by Tina Gower
“Fuck. Shit,” Becker curses outside. He taps on the window. “Hale, open up.”
I slide the window open. “Why don’t you knock like a normal person?”
“I did knock.” He keeps his head lowered under the shadow of his ball cap. All I can see is the scruff on his square jaw.
“On the door. In front of my apartment.”
He crawls through the window opening. “Someone would see me.”
And they wouldn’t notice some guy sneaking around my window dressed in jeans, a forest green barn jacket, navy baseball hat, and black-and-grey flannel shirt? I shake the question away and pick up my work clothes tossed on the floor and shove them into the laundry basket in my closet. I reach to flip on an overhead light, but Becker blocks me from the light switch by standing in front of it.
“Late night working?”
I scrunch up my face in confusion.
He points with a curled finger at my laptop.
“Oh, yeah, just a fluff case.” I bring it over to him and he covers his face from the glow. It’s then that I see what he must have been trying to hide from me. One eye slightly swollen and sporting quite the shiner. The black, blue and red form a calico pattern around the bag of his eye speeding over onto his temple. “Gods, Becker. What happened?” I lean in to get a better look. He dodges away, and I use the opportunity to flip on the light.
He hisses. “Gah, crap, Kate. Give me some warning before doing that.”
“You need ice.” I head for the kitchen.
Becker follows on my heels. “That only works for the first twenty-four hours.”
I twist around, my freezer door open and my hand paused mid grab. What? Did I hear him right? “This happened yesterday and you didn’t tell me? I’ve been worried sick about you for the last four days and then you show up like this? Where have you been?” My voice works up into a high pitch. I know I probably sound like an overbearing girlfriend, which I am, right? I’m a girl that is Becker’s friend. The one he’s been using for skin-on-skin contact—well, we’re both fully clothed, but still.
He presses a fist to the bridge of his nose and waves the other in front of him, like he’s erasing the words. “You said it was weird. You said you felt like everything happened so fast you didn’t realize what you’d signed on for. I was giving you space.”
Both of my hands fly to my chest. I slide back like he’s punched me. “I said that? When did I say that?”
He huffs out a frustrated breath. “You didn’t say it exactly that way. I read between the lines.” He yanks his hat off his head. His hair sticks out in adorable directions.
I squeeze my eyes shut, willing my brain to erase the momentary lapse of resolve. I do not think Becker is adorable. I do not think Becker is adorable. I will repeat this until I have zapped any spark of attraction.
He paces between the small space in my living room and kitchen. “I asked you if it was weird.” He circles his finger like I’m supposed to fill in the blank, but when I don’t he jumps in. “The sleeping thing.”
“And I said ‘yeah’ because. It. IS.”
He presses his lips together and offers me a flattened palm, like this explains it all.
“Becker, it is weird. I don’t know anything about werewolves. I didn’t grow up with any packs around. In the center of a big city, we didn’t really attract many. I went to a school filled with witches and half-gremlins. We were the scruff of society. A werewolf wouldn’t come near us. So when I say it’s weird, it’s because I don’t have a frame of reference.”
“And you think I do? I grew up with no pack in the middle of South Carolina. My adoptive parents signed me up for every werewolf cultural event in the area until I found my own pack and moved here. As soon as I graduated high school I moved to Angel’s Peak to be with them.”
I bit my lip. “I didn’t know any of that. I didn’t even know you were adopted.”
He ruffs his fingers through his hair, takes a deep breath. His shoulders lower like he’s centered himself. “Look, can we start over? I didn’t come here to fight with you.”
My gaze wanders to my bed. His follows. There’s an awkward silence. Usually we don’t go into the bed together. Usually I’m asleep, or I pretend to be and he sneaks in for a few hours and tucks himself next to me. I fall asleep like I’ve been waiting for him so I could finally relax. Or I’m already asleep and I wake up briefly as he pulls me into his warmth until my eyelids drift back down like they’re being pulled by heavy weights. He’s gone before I wake up as though it was a dream.
“I really did mean it. I’m trying to find another way. There’s a pack in Turmoil. It’s an hour drive. If I go on my days off, I can recharge for the week.”
I don’t know what to say. I should be encouraging him to seek the Turmoil pack out, but I can’t muster up excitement for the idea.
I nod like I understand. “Yeah, that’s probably better for you.”
He squeezes his hat in his fists. “Except I pulled double shifts through the weekend and I’m filling in for another guy on my day off—”
“Don’t they frown on that? Isn’t there some law about working that many days in a row?”
“I was on call when a robbery in progress comes over the scanner. They’d had a medium to high probability of crime in the area over the next few days and not enough officers to cover the area. I wasn’t that far from the address, so I went down there and took one guy down. That’s where I got this.” He points to his eye. “The other guy jumped me as I cuffed his partner. They both almost got away, but backup showed just at the right time. We only got one of them. I’ve been following his scent.”
“It’s fine, Ian,” I slip, using his first name. “Becker,” I correct, “I forgive you. And I didn’t mean what I said. We both know I’m your only option right now. I’m exhausted. Let’s just get to bed.”
“It’s not that. I didn’t come for that. I really didn’t.” He shoves his hat back down as far as it can go, hiding his eyes. He fidgets with his jacket zipper. The way he says it, it’s like he’s trying to convince himself more than me. “I tracked the scent about a block from here. I can’t be sure that the robber didn’t see me here and connect me to you. He might try to use you to get to me.”
“But you said all this happened after we spoke last. I haven’t seen you since then. You haven’t been coming here.” It’s funny how we both skirt around the topic. Neither of us saying it outright. “So he wouldn’t know to come here. To my apartment.”
He tugs the zipper up, down, up, down in a slow even pace. “Uh, about that…” He swallows. “I wouldn’t say I stayed away. I just didn’t come inside.”
“You were lurking outside my apartment?” I’m careful to keep my expression blank. I’m half amazed at his honesty and boldness, half trying to convince myself to be disturbed and not, and half turned-on. It adds up to too many halves. And me a math major.
He shakes his head. “It wasn’t lurking. Werewolves get protective. It’s just an instinct. It’s like salivating when you smell tacos.”
I’m stunned. Speechless.
Becker just compared obsessing on me to tacos.
He must sense the battle going on in my head, because he inches closer. “It’s why I’m telling you now. So you know. I can’t help it, but I’m trying. I’ll figure out how to make it stop. I think that going to Turmoil is the first step, but—”
“But in the meantime, I’ve possibly got a criminal on the loose who’s lurking around my apartment.” I finish for him and look for his acknowledgement. He nods, letting me know I got it all. “Forgive me, you lurking out there is one thing. But this guy—”
“I already called for extra patrols in the area.”
“Fuck, Becker. You can’t let anyone at the station know that you come here—”
“No. No, of course not. It’s for the entire complex. I didn’t tell them you were here or why. I said I could smell his scent in the area. They have no clue about any of this.”
He motions between us.
It’s quiet again for longer than comfortable. Becker straightens like he hears something.
My door handle jiggles. My cousin Ali bangs on my door from outside. “Seven hells, Kate. Since when do you lock your doors?” She calls out from the other side. “I need a cup of sugar. And like your entire spice rack. Let me in.” She wiggles the handle harder.
Becker, light on his feet, hides himself safely behind my bedroom door, though it remains open a crack. When I can’t see a trace of him, I unlock the door. Ali breezes into my entryway and straight to my kitchen about as gently as a category six.
I stare down the steps to the parking lot below, a little creeped out that someone might be down there watching us. Directly in front of our row of apartments is another row with the parking lot between, adding the illusion of space. My apartment is the last on a long block in the complex. Shaped like an L with windows all around, and being on the second floor, it’s great for spying in all directions, but in this moment it only makes me feel a little more exposed than usual. I make sure to lock the door and discreetly lower a few blinds around the living room at least.
“It’s eleven o’ clock at night.” I glance at the clock on the microwave. “It’s eleven forty at night. Hurry up and get your spices and let me sleep. I have to get up early to work.”
“Blah, why you still work a regular Monday to Friday, eight to five is beyond me.”
“What are you talking about? That’s what the average normal adult works.”
“Average.” She scrunches up her nose like she’s smelled something foul. “There you go with your math talk again. I have no idea what you’re saying when you go into geek mode.” She reads the back of every label of spice she pulls from my cupboard.
“You use math every day. Look at you.” I snatch a bottle of cinnamon from the counter. “When you measure and mix. That’s chemistry.”
She snatches the cinnamon from my fingers and hugs it close to her, petting it. “Excuse me, baking is an art. It’s magic. Don’t go corrupting it with your dark science.”
I cross my arms and just let her do her thing, using my apartment like her own personal grocery store. She’ll be out of here in less time if I don’t argue. I’d almost forgotten Becker was slinking in the shadows of my bedroom.
Out of nowhere, if nowhere is an extremely bling lined pocket of really tight jeans, she produces a thin nylon bag and fills it with selected spices. “By the way, you should really make an appointment with your doctor about the snoring.”
“Snoring?”
“Yeah.” She hefts her sack over her shoulder. “I can hear you through the wall. It’s loud.”
I narrow my eyes. “I don’t snore.”
“Uh, yeah, ya do.”
“I don’t snore.” I yell it out louder as if that will settle it. I catch Becker’s gaze although I can’t make out his expression, but he seems a little frazzled. “Do I snore?”
He shakes his head no and slinks back into the room.
“Who are you talking to?”
“What? Nobody.” I open the front door. “I’m not talking to anybody.” I shoo her out. “Just myself. Be gone. I snore when I’m overtired. You’re contributing to the problem.”
Ali rolls her eyes and does that thing where her lips flap, making a horse sound. It’s annoying as hell, because she’s basically calling me crazy without any words. I slam the door and lock it.
Becker stands in the doorway to my room. “We should be a lot quieter.” His voice is lower than before. “She can hear us through the wall?”
“Who knows? She might have just been saying that to freak me out. She knows something’s up. She’ll figure out what’s going on, if she hasn’t already.”
“She can’t.” He gives me an even gaze. From the very beginning he’s avoided my cousin. Half because werewolves and witches who also happen to be druids don’t mix well—something about a blood magic feud from ancient times, half because she’s got a big in-your-grill personality and Becker has closet social anxiety, and half because she’s too perceptive for her own good.
Again, I have too many halves. Scratch all that and make it thirds.
Becker crosses his arms. “We tell too many people about our setup, the more of a chance my supervisors will know I’m unstable without a pack. I can’t have that information out. They know, they’ll pull me from Accidental Death. They’ll limit my cases. I could lose my job with no hope of a transfer to anywhere else.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone. And if Ali by some mistake finds out about us she’d never do that to you or me. She’s eccentric, but she’s smart. She’d figure out the stakes involved—for both of us.” I give him a hard stare. We’re in this together. It could jeopardize my position too if we’re found out.
I rub my temples. “I’m going to explode if I don’t get some sleep.”
“I should go.” He takes a small step toward my door, but his shoulders face me. “There are extra patrols out. I hear them circling. The timing’s off on Manning’s unmarked. He’s one of the best.” He motions a finger to his ear.
“You can hear that? Even through all the other city noise?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, werewolf ears. We filter out what’s not important. What we’re not focused on.”
Becker has super hearing. A gift of his werewolf genes. Even though werewolves can’t change into wolves anymore, too much breeding and mixing with other species, most wolf descendants got a little extra in their DNA. Hence, the snuggle sessions.
He needs to be close to others, have contact and bond with others of his kind to regulate his emotions and keep his body regulated. Otherwise he gets grouchy, oversensitive, paranoid, obsessed.
When I first met him, he’d been in rough shape after being a lone wolf for a few years after his original pack was slaughtered. Due to the stress of his job and his aversion to meeting new people he’d avoided finding a new pack, thinking it would be easier to try to be lone for a while. It didn’t work, not for Becker. Either he’s just not built that way, or he’s got too much werewolf in him to make it work.
I sigh. “I’m going to bed. You can come in, or you can go. Just don’t make the decision because of some made-up conversation we had.”
In five steps I’m in my room and plop down on my comforter, kicking at it until I’ve burrowed myself deeply inside a small cocoon of blankets. I will myself to sleep, but I’ve hit a stage of overtiredness. With Becker I sleep like a rock and wake up like it’s the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had. The last few nights without him have only produced endless tossing and turning.
In my living room I can hear him wearing a hole in my rug. At one point he raids my breadbox. I know he’s found Ali’s stash of pumpkin oatmeal bars when the distinct sound of the plastic bag opens with a verp.
It’s nearly forty-five minutes later when he crawls into bed, slow with catlike movements. He inches close, closer, molding himself to my back, curling his arms around me over top of all the covers. He lets out a long pumpkin spiced breath like he’s settling into a hot bath. His breath warms the back of my neck and sends tingles through my nervous system. My nipples harden and there’s that twinge between my legs again. The one I can’t act on or it could mean both our jobs.
Becker tightens his hold on me and all that anxiety floats out of my mind like he’s cast a spell to ward it off. My body relaxes. There are four layers of blanket between us. He’s fully clothed in jeans, flannel, and barn jacket. I’m wearing pajama bottoms with cows and moons and an oversized U of AP T-shirt that’s fraying on the edges. The shirt is grey but once was bright white. Yet, I’m hot and ready. I’ve had sex that felt less intimate than this.
But somehow, like every time he’s near me in the dark of my room, I’m out in five minutes.
Chapter 4
My eyes fling open at the smell of fresh coffee brewing. A cup materializes on my nightstand, attached to that cup is a hand. A very large, rough-with-calluses
hand. Becker’s hand. I squint to make out his figure. It can’t be him; he never stays over. There has to be another explanation. For example, Ali must have found a key to my apartment, had a spare made and then also sewn a lifelike Becker suit and worn it over to my apartment, because Becker always, always leaves before I wake up. It is so un-Becker-like, my brain doesn’t compute the anomaly.
Becker sips at his own coffee and opens the case file on my desk.
“That’s classified,” my voice croaks.
He twists, noticing that I’m awake, but he doesn’t fly off or run away as though he never meant for me to see him. Here. In my apartment. The morning after. Instead his lips quirk in an amused grin. “I’m the police liaison for your department. Nothing is classified for me.” He turns back to the notes in the file. “Love matches with dead people.” He lets out a deep rich sexy laugh.
Fuck. It’s the worst possible scenario. Becker is in my apartment. I have to get to work in less than an hour. He has a sexy laugh. And he’s a morning person.
I glare at him behind his back. “Don’t you have to get to work?”
“I have the night shift. Morning off. We should go down to the pier. They have this great lobster place.” He must see the look of horror on my face, because he adds rather quickly, “To go over this case.”
I shake my head no and open my mouth to protest. His expression hardens. He’s on a path to convince me for some other reason, but I don’t know why.
“What? We can be seen going over cases together. I go out to lunch with Miles at least twice a week. It would be weird if you’re the only actuary in Accidental Death I didn’t interact with. We need to show balance so nobody figures it out.”
It’s like we’re hiding a secret relationship. I had conversations like this with Kyle when we would sneak around outside office hours.
“Becker, it’s Friday. I have to go in to the office. And I’m on probation, so I don’t have any privileges to go off with the police liaison on what looks like a date.”
Becker recoils on the word date. I don’t care that he takes out Miles; it would look different with me. Especially me, given my history.