“Thanks,” she muttered, and then jumped out of the truck.
“I’m still willing to kill him for you!” Xander called after her. She waved.
The trailer park had definitely seen better days. The snow gave everything a surface prettiness, but the trailers were shabby, most of them in bad repair. Here and there she saw a straggle of Christmas lights, but mostly it looked like nobody in this place had the energy to try anymore.
She walked down the rows, looking for Brody’s car. Before she saw it, though, she heard his voice through the clear night air. Running swiftly, she ducked behind the corner of the last trailer on the row and peeked out.
Brody was standing on the porch of a trailer that looked like it was in a bit better shape than the others. There were patches of new siding, and it looked like the porch railing had recently been repaired. There were icicle lights around the roofline.
The door was open, and a pretty, curvy young woman was greeting Brody with obvious pleasure. Jasmin saw him give her a small, elaborately wrapped box, and they laughed over something.
And then he stepped inside.
Hot jealousy stabbed at her. Was this woman a girlfriend? Or an ex? Her jaguar growled softly.
But why would he call Jasmin his mate, if he were with someone else? Did he have a child? But why would it be raised in secret when Brody belonged to one of the most powerful packs in the country? None of this made sense.
Quietly, on cat feet, Jasmin stole around to the side of the trailer. It looked out on an empty space, and the curtains hadn’t yet been pulled for the night.
She peeked inside, into the living room. There was an older woman with a crumpled face sitting in a plaid easy chair, with a brightly-colored afghan over her legs. Her long stringy hair was mouse-brown, heavily streaked with gray, and her eyes looked vacant. Her hands were plucking at the knitted flowers on the afghan, her mouth working.
At first Jasmin thought she was in her seventies or eighties, but as she looked more closely at the woman’s face, she saw that she was probably not more than fifty-five or sixty. It was the gray hair and the crumpled, vacant look that made her seem older.
“Yolanda?” the woman called in a querulous voice. Then, looking frightened, she called again, “Yolanda?”
Jasmin could hear her clearly—the walls of the trailer were thin, and the windows poorly sealed.
The young woman hurried into the room. “I’m here, Adele,” she said soothingly. “And look who I have with me.”
Brody stepped inside the room, still carrying a gaily wrapped box. “Hey, Ma,” he said gently. “Merry Christmas.”
Chapter 21
Jasmin ducked down and pressed her back to the side of the trailer.
Hey, Ma.
This was Brody’s secret. This was who he’d stayed behind in Nashville for, instead of going to Idaho and starting a new life.
This was the person he’d been protecting.
But why? Why had he gone to so much trouble to keep her off the radar?
She raised herself slowly, needing to watch the scene unfolding inside. Needing to understand.
Adele’s eyes fixed on Brody, and they went wide with fear. “No!” she screamed. “No! Don’t take me! Please don’t take me!” She began to cry, hugging herself with her arms and rocking back and forth.
Brody looked like his heart was breaking.
“No one’s going to take you, Ma,” he said. “It’s okay.”
But Adele only wept harder.
Yolanda shook her head. “She’s not good today, Mr. Jameson. Not good at all. Did you manage to get the new compound?”
He nodded, not taking his eyes off his mother. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a vial. “Do you think it will help her memory, now that the other one’s not working anymore?”
Jasmin wondered how many fights had paid for that vial. How many wounds he’d taken, how much blood he’d shed. All for just the hope he could help her.
He’d done all that for a woman who’d left him when he was six years old. Who didn’t even recognize him—who looked at him with fear in her face.
Shame cut through her, hot and hard. She should have trusted him. She should have given him time to trust her.
She should have listened to her heart, not her fear.
Yolanda pulled a syringe out of her pocket and filled it from the vial. Making small soothing noises, she calmed Adele enough to wipe her arm with disinfectant and inject her.
After a few moments, Adele’s eyes closed, and Brody stepped back into the room.
“She’ll know you in a few minutes,” Yolanda said, but she sounded more hopeful than certain.
“She’s getting worse, isn’t she,” Brody said.
Yolanda nodded. “Some days are better than others, but she’s in and out,” she said. “If this doesn’t work…”
Brody just nodded.
“I brought some food,” he said. “Just a few treats. They’re in the kitchen. Could you do me a favor and make a nice plate with them? I want to be here when she comes to.”
Yolanda nodded, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder as she left the room.
Brody closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, as if gathering strength.
Then he pulled out his phone and attached it to a little portable speaker, and in a moment Christmas carols were playing softly in the background. He set the gift he’d brought on a side table near his mother’s chair, where there was a tiny evergreen in a pot, with little lights and ornaments on it. There were no other holiday decorations in the room.
He sat down on an ottoman near Adele’s chair, and held her hand.
After a few minutes, Adele opened her eyes. She seemed groggy for a moment, confused, and then she saw her son and her eyes lit up.
“Brody! When did you get here? I must have dozed off.”
She sounded so happy now. Brody’s face cleared, and he smiled at her, though there was deep sadness in his eyes. “Hey, Ma. Merry Christmas.”
He leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“My goodness!” she said, a shade of confusion passing over her face again. “It can’t be Christmas Day already!”
“Nah, but it’s almost Christmas Eve. I brought you some treats, and we’re going to celebrate. And I brought a present.”
Her hands went to her mouth. “Oh, Brody, you shouldn’t have spent your money on me.”
Jasmin felt tears sting her eyes. This was why Brody had needed so much money, why he fought so often. Not just the drugs, but the rent on this place, food, salary for Yolanda. For some reason, he didn’t want anyone to be able to trace any of that back to him.
But why?
Jasmin knew she shouldn’t be watching this. She should just knock on the door, but for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to. It seemed like such a private moment, seeing Brody with his mom. And yet she drank it in, being able to watch him like this, to see a side of him no one else saw.
Yolanda brought in a plate of pastries and little cookies, and Brody served them to his mother while he entertained her with stories about his friends in the Nashville pack, most of which Jasmin was sure were made up.
But they made Adele happy.
Afterwards, she opened her gift, her fingers lingering on the lacy gold ribbon, the pretty wrapping, the elegant tissue paper in the box. The present was a gorgeous silk scarf, all printed with peacock feathers. Brody wrapped it around his mother’s neck and found a mirror so she could admire herself in it. Then he stood behind her and brushed her hair, singing softly along with the Christmas songs while she just closed her eyes and smiled.
Jasmin’s heart broke all over again.
After a while, his mother opened her eyes and touched her scarf. “So pretty,” she said. “But why did you bring me a present? It’s not my birthday.”
“It’s Christmas, Ma,” Brody said, just as if he hadn’t already said it.
“My goodness!” she said. “It can’t be Christmas Day already!�
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“No, Ma,” Brody said. “But it’s almost Christmas Eve.”
Jasmin melted into the darkness, tears stinging her eyes.
Brody shut the door of the trailer and leaned against it, closing his eyes and letting out a great sigh. He knew it made his mother happy when he was here—at least, it did when she recognized him.
But seeing her like this just made him depressed.
The old medicine would bring back her memories for a short time, but she always slipped away into her own mind before long.
This new stuff was supposed to repair the damage. If it did, there was a chance he could find out who exactly was after his mother—and how to get her out of their sights for good.
But as long as she was in danger from someone unknown, he had to keep her here. And there had to be no link back to him—no link to anyone either of them had ever known. And now, with Bastian and his cronies having seen Monster Wolf, he couldn’t go back to the Nashville pack.
What he really should do was disappear, and take Adele with him. But without access to the drugs… Shit. Every way he turned, it all fell apart.
After a few minutes he hauled himself upright and started down the porch steps. It was almost fucking Christmas Eve, and he didn’t know where to go.
Or what to do tomorrow, or the next day. He wanted to be with Jasmin so badly, it was a constant ache in his chest. The thought of spending Christmas without her made him want to drink himself into oblivion.
So when he saw her sitting cross-legged on the hood of his car, he thought for a minute he was hallucinating.
Shock warred with hope in his heart. She’d come after him. Again.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Waiting for you.”
“How did you find me?” He glanced around. This place was supposed to be a secret from everyone. If she could find it…
Jasmin opened her fist to reveal a small black button-like object, about the size of a fifty-cent piece.
“Flynn put a tracker on your car.” She tossed it to him.
Automatically, he put his hand out and caught it.
“Shit.” He didn’t know whether to be angry or impressed. “Fucking paranoid crazy-ass lion. I thought he liked me.”
“He does like you,” Jasmin said. “You should see what he does to people he doesn’t like.”
Brody snorted a laugh at that. He didn’t know why he was surprised. Flynn had admitted to following Brody to his drug dealer—why not a tracker? At least Brody could count on the fact that he was too paranoid to tell anyone what he found out. No one outside the Bad Bloods would learn about this location. Adele was safe.
But Flynn was still an asshole.
“Fucking lion,” he said again. He hauled back and threw the tracker across the parking lot. It hit a patch of ice and slid underneath the steps of Adele’s trailer.
“I’m kind of liking him right now,” Jasmin admitted. “Otherwise I would never have found you.”
“So why did you come?” he asked. He meant to sound challenging, to hold onto his pride and harden his heart. But she looked so vulnerable, sitting there, and he couldn’t make himself push her away.
He still wanted her so badly.
She took a deep breath, and then let it out without saying anything. She took another one.
He could see her trying to break down her walls, trying to get words out.
“You said you loved me,” she said finally, her raspy voice no more than a whisper. “And I told you I didn’t want you to.” Another deep breath. “It wasn’t true,” she admitted.
He waited, unable to breathe, a tiny seed of hope blossoming one more time in the center of his chest. She’d pushed him away, but then she came after him.
“I wanted you to love me, but I wanted you to love me. The strong parts and the soft parts. I thought if I loved you, it would make me soft, and you’d hurt me. But losing you hurt worse.”
She swallowed, looking away.
“Full disclosure. I looked in the window, and I saw you with your mother,” she told him. “I wanted to knock on the door and come inside, but I didn’t know if you wanted me here. I wish you did. I want you to love me. I want to love you back. I do need you, and it makes me so fucking scared I don’t know what to do.”
By the time she finished what she was saying he was already moving, closing the distance between them and hugging her up tight. He could feel her shaking in his arms, how scared she was, his beautiful deadly jaguar who wasn’t afraid of anything.
Except opening her heart.
But she’d jumped off the cliff for him, arms spread wide, and he had to be there to catch her, the way he’d told her he would.
He held her close and stroked her hair, whispering gently, “Shh. It’s okay. It’s all okay now.”
He could still feel her trembling; hell, he could feel himself trembling. The pain in his chest that he’d been carrying around began to subside, and warmth was creeping in.
He felt like he’d been so cold for so long.
Chapter 22
They went back to Brody’s apartment. Jasmin barely noticed anything about it—just that it was masculine and classy and looked like some decorator’s idea of what a young business executive’s apartment should look like.
Not what Brody was like at all. Brody was earth and sunshine and surprising depths of shadow. He was t-shirts and flannel and torn jeans and scars and sultry looks from those sea-blue eyes.
Brody loved her, and she loved him back.
Right now, she couldn’t see anything but that.
Maybe she wasn’t a wolf; maybe she couldn’t be the kind of mate he wanted.
But they could love each other. She could ease his burdens, and she could make him feel less alone.
She wrapped her arms around him as soon as they were inside the door, her head on his chest, letting him breathe her scent.
Scent was important to wolves.
She slid his leather jacket off his shoulders and let it drop to the floor. Moments later, hers followed it, and then he was pulling her shirt over her head, running his hands down her back, tangling his fingers in her hair.
She loved how he loved her hair.
She felt a soft growl his chest—a low rumble that was more a vibration than anything else.
Pleasure. Desire. Wanting.
An answering purr grew inside her own chest. Sexy wolf. Hot. Needy. She slid her hands under his t-shirt, rubbing her forearms over his taut muscles. His skin was warm and velvety, and she wanted all of it.
Brody reached over his shoulder and grabbed the back of his t-shirt, pulling it over his head in one lithe motion. Then they were skin to skin, and she was rubbing against him, wanting to feel him with her hands and her breasts and her belly, her lips and her tongue.
She kissed her way up his chest, teasing his nipples, giving one of his pecs a little bite. He hissed in a breath, and then used her hair to pull her head back. He ducked his head quickly and returned the bite, right on the tendon at the bottom of her neck.
The growls were getting louder. He bit his way up her neck, soothing each love-bite with a kiss. He kissed her mouth—long, slow and deep—and then he swept her up with his hands cupping her ass, pinning her against the wall, legs straddling him.
His cock was so huge and hard for her, she felt like she would come apart just feeling it through the layers of cloth that separated them. She sucked the skin under Brody’s ear, let the scent of his skin fill her, luxuriated in the heat and strength of him.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured in her ear. “I want to strip you naked, throw you on the bed and lick you until your pussy is so wet, all you can think of is having my cock inside you. And then I want to make love to you and feel you come around me again and again, until there are no walls left inside you, and all you can feel is how much I love you. How much I will always love you.”
“I want that,” she whispered. “I want you.”
He
carried her down the hall to his bedroom and tumbled her on the bed. He stripped her naked, slowly, kissing and nipping and biting and touching. Hips, thighs, the crease behind her knee, the arch of her foot.
Then he slid his own jeans off, and she could see how ready he was for her. His swollen cock stood straight up, thick and heavy.
He lay down beside her, running one hand slowly up her thigh and over the curve of her hip. He kissed her hipbone.
“Spread your legs for me,” he whispered.
Anticipation clenched in Jasmin’s belly. She was desperate for his touch, already wet for him. He slid his fingers over her slick folds, that growl starting up in his chest again. “Beautiful,” he murmured.
He dipped his head, tasting with quick flicks of his tongue. Jasmin moaned and spread her legs further, desperate for him to touch her more, touch her deeper.
She felt his tongue on her again, this time licking her slowly, all the way from her entrance to her clit.
Sheer ecstasy.
Brody slid his arms under her thighs, his tongue thrusting inside her, tasting her juices, his erotic growls of pleasure vibrating through her nerve endings. Every time he swirled his tongue over her clit, the tension in her belly ratcheted tighter.
He spun it out until she ached to have him inside her, touching her core. Just as she was about to go over the edge, he pulled up, knelt between her legs and thrust himself inside her.
The feeling of his thick shaft filling her was too much. She exploded in an intense orgasm, body shaking, meeting Brody’s thrusts with her own, trying to take him even more deeply inside her.
The climax subsided, but Brody continued to thrust inside her, watching her face, her body, with total intensity. Impossibly, she felt another climax building, and she gripped his arms, nails digging in, unable to do anything but give in to the pleasure.
As the second orgasm crashed over her, Jasmin pulled Brody down on top of her. His slow, measured thrusts had grown faster, harder, and his wolf was growling constantly, his eyes flashing gold.
He was so close, and she wanted to feel him come.
Bad Blood Wolf (Bad Blood Shifters Book 2) Page 13