CHAPTER FOUR

 

 

I woke up to sun streaming in through the window. I was starving, again, but I felt energetic and ready to take on the world. I climbed out of bed and stretched my arms over my head, giving myself a good whiff of my body. I smelled stale and dirty. Weird to be so rank after an hour-long nap. Shrugging, I headed for the shower.

When I emerged from my room, dressed in work-out clothes, my wet hair in a bun on top of my head, I found Axel in my kitchen. He was cooking and it smelled delicious. It smelled delicious and he looked delicious in another tight t-shirt and fitted jeans. For a mountain man, he really did dress well. I walked into my small, barely used galley kitchen to find platters of bacon and eggs set on the counter. I snagged a piece of bacon and chomped on it happily. “Breakfast for dinner? My favorite.”

“It's breakfast for breakfast,” he said. “You slept for twenty-four hours.”

He wasn't looking at me, all his attention was focused on what looked like French toast. “No way. I never need more than six hours and I didn't even feel tired when I laid down for my nap.”

He turned to look at me, his expression sad. “You've changed. In a lot of ways, the Julie Jacobs you were died when you were bitten.”

Dread clenched my belly and I got angry, because I'd promised myself I'd never be afraid again. I would never be afraid again. “You don't even know me. I'm strong, and I know who I am. I just needed a little extra sleep, but I'll be back on track now.”

He nodded, but the sorrow didn't leave his face. “I hope you're right.” He turned back to the stove. “Fix yourself a plate. You must be starving.”

I piled a plate high with food and carried it to the table. I didn't wait for him to sit down, I just dove right in. He joined me and put two slices of French toast on my plate. His own plate was full of eggs and bacon and French toast.

I looked around for something sweet. “Where's the syrup?”

He smirked. “No more sugar for you.”

I sighed but didn't argue. “Where'd you get all this food?”

“I had it delivered,” he said. “You're going to have to learn how to cook. There's no way you can afford to eat out all the time with the quantity of food you'll need now.”

“I'll figure it out,” I said around a bite of food.

He cleared half his plate before he spoke again. “I think going to the gym is a bad idea.”

No. I wasn't going to let him take away fighting from me. “It'll be fine. I know how to pull my punches.”

He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, a move that made him look tough, immovable. “How can you pull your punches if you don't even know how strong you are?”

He had a point. I hated that he had a point. “I'll figure it out. I'll start on the punching bags.”

“And if you punch through a bag? You don't think your coach and the other fighters will wonder about that?”

Damn it. I really hated how much sense he was making. “I'm not giving up fighting. I'll figure it out.”

He sighed, his expression grim. “Fight me.”

I rolled my eyes. “I'm not fighting a pacifist. Do you even know how to fight?”

He grinned, not rising to my bait. “Just because I choose not to fight doesn't mean I don't know how to do it.”

It would be fun to kick his ass. “My coach won't like it. She doesn't like me to fight anyone she hasn't vetted.”

He didn't flinch. “Thought of that, too. Any chance we could have the gym to ourselves?”

My first instinct was to tell him no way, because I wanted my life back. I didn't want to be that diva fighter who asked everyone else to leave her gym, but I couldn't deny that his request made sense. It scared me that he thought it necessary. Just how strong did he think I was? “There are over twenty fighters who train there every day. I can't just ask them all to leave.”

“Okay. Then we'll go back to Darius's property.”

I shuddered. That guy gave me the creeps. “Do we have to see him again?”

“He'll be at work. Eat up and we'll leave now.”

“What's the rush?”

He looked away, not meeting my eyes. “Just been bored while you slept.”

He was the absolute worst liar. “What's really going on?”

He made eye contact then, his jaw tight, his expression pained. “I don't like to be away from the pack too long. Clarissa's good, but she…I just want to get back.”

I could have pushed for more information, but I wasn't sure I wanted to know. There was nothing wrong with wanting to get my life back, and I didn't need to feel any more guilt about that than I already did. I ate the last two bites of French toast and carried my plate to the kitchen. The sink was piled high with dirty pans, but I'd worry about that later. “Let's go.”

Axel drove this time, swerving in and out of the congested LA traffic like he had a death wish. “I thought you said werewolves weren't indestructible.”

“We aren't,” he said. “We're hard to hurt and we heal quickly, but we can be killed.”

“So if you crashed into that guard rail, we'd die?”

“I'm not going to crash into the guard rail. I'm an excellent driver.”

He wasn't wrong about that. “It's all the other crazy people I'm worried about.”

“I'm keeping an eye on them,” he said. “You haven't reached your full power, yet, but you'll understand when you do.”

“What kind of power?” Super-weird sense of smell, alpha voice, and night vision were cool and all, but I wasn't sure I wanted more weird powers.

“It's hard to describe. It's like you're moving slower than everyone else. When I'm in any sort of adrenaline-pumping situation, everything slows down and my senses become heightened. To you, we're moving insanely fast, but to me this is just a leisurely drive down a busy road.”

That didn't sound like a bad skill to have. It would certainly help me in the cage.

“How did you become alpha? Was it a fight to the death like in the movies?”

“Not quite,” he said with a faint smile. “It became clear pretty soon after puberty that I was going to be an alpha. Esmeralda tried to keep my dominance hidden, but by the time I was sixteen, my alpha knew what I was and he wanted me out of the pack.”

“Harsh.”

He shrugged. “Some alphas are cool with having another dominant male in the pack, but not our alpha. He wasn't very popular and he couldn't take the risk of me becoming more powerful than him and taking him out. Darius took me in for a few years, so I could finish high school and mature before I became alpha.”

“How'd that go over with the wife and kids?” I kept my tone light, but I was feeling pretty bad for Axel. It couldn't have been easy to have been forced out of his pack and away from his adoptive guardian.

He smiled. “The kids were toddlers and Darius hadn't married their mom, yet. He told them I was his nephew, that my parents were out of the country on missionary work. It worked out.”

“So you lived there until, what? You became alpha of the Mule Creek pack?”

“Darius and the council made sure I got a college degree,” he said. “There were…Problems with a lot of the packs that hadn't accepted the world was changing and thought they could live the way they'd been living for the past hundred and fifty years. The council wanted the packs to be more a part of the modern world and they thought making sure all new alphas were college educated would help with that.”

“What did you major in? Werewolf pack management?”

He slipped between two cars and onto the exit ramp. His lips twitched, but he didn't smile. “I majored in psychology and history. Darius wanted me to major in business, but that was never going to be a good fit for me. I figured it was more important for me to learn how to mediate disputes and understand the drives of even the least dominant members of the pack. In history, I wanted to learn about the best leaders and try to do half as good as them. For the most part, I manage people as pack leader, I look out for mental health problems, and try to keep the pack from killing each other or themselves for one idiotic reason or another.”

“So, you finished college and then you went and fought the Mule Creek alpha to the death and took over?”

“I was assigned to the Mule Creek pack. They'd been having trouble for years, getting into fights with other packs and the vampires in Aspens Whiten. Darius wanted me to take over and calm things down before they did something irrevocably stupid.”

“And the alpha just stepped aside and let you take over?”

“The alpha was not as strong or as dominant as me and he'd long since stopped being able to control his pack. It should have been a smooth transition, but not all the pack was in favor of my pacifist philosophy.”

“You fought them to the death?” At this point, I was just trying to get him to smile. He was way too serious, way too somber.

“Nope,” he said. “I let the pack members who were opposed to pacifism leave, and the alpha left with them. They're in Aspens Whiten, now.”

“That town in the valley I had to drive through to get to Mule Creek?”

He nodded. “The alpha moved with them and they seem to have settled down. That or the alpha has an easier time controlling a smaller group. We still have wolves leave the pack to go to the valley a couple times a year. I let them go. I'm not going to force anyone to stay where they don't want to be. Sometimes, wolves leave the Aspens Whiten pack to join us.”

“And this all went down with no bloodshed or harsh words?”

“I didn't say that. Just no fights to the death.”

He pulled down Darius's drive and parked near the woods.

“Sounds like there's a story there,” I said.

“Not one I'll be telling today.” He got out and waited for me to join him. I wrapped my hands and stepped out. He was in jeans and a t-shirt. He claimed he hadn't brought workout clothes to LA. He spread his legs, bent his knees, and raised his fists. “Okay,” he said. “Hit me.”

I bounced on the balls of my feet a few times, warming up, then I lunged and snapped out a hard right jab. He blocked, but only managed to divert my punch to his temple. I didn't think I'd hit him that hard, it felt more like a grazing punch, but Axel's head flew to the side, something snapped, and he dropped like a jellyfish, all loose limbs. I fell to my knees next to him. “Very funny,” I said. “Get up, you big baby.”

He didn't move, his eyelids didn't flutter. He was so still, I had to check his pulse to make sure his heart was still beating. I rolled him onto his side and paced in front of him. There was nothing I could do but wait for him to revive. I couldn't exactly call 911. They'd probably recognize he wasn't human.

“Ow, fuck,” Axel said. I dropped back down next to him and helped him sit up. He put a hand to his head.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He narrowed his eyes and turned his head slowly to look at me. “I tell you that you have superhuman strength. I say you might not be able to control it. And you aim for my head, anyway?”

“Um, habit?” I said, because it was the truth. If I was going to hit someone, I always aimed for the head first. “I was aiming for your jaw, but you blocked and knocked the punch into your temple.”

“If you'd hit my jaw, you'd have broken it.”

“I can control it,” I said. “I just need to get a handle on it.”

He breathed deep and got to his feet. “You're lucky I heal quickly. If I'd been human, I'd be dead.”

That made it suddenly hard for me to breathe. “So, I need practice before I go up against a human.”

He shook his head and winced. “First, let's see what we're dealing with. Punch that tree.” He pointed out a huge old Oak near where yard ended and forest began.

I looked over to see if he was joking. He had to be joking. I might be super-strong, but I'd still break my hand punching a tree.

He sighed. “You'll heal. Just give it a try. I don't want to die today. Hit that tree with everything you've got.”

I went back to the car, dug through my gym bag, and pulled gloves on over my hand wraps. I was sure I was about to do the dumbest thing I'd ever done. I walked over to the tree and faced it, widening my stance so I could use my body weight behind the punch. I pulled in a deep breath, pulled back my arm and punched forward with every bit of force I could manage. My fist hit the bark of the tree, but it didn't stop there. It continued to plow about a foot into the tree. I yanked my fist back out and looked at the hole I'd made. This was very, very bad. This wasn't just accidentally-kill-someone strong, this was accidentally-rip-someone's-heart-from-their-chest strong. I looked at that hole and I saw my future, I saw any shot at fighting again, vanish. I was a freak, a monster.

Anger fired through my veins, chasing away my sadness, and I punched the tree with a left cross. I didn't make quite as large a hole with that punch. I punched again and again, harder and harder, trying to find some relief from the maelstrom of emotions, chief among them fear, because if I wasn't a fighter, if I couldn't get in a cage and kick ass, then who the hell was I and what the fuck was I going to do?

Strong arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me back just as the tree split and toppled to the ground right where I'd been standing. I didn't feel grateful to Axel. I fought my way out of his arms and spun to face him. “You knew,” I said. “You knew I'd never be able to fight again.”

“I suspected. I've never in my life seen anyone as strong as you in your human form. I didn't realize-”

“You knew.” I stabbed my forefinger into his chest. He winced but didn't step back. “You knew, and you let me think I might be able to do this. You let me think I might be able to go back to my old life.”

“I wasn't sure. I'm still not sure. You haven't tried holding back. You haven't tried fighting without putting everything you have into it.”

“And if I forget for a moment? If I get caught up in the adrenaline of a fight and I stop holding back, that's how my opponent will look?” I pointed at the tree I'd demolished. “I can't take that chance.”

I wanted him to argue more than I wanted my next breath, but he didn't. “It would be a huge risk.”

“One I won't take. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I killed someone, especially when I know how easily I could do it without meaning to.”

He nodded, his expression bleak, and something occurred to me. “That's why you're a pacifist. Not because you're scared or self-righteous.”

“Because I understand how fragile life can be.” He reached over and brushed a tear from my cheek. I hadn't even realized I'd been crying.

“What will I do now?”

“Come back with me to Mule Creek,” he said. “You could help me.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don't need a pity job.”

“It's not a pity job. We've had some trouble lately. I don't want to fight, but as you said, it's a lot easier to remain a pacifist when everyone is afraid of you.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Nothing for you to think about now. Just know there'd be a place for you in the pack, a job. If you decide not to stay in LA, you'd be welcome in Mule Creek.”

I nodded, because I didn't see that I had any other option. Unless I stayed in LA, with a need to shift and an increasing amount of power I didn't know how to handle, and tried to find a new livelihood…It just didn't seem like a viable option. “I'll go back with you. At least until I get a grip on wolf-Julie and figure out what to do next.”

 

***

 

“This is a terrible idea,” Axel said. He looked sharp in dark slacks, a deep purple button-down, and a tie. His hair was slicked back, though stubble had already started to mar his smooth skin. He was a combination of rugged and smooth.

“It'll be fun,” I said. “It's our last night in LA, we should have a good time.” I was in a teeny-tiny dress that was the same purple as his shirt. Yeah, I'd taken him shopping so we'd be color-coordinated. He couldn't get into the club without a tie and I thought it would be fun for us to match a little bit. I'd told him we were going out because I wanted to say goodbye to LA in style, but the truth was I needed to get laid. That same nervous, itchy energy was rolling through me again and I knew a run wasn't going to cure it. I needed some action or I was going to jump Axel and that would be a bad idea for so many reasons. I couldn't actually name any of the reasons at the moment, which was why I was at a club with him, already scanning the crowd for my target.

“Does alcohol get me drunker than normal now?” I yelled to him over the music.

“The opposite,” he shouted back. “You'd have to drink a keg to get drunk.”

Damn it. I'd just order a soda and that should take the edge off enough for me to approach a good-looking guy. I'd had a one-night stand or two in my life, but it had always just kind of happened. I'd met someone out and we'd hit it off and decided to have some fun. I'd never gone on the prowl and I was a little nervous, or overeager. Either way, sugar should help. Before I could do anything, though, I needed to lose Axel.

I popped onto my tiptoes and whispered in his ear. “Why don't we dance?”

To my utter shock, he shrugged and led the way to the dance floor. I'd planned to lose him before we hit the dancing crowd, but now I was curious. Axel found an open space among the crowd of gyrating, twisting dancers and just started to shake it. I mean he literally started shaking his ass like he didn't give a damn what anyone thought of him. It was kind of adorable. I danced with him for two songs. He'd never win a dance competition, but he was fun, I'd give him that. I pointed toward the bathrooms and pretended to shout, then dove into the crowd. I went the long way back to the bar, pushing my way through the crowd and dodging drunks. I got to the bar and sank onto a bar stool with a sigh.

“You're a terrible liar.” Stubble grated against my cheek in the most delicious way. My thighs spasmed in anticipation. “What are you really up to?”

I huffed and spun to face Axel. “I need to get laid,” I whispered back, pressed close against him. I tried to ignore the way my whole body shivered at the contact. “I don't want an audience.”

“That's a horrible idea,” he whispered leaning in closer.

I narrowed my eyes and glared at him, but he just shrugged. Good to know he wasn't interested in solving my problem. At least, my rational brain knew it was good, the rest of me was a teensy bit disappointed he hadn't jumped in and offered to help me out. He didn't argue when I ordered a soda and chugged it. And he didn't follow me when I headed back to the dance floor to hunt out a good candidate. I was glad he didn't follow. Really, I was.

It took me three tries, but I finally found a guy who wasn't gay, wasn't there with someone else, and was up for a quickie in the bathroom. I know, real classy. I was desperate, but not stupid enough to go to some stranger's place or bring him to mine. Plus, that might be awkward with Axel around.

The sugar had done its job and I was feeling loose and happy as I led the guy back toward the bathrooms. He wasn't the best-looking guy I'd ever seen, but he was smooth and leaner than me, his nails manicured, his clothes tailored. I pulled him into the men's room, since there was no line there and it seemed the better bet. Honestly, I'd never hooked up in a club bathroom, but if I was going to do it, this one was a good choice. It was clean and it was, mostly, empty. Some guy in a leather jacket fist-bumped my new friend and left quickly. I darted into a spacious and very clean stall and spun to face my new friend. He grinned like he was about to get lucky, because hello, and I waited to feel something for him. I'd been jonesing for action all evening, I couldn't even look at Axel without remembering that glimpse I'd gotten of his naked body when we'd undressed for our run.

Now, I faced my metro friend and I felt, well, I felt like asking if his Mom knew where he was. He hadn't looked that young on the dance floor, but surely he couldn't have gotten in if he was under twenty-one. He ran a finger over my cheek and leaned in close. My heart picked up its pace. This could be fun. He had pretty, almost silver, eyes and his lips looked like soft, pink pillows, without the irritating stubble Axel sported. At the thought of Axel, my libido kicked back into gear. I closed my eyes and pressed my lips to metro-boy's lips. I really should have gotten his name.

It didn't matter, he kissed me back and I shoved him against the door to the stall, pressing my body into his, needing some full-body friction. His lips popped off mine and he gasped. He was really getting into this. I dropped my mouth to his neck and pressed soft kisses there. He tasted salty and warm and I had the urge to bite him. “Need. Air,” he gasped.

I looked up at him and realized I had pressed myself against him a little harder than I'd realized. I backed off and pulled my dress over my head, hoping he'd forget about me almost smothering him. His gaze dropped immediately to my breasts and his expression blanked. Breasts, they were nature's male mind eraser. He gripped my hips in both hands and pressed kisses along the edges of my bra, which was nice and all, but we were in a bathroom stall, there was toilet water just inches from my backside. It wasn't the place for slow love-making. It was the place for quick, meaningless fucks.

I unzipped his pants with one hand and untucked his shirt with the other. I slid one hand along the warm skin of his back, digging my nails in just a bit. With the other hand, I reached into his pants and grabbed his cock, which was a bit smaller than I was hoping for, if I'm completely honest. He groaned, but he must have choked on his spit or something, because the groan turned into this inhuman sort of whine. He stopped kissing me and grabbed my wrist. “Ow, fuck,” he said, or maybe he shouted. His face was red and I was getting the feeling this wasn't going the way I'd hoped. I released his cock and he cupped it in both hands like it was a tiny, injured animal. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked. Then he unlocked the stall door and ran out of there like he'd just heard there was a sale at his favorite boutique clothing store. I sighed, put my dress back on and marched, past a man pissing at a urinal, out of the men's room, head held high.

Axel stood, his back against the wall, across from the men's room door. It was a bit quieter in the hallway to the restrooms, so he didn't have to yell for me to hear him say, “You scared that poor boy.”

I shrugged. “He was a wimp.” I started back toward the dance floor to find fresh meat. Metro-boy's reaction wasn't about me, and I was going to prove it.

Axel grabbed my arm and pulled me against him, my back to his front. He held me tight in his strong arms and that libido that had disappeared with metro-boy erupted like Vesuvius. Axel walked us backward into a dark corner, away from the line of women waiting to use the bathroom. “It will be the same with every human until you learn control,” he said against my ear, his voice raspy. One of his hands slid down until it was resting over my crotch. I bit back a moan and fought the urge to rub myself against him like a cat. “They can't handle you, but I can.”

I really couldn't remember why I shouldn't give into him, especially when he pulled me tighter against him and I felt his hardness. “What are you saying?” I needed him to repeat himself because my brain had stopped working.

“I'm saying I want to take you home and fuck you. Do you want to keep striking out here, or do you want to let me relieve the ache throbbing inside you?”

I was absolutely not the only one throbbing. “Okay.”

He didn't give me a chance to change my mind. He pushed me away from his body, grabbed my hand, and pulled me back through the club to the street. Doubts started to creep in as we waited for the valet to bring around his car. They were full-fledged by the time I was buckled into the passenger seat and he was driving like a crazy man down busy streets.

“This doesn't mean we're a couple,” I said. I didn't hate Axel anymore, but I wasn't about to care for him when I was so dependent on him. He might not be able to overpower me, but he could still hurt me if I let him get too close. “We aren't even friends.”

“Agreed,” he said, way too easily. “Like I said, you aren't my type. We're just scratching an itch.” He kept his gaze focused on the road, his expression blank.

“Good.”

We rode in silence the rest of the way back to my apartment. Without him touching me, I shouldn't have still felt like I was going to burst into flame if I didn't get some relief of the sexual kind, but I did. I couldn't even blame it on the sugar, since that had worn off about the same time metro boy had run screaming from the bathroom stall.

Axel followed me up to my condo in silence. He didn't even touch me in the elevator. As soon as I'd unlocked the front door and let us inside, though, he was on me. He circled my neck with one hand and pulled me face-first against him. He kept his hand there, applying the lightest pressure, as he licked my lips, slowly, like he was tasting me, savoring me. I tried to get closer to him, but he held me back.

He pressed his lips to mine and I opened to him like I belonged to him, like I had no control over my body and he held the keys. He groaned into my mouth and I concentrated and pushed my body weight against his arm, until my whole body was pressed against his. I gave a little hop and wrapped one leg around his waist. He gripped my ass in both hands, holding me in that sweet spot where I could feel his hard cock against my center. I tried to grind against him, but he held me still. Not letting me move.

I bit his lip and he growled. “We're doing this my way,” he said, his voice dark and raspy like unsweetened chocolate.

I bit his lip again and he tensed, pulling me tighter against him. “I like to be in control,” I said.

He chuckled, a raspy rumble. “I guess we're going to have to fight for it.”

A thrill shot through me at the challenge, at the promise of a man who could match me in every way, who had seen my worst and wanted more. I tightened my legs around him, so I didn't have to use my arms to hold myself up, and went to work loosening his tie and unbuttoning his shirt. He let me do it for a few moments, while he kissed me. I was so caught up in the kiss and undressing him, that I didn't realize he was walking, didn't realize he'd carried me into my bedroom, until he reached back, uncrossed my ankles and shoved me off him by my legs. I gasped, expecting to hit the floor, but I landed on the softness of my bed.

“I do anything you don't like, you ask me to stop and I will,” he said. “Until you say those words, all bets are off. You good with that?”

I licked my lips, mesmerized by the sight of him, his bare, well-muscled body peeking out from the parts of his shirt I'd unbuttoned, his pants unzipped. “I'm good with that.” I didn't recognize my own voice it was so husky.

He grinned a wicked, panty-melting grin. “We're going to have all kinds of fun.”

I grinned back, because I had a feeling I was about to have one of the best experiences of my life. I waited for Axel to finish undressing or to lay his body over mine, but he stalked to the armchair across the room and sat, his legs splayed wide. He pulled off his tie and slipped out of his shirt, exposing every inch of his beautiful torso to my hungry gaze. He leaned back in his seat, his erection straining against the material of his pants. “Dance for me.”

Now I am not a shy woman. I don't hide my naked body under the sheet when it's time to have sex, but I don't usually swing it and dance it all around the room, either. I opened my mouth to say no, but then I looked at Axel. He was eying every inch of me, taking me in, and it was very, very clear he liked what he was seeing. And I liked the way he was looking at me. I wanted to drive him crazy.

I asked my digital companion for some mood music and a sexy tune started playing. I shimmied over until I was standing just inches from him and then I slid my dress off. It was more a shimmy, stretch, pull, get the dress stuck over my face for a few seconds, yank, toss the dress on the ground than a slide, but I recovered quickly and got back to shaking my hips and running my hands over my body as Axel watched. If his smile was more amusement than turned-on heat, that was okay. I reached back and removed my bra and the amusement vanished as I ran my hands over my breasts.

I straddled his lap, shoving my breasts in his face, and his control snapped. He growled, gripped my hips, and lifted me with him. His expression was so fierce I expected him to rip my panties off and drive inside me, which I was one hundred percent in favor of, but he laid me gently down on the bed, slid off my panties, and dropped to his knees to worship at the altar of pussy.

I sighed with happiness as he spread me wide and started placing kisses along my inner thighs. I moaned with pleasure, completely turned on. Then I giggled. Then I full-out laughed.

Axel stopped and looked up at me. “Something funny?” he asked, his frown rather severe.

“Your stubble. It tickles.”

I expected things to get awkward then, but Axel smiled. He bent back down to my crotch and gently rubbed his stubble along my inner thigh. I tried to squirm away, laughing so hard I could barely breathe, but he had a tight grip on my legs and wouldn't let me escape. Just when I thought I was going to die of oxygen deprivation from laughing so hard, he licked me right in that spot that made my eyes roll back in my head and made my laughter turn to a moan of pleasure. He licked and he sucked and he fingered, somehow keeping his stubble out of it until I was screaming with pleasure and the neighbors were banging on the wall and shouting for me to shut the fuck up.

Axel didn't seem to care about the neighbors. He only gave me a moment's break before he went back to it and drove me over the edge again. Then he stood and took off his pants. My vision was a bit hazy with afterglow, but I could still see that the man had a package to match the rest of his large, hard, mouth-watering body. I grinned in anticipation. This was going to be so much fun.

He dropped down over me, thrusting his hips just enough that he rubbed my clit with his cock. I was so overly sensitive at that point that I bucked with aftershocks. “Please,” I said.

He produced a condom from thin air, opened it, and slid it on. I watched him, certain I was going to explode if he didn't get inside me immediately. He grinned like he knew how desperate I was and then he slid into me, slowly, filling me inch by pleasurable inch, until I was full. He began to thrust, pumping into me. I tried to close my eyes, to throw my head back in pleasure, but he gripped the sides of my face and kissed me, never breaking his rhythm.

“I want your eyes on me,” he said gripping my chin so hard it almost hurt. Almost hurt, but somehow also felt good. I'd never been into rough sex before, but maybe as a werewolf…

“I can't stand you,” I said, because this moment was way too intense and I was feeling way, way too vulnerable.

“I know,” he said, his smile widening. “I don't like you, either.” He spoke the words so softly, his expression so fond, that he could have been telling me he adored me. I ignored the pain in my chest, the burning in my eyes, and took his words at face value.

“You know what, let's have less talking and more pumping.”

He got down to it and sent me over the edge twice more before he found his own release, his eyes open and on mine the entire time, his body moving in a sinuous rhythm I knew I'd crave for the rest of my life.

He got cleaned up and climbed back into bed. He laid on his side and yanked me against him.

“I don't think sleeping together is a good idea,” I said. “We aren't even friends.”

“I just need to have you close, because I'm going to wake up in an hour and want to do that all over again.” He tightened his grip on me and pressed a hot kiss to my neck. “Unless you aren't interested?”

“I guess that would be okay,” I said. “Just don't get too comfortable, this isn't going to become a regular thing.”

“Of course not.” He snuggled in against me. He didn't complain about my wild curls in his face, he just got comfortable and fell asleep in record time. I was extremely uncomfortable and, when he woke up, I was going to tell him this wouldn't work. From now on he was going to sleep on the couch or in his own bed. I'd tell him as soon as he woke up, because it would be rude to wake him and I was not opposed to more sex. And that's all it was, so-so sex. Okay, fine, it was some damn good sex, possibly the best sex I'd ever had, but that had nothing to do with him. It was probably the wolf hormones or something.

I fell asleep mentally chanting to myself that he was a temporary part of my life and I didn't like him. Not even a little bit.