Chapter Six
Ty
We rode back from the park in a tense silence broken only by the buzz of traffic around us. From across her classic Jeep, I did my best to sneak looks at her without getting caught. I could not help it. Everything about her from her slightly pouty lips and remarkable brown eyes to her long, jet-black hair drew me in. Amazing. But I wasn’t as shallow as all that. More pulled at me than her knockout looks.
The way she was handling all this, for one, was pretty amazing. I had never known a newly bitten, but I didn’t imagine any of them took it in such easy stride. True, anger radiated off her, but she was not afraid. Even if she had been able to hide it from me, I would have smelled it. But all I smelled coming off her was her unique spicy scent that managed to be feminine and sultry at the same time. From her adaptability to her spunkiness, none of it was what I had expected out of a woman chosen by Raul. She surprised me, and I liked that more than I cared to admit. But I had to admit it to myself, if only to strengthen my resolve to keep my distance.
It was not just that she had been traumatized by Raul. From what I had been taught, over half of the newly bitten didn’t make it through the verða. They lost their sanity, meaning they could not control their wolf selves, which resulted in them having to be put down. Any big distractions, like family, friends, or attachments could mean the difference in her surviving or not. I would not be the reason my first assignment did not make it.
I wanted to be a gentleman and allow her to be the one to break the silence, but there was so much I wanted to know about her. There were things I needed to know.
“We will be away for a while. Do you have anyone you need to contact?” Not the most subtle way to find out if she was involved with someone or would have complications with the verða, but it was a legitimate reason. We could not have anyone looking for her.
She snorted and damn if it was not cute as hell.
“No.”
Her voice slid over me like mist, tingling and hair-raising. The sensation traveled all the way down to my cock, threatening to make it stand up and take notice. I forced my mind to recall the most boring thesis I’d had the displeasure of reading last year. By the third chapter I had stopped my blood from flowing to my groin. A crude method, but effective. Nemi, she was my nemi, damn it.
“No family or friends that might worry?” I asked once I could focus again.
We rolled to a stop at a red light.
Her voice dropped in both volume and energy as she glanced out the driver’s side window. “No. You don’t have to worry. No one will come looking for me.”
That statement held a world of pain and unsaid words. I tried to catch a glimpse of her expression, but she would not turn back to me.
“I apologize. I did not mean to pry into painful territory, but I had to know if there might be complications.”
She shrugged and looked back at the road as the light turned green. “Don’t worry about it. I’m a struggling college student who tended bar in a town far from the place I grew up in until yesterday. Med students don’t have time for complications,” she said, voice carefully controlled.
A War and Peace–sized novel of unsaid words lay within her tone, but I was not going to press. Not yet. The comment did make me wonder, though. Did I need to rethink my first thought of Raul choosing her because she was special? That she was special, I had no doubt. But Raul was a bit too shallow and dim-witted to put that much thought into his choice. It was easier to believe that he had chosen her because she had very few connections to her community and might not be missed for a while.
“That is most certainly the rest of the world’s loss,” I told her, unable to not say at least something. It was hard to imagine anyone not missing this woman.
She shot me a sideways glance filled with a mixture of distrust and appreciation. Someone had hurt her, badly, and I was guessing it was not just Raul. She did not reply and I did not press the issue. To do so would only make it worse, I could tell by the way her eyes narrowed. Trust was a long way off yet.
We pulled into the parking garage and walked through the darkness back to our hotel room in silence. She peered into every shadow as if expecting something nefarious to leap out of it. But she did not look ready to flee. She looked ready to fight. I had to hide a smile as I opened the hotel room door for her and stepped aside to allow her entry first. She cocked an eyebrow at me as she entered, never quite turning her back to me. A breath eased from her as her eyes scanned the two queen beds.
“I took the liberty of changing the room Raul had reserved to one with two queen beds. I tried to get a suite with a sofa sleeper in a separate room, but one was not available,” I said.
“Thanks,” she snapped.
I hoped the sharpness in her tone had more to do with the idea of meeting Raul here than it did with anything I had said or done. Unless, of course, she was disappointed in the idea of not sharing a bed with me… No. I couldn’t let my mind go down that road. She was attractive, yes. But I was to be her kennari. Which meant I would have to be on my best behavior. Ancient law forbid kennari to get involved with, let alone copulate with, their nemi for good reason. Going through the change heightened everything, emotions included. Taking advantage of her, let alone being a potentially deadly distraction, was not something I was willing to do. No matter how delicious those large breasts looked or how alluring her strength and resilience were, it was not worth the pain such an indulgence would cause. My stiffening cock disagreed.
I took my time at the door, allowing her to choose which bed she wanted. She dropped her bag—which she had vehemently refused to allow me to carry—onto the bed farthest from the door. Such good instincts made me smile and I had to quickly turn away so she would not see and misinterpret it.
The peel of her bag’s zipper seemed infinitely loud in the silence that fell. After pulling a number of items out of it, she looked up at me. Though her mouth was set in a hard line, a softness in her eyes told me her anger was dissipating.
“I didn’t mean to snap. I’m sorry. Just hearing his name kind of pisses me off,” she said.
This time I let the grin pulling at the edges of my mouth show a bit. “I understand.” Oh, did I ever.
Toothbrush and paste in one hand and clothes in the other, she started for the bathroom. “I hope you don’t mind if I crash right away. I’m kind of wiped out,” she called over her shoulder as she entered the bathroom.
“Of course. I understand,” I said.
The door closed behind her and I did my best not to picture her changing. Those long, darkly tanned legs, that perfectly shaped ass… Yes, I completely failed.
…
Sleep remained elusive and sporadic, and not only because I was worried about Raul sending some of his friends after her. Despite the Council’s ruling, he was bound to try. The arrogant shit would not give up after going through all the trouble of biting her in. He had taken a huge risk. Incarcerated though he was, he would fight to finish making her his. If he did not, he would be condemned to an arranged marriage. And that was the last thing Raul wanted, player that he was. Of that I was sure. But that was not the main reason I tossed and turned all night.
Sonya’s soft, steady breathing might as well have been brushing across the sensitive skin of my ears. She slept heavily due to the verða. Her spicy scent crept down into me, warming me and stirring my blood. I could not stop thinking about the spark that lit her eyes, the strength that kept her together when so many others would have crumbled. The way her hair shone in the light that filtered through the hotel curtain made it look like spilled silk around her curvy silhouette. A constant hard-on made it difficult to sleep, to say the least.
I just had to hold out through the full moon, when the verða was over. Then, if I still felt this way and she was interested, I could pursue something with her. Right now the risk was not worth it. The strength of my reaction to her surprised me. After what had happened with my last girlfriend, I had not expected to feel this way about anyone again. A professional distance was best not only for her sake, but my own as well.
Less than an hour before dawn, I could not take it anymore. I rose, made my bed, and grabbed a fresh change of clothes. After placing a chair in front of the door just in case, I started for the bathroom. One last glimpse at Sonya revealed the thin sheet covering her had been cast aside. The tantalizing curve of her ass cheeks was more exposed than covered by her incredibly short cotton shorts. My blood rushed to all the wrong places, making me hurry to the shower. Cold though the water was, it could not cool the heat radiating from within me. I turned it down even colder. The water pounded against me, running down the sensitive skin of my cock, making me harder. I could not take it. To go back out there and show any modicum of professionalism, I was going to need release.
I grabbed a bar of soap in one hand, my cock in the other, and went to work.