Gator

As soon as I hear the water go on, my brain goes into overtime. It’s like a fucking porn factory has set up shop and is cranking out one dirty fantasy after another. Poppy will be naked or getting there, her hands pushing her clothes down. The lock on that door has been broken forever; I could be in there with her in seconds. Could strip my own clothes off while I watch all that hot water sluicing down her bare skin. Three seconds after that, and I’d be deep inside her, hands lifting her ass and planting her against the tiles.

Too fast? Fuck, probably. I rewind. Better to go in there and drop to my knees. Shove my shoulders between her pretty thighs and lick every inch of her wet pussy. Take my fingers and…

Bringing Poppy here was a really bad idea.

And while I’m certain that “keeping an eye on the scientist” doesn’t mean letting her catch fucking pneumonia from sitting around in wet clothes, it doesn’t mean bone the hell out of her either. Jesus Christ, I need to get a grip on myself because my dick’s rock hard. I need a distraction.

I’ll go back downstairs and grab the boots Poppy dropped. I can clean them off for her. That’s guaranteed to take my mind off what she’s doing in my shower, right? Yeah. Fat fucking chance of that. Still, I get moving, pausing in my bedroom to grab a pair of jeans. Thirty seconds later, I’ve created a much shorter hem with my hunting blade. Haute couture it’s not, and some instinct tells me she deserves the best of fucking everything. I’d like to lay some Prada or Gucci before her, decorate her with all that sparkly shit they have at Tiffany’s. Tie her up with diamonds by the yard. Since this is a first for me, it’s also not happening. The bayou’s shockingly free of high-end apparel stores. So instead, I settle for the ad hoc hem job and scraping the mud off her Doc Martens. The boots are hot pink, the color of oleanders and drugstore lipstick. Who the fuck buys pink shitkickers?

And since I’m alone and Poppy’s safely occupied for the next handful of minutes, I fish my cell out and call Jace.

“You fucking owe me,” I tell him when he picks up. He’s expecting my call, so he doesn’t bother with making nice.

“You find her?”

“Oui. You really want the details on how shit went down?”

I don’t have a problem with who I am or the job I do for our club. We’ve all got our parts to play, and providing the muscle that kicks ass is important. Jace gets to be our fearless leader. Not a job I’d want, if I’m being honest, because I’d have to kill someone before I got to enjoy the promotion. Usually, playing enforcer is a two-for-one deal. I get to contribute, and I don’t have to do a whole lot of talking. Today’s job shouldn’t bother me.

“You having problems with one small scientist?”

The man owes me a case of beer. Fuck that. He owes me a truckload of beer, and not the cheap stuff, either. “You never heard that big things come in small packages?”

“Fucking think that’s a good thing,” Jace drawls. “But whatever. Why don’t you give me the executive summary?”

“Found her.” I set Poppy’s stuff just inside my door when we came in, so that’s where I’m headed now. “Rammed her boat. Everything and everyone ended up on the bottom of the bayou. I fished the girl and the gear out, and I smell like shit now. So if the accident didn’t scare her off, I guarantee the smell will.”

Jace snorts. “And she’s still breathing?”

“You said look, don’t touch.” I drop down beside her pack.

“And you always follow orders,” he says dryly.

Truth is, I do. Don’t know how I’d act if Jace tried to set me on a course I didn’t agree with. Guess it would depend on whether it was the right thing to do for our pack or not, so I ignore his last comment.

“Tell me what I’m lookin’ for,” I ask Jace, cradling my cell between my ear and my shoulder. Putting the thing on speaker would make my search and recovery mission simpler, but Poppy won’t be long. I don’t want to risk her overhearing. I make short work of opening her backpack. Despite its swim in the bayou, the contents are surprisingly dry. I shift through a stack of notebooks, odds and ends of clothing, and what appears to have been Poppy’s midnight snack. The girl likes chocolate.

“What’s she got?” Jace counters, as if I’ve got all the fucking time in the world. Not like Poppy’s in any position to argue about my touching her stuff, but I kind of don’t want to piss her off, and if I’ve learned anything from the girls at the club, it’s that you don’t go through their bags. The weirdest shit embarrasses them or makes them mad, so I generally give it a wide berth. Today’s just my day for fucking exceptions, isn’t it?

“Bunch of notebooks, clothes, girl crap. Cell phone, wallet, keys.” Way more stuff than I’d be hauling out into the bayou, and none of it’s the right stuff. Poppy’s unarmed. She’s got a utility knife with a three-inch blade, so that’s something. But when I run my thumb over the edge, testing its sharpness, I get nothing. Last time this thing was sharpened might have been a decade ago. She needs a gun, something she can use for self-defense if some asshole tries to corner her.

“Laptop? Camera? Video?”

“You think I’m fucking CIA or a hacker now? Got a phone and a tablet, but she must have left the good hardware at home.”

I pocket the tube of girly lotion she’s got tucked in an inside pocket. She can keep her electronics, but I’ve got plans for this particular prize. Fuck me, do I ever.

Jace laughs. “Not sure what we’d do with that shit other than take it.”

“Oui,” I grouse. “She’d notice that kind of stuff missing.”

“What’s the problem with that?” he asks. “Not like we’re in the running for Boy Scouts of the Year. Why do you care if she thinks we’re thieves?”

Frowning, I flick my fingers over the stack of notebooks, knocking the topmost one open. Jace has a point, but it feels wrong somehow, going through Poppy’s shit. Sure, she’s out here alone and there’s not much she can do to stop me, but I don’t like it. Or maybe it’s the fact that she’s naked and just upstairs, making good use of my shower. I don’t know why she’d trust me like that, and that’s the fucking truth.

Still, it’s my job to protect my pack, and keeping tabs on Poppy is what Jace ordered. We’re not hurting her, just scaring her and conducting a little look-and-see. As long as she stays oblivious about the real wolves in the bayou, she’ll be fine. Fine is good. It’s fucking great. Not like most people do better than that.

The notebook doesn’t contain anything out of the ordinary, not at first glance. Most of it looks like scientific notes and observations—exactly what I’d expect from a biologist camped out in the bayou on a wolf hunt. She’s got lists of times, places, and dates where she discovered what she rightly believes is wolf scat. Poppy’s life is literally shit.

I can tell when she gets bored, though, because she starts doodling in the margin. Poppy can’t draw, but there are pages and pages decorated with almost indecipherable sketches of trees and flowers. And lists. Fuck me, but Poppy likes lists. She’s got lists of what appear to be places to go. Lists of plant names. Something that’s either a grocery list or a list of crap she’s sworn off because it includes five different kinds of chips. Other stuff I can’t identify. I turn the pages. List after list after fucking list. She may not be much in the way of drawing, but she’d make one hell of a librarian because the girl can alphabetize.

“You still with me?”

“Yeah,” I growl, turning another page. Some kind of rose or—I squint—swamp lily doodle sprawls across both pages. “I just don’t like this. She’s not onto anything much. Got a bunch of shit samples she’s picked up to analyze and she’s watching those spots. We know where she’ll be, so we just tell the brothers to run elsewhere.”

“Thought you liked hunting,” Jace says slowly. “Being out there in the bayou.”

Jace isn’t wrong, but there’s something about Poppy. She’s not just another target. My wolf doesn’t look at her and see prey—my wolf and I see something more. Not sure what the fuck’s going on here, but she’s different.

A small squeal from the bathroom followed by the sound of the water cutting off tells me that Poppy doesn’t follow directions well. Bet her nipples are fucking diamonds now. Got all sorts of ideas about how to warm them up, licking and squeezing. Coming all over her pretty tits. Yeah. Fucking bad idea because she’d run screaming if I so much as laid a finger on her. I tuck her stuff back into her bag.

“She’ll be out soon,” I tell Jace.

He grunts. “Where the fuck did you put her?”

“My place. Shower.” I shrug, even though Jace can’t see me, and slide her notebooks back inside her bag. “Only got so much hot water and it doesn’t sound like Poppy’s a fan of the cold.”

“Is that part of the scare tactic?” he drawls. “Bringing her home with you?”

“Boat wasn’t enough for you?”

“Keep her out of the bayou,” he says. “If she keeps running around, setting up cameras and taking photos, we’ll miss something at some point. She’s way too curious, and she’s got some kind of grant that she has to produce data for. You stick to her, and make sure she’s staying out of our business.”

“I’m on it.”

Jace has a point. When no wolves—and no more scat—show up on the game trails Poppy’s got staked out, she’ll cast a wider net. Since there’s no obvious evidence of wolves that I can see in her bag, there’s no problem yet.

I beat feet for the side of the house and turn the hose on Poppy’s boots. Then for good measure, I strip down and turn the cold water on myself. The first second is deceptively warm from sitting in the tubing in the sun, but then the arctic chill hits. Dick frozen into submission, I pad up the stairs and head for my bedroom. Poppy’s not gonna feel like a meet-and-greet with a naked werewolf, so I need clothes. I grab the first pair of jeans I lay hands on—because it’s not like I’ve got more than three choices anyhow—and drag them on. And then I retreat downstairs.

She’ll have to come looking for me at some point, and I’ll be ready.