Eventually Van couldn’t take that pitiful jackal look anymore. “Don’t worry about it.” He motioned to his driver, who walked forward with the two dozen roses he’d told him to pick up after dropping off Bradley. Van plucked off the card from his bouquet and put the one from Paul’s on it instead. “Give her these.”
Shocked, Paul took the heavy display from Van’s driver. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Go ahead.” Van grabbed the half-dozen roses Paul had and put his card on top. He had a feeling Jackie wouldn’t care either way, but he knew men well enough to know Paul would be obsessing all night.
Paul shrugged. “Thanks, man. I owe ya.”
“No problem. Besides,” Van added, “I don’t like the look of that guy.”
“Yeah. Me either.”
Irene sighed and rolled her eyes. “Just give her the flowers so we can be gone.” She glanced at Van. “I grow tired of the company.”
Paul walked away and Van leaned against the wall, staring down Irene’s cleavage. “You know, Irene,” he said low, so only she could hear, “when you’re mean to me like that…”
“Yes?”
“It makes me so horny.”
Well, did she really think she would get rid of him that easily? He had to be the most determined man she’d ever known. Why he felt so determined regarding her, Irene had no idea. He’d gotten what he wanted, so Irene didn’t quite grasp why the rest of this was necessary.
“Mind telling me what you did with my date?”
“I told him he wasn’t right for you and if he left quietly with no fuss, I wouldn’t snap his neck like a twig.”
Irene looked up at Van Holtz. “Are you serious?”
“Very.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head.
“Don’t understand what?”
“Why you’re here.” She leaned in closer and so did he. It almost felt as if they stood completely alone rather than boxed up with a room full of people. “I’m very honest with myself, Van Holtz. I’m not beautiful. I’m not nice. Most people go out of their way to actively avoid me. I don’t have much of a sense of humor. I’m not charming and if people suddenly disappeared off the planet, I probably wouldn’t even notice. You, however, are cultured, wealthy, and blindingly arrogant. You have more than enough beautiful women who are convinced you are as amazing as you believe yourself to be and would have no problem telling you how amazing you are every day until the end of time. Plus you never have to worry they’ll say something inappropriate or rude. Or that they’ll ever be smarter than you. We have nothing between us except surprisingly good sex, but based on what I’ve been told, the allure of that won’t last very long. So, then…what is it? What are you expecting from these little romantic displays?”
Irene stared at him, waiting for his response. And she kept staring. Finally, she snapped, “Well? Aren’t you going to answer me?”
“Answer you about what?”
“About everything I just said to you.”
“Oh. That. I stopped listening and just stared at your lips instead, which are quite beautiful, by the way. But I could tell you weren’t going to say anything I wanted to hear, so I just ignored you.”
She had absolutely no idea what to say to the man. For once, someone had left her speechless and…slightly amused.
“Is ignoring me supposed to endear you to me somehow?”
“No. That’s the job of my thighs and my get-lost-in-them-forever dreamy eyes.” He leaned in even closer and blinked his eyes several times. “Mesmerizing, aren’t they?”
Irene couldn’t hold it back anymore. It flooded out of her and she couldn’t stop it. Even when everyone turned and stared at her, including Jackie and Paul, she couldn’t stop. And she tried.
Because laughing this much really would only exacerbate his ego even more.
He knew he wasn’t playing fair but he didn’t have a choice. If he’d asked her to go to dinner with him, she would have automatically said no. So he invited her friends and assumed she’d come along. Which…she did.
If he’d asked her to come home with him, she would have said no. So he used the fact that Paul and Jackie were just mated by arranging for them to get a night in the honeymoon suite at his cousin’s five-star hotel downtown before they took off for a few days in Mexico. Then he had his limo driver take them to said hotel. Which kinda, sorta left Irene stranded.
Van waved at the limo one more time before turning around. She stood there in that scintillating red, full-length gown, one foot tapping, arms crossed over her chest, not looking nearly as annoyed as she probably wanted to be.
“Well?” she snapped.
“Well, what?”
“How am I getting home?” She held up her tiny purse. “I have all of five dollars in this bag because Paul was going to pay for the taxi.”
“You should always carry more money on you than that.” Her eyes narrowed and Van held his hands up. “Sorry, sorry.” He shrugged. “I thought maybe you’d want to see my apartment. It’s just down the street.”
“Why would I want to see your apartment? Are there zoo animals there?”
She asked the strangest questions. “No. No zoo animals.” He grinned. “Except me, of course.”
“Would I have to pretend I like it even if I don’t?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because my first response is usually my most honest but I’ve actually lost the university charity money because my first response insulted someone important. Your family gives a lot of money to the university; I need to know if I should plaster on that fake smile that makes my face ache.”
“No. I always want you to be honest with me, Irene. Even when the honesty sucks.”
“Will we have sex again?” she asked the same way someone might ask if the IRS was about to give them an audit.
“If you want to.”
“Do you want to?”
He groaned. “You have no idea.”
She glanced around the empty street. “I have work to do.”
“You always have work to do. It can’t be healthy, Irene. You have to take some time for yourself.”
“Well…I would like to have sex with you again.” She looked at him with that brutally honest face and said, “It was much more enjoyable than I thought it would be.”
Knowing she wasn’t in any way joking, Van replied, “Yes. I enjoyed it a lot, too. Maybe you could spend the weekend with me.”
“I should work.”
That definitely wasn’t a “no.”
“You can work in the afternoon.”
“And the rest of the time we’ll have sex?”
Van cleared his throat. “Yes, Irene. The rest of the time we’ll have sex.”
After several long moments, she nodded. “All right, then. Which way is your apartment?”
“That way.”
Irene started walking west and Van called after her, “Irene?” She turned around and looked at him. He held his hand out and she stared at it for several more long seconds. He could almost see her brain sifting through the appropriate responses. Finally, she reached out and placed her hand in his.
Van interlaced their fingers and headed home with Irene right next to him.
And he’d never been happier.
Seven
“Do you actually need all this room or is this the only place you could find where you could fit your head?”
Irene accepted the glass of wine Van handed her.
“My, my, we certainly are rolling with the jokes this evening.”
She shrugged. “I guess. I find myself surprisingly comfortable around you. Well…as comfortable as I can be with anyone remotely human. And you are somewhat remotely human.”
“Such compliments.” He took her hand, and it felt strange to her to not automatically want to pull it away again.
Van led her through the apartment. Apparently he owned it and the entire building. The furniture was tasteful but useful. She
actually felt like she could sit on the couch. Each room was tidy and well kept. But his kitchen…she’d never seen such a sparkling kitchen outside of a cleaning-fluid ad.
“This is very…clean.”
“It’s the kitchen. Of course it’s clean. Would you prefer to think your food is coming from some place with roaches?”
“No. But this does seem to be above and beyond the standard clean.”
“Not at all.” Van turned to take a beer from the refrigerator.
With him facing away from her, Irene shifted the big knife block on the counter slightly to the left.
“I grew up around chefs,” he continued, turning back around and immediately shifting the knife block back to its original position. He probably didn’t even realize he’d done it. “You always keep your kitchen clean or you hear about it. And my uncles can be mean. Usually fangs are involved.”
Irene nodded, surprisingly enthused to find a little obsessive-compulsive behavior in the always-controlled but perpetually laid-back wolf.
He stared at her and Irene didn’t know what to make of it. To get things moving she said, “So are we going to do this or what?”
She already had the straps of her gown halfway off her shoulders when he left his unopened beer on the pristine counter and grabbed her hands.
“Hey, hey. What’s the rush?”
Irene sighed in annoyance. “Look, I’ve got responsibilities. Things to do. I’m not some rich kid who can do whatever I want. In other words, I need to get this done and then get back to work.”
“Are lives being lost because you’re spending some time in my kitchen?”
“Lives? Of course not, but—”
“Then relax, Irene.”
Irene realized he had a point and frowned in concentration as she tried to force herself to relax.
Van Holtz released her. “Is that you relaxing?”
She growled. “If you keep talking I won’t be able to. I need to focus to get myself to relax. Focusing is the key.”
“All right. That’s it.” Van Holtz grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the room.
“Where are we going?”
He didn’t answer but dragged her into a bedroom. She briefly thought, Oh, good. But then he kept walking into a bathroom that could have housed the entire Foreign Legion. He released her and closed the bathroom door.
Irene shrugged. “A shower? Do I not smell fresh?”
Van Holtz snorted a laugh. “Doc, you smell wonderful.”
“Then why are we in your bathroom?”
He went over to the obscenely large tub that looked more like a pool and turned on the water. It began to fill up quickly. “I thought we’d take a bath.”
“A bath? What am I, eight? Will there be bubbles, too?”
He snapped his fingers. “Good call, doc.” He walked over to one of the cabinets and popped open the doors. “One of my cousins from Germany stayed here about six months ago and she has three daughters. I think they left…yes!” He turned around, holding a plastic bottle. “Pink bubbles.”
“I don’t understand. Is this a prelude to sex?”
“Everything with me is a prelude to sex,” he muttered, checking the temperature of the water before pouring in the entire contents of the bottle. “But this isn’t only about sex. I’ve decided.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. “Decided what?”
“That you’re staying the weekend.”
“I haven’t agreed to that and why would I?”
Van Holtz stood and walked over to her. “Because you and I are going to hang out. We’re going to watch TV, eat delicious food that I make, maybe go shopping for shit we don’t need, and neither one of us is going to do any work of any kind.”
“Again…why would I do that?”
“Because we’re going to spend the weekend getting to know each other.”
“I thought we did know each other. And we’d come to the conclusion that we were friends…only.”
“We are friends. And friends hang out doing nothing.”
“Forget it.” Irene headed toward the door. “I’ve got a ton of lab work waiting for me and—”
“There’ll be lots of sex, too.”
Irene stopped, her hand on the doorknob. “Sex?”
“Lots of sex.”
“Truly? Or is this some kind of Van Holtz torture?”
He stepped up behind her and she could feel his body heat, the touch of his hands on her shoulder, fingers sliding under the straps of her gown. “Oh, there’ll be a little torture,” he promised. “But only the good kind.”
Van never realized until this moment how much of his childhood he’d taken for granted. Going to school, playing with the other pups in the Pack, dating human girls, and debating with his friends the best way to keep their fangs in during sex. Hell, even going hunting every Christmas in Connecticut with his parents and sister. Things he did for enjoyment, not because he’d been born into money, but because he hadn’t been born any more or less special than any other shifter. He hadn’t been any different from some pup from the Magnus Pack or the Smiths. All his parents ever asked of him was to not bare his fangs in public, not let his junior-high buddies pay to see his sister naked when she was getting out of the shower, and not to lick his balls when he thought the Pack wasn’t looking…because they usually were.
He simply couldn’t imagine people expecting any more from him than that at the age of five, ten, even twenty. But they’d expected it of Irene. At a charity event, he heard two older professors discussing how they once saw Irene give a speech at the United Nations nearly fifteen years ago. Why a ten-year-old needed to give a speech, in several languages no less, to U.N. delegates for any other reason than a dog and pony show, Van had no idea. Of course, it completely explained why she was the prickliest woman he’d ever known. How could she be anything but prickly and a tad uptight?
Yet as Irene stood in his kitchen, desperately trying to force herself to relax, he suddenly knew what he had to do. What he wanted to do. He wanted to show her what it was like to be brutally, painfully, wonderfully average. Not all the time—he knew she’d never allow that—but enough so she could learn to enjoy all the amazing things she could do. And so she wouldn’t die of an ulcer and high blood pressure by the time she was forty-five.
First, though, he had to teach her basic relaxation skills. Like taking a bath, he thought as he tossed her naked body into his bathtub. She squealed like an actual girl until she hit the water and then she came up sputtering and pretty pissed off. But by then he was naked and in the water with her, so he easily grabbed her waist and dragged her back in before she could stomp off mad.
“You do things just to irritate me, don’t you?”
Smiling, enjoying himself immensely, and determined to give her a wonderful and relaxing weekend, Van pushed Irene’s wet hair from her face. “Don’t be silly, doc.” He kissed her lips, nuzzled her chin. “Of course I do things just to irritate you.”
How annoying. She actually found him cute. And charming. When did that happen? She’d always thought of Van Holtz as a spoiled rich boy from a one-time barbarian Pack of ravening wolves. But, when so motivated, he could be cute and—damn him—charming. Even when tossing her into water. Something Irene had always hated. But she did like feeling him press his body against hers as the bath water lapped around them and the bubbles sneaked up her nose.
She also liked the way he looked at her. Most men looked right through her. Women, too. Everyone looked through her unless they wanted something from her. And what they usually wanted involved academia. At the moment, Van Holtz looked like he couldn’t care less about her mind than those in the English department. Most women would be insulted. And, as a rather proud feminist, she would be too…if she actually wanted a discourse on the Chaos Theory. She didn’t. She wanted him. She wanted to have sexual intercourse with him. Wait. That was wrong. No, she didn’t. She had sexual intercourse with men like Bradley. She didn’t want that
with Van Holtz.
She wanted to fuck him. She wanted to be fucked by him. She wanted to get sweaty and transfer fluids and forget her name. She wanted everything that a night with Niles Van Holtz promised, but she refused to want more. She refused to get so caught up in her sexual urges that she would believe, for a second, that this thing they were indulging in would ever lead to anything more. When this was done—and it would be done sooner rather than later—she’d find another Bradley who’d make a great fourth at dinner with the dean.
Irene knew it was a very cold way of looking at relationships, even for her, but she had no delusions she’d ever get more. She was too strange, too off-key—and not in a cute, adorable way either—to ever hope someone could love her as she was, and she was smart enough to know she’d never change. Not inherently. Not where it counted. Even if she curbed her tongue and stopped scaring her students, she’d still be Irene Conridge, freak. Nothing she did would ever change that.
But she’d indulge herself this time. She deserved it. For at least twenty years she’d always done what people expected and wanted. Now she’d do what she wanted, even if it was only for the weekend. Only for this brief time in her life.
Big thumbs brushed her nipples and all Irene’s important thoughts floated away, leaving nothing but deep-seated lust.
She wrapped her arms around Van Holtz’s neck and her legs around his waist, pulling him close to her. She marveled at the heat of him. His body was always warm or sometimes, like now, hot. She wondered if that was normal for shifters. If their body temperatures were hotter than other, normal humans. She wondered if he’d let her take a sample of his blood. Then he lifted her up and laid her out on the tile floor and she quickly stopped caring about his DNA strain.
Before she realized what was happening, Van Holtz slid his tongue inside her and Irene gripped his wet hair, keeping his mouth against her. Her body rocked against his face, her hips and pelvis pushing into him. Leaving the warm water made her thoroughly aware of the chill in the air, her nipples hardening almost painfully, goosebumps racing across her skin. But the sudden cold also made her more thoroughly aware of Van Holtz’s big hands tightly gripping her thighs, his mouth and tongue stroking her to orgasm as she shook and moaned beneath his mouth and hands.
When He Was Bad Page 8