by Paige Tyler
Becca grabbed Ernesto’s arm and pulled him toward the door. “Come on, time to go. If you’re that hungry, you can take me out to dinner if you want.”
He laughed. “I was just kidding about hanging around. I have a late night planned at the office, so rain check on that dinner?”
Becca shot Selena a look that said I told you so as she and Ernesto walked out. Selena sighed. It looked like Becca was just as firmly in Ernesto’s friend zone as Selena was. Too bad. They’d make a cute couple.
She turned to Jayden to see him leaning back against the counter, his arms crossed over his muscular chest.
“Something smells really good in here,” he said, his low, deep voice making heat swirl in her tummy.
“Yeah, the food is almost ready,” she answered.
His dark eyes smoldered. “I wasn’t talking about the food.”
The heat in her tummy slowly migrated south, pooling between her thighs. Something Jayden was completely aware of, if the smile he gave her was any indication.
* * *
“Thanks for helping with the salad,” Selena said, peeking around his shoulder and watching him work. “But I’m almost afraid to ask, where’d you learn how to handle a knife like that?”
Brooks chuckled as he peeled another carrot, then made a quick series of julienne cuts to turn it into long, slim pieces slightly bigger than matchsticks. “I’d love to tell you I picked up my knife skills in the CIA or someplace cool like that, but to be truthful, my mom taught me. She loves all those cooking shows on TV and makes me watch them with her every time I visit.”
When Selena didn’t say anything, Brooks turned his head to see her standing beside him with a stunned expression. “What, did I just blow your whole image of me by admitting that?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. I’m just trying to figure out how you could possibly get any better. You’re attractive, heroic, show up for our date on time, bring wine, help me make dinner, and now I find out you visit your mother. It’s enough to make a girl wonder what kind of deep, dark secrets you’re hiding behind those captivating eyes of yours, because nobody’s that perfect.”
He could think of one deep, dark secret he was definitely hiding that he’d love to tell her about, but he resisted the urge. Selena wasn’t ready for something like that yet. Then again, was she likely to handle it any better after dinner? For that matter, was it going to be any easier for her to take three days from now?
Probably not. But like Gage had said, it was up to Brooks to figure out when and how to tell her. He only hoped he didn’t screw it up.
“Trust me, I’m far from perfect,” he finally said with a little laugh as he finished cutting the carrot and added it to the salad. “Just ask the other members of my team. They’ll be quick to point out all my faults and failures.”
Selena leaned her hip against the island, her long hair falling over her shoulder as she gazed up at him with those beautiful dark eyes of hers. “You realize you’re just making it worse, right?”
“What do you mean?”
It was kind of hard to think clearly when Selena was this close to him. The scent of arousal that had been coming off her since he’d first walked in the door was captivating. Brooks wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but he assumed it was some kind of subconscious reaction on her part. Maybe her inner werewolf taking notice of him as an alpha.
He’d considered slipping off to the bathroom to send a quick text to Khaki and ask if she knew why a female werewolf would put off pheromones like this but quickly decided against it. Mostly because he had no idea how he could possibly bring this subject up in a text to a woman, even if she was a member of his pack.
Selena continued to gaze up at him, eyes like two deep pools of melted chocolate. For a moment, he thought she might actually kiss him, but then she spoke. “I’ve met lots of guys who think they’re all that and go out of their way to tell every woman they meet. Yet here I am showering you with compliments, and all you can say is that you’re far from perfect. Trust me, women like a man who’s both sexy and humble.”
Brooks snorted. “I’m not sure if many women out there would agree with you. If they did, I probably wouldn’t still be single.”
Selena shrugged, the movement doing amazing things to the cleavage exposed by the curve-hugging dress she wore. “I can’t say for sure yet, since we just met, but something tells me the reason you’re single is that you’ve been hanging out with women who don’t know what they’re looking for in a man—or wouldn’t know it when they see it.”
Brooks considered the single real relationship he’d had and the string of short-term failures and decided Selena was pretty spot-on. Most of the women he’d gone out with hadn’t seemed to know what they wanted out of a relationship. Or they’d wanted something completely different than he did. On the flip side, he was man enough to admit he’d rarely known what he’d been looking for in a relationship, either.
Though that seemed to be changing quickly.
“How about you?” he asked. “Do you know what you’re looking for in a man?”
Heat blazed up in her eyes, making them glint enough for him to think they might actually be glowing, but Selena leaned past him to pick up the salad bowls before he could be sure.
“I know exactly what I want,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go eat. You look hungry.”
Turning, she headed for the table, her hips swaying hypnotically as she moved, her dress showing off just enough of her shapely legs to tease him. That, along with Selena’s words, made him harden in his jeans and pulled a low, rumbling growl from his throat.
Oh yeah. He was hungry all right.
* * *
“Wait a minute,” Selena said, a tortilla chip halfway to her mouth. “You played football for LSU? Were you any good? And don’t try to be humble, because you know I’m going to Google you.”
Brooks forced himself to tear his gaze away from Selena’s luscious lips. The casserole she’d made, as well as the spicy bean and cheese dip, were delicious. But while the food was spectacular, the company was even better. When he wasn’t mesmerized by the sound of her voice, he was enthralled by watching her eat. He absolutely loved the way her mouth moved.
“I was okay,” he admitted. “I was a blocking fullback, so when I did my job right, all the crowd saw was the running back cutting through a wide-open gap in the line. I never got any of the limelight, but that was okay, and for two amazing seasons, I got to live out my dream. I even had a chance to play in the national championship in my sophomore year.”
She gave him a questioning look. “Why two years?”
“Late in the third quarter of the championship game, I got caught up in the pile and completely blew out the ACL and MCL in my right knee. I never played football again.”
Selena sat back in her chair, her face full of empathy. “I’m sorry about that.”
Lots of people had said the words to him before, but few had genuinely meant it. Like when people said good morning without actually caring if your morning was good or not. But Selena was sincere.
He shrugged, reaching for another chip. “Don’t be. Even though I lost my scholarship, I was still able to finish my degree. Besides, if I hadn’t torn up my knee, I probably wouldn’t have become a cop, which means I wouldn’t have been there to save you. So, in essence, you owe your life to a bunch of clumsy, three-hundred-pound linemen who couldn’t stay on their feet.”
Selena picked up her wineglass and leaned forward in a toast. “Here’s to fate then…and clumsy linemen. It seems they both worked together to put you in that classroom exactly when I needed you.”
He clinked his glass against hers, very proud of himself for keeping his eyes focused on Selena’s expressive gaze and not her cleavage. “To fate…and being at the right place at the right time.”
As Brooks sipped his wine, he
wondered if there was more to all this than fate. Gage always said there was nothing magical about turning into a werewolf. People who had a mutated gene buried in their DNA turned into werewolves if they went through a traumatic event. What kind of werewolf they became—alpha, beta, or omega—was based entirely on the specific circumstances of that traumatic event. Even the process of finding The One was probably nothing more than probability, chemistry, and werewolf genetics.
But at times like this, Brooks had to wonder if they were all wrong. Yeah, he’d been at the exact right place at the exact right time to save Selena’s life. But it was pushing the boundaries of impossibility to think it had simply been good luck that she had shown up at the compound in time for him to recognize she was going through her change and that she’d need someone to help her through it.
It was enough to make a pragmatic man like Brooks start believing in a higher power, be it God or magic. Hell, maybe those were the same thing.
“What happened after football?” she asked. “How did you end up in law enforcement?”
Brooks didn’t answer right away, his attention focused on Selena’s mouth as she took another sip of wine. He especially liked the way the tip of her tongue slipped out to trace slowly across her lips, capturing a few stray drops of red liquid…along with his heart. It was possible she was doing it without knowing how sexy the move was. Then again, the sparkle he kept seeing in her eyes suggested she knew exactly what she was doing to him.
She was driving him crazy.
“Actually, being a cop was part of the plan all along. Well, maybe the backup plan.” He shifted in his chair in a hopeless attempt to get more comfortable in jeans that were getting tighter by the minute. “Sure, I’d dreamed about making it to the NFL, but I was practical enough even back then to know the odds of that weren’t very good. Blocking fullbacks weren’t really in demand in the pros, so I was already well into my criminology program when the knee injury kind of made my decision for me.”
She smiled. “Okay, so in addition to being strong, heroic, and dependable, we can also add practical to the list of your better qualities. You know, you really are getting more amazing by the minute.”
Brooks chuckled. He liked the way she said exactly what she was thinking. It was nice being with a woman who didn’t have a filter…or play games. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a woman tell me that practical is a quality they look for in a man. Daring, bold, and confident, but never practical.”
Selena lifted a brow, and damn, it was sexy as hell. Then again, she could probably cross her eyes and stick out her tongue, and that would work for him, too.
“Trust me, women like practical more than they’ll admit. The first time they date a guy who can’t hold a job for more than two weeks at a time or discover the man on the other side of the table at a restaurant doesn’t have money to pay for dinner, practical suddenly becomes an extremely valuable trait.”
“It sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” he said, though he had a hard time believing a woman as incredible as Selena would waste her time with deadbeats.
“I am,” she admitted. “But we’re not talking about me.”
“We’re not?” he countered.
“No,” she said. “We were talking about how you and your practical self ended up in law enforcement. I can see having a backup plan beyond football, but why law enforcement? Is your father a cop?”
Brooks shook his head. “No. My dad wasn’t a cop.”
When he didn’t continue, the smile slowly slipped from Selena’s face. She reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. “Hey, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. We can talk about something else if you want.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “It was a long time ago.”
Though sometimes it felt like just yesterday that he’d lost his father.
Selena regarded him with concern. How had they gone from sexy banter to awkward silence so fast?
“Gulfport had a really bad gang problem in the nineties,” he said. “Hell, like most cities in this country, they still have a gang problem. But back in the midnineties, the crack cocaine epidemic was in full swing in Gulfport, with gangs selling it on nearly every corner of the projects where I lived. Lots of kids in the apartment building hung out on the corner with the gangbangers just so they could act cool. My parents, especially my dad, didn’t put up with that kind of crap, and when he found out that one of my friends had gone down to the corner, he went to go bring him home. I went with him.”
Brooks thought back to that night, remembering how his whole world had changed. “It happened so fast. I remember my dad being pissed and telling the gangbangers to get away from our apartment building. But then one of them pulled out a gun. He didn’t even bother to threaten my dad. He just shot him in the heart, right there in front of all of us. And just like that, I didn’t have a dad anymore.” He swallowed hard. “My father died in my arms.”
Selena’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry, Jayden.”
He nodded, not trusting himself to say anything.
“How old were you when it happened?” she asked.
He took a deep breath. “Fourteen.”
The silence stretched out again, and they both turned their attention to the meal. He knew Selena wasn’t going to ask any more questions, but he felt like he needed to finish the story anyway. Somehow, it seemed like she would understand.
“The cops showed up, and it was obvious that most of them could care less that there was one more poor person from the projects lying dead on the sidewalk,” he said. “They asked a few questions about what happened, but they were only going through the motions, and everyone there knew it. Of course, no one saw a thing. But then Jack Walker showed up, and everything changed.”
Brooks pushed what was left of the casserole on his plate around with his fork.
“He was just a county deputy, but the moment he arrived, it was obvious he was different. When he talked to the other cops, they listened. And when he talked to the people who lived in the apartment building, they listened, too.”
Brooks thought back to that night and how amazed he’d been to see a cop like that. He remembered how Jack had sat down beside him on the curb and asked him in a serious, matter-of-fact voice whether he wanted his father’s life to matter.
His father’s death had been a turning point in his life. Meeting Jack Walker had been another.
“He wanted me to tell him exactly what happened and who killed my father,” Brooks continued. “I didn’t want to, because in my experience, few gangbangers ever went to prison. Even when they did, there was another gangbanger right there to take their place. It never ended, and I didn’t want anyone coming after my mom.”
“What did Jack say?” Selena asked.
“He told me that my father died because doing the right thing had been important to him. It was now up to me to decide who I was going to be—the kind of man who looked the other way, or the kind who stood up and tried to make the world a better place. Like my father.”
“That’s a pretty heavy load to drop on the shoulders of a fourteen-year-old kid.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess it was. But sometimes events happen, and people have to grow up a lot faster than anyone wants to. In the end, I led Jack straight to the man who shot my father, then I pointed him out at the trial and sent him to jail for twenty years.”
Selena’s lips curved. “I probably shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not like you woke up yesterday morning and decided to be brave and fearless. You’ve been that way your whole life.” When Brooks opened his mouth to argue, she cut him off with a glance. “We already talked about the whole humble thing, remember?”
Before he could agree to disagree—or even wonder how this tiny slip of a woman could shut him down with a single glance—she continued as if she hadn’t even noticed the interruption
. “I’m guessing Jack is the reason you became a cop?”
Brooks nodded. It felt like he was talking to a woman who’d known him for years instead of hours. “Yeah. He helped my mom find a better job, got us out of the projects, and got me into a better school. He’s even the one who talked me into playing football and helped me get that scholarship to LSU.”
“He sounds more like a saint than a cop.”
“Pretty much,” Brooks agreed. “He became like a second father to me. He even got me a job with the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department in Gulfport after I graduated. Ultimately, he’s the reason I ended up on the Dallas SWAT team, too.”
Selena’s smiled broadened. “So, I guess I have someone else to thank for your appearance in my life. Besides a group of clumsy linemen, I mean.”
He silently agreed, but now wasn’t the time to talk about the other events that had led him from Gulfport to Dallas. Instead, he cleaned his plate, then reached for another helping only to discover they’d eaten every scrap of food on the table. Time had obviously gotten away from them while they’d talked about his journey from the projects of Gulfport to the dark-blue uniform of a DPD cop.
That was when he realized he and Selena hadn’t talked about her at all. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she’d skillfully manipulated the conversation to keep everything focused firmly on him. He wondered why she’d do something like that. Not that it mattered, since they now had the rest of the night to talk about someone much more interesting than he was.
He wiped his mouth and placed his napkin on the table beside his plate. “Dinner was incredible.”
Selena smiled. “Thank you. I’m glad you liked it.” She picked up her wineglass. “Why don’t we move into the living room and talk about dessert? If you’re still hungry, I mean.”
Brooks followed her over to the couch, gaze fixed on her perfect ass.
Oh yeah. He was definitely still hungry.
Chapter 7
Selena knew it was horrible of her to tease Jayden, but it wasn’t like she’d intended to do it. All she’d done was dim the lights in the living room, then get the cheesecake from the fridge and move over to sit beside him on the couch. It wasn’t until she leaned back and crossed her legs that she realized how much thigh she’d exposed in the process. If the heat in his blue-gray eyes, not to mention the mouthwatering bulge in his jeans, was any indication, it seemed like her heroic SWAT cop would rather have her for dessert than the dulce de leche cheesecake she’d made.