Squaring her shoulders and clearing her throat, she asked, “Can I get you two anything? Coffee? Tea?”
“I think the better question is, can we get you something? Like an escape plan?” Nat asked, her blue eyes full of amusement when she folded her hands over her knees.
Martine laughed, relaxing a little and tucking the collar of Derrick’s shirt tighter around her neck. “You have to admit, this is a little out of the ordinary.”
“Oh, you’ll get no argument from me. Makes me damn glad I’m not a male Adams,” Nat teased.
JC laughed, too, her red lips turning upward in a wide grin. “Aw, c’mon. I don’t see the crazy in a man telling you he has to mate with you or he’ll die. Doesn’t that happen all the time to you two?”
Martine instantly warmed and found herself sinking into the chair opposite the couch, tucking her legs beneath her. “It’s certainly a jaw-dropper.”
Nat leaned forward, eyeing Martine, a smile on her lips. “Okay, so first, let’s get this all out in the open. You’re here because Derrick has to have sex with you. No point in pussyfooting around about it. No pun intended. You get all that, right?”
Martine’s cheeks went red. Red. Her cheeks. This from a woman who had no remorse when she hit the man buffet in order to feed her very active libido. Not a shred. She wasn’t afraid of her sexuality—she enjoyed it. But to have it on display like this…was awkward. “I get it,” she finally managed.
Nat grinned. “Good. So how are you? I mean, really? Don’t stiff-upper-lip this either. Forget Derrick and death and all the other stuff. This puts you in a ridiculous position, Martine. It’s unfair and archaic and as much as I love my brother, I’d get it if you wanted to run as fast and as far away as you can. Not one of us would blame you.”
“The truth,” JC chimed in, pulling some of the clothes from the bag she’d brought.
Martine shrugged her shoulders. Despite the fact that her life back in New York was in ruins, and she was caught up in this mate drama, she was all right. Really all right. She wasn’t in Escobar’s clutches anymore, and that was more than all right.
“So this will probably sound crazy under the circumstances, but I’m okay. Derrick’s been very nice, and so have all of you.”
Nat’s pretty face shadowed with concern. “So how did this all happen? Derrick says he found you at a 7-Eleven? Did someone kidnap you right from your own home and stuff you in a cat carrier? That’s some nutty shit.”
Yeah. A little. Again, the problem was, she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten into that cat carrier and who had dropped her off at the 7-Eleven in the first place. Not to mention, she was going to have to lie to these people who were only trying to be nice to her about how she’d been kidnapped.
“I don’t remember much, to be honest. One minute I was asleep. The next I was in your brother’s truck.”
“And your family?” JC asked, her eyes full of warmth. “Have you contacted them to let them know you’re okay? I have a cell, if you need it.” She began to dig through her purse, but Martine stopped her.
Her throat threatened to tighten up, but she managed, “No family.”
“Friends? The people you work with?” JC prodded, her smooth brow furrowing.
Keeping her eyes focused on the clothes JC set on the coffee table, she prepared another lie. “I lost my job just before this…this all happened, and I was new to Manhattan. So no one’s looking for me.” More lies. Well, technically, no one cared where she was. They only cared about where their money was.
Nat exhaled, her expression full of sorrow. “I’m so sorry.”
JC reached out a hand and patted Martine’s knee. “Me too.”
Martine shook her head and forced a sunny smile. “Please, don’t be. I’m a bit of a loner anyway.” And she was. If she was truthful about anything with them, that was her biggest truth.
Nat rose and held up a red shirt, shaking it out. “Well, not anymore. Now, like it or not, you have all of us nosy, interfering, pain-in-the-ass Adamses to drive you right out of your pretty mind. You’ll never be alone again. That’s a promise.”
Martine’s chest began to tighten. They thought she was in it for the long haul. Obviously, Derrick hadn’t told them about their deal. But that wasn’t the entire reason she was feeling overwhelmed.
Being alone all these years meant she didn’t owe anyone anything. You couldn’t be held accountable for anyone else’s emotions if you didn’t allow yourself to become wrapped up in them. Safe distances were her bread and butter.
But she couldn’t say that. Not when everyone was welcoming her with open arms like she was going to be their newest addition to the family. “Good to know,” she responded.
Nat flapped her hands. “Anyway, we brought you some clothes. Most of them are JC’s. When Derrick described you, he said you were curvier like J.”
Derrick had described her? The word curvy made her warm and smiley. Also not something she was familiar or comfortable with. Since when did a man’s approval mean squat to her?
Yet, here she was, warm from head to toe.
Nat stuck out one of her long, gorgeously slender legs. “I’m too damn tall. Everything I have would be too long on you. But JC’s got some great stuff and this is just to tide you over until we can drag you into town and pick you up some things of your own. As I’m learning, J loves any excuse to shop.” Then Nat brightened. “Unless you’d like us to take you into the city to get your own things? Derrick said you were from Manhattan—love Manhattan, and I’m all for a girls’ day trip.”
“I’m in, too,” JC said. “We could grab some lunch, maybe hit Macy’s.”
Sure. They could do that. If she had things of her own. An apartment of her own. Money of her own. Anything of her own. But she couldn’t tell them that.
More lies on their way. “This is perfect for now, really. I sort of need a break from the city anyway, if…if that’s okay by you?”
Martine caught the women passing each other looks of concern, but she chose to ignore them in honor of having something better to wear than just Derrick’s shirt.
Though, if she were honest with herself, Derrick’s shirt smelled good—like Derrick, clean and musky with a hint of the outdoors.
As JC and Nat watched her, she knew what she had to do. She’d done it all her life.
Divert them. That was how she got through all the rough patches in her small world. Diversion, diversion, diversion. Take the focus off her. It was how she avoided getting too personal, avoided girl talk—avoided.
“But maybe you could help me get these things together? Show me what you brought? I think Derrick has a bottle of wine in the fridge, and I’d love the company.”
That wasn’t a lie. She liked these women, liked their vibe. Things could be far worse than having two women offer to take you shopping. She could still be holed up at Escobar’s with Jersey Shore on an endless loop and nothing but dry cat food and water. Or they could be the pack members charged with tying her to a pillar for the death-sex.
It could always be worse.
The suggestion appeared to appease them. “I call first dibs on Hector’s brownies!” Nat yelped, loping into the kitchen to grab the foil-covered tray.
“Brownies?” Martine asking with a tilt of her head and a smile. It had been so long since she’d eaten real food, if she wasn’t careful, she was going to OD on it.
Nat nodded, fishing out a chunk of moist, cakey chocolate. “He makes the most amazing brownies.”
Brownies and some clothes to wear. Yeah. Right now, everything really was all right.
* * *
Upon Nat and JC’s departure, Martine polished off the last of Hector’s brownies. Whoever Hector was.
And whoever he was, he did make an amazing brownie. She felt euphoric, electric, alive. So alive.
Licking her fingers, she ignored the notion that euphoria and she weren’t exactly BFFs and decided to go with it. She had some cute clothes thanks to JC, her head wasn’t full of que
stions after polishing off a bottle of wine between the three of them, she wasn’t locked in a cage, and she was erect for the first time in months.
She was free—so free, she wanted to dance and sing in celebration.
Also something she didn’t do, but somehow, her fingers found Derrick’s TV remote and she flipped it on, surfing the music channels until she found some satellite dance station.
Martine grinned as she spun around, letting her hips gyrate to the hard beat, sipping the remnants of her wine and smiling to herself as the sun slipped away and night fell.
“Martine?”
Oh, that voice. Why did it sound extra gravelly and silky tonight?
Turning around, she greeted the man at the center of this crazy and grinned. Heavens, he was so sexy with his tight jeans clinging to the muscles of his thighs and his thin blue sweater hugging his pecs.
“You’re home,” she cooed, not fazed at all by how happy her tone rang. She sashayed out into the kitchen to grab another bottle of wine from the fridge.
Her hips still moving to the beat, Martine popped the cork and poured him a glass, offering it to him when he walked into the kitchen, fighting to catch her breath at how glad she was to see him.
As he pulled off his jacket and dropped it on a breakfast barstool, Derrick’s gaze met hers—and it held suspicion. “I’m definitely home. So, you look pretty happy there. Am I allowed to ask why? Or is that too personal?”
Nothing was too personal right now. Right now everything was hunky-dory. She giggled as she made her way back into the living room, twirling once more, enjoying the feel of the fabric of her ruffled skirt fluttering around her thighs. “I met your sister, Nat, and JC brought me some clothes. I figured it was cause for celebration.”
His eyes scanned her length in a way she knew all too well. One she’d seen plenty over the years—one she didn’t mind at all because she was guilty of the same thing.
Derrick was beautiful to look at. She planned to look without hiding her approval.
At that moment, as he crossed the room, it didn’t dawn on her that even while she was comfortable indulging her libido under these very trying circumstances, normally she’d keep it in tight check.
But tonight she felt giddy and light and pretty and something else that was a song she couldn’t remember the words to at the moment.
Instead, she wiggled a finger at him and winked. “Dance with me,” she encouraged when a slower John Mayer tune echoed from the speakers.
He shook his head, the dark fall of his hair grazing his cheek. “Nope. I don’t dance.”
No was an unacceptable answer tonight, so Martine swayed her way over to him, wrapping an arm around his neck and pulling him close. “Aw, c’mon,” she coaxed, in a delicious haze of wine and brownies, letting her hips graze his.
All that hard muscle and rugged man made her even more breathless.
She heard him hiss when their bodies met, felt the spark of chemistry, knew she was tempting someone she had no right tempting, but did it anyway.
Derrick’s hands, wide and warm, went around her waist, though he kept them in a perfectly respectable place. “You’ve had too much to drink,” he said all nice and yummy and honorable.
Yeah. That was odd. She’d only had three glasses of wine today, but it felt like much more. Still, she didn’t care. “Are you afraid I’m going to do something I’ll regret?”
“Truth?”
She inhaled his musky scent, intoxicating and all man. “Always.”
“I’m afraid I might.”
A shiver ran along her spine, showing up in the way of goose bumps on her arms. “And why would you regret it?”
“Because you’re clearly under the influence. I’m not a fan of taking advantage.”
Dreamy sigh. So honorable. Martine pressed closer, her nipples tight against the thin fabric of the silk shirt she wore. “I’ve only had three glasses of wine. But what if I told you I wouldn’t mind if you took advantage of me?”
“I’d tell you that’s the three glasses of wine talking.”
“Can I be honest with you?”
His eyes were skeptical, but he nodded, letting his fingers reach up to trace the length of her arm, making circular patterns of heat on her skin. “Always.”
Her brain said stop, but her lips, well, her lips managed to fight off her brain. Rationally, she knew this wasn’t some one-night stand she could hide from come tomorrow. Irrationally? She wanted him—was on fire for him—didn’t care about the consequences.
So she decided on blatant honesty. “Here’s the score. I find you very attractive. The bonus for you is, I don’t get attached. I don’t believe in or want forever—neither do you. But I do want to make love with you. It’s been a long time since I made love. I can’t see any reason why we shouldn’t pass the time we have together amicably, can you?”
“I can think of a million, but you’re trashing all of them with that damn skirt,” he said gruffly, tucking her closer, letting his lower body move in time with hers. “So name your terms.”
“Terms?”
“The rules of engagement outlined in black and white.”
How could she do that when his hand was tracing the crease in her thigh? “Um, we agree to make love until this thing is over and then we go back to our lives?”
“No hard feelings if one of us isn’t into it?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t imagine not being into Derrick ever. “Meaning?”
“Well, let’s say you’ve had a stressful day, and you’re tired—”
She put a finger to his lips to squash that notion. “I’m never too tired. I warn you, I have a pretty healthy appetite.”
“So you like to initiate?”
Her hand strayed to his abdomen, caressing him. “I’m not shy,” she whispered, letting her lips graze his, shivering when his tongue slipped out to tease her mouth.
“Good. Me neither. Anything you don’t like?”
“Mushrooms. Not a fan.”
Derrick laughed, the rigid outline in his jeans pushing at her lower abdomen. “I meant in the bedroom.”
“Then always open for discussion. Unless you want to wear a diaper and call me Mommy. Not open for discussion.”
Derrick’s beautiful face crumbled in mock sadness. “Dream crusher,” he said on a laugh. “Seriously, if I never promise you anything else, I can promise diapers and moms are off the table. I like good old fashioned lovemaking.”
“So are you in or are you out, Farm Boy?” she asked, groaning when his hand slid upward over her thigh and along the cheek of her ass possessively.
Derrick kneaded the handful of flesh while she watched his brain absorb her offer. He warred with it, chewed on it then gave in to it. “You sure about this, Pussycat?”
Was she sure? She was so sure, she was surer than sure. “Oh, I’m sure,” she purred back.
The left half of his mouth tilted upward in a grin. “Then in it is.”
That was all the incentive Martine needed. Standing on tiptoe, she planted her lips firmly on his, wrapping her arms around his neck and sighing when their chests crushed together.
But when Derrick’s tongue slipped into her mouth, when he took command of the kiss, when his lips, soft and hard at the same time, consumed hers, she inhaled sharply.
His kiss was like no other she’d ever had.
Right then and there, she knew she should stop this. Knew this was going somewhere she didn’t want to go—had always been afraid to go. Knew she’d end up in hot water, but the rest of her refused to cooperate with reason.
No. Rather, the rest of her threw her into the decadence of Derrick’s mouth, the hot swipe of his tongue, the way he hauled her up close as if her lips were the only pair left on the planet.
He didn’t just kiss her, he demanded she kiss him, and it made her head spin.
There was instant connection, instant lust—so much lust, her head throbbed with it, her nipples tightened to the tune of it,
and her heart reacted violently to it. The crash in her chest left her almost breathless.
And she wanted more. She wanted to stand in the middle of his living room and kiss him forever.
Derrick’s moan brought her more satisfaction than she thought possible when he deepened their kiss and began to move her toward the couch.
Her fingers found the edge of his sweater, driving it up over his chest, and she left his lips only long enough to get it over his head. When her palms touched his flesh for the first time, her fingertips tingled. She let them lie flat on his pecs, absorbing the heat of his smooth skin, arching her neck, desperate to keep their mouths connected.
Derrick’s fingers were nimble, popping open the buttons of her shirt until it was left hanging off her shoulders. And then he cupped her breasts, using both hands, pushing them together, thumbing her nipples, bringing them to rigid peaks until she squirmed from the heat building between her thighs.
Tugging at his belt, Martine yanked it open and found the button on his jeans, tearing at it and dragging the zipper down, forcing his jeans over his lean hips and to the floor.
Derrick kicked off his shoes and stepped out of his jeans, keeping her flush to him, pulling her closer, bending her backward until she was on the couch and his hands were driving her skirt upward.
Martine held her breath, clenched her fists, squeezed her eyes shut when Derrick began to travel down over her collarbone, skimming her nipples, licking them, blowing on them, and bringing them to tight peaks. He dipped his tongue into her bellybutton, swirling it around before kissing his way toward the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh.
He spread her legs wide, his hair soft against her skin when he leaned forward, his eyes caressing the most intimate part of her body.
Martine’s breathing hitched when he let out a low groan and murmured his approval. “Smooth like silk.”
Then his arms circled her, cupping her ass and pulling her to his lips. Lips that seared her as he pressed them flush to her aching core.
Derrick stilled for a moment, breathing her in, unmoving, making her writhe with anticipation until she grabbed a handful of his hair and lifted herself toward his mouth.
What's New, Pussycat? (Wolf Mates Book 2) Page 7