by T. S. Joyce
Gentry pulled her away from the door enough to open it, and oh, here was the sendoff. Disappointment unfurled in Blaire’s chest. It had all been so beautiful while it lasted. He guided her with a gentle touch on her lower back. She half-expected him to say goodnight and go back in before she got off the porch, but he shocked her when he walked her silently the entire way to her cabin across the snowy parking lot. She was freezing again, on account of the blanket that was still sitting in the middle of his great room, the wetness on her stomach, and the frigid temperature, but he seemed perfectly at ease without a shirt on. His perfect little nipples weren’t even perked up.
“You’re not cold?” she asked.
He’d had a faraway expression in his face, but at her question, Gentry frowned and looked down at himself. “Oh. Uh, I’m used to living in cold temperatures. My body adjusted a long time ago.” He zipped up his pants and fastened his belt like that would convince her.
“Right,” she murmured suspiciously, stepping up onto her porch. “Well, thanks for dinner and, you know…after.” At least her cheeks were warm.
Gentry stayed on the bottom step but still wouldn’t look at her. He ran his hand roughly over his head. “I had fun.”
Blaire pursed her lips at how detached he sounded. “Me, too,” she murmured. “Night, Chaos.”
The corner of his lip quirked up, and he flashed her a bright-eyed look. “Night, Trouble.”
He turned and strode for his cabin, his hands shoved in his pockets, eyes on the woods to the left, and his breath freezing on every exhale.
She turned to go inside, but Gentry called over his shoulder, “Hey, Blaire?”
“Yeah?”
“If you’re into macaroni, it’s happening at eight in the morning before I head into town.” His wicked grin was back as he stood in the middle of the shadowy parking lot.
He was giving her a charming smirk that probably got him whatever he wanted with other women. Dangerous territory, that one.
Blaire leaned on the railing of her porch and played coy. “I’ll have to check my schedule.”
He narrowed his eyes and nodded. “Probably best if you’re busy. I’m bad news for a woman like you.”
“What kind of woman is that?” she asked, trying not to let her teeth chatter.
His grin slowly grew. “A good girl.” He gave her a wink and turned, his gaze lingering on her for a moment before he gave her his back and walked to his cabin without another look.
Oh, that man knew what he was doing. He knew how to play games. For a moment, she’d thought she was the feline, but he’d reminded her she was the tiny mouse instead. He’d known the exact thing to say to dare her into joining him for breakfast. Call her a “good girl,” and everything in her wanted to prove him wrong, especially after what they’d done tonight.
“Hmm,” she hummed, narrowing her eyes as he closed the door to his cabin behind him.
She had the marrow-deep feeling that for the next week, Gentry Striker was going to be a beautiful distraction from the mess her life had become.
Chapter Five
What the fuck had possessed him to do that? He’d jizzed all over her like a dog marking his territory. And in a way, he was! His wolf thought that was a great idea, spraying her stomach like that. He hadn’t meant to do it, though. He’d meant to keep her clean, but when it came down to it, she tasted so good, felt so warm and soft against his body, smelled so damn good, made those sexy little bedroom noises every time he touched her, he hadn’t been able to stop his wolf. Shit! He couldn’t lose control like that again. He’d been fighting his inner animal half the time they were fooling around. And he was letting his armor slip. She’d asked him about the cold not affecting him, but she hadn’t bought his excuse. He could tell. Blaire was a smart woman. She would figure him out quick if he didn’t get control of himself.
Kissing her? It was against werewolf law to mix with humans, and he hadn’t even made it a damn night before he was on her like a rutting animal.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Wolves didn’t fool around with humans like he was doing with Blaire. She wasn’t supposed to call to him, and yet here he was, pacing the living room, completely consumed by thoughts of her.
Okay. Settle down. There is a logical explanation.
Dad just died a week ago. Gentry was spiraling, in a place he hated, pissed at his brothers for staying MIA, and he was horny as fuck. Yeah, that was all this was. He would bring them back around to the friend zone tomorrow, keep his dick far away from her, and in six tiny days, she would be gone forever.
A long snarl blasted from his throat that he had to swallow down. He was breaking apart! Gentry needed to do something because pacing the living room wasn’t helping, and he had another boner just thinking about the way Blaire’s tits had looked all covered with his semen. God, he’d wanted her so bad. He’d wanted to be buried balls deep inside her more than he’d ever wanted anything. It was a miracle he didn’t go too far. No, fuck that, he’d still gone too far. He’d kissed her and touched her and made her come twice, and then he’d freaking marked his territory like an animal. And she wasn’t his! Not even close. Could never be his, so again, what the fuck was he doing?
He wanted to kill her ex for making her feel invisible, and he didn’t even know the asshole. He wanted to feed her, and not macaroni like he’d joked. The first thing he’d done when he came back in was pull out a sirloin from the freezer to thaw because Blaire deserved steak and eggs and food fit for a queen. She was a queen. Classy but with a secret freak-side he found so damn sexy. Would probably make cute little red-headed pups. No, not pups—she was human. Something was wrong with him, or broken. And, hell yeah, he was panicking. He’d never even met another werewolf who hooked up with a human, and here he was imagining Blaire holding his firstborn kid. Fuck!
Gentry needed to Change.
His entire body was humming and felt like it was being shredded. This was going to suck with a healing rib, but there wasn’t any help for it. He would never sleep until he let the wolf roam the winter woods outside.
He undressed on his way to the back door, leaving a pile of jeans and boxer briefs in his wake. Outside, the snow prickled against his bare feet, but it still wasn’t uncomfortable enough to make him wince. He froze and listened. Blaire’s soft voice was so quiet behind the walls of her cabin he could barely make out her humming. She was happy.
Good.
“Stop caring,” he growled out to his asshole wolf. “You’re going to get us killed.”
And worse than that, he was going to get Blaire hunted. A relationship would be dangerous for both of them. Werewolves didn’t go too far off the beaten path. Not even rogues paired up with humans. It was taboo. It wasn’t just frowned upon either. It. Was. Forbidden.
Breeding with humans would be the end of the species. It would mean no more werewolf pups being born. It would mean exposure to other humans and certain death in some government testing facility somewhere, or as war-dog weapons in human wars. There were rules in place for a reason, and Gentry believed in the need for those rules.
Bullshit.
“Fuck you.”
His spine cracked, and Gentry bent in on himself suddenly. His wolf was punishing him by crippling his body and Changing slowly, breaking one bone at a time and drawing out the pain.
He gritted his teeth against the urge to grunt. That would only make Wolf happy. He hated when it was like this, when he and the animal were fighting. It was times like these that Gentry realized just how much control Wolf had.
Minutes of torture dragged on, but still Gentry refused to cry out. He wouldn’t give Wolf the satisfaction, and the last thing he needed was for Blaire to come out and investigate a strange noise. He hadn’t made it far enough away from the house and was breaking apart in the snow just on the edge of the back porch light.
Those minutes felt like an eternity, but at long last, the pain subsided, and Wolf lay panting and whole on a layer of ice. His
fur kept him warm from the stiff wind, and he could smell everything, see everything, hear everything. Blaire was singing a bluesy song about a man falling from everything to nothing. She didn’t sound unhappy, though, despite the song choice. Pretty voice. She would make a good she-wolf. Pretty howl. Too bad his bite wouldn’t turn her. Only ten percent survived the bite, and most of them were men. His bite would poison her for three days until she passed away in a slow death that would turn any witness’s hair gray.
He wasn’t supposed to kiss her for a reason. Werewolves liked to bite when they fucked. The instinct had been there tonight, overwhelming almost. All it would take was one hard kiss, a bleeding lip just deep enough, and he would be the death of her. Fragile humans. Easily poisoned. Easily killed.
He couldn’t be the death of her.
Wolf stood and shook snow from his coarse, gray coat.
He wouldn’t hurt her. The woods blurred by as he loped through the thick trees and brush. He couldn’t hurt her. She was his to protect from the Bone-Ripper Pack. At least for a week. He wouldn’t bite her too hard. He would be gentle with her always if it meant he could keep her.
We can’t keep her, Wolf. The human side of him was Logic.
But Wolf was Instinct. Wolf was Want and Desire. Fuck you, Logic.
He huffed a wolf laugh as the human side tried to Change back. It was a wave of nausea and then nothing. Logic thought he was in control, but he wasn’t. Wolf only let him think that so he could function normally around the humans and blend in. Dumb fuck thought he was going to put Blaire in the friend-zone tomorrow. Hell no.
Wolf was going to hunt her down a present, and tomorrow he would fuck her proper. Get her attached to him. Make her crave him. Get her to love him and stick around. He’d wanted a mate for two years, and Logic had denied him. Logic had run from every woman, thinking they would settle him. He’d run from everyone and everything he’d ever known. He’d made them be rogues, but maybe Wolf didn’t want to be a rogue anymore. Maybe he didn’t want to be on the outside. Maybe he wanted everything. War, blood, pack, Blaire, pups from Blaire.
She won’t make you pups, Wolf. She can’t.
Wolf yipped to drown out the voice of his human side.
Wolf wouldn’t let Logic run from Blaire. Perhaps he would hunt her ex and bleed him slowly so she wouldn’t look sad anymore when she talked about him. She wasn’t invisible. She was vibrant and beautiful and funny and everything good that Wolf wasn’t. She would wash his soul clean. She would make him forget all the wolves he killed, all the bad things he’d done.
She would make him forget how much his heart hurt when he thought about Dad, Roman, and Asher.
Wolf was dark inside, always had been, but Blaire was bright and chased away the shadows. She made him want to breed and settle. She made him want to defend her and protect her and make her happy. She made him want to take care of someone other than himself, fight more efficiently, and claim territory.
Blaire Hayward—fragile human beauty—made him want to be a better werewolf.
Chapter Six
Blaire held the comforter clutched to her chest as she listened to another long wolf howl rising. Rising like the sun on the eastern horizon, rising like the fine hairs all over her body.
She’d had no idea wolves lived in this area, but the terrifying predator had lifted his voice for the first time five minutes ago, and Blaire was still frozen in fear, even safe and warm inside the cabin.
It sounded so close.
It was probably just the mountains making the voice carry and sound much closer than it was. And see? There, it stopped now. The monster was probably on its way back to its den miles and miles and miles away to sleep for the day. She hoped. Blaire knew embarrassingly little about wolves.
As the minutes dragged on and the animal didn’t sing again, a wave of potent relief washed through her. Sure, the sound had been beautiful, and a part of her felt lucky. How many people could say they’d heard a wild wolf howl? But animals with sharp teeth and hunting instincts scared her.
Blowing out a sigh to expel the rest of her tension, Blaire rolled out of bed and padded to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. But when she reached the main living area, a horrifying scratching sound shook the front door.
Blaire yelped and bolted the rest of the way to the kitchen, grabbed the biggest knife out of the block, and held it toward the door with shaking hands as another scratch rattled the door. It sounded like a dog clawing to get in, but in her heart, she just knew it was the wolf that had been making all that noise.
She was being hunted.
Her cell phone was in the bedroom on the charger. Maybe she should call the police, or animal control. Gentry would’ve been her first choice, but she didn’t have his number, and she sure as heck wasn’t opening a window to yell at his cabin. She didn’t want to get her face eaten off by a freaking wolf!
She stood there petrified except for her shaking hands clutching the butcher knife. Her legs wouldn’t move because in her illogical fear-filled mind, if she moved, the wolf would sense her in here like some heat-seeking dinosaur, break through the front window, and devour her.
Move, she mouthed to herself. As quietly as she could, she padded to the front window and pushed the curtain aside slowly with her fingertips.
There was something on the porch, but it wasn’t the wolf she’d imagined.
It looked like a… Blaire narrowed her eyes. Was that a limp turkey?
Movement caught her eye, and she nearly swallowed her tongue when she saw Gentry headed this way over the snow-covered parking lot. He wore jeans low on his hips and was pulling a white sweater over his head. Abs and perfect chest and that sexy V of muscle and, holy moly, she’d forgotten for a moment how drop-dead gorgeous he was. But when his face showed through the neck hole, she grimaced and hunched her shoulders. He looked utterly pissed off. What had she done now?
He marched up the porch with a deep frown on his face, picked up the—yep, it was definitely a dead turkey—by the feet and stomped off the porch and back toward his cabin.
Blaire sprinted for the door, threw it open, and yelled out before he got too far away. “What just happened?”
“Nothing important,” he called in a voice that was hoarse like he’d been yelling all night. “Breakfast is canceled. Rough night. I’ll see you later.” He didn’t even turn around once before he made his way back into his cabin with the limp poultry and slammed the door behind him.
The wind was arctic against her cheeks, but the sting of the frigid temperature was nothing compared to the slap she felt on her heart. Last night she hadn’t been able to sleep because she was so excited about breakfast. She was looking forward to seeing Gentry again and getting to know him better. A man who made her body feel like it did last night had to be worth getting to know, right? He hadn’t just screwed her and fulfilled his own desires. He’d taken care of her, put her needs before his, made her come twice to his once, and didn’t push them too far.
Too far…
Some dim memory ate at the very corner of her mind. I’m not even supposed to kiss you.
He’d said that last night, but distracted her away from the admission immediately. What did that mean?
Realization slammed into her like a sack of bricks. He wasn’t supposed to kiss her because he was with someone. He didn’t wear a wedding band. She’d checked. But that didn’t mean he was single. Now it made sense. He was off the table, and look what they’d done.
Blaire felt sick to her stomach.
She didn’t know who his girlfriend was, but Blaire’s guilt was bottomless. And if she was honest, she was instantly mad at him for not telling her and not stopping them last night.
He was only the second man she’d experienced intimacy with, and now she’d probably ruined some poor girl’s life who probably loved him, because why wouldn’t she? Gentry was confident, mysterious, strong, and sensual, and now he was chopping dang logs in that sexy tight sweater and jeans like he
was some sexier version of the abominable snowman. If she had a rock disguised as a snowball right now, she would chuck it at his dick. The dick he was supposed to be using on his girlfriend. Or crap, she could even be his fiancé, Blaire didn’t know.
She slammed the door hard, but it banked back and hit her. With a screech, she slammed it again, followed it with her fists, and punched it closed the rest of the way.
“Ouch,” she yelped, rubbing her knuckles. Her fury was still infinite, bubbling up inside of her until she couldn’t see straight, so she stuck out her middle finger at the door. Felt good, so she did it with the other hand, too. And then she alternated her middle-fingers, jamming them toward where stupid, sexy Gentry was chopping wood like a dang hot lumberjack, probably to tempt her into being the other woman again. She made machine gun sounds as she punched her birds at the door. Still enraged, she karate kicked at the air, and then stomped into the bedroom.
She felt dirty. So dirty! This was all his fault. She might puke. Don’t look at the toilet.
Blaire’s eyes burned with tears that she refused to let spill, so she blinked over and over. She readied for the day in a haze, her mind spinning around and around her disappointment, not only in herself for not getting to know him better before fooling around with him, but for him being an unfaithful B-hole. And to be honest, her heart hurt way more than it should’ve. This was what men did, right? Of course, it was. Gentry was seven levels out of her league, younger than her by years, and the owner of this giant, beautiful inn. He could have whoever he wanted. And he did! And last night it just so happened to be her. Tonight it would be whoever he was dating.