the terrifying noise he’d made, and tried to imitate it.
The sound that erupted from my throat was so foreign that I didn’t think it had come from me. Only Jason’s wide eyes and the slight, surprised ‘O’ he was making with his mouth convinced me that it had.
Compared to Jason’s growl, it was nothing of course. It was like comparing an angry lion’s roar to a tiny kitten’s playful squeak. Even so I was proud at my attempt. The sound had been softer, less aggressive—and definitely less wolflike—but it had potential.
Jason leaned in until his warm nose pressed against my neck. My whole body locked down as something in my lower belly gave a tight squeeze. Goosebumps erupted along my neck and chest as Jason dragged his nose from the bottom of my neck all the way behind my ear.
“Oh!” Was it my imagination, or had he nipped at the sensitive skin there? “W-what are you doing?”
“Just checking,” he murmured, slowly pulling his head away.
When I gathered myself enough to meet his eyes, they were glowing a deep, beckoning amber. I licked my lips, lost in his heat, his scent. “Checking what?”
“If you smell like wolf.”
“W-what?”
“Mmm . . .” he shook his head and flashed me a devastating grin.
The moment was gone, shattered into a million, shiny pieces that would never be.
“Well?” I demanded, ignoring the heat coursing through my molten veins.
If he can pretend nothing happened, then by god, so can I!
“Well what?”
“Do I?”
That innocent smile was surely feigned? “Do you what, love?”
“Do I smell like . . . like wolf?” I gritted out.
Still grinning, Jason shook his head, eyes sparkling as they roamed my face. He lingered on my lips, but only for a moment. Something flickered in his eyes, but was gone before I could put a name to it. “What a silly question,” he said. “Why would you smell like wolf?”
“Jason . . .” The name was a warning. I would not let him see me smile. When had I become comfortable enough to do more than meekly agree with whatever he said? Disagreeing with him, pretending to be stern, even when I was laughing inside, it was heaven. Freeing.
“Hope,” he mocked. Even pretending to be serious, he couldn’t quite hide the grin tugging at his lips.
“You are hopeless!” I threw my hands up in the air, huffing loudly, then crossed them over my chest in a manner I hoped looked intimidating.
“That’s just because I don’t have you, love.”
Startled, my gaze shot to his. Amusement and something else warmed his gaze while I gaped up at him like a moron.
“You are Hope.” He pointed at me. “All the way over there . . .” Only an inch or so separated us. “Leaving me without you. Thereby, I am . . . hopeless.”
Heat flushed through my veins, found my heart, and met with solid ice.
I looked away, trying not to show the gaping loneliness that suddenly expanded inside me, swallowing yet another part of my wounded soul. I wanted . . . I wanted so badly to . . .
To what?
“Well, it’s not as funny when you have to explain it,” he muttered, smile gone.
When I glanced back at him, his brows were lowered, the corner of his lips edging down. He cleared his throat. “Should we finish the movie?”
<
br /> “Yeah.”
We finished the movie in silence. I couldn’t begin to guess what thoughts made Jason’s normally cheery face clouded with darkness, but me? I kept wondering what it would feel like to be part of a family, to have someone like Jason at my side to shed light on the shadows that clung to my heart.
Probably pretty damned great . . .
JASON
The change that came over Hope was as sad as it was telling. Loneliness clung to her small frame like a heavy shroud, growing heavier and darker as she distanced herself by curling her shoulders and lowering her head.
I moved a little closer, needing to dispel whatever darkness tried to pull her under.
The couch dipped beneath my weight.
Hope peeked up at me, dark eyes peering out from the curtain of hair shielding her face from my view.
A man could drown in those eyes.
What the hell?
These were dangerous thoughts. I’d wanted to help the woman, to teach her how to let go of the past and start living in the present. My plans did not include me seducing the poor girl.
I swore softly under my breath, pasting a weak grin on my face when Hope’s eyes turned questioning. Beautiful. Soft. Pools of emotions too easy to read.
What the hell, Jason?
When had I started waxing poetically about a girl I barely knew? It was madness. Pure, unequivocal madness.
“Are you okay?” Her soft, dulcet voice still carried too much hesitation. If I’d ever doubted a spine of steel existed beneath the damaged she’d suffered, those doubts would have been wiped away with the way she threw herself at Kieran to protect me. She could have run, but she’d chosen to fight.
What she’d been through . . . you either broke or came out stronger, and Hope sure as hell wasn’t broken.
“Never better, love,” I replied.
Another unsure glance in my direction. I held her gaze and gave her my best smile.