by Moira Rogers
He laughed. “Orlando, I think.”
“That always sounded fun.” She nestled deeper into his embrace. “But I’ll go anywhere. It’s all an adventure for me.”
“We could head to Disney too. Get some mouse ears on you.”
It sounded sweet. It sounded fun, and she would have told him so, too, if she hadn’t been well on her way to blissful sleep.
Chapter Eight
He woke with Sera in his arms.
Julio buried his nose in her hair and inhaled with a groan. “You smell good.”
“I smell like you” was her husky reply. She tilted her head back, arching her throat toward him. “I like it.”
“I’m not that much of a narcissist.” She smelled like shampoo, sunblock and salt. “It’s got to be you.”
“If you say so.” Her eyes drifted open, sleep glazed but amused. “I slept like a baby in your guest room, you know. It smelled like you too. Just enough to know I was safe.”
“So you want to keep sleeping with me?”
She traced a fingertip along his collarbone. “You shouldn’t ask me that. I’d spend days in this bed with you, if you’d let me.”
His dick hardened. “Can’t. We’re checking out today. Still have a few hours, though.”
“Yeah?” A little wiggle, and she had her hip pressed up against him, rubbing teasingly. “Are you going to make me beg, or are you going to play with me?”
Julio slid his hand over her hip, his fingers brushing her stomach. “I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out what you need, the stuff you might not even realize.”
She caught his hand and held it in place. “Uh-uh. I don’t want to be screwed for my mental health. I don’t believe in sexual healing, and even if I did, it doesn’t sound very fun. Just be, right?”
“Just be.” He rolled her to her back and leaned over her. “I don’t want us to have sex because we woke up in the same bed. I don’t want to need a convenient excuse.”
Sera stared up at him, her face surrounded by wild strands of hair that had escaped her braid during the night. She took one slow breath, then another, as if she was working up the courage to say something. When she finally did, nervous vulnerability showed clearly in her eyes. “Promise me that you’re doing all this slow seduction and dominance stuff because you like it, not because it’s what I want.”
He could give her that. “I promise, sweetheart.”
Lifting her head, she brushed a soft kiss to his lips. “I said yes that first night. To everything. I’ll tease and I’ll flirt, but I’ll do anything you want until you decide you don’t want that responsibility anymore.”
“I know.” What he didn’t know was whether responsibility was something he could ever walk away from again.
She was still watching him, wide-eyed and uncertain. “Did I—” Her teeth dug into her lower lip, followed by a quick swipe of her tongue. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” He indulged himself by caressing her cheek and jaw. “You did everything right.”
Her eyelids fluttered shut, and she lifted her chin into his touch with a quiet sigh of pleasure. “Sometimes you touch me like I’m… I don’t know. Something good.”
“Only sometimes?” He’d have to do better.
Her nose scrunched up, as if she thought he was teasing her. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She laughed and blew out a frustrated breath. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I always like the way you touch me, but sometimes it’s soft, but still strong.” Her voice fell to a shy whisper. “It makes me feel safe.”
It made him feel like he wasn’t running away after all. Like he was doing something right. “I think I get it.”
With her eyes still closed, she turned her face toward his hand. “Are you sure? Because if you’re not doing it on purpose, be gentle with me. My heart’s not as tough as the rest of me.”
Nothing seemed like a remotely adequate response. He could reassure her, but what did any of it mean? Either they were ready for it, or they weren’t.
He eased back. “I’m not doing it on purpose, but I can stop anyway. If that’s what you want.”
She swallowed and caught both of his arms, holding him in place. “No. Not unless I’m the only one feeling…something.”
Because he didn’t know what else to say, he kissed her nose. “Breakfast. Want to go out?”
“Waffles.” She wiggled out from under him and bounced to her feet. “With whipped cream and strawberries. And bacon. And coffee.”
“You don’t have to cook every meal, Sera. You should take it easy.”
She capitulated without argument. “Then you pick a place while I pack and take a shower.”
He’d fucked up, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been honest, and that was all he could do. “Take your time.”
“It won’t be long.” She paused in the doorway and smiled at him. “I still want waffles, though.”
When she’d gone, Julio sat up and curled his shaking hands into fists. He’d tried to go slow, to be careful, and it didn’t matter. She was open, vulnerable to him. That meant he could hurt her, and it was the last thing he wanted to do.
Panama City Beach hadn’t been a basket of puppies and rainbows, but the reception they got in Orlando was downright chilly.
A group of men were waiting for them at the hotel. Either someone was talking about Julio’s impromptu tour of the Southeast, or someone at the hotel recognized his name.
He sized them up as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “Stay in the car, Sera.”
Her gaze tripped over the wolves. “What do you want me to do if one gets past you?”
Surely they wouldn’t. “They’re looking to assert dominance. Coming after you would be weak, beneath them.” He flicked the keys hanging from the ignition. “If that happens, leave me behind and get the hell out of here, ’cause it means all bets are off.”
Sera slipped her seatbelt off and reached across the seat to squeeze his hand. “Be careful.”
“Nothing to it.” He climbed out of the car and engaged the locks before closing the door. “Gentlemen.”
The wolves fanned out as he approached, blocking off the parking lot exit. There were four, total—two fit blonds in bland business casual, a thin, dangerous-looking redhead dressed like a redneck, and the obvious leader, a thug over six feet tall whose bulging muscles strained the seams on his cheap suit.
The leader stepped forward, his gaze a hairsbreadth short of an outright challenge. “Julio Mendoza. You didn’t call to say you were coming to town.”
“No, I didn’t.” Nor was he expected to, but he let it lie. “Is that a problem?”
“It is when you bring trash with you,” the redhead muttered.
The leader lifted a hand to silence him. “It’s polite,” he said, giving the words an edge of a growl. “Or are you only interested in talking to outcasts and mutts?”
Julio forced a smile. “It’s polite to look people up when you roll into town—which was my full intention. Are you suggesting I needed to call first for permission?”
“No.” It was a blatant lie, and the wolf didn’t bother to hide it from his expression. His face twisted into something ugly. “You’re supposed to be the one who gives a shit about us. Jacobson’s so perverse he’d let us all burn, and that new bastard doesn’t know how to be a wolf. But you’re one of us. So why don’t you act like it?”
If he didn’t shut this down now, things would get real ugly, real fast. So Julio stepped closer, right up in the man’s space, and stared at him. Hard. “Say what you want about me—I’m here and ready to kick your ass for it—but don’t talk shit about my friends.”
The suit’s hands fisted. “If you were half the man your uncle is, you’d be doing your job. You’d be fighting for the wolves instead of dicking around the country with a coyote slut.”
“For dickheads like you?” He wouldn’t throw the first punch. He would not. “I prefer people wit
h manners.”
It was the redneck who snarled, some control on his temper snapping. “You’re a fucking disgrace,” he spat, anger turning his face as red as his hair. “At least Alec Jacobson and Andrew Callaghan are only bent enough to screw human bitches. The only good coyote is a dead—”
It didn’t matter that the leader was a few inches taller than him and probably a few pounds heavier. Julio grabbed the lapels of his cheap, ill-fitting jacket and threw him at the redneck with a growl. They hit the ground but sprang up, ready to fight.
Good. So was he.
Sera had no intention of driving away to leave Julio to his fate, even if she was utterly confident in his ability to prevail in a four-on-one fight. The wolves facing him had violence in their postures and hate in their eyes, and she’d known from the moment he first spoke that they wouldn’t be satisfied with words.
Instead of preparing to flee, she’d called Anna. “Now they’re talking a lot of shit. Mostly about me.” The running commentary diffused her nerves. Made it easier to breathe as she watched Julio. “They’re not saying anything really creative, though. I’m a coyote slut who’d be better off—shit.”
“What?” Anna demanded. “What’s happening?”
“Julio just picked up the biggest one and threw him at the others like a bowling ball.” Her heart pounded its way toward her throat as Julio punched the flannel-wearing redneck in the nose. “Oh my God, Anna, promise me he can handle all four of them.”
“He can handle them,” she answered instantly. “Look, he told you to stay in the car. Whatever else you do, you stay there, okay?”
Sera gripped the door handle and winced as one of the blond wolves landed a rough hit to Julio’s side, but Julio barely seemed to notice. “I’m not stupid,” she whispered, hating herself for what she was instead. Weak. Useless. “I’m a liability. I’m getting in the way of what he’s trying to do.”
Julio spun and butted heads with the tall blond—literally. The man staggered back, and the one in flannel grabbed at Julio’s shirt. One blow knocked him loose, and he stumbled toward the car in an effort to catch his balance.
Julio charged him with a wild-eyed roar. They landed on the pavement in a full-on skid, sliding several feet before crashing into the front fender of the car.
Sera could hear her own rasping breaths filling the car. Power thundered over her, a dominance that sang in her blood and vibrated in her bones. Or maybe that vibration was the car shaking as the red-headed wolf tried to crawl away from the brutal punishment of Julio’s fists.
She could vaguely hear Anna’s voice from her phone, and she struggled to focus, to tear her gaze from the perfect storm of protective violence in front of her. “One of them got too close to the car,” she told Anna. “I don’t think he liked that.”
Anna swore viciously, and keys jingled in the background. “They’d better hope he doesn’t kill any of them.”
The huge wolf in the suit tried to pull Julio off the one in the flannel, earning an elbow in the face for his trouble. Then Julio climbed to his feet, nudged the man on the ground with his foot and faced the others.
They backed away.
Sera made a choked noise. “Oh, he’s amazing. He’s…” Her opposite. Her match. Violence and strength and all the hard, dangerous things in life. She groaned and closed her eyes. “I wish you were close enough to shake me. I’m about to go on a submissive bender.”
Anna sighed. “If he’s winning, I’m hanging up. I’d rather not share this moment with you, no offense.”
“Anna?”
“Yeah, honey?”
Outside, one of the blond wolves bolted. The other fell to his knees, the silent gesture an acknowledgment of power and a willingness to submit that defied human words.
She understood the feeling. “I think I’m a little bit in love with him.”
“A little bit,” Anna repeated slowly, her voice devoid of surprise. “Call me later.”
“I will,” Sera promised, and barely noticed the soft click on the other end of the phone. Julio was watching with disgust as the remaining men gathered their flannel-clad—and now bleeding—friend and began helping him across the lot.
He bent by her window and waited for her to lower it. “Are you all right?” he rasped.
“Yes,” she whispered, unable to look away from him. The human bits of her were slipping away, lost to the rising satisfaction of her coyote. Her phone slipped from her fingers, and she fumbled blindly for the door lock.
Instead of opening her door, he circled around to his and climbed in. “They won’t be bothering us anymore, but I think we gathered some attention. We’ll have to find another hotel.”
His shirt was torn, and blood splattered his lip. She waited for him to settle into the seat before sliding over to brush her thumb across his chin. “Are you hurt?”
He shook his head and watched as the attacking wolves packed into an SUV and peeled out of the lot. Then he released a breath and leaned his forehead against the wheel. “I mean it, are you all right?”
In a heartbeat she went from weak to strong. From useless to needed. Shifting closer to him, she slipped a careful arm around his body and dropped her cheek to the back of his shoulder. “I’m all right,” she promised, letting the words float from her. She found the skin of his upper arm and stroked it softly. “I don’t care what they say about me. That was bullshit. I’ve heard worse.”
“Fuck.” His fingers tightened around the steering wheel until it creaked. “Fuck.”
For all she knew, the last time he’d been jumped by shapeshifters was when he and Kat had been kidnapped by the mercenaries the psychic cult had hired. She kept touching him, kept holding him—but didn’t push. If she tried to make him talk, he’d shut down.
So she slid her hand down his arm to cover his fingers with her own. “Will you let me drive?”
His breaths were coming in pants now, and he nodded. “Anywhere, I don’t care. Just get us out of here.”
He slid over, easing her across his lap as he did, and she helped him when his hands started to shake, twisting herself around the steering wheel until she could settle into the driver’s seat.
Driving stick was harder than she remembered. Then again, she’d never practiced with a dominant wolf on the verge of a panic attack shaking in the passenger seat. She whispered a silent apology to Jackson for riding the clutch on his beautiful car and tried not to spare Julio too many worried glances as she picked a street at random and drove away from the hotel.
Fifteen miles away, she helped Julio into a tiny room at an establishment nowhere near as nice as the last one.
He’d been avoiding her gaze, and he ran his hands through his hair as he sank to the bed. “I’m a jerk.”
Sera went to the door to hang the Do Not Disturb sign and engaged the chain lock for good measure. When she returned to the bed, she knelt between his legs. “Look at me, Julio. Please?”
“I’m fine now.” He groaned. “It’s all just so stupid.”
She curled her hand around his and squeezed. “You’ve got two choices. Do you want kisses and pets, or do you want the bullshit-free tough love?”
His shoulders began to shake with laughter. “The latter. I bet it’s cute.”
“Oh, it’s damn cute.” She squeezed his hands. “Listen to me, mister alpha wolf. You went through some seriously crazy shit. You don’t want to talk about it? I get it. You don’t want to let other people see it get to you? Fine. But don’t you dare call it stupid. Because if you think you’re stupid because you can’t shrug off being tortured after a couple months, think about how pathetic you make the rest of us feel.”
Julio met her gaze with a shaky sigh, all traces of humor gone. “He wasn’t even coming for you,” he told her quietly. “I would have killed him if he had been.”
“I know,” she replied just as softly. “We are the way we are. It’s how we’re built, the way we’re supposed to be. You need to protect me. I understand.” Sh
e pressed one hand to his chest, fingers spread wide over his heart. “I need to protect you too. That’s what you have to understand about me.”
He covered her hand with his, then pulled her into his lap. “Sera.”
She pressed a finger to his lips. “One more thing. I don’t break, okay? I bend. The rest of you stand strong until you shatter, but I ride the rough spots so I can get back up when they’re over. But sometimes that means I don’t learn, because I never get hurt badly enough to teach me a lesson.”
His brows drew together in a frown. “I don’t know what that means.”
Of course he didn’t. She sighed and closed her eyes. “I get it all tangled up. Dominance and submission. Life and sex. I threw myself into you all the way, and it wasn’t fair. I forget that the people worth submitting to… It’s not play, not for you. It’s another responsibility, and I shouldn’t have acted like you wouldn’t take it seriously.”
The world tipped, and she landed on the bed with him looming over her. “I take it seriously,” he whispered. “And you’re worth it.”
Sera’s breath caught. “We don’t have to. I don’t need games to want you. You’d make it hot even if it was just missionary under the covers with the lights off.”
“You’re not listening to yourself.” He leaned closer, until his breath heated her lips. “This isn’t play for me.”
The urge to submit trembled through her. She relaxed into the bed, slid her hands up to his shoulders and then over her head. “What is this?”
He followed the lines of her arms to grasp her wrists. “Pleasure, if you want it.”
Oh God, she did. So much she was shaking with it, so much she wanted to beg him not to stop. But it was always about what she wanted. What she needed. “What do you want?”
“To take you,” he rasped. “To watch the look on your face when I do it.”
She wiggled her wrists, teased him with the hint of a challenge. Forced him to tighten his grip until the strength in his fingers melted something low in her belly. “You want to hear my dirty, shameful secret?”