Pack and Coven (11 page)

Indies who lost control—well, their best bet was to never do it in the first place.

Harry had been in California at the time of his first change, with one of the packs that took in orphans. His mother had told him to go there before she died. The human social services system was no place for a shifter. He'd been considered a prodigy because he'd shifted before he got his driver's license.

Combine that with the alpha gene that revealed itself after the shift, and he'd had more chicks than he could handle. Werewolves dug alphas, even when the alpha wasn't pack. But women, he'd found, wanted you to date them. Stay with them. Join their packs.

And so Harry had quit handling them. Unless they brought food.

He was a sucker for a woman who could cook. If she wanted him to mow her yard, he showed up with the John Deere and an appetite. If she wanted him to help pick out a car, he found her an awesome deal. If she wanted him in her bed…

Well, he had limits. He didn't go for married women, miserable women, underage women or pack wolves.

Hell, a man who could cook could probably talk him into a lot of shit too, but men never showed up with pie. Sometimes a six pack, which wasn't as persuasive.

That being said, if June's cooking skills had been equivalent to his, meaning nonexistent, he'd still have wanted her. Since now wasn't a good time to have her, when would be?

Next week, when this was all over?

Tomorrow morning, when she'd rested?

After supper, when she'd bandaged her arm?

To keep his mind off sex, Harry scrubbed her odor off his hands with dish soap and followed with a slice of onion to be safe. The pungent veggie brought tears to his eyes. He sniffed, rubbing his nose against his shoulder.

When his meal dinged, he fixed June a plate with chicken, potatoes and beans. Her favorites. As he waited, he cracked the window over the kitchen sink and listened for any signs of shifters outside the house.

Nothing but tree frogs and birds. He poured two glasses of milk and went to fetch June.

He'd been to her neat-as-a-pin house any number of times. It was surreal to walk down the hall knowing everything was different. June wasn't the same, obviously, since he got hard as steel when he thought about kissing her. But the more he considered the day's events, the more he realized her mannerisms, her way of speaking, her inherent bossiness—her dislike for profanity—were all Sandie.

While he hadn't had any complaints about Sandie the past eight years, her new appearance roused him in a way her previous one hadn't. His feelings for her were being transformed by a major dose of lust.

If that made him a shallow bastard, nobody ever said wolves were profound.

Her bloody dress was draped over the foot of her bed. The bathroom door stood open, lights out. No sign of her in the Florida extension, watering plants. He finally found her in the back parlor she'd converted to a craft room. The sink, fridge, counters and cabinets were organized with the supplies she used for potpourri and fussy stuff.

And, apparently, magic spells. His nose twitched at the odor of grapevine and herbs.

She was immersed in whatever she was doing, using a tiny ladle to sift green flakes onto an electronic scale. A book lay open on the counter. Muttering to herself, she bent forward to squint at the digital readout. A pair of jersey pants hugged the curves of her rear.

Harry swallowed.

“June.”

When she didn't turn, he advanced on her. “June, I heated you a plate.”

She lurched forward with an “eek,” bumping her skull on the counter. Her ladle flew one way; she flew another.

Harry caught her before she hit the floor, and his hands lingered after she gained her footing. Her fitted T-shirt was as blue as her eyes. He'd never seen her so casually dressed.

“You startled me.” She rubbed the top of her head where she'd hit the marble. “Don't sneak up on me like that, wolf man.”

“Your arm looks great.” He traced the nearly invisible scar that had recently been a claw slice. “You should patent that. You'd be rich.”

“I agree, we should go public with the fact we can magically heal cuts.” She pulled a face. Her other wrist was wrapped in a tan bandage. “Right after you wolf out on national TV, okay?”

“Touché.” He pretended he was fascinated by her healed wound as an excuse to keep touching her. “Are you ready to eat?”

“I'm overhauling my kit.” She inclined her head toward her giant purse on the next counter. “I need to be better prepared.”

“Can it wait?” He smiled. “You know I don't like to eat alone.”

Her eyelashes lowered as her gaze ventured down his torso. He hadn't put his shirt back on after their encounter.

“Hmm.” She wet her lips. “What are we having?”

If she kept looking at him like that, he'd be having her. She was clean now, her cut healed and her wrist taped. “Chicken, potatoes, beans.”

“I should finish up.” She plucked up the ladle and rubbed it with a cleaning wipe before hanging it on a swivel rack.

He caressed her arm. “This stuff isn't going anywhere. Come on. The food will get cold.”

She followed him into the kitchen, and he seated her at the dinette table where he'd enjoyed many a meal. Conscious of her stare, he slipped into his T-shirt. A gentleman did not come to the table bare-chested or wearing a hat.

Unless his companion was bare-chested, but she wasn't. More's the pity.

“Thank you,” she said as she rubbed her hands with an antibacterial wipe. He wasn't sure if it was for the food or putting on his clothes. “I checked my messages, by the way. My coven suspects I'm helping you, but they think we're long gone.”

“Are you being censured?” He set his plate across from hers. It didn't seem right that her friends would punish her for kindness.

“Not as of right now.”

“Good.” For several minutes, they tucked away leftovers in silence. The sound of forks on plates provided quiet background noise, along with the fridge's hum.

“Want anything else?” He rinsed his plate in the sink and reached for hers. When they had meals together, she cooked, he cleaned. Annette and the other ladies wouldn't let him lift a finger, but his relationship with Sandie had always been egalitarian. He didn't even mind that she went behind him and redid everything.

She swirled her milk, watching the liquid. “There's cake and ice cream. None for me, though. It's too late for sweets.”

It was never too late for her cake. He glanced around the kitchen until he spotted the tin. Harry cut himself a slice of the chocolate dessert and scooped vanilla ice cream on the plate beside it.

This time he sat beside June instead of across from her. In the other room the grandfather clock struck twelve. “Hey, it's your favorite time of day. The witching hour.”

A smile curled her lips. “You know I go to bed at ten sharp. I'm hardly ever awake at midnight.”

Yet here it was, and he hadn't seen her yawn for some time. “Can you turn people into pumpkins?”

“Myth.”

“Frogs?”

“Myth.” She rested her head on her hand and watched him enjoy the cake.

“Broom?”

“I use a vacuum.”

“For riding?” It wasn't much smaller than the Smart car.

“For cleaning the floor,” she said with a laugh. “It's bagless. Fancy, huh?”

He loaded the perfect-sized bite of cake, icing and vanilla on his fork. “Cake?”

“I'm full.”

“You know you want it.” And he knew it too. June had a sweet tooth to rival his own. “Just one bite. Open up.”

After a second, she complied. Their gazes met. He withdrew the fork from her mouth and deliberately licked the tines.

She exhaled, her eyelids lowering halfway.

Oh, yeah. After supper was the perfect time to finish what they'd started.

Harry took another bite, allowing his knee to brush her leg under the table.

“You're bossy,” she observed after she swallowed. “Why didn't I notice that before?”

He readied the fork with more cake. “What can I say? There are more things I want from you now.”

“Harry,” she began unsteadily, “we can't—”

He fed her more cake. She accepted it, desire warring with uncertainty in her expression.

What was she afraid of, sex with a shifter? No reason to be. His kind was devoid of STDs and unable to breed with humans. Shifters might get rowdy in the sack, but they didn't hurt their partners. They had more control than that; their painful teenage years saw to it.

If she was afraid of screwing up their friendship, that was plausible, but he didn't think it would happen. With few exceptions, his exes didn't become enemies. Some of his best customers were former dates and their families.

June was single, he was single. They were attracted. They liked each other. They trusted each other. They spent half of their free time together. They'd survived a near-death experience together. No reason they couldn't hook up.

He alternated bites between them, teasing with hers and making her work for them. By the time the cake was gone, she was practically sitting in his lap. Either she wasn't wearing a bra or it was a thin one, because it did nothing to conceal her nipples.

She clearly wanted to sleep with him. He intended to see she got what she wanted.

Harry circled the last bite around her. “Do we need another piece?” He'd go for whipped cream this time. And nothing else.

She licked a dab of icing off her lips. “You're a bad influence.”

He smudged ice cream on her cheek. “Oops.”

“You rat.”

When she raised a hand to wipe it off, he stopped her. “Let me.”

He leaned forward and licked the vanilla off her skin.

“Ohhhh, boy,” she said, “I already explained—”

He slid the last bite of cake in her mouth. After a moment, he pressed his lips against hers.

It didn't surprise him when she opened for him, the sweet flavors of cake and ice cream lingering on her tongue.

Harry took his time kissing her. Earlier, he'd been so excited, he'd had her on the counter before he'd given her a chance to adjust to the change in their relationship. Now he kissed and fondled, nothing heavy, learning her breathing, the sound of her heart. He rubbed her back, on top of the shirt. As long as he kept it light, she displayed no hesitation.

Encouraged, he drew her into his lap. He intended to place her legs to one side but she straddled him, her pussy close to his groin. His hands dropped to her hips, but he forced himself not to grind their lower bodies together. He began to caress her thighs through the thin jersey pants.

Her fingers threaded through his hair, and then one hand dipped beneath the neckline of his shirt in back. She rubbed his spine, her tongue winding around his. Her hips rolled against his cock as she reached farther down his back. Finally she tugged his shirt over his head.

He didn't return the favor. In fact he avoided the standard erogenous zones, concentrating on her legs, the back of her knees, her midriff and shoulders. He focused on kissing her, on seducing her instead of charging forward.

It wasn't easy. His cock was hard, throbbing like a bass drum. Something about June roused an aggressive streak in him that rarely emerged when he made love. With shifters, sometimes—you had to be firm if they were alphas and you didn't want them taking control.

Which he did not. That was a good way to wind up chained to a bed with a cock ring shoved over your genitals and a Polaroid camera capturing the moment.

Harry cupped June's face in his hands and delved deep with a kiss. She sniffed, fidgeted and drew back for a moment.

“Why do I smell onions?”

He bit back a laugh. “I sliced one earlier.”

She inspected his face, their eyes level. Her fingers twiddled the back of his neck. The elastic bandage on her wrist rasped against his skin. “This can't go any further.”

“You mentioned that.” He kissed her temple, blowing into her ear until she shivered. “Something about your cut getting infected.”

“And complications.”

“It's not complicated.” He nuzzled his way down her throat. “It's very, very easy. You undress me, I undress you, we go to the bedroom, where I—”

She palmed his mouth. “None of that.”

“Just sharing my thoughts,” he said, muffled. He thrust his tongue between two of her fingers, and she gasped before removing her hand.

His jeans constricted his cock, so he spread his legs to make space. He needed to get out of these pants. “Is there someone else?”

“No.” She continued to pet his shoulders, down his arms. If she were unwilling, she wouldn't be stroking his muscles and smelling like sin.

“Are witches celibate?” He pulled her forward until her breasts rubbed him, his fingers wrapped around her ribcage.

“No,” she said, her voice a little strained.

He drew his hands up her curves until his thumbs were almost touching her nipples. She was, indeed, without brassiere. “Then what's the problem, sweetheart? Do you think I only want one thing? Trust me, I like your cooking too.”

“You're ridiculous.” Her pale skin glowed with a blush.

He rubbed her nipples slowly, around and around. Her breasts were more than a handful, their bouncy softness the perfect receptacle for his head. Or his cock. “We've been friends a long time. I'm willing to see where this goes.”

“It's not that.”

“I'll still respect you in the morning.”

“I never considered that you wouldn't.”

“Then you've considered it.” He leaned forward and latched on to the tip of her breast, moistening the fabric. He wanted her to take her shirt off herself. She'd be more willing to follow where he led if she thought she was picking the path.

“Ahhh.” She arched her back, her hands digging into his hair. He responded by biting down, increasing the friction. Her hips rocked against him, so he dropped one hand to knead her cushy ass. This position had definite possibilities.