She blinked, dazed, too much going on inside her body and mind to focus on any one thing. “I didn’t...I don’t dance,” she explained in a strangled whisper, when what she meant was that she didn’t let men get this close to her. Ever.
“I know,” he replied, and the slightly rough cadence of his words made her shiver with awareness, at the same time something thick and hot began to slip through her veins. She had the strangest suspicion that he was responding more to her unspoken thought than the one she’d voiced aloud, and an uneasy feeling swept through her as she wondered just how much he knew about her. About her past and the things that had happened to her.
He pulled her a shade closer, until his strong thighs were brushing against hers, her breasts pressed to the firm surface of his chest, and Elise could have sworn she could feel the powerful beating of his heart. Her breasts felt heavy, swollen, the rise of desire like a hothouse flower unfurling inside her body, and there was a part of her—a strange, primal, frightening part—that wanted to stretch her arms and back in a sinuous arch and melt against him, languid and soft and hungry. That wanted to hold her face up to a warm spring shower and feel it misting against her skin, wetting their clothes, until steam rose from the heat of their flesh. That wanted to rip that crisp white shirt from his lean, hard-muscled physique and press her open mouth to the pounding, urgent beat of his heart. Push her fingers through the thick strands of his silky hair and pull his mouth to hers, unleashing the primitive, predatory hunger she knew lurked inside him.
God, she just wanted. Wanted so badly she could have screamed.
“But you’re enjoying yourself,” he murmured, jarring her back to reality with the deep, rich, slightly gritty tone of his voice as they swayed to the music. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t tell me no?”
Surprising herself, she snuffled another soft laugh under her breath. “You’re very sure of yourself, Pallaton.”
“Call me Wyatt.”
She shifted her gaze, staring over his left shoulder, feeling as if his dark, onyx-colored eyes could see straight into her. “I thought everyone called you Pallaton or Pall?”
“They do.” From the edge of her vision, Elise watched the corner of his mouth lift in a devastatingly sexy, purely male smile. “But I want you to call me Wyatt.”
“I’m going to call you desperate if you don’t stop,” she warned him, hoping like hell that her face wasn’t actually as red as it felt.
“Stop what?” he asked, angling his head slightly to the side as he tried to recapture her gaze.
“All of this,” she said, fully aware that she sounded like an idiot. “Trying to dazzle me with your manliness and charm.”
“Oh, yeah? Is it working?” He kept his expression carefully blank, though she could see the glitter of humor in his dark gaze.
She rolled her eyes. “Like I’d tell you if it was.”
His head went back as a low, rich chuckle rumbled up from his chest, and her toes curled in her heeled sandals at the pure carnality of the sound. How did he do it, make a laugh sound like some kind of insidious new form of seduction?
Though she tried so hard to fight it, everything that he did made her feel drunk on lust, the hunger heavy in her body, like a weighty thing inside of her. The flash of his smile. The smoldering intensity in his dark eyes and the way they did that sexy crinkle thing at the corners when he grinned. She’d heard he was considered the tamest of the Runners, at times even stoic. The most easygoing of a volatile bunch. But being close to him, talking to him, Elise couldn’t help but wonder if the people who held that opinion of Wyatt Pallaton knew him at all. Were they blind? Because from where she was standing, there wasn’t a safe, easygoing thing about the man.
Desperate to regain control of herself and the situation, Elise asked a question that had been playing in the back of her mind for the past hour, slowly driving her crazy. “I saw you and Michaela on the dance floor earlier. Doesn’t it bother Brody when you dance with his wife?”
His hands shifted, one resting against the small of her back, while the other stroked its way up her spine until it reached the edge of her bodice, his thumb brushing against her bare skin in a slow, sensual caress. Her gaze shot immediately back to his, and she watched the groove form between his dark brows as he asked, “Why should it bother him?”
Suddenly, she wished she’d just kept her big mouth shut. Thanks to her friendship with Max Doucet, Michaela’s younger brother, she knew that Brody and the fiery Cajun were madly in love with one another, as did anyone who had ever met the quiet Runner and his gorgeous human life mate. Still, she couldn’t help the jealousy she felt when she witnessed the closeness that Wyatt and Michaela shared. “I just thought that the two of you...that you were...”
He leaned forward, putting his silky words into the sensitive shell of her ear. “Despite what a few gossips seem to think, El, Mic and I are just friends. And that’s all we’ve ever been. She’s in love with her husband, and I... Let’s just say that I don’t think of her that way.”
There was something there, in his words...in the tone of his voice...but she couldn’t afford to look at it too closely. Not if she wanted to keep it together. Instead, she said, “Why haven’t you danced with Reyes?”
She didn’t know what to make of him when he lifted his head, staring down at her with a bemused expression, as if the thought of asking his beautiful partner to dance had never even occurred to him. “Carla? Hell, she’d probably stomp on my toes just to be ornery.”
“But you two seem so...close. I thought...”
His dark brows lifted. “That we were also intimate?” he asked, looking as if he were trying hard not to laugh.
Before she could respond, his lips twitched with another wry smile. “We’re close, yeah. But not like that. I love Carla like a sister, but she’s my partner. Dancing with her would be like...like dancing with one of the guys.”
“Well, there has to be some woman here who you’re involved with,” she practically snapped, becoming desperate. She needed a cold slap of reality in the face, some kind of sign that declared him hands-off, because if she wasn’t careful, she was going to get herself in deeper water than she could handle. “Don’t you have a girlfriend? Someone you’re dating?”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, honey, but no. No woman...and no girlfriend. I’m as free as a man can be.”
Hell. That so wasn’t what she needed to hear.
It didn’t matter how badly she wanted to accept the fleeting moments of sexual pleasure he was offering her with that wicked smile and smoldering stare—she simply couldn’t do it—and for the second time that night, Elise wondered why she couldn’t have met him when she was younger. Of course, knowing the kind of girl she’d been back then, she probably would have turned up her nose at him, believing herself too good to have a fling with a Bloodrunner. Stuck-up and snide, she’d had a mountainous chip on her shoulder, always acting as if she thought she was better than everyone around her. Disgusting, but embarrassingly true. She’d been so different then, thinking the world revolved around her and her problems, when she couldn’t have been further from the truth.
It’d taken countless months of therapy after her attack to come to the understanding that she’d formed her spiteful attitude and narcissistic self-obsession as a defense mechanism for dealing with her misogynistic father. And she’d done a damn good job of building those defenses. So much so that it’d taken a night of living hell to break her down, taking her to pieces, until there was nothing left of her to offer a man like Wyatt. The feminine part of her that longed for an emotional connection with a man, as well as a physical one, no longer worked the way that it should—and though she struggled each day to be strong, Elise knew there was nothing that could ever repair the damage. No therapeutic Band-Aid that could heal her soul.
Wyatt stared down at her with a curious look on his striking face, then quietly asked, “Are you going to keep quizzing me about the women in my life, or are we final
ly going to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?” she whispered, painfully aware that her panic and fear were bleeding through, loud and clear. With his heightened senses, he could probably scent her unease with every breath he took, and she fought not to cringe.
He didn’t offer any inane platitudes to ease her nerves. He just smiled down at her with that slow, sensual twisting of his lips, the shape of his mouth firm, masculine and yet impossibly beautiful. There was a nick on his chin, where he’d obviously cut himself shaving, and Elise found herself wanting to lift onto her toes and press a tender kiss against the small wound. A strange compulsion, considering she hadn’t kissed anyone in years—hadn’t wanted to kiss anyone in years—but then this entire night was turning out to be one stunning dose of bizarre.
She swallowed against the lump in her throat, suddenly terrified that he wanted to talk about the way she’d been watching him throughout the night, stealing as many desperate glances as she could. Embarrassed, she looked away. She could feel the heat burning in her face, the dark, curious weight of his gaze as he stared down at her only making it worse. “Talk about what?” she asked again, unable to disguise the quiver in her words.
“About what’s happening between...” His voice trailed off as he took in her panicked expression. “You know, on second thought, I think we’ll save that particular conversation for another day,” he offered in a low rumble, and even though she could sense the tension in his body, she knew he’d decided not to push the issue. “But there’s something I need to tell you, El. I mean to get to know you. I don’t expect it to be easy, but you should know that it’s something I’ve set my mind to.”
From one breath to another, she could feel the color drain from her face, and she looked back to him, blinking against the slow rise of anger building up inside her. Hoping it wasn’t true, but knowing that it was, she said, “You’ve asked about me, haven’t you? That’s why you’re being so damn nice and so bloody careful, isn’t it?”
His lashes lowered, shielding his gaze, and she cut him off before he could even bother denying it. “Don’t lie to me,” she quietly seethed, thankful he’d kept them at the far edge of the dance floor, away from the other couples. “And don’t coddle me! I’m so sick and tired of everyone walking on eggshells around me, afraid I might go off the deep end. Just answer the question, Pallaton. You know about what happened to me, don’t you?”
His expression was nothing short of grim. “You mean with your father?”
“No, I’m not talking about the crap that happened last year. I’m talking about before!”
For a moment, he simply watched her, the look in his eyes growing darker, deeper, and then he gave a small, nearly imperceptible nod. “Yeah, I know.”
Despite the counseling she’d gone through, shame poured through her, sickening and painfully familiar, and she struggled to breathe her way through it.
“Elise, I meant what I said,” he told her, his grip firming, as if he thought she was going to pull away. It was terrifying, watching the resolve harden his features, his expression cut with stark lines of determination. “All I want right now is a chance for us to get to know each other. I’m not pushing you to do anything you’re not ready for.”
“You’re wasting your time,” she argued, flattening her palms against the solid muscles of his shirt-covered chest as she pushed against his hold. “It’s not going to happen. I...I can’t.”
“Can’t?” he quietly rasped. “Or won’t even try?”
Her anger rose with her panic, and she fought to control her voice as she hissed, “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you don’t know me. You don’t know my life. You don’t know anything but gossip. Don’t you dare judge me!”
His voice became a soft, gentle growl. “I don’t want to judge you. I just want the chance to be friends with you. To deal with this thing we have going.”
She blinked, wondering what on earth he was talking about. “Thing? What thing?”
They’d long since stopped dancing, though he still held her in his arms. Obviously choosing his words with care, he said, “We might not be happy about it, but there’s something between us. I know you don’t give most men the time of day, but I want that to change. I want you to take a chance and get to know me.”
“So that I’ll what? Suddenly decide to sleep with you?” she sneered, breaking away from him.
His mouth went hard, the shuttered look in his eyes narrow and sharp. “So that you can learn to trust me. Be friends with me. If that’s all you want, then I’ll find a way to accept it.”
She lifted her chin, her arms wrapped tight around her middle, too angry to care if she was causing a scene. “You’re crazy!”
He didn’t reach for her again. He just stood there, looking devastatingly handsome in his tux, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal his thick wrists and the corded length of his powerful forearms as he shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his slacks. The snowy-white of his shirt was startlingly bright against the dark russet tone of his skin, attesting to his Native American heritage, and she couldn’t help but think that it should have been a sin creating a man who looked that good. But even more frightening than the gorgeous exterior was the man inside.
“I mean it, Wyatt. You’re wasting your time.”
“I know you’re afraid,” he told her, keeping his voice low, “but there’s something you should know about me, El. I can be a patient man when I need to be.”
“A patient man?” She laughed, but the brittle sound was born too much from terror and pain than actual humor. “There’s no such thing!”
He leaned forward, just close enough that his lips grazed her cheekbone as he spoke. “Have heart,” he murmured as the last notes of the song quietly faded away. He pressed a tender kiss to her temple, moving slowly past her right side, the solid muscles of his chest brushing against her bare arm. “Believe it or not, El, I just might surprise you.”
Then he stepped away, leaving her standing alone on the edge of the dance floor, staring blankly into the dense, impenetrable darkness of the forest...wondering what in God’s name had just happened to her.
Chapter 2
Forty-five minutes later, Wyatt stood with his shoulders propped against the thick trunk of an ancient pine, waiting just inside the dark line of the wooded park that bordered the back of the meticulously kept house before him. Silvery rays of rain-dampened moonlight bathed the small home in an ethereal glow, giving it a spectral appearance, like an apparition rising from the mist. The rain wasn’t heavy, the trees shielding him from the pattering drops, but the rumble of thunder promised that another storm was on its way—which meant he was in for a long, wet night.
Doing his best to ignore the thick weight of sexual hunger keeping him company, Wyatt used his wolf eyes as he kept watch over the silent house, noting the personal touches that he knew were the work of the woman who lived there. The lavender trim had to have been Elise’s doing, as well as the vivid red rose bushes that climbed the white walls. Everywhere he looked, there were little sparks of her personality that set the house apart from its neighbors, much like the woman herself.
Even in a pack full of preternatural werewolves, Elise Drake stood out as something vivid and bright and unique, no matter how hard she tried to hide it.
She was shimmering and white-hot to the touch, and yet, she worked so hard to conceal herself beneath a cold, excessively controlled exterior. Struggled to cut herself off from the world, as if she needed no one to help her along the way.
On the one hand, Wyatt still savored the memory of how she’d felt in his arms, somehow better than any other woman he’d ever held before. Soft and lush, despite her nerves, with the mouthwatering scent of her body filling his head; the sensation had been richer, deeper...and impossibly sweeter than anything he’d ever experienced. Something that he knew would keep him up in the quiet hours of the night, when his body craved the feel of her curves beneath him, cushioning his h
eavy thrusts, welcoming him into the slick, clutching depths of her body. He loved that she wasn’t a little stick-and-bones wisp of a woman. Loved her shape and her height and the way that she fit against him.
On the other hand, he couldn’t ignore the frustrating fact that she deserved a man who could give her a hell of a lot more than he could. One who wasn’t riddled with the guilt of his sins. Who could hold her through the night after losing himself in her beautiful body. Who could offer her everything, instead of something that would most likely end in a bitter nothing for both of them. But fate was a fickle bastard, and he was done arguing with himself about it. Elise wasn’t someone he could ignore or forget. Staying away from her wasn’t an option, and though he’d promised her patience, he wanted her now.
Ever since the night of Max Doucet’s Novitiate’s ceremony, Wyatt had known she was his. A rogue wolf had bitten Max because of his sister’s association with the Runners, and the purpose of the ceremony had been to determine whether or not the teenager would survive his first change. In a surprising act of loyalty to the Bloodrunners, Elise and her brother had sided with the half-breed hunters that night, standing against their sadistic father and his maniacal plans.
It had been a macabre, hellish scene, and yet, Wyatt hadn’t been able to take his focus off the woman standing no more than a handful of feet away from him. The late-autumn winds had raged, whipping the thick, shimmering strands of her dark red hair against the perfect angles of her face, pulling her shirt tight against the womanly curves of her body. The violent gusts had surrounded him with her warm, intoxicating scent, creating a reaction in his body from which he doubted he would ever recover.
Take. Keep. Mine. Those three guttural words had echoed through his head over and over, too many times to count. Primal, raw and savagely possessive.
But while Elise Drake’s scent might have told him she was meant to be his, body and soul, he wasn’t going to allow that knowledge to rule his life. Even if his past had been...different, that wasn’t something he would just accept. And he wasn’t looking to make her the answer to his problems, as if saving her could save him from the mistakes he’d made. This wasn’t a goddamn do-over. He just wanted to protect her. To hear her laugh. See her smile. And be there when she finally realized there were still things in life worth living for, rather than just existing.
Dark Wolf Running (Bloodrunners) Page 3