Rico lifted her talons and flew at the four women. Ignoring their screams of panic, and the sounds of running, Jamie spun on her heel and stormed off, her boots stomping through the snow.
She didn’t know why she was so angry, but wow. Wow! How could she not see it? How could she not see that her coven thought so little of her? Well now she knew, didn’t she? And she was glad she did. Because this opened up doorways for her, didn’t it? She didn’t have to worry about them anymore. She didn’t have to worry she’d disappoint them or put them in danger or anything else. Now she knew she should have been a solitary all along. They’d been holding her back! Well, no more!
From now on she was going to be the witch they thought she was. She was going to be cruel and thoughtless and bloodthirsty and destroy any and everything in her way!
Nothing would stop her! Absolutely nothing!
And to prove it…
Jamie stopped walking, spotting a young deer quietly munching on tall grass shooting up through the snow. A worthy blood sacrifice. First she’d take its soul and then she’d take its blood.
She moved closer and the animal didn’t scamper away. Good. It was a foolish animal to trust her, but so what? She’d been just as foolish to trust her coven. But she wouldn’t be making that mistake again either.
Once Jamie stood over it, she raised her hands and silently called to the powers inside her. That was all she’d need to destroy it. The power inside her and the will to use it. And she had the will. She did. Just watch her.
Yep. She was going to do this.
Right now.
Any second.
Just watch her.
The deer stepped away from the grass and over to Jamie. It pushed up against her legs and waited.
Her shoulders slumped and Jamie reached down, brushing her hand over the deer’s head. Stretching its neck up, it licked her hand before walking off.
“I’m so useless,” she muttered, turning to watch it walk off but instead seeing it tackled from the side and slammed to the ground.
“No!” she screamed out. “No, no, no!”
The wolf stopped, its muzzle wrapped around the back of the deer’s neck, its amber-colored eyes wide in surprise, and its simple gold earring hanging from the tip of its ear.
“Let it go,” she said and Tully’s wide eyes narrowed. “Please.”
It was strange to hear a wolf sigh in clear annoyance and see it roll its eyes. No. It wasn’t strange…it was weird.
Tully released the deer and it took off running, blood streaming down its neck.
When she knew the deer was gone, Jamie said, “Thanks,” and started off again. But she only got a few feet when she stopped and stood there. She had no idea where she had been going earlier and no idea where she wanted to go now.
Back to New York?
Of course, she’d never be able to afford to buy back her condo or any real estate property in that overpriced state, and living with her parents or siblings, even temporarily, was equivalent to the short time she’d spent in hell. So where would she go? What would she do?
And then it hit her…that for the first time in Jamie’s life she felt lonely. She’d always been alone, the nature of her personality and innate power making it almost a necessity, so she was quite used to it. But she’d never been lonely. Yet standing in the middle of a town with people she wasn’t close to, a coven that thought the worst of her, and nothing to distract her, like books or TV, Jamie felt nothing but painfully lonely. And she hated it.
She blinked in surprise when she felt teeth—fangs really—grip her hand. She glanced down and was relieved to see that Tully wasn’t about to rip her arm off. Instead he gave a tug, which she initially ignored. But Tully was like her and not easily dissuaded, so he tugged a few more times until she started walking.
“Is there a reason you won’t shift back to human? Have you grown shy?” He snorted, finally releasing her hand when he seemed confident she would walk with him wherever he led.
She glanced around at the snow and couldn’t help but smile a little. “Worried the cold will make you less of a man to me?”
He nipped at her leg and then pushed his large wolf body into her hip, making her laugh a little.
Chapter Twelve
Jamie didn’t know how long they walked but she knew she was getting tired, proving it was time to get back on the treadmill. Since leaving her job in law enforcement and spending the majority of her time on metaphysical planes where her mind had way more control than her body, she’d not kept up her physical strength training at all. And for the first time…she felt it.
Eventually, they made it to a dirt road. It was barely big enough for a vehicle and Jamie guessed it was the road Tully took everyday from his house to wherever he ambled to. After ten months, she realized she’d never seen where Tully lived. She imagined his place looked a lot like Kyle’s, which was an extremely large wood cabin that Emma absolutely adored. It was rustic but with all the necessary equipment like working toilets and electricity. Then again, maybe Tully wanted something a little less permanent. There were two Packs of wild dogs that called Smithville home. One Pack lived in an enormous plantation-type place near the edge of town, but the other lived in RVs and trailers. Every nine months or so, they’d pack up and ship out…for about ten or twenty miles, then settle down again. It was weird but to be blunt…the wild dogs were always weird. Cute, but weird.
Of course, the way Tully seemed always to be roaming around town, she could easily imagine him having an RV as his…
Jamie stopped as they came around the last bend, her gaze moving up, her mouth hanging open.
Tully kept going, right to the front glass doors. He slapped at the stainless steel door handle with his paw. The door opened and he walked inside. But Jamie didn’t move. She couldn’t. Not with her gaze still fastened to what was in front of her. Three stories of glass, metal, and wood combined into what had to be the most amazing piece of modern architecture she’d ever seen.
After a few minutes, Tully stuck his head out the door. When he saw her still standing there, he trotted back outside and around her. His head pushed into her butt, making Jamie squeak in surprise before the continued pressure had her walking forward into the house. The door closed behind her and now-human Tully walked around her.
“Make yourself at home, beautiful. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He disappeared up a set of stairs and Jamie decided to follow Tully’s example and amble around. All the floors were made of hardwood and there were big, glass windows in every room. The kitchen made her drool with all that hard, shiny chrome and marble counters while the first-floor half-bath was nothing short of exquisite.
Okay, she’d be the first to admit it…Tully’s house was amazing. Not just nice or pretty or even fancy. It was beyond that. Yet, and this was what she found most shocking, it looked lived in. Her desire to stretch out on his shockingly oversized, light-colored couch nearly overwhelmed her and she instinctively knew he’d let her put her feet up on his tempered glass coffee table.
Done with the first floor, she went to the second. There were several elegant bedrooms, each with its own bath, and at the end of the hall was a really large office. It looked out over the ocean and Jamie could only let out a breath at the view. Shaking her head, she started out and then caught sight of the framed documents Tully had on his wall. She walked over and examined them closely before quickly heading out of the room and up to the third floor. There were only two rooms up here. One a bedroom and the other a bathroom. It was the bathroom she went to, walking in and all the way across the room to get to the shower. It was not a short trip.
She snatched the glass door open and stared at Tully.
Covered in soap and grinning, he asked, “Coming to join me, beautiful?”
“You went to Dartmouth? College?”
He blinked in surprise. “Only for undergrad.”
She took a small step back. “And then Cornell?”
&
nbsp; “To get my master’s.”
“In…”
“In architecture.” His smile came back. “How’d you figure that out?”
Jamie sized up the wolf before her. “Are you T. R. Smith? Of the T.R. Smith Design Group?”
His smile became a little bashful and she wanted to punch his face in. “Yeah. I am.”
Shocked and disgusted, Jamie slammed the shower door in his face and stormed off.
Tully had no idea what happened but he’d be damned if he’d let her storm off after all that.
She was already outside and stomping down his dirt road when he ran out in front of her. He’d shifted back, in no mood to deal with the cold. His fur was wet and he was damn unhappy about it all.
Jamie stopped when he skidded to a halt in front of her but tried to step around him. He snarled, bared his fangs. She snorted and rolled her eyes, which seemed a very Yankee kind of thing to do.
“Just move,” she ordered and again tried to walk around him. He stayed in front of her and then shook out his wet fur. Jamie squealed, her hands covering her face. “Stop that!”
He did but took the moment to grab the back of her jacket and yank her to the ground. Then, with his grip tight, he dragged her back to his house.
She kicked and screamed and he knew she wanted to hex him or something but he also knew she wouldn’t dare with him as wolf and since he hadn’t drawn blood yet. See? That’s what he tried to teach his daddy. It was always good to know a little something about “all that witch stuff” because you never knew when you’d need the information.
Once he had her back in the house, he decided there was only one way to keep her here until they were done talking. He had to get her naked. Which he did by shredding off her clothes with his paws and fangs. When he finished, her rude curses still ringing in his head, she sat on his floor with her knees raised and the palms of her hands flat on the floor. He liked how she didn’t cover herself up, how she didn’t try and hide her body from him. And yet…
Lord, if looks could kill.
He shifted once more and, on his hands and knees in front of her, asked, “Now isn’t that better?”
Her hand shot out and she caught hold of his earring, twisting until she had him flat on his back. “I am ripping this thing off!” she snarled.
He caught hold of her around the waist, gripping her body to him and rolling them over. “Let go,” he ordered now that he had her on her back.
“In hell!”
He knew if he loosened his hold to get a grip of her hands, she’d only follow through on her promise and rip the gold earring from his head. Desperate, he gripped the side of her breast with his mouth and unleashed his fangs until they rested just against her flesh.
Jamie gasped. “Don’t even think it!”
He growled. A good, healthy wolf growl, making sure to show all those lovely fangs he flossed twice a day for good dental hygiene.
“Okay. Okay.” She opened her hand, releasing his ear.
“Thank you,” he said before he pressed his lips against the spot on her breast where he’d taken hold.
“I don’t think so.”
He smiled and moved his lips closer to her nipple. “You don’t think so…what?”
“We’re not doing this again.”
Tully kissed the tip of her nipple. “You sure?” He swirled his tongue around it, enjoying how her breath caught. “I’m free until late this afternoon.”
“I don’t care if you’re free until the end of—” Her back arched as he took her nipple into his mouth and gently sucked.
“There’s no reason,” she panted out, “for us to do this again.”
“Who needs a reason”—he blew on the wet tip—“besides just wanting to?”
“I…I’ve had a bad morning.”
“Mine hasn’t been much better.” He kissed his way across her chest to her other breast. “You tossed me out like a five-dollar hooker.”
“So you’ve got something to prove?”
“No.” Using his lips he tugged and pulled her nipple. “I’ve got something to get.”
She needed to get out of here. She needed to get out of his arms and out of the immaculate architectural wet dream he called “his house” and get as far away from this man as she could manage without appearing as if she were running. She did have her dignity after all.
Reality was, Jamie had no delusions about who she was and what she wanted. Her coven may not know her, but she knew herself. Wielding the kind of power she held and not knowing your true self was simply a recipe for disaster. And in the end, what she understood about herself was that she couldn’t get all tangled up with this man. She couldn’t permanently attach herself to this town or this life, not when there was so much more out there for her. Waiting.
Yet even knowing all that, she still couldn’t bring herself to pull away. Couldn’t manage to drag her body out from under him and stomp off into the snow and out of this insane town for good. She could start over anywhere. She didn’t have to go back to New York. Hell, she didn’t have to stay in the States for that matter. There were power sources all over the world, waiting for her to pluck them up. The problem was, absorbed power never felt this good.
Tully moved down her body until he could take hold of her legs. He bent them back, her knees pressed into her chest, and then pushed them wide apart, his strong hands pinning her body to the ground. His mouth pressed against her, his tongue licking up the wetness he’d already caused from their scuffle while his fingers dug into her thighs.
Groaning, Jamie slammed her hands against his shoulders, trying to push him off, but he wouldn’t budge. Instead he burrowed deeper with his tongue, stroking the inside of her pussy until she writhed from the pleasure of it. At that point she stopped trying to push him away and gripped the back of his head, the damp strands of his hair tight between her fingers as she pulled him closer.
Tully sucked Jamie’s clit into his mouth and felt her body nearly shoot off the floor. Grinning, he nursed the tight bundle of nerves with his lips and let the sound of her rough screams sweep over him. By the time she begged him to stop, he was hard as steel and couldn’t think past his need to be inside her.
He moved up her body, kissing her skin as he did until he pressed his mouth to hers and slipped his tongue between her lips while he pressed his cock inside her pussy. She let out a choked sob, her body shaking as he took her hard. Her hands came up and without thought, the wolf inside him instinctively grabbed hold of her wrists and pinned them to the floor beside her head. That one move had more warm wetness spreading over his cock, drenching it. Her reaction spurred his and he used the weight of his body to hold her down as he pounded into her, taking what she reluctantly offered and giving back whatever she may need.
His balls tightened, his back tensed, but he knew he could hold on longer. That is until Jamie came. Her head thrown back, she cried out, her arms still trying to struggle out of his grip, her legs tight around his waist, the heels digging into his ass. He had no hope then. No hope for control as he buried his head in the curve of her neck and snarled out his orgasm, his cock pouring his come inside her over and over until there was nothing left and he crashed on top of her. His entire body trembled the way it did after his first full shift, when he was only thirteen and had no idea what to do next.
Of course, he didn’t know what to do next now either.
Chapter Thirteen
She didn’t know what she’d expected, but being pampered by anyone other than herself was definitely not it. And yet, here she was being carried up two flights of stairs to Tully’s bathroom. As they moved, Jamie absorbed the light feeding into the house from outside. She’d never been anywhere that had so much brightness from natural light only. She never knew she’d like it so much. The power of it recharged her, made the drama from earlier with her coven seem so very long ago it didn’t really matter.
Once in the bathroom—another blindingly bright room, especially with the white ma
rble countertops, white Italian floor tile, and bright chrome fixtures—Tully took her to his shower and washed her. Two showers in one morning and she didn’t really care. He wouldn’t let her do anything and she didn’t ask him why, instead she allowed herself to relax and enjoy. And although he stroked and fondled her body enough to make her reach for him again, he held her back.
“You made me give up my deer,” he murmured against her neck while his soap-covered hands dragged down her back.
“I had to. She’d only been easy for you to pick off because of me.”
“That’s fine. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m hungry.”
“You need more delivery places around here.”
“Why?” His lips brushed against her jaw, her cheek. “I’ve got a chef standing right here.”
“You’ve got a girl who learned to make great desserts from her grandmother. That doesn’t make me a chef.”
“If you feed me, I’ll make it worth your while.”
Because she liked the sound of that—and she was flippin’ hungry, too—she agreed.
Thankfully the man had a lot of pasta. Combined with some steak, oil, garlic, and Romano cheese, they were eating before noon. They sat at the table tucked into the corner of his kitchen. If Jamie looked to her right, she looked at Tully. If she looked to her left, she could stare at his amazing view of the Atlantic Ocean. To be honest, she was having a hard time figuring out which she wanted to see more of.
“So,” Tully said, his gaze on her face, his bare foot brushing against her leg under the table, “what’s your problem with Dartmouth?”
“Nothing.” She’d forgotten all about that, which was strange because she never forgot anything. “I just can’t believe you went to Dartmouth.”
“Just ’cause I’m from the South, beautiful, doesn’t make me stupid.”
“I know,” she answered honestly. “You’re stupid because you went to Dartmouth…but you still ended up trapped here.”
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