WYLDER

by Kristina Weaver

  I don’t want a win because I cheated or manipulated her. I want her to look at me and choose me, the way I choose her. Maybe if she does, maybe then this coldness will disappear and I can live again.

  “I don’t want you to lie, Wolf. Just be real and use it to your advantage. This guy will get nasty when he sees you sniffing, so don’t get all up in his face like you would. Show her that you’re not just a feelingless thug with a chip on his shoulder, and she’ll see the man she fell for. You weren’t lying when you showed her that side of you, Wolf. That guy is you. It always was you. Be him again and you stand a chance.”

  Maybe. But what if she hates me so much she doesn’t even want that guy anymore?

  No! No, that can’t be true. I remember her responses when I made love to her with my mouth. She was wild for me, untamed, and so mine I almost came in my pants when she climaxed on my face.

  That woman is still mine, no matter how hard she wants to cut loose from me. I’m her anchor. I am hers, and she is mine.

  “Tell me what’s been going on with her,” I say after we’re all silent for long moments, Lyon’s faraway look giving me pause before I turn away to contemplate my own life.

  “She started having these attacks, like real-time replay of what she felt when she was kidnapped. Numbness. Cold. Breathing difficulties. She was practically a shut-in before she called me. It’s taken months of therapy for her to work through it, but she has. She’s doing much better now,” Bear says softly, looking back at the house when the porch door creaks and his wife comes waddling out.

  Swear to God, I love that woman, but she’s already so big I have a feeling I’ll be scraping my brother off the delivery room floor when more than one kid pops out of her.

  Hearing about Lori’s troubles makes me feel guilty though, and I feel my heart give a tug when it occurs to me that she spent weeks with me without feeling any of it. Somehow, I am responsible for that too. I just know it.

  “Hey, guys. Mom said to tell y’all she’s making ribs gumbo for dinner and you need to go get your girls and that grandbaby of hers,” she laughs, seeing Jake’s eyes sparkle with love.

  “God, I love your mom, man. My mom never gave me shit. And she hasn’t seen Franco but for that one time we took him to meet her.”

  “That’s cause your mom’s an idiot who can’t love anyone but herself. My ma is golden,” Lynx drawls, getting a hear, hear!

  We split up and make our way into the house just as the sun starts lowering slowly, and I realize we’ve been out there talking for hours. I feel good though and even manage a smile for Ma before going up to shower and change, my mind clear of anything but the coming days and my seduction of Lori.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lori

  Another order done, I stand to my feet and stretch, groaning when my lower back pops and releases the pressure of sitting for hours. It’s early morning, and I feel tired, but with this last order, I’ve just completed enough work to keep myself somewhat free for a few weeks without stressing.

  I’m not sleeping well, a symptom of that night with Wolf as well as the newness of my little cabin-style house on the outskirts of town. When I bought the place, I was really looking forward to the solitude, but honestly, it’s just creepy out here at night so far from the town.

  Last night, the wind howled through the trees, and I spent my time listening to every creak and groan before abandoning my warm bed and sitting up in the living room with the television playing to drown out some of the tempest.

  The monotony of knitting always calms me, the focus required, the sameness of every move, lulling me in a way that nothing else can. I worked until my fingertips were burning and then pushed through for another few hours because it was all I had until the sun started rising.

  Yawning, I grab a quick shower and dressed in a pair of jeans and a soft cotton tee. I make coffee and step onto the porch to enjoy the cool morning air before temperatures skyrocket again.

  It’s as I’m watching the sky lighten that I have my first thought about Wolf, and everything just snowballs from there. His eyes when I screamed at him to leave, God, they looked so bleak I cried after he walked out.

  I hate that I did that to him, my heart not caring that he hurt me first. I don’t like hurting other people, not even when they deserve it, but I was feeling so vulnerable and…and angry with myself after he made love to me.

  And that in and of itself has given me many a sleepless night as I moved houses and started settling in. I haven’t felt right since, to the point where I’ve been putting Jack off for days, citing fatigue and unpacking as an excuse to put off seeing him until I feel more under control.

  I can’t stop thinking about making love with Wolf, and it’s driving me nuts. If I do sleep—not enough to really call it rest—I feel him on me, in me. I stopped those dreams two months ago, but it seems they’re back, and they leave me aching and wanting to say screw it and jump right back in with him.

  The only problem is he knows how to swim those waters and I don’t. I don’t want to drown again. I barely survived it the first time.

  The sound of a car breaks into my early morning torture session, and I look up to see a big black truck pumping up the road to the house, the size of the thing a little scary.

  I should run inside and get the gun Lyon gave me, but I stop when a hand pokes out of the window and waves. Goddammit. Speak of the devil.

  “Don’t shoot. Lyon warned me you have a gun, so just know it’s me before you start firing,” Wolf yells when he comes to a stop and vaults from the truck, his grin making me growl in annoyance.

  He should be back home licking his wounds, not here with me making a nuisance of himself.

  Which is somewhat of a falsehood because my eyes eat him up when he closes the door and ambles my way, his jeans molding to his thighs in a mouth-watering display of manly muscles.

  Lord, Lordie Lord, the man may be a jackass but he’s sexy as all get out, and my body likey.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, clearing my throat and blushing when he notices my perusal and smiles darkly.

  “Inviting you to my party.”

  “I already got an invitation.”

  “Yeah, but I wanted to make sure you’re coming,” he says intimately, the insinuation clear and enough to make my sex contract and spasm.

  “Agh! I’ll be there. With a date.”

  “That’s cool, just as long as he’s got a huge ego, because I plan to spend the night looking my fill and finding ways to touch you, Lori girl.”

  Where? Oh Lord, where will you touch me?

  “You’re being an ass.”

  “I was, but I have seen the light. Wanna know what I did after you chased me out of your house and sent me packing like a chump?”

  “No.”

  “Good! I’ll tell ya. I drank a little, fell into bed at my hotel, and spent the night jerking off because I was so hard all night with the smell of your arousal dried on my skin I couldn’t sleep without releasing the pressure.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Okay. Just so you know, I came with your name on my lips and your taste on my tongue.”

  “Wolf, go away. I have work to do, and I don’t want you here.”

  “Invite me in.”

  “No.”

  “Shame on you, Lori. No decent Southern woman would deny a man a glass of sweet tea after he drove all the way out here to see her,” he chides.

  My snarl is loud, and I curse when he follows my stomping footsteps into the house and makes himself at home in my kitchen.

  “Nice.”

  “It’s small, but I like the open floor plan. Here.”

  I’m not gracious when I slam the iced tea down in front of him, but I have to get away from him before I do something like breathe in his scent and throw myself at him.

  “Thank you kindly, little lady. Now, my invitation…”

  “I’ll be there to see the family. I already promised.”

 
“And me?”

  “I’ve already seen you.”

  My voice is hard, and I add a slight sneer at the end as I look him up and down, wanting him to see I don’t like what I’m looking at. That man just smiles and seems taken with my spirit.

  “You make me hard when you’re mean, because I know how hard you have to work at pulling it off, sweet girl.”

  Oh my. I should not be turned on by his words, and yet I am as I watch his throat work while he swallows a mouthful of tea, his green eyes never leaving me.

  “Why are you doing this? Why keep coming after me when I don’t want you? Look around. I am trying to rebuild a life, not look back.”

  “But life is about looking back and knowing how you got here.”

  “I got here because I worked hard to make myself independent. Not because of you or anyone else.”

  It’s not true though, is it? I only got here because he took me when, in reality, he could have left me and made life easier for himself. In a way, I think I feel safe around Wolf because he saved me. He’s the man who kept me whole, even if he did take a big piece of me.

  “I spoke to my friends and brothers a few days ago, and they told me that I deserve to be happy.”

  “Good for them. They’re right. Everyone deserves to be happy.”

  And I mean it. Look at my parents, right? They’re shits, but I love them, and what did I do not a month ago? I set up a savings for them to keep the power on, even though they don’t deserve it. Everyone needs love and kindness. Happiness. And I want Wolf to be happy. Somewhere far away from me.

  Mostly.

  “You make me happy,” he answers when I throw him a questioning look because he stays quiet and watches me.

  Four words. Just four words, and yet they touch me like nothing else in this world ever has. He’s sincere. I see it in his eyes and the softening of his mouth when I fall into a seat and just stare, breathing away the tightening of my chest.

  I make him happy. It’s a great feeling and not because I don’t want to know this. I can’t let him in again. I can’t. But I want him happy and—

  “You did too. Until you made me sad.”

  “I know. But I want to explain something to you. No, just hear me out, and if it doesn’t change anything, I’ll leave and pretend we’re just family friends, not lovers.”

  “I am not your lover,” I argue, gasping at his audacity.

  “Yeah, you are. I’m the only man who’s had you, Lori, the only one who tasted your body and made you scream with pleasure. We’re not together right now, but I am yours, if you want me.”

  “Wolf, I—”

  “When Sparrow died, I was in bad shape. Mom and Pop were wrecked, the boys were not capable of helping, so it was just me, and I had to stay strong to keep them all alive and fed. It was too much though, too heavy a load for me, so I stopped feeling it to get through the routines of life.”

  “What?” I ask, confused.

  “I stopped feeling. It wasn’t easy at first, but eventually, I didn’t feel anything. No sadness or anger or fear. No happiness either, unless I was having sex, because the pleasure overrode everything for the time I was feeling it,” he says, smiling sheepishly at my snort.

  “I don’t—”

  “It was better that way. I could work and cook and keep them all safe until Bear got home to help. By then, it was the only thing I had to cling to, so by the time Bear came home, I was ready to do what needed doing. We lost the house, you know, lost almost everything until Bear brought us all back from the brink. It was hard work, sleepless nights, and a lot of nasty shit that I would never have gotten through without the numbness I felt.”

  My eyes burn as he fiddles with his glass, smoothing the condensation droplets and staring into the deep brown liquid as if seeing those days in his mind and reliving some of what happened.

  “It was eight years filled with me going into deadly situations, not giving a damn, and doing things that I justified by remembering what Sparrow looked like on the morgue slab. Part of me didn’t care if that day was my last, and I can’t even tell you that it stopped when I was with you.”

  His quiet confession shouldn’t hurt, because I already know all this, how little he cared, but it does hurt, and I stop a sniff by telling myself that I no longer care.

  “It never went away, but for once, I felt light, not happy but…it was a possibility. You were right when you accused me of making you fall in love with me. I’ve done it over and over again for years because I was desperate to feel. With you, it was different though because even if I didn’t feel, what I had with you was more. I didn’t know how or why, but it was more, and I needed that. You made me feel worthy somehow, and I hoped that you could wake me up.”

  “Oh, Wolf.”

  “When it didn’t happen, I told myself it was kinder to let you go because I wouldn’t see you hurt anymore, and I truly believed it was the best thing for you. Pull off the band-aid quick, right? Except I couldn’t forget you, and the longer I was away from you, the harder it was to not think of you. It was on my last mission that I knew you’d changed something in me. Instead of ambivalence to death, I felt real fear that I’d be killed and never see you again. It wasn’t a wakeup call, but it was something, more than I dreamed I’d have.”

  God! It sounds like me, only he was numb inside while I was frozen outside. I know that feeling, and it makes me ache to hear him talk about it going on for years. I had it for months, and I thought I’d lose my mind.

  “Have you talked to anyone?”

  “Yeah. Too many people to remember, but it never did a damn thing. Until you. I know you think I’m being cruel when I say I want to love you, like I’m telling you that you aren’t lovable no matter what, but that’s not true. You’re perfect in every way, everything I want. I want to feel everything with you so bad it’s driving me nuts. I want you always, and I want to love you. I just can’t feel.”

  I’m shocked numb by his words and can only sit and stare at him in horrified confusion. I don’t understand how this can be true, and yet how can I sit here and judge him as a liar when I can’t even explain my own issues? Not even to myself.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  And I don’t. My natural instinct is to take him into my arms and just hold him, let myself go to him because it’s clear he needs to be held and comforted, but then what?

  Am I to love him and spend the rest of my life waiting for that ever-elusive love that he wants to feel? I’m soft, and I have hopes, a hopeful nature, but I also have a need inside me for all the things I never had. I can’t do this, any of it. I would love him forever and wait, growing more desperate, bitter, lonely as the years drifted by.

  We could be happy, just as long as I accept that I may never fully have him. Would I live, truly live, that way, never knowing love, only passion and his need to want more with me?

  I don’t know, I honestly don’t, and as Wolf once tried to cut ties and make it less painful with his honesty, I now have to retreat for a bit and figure out what I can live with.

  “Say that you understand and that you can love me enough to try. Please.”

  I can’t meet his eyes when he searches my face, but I feel him on me even as I look out at the hot morning sky.

  “I can’t. I can’t do this with you, Wolf. You threw me away, and it wasn’t easy to come back from. I was going crazy for months! Torn between this paranoia and debilitating fear and also grieving you. It’s taken me time to get over it all, you, the memories, but I have to work past this. I can’t…it’s too much,” I utter, crying silently when I meet his eyes and see the stark look they hold.

  “I can’t give you up,” he says, making my heart miss a beat because he looks beaten but also determined.

  “I was never yours, Wolf. You can’t hold something that was never yours to keep.”

  “Oh, but you are, Lori. You are. Just as I am yours. Always.”

  “Mine? You feel nothing for me. How can I have
you? I never had you, Wolf!” I scream, the pain too much to bear because I wish to God it were true.

  If I could have had but a piece of him, I would have been okay. Now…now I need all of me to make it, and I can’t have that, can’t think of giving him any part of me without something to fill the hole he left.

  “You had me at ‘fuck you.’” He grins, getting to his feet to lean over and gently dry the tears on my cheeks.

  I almost crack when he kisses them, drinking down my tears.

  “You have me. I may be useless and not worth having, but you got me, Lori Staneslovsky, and nothing will ever change that. All I need is a chance, and I won’t stop trying for it, so be prepared, baby. I’m coming for you.”

  He leaves me sitting there, and I only manage to stand when I hear his truck drive away, my throat aching as I battle down sorrow and breathe to dispel the longing.

  No, I have someone. He can love me, and I can love him. I need to forget about Wolf and work on being in a real, loving relationship that will lead to the real deal.

  I may feel more for Wolf than hatred, but I won’t give it life. Not again.

  ******************************************************************

  “This place is great, Lori! Have you seen the dining room? I swear I saw some artwork in there that could fund a country, and the living room has a real silver gator on the mantle.”

  I smile at Jack’s enthusiasm and shrug away my disbelief when he darts back out of the ballroom and just leaves me standing alone, again, to go check out yet another room in the house.

  I’m not as thrilled by the décor, mostly because I saw most of it the first day I was here, and besides, Rain doesn’t even know half the things Bear filled this place with.

  I bet she thinks that Picasso hanging in her study is just a cheap replica. I have news for her…

  “I wish I could drink! I hate parties when I can’t have fun like everyone else.”

  I laugh when Danny mutters and comes to a stop beside me, grinning at the sight of the five Wylder boys and their buddies chugging beer to win…oh my God, please tell me they didn’t just down a bottle of beer to win a cocktail umbrella.