Without invitation, Terje placed his beer on their table, pulled out a chair, flipped it around, and sat on it backwards. His big legs straining his soft-worn jeans, he leaned forward on his forearms. “So, Haley, what about your brother?”
Haley groaned, flicking her fiery hair over her shoulder. “He’s not here.”
He scowled. “Come again?”
“You need me to say it?” she balked. “We sneaked out, okay? My friend here hasn’t been off Sanibel Island in…I don’t even know when.”
“You’re inviting trouble for absolutely no reason.” Terje signaled for another round of drinks.
Haley’s lips parted when the heavily inked bartender glanced her way. For the third time. “Don’t overreact.”
Isla studied Haley and finally understood why they’d gone to such lengths to enter a downtown Fort Myers Goth club - Haley had the hots for a specific vampire. And since Isla thought all vampires must die, Haley was too afraid to mention her newest fixation beforehand. Isla blew out a breath and tossed back her beer. This was going to be a long night.
“If you didn’t want Beta blood guards circling you, you could have asked a few of us Pack males.” Terje was probing. “Or you could have just stayed on the island to go drinking.”
“We wanted to go dancing, too.”
“Uh-huh, lot’s of dancing going on at The Blue Pelican tonight,” he mentioned the werewolf-owned resort that housed the two clubs most werewolves frequented. Isla happened to work there, so why would she want to hang out there on her time off? When the drinks came, he leaned back. While giving him an eyeful of cleavage, the server patted his napkin, where her number was written. He smiled his thanks but seemed uninterested, waiting until she sauntered off before asking Isla, “You look familiar.”
Isla picked at the label on her bottle. “I’m Isla Harris.”
His eyes flashed in recognition of her name, nodding. “I’m on the security side of Pack,” he discretely explained. “Your Pack file passed my desk. The pictures didn’t do you justice.”
“You don’t have to play it off, Terje.” Haley licked the salt off her drink. “I know about Isla’s bone-chilling history. We’re roomies, after all.”
He focused entirely on Isla with the unrelenting stare of a werewolf. “I read the reports of your captivity before you were sold into the Dynasty’s Italian monarchy, detailing how the Habaline shapeshifters tried to…”
“Breed me?” She could say it now, since she’d stopped feeling sorry for herself a long time ago.
“Yeah,” his voice rumbled. Outside the window, clouds whispered across the moon, and for a second, an Alpha Beast stared down at her, peering behind the facade of a human.
She rubbed her side, where the puckered scars of medical tubing once speared her. “Since you read the reports, uh,” she fumbled for the right words, recalling the cold metal of the gurney pressing into her back. The pain… “You know they didn’t do it the way most would think, just surgeries and beakers and…” The rogue shapeshifters’ cruelties knew no bounds.
“Unlike the rogues,” he tactfully turned the conversation, “I noticed in the reports that you refused to detail how the Dynasty Empire treated you. Why?”
“Instead of details, how about a summary?” She focused on the perfect line of his nose perched between high cheekbones and regurgitated her practiced account verbatim, “I lived in a Gothic castle of unimaginable proportions, where servants waited on me hand and foot.” She pulled her fingers away from the scars hidden beneath her pants and gripped the table’s edge. “A fantastical estate melding magic, beauty, and immortality, where one night blended into the next.” Isla cupped her throat. “Where oral daggers pierced my flesh as vampires swallowed and groaned in my ear, pleading for me to give them more of my body than merely blood sustenance. But I refused every time.” She dropped her hand, stiffening her spine against the back of her chair. “Thankfully, each vampire respected my refusal.” And if a leech ever tried to feed from her again, or use her to survive, she’d find a way to kill it. Or die trying. “And then I was rescued and brought to Pack.”
Terje tugged a strand of her hair, his eyes a warm glow. “No one believes it was the cakewalk you’re making it out to be, mixed blood. I think that like every other werewolf, you hate betraying fear.”
“I hate feeling pressured,” she admitted. “I hate that I have no say in my life right now.”
“We’re not the mob.” He passed her lock of hair back and forth between his fingers, the jet black strands spinning and catching the moonlight. “You are under Pack protection. I hardly know you, and I would lay down my life for you.”
He was so easy to talk to that Isla almost forgot Terje was a dangerous creature weighing in at close to three-hundred pounds. “I’m not upset with Pack, but grateful for everything they’ve done for me.” It was the other immortals she resented, but especially the vampires. Rogue shifters may have done terrible things to her, but they were a small network of criminals not belonging to the shapeshifter faction. However, the vampires were another story. They’d kept her in a gilded cage on their grounds, refusing to release her. Basically, Isla had been live-in food, a Blood Pet. And the worst part was that their behavior was accepted in vampire monarchies all around the world. How screwed up was that? “Besides, I happen to know that as a member of security, you’re required to sacrifice yourself for all Pack females.”
“Take my position away, and I would still do the same.” He pressed his cheek against hers, whispering in her ear, “So tell me, why don’t I scent a male on you?”
If her skin wasn’t burning enough, his touch was a blowtorch. “The last time I had sex didn’t go so well. It was a guy from my biology lab. I sort of freaked him out.” She shrugged, leaning away from him to cool down.
“Cause he was a human.” Haley was sucking on her finger provocatively for the bartender. A cheesy move that the vampire ignored.
“You freaked out a human?” He laughed. “I’ve got to hear this.”
Isla shifted in her seat. “Well, when we were, you know…and I reached my…you know. My eyes started glowing.” She’d inherited the cerulean color from her werewolf genetics. And Isla couldn’t pinpoint what triggered the glow, but she sure knew one way it happened. “He stopped in mid…you know. And I found out later through my lab partner that he’d called the campus priest on me.”
Terje nodded. “So is that the last time you…you know?”
She punched his shoulder. “Stop mocking me.”
“Not mocking, just doing a little research.” He caught her fist in his hand, holding it. “When I was twelve, I introduced a puck to a human’s mouth during a friendly game of hockey. He was an adult, and I knocked out all of his teeth.”
Haley rolled her eyes. “Humans do that to one another all the time.”
“And shattered his nose and jaw.”
Isla’s heart constricted. “You didn’t understand your strength at twelve.”
“I didn’t say that.” He sat his drink on the table with a resounding thud, cocking his head as though suddenly distracted. “I had a bit of a temper.”
Isla pulled her hand from the warmth of his. “What did you just hear?”
“The night’s shifting, more immortals are in here than need be.” Gone was the relaxed male. “I’m escorting the two of you back to Sanibel Island.” He glanced around, pausing on the caged dancers dangling from the ceiling. “This is no place for Pack females.”
Haley’s eyes darted to the bartender. “Wait.”
He raised a brow. “I won’t rat you out so long as we get going. I misted here, fork over your car keys.”
Isla didn’t feel comfortable here anyway. She’d rather go home and jump into the pool to cool off. “He’s right. I’m good to go.”
Clearly wounded, Haley argued, “I’m not.”
Isla groaned. “Give her a minute to get that guy’s number first, okay?” As long as Haley didn’t screw the vampire at their apartment or bring him along on their other outings, Isla could ignore them.
Terje’s eyes moved to the bar. “I know him. I’m not saying he’s a bad male, but why would you want a vampire, Haley,” he asked softly, the way someone speaks to the crazed, “when you can ask a Pack male to take care of your needs?”
Haley’s face turned the same crimson shade as her hair. “Back off!”
“I wasn’t offering my services, sweetheart.” He rubbed the back of his neck, rolling a shoulder. “But you’ve got five seconds to follow me out of here.”
Isla spoke evenly, “It’ll take her a second to get his number.”
“I’ll meet you outside.” With a mutinous expression, Haley tossed her keys across the table and made a beeline for the bar.
“Don’t worry, she’ll hurry.” Isla fanned her face. “Fresh air sounds good.”
He scooted back his chair, stood up, and dropped several bills from his wallet onto the table. Isla tried to pay but he wouldn’t hear of it. He pulled her through the front doors and shouldered her around the long line of club goers awaiting entrance.
She could almost see the tension rolling off his body. “What exactly do you sense?”
“Something’s just off.”
“Is the moon calling you?” she asked, gesturing up at the velvet sky. “Maybe your Beast just needs a run.”
“A run isn’t what I need.” They walked the length of the sidewalk. The street lamps flickered strangely while they moved further away from Six Feet Under. She glanced over her shoulder, noticing nothing out of the ordinary, and her sight in low-lighting was damn near perfect.
She heard him swallow roughly. Reaching high, Isla placed her palm across his forehead, “You’re clammy.” Damp white-blonde strands stuck to his forehead.“Do you hurt anywhere?”
“It’s nothing like that.”
She dropped her hand and walked over to Haley’s car. “Maybe you should get in and sit.”
He kicked away a rolling can, his boots crunching gravel as he shadowed her. “Back in the club, I was going to ask you to dance.”
The way she was feeling right now, her skin would have erupted into flames if he had. “That would have been nice.”
“I want you, Isla.” He drew her back by the elbow, his head canting in a clearly wolfish way. Abrupt and to the point, Pack males didn’t pussyfoot about. If they wanted, they made their offer clear.
She smiled up at him, the proud grandson of an Alpha. “I’m very, very complimented.”
The tension left his shoulders as he wrapped his hand around her waist, sliding his fingers just beneath the hem of her shirt. It was a breeze of a touch, tender, for someone so imposingly large. He rubbed his nose through her hair. “Your scent calls me.”
Pressing her face against his chest, she murmured, “You smell like strength, cold skies, and winter frost.” He slid those fingers higher, following the bumps and divots of her spine. Her breathing picked up, the rise and fall of her breasts tickling his chest as he pulled her even closer. Isla’s eyes nearly crossed. She could really use a male’s touch instead of her hands night after lonely night. For her, nothing else compared to a man, but…
“You’ve been through a lot, I understand.” Terje’s mouth slid over her temple, kissing lightly, “I will be gentle, if that’s what it takes.”
Gentle? Though she was new to Pack, she’d never heard of a werewolf being exactly gentle. The term making love wasn’t used much on the immortal side of life, if at all. It’s a good thing their females had unparalleled fortitude or nothing would ever work out between the sexes.
She tiptoed and kissed the underside of his jaw. He leaned her against the car, kissing a line from the corner of her mouth to her ear, while his hand reached higher and toyed with her bra clasp without flicking it open. Realizing he was waiting for her to take him up on his offer, she wondered what was keeping Haley. Maybe she’d gone into a bathroom with that vampire or possibly another. They might be waiting for her half the night. “What about Haley?”
Terje smiled against her cheek. “I’ve never turned down a bout with multiple females, but I’m thinking a naked you would keep me far too distracted to pay much attention to her.”
Pack males enjoyed wild sex, often mated with multiples. But Isla knew he was winding her up, so she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down. “So, you’re thinking one-on-one might be a refreshing change for you tonight?”
“With you?” He opened his thighs and captured her legs between his. “I’d want more than just one night.” He brought his mouth to hers, coaxing her to open with easy flicks of his tongue.
Her arms left his neck, sliding down to grip those mouthwatering biceps, her breasts pressing firmer against his hard toned chest. Though he held her thighs in the vice of his legs, she pushed up her pelvis, hard, trying to get to the ache of her throbbing clitoris. Her fingers slid down, digging into his pecs, when his opposite hand slipped inside the front of her jeans and tugged at her snap.
“Yes, Terje.” This was exactly what she needed. A hard, masculine hand — hopefully sporting some callouses — and a deep thrusting with thick fingers to bring some instant relief.
“That’s just what I wanted to hear.” The snap popped open and he slid his man-rough fingers between the denim and her burning skin. Moving one leg away, he released the vice-grip on her legs. “So soft, I can’t wait to taste.” With his boot, he toed her feet apart. “A little wider, Isla.” His fingertips reached the sensitive skin right above her clit, making tiny circles in her trimmed hair. She shivered, stretching her leg to the side, and when he dipped lower to rub those tiny circles on her clit, the pattern of his breathing changed.
Three breaths in, one long exhale.
Three breaths in, one long exhale
Three breaths in, one long exhale.
With a startling growl, he wrapped his mouth around her shoulder, the tips of his erupting canines grazing her skin.
“Don’t, Terje!”
“I’d never hurt you.” He stepped away, giving her some room. He put his hand on top of Haley’s car, his eyes dual spotlights in his face. “What exactly did I do?” He inhaled through his teeth, the strange pattern of his breathing slowly settling back into a normal, human-like rhythm.