Reluctant (3 page)

Sid Rosario, a man she’d met just hours before and had just wanted a brief, fun fling with, was her fucking mate. How could she not have known? The neutralizer in
Nautica
, the clove cigarette and her damned lust for this guy had totally blinded her.

“Holy shit,” he said wondrously as his knees buckled and he stumbled back to the bed, collapsing on it, still embedded inside her.

“Holy shit?”
She tried to move away but he wouldn’t let go of her and her legs weren’t working well anyway. “Is that all you’ve got to say? You’ve just claimed me!”

“Why are you so pissed off? You wanted me to fuck you,
Layla
. And thank god, because we’ve found each other.”

“I don’t want to be found.” She heaved a sigh as she felt his feelings as acutely as her own. “I just wanted to have a fun few weeks with a hot guy from out of town. I have plans, Sid.”

He frowned and annoyance burst through her as she found that attractive too. His frown changed into a wicked grin and she groaned. Damn it, he’d feel her through the bond. Know how much, even as she was livid, she wanted him to take her again and again after that.

“Oh ho!
This bond link thing is pretty cool. Well, we can play the ‘fuck the hot stranger from out of town’ game all you like, honey.
Because you can’t buck reality.
You’re my mate. And I’m yours and you just got served!” He chuckled. “I wasn’t expecting it either but I’m not going to lie and say I’m disappointed. You’re beautiful and you smell heavenly. I look forward to getting to know my wife better.”

Her legs had finally begun to work again and she scrambled away from him. “I’m not your wife!” She moved to grab her panties and her pants and began to get dressed.

“You are my wife. Look,
Layla
, I get that you’re surprised. I am too. But you’re a
werewolf,
you know the realities of our existence. You can’t pretend away a mate bond. Especially not once the claiming occurs. Now that I’ve come inside you, we’re united. You need my presence, I need yours. And we’ll need the tri-bond to protect you.”

The tri-bond?
Oh hell no. He not only wanted to claim her entire life but she’d have to have sex with some male of his choosing too? “No, Sid. I’m not going to let this stupid metaphysical shit call a halt to my life. I like my job. I like my condo and I’m not going to move to Arizona, join another Pack and give up everything because I’m a female wolf.”

“
Layla
, you don’t have to move to Arizona. I realize your family is here. I’m a fifth son, it’s not like I can’t move. I paint, my life is easily transportable. And I’m not asking you to give up your life or your job. I haven’t seen your condo but we may need to get something bigger so I can have studio space. I’m a male werewolf but I’m not a caveman. I don’t want to take over your life. I want to share it.”

Why was he so fucking reasonable? Their whole lives as they knew them were now over.

“Look, I need some time, okay? I need to think and I can’t do it here.”

She got her bra and shirt back on and pulled on her pants, unable to locate her panties. Needing to escape and think, she headed for the door, but he moved to it first. “Where are you going?”

“Home.
I’m going to my condo. I need to think. Please.”

“Let me drive you.”

“No. I’m not that far, I’ll catch a cab out front. I know the number here, I’ll call you. Just give me some space.”

“Space?
Layla
, you’re my mate. The claiming has been made. This isn’t something you can think away.”

“Look,” she struggled to speak without her voice breaking as her world crashed in around her. “I have plans! I can’t think here with you…with your scent and your taste in my mouth. It’s too much and I have to work this out.
On my own.”
She looked up into his eyes. “Please.”

His face softened and he pushed a tendril of her hair out of her face. “Wait,” he ordered, and grabbed a piece of paper from the desk and shoved it at her. “Give me your address and your phone number. I’ll give you until Sunday. You’ll need the tri-bond. The longer you wait, the more dangerous it becomes.
For both of us.”

Sighing, she took the paper and wrote the info down. “I’m in Queen Anne, just like two miles away.”

“I’m a very patient man,
Layla
, but even I have limits. Neither of us was expecting more than a brief thing, I know that. But you can’t fight biology and if you look into yourself, you’ll find you don’t want to. I’m a good man. I don’t want to control
you,
I want to share my life with you.”

Kissing her softly, he stepped away from the door to let her go. She felt how difficult it was for him and before she could stop herself she reached out and caressed his face. “Thank you.”

Quickly, before she could change her mind, she left and headed home.

* * * * *

And ended up feeling like shit all day as she didn’t answer her phone and tried to think.
But she couldn’t think about anything other than Sid. The way he felt against her, the way his mouth felt on her, the way his cock filled her. More than the sex, she wanted to smell him, to be with him, to know him. And even though she’d showered off the scent of their sex, the claiming and their bond changed her essential scent subtly and each time she breathed in she was reminded of him.

Damn it! She didn’t want to be subsumed into someone else’s life. Okay, so she didn’t want to want it. But now that she’d been with Sid, she wanted him in her life.

After a day of pacing and reaching to call the Alexis about a thousand times, she drove to Ballard and showed up on
Tia’s
doorstep.

“Whoa! What happened to you last night?”
Tia
grinned and let
Layla
into her house. “You’re not the one-night-stand type and oh fuck…”
Tia’s
grin fell away and her eyes widened as she scented the bond.

“Yes. Oh god,
Tia
. What am I going to do?”
Layla
tossed herself onto the couch.

“What do you mean? Did he treat you badly? That fucker, I’m going to track him down and rip out his throat!”

Layla
stopped her whining and looked at her best friend and started to laugh. “No! He’s…he’s great.
Sweet, really good in bed, funny.
He’s good with the bond. He’s happy about it even.”

“Wait, you’re bitching because of what, then?”

“
Tia
, I have
plans
! They don’t include being mated to a painter! I need to mate with a stockbroker. We’ll have two children and live in Maple Leaf or Ravenna. In like, five years.” Even as she said it she knew she didn’t mean it, never had, really.

Tia
snorted and rolled her eyes. “
Layla
, those plans are not you. You
think
they’re you because that’s your own way of being different from the other Wardens. I’ve known you since we were nine years old. You’re only button-down on the outside. Not
that stockbrokers
can’t be hot, but your mate isn’t one. God, some wolves wait twenty years past maturation to find a mate and you find one at twenty-five and you’re complaining? He’s hot! And he’s good with the bond? And anyway, how did you get away? ’Cause it’s hard for me to see a werewolf male just letting you walk away.
And oh my, the tri-bond?”

The tri-bond was a ritual whereby a third wolf, a relation of the male mate, or a
Packmate
who ranked higher than he did, formed a bond with the female. It created what was termed as an anchor bond for two important reasons. To keep the female from losing herself in the emotional and hormonal surge of the claiming and also to keep her alive should something happen to her mate. The bond between mates was so strong that should something happen to the male, without the tri-bond, the female would die too. It was sort of a stabilizing connection. Like a surge protector, her brother
Cade
always said.

Layla
let her head fall back against the couch cushions with a groan. “I know! Look, I’m not saying a threesome with two hot dudes is a bad idea in general. But I just met Sid and now I’m going to have to have sex with one of his relatives or something? Ugh! Adam? No, no, no! I can’t have sex with someone you’ve had sex with.”

“Okay, so I get the point about Adam. But you know you need the tri-bond to anchor you. You
know
that. It’s not random
sex,
the anchor is a necessary thing. Without him you’ll slip into insanity and that’s no joke. The longer you wait, the worse it’ll get.”

“Why now? God,
Tia
, I just got this promotion and my life is going so well. This just complicates everything!”

“Oh shut up!”
Tia
got in her face. “You are
not
this person. Stop whining. Accept reality. He’s your mate.
Period.
And you need the tri-bond or you’ll both be in trouble because once you go, he’ll lose it too.
And for what?
This stupid, selfish tantrum?”

Layla
looked up at her friend, stunned. Stung, she pushed up off the couch and headed for the door. “I shouldn’t have come here. I expected you to support me.”

“Support you in what? Being stupid? Not dealing with the thing you need to keep you from going insane? I
am
supporting you, Lay. This guy is your mate. You said yourself that he’s funny, good in bed and nice. He’s fine with the bond. You’re
lucky
! Instead of dealing with it like you usually do, you’re throwing a tantrum. You can’t change anything with this
behavior
. This drama queen thing is a sign.”

“A sign?
What are you talking about?”

“The longer you go unanchored the less rational you’ll be. Look at yourself! You’re a take-charge person. You rarely ever whine about things. You deal.
Period.
I’m worried about you,
Layla
. You aren’t yourself right now.”

“I’m fine.” Taking satisfaction in the sound of the door slamming behind her, she left.

Chapter Three

Layla
stomped out to her car and drove away. She headed east and tried to think about everything that had happened. She’d worked so hard to advance at her job. It was difficult being taken seriously as a woman in her field. And she was young, another thing she’d had to overcome. A curvy red-haired woman who was young and attractive wasn’t something she complained about being in her day-to-day life, hell, it opened doors for her,
she
knew that. But it was hard to get past in the corporate world.

Three days before she’d been focused on her career and there had been nothing but clear pavement between her and another promotion. But with a mate she now had to navigate around how yet another person would react to her choices. It was hard enough dealing with her mother who never stopped complaining that she spent too much time on her career and not enough time on her family. Now she had to deal with a man. Not a man,
the
man.

And here she was with a big old wrench thrown into her plans by that man! As it was, all she could think about was Sid Rosario. She wondered if he was upset or hurt by her running off. She didn’t want this. She wanted her old life where she was free to stay late at work, free to work on a Sunday, free to get up and work in the middle of the night if she needed to.

She wasn’t some human who had no idea what she was in for. She was born a wolf, had seen wolves around her mate and watched their lives change in revolutionary ways. Was she ready for that? Did she even want to be? Was she ready for the level of dedication and involvement from her mate? Her DNA was now altered with his claiming of her. She was changed forever.

Frustrated and frightened, she slammed a palm against the steering wheel.

She needed to run. Running always calmed her, and she felt her wolf begin to agitate within her, needing release. Maybe she could think of a way around this mess if she could get a little bit of calm and stop obsessing about Sid for a few minutes.

Pulling her car onto a side road near where
Cade’s
new house in the woods was, she hid her things in the wheel well and went to the tree line to shed her clothing. The scent of the wild teased her senses, soothed her as she fell to her knees and let her wolf take over her body.

Her humanity slid away as her fur rose and the world was black and white and
gray
and yet sharp and vivid. The scent of her surroundings painted the air—the moss on the trees, the mushrooms in the dead tree trunk, the squirrels and the rabbits that scurried out of the way as they scented her.

Nose up, she drew in the universe through her senses and the world was suddenly right again. There, covered in a pelt coppery and fiery red and gold, things were simple again.

And she ran.

* * * * *

Sid hung up the phone, pissed off. He’d been trying to call
Layla
for the last day and a half and even had showed up at her place, and there was no sign of her. Her scent, now
their
scent, was cold enough that he could tell she hadn’t been around since early the day before.