Winter Howl (Sanctuary) (22 page)

“Like hired muscle,” Renee muttered as she undid the lock and stepped out. Grant locked the door behind her.

“Not quite.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder with what would appear to outsiders as affection. He was only wearing an olive-green T-shirt, but he was warm enough that the coldness on her legs seemed insignificant. She still wrapped her coat around her so that no one could see them. But with Grant there, she did not think she would have that luxury for very long.

“They’ll be in the bar,” Renee said as Grant led her right into The Benefit. At this time of the evening, it was just beginning to get crowded. Locals frequented it often in the evenings, more often than tourists, although the bar wasn’t entirely without them tonight. Hopping in small-town bars wasn’t the same as hopping in a big town, but it was still the first real crowd that Renee had been in since her high school graduation.

Marie looked up from the bar and raised her hand when she saw the familiar coat and face to go with it. She paused upon seeing the man who took the front of the coat and spread it, pulling it down Renee’s arms. Renee wanted to give Marie a reassuring smile, but she was afraid all she could manage was a grimace, so she just lifted a hand back.

She felt a few eyes on her that she was not accustomed to having, but it was not as though her arrival had stopped the world so that all eyes were on her, even if it seemed that way to her rapidly panicking mind. Marcus had come back to the bar after his scare and joined his friends at a booth. Will and Josh were there. Josh nursed a mug of draught beer and stared at her thoughtfully, taking in the length of leg and the flash of skin at her neck. What she was wearing was nothing really showy. Just a slightly smaller shirt than she was used to, which actually fitted her rather than gave her room for working movement, and a skirt that she wasn’t used to at all. But it was different. And Josh was no fool. He knew that the man she was with was the reason. So even though he had a girl talking to him and hanging on to his arm—Renee thought her name was Melanie—he regarded Renee with a blank expression.

Marie came over, still surprised and even wary.

“Do you want your usual, Renee?” she asked. “Samuel Adams and chicken strips?”

“The chicken strips and fries sound good,” Grant said. “But let’s try a bottle of Jack Daniels and glasses for the two of us.”

Marie looked to Renee and raised her eyebrows at the way he ordered for her.

Renee nodded an okay. She knew what it looked like from the outside, but nothing that the outsiders saw was true.

“Can I have a water while we wait?” Renee asked before Marie left.

“Sure, hon, be right back,” Marie said.

“Do you have to be so creepy?” Renee asked, after Marie had gone back behind the bar.

“It’s just an experiment, the drink,” Grant said.

“Not the drink. Ordering for me when she was asking me.”

“I knew what you meant.”

“You won’t get me drunk,” she said.

Grant cocked his head curiously with a strange slant to his smile. “And what makes you think I’m not going to get you drunk, a little girl like you?”

“You can give me a hangover in the morning, but I don’t get drunk.” She shifted in her seat, pulling the hem of her black skirt down. It did not move very far. “I don’t know what you’re after.”

“Well, the aim
was
to get you drunk, but I’ll settle for pleasantly buzzed.”

“Why?”

“For the sake of it.”

“It seems like a stupid pastime. I’ve never understood why people do it.”

“It is,” Grant said. “Sometimes it’s good to have a few stupid decisions under your belt instead of playing everything so safe and ordered.”

Renee stared at him and wished that he couldn’t stare right through her clothes and know exactly what she looked like. It made her think everyone could. “Not
everything
is safe and ordered.”

“No,” he said smugly. “Not everything.”

“What next? A shot of heroin and a hold-up at a jewellery store?”

“If it strikes your fancy,” Grant said. He found her fingers at the hem of her skirt and pushed them aside before sliding familiarly underneath, clutching at the whole curve of her thigh. “Although I thought we’d try getting drunk and having sex somewhere unexpected for tonight.”

“You won’t get me drunk, and I don’t want a headache in the morning,” Renee said. Marie walked up with the water, and Renee knew she’d seen Grant’s hand under Renee’s skirt. She did not say anything, just set the water on the table and went back to the bar.

But she thought Marie was watching her out of the corner of her eye. And she knew that Josh was watching her, and sometimes his friends would crane their necks—it was as though their gazes bored holes into her. Her clothes were too tight, clinging to her like leeches, and everything on the inside tightened away from where they touched her skin. She sensed the panic attack coming before the physical manifestations really started, such as the cold sweat and the shallow breaths, her heart pounding against her ribcage.

Grant saw it coming, too. “And you were doing so well,” he muttered.

If she had been able to open her mouth, she would have said that if he had really intended her to do well, he would not have brought her here, where he had an excuse to claim her in public.

He pulled the rubber band from her hair so that it could fall over her shoulders—just one more way he wanted her to draw attention. His lips seared the thin, pulsing skin of her neck, and he pressed his other hand unapologetically between her legs, cupping her in his palm. If Marie had been looking, she could have seen exactly what he was doing to her with his hands. All the men in Josh’s booth could see were his lips and the glimpse of his tongue and teeth on her, making her head fall back as air rushed into her lungs. Her heart was still racing, but now it was for a different reason.

She was finally beginning to attract attention from some of the other patrons. Although some were dancing in the open floor area on the other side of the booths, separated by a wooden railing and glass plating, they would be able to see the shoulders and heads of people in booths. Which meant that they had an unobstructed view of Grant making love to the stretch of a woman’s neck. They’d see her threading her thin fingers through the man’s hair and bringing that searching mouth to her own. She kissed him slowly but thoroughly. In this setting, neither of them was as impulsive and lost in the feeling as they had been at the sanctuary. But it was still perhaps beyond propriety, especially in a small-town bar that still got its music from a jukebox.

The clearing of a throat broke Renee from her trance, and she realised belatedly that Marie had caught her with Grant’s hand in an obviously compromising position. This was one of those times when her blush was well qualified. Marie did not look disgusted or like she was going to call the cops, but she certainly looked as if someone had hit her in the face with a two-by-four. There was probably nothing in the world less Renee-like than sucking face and getting fingered by a man like that. As embarrassed as she was, Renee could not help the swell of giddiness in her chest. What she wouldn’t give to be un-Renee-like all the time, not just when Grant was kissing her or screwing her. Not that those things didn’t get her giddy in another way.

Marie put the two plates of fried chicken strips and fries under their noses. Then she put down two tumblers and poured them each a drink.

“Leave the bottle,” Grant said.

Marie looked to Renee again, and Grant leant forward as though he was going to have a say. But Renee suspected that any say he had would only dig the hole deeper.

“It’s fine,” Renee said. “Really. He’s not taking advantage.”

“I’d say different, hon,” Marie muttered.

“He’s not
forcing
anything,” Renee reassured her. “If I didn’t want the drink, I’d say something. I promise.”

“You wouldn’t be the first woman with her man pushing his luck in this place. Nor the first woman who might get a shiner the first time she says no,” Marie whispered.

Grant snorted impatiently. “Why does everyone think I’m some kind of demon who’s looking for innocent flesh to corrupt? Look, lady,” he said, “she said she’s fine. Give the girl a little credit.”

Marie checked Renee’s expression. When Marie did not find any indication that Renee was there against her will, she took a step back. “All right,” she said. “When you’re ready to pay, just come to the bar. But I’m going to be watching you.” She glanced pointedly at Grant. “Just in case.”

Grant leant back, hooding his eyes in shadow but unable to hide a certain amount of smugness. “You do that.”

Marie reluctantly left them in order to tend to some other patrons.

Renee bit into a fry in annoyance. “Now everyone in town is going to think I’m in an abusive relationship. Thanks very much.”

Grant began to eat his own meal. “What difference does it make? You’ll know better.”

Renee was not so sure about that. She’d told Britt that the relationship was not going to be permanent, and that was true. The question was when it was going to stop being such a thrill ride, when the other shoe would drop. And if that shoe was going to end up a kick in the face. The silver knife was secured to her hip, and she was sure that Grant had felt it while he was feeling her. But she did not know whether she would actually use it. She had never been tested like this, and she did not know when she would eventually be tested properly. When, not if.

And what does that say about your state of mind, if you’re still here in this bar with him rather than calling the police on his ass?
He probably has a record. You don’t know. You don’t do background checks. You don’t know exactly what kind of man you’ve let into your bed
.

The only thing that Renee could think in response to that was that she had let in a man whom she needed. At least for now.

They mostly ate in silence, although Grant sometimes hummed with the music if he heard a harder-edged, old rock song that he liked. Sometimes his fingers tapped on the inside her thigh. He never let go of her. Not many people could see the legs she had been so nervous about showing, but it was as though he was telling anyone who happened to bend over just to look at them that those legs were his, not theirs. And Renee did not particularly mind. It reminded her that he was there. Much as her hand on Britt’s malamute fur grounded her, his warm hand on her thigh kept her fairly calm in spite of the crowd, and Renee thought that Grant knew it.

“That boy is still looking at you,” Grant said. “The lug isn’t any threat, but the boy, the scruffy one, wants you more than he thinks he does. Oh, the envy in him is absolutely delicious. I can smell it even in the midst of all this.”

He put down his food, wiped his fingers on the paper napkin, then held up his tumbler of whisky.

“Time to start, love,” he said.

Renee paused, considering whether it was a good idea, especially since he was the one who would be driving. She could always insist on driving herself if it came down to it. She suspected, though, that it was not easy for him to get drunk either.

She raised her glass.

“Here’s to rubbing it in their faces,” Grant said. “To the smell of sweet success and the promise of a long night ahead of us. And no reason to stay quiet.”

Renee leant backwards a little as the intensity that naturally came to Grant intensified even more. If his eyes could be said to smoulder, she could almost swear they were glowing lantern-hot. She tilted her head back and downed the entire glass. The bottom of the glass hit the table with a sharp knock. Grant quirked his lips, then slung back his own drink.

Renee closed her eyes against the burn of the spirits at the back of her throat. She was used to beer, and it had been a while since she had taken something stronger. But it had more flavour and more heat to it in her stomach. She thought the next one would go down more easily now that she knew what to expect. She felt the alcohol in her head for a moment before it cleared. It would definitely be easier the next time.

She had once finished an entire bottle of good vodka, courtesy of her couriers, without slurring her words—what few words she had spoken. Britt and Jake had shared two bottles with Ki and Malcolm—Max never drank—and all of them had ended up fairly zonked by the end of the night. It did not make much sense, since Ki was the only one who weighed less than Renee, but she supposed some people just had a tolerance. There were people who could smoke for years, then stop cold turkey because they wanted to. Britt said it was a gift. Renee had replied that a gift wouldn’t let her get hangovers in the morning, no matter how much she drank water after drinking alcohol. Britt, who was often fuzzy-mouthed and headachy herself, did not have much to say to that.

“Think you can drink me under the table?” Grant asked in unhidden amusement.

“No,” Renee said. “I think we’ll both be sitting up and lucid when this bottle is finished.”

“Tell you the truth,” Grant whispered, “I think I’d like that. It’ll make everything else so much better. Have you ever done anything impulsive while stone-cold sober?”

Renee stared at him.

“Besides me.”

“No.”

“Well,
this
…” He poured more whisky into their tumblers. “This is the perfect way to allow yourself to give in to your impulses. You can tell everyone you were drunk.”