11 – Follow

Troy stared after the retreating female, his will and his wolf at war. That was his One True Mate, his wolf had told him so. Troy got a One True Mate and she was rejecting him, running from him. His wolf said, Follow. Troy held himself back from following because his mate was right to run from him. For the first time, he let himself fully explore what it would be like to be mated to a female as perfect as that, but stuck as a wolf.

Troy knew it was illogical. His brain very clearly told him that if he shifted to a wolf right now, he would be able to shift back to a human, but his heart disagreed. His heart was scared he would never.

His wolf was silent on the issue.

But the demand from inside about his mate came, clear and strong: Follow.

Troy shook away the thoughts about a future he did not want and did the only thing he could possibly do. He followed his mate.

A big male got in front of him. Conri. Conri pointed behind at the little inset in the wall where Troy had learned what his female sounded like when she came. “Did she just…?”

Troy didn’t let him finish. He grabbed Conri around the throat with one hand and stared into his soul, speaking slowly and clearly into his mind. Don’t you say it, don’t you even think it. Don’t look at her, don’t think about her, bear, unless you want to see me get serious, got it?

Conri didn’t want a fight. He nodded once then peeled Troy’s fingers off his neck, adding a stupid bear snarl Troy didn’t have time for.

Troy was already moving. He followed his female’s scent behind the bar and through the door, down the hallway, ignoring the looks of the employees in the kitchen, straight out the back door. A small sedan was rolling through the parking lot, windows down, and Troy saw a flash of his female inside. He tracked which way she went, and got moving. He couldn’t drive and he wouldn’t ask for a ride, so his only choice was to follow her on foot.

He set in, tracking her like prey.

***

Twenty minutes later, Troy was still jogging down the sidewalk, still following the scent of his female. He’d told his brother not to worry about him, he’d be late, then ‘turned off’ all ruhi conversation coming his way. He had no plan beyond find his mate.

The cool mint smell of her had weakened, but now it was strengthening again and Troy slowed slightly, knowing she’d stopped somewhere, hoping she’d stayed wherever it was. He was in a residential area, but along a main street. In front of him was a four-way stop with a Dairy Queen on one corner, a bus stop on another, and cheap motels on the other two. Troy prepared to circle the intersection to find the direction his female had gone.

He jogged past the large front window of the Dairy Queen, reaching the corner before he skidded to a stop, then turned and jogged back.

She was there, in a red-backed booth positioned against the window he was on the outside of, spoon poised over an oreo blizzard, mouth open, staring at him. He could not scent her emotion, so he tried to pull it from her expression. Surprised. Oh, that one was easy. Fear flickered across her features but was gone so quickly he knew he’d been wrong. It wasn’t fear, it was anger. Was she mad at him? Then her expression shut down completely, going cold like he’d seen it in the bar, with narrowed eyes and lifted chin. His mate was an ice princess to her core and he was in charge of the spring thaw. Troy grinned at the thought, thinking that shit right there belonged on a greeting card or something.

Troy put his hand on the glass, resisting the urge to lick it, one thought on repeat in his head.

Go get her.

He headed inside.

***

Troy pushed in the door with purpose, straight to the counter and ordered exactly what his female already had, feeling her eyes on him like ice cubes to his skin on a ninety-degrees-in-the-shade day. Soothed and cooled, he growled deep in his throat, as silently as he could, still earning himself a terrified look from the little mouse of a human behind the counter.

He got the ice cream and turned around, doing so slowly, giving her time to look away. He wanted to talk to her, not spook her, not chase her away. When he raised his eyes, she was looking out the window, her spine set, her chin high. Beautiful. He could not look away. He moved her way, stopping at the seat opposite her. WWMD? What would Magnum do? He would say something smooth, then she would kiss him.

Troy cleared his throat, sick at the desperation swirling in his gut. He’d never felt this before. Because nothing in his life had ever been this important before.

She turned her head to look at him, slowly, a coolly blank expression on her face. Her scent said both, “please stay,” and “go away,” equally. He didn’t know what to do, so he put the blizzard down in its cup in front of her. “For you,” he said quietly, slowly, carefully, noticing she was almost done with the one in her hand. “I’ll get you another. Peanut Butter cups?”

She spoke, her voice controlled, her expression still. “How many blizzards do you think I can eat?”

“Three,” he said decidedly, nodding his head. He’d halved the amount he could eat in one sitting. It seemed like a safe bet.

He stayed where he was because his female was looking him up and down. He let her get a good look, standing tall, turning his chin, scenting some of her cool turn warm as something new twisted through her scent, fondness, of him he bet, and─desire. Desire… to see his body?

Just in case, Troy reached behind his head and grabbed his shirt at the upper back, yanking it off. He balled it up in his hand and turned so his female could see all his wolf muscles.

Her mouth dropped open and she looked and scented thoroughly charmed, before she closed herself off, going cold on him. “It really isn’t that hot in here,” she said coolly.

Troy put his shirt back on, sat down across from her, and tried to think of what to say.

She studied him back, then pushed the second ice cream at him. “You eat it.”

He nodded, glad for something to do, grasping the spoon firmly and pulling it out of the ice cream, dropping it on the table. She frowned at it, then looked at him. He opened his mouth and dove to his ice cream, only stopping at the last minute at the look of horror on her face. Damn.

Troy picked the spoon back up, curling all five fingers and his palm around it, and thrust it back in the cup. Her expression did not smooth out. He scooped out a huge bite and made to shovel it in, then imagined what Ella would say: “Stop eating like you were born in a barn, Troy. That’s gross.”

His female probably felt the same as Ella.

Troy tried to tame himself, curling his fingers the way his brother’s mate had showed him so many times. Hold it like you would hold a pen, Ella said in his head. Yeah, like you hold a pen, not like you hold your dick, Mac or Rogue would add, if they were around.

Troy grasped the spoon, carefully, as daintily as he could, staring at it, sweating bullets, inhaling his female’s cool scent to calm him.

When he looked up, the expression on her face, one of calm, maybe even snide, observation, was at odds with her scent. Her scent had lost all sense of, “yes,” and it now said ‘no,’ more than ever. “No,” to Troy. Rejection. His mate didn’t like him. How was that even possible? He staggered under the weight of it, not knowing what to do. Possibilities ran through his mind. Buy her something. Kill something for her. Feed her. That last one had already failed.

He just wanted to know what made her happy, so he could do that forever. He tried to consider how to tell her that, counting the Ws in the sentence inside his head, when he caught a scent undercurrent he hadn’t noticed before. She did want him. She wanted him so much, she had herself convinced she didn’t want him. Troy swallowed hard, as this thought made him sway in his seat. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and he didn’t even know her name yet.

Troy pushed aside the ice cream. She put a spoonful of hers in her mouth. He watched her lick it off the spoon, entranced by the redness of her lips, the smoothness of her skin, the imagined feeling of her tongue against─

The flow of her cool scent stuttered, making Troy realize he was growling. He stopped and focused on her eyes. She was blushing, her cheeks red, her scent going thick and sweet. She looked out the window at the motel across the street and Troy read her very thoughts in the arousal that spread through her.

Yes, her scent said, fully and completely. She was as desperate for his hands on her as he was for her hands on him.

***

Reed pulled her focus away from the motel, peeking at Troy to see if he’d caught her thinking about taking him over there and trying to fuck him out of her system. He was staring at her, an intense, head-lowered look, and licking his lips. Yeah, he’d caught her.

She knew she needed to stay far away from him; she wondered if it would be easier to do in the morning.

He stood. Held out his hand, raised his eyebrows once and snarl/growled once, disarming her completely. He was sexy, dead sexy, and that sexy noise he made scared her, but it attracted her more.

Reed’s cheeks heated, but she took his burning hot hand and let him guide her to her feet. She left her ice cream and let him pull her out the door. She left the building and let him pull her across the street. She crossed the street and let him pull her inside the door of the cheap motel she would remember forever if she went through with this. Was she going to go through with this?

Just this one time, with just this one guy…

Troy considerately, but silently sat her on a mostly-clean looking couch in the lobby of the motel, motioned to her that he’d be back in a minute, and went to the desk. Reed studied his backside. Hell yes, she was going to go through with this. That man there had gotten her fired─no wait, she had quit, but she’d been about to be fired, and it had all been his fault─the least she could do was let him make it up to her with one night of manhandling. In the morning, she would sneak out and never see him again, but at that moment… ? Yeah, she might go through with it.

Just this one time, with just this one guy…

He’d already proven he could make it worth her while, and it had been so long since she’d had sex, longer still since she’d had good sex. Her body throbbed and said, yes, yes, do it, making it hard for her to think clearly, but making it easy for her to forget all the reasons she shouldn’t.

He leaned over the desk, speaking slowly and plainly to the man behind it. Reed strained to hear his voice. Troy didn’t speak enough, but when he did, she liked it.

He paid for a full night─classy. Just don’t get attached, Re-Re, she told herself. One night only.

Reed watched him move against the counter, her body heating at the sight of his tall, sexy, leanness. He looked like he might leap over the wall at any moment, to catch a pen from rolling onto the floor, or maybe to move a styrofoam cup back that was too close to the edge, then he would leap back over, showing off like an enthusiastic teen-ager.

She watched him, trying to figure him out, wondering how much he was what he seemed to be: a sexy, sensual, passionate cop who had probably broken the heart of every woman he’d ever turned his attention on. Keep your distance, she warned herself. Emotionally, she amended, since she was about to get all up in his space, physically.

Troy returned to her and swept her out the door, an actual key, not a plastic card, in his hand. It was attached to a light blue surfboard tag that Reed stared at as they walked to the door, not speaking, heat pouring off of Troy so strong she could feel it. He curled an arm around her shoulders and she tried to keep her hands off of his ass. The dying light in the night sky told her it was just after nine in the evening.

Troy got the key in the lock, turned it, and pushed inside.

He didn’t pause, didn’t slow, sweeping her in the door, shutting it, and in one smooth half-twirl she was against the wall and he was kissing her, nudging both her arms up over her head, then one hand to her breast, the other dropping down to her hip, pulling her at him, kneading her ass, bringing her leg up and around him so he could get at her center. Reed groaned into his mouth and he snarled into hers and she jerked her hips forward and came again, right there, crying out into his mouth as he kissed her and clung to her and worked her body hard, exactly like she knew he would, exactly like she craved it.

He smiled in satisfaction, she felt it against her lips. In that small, still moment after her second unexpected orgasm of the night, she realized she was moving too fast, that if she didn’t stop herself, her life would be forever changed, but then he was working her again and the thought fell out of her head.

Reed gave herself over to him completely, following where he led.