The Last Werewolf (The Weres of Europe) (4 page)

“Not much.”

“So why bother?” She rested her head in the palm of one hand, her other hand around her cup. He was a little taken aback at how forthright she was so quick into their conversation.
Are all English girls like that?
He found it refreshing. He looked her straight in the eye and was impressed with how her stare didn’t waver. There was something about her. It wasn’t just a physical attraction, and he definitely liked what he saw, but he was finding he really quite liked her as a person as well.

As she was clearly waiting for his answer, he explained, “Because it pays well, and I am trying to save up money.” Although that was somewhat unsuccessful, he admitted wryly to himself. He didn’t seem to be able to save well, despite being a banker. He had hoped by the time he was thirty to have saved enough, but that date was only a couple of years away, and he didn’t yet have a quarter of what he needed. “I’d love to have my own gym.”

Summer looked him over, assessing his body, which he knew was well-muscled as he visited a gym several times a week, making appreciative noises in her throat. Rik nearly blushed at her frankness. “I’m gay,” he stated quickly.
God, where did that come from?

She looked disappointed then and turned her head away as she lifted her cup to her mouth. He could feel a sudden tenseness in her body. Was she homophobic, or was she as attracted to him as he was to her and was saddened by his avowal? He hoped it was the latter.

“Christ. I’m not, really.”

Half-way through taking a sip of her tea, Summer choked at the suddenness of his statement. Clearing her throat, she asked, “Okay, either you are or you’re not.”

“Actually I’m both.” She frowned, trying to take in his ambiguous comment. He elaborated, “I’m bisexual.”

“Wow! I’ve never met one of them before.” She seemed intrigued rather than mocking.

“You more than likely have, you know. It’s not written on our foreheads, after all, but bisexuals are out there. We are not a rarity, but we just don’t advertise.” He chuckled at her expression of astonishment. “I have heard that English people are reserved, aloof and all that, but surely you have gay people in
England
?”

She laughed loudly. “Certainly, and I’ve worked with some, but I just don’t think I’ve met anyone who bats both ways.” He was pleased that when she leaned closer again, somehow her scent seemed to have changed. He could have sworn there was an element of arousal to it now.

“
‛Bats both ways’? Um, you English have odd expressions.”

“Well, how would you say it?”

“Just bisexual, I guess, is a good, honest, and frank way of putting it.” He shrugged.

“So, do you have a boyfriend, or girlfriend, at the moment?”

Rik chuckled and risk
ed a quick glance over her body before raising his eyes to hers, wondering if she knew how attracted he was to her. The look she gave him back gave him hope. “You are very
direct.”

She smiled. “Yup. Been told that before. Life is too short not to be. And you haven’t answered my question.”

He narrowed his eyes, wondering how much to tell her. “In short, no one at the moment. In fact, no one permanent for a long time.”

Her face, and voice, softened. “That sounds like there has been someone.”

Resisting the urge to wince, Rik elaborated, “Leevi, that was his name. We met in a nightclub in
Helsinki
four years ago. God, he was gorgeous, tall, blond, lean, with the cheesiest chat-up line I’ve ever heard.” Rik smiled as he remembered the incident.

Summer giggled. “Had my share of those. The question is, did it work?”

“Oh yes.” He was so emphatic they both laughed. Rik continued wistfully, “We had such a fabulous night together that I went back to his home in the north with him the following day, and we spent the next four months together.” As he recalled this, it shocked him at how conventional he had become since then. He would have to think long and hard before making similar decisions these days.

“Wow. He must have been good in the sack. So what happened after the four months?”

Rik started.
Okay, this is getting too deep
. Besides which he couldn’t tell a strange, and foreign, woman at the airport his secret, a disclosure he couldn’t tell anyone, not even his family. “Oh, he betrayed me.”
Too right he did. He turned me into a werewolf, taking away my humanity when it wasn’t necessary, and then didn’t bother to tell me. It was that gloating bastard, Jaakko, who informed me
.

Her face was one of such sorrow and empathy that he winced. She reached forward to lay a gentle hand on his arm. Her touch flowed through him, and somehow he knew she was someone who really cared about the feelings of others. “I am so sorry.”

“Forget it. It was probably for the best. Leevi was rather surly. But now I’ve told you my life story. What about yours?” He quickly steered the conversation away from himself hoping it wasn’t too obvious that he had done that.

It clearly startled her as he noticed her suddenly tense expression before she resorted to her usual humor, “Oh, I’m afraid I am straight.”

Rik smiled. “So how many hearts have you broken, or got waiting for you, back in
England
?”

She laughed, harshly he thought. “None. I am a free agent.”

That was interesting. He was beginning to wonder if she would be up for a night’s entertainment. His body trembled at the thought, and a rush of heat went through him, pooling in his cock, which started to harden.
Down boy
. He widened his knees in the archetypal male fashion to sit open legged and to give his heavy cock more freedom to move. “But what brought you to
Finland
?”

“Ah, now that would be on a whim. My dad has just died.” Her voice broke.

Choking back a cry of sympathetic sorrow, he said, “Oh, Summer, I am so sorry.”

She waved a hand at him, almost in dismissal, but the brightness in her eyes told a different story. “Thanks, but it’s still raw as it has only just happened, so I can’t talk about it, but suffice to say after the funeral I discovered that my mother, who died when I was little, came from Finland, so I just wanted to see the country of her birth and managed to take some unpaid leave from work so I could do this.”

Now that he wasn’t expecting, although her fair coloring was typical of his countrymen. Sometimes he felt like the odd one out with his dark locks, not that it was that uncommon. Trying to lighten the mood he grinned. “Hey, welcome home, cousin.”

Giggling, she held out her hand again in greeting.

The tingle was still there, and he had to resist the urge to caress her nice firm thigh as she sat back in her chair, legs crossed over each other, at a right angle to him. He’d had a number of quickies with both women as well as men since his time with Leevi, but none of them made him feel like this. He tried to put it into some sense in his thoughts, but found he couldn’t. It was more of an instinctual sensation. The same sort of visceral feelings that he had started experiencing after Leevi had bitten him and made him a wolf shifter. Actually, he was regarded as a mere ‘half-wolf,’ a half blood to put it crudely, as many of Leevi’s clan called him, since he had not been born a shifter, but had been bitten. At least, the dissident element in his clan did, those who had taken a dislike to him from the start, with Jaakko foremost. Rik had often wondered if there was something more to Jaakko’s loathing of him, whether Jaakko had been gay himself and wanted Leevi too. There was no way to be sure, since he wasn’t on friendly terms with Jaakko, or on any kind of terms really.

His thoughts scattered when Summer rubbed her hand along his thigh. “Earth to Rik.” She laughed when he stared at her uncomprehendingly. “I was asking if you would like another drink?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” He watched as she moved to the counter, enjoying the sight of her luscious backside in her tight jeans. He had always loved the sight of a gorgeous butt, male or female. The question was, could he persuade her to spend the night with him so he could see it naked?

****

They talked for what seemed like hours about Summer’s job, her love of arts and crafts, a little about her father, although they steered clear of that discussion as it was clearly too painful for her. She had obviously loved her dad very much. What amazed Rik was how easy it was to talk to her. She was so easygoing and fun. Totally unlike Leevi. But Leevi’d had his good points. Rik always knew he could rely on Leevi to protect him and love him. It was Leevi himself that Rik had needed protecting from.

Summer looked at her watch and sighed. “I really must get going. Is it far into the city?”

His heart lurched. He didn’t like the idea of separating from her. “Hey. No problem. I can give you a lift. I drove out here. Where are you staying?”

She made a face. “Ah. Well. As you know this whole trip is an impulse, so I haven’t actually booked anywhere. I thought I’d find somewhere on arrival. I imagined being a capital city there are loads of hotels.”

Rik looked at her, slightly stunned and envious of her cavalier attitude, maybe because she was still in her early twenties, and he wondered when he had gotten so old. An idea came to him, and, before he could talk himself out of it, the thought poured out of his mouth. “You know, you are welcome to stay with me.” She looked at him in surprise. “I know. Stupid idea. You don’t know anything about me. I could be a mass murderer for all you know, or a rogue werewolf.” He couldn’t resist adding the last and laughed at his own joke, but subsided when she looked frightened. “Hey. I know there are a lot of forests in my country and wolves in them, but there really aren’t any werewolves here or anywhere else. They’re just legends. Really.” As he tried to deflect his stupid joke, she seemed to wince. This surprised him. She didn’t seem to be the type to believe in things like the paranormal, despite the book she had been reading.

“Of course, I knew that. It was the thought that you could be a mass murderer, or even worse.”

“There’s something worse than a mass murderer?”

“Sure. You could be a writer of werewolf stories.”

He started and then laughed loudly at that. He so enjoyed her sense of humor and pleaded, “Please stay, even if it’s just for the night. It’s late. It’ll be easier to find a hotel in the morning.”

When she agreed, he was stunned at how happy that made him, and he felt a need to start wagging his tail, if it had been out. Holding out his arm to grab her bag, he saw his nails were thickening.
Damn! It’s nearly full moon. Why did this have to happen now?
Taking a very deep breath, he closed his eyes and concentrated on calming his inner beast.

“All you all right, Rik?” Summer sounded concerned.

He opened his eyes and was relieved to see his nails were normal again. “Yeah, no problem.” No problem whatsoever. He was just picking up a strange girl at the airport and taking her back to his apartment. Forget about him being a lawless reprobate, for all he knew she could be one too. Or even the psychotic werewolf they had joked about. He chuckled to himself.
Hm, no, I’ve met some of those, and her vibes are totally different
. In fact, he would say her ‘vibes’ were just right.

Chapter Three

Rik winced at the look on Summer’s face when she looked around his apartment. “I know, it’s not what you’d call a home is it?” He knew what it looked like from other people’s perspectives. It wasn’t that he was untidy. It just wasn’t a home. The walls were bare, no pictures, mirrors, or anything. The one bookcase in the room was empty. Well, it had the odd bit of paperwork on it or an envelope, but no books. None of the tops of the dressers or sideboards had anything on them, no photos, no plants. They were just bare.

“Hey, I’m the last one to judge. I’ve just given up the lease on my place and dumped all the stuff at my Dad’s so I could come on this trip.”

He was mollified by her comment, but still felt slightly guilty. “Look, I know it’s late, but the least I can offer in this less-than-hospitable place is a meal. I do have some food in the fridge.”

Summer laughed. “Actually I’m fine. I ate before I boarded the plane, and we had that cake at the airport.”

Shuffling back and forth on his feet, he hesitated, not quite knowing what to do next.

“So if you have some sheets for the sofa, we could just go to bed?”

Slightly disappointed by her suggestion, Rik offered, “Yeah sure, but I’ll take the sofa. You can have my bed.” He remembered, thankfully, that he had changed the sheets only that morning as the friends he had seen off at the airport had been sharing the bed. That made him wonder what it might be like to share his bed with Summer, and the image was very alluring.

“Absolutely not,” she protested.

“I insist.” He didn’t think for a minute that she would share the bed or the sofa with him, despite his daydreaming, but he couldn’t let her sleep on the sofa. As far as he was concerned, it was the gentlemanly thing to do.

“Insist all you like, and I’ll just gather my bags and leave.”