Rosko, Mandy - Mate of the Wolf (Siren Publishing Classic) (5 page)

He opened his own breakfast box and salted his eggs with another paper packet. “Would you rather I tied you outside and left you to starve?”

Shelley clutched her breakfast box protectively. He seemed to see it, and his lips lifted in a smirk.

“That’s what I thought.”

Asshole. That same helplessness from before rose inside her. “There are going to be people looking for me. I can’t stay here.”

He paused with the tiny plastic fork in his mouth. He pulled it out, swallowed, and eyed her without making her feel threatened. “I know. I know who you are.”

She blinked, not having expected that. “You do?” All the way out here, without a TV in sight, she didn’t think he’d recognize her.

He nodded. “Shelley Star. I have to admit I didn’t recognize you at first, but I go into town sometimes and see your face in the gossip magazines.”

“You do?”

He nodded. “You never really look happy in those pictures they sneak of you. Even when you’re smiling you look like you’re,” he waved his hand, “faking it, I guess.”

She blushed, but had to agree with him, reluctantly. “I guess.”

The good old entertainment papers. She used to read them herself, but now she hated them. Not long after getting the starring role as both Catherine Linton and Earnshaw in the new
Wuthering Heights
movie did her pictures start appearing. More parts came, more money, too.

And a lot less privacy.

It had been a year since she’d
made it
with that movie. She’d once prayed to become rich and famous. Seriously prayed. Thought it would ease the stress brought on by her parents, who thought their daughter, the only blonde in a family of brunettes, so beautiful, they started putting her in pageants and working to get her parts in commercials at a very young age.

But ever since, it had been nothing but pictures of her not wearing makeup, eating, and even that bikini shot with the close-up of the cellulite on her ass. She’d had double gym time and was on an even stricter diet than usual for
that
little photo.

While her father did smile in approval more after the parts and money started coming in, there was still the hinting tone in his voice that suggested he’d wanted her to go even further.

He wanted her to star next to Brad Pitt, Robert Downey Jr., and Will Smith in their next romantic movies, never mind that Shelley thought they were a little old for her. Her father saw Oscars in her future and red carpets and film festivals.

And Mindy, well, she was a good friend, sometimes, and could listen for a long time while Shelley poured out her woes, but in the end, Mindy was still her agent. Someone who got paid a percentage of what Shelley made. Which was why, when,
if
, this vacation ended she was going to do four back-to-back movies within the next twelve months.

That was a lot more than what it sounded like.

She’d nearly had a nervous breakdown when she found out that was the plan, and so the camping trip had been suggested. The advice had seemed good, at the time. And what was better, because Mindy had suggested it, her parents couldn’t rebuff it.

Oh, Shelley knew Mindy had only been fearful of losing one of her bread-earners should Shelley actually have a meltdown, and she still had to actually sign the papers that would commit her to the projects, but she’d still felt the walls closing in on her.

Movies, stars, festivals, and travel. It all sounded nice, but none of it excited her. Truthfully, Shelley would rather be behind the scenes in making the movies. She wanted to be the person who wrote the screenplays, the big finales and yearning kisses, and then watched as her creation lit up on the silver screen. Or even just novels. A writer of romantic novels.

Shelley nearly laughed at herself for the cruel irony of it. Millions of twenty-three-year-olds were busting their humps every day to try and get where she was, and yet she complained.

Her identity. The blessing and the curse.

“If you know who I am, then you know I can pay you anything you want. You look like you could use the money,” she said, trying not to look around the one-room cabin with its sparse furniture.

His jaw tightened. “I have my own money. I’m not after yours.”

Yeah, right. Then what was he after? The image of him leaning out his truck to kiss her came to mind. She felt the press of his lips against hers, the rough beard stubble, dark despite his sandy hair, scratching her mouth and cheek, as though it were happening all over again. Despite the fact that it hadn’t been unpleasant, all the color drained from her cheeks.

Oh God. What if he was one of those crazy woodsmen she read about in true crime novels? The kind that kidnapped female hikers and forced them to be their wives.

“Get that thought out of your head.”

Shelley’s head jerked up at the deep growl. His eyes flashed gold as he glared at her from across the table.

She blinked. “What? How did you—”

“Wasn’t hard to figure out what you were thinking,” he said, turning his eyes back to his breakfast. “I don’t like being thought of as a rapist. I’m a monster. Not a rapist.”

Shelley snorted and went back to her breakfast. “Prove it. What’s your name?”

His head snapped up. “What?”

She glared at him. “If you really have no plans to hurt me, then it won’t matter if I know your name.”

That and she wanted to know the name of the man who’d kissed her so desperately outside.

He sighed. “I guess you’ll have to know it eventually.”

Eventually? How long did he intend to keep her chained up?

“My name is Michael.”

She folded her arms. “Michael what?”

He gritted his teeth, eyes flashing again. “Hunter.”

She grinned. Knowing his name washed away a lot of the tension inside her. Shelley held out her hand. “There, see? That wasn’t so bad.”

Michael hesitated, looked at her hand for a second before he reached for it. His large hand took her offered one, all but dwarfed it, before shaking and releasing. A small smile of his own touched his lips.

It made him look so cute and relaxed. “It’s nice to meet you, Mike.”

His jaw tightened. “Michael.”

He was sensitive about his name. Huh, maybe Mike sounded too juvenile for him or something. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-three,” he replied.

She nodded. Not bad, that was a good age. “Is this where you,” she tried to not look around the cabin, “normally live?”

He chuckled darkly. “Lot of questions out of you.”

She stiffened. “Knowing things about you would make me a little less scared, that’s all. Especially with your friends warning you away.”

Michael’s eyes shifted to the bed, where his letters were kept. He frowned, and for a split second Shelley thought she might have gone too far.

“They have their reasons.”

“Pearl?” she asked, that same unpleasant heating of her blood starting up again.

He rolled his eyes. “She’s no one you should be worrying about. And she’s not my ex either.”

She was shocked. The idea that he had been seeing that woman
had
crossed her mind. How was he doing that?

“Have I answered enough questions?”

Shelley shifted. “I just…figured if I knew more about you, this all wouldn’t seem so scary.”

Michael stared at her intently, gray eyes seemingly searching her insides, as though checking for sincerity. Finally he shifted and reached behind to his back pocket. His hand came back with a black leather wallet.

Shelley watched with interest as he took out his driver’s license and handed it to her. She swallowed and took the card. There was no way he could be serious. Was he really giving this to her? If she ever got out of here and decided to turn him in, just looking at this little card could be enough to lead the police straight to him.

She hesitated, then looked. There it was in writing and a photo that did not nearly do the justice of the real thing: Michael Robert Hunter. His DOB indeed put him at thirty-three, and the address was some town she’d never heard of in California.

So he was telling the truth about his name and age. And he was letting her look at a pretty important piece of ID. She didn’t know how to tell if one of these was fake or not, but it certainly
looked
real, and he was totally trusting her with it.

All her fear of him vanished. She wasn’t scared anymore. She just didn’t get that vibe out of him.

She handed him back the license. He took it as casually as if she were passing him the salt.

Shelley grinned. “So,” she started conversationally, unable to suppress her giddiness. “Mike…”

“
Michael,
”
he corrected.

She shrugged, but agreed. “Michael, if you’re not going to hurt, rape, ransom, or eat me, why am I here?”

“I have my reasons for keeping you around.”

“Uh-huh, my amazing conversation, right?”

He smiled a lazy smile. “Something like that. I will eventually take the chain off. Just not now.”

Hmm. He’d handed her his license and said he wasn’t going to keep her. Maybe he still didn’t trust her enough to not turn him in to the police. Or maybe he thought she was going to tip off whoever this Pearl woman was. A lot of his friends seemed to think she was a concern.

A sudden thought had her eyes going wide. “Is she, like, a werewolf hunter?”

Michael choked on the juice he’d been in the middle of swallowing. “What?”

“Pearl? Is she out to get you? Because that’s not right. Wolves are beautiful animals, and if hunting them isn’t already illegal, then it should be.”

Michael laughed at her, slinging a muscled arm over the back of his chair. “Yes, but I’m not exactly an animal.”

Shelley blushed. “Oh, but I didn’t mean it like that.”

Michael dipped his sausage in his syrup packet. “I know you didn’t.”

It got quiet then as they ate. Shelley feasted on toast dipped in egg yolks, took generous bites of buttery and syrup covered pancakes, and then decided to take a chance. She took a bite of one of her sour apple slices with the sweet caramel sauce. Her eyes widened as both flavors hit her tongue. Delicious. Utterly fantastic.

Shelley double-dipped, making sure there was an extra amount of caramel oozing off the apple.

Michael grinned. “Thought you didn’t like Granny Smith.”

Shelley shrugged. “Guess I was wrong.” She took another bite, eyes gliding shut as she savored the simultaneous sweet and sour taste. “Besides, it’s nice being able to eat all this without my dad hounding me about calories and carbs.”

He raised a brow, then snarled, gold eyes flashing in that way she was coming familiar with whenever something stirred his anger. “You’re perfect as you are.”

Shelley stopped eating, apple slice hanging halfway to her mouth, startled. His snarl showed off white teeth, which were getting longer and sharper.

The same went for his hands. Before her eyes, his fingers became darker, stretched thinner, and his nails grew out to razor-sharp points.

All this anger for her?