White Wolf 2: The Call of a Soul (8 page)

“You should’ve told me.” His voice startled her.

“What?” She didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to ruin the moment, didn’t want any intrusion on this perfection.

“That it was your first time. I hurt you.”

“Only for a few seconds. After that it was heaven.” Before she thought the better of it, Melanie blurted, “I thought you hated me. All the White family. Is this some kind of twisted revenge?”

He went still, cupped her chin, and made her meet his stare. “You can’t seriously think that.”

“I don’t know what to think.” She hated that her voice wavered, but refused to avert her gaze. “My father killed yours.”

“You’re my mate.”

She hooded her eyes and studied the way his chest hair twirled around his flat nipple, noticing the slight dent in the middle, while her mind raced in a thousand and one different directions.

She was his mate? When had he known this? Why had he only now done something about it? Did it matter?

Mrs. Dorland hated the White family.

“I thought you said you were a half-breed.”

“I am. My birth mother was a wolf, not a white wolf like your family. That doesn’t mean I don’t have the same mate-recognition as your kind.”

Could it be true? “I don’t understand. I thought the wolf part was passed on through the male.”

“I don’t have a whole lot of answers. That’s part of the reason Drake and I came back, to try and piece together what happened.” He chucked her chin. “That and the fact that I needed to see you, touch you, smell you every moment of the day. That you’re all I have been able to think about for five long months.”

Something sweet and achy, something very much like hope, took seed in her chest, but it stuck in her craw and she couldn’t speak.

“Stay with me today.”

There it was. Reality thundering on the door. “I can’t. I need to be there when my mother gets home from the casino.”

“What time’s that?”

“Nine. She worked the graveyard shift last night. Then I have work at the clinic this evening.”

“It’s almost nine already.”

“No—it can’t be.” She pushed off him, distracted for a few seconds by the ripple of ridged pectoral muscles beneath her palms. Then a panic wave formed a huge obstruction in her throat. She had to get out of there. “We’ve been here for three hours? We did that for three hours?”

Her cheeks caught fire at the lazy smile he wore.

“Not quite, we’ve been cuddling for about forty-five minutes.”

Melanie wanted to pinch herself. With his inky hair tousled, the smoldering heat radiating from those flinty eyes, and that wicked grin making her belly go all fluttery, it felt like a fantasy. One she didn’t want to be jerked out of, not yet, anyway.

“Oh.” His cock flexed inside of her, and she couldn’t help glancing at their joined bodies. Wow.

He sat up, cradling her back with one hand, and gave her a quick kiss. “I’m here for the duration, Melanie Frances White. And I intend to counter every objection you can muster. I play to win, and I always stack the odds in my favor.”

That made her crotchety for some odd reason. “Whatever. The fact is that I have responsibilities and I need to get home. Pronto.”

“Too bad. I was looking forward to our first shower together.” He grinned at her, a cocky I’m-an-alpha smirk she yearned to reply to in kind. “But I guarantee you that that’s going to involve a whole lotta hot water and at least two hours. You shower in here. I’ll shower outside. We’ll grab a quick bite somewhere, and then I’ll drop you home.”

Before she could utter a protest, he disengaged, scooped her into his arms, and strode through a doorway she hadn’t noticed before. “I’m guessing you like your showers steamy?”

He slid open the stall door and turned on the water.

She flinched when his erection nudged at her thighs, glanced down at the ruby crown poking between her legs, and then back to him.

He shrugged. “What can I say? You turn me on. Steamy?”

“Steamy,” she agreed when his stare didn’t waver.

“Steamy, it is.” He set her down on the tiles before the open stall and fiddled with the knobs, then tested the water. “Steamy, as ordered.”

Melanie knew she blushed from head to toe when she worked up the nerve to walk into the shower under his piercing scrutiny. She quickly closed the door and watched until he disappeared before grabbing the soap.

She made quick work of showering and drying off, deliberately didn’t look at her reflection in the mirror, and wrapped the big towel around her body. Her knees buckled, and she leaned against the door. Glanced at the roof and prayed for a miracle. Prayed that she hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of her life.

Chapter Five

Melanie needed space.

The bitter taint of fear had smothered her unique scent, and he knew the second she’d regretted making love to him. Mike headed outside to the shower by the lake. The ice in the wind didn’t cool the heat waves still radiating from his body.

Virgin.

He hadn’t expected that. Not after all these years. Not after she admitted to having a birth-control implant.

His dick hardened, and Mike glanced down and halted in midlope. Two streaks of blood stained his greedy cock. Only the shit-eating grin claiming his mouth prevented a long, victorious howl.

His. All his.

He backtracked, grabbed a clean cloth from the tool shed, carefully wiped the evidence of her purity from his aching boner, and growled when he spread the rag. The evidence of their first mating imprinted in his memory cells like a brain tattoo.

Mate.

He crushed the fabric, debated for a half breath, surrendered to his alpha, and buried his nose in the cloth. For long moments he savored her unique Melanie musk. After hanging the rectangular piece of fabric on a hook, he sprinted to the shower and turned the spray on full blast. Five minutes under the frosty water didn’t faze his hopeful erection one iota.

The stiff breeze dried his flesh before he retrieved his clothes and boots from the pickup’s bed. What was she thinking? He couldn’t believe she hadn’t known about the tribe rejecting him and Drake. How? Her father had been an elder. It didn’t make sense. Wait a minute, he’d been an elder in his old tribe. Did being an elder transfer?

Buttoning his shirt, he wandered back to the cabin. The door stood half-open, and he glimpsed Melanie, fully dressed, coat belted, purse in hand, standing to the right of the kitchen table. Hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, lips pursed like a Sunday school teacher, stubborn chin jutting, and eyes narrowed, she looked ready for battle. Time to throw her off-kilter again.

“Drake called. I need to go back into town—”

She cut his out-and-out lie off. “That’s fine. The bus stop’s not far from here—”

“I’ll drop you there. It’s on the way out.” Mike forced back a snarl. She could only push him so far.

She shuffled a couple of steps and avoided meeting his gaze. “Thank you.”

Recognizing that he needed to choose his battles in order to win the war, Mike decided not to argue the point then. No matter what she said or did, he’d escort her home, one way or another. Wanting to muss her silly with one slamming orgasm after another until she wore that half-dazed, sexy bee-stung smile of earlier, he set his hand to the small of her back and told his dick to take a hike. “I hear Susie’s on the community college track team.”

Melanie stumbled, and he slowed his pace to let her get steady. She shot him a wary look, brows raised, eyes wider than a startled doe’s. “How—Yes, she is.”

“And Gray’s the starting quarterback for the Mackinac Warriors. Saw that he took a general business major in college.” Mike opened the passenger door, scooped Melanie up, and settled her in the seat. Her breathing hitched, and musky arousal, not the former acridity of her fright-tinged anger, flooded his nostrils. Small win.

Ducking her chin, she fiddled with the cloth belt of her coat before addressing her reply to the dashboard. “He is and he did. Gray won a football scholarship and then got drafted to the Arena Football League. I didn’t even know what that was.”

“You’re kidding? You didn’t know there was an indoor football league?”

She pursed her lips. “I barely knew there was a National Football League.”

“And, Susie, is she hoping to get a mature student scholarship to a four year college?”

“Yes, and no one deserves to go more than her. She’d already be finished with her associate degree if, well, if Gramps and Papa hadn’t died and left us in a financial mess. I hated that she had to quit and work for so long. But things are back on track now.”

Pride laced her soft pronouncement. She relaxed a tad, and a small smile played at her reddened and swollen mouth.

“Have you had a chance to visit Lizzie in Ann Arbor?” Mike refrained from kissing the stuffing out of her only by grabbing the door handle.

“No.” She’d gone into a turtle’s head retreat again. “I’m surprised you even remember my sister Lizzie. She was at college when we were in high school.”

“She’d doing an MBA, right?”

“Yeah. The company she works for is sponsoring her. I know she’s burning the candle at both ends. The last thing she needs is for us to visit.”

He shut her in, stalked to the driver’s side, wrenched the door open, hopped into the oversize bucket seat, and started the truck. “Which stop do you want—the one on Route 7, or the one on Taquah Line?”

“Route 7’s closest. That’s perfect.”

Wasn’t she going to ask him a single question? Acknowledge what had happened?

“The bus stop’s just around the next corner.” Melanie picked at the fuzz on her well-worn brown coat.

Mike geared down and slowed right in front of the wooden-roofed bus stall.

“No need to get out.” She unsnapped her seat belt.

He braked, switched off the engine, and hauled her into his lap. “Like I said before. I’m here for the duration, Melanie. And I’m hurting because you won’t even look me in the eye. We made love. I took your virginity. Talk to me.”

She didn’t resist his embrace but fixed her glance somewhere in the vicinity of his upper chest. Finally when he was about to force the issue, she met his stare. “I don’t regret a minute of it. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let it happen again. There’s too much to lose. And no one can ever know this happened. My mother’s been clean and sober for eighteen months. If she even gets wind of this, it could send her back to the booze again.”

“Is that why you won’t let me take you home?”

She averted her gaze and nodded.

“And that’s why you need to be there when she gets off work? To make sure she doesn’t relapse?”

Once again, she gave him a tight-lipped nod.

He played with her ponytail, stalling, trying to come up with a win-win. “I’m an alpha, Melanie. Keeping you safe is my priority. I’ll let you out here and follow on foot to make sure you get home safe.”

“It’s only one stop to the reservation, and I’ve been walking home from the bus stop forever—”

“There was a murder last night. Not too far from this exact spot.”

She rolled her eyes. “You can’t park your truck at the bus stop. The whole point of me taking the bus is so no one notices us together.”

“How long before the bus comes?”

“Five minutes.” She heaved a huge sigh. “This is so unnecessary. And Mike, I meant what I said. This”—she waved her hands—“is not going to happen again.”

“Okay. This is how we’ll work it. I’ll drop you here at the bus stop, park the truck where it won’t be seen, and then backtrack and follow you home. You won’t even know I’m there.” He kissed her hard and set her back into the passenger seat.

Before Mike could hop out on the driver’s side, she shoved the door open and jumped to the ground. “Thanks for the ride. Have a good day.”

Have a good day? Not fucking likely now. Mike didn’t bother replying because the door slammed shut in his face. He glared at her, but she pretended an interest in the route map nailed to the back wall of the bus stall.

Mike pulled a U-turn, drove a quarter mile in the opposite direction to the dirt crossroads he’d seen earlier, and glided a hundred yards before parking under a thicket of dense birch trees sporting a display of leaves shaded in the hues of a riotous golden sunset. The pickup’s muddied chrome bumper was clearly visible, but he didn’t have time to worry about discovery. Mike dashed across Route 7’s two lanes and headed into a packed forest of oaks and tall pines. It didn’t take him long to reach the bus stop, and he arrived just as the mud-caked vehicle pulled onto the highway. He followed a parallel path through the trees.

Melanie sat in the very first seat, her ponytail brushing the dust-streaked passenger-side window. When the seen-better-days bus squealed to a halt a quarter mile from the border to the reservation, Mike hid behind a wide weathered trunk, fists balled as she waved to the bus driver and hopped off the last step.

Head down, hands jammed into her coat pockets, she picked her way through a tree-lined dirt path and then hurried across a meadow. Staying well behind, he tailed her all the way home and, though he knew what to expect, choked back a ferocious hiss when the lone dwelling came into view.

The roof repairs had been completed.

How much other work had Eddie been able to finish?

Mike had given Eddie an extensive list of to do’s five months earlier. The narrow driveway leading to the three-bedroom cottage had been graveled. Colorful shrubs and holly bushes, interspersed with clumps of wild daisies, decorated both sides of the path. The swing on the wide porch no longer lay on its side, but now hung from the overhang.

The plywood that had covered missing panes in the front windows was gone, and the sparkling new glass glistened in the sun. Eddie also said he’d fixed the ancient radiators that heated the house. But the dishwasher didn’t work and the freezer in the fridge frosted over every two weeks. Had he had time to fix those?

The tattered door to the storage shed located at the back of the house stood wide open. Two of the hinges sported missing screws, and the whole structure wouldn’t need a wolf’s huffing and puffing to blow it down. A stream of sunlight flickered across the metal parts of a manual rifle leaning on an inside wall. Stifling the urge to either take the rifle or secure the whole structure, Mike spun about. Leaving a rifle out in full view of a passerby was nothing short of a siren call for disaster. But there was nothing he could do about that right now.