Shyne sat across from him, the plates between them, and he fed her a mini apple tart. She repaid the favor, selecting a small square of mocha cheesecake. The silence hung between them as they shared the sweet little bites of desserts and said nothing. When the plates were empty and the taste of sugar was heavy on both of their lips, she crossed the small space between them, fisted her hands in his hair, and kissed him for all she was worth. Her tongue slid past his lips with a moan that made his cock stand at attention, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. Her body molded against his as she fed at his mouth, nipping his lips before delving back in to slide her tongue against his. He'd never been so thoroughly kissed in all his life, and his mind reeled at the feelings coursing through him.
She tugged on his shirt, moving sensually against him and making small whimpering noises, and he stilled her hands before things went too far. "Sweetheart," he stopped her hands and pulled away slightly, nipping slow kisses across her cheek to her ear, "not like this, not here." He dropped her hands and cupped her face, watching the candlelight flicker in her eyes. "The first time we make love, Shyne, I want it to be special and right. Not like this."
Her curious expression gave way to a genuine smile, and he knew that although he'd need an ice cold shower when he got home, he'd made the right choice. "You're so sweet, Michael, I," she paused, and he was almost positive she was going to say she loved him. Could she possibly? His heart swelled at the thought.
He pulled her into a hug and nestled his face in the crux of her neck. "You're very important to me, Shyne. I want to treat you right."
She hugged him back and chuckled, "I want to let you."
The evening ended on a sweet note, as he walked her up to her apartment and said goodnight with a much more chaste kiss this time. She promised that it was indeed the best first date ever, and he hoped that she never went on another first date again.
The next week, they talked on the phone every night. She seemed to think that something was going on with the hyenas, but she didn't know what. One of them had asked her to dinner, and she turned him down. Although they didn't ask her the reason, she was fairly sure they knew why. He wanted to tell her to quit her job, that he would happily bring her to his trailer and take care of her until she found another job, but he had a feeling that she wouldn't take him up on the offer. And he wouldn't want her to think he didn't appreciate all her hard work to get where she was.
On Thursday, he asked her if she'd like to go see a movie on Saturday night, and she agreed. Before he hung up the phone that night, he reminded her that he wouldn't be able to call her the next night because it was the full moon, and he'd be busy all day and then hunting at night. The pause was very significant, and he wished he knew what she was thinking.
"You do believe me, about just hunting, don't you?" he asked finally.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah, of course. I think you're a lot of things, Michael, but a liar isn't one of them."
"Oh?" he laughed, "What else am I?"
He could practically hear her smile over the phone. "A smartass."
"True."
"A sweetheart. A loyal friend. A good brother. A sexy, dangerous wolf."
He barked out a laugh as she pulled that phrase from one of their first conversations at the gym. He wanted her to say that he was hers — that he belonged to her — but she didn't, and that was okay. Although he had the feeling that he was right on Sunday and that she was falling in love with him as much as he was falling in love with her, he didn't want to push her too far too fast.
"You're the sweetheart, Shyne. You're too good for me."
"Careful, a girl could get used to all these nice things you keep saying."
"You should. I plan to flatter you non-stop."
She sighed in a happy way and giggled. She was just such a girly girl. He loved it.
"Maybe next full moon, sweetheart, if you're interested, you could come stay at Cadence's house while I'm out hunting with the pack. We always have a big cookout, and Karly will stay at the house and clean up, and I'm sure she'd like the company. Cades doesn't shift, so she only goes out to where we are until we shift, and then she walks back and waits for Jason. It's just... this month it's a little too soon. I'd need to bring you around more to visit with the other wolves first."
"That would be nice, if you think I'd be welcome."
"Of course." And he meant that. Although he could probably have her there, it wasn't official yet that they were mates, and wolves on the full moon did tend to get fairly horny. He didn't want to have to fight in front of her if he could help it. Not that he wouldn't destroy anyone that made a move on her, but he'd rather her not see that part of himself if he could get away with it.
All day as he prepared for the full moon, he thought of Shyne and wondered how she was. When he shifted for the full moon, all he could think about was how stupid it was of him not to ask if he could just come over anyway, even if it would be late. Or call, at least. He determined to call her first thing in the morning to say hello and hear her voice.
Shaking his head at himself with an inward smile, he thought, I'm toast with this girl. Hot, buttered toast.
He took off with Jason, Bo and Linus as he usually did, but as he ran through the woods, he paused at the familiar scent that hung on the air.
Shyne.
Why was she in the woods? It wasn’t safe on the full moon, hadn't he explained that to her? His heart spiked as he branched off from the pack to find her and wait out his shift time until he could yell at her for not being safe. As he twisted through the woods following her scent and leaving his pack far behind, he prepared the long speech he was going to lay on her about safety. He hadn’t ever really cared about a woman’s safety before. Sure, he cared if his mother was safe and Cadence as his sister-in-law and pack alpha, but not like he felt about Shyne. He lived and breathed her safety already, even if she didn’t realize it.
He was nearly out of the woods, far from their full moon meeting place behind Jason and Cadence's home and in the opposite direction where the pack normally hunted in the summer, when he saw a flash of red fabric on a low shrub. Drawing close, he recognized one of Shyne's red lycra tank tops that she wore to the gym. The scent of her was heavy on it, and he sniffed it and then looked around. Suddenly, the air around him crackled with warning, and his hackles rose just as two of the were-hyenas from the gym stepped into view, surrounding him.
“Hello, Michael,” the bald one said with a sneer as something sharp was jabbed into the back of Michael’s neck.
“Goodbye, jackass,” one said through a tunnel, as Michael slipped into unconsciousness and fell to the ground.
* * * * *
The first thing he was aware of was grass under his cheek and something hard pressing against the side of his mouth. Groggily, he reached up to see what it was and felt metal wires fashioned in a cup around his mouth. He was muzzled! His eyes opened, and he was staring at four curious natural wolves in a very unnatural habitat. Those fucking hyenas! They drugged him, muzzled him, and gave him to the zoo!
Groaning at the ache in his head, he sat up slowly and searched along the leather harness to find the buckle to release the muzzle, and after trying to get his fingers to cooperate with the thick buckle, he pulled it free of his face and tossed it aside.
Just as he was about to stand up and head for the door at the back of the habitat, an angry voice above him shouted, “Hey, you! What the hell are you doing in there?” Looking up, he saw the beige uniform of a zookeeper leaning over the railing, pointing an angry finger at him. Spread out all around the rail with him were the gaping faces of elementary school children.
A glance down reminded him that he was painfully nude. Fan-fucking-tastic. He scrambled to his feet and ducked behind a tree to shield himself from the impressionable eyes and called out with a gravelly voice, “Sorry, I think my buddies played a prank on me.”
The habitat door opened and shut quickly, and two angry zookeepers and
four security guards stalked to him, giving a wide berth to the wolves who were watching the scene with bored curiosity.
Before he could say anything in his defense, one of the security guards pointed a taser at him, and another one tossed a navy blue janitorial uniform at him. He pulled it on hurriedly. The moment it was buttoned, his hands were cuffed behind his back, and he was marched out of the habitat under the watchful gazes of the kids and the natural wolves. Embarrassment heated his cheeks so deeply he thought he would pass out from the rush of blood to his face.
In something like a holding cell, he was told to sit on a bench and behave, left alone to ponder why a zoo had a holding cell in the first place, because the last thing he wanted to think about was Shyne’s top. As he’d been marched inside the zoo’s main administrative building, his thoughts kept coming back to rest on that top. How had those hyenas gotten it? She wore her workout clothes out of the gym. Had they been at her house and snatched it somehow? Or worse, had they asked her for it so they could trap him? His thoughts shifted darkly. He knew that Shyne would not purposely hurt him, but they could have tricked her.
A real police officer's voice broke through his thoughts. “You got a name, son?” He looked slightly amused.
“Michael Gerrick.”
“You live around here?”
“I don’t know where ‘here’ is, Sir. I’m from Allen.”
“You’re in Corrine, just south of Louisville.”
Holy fucking shit. His head dropped on a sigh and groan combined. The door unlocked and the officer uncuffed him. “You’re not going to cause me any problems, are you, Mr. Gerrick?”
“No, Sir.”
“Alright then. The zoo wants to press trespassing charges against you, so I’ll take you downtown and get your story and process you. You should be able to be out by dinner with a fine, maybe some community service if it’s your first arrest.”
He nodded absently. He was going to jail. Even if it was only for a half day, it was still a mark on him. On his record. And no one in the pack would let him live it down.
As the police officer led him down a long hallway, he said, “Those friends of yours that you said pulled a prank on you? You the sort of boy that’s going to say their names or take the punishment yourself?”
Oh, he had a punishment in mind for certain, but it involved making them pay. Off the books. “I think my mind is a little fuzzy about last night.”
He hummed in his throat, “That’s what I thought.”
The door opened, and the zookeepers were arguing. “It’s because of that man, he upset poor Dahlia!” One of the female zookeepers said. “She won’t touch her food!”
Another female zookeeper rushed over to him and slapped him in the face.
“You’ve scared our only female gray wolf so badly she’ll probably never recover. I hope you’re satisfied you juvenile asshole! I hope you get a cellmate with big hands!”
All the blood drained from his face as he stared down into the angry face of a woman about his own age. He’d never had anyone wish he was raped before. “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding,” he said stiffly, “but she’s not eating because she’s pregnant, not upset. She needs to den. Give her a place to make a nest for her cubs so she can rest. That habitat is too open for her.”
He smiled smugly at her shocked expression and walked away with the cop, out of the administration building of the Corrine Wildlife Park and sat down in the back of the cruiser. A short ride later, he was seated next to a desk in the busy police station.
He’d already worked through possible scenarios in his head to tell the officer how he’d ended up in that predicament. If he said he’d gotten drunk and wandered in, they could get him for drunk and disorderly maybe, plus it wouldn’t explain the muzzle. Finally, the best scenario he could come up with was a partial truth. “I’m a heavy sleeper. My buddies and I play pranks on each other, and they got me good this time.” He shrugged and tried to sound like he thought it was funny, when it was very far from the truth. At least they’d put him in a wolf cage where the wolves wouldn’t look at him like a threat. If they’d tossed him in with bears or big cats, well, that could have been an entirely different, disastrous scenario.
“You care to name any of your buddies yet?” Officer Gregory asked with a raised brow. He was about his father’s age and had clearly seen enough in his career to know a snow job when one was handed to him. As his father would often say, ‘don’t piss on my leg and tell me its rain’.
“Still fuzzy. Like I said, I’m a heavy sleeper.” Sure he could legally go after the hyenas, those prick brothers that were trying to snare Shyne into joining their clan. He could claim kidnapping and being drugged. It would be sweet on some levels, but not satisfying enough. If they wanted to play hardball, then Michael would show them why he was second of the Tressel pack.
Turning the desk phone towards him, Officer Gregory said, “Make your one call. Tell them they can pick you up in a couple hours after the paperwork is filed.”
He reached for the phone and stopped. “What’s going to happen to me?”
“Nothing much. It’s just trespassing. If they hadn’t been so worked up about those wolves, then they probably would have just banned you from the zoo or something like that. It’s not as if you harmed any of their animals. You’ll get a fine for sure, but it’s a minor thing so I wouldn’t give it much thought, okay? Not a felony by any stretch, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I was.”
“Whoever your ‘friends’ are, son, I suggest you find other ‘children’ to play with.” He stood up with a stack of papers in his hands and smiled down at him for a moment before walking away.
He called Bo, because he could trust Bo not to bring half the pack up for a show like Jason or Linus might. Bo promised he’d leave right away, alone, and come straight there and wait for however long it took. Michael was incredibly grateful for his childhood friend and packmate.
They didn’t put him in a holding cell, but in an interrogation room, which at least had the luxury of a padded chair, metal table, and a bad cup of coffee. Since he had no belongings, he signed himself out of jail after nodding at Bo who was seated in the foyer of the police station.
Just as he was going to ask about paying the fine, Officer Gregory came to the desk and said, “Son, they're willing to drop the charge if you’ll come back to the zoo now and tell them what you know about the wolf.”
“Really?” he asked in surprise.
“Really.”
“No, yeah, I’d be happy to.” Obviously, he wasn’t a complete idiot.
“Okay, you’re free and clear now. Just out of curiosity, how did you know that stuff about the wolf?”
“Let’s just say I have an insight into wild animals,” he smiled and left it at that.
“So first we have to stop at the zoo, and then you’re going to buy me something to eat and fill up my truck, right?” Bo asked, turning on the truck and backing out of the parking lot.
“Shit, you’re an expensive date.”
“Don’t call me a date when I just sprung you from jail.”
“Ha ha. Yeah, it shouldn’t take long to explain how to help that wolf.”
“No worries. You given any thought to how you’re going to make those dogs pay?”
He cracked his knuckles. “Not entirely. First I have to figure out how they got Shyne's top. If they lied to her or stole from her, then I need to share that with her, too."
Bo stopped at a red light and looked at him. “There's no way that she betrayed you. She's already crazy about you.”
Michael grinned. "I know. I'm crazy about her, too. I just don't like them using her, and I'm pretty sure that's exactly what happened.”
“Me, too.”
After explaining to the zookeepers about the female wolf’s pregnancy and helping them set up a den for her in the habitat away from prying eyes, the woman who had slapped him – Jessie – apologized all over herself an
d kissed his cheek. Along with the other zookeepers, she coerced the two men to stay for an early dinner at the zoo’s nice restaurant, and he spent a good portion of the meal fending off her advances.
Jessie, cute in a girl-next-door sort of way with short blonde hair, green eyes and a pouty mouth, did nothing for him. When she pressed her business card into his hand with her home phone scrawled on the back, he was polite but noncommittal as he thanked her again for dinner and for dropping the charges.
“She’s a cutie,” Bo mused as he started the drive back to Allen.
“Yeah, but she’s not Shyne.”
She most definitely was not.
Bo dropped him off at home, and he changed out of the zoo jumpsuit and into more suitable clothes, jumped on his bike, and headed to Dalton. The gym was open until eleven. It was only nine, and he knew that Shyne had a late class. Cutting the engine, he rolled his bike to the side of the road that led to the gym, walked through the tall grass to the side of the building, and with Shyne’s car in view, waited for her to walk out.
He still hadn’t decided what he was going to do with the dogs yet. He needed to talk to Jason, not only as his brother but as his alpha, so a plan of action could be made. But right now, all Michael cared about was making sure that Shyne was okay and holding her tightly in his arms.
He scented her as soon as she stepped out of the gym, and he leaned from the edge of the building to watch her. She didn’t look right. Her shoulders were tense, her steps hurried, and her fear was like a bitter pill on his tongue. She was frightened. His need to comfort her rose up inside him, and he rushed from the shadows to hold her and protect her.
Chapter 7
Shyne hadn’t been this twitchy since she’d been in a convenience store hold-up when she was seventeen. This was a hundred times worse. Her heart was thudding painfully loud, and her throat was so tight she could hardly breathe. All she wanted to do was get in her car and lock the door and get home. Get. Home. And then she'd call Michael and ask him to come get her.
The Wolf's Mate Book 4: Michael & Shyne Page 7