Gator

“Tell me how this works,” I say to Poppy, jamming my hands in my pockets because I’ve never wanted to touch a woman more. After carrying her back to the house yesterday, I’d stayed out of her bed, but mainly because I didn’t want her to think I was reneging on our deal or changing the stakes. She’s made it perfectly clear that sex isn’t on the table, so I’ll respect that.

Poppy shoves an enormous bag at me and takes off for the boat. I can practically see her remembering last night’s shit story.

“You ever do field research?” she calls back to me.

“You gonna fire me if I say no?” Because the only research I’ve done has been with my teeth and my claws, and I don’t think she’s ready to hear about that. I’m a wolf. I don’t sit around jotting shit down in a little notebook; I go straight for the jugular.

She starts talking (and talking and talking), and I settle into nodding my head. Most of it seems real standard: she’s the boss (in her dreams), we have to follow “protocols,” and we’re actually not trying to trap any animals (good to know because imagining my brothers in a trap has me fearing for her safety). Then she purses her lips up into an imminently kissable pucker. It’s not like I’m trying to disrespect her or talk to her tits instead of her face, but she’s a beautiful woman and I’m not blind.

“The most important thing to remember is that when we find wolves, we don’t interfere in any way.”

I snort.

“You mean if.”

She gives me a firm look. Dissent’s apparently not an option today. “When. You think I can’t make this happen, Gator?”

Christ, I hope not. She’s way too fucking smart, and the evidence she’s collected so far has been dead accurate. This would be easier if she made mistakes, but Poppy is meticulous when it comes to her research. But I have a personal interest in making sure her investigation turns up nothing, and I’m not overly burdened with ethics. Keeping an eye on her while she investigates is just smart.

Her eyes narrow. “No touching. No wild animal capture. You see a wolf, you hang back.”

“Gotcha. No touching the wolves,” I say agreeably.

Her expression turns wistful. “Maybe they’ll show up today. Maybe we’ll turn up at the right time, at the right place.”

“Why are you doing this?” I ask.

She drops her load of crap into the boat and jumps in after it. She’s certainly dressed for work in a pair of jeans cut off around her ankles and a gray sweatshirt that announces Alcohol You Later. Got no clue what that means but now’s not the time to ask. The pair of black sneakers she’s got on makes my wolf wonder how she’d feel about a game of chase.

We take my boat, seeing as how Poppy sank her ride, but you’d think she was captain of a mega-yacht, the way she belts out directions. Poppy has a map on her tablet, which survived her swim the other day. She calls out directions when we get close, and I steer our ride this way and that to accommodate her.

It’s still early, the sun just setting the edges of the sky on fire. Mist still hangs over the water, orange and gold lighting up the spaces between the branches of the trees we pass. Beneath the mist, the water’s calm and flat, nothing breaking the surface but reflections of cypress, moss, and the occasional early bird heron out to get his fucking worm. If I were him, I’d hold out for Starbucks.

Poppy bustles around the boat, scanning the banks, rearranging the gear, and looking way too cheerful. Might even be contagious because I don’t mind my lack of sleep as much as I should. She points, I drive, and we make our way deeper and deeper into the bayou. I don’t even mind the way she ignores me, all her attention focused on the wildlife on the banks. After all, she’s on a wolf hunt, and I’m just along for the ride as far as she’s concerned. I’ve got all day to assess what she knows and figure out exactly how much of a threat she poses to the pack. Jace had someone take care of the wolf cadaver she’d stored up in her lab, but she could have other evidence we don’t know about.

By lunchtime, however, she’s still wolf-less, having found no daytime clues to their presence in my bayou. I, on the other hand, have learned that she’s got video of two apparent red wolves and some scat samples. I make a mental note to ask Jace if he knows who the two idiots are on the tape she shows me. I don’t recognize the markings, which leads me to think they’re not part of the Breed MC. The Breauxs run a tight pack, too, so I doubt it’s one of their boys. Unless we’ve acquired a pair of lone wolves in recent months, the logical candidate is T.D.’s pack of newbies.

Fucking T.D. has been a pain in our ass. I may be a lone wolf who can take or leave being part of a pack, but he’s more dangerous. He’s jonesing to lead his own pack, and there are only two ways he makes that happen. Either he affects a management change in an existing pack, or he rounds up his own set of wolves and fights to hold whatever territory he stakes out as his. And since T.D.’s not stupid, he’s gone with Option B. He and a half-dozen wolves are holed up at Rose Bayou, likely drinking beer, comparing dick size, and plotting to complicate my life. The complications come when they leave Rose Bayou and strike out for a little fun run. T.D. and his boys are no fans of rules, and they’ve been running all over the bayou and sometimes in plain sight.

As the day wears on, however, Poppy gets visibly more anxious. It’s not hard to figure out the reason why. She’s already on notice. When you don’t produce, the good people at Grants-R-Us get nervous—and nervous people have a bad habit of closing their checkbooks, which makes this crunch time in the Poppy-verse. If she wants to keep working, she has to find incontrovertible proof and fast.

I’m about to chalk the day up as a bust—thank fuck—when she suddenly throws up a hand and starts pointing like a setter on a scent.

“Pull over,” she hisses. “Right now.”

I do, and she bolts out of the boat before we’re even completely stationary. Seconds later, she’s tearing up an almost invisible game trail. Got no clue how she spotted that from the boat, but she did. I tie up and follow.

“You want to tell me what this is about?”

She scans the trail, walking fast but quiet. “This is where I found the scat.”

Poppy’s got to be the only female I’ve met who’s excited over the possibility of finding shit. The way she says it, the word scat sounds like winning lottery ticket or holy fucking grail. She practically flies up the trail, slipping between the trees with practiced ease. Game trail’s always a potential landmine, and my nose warns me quick enough that she’s found an old kill site. Nothing too recent—but wolves have definitely been here.

I pick up the pace and slip past her, ignoring her muttered protests. The bones are scattered around a small clearing. It’s old enough that I can’t tell for certain whose kill this was, but whoever he was, he might as well have hung a blinking, neon sign. The area around the kill is packed tight from wolves coming and going and there’s a patch of crushed vegetation where someone took a fucking siesta. I only have enough time to sweep away the tracks before she bursts into the clearing.

Her eyes light up and she yanks her camera out and starts clicking away. I just hope like hell that no one was dumb enough to take a shit close by.

“They come back,” she says quietly. “A pack likes to revisit the places they brought down something good, even after there’s no meat left on the bones.”

So she’ll be watching this site. Just great.

I make some notes of my own. Jace is gonna need to know about this, and someone will have to pay T.D. another visit. Wolf needs to learn that some rules aren’t optional, a point I plan on emphasizing with my fists. Sucks to be him. When I’ve learned what I need, I hunker down and wait for Poppy to finish up.

Frankly, people spend less time in a place like the Louvre, where at least there are a million goddamned paintings and something to look at. She measures and catalogs each and every fragment of bone, and then she proceeds to comb the surrounding brush in a painstaking and thorough manner. Since I’ve erased the tracks, however, she comes up empty and frustrated.

It’s almost sunset before we head back. The frogs and crickets kick up a racket, calling back and forth. Most of them are just looking to get laid, so I feel their pain. An owl calls, getting in on the action. For a while, we just ride, the boat slicing through the water as the sky turns orange and then darkens.

And then Poppy sort of sighs, curls her legs up on her seat, and looks at me. Yeah, I can just about see the questions forming on her lips. I figure she’s gonna ask about the kill site, feel me out to see what I know, or maybe make some suggestions about where we head tomorrow.

“Lunch with J.K. Rowling or Stephen King?”

The fuck? I shoot her a glance. “You wanna give me some context on that?”

“If you had to choose, who would you share a salad with?”

“J.K.” The woman gave werewolves a bad rap. Her Fenrir is a slavering monster that eats children. Might never qualify as a saint, but I’d also never pull that shit.

Poppy nods and zones out for a moment. She’s quiet but I’m not gonna make the mistake of thinking she’s done with the Q&A. The woman loves her questions. Sure enough, she pops another one out two minutes later.

“Adopt a baby platypus or a koala?”

“Are we playing some kind of game here?”

Because I’m downright certain that the only kind of game I play is chase—and I’m always it. Poppy frowns at me like I’ve just spit-roasted the koala and served it up with ketchup.

“We’re getting to know each other.”

Most women, their Q&A covers the size of my dick, my bank account, or my pull with the club. Maybe they branch out and ask about my favorite Friday night hang out or my preferred brand of booze. Figures Poppy would have to be different.

“Come over here.” Boat’s not gonna drive itself, so she needs to work with me. She stands up automatically, and then the frown gets deeper. I can practically hear her hitting the brakes.

“Why?”

“Spanish Inquisition’s a hands-on project, babe.”

She sort of stares through me as she thinks that over. I’d rather she look at me and fucking see me for who I am, but that’s not gonna play well. She’s hunting for wolves, sure, but I’m a little too much of a good thing. Plus, given how eager to please she is and how much I’m enjoying this shared time, I don’t want to run her off. Not anymore. Kind of don’t feel good about what I’ve done behind her back because I like my shit to be upfront, but I’ve made my choices. Gonna have to live with them, too.

“Still waiting for you to get that cute little ass over here,” I point out.

She frowns and then shakes her head, like she’s shedding any worries, and then she actually does it. She pads across the deck, stopping a foot or two away from me. My lips twitch. Not like I couldn’t catch her. We already established that. So I do what I want to do, and haul her carefully into my arms. She’s so fucking small compared to me—her head barely hits my shoulder.

“Shouldn’t you be driving the boat?” she squeaks.

“Got it.” I shift her until she’s between my arms and the steering wheel, her back tucked up against my chest. This way I get to hold her and bring us home. We’re almost there, so I plan to make the most of my time. Her hair tickles my face, little tendrils escaping the ponytail she’s bundled it into. Not staring at her is impossible. She’s beautiful, sure, but she’s also got this quiet strength I like way too much. Push Poppy and she might bend, but she won’t break.

She stands there stiffly for a moment, not quite sure why I’ve called her over. I bite back a snort. Not like there’s much doubt because if my dick gets hard when she’s all the way across the deck, it’s really rolling out the welcome now that she’s up close and personal.

“Gator?” She wriggles, trying to find something a little less hard to lean against. Yeah. Good luck with that.

“Yeah, babe?”

“Chocolate or Twizzlers? Captain America or Thor?”

She runs those last two together. Maybe she’s finally run out of air? Dunno. She’s got me tied in knots. I don’t run after women—when I need companionship, there are the working girls at the club. And plenty of pass-arounds out at the clubhouse. They’re willing to pretend my scars aren’t that bad in exchange for cash or an invite to the club’s next party. I’m not a relationship guy; I don’t like others in my space… and that’s fine with them. They want the cash or the social standing, and it’s a straight-up trade. Poppy is different, and I’m not sure I like it. But I know I want more of her.

Unfortunately for me, it’s our stop. The island gets bigger and bigger, and I bring the boat into the dock. Poppy ducks beneath my arm and grabs the ropes to tie us up. Even though we didn’t find her wolves, she looks happy. Or maybe she’s still thrilled over the stripped-down set of bones from one of T.D.’s hunting expeditions. She knows what those bones mean.

She turns to climb out of the boat, but I’m not ready to let her go yet. I hook a finger in the back of her jeans and tug her backward, turning and lifting her so her ass is planted on the dock. Then I step forward, pushing between her legs. Kind of wish we were still out there looking for her needle in a haystack. Of course, it’s my job to make sure she doesn’t find anything, which sucks. Poppy’s too trusting. I said I’d help, and she took me at my word.

Sucks that she’s gonna end up disillusioned.

She stares at me, forehead puckering, as she tries to figure out why she’s sitting on the dock. Kinda cute, how naïve she is. I lean into her, my arms coming down around her.

“We’re back.” She tries to wriggle away but hits my hands instead.

“You running away from me again? You ever think about staying put, babe?”

Answer’s clearly no because she wriggles some more. Fine by me—every time she moves, her ass and her tits come into close contact with me.

“If I ask, you’ll let go.”

I fucking hate that she’s got me pegged. I remove my arms from around her, another thing to add to the hate list. I’d much rather be touching her. Still, I can’t reform entirely, not overnight, so I slide a hand up her arm and over her shoulder, curling my palm around the back of her neck. And then I lean in and kiss her as gently as I can. This is Nice Me showing her that there’s more to me than the bastard who chased her down the other night and chained her up. I trace her lower lip with my tongue, silently asking permission to come in.

She’s the dangerous one, I realize.

I kiss her, keeping my palm loose and easy as I breathe her in. Poppy’s the best damn kisser. Her hands somehow end up on my chest, her fingers curling into the cotton of my T-shirt. Not sure if she’s pulling me closer, or getting a handle on me so she can move me somewhere else, but that’s okay. We both know she can do whatever she goddamn wants, and if she asked right now, I’d give her a blanket yes. Head back to Baton Rouge and fuck our deal? Yes. Track down the wolves she wants so badly? Yes. Drop to my knees and eat her sweet pussy? Hell yes.

I step back before I can vote for D, all of the above. She stares at me, her lips swollen and slick from our kiss, her breath coming quicker. She’s gorgeous. Her dark hair is rumpled, curls escaping from the ponytail. Her eyes are soft and warm, so I pretend she’s thinking about me and she likes her thoughts. She looks… welcoming.

Like home.

Like a place I’d really like to belong.

I’ve never met anyone like her, and now that I have, I have no idea what to do with her other than fuck her, protect her, and make sure she gets every goddamned thing she wants. Which is a problem because she wants my pack, even if she doesn’t know it, and I can’t let her put them in harm’s way, either. For just a moment, I imagine telling her the truth. That she’s stumbled across werewolves and could she pretty please walk away from her grant and research because we need to live on the down-low.

Yeah. Fucking genius plan there.

I vault up onto the dock and pull her carefully to her feet. She doesn’t say anything to me about that kiss, so I’m not gonna either. She didn’t say no. That thought somersaults through my head as I take her hand and tug her down the dock and back up to the house.

She didn’t say no.

For right now, that’s plenty.