by T. S. Joyce
And then he did give into the itch and turned up the radio.
Chapter Three
Levi hadn’t said much the entire trip, and they were almost to the hotel. He’d driven the streets of Dallas like a pro, and that was new.
“When did you learn to drive in the city?” she asked. “You used to hate driving in chaos.”
Levi shrugged and offered her a lopsided grin. “I think when I left the Dallas pack territory, I wanted to challenge myself. I didn’t want to be uncomfortable anymore, so I put myself in every situation that made me feel small before and taught myself to face those things head-on.”
Huh.
“I wish I could do that,” she admitted softly as he pulled up to the front. “I wish I could just make the decision to fix everything about me and do it.”
He put the Hummer into park and looked down at her thigh where the slit in her dress ended. The nose of a longhorn skull tattoo peeked out from under the sequined fabric.
“There’s nothing wrong with you.” He said it with such confidence that, for a moment, she believed him.
Silly boy for not seeing all her flaws, and silly her for listening to a silly boy.
“I’m a mess,” she said. “Always have been and always will be.”
“You see a mess, but I see the perfect amount of chaos. Always did and always will.” He gave her a crooked smile and then shoved his door open to meet the valet while Marissa sat there stunned.
The perfect amount? Oh, if he could see inside of her head, inside of her heart, and see how damaged she really was, he wouldn’t apply the word “perfect” to anything about her. But still…it was nice that someone thought that about her.
She’d never been the perfect amount of anything before.
And suddenly, it felt important to keep him fooled. She wanted him to keep thinking nice things about her, to think she was “normal.” She wanted to keep tricking him into thinking she was perfectly anything. And to do that, she had to hide better. No more deep talks, no more curiosity. No more admissions. She needed to be a charming, witty, feminine, steady woman with the confidence to beguile a man. She wasn’t really any of those things, but that’s what a man like Levi would appreciate. Probably.
So, she composed the shock off her face, straightened her spine, and stepped out of the Hummer. She fought the urge to help Levi hoist her suitcase out of the back seat and stood there like a proper lady, holding her clutch demurely in front of her.
And then the wind picked up and blew her hair into her face. It stuck to her lipstick so she couldn’t see. As she struggled to tame the mess out of the way, she dropped her clutch and her tit nearly popped out of the low-cut dress as she bent over to pick it up. “Mother fucker,” she muttered as she scooped it up and adjusted her dress.
And when she stood up, Levi was wearing the most wicked, hungry look on his face. His smile belonged to the devil, and Marissa was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to keep him fooled for long.
A lady, she was not.
But also…a lady he didn’t seem to be interested in.
“You should accidentally drop that again,” he murmured only loud enough for her and her sensitive wolf hearing to pick up.
Her cheeks caught on fire as she straightened up and twitched her hair away from her face. “I would like to freshen up before dinner.”
His dark eyebrows raised just a little, and he nodded. “Need any help?”
“Levi,” she gritted out, “be professional.”
He cleared his throat and thanked the valet driver, handed him a tip, and carried her suitcase and his duffle bag through the sliding glass doors. Okay, this man was almost as fine from behind as he was from the front. His wide shoulders filled out his dark blue dress shirt, and the gray dress pants he wore hugged his muscular butt and powerful legs just perfectly. She trotted after him like a clingy puppy.
At the check-in counter, Levi told the receptionist, “We’re here to check in for Levi Wright.”
“Perfect, I’ve found your reservation,” the woman said, her glasses lighting up as she stared at the computer screen and typed like a bat out of hell. “I have a suite with two bedrooms for a Mr. and Mrs. Wright. I’ll just need to see the credit card we have on file.”
Levi didn’t even correct the Mrs. Write comment, just handed her the business card.
“Um, we shouldn’t be in the same room. I’m not Mrs. Wright. I think there’s been some kind of mistake. I should have a separate room.”
“They are separate rooms,” Levi clarified without turning to her. “There’s an entire living room between our rooms. Technically, that’s even more space between us than just having rooms beside each other. You’re welcome.”
“Why would Grey book us a suite?” she hissed as the receptionist put a couple of keycards into a machine.
“Grey didn’t book them. I did.”
“You booked us in the same room?”
Levi turned to her. His jaw clenched, and his bright blue eye lightened as he whispered, “We’re in the city, having a meeting with a pack I don’t trust even one fucking percent. I can’t get to you fast if I don’t have access to you. I’m not going to push you on anything, Marissa. It’s a job, remember? I’m not changing the rooms.”
Though he’d spoken soft enough that the receptionist didn’t hear, his tone was laced with something big. Something dangerous. Something extremely dominant. She’d never seen this side of Levi. She remembered the quiet, watchful, sometimes submissive Levi when he was younger, but Levi as a man was dominant and forceful when he wanted to be, stubborn and authoritative. She slunk back a few feet as her inner wolf cowered. Besides Grey, she didn’t like being around dominants.
She tried not to expose her neck, but she couldn’t help it. She always did that if she angered a male werewolf. She’d been on the receiving end of too much punishment when she angered them. Now, she just tried to stay out of trouble. Tried to stay out of their way. Tried to stay invisible.
Mess.
“Don’t do that,” Levi murmured. With his knuckle, he brushed her lowered cheek. “Don’t give anyone the power of submission.”
“I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
Levi smiled and nodded his thanks to the receptionist who was handing him a pair of newly charged hotel keycards. He twitched his chin toward the elevator and led Marissa to them.
As they waited for the elevator to reach their floor, she said it again, unable to control it. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.” He looked so frustrated she couldn’t lift her eyes from the ground. At the ding of the elevator, she stepped in with him and stood on the opposite side as the doors closed behind them.
“Marissa Ann Henry, it’s me,” Levi murmured. “It’s just me. I didn’t mean to make you go submissive. I just won’t budge on the room situation. You have every right to tell me what you will and won’t budge on when I’m not having to protect you. If you’re going to do this tonight” —he mimicked exposing her neck— “and go soft in this meeting, it will make things go very bad for the New Orleans pack.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
The elevator dinged again and the doors opened onto the tenth floor. Levi gestured her out first and walked beside her toward their suite at the end of the hallway. “You be a badass bitch in there,” he told her. “You show them who the fuck you are, like you always do in these meetings. If you get to a point where Cassian makes you cower, though? He will die. Save us from a war and keep that chin up high.” He opened the door to suite 1010 and allowed her to go in first. He set her suitcase down in the expansive living room and made his way to the smaller room on the right. He turned at it and told her, “Don’t let me see you give your throat to a man.”
Anger blasted through her. “You don’t understand. It’s not something I do on purpose. I was built this way.”
“Mmm,” he growled. “Someone else tried to build you that way. I know about Raul. I know about you being kidnapped a
nd Turned when you were a kid. I know it must’ve been awful. But that shit? Exposing your neck to me when we’re just having a normal conversation? That can’t happen with other people. You’re better than that.”
“You’re a dominant now!” She wanted to take her shoe off and throw it at him for being so cold about what she’d been through. “I don’t know what you did to change yourself into this, but I don’t like it. You built this power, and you hid it when you came back, but I felt it downstairs. I felt how big you are now. I felt your wolf and how monstrous he can be. You can’t get frustrated for me going submissive when you’re terrifying, Levi. I didn’t want you to change! You were safe!”
“What the fuck does that mean?” he asked, his eyes blazing. “I’m still safe. No one can touch me.”
“I meant you felt safe to me!” Stupid, stupid tears. Why was she so worked up and emotional? This was nothing. It was nothing! It was just Levi.
“You’re mad at me,” he rumbled.
“Yes! I’m mad at you, yes!”
“What did I do?”
“You left!” She gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth. Stop fucking talking.
“No,” he growled. “Go on. Lay it on me so I can see exactly what I’ll be paying for.”
“You left me.”
“For you. I left you for you.”
“I don’t understand what that means.”
“You had the attention of every male—”
“I didn’t want it!”
“It didn’t matter, Marissa! You’re built differently, right? Well, me, too. I watched them all hover around you, watched your discomfort, watched your misery, but I couldn’t fix it! I couldn’t fix it for you. You didn’t even see me, and all I saw was you. Fuck.” He ran his hands through his hair and said it again louder, “Fuck! Stop talking. Stop talking.” He was looking at the ground as if he were talking to himself. He glanced up and gave her an empty smile. “Everything is great. We need to focus on the meeting. Please tell me if you need any assistance. I’ll be right in there.” He jerked his thumb toward his room.
He disappeared into the smaller bedroom, and the door clicked closed behind him.
Marissa was breathing too heavy and too fast. All he saw was her? He left for her? Nothing made any sense. Nothing at all.
“But…you didn’t pay attention to me when we were younger.”
He didn’t answer.
“Levi,” she said, approaching his door slowly. “You were the only one who didn’t pay attention.”
The shower turned on in his bathroom, and there it was—the shutdown.
Her head was spinning. A dozen memories shifted their meaning for her.
Full Moon Hunts where Levi trailed behind them all, giving her as much space as he could.
Hot afternoons at the swimming hole on Grey’s property when Levi stayed out of the water and grilled for everyone instead of splashing around with her.
Endless dinners at Dean’s house where he sat at the other end of the table every time.
He hadn’t thought she was invisible at all.
Not like she’d imagined.
He was the only one who had been trying to respect her need for space from men.
The only one.
Logan, Jason, even Brent in Dean’s pack, had been relentless in trying to get her to choose one of them as a mate over the years. Every Summit was filled with males throwing attention at her.
She’d mistaken Levi’s distance for indifference.
Maybe…just maybe…Levi had been trying to make her more comfortable with his distance, and that took a great amount of care. He’d put himself on the fringes of the packs so many times. And now, she suspected, he’d done it for her.
All he’d seen was her?
All she’d seen was him.
And now he’d changed himself. He’d gone away and changed into a man, a dominant werewolf. A brawler.
And she was still the same.
Same old, plain old, damaged Marissa who still went submissive at the drop of a hat.
She hated that side of herself. Hated it. She’d grown more confident living in Grey’s pack, but a tiger couldn’t change its stripes. And she’d been turned into a very specific kind of tiger the day she’d been kidnapped by Raul all those years ago.
Levi was clearly capable of adapting and changing and growing, and he was bigger than her now. He was better. God, he was big enough to take on a pack of his own someday. She could tell. Somehow, he’d done something very few werewolves could do.
When a werewolf was Turned, they were “born” with a rank. With a certain level of dominance that couldn’t be lessened or greatened.
Levi hadn’t been a threat to her when they were younger because he wasn’t a dominant. But now? He felt huge.
He’d made himself into a beast.
But why?
Head swirling with confusion, she melted back into her room with her suitcase and closed the door behind her. She had a million questions for the boy she used to know, to help her understand this stranger now, but he’d shut her down just when they were getting to the good stuff.
She touched the door with her fingertips. Only one room separated them, but it might as well be the Grand Canyon.
Chest aching with feelings she didn’t understand, she pulled out her phone and texted Morgan. He’s different now.
Morgan’s response came through within a few seconds. I know. Save him.
Chapter Four
“Who trained you?” Marissa asked.
Whatever she’d told herself in that bathroom mirror, it had changed her demeanor entirely. Levi didn’t know if he liked it. Sitting in the passenger seat next to him, she was perfectly calm, still, steady. Her little chin was lifted high, and her soft gray eyes stayed locked on the city streets passing under the tires of his Hummer.
His senses had been heightened before his training. Now, they were barely manageable.
Light. Bum under the streetlight with two carts of belongings. Teenagers to the left, smoking pot. I can smell the pot. Family to the south in the shadows. Approaching the streetlight. Mother looks stressed, trying to get home, child is tired, on the verge of a tantrum.
“Did you hear me?” Marissa asked so quietly, he almost missed it over the running observations of inner wolf.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” he admitted.
“You never wanted to talk about anything. Why?”
He shrugged up a shoulder. “I didn’t realize you wanted to know about me.”
“You’re still avoiding the questions.”
His sigh turned to a growl. “Talking about things doesn’t fix them. It doesn’t make me feel better. It doesn’t heal anything. It just digs at things I buried really well.”
“You should choose one person.”
“What?”
She rolled her head against the seat rest to look at him and, for a moment, he was stunned. Marissa in boots and jeans and a dirt-streaked shirt was sexy as hell, but the woman cleaned up real nice, too. The streetlights they passed illuminated her high cheek bones every two seconds.
Focus on the road, stop light ahead.
He dragged his attention back to the road.
“You should choose one person you trust and tell them your real stuff. The good, the bad. All of it. Someone who won’t judge you ever.”
So tempting.
“Do you remember the first time we met?” he asked. Hell, yeah, he was still avoiding her questions.
“Turn left on Hiser Street,” GPS advised him. He rolled the steering wheel and turned.
He could hear the smile in her voice. “You were just a kid, like me. Didn’t know anything about anything, but you’d decided you wanted a female.”
“Not just a female. A mate.”
She swallowed hard. “A mate,” she repeated softer.
“You know what a man-eater is?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I know very well what a man-eater is.”
The pain in her voice gutted him. “Well, I was on my way to being that. I didn’t know what I was doing. Didn’t know how to be a werewolf. Didn’t fit into the hierarchy of my local pack. My Maker had run off. He hadn’t meant to Turn me. He’d meant to eat me, but I was…well, I fought back.” The flashes of memory from that night slashed pain through his head. “One of the wolves in the Boston pack was mated to a female, and I’ll never forget what he told me one night I was hanging out with them. I think the alpha was trying to make sure I wasn’t a threat to exposing werewolves in his territory, so he would invite me over and watch me interact with his pack. Cory had met Andrea a few years before, Turned her, and he was the steady one. I liked him. He was funny, relaxed. Not submissive, but he didn’t seem to want to fight everyone. Not like me. One night, we were sitting on the porch with a bottle of Maker’s Mark. He poured us a shot and told me I needed a girl. He could sense something bad in me. Something that was building bigger and darker over time. Said the best way I could stop the progress of a damned wolf was to give him something to protect. So, I came to the Dallas pack. I’d heard about the Silver Wolf and, at the time, I was desperate to see the world like it is. Not bathed in red. I wanted to stop the rage. The fighting, the aggression, the constant voice in my head telling me blood meant power. I just wanted my wolf to be quiet. Morgan had already chosen Grey, and he put me in my place right then and there, but you were there, too. Pretty wolf. Younger, like me. Broke…like me. I could sense that part of you, you know?” He looked over at her and tried to smile. “Your pain is loud to someone who understands the language.”
“You left that night, and then you came to Summit,” she murmured with a faraway look in her eyes.
“That’s right. I came to Summit. Guess why.”
She shook her head slowly. “To find a pack to steady you?”
“No.” God, should he admit this to her? Should he really say this out loud? He’d never told anyone this. “I went to pledge for Dean because someone told me he was your adoptive dad. And I thought…”