Quinn
“Ooh, I love this song!” I leaned over to turn up the music on the radio, and caught the ghost of a smile on Cody’s face. That man was so into me it was ridiculous.
I wished I could say I wasn’t equally interested in him, but that would’ve been a lie.
We’d been in the car for twenty hours, and still didn’t really know anything more about each other than we had when we drove away from my apartment. He’d dodged my questions and I’d dodged his, so we had to settle for talking about favorite colors and what foods we hated and liked.
Favorites were safe. Feelings and pasts were not.
So I sang and danced when I liked the music. Sometimes, I did it just to see that smile in Cody’s eyes.
I was a little ashamed of that fact, but the wolf in me had to assert herself somehow I guess.
The GPS said we were about twenty minutes away from the house I’d bought when Cody turned at a stoplight we were supposed to drive straight through.
“What are you doing?”
It was the middle of the night, so we weren’t stopping for food. Other than a late-night Walmart run that we didn’t need, I couldn’t think of any other reason we were going off path.
“I can’t go into another pack’s territory in the middle of the night, so we’re spending the night at my place.” Cody said it like it was non-negotiable.
I wasn’t about to spend the night in his apartment, where I would see all of his stuff and photos that might make me rethink my plan to break his heart.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not up to you.” I pulled my hair up into a pile on top of my head and wrapped a hair-tie around it to hold it down. “I’ll drop you off at your apartment and take the truck to my house.”
Cody didn’t respond until he stopped at the next stoplight, when he turned and met my gaze.
“My brother’s soulmate almost died last time he and I were on the mountain, so unless you’re ready to meet the Creator, neither of us is stepping foot on Mount Edge until the morning.”
He stepped on the gas as the light turned to green, and without his intense gaze locked with mine, I could breathe a little easier.
When he put it that way, I was much more inclined to spend the night at his place.
“Why did she almost die?”
I remembered him telling me his brother’s soulmate’s name was Hallie, but didn’t use her name so he would think I hadn’t been paying attention.
“My dad’s pack isn’t okay with the fact that we have human soulmates now. Some of them would rather shifters die out than be with the other halves of our souls, and they took it too far and threatened Hallie. Now all of us with human soulmates have our own pack, Tanner is the Alpha.”
So there was a lot more to being a shifter than I realized. Great. Because my life wasn’t already complicated enough, between trying not to fall in love with the man made to be mine and also trying to make him hate me.
“Okay, Mount Edge is basically a civil warzone and I bought a house in the middle of it.”
“My dad’s pack is starting to come around, but it’s slow-going. The way people think doesn’t change in an instant.” His voice was even and calm.
He pulled into a parking space in front of a four-plex apartment building that looked like it was at least sixty years old, maybe more.
“You don’t seriously live here?” I wrinkled my nose.
“I do.” He opened his door and stepped around to the bed of the truck to grab my suitcases.
“I’m getting a hotel room.” I said, though I got out of the truck too.
“Good luck with that. The nearest hotel that meets your standards is at least an hour away.” He said, heading toward the stairs between the two basement apartments. “And I’ve seen the houses for sale on Mount Edge, I don’t think you’ll be any happier with your place than you are with mine.”
I’d looked through the pictures my realtor had sent me, and if they were real, Cody was right. My house was just as dumpy as his apartment. I’d figured I would fix it up and flip it when I moved, but living there until it was fixed was going to suck.
“How do you live here?” I muttered, stepping up on the old stairs. Everything smelled like mildew, and the stairs were creaky as we made our way up to the apartment.
The light in front of the door Cody was unlocking wasn’t on, but the neighbor’s light three feet away was flickering on and off. If the wolf in me hadn’t been making me feel so calm just because I was with Cody, I would’ve worried I was stepping into a scene in a horror movie.
The door swung open, and we stepped inside.
Though the inside wasn’t much nicer than the outside, it was clean and smelled faintly like peppermint. Peppermint, and trees.
Part of me decided then and there that it was the perfect smell for Cody’s place, but I reminded myself that I liked my houses like I liked my men—crisp and modern and stylish.
When I stepped inside, Cody closed the door behind me and I noticed a man sitting on the faded red leather couch. He had dark messy hair a pair of stylish glasses perched on his nose, and he barely glanced up from the when we stepped inside.
I brushed a loose strand of hair out of my face, and he dropped the book on his lap.
“Sebastian, this is Quinn. Quinn, this is my roommate Sebastian.” Cody gestured to the man on the couch.
I gave him a quick smile, and he nodded.
“We’ll only be here until tomorrow morning as long as everything goes alright with my dad’s pack.” Cody explained quickly.
Sebastian nodded again, and then picked his book back up. So he wasn’t up for a conversation, I could respect that.
Cody led me past the kitchen and bathroom. There was a tiny strip of hallway and then the apartment branched into two bedrooms. He went into the one on the left, and I followed him.
There was a mattress on the floor with a black blanket tangled in a pile with the black sheets. Some clothes were on the ground, next to a white hard hat and an orange safety vest and a big bag of tools.
“You’re a construction worker?”
When he nodded, I wanted to groan. Even if by some miracle my parents changed their mind and accepted that I was soulmates with a shifter, they would never be okay with me being in a relationship with a construction worker. In my parents’ minds, they were the scum of all scum.
Which was just another reason I needed to make him hate me.
“Let’s just go to bed.” Cody muttered. He wasn’t in the mood to talk, and I couldn’t blame him. He’d been driving for twenty hours straight so he needed to sleep.
He tugged his t-shirt off over his head, catching me completely off guard. Those rippling muscles, the deep ridges that made up his abs, the way his body tensed when he noticed me watching him…
Oh, that.
“You can’t look at me like that and tell me you don’t want to be with me.” Cody said, his voice gruff. This time, the gruffness had nothing to do with his wolf.
“Actually, I can.” I shot him a quick glare and then stepped out of the jean shorts I’d been wearing. While he was taken aback by the shock of the movement, I stepped right out of his room and headed straight toward Cody’s roommate.
I knew I was about to be a real hoe, but I had to do what I had to do.
Tossing my shirt on the ground as I passed the kitchen, I didn’t hesitate even a second.
I grabbed Sebastian’s book and tossed it to the couch beside him, and then I sat down on the poor guy’s lap in my pink lace bra and underwear.
He gaped up at me like I had two heads, so shocked he was frozen in place.
Biting back a laugh, I grabbed his face in my hands and pressed my lips to his. I didn’t expect him to respond, so when I felt a pair of hands on my waist, it surprised me a little.
When the owner of those hands yanked me off of Sebastian and tossed me over his shoulder, I realized my mistake.
When Cody slammed the bedroom door behind us, I finally spoke up.
“I told you I was going to make you hate me.”
He set me down on both feet, and then his lips were on mine. As hard as I tried to fight the attraction and push him away, all I could do was wrap my arms around him and kiss him back.
This wasn’t like any of the other kisses we’d shared. The kiss wasn’t one of attraction or passion, it was one of desperation. Cody kissed me because he needed me, and when I kissed him back, and I could feel that in the way his rough, large hands blazed trails of fire on my skin.
The kiss was all bare skin and barely-contained desire. I had never wanted anyone the way I wanted Cody.
My back hit the door as he pinned me to it, and I moaned.
He went still. Without asking, I knew he was worried he’d hurt me.
“Take me to bed.” I breathed, assuring him and urging him to keep going.
Instead of complying, he stepped back. When his hands left my skin, air whooshed out of me and I felt an ache at his absence.
“We’re not making love while you’re trying to get rid of me. I don’t believe in casual sex.” Cody grabbed his t-shirt off the floor and put it back on, which I figured was so he would be less tempted to grab me and keep going. That was a pity, because I wanted nothing more than to do exactly what he didn’t.
He was wrong when he assumed that there could be anything casual about having sex with him. If we slept together, all it would do was cement the confidence I felt that he and I had something unique and special.
It was actually a good thing that he’d stopped us before things went that far, because I was still struggling to accept the inevitable outcome of my plan. If I fell too hard for him, too quickly, I might not be able to go through with everything I’d been planning.
“I’m going for a run. Don’t even think about looking at Sebastian again.” His words were short and harsh, and he left without waiting for a response.
“I was only kissing him to piss you off.” I muttered. “Not that it changes anything for me.”
Sighing, I grabbed my phone to facetime Beth. She was typically up at all hours of the night reading, so chances were good that she’d answer.
“Hello?” She answered the call with crazy hair and mascara in rings around her eyes.
“Are you okay?” I sat up straighter.
“Just PMSing.” She moved around so she was lying on her stomach, and then fluffed a pillow up to rest under her chin. “Garrett left me alone so he could go watch another baseball game. It’s research, of course.” She did air-quotations around ‘research’. “But this is the twenty-third night in a row that I’ve slept alone. I have a count on my tablet.”
She lifted her mini tablet that she pretty much only used to read books, and showed me an app with a big 23.
“Is that why you were crying?”
Beth shrugged.
“Kind of. You know I hate being alone at night, and thanks to my PMS hormones, when he turned me down I just kind of lost it. How’s it going for you?”
I laughed humorlessly.
“Well I jumped his roommate and then made out with him until he got so horny he had to leave to resist me, so good I guess.”
Beth groaned and laughed at the same time, covering her face with her hand.
“Girl, you’ve got issues.”
“Tell me about it.” I rolled onto my back and lifted the phone over me. “Do you have any idea how these wolf shifter packs work? Cody’s throwing out words like Alpha and cotie and I’m pretending not to be interested.”
“Well if the paranormal romances I’ve read are correct, the Alpha rules the pack with dominance. If someone is out of line, he kills them.” Beth made a face. “His Luna is the soulmate that kind of rules with him, and she’s the most treasured in the pack. Cotie is the word for the mate mark on your neck, the one you tattooed over. Hey, show it to me.” She ordered.
I closed my eyes and turned my head so I wouldn’t have to see it.
“Wrong side, Quinnie.”
Groaning, I turned the other way.
“How do I keep forgetting?” I muttered.
Beth just laughed.
“It’s a pretty tattoo, but the cotie was prettier. What did Cody do when he saw it?”
I grinned at the memory.
“He was pissed. It was so sexy.” Sighing, I threw my free arm over my eyes. “I’m in so much trouble, Bethie. That man is irresistible.”