Loner (Norseton Wolves #2) (5 page)

“They mostly let me work solo. Surveillance, and stuff like that. I’m good at it.”

“Not used to working in teams?”

“Never really had a chance to in my birthpack. Left so early.”

She cringed. She’d heard it was common for packs to expel male wolves when the populations were too heavily dominant. It was less of a problem in her pack, because they were city dwellers, and their men exerted their compulsions to lead and rule at work, and not just at home. They probably felt less threatened by the young men in the pack and more secure in their stature. If they had people bowing down to them at work, they were less needy for submission from the pack. “How old were you?”

“Nine.”

She bolted upright. “
Nine
?”

He opened his eyes and bobbed his shoulders. “Yeah.”

“Your parents let you go at nine?”

“Wasn’t really up to them. It was Alpha’s decision.”

“That’s bullshit. Little kids aren’t threatening. You couldn’t have even hit puberty yet.”

“They liked to get rid of boys before they were threatening.”

“Like I said, that’s bullshit.”

“You don’t think I’m threatening?”

“I…” She let the words trail off, and looked at him as best she could in the dark. The ruggedly handsome face, with his long, solidly built body. She caught a mental flash of his wolf stalking her, backing her away from some chasm—warning her off with bared fangs and a forbidding growl.

Had that happened?

She couldn’t remember a thing about her run as a wolf, but the familiarity of his face and form settled into her. The pieces came together bit by bit the longer she stared at his unreadable expression.

He’d followed her the whole time, but had given her space to run and explore. Sometimes, he’d run ahead to redirect her. More than once, he’d let her jump on him and nip annoyingly at his fur because she didn’t want to be stalked, and he’d just take it until she got bored and skittered on to the next thing.

He was like his wolf. Calm, but powerful. Watchful.

Those dark eyes had seen so much, and she’d seen them countless times before. Her dreams had been haunted by them. They’d belonged to the silent wolf who just watched…who waited to be rejected, just like her.

How could I reject him?

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “You didn’t bite back. You didn’t fight me off when I was a wolf.”

“You remember that?”

“I do now. Any other wolf would have knocked me away and been frustrated with me.”

His energy clung to her a bit more experimentally, it seemed, and she wanted to hold onto it. It said everything his words didn’t. It said he was trying, and that meant so much, because it was easier for wolves to cling to the status quo.

“I’m not that kind of wolf,” he said.

She was starting to see that.

Darius had been eight the last time he let a woman pick out his clothes, and had no particular desire to revert to that stage of dependence, but Stephanie insisted. With it being zero-dark-thirty in the morning, he didn’t have the fight in him to argue. Besides that, letting her dress him seemed to be an easy way to please her, and he needed all the
easy
he could get, because the hard shit kept knocking him on his stupid ass. He still wasn’t certain he’d made adequate amends for offending her yet.

She pawed through the contents of his closet, held up this shirt to his chest and then that shirt, muttering all the while about the lack of options available.

He didn’t need many options. He spent most of his time coated in a sheen of desert dust, and occasionally, someone else’s blood. Fancy clothes would have been a waste.

Still wearing a towel tucked around her delectable body, and with her wet hair dripping over her shoulders, she notched her fists onto her hips and pouted at him.

Oh, hell. What’d I fuck up this time?
He gulped. “What?”

“I don’t imagine there’ll be any stores open at this time of morning?”

“Nope. Thank the gods.” Shopping was a kind of
or else
venture for him. He did it only when he had no choice, and as quickly as possible.

She squinted at him.

He’d probably said the wrong thing again. He was better off just saying nothing, but she didn’t seem to like it when he was quiet, either.

“Can you pull some strings and get a shopkeeper to roll out of his bed?”

“Me?” He pointed to himself for emphasis, just in case something was being lost in translation.

“Yes,
you
. Can you?”

Hell no.
“Why?”

“Because I’d like my mate to be in a suit on his wedding day, or at least a shirt that doesn’t have suspicious stains on it.” She held out a frayed button-up that had some motor oil splatter on one of the sleeves.

“I doubt any of the other guys are going to be dressed up.”

“I’m marrying you, not them. They can wear whatever they want and I’ll pay no attention.”

“A suit, though? On a wolf?” He couldn’t tamp down the laugh, and he knew the guys in the pack were going to give him ever so much shit about it. The closest thing any of them had to a suit was matching leather vests and pants. The idea of getting dressed up and having so many people staring at him as if he were a rare zoo animal unsettled his stomach.

“If it’s too much to ask, I’ll figure out something else.”

“No, I’ll…I’ll take care of it.” He didn’t want to disappoint her.
Shit.
He raked his hand through his short hair and forced out a breath. A conversation first thing in the morning, and he hadn’t even had a pot of coffee yet. The scenario was definitely a first for him.

He strode to the kitchen and found the Norseton community directory beneath a pile of flattened beer cases. He tossed it onto the counter and flipped through the retailer listings, then cross-referenced the merchant name with his personal number. Finally, he grabbed the cordless phone from the wall and pulled in a long inhalation.
Shit.

He hated making phone calls. They seemed even worse than speaking face-to-face with someone. In person, at least he could resort to using crude sign language to get his point across if necessary. On the phone, all he could do was sigh constantly and punctuate every sentence fragment with
Um
.

As the phone rang on the other end, he pinched the bridge of his nose, tapped his right foot rapidly against the tile floor, and hoped that the man didn’t answer. At least then he could say that he tried.

“Hello? There’d better be a fire,” Tim Gimbel said when he answered.

“Uh, no—”
Shit.
Hang up and lie.

Darius shifted his weight and found Stephanie at his elbow, waiting with hopefulness written all over her exquisite face.

Her faith in him seemed misplaced.

Fuck. She’s not asking for much. Just do it. Anyone else could do it.

“S-sorry to call so early. I wouldn’t have, but my mate is, uh, and I—I’m sorry. This is Darius Lucas, one of the pack members.”

“Huh?”

Shit.
Darius pinched his nose again and willed the knots in his brain that squeezed off the route between intelligence and speech to unravel. He knew what he needed to tell the man, generally speaking, but not necessarily the order that the words needed to come out in, or even which words to choose. There was a reason he didn’t do negotiations for the pack.

“Give me the phone,” Stephanie whispered, and extended her hand. Reluctantly, he placed the phone into it.

Damn.
Wonderful performance, Einstein.
If he were lucky, she wouldn’t be accessorizing his new suit with a dunce cap.

“Hello. Good morning, sir. Sorry it’s so rudely early, but we hoped you’d take pity on us and open your shop up for a few minutes. We’re getting married in an hour, and Darius doesn’t own any clothing fit to be photographed.”

Thanks to his superior wolf hearing, Darius could decipher every one of Tim’s words, even with the phone pressed to Stephanie’s ear. “Dear lord. I’d hoped to one day sell him something more than socks,” Tim said.

Darius sighed. The guy had tried to corner him with a measuring tape more than once, insisting Darius wore his jeans far too loose, but Darius needed them loose. He wouldn’t be able to hide all his weapons if he wore them as tight as the trend seemed to call for.

“I just need a two-piece suit, and”—she let her gaze track down his body—“I don’t imagine you’d have any Oxfords in his size? He’s got to be a twelve.”

Twelve-and-a-half.
Now she wanted him to break in new shoes at fucking dawn, too?
No way
. “Stephanie—”

“I might,” Tim said. “I’m pulling on some pants and heading downstairs now. I live right over the shop.”

“Yay! Thank you so much. We’ll be there in ten minutes. I promise, I’ll come back in the afternoon and make your broken sleep worth your while. I moved here with just four suitcases. Can you imagine?”

“Honey, I don’t even want to. Come on down. My cash register awaits.”

Stephanie hung up and beamed at him while adjusting the top of her towel. “You’re getting a suit, wolf.”

“Great.” He groaned at the slip of one of her breasts over the top of the towel. Instinctively, he reached for it, only to stop his hand at the last second.

She was apparently oblivious to his distress, seeing as how she turned on her heel and hauled ass to the bedroom. “Brush your hair. We’re leaving in two minutes.”

He
had
brushed his hair, so he just flopped onto the sofa and pulled on his boots. She came out a few minutes later wearing bright red lips and a lacy, cream-colored mini-dress that barely contained her delectable assets.

She sighed. “Don’t like it?”

“Huh?” He tried to discreetly adjust himself. He liked it a
lot
.

The men in the pack were going to stare, and he might have to kill them a little.

“I didn’t try it on before I packed it. It was one of the few things I didn’t give away or sell before I moved. I figured I’d use it for the ceremony. I wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face wearing a long white gown.”

“No, it’s okay.” He wanted to bend her over and hitch it up to her waist, just so he could look at it from another angle. If his dick ended up in her sometime during that inspection, so be it. No one could blame him.

“Just okay? Ugh.” She shrugged. “It’ll have to do. I don’t imagine I’ll get much opportunity to wear it out here.” She grabbed a little handbag and tottered over in sky-high heels as red as her lips. “Ready?”

“Sure.” He cringed, realizing a moment too late what he’d said. He imagined most women liked to think they looked a little better than
okay
. He felt around in his brain for some better words, but she was already out the door, tossing her still-damp hair over her shoulder as she went.

He paused in the doorway long enough to bang his head against the frame a few times.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
He couldn’t even pretend to be civilized long enough to get past their honeymoon period. She was going to be one of those mates who never came home because her husband was such a loser, and he wasn’t the kind of wolf who’d go out and drag her home. He may have sounded unintelligent, but he was smart enough to keep his pride in check. Hubris was for flawless wolves, and he’d never be that.

___

Darius leaned against the Norseton Town Square’s gazebo and folded his arms over his chest. He watched Mrs. Carbone fiddle with her camera, trying to get the settings right, and somehow managed to block out Colt’s heckling. He’d started the moment Darius had stepped into the executive mansion’s atrium before their civil ceremonies.

“Are you letting a woman dress you now? Can’t pick out your own clothes? You might a well consider that necktie your noose, man.”

Stephanie had glared at Darius, as if expecting him to lash out at Colt, but Darius was used to the taunting. It was easier to stay away from Colt than to try to change the man’s ways, so that was what Darius did. That tactic didn’t make their occasional interactions any more tolerable, however.

And Darius
was
the only one in a suit. The other Pack members—excluding Beast and his mate, who for some reason, were missing—had worn their usual clothes. Well, the ladies had dressed up a little, but the guys had on their typical denim and leather. It was more or less clean, probably. Mrs. Carbone might have had a fit if it wasn’t.

Mrs. Carbone pushed Darius and Stephanie into position near the gazebo opening and shooed everyone else away. Stephanie reached up and patted down his hair, her tongue appearing at the corner of her red lips as she manipulated it. So intense, her inspection of him. No one ever looked at him like that—
touched
him like that. It was an odd feeling, having a woman be completely his. He both liked it and dreaded the day it would stop, which he suspected would be sooner, rather than later. He’d seen a similar thing with his parents. His mother had grown disenchanted with his father, but he wouldn’t let her leave, so she’d holed herself up into the bedroom and only came out when he left. Darius couldn’t help but think that would be his fate as well.

Enjoy it while you can.

Sighing, he draped his forearms over her shoulders and let her fondle him as she saw fit.

“You got him to put on a suit, but you couldn’t get him to brush his hair properly?” Mrs. Carbone called out.

“I did,” Darius said, probably too low for anyone but Stephanie to hear.

“He probably thinks he did.” Stephanie settled back into place beside him, slinging her arm around his waist and cocking her head coquettishly for the camera.

Oh. Pose, stupid.

“Try looking like you care, Loner!” Colt called out.

“I don’t know why you don’t kick his ass,” Stephanie said through her photo-ready grin. “And if you don’t want to smile, don’t smile.”

“I look dumb.”

She looked up at him. “What, smiling?”

He nodded.

“What makes you think that?”

“I own a mirror.”

“Obviously, you don’t know how to interpret the images it shows you, then.” She sighed. “No time to talk you into it now. How about a smirk?”

He pushed his lips into something he hoped looked like what she wanted.

Stephanie got in front of him, pressed that lush, soft body of hers against his, and used her thumbs to move his lips where she wanted them. “Don’t worry if it feels dumb. You look amazing. Hold that pose.” She settled next to him again and angled her body toward his.

I look amazing?
No one had ever told him
that
before. A few women had made pretty close statements about his dick, but not about him in general.

Mrs. Carbone finally took the damned picture. “At least we have one couple that looks decent enough to put their picture in a frame. Back in my day, folks dressed up for their mates.”

“I want a do-over,” one of the ladies said. “Can I take him home, redress him, and bring him back?”

Mrs. Carbone groaned. “You could try, but good luck. Remember, they have to be back at work tomorrow morning, so use your hours wisely.”

Stephanie plopped her fists onto her hips and cast her gaze toward Norseton’s Main Street, then at Darius. She pushed up an eyebrow. “Can I trust you to hang those clothes?”

“You mean I have to keep them?”

“Of course you do.” She smoothed his lapels and skimmed her hands around his jacket’s waist, letting them linger at the base of his back. Pressed against him that way, her cleavage strained temptingly at the top of her dress, and he wanted to bend to lick it. He needed to act less like an animal, not more, however, so he resisted. “You look so good. You should wear suits more often. You’re built for them.”

Colt walked past them, making a whip-cracking sound, and his mate followed behind, vibrating with a frustrated growl.

Stephanie watched them leave, and turned back to Darius. “Is there some beef between you two?”

He felt stupid standing there with his arms at his side when she was holding him, so he put one hand on her shoulder, then the other. That didn’t feel too awkward. Fucking her was easy. He knew where to put his hands and body when he was having sex, but he hadn’t had practice with casual touch. Apparently, Stephanie expected some. He didn’t want to disappoint her, especially after seeing how he’d already managed to offend her once without trying.
Or was it twice?

“No,” he said after a moment. “Colt antagonizes everyone, except Alpha.”

“No one’s tried to hand him his ass yet?”

“Not worth it.”

Her narrowed eyes and the aggressive jut of her chin said that she didn’t agree. It was kind of cute, her indignation. No one had ever been offended on his behalf before—not even his own mother.

“I’ve known these guys for a long time. I know how to deal with them.”

She let go of his waist and yanked her dress up by the bodice.

Thank the gods
. Given too much more temptation, he might have had his mouth on her right there in Town Square. Not like he hadn’t done similar things in public before, but none of those women had been keepers, and they’d been just as eager to show his wares to the world. Intercourse in public was a sort of a pack rite of passage. They’d all done it, except for Alpha. Alpha kept his business behind closed doors. Lately, Darius tried to follow his example as much as he could.