Jodi_ByTheLight (16 page)

“Yes.”

“How does that work, being wolves and being a couple? I mean did you guys shift and go run together at night?”

He grinned. Ava made it sound so simple, so right. So completely unlike Laura and how she viewed being a werewolf.

“Laura never shifted in front of me the whole time we were together. I’m not sure she shifted at all. She said she despised being a wolf.”

“Can you do that, prevent shifting?”

“There is something you can take to stop yourself from shifting, but the side effects are too dangerous.”

“Why did Laura despise being a wolf?”

“She said it was uncivilized. She liked herself in human form where she could show off her beautiful clothes and jewelry that I bought her.” He shook his head. “Laura always worried about what others thought of her if she didn’t wear the very best.”

“How did she try to get you killed?”

“I came in late one night after having busted some werewolves making crystal meth. I walked into the kitchen to grab a sandwich when Laura called to me from the bedroom. The lights were off, which I thought was weird because Laura always kept a nightlight on.”

“The second I walked through the bedroom door, a baseball bat hit me across the chest. I dropped to my knees and two guys jumped me.” He looked down at Ava’s white-knuckled grip on his hand. He held her hand against his scarred cheek.

“Right before I passed out I looked up. Laura was standing there looking down at me with nothing in her eyes. Not love, not hate, just emptiness. Later, I found out that the two guys were looking to collect on a very large debt she’d run up at the jewelry store owned by an Italian guy who happened to be connected to the mob.”

“I assume you had no idea she’d done that.”

He snorted. “I had no clue. She was given a choice of returning the jewelry or they would take my life. She chose to keep the jewelry.”

“What a fucking bitch.” She growled.

“I was harder to kill than an average human. After they left me for dead, I lay on the floor for days, my body knitting its bones back together. It took about a week until I was able to walk, another month to be completely healed.”

“Where the hell was Laura?”

“I found out later she had been shacked up at her lover’s house waiting for me to die in order to inherit my stuff. When I didn’t die, it put a kink in her plans.”

“Why the hell didn’t you kill her?” She jumped to her feet. “I would have.”

Damon stood, a little surprised by her anger. “It wasn’t worth it. When I was healed, I found out my Pack had kicked me out for not showing up for work.”

She jerked her head, her emerald eyes flashing with rage. “They fired you? You were left for dead in your own home! Did you tell them that?”

He laughed and pulled her closer. “It didn’t matter. Being kicked out meant one less tie to Louisiana. I left New Orleans and moved to Arkansas. I found a job with Barrett, the Arkansas Pack Master. Despite what the Louisiana Pack master told Barrett about me, Barrett still hired me.”

“You let Laura have the loft?”

“I was willing to pay whatever price to get her out of my life, for good.”

“I understand that.” Ava nodded against his chest. He tightened his arms around her. Talking about his past hadn’t hurt as bad as it once did. This time, it felt like he was finally ready to let that part of his life go.

“Is this the first time you’ve been back to Louisiana?”

“Yes. I should have come back sooner to see Granny.” He ran his hand through his hair. “She was the only one who took me in and cared for me. She didn’t expect anything in return.”

“She seems like a great judge of character.” She picked up his hand and kissed his palm. Immediately, his dick went on alert and hardened.

He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. “Why hasn’t a male claimed you?”

“I’m too hard to hold, I guess.” She sighed. “I’ve been told I’m stubborn.”

“You’re fucking perfect.”

“That’s because you’re the only male that is strong enough to handle me. Maybe this whole kidnapping thing is fate’s way of bringing us together.” Her breath was warm against his lips as pleasure curled low in his belly.

“You keep talking like that and I’m going to show you how good I can handle you.”

She rubbed her body against his. “Promise?”

Oh, yeah. He was definitely good and hard now with her lush curves pressing into his body.

She parted her lips as he covered her mouth and thrust his tongue between her lips. She was sweet and sexy and he knew he was never going to get enough of her taste, even if he lived a million years.

Her fingers threaded through his hair and rested at the nape of his neck as she clung to him. Digging his fingers into her hips he ground himself against her sweet spot. She moaned into his mouth.

“Ava.” He dragged his mouth away, licking and kissing a trail to her neck. He had long silenced those voices in his head telling him this was a bad idea.

“I want you inside me.” She jumped and wrapped her long legs around his waist.

“Anyone else touches you, I’ll kill him. You got that?” He held her face in his hands as his possessiveness burned through him.

***

“Housekeeping!” The female voice on the other side of the door was followed by three sharp knocks.

“Fuck,” Damon ground out between his clenched teeth. It looked like fate had other plans for them.

“Doesn’t look like we’re going to get to.” Ava rolled off him.

Damon stomped to the door and threw it open. “We don’t need anything, thanks.” He tried to shut the door, but the pudgy housekeeper put out her hand and stopped him.

“It’s after ten o’clock.”

“So?”

“Checkout is ten o’clock. I have to get this room ready for our next guest.” She lifted her chin and propped her hands on her ample hips.

“We’re not checking out.”

The housekeeper kept her eyes on him as she retrieved her clipboard off the cart. Glancing down, she nodded and thrust the clipboard under his nose.

“This says you are.”

“That’s wrong.” Damon glanced at the clipboard and shook his head. “We’ll go downstairs and straighten this out.”

The housekeeper nodded and pushed her cart to the next door.

“I’ve got to go downstairs.”

“I’ll go with you.” Ava grabbed the key and followed him to the elevator.

Damon frowned at the long line winding toward at the front desk. He tried walking up to the front of the line, but all that earned him was a, “You’ll have to wait your turn,” and a glare from the clerk.

After fifteen minutes of waiting, he finally reached the clerk.

Ava patted his arm. “Be nice.”

“I’m always nice.” He scowled.

“You’re never nice.” She gave him a wide smile.

“Yeah, you’re right. Maybe you should handle this.”

She winked and patted him on the butt. “Will do, sweetheart.”

“How may I help you, miss?” The desk clerk identified as Sam from his white name badge gave Ava a weary smile. With his index finger, he shoved his glasses up his large nose and sniffed.

“I think there has been a mistake.”

“Oh, well, let’s see what we can do to make you happy.” Sam smiled politely.

“We’re in room 351 and the house cleaning lady said that we were checking out today and, you see, that’s simply not the case.” She batted her long eyelashes at Sam. If Damon didn’t view the older man as a threat, he would definitely be pulling some alpha shit right now and ripping the man’s liver out.

Sam’s eyes hardly left Ava’s as his fingers clicked along the keyboard at lightning-fast speed. His smile faltered as the computer screen drew his full attention.

“Well, it says here that you two paid cash for two nights when you arrived. If you would like another night, we could definitely arrange something.” The man looked at Ava and his smile returned.

Ava turned to Damon and he dug his wallet out of his back pocket. “How much?”

“One hundred and sixty-nine dollars.”

His head jerked up. “One hundred and sixty-nine dollars? I paid that much for both nights we stayed.”

Sam gave him an apologetic look. “I understand, sir, but that was our weekday rate. The one-hundred-and-sixty-nine dollar rate is our weekend rate. They are having some kind of erotic writer’s convention down the street, and we’ve almost got the whole hotel booked.” Sam looked over his shoulder. “You know, you two were lucky. In fact, the majority of the people behind you are probably not going to be able to get a room.”

“I don’t have that much cash.” He frowned.

“What about a credit card? I saw where you reserved the room with a MasterCard. If you’d like us to run it, I’d be happy to do that.”

Closing his wallet, Damon shoved it back into his jeans pocket and grabbed Ava’s hand. “I’m going to have to say no. We’re trying to get out of debt, and I hate using a credit card. Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky at blackjack.”

“Yes, sir, but there might not be a room available if you wait any longer.” Sam frowned, looking from them to the computer screen.

“We’ll take our chances.” Damon spoke over his shoulder as he pulled Ava through the crowded line.

Once they were alone on the elevator, she turned. “Okay, what was that about?”

“I can’t use a credit card. It can be traced to our location.” He stepped off the elevator and hurried down the hall. The housekeeper’s head popped out the door a few rooms down, and she gave them the stink eye before they disappeared into the room.

Damon pulled out his duffle bag and began shoving all of their stuff into it.

“What do we do now?” She gathered their toiletries from the bathroom.

Damon was already dialing his cell phone when she came out of the bathroom.

“I’ll call Jayden to see if we can crash in his room tonight.” After a few rings, it went straight to voicemail. Cursing, he left Jayden a brief message.

“We can’t stay here.” Damon grabbed her jacket and handed it to her. “Let’s go get something to eat while we wait on Jayden to call back.”

***

Ava peeked over her plastic-cover menu at Damon. He had been silent since they sat down at the diner.

Biting her lip, she lowered her plastic menu. “Damon?”

“Yeah?” He didn’t take his eyes off the menu.

“Do we have enough money to eat?”

“Yes, Ava, get whatever you want. I should have brought more money with me for the room, but I hadn’t anticipated some unexpected expenses.”

Her stomach fell at the tense tone of his voice. She was the unexpected expense. She shoved her menu away, not even hungry anymore.

“It’s because I had to buy some clothes, isn’t it?”

He lowered the menu until their eyes met. “This isn’t your fault so don’t start blaming yourself.”

“Then you stop blaming yourself for not having enough cash.”

He stared at her for a couple of seconds before his lips twitched, breaking out into a grin. “Deal.”

He reached for her hand across the table. “When Jayden calls back, I’ll see about us staying with him. Although I don’t know how he’ll feel about sleeping on the couch in his own room.”

“You’re kicking him out of his bed?” She gave him a droll look.

“Yep, so I can get you in it.” He brought her fingers to his sensual mouth, kissing each fingertip, making her stomach purr with desire. It amazed her that a man could have so much control over her body.

“Can I take your order?”

Damon slowly looked up at the waitress. “Fuck.”

***

Damon couldn’t believe he was looking into the pale blue eyes he’d once thought he’d loved. Oh, how wrong he’d been. Now, it was like looking at a perfect stranger.

“Hello, Laura.” He could smell Ava’s possessiveness pouring off her as she glared at Laura.

“Damon.” Her voice was but a whisper as her hollow eyes shone with surprise. Something similar to pity swirled in his stomach at her gaunt appearance. What had happened to the vivacious girl he had once known?

“I didn’t know you were back in Louisiana.”

“I’m not. Just passing through.” He shrugged and turned his gaze back to Ava. His heart softened. She sat there, her dark green eyes sparkling like emeralds with banked anger.

“Laura, this is Ava.”

“You’ve mated.” If it were possible, Laura paled even more.

“Yes.” Ava threaded her fingers through his.

He stilled. Though it was a lie, Ava spoke it with such conviction that he almost let himself believe it might happen.

He wanted nothing more than to jump the table and mount Ava, right here in front of everyone.

“I’m glad to see you happy, Damon.” Laura’s voice brought his attention back to the situation and away from the throbbing erection in his pants.

“What are you doing here, Laura? Why aren’t you living in New Orleans?” He scowled.