by Laura Del
I was all cried out as he placed me on the bed, and when he started to kiss me, I didn’t kiss him back. I let him take off my sweats and t-shirt, and as he kissed my neck, I pulled him to me. I wanted him closer, so I made him press his chest against my stomach. Then I lifted his head, so I could kiss him while his hands moved down my sides, pulling at my panties. However, I wouldn’t let him take them off, so he tried to take off his pants instead. I still wouldn’t let him move.
We hadn’t made love since the first night we had moved to Louisiana. After all, we were supposed to be taking it slow. But Mike had been getting restless lately and right now, he was beginning to get furious.
When he tried to unhook my bra he didn’t have much luck, but he didn’t give up; he just kissed me harder. I was starting to really enjoy his frustration. Never before had I made a man so hot and bothered and I liked it.
“Please,” he whimpered like a hurt dog. “Please?”
I wrapped my arms and legs around him, pinning him so he couldn’t move. “No,” I said bluntly.
“Please,” he started to beg.
“No,” I whispered in his ear, sliding my hand down his warm back as he shivered. The whole thing was so much fun. I had tortured him with low cut tops, nightshirts with no underwear, and a sheer nightgown, so he had asked me before, but never as fierce as this.
“Please,” he breathed against my neck.
“All right,” I caved, and his face lit up, “on one condition.”
“Anythin’,” he breathed.
“You go out tomorrow and rejoin the pack. Not just talk to them,” I demanded. “So they can help you find a job, and hopefully help out with this whole Samuel situation.”
He looked me in the eyes then stared at my chest, shivering with heat. “Done!”
After that, I let the animal instincts kick in and boy, oh boy, it was worth the wait.
chapter
TWO
Lately, I had been having this dream. It usually started with me running through the woods of Louisiana. Then I would fall and a werewolf would drag me out of a hole in the ground. Finally, she would whimper and run off, leaving me waiting for Mike in his wolf form to growl at me before pinning me against a tree, then he’d start to lick and kiss me. But this time, instead of pinning me, he ran away.
I tried to go after him, and even shouted for him to come back, but he was long gone. My voice had become a faint echo in the moonlit wood.
“Oh,” a deep and chilling voice said from behind me, “he will.” I knew that voice even before I turned around. Sure enough, there he was: Mr. Samuel Satané himself, leaning against a tree. The trunk looked small in comparison with his large body, and his massive arms were folded across his chest.
Samuel was a tall man, around six-three, and had muscles on top of his muscles, but by no means was he unattractive. He had the most handsome face that evolution could render, with those cold blue eyes, and skin that looked like light melted caramel in the moonlight. The only downside to his attractive, god-like features were the fangs where his canines should have been.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, realizing that he was doing it again. This was a reality, of sorts. He was contacting me through my mind, and I couldn’t help but wonder how he did it.
He smirked, which always looked like it hurt, and chuckled. “Is that any way to talk to your husband?” he asked, throwing his arms wide as he stood up to his full height, which was always intimidating. “Come here.”
“No,” I said bluntly. Was he insane? “And you’re not my husband.”
He pushed away from the tree and walked over to me. “Oh,” he said softly, “but I am.”
I backed away from him. “What are you doing with my sister?” Even though I knew the answer, I still had to ask.
He smirked again, “Baiting you.”
“I knew it,” I scoffed. “You leave my sister alone.”
He moved closer to me with a sneer on his perfect face, “Never.”
“Do it or I call Kathryn into this?”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “I am afraid she is out of reach at the moment.”
My eyes widened. “What does that mean?” I asked, my voice shaking.
He shook his head. “You did not think that she would be around forever, did you?”
I stepped in his direction, but stopped myself before I got too close. “What did you do to her?”
“No, no,” he said, wagging his finger at me. “She left for her home a while ago, and now I am free to do whatever I want.”
“What?” This was just great. The only vampire on my side in all of this and she went home—magnificent.
“She went home,” he repeated, his fangs glistening in the dim light. “Now, why don’t we—”
“Put those away.” I waved him off. And as I turned to walk away from him, he pinned me against a tree. I glared up at him as we stood in silence.
He ran the tips of his fingers along my jaw, and I jerked away. “If looks could kill,” he whispered, brushing my hair out of my face.
“Are you dead yet?”
“My love, I am already dead,” he said in my ear. “Give into me like you gave into the wolf.”
My jaw clenched, “Never! Why don’t you go back to Jessica and pull this kind of shit on her?”
“Cursing now, are we? I do miss your surliness,” he said against my lips.
“Back away before I stake you,” I whispered, the threat not at all convincing.
“It will not be before I kiss you.” He moved his lower body closer to mine, and for a split second, I wanted him to kiss me. Then I regained my senses.
I broke a low branch off the tree and placed the tip of it right in front of his nonexistent heart. “Want to bet?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him as he backed away.
His smirk vanished and he held up his hands. “This I do not miss.”
“You’re going to miss a lot more if you don’t back up,” I told him as I walked forward, making him step back even further than before. “So glad we understand each other. Now get the hell out of my mind.”
The smirk was back. “Very well, but remember I will be watching you.”
“Not if your afterlife depends on it.”
“Empty threats,” he said with a chuckle, “I miss them, too.” His body shimmered and disappeared.
I woke with a start, making poor Mike fall off the bed again. I looked over the side, biting my lip. “Oh.” I grimaced. “Are you all right?” I asked, as he went to his knees.
He rubbed the back of his head and winced. “I’m okay, bébé. It’s just my skull.”
I pouted, opening my arms. “Aw. Come here and let me kiss it.” He jumped back into bed, tilting his head so I could kiss where it hit the floor. Then he placed his arms around my waist and pulled me to him so we were face to face.
“Did you have a bad dream?” he asked, smiling from ear to ear.
“It wasn’t exactly a dream. More like a different reality.”
His smile vanished. “Sam,” he hissed. “That son of a bitch!”
I could almost see the flames burn behind his eyes. He was so upset. But I patted his cheek, trying to sooth him. “Mike,” I whispered. “Calm down.”
“I’ve got to call, Kathryn,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment. “She’ll know what to do.”
I frowned at that. “We can’t,” I said, and his eyes shot open. “She’s gone.”
His face softened, and he started to look worried. “Oh, no. Really?”
I sighed, placing my hand on his shoulder. “I’m afraid so, my wolf.”
“I guess it’s official,” he huffed, placing his head on my chest.
“What is?” I asked, feeling my brows knit together. He wasn’t making any sense.
He rubbed his rough cheek against
my breast. “I have to rejoin the pack.”
“Wait,” I paused, pulling his head up by his hair. “Are you saying that you weren’t going to before? That you just promised me you would because you wanted to have sex?”
“N…No,” he stammered, trying to recover from his major screw up. “T…That isn’t what I meant at all.”
“Please,” I hissed, “do explain.”
He scrunched up his face, closed one eye, and made sort of a smiling grimace. “I got nothin’.”
I pushed him off me, and he rolled to the floor once again. “How dare you,” I screamed, getting up off the bed and wrapping myself in the sheet. Now, he knows I have a short fuse, and he also knows that I do not tolerate liars. So he should have known that I wouldn’t be able to talk to him until I cooled down, but he tried anyway.
“Bébé,” he said, scrambling to his feet. “I’m sorry.”
I held up my index finger, shaking my head. I didn’t want to speak to him, so I walked out into the living room, and he followed.
“Bébé! Listen to me.”
I faced him, folded my arms, and tapped my foot on the floor, waiting for an explanation. His eyes went wide and he quickly looked down at his feet. He knew he was in big trouble.
I pursed my lips and said, “I’m waiting, Michael.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re mad,” he said with a nervous laugh. “I’m just gonna go back into the…” His voice trailed away as he started to move backwards very slowly, which was a big mistake.
“Freeze,” I ordered, and he did. “Sit!” I pointed to the couch, and like a good dog, he obeyed. He sat there as I walked around the coffee table to stand in front of him.
“Patricia, I’m—”
I held my hand up, and he shut his mouth. “You shouldn’t have lied to me,” my voice came out calmer than I felt.
“I know, and I’m—” I put my finger over his lips, cutting him off.
“But I forgive you,” I said, taking my finger away while he looked up at me, stunned. “Don’t think that you’re off the hook with the whole joining the pack thing because you still have to do it.”
He sighed.
I went on. “And if it weren’t for the fact that I want to make love to you again, you’d sleep outside tonight.” His eyes sparkled with the prospect of having more sex, and when he started to get up, I pushed him back onto the couch. I let the sheet fall away from my body and pool around my ankles. Then, placing a leg on either side of him, I kissed his lips, running my fingers through his hair. He placed his hands on the small of my back, while I placed mine on the back of the couch.
We proceeded to make love, and after an hour or two, we lay on the floor between the coffee table and the couch, looking up at the ceiling. Mike’s hands were behind his head, while I rested mine on his stomach, both of us wrapped in the slight warmth of the sheet.
“Is that a stain?” I asked, squinting up at the ceiling. There seemed to be a large water stain. Then again, what did I expect living on the first floor, Buckingham Palace?
“Yup,” Mike whispered. “It is.”
I snuggled closer to him, his warm chest making me sleepy. “Remind me to call the super tomorrow.”
He laughed. “It is tomorrow.”
“You know what I mean,” I said, tilting my head so I could see his face, just in time for him to look down at me.
He nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean.” He paused for a moment, and then smiled. “I love you.” He finally told me.
“I know,” I replied, smiling up at him, but he frowned.
He sat up, leaning against the couch, pushing me off him, so my skull hit the floor with a thud. “Why do you always do that?” he huffed.
“Do what?”
He folded his arms, letting out a long frustrated sigh. “I’ve said that I love you a million and one times, and you have never, not once, acknowledged it.”
“I said I know.” And I did. I knew how much he loved me, and I knew that wasn’t what he meant.
“Pat,” he breathed, “you know what I mean.” He looked sad and insistent.
I frowned. “Stop with the puppy dog look. You know I can’t say it unless I mean it.”
He sneered. “So you admit that you don’t love me,” he said loudly, and I knew this could go one of two ways. Neither of which were good.
“That’s not what I meant,” I huffed, propping myself up on my elbows. “Sometimes you can be such a girl.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I resent that.”
“You were supposed to,” I mimicked him.
“I’m serious,” he said lying back down next to me.
I rolled over onto my side, propping myself up on my arm. “So am I. Samuel did a really good job of making everything complicated, so you just have to bear with me.” I touched his chest, and he placed his hand over mine.
He smiled at me, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Did I ever mention that I hate him?”
I laughed. He had said that at least five times a day since we had moved here. “Only once or twice,” I joked. But really, this had been the first time that we’d talked about me not saying the words “I love you.” After all, it’s not as if I hadn’t tried. It was just that every time I would start to say it, something would always stop me. I figured it was just nerves, but when I truly thought about it, the whole thing came down to me not wanting to get hurt again. I had been hurt badly three times before: once when my ex-fiancé cheated on me with my sister, the second time was when my mother died, and last but not least, when Samuel had tried to make me a vampire. All of these things had hurt me in ways that I couldn’t quite put into words, and to try to explain them to Mike…well…let’s just say I didn’t have the strength.
The only thing I really knew was that Mike was different, and that he would rather cut off his own hands than hurt me. But I just couldn’t take that risk. Then there was always that one question that plagued me constantly: could I honestly be happy with a werewolf for a boyfriend? Or better yet, a husband?
I felt the tears come, but I kept them at bay. I cried earlier, so it was easier to keep these in. “Mike,” I said quietly, “you do know a little of what I feel about you, right?”
“Oh, Patricia,” he soothed, stroking my cheek. “Don’t cry, bébé.”
“I’m not,” I huffed, closing my eyes. He kissed my eyelids. “And stop trying to make me feel better,” I scolded, and he laughed.
“I’m not tryin’ to,” he whispered, nuzzling his head against my neck. “I love it when you cry.” It was true. Mike had told me that I was all the more beautiful when I cried. It was the nicest lie I had ever heard.
I pulled him closer. “Mike?”
“What?” He kissed my neck, and then my shoulder.
“Do you smell that?” I asked because suddenly there was a peculiar odor throughout our apartment. It smelled like incense and burning rubber. I gagged, holding my nose. “That’s awful.” I got up, so I could look around the apartment for the source of the smell.
Mike made a face. “You’re right,” he agreed. “It’s terrible.” He got up too, sniffing the air, as a hunting dog would smell out his prey.
I made my way to the bedroom, looking around to see if anything was burning, but there was nothing. Then I walked across the small hall into the bathroom— still nothing. So I took my robe off the hook, which was on the back of the bathroom door, and slipped it on before I made my way back through the living room and into the kitchen.
“It’s not in the apartment,” Mike said with a shrug, wrapping the sheet around him like a toga.
“Maybe it’s outside.” I opened the curtain on the small window right above the kitchen table. That’s when I saw someone’s car was on fire, and my heart leapt into my throat. “Call the police.”
Mike dialed 911, speaking so
ftly into the receiver. “Yes, I’d like to report a car fire.” He gave the operator the address and hung up. “They said they’ll be right over,” he said as he stood beside me. “Whose car is that anyway?”
“Mine,” I answered numbly. It wasn’t really mine; it was Samuel’s 1965 Mustang convertible, cherry red with a custom white leather interior. I had taken it as a getting-even gesture, and now it was destroyed.
Mike rubbed the back of his neck. “Who could’ve done this?”
“You have to ask?” I said, a little meaner than I would have liked.
His hand dropped away from his neck while he frowned. “He couldn’t have.”
“He’d do anything to get back at me for what I did.” But even I had a hard time believing that Samuel would do something so primitively destructive. Then again, this was Samuel Satané we were talking about. After all, I really didn’t care about the stupid car anyway. What I had a problem with was that if he did do it, he knew where we were hiding. And this was a sign that wherever we went, whatever we did, he was watching us.
“Sam’s a lot of things,” Mike’s voice broke through my inner babble, “but vindictive isn’t usually one of them.”
“Sure he’s not,” I said sarcastically, as I closed the curtain.
The fire truck arrived, and a few minutes later, they knocked on our door. They asked if we had any idea who could have done this. What was I supposed to say to that? “Yes, I know who did it. It was my vampire husband leaving me a message of doom.” I don’t think so. So both Mike and I said that we hadn’t a clue, which seemed to satisfy their curiosity, and they left about half an hour later, apologizing for what happened to my car.
After I gave them my thanks for doing their jobs, they scurried out of the apartment like fire ants up a wall.
“Do you still think Sam did this?” Mike asked when we were alone. We sat on the couch together, and I leaned my head against the back of it as I nodded. He sighed. “Why?”
I shrugged. “Who knows, Mike?” I didn’t want to explain that I had a reason, and he wasn’t going to like it.
“Are you not telling me somethin’?” He seemed concerned, and I didn’t really feel like getting into it.
