There's Something About Werewolves: Seven Brides for Seven Shifters, Book 1 (10 page)

After the adrenaline eased a bit he spoke. “Stay.” She opened her mouth to argue but he cut her off. “I’m asking you to stay.”

Her voice raised an octave on a wave of incredulity. “After that show of alpha male idiocy you’re asking me to stay?” She emphasized “idiocy” and “asking”.

Why did women always fixate on the wrong things? He wanted her to stay. That was where her focus should be.

Time for a redirect.

“There are a lot of reasons for you to stay. Not the least of which, if you go, Nox won’t forgive himself for jacking up your life and leaving it on the side of the road.”

“I’ll talk to him,” she said. Her breathing softened. “Him bringing us back together isn’t his fault. And we don’t need to be in the same house for me to be his godmother. I’m going to be there for him from now on.”

Oh shit, she hadn’t figured out Nox burned her house down yet. And Garrett sure as hell wasn’t going to shine a light on the fact. She walked over and plopped into one of the armchairs surrounding a small conference table. “I don’t know how it happened so fast but I love that kid, absolutely adore him. I’m not going anywhere.” On a glance at Garrett she clarified. “I mean, as far as Nox is concerned.”

Garrett nodded. He made his way to the row of windows facing the front lawn. “What if I say I like having you and Gran here as much as Nox does?” He glanced at her over a shoulder. She didn’t twitch. He looked back out the window.

“I miss feeling like a complete family.” He exhaled, slowly. “But let’s keep the focus on you. You need a safe place, somewhere that works without you having to run it. After all the craziness you’ve had to deal with these last three days you need the respite.” He turned and leaned against the sill. “You can rest here. I’ll make sure of it.”

She thought it over for a moment; her expression reflected the war waging inside her. Garrett had no idea which side of her won the battle but after a few moments she stood and crossed the room to stand in front of him. “Are you going to finish what you started this morning?”

He didn’t like the look on her face. His instinct prickled, telling him he’d fallen into a rival predator’s trap. “No,” he finally answered. “I’ll stay away from your bedroom.”

A deceptively soft sigh escaped her parted lips. She closed the distance between them to less than two feet. “That’s the problem, Garrett. Deep down in places I don’t talk about at parties, I want you to do it again.” She stepped forward, cutting the space between them in half. “I need you to do it again.”

Under other circumstances he’d have smiled when she quoted
A Few Good Men
, one of their favorite movies. Any other time they’d have laughed and exchanged lines back and forth. Not today. Not now that he’d pushed her too far. Not when the seductive scent of her desire called to him and he wanted to answer so badly. “I can’t, Lennox. We’re born once, die once, and marry once—”

“Because you believe we only truly fall in love once. I know your philosophy, Garrett. I also know how much you wanted me this morning. I heard you moan.”

He couldn’t deny it so said nothing.

She stepped closer and smoothed her palms over his tense stomach muscles. He froze. She slid her splayed hands slowly down his abdomen, over the front of his thighs and lower, until her thumbs skimmed the sides of his hardening cock. He growled her name in warning. She responded by taking the slow slide of her hands on a seductive trip up.

“You want it as much as I do, Anderson G. Westlake. Admit it.”

Tension stretched taut between them. Garrett had no intention of answering. If he knew Lennox at all, his silence would unnerve her and she’d back down. But the Lennox he knew had changed. Instead of shying away she manned up.

Garrett stared powerlessly down at her hands when the button of his jeans flipped open. His zipper followed, the sound of the zip lowering turned anticipation into torture. Pushing his fly apart, Lennox pressed her hand against the hard length of his desire and continued stroking down to cup his balls. Again he cursed himself for pushing her too far. She leaned into him and sighed.

Garrett closed his eyes, giving in to the pleasure of her hands on him. He wanted this. He did but… Damn her. The only weapon he had left, the acid edge of his anger, lashed out at her.

“Get your hands off my dick, Lennox.” He snarled with enough vehemence to send most people running.

“No,” she said, wrapping her hands around him like he wasn’t wearing underwear at all. “Your dick seems to want me even if you don’t.” She stroked her thumb over his tip. “I’ll do my negotiating with it instead of you.”

“Fuck.” He breathed the word out, then firmly grasped her shoulders and set her away from him. That done, he scrubbed a hand over the freshly shaven line of his jaw and forced himself to remember the reasons Lennox was off limits. Most of all he thought about the betrayal to his wife. Sex didn’t matter much. He’d had sex with a few women since Tina died. He’d admit it hadn’t been often because most women didn’t do it for him when compared to what he’d had with his wife, but he’d definitely had his baser needs taken care of. Sex had become a matter of maintenance, a stress reliever.

Garrett refused to waste the time or energy it’d take to convince himself intimacy with Lennox would count as sex. With her, it’d be an honest expression of affection turned to pure sensuality. Not only would sexing Lennox be infidelity to Tina’s memory, he wouldn’t be able to stop at one night. He’d crave Lennox in as many ways as illustrated in the Kama Sutra and he’d add a few extras along the way. In the doing and screwing he’d defile his principles and, when their affair ended, it’d destroy his son’s best chance at a mother’s love.

The perennial erection he’d been fighting since he’d first walked into the Peach Pit Diner deflated. For the first time in his life Garrett appreciated the word
flaccid
. He actually welcomed it.

Lennox’s eyes rounded. He’d shocked her with his control. Hell, he’d surprised himself. But she didn’t need to know that. “See. I don’t want you as much as you think.”

She shrugged. “Honestly, Garrett, I think the little guy is just cold.”

Little guy? Not likely. He looked into her eyes and something wicked glinted within their depths. Garrett braced himself as she leaned over, in slow motion, and stopped with her mouth no more than an inch from his crotch. Slowly her lips parted and she huffed a hot breath over his underwear. Then another. And a third. He’d used the same technique to warm his son’s hands when he’d taken a younger Nox ice-skating. He’d seen many mothers do it too. But Lennox didn’t have motherly motives. She intended to fuck him up.

His cock jumped as warmth tightened in his balls and spread through it. His erection pushed up into his waistband and tented his boxer briefs. Shit. He fisted his hands in her hair and brought her up, nose to nose. Lennox smiled in triumph.

“See,” she said, “the little guy was cold.” Holding his gaze, she pumped her hips against him. Garrett gritted his teeth. He grabbed her waist and stilled her with one arm, while he tugged her hair in warning with the other. It took everything in him to keep from smashing her against the glass window behind him and screwing her every which way until the moon came up.

“Are you going to keep talking that ‘little guy’ nonsense?”

Lennox made an innocent moue. “Well, Garrett, how am I supposed to know how big it is unless you put it in my hand or in my mou—”

Fuck it. He crushed her body tight to his and claimed her smartass little mouth. His tongue delved deep. She sighed into it, throwing her arms around his neck and meeting his tongue with demanding need of her own. He pulled away, sucking her swollen bottom lip between his teeth and tasting it. She moaned, grinding against him. He groaned in answer, covered her mouth again and reveled in her perfection. It felt natural to kiss her. Finally, after so many years of friendship their first kiss blew his mind. He wanted more and as long as Lennox shivered, soft and wet, in his arms, he’d gladly claim the rest of her.

He broke the kiss and forced her to look at him. Her lids fluttered, desire making them heavy. “Listen to me, Lennox.”

“No.”

“Listen.” He shook her as gently as his amped-up emotions allowed. She gazed at him with an expression so hot he forgot what he wanted to say. Instead he looked down at the full curves of her breasts. Taking hold of the hem of her shirt, he pulled it taut across her front until the twin mounds strained against the material. He caught her eye, moistened his bottom lip, then ran his gaze over her kiss-bruised mouth and down the column of her throat, returning to her breasts. Her nipples peaked as though begging for more than his gaze. They wanted to be suckled. He lowered his head and nipped one. Lennox moaned again, grinding her hips against him.

“Listen to me, Lennox.” She nodded in response, arching her spine to push her breasts into his face. He licked across her other nipple and she shuddered. “I can give you what you need. But you need to accept that it won’t end the way you want it to.”

He could’ve slapped her with less effect. Her eyes flared and she straightened in his arms. “When has it ever, Garrett?” She sighed bitterly. “When have things ever worked out the way I wanted them to?”

“If you know that, then what do you hope to gain from this? I’m not going to change my mind.”

“You’re such an arrogant asshole. Who said I want you to change your mind?”

“Then tell me what you want.”

“I want to know what it feels like to come with you inside me. I want to beg and moan and suck and love and be left wasted when you leave my bed.”

His cock jumped again, the erection becoming painful. Still they needed to work things out before they went any further. “If we do this, it’s no strings, Elle. We don’t make it anything more than it is. We let go when it’s time.”

Lennox looked away. “You’re ruining the moment, Garrett.”

He swayed with her body pressed to his. “Believe me when I say I’m going to tear your walls down. But I need to make it clear that it ends with us as friends, as though nothing has changed.” He cupped one breast in the curve, running from the tip of his thumb to the tip of his index finger. His hand shook with the strain but he wouldn’t go any further until they settled things. “In the end I want to see you with a man who can give you the life and love you deserve. I know I don’t show it but I do want that for you. Even if it’s with Ian.”

“Are you saying you’re going to stop warring with him?”

Elle never missed a thing. “Um yeah, I’ll try.” Like hell he would, but he could pretend for her sake. “Why haven’t you let him satisfy you?”

A range of emotions crossed her face, from confusion to longing. “Garrett, are you really going to let all this go to waste?” She maneuvered between them and flicked the waistband of his boxer briefs down to free him. Her hand closed around his cock like it belonged to her. And for as long as she wanted it to, it did. He covered her hand with his and guided it to stroke up and down his length.

Yeah, just like that.

He pumped into her hand, enjoying the sweetness of it and imagining how it’d feel, first, inside her mouth and then inside her sex. He quickly pressed the spot at the base of his shaft to keep from coming. Burying his face in her hair, he made a promise. “I’ve already told you I’m going to have you. We’re way past the point of no return. I’m going to do things to you that… Elle, you have no idea.” He purred the words into her ear.

She blushed. It looked good on her.

“So, help me out and answer my questions so we can get to it,” Garrett said. “Why not Ian?”

She curled her body away from him and looked down at his cock. A hint of pink tongue licked across her bottom lip. He shuddered, thinking about where he wanted it. “Shit, woman, don’t do that.”

She pouted ever so slightly. Not enough to annoy but more than enough to titillate. “Okay,” she said, “it’s because Ian loves me. Going to him for sex would be the same as committing to him. And if I’m not sure about my heart, it’ll hurt him.”

“Why aren’t you sure?”

A hint of sadness crossed her face. “Because I no longer trust my instincts when it comes to men. I get what I want mixed up with their intentions and I get hurt.”

“Then why let me, of all people, have you?”

She hesitated. Only the sound of her jagged breathing filled the room. “We’ve known each other for a long time, Garrett. Despite the way you hurt me, there’s a huge amount of trust between us. I can’t get that anywhere else. And…” She looked away.

“And…?”

“I’ve fantasized about being with you so many times. I don’t think I can move on without testing you out.”

She laughed at his quirked brow when he dryly intoned, “So you’re taking me out for a test drive?”

“Damn straight,” she said. “If I do all the things I’ve fantasized about doing with you, maybe I can get you out of my head and get on with my life.”

Get on with her life. Why did that sound so wrong? He wanted her to live her life. He truly did. “Let’s make a deal, Lennox. A no-strings deal. We look out for each other the way we always have, we comfort each other, listen to one another, and—”

“And what?” she breathed.

He stroked the curves of her hips with both hands. “And we fuck each other cross-eyed for as long as we both want it.”

She gripped his ass, drawing him closer. “There you go again with those words. No matter how close we get you keep me at an emotional distance. You say ‘fuck’ because it’s the harshest way to say it. If we make love, it means we’ve crossed the line.”

He ignored her words, not ready to admit she saw straight through him. “I can’t wait to hear these fantasies. And without a doubt I’m going fulfill every one of them.”

She threw her head back, closing her eyes for a moment. “The most important part is I don’t have the option of being with you. You’ve made that clear. It makes things less complicated in a strange way.”

He refused to deal with the implications of that confession either. When it came to Lennox he’d turned into a complete wuss. He wasn’t sure if this decision would make things less complicated or not. He didn’t care. His heart would always belong to his wife, but his body had needs only Lennox could satisfy. When the time came to let her go he’d do it. No hesitation. Keeping Tina as queen of his heart while taking Lennox’s love would be cruel. He couldn’t do that to his gorgeous little Elle. “Well, if you ever do choose Ian or anyone else, I’ll step aside because…”