Wild Nights with a Lone Wolf (10 page)

He grabbed a handful of her hair and mashed his mouth against hers. The kiss left her cold and a little queasy. “I’m gonna make us rich, baby,” he whispered.

Zoe nodded. “I know. I trust you.”

It was the only correct answer.

“Good girl. Now do me a favor and go check again on that little redheaded, would you? I need to make sure she’s good and cleaned up for when I make the trade tonight.”

Zoe nodded again, this time with as much enthusiasm as she could work up. “Of course. Wouldn’t want anything to go wrong.”

Someone pounded on the door. “Hey, Jojo. I got those crates you asked me to bring. Where you want ‘em?” One of Jojo’s extended cousins. Miguel, maybe. Zoe didn’t bother to pay attention.

“In the van. Hang on.” Jojo kissed her again, and she tried not to flinch. It was getting hard to hide. “Gotta go.”

Dammit. She’d pledged her loyalty. Only, he wasn’t the same man she’d pledged her loyalty to.

“Hey, Jojo?”

He turned back. “Baby?”

“You never touch these girls yourself, right?” What he did do was enough. He’d told her he was starting an escort service. Easy money. Next thing she knew he was bringing girls to the property for temporary holding and asking Zoe to patch up wounds. Not something she’d signed on for when she agreed to be his mate, and anyway her limited first-aid training went only so far. One of many problems.

“Why would I do something like that when I got you?” With a side-to-side glance, he grinned wide and walked out the door.

Zoe knew a lie from her mate when she saw one. That desperate glance, the way his nose twitched just so. Why would he touch those girls when he had her? Because he could. Because
weres,
at their base nature, were horny dogs, and every day Jojo acted more psychotic from drugs and power. Or plain old evil.

Many of Jojo’s kind had difficulty staying monogamous, even when bonded. Jojo’s mother clearly lived with it, happy enough with her status as an alpha’s mate to let it slide. Zoe thought she’d be able to do the same, but the rest of Jojo’s issues made happy impossible.

Now, this thing with drugging girls and renting them to rich men over the border? She’d been a poor, young orphan once. Someone could have done such a thing to her, and she’d have had no defense.

It wasn’t right. Neither was betraying one’s mate. Ignoring one made her lack conscience, but doing the other could bring real trouble. Of the landing-in-a-grave-next-to-Ash’s variety. Ash, who had always been kind to her.

The weight of her dilemma pressed heavily on her shoulder as she put her phone in her pocket and retrieved a spare gun from her sock drawer. Just in case.

***

E
xhausted but jittery, Sherri could no longer sit still.

“You gotta stop scraping your feet across the floor. They’re going to hear you.” Ash appeared behind her. The way he pinned her arms to her sides, and his harsh whisper through her hair, had passed the point of sounding sexy and headed straight into irritating territory. Being held in this place, the heat and the stress had burned her patience down to nothing.

Sherri huffed a breath and flashed back to their first time together, when he’d told her to get on the bed or he’d put her there. She refused to believe that in the midst of a major crisis, she’d just clenched and gotten wet over that memory, so she pushed it and him away, whirling to face him head on. “They can’t honestly hear me pacing all the way outside the door.”

He tapped his ear. “It depends on how closely they’re listening. You’ve got those heels on your shoes and they switched guards about half an hour ago. The other guy was busy screwing with a game on his phone the whole time. This one, I think he’s been leaning against the door.”

She gave him what she hoped was a convincing stink-eye. “Are you for real?”

“Pinball or something. I could hear the pinging noises.” Ash mimicked the motions of playing a game with his thumbs.

“Look.” She threw up her hands. “I don’t know how we’re going to manage this. I can’t see relaxing enough to get my groove on in here when we know your father or some other elder is sniffing at the door for proof that we’re in love. We have to come up with some other plan.”

Dammit, keeping her voice at a whisper was hard when what she really wanted was to shout her frustrations to the rooftops. Honestly, at first it had been good to see him, and now she wished he hadn’t come. Without the confusion of her emotions and her attraction to him thrown into the mix, she might have kept a more level head.

She liked Ash, she did. But all this— this pressure. It was twisting her brain. She’d been trained for high-stress situations, but only in the theoretical. Not to mention that masquerading as a werewolf’s fake fiancée had never come up as a training scenario, for the love of sin.

“Okay.” Ash grabbed onto her hands. “Let’s chill for a minute.” He took a deep breath. “You said you wanted to make it to the exchange without rocking the boat any. That’s the goal I was aiming for.”

She nearly swallowed all the air in the room. It
had
been her idea. “I know. You said that plan wouldn’t fly though, if they didn’t smell love hormones or whatever. I am fond of you. I’ll even go out on a limb and say I feel things around you I’ve never felt with any man. Even so, hot sex and a few hours trapped in a room don’t add up to love, werewolf style.”

Ash blinked. “That’s... Wow. That’s actually really cool. I make you feel different?”

Sherri pressed her forehead against his. “You’re avoiding the real point. If this blows up in our faces, we won’t even live long enough to get to the little things like birthdays or favorite foods. Forget about long-term commitment.”

She could admit that the closer they got to afternoon, the more anxious she felt. Sleep deprivation and caffeine withdrawal weren’t helping matters.

“December twenty-eighth. Fried plantains. With cinnamon.”

“Ash.”

He squeezed her hand. “Birthday and favorite food. I’m waiting.”

She sighed, but answered anyway. “November third, and I like cannoli. The real kind, not the dried out flavorless crap that comes from the grocery store.”

His gleaming canines made another appearance. “Ah, see? Our birthdays are somewhat close together, and we both like dessert. We could have a joint party.”

She rolled her eyes, pretending to look around. “Something tells me cannoli is tough to find in this part of the country.”

Ash’s cheek pressed to hers. Stubble caressed her jaw, sending shivers over her shoulder and down her back. His plump bottom lip caressed the lobe of her ear, and God in heaven help her, but she was sure she heard something like purring. Hadn’t she decided she was mad at him?

“If you were mine, Sherri, I would look everywhere on earth to find the very best for you.”

Holy... Every hair on Sherri’s head tried to stand at attention.

She took one breath, and then another, before putting her hands on his shoulders and stepping back. “We need to...”
Focus. Focus!
“Why do you keep saying things like that?”

“Today you told me about a man who did you great harm and hurt your heart. You said your parents locked you away. I want you to know how you really ought to be treated. Like a princess. A queen. Don’t settle. Someday, you’ll find the one who can give you everything you deserve.”

Someday. Not that she needed any confirmation that this thing between them had a worse shelf-life than last week’s picnic leftovers, but the reminder certainly helped give her a stiff smack across the cheek.

Even so, the sentiment touched her deeply.

Sherri’s eyes burned. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”

He half-smiled in response. “Anytime. Now. The question is can we get out of here before they come to get us for the mating ceremony without having to kill anyone? Cuz I can tell you for sure, once that happens, there’s a good chance the whole place is gonna light up like Christmas.”

This was so, so weird. There they stood, him with his cheek against hers and his hand in her hair. They whispered the way lovers might whisper about sexy things they wanted to do to each other or where they wanted to spend time later. Except instead they were talking about whether or not they had to fight their way out of captivity.

“What about allies? That guy who came in and mentioned your brother? Could he let us use a phone or something? I have contacts—”

“Not sure outsiders are a good idea. My brother’s a former pack member. He knows how to handle this. Getting others involved is risky.”

Ugh. “Is this that old school not trusting outsiders thing? Because I was given training on—”

“Hang on.” He gripped his forehead with his fingers. “Let me think.” This time
he
started pacing. “Listen, do you mind if I get more comfortable?”

She held up her hands as he took a step back, unzipping the coveralls. Was he seriously getting naked right now? “Is taking off your clothes really going to help you problem-solve?”

“Sometimes I think better in my fur.”

“In your...” Really? She’d seen pictures in training. They’d talked around and around about what he was. However, in front of her eyes, he still looked like a man. Her mind had nothing to merge with the theoretical.

Now though, right in front of her, he’d shed his single layer of clothing and crouched to the floor, doubled over like he might be in agony. His hair changed first, turning from wavy black to white and gray, and then his face, his nose growing long and his teeth sharpening. His legs, his strong muscular back, all morphed right before her, in a display so shocking she found it as hard to watch as she found it hard to look away.

There was a popping sound when one of his legs changed, and she did squeeze her eyes shut for a moment. Whatever it was, he was probably used to it, but she sure wasn’t. She didn’t realize she’d kept them shut for so long until a rough paw scraped over her hand.

“O-kay.” Absurdly, Sherri reached out to scratch behind his ears because that was what she always did with dogs, before she realized it probably wasn’t appropriate to treat her lover like he’d successfully brought the Frisbee back. Still, he seemed to enjoy the attention. “So, this is weird. Uh, if I talk can you still understand me?”

Ash whimpered and bobbed his head, then nudged against her hand.

“What’s that about? You want me to rub your head more? Really?” She gave him a side-eye.

The tongue came out. Boy, was that thing huge. “If you insist.” She scratched between his ears some more, and he nudged back against her. “Okay then. Good boy.”

That earned Sherri a threatening growl. “Good... wolf. Sorry.” She sat and scooted down on the bed so she could talk softly into his ear, and keep scratching at the same time. His fur, mostly white with a smattering of black and gray, had a soft but wiry texture that she found she enjoyed running her fingers through.

“So,” she said. “I guess I’ll lay here and think out loud, and you’ll sit there... doing what you’re doing.”

Ash pressed his nose against her cheek, and she marveled at how it weird it was that it didn’t seem so weird. How it seemed like they could still communicate without using any words.

How she’d left DC thinking her life couldn’t get any stranger, and now... “So, here we are,” she whispered into Ash’s ear. “What next?”

T
hey decided Sherri would ask to go to the bathroom. Ash didn’t love the plan, but it made sense. They’d have an excuse to check how many guys remained onsite, and Sherri could possibly find out about that other young human.

If only one pack member guarded the door, or better yet, only one human groupie, Ash could pull him inside and restrain him while they both snuck out. In his gut, he feared Jojo wouldn’t make it that easy given what was on the line, but that was why he had refrigerator wire up his sleeve.

Sherri did a little dance by the door while she knocked. “Hey, is anyone out there? I’ve really got to go to the bathroom.”

Ash smiled. “Hey, that’s good. You’re getting all into character.”

She turned to him with narrow eyes. “The hell with character, I really have to go. Do you realize how many hours it’s been since I’ve had a chance to pee? Once we started talking about it, I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“Jesus, I wasn’t thinking. Our kind can hold it a lot longer, you know?”

She tugged at a strand of hair. “Jeez. Super strength, super hearing, and you turn into a furry beast at will. Are there any ways you’re not superior?”

That made his heart hurt. Someone, many people it seemed, had made this woman believe she had nothing special to offer the world. “I’m not superior, baby, I’m only different.” He placed his palm on the back of her neck, the way she’d seemed to like it before.

“Anyway, we’re susceptible to certain nonhuman diseases, and at the full moon I can’t control my emotions worth a damn, which carries risks. It’s also possible to shift too much or too fast. Like any kind of exercise it’s stressful on the body, the joints. My pop, if you look close, he walks with a limp. It’s from shifting too much, too carelessly, when he was my age.”

She rested her hand against the door, and her cheek against his hand. “It looked painful.”

It hurt him more to shift than it ought to. He’d been meaning to look into that. Too much time at Howlers, not enough time at the gym or out running on his land. Trouble was, healers for their species weren’t exactly plentiful.

“You said at your age. How old are you, anyway?”

“Thirty-five.” He raised an eyebrow, waiting.

“It’s not polite to ask women their age.”

“I’m not polite.”

“Fine. I’ll be twenty-nine in November”

He smiled. “You don’t look a day over twenty-eight.”

He mock-winced when Sherri slugged him in the shoulder. “You’re an ass. Why the hell isn’t anyone answering the door? I thought you said they’d posted guards.” She’d gone back to dancing.

“Not sure.” Ash pressed next to her, taking in the smell of her, the faint lingering traces of peppermint that had led him to her, as he listened. “I hear sounds down the hall, toward the main gathering area in the clubhouse. Nobody’s outside the door now.”