She snorted and looked away. “I just need more sleep.” Getting up out of his bed, she stood with her arms crossed. “And to get out of here.”
The wolf inside him roared. He clenched his teeth and didn’t comment.
She started pacing.
At least she didn’t have a knife this time. He’d taken preventive measures to ensure that.
“Why were you stalking me earlier?”
Travis looked at the clock. He’d only left her place an hour ago. Inwardly, he groaned—he needed more sleep than he’d gotten the last few weeks. “I was keeping you safe.”
“I don’t need you to keep me safe. According to you, the scariest thing out there is my brother, and he won’t hurt me.” She stopped pacing and faced him.
He turned on his side to face her.
Inhaling, she widened her eyes and breathed out a soft pant. “You smell crazy good.”
He leaned out and grabbed her hands, pulling her toward the bed as he sat up. “Sit down. We can talk.”
He knew what would happen. He’d counted on it happening. That taut connection between them reeled her in. No sooner had she sat down than she leaned forward, burying herself in his arms. Her tongue touched the skin on his neck. Screw sleeping. He didn’t need sleep.
“Ohh, you taste good, too,” she murmured against his throat.
He ducked his chin and caught her mouth with his. Screw talking. They didn’t need to talk. Talking only complicated things. Grabbing her by the waist, he turned onto his back, dragging her with him.
She cradled his head in her hands, her nails scraping his scalp lightly. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anyone. This was madness. He wanted her more than he wanted to breathe—and that was probably accounting for the slightly light-headed feeling he was getting from the quick breaths between deep kisses. Holy hell, LeAnn’s tongue was downright illegal in the way she used it.
She dropped her legs down to either side of his hips, straddling him.
He slid his hands up her thighs.
This was irrational.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” she said between kisses.
Yeah, this was how talking complicated things. He turned his head, breathing like a marathon runner. “It does.” Wow, his heart was pounding.
She went still. The only sound was their rapid, ragged breathing, and he could hear his pulse beating in his head. She swallowed. “Not to me,” she said slowly as she lifted up off his chest.
He shook his head. “If we have sex, it’ll be considered acceptance of the scent-match.”
“Not by me.” She slid off him.
“No, by the pack. And if you accept the scent-match, you’re mine, LeAnn, and no one else’s, and the pack will enforce that. It’s our way.”
He grabbed her waist before she got out of the bed.
“I wasn’t planning on bragging that I bagged their Alpha.” She tried tugging his hands off her before sighing and shaking her head.
“No, they’ll be able to tell unless we’re both going to hazmat levels to cover it up.” And he didn’t want to do that. He wanted the pack to know she was his.
She kept shaking her head as she looked up at the ceiling. “You guys are psychos. You’re insane. I should get out of here before I start spouting nonsense, too.”
It felt like a sharp stick through his heart. He didn’t want her to leave. Talk about insane.
She blinked rapidly and then swallowed. “Trust me. The last thing you want is me. In fact, you should really stop following me, let me get to the bottom of what my brother is up to, and then I’ll get the hell out of here.”
“LeAnn, I’m still fairly certain your brother is dead.”
She shook her head, and her gaze dropped to his. “He’s not. I thought that was a good thing, but I can’t figure out why he’d come to your place last night and risk getting caught.” She licked her lips, and despite the seriousness of their discussion, he wanted to drag her mouth down to his and make them both forget all of this. “I should go. I don’t even know why or how I came here. It feels like a dream—like sleepwalking. I couldn’t stop myself.” She put both hands up to the sides of her head and winced. “It feels crazy.” Laughing shortly, she added, “And believe me, I know crazy.”
He smiled. He’d seen her tough and ornery, crazy and homicidal, and now she looked lost and confused…and sweet. “Stay.”
Sighing again, she shook her head. “I’m not going to mess up your life. This thing between us will go away eventually—especially if I’m not here.”
It wouldn’t. She might think so, but it wouldn’t. Not unless one of them died. Not according to all he’d heard about scent-matches. “Just stay tonight, then. We’ll both get some sleep, and we’ll figure things out tomorrow.”
“Sleep?” She raised both her eyebrows.
Travis shrugged, trying to smother a grin. “We can try. If I didn’t need sleep so badly, I’d have slept outside your house, but it’s freaking cold tonight, so I’d rather not.”
She groaned. “You don’t need to guard me. I’m fine on my own. In fact, I should be protecting you.”
He pulled her down. “Fine then. Come protect me. I’ll watch over you while you’re watching over me.”
She settled into his arms with her head on his chest. “You know, it’s damn creepy they’d have known we had sex from our scent.”
“Also, the smirk on my face.”
“Yeah?” He could hear the smile in her voice.
“Yup. I’ve been so busy with the pack and moving here that I haven’t had time to think about women…and I didn’t want to deal with picking an Alpha.”
“Oh, so that’s all it’d be. I’m a woman.” She sounded disappointed.
“As opposed to…?”
“Nothing.” She cleared her throat. “So, that chick at my brother’s house earlier wasn’t a jealous ex looking to slit my throat?” She yawned and draped her arm across his waist.
He’d smelled a few different scents at Ross’s place, but so many of the pack had come and gone in the last few days that he hadn’t ruled out that he was wrong. Damn, if only he was as good at tracking as Jordan. Plus, the scent-match was making concentrating on any scent outside of LeAnn’s very difficult. He could now find her if she was within a ten-mile radius, but he might not catch someone in his own pack a hundred feet away. “What did she look like?”
“Furry. Four-legged. Female. She was in the same bushes you were.”
Hell, he was losing it. This is what came of two weeks with no sleep and then massive sexual frustration. His body was still screaming “screw talking” and not settling down without a fight. It didn’t help that LeAnn’s voice was sexy as hell. Concentrate, Travis. You’re a grown male, not an eighteen-year-old boy. He cleared his throat. “As far as I know, none of the females in the pack were more interested in me than in any of the other males. You’re sure it wasn’t a male?”
“Yes.”
That was probably a good thing. Not that he could see any of his pack attacking LeAnn, but the males could be idiots and unpredictable. Besides, he flat-out didn’t want any other men watching LeAnn. It was a primitive reaction, but he’d have to rip their throats out.
He licked his lips and tried to go for calm and dispassionate as he said, “I told them you’re pack and that no harm was to come to you.” He’d basically staked his claim. She wouldn’t understand how serious it was that he’d claimed her as pack.
She sniffed. “I can take care of myself.” Then she lifted her head. “Wait, you told them…you told your pack about me?”
“Yes. I didn’t want any of them attacking you thinking you’d had something to do with what Ross had done.”
She scowled at him.
“What?”
“Why do you have to be like this?”
“Like what? Protective?” He was protecting his mate. It was instinctual. He was overwhelmed with instinct when it came to her. Half of his thoughts didn’t make a
ny sense. Being scent-matched and sleep-deprived had dropped his IQ significantly.
“No. Well, yes, I mean good and decent and…” She put her head back down with a sigh. “I have to get out of here.”
Yeah, she was getting out of this as easy as that. “What’s your last name?”
“None of your business.”
“It’s fine. I’ll take you in for trespassing tomorrow and fingerprint you.”
“Smith.”
“Or I can call up the place that rented you that car and find out that way.”
“Jones.”
“I’ll handcuff you to the bed and go hunt down your license at your brother’s place.” She had to have a license if she’d flown here and rented a car. He should have done that yesterday rather than trying to hunt down a half sister through Ross’s father. Ross’s dad had been an ass of a man who’d basically considered himself done with fatherhood when Ross had shifted the first time. It shouldn’t surprise him that he hadn’t acknowledged a daughter.
“Taylor.” Her breath fanned out across his chest. She was killing him.
“In fact, I can do that right now.” He reached toward his nightstand. He waited for her to stop him. She didn’t. He opened the drawer. She didn’t move. He reached in and felt around. “LeAnn, where’s my gun?” The handcuffs were still there, but his gun was gone.
She lifted her head and smiled. “I put it next to the knives you hid.”
Great. He shut the drawer without getting his handcuffs out. He was too tired to even make empty threats. “I can’t believe you found those.”
“Mm, Travis, there isn’t anything you can hide from me that I won’t find.”
Actually, he was planning on hiding a helluva lot from her…including that he was not letting her run away from this scent-match. “I can’t believe I don’t even know your last name.”
“It’s Stewart.”
“Really?”
“No. Now go to sleep.”
“Brat.”
“Jerk.” She rubbed her hand across his stomach. “They’d really be able to tell?”
“Want to find out?”
She groaned. “Yes. So much yes. But leash your dog, it ain’t happening.”
“Damn.”
…
It wasn’t the most restful sleep she’d ever gotten, but she did wake up feeling…alive. Pulling away from him was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. She’d known him all of a day and a half. This was ridiculous.
Then she did something stupidly sentimental that she was taking to her grave. She watched him sleep for a couple minutes. Crap, in a few days, she’d be carving their initials into a tree.
He looked so peaceful and so incredibly sexy. Okay, she had to get out of here. Slipping through the house, she gathered a few things—things she shouldn’t be stealing from him, but she was taking precautions this time. It was funny that she’d arrived here naked but she was taking stuff with her. Actually, that wasn’t funny. Twice in two days? She hadn’t come out of a blacked-out phase naked that frequently since they started happening when she was a teenager. She’d gotten it down to a few times a year.
Her old therapist said people did crazy things while sleepwalking and recommended she lock her doors and maybe put a chair underneath the knob. Then he’d seemed far too interested in the “naked” aspect of her condition. Thus ended her brief brush with therapy.
Not that she needed therapy.
The first thing she did as she left was inhale deeply while circling his house. Others had been by, but not close. Ross had once told her that the Alpha’s space was respected and that encroaching on his land could have…repercussions. She should have listened to him about that. Because, whoa, had there been repercussions.
He also said most humans would show respect and deference to an Alpha whether they realized it or not. She respected Travis, especially after he’d had a knife up to his neck and hadn’t panicked. That was a rare thing. Who knew what deference looked like, though? She’d yet to punch him or kick him in the nads, so that was something. Any other guy saying crap about her brother might have gotten both. Even if what he was saying turned out to be true. She would have beaten the hell out of the messenger.
If she hadn’t already kissed him…and licked him.
And now she’d slept in his arms.
She was getting in deep with Travis Flynn. That had to end. These days, she always left them before they had a chance to leave her.
As she worked out in a larger circle, she caught his scent again. What the hell did her brother want with Travis? She wanted to believe that Ross only wanted to explain his side of things, but it was hard to hold on to that in light of the evidence that her brother had been hiding a lot. She’d found and opened his safe…which the pack hadn’t gotten into. Either her brother was a real weirdo or he had a bunch of clothing from other people for another reason. One of the scents was the scent of the wolf that’d stopped by his house, on a lab coat drenched in the smell of dogs and cats.
She walked back to Ross’s place—her arms full of the stuff she’d swiped—as a precaution. It’s not like she was planning on seeing Travis again. If she did, she did. When she reached the outskirts of her brother’s property, she stopped and inhaled. Okay, that was weird. It smelled like Ross and someone else, but Ross’s scent was stronger.
A tingling awareness made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. LeAnn turned to look around her. She was being watched. She pulled the knife out that she’d swiped before rehiding all of Travis’s cutlery. Well, she’d also tucked one in between the mattresses last night. She’d left that where it was. Not that she was planning on going there again tonight, but she might.
There was another scent…her own mixed with someone else’s. She clenched her jaw. What the hell?
She ran toward the house. So many scents. What the crap was going on? Whoever had been by had some brass ones. They’d left the door unlocked to let her know they’d been in her stuff.
She slapped her armload down on the counter before going back outside with the knife. “Whoever the hell you are, you come in here again, and you’ll find this buried in you! And then I’ll stick you in the fridge because that’s what we do in my family!” Slamming the door on her way back in was deeply satisfying.
It took an hour and a long shower for her anger to dissipate, and even then, she still wanted to go scream outside a little more. Nobody broke into her place. Even if she was in Ross’s house—it was her place while she was here. And they’d taken her favorite green sweater. Those bastards. Who did that? They better hope she never caught them.
She was grumbling under her breath while eating oatmeal when his truck pulled up. Hm.
This time, she went and stood out on the porch and waited for him.
He stalked toward her with more of the wolf in his eyes than the human. She couldn’t read his mood. Was he pissed? He might be pissed. Maybe he’d noticed she’d taken some of his stuff.
When he reached her, he took the bowl out of her hand and set it on the porch railing. Okay. Interesting. A moment later, he’d spun her around and had her hands handcuffed behind her. And she stood there…blinking.
“Uhh.” Normally, she thought faster on her feet, but she just plain wasn’t expecting that.
Travis tugged her up against him and dropped his head to her neck, where he pressed a kiss.
“What are you doing?” It came out breathy and intrigued…so intrigued.
“Preparing to take you in for questioning.”
“On what charge?”
“I don’t know. I’ll make something up.” He bit her neck, making her squirm. “Tell me your last name,” he murmured against her sensitive skin.
“Wilcox.” She’d seen him note the license plate on her rental, and she knew he’d double-check her. He wouldn’t find much. LeAnn Wilcox hadn’t existed for very long. She had a fairly good credit history, though.
He ran his lips across her skin. “Where a
re you from?” His voice sent shivers down her spine.
“Baltimore.”
“Hm.” He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, then bit and sucked the skin.
She pressed her lips shut to stop the moan that wanted out. Then it was over, and she felt the cool metal of the key drop into her hand as he went around her and picked up her oatmeal while leaning back against the railing.
He spooned the oatmeal into his mouth as he watched her unlock the handcuffs.
“That’s my breakfast,” she said, standing in front of him.
“You owe me for this morning’s treasure hunt. I didn’t have time to eat.”
“Treasure hunt?” Hopefully, he hadn’t noticed all that she’d taken.
“My knives. I used to have a set.”
“Oh, I think you still have a set.” She held up the handcuffs and shook them.
He took the handcuffs and key from her while smothering a smile. “Now I seem to be missing two.”
“You found them?” She smiled. This was fun. It was like being in a couple. She shouldn’t get used to it.
“Other than the two you swiped—yup.”
“Did you rehide them?”
“Of course I did. Some crazy woman threatened me at knifepoint two days ago. I hear she’s still at large.”
“Yeah, well, the local sheriff is an idiot. Can’t seem to keep her in his custody.”
He set the empty bowl beside him and stared at her.
She fought this crazy urge to lower her gaze. Instead she tipped her chin up and stared right back.
He narrowed his eyes. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever met a girl as mouthy as you.” He pushed off the railing and leaned forward, dropping a kiss on her lips. “I think I’ll have to come up with a way to shut you up occasionally.” He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her again. Mm. She’d be okay with that way—for however long she was here. He tipped back and frowned while looking around. “Was someone else here?”
“No,” she said quickly, nearly instinctually. He might be Alpha to the pack, but she could fight her own battles. She did that now. Once she’d let other people call the shots—first her mother and then her ex, but that was then.
Crazy Over You Page 5
