by Nova Carlyle
Clementine jousted it into the air.
“You can fight him,” he continued. “What you can’t do is win.”
“Puh-lease.” She folded her arms as best as a woman holding a long pointy piece of metal could. “And why not? Because he has a penis?”
“No, because he has guns, Clementine. And you’re pretty and you’re pretty badass, but I don’t actually believe you’re badass enough to block bullets with your lady knife.” He stretched his arms around her, moving the locks on the window while simultaneously keeping her pinned in her spot.
Clementine resisted the tantalizing exposure of his neck and instead tucked her knuckle between her tingling teeth, trying to ward off their subtly elongating shapes. It was rude to bite strangers and ruder still to put an uninvited claiming mark on their body. When she’d told her squirrel they were done living by other people’s rules, she hadn’t really meant they were done with decency all together.
But her squirrel was itching to climb this man in a very dirty way.
“Okay, you win major brownie points for calling it my lady knife. But, don’t think I don’t realize I look like a rodeo clown’s hot Friday night date. Calling me pretty will get you nowhere.”
Bryce flushed and she almost thought he wasn’t going to say anything but he finally replied in a voice like chocolate and gravel. “It’s true.”
She gestured to herself disbelievingly. “Rodeo clown,” she repeated and oh, God, was he blushing?
He was totally blushing.
Her heart melted and her indignation slipped away, making her sword hand go slack.
“You suck.” She gave a disgruntled growl his way. “Stop being adorable.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat and Clementine was really going to have to explore that reaction to her later. But she really had to destroy a different man in a completely different way than she wanted to destroy the one avoiding any eye contact with her whatsoever, staring just over her shoulder like they were at some awkward middle school dance. What would he do if she snagged those shades off his face and crushed them under her heel? It was a crime to keep such heart-fluttering green eyes like that hidden. There had to be laws against such a travesty.
“Listen,” he said, his voice gruffer than ever. “You can’t do this, Clementine.”
“Word of advice? Never tell me I can’t do something. What you mean to say, is I shouldn’t. Because if you tell me I can’t, you may as well be daring me to prove you wrong.”
The sound of approaching footsteps drew his attention away from her momentarily. Rapid gunfire punctuated the air, so close Clementine was sure she could smell the ammunition’s afterburn. Bryce stared at the door, his body pouring off tension when he faced her again. He spoke quickly. “Fine. Second try. You shouldn’t fight him right now, because it would really piss him off if you proved you could easily slip through his fingers and gain the upper hand.”
“Ugh.” Her eyes rolled back in her head. “I hate that your logic gives me more evil glee than the thought of spearing him like a fish in a stream right now.”
“Shift,” he said. And then added a quick “please”.
“What about my sword?”
“I’ll get it down for you.”
She glanced at the barricaded door. “And I’m not running?”
“No. You’re proving that you can outwit and outmaneuver him. I promise you’ll fight him, Clementine, but on your terms. Not trapped with your back against the wall.”
She was used to people patronizing her, but she didn’t think Bryce was. He seemed completely sincere and for a second she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. She’d been prepared to fight him for her right to take on Grant. But Bryce didn’t seem to think she needed coddling or protecting. He just wanted her to have a fair chance at winning.
“I don’t want to be treated like I’m helpless. I really do know how to use a sword,” she tested carefully watching his reaction. “I really will win.”
Bryce nodded, “I know. You won two national fencing competitions after high school before you started your modeling career.” He leaned past her to study the climb down from her window sill.
Clementine blinked. She hadn’t realized the Agency would do such a thorough background check on her. Assured that Bryce really and truly wasn’t patronizing her, she held her sword out to him. “Okay. Let’s give Grant the bird and get out of here.”
Bryce took the weapon and immediately dug around in the ruins of her bedroom, yanking up the tattered remains of her bedsheets. She dropped her clothes and wondered by the choking noise he made, and the way his sole focus became wrapping the sword, if he hadn’t caught sight of her. She smiled, once again surprised by him. Most shifters learned young that there was no place for modesty in their lives. Nudity was a fact of life. She was both a shifter and a model, so Clementine really had zero modesty. But here was a tall, rough-edged wolf shifter whose skin flushed pink from the base of his neck to the back of his ears.
It was going to be fascinating getting to know The Long Lost Boy. There was a reason she’d never forgotten him and her squirrel assured her it was a very good reason. Clementine just had to figure it out.
While Bryce lashed the covered sword to his side with another strip of sheet, Clementine shifted into her little coppery colored squirrel. He flung the window open and freezing air immediately washed into the room. It poured over her with a welcomed caress that left her invigorated and scampering up the curtains and onto his shoulder. She was eager to see if Bryce was as athletic as his body promised.
“They should’ve breeched the door by now,” he muttered softly. “They haven’t, so that means they’re trying to flush you out. They want you to come this way. We need to prepare for an ambush. Do not let them separate us.”
She chirped in response, possessively wrapping her tail around his neck. He was going to be helpless to protect himself while clinging to a sheer vertical incline. And Clementine was determined that no one was going to hurt him, not while she had his back.
He eased out the window, digging his fingers into the tiny ledge created by the decorative timber façade crisscrossing the mansion. She remained perched where she was, eyes and ears alert for any signs of an attack. Slowly, he began his descent. His fingertips turned purple where they clung to the wall and his breath quickly became a painful pant.
Her stomach flopped when he slipped and they dropped down, his entire weight dangling from three finger’s worth of hold on the house. She recovered quickly and chittered at him, hoping he picked up on the disapproving tone and figured out that she’d never, ever forgive him if he got himself killed doing this.
“Yeah, yeah,” he grunted with faint humor. “Wolf, not squirrel. Sorry I can’t dazzle you with my climbing prowess.”
She flicked her tail over his nose and resumed her position at his shoulder. He was halfway to the ground now, just a few more feet and Bryce would be able to jump.
Like the silent fall of an evening shadow, a wave of squirrels crested over the roof of the house. Panic speared through Clementine’s heart and for a brief moment she forgot that she had The Boy to protect. But the movement of his shoulder under her feet grounded her, reminding her of everything at stake. Adrenaline shot an angry line of fur up the middle of her back, and she curved her tail around Bryce’s neck again. Not a single one of those assholes was going to touch him.
Bryce followed her line of sight and groaned. “Okay, here we go, pretty girl. Time to shake these tree rats.”
She vibrated in response, eager for one of them to make a move against him.
Grant’s golden colored squirrel moved to the front of the pack, the idiots under his control fanning out behind him. He flicked his tail, beady eyes not focused on her—no, they were locked on Bryce’s face. Because Grant mother-fucking-Halliday saw Bryce as the threat—not her.
Well. She’d just have to clear up that little misunderstanding for him, wouldn’t she?
They were closing in quickly, she could almost taste their blood now. Clementine leaned forward on Bryce’s shoulder.
One broke from the pack, streaking ahead with a lightning fast leap for Bryce’s fingers. Clementine jumped, half expecting to hear Bryce chastise her to be careful or to stay out of the way, but he didn’t. She met the squirrel head on, enjoying the quick flare of surprise then fear reflected in his eyes before she caught the back of his neck and tossed him into the night air, far enough from the mansion wall that he wouldn’t be able to stop his plummet to the ground.
Bryce kept moving, but one side of his mouth stretched back in a devil’s smile. “Though she be but little, she is fierce.”
Thrilled that he seemed to actually enjoy her bloodlust, she streaked between his chest and the wall, arching her back under his jaw with feline-like delight. His stubble deliciously caught on her fur and if she weren’t dead set on holding off an army of assholes, she’d have done it twice.
Vicious barking rose up from the pack of squirrels and it carried over the frozen air, echoing in the surrounding valley.
Oh, good. She pissed them off.
It took terrifyingly little time for them to close the gap and fear tingled on the edge of her nerves.
Bryce grimaced. “Time to drop, pretty girl. Get on my chest and hang on.”
He didn’t wait to make sure she obeyed. With a forceful shove at the wall, he pushed off, jumping as far from the mansion as he could. Clementine fought her squirrel’s instinct to leap back to the safety of the wall, and instead clawed her way to his chest. Their bodies jolted with the landing, but Bryce neatly tucked around her and into a roll. Before she’d caught her breath, he was on his feet, pounding towards a black and chrome dirt bike. It sat like a rebel soaking up the moonlight in her perfectly manicured driveway. And oh, God, did it call to her long dormant wild side.
She jumped from him as soon as she could, landing in the middle of the handlebars, ready to hit highway speeds and feel the glorious wind in her fur.
Bryce stuffed her into his jacket, kicked the bike into gear and sprayed gravel behind them.
Clementine edged up towards his collar, high enough to let the wind catch her ears and she could see out into the darkness.
Vehicles roared to life behind them, but Clementine didn’t care. She felt invincible cutting through the cold night. The moment Bryce appeared at her door, everything had changed. Maybe she didn’t quite understand how or why, but he was important. Maybe even the missing piece to the entire Clementine revival she’d been rallying the last four weeks.
Bryce eased off the road and into the forest, his dirt bike slicing through the trees until they’d left the entire world behind and it was just the dark forest and the scent of a wolf.
Three
Bryce hit the lift for his garage door, sliding the bike in and closing it immediately behind him. He shut it down and popped the kickstand, wincing when Clementine’s nails inadvertently caught his skin while she tried to wiggle out of his jacket. He dropped the zipper a half inch and she popped out, leaping so fast he could barely track her path. She ended up in the low rafters of his garage, her tail swishing side to side with every step.
He covered the back of his neck with a hand, remembering the feel of its soft length curled tight around him. Emotion twisted in his gut. Clementine Winters found him worthy enough to protect. It was both exhilarating and terrifying, but what would happen when she realized he wasn’t? And even while he agonized over her inevitable rejection, the possessive slide of her tail encircling his throat had settled the desperate edge in his wolf.
The animal still wanted to throw her over their shoulder and keep her forever. And the wolf was convinced she’d already accepted them as mate.
Bryce really preferred the crazed, pining wolf to the wolf who felt like it had the right to touch her. Lay with her. When this job was over, letting her go was going to be a battle with his animal, and he didn’t look forward to it.
Clinging to the wood frame around the door into his home, she chirped softly, prompting him to open it. She dashed in, investigating every nook and cranny of the mudroom. Not that there was much. Washer, dryer, mostly empty hooks and his boots. When he got recruited to the Agency and finally had money to move off the streets, he’d wanted a small apartment.
And then learned very quickly that no one wanted to rent to a rogue. He’d been forced to buy a house from a human realtor. It was a closet compared to Clementine’s wing of her mansion, but it was still too big and too hollow for his liking. Every room except his bedroom, bathroom and kitchen sat empty. If he could’ve condensed all those into one small space, he would’ve.
Careful of its sharp edges, Bryce tucked Clementine’s sword up on a long pine shelf left over from the previous owners.
Using the edge of the dryer as a launching pad, she disappeared into the dark kitchen. The sound of her little nails clattering over the counter made him move a little faster to turn the light on for her.
He winced at the sight of the small kitchen. It was all white, from the floor to the backsplash to the ancient appliances. Instead of being bright and cheery, it just made the space that much more depressing. But Bryce hadn’t known how to work the stove when he first moved in, let alone how to bring color or life into the room. The entire house was just an echo of this gloomy nothingness.
He couldn’t keep her here, not when he didn’t even have a spare chair for her to sit on. But the thought of taking her to the agency made his gut clench. Bryce didn’t want her to see how the other shifters there treated him. He felt too different from her already.
“I’m grabbing more ammunition and weapons, then I’ll see about getting you to a hotel for the night. When it’s safe, we’ll regroup with Rae and your fathers.” He slipped open a drawer, pulling out keys to the truck he kept in the drive. There was no way in hell he and his wolf were going to survive having her against his body again, squirrel or not. It made the wolf want to cover her in their scent and then mark her with their teeth. A woman like Clementine wouldn’t want a claiming mark, let alone a rogue wolf. She was a model and his scar would take up a possessive portion of her creamy shoulder. Or neck.
His wolf pushed forward the image of first tasting between her legs before climbing up to sink their teeth into her exposed throat. Bryce frantically tried to push that image as deep down as he could, but it wouldn’t cooperate. What did he know about love making? Nothing but years of solo practice with only his imagination to fulfill his needs. He could never be enough for a woman like her.
But now he knew her scent better than their one brief meeting years ago had allowed. Now he had the sound of her voice circling in his head. Now when he touched himself, he’d have so much more of her to fantasize over. His gut drew up tight.
“I’m parched. Got anything to drink?”
He cleared his throat, praying she wouldn’t hear the arousal slowly taking his body by storm. “Beer in the fridge.”
“Anything stronger?”
Wrestling his wolf down, trying to keep the animal from doing something really stupid like peeing on every corner of this house just to be sure everyone out there knew that everything in here was theirs, Bryce turned to her with a distracted wave towards the fridge. “Sambuca in the freezer.”
“You know, I think this is one those situations where I need to be completely honest. I love Sambuca. But it makes me cuddly.”
He blinked. Clementine and her cap of riotous curls, and her pink nipples sat naked and cross legged on his counter.
He swallowed, unable to either meet her eyes or look away from her. How on earth was she so pink everywhere? He’d seen roses the color of her. Beautiful, creamy blooms with a hint of pink at every edge. And that’s exactly what she looked like to him, a garden of petal softness.
“Are you going to be okay with that, Bryce?”
He blinked, trying to focus on her words and not the sexy overbite that made him frantically wonder how her bi
te would look on his skin.
“If I get a little tipsy and want to snuggle?”
His breath wheezed out.
“Great!” She popped down, her breasts bouncing with perky abandon. “Mind if I borrow some clothes?”
He lifted a numb finger in the general direction of his bedroom.
She patted his cheek and walked out of the room. If she heard his clumsy steps when he staggered into the hallway she didn’t say anything, she just disappeared into his room.
He leaned against the wall, tasting his heartbeat in the back of his throat.
Clementine Winters was naked. In his room.
Scrubbing hard over his face, he prayed for the strength to ignore his wolf’s urge to go lock themselves in there with her.
They had to get out of here. And a hotel wouldn’t work, not when they’d still be in the same room. The agency was it then. He was going to have to suck it up and take her there because if she stayed here, something was bound to happen.
“Oh, and Bryce?” She called out.
He tried to answer but his vocal folds had melted together. Faintly, he heard the sound of his closet door scraping open.
“You mentioned a hotel, but if it’s okay with you, I’d prefer to stay here. I’ve traveled so much in my life, I’m sort of over sleeping in the same room hundreds of other strangers have.” She peeked out around the corner. “Nod if that’s okay.”
His head nodded and his brain wanted to pound it into the wall.
She disappeared again. “I’ve got a wicked craving for carbs. You mind if I order some take-out?”
Yes, food. Food he could handle. Food was safe and she was hungry so he was going to feed her. And take-out was something Bryce was very familiar with. He opened a different kitchen drawer and brought out all the menus he had, dumping them on the counter.
The hair at the back of his neck lifted seconds before he became aware of Clementine joining him. Clad in his only dress shirt and only the shirt, her skin appeared that much more fragile and reminiscent of pale roses against the deep black. But her gold eyes shone against it, brilliantly colored like a bright lance of afternoon sunlight.
