About Face (Wolf Within) (21 page)

His face under the dim pub lights was shadowed and mysterious. I had no idea whether he had a point or was full of shit, and the last thing I wanted to do was think about it.

But his words ate at my conscience like corrosive acid. Damn him anyway.

Chapter 12

Blankets and a pillow were piled on the end of one of the sofas when I walked into Murphy’s apartment. He sat at the other end, a cup of coffee cradled between his palms.

“I’ll sleep out here tonight,” he informed me as he stared into his coffee. He lifted his gaze to find mine. “I changed the sheets.”

A flush burned my cheeks. I locked the door and shrugged off my leather jacket. I tossed it and my purse onto the other sofa and took a deep breath.

“Why do you fight the conspiracy?” I worried my lower lip between my teeth, and he watched me but didn’t say anything. “You know why I do?”

He shrugged, but I could tell by the tautness of his shoulders that he listened.

“I fight it so that bond mates won’t run out of time like we did with ours. So that nobody has to feel the way we felt when they died.”

“Yeah,” he said as he clutched his coffee cup.

“Ever since Jason recruited us I’ve felt righteous about it. Terrified and reluctant sometimes, too, but above it all I’ve thought I’ve been doing the right thing.”

“You have been, Stanzie.”

“No. No, I don’t think so. I don’t want any part of revealing the Pack to the Others. I don’t want to take over the world. I just want to live in my part of it without having somebody kill the people who mean the most to me. Paddy said if you support one part of something, you support it all, and he’s right. We can’t just pick and choose which part of the movement we’re for.

“I’m so naive, I never even suspected there was something like Pack First. I never thought the conspiracy—the Guardians—came second, as a response to something else. Because that’s how it happened, isn’t it? People didn’t just wake up one morning and think, Oh, hell, we’ve got way too many young Pack members with college educations and decent jobs these days, better start murdering some of them.

“Pack have been encouraged to go to college and get good jobs. They didn’t just decide to do that on their own either. This has been going on for years, and we only know the tip of the iceberg.

“And we’re going to let it tear us apart, aren’t we? Because I can’t come to grips with the enormity of the whole thing, I’m going to concentrate on my fucking bruised ego and let it kill what we have, aren’t I?”

“You just need time to think, Stanzie. To sort yourself.” Murphy’s voice was low.

“What if we don’t have time? What if we run out before I figure things out?” Tears trembled on the edges of my lashes, and I blinked them away. “I’m scared, Murphy. Scared of being alone, scared of being with you because you might leave me again. I don’t know what to do.”

He was off the sofa in a heartbeat, and in the next I was in his arms. I ran my fingers across his face and traced the bristly outlines of his goatee.

“Everything’s so different.
You’re
different.”

He closed his fingers around mine. “You don’t like the goatee?”

“It makes you look dangerous. Like a stranger.”

“I’m not a stranger.” He kissed my palm and then my lips. He had such a wicked mouth. When I opened mine to allow his tongue access, he groaned deep in his throat.

The kiss was slow, and his lips burned against mine as he murmured my name. I brushed my fingers over the planes and angles of his face. I rarely touched his face, afraid he’d flinch away from the intimacy, but tonight I didn’t care. There was too much at stake to let anything come between us anymore.

We pressed tightly together, his erection hard against my lower belly, and I slid one hand down between his legs and made him groan again. His eyes were dark with desire, and when I walked toward the bedroom, he followed.

I peeled my clothes off as I went, and so did he. By the time we fell onto the bed together, we were gloriously naked.

His skin was hot, and I raked my nails down the broad expanse of his back as his muscles contracted in reaction to my touch.

He nipped my earlobe and then darted his tongue in and out of my ear with a teasing rapidity. He knew just what drove me wild.

I closed my fingers around his cock and positioned him so that the tip nudged against my warm wetness.

“I want to go slow,” he protested as he tried to move my hand, but I wrapped my legs around his waist and guided him into me so I could feel his hotness inside me.

He groaned again, but didn’t resist when I thrust myself up against him and forced him to join my rhythm. When he whispered something in Irish, I grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled to get his attention.

“Say it to me in English!” Another yank of his hair. His body tensed with pain and passion, and he grinned against my ear before he bit it. Hard.

“I love you. I love being inside you. I love feeling your legs around my waist and the way you say my name deep in your throat. I love you so much, Stanzie. I’m yours. I—oh, God, I love you!” He rolled me over so I was on top and cupped my face with his hands.

My hair brushed his shoulders, and he shivered, his expression full of delight and wonder. There comes a time during every sexual encounter between a Pack woman and a Pack man when our eyes change and our wolves awaken.

As I stared into Murphy’s dark eyes I saw them change. First, they began to glow and then they lightened from dark brown to golden amber. He became all at once mysterious and yet so very familiar.

“Ah, your eyes are so beautiful,” he whispered and I knew mine had changed to blue silver. I didn’t know if it was magic, science or some sort of strange combination, I only knew it felt right.

He skimmed his fingers down my spine and back up again as I leaned down to kiss him.

I rocked back and forth on top of him until his chest gleamed with sweat, and I licked it off. He tasted spicy, like Pack. I growled softly as he bucked beneath me and rolled so that I was pinned beneath him again, and he buried his face in the space between my shoulder and throat.

“Stanzie.” I’d never heard him say my name with such perfect longing before, and then he went still against me. He lifted his head so he could see my face. “This is all right, isn’t it?” Doubt and uncertainty filled his dark eyes.

I knew he was afraid I would get mad at him for this and accuse him of taking advantage of me as I had before.

“Liam Murphy, if you stop now, I’ll kill you.” I was so close to coming, and it was torture to be so still. I tried to move beneath him, but his weight held me down.

“Well, sure, you like it in the moment, woman.” He gazed down at me, and I saw how much I’d hurt him, and my heart clutched in my chest.

“I love you,” I whispered, and a wistful smile curled the edges of his mouth as if he didn’t quite believe me. “I love you.” I said it again and pulled him down so I could prove it with a kiss. After that, things got exquisitely hazy.

Spent and exhausted, we curled together beneath the sheets, his arm across my waist, my butt snuggled against his groin. His breath on the back of my neck was warm, and it was the last thing I remembered until morning light flooded the bedroom.

* * * *

I think it was the smell of frying sausage that pried me from sleep, but once awake I stretched into the sunshine bathing the bedroom through the open curtains.

Murphy’s side of the bed was empty, but I could still smell him and see the indent of his head against the pillow. I hugged the pillow tightly to my chest and inhaled his scent.

When I went into the bathroom, I saw by the damp towels on the rack he’d been there before me. I marveled at how deeply I must have slept, because I hadn’t heard a thing.

“Last night was probably the best sleep I’ve gotten in months,” I announced when I walked into the galley kitchen in my bare feet, my hair still wet from the shower.

He had his back to me as he poured himself a cup of coffee, but when he turned, he revealed his smooth and shaved face. No more goatee.

My heart jolted. Here was my familiar Murphy. He even wore a t-shirt I remembered. His bond pendant gleamed around his throat, and I thought I would either die or burst into tears for a moment. Everything got very bright and hectic as if I’d been seeing the world in black-and-white and miraculously could now see color.

“Is it your wolf?” He was at my side in an instant, alarm making his voice deep.

“It’s you,” I managed. “You shaved your goatee.”

He tweaked the tip of my nose with his finger, which startled me. He never did playful things like that.

“Let me get you a cup of coffee.” As he squeezed by me to get to the cupboard, he snaked his arms around my waist from behind and gave me a gentle hug.

Murphy was never openly affectionate like that. He touched me either to calm me down or when we were in bed together.

I guessed things would change now he knew I loved him. Maybe he’d been as starved for casual touch as I had been, only afraid I’d reject him. Maybe it wasn’t that he preferred to touch first, but that he didn’t want to impose himself?

I turned around and hugged him hard, and he was stiff for a moment but then relaxed into me. He
was
hungry for touch—I could feel it. What idiots we’d been.

I opened my mouth to tell him this, and my damn cellphone chirped.

“Stanzie.” Jason Allerton sounded more than a little ticked off when I answered. I’d called him when I’d arrived at the airport, and he’d asked me to keep in touch every day, and obviously I had not. Shit.

“Jason,” I blurted in total shock. Behind me, Murphy nearly choked on a mouthful of coffee and hastily set his mug on the counter. Eyes narrowed, I knew he would listen in to the conversation. Pack hearing made eavesdropping on phone conversations a snap.

“You sound surprised to hear my voice.” I could see Jason’s sardonic expression in my mind’s eye, and winced.

I floundered for an excuse and came up with a lame one, but I only had seconds. “It’s just that it must be the middle of the night where you are.”

“Wrong,” he corrected. “It’s a little after nine in the morning. I’m in London having breakfast before I head for Heathrow. One of the UK Councilors was returning home, and I decided to hitch a ride. I’m due to board a flight for Dublin in three and a half hours, and I would like you and Liam to pick me up at the airport this afternoon at two thirty.” He gave me the particulars—which terminal and where—but I barely listened because of my struggle to draw a deep breath. Panic squeezed my throat nearly shut, and black spots danced before my eyes.

He could not come here now. Nothing was settled, everything was a riotous mess, and he’d make me tell him the truth—I just knew it. I could not deliberately lie to a Councilor.

“I’m sorry I haven’t called you like you asked, but I don’t know why you have to come here. I haven’t done much. The reason I haven’t called is because I’ve been working things out with Mur—”

“Constance.” He used my full name. That couldn’t be good. “I’m coming. There are things we need to discuss, and I prefer to do them in person. I’ll see you this afternoon.” The phone went dead, and I shook it as if I could make him reconnect, but it was useless.

I met Murphy’s gaze with my own.

“Shit,” I said. He opened his mouth to say something hopefully more helpful, but the street door buzzer sounded, and I almost shrieked aloud.

Murphy moved for the security panel by the front door and pressed the intercom button. “Yes?”

“Liam, it’s Etain Feehery. Buzz me up.”

“Shit.” It was Murphy’s turn to swear, but he pressed the button to unlock the street door and undid the locks on the apartment door so he could have it open by the time Etain Feehery, whoever the hell she was, arrived.

When she breezed into the apartment, I recognized her immediately as the woman from An Puca who had asked me if I’d heard the one about Mozart being Pack.

Her red-brown hair fell in attractive waves to her shoulders, and she wore tight jeans and a hand-knitted sweater. I recognized the pattern. Paddy had worn a similar one in Connecticut during my tribunal. I suspected she was a fabulous knitter and making and selling sweaters was her contribution to the pack and their funds.

Or maybe not.

Power surrounded her and made a path in front of her. Murphy stepped out of her way automatically, and I moved, too, when she looked at me, but instead of away, I moved forward.

“Ah, Stanzie, hello to you. Liam, your bond mate’s one hell of a harpist. You should have heard her put Declan Byrne to shame with her clever rendition of
Carolan’s Farewell
. Brought a tear to my eye, it did.”

“Etain,” Murphy began, but she held up a hand, and Murphy fell silent. Her pack ring glittered under the muted track lights.

“This is a serious conversation we’re having, and I’m thinking we’d best use titles, Advisor.”

“Councilor Feehery,” Murphy corrected himself, and I paled. She was a fucking Councilor? Holy shit. “Would you like some coffee?”

“I wouldn’t mind. Add a wee shot of Jameson’s, too, please.” Councilor Feehery strode to one of the sofas and sat. She patted the cushion beside her, and reluctantly I moved to sit beside her.

“I served on the UK Regional Council for nearly ten years before I was tapped for the Great Council,” she told me, and my heart sank. She served on the Great Council. We were so screwed. “Have you got your eye on the Regional Council, Advisor?”

“I can barely handle being an Advisor,” I muttered, and Murphy dropped a spoon in the kitchen. I couldn’t help it. It was the truth. Advisors worked for Councilors. They did the legwork and gathered facts. Councilors decided what to do with the evidence. I was not ready for that responsibility. At all.

“Ah, you’re new at it. But you’re good from what I’ve been hearing.” The Irish lilt in her voice was pronounced, and I had to struggle to keep up. I wondered if my New England American accent sounded flat and dull to her ears, and decided I didn’t care. I had more important things to think about than frigging accents. Concentrate.