“Kaleb,” she gasped when she felt his teeth scrape her skin.
He wouldn't change right in front of her...would he?
Her belly in knots, she put her hand up to his chest. Her knees felt as if they were going to give out. She should be scared of him. That would be the logical thing but right now Beth was anything but logical. When he inhaled again, reality hit her like a semi. She was practically falling over herself for him but they couldn’t do this right here in the hallway. Not like this.
“Kaleb,” she said again, this time more forcefully.
He stumbled back and released her as if she’d burned him. He glanced toward the employee door. “Get upstairs, Beth," he said, his voice low. “Don't come back down here.”
Kaleb waited in the hall until well after she’d made it up the stairs. His instinct screamed for him to go after her. Hands against the plaster, he learned against the wall and stared down at the floor while taking deep, ragged breaths to keep the beast in check.
He knew she was fully aware of what she was doing to him. Temptation in yoga pants and a tank top.
When he'd seen her at the bar, he'd made a beeline toward her. Of course, it had been after she'd been spotted by Freddie Novak. The big bald werewolf was the brother of the woman, Lacey, who'd been pursuing him relentlessly for most of the year.
If Freddie realized Beth was human...
He rubbed a palm over his face. Kaleb didn’t want Beth to encounter Lacey - or Freddie, for that matter. The Novaks were known for their intolerance of other species and their unwavering support of the Council. They spelled trouble with a capital T.
Lacey was after a mating with him. She wanted the prestige that came with being an Azarov. His uncle's status made him appealing to the social climbing women. Women he avoided like the plague. He refused to find himself in bed with one who would turn around and bite him just to force a mating.
There'd be no getting rid of her after that and he refused to allow it to happen to him.
Beth, on the other hand, was the woman who called to his beast. He’d never been so close to his beast taking over without him allowing it before. It felt like a full moon. He'd nearly lost control right there in the hallway because she wanted to be a rebellious little flirt.
His dick strained painfully in the confines of his jeans. He breathed through his mouth, the scent of her arousal tinged mildly with fear still lingering in the hallway. It made him sick to think he’d caused her fear.
Alex snapped him back to reality when he opened the employee door and smacked Kaleb in the face with it.
“Damn, dude. I'm sorry,” he said before he saw Kaleb's claws in the wall and smelled the air. “What the hell did I miss?” he asked when the door closed back, blocking out the bar behind him.
“Nothing.”
“You're so full of shit. Go in the cooler and calm down if she's calling to you like that,” he suggested.
It wasn't a bad idea but Kaleb felt as if he was calming that much faster now that it was Alex in front of him and not Beth.
“I'll be alright," he said, unsure whether he was trying to convince Alex or himself.
“You better be.” Alex disappeared into the cooler and Kaleb took another deep breath before forcing himself back into the bar.
Throwing himself into work did little to distract him from his sexy little problem sitting upstairs.
They were packed, and he and Alex were doing everything they could to keep up with the demands of their customers. They'd normally have Gabriel there on a Saturday night to help but he was too busy shacking up with Lila.
Asshole.
He was pissed at Gabriel for putting him in this situation. He'd never told his brother the history - albeit a small one - he and Beth had. He’d come home that night, took a shower and went to bed. When his brother asked him the next morning why he was changing her tires, Kaleb had shrugged and told him he’d felt guilty for not stopping Pete the night before. They'd never spoken of it again.
“Who was the girl?” the sugary voice cut into his thoughts like a rusty blade.
Lacey stood on the other side of the bar and flipped her teased red hair over her shoulder. She was just the person he wanted to avoid, yet she stood in front of him, brown eyes fixed on him like he was a possession.
Female werewolves...
“Just a friend of mine," he said, giving her the most devastating smile, he could muster. It made him cringe internally, but he needed the Novaks happy and blissfully ignorant of what was happening at the Wolf's Den.
Lacey smiled but he didn't miss her calculating look. She was trying to determine how truthful he was being.
When she relaxed against the wood of the bar, he knew she had decided to believe him. Or at the very least she didn't consider Beth a threat.
“You should take me out tomorrow night," she tried, twirling a manicured fingernail on the bar top. “There's a new movie playing I've been dying to see.”
“What is it?”
“The new Marvel film.”
He tried to look as if he was considering it, but then he let his shoulders slump.
“I'm sorry, I'm working tomorrow night,” he said, feigning regret. He’d come up with any excuse he could muster to not be roped into agreeing to take her somewhere. With Beth being there, it was entirely out of the question.
There was no good way to shake her. He longed to be up front and let her know he wasn't interested - at all - but his uncle's politics dictated he play nice. Declan, Gabriel, and Alex all thought she'd find someone else at some point and she'd stop being engrossed with him, but he wasn't so sure.
She was a money-grubbing social climber. The only substitutes she’d settle for were either Declan or Gabriel, and they'd both already told her no in not so many words.
That left him.
She’d amped up her game substantially in the past few weeks, trying to get him to either take her out or invite her upstairs, but he’d done neither. The revealing clothing, the fluttering eyelashes did nothing but annoy him. Then she’d started dragging her brother with her.
Freddie was her muscle, there to intimidate and push the issue. He was overly aggressive and could be a bit of a loose cannon at times. Freddie also had a propensity for fighting and it didn’t matter if his opponent was werewolf or human. Kaleb had a hard time stomaching some of the damage Freddie did to men who were in no way capable of defending themselves against a ‘roided werewolf.
Their nightly visits into the bar had been uneventful thus far so Kaleb tolerated them for the time being.
The Novaks had a lot of pull with the other werewolves on the Council, especially with the werewolf leaders in New York. If he pissed her off, it could jeopardize his uncle's position as faction leader. He longed to be free of the politics. He'd inherited it when his parents passed away, and he and Gabriel were taken in by their father’s brother Malcolm and his mate, Paula.
It was part of the reason why Gabriel and Kaleb held onto the bar as hard as they did. It was their only semblance of a normal life. They didn't need the money but it gave them something to focus on and required their time. They were free to help Declan control Azarov territory if necessary but ultimately the bar kept them out of Boston. Declan was called regularly for one reason or another and his sister Hannah hadn’t been back home in almost a year.
“I would hope that you would consider trying us out before you took off with another female,” Lacey purred, breaking into his thoughts.
It may have come out of her mouth pleasant enough but it blared like a warning. Trying them out would mean consummating a relationship with her - one he was sure he wouldn't escape without her teeth buried in his flesh.
The words were her way of claiming territory. He didn’t rebuke her, choosing instead to let it go. He walked away, leaving her leaning against the bar while he went to check on everyone's refills.
It was late by the time they closed. The bar empty, he and Alex set to work cleaning up the mess
left behind. Lacey and Freddie had been the last to go, but when they had, he'd been quick to lock the doors behind them and pull the shades.
“I thought they'd never go," Alex said, picking up empty glasses off the bar top and dropping them in the rapidly filling sink behind the bar.
“Me too." Kaleb started clearing some of the tables, bringing the dirty glasses back for Alex to wash.
"Scared the shit out of me when Freddie laid eyes on Beth."
Fear hadn't initially been what Kaleb felt. It had been possession. How dare the werewolf look at her, lust in his eyes? It had taken everything in him to steer her through the employee door and not face off with Freddie right there. The memory made him curl his fists even now.
“You're going to have your hands full with that one," Alex commented when Kaleb didn't say anything.
"Tell me about it," he muttered as he started wiping down the tables.
At least Alex recognized the gravity of their situation if Beth didn't.
Between his ever-growing physical attraction to her and the precarious situation in which they found themselves, he recognized that he was in over his head. He wasn't sure if he could do this alone.
Alex took off forty-five minutes later after the cash register was counted down and everything was just about cleaned up. Kaleb tied off the trash bags and drug them to the back door. He unlocked the bolt, pushed it open, and went out into the cold night air. Light raindrops were coming down, sprinkling over the pavement and making the air stink of wet asphalt.
The sound of the dumpster’s metal door grated in its metal tracks when Kaleb slid it open. He flung the bags easily inside before jerking it shut again and shaking off his right hand in an effort to get the few drops of spilled beer off his palm.
He hesitated in the alleyway, glancing up at the light in Gabriel’s bedroom. Beth was still awake and when he cocked his head, he could hear her moving around inside. She was probably getting ready to go to bed, he thought. As much as they should probably discuss what had happened earlier in the night, it was much easier for him to ignore it.
With a sigh, he kicked the loose stones across the ground toward the stretch of storage buildings and garages behind the bar. He didn’t want to go back inside. He didn’t want to go upstairs. Going up there would mean he’d have to face Beth and honestly, if she smelled as good as she had earlier, keeping his distance was going to be nearly impossible.
A few beats and the light turned off upstairs, drowning the alley in darkness and filling Kaleb was relief. Maybe it made him a coward to be hunkering down outside, waiting for her to go to sleep, but if that was the case then so what. That woman, the one currently upstairs going to sleep in his brother’s empty bed, was the only one he’d ever been scared of.
The only one who’d ever riled up his beast. The only one who’d tempted him into making very, very bad decisions. Hell, he’d already made one by bringing her back here with him to begin with. If he could get through these next few weeks and keep himself in check, he may just survive her time with him, but that was a very big ‘if’.
A brush of gravel jerked his attention away from the woman upstairs, toward the chain link fence at the far end of the alleyway. He tucked himself partially behind the dumpster, using it to shield himself as he peered out into the darkness. Ears straining, Kaleb waited for another noise. Something to tell him what was over there.
His nose was working overtime, searching for hints of magic on the air that would tell him the warlocks were close by, but he came up with nothing. No magic, no scents of fur from other werewolves. There was a mild human smell, but that was it. There was nothing.
But this didn’t feel like nothing. Even though he couldn’t see anything or hear anything, he felt it. And this felt like something.
Anger furled inside his chest. No way was he letting anyone by him. Beth was his priority. She was his only concern as his eyes scanned the area and his ears strained for any indication of movement.
He froze, silent and waiting, for the longest time as the drizzle tickled his face and bare arms. The light pit pat of the drops were the only noises he heard with the exception of some passing cars on the road. Eventually, when he was certain there was nothing out there, he went back inside and bolted the door.
4
It was nearing three in the morning by the time Beth heard the apartment door creak open.
She’d been laying in Gabriel’s bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if it would be too weird to pull out her vibrator and relieve some of this want that had built within her.
It was all Kaleb’s fault. The bastard had stolen her wits and left her a sex-deprived heap. Maybe she needed to get laid. How long had it been? It had been before the Chester debacle. She could barely remember now.
Too long.
It didn’t look as if Kaleb would be willing to help her out with that either. At least not any time soon, if at all. It was too dangerous, she supposed. One second he’d be hot and then someone always inevitably happened.
Frustrated and irritated, she slid her hand under the waist of the pajama shorts she’d changed into. Her cunt was engorged, her folds already slick with moisture, as she found the little bundle of nerves.
Thoughts of Kaleb flitted through her head. What would it feel like to have him between her thighs? Would he be gentle? Somehow, she doubted it. She’d probably leave the bed hours later bruised, aching, yet thoroughly sated.
She moaned at the thought.
Her insides pulsed, clamping on nothing but itself, as she imagined what it would feel like to have him enter her, stretching her insides until he was fully seated within her. Would it hurt? He was no small man, the semi-erect cock he’d sported in Lila’s living room intimidated her.
Touching him, feeling the smooth skin under her hands as he pounded into her would be divine. His mouth on hers and then on her neck. Nipping her shoulder as he had in the truck years before. Shivers wracked her body.
Just imagining the way his stubble would scrape her skin - roughness contrasting with her softness - made her nipples peak. She grasped her breast, squeezing, picturing his mouth on her. Torturing her overly sensitive skin.
What would it feel like to have him erupt inside her? Would he growl as he came? Would he throw his head back and roar?
The thought of his release burning her insides made her explode, stars flashing behind her eyelids as she gasped. Heat surged through her veins as her back arched.
Bitter emptiness hit her like a freight train.
Agitated, she rolled over and pulled the thin blanket over her head. She tried to sleep to stop obsessing over Kaleb but the sound of the door announced the presence of the same man she’d just been fantasizing about.
He stepped toward Gabriel’s bedroom, his boots echoing on the narrow wood planks. She’d left the door open, but kept her back to him, not moving in the bed lest he realized she was awake. Considering how keen his senses were, he probably knew by just the sounds of her breathing.
Silence met her ears as she laid there, all but holding her breath. For a long moment, she was unsure whether he was going to call her name or walk away. A low growl sounded before he turned away from the doorway. His boots thundered on the wood, quickly retreating. She jumped when a door slammed.
She curled into herself and buried her body further under the blanket as the shower turned on. Part of her wished he would’ve come into the bedroom and spoken to her but laying in the dark with only the sounds of running water to greet her ears, she was glad he hadn’t. It was probably in both of their best interests if he stayed away. With that thought on her mind, she fell into an uneasy sleep.
The next morning, she awoke to the sound of someone banging around in the kitchen. It took her a moment once the light hit her eyes to realize where she was. She wasn’t in her apartment, that was for sure. The previous day came flooding back, and she laid there for a moment, trying to wrap her mind around everything that had transpired over the last twenty-
four hours.
The sound of a pan hitting the stovetop propelled her out of bed. Going back to sleep was out of the question at that point. She was starving, and if Kaleb was cooking, then she was eating. The six-pack of beer she’d drank the night before had done nothing to satisfy her hunger. The thing it did was give her a raging headache.
Kaleb was standing at the stove, his chest bare, basketball shorts sitting low on his hips, and revealing just enough hair to make her debate if it was even a good idea to go into the kitchen at all. The man was too gorgeous for his own good, let alone hers.
“You need food in this house,” she grumbled at him when she padded into the kitchen.
The next three weeks were going to be a nightmare.
“I realized too late last night that we never ate.”
“I realized it before I came downstairs,” she said, plopping in one of the kitchen chairs and laying her head down on the table.
“I’m sorry. I was distracted and didn’t think about it,” he said, sounding apologetic. “Coffee?”
She didn’t say anything, just held her hand out. A warm mug was placed in her palm, and she sat up straight, so she could sip it without making a mess.
“Tylenol?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I noticed all the beer was gone.”
“Yeah, you need more of that, too.”
He grunted as he fiddled with a small medication bottle. He handed her two white pills a moment later. She downed them with the coffee, hoping they’d relieve the throbbing at the base of her skull.
“I’m not sure if I’m hungover or just starving,” she admitted, eyeing the pan on the stove. “Are you going to feed me?”
He was turning on the stove, and she wondered for the umpteenth time what he planned to put in there. Ice? It was the only thing she’d found in his fridge the night before with the exception on the beer, and that was all gone now.
Wild and Untamed (Netherworld Series Book 4) Page 7