Rosko, Mandy - Mate of the Wolf (Siren Publishing Classic) (7 page)

So, so strange how she suddenly felt like Cinderella, kneeling in front of her prince while he put the shoe on her foot. A very tight shoe.

“How does it feel?”

Shelley wiggled her toes. The bandage was so tight they felt cool from a lack of blood, but not hurting or anything. “Pretty good.”

“Good.”

He collected the first aid stuff and put it all back in the white tin before going back inside.

Shelley was left alone again, wondering how many times he would trust her to do this. When he came back out, he had the lotion bottle he’d bought earlier.

“Don’t forget your ankle,” he said, handing it to her.

She took the bottle with a small thank you, but otherwise couldn’t take her eyes off him long enough to open it. What was he doing?

She watched as he went to the back of his truck. Michael pulled the hatch down for its bed, reached across, and dragged out a foldable chair.

He came back and set it down near a patch of grass in the sunlight. After unfolding it Shelley could see it wasn’t a chair but a lounge chair that someone could lie on.

“Is that for me?” she asked.

“Yup.” He came back for her, took the chain in one hand, and lifted her back into his arms.

He did it so freakin’ easily. And the swirl of butterflies in her stomach whenever he did was so not helping her to keep her distance.

He set her in the chair as though she’d break. Really, she wasn’t in
that
much pain.

She shifted to make herself more comfortable and winced when she dug the bandaged foot a little too hard into the soft material.

“Ow.”

“Take it easy,” Michael commanded. “You seem to injure yourself a lot while running.”

“It was why I never made the track team.”

He laughed and went back to his truck.

“So, what am I doing here?”

He pulled out a giant nail and a hammer from the back. “Relaxing.”

She tensed up at the sight of the huge, thick tools. “Are those supposed to help me relax?” Her foot was still feeling good enough to make a break for it if he tried anything. Hopefully.

“No, they’re to help
me
relax,” he said, grabbing the last link of her chain, pinning it down to the ground, holding the nail over it, and hammering it into the ground in a single hard pound.

She was officially staked to the ground. She glared at him. “Thanks.”

He grinned back. “You’re welcome.”

After disappearing a third time into the cabin, he came back out with a magazine and the M&M bag for her. He must have put the little candies back in it. “Here, keep yourself entertained.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked. The magazine was
People
. Not a magazine known for constantly printing horrible things about celebrities, even though it did have its moments. Still, the cover depicted a picture of the First Family and how they continued to make history. Didn’t look like something she needed to worry about.

She’d just opened the front cover when Michael lifted his shirt above his head.

Holy muscles.

He grabbed an axe and went to a log pile near the tree line. “I’m going to do some chores. Figured you wouldn’t want to be by yourself all day while I did them.”

He figured right. He just wasn’t aware of what he’d just given her. A lounge chair, chocolate, and a magazine to hide behind while she admired the view.

Wow. Just…wow.

He grabbed one of the heavy logs, put it upright on a round stump that had a lot of swing marks cut in it, swung the axe up and brought it down, and the log split as easily as a cheese string.

She kept on eating the chocolate, but the magazine was all but forgotten.

The weird thing was, after the third log or so, even though he didn’t smile, didn’t look at her, she got the impression he could tell she watched him. And that he totally liked it.

Awkward.

“So,” she said, fishing around the M&M bag with two fingers for the last little red one. “Why do you have so many rosaries in your house? Are they a decoration?”

She’d learned a little about him before, but figuring out more couldn’t hurt anything.

This time he did look at her between swings. “You could say that.”

Chop!
Two more pieces of split wood. He put them aside and grabbed another log.

“Oh, so it’s your faith then.” He didn’t seem like a fanatic. So having a bunch of pretty rosaries hanging from his walls was actually a comfort.

“No.”

Swing
!
Chop
!

That kind of shocked her. “No? Then why have them?” If she believed him about them being just for show, they didn’t exactly provide his place with a lot of color.

“Because some people do believe,” he answered.

“Uh huh, your family, then?”

He did smile a little this time. “They’re not particularly religious either.”

“So you keep them to ward off vampires or something?” She said it as a joke, but when he didn’t answer, just sent her a look, shock gripped her.

“Bull. Shit.”

“It’s easier for you to accept that a werewolf exists because you’ve already seen me transform. You’ve never seen a vampire before.” He swung the axe again, adding to his split logs. “Or maybe you have and just never knew it.”

Just the way he said it…

“So, you’re talking about Pearl?”

He sighed and put the axe down, blade on the ground and handle up, he leaned his arm on it. “I told you, she’s not a concern. She doesn’t know where I am. If there was even a remote chance she knew, I wouldn’t keep you here.”

That smell from earlier came back. The same smell that made her want to jump into his arms. But something else was with it, too, the need to protect and comfort him. To hunt down and kill the woman who put him into hiding. “Why
are
you keeping me here?”

He wouldn’t look at her, still leaning on the wooden end of his axe. “I’m…still deciding.”

Again, the smell came, warm and intoxicating. She suddenly felt like she usually did after a margarita. Mindy always said she was a lightweight. “That’s not good enough. Why am I here?”

He let the axe fall over. “I think I have enough.”

“Michael.”

“I’ll take you inside now.”

She wanted to protest. They were outside for barely ten minutes, but she couldn’t persuade him to stay.

He totally shut down after that. Without a problem, he pulled the thick links of her chain apart, releasing her from the spike in the ground, brought her back inside, and locked her up before going back out to collect his firewood.

Just to try it herself, Shelley grabbed at the links of her chain and gave them a tug. They held the way steel was expected to. Strong and unmovable. In
her
hands at least. So she was still stuck chained to the beam in the middle of his cabin.

Michael came back inside, all the stuff put away. Then the scent. Again with that spicy-sweet, make-her-drool smell. What was with that? It was coming from him, so could he smell it too?

“It’s different when it comes from you.”

Listening to her thoughts again. She blinked at him and grabbed a chair back at his messy table to sit down. “But it’s not coming from me, it comes from you.”

“It comes from you, too. I can smell it. Spicy-sweet, thick, and leaves you feeling just drunk enough to do something you wouldn’t normally do, right?”

Holy God. She could barely contain herself when she smelled him. Was it similar for him when he smelled her? Did he have as much trouble? He didn’t look it sometimes. But then, he did kiss her before he drove off in his truck. Then there was that close call at this very table.

And now he was standing over her again.

“Michael?”

“Yes.”

He had that same look as before when he wanted to kiss her. Only this time she didn’t have an excuse to get away from him. She could always lie and say she needed to use the bushes again, but right now she couldn’t bring herself to. She really didn’t want to, anyway.

“Why are you keeping me here?” She needed to know. She just couldn’t jump into bed with him without knowing, no matter how much she ached for it. She had the feeling it came down to her earlier suspicions about romance novels. The reason why a supposedly deadly werewolf would not harm her for any particular reason, but she couldn’t even make herself think the word until he confirmed it.

“I-I told you—”

“You didn’t tell me shit,” she snapped. The throbbing between her legs and in her belly that continued to go unsatisfied made her irritable. She glared at him. He was going to answer her.

“You have a filthy mouth,” he said.

Not exactly what she wanted him to say. “Tell me why I am in a chain, tied to your cabin in the middle of nowhere.”

His eyes widened just a little, but even without that she could tell she was shocking him. The same way she could also sense how turned on he was.

“Because…you’re mine.”

“Yours.”

Not a question. He wasn’t making a joke, or even overdoing what he might possibly feel for her. He meant it seriously.

“Yours,” she said again, working the word around in her mouth. She kind of liked how that sounded. And just like that, everything clicked into place. Michael’s strange behavior when he found out the wolf didn’t rip her up, his patience when she tried picking a fight with him and escaping, not to mention her monumental attraction to him in such a short period of time.

He leaned in closer, his one hand resting on the back of her chair the other on the table, his face so close to hers now that if she shifted just a little, their lips would meet.

“I’m yours. You’re mine?”

He nodded.

The confirmation didn’t frighten her. It delighted her. That they were mated, meant to be, brought a wonderful feeling inside her heart. Shelley let the attraction she’d been fighting take over, and it was like being filled. Like finding a piece of herself that she hadn’t known was missing.

She wasn’t something to be used to further his career. She was really his.

His hand slid across her jaw, thumb caressing her bottom lip. “You really are mine,” he agreed.

Screw it all. She jumped into his arms. He latched his mouth onto hers, and she knew he tasted the chocolate she’d eaten.

His big hands gripped her ass, lifting her up so Shelley could wrap her legs around his waist.

Mine.
Mine,
a voice roared inside her head, resonating like a battle cry.

It was Michael’s voice. His voice was actually inside her head.

The world tilted, and Shelley’s back hit a cloud of pillows and sheets. Michael raised himself so his weight was supported on his arms instead of crushing her.