This was one time I agreed with him.

“So how long are you here for?” I just realized having Nico here was a stroke of luck. I wasn’t one to talk about my problems, but maybe he’d heard of this sort of hex before.

He shrugged. “For a while.”

“You’ve got a lot of gigs lined up?”

He nodded. “I’ve also got some other business to tend to.”

His smile didn’t ease, but a flicker of fire in his gaze told me his business wasn’t all that good. Nico had run with a bad bunch for a while and had made some enemies along the way. I’d never interfered too much. Once he was out of that fucking Lycan gang, I didn’t poke around more than was needed. He was a grown man after all.

“You’re good though, right?” I asked, knowing he would know what I referred to.

His smile stretched, flashing the smile that made women drop their panties for him. “I’m great, cuz.” He nodded back to the stage. “Better get back to it. Let’s catch up later?”

He clapped me on the shoulder and resumed his spot on the barstool. “Text me tomorrow.”

I meandered back to the bar, wondering what had brought Nico out this way. It might be nothing, just my cousin the wayfarer, wandering to a new town as usual. I also wondered how he’d met Violet and why the hell she seemed to hate him already. I also knew that Nico wouldn’t tell me. For such an easygoing guy, he was a secretive bastard.

People thought I was a loner, but I actually stayed in one place and had friends, had planted some roots. I was pretty fucking sociable for a werewolf. Nico wasn’t a loner; he was a wanderer. And so his connections were thin and ever-changing.

But those thoughts fell away as the crowd started thinning and the hour ticked down and finally Evie wandered over to me wearing a smile that slayed me.

Chapter 20

~EVIE~

“How about a drink before we go?” I hopped up on the stool next to Mateo.

I needed some liquid courage, I had to admit. Seeing Mateo after three days of deprivation was like spiking my bloodstream with a shot of something fizzy and fantastic. And now I needed an actual shot of something to calm me the hell down. Especially when he looked at me the way he was. I was half-drunk already off the smoldering smiles and the heavy-lidded eyes he’d been shooting me all night.

I was nervous. I wasn’t quite sure why, but I could feel that something fundamental had changed since Alpha had gone rogue the other night. I could also sense something coming.

“A Witch’s Brew?” asked JJ.

“Nope. Blood Orange Old Fashioned.” JJ gave me one of his looks. That damn man always saw too much, so I turned to Mateo. “You want one? JJ is a fabulous mixologist. He makes his own bitters and marinates his own cherries. Amazing.”

JJ rolled his eyes and started working his magic. Yeah, though human, his talents behind the bar made us famous all over the city.

“Uh, sure,” said Mateo, a frown pinching his brow for a second.

“I saw you talking to our new live music guy. Jules just hired him today, and I almost fainted because he’s a werewolf. It’s like she’s being open-minded and all, and it’s freaking me out a little. Anyway, you know him?”

He chuckled, probably at my diarrhea of the mouth. JJ slid two of his wonderfully potent drinks in front of us, jabbing mine with a straw in a way that said drink it slow.

“I do know him. Actually, you do, too. Sort of.”

“Huh?” I glanced back at the werewolf strumming and crooning an Evanescence song, his masculine version sounding sexy as hell.

Three wide-band silver rings dragged my attention to his long, masculine fingers moving effortlessly over the strings. A musician’s hands. Wearing a black T-shirt that highlighted his well-toned chest and bronzed biceps, as well as some black ink peeking out and swirling his forearms, he held himself like a man who knew his hotness had conquered many a woman. If I’d met this guy before, I wouldn’t have forgotten him. Trust me. Interestingly, his hotness still didn’t compare to Mateo’s, but that probably had more to do with my stupid heart than my eyes.

“It’s Nico,” he said, hooking his boot on the lower rung of my barstool, his knee pressing against my outer thigh.

“Your cousin?” I plucked the cocktail straw out of my drink and dropped it on a napkin before taking a nice, deep gulp. JJ could suck it. I wasn’t going slow tonight. Mateo’s proximity was already doing swirly, fluttery things to my tummy. “The arrogant ass?”

“The one and the same.” He took a much more leisurely sip of his drink, his smile over the lip of the glass making me warm and melty, more potent than the Bourbon.

“You didn’t tell me he was coming.”

“I didn’t know.” He glanced over at the stage then back at me. “Typical Nico.”

“Well, I guess you want to, you know, catch up with him tonight? Instead of hanging with me, that is.”

He shook his head so fast my pulse lurched again. “He’s working till closing, I’m sure. We’ll get together tomorrow.” He propped his arm along the back of my chair, leaning in. “Tonight, I want to be with you.”

The dawning realization that he missed me as much as I’d missed him began to sink in. The incident at the haunted house had scared me. But not for the reasons he might think. I could handle his wolf. It was these feelings of intense attraction keeping me awake at night, spinning that sensual memory in the coffin on constant replay, that frightened me most of all. Could he feel the same way?

I fiddled with the cocktail straw on the napkin, rolling it under the pad of my index finger. “It’s only been three days.”

His expression grave, he edged closer and said quietly, “It’s been an eternity.”

He perused my face like he needed to memorize it. Like he was looking for something. An answer to a question. I licked my lips, his gaze following the movement. The seriousness of his words and his expression, hunger darkening his eyes, told me that I definitely wasn’t alone in my nightly fantasies. I couldn’t breathe.

I gulped another deep swallow of my drink, the cinnamon and whiskey lingering on my tongue, shooting bravery down my throat. I stared down into the glass and whispered, “It sure felt like it.”

He swept his hand behind my ponytail, the pads of his fingers sliding along my nape in slow, tantalizing brushes. The same soft but sure way he did when he was tracing the details of one of his sculptures, pressing and forming till it was perfect beneath his capable hands. Like it was precious and important. Like I was precious and important.

Nico strummed the beginning of a song I recognized. I couldn’t move, paralyzed by the intense hurricane of pleasure devastating my insides, laying waste to all my doubts and insecurities about Mateo. By the time Nico started singing Nirvana’s version of “The Man Who Sold the World,” I was humming with desire.

Mateo stood, his presence a wall of tempting loveliness beside me. I still was staring at the bar when he whispered close to my ear, “Come dance with me.”

He squeezed my nape then skated that hand down to my own and tugged me off the stool. I downed the rest of my drink before he pulled me through the crowd to the very small square near the stage that served as our dance floor when we needed one. There was only one other couple taking advantage, but I really didn’t care. I was about to be swaying in Mateo’s arms and pressed against his body. And while I’d experienced that intensity from Alpha, I was hella ready to see how Mateo would hold me.

After that last incident and our three-day break from our “friendship,” I thought Mateo would be tentative, careful, and pull me into a safe, platonic embrace.

Jesus. Not even close.

One hand skimmed along the small of my back and wrapped to my opposite hip, crushing me to his hard frame. The other landed between my shoulder blades, fingertips grazing the skin above my T-shirt. I was so shocked at the intensity of his hold, I merely curled my fingers around the beltloops at his waist, needing a second to adjust.

His mouth was at my temple, his words soft and intimate and sincere. “Nico and I used to play this song over and over.”

I couldn’t speak, so I just listened to him.

“Honestly, it was like our anthem in those days of learning about ourselves when the wolf came.”

His hand between my shoulder blades rose and wrapped tenderly at the base of my neck, the sensual weight catapulting my heart into space. I slid my hands around his waist. Nico sang with heavy emotion, his eyes closed.

Mateo’s lips brushed my temple as he spoke. “That’s how it felt, you know. This song. When the shift would come over me, it was like passing my wolf on the stairs, like seeing an old friend and brushing by him with a nod. I counted on him to take care of us, to purge his dark needs without fucking us up, without losing total control.”

His hand cupped my nape, feeling different than when Alpha had gripped me by the throat in the coffin, but also frighteningly similar. Possessive and sure.

“Except for that one time with my father, he’d kept his end of the bargain, Evie. But the other night…” His arms flexed, tightening around me. “He pushed me out and handled you, said things to you in a way I never would.”

I tipped my head up so he could hear me, his mouth still brushing my hairline. “I’m okay. You didn’t hurt me.”

“Listen to me. I have to say this.” He inhaled a deep breath before going on. “It wasn’t that what he said wasn’t true, that it wasn’t something I didn’t want. My wolf is a part of me, Evie.”

Emotions. So many emotions. A flock of butterflies took flight in my belly. Then he kept talking, and my brain fizzled.

“I would never act on those cravings…unless you wanted me to.”

Was he really saying this? Thank God I was in his arms, because my knees buckled, my body sagging against him. His arms squeezed me tighter, pressing my body to his chest. His jaw brushed my forehead when I angled my face toward his neck, inhaling a deep breath of him. He smelled like citrus and soap and beautiful man. Mateo. His hand on my nape gave a little squeeze, his mouth against my temple. “And I would never hurt you. Not on purpose.”