Authors: Barbara Elsborg
Just One Bite (2 page)
Please.
That thought deserved another mental slap.
“So what’s going to happen?” Liv asked to humor him. “Am I
going to howl?”
He smirked. “I don’t know. Do you usually?”
She smothered her smile with a glare. “Will I be cute and
cuddly?”
His answer was a muffled laugh.
“How long will I stay a wolf?” she asked.
“A few hours maybe. Could be a lot less, could be a lot
more. New wolves can’t control their shifting. Older ones or purebreds, like
me, can shift anytime. Control’s something you learn. Like driving a car.”
Oh dear.
Liv had been driving a year before she
crashed the Land Rover.
Cal topped up her glass. “Women usually take longer to get
the hang of transforming.”
Liv bristled then, making sure he was watching, she lurched
off her stool and contorted her face as she began to writhe.
Cal jumped to his feet. “Don’t panic,” he barked. “Don’t
fight it, let it happen.”
Liv stopped moving. “I had an urge to dance.” She loaded on
the indignation.
He bit his lip and Liv knew he was trying not to laugh.
“Why don’t you do the wolf-thing first and show me how it’s
done,” she said.
She felt mean for suggesting it because in a minute he was
going to walk out of her apartment when nothing happened, oh, unless she was
supposed to pretend he’d changed. She could do that. Liv jumped down from her
stool and went round to him.
“Nice doggy,” she said, and patted him on the head. “Aren’t
you a cutie?”
Cal stared at her with his mouth open. “I haven’t changed
yet. And I’m not a cutie.”
“Oops.”
He began to unbutton his shirt.
Liz pressed her back against the counter. “Wha-wha…”
Bloody
helicopter
. “What are you doing?”
“If I shift in my clothes, I’ll tear them.”
“Right.”
Liv knew she should have shown him the door. Letting a
delusional stranger get naked in her apartment? What had happened to her brain?
She licked her lips, told herself not to watch and instead stared without
blinking. Tight, dark nipples, gently rounded pecs, ripped abs—did she mention
the really ripped abs?—that happy trail of black hair leading to—
Oh my
stars. What the hell is that?
Oh yes, she remembered.
Just.
She’d not seen many close up, but this one was rather
spectacular. Long and thick and—
“Don’t be scared,” Cal said.
Liv was intimidated, but not scared. It would fit—right?
What was the point of giving a guy a cock that was too big to put anywhere?
That would be such a sick joke.
Then in a flurry of movement, amid a series of stomach-churning
snaps and cracks, Cal turned into a big, black wolf.
“Oh my God,” Liv gasped. She looked around for Cal because,
seriously, somehow he’d done a trick with mirrors.
Bloody good magician.
Was
this being filmed? A camera hidden someplace? A TV crew lurking ready to
capture her reaction?
Laugh it off.
Liv tried. “Ha-aagh.”
I can’t. Not unless that strangled squeak counted.
The wolf tipped its head to one side, looked at her with
Cal’s dark eyes, and she sneezed. Liv began to hyperventilate because there was
no way this was a trick. She’d just seen Cal transform into a wolf. And what
would be the point in scaring her half to death if he wasn’t telling the truth?
She backed away to the other side of the counter, but there was nowhere to
hide, not from the truth.
Shit. Bugger. Bollocks.
There was a werewolf in her
apartment. And if he really
was
telling the truth, pretty soon there
would be two.
Liv went down like a stone.
Chapter Two
Cal shifted back and raced to the other side of the counter.
“Oh fuck.” He dropped to her side, brushed her sun-tousled…mmm…oddly cut hair
aside and patted her pale cheeks. “Liv?”
He’d anticipated a scream, not that she’d faint. Cal hadn’t
been able to think of a better way to prove he was telling the truth than to
transform, but maybe he should have thought harder. Christ, the whole thing had
gone tits up since their encounter this morning. He was winging this and not
doing it very successfully.
Liv opened her eyes and he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Where am I?” she gasped. “Who are you? Why are you naked?
Is this heaven?” Then she sneezed three times.
Cal had to fight the impulse to growl. “You know the answers
to those questions.”
Liv exhaled. “I dreamed you turned into a wolf.”
“I did.”
She swallowed hard. “You weren’t lying.”
“I never lie.”
Though if I’m being honest and there’s no
point lying to myself, I live a lie.
“You tell everyone you’re a werewolf?”
Cal’s lip twitched. Liv was smart. “No. I’m not supposed to
tell anyone.”
“So now you’ve told me, you have to kill me?” she whispered.
“Why would I do that?”
Oh God, don’t be too smart.
“In case I tell someone?”
Crisis averted.
“I trust you not to.”
He pulled her into a sitting position and, with reluctance,
let go of her hand. Her fingers felt so soft. Cal clamped his teeth together
and yelled at his twitching cock to calm down.
“You know my name.” She furrowed her brow. “You called me
Liv.”
“I heard someone say it.” Which wasn’t a lie.
“I can smell something burning.”
“Damn.”
Cal rushed back and pulled out the grill. Liv’s steak was
black and had shrunk to the diameter of a shot glass. He shoved his steak under
the heat and pulled on his boxers. When he turned, Liv was back on the stool.
She looked up so guiltily, he guessed she’d been staring at his ass. Cal
swallowed his smile.
He pushed the lump of charcoal toward her. “Done enough?”
“Let me check.”
He thought she was joking, but she cut the burnt offering in
half and inspected the interior.
“Perfect.” Liv smiled at him and his cock tented his shorts.
Fuck.
Cal wrestled his bloody steak onto a plate and sat on the
opposite side of the counter, hiding his erection.
“I’d check for a pulse on yours,” she said. “Might say ouch
when you cut it.”
At least she was joking and not curled up in a corner
babbling with fear. He couldn’t believe she’d let him into her apartment. Plan
F had been to knock her out and take her to his. He’d gotten nowhere with plans
A to D. E was going okay, so far.
Oh God, she was gorgeous. That short, tight red dress clung
to every curve, and Liv had lovely curves. He wondered when she’d figure out
that the dress needed to come off if she ever wanted to wear it again. It had
killed something inside Cal every time he’d seen anyone else touch her. If his
pack knew what an idiot he’d been agreeing to this, he suspected his position
as alpha would be under threat.
By the time Liv put down her knife and fork in the center of
her plate, she’d polished off two glasses of wine. When she reached for the
bottle, he moved it.
“It’s not going to help,” he said.
She cast him a pleading look.
“That’s not going to work either.” Though those puppy-dog
eyes definitely had an effect on his cock, but Cal wasn’t sure it could get
much harder.
“I don’t think I can wrap my head around this,” Liv said
with a groan. “I thought you were insane, and now I’m wondering if it’s me
who’s lost my mind.”
“It’s okay to be scared,” he said. “I’d be more worried if
you weren’t. I’m going to help you through this. That’s why I’m here.”
Not
for sex, but hey…
She stared at him. “If it happens.”
He met her gaze. “If it happens.”
When it happens.
It
had
to happen.
“Pros and cons?” she asked.
Cal sighed. That was easier to deal with than that further
truth—that he’d bitten her on purpose. He hadn’t planned it that way, he’d just
taken advantage of the opportunity. “Pros are super speed, super hearing, super
sex…nses.”
She snorted. “I didn’t miss that last one, super stud. What
else?”
He smiled. “You’re less likely to get sick. No more colds or
flu and you’ll heal very fast from even major injuries.”
“I’m never sick anyway.”
Yes, I know.
“You’ll be part of a great social network and have as many
friends as you can cope with.” And if any of his pack touched her, or even
breathed on her, Cal would kill them. Men or women.
“I have friends.”
Friends who Cal had carefully vetted and would continue to
do so. He didn’t want to cross the line from protective guy to controlling
bastard, but it was a fine balance for a werewolf, particularly a werewolf who
wasn’t living with his mate.
“You’ll stay looking young and you’ll live longer, and if
anyone annoys you, you can rip out their throat.”
Or I will.
He beamed.
Liv didn’t beam back. “Let me guess the cons. I’ll need to
comb my face, throw away my silver jewelry, fleas will love me and so will
stray dogs.”
Cal laughed as if she’d made a joke, but apart from the
fleas, she was right, though wolves groomed each other with their incisors not
combs, and Cal didn’t intend to let any stray dog roam within miles of her. She
was his. She just didn’t know it.
Yet.
Whereas he’d known it for a long time. This morning, when
she’d come bowling around the corner straight into him, the scent of her filled
his head and made the world spin faster for a moment. Cal wondered how he’d
managed to wait so long.
He put the box of chocolates he’d bought on the counter,
thinking it would raise a smile, but her face fell.
“I’m a sucker for a guy who gives me chocolates. But, oh
damn, this is going to hurt, isn’t it?” Liv whispered.
There was no point in lying. “Yes, but each time you change,
it gets easier. Your body adjusts more quickly to the transformation because
it’s done it before.”
“And if it happens, and it might not, I can keep living a
normal life?”
“Absolutely.”
With me.
And assuming normal meant
having a libido that regularly soared off the scale, a need to run when the
moon was full, a taste for rare meat and a dislike of squirrels.
Liv doubled over and let out a long groan. Cal jumped off
his stool and raced round to grab her. He hadn’t realized how hard it would be
to see her hurting. Rage stampeded through his veins. If there’d been any
choice…but there wasn’t. He’d known from the outset they were mates. He was
hers as much as she was his.
“Breathe, breathe,” he said.
Liv straightened up. “Just crying wolf.”
His heart rose out of his stomach, and he turned a low growl
into a laugh. “You little tease.”
“Is that all the help you’re going to give?” She raised her
eyebrows. “Breathe? I think I’d worked that out for myself. What about gas and
air? An epidural? General anesthetic? Or let me have another glass of wine.
That should do it. On second thoughts, could you knock me out?”
“I…er,” he mumbled. Actually, that hadn’t occurred to him.
Liv grinned and Cal’s heart went the other way and shot into
his throat.
“Only kidding,” she said. “I can cope with a bit of pain.
I’ve always been the brave one in the family. My brothers are wimps.”
Sweet Jesus, don’t let it hurt her too badly.
Cal
tried to blank his mind to memories of first shifts he’d seen, those who didn’t
make it. No point in telling her that not everyone survived their first time,
and that even if they made it to wolf form, that didn’t mean they could change
back. And if they couldn’t… He gulped. Could he break her neck? He wouldn’t
have such a strong attraction to her if he was going to lose her, would he?
Liv put the plates and the grill pan in the dishwasher.
“What are we going to do while we wait and see if I grow hair in unusual
places?”
“You might want to change into something you don’t mind
getting torn.”
Her smile slipped. “Right.” She walked to her bedroom, and
then she turned. “This isn’t a joke, is it?”
Cal shook his head.
“Don’t eat my cat,” she said.
He straightened and sniffed. “You don’t have a cat.”
“That
was
a joke.”
* * * * *
OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod.
Liv took a deep breath.
OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod.
The deep breath hadn’t helped.
Ohmy— Oh shut up.
Her gaze drifted to her bedroom window and she took a step
toward it before she remembered she had an apartment on the third floor. Liv
paced around her bedroom. This was crazy. It had to be some sort of scam,
despite what she’d seen and what Cal had said. She could explain this madness.
So was she dreaming or—
gulp
—dead? Had she been
strangled by Creepo, hit by a car when she ran across the road or maybe killed
by the coffee machine? She might be in the hospital, lying in a coma. On the
other hand, all this was really happening.
“Are you okay?” Cal asked from the other side of the door.
“Peachy,” Liv called.
Cal had turned into a wolf. She’d seen it with her own eyes.
He smelled…trustworthy. Whatever that meant. And of mint chocolate chip ice
cream. Which was her treat to bring her out of a funk. Liv’s mouth watered.
What if he tasted of it too? Almost enough to make her want to marry him. Liv
let out a strangled laugh. Licking him would be so much less fattening than
consuming the real thing. Maybe there was a gap in the market for men’s
cologne—make it smell and taste of something women liked to eat.
Concentrate, concentrate.
She dragged her fingers through her hair, and then dropped
onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Liv’s mind lurched back and forth so
fast between reluctant acceptance and shaky denial that she felt queasy. More
than queasy. The truth was she couldn’t shake off the feeling that something
was wrong with her. She felt flushed with heat as if she’d been lying out in
the sun for too long, and her skin seemed ultrasensitive. She itched all over.
And who was bloody whispering?
