by Knox, Abby
His beastly thoughts were getting the better of him. There was sweet Pen, who knew him perhaps better than anyone. He chewed and swallowed. “It’s good. I don’t want any more, though.”
Bobby’s eyes fell to Pen’s mouth, where he caught a glimpse of her tongue sliding out to catch a smudge of frosting, licking her lips from one corner to the other. Maybe she hadn’t meant to appear salacious, but that was the effect. She tortured him without trying. There was too much romance in the air at this riverboat soirée, and the vibe was affecting Bobby’s judgment.
She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to say what he needed to say. She could see that he wanted something, was internally struggling with what words to use.
“Bobby, what is it?”
He gritted his teeth, going back and forth in his mind. In that moment of hesitation, Pen looked away from him, beaming at someone else. “GiGi!” She turned back to him and hurriedly said, “I gotta go compliment GiGi on the cake before she disappears with Vann, and I don’t get a chance. Save me a dance, hot stuff.” With a wink, she disappeared, floating away from him. The moment was gone.
The answer finally came to him. Bobby needed to let her go. She was so different from him. Pen was a happy, thriving, outgoing, warm and fun human being—probably the most human of all the shifters. Bobby barely had his wolf contained on any given day. When he was working from behind his bar at Wolfpack Tavern, he was in his element. Strangers saw him as fun. But Bobby was a sullen introvert whenever he came out from behind the bar. He functioned convincingly enough as a human outside of the pack and outside of the bar. But just enough. Not nearly enough for Pen. What kind of relationship would that be? She was fiery sunlight, and he was a smoldering pit of doom.
Well, that is it, then, isn’t it? he thought. Tonight was going to be the night he finally put an end to his misery.
Bobby would make a plan to leave town. He would sell the bar on the down low, then leave the pack unnoticed. Start a new life somewhere else. Leave Pen’s protection to the pack—whom he knew he could trust—and live in exile elsewhere. Living with the shame of abandoning his true mate would be easier than making her life miserable.
As if the universe were hitting him on the head, the band struck up Pen’s all-time favorite song, “No Woman, No Cry.” Bobby swallowed the hard knot in his throat and wandered toward the bar to drown his sorrows in another beer.
“Young man,” said a stern, authoritative man’s voice from behind him as he tipped the bartender.
Bobby spun around, almost spilling his aged Kentucky bourbon, and saw that the voice came from the bride's father, Lionel DuChamp. “I’ve seen you staring like a lost puppy at that girl all day long. I just thought you should know, I’m going to see her engaged before this party ends.”
Bobby glared at the imposing, silver-haired patriarch. “Oh really?”
Lionel continued and plastered a smile on his face while he spoke. “You got a lot of nerve kidnapping an old man. But the difference between you and me is I got something called grit.”
Bobby scoffed. “You know nothing about me. With all due respect, I think it took a little bit of determination and grit to get your stubborn ass to this wedding. And by the way, it’s awfully hard to take a man seriously when they stand up and quote sappy 90s songs in front of his guests. Nobody was expecting that, so good on you for giving everyone something to talk about.”
Lionel crossed his arms in front of him, amused at young Bobby. Ignoring Bobby’s remark about Lionel’s dazed, emotional outburst during the ceremony, he blustered, “One of my guests, a powerful Texas oil baron, owns a lot of land along the Gulf Coast, and some of that land sits adjacent to my shipping interests. His son has a promising future, but like you, he is a bit of a loser…adrift…doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. If I give that punk’s father something he wants—say, a daughter-in-law—that would be worth more to him than continuing to cockblock me from expanding my business into the state of Texas.”
Bobby sipped his drink and smirked. “Have you lost your mind, Mr. DuChamp? You don’t own people, ’least not anymore. Seems to me the Civil War settled that matter. You remember that, right?”
Lionel chuckled. “Son, I don’t have to own people to manipulate things to go my way.”
Bobby stared incredulously at the old man and laughed. He was genuinely amused. Is DuChamp going senile? “Let me set you straight on one thing. You may be a mighty powerful man. But nobody here is your subject, least of all any member of the wolf clan. And Pen ain’t your daughter, and this ain’t no dowry society anymore. At least not since the last time I checked. But then what the hell do we wolves know about how you inbred, old-money folks live?”
Lionel’s face turned red, and he pointed at Bobby’s glass. “It’s not a dowry society, huh? I paid more for this wedding—and all this free-flowing liquor—than I have ever paid to build an oil rig, so think again about who owns what.”
Bobby shrugged. “I appreciate the hyperbole; I really do. But your daughter’s married now; she’s happy you were here to walk her down the aisle. You made your wife happy, too. You should be kissing my ass and thanking me for preventing you from causing a rift within your own clan. Say what you want about us wolves, but we don’t turn our backs on family. Now, if you want to try to marry off my friend to get back at me for the part I played in kidnapping you, I’d love to watch your drunk old ass try.”
Lionel countered, “I’ll have plenty of chances ’cause as far as I can tell, you’re a drunk, cowering little chicken shit.”
Bobby shook his head and said, “You don’t know our history. It’s complicated. And I’m too drunk to try to explain PTSD to a privileged old man who never suffered a day in his life.”
Bobby met Lionel’s eye. There was deep darkness in the old man’s gaze, and something told Bobby he had said the wrong thing.
Lionel leaned in close to Bobby’s face. His voice was low and sharp. If words could take form, he could have stabbed Bobby in the throat with them. “Boy, you do not know trauma.” Lionel pointed to his chest and gritted his teeth as he spoke. “I escaped the Sandinistas, barefoot, in the jungle, after my own government left me for dead.”
That shocked Bobby silent. He hardly knew this man, who happened to be the richest in New Orleans. He would have thought Ash might’ve shared that exciting detail about the father of his bride before enlisting Bobby’s help in wrangling him to the wedding by any means necessary.
“Are you telling me that my buddies and I kidnapped a former prisoner of war?”
Lionel straightened himself. “Technically, it wasn’t a war. Which made what happened to me all that much shittier. Don’t cross me, boy. You don’t know what you’re getting into. The things I did for love…nothing, got in my way. Not a damn thing. The life I’ve lived would scare the piss out of your coddled, bony little ass.”
“My ass ain’t bony.”
“Nah, but you’re acting like a little candy-ass. We would have eaten you alive in Ranger school.” Lionel laughed, reached out, and snatched Bobby’s glass, downing the bourbon.
“And you’re a drunk, mean, bullying, old son of a bitch,” Bobby said.
Lionel cackled. “You gonna cry now ’cause the old bully drank your drink? Ah, the hell with it. Suit yourself.” And with that, Lionel sauntered off, slightly unsteadily, probably to find the restroom.
Bobby decided he liked that guy a whole lot better when he was under the influence of magic voodoo spells.
Pen’s favorite song ended. And the moment had passed.
Bobby looked around again and homed in on her. There Pen was, chatting with some blond trust fund case with a severe side part, on the other side of the dance floor. Laughing, having a grand old time, she was. Jealousy reared its head.
Maybe he could not have Pen, but he’d be damned if he was going to let her hook up with some spoiled, old-money brat she just met at this wedding.
Unrequited love was a bitch.
Watching her flit around like a social butterfly in a silver ball gown like a damn princess, flirting with the social elite and looking stunning, was beyond a bitch. It was the absolute fucking worst.
Chapter Three
Pen
Pen nodded and smiled and politely laughed on the outside.
On the inside, she was absolutely trembling with lust.
Not for the guy in front of her. This blond haircut was clearly on the lookout for birthing hips and a submissive, passive female to take home to the approving gaze of his society parents. If only he knew that just this morning, she was a wolf, baring her teeth at the richest son of a bitch in New Orleans, helping to kidnap his ass and bring him to his daughter’s wedding.
Pen’s body trembled with lust for no other creature but Bobby Jordan: the big, black-haired, bearded half-wolf that could light up the room at a party when he wanted to one minute, then retreat inside his dark, tortured soul the next.
She had thought tonight would be the night he finally made his move.
So far, he hadn’t.
As she listened to the blond boy tell the thunderously boring story about deciding whether to buy a sailboat or a speedboat—a sailboat has class and beauty, but a speedboat has a significant advantage: “It’s right there in the name, hahaha!” he was saying—Pen could feel Bobby’s eyes caressing her bare back. He watched over her; she felt it just as sure as she had memorized his look today: dashing in his suit, the lights from the dance floor highlighting his mane of hair. She could see the fuzz of his chest, too; his shirt was unbuttoned down to mid-chest, his bow tie hanging loose. Her throat dried up at the thought of running her fingers through the fur of that broad, masculine expanse.
Bobby was not what you would call slim. He had the chest of a lumberjack. He ate and drank like a lumberjack, too. He never could turn down a dinner at JB Chicken and probably never ate a salad in his life. Unless you consider corn liquor a vegetable. He was broad and strong and physically imposing. The biggest of all the shape-shifting wolves in their little pack, he was also by far the best-looking one, in Pen’s opinion.
Good-looking was an understatement. He was a god. But more importantly, he cared deeply for his pack mates, was fiercely protective. Her soul burned for him as if they were fated mates. She didn’t know if she believed in the lore of wolves imprinting on each other for life. If what she’d been told was true, and Bobby felt the same as she did, she wished he would get on with it.
These thoughts tormented her mind and teased her lady bits as the sailboat/speedboat guy droned on. “And then Dad took one look at my vessel and said, ‘Son, you’ll have to take sailing lessons.’ As if I’d be steering the boat myself! Isn’t that hilarious?”
Pen gave a half-hearted chuckle but felt ready to explode. She was of a mind to tell this spoiled brat in front of her to fuck off. Still, as she owned a small business that relied on wealthy clients—which was how she’d met Rosemary DuChamp—Pen had to live her life making nice with the upper class. She genuinely loved Rosemary, but she wanted to dropkick these silly old-money people most of the time.
One thing she never had to worry about was putting on a good face for the wolf pack. They had been friends since middle school, where she and Bobby had first bonded at a field trip to Ashton’s daddy’s flagship restaurant, JB Chicken. After the tour from Jimmy Boudreaux himself, the class was treated to a massive spread. She and Bobby had fought over the chicken neck, while most of the rest of the class had stared, aghast.
Turns out, that was one way the Boudreauxs determined which schoolchildren were wolves, ergo kids they could trust to be around their son, Ashton. That field trip was one of the happier memories of her childhood.
After nearly fifteen years of friendship, her stomach still did a little flip every time she caught Bobby staring at her.
She knew the physical side of their relationship was like a ticking time bomb. After what they had been through together as children, there was just no way they could be together without all the painful memories resurfacing.
Pen could still see the scared, brooding look in his eye at parties when nobody else was paying attention. He put up a good front. He took care of everyone: everyone but himself.
She suddenly felt silly in this dress. She felt awkward around all of her beautiful new feline shape-shifter friends—panthers, wildcats, and who knows what else—who had mated with her wolf pals.
She was the lone member of the wedding party who had not found someone to go into a closet with to make out tonight.
It was definitely not going to be Sailboat Guy.
Nothing and nobody could compare to Bobby. She turned and caught a glimpse in her peripheral vision. There he was, alone at the table on the deck of the boat, his chest and hair on wild display. Oozing masculinity as if he wanted everyone to see.
He’s going home with somebody tonight, even if it’s not me. He could take his pick of any one of Rosemary’s hellcat cousins or nieces. Or aunts, for that matter. They had all been staring at him all damn day.
She turned some more and sipped her cosmo, and watched Bobby running his finger along the rim of his low ball glass. The glass sat empty except for one lonely maraschino cherry at the bottom. He looked every bit as glowering and tempting as he could possibly look. Weirdly, Lionel DuChamp was walking away, looking perturbed. She wondered what on earth those two had to say to each other. Guys with booze, they’ll always find something to talk about. She had a good mind to go over there, grab Bobby’s cherry stem, and do something dirty with it in her mouth. And follow it up with unspeakable things involving her mouth and Bobby’s other…stem.
Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. Pen turned to the blond sailboat guy and patted him on the shoulder. “It was lovely speaking to you. Good luck with the rape charges.”
He reared back, confused. “I don’t have any rape charges.”
As she walked away, she said over her shoulder, “You probably will before the night’s over.”
Chapter Four
Bobby
He watched in surprise as Pen flounced—there was no other way she could have moved in that giant, hoop-skirted, over-the-top bridesmaid dress other than to flounce—over to his table and asked, “Why didn’t you ask me to dance?”
Bobby looked up, confused. “Excuse me?” Pen’s chest was flushed. She was nervous. Her energy was making the hairs on his arm stand on end but in a good way. His inner beast was telling him to grab her and get to humping. Right away.
Instead, he let her continue saying what she had to say.
“You know that I love that song more than I love most people on this earth, and yet here you are. Sulking.”
“I ain’t sulking,” he said with a sulk.
Pen huffed and rolled her eyes. “I was trapped in the corner listening to that blond haircut yammer on about speedboat engines, for fuck’s sake. I was throwing up the bat signal like my life depended on it—for you to come over with some fake emergency—where were you?”
Bobby sneered. “I don’t know; you looked like you were having a pretty good time without me. Besides, I thought Lionel was gonna kick my ass for the way we nabbed him this morning.”
She glared and crossed her arms. She wasn’t buying it. Holy shit, she was sexy when she was mad at him. Her eyes flashed, and her ears were red. He really wanted to grab her shoulders and suck those hot, tiny earlobes.
“I don’t know what is up your ass, but you better pull it out,” she said. Her words barely registered with Bobby, who examined her dress to determine which was the quickest way to remove it from her body.
Then, a commotion interrupted her speech, and she turned to look. The bride and groom, Ash and Rosemary, were leaving the reception. Everyone was forming a human tunnel to send them off with bubbles, birdseed, and, of course, Mardi Gras bead necklaces.
Pen sighed and reached out her hand. “Come on, time to say goodbye to the happy couple, and then we can get out of here and t
ake a break from each other.”
Bobby took her hand, and electricity shot through him at her touch.
They joined the long lineup to wish Ash and Rosemary safe travels on their honeymoon. Without warning, and probably because he was slightly plastered, Ash picked up Rosemary and slung her over his shoulder, caveman style. His signature move. Everyone laughed. Bobby was so bound up with frustration and angst and jealousy, he was on the verge of tossing Pen over his shoulder, too.
Chapter Five
Pen
She felt her heart pang a little bit. She was far too tall to be carried around like that by most men. And besides, she would never let herself be so undignified in public…but just one time, she might like Bobby to sweep her off her feet without notice. To put all of their baggage aside and just grab her up and take her to bed.
Maybe it would ruin their friendship. But it probably wouldn’t.
As Pen instinctively scanned the crowd, she noticed something was wrong. Wrong in the air, in the scents that were present. Her wolf senses took over, and she set aside her melancholy feelings for the moment. GiGi and Vann were missing, but their scents were still on board. Word around the boat was those two were holed up below deck, making up for lost time with each other as Vann had recently returned from a television shoot overseas.
But then, also missing were Chastity and Gavin, the other remaining members of the bridal party. Chastity was Rosemary’s cousin from Baton Rouge who had gotten so shit-faced drunk at the bachelorette party, she ended up dancing on top of Bobby’s bar. Gavin had paired up with her at the end of that night, and that’s as much as Pen knew or cared to know about it. But Chastity and Gavin were not just missing from the human tunnel and shirking their bridal party responsibilities.
