Relief washed through her. “Thank you. I know it’s a cockblock.”
“Nah. It’s anticipation.” His arms flexed to pull her into another kiss. Slower this time, simmering instead of scalding, a promise made by silent lips. When he pulled back, it was only far enough to look into her eyes. “Don’t think it makes me want you less. It just means I know how to stalk my prey.”
She knew he felt her shiver. A predatory smirk told her so. “You’re a bad man, Jake Ballard.”
“But a good wolf.” He leaned in to nip at her lower lip. “I bite, you know.”
“God, I hope so.”
He laughed. “Now who’s bad?”
“Me,” she answered, and wished she were worse. Then she could forget the right thing, forget treating Lou better than he had treated her, and tumble into bed with a handsome werewolf. No good deed goes unpunished.
In the darkest part of the night, she awoke to the sound of howling.
She startled out of a sound sleep, the hair on her arms and the back of her neck bristled painfully on end. No natural creature could produce that sound, high and raw and filled with terrible hunger. As a desert dweller, she had heard coyotes bay as they chased rabbits, or packs of wild dogs as they ran across the wasteland. Not these quavering near-screams that flooded her with adrenaline and toggled her fight-or-flight reflex straight into “flight”.
The trailer creaked. She startled again, eyes wide as she searched the darkness for the sound. After a moment, Jake appeared as a shadow in the partition between the living area and bedroom. Gold eyes all but glowed as he glanced around the trailer, then paused, head cocked, to listen.
She held her breath until he spoke. “Couple miles out, and going the other way.”
“You’re sure?” she asked.
“Mm-hmm. They’re a little fainter every time they howl. Probably headed for the mountains to sleep off the daylight. We’re safe here.”
Her rational mind accepted the reassurance. Her lizard brain didn’t, and it had control over her body’s responses. The too-fast beat of her heart didn’t want to slow up yet. “That’s good, then,” she said, mouth dry. “Real good.”
Jake took another step toward her. Weak moonlight shone through the curtains on the nearest windows to illuminate him. Shirtless, showing a light pelt of hair across his chest. A trail of it chased down his belly and into the band of his loose, ratty sweats. “You all right?”
“Sure,” she answered too fast. “Just woke up surprised.”
“Mm.” He beckoned her with one hand. “Come on. Curl up with me. We’ll both sleep better with company.”
A kind statement, she knew. He had to have grown used to the sound of Ferals howling in the darkness by now. Even so, she got up off the couch so she could pad into the bedroom. No harm in sleeping, is there? In keeping each other company? Because I don’t want to sleep alone right now.
Like the rest of the trailer, the bedroom didn’t have a luxury of space. She laid down at the edge of the bed, determined not to take up more than her fair share. Jake had other ideas. He got into the bed himself, then reached over with one strong arm to pull her against him. “Promise I’ll keep my hands to myself,” he murmured into her hair. “But the Ferals can’t get you here.”
Despite herself, she could feel the tension start to unwind. “No. You said they were going the other way, after all.”
“Not what I meant.” His arms tightened. “I meant here. In my arms. I’d never let anything happen to you. Believe it.”
Many men promised they’d never let harm come to a person they cared about. With Jake, she took him at his word. “I believe you,” she said, voice soft.
They lay in the bedroom’s gloom for long minutes, silent as the howls continued in the distance. Then he said, “Listen,” and she strained her ears to hear.
More howls, different in tenor, rose in the night. First one voice, deep and low but vibrant with an excitement even she could decipher, cut over the higher sounds of the Ferals. A second answered it, deeper and full of command, then a third, until a chorus of wolf cries drowned out the unnatural wailing. “Is that the pack?”
“It is. The first one was Chance. One of our harriers. Second one, that was Shane, telling the pack the hunt was on. That herd of Ferals won’t get this far. The pack’s got ‘em. The Ferals will be dead by dawn.” He sounded so confident, sure of the wolves he ran with, that she couldn’t help but feel the same.
Enveloped in his warmth, surrounded by the scent of him and lulled by the feel of his heart against her back, her eyes drooped closed. She fell asleep to wolfsong and the sound of Jake’s breathing as he held her.
Jake had been glad when Anita didn’t put up a fight about sleeping in the bed. Truth was, he hadn’t been sure he could have fallen back to sleep unless he could feel her there. Too many nights hunting the Ferals had given him an awful certainty in their speed and brutality. He never could have forgiven himself if they’d broken into the trailer and harmed her with him yards away in the bedroom, so close but too far away to save her before they could tear her to shreds.
I won’t let that happen to you, he promised the woman who slept in his arms. I won’t let anyone hurt you now.
Not like the hikers the pack found last week. A couple of idiot kids, out in the mountains looking for treasure. Silver, maybe, or gold, or just old relics from the state’s prospecting days. Most folks knew better than to go off and explore, but teenagers had delusions of invincibility to drive them into the damn-fool adventures they thought up. They found adventure, all right. It didn’t treat them real well.
There’d still been Ferals gnawing the teenagers’ bones when the pack had traced them down. Jake hoped the medical examiner would manage to dig up names and next of kin. She had drawers of remains bagged up, waiting for her to give them an identity and a family to mourn them.
An uneasy sleep crept over him, full of dreams about blank headstones sticking up from parched, cracked earth.
He awoke when Anita’s breathing changed. The sun had hauled itself up over the horizon a handful of hours before, by the look of it. Heat had started to permeate the shade from the trees that sheltered the trailer. Soon enough, he’d have to kick the air conditioner on or they’d roast like turkeys at Thanksgiving. For now, though, he didn’t care to move.
Though he did shift his hips away from her backside. As much as he wanted her, he’d promised to behave. That meant he shouldn’t grind his raging morning wood into her soft, rounded flesh. No matter how good it felt.
Too late. “Someone’s awake,” she murmured.
He gave a low chuckle. “You’re lucky that thing went to sleep at all. It wanted a nice, cozy bed to burrow into.”
“The nice, cozy bed wanted it,” she said, and turned enough to smile back at him. “Being a responsible adult sucks.”
“You are preaching to the choir,” he assured her. He couldn’t resist stealing a long, warm kiss. “Morning, beautiful.”
“Morning.” With a soft sigh, she set her head down and nestled back against him. “I’d be content to stay right here for the rest of the day.”
“I’m down for that.” Careful not to dislodge her, he shifted so he could stroke a hand over her hair. It had the most gorgeous natural wave to it, and whatever she did to it turned it silky under his fingers. “Know how long I’ve wanted to kiss you?”
“Mmm?”
“Since we met.” A secret he’d never meant to tell her. Married women didn’t need to hear about a man’s improper lusts, especially not when the husband in the picture took care of the other man’s life and livelihood. You didn’t come on to your alpha’s friend’s wife, or to your mechanic’s wife, either. Not if you wanted your spark plugs to stay sparky.
But last night had changed everything. Hearing Lou had done wrong by her. Listening to her say she’d given her best years away. Waking up to the sound of Ferals and realizing she slept in the other room. His secret had evolved into an important t
ruth she needed to hear, if he could open up and share it with her.
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm. That day in the bar… You turned my life upside-down, in a good way. Three days, I’d been in town. Three days, trying to figure out what the fuck I was gonna do with my life. If I was gonna keep driving, if there was anyplace worth stopping…” Stroking her hair eased the pain behind the memory. A lone wolf in the middle of nowhere, wondering what the world had left for a man like him. “Then, there you were. With a refill for my drink and the exact information I needed. I’d almost talked myself into asking you out when I saw that big old ring on your finger.”
She snorted. “The ring was Lou’s idea. I wanted a plain gold band, if anything.”
“Lou’s got a lot of pride in what’s his,” he replied, trying for diplomacy.
The hard tone gave him away. “You’re saying he’s possessive.”
“I’m saying wolves piss on trees and bushes to mark their territory. That ring’s prettier than what happens when a wolf lifts his leg, but it’s yellow all the same.”
“…and I’ll be taking my ring off today. Thanks for that mental image, Jake.”
“My pleasure.” He couldn’t help but smirk. At least she couldn’t see it, with him behind her. Lou didn’t deserve to have his mark on Anita. No one did, unless she wanted it there.
“I’m glad I was there that day,” she said. “For a lot of reasons. You never did mention where you came from.”
He tried to keep his tone casual. “L.A.”
She tensed. “You were there, when…?”
“Yeah. I was one of the last ones to get out before the quarantine locked the city down.” It took a moment to force the next words out. “The rest of my pack didn’t make it.”
“Oh, Jake.” She squirmed around until she could wrap her arms around him. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too,” he said, voice ragged with the edges of memory. “That’s why what you did was so important. If you hadn’t told me about the Bully Boys, hadn’t introduced me, I don’t know what I might have done.”
Warm lips planted a kiss in the hollow of his throat. “You would have survived.”
“Maybe. Here, though? I can do more than survive.” He reached between them to tilt her face up with a finger under her chin. “I can be happy. No matter what happens with us, Anita. I won’t ever forget what you did. You ever need me, you call on me, and I’ll be there.”
The soft look in her eyes all but undid him. “Thanks, Jake.”
“I mean it.” With that expression on her face, he had to kiss her. To linger in it, taking in her scent, the heat of her skin, the taste of her on his lips. “Mm. Now, how’s about that breakfast you promised me, before we don’t get out of this bed today.”
Regret washed over her face. He wondered if she regretted her own morals in that moment, or more, if she regretted ever letting Lou Calderon put a ring on it. Both, he decided. Still, she smiled through it as she slipped out of the bed. “Scrambled eggs, I think you said. Let’s get on it, then. Though…”
He rolled to lever himself up on his elbow. “What is it?”
“Let’s keep me staying here last night to ourselves. For now. Until I’ve got everything cleared up with Lou.”
“My lips are sealed. It’s no one’s business but ours.”
“It’s not that I’m ashamed of it,” she assured him. “It’s just… Small towns. Everyone’s up in everyone else’s business, and I’m not ready to face all the questions yet. Not until I’m on firmer footing.”
“I understand. Our neighborhood back in L.A. had a rumor mill, too. Nothing like what goes on around here, but still. You couldn’t walk a girl down to the corner store without three people deciding you’d be married by next month, have three kids by the end of the year, and a divorce five years on.”
Anita rolled her eyes. “Then they tell you you’re making a mistake, when all you want’s a jar of shitty nacho cheese and a bag of chips.”
As she opened the refrigerator door, he asked, “You and Lou. You never had any kids.”
“Nope.” The door muffled her voice, but he could hear her well enough. “We couldn’t. Lou’s firing blanks.”
Jake thought that explained way more than their lack of kids.
4
No Good Deed
Before Anita’s truck had turned out of sight on the road after she left his place, Jake heard the growl of a motorcycle on the way in. He frowned. No way the rider would have missed the dust trail headed toward town, or Anita’s light blue truck at the head of it. By the sound of the engine, Jake was pretty sure he knew who it was, and he couldn’t decide if it was the best or the worst of the pack to discover where Anita had spent the night.
Shane Lawson, alpha of the Bully Boys, didn’t care for gossip. He’d rather chew off his own leg than feed the rumor mill in town. But he’d known Lou since their miscreant days in high school, and Shane had a wolf’s unshakable sense of loyalty. So he wouldn’t spread gossip, but he might tear Jake a brand-new asshole, then go to Lou with the news.
Jake dried his hands off on the dishtowel and went outside. It didn’t encourage him at all to see Nicole Fleming behind Shane on the bike. A pretty woman on the outside, but Jake had his doubts about how pretty she was within. They had yet to hit it off. She kept herself glued to Shane’s side whenever the pack got together with their significant others.
Chance said she didn’t like mingling with predators, since she wasn’t a werewolf herself. Jake thought she liked to remind the pack who the alpha belonged to, but Jake kept his thoughts to himself. Chance and Shane had known her years longer than Jake had, and they’d have a better eye toward the nature of her character than he did. No one appreciated it when the Johnny-Come-Lately waltzed in and started picking shit apart like he owned the place.
The massive bike roared to a stop out front of Jake’s trailer. Even folks who didn’t know wolves from Chihuahuas could have figured out who ran the pack just from the look of the motorcycle. Huge and battered, heavy enough that anyone without a werewolf’s strength would have had trouble setting it upright if it fell over. Shane had at least six big gun holsters slung around his ride, with weapons that ranged from sawed-off shotguns to assault rifles tucked inside. Not a man who took chances with his town’s, or his pack’s, safety.
He pulled the helmet off his head. Shaggy black hair tousled when he rubbed it out. It looked like he’d cleaned up since the hunt last night, with clean clothes and no blood on his face, but Jake doubted Shane had slept yet. “Was that Anita’s truck I saw?”
Well, shit. “It was. Hey, Shane. Nicole.”
Nicole pulled her helmet off as well. Blonde hair tumbled down over her shoulders. As always, she looked like a magazine cover’s idea of a biker’s girlfriend. “Why was Anita out here at your place, Jake?”
Now Jake had a dilemma. He’d promised to keep it quiet, but that secret was already blown. If he evaded, the entire situation looked worse than it was, but on the other hand, it wasn’t their business. As the pair got off the bike, Jake said, “She needed a place to crash last night. I offered her my couch. Folk would talk if they saw she’d stayed at the motel.” He hoped they’d take the hint.
Maybe they would have, if Shane hadn’t been a friend of Lou’s. “Why would Anita want to stay at a motel, anyway? What about Lou?”
Double shit. “Shane, I don’t like to gossip on what’s not my business to talk about.”
“Seems to me, she made it your business when she stayed here last night.” Shane kept a reasonable tone, but Jake knew that narrow-eyed look. Shane didn’t intend to let up.
Jake sighed. “She caught him cheating, Shane.”
Nicole looked sharply at Shane, mouth folded down in a frown. He narrowed his eyes. “What did you just say?”
Jake held up both hands. “I know that’s not something you want to hear about him-”
“You’re damn right, I don’t. Lou’s my friend, Jake.”
“-but you need to, because it’s true. Anita wanted a night to get her head together. Hell, she was upset enough, she almost decided to sleep in her truck. I thought it’d be safer if she were here.”
Shane took a deep breath to bark another angry outburst. Instead, he held it, then let it out slowly. “You were right about that,” he said. “Thanks for looking out for her, Jake. Anita’s a good friend, too, and if this is all true… How’d she find out?”
“Found his second phone. She didn’t know anything about it. Picked it up off the counter, and some pretty incriminating texts were on the screen.”
Nicole spoke up. Her voice sounded a little shrill, in Jake’s ears. “That phone might have belonged to one of the mechanics at the shop.”
“She didn’t seem to think so,” Jake said. “I trust her judgement.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t. She was upset. Upset people make mistakes.”
“That’s enough, Nicole,” Shane snapped, with tired irritation. “If Anita thinks it’s Lou, I trust her word.”
Nicole flashed Shane an angry look, but held her peace. When Shane turned his attention to Jake again, she sulked off to one side and pulled her cell phone out of her pocket to occupy her.
The alpha rubbed his hand over his face. “I’m having a little trouble with the thought of Lou running around on his wife. That’s not the man I know.”
Jake chewed the inside of his lip. “People change, Shane,” he said at last. “I’ve only known the man for a few months, so I can’t say boo about his past. And I won’t talk shit about your friend. But my impression of him? Let’s say it’s different than yours.”
“Time makes us all a little blind to the shit our friends do.” He leaned back against the bike with a sigh. “I don’t think I wanted to admit it, but Lou’s been, hm, different lately. Little more distant. Little less warm. Thought maybe he was spending more time with Anita. Doesn’t look that way.”
Dare the Wolf: A Bully Boys Novel of Paranormal Romance Page 3