I heard a smile in his voice. “Maybe the protocol doesn’t involve letting my brother grind against your backside.”
I flew up and pushed him away. “What time is it? I have to go!”
Oh my God. Sanchez. I had to pay him off by midnight.
“Lie down,” Reno demanded, tugging at my dress.
I slapped his hand away and leapt off the bed. “I have to go home, Reno. Now.”
His eyes were sharp and alert in the dim light. “You’re stoned as hell, and where do you think you need to be at this hour?”
“I need you to drive me home this second.”
He didn’t get a chance to argue because I was already running barefoot down the hall.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing, Denver. Get your sorry ass back to bed. April, get back in here,” Reno called out from behind. “I’m warning you!”
Didn’t hear him. I was out the door and running down the driveway, wincing as the gravel bit at my feet. I had no sense of time and hoped it was still early. Behind me, Reno’s motorcycle thundered to life. The light flipped on and flashed on the road as he rolled up beside me and yelled over the throttling engine.
“Get on.”
Reno’s bike cut through the night, and a delicate mist began to wet the streets. I wore the helmet, but my lavender dress was ruined. The air felt uncomfortably cool and I began to shake, my teeth chattering as I held him close. I curved my hands around him, drawing in his heat and using his body as a shield to protect me from the wind.
We arrived at my trailer and before he could get the kickstand down, I ran up to the door and yelled out, “Thanks! Good night.”
I’d left in such a hurry that my purse with Sanchez’s money was still in Ivy’s room, along with my keys. I decided to test the handle before knocking. Strange. He hadn’t locked the door. “Trevor?”
Holy smokes. The digital clock by the fridge said 1:19 a.m.
My heart beat wildly as I raced to my room to retrieve the money in my drawer, which I’d set aside to put back into the account. I grabbed a small purse and counted out the bills. It wasn’t until I walked out of my bedroom that I noticed something that had failed to grab my attention when I’d rushed into the trailer.
“Trevor!” I screamed.
And screamed.
He was propped up on the sofa, head hanging to the side, a note safety-pinned to his chest. His bare chest.
Vanilla Frost,
I took a down payment.
“Please, please, please, don’t be dead,” I cried. My trembling fingers pressed against his neck and I felt a weak pulse. “Oh, thank God. Trevor? Can you hear me?”
He had been beaten to a pulp. His eyes were purple and swollen, a large gash ran along his cheek, and even his arms were bruised—as though someone had hit them with a heavy object. Horror gripped me when I noticed his misshapen arm.
Strong hands moved me to the side. Reno knelt down and turned Trevor’s chin, getting a good look at his face. I stared at the drops of blood on his white shoelaces and winced.
Reno got on his phone. “Austin, level red. We’ve got a rogue and I need your help. Sunny Breeze Trailer Park, the one near the store. Second turnoff; last trailer on the right.”
“We have to call the hospital,” I said in a shaky voice. I grabbed Reno’s shirt and water dripped from the ends of my trembling hair.
“He doesn’t need a hospital,” Reno said, carefully removing the note. “Do you want to tell me what this is all about?”
“I don’t know.” How could I tell him? If it had almost gotten Trevor killed, I sure didn’t want to bring trouble to Reno’s doorstep.
He scorched me with his gaze, his disbelief clear. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Trevor moaned. I hurried to the sink and ran a towel beneath the water, then rushed back to his side and pressed it against the gaping wound on his head.
“Trevor, can you hear me? I’m here, okay? I’m so sorry.” My words came out broken and breathy.
“I need you to take a step outside and calm down,” Reno said, taking the rag from my hand.
I stared at him wide-eyed. “I’m not going anywhere. What are you going to do?”
“Help him. His arm looks broken and I might need to set it. That’s some disturbing shit for you to see, so I want you to wait outside. Right by the door,” he said, making it clear he didn’t want me wandering off.
Reno had some kind of command over me and I put on my shoes.
“April.”
I looked at him from the open doorway and he nodded toward the wall. “Take the umbrella. I don’t want you to get sick.”
Sure. A cold was at the forefront of all my problems. Like a zombie, I walked into the misty rain and sat in a lawn chair, holding an umbrella over my head. Raindrops tapped against the fabric and it felt like the life had been sucked out of me. I didn’t have a phone to call the hospital, and Trevor didn’t have insurance. I’d help him pay for it. Somehow.
I nodded off, probably because of the residual effects of the drugs still lingering in my body. A loud motor revved up the driveway and I jolted awake, watching a black Dodge Challenger pull up beside Reno’s motorcycle. Austin hopped out, glanced at me, and went inside the trailer.
I sprang to my feet and raced to the door, tossing the umbrella aside. As it opened, Reno blocked me from getting in.
“Need you to stay outside,” he said.
“Then come out here and tell me what’s going on. I’m feeling more lucid now, so don’t lie to me. Is he going to be all right? Why can’t I just sit in the back room? Did you call the police?”
The door closed to a crack and Reno said something to Austin. “I don’t know; he won’t do it for me. Do your thing. I need to step outside for a minute.”
Reno opened the door and jumped down, mud splashing from beneath his biker boots as he walked me to the chair. I didn’t feel like sitting down anymore. My arms were shaking, my teeth chattered, and the cold air sank deep into my bones. But it wasn’t the temperature making me tremble.
It was the fear that Trevor might die.
Reno’s brown eyes softened when he figured it out, and he stepped beneath the umbrella and wrapped his arms around me. “Here, I’ll keep you warm.”
Minutes passed as Reno held me in the rain. It was better than some meaningless dance because of how intimately close our bodies were, not to mention the emotion of it. The door finally swung open and I whirled around.
“Trevor!”
He stumbled down the steps, wearing only his jeans and shoes. Trevor’s expression was volcanic and when I ran up to him, he waved me off.
“Trev, are you okay? Please talk to me.”
He turned around and penetrated me with his gaze. “I thought you fucking left,” he spat out in slow words. “It wasn’t my idea to go to the party; that was all you,” he said, shaking his head.
“I didn’t make you go! Are you all right? Your bruises, your cut—”
I reached out to touch his head and he flinched, pivoting around and stalking toward his car. “Time for me to find a new place,” he said. “Call ya later, Showers.”
He put a negative emphasis on the last word, and it sank into my heart like a sharp blade.
Austin knifed by me and spoke to Reno in harsh words. “We’ll talk later about this. I have to get back and do some damage control at the house.”
I fell to my knees as Trevor sped off. He blamed me for what had happened, and maybe he had every right. He just didn’t understand. I’d had no idea Sanchez knew where I lived since he’d come to my work and not my home. Had Trevor known what was going on, he would have gone with me to the warehouse. Trevor had a temper and Sanchez carried a deadly knife. I shuddered as the horrific images of Trevor lying unconscious infiltrated my thoughts.
“Get up,” Reno said, cupping his hands beneath my arms.
When it didn’t work, he simply bent down and lifted me. Reno carried me into the trailer, ki
cked the door shut, and took me to the bedroom. He set me on the edge of the bed and opened a few cabinets, searching for something. I’d never had another man besides Trevor in my bedroom, and here he was, wiping the mud from my feet with a clean towel.
“What do you wear to sleep?” he asked, opening a small set of drawers. It didn’t take him long to find my nightwear. It should have tickled me to see Reno turn five shades of red when he lifted a pair of my pink panties with the white lace trim, but I didn’t feel human anymore.
He handed me silk pajamas and I tossed them on the floor. I’d be sweating by morning if I wore those, so I reached around to unzip my dress. “Can you give me some privacy?”
Reno obediently stood up and closed the curtain. I threw my dress on the floor, and after changing into a new pair of panties and a white tank top, I hid beneath the sheet.
Rain dripped in through a leak, tapping loudly into an empty pot. Reno reappeared and tossed the towel in the bottom. “That’ll muffle it,” he said, sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed to my right. “You want to tell me what’s going on, or do you want me to find out for myself? It’s what I do for a living, April. I can. And I will. So what kind of trouble are you in?”
The kind a virtual stranger didn’t want to know about if he knew what was good for him. He was a PI; what if he turned me in for theft?
“So that’s how it is?” he said. “Your friend said he didn’t know who attacked him.”
My voice was monotone and low. “Reno, if you keep talking, I’m going to lose it. I’m going to scream at the top of my lungs and just… lose it. I’m not feeling well, and I can’t talk anymore. I can’t think anymore. Please, just leave. You don’t want to get mixed up with someone like me.”
All I could think of was Sanchez showing up in the middle of the night with a carving knife. I tried to forget all the hallucinations from the party and the fact I had been on drugs. God, what had happened to me? I used to be on the right track until my train jumped the rails and began heading toward a cliff.
“Is someone after you?” he pressed.
I rolled over with my back to him and he stood up, lingering in the doorway. “I’ll sit outside if you don’t want me in here, but I’m not leaving you alone tonight.”
He closed the curtain and went out the door. I listened to the rain hammering against the trailer for what seemed like an hour before it tapered off. Then I crawled out of bed and went into the living room. I flipped on the light and noticed my fish, Salvador, was floating at the top of his bowl. I scooped him out and held him in the palm of my hand.
“Sorry, little guy,” I said, wrapping him in a napkin and putting him in the trash.
My hair hung in my face in tousled clumps. I couldn’t even run my fingers through it. Trevor was never going to speak to me again after this.
How did he manage to walk out on his own two feet?
My eyes floated over to the sofa. His arm had to have been broken. His face had been beaten to a pulp, but when he walked out, the gash in his forehead was gone, and his arm was fine!
Something put a fright in me when I heard a tap against the door. Or a scrape. I peered out the window but didn’t see anyone. Then I heard a familiar whine. I unlocked the door and glanced down at a masked face.
“Hi, sweet boy. Where have you been?” I opened the door and knelt down before my wolf. My fingers brushed through his dry fur and I frowned. “Have you been sleeping under the trailer? Do you want me to fix you something to eat?”
I stood up and reached in the fridge, pulling out leftover sausages wrapped in foil. He trotted inside and shook hard, making himself right at home. I glanced down at his paws and knelt beside him with a towel, cleaning them off.
“You don’t smell like a dog,” I said, kissing him on the side of his snout. “Most dogs get that pungent smell when they’re wet, but… so weird. You just don’t smell like a dog.” My wolf smelled like early mornings in springtime.
He sat down and gobbled up the cold sausages. It gave me a chance to inspect his wound to see how it was healing. Although I couldn’t see anything through his mass of brown fur, he didn’t appear to be in any pain.
I crawled over to the door, locked it, and then wiped up the tracks of mud off the floor.
“Last chance to go back outside,” I offered. As if understanding me, he sprawled out on the tile and yawned. I touched his soft ears and looked into his dark, familiar eyes. “How come nobody loves you? It seems like someone should be out looking for you by now. You’re so handsome. Anyone ever tell you that?”
I tried to keep my focus on the wolf and not the area by the sofa. There were still spatters of blood all around and the crumpled note in the corner. Tomorrow I would clean up the mess and call Trevor to check on him. Once I locked the door, my nerves took over and I found myself wiping down the counters and picking up a few clothes. I placed a tattered blue blanket in a heaping pile by the door, and almost immediately, the wolf circled around on top of it and settled down.
Finally exhausted, I switched off the light and went back to bed, heavy with sleep. Tomorrow I would replace the money I’d taken from the business account. Then I’d contact Sanchez and pay him off before he came after me or hurt someone else.
Not long after, when I was half-asleep, the wolf crawled up in the bed beside me. I nestled my face against his silky fur and held him tight.
Chapter 13
When I woke up, it was still dark and I felt the warmth of the wolf radiating against my back. I blinked, allowing my eyes to focus. It wasn’t predawn like I’d first thought. The sky was overcast and dawn was full of dark, rumbling clouds.
I reached over my hip to pet my wolf and froze. My fingers met with skin—more specifically, someone’s ass. A hard ass, and as I pulled away, I felt the familiar hairs of a man’s legs and peered over my shoulder at Reno. He moaned and hooked his arm around my side, caging me against him.
It didn’t make sense! The doors were locked and the only one in the house was the… Oh. My. God. What if last night hadn’t been a hallucination? Lexi had mentioned Shifters and Vampires conversationally and… No, this can’t be happening.
The idea of Reno curled up behind me—completely naked—did a number on my stomach.
A flip-flop, somersault with a twist.
Girl, are you really complaining about waking up next to a sumptuously naked man with a sinful body? my inner voice asked with a delicate yawn. Go back to sleep. Or better yet, don’t. Wake him up, she said with a wicked laugh in her voice.
“How did you get in here? This can’t be real.”
“It’s real,” he murmured in that sexy don’t-wake-me-up bedroom voice against the back of my neck. “You’re staying in bed for at least three more hours.”
“Why three?”
“Because you didn’t get enough sleep.”
I pushed at his arm. “Let me up. Let go of me!”
Then his hand slid between my legs and cupped my sex, lightly stroking as he answered me in a defiant voice. “No.”
“Yes.”
Then he inched up closer behind me, as if that word incited something in him.
“No,” he said firmly.
Then his fingers worked a little harder, pressing against my panties until I found myself getting wet. He felt it. I felt it.
“Yes,” I said in a breathy voice.
Then everything changed between us.
Not like I had expected it to. Reno stopped and curved his arms around me so tightly that I couldn’t tell we were even separate bodies. I felt him everywhere, from the nape of my neck to the tips of my toes. Reno’s naked body against mine was insatiable.
A tremor rolled through him. Subtle, but I felt it. He lightly nipped my shoulder as if it meant something.
“Do you remember what happened last night? It wasn’t the drugs, April. We’re Shifters, and I belong to a pack of wolves.”
I laughed at first. My heart raced at the admission of what I had alr
eady suspected but couldn’t quite believe. “Don’t be absurd. That kind of thing isn’t real.”
“You saw it, and I can prove it if you still want to hide beneath a cloak of doubt. There are things in this world that are real whether you want to believe in them or not.”
Deep down, I knew it to be true. It explained something I thought I had imagined as a child—a man running toward the woods and transforming into a deer. For years, I’d assumed I was an imaginative child, but part of me knew what I had witnessed actually happened. But having seen a man transform right in front of me—I didn’t know how to process it. Maybe the drugs had given me hallucinations, but then why would Reno lie? Perhaps he left his straightjacket at home, my inner voice suggested.
Reno’s body felt like a hard mass of muscle behind me, and I had to confess I liked it. For the first time in a long time, someone made me feel safe and protected. Before I considered doing something I’d regret, I quickly sat up and pushed him away. Reno was as naked as a jaybird and shifted his left leg forward to hide a little bit of that fact.
Didn’t hide much.
“You’re the wolf? My wolf?”
Maybe I shouldn’t have said the last bit because his pupils dilated and he got that heated look in his eyes—a possessive look.
“The wolf that got hurt,” I corrected.
Too late.
Reno sat up and slid his hand around the nape of my neck and his eyes turned stony. “How do you know about my wolf getting hurt?”
“He’s been hanging around here lately. He showed up at my doorstep with a screwdriver in his leg.”
“A screwdriver,” he breathed. Reno turned his arm, looking at the scar, and that’s when I noticed it for the first time. “So that’s what it was. Do you know what happened?”
“No. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. It’s animal crackers, Reno. You can’t be a wolf! Can’t!”
In a blur of motion, he shifted into a brown wolf and I flew out of the bed, stumbling to the floor and covering my mouth. The wolf barked and showed me his sharp fangs as he shook his coat. Before I could formulate a thought in my head, he shifted back.
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