Wolves for the Bears: Book 5, Grey Wolf Pack Romance Novellas (2 page)

Chapter Two

The drive to Rose
was fraught with tension.

Andy cast surreptitious glances in Mac’s direction.  She was pointedly staring out the window.  Her delicate face was turned away from him, her long graceful neck bared to his sight.  His desire for her grew, his erection was slowly becoming rock-hard. 
Fuck he was getting a hard on from just looking at her damn neck, the sight of her naked would probably kill him...

Great,
now he was imagining her naked!  His animal moaned in satisfaction.  His head was full of thoughts of her long creamy legs, her small but pert breasts, her smooth stomach leading down to her...  A car horn blared at him.  He swerved back to his side of the road. 
Fuck, she really was going to kill him...

She jerked her head towards him a disapproving look on her face.
  He felt himself blush
.  If she only knew what he was thinking.

He already
felt like he was about to spontaneously combust, his embarrassment almost pushed him over the edge.

Quickly Andy turned up the air conditioning. 
It whistled dully and he gulped down breaths of cold air.

Mac looked at him chewing her lip.
  Was he as affected by her as she was by him?  She thought she felt his eyes on her, the distraction almost causing them to crash.  But then again maybe she was just hoping that was the case, maybe he was just a bad driver...

The cool air ghosted over her heated skin.  It was a welcome relief from the warmth his close
ness caused.

Covertly she studied him.  Andy’s brow was furrowed and his mouth set in grim line of determination.
  The veins pulsed in his neck, she could practically smell the blood flowing.  She imagined it would taste heavenly.  She would sink her fangs deep in his neck as they had sex, as she orgasmned, then they would be blood bonded. She would taste him and savour him...

She shivered with desire
; her nipples hardened and she felt her panties moisten.  Hastily she crossed her arms and pressed her legs together.  She didn’t want him to know the effect he had on her... not yet, not until she knew him a little more...
maybe his marriage wasn’t happy... maybe he could just leave his wife... maybe they weren’t even blood bonded...

No, bad wolf!
  Her beast whined in her head.  She wanted nothing more than to pull over to the side of the road and bond with the bear sitting only inches from her... but Mac was ruled by her head, not her heart and definitely not her sex. 
Although it was a close race
.

Her head told her she had to find out more about him first, she had to find the lay of the land before anything else.  Maybe there was a reasonable explanation like... maybe his wife was dead and he was just still wearing the ring...
yes, yes that would suit everyone...
except his dead wife...

God she felt awful.

She rubbed her arms and pinched them, a little pain to bring back her back to her senses. 
They were getting away from her.

“You cold?”  His throaty rumble cut through the silence making her jump.

“Ummm no, I’m fine thanks.”  She answered meekly, not wanting him to really know why she was pinching herself.  She didn’t really want her mate to think she was a nut.

No, he wasn’t her mate.  Her wolf whined a little more loudly and a little more pathetically.  Alright so technically he was... but technically he might already belong to someone else... so technically he couldn’t be hers...

Ugh!  That thought was depressing.

She had to force herself to act normally.  Everything about the situation wasn’t normal but she had to force herself anyway.

She cleared her throat, a little theatrically.  “So... how long have you...” Been married?  Been having sex with another woman? Been cheating on her?  Alright she was being a little unreasonable... okay a lot unreasonable.

He stole expectant glances of her.  “How long have you lived in Rose?” 
Whew, good girl!  well done, you actually managed a whole sentence!

“Almost a year
... so I guess you grew up in Rose?  Yeah of course you did, I already know you did.” 

He laughed nervously
.  He sounded like such a dork.  He was 30 years old for god’s sake, he hadn’t been scared of girls in years. 
Although not that many years... he’d been kind of nerdy and gawky growing up.  Okay he still was, but at least he hadn’t been picked on since his muscles filled out.

“Yep, Rose born and bred.”  She smiled awkwardly.
  “So what made you decide to move to Rose?  If you don’t mind me asking... if you do mind then I’m sorry you don’t have to answer...” 
Stop talking, for the love of god stop talking.

“My cousin
Dylan suggested we move here so we could help Charlie set up her shop.” 

Shit he said we, meaning him and his wife... 
would she pick up on the ‘we’?  Apparently he’d lost the ability to think clearly, why couldn’t he lose the ability to speak?  His bear agreed with that sentiment. 

“Dylan and Charlie Reese?”
  Dylan was a bear shifter and Charlie was a tiger shifter, they were married and had two young children.  They were waiting to see what kind of shifters they would turn out to be, they wouldn’t shift until they were 13. 
People were already taking bets.

“Yeah, you know them?”
 
Good she was focussing on something else.

“Sure, Dylan works for Adam
and Charlie’s great, she made me my prom dress.”  She gave a very flat Mac the illusion of having an hourglass figure,
the woman was a miracle worker.
 

“So... we being you and your wife?”  Mac tensed waiting for the answer
.  Worst case scenario he said yes.  Best case scenario he said yes but they were getting divorced. 
Oh she felt bad wishing for that, her wolf had no such qualms though and was howling in anticipation
.  Terrible case scenario, he said we meant his wife and kids...

Andy jerked
in her direction.  Mac inclined her head to his wedding band.  He glanced at it in surprise, like he was seeing it for the first time.

He rubbed his ring finger with his thumb.
 
Fuck he’d forgotten he was even wearing it
.  No wonder she’d been so distant with him, he’d assumed she was just taken aback at meeting her mate.  He dreaded what she thought of him...

But surely he wasn’t the first married man to me
et his mate, was he?  He knew plenty of couples who had settled with someone who wasn’t their true mate, not everyone did meet their true mate, and not wanting to die alone they settled.  That wasn’t to say they weren’t happy. 

So surely this had come up before...  he wondered how other people handled it.  Probably better than him, he was panicking and sweating up a storm.

She was staring at him. 
Answer the damn question!
  “Umm yeah, me and my wife Esther.  She, uh, works in Charlie’s shop.”

“Oh.”
  She sighed quietly. 
Not great... 
She turned back to the window.  “So how long have you been married?”

He forced h
imself to concentrate on the road, gripping the steering wheel tightly.  He could hear the hurt in her voice and his beast was urging him to soothe her, to take her in his arms but he couldn’t do that... he just couldn’t...
not with the way things were
.

“Just over a year... we got married just before we moved here.”
  It pained him to tell her, but he couldn’t lie to her.

“
Oh
.”  She blinked back tears.  She’d dreamed of meeting her true mate since she was an awkward kid, she imagined a fairy tale happily ever after with the handsome wolf of her dreams.  Then again she was 7 at the time, and perhaps did have unrealistic expectations. 

Although she had to admit Andy was handsome, breathtakingly so... she had that part of her fantasy down pat.
  But what would Cinderella have done if her prince happened to already be married?

“So, are you working for Adam too?”  She forced her voice not to quiver, maybe if she feigned normal behaviour he wouldn’t realise that she knew he was her mate.  She couldn’t really tell if he knew.  Perhaps he was blissfully ignorant to the fact. 
She wished she was
.  Or maybe he did know and just didn’t care...
that just made her sadder
.

“No actually I’m working at Bar Luna,
as a bartender and sort of bouncer.” 

He reddened a little at that, he always found the idea of him being a bouncer ridiculous.
  Growing up he’d always been the weakest and skinniest of the males, and was therefore bullied the most. 
Bears were pretty aggressive when they sensed weakness
.  He eventually filled out to become larger and stronger than average for a black bear shifter, but he never forgot how humbling it was to be the smallest.  He never looked down on people because of their physical strength, and truth be told was always a little surprised at his own.  One of many reasons he hadn’t fitted in with his clan.

Thoughts of his old clan angered him, he hadn’t realised he was gripping the steering wheel so tightly until his knuckles almost whitened.

He needed to change the subject, and fast.  “So, you just getting back from college?”

“Yeah, well sort of... I mean after college I went travelling round South America... that’s where I’ve been the past year... but yeah this is technically the first time I’ve come home since college... so I am just getting back...”

She felt her muscles ripple, her beast was trying to force the shift.  Apparently the wolf wasn’t overly pleased at the way Mac was handling the situation.  Neither was Mac really and almost let the change happen, however a giant grey wolf suddenly appearing in the cab might just startle the bear. 
Best not to risk it
.

“You planning  on working for Adam too?”  Dylan was a foreman at the pack owned construction company, may
be he could spy on Mac...

She snorted inelegantly.  “No way, I alr
eady take enough orders from Adam because he’s my Alpha and my brother, no way am I giving the idiot any more opportunities to boss me around.  Shit!  Don’t tell him I said that!”  She turned back and looked at him pleadingly.

“My lips are sealed.”  He winked at her causing her to beam at him.  Man and
bear groaned internally at how lovely she was.

Her wolf snarled at her, she really had been away too long, she was starting to forget her place in the pack.

“Anyway, I’m actually going to be working for Alec as a Sheriff’s Deputy.”  Alec Hart was the town’s Sheriff and the pack Beta.  “My degree’s in criminology, it’s kind of what I’ve always wanted to do, my mom was a Deputy too until she mated with my dad... he didn’t want her working as a Deputy.” 

He noticed her shrug unhappily but didn’t comment.

Mac inhaled deeply as they drove into Rose.  Her wolf howled joyfully as they flew past the familiar sights. 
Home
.

“Glad to be back?”  Asked Andy.
Glad to be my mate?  No, no way would that be true.

She hesitated.  “Yes and no... it’s hard to explain.”

He raised his eyebrows.  “You’re happy to be home, to fit back in with your pack, but you enjoyed being out on your own, being your own self for once.”

She smiled at him. 
“Yes, that’s it exactly.” 
Her wolf yipped, her mate was perfect for her... apart from the whole already being married thing.

They sped out of town, past the turn off for her house or her brother’s house.  Adam lived in the Alpha house, the main house, but she would be living in her grandmother’s old house.  Adam promised he would get it ready for her return.

“Where are we headed?”  She asked curiously.

Andy grunted. 
“Adam said to bring you to the pack clearing.”

“Oh no, I’ve got a bad feeling about this...”

As they drove towards the clearing her fears were realised.  She was kind of hoping to slip back into Rose unnoticed, and to have a little time to herself to adjust. 
Fat chance
.

The entire pack appeared to have congregated, tables with food had been set up, balloons and streamers were everywhere.  Then there was that enormous banner, ‘welcome home Delilah.”  Undoubtedly Adam’s idea, no one else called her Delilah. 
No one else took so much delight in teasing her, well maybe apart from Luke...

They had barely stopped before Adam yanked the door open and pulled her into a crushing hug.  “Welcome home D” he boomed.

This heralded cheering and shouts from other pack members. 

“Thanks Ad.”  She said breathlessly.

He let her go and she gratefully took in a few lungfuls of air.  Everybody looked at her expectantly.  “Umm, it’s great to be home... now let’s get this party started!”