Scratch the Surface (Wolf Within)

by Amy Lee Burgess

  I was incredibly tired. All the adrenaline in my blood had deserted me and left me weak and disjointed. All I wanted to do was crawl onto the bed beside him and curl up against him so I could sleep the rest of my life away.

  But then I remembered that a dead man lay across the hall and I gulped back dismayed tears. If I hadn’t been so goddamn tired, I would have punched something.

  “I can’t sleep here in this house,” I whined to Murphy, who had yet to even acknowledge me. “I can’t do it, Murphy. Give me the car keys. I’ll sleep in the car.”

  “You’ll freeze in the car,” he said, still staring at the ceiling. “Stanzie, it’s about twelve degrees out there. Be serious.”

  “I am serious. I can’t sleep here.” My voice wobbled and grew very high pitched. “I’m so tired and I can’t sleep here!”

  “I’m tired too. I think I’ve gotten about four hours of sleep the past two nights. If that.” He cast me a bitter look. “It’s stupid, but I can’t sleep without you in the bed with me. That’s so goddamn dumb.”

  “It is nice to have someone to sleep with again,” I allowed. “I’d forgotten how much better I sleep with somebody else in the bed with me. It’s the same for you too, huh?”

  Another bitter look followed, this one tinged with something almost akin to hate. “I’ve never slept in the same bed with anybody else before you. I guess that’s another lie I’ve let you believe, isn’t it? That Sorcha actually deigned to sleep in the same bed with me? Oh, we had sex, Stanzie. But always in my bed and she always left afterward. Said she didn’t like sharing, getting too hot, being crowded.”

  I stared at him, aghast. “That woman was so cold. How the hell did you fall for somebody so cold? You’re not cold, Murphy.”

  “Yeah? I’m intellectual. I analyze everything. I don’t feel. Those are words you’ve said to me, remember?”

  “I said the only time you let yourself feel was for her. And now I understand even better why you’re so closed off now. But you’re not cold.”

  “Closed off is better than cold?” He gave me a sardonic look then returned his gaze to the ceiling. “Good night, see you in the morning.”

  Jesus. I did not want to sleep alone. I was so tired I couldn’t think and I didn’t want to sleep alone. I stared at him for a moment, but, of course, he didn’t say anything, so I left the room and went across the hall to the bedroom next to Grandfather Tobias’s. My hand closed around the doorknob but I couldn’t make myself twist it open.

  The door was cold against my back as I slowly sank to the floor and drew my knees up to my chest. I covered my face with my hands and sobbed as quietly as I could so the whole goddamn world wouldn’t hear me. Would this fucking day never end?

  Murphy’s door opened a few minutes later and I smelled his cologne mixed with his remorse and frustration.

  “Stanzie, come back in here. You don’t have to sleep alone. I’m sorry. I’m so goddamn tired, I’m being an asshole, I know.”

  I lifted my tearstained face. He reached out a hand.

  His fingers were warm against mine as he helped me to my feet.

  “Will anything ever be the same again?” I asked him and he gave me a sad smile as he shook his head. He didn’t know either.

  In the bedroom, he shut off all the lights and turned the gas fire down. I stripped off to my underwear and crawled beneath the covers, shivering a little even though it was not cold. I curled up on my side and shut my eyes.

  The mattress sank beneath his weight and he was beneath the covers too. His arm stole across my waist and I wriggled backward until my body fitted against his.

  We both sighed then everything, for me at least, went dark.

  Chapter 15

  Ten hours later I woke to the pleasurable sensation of Murphy’s lips against the back of my neck. I wriggled against him so I could fit the hard length of his erection against my ass. I bit my lip when he moved his hand between my legs. He slipped a finger beneath my panties and stroked me until a rush of desire made me wet.

  With practiced ease he removed my panties and slid into me from behind. We both groaned aloud as he penetrated deeper and deeper until he was all the way inside me. I couldn’t see his face, and not being able to see his expression was erotic somehow. One of his hands was tangled in my hair to hold me still while he kept the other between my legs so he could tease me with his fingers.

  At first he moved slowly, very slowly as I braced myself on my knees and reached out for the headboard to stabilize myself. When he knew I was steady, he moved faster, harder and I could hear him panting, his breath hot in my ear. He bit my earlobe and I moaned because that always drove me crazy.

  He skimmed his hand up my body, gliding his fingers across my belly and then he undid the fastening to my bra and tossed it away. He let go of my hair so he could cup my breasts with both his hands as he moved his mouth to my neck.

  Murphy talked in Irish to me as he fucked me. I had no idea what he said, but it was sexy as hell. I was so goddamned in love with him.

  “Talk to me,” I begged when he fell silent. I needed to hear his voice. I couldn’t see his face, but if I could hear his voice, I knew I’d come so hard I’d scream.

  He murmured my name, bit my earlobe again and moved faster. He was so hot inside me, so hard. I cried out and all but crushed the headboard between my fingers.

  Normally, at this point, he grabbed me by the hair and jerked my head back, but this time he didn’t do that and I knew it was because he was worried about the bump on the back of my skull. He didn’t want to hurt me.

  As my orgasm built inside me, I could feel her too, my wolf, waking, somehow coming alive through the sweat and saliva and the heat between our bodies.

  “Stanzie,” he said urgently. “Stanzie.”

  He bit my neck hard, and the pain and pleasure of it sent me hurtling over the edge. Waves of bliss rolled over me and I bucked wildly beneath him, catching him up, and he cried out too. Hot semen jetted into me and I came again. This orgasm was not as intense as the first, but somehow sweeter and more sublime because I was with him at the same time and we were together.

  I collapsed to the mattress, soaked with perspiration, and felt the weight of his body as he allowed himself to come down on top of me, his face buried between my shoulder and neck. His skin was hot. We were slippery with each other’s sweat and scent.

  “Jaysus God, that was good.” He rolled off me onto his back.

  I lay unmoving on my stomach, my blood hot in my face, hands and toes. Love made me so giddy I had to shut my eyes.

  A moment later he moved the sweaty hair away from my cheek.

  “Are you all right? I didn’t hurt your head did I?” His voice was soft and so concerned.

  I was right. He had been worried about hurting my head.

  Smiling into my pillow I murmured, “I can’t even feel my head. I can feel my toes though. Why is it I can only really feel my toes after an orgasm, Liam?”

  “Damned if I know.” His fingers were gentle against my face as he tucked my hair behind my ear.

  He got up first to take a shower and I followed a few minutes later. The shower stall was large and, judging by the dual showerheads, built for two.

  Murphy obligingly moved over to let me in, but he didn’t touch me. He concentrated on washing his hair and, before I’d even lathered mine, he was out on the bathmat, toweling dry.

  Beneath the steady thrum of the water, I heard his electric razor and I hummed to myself as I rinsed the shampoo from my hair.

  * * * *

  Allerton stood at the bottom of the staircase, cellphone pressed to his ear as he paced the parquet flooring. “I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, Jonathan. Your grandfather passed away last night.” My euphoric mood evaporated as if it had never existed.

  To my credit, I only faltered for a second between one step and the next. Murphy noticed because he noticed every damn thing. He reached out to steady me in case I fell, but I evaded h
is hand because I was not going to tumble down the damn stairs. Sometimes his protectiveness irked the shit out of me.

  Kathy Manning presided over the breakfast table in the dining room. Belgian waffles with four different kinds of topping: strawberries, maple syrup, blueberries and Nutella.

  The smell of the chocolate in the Nutella made my stomach clench and I shot her a dirty look which only made her smile at me.

  “Hot chocolate?” she asked Murphy. She held a white china teapot in her hands and I’m damned if it wasn’t the very one I’d used the day before in Grandfather Tobias’s room.

  Any appetite I had left vanished, but I sat anyway because I wanted coffee.

  Murphy forked two huge waffles onto his plate and went straight for the Nutella like I knew he would. He watched me go into the kitchen with my coffee mug but he didn’t say anything.

  When I came back with a full mug, half of one of his waffles was gone and the other half didn’t look long for this world.

  “Aren’t you going to eat?” He raised an eyebrow at me when he noticed that all I was doing was gulping coffee. I shook my head.

  His brow knotted and he looked as if he didn’t want to ask but he forced himself to anyway. “You don’t want ketchup on the damn waffles, do you? Even you wouldn’t do that, would you now?”

  My face must have reflected complete revulsion because he looked relieved and amused. “Want some of mine?” He generously tried to give me his second waffle but I hastily moved my plate away.

  “Stanzie has decided to put a moratorium in place against chocolate and all chocolate-related products,” Kathy Manning declared with a feisty smile that made me want to get up and belt her right in the mouth.

  Of course Allerton walked in at that exact second and his startled expression was almost as priceless as Murphy’s.

  “You make me sound like such an idiot,” I complained. She smiled serenely and poured hot chocolate in Allerton’s mug as he sat at the head of the table.

  “You’re really not eating anything chocolate?” Murphy gaped at me and stared at his Nutella-smeared waffle with both longing and guilt. I couldn’t stand it.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I snarled and snagged a forkful of his damn waffle and stuffed it into my mouth before I could change my mind.

  The chocolate coated my tongue and, for a moment, I saw Grandfather Tobias lifting the poison cup to his mouth. But then he was gone and I became aware that I was starving.

  Both men pretended to be very invested in their own plates as I speared my own Belgian waffle and liberally coated it with maple syrup. Kathy Manning made no such pretense and instead watched me with a knowing smile. I gave her a deadly sarcastic grin back then drained my coffee and held out the empty mug so she could fill it with hot chocolate.

  Allerton hid what I suspected was a smile behind his napkin, while Murphy kept his head down as he demolished the rest of his plate.

  “Women,” I heard him mutter. “I’ll never get the hang of them.”

  * * * *

  “The funeral has been set for tomorrow morning at ten,” Allerton informed us when we’d finished eating and were relaxing with coffee.

  “Murphy, how about you and I leave for Boston at nine?” I suggested and he grinned at me from over the rim of his coffee mug.

  “Aren’t you going to attend? I thought we went over this yesterday,” said Allerton.

  “You want me to go to the funeral so I can possibly smoke out whoever else in Riverglow was involved in Grey and Elena’s deaths, right?” I knew I sounded surly but I couldn’t help it. Or maybe I could but didn’t want to.

  “Do I get any input into this at all?” Murphy wondered, all the amusement gone from his expression. He set down his empty mug and gave the whole table a belligerent smile.

  “I’m always ready to hear what you have to say,” Allerton said, which made Murphy snort. “Within reason, Liam.”

  “Is it within reason to say that I don’t want Stanzie staked out like some sacrificial goat in your game of flushing the predator, Councilor?” Murphy’s eyes were very dark and intense and I was glad he wasn’t looking at me.

  “What would you have me do?” Allerton asked him. “I don’t know this pack, Liam, she does. She’s in a unique position to ferret out the truth, and isn’t that what I’ve asked the both of you to do as my Advisors? Ferret out the truth, however unpalatable it may prove?”

  “I thought putting our necks on the line ended after I had my goddamn stomach pumped in Houston,” snapped Murphy. “Why is it that I reckon none of your previous Advisors routinely risked their lives as a part of their job description? Why is it just us?”

  “I would have thought it was obvious that these are different times and desperate circumstances.” Allerton’s blue eyes were steady and grim as he and Murphy glared at each other across the table—two Alpha males scrabbling for dominance.

  “I’ve lost one bond mate to these different times and desperate circumstances, Councilor. I don’t intend to lose another one. Just so we’re clear.”

  “Sorcha had no goddamn idea what was going on. Give me a little credit, Murphy. I’m not helpless and you don’t own me,” I said.

  All the blood slammed into Murphy’s face for a moment. Then it all ebbed out, leaving him pale and furious, his jaw rock hard.

  The look he gave me was full of betrayal. “Fine. What I want matters fuck all, as usual. You do what you want. You will anyway, damn you.” He shoved back his chair, threw his napkin down on the table and stalked out of the room.

  The resulting appalled silence made my ears ring.

  “He makes it sound like I constantly get my way and he never gets a goddamn thing.” My mouth trembled and I pressed it shut. Now both Councilors were staring at me, which was precisely what I didn’t want.

  The front door slammed resoundingly and I cringed in my seat wondering where in the hell he was going and, worse, whether he would ever bother to come back.

  “I tried to get Grandfather Tobias to tell me who was involved but he wouldn’t.” My napkin was coming to pieces between my fingers as I twisted and shredded it. “And maybe he was lying. Maybe nobody’s involved. Only it’s true that it’s not just the grandmothers and grandfathers, so it’s probably true that somebody else was in on it from Riverglow. I don’t know what the fuck he wants from me. He’s the one who wanted to be an Advisor. I wanted to go to Dublin and just be in a pack. He’s the one who wanted this, not me. But now I’m in it and I’m not quitting. He can’t ask me to quit just because this time it’s me who’s in the most danger. And anyway, who says that I am? Jesus, he’s so paranoid. So goddamn paranoid. I’m not dumb. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

  I jumped to my feet, ignoring Allerton when he tried to call me back. Instead I ran down the hall and out the front door. I had no idea what the hell I thought I could do, but the last thing I expected to see was Murphy shoveling snow off the front steps.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I blurted, grabbing onto the stair rail to keep from plunging headlong into him.

  He stopped and stared at me. “What the hell does it look like I’m doing? I’m shoveling snow. I’m pretending the snow is Councilor Jason Allerton’s smug face and I figure it’s going to take me less than an hour to clear this whole goddamn lot because that’s how friggin’ pissed off I am. You want to make something of it? And what the hell are you doing out here without a coat? You want to die of pneumonia before someone in that fucking ex-pack of yours kills you first?”

  I gaped at him for a moment, trying to catch my breath. My heart thudded sickly in my chest. “Are all Irish bastards as melodramatic as you, or are you just being an asshole?” I wondered and for a moment it hung in the balance whether he would throw the shovel at me or burst out laughing.

  I relaxed just a little bit when I saw his mouth twitch and the next thing I knew we were both almost hysterical.

  Sometimes that’s the way it was with us.

 
boomark:Chapter 16

  Chapter 16

  The sky was so vitally blue it seared my eyes. I shaded them with my hand and wished I had sunglasses.

  Murphy and I were in the Honda, following Allerton and Kathy Manning in her sporty, bright-green Jaguar.

  Sunlight bounced off the still-white snow covering the sidewalks and yards of the houses and office buildings in Hartford as we made our way to the funeral home in East Haddam where Grandfather Tobias’s body had been cremated.

  Murphy wore the same suit he’d worn to the dinner. He had exchanged the tie for a more sober gray one and he looked remote and unhappy as he concentrated on the road.

  I had on a basic black wool dress with silver buttons down the front all the way to the hem, which reached mid calf. Black stockings and black boots completed my ensemble. My bond pendant and a pair of silver stud earrings were my only jewelry.

  It was a hard struggle not to feel like a complete hypocrite for attending this funeral. I wasn’t doing a very good job and, as we merged onto the highway and the snow on the side of the road turned slushy and dirty, I wished we could keep going and head back to Boston.

  Murphy was thinking the same thing, judging by his grim expression. I knew better than to talk to him when he was in this mood, although I wished he would talk to me.

  Anything was better than the oppressive silence that wrapped the car in an invisible web as sticky and deadly as a spider’s.

  I could see the back of Jason Allerton’s dark head in the car in front of us. I thought about the conversation we’d had after breakfast. My stomach knotted.

  Although it was Kathy Manning’s car, Allerton drove. She perched beside him, her head tilted toward the window as if she were tired but maybe she was just resting, bracing herself for the hell to come. She’d prepared the fatal dose of poison. She should be feeling some sort of reaction to her role in this whole damn nightmare.

  The Pack did not own the funeral home. However, there would be no Others there today. One of the New Hampshire pack’s members was a mortician, and he’d arranged to take over the crematorium. He’d been there for Grey’s and Elena’s funerals too.