Loner (Norseton Wolves #2) (6 page)

“You’re staring at my chest,” Stephanie said.

He forced his eyes closed. Easier than making eye contact and seeing the judgment on her face. “I’m sorry.”

“I actually do believe you are, but can I ask why you’re looking?”

“That should be obvious.”

“Assumptions are going to get us into trouble, as we’ve already learned, so why don’t you just tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Seriously?” He opened his eyes only to force his eyebrows up.

She nodded.

“I don’t know what to say.” He never knew what to say.

“Start with a few words, and then give me a few more.”

“Uh.” He raked a hand through his hair, then gave it a tug. He was going to get in
so
much trouble with his mate. “I was hoping they’d pop out.”

“Why?”

“So I’d have an excuse to touch them as I put them away.”

“You could just ask.”

“For what?”

“To touch me.”

“Here?”

She let out a restrained laugh. “No. In general.”

She has got to be kidding me.

“Okay.” She pushed back some locks of her bright hair and straightened his lapels again. “Go hang up your suit. I’ll catch up to you for breakfast.”

This has to be a trap.
He’d walk away, and she’d be pissed later for not resisting more.

She got behind him and gave his ass a push in the general direction of the wolf housing. “Go. I need to do some shopping. It’s just going to bore you.”

“You’ll need a ride back.” He was grasping at straws, and it was stupid. If she were going to run, she probably would have done it before having the chance to say, “I do.”

“Leave me the golf cart, if you don’t mind walking.”

“I don’t mind.” Still, he didn’t move.

“Waiting to watch me walk away?”

“No. Just…making sure you don’t need anything.”
Am I supposed to kiss her goodbye, or is that something only people on television do?
He wouldn’t mind kissing her so much. Colt would probably have oh-so-much shit to say if Darius ended up with lipstick smeared all over his face, but Darius didn’t care. He wasn’t married to Colt and, fortunately, didn’t have to live with him. Living on the road with the guy for close to two decades had been torture enough. “Should I kiss you?”

She let out the prettiest little laugh Darius had ever heard and tossed her hair over her shoulder. Her hair smelled like his shampoo. He thought she must have hated that, but it made his inner wolf howl with triumph. She wore his essence mingled with the residual scent of his shampoo. It would have been obvious to anyone in the pack with a nose whom she belonged to. “Only if you want to.”

He bent down to do it, and she gripped his face, holding him back a bit. She gave him the barest skim of her lips across his, and giggled.

What the fuck?

“Run along now. Maybe next time you’ll kiss me like you mean it.”

Confused, he started toward Pack housing.

He might have put his mark on her
and
a ring on her finger, but even combined, he wasn’t so sure they’d be enough to pin Stephanie down. She was beautiful, smart, and social, and he’d…well, he’d been raised by wolves, up until he was nine.

He wasn’t like other wolves. Colt was right in calling him “Loner” because that was how Darius was wired. But, lone wolves generally didn’t take mates, especially not prizes like Stephanie. He could only hope that when she figured that out, she wouldn’t ask to be let out of the arrangement.

She probably would, though.

Stephanie deserved better than him.

A few things were becoming painfully clear to Stephanie. One, that she was mated to, and now married to, an antisocial werewolf. Second, that wolf had the social awareness of a preteen boy. Third—considering his cock’s insistent poke against her back during the Pack’s post-wedding group photos—he didn’t seem to have any revulsion to her body. She could have minimized his response by telling herself he was just a lusty wolf, and lusty wolves were
always
primed and ready, but she’d watched how his gaze tracked. When he wasn’t looking shyly in her direction, he was staring at his fidgeting hands or fixing his attention on whoever was speaking at the moment. It was painfully obvious he had no idea what to do with her. That suited Stephanie just fine, because she knew
exactly
what to do with him.

She parked the golf cart on the path winding around the back of her new home and grabbed the grocery bags out of the storage area first. She found Darius standing at the kitchen counter, tapping away on a laptop. He closed the lid, hurried to her, and took the bags.

“You didn’t waste any time getting out of that suit, huh?”

“You’ve been gone three hours.”

Was that a whine in his voice?
She tucked her hair behind her ears and kicked off her high heels, studying him. His expression gave nothing away, but his energy shrank back from her. He didn’t want her to know how he felt. That was obvious. It was becoming increasingly evident to her that the mood reading didn’t work in both directions. If it did, he would have known how open she was to him. He may have been able to smell her adrenaline when it spiked or her pheromones when she was primed and ready, but he didn’t seem to feel the changes in her energy.

Odd
.

Wolves tended to have different strengths—nothing was universal—but she found it unusual that upon getting her bite, she’d developed a gift that no one she knew personally had.

Where did it come from?

Alpha or Mrs. Carbone seemed to be the most logical people to ask, and she filed the question away on her mental to-do list. “I, uh, poked my head into a few shops and businesses to say hello to people.”

He furrowed his brow. “Saying hello takes three hours?”

“Well, I might have bought some things.” Grinning, she canted her head toward the grocery bags. “If you haven’t eaten, there are pastries.” She headed back to the door, and he followed.

“I ate without you. Couldn’t wait.”

“Sorry about that. I’m not usually so insensitive.”

The truth was, she’d taken so long because she asked every person she encountered what he or she knew of Darius, and the pack in general. There’d been so little information to glean about them before she’d made the trip, so she figured she should make up for it on the ground. Plus, she wanted to take a few minutes to chat, unsupervised, with the other mates. There was one who hadn’t shown up for a ceremony—Christina—who’d been paired up with a wolf even more mysterious than Darius. So mysterious, in fact, that Stephanie had yet to see him.

Full or not, Darius opened the plastic clamshell on the pastry box and plucked out a particularly succulent one in the middle.

“Just stay put,” she said. “I’ll get the rest of the stuff.”

He dropped the Danish. “There’s more? I’ll help.”

“No. I wasn’t dropping unsubtle hints. If I wanted help, I would ask for it. Why beat around the bush with a man like you, right?”

“A—a man like me?” It was as if all of the blood had drained from his face. He looked at her with a pale glower that might have been frightening under any other circumstances, but best she could tell, Darius didn’t have much of a temper. He wouldn’t growl or snap at her like some wolves. He was more like a pathetic stray pup who carried his food bowl to the corner to eat alone because he didn’t want to fight anyone for his fair share.

Poor baby.

She had no intentions of making him fight for her. She liked her curious wolf, and wasn’t going to make him work for what he already had. She did need to give him a little push, though. She wanted him to have the respect he deserved and not get teased or criticized by some dipshit wolf who had nothing better to do than taunt. Dipshit’s mate could deal with him—and from what Stephanie could tell, it was already at the top of her agenda—just like Stephanie was going to deal with Darius. A wolf’s mate was supposed to make him better. That didn’t mean changing him; rather, bringing out the best of what he already had and compensating for his weaknesses. They all had weaknesses. Being a half-breed, and a mostly useless professional artist, she sure as shit had hers.

She carried in bags of clothes—giggling at Darius’s continuing pallor—a pharmacy bag loaded down with hair preparations and assorted other toiletries, and a few odds and ends from the small office supply store. Their art supply selection had been small, but she’d managed to pick up a couple of good pads, and put in an order for canvas. She’d need to find someplace to put an easel…

“Darius,” she called from the bedroom, “what’s in your garage?”

He leaned against the doorframe and brushed pastry crumbs from his T-shirt. The shirt was printed with an advertisement for some craft festival that had taken place long enough ago that Christina had still been a child.

“Don’t answer that,” she said. “Is that your shirt?”

He looked down at it. “Yeah. Why?”

“How old are you? You would have thought I would have taken a peek at the marriage license application.” She’d been too damn distracted by the way her mate looked in a well-cut suit. The fact she hadn’t jumped his bones in the dressing room was a testament to her anal-retentive need to be absolutely punctual all the time.

It was a grown man-sized shirt, for certain. So if he’d had it that long, he had to be far enough over eighteen that she could dispel her anxiety about robbing the cradle.

“Thirty. I’m the youngest in the pack. Or was, rather, until you ladies came.”

“Thank the goddess, you’re not a pup.”

He grinned bashfully and shook his head. “Not a pup.”

“Why do you have a festival shirt?”

“We stopped there one year when we had some downtime. Mrs. Carbone wanted to go. The guys hated it.”

“What did you think?” If he had more than a passing interest in art, then they could certainly find some common ground for conversation. All they needed was one little spark, and she’d run with it. She just had to show him she was easy to talk to.

He shrugged. “I thought it was interesting. For whatever reason, a little old lady thought I needed to be talked to, and she, uh—” Darius furrowed his brow and pressed his lips together.

“Tell me.”

“She was saying that she didn’t have any training. She started painting these tiny little paintings, this big.” He spayed his fingers and made an imaginary square around his hand, then stared down at his feet. The tips of his ears turned red, and her heart broke a little. He was so damned shy. “She started doing them after her husband died. She said that painting was easier than finding words. I always wondered if she was right.”

She didn’t have to look at him to know he held his breath waiting for her reaction—her judgment. She could feel the utter stillness of his aura. The part of him that was wolf wasn’t good at anticipating reactions. For a man like him, everything likely seemed to be a threat.

Let it go, baby.

“I think she might be, in some ways,” Stephanie said softly. “You should give it a try.”

He let his breath out slowly and that dreamy gaze of his settled on his hands. “Maybe I will.”

She wanted to put her arms around his neck and just hug him until he was sure she was safe, but if she did that, she might not want to let go of him. “So, what’s in the garage?”

“Uh, just a gun safe.”

“Do you plan on parking a car in there at some point?”

“Not soon. Why? Do you have one that needs transporting?”

“No, I sold my car. I figured if I needed one here, I’d get something better suited to the terrain.”

“I hadn’t bought anything because everything I looked at was too tall to fit.”

“A gas guzzler.”

“It’s practical for the work I do, unfortunately.”

“Most men from my old pack who drove big vehicles were compensating for something.” She winked so her clueless wolf would know she was teasing, and he actually smiled. It was a bit crooked and sheepish, and he must have felt silly, because he cleared his throat and looked away.

Damn.

She knelt to fold her new pajamas into a dresser drawer. She wasn’t much of a pajama wearer, generally, but Mrs. Carbone said sometimes she or Alpha popped over with information or supplies. Stephanie figured she should at the very least have something easy to throw on. “You could always park in the driveway.”

“That’s the plan. Why the interest in the garage?”

“Need somewhere to put an easel.”

“Oh.” He turned back to her, showing her that some color had
finally
left his ears and returned to his face. “You could use the second bedroom. Lighting would probably be better.”

She clucked her tongue and reached for the rest of the clothes in the bag. It was mostly jeans. She preferred dresses with fun prints, and had brought plenty, but she figured she should be prepared for any contingency. “I don’t want to get attached to the second bedroom. Once I set up a workspace, moving to another would be disruptive to my creative flow.”

“Why would you have to move?”

“I know how it goes, Darius.” She bumped the drawer closed and flattened the shopping bag. “Wolves hook up, and within a year, they have a newborn or two. I think that’s why so many wolf men are your age when they start looking for mates. They knew that the moment they commit, they’re trapped.”

“I’m not trapped.”

“Aren’t you? You’re stuck with me. Mated wolves don’t do divorce, or,” she made quote marks in the air, “conscious uncoupling. I’ve got your mark, and I’ve already claimed your home as my den.” She had a lot of work to do in that den, too. If Darius was going to coop himself up into it, it needed to be cozy.

“Why are you already thinking of divorce?” He furrowed his brow. “Tell me what I did wrong. I mean, a lot, I’m sure, but—”

She tossed a wadded-up pair of socks at him, and he snatched them from the air before they could bounce off his head. “Simmer down, baby. No reason to get agitated. I’m merely talking about adding kids to the equation. Sometimes, things are peachy keen until a little screamer comes along, and then you realize you’re living with a partner you barely had time to get to know, and you don’t know how to negotiate your interests and hobbies around the new family configuration.”

“Kids?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She held his gaze and kept very still to soothe his nervous inner wolf.

I’m not going anywhere.

“Oh.” He let out a breath and rubbed his eyes. “Wow. Okay. But I—I don’t really have hobbies, besides shooting things”

“I don’t believe that.”

He shrugged. “I don’t. I work. I watch television until I fall asleep. That’s about it.”

“I think you try to make yourself out to sound far less interesting than you actually are.” His power alone made him fascinating, but the fact he kept her guessing made him abso-fucking-lutely intriguing. “What were you doing on your computer when I came in?”

He shook his head and pushed away from the doorframe. “It’s silly.”

“Silly, meaning
what
?”
Silly
was a word kids used when they were ashamed of a particular thing. In her experience, adults used that word when they thought
other
people would find their interest frivolous. He obviously thought she would.

“Silly meaning…uh…” Darius shifted his weight and furrowed his brow again. “I dunno. It’s not a big deal.”

“It has to be, because if you were just checking your email, you would have said that.”

“It’s a class, okay? I…” He fiddled with the hem of his T-shirt and seemed to be staring through her instead of at her.

Don’t clam up on me now
. She was going to keep pushing, and at some point, he was going to shut her out. She didn’t want that, but getting bits and pieces of information about him at a time was killing her a little. She wanted to know all about him. She’d already decided he was worth loving, but her mother would want more detail than that. Mom would interrogate her and make sure that Stephanie’s wolf was nothing like her father. As far as she could tell, he couldn’t be closer to opposite if he tried.

“None of us in the pack, besides Mrs. Carbone, graduated from high school. I have a GED.”

“That’s perfectly respectable.”

His dark gaze seemed to focus on her, finally, and his hands stilled. “Doesn’t always seem like it. It’s not the same as the challenge of sitting in a classroom with other people. I didn’t have much of that as a kid.”

“I imagine you didn’t.” She stood and walked to him. Taking his hand, she guided him over to the bed.

“I don’t need your pity, Stephanie.” His tone may have had a bit of snap to it, but he sat on the edge of the bed, ever so meekly for her.

“You think I’m pitying you because I ask questions?”

“That’s usually what questions lead to. Easier to just not say anything.”

She groaned through clenched teeth. He didn’t trust her. While frustrating, it wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t something she could fix with the snap of her fingers.
She
was the one who’d gotten them off on the wrong foot by making assumptions about him. Of course he felt like he was dancing along a fine line.

“I just want to know about your class. That’s all.”

“It’s a pre—
prerequisite
I need for pretty much any degree program. Basic writing skills and stuff. I’m not doing so great, though.”

“I might be able to help.”

“That’s okay, I—”

She pressed her hand over his mouth. “Don’t be prideful. I
can
help. You’re taking it online?”

After a long stare that was probably meant to be at least a little bit frightening—it wasn’t because she couldn’t see anything but those sexy, bedroom eyes from her dreams—he nodded behind her hand.