by T. S. Joyce
“Do you feel trapped lately?”
In the blue hues of moonlight, Trina’s blond brows drew down and made a cute little worry line on her forehead. “Maybe a little.”
Kade made his way to the nearest tree and leaned against it. “Why?”
There was a slight smile to Trina’s lips when she ducked her gaze. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit, you know. You aren’t one of those women who doesn’t know her own mind.”
“Well, I haven’t had anyone ask me that before.” She fiddled with the unopened tab of her beer. “I guess I’m stressed about the bar. It’s still a little new, and me and my dad barely break even on it right now. I’m in a new Clan, and it’s an adjustment.” She heaved a breath and leveled him with a look. “And I like this man, but he doesn’t want to be near me.”
Kade took a long sip of the beer, stalling. “This man…you think he likes you back?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he brings me presents. He thinks about me even when he’s not around me. He makes me things. I don’t need gifts, and I don’t ask for them, but he is thoughtful anyway. He takes care of me in his own way.”
“And this man…you aren’t scared of what his gifts could mean?”
“No. I’m hopeful of what they mean.”
“What do you think they mean?”
“That he likes me the way I like him.”
This girl. God, she had his heart beating against his damn sternum. He’d never liked a girl like this. It was terrifying. For him and for her. He should go.
“I didn’t bring you a present tonight, Trina. Me being here doesn’t mean what you think it does.”
And then he turned and walked away.
****
Ghost.
Kade was a ghost when he wanted to be, coming and going as he pleased, haunting her woods—but enough was enough.
“If you walk away right now, don’t you even think of coming back.”
Kade halted with his broad back to her. Hot man in jeans that rode low on his hips and a white T-shirt that showed off every curve of his back musculature. Didn’t matter how beautiful a body if the mind was poisoned. Didn’t matter how attractive a man if he couldn’t stick around for something as simple as a conversation.
He turned his head, allowing her to see his profile as he slid a narrow-eyed glance at Trina.
“Just so you know,” she murmured, “I don’t care about presents. You could never give me another present as long as you know me, and I would still like you.”
“If I Changed right now, do you know what would happen?”
“Yes,” she answered.
He turned slowly and canted his head to the side. His eyes were almost white and glowing in the moonlight. She should be terrified, but she wasn’t.
“What do you think would happen?”
“Do you remember our time in the jail?”
Silence stretched between them. On and on until she accepted he wouldn’t answer.
“Because I remember,” she murmured. “I think about it all the time. Your wolf was mad. He was crazy. Bloodthirsty. He had no emotion but anger, and that was scary, yes, but for me, that’s not the part that sticks out the most.”
“Which part do you remember the most?”
She put her drink down and stood, then closed the space between them. Breath shaking, she slid her hands up his chest and splayed her fingers, felt the drumming of his heartbeat. And then she whispered, “I think about the man the most. The one who talked to me, felt regret, who clearly accepted his lot in life as a lone wolf. But you’re trying, aren’t you?” Trina looked up into his eyes and searched his face. “You’re trying. You just don’t want to admit it. You want more, so you followed your stepbrothers and got protective. You got loyal to your step-mom, and you’ve stayed close to your dad. You pledged to Ethan’s Clan because you want to learn how to stay steady. And you follow me and bring me presents because you want a better life.” Trina slid one hand up his stone-hard chest to his neck she touched his whiskers. The growl in his throat wasn’t threatening. It was more like the purr in hers. “All of this that you’re doing, it isn’t just hunting for you. It’s signs that you aren’t hopeless, and that gives me hope because you’re making an effort. And you can’t fault a man who keeps making an effort.”
“But you can fault a monster when he fails,” he rumbled, leaning his cheek into her palm. “And failing means I will hurt you. Do you know what the hardest thing is for a man?”
“Hmm?”
“Hurting the people he loves.”
Trina smiled slowly. He hadn’t said the words in order—I love you—but he’d just admitted he did. He loved her. She wasn’t alone in this. “Your wolf could try to hurt me, sure. It’s a risk. But I’ve decided something.”
Kade’s eyes drifted to a flyaway lock of her hair, and then he gently pushed it behind her ear. “What did you decide, pretty kitty?”
“If your wolf hurt me…I would hurt him back, make myself safe, because it’s what you would want. And then I would forgive him, over and over, because I know the man. You’re kind, protective, and thoughtful. The good in you is so much bigger than the bad.”
Kade dragged his fingertips up her arm, trailing fire where he touched her skin. “You really believe that?”
Leaning into his touch, she kissed his palm. “Yes,” she whispered. “I really do.”
Up, up his fingertips went until he gripped the back of her neck. His lips twisted into a feral smile, and her stomach dipped with how sexy he was. Dangerous man who could handle her. She didn’t have to be gentle with him. There wasn’t anything fragile about Kade.
His lips crashed onto hers, and for a moment, she was shocked with the force of it. With the power that vibrated off his body and blew right through her. He wasn’t holding back anymore, and for a second, she was shocked at how much his presence took up every molecule of space. He was Kade. He was the wolf. He was the woods, the stars, the moon, a hurricane. And there was something so addictive about holding the attention of a hurricane. So she threw her arms around his shoulders and held on. The way he kissed her was changing her. She wouldn’t be her old self anymore if she gave into her need for him. She would be different from the inside out, and she had no idea what all that entailed. All she knew was that this wasn’t some lusty night with a man to relieve the pangs of her heat. It was so much more than lust.
She was burning up under his touch. His hands were rough on her hips, her waist, her neck, her shoulders, then gripping the back of her hair, he began pushing her backward as he kissed her into oblivion.
High.
She was high as a kite on whatever he was doing to her body. He dragged her hips against his, and she could feel it there between them. His erection was so hard and thick. She wanted it—no, needed it.
“Kade, please,” she whispered on his lips as he pushed her back against a tree.
“I’ll take care of you,” he promised.
Every fiber of her body was reaching for him. She couldn’t get close enough. She pushed his shirt up over his head, and he helped yank it off the rest of the way. He tossed it into the dirt and pulled off her shirt, then tossed it, too.
His lips were on hers again, moving smoothly like lava over rocks. Tasting her with his tongue. The man could kiss. It was as if he knew exactly what she liked. He was in complete control, and she was left to enjoy the ride. No thinking, just lost in the moment with him. Kade yanked off her bra and tossed into the woods. As he dropped to his knees, he ripped her jeans down to her ankles, which then joined the clothes mess on the forest floor. He buried his face between her legs, lapping his tongue over and over her clit until she was moaning with every lick and moving with him. His hands gripped her ass so hard with each suck. Fuck, she was already so close.
“Kade, I’m gonna…I’m gonna…”
“Finish,” he demanded. And he thrust his tongue deep inside her. Steady. Licking
. Hard. All she could do was grip a low-hanging branch above her and hold on as her legs buckled. He held her hips as her body exploded around his tongue. She cried out, and the second his grip softened, she went to her knees, straddling his lap. Kade lifted her and positioned the head of his thick cock right at her entrance, and then he squeezed her hips in a powerful grasp and pulled her down over the length of him until he was buried deep inside her.
She was still having aftershocks when he began moving her up and down his dick. Rough boy. She loved this. He knew just how to handle her. With a snarl in his throat, Kade laid her on her back, never breaking their connection, and then he drew back and rammed into her.
She groaned in ecstasy because it felt so good. He slammed into her again and again. And now another release was building. “Oooooh Kade, it’s happening again.”
“Good girl,” he murmured against her ear, right before he nipped her sensitive lobe and thrust into her again. He was so big, so perfect inside of her. He started to buck into her faster and faster. All she could do was hold tight onto his shoulders when he buried himself deep and froze, his dick pulsing, filling her with warmth. He groaned with every jet he spilled into her, and the throbbing brought on another orgasm. Panting, she clung to him, digging her nails into his back in desperation as she finally, finally found relief with the man who had all of her attention. Who had all of her animal’s attention.
As her body pulsed on, Kade laid his teeth on her neck and bit down just enough to cause the perfect amount of pleasure and pain. Then he sucked her neck hard before moving his lips to her ear. “You’re mine now, Pretty Kitty.”
Chapter Ten
“What are you so smiley about?” her dad, Cooper, asked.
She hadn’t realized he was watching her, so Trina cleared her throat and composed her face. She busied herself with eating a trio of French fries, but yep, that dumb smile was stretching her face again, no matter how hard she tried to keep it off.
“She has a crush on a boy,” Leah said unhelpfully as she swished around their table in her fitted pink waitress dress. She set Dad’s chicken finger basket in front of him and put her hands on her hips, looking from Trina to Dad to Trina again. “We’re basically sisters now,” Leah squeaked.
Dad frowned. “I thought that wolf was steering clear of you.”
Stupid smile wouldn’t stay off her face! “Well—”
Leah interrupted. “Kade told me this morning he is working on his Changes, and when I asked why, he said, ‘None of your damn business,’ and when I reminded him we are in the same Clan and he is my maker and everything is my business, he growled a lot and walked outside, but I followed him and promised to make him a macaroni friendship picture of us frolicking through the forest together. When he told me he would quit the Clan if I did, I told him, ‘Fine, I won’t make you a macaroni picture if you tell me why you are working on your Changes.’ Then he said one word.” Leah’s smile was megawatt as she looked from Trina to Cooper and back again.
Even though Trina had big hopes on what that one word was, it was Dad who took the bait first. “What word?”
“Trina!” Leah said in a high octave that made both Trina and Dad hunch their shoulders and cover their sensitive ears.
Leah clapped her hands over her mouth and then whispered, “Sorry. Still not used to shifter hearing.”
Her eyes were glowing silver like Kade’s, and since the lunch rush was hitting the Hamburger Shack, Trina gestured to her face. “Leah, you’re gonna have to calm down if you don’t want everyone in this town knowing you’re a wolf.”
Leah glanced around, smile still plastered across her face. “Why would I care about that? I’m a motherfuckin’ werewolf. That’s so cool!”
Trina snorted and shook her head. “All right, go on with your big bad wolf self.”
“Okay, I better get back to work. My best friend Billy is watching me.”
“It’s Bill!” the cook yelled from the open window to the kitchen.
Trina snorted as Leah sauntered off, humming to herself like she hadn’t just been yelled at.
Movement out the front picture window caught her attention. That, or it was her instincts telling her Kade was near because, when she looked up from her half-eaten burger basket, the tall wolf was lowering the tailgate on an old Ford pickup truck. He wore a baseball hat, white T-shirt, and jeans that were threadbare at the knees. Sunglasses covered his eyes, and he hadn’t shaved this morning. A toothpick hung from his masculine lips. Lucky, lucky toothpick. He gave a crooked smile to the shop owner, Mr. Owen, who approached him out of the general store. He shook his hand, his triceps rippling. His shirt clung to his shoulders and back as he moved and, holy balls, she knew exactly what he looked like under those clothes. Didn’t diminish the celebration that every single hormone in her body was throwing right now. Kade was the hottest guy she’d ever seen. Not that she was staring as he unloaded a trio of rocking chairs out of the bed of his truck. My, what big muscles he had.
Mr. Owen handed him a wad of cash, and Kade pocketed it before he helped the shop owner carry the chairs to the front of his store across the street.
Okay, she had seen all those memes online about the hot handymen, and she wasn’t trying to be one of those easily twitter-pated girls, but good God, there was something incredibly sexy about a man who could fix things. And build them. Those chairs were beautiful, polished oak from the look of them. They were different than the chair he’d made for her.
Kade jogged across the street and, holy hell, time slowed. Relaxed fists pumping, smile on his face, white T-shirt suctioned to his Adonis body in the breeze.
“Are you okay?” Leah asked from right beside her.
“Aaah!” she yelped, nearly jumping out of her own skin. “Leah, don’t do that!”
“Do what?”
“Sneak up on people!”
“She bumbled over here like a lumbering Rhino,” Dad said, staring at Trina like she’d lost her mind, which she had. “Leah almost fell twice and she knocked over a metal napkin holder.”
“I like you Cooper,” Leah chirped. “You say it how it is.”
When Trina turned back to the window, Kade was right there. Right. There. Inches from the glass where she sat with a sinful smirk on his sexy face.
Beside her, Leah was waving like a lunatic. “Hey, Kade! This is so cool. This is that two-way glass, so he can’t even see us. He’s just able to sense you because you’re his mate.” She pulled Trina out of her chair and started shoving her toward the door.
“What?” Trina asked.
“What?” Dad called even louder in a booming voice.
“Life-diddlers, eternal partners in crime, modern day Bonny and Clyde, forever snugglers, the lips made for only Kade’s BJs, the one, the only—”
“Leah, what are you doing?” Trina said, trying to struggle out of her iron grip as she shoved her out the front door.
“You are mates, Trina! You’ve found him! You’ve found the one! Sure, he is ninety-four percent psychotic, but all that unstable passion was made just for you.” Outside, Leah released her and gestured for her to go. “Be free, Trina,” she whispered weirdly. “Go find your hopes and dreams.”
Trina and Kade stood there staring at her. “Are you having another episode?” he asked Leah.
“Yes,” she whispered through the mushiest smile.
Kade sighed. “Sorry about that. She’s been on a chick-flick binge for a week. I think she’s on her period.”
Trina snorted and then laughed, but coughed to cover it up because the smile had fallen from Leah’s face.
“My menses is none of your business, Kade. And are you the one who took all my romantic movies from the TV stand?”
“Yep. Those will rot your mind.”
“You replaced them with all war movies and old westerns!”
“You’re welcome. You can tell Ethan he is welcome, too. Start with Wyatt Earp. It’ll change your life.”
“Does it have kissi
ng in it?” Leah asked, crossing her arms over her chest. Her cheeks were turning red, and this might have been the first time Trina ever saw the girl frown. “Or I-love-yous, or hand-holding, or a break up and a make up?”
“You don’t need all that stuff.”
Leah stormed off. “I’m telling Ethan.”
“Go on, tattletale! Then he’ll know who to thank next time he doesn’t have to watch Never Been Kissed for the millionth time in a row.”
“You’re the worst Clan-mate!”
Kade’s expression was absolutely unremorseful as he watched Leah walk away.
“She’s going to kick you out of the Clan,” Trina murmured, turning to face him.
“Good. I’m better off a Lone Wolf anyway.” But his voice lacked conviction, and he was still wearing that crooked smile that said he was more teasing than serious. “Hey,” he rumbled, slipping his hands to her waist and bringing her in close.
The butterflies in her stomach were on a rampage as he leaned in. The bill of his hat was in the way so she pushed it off him and slipped her hands around his shoulders. Was he really going to kiss her right here in front of everyone? This was right in the middle of town, at midday, and the hub of gossip.
But nope…nope, he didn’t care. Because his smile pressed right onto hers, and his lips softened as he angled his head to the side. His mouth moved against hers so easily, like they’d been born to be connected just like this. When his tongue slipped past her lips, her body reacted. Nipping his bottom lip, she pressed harder against him. He wrapped his arms around her waist, hugged her so tight it was hard to inhale.
But who cared about breathing right now? Kade was kissing her. He was giving her this normal couple moment just like everyone else got, just like she’d always wanted.
And then she heard it—the growl rattling his throat. It got louder and louder until he eased back and rested his forehead against hers. He was gritting his teeth so hard his jaw was clenched.
“Hey,” she whispered, pulling back. She took the sunglasses off his face to reveal his tightly closed eyes. “Look at me.”