She felt Adam’s presence beside her before she saw or heard him—almost like the air crackled with electricity. Paige swallowed and leaned against the closed truck door.
He put an arm on the door just to the left above her head and leaned closer. Her heart raced, and she struggled to draw in a steady breath. Surely he could tell she was trembling inside her skin.
“You forgot your lead.” Adam held up the blue rope in his left hand.
“Oh.” Her lips parted for the word, but it barely came out louder than a whisper.
He bent closer, bringing his face even with hers. “Are you going to run away if I kiss you?”
Air. I need air. She gasped, dragging in the breath she so desperately needed, and shook her head. She wasn’t running from him. Not again. Every fiber of her body wanted this kiss.
His mouth slanted over hers and the world melted away. Adam moved his hand from the truck and cupped the back of her head. Energy surged between them and he pulled her closer.
The lead dropped from his hand and landed on the ground with a thump. He slid his other arm around her waist and pulled her body flush to his.
Heat. Warmth. Desire. Everything that she’d ever wanted to feel with a man, she felt for Adam. Her toes curled in her sneakers and she reached up to hold onto his arms.
Paige curled her fingers, hanging onto his jacket as he stole the air from her lungs. He suckled her lower lip and his stubble scraped against her chin and cheek. Adam tasted like coffee and chocolate. And his lips were soft, gentler than she’d imagined they would be.
Then his tongue thrust past her lips, slipping inside her mouth. His fingers tightened in her hair and Paige moaned into the kiss. This was what kissing should be. Not a slobbery wet mess like her high school boyfriend insisted was typical. She’d known kissing Adam would be amazing, but this didn’t even rank on the scale she’d been using in her imagination.
Shivers of arousal danced across her skin as he trailed his mouth along her chin and then down the side of her neck —tasting every morsel like a delectable treat he’d ordered from the bakery.
“Paige, you taste so damn good. I just want to—” Adam pulled away suddenly, dropping his hold on her hair and putting a couple feet of space between their bodies. “I shouldn’t have come on so fast, I’m sorry. We barely know each other and I’m so much older than you. I shouldn’t do this.”
She watched him move away in a haze. A few moments later, her bike was out of his truck bed, leaning against her hip. He’d picked up the horse lead he’d dropped before they kissed and placed it in her hand.
She still hadn’t been able to speak. Nothing. She just stood there like a stupid heartbroken statue that couldn’t believe what her fairytale kiss had turned into.
Paige wanted to ask him to come inside. To stay. But, he didn’t want her. The ‘come on too fast line,’ was just that…a line.
They were both adults. They’d known each other for six years. They weren’t strangers in the least.
She wanted the kiss to keep going. Paige wanted it to be more than a kiss. And she’d really let herself believe he was interested. That he wanted her the same way she craved him.
Instead of trying to convince him to stay, she watched him drive away.
He’d been so concerned she’d run or pull away, but this time, it was all him. This time, he’d run and there wasn’t enough alcohol in her little house to drown the disappointment.
Maybe Hillary had left one of those Nicolas Sparks movies over from last night. A good cry was exactly what Paige felt like having tonight. And she never cried.
Chapter Five
This was all Dee’s damn fault. Adam threw his truck keys on the kitchen table and ignored his sister-in-law kneading dough at the counter. She had a big nose she liked to put into Adam’s business when it came to Deirdre Trewitt and he didn’t dare ask where Dee was.
“Adam, you come over here and give me a kiss on my cheek, or I’m going to tell your brother to skin your hide.” Tonya’s voice was sweet, on the edge of saccharine.
Adam froze in the door and weighed his options. She didn’t want a kiss on the cheek. She wanted to talk.
He didn’t want to talk to anyone.
With hurried steps, he came around the big kitchen island and kissed the top of Tonya’s head.
She cleared her throat. “What are you trying to hide from me, Adam? You think because I’m not a wolf, I won’t know.” One flour-caked finger came up in the air and she gave him the old come hither.
He leaned around her and placed a quick kiss on her bare cheek. She grabbed his chin and held his face with white-tipped, floury fingers.
“You’re gonna tell me, if I have to hold you here like this while your brother comes in from the barn.”
The large kitchen was empty of other people, but full of food. Tonya had soup pots boiling and pans of casserole in ovens. She must have been making biscuits, because she had her grandmother’s hand-written note card on the counter in front of her. No one could make biscuits like Tonya.
Except Paige. Paige could make anything taste like heaven. Even her own skin. Tasting her neck had been like mainlining the smell of the bakery—the one he had always attributed to Meg Klein’s magic in the kitchen. Except it turned out to be magick, and Adam felt duped.
How could he possibly know someone for six years and not know there was magick between them? Nothing on earth should’ve tasted as good as Paige had. If he hadn’t been so close to the moon, and so aware of his wolf, he might have just kept kissing her and tasting her until…
No. Fate couldn’t possibly have been hiding for six whole years in the smell of Paige in the bakery. Fate couldn’t have dragged him in to that place every Friday just so he could sit around and not know who his mate was.
Paige could not possibly be his mate.
He was too close to the moon. He was on edge. He hadn’t gotten laid in weeks. He was misreading the magick. He had to be.
“I said—” Tonya held up her finger in admonishment.
“I heard you.” He picked up an apple from the fruit bowl and crunched down hard, breaking the skin and letting the juice spill over his chin. Maybe he could eat his way out of this craving. Adam wiped at his chin and crossed to the refrigerator. “Is there anything left from lunch?”
“Adam Benjamin VonBrandt.” She pushed the fridge door closed with the toe of her cowboy boot. “You just ate.”
Boy howdy, that wasn’t even a little true. Hunger gnawed at his stomach.
“I’m hungry.”
“Then finish the apple, and leave my leftovers for when the company’s all gone tomorrow.” She pinned him with a hard stare. “We’re gonna eat dinner in an hour”
Adam crunched another bite of apple. “That’s not soon enough.”
Tonya put one floury hand on her hip. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I need to talk to someone.” He took another big chunk. It wasn’t helping.
“You can talk to me.”
“I can’t talk to you.”
Her long sigh set his nerves on edge. “Is this about Deirdre Trewitt? Because I swear to the gods, Adam, you saw her tattoos like we all did, and I know I don’t have to tell you—”
“It’s not like that.” He stepped on the lever of the garbage and threw the apple core at the back of the can, then let the top slam closed. That didn’t make him feel any better, either.
“Then what’s it like?”
“I don’t want to…” He stopped. How did you tell your sister that you weren’t trying to fuck a married woman without sounding like a total douche? “She has something I need to get back from her.”
Tonya drew her eyebrows together. “I don’t believe that even for a second.”
“Then don’t believe me.” Adam threw up a hand. “Just tell me where she is.”
Concern edged its way across her face. “Okay, that isn’t like you at all. What’s wrong?”
He forced out a long g
ust of air. There were no more words. He had to find out, first of all, if it was Dee and her boy toy that had been at Paige’s farm. On Maslow’s hierarchy, his mating issues had to come after that.
“I’m just not in the mood for Dr. Phil today, Tonya.” He avoided her eyes. “Do you know where Deirdre is?”
His sister-in-law gave him another glare, like she was trying to read his face. but he shook his head. “Nevermind. I’ll just go—”
“She’s in the dining room, polishing the stemware.” Tonya turned back to her biscuits. “Did you order the kolaches for tomorrow?”
His mouth hung open. That had been half the reason for going to the bakery at all that morning. They needed a big bunch of food for when everyone woke up after they finally got some rest from the run. Instead, he’d seen Paige… then that kiss. He’d forgotten all about the pastries. “I was…I mean, I did…no, I didn’t. Nevermind. I’ll call Berg.”
She shook her head with a loud sigh. “Something’s got you in knots, Adam, and if you don’t get it out, it’ll eat you right up.”
He stomped through the kitchen, into the dining room, trying to ignore the weight of those words. Too much truth for a Friday afternoon.
Dee stood, her back to him, with a long-stemmed wine glass in one hand and a white towel in the other. She held the glass up to the light and her shirt slipped down one arm, revealing the green swirl of her bonded tattoo.
He used to become aroused when he saw her, especially when they were alone in a public place, like the stables of Trewitt’s Oklahoma ranch. But today, he couldn’t even muster the feeling of attraction. Sure, she was still beautiful, but those tattoos were like hard-on repellant.
“You breathe like a Neanderthal,” she said.
Adam tightened his lips. She couldn’t possibly have heard him standing there, breathing. Not possible.
“What do you want?” Dee placed the glass on the table and picked up another, wiping at it with careful strokes.
“You and your mate, you were out running last night?”
Dee’s head shook from side to side and she set down the other glass. “You just won’t let this go, will you?”
“Won’t let what go? I just asked if you went running.”
“You and I are not a couple, Adam.” She whirled around. “We haven’t ever been, not really.”
He put his hands up to stop her. “Listen, here. I do not want to couple with you. I just asked if—”
“I heard you.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you want to know?”
“Call it curiosity.”
“Or call it bullshit.” Dee crossed behind the table and walked toward him, along the side of the room, keeping her distance like a cat. “Why would you care?”
“I found tracks today,” he lied, averting his eyes. “Tracks leading off our property. That’s dangerous, Dee. That’s why we ask people not to run on their own around here.”
“We went off your property?” She stopped walking and stood across from him, her arms crossed in defiance.
“Yes. There’s a big rock up by the northeast side… only you were off the property.”
Her big eyes rounded. So it had been her. With an apologetic look, she kept coming around the table. “I’m so sorry, Adam. We didn’t know.”
“That’s why you don’t run alone.”
“We just… we get caught up in each other, in the magick, and we must’ve missed the boundary.”
Adam raised one hand to stop her. “Don’t worry, no one saw you. But we have bred our hybrid dogs for a reason—to keep the locals off our scent—and everyone knows they don’t leave the property. If people were to see you…”
“I know. We have the same trouble at home.”
“Even if you’re wrapped up in your mate, you’ve got to pay attention to things like this.”
When she kept walking to him, Adam could feel his whole body closing up for business. Something about her nearness made him uncomfortable. She wouldn’t attempt a rekindle any more than he would, but it still felt wrong, and more intensely than it had even a day ago.
“You just don’t understand what it feels like.” She closed her eyes and sucked air through her teeth. “When you and your mate are running and hunting and your blood is pumping…you can’t imagine it.”
A big rock lodged itself in his throat. He could imagine it. In fact, he could have imagined it a million ways when he had his arms around Paige. Not the being a wolf part, but the magick part.
Only… it just didn’t make sense.
“What?” she asked.
He tried to shake her off, but she kept advancing toward him. Adam backed into the wall. “Nothing.”
“No, I could feel your energy change. Something happened.”
Adam took a long breath. “You have to promise you won’t tell anyone I told you.”
The solemn gleam in her eyes made him almost trust her.
“I didn’t want to ask my brother. He’s a nosy jackass and would try to fix it, and Allan, well he’s about as useless as tits on a hog lately.”
She sat on the edge of the dining table and leaned in, her posture all sympathetic. “You can talk to me,” she whispered.
“I want to know if Fate would ever lie to you.”
Dee’s back straightened. “Lie? I don’t understand.”
He sighed. “Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that you’ve known someone for years, and you’ve never felt anything other than comfort around them, but then…”
He trailed off, looking off into the corner of the dining room and remembering the feel of his hands on Paige’s skin and the magick, almost addictive taste of her lips. He wasn’t sure he could put it into words for Dee.
When he glanced back at her, the place she’d occupied was vacant. His gaze moved quickly around the room and he found her back near the half-dirty glassware. “What the hell?”
She held up one glass, pointing it at him like a sword. “You said this wasn’t about me, Adam, but I swear to gods, I am mated.”
He threw his hands in the air. “This isn’t about you. It’s hypothetical.”
“It’s not hypothetical, and we all know it. No one ever asks real hypothetical questions like this. There’s always a motive.”
Adam stuffed his hands in his pocket and moved for the door. “Never mind. I should’ve known you’d pitch some fit.”
Just as he was shouldering his way into the hallway, Dee called his name and scurried after him. Her hand was on his arm and he stopped.
“I’m sorry. What did you want to ask me?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” He tried to shove her touch off, but her persistent fingers kept a grip on him.
“Adam, I’m sorry. I want to help you.”
With his back to her, he let all the emotion he’d been holding back pour into his voice. “Does Fate ever lie to you? You know someone for years and…nothing…but then suddenly, one day, poof. Like werewolf sandwich.”
Her laughter eased some of his tension, but something pressed at his insides like it would expand right through him.
“Fate is fate. It has as much to do with timing as it does the person.” She pulled at his arm, lightly. “I’d met William twice before I knew he was my mate.”
He chewed on the end of his tongue. He wanted to tell her the whole thing, and have her tell him what it all meant. Adam couldn’t read Fate’s fucking mind. “So you didn’t have that feeling the first time you met him?”
“We were kids.” Dee laughed and kept pulling at his arm. “Come on. Talk to me. I can help you.”
He yanked himself away from her touch. “Thanks. But I don’t need your help.” Before she could grab him again, he was through the door and into the hallway. The hubbub of noise that greeted him was too much to handle.
Allan and his mate were yelling at each other in the library. Or maybe it was Aria, that other wolf from New Orleans. She wasn’t half bad to look at.
Had he gotten close enough to her to k
now if he felt any kind of magick with her? He couldn’t remember.
Adam stopped outside the library door. Maybe he should go sit down next to her and just check it out.
There had to be ten single female wolves at the ranch for the moon run, from different packs all around the area. Maybe he could sit down next to each one of them. See if Fate would give him some kind of sign.
Because he wasn’t going to fuck around with this thing with Paige. He liked her. Really liked her. Wanted her. But he wasn’t going to give in to some kind of lust-haze unless she was The One.
There were plenty of single women out there he could fuck who wouldn’t expect him to call the next day. But Paige would expect him to call, and call, and call, and he might just want that, too.
Could that really be how Fate worked? It wasn’t like Allan and his mate, or like his parents, or like his nephew Noah. They’d all known right away.
He had to figure this out, because the last thing in the world he wanted to do was hurt Paige Lewis because he couldn’t get control of his hard-on around her. The absolute last thing.
Chapter Six
Adam pulled on the clothes he’d hidden in the barn. The heart-pounding breathlessness of a post-run shift had his blood racing. It was a toss-up between whether he’d rather run a marathon or sleep for a week, normally, but this time, he was all wound up.
He walked out the door and almost ran right in to a naked, female ass. His tongue turned over in his mouth so he wouldn’t say anything stupid or sexist, but it was a nice ass.
The girl looked over her shoulder as she pulled a skirt up. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
At the sudden nudity, Adam expected some response in his body. Maybe he was too caught up in coming down from running with the other wolves all night.
He nodded at the girl. “You’re just fine. I was the one who didn’t look where he was going.”
She was attractive, with dark hair and frosty eyes. She looked familiar, but Adam couldn’t quite place her. There hadn’t been enough time to meet everyone from all four families who’d come in for the run, and he hadn’t managed to do much more than fumble through the house after he got back from Paige’s.
To Find a Mate: Somewhere, TX Saga (VonBrandt Family Book 4) Page 4