Ten
Three days later, Laina could almost forget she’d promised to live with Kyle Kingsley. Waking up after a night of being a wolf was a lot like waking up after a night of heavy drinking. Flashes of color, sounds, and scents came back to her as she blinked her eyes up at the clear blue sky. Leaves crinkled in her hair. Dirt coated her naked skin. But it was the stretched-out, used-up, mild ache of her muscles she liked best. The closest you could get as a human was the day after skiing or running a marathon. The compensating rush of endorphins created a sublime state of being. She was elated… and hungry.
A rustle and groan next to her signaled Cameron’s waking. His manhood flopped against his hip as he rolled over and stretched. She giggled and averted her eyes. A few yards away, Jason was unfolding next to Lucile, the latter’s curly gray hair matted with sweat. Even at sixty-five she was as fast and strong as any of them. A living legend. Her sixteen-year-old granddaughter, Amanda, was already awake and desperately searching for her clothes in the tent near the door to Monty’s. This was her first group shift. Time for Laina to be a proper princess.
She stood and joined Amanda at the pile. “It gets easier,” she said to the girl. “You’re new to this, and I’m sure the nudity is distracting, but you’ll get used to it. Well, during the full moon. At other times it will be just as awkward.” Laina grinned at her.
Amanda pulled a Carlton City High School T-shirt over her head, her Fireborn tattoo disappearing beneath the sleeve.
“Your tattoo seems to have healed properly,” Laina said. The pack high priestess, or Preotka, administered the tattoos using a claw of the original Fireborn ancestor, called the primary. After a werewolf’s first shift, which usually occurred in private with immediate family only, the tattooing ceremony was held to initiate the youngling into the pack. It was a ceremony most wolves considered as important as their mating or a birth.
“I can’t believe how much I like shifting,” Amanda said. “Last night… I can remember chasing an opossum through the woods. I was so fast. And the way the air huffed down my throat.” Her fingers stroked her neck, her eyes misting over. “Will it always be like that?”
Laina, who had pulled her own shirt on in an effort to set the girl at ease, smiled warmly. “Yes. It will always be like this. It’s important to be safe. Never shift alone. Stay away from humans. Plan ahead for a safe place to run. Try not to let it affect your employment. But once you’ve done those things, enjoy. For three nights, you’re totally free.”
The girl gave her a quick, awkward hug. “Thank you, Laina. I’m so glad it was you here today. No offense, but Silas scares me.”
Laina squeezed her shoulders. “Silas scares us all. Now, come on. As the newbie, it is tradition that you help fire up the mess hall. I’m ready for breakfast.”
The picketers from Eternal Light Ministries were out in full force when Laina arrived at Hunt Club that afternoon. She honked her horn and revved her engine and they reluctantly parted to let her through to the gatehouse. This time, Taneesha recognized her and directed her to the main house rather than the service entrance.
From the front, Hunt Club Mansion was even more beautiful than what she’d seen from the service entrance, with gorgeous stone masonry and multiple towers that made her feel like she was driving up to Cinderella’s castle. An adult version that is. The female valet who offered to park her car was wearing hip boots, a bustier, and a tail.
“This is Neverland,” she said under her breath, cocking an eyebrow. “The place where men never grow up. Wrong on so many levels.”
The door opened before she had a chance to knock. “Welcome to the King’s Lair,” an elderly woman in formal maid’s attire said. Her half smile suggested the greeting was tongue in cheek, or else she personally couldn’t take it seriously. The woman didn’t fit the Hunt Club mold with her gray hair and bifocals. Laina liked her immediately.
She was about to introduce herself when Kyle jogged into the spacious foyer. If anything, he’d gotten better looking since the day he’d walked into the animal hospital. The jeans he wore hugged his hips and skimmed softly over his lower body, bending and stretching in all the right places. His shirt was black, collared, and rolled past his elbows. Gorgeous and easy, as if he climbed out of bed looking like the goddess’s gift to women.
Laina fumbled with her purse and bag, pretending to be immune.
“Thanks for coming, La—”
“Anna,” she corrected him.
He nodded and reached for her. For a moment, her stomach fluttered as she anticipated his touch. What was he doing? But he simply pulled her bag from her shoulder, his warm fingers brushing the skin near the scoop neck of her T-shirt, and transferred it to his shoulder.
“Your room is this way.” For some reason, she was surprised when he took it upon himself to carry her bag, what with the housekeeper standing right beside them. Although she had to admit he had consistently behaved like a gentleman toward her, the feminist in her could not reconcile this gentlemanly behavior with his business. Hunt Club was a brand that reduced women to club décor. She warned herself not to fall for his charms.
When they’d reached the end of the hall, he placed her bags down on a four-poster bed in a room as big as the apartment she was staying in above Monty’s.
“I’m right across the hall. I’ve been keeping Milo in my room, but now that you’re here, maybe you can get him out more.”
“Surely, you don’t keep him in there all the time,” she said incredulously, the animal lover in her perking to attention.
“I take him out in the morning and before I go to bed, but it’s the best place for him while I’m working.”
She cringed and shook her head. So he treated his pets even worse than he treated his women. “Big dogs need exercise and socialization. He’s not a toy you can put away. No wonder he’s having behavioral problems. You’re using him like he’s disposable.”
Pulling back as if she’d struck him, he collected himself. “Look, I don’t think he’s a toy to be put away.” His tone was calm and gentle, completely unlike hers. “The dog doesn’t listen to anyone. It drools all over the house, chews up anything it can get its mouth on, and scares the staff. I lead a very busy life and Milo’s coming here was unexpected. I’m trying my best to accommodate him.” He spread his hands. “That’s why you’re here. You’re going to teach me how to do this, right?”
She sighed. Many new owners were completely unprepared to care for a dog like Milo. It wasn’t fair for her to load all her judgments about Kyle’s lifestyle onto his treatment of his dog.
“Maybe you should introduce us again. The last time he saw me, he was sick. Better he associates me with a more positive experience.”
He gestured toward the door. “Come on.” Across the hall, Kyle showed her into a room even larger than the first with a curved wall of windows overlooking miles of forest, a natural IMAX of the great outdoors, the inner lair of the fairy-tale castle. A king-sized bed the size of a small island stood against one wall of the room, but as Laina entered, she couldn’t miss Milo. The mastiff had destroyed what appeared to have been a couch at the far end of an attached sitting room, his guilt-ridden face turning up to hers from the center of a cloud of shredded stuffing.
“Milo!” Kyle dug his fingers into his hair. “Another one?”
“Another—” She darted a glance at Kyle and back at Milo. “Has he done this before?”
“Twice.”
A giggle bubbled up Laina’s throat and she pressed two fingers over her lips to suppress it.
“Oh yes, laugh at my pain. I see how you are.” A ghost of a smile drifted through his expression.
“How long has he been in here by himself?”
Kyle groaned. “An hour.”
“Oh.” The giggle was back, erupting from deep within her chest. She gave up and allowed the laugh to come full force.
Mouth gaping and hands on his hips, Kyle waited until she was finished, looking positiv
ely traumatized by her behavior. “Can you help me, or not?”
She straightened to her full height and strode directly toward Milo, who immediately assumed a submissive position, head down, tail between his legs. “Oh, he knows what he did. Look how he’s reacting. He’s practically crawling into the floor. That’s a good thing. That gives us something to work with.”
“If he knows, why did he do it?”
She shrugged. “He’s showing you he’s stressed, Kyle. Dogs are pack animals. They don’t celebrate when you leave the house with Netflix and ice cream. He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t trust you’re coming back. He’s bred to be a working dog, but he has nothing to do all day. He needs exercise and playtime. Social interaction. He needs to be with his pack.”
Kyle scratched the stubble on his jaw and stared at Milo with a look of frustration. “I can’t get another dog.”
“Not another dog. You, Kyle. You need to be his pack.” She stroked Milo’s head while Kyle digested that nugget. “Dogs soothe anxiety by chewing. I sense he’s coping with something more than loneliness and lack of exercise. Was Milo always nervous like this? What happened to his last owner?”
“As far as I know, Milo was a great dog. His owner died unexpectedly and I offered to take Milo when no one else in the family could. I wasn’t prepared to have a dog, but I thought he deserved better than the pound.” Kyle sighed.
Something in his voice caused Laina’s heart to sink. “How did you know his last owner?”
Kyle slipped his hands into his back pockets, trading his polished exterior for one bordering on exhaustion. “He was my father.”
Eleven
“Your father passed recently?” Laina noticed the note of pain that tightened the corners of Kyle’s eyes and thinned his lips. Goddess she was an idiot. “I’m sorry, Kyle. I didn’t know.”
Kyle sighed heavily. “It was a shock. My brother and I used to joke that the man was a cockroach; nothing could kill him. The guy smoked like a chimney, drank like he had a replaceable liver, and burned through women half his age while subsisting on a diet of bacon and butter sandwiches.”
Despite her attempt to remain respectfully solemn, she chuckled. “Quite a man.”
“You could say that. He was the quintessential American playboy. Actually, Hunt Club was his idea. It was the last business our company established with his direct involvement.”
“When did he decide to get Milo?” she asked.
“A few months before I came to see you. We didn’t know he was sick until the end. Everyone assumed he was off sowing his wild oats. Turns out he was spending his days dying in a cabin in Red Grove. The nurse said he got Milo because he wanted a guard dog near the end.”
Laina raised an eyebrow as Milo shook his jowls, drool spraying the remains of the couch cushions around him. His tongue lolled out the corner of his mouth as he looked up at her, the billows of his leathery nose snorting. “He may have chosen the wrong mastiff.”
“He does seem more of a chewer than a fighter,” Kyle said.
“Not just that, he’s an English Mastiff, not a bullmastiff.”
“There’s a difference?”
“A big one. English Mastiffs are bigger but much less aggressive. Don’t get me wrong, they can be protective of their owners and do make good watchdogs. His size and bark would be a major deterrent to most people. But it’s usually the bullmastiffs that are used for security. They’re more aggressive. You break into a house with a bullmastiff and his size would be the least of your worries. You’d likely get up close and personal with his teeth. English Mastiffs don’t have a mean bone in their bodies naturally.” As if to illustrate her point, Milo lay down near her feet and rolled onto his back. She squatted to scratch his belly, noticing the rash was completely gone. At least in that respect, Kyle was taking good care of him.
“I don’t think he was worried about getting robbed. She said his first night there, something big scratched at the door and scared the hell out of him. He thought it might have been a bear and wanted a pet who’d scare away any wild animals who took an interest in the place.”
Laina tapped her chin as she observed Milo and the couch he’d destroyed. “I think we’re dealing with more than an undisciplined dog here, Kyle. He’s grieving—just like you. Your dad was his pack, his alpha. All the feelings of loss you’re experiencing, he’s experiencing too.”
“He bonded with the old coot, huh?”
“Dogs weren’t meant to be alone,” she said, stroking Milo’s ears. “Milo is lonely. He wants a leader. If you want Milo to respect you, you need to win him over, get him to see you as his alpha. Not only will he feel secure enough to stop eating your furniture, he’ll be loyal and protective of you until the day he dies.”
Kyle’s polished smile faded into something more vulnerable. “How do I do that?”
“Two things.” She stood, dusting Milo’s hair from her hands. “The first is to earn his trust by caring for him on a predictable basis. That means he can’t spend all day locked in this room. He must be fed a quality diet, exercised regularly, and socialized with both people and other animals. He needs a predictable schedule that includes work and reward.”
Kyle snorted. “Don’t we all. What’s the second thing?”
She met Kyle’s stare. The effect was intense and immediate, her wolf standing at attention. “Love.”
Kyle’s gaze drifted over her face in an almost palpable way. “Love?”
“Seriously. A dog can tell when you love him. They need love the same as food or water. The same as humans do.” Her voice petered out at the end as she responded to the intensity of eye-to-eye contact. She looked away.
“So, we start with trust,” he murmured under his breath. He stepped in closer to her. “I wish we’d had that date. That first day I met you, you knocked me off my feet.”
“Please,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You are surrounded by supermodels. I highly doubt a woman with blood in her hair and smelling of fecal samples knocked you off your feet.”
A languid smile spread across his face. “There’s something about you. You’re different. Wild.”
“Why would you say I was wild?” She tried not to sound defensive, but the word felt too close to home. As if he somehow knew what she was.
He shrugged. “I mean it as a compliment. You just seem authentic, like the world hasn’t shaped you. You have no idea how rare that is.”
She sighed, her body softening. He stepped in closer. “So, how about rescheduling our date?”
He was close enough to kiss and the intensity of his stare seemed to indicate he was open to the idea. She could smell his desire for her. It hung in the air like the rich spice of roasted nutmeg and cloves. Every part of Laina longed to kiss Kyle. It was clear by the way her wolf awakened and begged for his mouth, that Jason was right: Kyle was her vice. If she kissed him, she’d only want more. Already his presence was magnetic, almost like he was throwing off his own gravity.
And she had other concerns. The thought of being another notch in Kyle’s belt sickened her, but the real risk resided just under her skin. Although she’d been with humans before, her desire for those men didn’t have the edge this did. She was strong and she’d never dealt with emotions like this. Kyle had no idea how dangerous she could be. He may have owned Hunt Club, but there was only one predator in the room, and it was Laina.
His lips parted. He was so close, so intent on her. Laina warred with herself. She should stop. She should back away. But in the end, it was impossible. She closed the last sliver of space and planted her lips on his. Gently, his hands stroked her shoulders as he gave her mouth a soft, warm, and gentle caress.
She drew a breath through her nose, detecting a subtle trace of woody cologne with a mandarin top note, the deep forest scent she’d come to associate with him, a light chemical residue she recognized as dry cleaning solution, a hint of Milo, peppermint toothpaste, and underneath it all, the delicious spice of warm, passionate male s
he’d picked up earlier. His body warmed beneath her touch. His heart rate quickened. But the thing that made her wolf mad with passion was that despite living in this place and doing what he did, she could not detect even a hint of female on his skin.
With the slightest shift in his lips and the bend of his neck, she deduced he intended to end the kiss. She gripped his hips with both hands and pulled him against her, hard enough to make him grunt. Her hands worked under the tails of his shirt, over the smooth skin of his sides. She clawed his tight, firm muscles while she coaxed his lips apart and stroked his tongue with her own.
A wolfish growl rumbled from her chest, and she doubled her efforts to gain control. What was she doing? If she didn’t stop now, she never would. She called to mind the pictures Cameron had shown her of Kyle with other women. It was enough to take the edge off. Mustering her willpower, she removed her hands from his stomach and pushed him away.
“Jesus, lord in heaven.” He ran a hand over his face.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was… I don’t know what came over me.” She pressed three fingers to her lips.
He released a shaky breath. “I cannot communicate strongly enough how much I feel you should embrace your assertive tendencies. It works for you. Oh holy hell does it work for you.” His gaze raked over her breasts and he moved in again, reaching for her waist.
She held up both hands. “It was inappropriate.”
He stopped immediately. “Huh?”
“I’ll be honest. I find you attractive.”
“Good. The feeling is mutual.”
Her eyes shifted to the window and her fingers knotted in front of her hips. “I’ve spent too much time working lately, and the stress of what is happening in my personal life is overwhelming. It’s only natural I’d be drawn to you,” she said. “I’m sure you are used to casual sex. Maybe you even expect it. I need you to know, I hold myself to a higher standard. I got caught up in the moment. But I promise you, this is not who I am, and it won’t happen again.”
Vice (Fireborn Wolves Book 1) Page 8