Dreaming of the Wolf (22 page)

She sat staring out the window, avoiding looking at him, he thought. Or maybe she just wanted to see where they were going. But he assumed she was upset.

He couldn’t quit watching her, the way she sat so rigidly, so tense, her ears twitching back and forth, as she took deep breaths to sample the air. She was smelling the smells, memorizing them, cataloging them. Just as he had memorized her fragrance as a wolf. He would know her scent anywhere now and even the paw-pad trail she’d left behind as they’d made their way to the vehicle. If she ever ran as a wolf, he’d find her without any difficulty.

Tom said to Alicia, “Either Lelandi can loan you some of her clothes, or one of the other women can.”

Hell, Jake wanted to talk to her, and he couldn’t do it as a wolf. He shifted, and as soon as he did, she whipped her head around, eyes large and brown and endearing. He gave her a dark smile and pulled on his jeans.

She glanced at Tom. Jake frowned. She hadn’t thought her dream lover had been Tom, had she? They did look a hell of a lot alike, except Jake’s face had rougher angles, and his hair and eyes were darker.

She looked back at Jake, her gaze taking all of him in, and she swallowed hard.

“Tom, when we get to town, stop at the lingerie store.” Jake smiled at Alicia. He had every intention of taking care of her every need.

“Silk and Lace Delights?” Tom’s voice sounded surprised. “She won’t be open this late.”

“I’ll call ahead. And we can drop by the all-night discount store after that.”

“Do you know her size? As a wolf, she appears taller than Lelandi. But she’s not as big as some of our female wolves. Maybe Silva’s height?” Tom asked.

From what he’d seen of Alicia, and that was every inch of her delectable body, he figured her to be Silva’s height when Silva wasn’t wearing high heels to make herself appear taller like the other grays while she waitressed at the Silver Town Tavern. Silva was just as buxom but taller than Lelandi, since Lelandi was a red wolf and Silva a gray. Yeah, he imagined Alicia and Silva were about the same build.

Jake thought about the logistics of the situation further. He wanted to get to know his soon-to-be mate unaccompanied. His grandfather’s house would be the ideal setting. Isolated. Away from family so they could really be alone.

“After we shop, you can drop us off at Granddad’s old place.”

“Darien expects me to bring her back to his house,” Tom said, again sounding surprised.

Jake didn’t care for that scenario in the least. Everyone would get involved in his business with Alicia when he needed the time alone with her.

“Want me to call and—”

“No.” Jake jerked on his shirt. Then he grabbed his cell phone from his pants pocket and called Darien. When his older brother answered, Jake said, “We’re making a couple of clothing stops because Alicia has no clothes to change into. After that, we’re staying out at the old homestead.”

Silence
. Jake knew Darien didn’t approve.

Darien finally said quietly, “She’s unmated?”

“She’s not mated.” He sure as hell hoped not anyway.

Tom looked up at the rearview mirror. At least Jake didn’t think she could be, considering the way she’d made love to him in the dreams.

“Not pregnant either?” Darien asked.

Jake glanced at Alicia. “No, she’s not pregnant.” At least he guessed she wasn’t.

“Bring her to the house,” Darien said finally.

Not once had Jake ever gone against Darien’s rulings. He might disagree and tell his brother what he felt in private or just with his immediate family present, but not once had Jake openly gone against Darien’s decisions. This time he had to clamp down on his words before he spoke them.

Darien waited for Jake to acknowledge his order, knowing that with every second of delay Jake was showing how displeased he was.

“We’re dream mated,” Jake finally said, reminding his brother that Alicia and he were meant to be together and nothing would stop that from happening.

Tom’s gaze shot over the back of the front seat from Alicia to Jake, then to the road again.

Darien laughed over the phone. Alicia’s ears perked up.

Hell, Jake didn’t need this. He would have hung up on his older brother if Darien hadn’t finally said, “Bring her home, Jake. We need to learn what’s going on with her.”

That’s when Jake came to his senses,
somewhat.
Thugs had tried to kill her. If they attempted to follow her here, the pack would need to know about it so they could deal with the threat effectively.

“We’ll welcome her to the pack right,” Darien added.

The pack. She wouldn’t just be Jake’s mate but an important member of the pack. And Darien sounded serious. As if he believed Jake had found his mate. But why laugh about it initially? Because Jake had been so obstinate about not believing in such a thing.

He settled back against the seat. “All right. We’ll come home.”

But he was not resigned to making this a family affair.

***

Feeling a ton of emotions—frazzled, relieved that she was safe for the moment, unsure of herself—Alicia lay down on the seat, having heard Jake’s brother tell him to bring her to his home. And Jake was fighting the order. But she could tell by the way Jake’s body had lost some of its tension that he was giving in. Reluctantly, but nonetheless, he had capitulated. In a way, she wished she and Jake could have been alone. She’d have a better chance at stealing away from them then.

She hadn’t a clue about what would happen when she met the others in the pack, having never been around other werewolves. And she’d never even considered that werewolves lived in packs. Loners, yes. Like Ferdinand and whoever bit him first. Or just some abnormal aberration—a rabid wolf that had bitten a human and infected him, and no others existed.

But her thoughts kept straying to what Jake had looked like after he’d shifted—in the flesh, totally naked. No longer a dream, but the very hard, virile muscled man she’d felt and stroked and loved when they’d first been together. And then she reminded herself how he’d known she was a werewolf—Ferdinand
had
to have told him.

Then she wondered why Jake’s brother asked if she was pregnant. Mary. At the gallery. Oh, God, poor Jake. Mary must have called him and told him Alicia had fainted at the gallery. And he thought…

She glanced back at him. He was watching her. Then he took a deep breath and ran his hand over her back in a loving caress. It felt good. He felt good. She wanted so badly to share their nighttime fantasies for real again. Damn her soul for falling for him.

She laid her head down on the seat and closed her eyes as he continued to stroke her back. The wickedly sexual part of her wanted to go with him to his grandfather’s house and make wild passionate love to him.

But she considered what Jake and his brother had discussed. The mate issue didn’t make any sense. Must be a werewolf term for sex with another of their kind. So why did he assume she hadn’t been with anyone else? That she hadn’t mated? If Ferdinand had lived long enough, she was certain he would have had sex with her—against her will. But thankfully, he hadn’t.

Then she saw a sign announcing they’d arrived in Silver Town, and she felt self-conscious. Up until now, she’d been living on her own, putting up with this werewolf stuff the best she could in secret, until she’d bitten one thug’s arm and momentarily scared the other witless. But now to be around a whole pack of werewolves when she was so clueless made her feel vulnerable and anxious.

When Tom parked, she quickly sat up and stared at the store’s large glass windows. A gold-and-pink-lettered sign perched on top proclaimed the store to be
Silk
and
Lace
Delights
.

Her eyes widened. She’d envisioned a plain, old shop full of the usual—flannel nightgowns for winter, long satin nightgowns for summer, shorter versions, and pajamas. Instead, fiery red corsets, fringed hot-pink bras and thongs, fishnet camisoles and G-string panties, and an iridescent sequin-draped camisole were displayed on headless mannequins in the big windows.

Jake couldn’t be serious. Not that she planned to wear other women’s undergarments or that she wished to go without—even though sometimes it seemed she might have to when she was in one of her panic-stricken states and needed to strip before she shifted—but what was he thinking?

She looked at another mannequin and read the sign:
peekaboo
camisole
. The slits in the bust fitted neatly over the nipples. Her mouth dropped open.

“Stay here with her,” Jake said, and when she swung her head around to look at him, he grinned at her. “Be right back.”

No thongs, she wanted to tell him. No way was she wearing a piece of silk wedged between her legs. Or a camisole that left her nipples exposed.

But then he was gone, and Tom turned to observe her with a look of wonderment on his face. The sheriff parked beside them and waited, watching Jake enter the lingerie shop, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Mortified was how she felt. If she wasn’t wearing a coat of fur, she was sure she’d be blushing furiously.

She just hoped Jake didn’t get her what
he
thought she should wear to seduce him rather than what
she
would wear for comfort. But when he spoke to a clerk and lightly touched a royal blue corset pushing up the bust situated in the window, Alicia was ready to bolt out of the vehicle and tell him that if he bought it,
he
could wear it.

Normally, Jake wouldn’t have been caught dead in a lingerie store. Certainly not that one. The women loved to get the corsets for the annual Victorian Era Day for some fun after the celebration, although without a mate, Jake hadn’t thought he’d ever get to partake in that part of the fun. The difficult part for the ladies seemed to be trying to pick just one. Lisa Grae, the thirty-year-old owner, was dressed in a conservative pale-blue dress. She raised her brows to see him come into the shop.

“Hi, Jake. You didn’t say why you had to come here tonight.” She sounded more than surprised.

“I need some things for a woman who’s staying with us.”

“Oh. Can she visit and—”

“No.”

“But her size. Did she tell you what—”

“She’s in the car in her wolf form and has no clothes.”

Lisa glanced out the window and frowned. “Oh. Is Sheriff Peter posing as a bodyguard?”

“Yeah.”

She sighed. “All right. So you’re not looking for anything fun. Just functional.”

No, he wasn’t looking just for functional. But he let Lisa lead him to the racks of bras anyway. He ran his fingers over the lacy cups, then the satin ones. He picked up red ones, one lace, one satin, the one without any padding, the other with padding beneath the breasts. He didn’t know which Alicia would prefer so he would get both.

“Are you certain that’s her cup size?”

He put his hand around the cup and nodded. “Appears right.”

“Hmm,” Lisa said, smiling, and the sound she made was one of speculation. Then she took him to a rack of panties. He selected three pairs of bikini panties in red.

“Maybe a pair of white?”

He shook his head. Red suited her.

Then he looked back at the royal blue corset.

“What about nightwear? A robe or something?”

But now he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the body hose that a couple of mannequins were wearing. One was a seductive fishnet, long-sleeved body stocking with an open crotch, and the other, a spaghetti-strapped sheer fishnet body stocking, also with an open crotch. Envisioning Alicia wearing any of it made him hard and wanting.

“A robe?” Lisa repeated, drawing his attention reluctantly from the body stockings.

He fingered a sheer, red-lace short robe.

Lisa smiled and folded her arms. “Does she wear a lot of red?”

He glanced at Alicia watching him through the Suburban window and thought about it, but he didn’t remember her wearing anything but white.

“I’ll take this,” he said, picking out a red shirt-like baby doll that reached just below the crotch, sheer enough to be revealing, but opaque enough to entice. He hastily paid for the garments, thanked Lisa, and headed for the door.

Alicia might not wear red normally, but he knew she’d look hot in all of it.

With sack in hand, Jake returned to the vehicle. He smiled at Alicia as Tom drove them to the casual-clothes shop where Jake figured he’d get her a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and sweatshirt. “I’ll bring you back to town to shop once you’re ready so you can pick up whatever else you might need until we can get your suitcases,” he said, as she eyed the sack.

When she poked at his hand still grasping the sack, he reached in and pulled out the red lace bra. She looked up at him. “Red would look good on you,” he said.

Tom glanced in the rearview mirror.