Chapter Two
Well, at least she wasn’t tying bows to chairs.
Instead she sat in the bar at LAX, sipping a club soda with lime, absently watching a baseball game on the big screen across the room. Her mother had sent her to pick up a relative from the groom’s side, who also happened to be Layla’s Anchor, Shane Rosario.
Shane the doctor. Shane the purported pretty boy who practiced medicine in Las Vegas and lived like a human, outside a Pack. Which was why she’d never met him. In a culture where an Anchor was like a member of your family, it was common for Anchors to spend good chunks of time with the pair he was bonded with.
But not Shane. Aside from the one weekend he’d come up from medical school over a decade before to perform the tri-bond with Layla, he’d not ever been to Cascadia territory. He’d met her family once and Megan had been away on a high school ski trip and wasn’t there. Tracy talked about him for years afterward though.
Lay and Sid traveled to Vegas at least twice a year to see him and they often emailed and spoke on the phone but he didn’t have a close relationship with the kids.
Frankly, Megan thought it was strange and sort of offensive. But Layla defended him, saying he was raised to be suspicious of werewolf culture by his mother who’d never made the change from human to werewolf. What sort of mindfuck would it be to be raised by someone who hated what you were? She couldn’t even begin to imagine.
And in the end, what difference did it make? If it was all right with Sid and Layla, her feelings were irrelevant.
* * *
Shane hefted his overnight bag and headed toward baggage claim. The plane had arrived early so he’d just get his suitcase and call Layla to let her know he was there. She was probably here already anyway. He smiled, thinking about her. If it weren’t for her presence at this wedding he’d have never agreed to come.
As it was, his paternal aunts would be there and would pester him relentlessly about when he planned to settle down and live within a Pack. His father had given up years before and Shane ignored the twinge of pain he knew he’d caused by his rejection of half his racial identity.
He was doing just fine in Las Vegas. He dated human women and one day he’d find one he liked enough to marry and then they’d adopt children. He didn’t want to raise a child like he was, part of something he didn’t understand or want to accept. He shuddered to think how his mother would react anyway.
Once he’d exited the security area, he passed by a small bar. The Dodgers game on the big screen caught his attention first, but nearly immediately he stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the honeyed blonde sitting alone, sipping her drink. Slow green eyes, heavy lidded but sharp, slid from the game to his face and recognition hit, holding him rooted to the spot.
Her otherness radiated from her body. She wasn’t human but her smile, the way one corner of her mouth tilted up like the curve of a waist, was more than reason enough to overlook it. He was in Los Angeles after all, loads of shifters in the Southland.
He ambled over and she cocked her head as she leaned back and pushed the chair opposite hers out with a prettily sandaled foot.
“Hi there.” He grinned.
The scent of the lime in her soda water tickled his nose. But it was her elemental scent that made his hormones sit up and take notice. She smelled like honey and heady flowers.
She tucked her hair behind an ear and simple gold hoops winked in the low light. “Hi yourself.”
“So the story goes like this,” he said, leaning in to take a deep whiff of her and liking it. A lot. “Here I am, dreading seeing a bunch of relatives and I walk past and see you. The sight of those green eyes of yours just made my day a lot better.”
God he was usually way smoother than this but she made him feel sort of giddy. Stupid with wanting to touch her.
She laughed. “My goodness, I bet you say that to all the werewolves you meet in airport bars.” Her graceful hands fiddled with her napkin, shredding it into long strips and then balling the strips up. Over and over. Silly but it mesmerized him.
He figured Layla would forgive him for being late if he stayed and chatted this lovely lady up for a bit longer. His plane would only be arriving just now anyway, he thought as he checked his watch.
That’s when she checked her watch and swore softly. “I’m sorry. I’m picking someone up. I need to get to baggage claim. If I lose him, my sister will kill me.”
He nearly lost his mind when she stood. Her waist was so close he could have leaned in and brushed his lips against her belly. He smelled her, the heat of her skin, the full-on spice of her arousal. Licking his lips to try and get himself under control, he thought hard and realized what she’d said.
“Wait.” He stood. “This is so weird. I’m Shane Rosario. I should have recognized those beautiful eyes. You’re one of Layla’s sisters, right?”
She took a step back and a wall slammed between them suddenly. “Oh.” She heaved a breath. “Yes. Of course. I’m Megan. Nice to meet you. Shall we go get your bags then? I know Layla can’t wait to see you.”
She hurried past as he tried to figure out what exactly had happened. Had Layla been angry with him and said something negative to her sister? Is that why she wasn’t there to pick him up herself?
Scrambling to catch up with the younger and ever-so-fetching Warden sister, he took a moment to admire the long legs and the high, tight ass. A shocking vision nearly felled him. A vision of his fingers digging into that muscle as he fucked deep into her body, the sheen of sweat on her bare skin making her glow like moonlight.
* * *
Of course he was Layla’s Anchor. Why not? The first hot-looking werewolf who’d come on to her when she was pretty open to random sexing to take her mind off ribbon-and-tulle squares and he’s her sister’s man. Well, sort of. Enough sort of to invoke the sister rule.
Funny how she’d felt this total connection with him right off too. Probably the anchor connection he had to her sister. She wanted to fuck the hell out of Jack Meyers too and he was Grace’s Anchor. Maybe that was it.
She just needed to get his luggage and haul his ass back to the hotel so he could hang out with Layla while Megan avoided him the best she could until they returned to Seattle on Sunday.
My goodness, though, but he was big. Big and brawny and really masculine. Just the way she liked her men. When a woman was five-eight, it was hard to find a man who filled that secret little thrill spot. Megan was a tough person, hard in a lot of ways, she could handle just about any physical threat and it was her job to do so. But it would be so nice to have a man who could take charge, make her feel cosseted from time to time.
She sighed and his long strides ate up the ground until he’d caught up with her. “I was expecting to see Layla. Is she all right?”
Oh now that was just rich, wasn’t it? Megan held her annoyance in check, barely, as they rounded the corner and headed toward the baggage area for his flight.
“Sorry, you’re stuck with me for your ride. She’s been dealing with the groom’s family today, taking them places, all that stuff. Everyone was shorthanded so I got sent to pick you up.” She knew the smile she sent his way was tight when he winced a bit.
“God, I’m really fucking this up. You’re mad and I didn’t...it wasn’t my intention to insult you. I was just curious about Lay. Believe me, it’s no chore to be picked up from the airport by a woman with legs as long as yours.”
His grin was sexy too. She saw a bit of Sid in his face, not so surprising as they were cousins after all. He had the same black hair, the olive complexion. His eyes brown, not extraordinarily so, but they were big and nice. The dimple she saw when he grinned, just to the side of his mouth was positively delicious.
“You’ll see Lay at the hotel. She’s excited you’re coming.” She turned back to the conveyor belt and he grabbed his suitcase and turned back her way.
* * *
“Okay, ready.”
He had no idea what the hell was going on but that question about Layla had pushed her away even further. Gone was the sexy, flirty smile she’d gifted him with in the bar, replaced by a cool distance.
Damned if his ridiculous need to touch her still wasn’t there, though. He didn’t want her to be upset with him. He certainly didn’t want her thinking he was an asshole. If for no other reason than she was Layla’s sister, he wanted to get along with her. But he liked Megan Warden. Liked the way she prowled as she walked.
She was a woman totally at home in her skin and he envied it. Envied the ease with which she wore her otherness. It was sexy, exciting, incredibly enticing.
On the way back to the car he kept close. “So do you just think I’m an asshole or what?”
She stopped at a huge SUV and clicked the locks open. “No. Why would you say that?”
He loaded his bags in and walked around to get inside. Once he’d shut the door, the sound of the world died away, the scents of asphalt and smog withered, and suddenly he was hyperaware of her.
His gaze was locked with hers, he watched, fascinated as her pupils swallowed the sea of green. His breath seized as he truly scented her. Honey, lilacs, something else...
“Oh. Well then.”
He swallowed hard, trying to figure out what she meant. “What?” And then he knew. Understood. Despite the fact he’d lived his life outside a Pack, pretty much as a human, he did understand the mate bond. Believed in its power and knew she has his. Surety settled into his system even as he itched to rub himself all over her skin to mark her in some way. He’d only felt this much werewolf a few times in his life. When he first changed and when he performed the tri-bond with Layla and Sid. It freaked him out, the wolf under his skin, the one his mother taught him to fear. But at the same time, the downright rightness of what he felt for her, of what he knew the mate bond to be, overruled his fear. He would have her, he would seal the bond and celebrate that part of himself. Tomorrow he’d worry about the rest.
He could barely hold a thought as need held him in her grip. “Go. How far is it?”
She jammed the key into the ignition one handed as she buckled up with the other. “Twenty minutes. Pray for light traffic. Get money out for the ticket. In the console.”
He fumbled with the console and finally just yanked his wallet out to pay for parking. Of course there was a huge back up to pay but eventually they got through and she headed for the freeway.
* * *
He placed his hand on her thigh and the hem of her skirt rose as his fingers inched it upward enough that he could touch bare skin.
Megan gasped, never having felt anything with such total electric sensation before. She gripped the wheel so hard her bones creaked at the strain. She had to concentrate on driving but all she wanted to do was lick him up one side and down the other.
She remembered Tracy and Nick that first day they’d met and how Tracy had just been swept away by the bond and her need to be with him. Megan hadn’t been able to grasp what that sort of need would be like. Until then, she tried not to get pulled over for speeding as she raced back toward the hotel.
If anyone stopped them when they arrived, she’d probably throw down with them. Best not to think on it. Best to just try and focus on driving. She wanted to talk to him, to learn more about him but she didn’t have the mental ability to concentrate on speaking, driving and not jumping those utterly delectable bones of his.
“Nearly there? God, your skin is so soft.” He stroked his fingertips along her upper thigh, sending shivers through her. His voice was rusty, like he hadn’t used it in a long time.
“Two more exits. And we’re going to crash if you keep that up. I can barely concentrate as it is.”
His fingers stilled but he didn’t remove his hand. He chuckled softly. “Gotcha.”
Just seven minutes later, not that she’d been watching the clock on the dash or anything, she pulled into a space in the hotel garage.
“Your room. Don’t let anyone stop you.” Urgency threaded through his voice, rode her hard as well as she scrabbled to get out.
“We’ll take this side door, back through the pool area. They might be in the lobby.”
He circled an arm around her waist, carrying his overnight bag but leaving his suitcase behind as they hustled toward the hotel.
Single-mindedly, she guided him through the area, scenting those she knew and avoiding them. They took the stairwell to her room and she barricaded her connecting door and put up the do not disturb sign, bolted the outer door and turned to face him.