Chapter Two
Fucking brat made me start smoking again. Only took two weeks of knowing her. Gentry took a deep drag of his cigarette. When he exhaled, the billow of smoke mixed with the low-hanging haze beneath the club ceiling. Made up of one part fog machine and a million parts evaporated sweat and cheap cologne, the haze smelled acrid and coated his tongue. Technically, he couldn’t smoke in bars. Technically, some of them didn’t care, as long as the actual cops didn’t pay a visit.
His gaze, leveled over the top of red-tinted Gucci wire frames, stayed fixed on the center of the room, where a mass of shimmering, gleaming, sometimes glittery flesh writhed to the rhythm of the music. The song was hard and sexy. The hour was late and hardly anyone wore shirts, including some of the women.
Gentry had arrived twenty minutes ago and took up a perch on the last vacant stool at the bar. He ignored the random jostles, the smiles from drunk women, and one chick who asked him between slurred giggles what kind of fabric his shirt was made of while pawing at it. He’d given her a “not interested” frown and pulled away before she could sense what he was. Werewolves were allowed in public spaces, but they made people nervous, especially this close to the full moon.
Twenty minutes. That was how long it took for the brat to notice him. She marched in his direction, the blaze in her eyes informing him that he was dead meat. He smirked and pushed his glasses up his nose so he could look at her through a fiery filter.
Starr’s auburn hair spilled over her shoulders, straight, thick and layered, with a blonde streak down one side. Her black tank top was tied above her navel and showed off the flat, tanned plane of her stomach. Gold bracelets flashed on each wrist. Her jeans were—just barely—held up by her sleek, narrow hipbones. Even when she was pissed off, her hips swung when she walked like they were on pivots. He already knew from experience she couldn’t hold those things still in any situation.
“Are you stalking me, asshole?” Starr shrieked loud enough to be heard over the thump of the music. “How many times do I have to tell you to fuck off?”
“I told you, can’t do that. You think I want to be chasing you around all over the place? I don’t have a choice in the matter. So why don’t you stop going out and flirting with other guys?” Maybe, part of that wasn’t jealousy toward her so much as jealousy toward himself. How come he couldn’t bring himself to flirt with another woman, but she was still able to mingle?
Well, stupid, she’s the human one.
She sneered. “What, you think I’m going to marry you or something? I hardly know you.”
He flicked his gaze over her body. They knew each other well enough. The desire was stronger than anything else, the lust hotter than what could be denied, and only getting stronger the closer he got to his transformation.
“Don’t eyeball me like that,” she warned, but there was no conviction in it. “Not a piece of meat. Not your piece of meat.”
“I don’t want to follow you around. I could be somewhere having a good time with my friends. But knowing you’re out here, with other guys…” He curled his fingers against his thigh, the phantom ache of claws pushing at his fingertips. “I can’t help myself.”
She looked at his hand, then back at him.
“You gonna wolf out? I want to know, so I can clear out. Not trying to end up in prison with you.”
He shook his head. “Just leave here with me.”
“I’m dancing.”
Gentry took a swig from his bottle. His gaze wandered back to the dance floor. The tall, wiry boy she’d been dancing with stared in their direction, dark hair in his eyes. Frowning. Watching Starr and glaring at Gentry at the same time. If Gentry stood up and stalked toward him, or even let the vapid young thing get a good look at him and realize his nature, he would probably piss his pants and dart for the nearest exit.
“You trying to pick him up?” Gentry asked.
“Fuck off, all right?” She grabbed his beer, took a drink, and handed it back.
He glanced at the yellow wristband hidden amidst her bracelets and smirked. She flounced back toward the dance floor, hips swaying. Then she stopped and came back.
“You told me you quit smoking.” She snatched his cigarette as well and departed with it. She yelled over her shoulder. “Quit following me!”
Gentry leaned against the bar and watched her work her way back into the crowd. Dark-haired boy didn’t seem impressed. Her lower back gleamed with sweat and had a smudgy hand print across it. He lifted the bottle to his lips and licked her spit from the rim.
“Sorry, darling,” he murmured. “Can’t help myself.”
****
No matter how hard she tried, she ended up here, with him. Drawn to his scent, to his body, to the heat and presence of him. Drawn to his taste as he stretched her jaws and filled her mouth. She could say no, had even done it a few times, but every time she denied him, she hurt, from the inside out, like something poisonous was burning through her veins.
His release brought her relief, weirdly. She stifled a moan around him, swallowed down what he gave her, and sat up.
Only then, could she regain her senses.
“I hate you.” She grabbed the rearview mirror, directed it at herself, and wiped her chin. Her lip gloss had vanished—well, actually, she knew where it was now. With a scowl, she rubbed her wet hand across the thigh of Gentry’s jeans.
He smirked and tugged up his zipper. “Not my fault you’re bad at swallowing.”
“Not what I’m talking about.” She leaned back and pushed a hand into her pocket. “Shit. You got a cigarette?”
He tossed her his pack. “Have ’em. I’m trying to quit.”
He was too good-looking, and she hated him for that, too. Sandy-blond hair, long enough he sometimes wore it in a sloppy knot or a ponytail, and she would never admit how good it looked on him. Scruffy, square jaw. Eyes so blue they seemed unreal, and they even shone in the dark, like right now, in the low light of the front seat. Was he really beautiful? Or was it this thing between them that made her think so?
“Why do you keep showing up where I’m at?” she asked around a cigarette as she lit it. “How do you keep finding me?”
“We’ve discussed this. You’re marked. You’re my mate. I can’t stay away from you.”
She snorted. “I don’t want to be mated to a werewolf, thanks.”
She’d heard about it happening before, even happened to a couple women in her old hometown. The world was full of monsters, but she never thought she’d be hooked up with one.
He dragged his hand through his hair. “You think I want to be mated to a gutter punk club bunny? I’m as surprised as you are.” He plucked at her yellow wristband. “How’d you get in the club? You said you’re twenty.”
“Fake ID, duh.” She yanked her arm away. “And twenty and three-quarters, thank you. My birthday is in two months.”
Starr fell silent as she smoked. She stared out the window. The dashboard light created an eerie reflection of her face in the glass, lit up in tones of red occasionally as she pulled on the cigarette.
“So how come you get freaky with me, if you hate me and all this?” Gentry asked.
“I don’t have a choice in the matter either, now do I?”
“You could run. You could.” He paused. “I’d probably find you, though.”
She turned and shot him a dirty look. It was super dirty, too. She never pulled punches, he’d learned that the hard way. He claimed when she punched him the night they met he knew he’d never love another. Maybe he was being sarcastic. Probably not.
Gross.
She looked back out the window.
“Sorry,” he said. “You better get back to Mr. Tall, Dark, and Anorexic before he does so much blow he can’t get it up, huh? Maybe that’ll kick some of the addiction to me.”
She frowned, though not at Gentry. More at her own reflection. She ground her cigarette out on the smooth, unblemished leather of his front seat, and then reached over and plucked the red-tinted glasses from his face. She slid them on.
“I need a ride home.”