Little Wolf (36 page)

“Everything I know about love I know from bad movies and a soap opera,” Tim whispered at him.
Diedre’s Secret
was hardly applicable to this situation in which Tim was with a hot man, and instead of boning each other raw they were talking about their feelings.

Albert was in love with someone out of his reach. That made him the Valerie, and someday Graham was going to show up with his mate, and Albert was going to be devastated. Even if he went with Graham to college, even if Graham suddenly looked up one day and recognized a similar feeling in himself, it was all for nothing if Graham met someone else.

Tim put his hand over Albert’s leg and let it rest there. He stared into the trees. “Albert?” He was so hesitant Nathaniel or his uncle wouldn’t have known him. “When you leave—I mean, when you think of him leaving, how do you feel?”

“It hurts.”

Tim was sorry he’d ever thought of Albert as happy and innocent or assumed he’d known everything about were life.

“Everything is clearer when he’s there. Sometimes it cuts, like glass. I don’t think I can take it, but then he sits next to me and it’s better. It becomes bearable, but before then it was—”

“Overwhelming,” Tim summed up for the both of them. He realized a lot of things at once. Nathaniel knew. That was more than humiliating. Nathaniel
had
to know, and he’d sent Tim out here to make sure Tim knew. Tim should have known from the first kiss, sweet with Albert because there hadn’t been Tim’s heart’s desires pushing back and forth between them to fan the flames.

“Albert,” Tim whispered, then couldn’t say out loud that he thought he was in love with Nathaniel. He was sad enough being the Valerie in the story. Someday Nathaniel was going to find a mate. After all, this was a Greenleaf next to Tim, tall and beautiful and born to this, and he was still unhappy. The Dirus name meant nothing here, and that was all Tim had, really.

Nathaniel liked him. Nathaniel even wanted him. That was something. It wasn’t Nathaniel’s movies, but that was good, because Tim wasn’t the kind of mate Nathaniel should have anyway. If he were smarter, he would have left already.

“You could leave,” Tim suggested. He forced the words out and wondered if it was his imagination that they left the impression of mold in the air. “You could move to Carson or go even farther. You could see the world, go to school, while he’s away. You don’t have to wait here just to… find out.” It seemed the most soul-revealing, throat-baring, naked suggestion to make, but it was no worse than the thought of
alone
. Alone and gone. Without him. At least then Albert would know.

Albert’s breath was making Tim’s throat damp. He pulled back and gave Tim a long, serious look. “Thanks.”

“For what?” Tim stared. “I didn’t do anything. Except, uh, blow you, yeah, I did do that. Hope it helped. It definitely helped me figure something out.”

“For listening.” Albert was patient. Tim would have been far more snappish in his position. “But yeah, for the other stuff too.”

Other stuff
. Sometimes Albert made Tim feel so old. This must be how Nathaniel felt around Tim when Tim said things like
butthurt
.

“Listening isn’t a lot. A plan of attack would be better,” Tim argued. But maybe Albert was right. Maybe that’s what Nathaniel did with Zoe and the others—he listened. Maybe their pain became shared pain, the pack’s pain, and the pack gave the individual strength. Albert was trapped between packs. The person he would have listened to was the person he couldn’t ask. “Nathaniel would say to wait,” Tim explained hurriedly, feeling silly. A quick look around assured him they were still alone, although it had gotten dark while they’d been messing around. “I don’t know for what, but Nathaniel would say to wait. He has an obscene amount of patience. A stupid amount of patience, in fact. But he also has experience in love, so—”

“He does?” Albert squinted at Tim. “I didn’t know that. He’s never seemed to be in love during his summer pairings. He certainly never smelled like it. Only like fucking. Sorry.” The “sorry” was added hastily, with his eyes trained on Tim.

The bitter cloud around Tim was jealousy, and Tim didn’t feel like trying to deny it. “Now he just smells like frustration and annoyance while he waits for his mate, and tamps down on the loneliness so no one seems to notice it, and packs his chessboard away, and watches his cheesy movies, and tells me to come out here. That it’s best for me to make up my own mind, and maybe it is, but he’s still an idiot.” Tim heaved a sigh to put an eighteen-year-old to shame. “He has too much patience. He’s too good. And he never gives up, that’s the worst part. No matter what happens, he’ll be waiting. Waiting! Even if his mate rejected him, he’ll wait for them to come back. Fuck!” Tim clenched his hands. “What happens to weres who lose their mates? I know it’s not good, because no one will tell me.”

Albert’s eyes were getting wider.

“Meanwhile, I’m—”
There
, except he wasn’t. Tim had gone out with Albert, and it didn’t matter that Nathaniel had told him to, or even that he might have been right and Tim had needed to learn the difference between sex and what Nathaniel was offering. It didn’t matter, because Nathaniel was an idiot and Tim should have known better.

“Self-sacrificing perfect alpha son of a bitch,” Tim growled, making Albert gape. Probably because Tim was bad-mouthing his sheriff. He didn’t care. His stomach was a fluttering mess, his nerves shot, his skin warm. Luca would have laughed at him, in love with an alpha wolf who wasn’t meant for him. Luca could go fuck himself. Tim could be with Nathaniel right this second and for however long he had left in this town.

He focused on Albert. “Albert,” he pronounced slowly, wanting to be clear, despite the growling at the back of his mind and the urge to run, run fast. “Albert, I want to go home. To the cabin. Now. Is that okay?”

Albert nodded, then blinked. “I’ll drive.” If Tim knew anything about friendship, he would have said Albert was a good friend, possibly the best. Not Carl, because Carl had known this and hadn’t told him. “Let me tell the others so they won’t worry and call the sheriff.” Albert scrambled to his feet, then seemed to notice Tim’s stillness. “Oh yeah. We were told a while ago to look out for anyone or anything strange. Back when you first got here. The whole town. I thought you knew.”

“There is a lot I don’t know.” Tim got to his feet and turned toward the absent sun, toward the cabin. “But I’m figuring it out.”

W
HEN
T
IM
got to the cabin, Nathaniel wasn’t there, although Tim had insisted he’d be fine alone and sent Albert on his way. Nathaniel would be angry, but Tim couldn’t wait for Nathaniel in this mood with Albert around. He didn’t think Nathaniel would be pleased to find them together either—a thought that sent Tim off on a guilty but furious rant. He spent a half an hour venting to the walls about how Nathaniel had wanted him to go out with Albert while also straining to hear if anyone was approaching the cabin.

Then he’d taken the longest, hottest shower of his life and changed his clothes and stuck all his laundry in the washing machine and still felt as if Albert’s scent clung to him. He called the station, but Zoe hung up on him, which told Tim exactly nothing about where Nathaniel was.

The situation was not okay. Nathaniel couldn’t tell Tim he needed to explore and know himself and then not be there when Tim understood. Tim cooked and tried to eat, but was only able to finish two hamburgers once he realized Nathaniel might have taken his own advice and could be out somewhere getting laid right at that moment. That spurred him to a new rant where he considered slipping out of town while Nathaniel was distracted. The hot and cold uncertainty he’d felt around Nathaniel before had been bad enough, but the vicious stabs of jealousy were worse now that he suspected he had feelings of a more than sexual nature for Nathaniel.

He supposed sitting in Nathaniel’s chair to watch the door was a strong indicator of said feelings. So he put his face to the cushions and breathed in deep when the turning in his stomach wouldn’t stop. He thought of Albert, horny and anxious half the time and then sleepy and content next to Graham, and sat up to glare at the door while the minutes ticked by. If the sun’s position was something he was beginning to track, then so was the moon’s. He could feel it rising, along with the lateness of the hour and Nathaniel’s continued absence.

He didn’t hear any sound, even waiting tensely for the faintest footfall. He heard no truck engine or turn of a doorknob. Tim turned his face for another reassuring inhale and closed his eyes, and when he opened them a short while later, his breathing more even, his cheeks warm, Nathaniel was there.

He was king wolf even in civilian clothes, tight jeans and a simple T-shirt.

“I’ve been waiting,” Tim complained immediately, as though he hadn’t been caught wallowing in Nathaniel’s scent. Nathaniel’s neck and arms had no lingering marks. Tim couldn’t find a trace of any other on him, but Nathaniel appeared tired. Tim got the impression once again that Nathaniel was less than he should be, weakened somehow, hungry or worn thin. Then he blinked and the impression was gone.

“Where were you?” A demand like that was ridiculous, but Tim had never felt more ridiculous, so whatever. He’d had sex. He should be celebrating, not getting to his feet and slowly crossing over to a silent Nathaniel. Nathaniel, Tim reminded himself, was an idiot—an idiot who smelled amazing, like the greatest scent in the world. A scent all the sharper because it hadn’t been in Tim’s nose today. He pushed forward to get himself close enough to fill his head with it. That meant nearly bumping toes with the alpha himself, but Tim didn’t acknowledge that. He frowned upward and took big deep breaths.

Nathaniel did the same. It was improbable to think his exhaustion was Tim’s fault, yet Tim had seen him look like that before, and it had been Tim who had made him glow with health again. “I… I wanted to see you, and you weren’t here. You were
gone
,” Tim hissed. He was aware that he was being childish. Looking away from Nathaniel’s eyes only offered him a view of Nathaniel’s chest, covered for once.
He’d better not be hiding love bites.

Tim curled his hands into white cotton and raked it down to expose Nathaniel’s skin. If he’d shifted, his hands would have ripped the fabric. Nathaniel held his breath as though he wasn’t sure that wasn’t Tim’s intention.

“You took a sick day,” Tim murmured angrily and raised his eyes again when he found Nathaniel’s chest free of evidence of any other lover. That meant nothing if any slight bruises had healed already. Tim’s stomach roiled. His chest hurt. It was worse than what Albert had said. He put his nose to Nathaniel’s chest and slid his hands over the places he couldn’t breathe into. “If you slept with someone else….” He had no way to finish that hypocritical sentence.

Nathaniel put a hand to the curve of Tim’s head, brushing through hair still wet from the shower Tim had taken to wash away the scent of the sex he’d had with someone else. Nathaniel could probably smell Albert on him despite that, or the happy fucking pheromones his body would have released. Tim put his cheek against Nathaniel’s skin again and rubbed against him. Nathaniel had no scent but his own and Tim’s, because Nathaniel was so much better than Tim in so many ways. He’d say he wasn’t, but Tim knew the truth, because Tim had been the one to fuck around with someone else and yet Nathaniel was the one he wanted to punish for it. Because Nathaniel had been right.

“I did what you suggested.” It didn’t feel like a weakness to confess everything when speaking was terrifying. Luca had claimed to own Tim when he hadn’t, but that didn’t mean were possessiveness wasn’t real. Tim could almost taste blood at the idea of Nathaniel with someone else. He had no rights to Nathaniel, but he would fling himself at anyone who touched him. In the soap opera, Blake had nearly killed another were for approaching Carolyn. Nathaniel wouldn’t kill anyone for touching Tim, unless Tim told him to, but the blood taste, the blood-scent, wouldn’t go away.

Nathaniel already knew, would have suspected it when he saw Tim’s freshly cleaned hair. His chest heaved under Tim’s hands. Tim growled. “You were right,” he added, still pissed about that, so unbelievably furious that Nathaniel had known how confused Tim had been and hadn’t lied to him, or pressured him. He was the opposite of everything Tim had been raised to believe weres should be, and as a consequence he was better than everything Tim had been conditioned to worship. If he’d been anything less, Tim wouldn’t have wanted him so much.

Nathaniel didn’t rage, although Tim could sense his desire to. Tim was an edged weapon and could do nothing about it. He stabbed and he cut and even strong, tough weres got hurt. He felt little and mean but kept talking. “You wanted me to learn something and I did.”

Nathaniel was all fire now, no cooling snows. Tim inhaled smoke and kept going, as if Nathaniel had asked a question out loud. “I learned the difference between sex and
more
.”