Head Hunter

by Layla Nash

  I couldn’t imagine him as a lost ten year old kid, missing his mother and grieving his father, thrown into a foreign environment. My chest ached for him and my throat tightened. “It must have – sucked.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked up. “That was one word for it.” He still watched me as he tugged on my hair once again, making sure my attention was all the way on him. “But the point of this, Persephone, was not to induce you to rub all over me and play with my hair.”

  My cheeks heated but I refused to react more than a simple aggravated huff. He knew that wasn’t what happened, and even though I’d certainly been tempted to... grind when he’d lifted his hips in invitation, I’d restrained myself. It damn near took a year off my life to resist the urge.

  Dodge smiled more. “The point is that I survived. I was drowning and I eventually found a life-line. The earth kept turning and the sun rose in the morning, and no matter how hard it was, I got up and went about my life. It was the same thing every time I went home for summer breaks and I had to be around those people and pretend to play by their rules. I pretended I gave a shit about fish knives and marrow spoons and grape scissors. I didn’t have the opportunity to do what I wanted and get away, so I had to accept the world as it was for a little while and gear up for the big move when I made it.”

  I pondered his words. He wasn’t wrong, exactly. I couldn’t just curl up under my bed and pretend that the day had never happened. I had to figure out what I thought about the wolf-man and Deidre and guys who chopped up bodies. At least I had someone there to – kind of – help me. Dodge wouldn’t let anyone kill me, or he’d at least do his best to stop it.

  I frowned as I rested my chin on his chest and studied him as closely as I dared, feeling rather vulnerable and exposed despite that he was the one who’d shared a deeply personal story. Dodge patted my butt and arched an eyebrow at me. “Well? You see what I mean?”

  I nodded, though I still frowned, and when I didn’t speak, he exhaled a gust. Both his hands settled on my waist and squeezed me. “Persephone....”

  “One question.” I tapped on his chest, like I struggled with an intense, existential conflict. “One really important question, though.”

  Dodge braced himself; I could see that he expected something ridiculous or impossible. His expression grew guarded. “Okay.”

  I gnawed my lower lip and fixed him with a serious look. “What the hell are grape scissors?”

  Dodge just looked at me.

  I pushed up on my elbows and tapped my chin. “I mean, do you use them to cut the grapes themselves? Or the stems? Why not just pluck the grape, or –“

  “You wretch,” he muttered, and his hands abruptly slid up my sides in a tickling frenzy that had me howling and squirming to get away. “How dare you mock my cutlery heritage?”

  Breathless, I flailed and gasped and tried to wiggle free. He was like a solid wall of muscle with half a dozen hands all teasing the most ticklish spots on me. I almost kneed him in the junk but managed to deflect so I only got his thigh. Dodge grunted at the close call before tossing me to the mattress and looming over me to pin me down.

  I panted and struggled to breathe as he kept sliding his fingers along my sides, around my throat and shoulder and into the tender spot behind my ear, down to the back of my knee. Dodge was relentless; he had an intensity that would have been intimidating, if he hadn’t been chuckling and teasing and occasionally paused to brush a kiss across my lips or cheek or shoulder.

  “Grape scissors,” he muttered, shaking his head and stretching over me as he pinned my wrists above my head. “You cut the stems, by the way.”

  My brain short circuited as his knee pressed into the mattress between mine, nudging to part my thighs. I searched for a clever response. All I came up with was, “But can’t you just pluck them?”

  His nose bumped mine as his head lowered, and I held my breath as his free hand teased the waist of my pants. “Plucking... gets the fingers messy.”

  Oh shit.

  Dodge took my earlobe in his teeth and gently tugged. His body settled on me, pressing me into the mattress with a comforting weight. He felt solid, warm... present. There. Unmovable. He felt more real than any other guy I’d been with.

  My thighs relaxed, almost an invitation, and his eyes shone as they locked on mine. Something ignited between us. I wanted him. I really, really wanted to feel more of him against me. I wanted to know what other scars he had, whether his muscles were as impressive all over or just his shoulders, if he had any of his own ticklish spots.

  He ran his fingers over my collarbone where my t-shirt had pulled down, and kissed the side of my throat. Then he sighed, rolled off me, and shoved to his feet. “You should get some sleep.”

  I stared after him as he slid through the bedroom door and shut it firmly behind him.

  What. The. Fuck?

  Chapter 14

  Dodge

  He’d never thought himself a coward. But Dodge was. He knew it. That beautiful woman was right there in his arms, trusting him, watching him with those wide eyes, listening to his stupid history, and...

  And he ran the fuck away before he did something he couldn’t take back.

  It was the adrenaline and the close call earlier in the day. The body freaked out and sex was a great way to regulate, to recover. She didn’t really want him, she just wanted – release. That’s all it was.

  He paced in the living room to work off his lust and the wolf’s impatience that Dodge hadn’t claimed the girl. The wolf knew what he wanted: Persephone Lawson, curled up in his den, tucked into his bed, smelling like him and smiling at him and with him. Curling her fingers into his hair, nuzzling against him and making a sweet little ‘hmm’ sound when he squeezed her ass.

  Dodge growled in frustration and shoved his hands in his hair, yanking on it to try and drive the memory from his brain. What the fuck was he doing? He never should have opened up to her about his past, about his family. It made him vulnerable. He couldn’t afford that. No doubt the architect thought she knew him, that she understood him. She was wrong.

  He was much, much worse a man than Persephone thought him, based on the little anecdote.

  He picked up his phone and started to call... His hand tightened around the phone and cracked the case. Silas. He wanted to talk to Silas about this girl and the way she turned his head around. Evershaw would mock him and Deirdre wouldn’t understand. Todd would give him an asshole’s opinion but nothing useful.

  He ran through the mental rolodex of people he trusted for advice on what to do with Persephone and came up empty. Just Silas.

  Dodge relied on his shifter hearing to give him a hint that she stirred or left the bed to confront him. He should have said something to her. His feet brought him almost to the bedroom before he turned around and got more distance. No. He wasn’t going to be an asshole and make her think that something could happen between them. She wasn’t the kind of girl he could just fuck and drop when he lost interest.

  She deserved better. A hell of a lot better than him. He’d drag her down into his darkness. He was a salty bastard, battered and scarred, and she was full of light and life. She brought the sunshine with her and the kind of idealism and excitement that he truly envied. He was too cynical for that kind of optimism, though. He’d kill that part of her just by being around.

  He sat in the darkness and stared at the door, running over the events of the day over and over, and searched for some clue over what to do next. He had to keep Persephone safe until she understood not to endanger the pack and he was certain that the mobsters wouldn’t hurt her. Then he could flee like the coward he was so he wouldn’t have to see her fall in love with someone else.

  Dodge was still awake and annoyed several hours later when Persephone finally stirred. He pretended to be dozing on the couch – another coward move, and he hated himself for it – as she tiptoed into the kitchen and retrieved some of the cardboard toaster pastries that he thought only little
kids could stomach. At least they weren’t the kind with frosting on them.

  She didn’t even bother to put them in the toaster before gnawing on them.

  She’d gotten dressed, even with her shoes, and cast a few sidelong looks at him as she moved toward the door. When she reached for the lock, he couldn’t pretend anymore. “Don’t.”

  Persephone froze, almost comical with half a pastry hanging out of her mouth. “What?”

  “Don’t open the door,” he said. Dodge sat up and scrubbed at his face before getting to his feet to hunt through her fridge and cupboards once more, hoping that more nutritional food had materialized in the hours since he’d last looked.

  It hadn’t.

  His disappointment must have shown on his face because she offered the uneaten pastry without a word. Dodge shook his head. “Thanks, I’ll chew on the drywall instead.”

  “I’d like my security deposit back, so do it somewhere the last tenant’s dogs already got to.” She turned away and disappeared back into her bedroom.

  He deserved it. He’d almost expected her to wake up swinging and confront him about being a dick – insisting on sleeping in her bed to protect her, fooling around a little bit, then fleeing like a coward. Dodge figured she’d never been rejected before and it would have been a rude surprise. He waited in the kitchen, though, debating what to do if she hid for the rest of the day. He’d drag her out of there for lunch at the Korean restaurant, then he’d hand her over to the alpha. Done. That was it.

  She returned, pastries gone, wearing a semi-fitted jacket that managed to look professional and casual at the same time. “Now what?”

  Everything about her screamed challenge. She wanted him to know that she didn’t give a fuck about what happened the night before, and she was ready to fight over it. He didn’t meet her head-on but side-stepped, hoping to deflate some of that rage. “You go about your normal day. What would you usually be doing?”

  “Great,” she said. “I would go to work.”

  “At the sanctuary?”

  “Since your asshole boss didn’t hire me, yes. The sanctuary is my primary place of employment.”

  So formal. Dodge wondered why she wasn’t spitting nails at him instead of loaded words. He folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the shitty cabinets in the kitchen. “Technically you turned down the job. Deirdre wanted to hire you and you ran away.”

  Persephone’s eyes narrowed. If she’d been a wolf, she would have torn his throat right out.

  Dodge refused to blink or back down. Let her be pissed at him. It was better than her crumpling into a teary mess. He could deal with anger.

  The architect gathered her composure and squared her shoulders, fixing him with a withering look. “Technically, they were not forthcoming about the nature of the job. It was a bait and switch.”

  That, at least, they agreed on. “You can’t go back to the sanctuary yet.”

  “You said I shouldn’t run away like a scared bunny.” She picked up her purse. “So I’m not. I’m going to work. If I didn’t see anything, I wouldn’t be afraid of returning. If I skip work – which I never do – then what does that tell them?”

  “Call in sick.” Dodge shook his head. “There aren’t enough people out there to keep them from trying to kill you and make you disappear.”

  She exhaled in frustration. “I was just there yesterday. Isn’t calling in sick going to tell them –“

  “Call in sick.”

  Her hands clenched into fists and she geared up for a hell of a comeback. He didn’t know how or what she intended to say, because before she could give him the piece of her mind, her phone rang. Persephone tensed as she looked at it, then held up the screen so Dodge could see the name: Bridger.

  He wanted to break something. It was bad enough the notorious loan shark was somehow behind the animal sanctuary, but that Persephone actually liked the woman added more complications on top of an already volatile situation. Dodge jerked his chin at the phone. “Answer it. See what she wants. Do not reveal you saw anything yesterday. You’re not coming to the sanctuary today. End the call as quickly as you can.”

  Persephone’s lips thinned with irritation, but she answered the call and left it on speaker. “Ms. Bridger, good morning. I’ve got you on speaker; I’m getting ready but didn’t want to miss your call.”

  A little too much information, but he couldn’t critique the set-up. Dodge held his breath. Bridger was too clever; she hadn’t survived a decade of loaning money and breaking knees to the worst criminal enterprises in the city by being stupid. Or altruistic.

  The older woman’s smooth voice, with the familiar cut-glass accent he remembered from his youth in New England, slid out of the phone like a shiv to his ears. “Good morning, dear. You must be running late; we expected you a little while ago.”

  Persephone frowned, though she reached out to rattle the grate on the stove, making noise to support her story of getting ready. Dodge wanted to smile and give her a thumb’s up, but didn’t dare distract her from the task at hand. The architect managed to sound flustered and irritated within socially-acceptable levels when speaking with her boss. “I should have left a note. Geordie called me midday yesterday and demanded I spend the afternoon moving a delivery around, and I was supposed to be working on a different job yesterday. I need to make up that time with my new client, so I shifted hours. I apologize for not notifying you; I thought Geordie had run it past you?”

  There was a malicious gleam in her eyes when she said it, no doubt trying to draw attention to the asshole who’d ruined her day yesterday. Dodge wondered when that gleam would be turned in his direction.

  Bridger paused for long enough that Dodge started to fear the call dropped, then that smooth, cultured voice once more broke the cozy confines of Persephone’s shabby kitchen. “No, Geordie did not mention it to me. I thought we had a construction supervisor to handle things like that.”

  “So did I,” Persephone said, once more the efficient, professional habitat designer. She paced into the living room and carried the phone, moving around so the sounds changed. Dodge nodded to encourage her, but otherwise kept his trap shut. She could handle it. “Still, I went yesterday so we wouldn’t fall behind schedule. It took forever but the delivery was moved to the appropriate side of the new leopard habitat.”

  “Forever?” Bridger asked. “Hopefully you didn’t stay too long, dear. I wouldn’t want a young lady like you to be out at the site past dark. It’s very isolated out here.”

  “It’s fine,” Persephone said. “I didn’t have any issues.”

  “That’s good to know,” the loan shark said slowly, measuring each word. “I’d hate to have you run into anything dangerous.”

  Dodge heard the mild threat, the effort to fish for more information and provoke a reaction. She must have known what the meat-heads were doing, feeding someone to the tiger. He’d put money on the whole scheme being Bridger’s idea. Dead men didn’t pay their debts, but she couldn’t have the reputation for letting someone get away with non-payment. Someone had to be made an example of, and knowing that they’d end up tiger chow would convince even the hardest bastards to find a way to pay her back. He clenched his hands on the back of one of the kitchen chairs, and gestured for her to wrap up the call.

  Persephone must have heard something different in Bridger’s statement, because she laughed it off. “Only thing dangerous out there is the tiger, and I wasn’t about to get close to him.”

  “Of course.” There was still an odd touch to Bridger’s tone; Dodge tensed when he heard it. Maybe the loan shark started to wonder about Persephone being out at the sanctuary the day before, since she’d offered that tidbit up. Bridger managed to sound halfway interested as she went on. “I’m pleased to hear you found another client, although I hope that won’t distract from our work. I feel like I’ve invested some time in you, dear, and don’t want to lose my mentee.”

  Mentee? Dodge’s eyes narrowed. Perseph
one looked too pleased, though, and nodded even though the other woman couldn’t see her. “Of course not. I appreciate all of your advice. Did you need me out there today? I was planning to return tomorrow to oversee when they move the tiger, hopefully away from...”

  She stumbled over the words and cleared her throat. “When they move the tiger back to where he’s supposed to be. After the teeth cleaning. Wasn’t that today?”

  Dodge wanted to end the call, though he couldn’t put his finger on where the architect had stumbled. He moved closer to her but she looked panicked, backed into a corner near the sofa, and held her hands up to ward him off. She smelled of fear and adrenaline, and the wolf got ready to protect her from whatever it was that drove her heart to racing.

  Persephone’s rapid change to questions apparently also struck a chord wrong with Bridger, because the loan shark took a while to reply. “Why, yes. The tiger is in the medical building for the teeth cleaning this morning, although they moved him yesterday, I believe. Did you happen to see him yesterday while you were working?”

  “N-no, of course not.” Persephone looked at him, her eyes wide with panic. “I was just curious.”

  “Indeed.” Bridger drew the word out until Dodge cringed, wanting to leap through the phone to strangle the woman until she couldn’t hurt Persephone. “But you remember what they say about curiosity and cats, don’t you? Even tigers.”

  The architect’s face reddened. “Cats do seem to get themselves into all kinds of trouble.”

  “That’s true, and usually of their own making, hmm? We do hate to see that. Curious little cats poking their noses where they don’t belong and uncovering things that shouldn’t be messed with.” Bridger managed to sound disappointed and threatening at the same time. “Good thing our tiger is rather well-behaved, isn’t he?”

  “I’ve always thought so,” Persephone whispered.