by Nova Carlyle
She peered over his arm, studying the menus. “You have an opinion on where you want to order from?”
He shook his head. He wasn’t aware of anyone that served a Clementine buffet.
She stuck her hand on her hip. “It’s not going to be any fun tonight if you stop talking to me.” Her tone was sharp, but there was humor in its bite.
He cleared his throat and made a dismissive noise, blindly staring at the menus. “I’m not picky.”
Elbows planted on the counter, she stretched the lean line of her body out behind her. “Are you ever going to take those shades off?”
“I don’t take them off around other shifters.”
“Why ever not?”
This conversation was good. He needed to say this to remind himself of all the reasons looking at her and feeling like his heart was going to burst from his chest was wrong. “Rogues don’t have that inner barometric compass that guides us around other animals. When the alpha wolves and bear Itans try to control me with rank, I can’t pick up on it. It tends to piss them off. The glasses help deflect some of that.”
“So, you don’t do that whole bow down and bare your neck thing?”
“No. And even if I pretend to, they can feel my wolf’s utter indifference.”
“You’re my kind of wolf, Bryce. I’m not bowing down to anyone ever again either, so I’d say we’re going to be great friends. Especially considering you didn’t try to keep me from taking down that squirrel who wanted to eat through your knuckles.”
He tilted his head. “Why would I have stopped you? I needed you to go after them. You offered to protect me and that’s—that’s just not something that happens to me often.” Worried, he scratched at the shiny logo of one of the menus with a fingernail. “You said you didn’t want to be treated like you were helpless. I thought that’s what I was doing.”
“That’s exactly what you did.” Her lips stretched into a smile, stretching his chest tight with them. “The fact that you listened, means a lot to me. You didn’t know if I could handle them, but you left the decision to me. It says a lot about your character.”
He watched out of the corner of his eye as she fetched the Sambuca from the otherwise empty freezer and walked from cabinet to cabinet until she found the glasses. Taking one shot glass down, she leaned up on her tiptoes, peering around for a second he assumed. When she didn’t find another, she shut the door and returned to his side. “One shot glass.” She sat it down next to the menus. “Not much for company, huh?”
“Does that really do what you said?” He didn’t want to explain to her that she was the only person who had ever been inside his home before.
“Make me cuddly? You bet. Nothing sexual, just snuggles. I’ll climb in your lap and pet your cheek. And I’ll want to hug. A lot. It’s really awful.”
“Yeah, sounds terrible,” he lied.
Clementine’s mouth quirked.
“There’s not going to be anyone else here tonight.”
She shrugged and uncapped the lid. “Fine by me.”
He watched the crystal clear liquid pour into the glass. Was she implying that she was okay with touching him? And what exactly constituted as cuddling?
Swirling the liquid, she watched him from over the rim. “You up for it?”
Up for Clementine needing him to hold her and cuddle? His breath wheezed out.
She smiled, lowering the glass. “Why on earth hasn’t some woman snatched you up yet?” The glass dramatically dropped even further until she set it back on the counter. Sambuca sloshed over the edge and the scent of black licorice filled the air. “Or-or is there someone?”
“No, no one.” He protested too quickly. Then he curled his hand into a fist, thumping it against his thigh, irritated with himself for not having explained this better the first time around. “Rogue wolf, remember?”
She waved her hand. “Like that’s a big deal.”
“No. It is. To wolves and bears and most predators it’s a huge deal.”
“Why?”
“I create chaos. I disturb the balance.”
Clementine’s brow only arched. “And that’s bad?”
“Very. My own pack left me behind when they moved.”
“When was that?”
“Over twenty-five years ago now, I think. I was rather young at the time, and I don’t have a good grasp on the timeline—”
Sambuca clearly forgotten, she stuck her hands in the air, stopping him mid-sentence. The baggy shirt sleeves she’d rolled to her elbows slipped a little. “Hang on. Just back the fuck up. Your pack left you when you were a child because of some…some inborn ability to resist their dominance laden pheromones?”
“Yes. Exactly.” He frowned. She seemed to finally be following what he meant by Rogue, but she looked angry. Maybe she understood too well what it meant and was rethinking her request to stay here. He tapped his fist against his thigh again.
“And when they left, were you put into another family’s care?”
“Of course not. No other pack would have me and the bears offered to eat me.”
“So you lived where?”
“On the streets mostly. I liked the woods, but it was easier to make money if I stayed close to town.”
“And the other shifters just—just let you live on the street? Like you were an animal?”
He looked away. She couldn’t know how close to home that hit and how very much it still hurt. “You sound angry.”
“Well, duh. Of course I’m angry. Those assholes! Where’s my sword?”
“They’re not assholes,” he replied instantly. Well, most of the guys at the Agency were, but that was different. “It’s not their fault. They’re the normal ones—I’m the one that’s...different.
“I can’t believe you’re defending them.”
“An Itan once explained it to me. Some see a spider and kill it before they even process the thought. Same thing with me. It’s a knee-jerk, gut reaction to something that triggers a primal response. They can’t help their instinct any more than I can help this. And maybe they couldn’t give me a place in the pack, but they gave me a way to survive. I’m fortunate there were plenty of young shifters needing a good fight. It kept me fed until I landed in the Agency.”
“Well, from now on, all that changes. I will not have this,” she circled her finger in the air, “happening anymore. If you know what’s good for you, Bryce McCabe, you’ll nod and say ‘yes, Clementine’.”
He was saved from responding to her disconcerting demand by his cell buzzing. Bryce brought it up immediately. “Rae, are the fathers secured?”
“Yes.”
He gave a quick nod to answer the worry in Clementine’s eyes. Her shoulders sagged with visible relief before she turned to the menus again.
Rae continued on. “I’ve got them tucked into a hotel and I’m headed to the agency for ammunition and to update Miguel. Looks like she wasn’t wrong about this guy wanting to kill her.”
“Looks like.”
“Did she stab anyone with that sword?”
“Not yet.”
“Pity. You keep her safe tonight, I’ll go do some recon on this angel of an ex.”
“Rae, don’t go alone. Take one of the bears or wolves.” His mind scrambled for a good match to help her. “Nico was there earlier, take him.”
“You have got to be out of your dog bone loving mind. Nico? No. Hell no.”
Bryce pulled the phone from his ear briefly to blink at it, before slipping it back into place. Since when did Rae have beef with anyone at the Agency? “Okay. Fine. Not Nico. Just take someone.” He could hear her teeth grinding, and he rolled his eyes. “Suck it up. The exhole doesn’t play fair and there’s no reason to put yourself at a disadvantage if you don’t have to.”
A frustrated moan filled the receiver and he could only imagine the look on the panther’s face at that moment. “Looks like I’m getting that Valentine’s date after all,” she growled.
Clementine
turned and hopped up onto the counter next to his elbow, her bare legs swinging at his side. She had a menu popped open, running her finger over it in concentration. He wanted to run his finger over her knee and down to the plump of her calf.
“Did I lose you?” Rae asked in his ear.
“No. I’m here. Come by my place first, bring Clementine some clothes.”
“Your place? Like your house? She’s there with you?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting turn of events. Text me your address and an idea of her size.”
He hung up and then jerked back when Clementine came barreling into his personal space. In the blink of one stupefied moment, she pulled his sunglasses off, slapped them on the counter and pounded them flat with his heaviest frying pan.
Sporting a satisfied smile, she tossed the pan back on the stove where it clattered into place.
“Garbage can?”
He pointed to the cabinet under the sink. She fetched it, and he watched speechlessly as she pushed the shattered remains with the side of her hand into the garbage can.
She popped the waste basket back into place and turned around, brushing her hands together. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“They weren’t rubbish.”
“Anything that covers any portion of your eyes or face is rubbish.”
“Other shifters can’t handle my direct gaze. Those glasses protected me, saved my life countless times.”
She shrugged. “And now you’ve got me to do that.”
He vainly tried to stamp down the unbidden happiness her words brought as well as the smile tugging at his lips. Clearing his throat, he fought for a dourness that used to be natural, but now only felt like clunky mask. “I have other sunglasses.”
“More fun for me. Smashing things is cathartic. Some chicks dig yoga and meditating. Me? Annihilation and adrenaline.”
Why did she have to be so fucking wonderful? If only she’d been the delicate model he’d expected—the sweet, gentle woman he thought he knew—he would’ve been able to resist her solely on the fact that his true nature would’ve frightened her. But this creature? She was undefined and wild, her sharp edges tearing at the walls he’d built.
She tapped one of the menus. “So I’m thinking Thai for the main course and Italian for dessert. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Preferences?”
He almost blurted out fried basil and pork, but he caught himself quickly. He’d slipped up once already. It wouldn’t do for Clementine to know that he knew practically everything about her, including her favorite food. “Surprise me.”
Her eyes gleamed. “That’s an interesting proposition.”
He flushed and she laughed gently. “Has anyone ever told you how cute you are when you blush?”
Annoying heat blasted higher up his neck and he dug his phone back up out of his pocket in an effort to hide her effect on him. “I dislike seafood. I prefer chocolate with my dessert.”
While Clementine phoned in two orders, both with extravagant amounts of food including the entire pan of tiramisu she convinced the Italian place to sell her, Bryce flipped the sink on and soaped up his arms and hands. He could still feel the grit of the mansion’s stonewalls under his fingernails and it was about as bad as wet sand between the pads of his wolf’s paws.
Clementine snatched the hand towel before he could and held it between both her hands. Uncertain of what she wanted, Bryce tried to take it back, but she moved it out of his reach then swooped it around his wrist, capturing him in the soft nap. His throat tightened when she began to dry him herself, carefully pulling it down over his skin in repeated strokes. Never in all his years had he ever thought he’d live through a night where she not only protected him, but she was in his home, touching him with a familiarity that had never existed anywhere in his life before.
“Sixteen years ago. You saved my life. And then you disappeared.”
The unexpected pleasure of her doing something so domestic and intimate dimmed under the dull pull of pain her words brought. Not a single part of him wanted that pain right now, he just wanted to stare at the light reflecting off her copper hair as she gently took care of him. “Why is the exhole trying to kill you?”
“You answer my question first.”
“You didn’t ask a question.”
“Why?”
“You were drowning. Now tell me—”
“One minute I was in your arms and the next you were gone.”
Thoroughly dry, he pulled the towel from her hands and turned to arrange it over the oven door handle. “I guess sticking around never occurred to me.”
“Do you know what my first thought was when you pulled me up to the surface?”
“Thank God I can breathe again?”
“I told myself that you had the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen in my life. My squirrel wanted to keep you. And even now, she’s pretty insistent that you’re essential somehow.”
His hands shook and the towel slid to the floor. “It’s common to be grateful to your rescuer. You’re not the first person who has ever experienced that.” He stiffly retrieved it, doing everything he could to ignore the sincerity pulsing from her. She came so close to him that her champagne glossed toenails moved into his line of sight and the hair along his arms pulsed straight up.
“You can believe I’m capable of taking Grant down with my own two hands, but you can’t possibly believe that I’m capable of seeing something in you?” Hurt echoed in her voice and his insides twisted. She couldn’t possibly understand how much he wanted her to be capable, or how tantalizing the idea was.
His eyes clung to the white walls, the blank nothing that was his life. He couldn’t have her. Not even this Clementine who was more fire than flower. He couldn’t afford for her to confuse him, couldn’t let her get too close. Already his mind was swirling with what-if’s, playing along to the wolf’s images of a life with Clementine as theirs.
Her head tilted and the curls he’d long fantasized about twirling around his finger brushed over the faint freckles on her cheeks. “Why are you so intent on discrediting my feelings?”
“Because you can’t feel that way, Clementine!”
Her eyes widened at his outburst and for a brief second, he worried he had frightened her. But her chin jutted and stubbornness smoldered in her golden eyes.
“I’ve already told you that telling me I can’t do something is the same as daring me to prove you wrong.”
“I’m a rogue shifter—I’m not made for normal. I’m not someone your squirrel should even remotely want to be around. Your squirrel should want to hide in a tree and chuck acorns at my head. I’m not right. Not natural. My entire family left me, how could you possibly want—” He bit off the words, pressing his fist into his leg. She couldn’t want him.
She reached for the shot glass and handed it to him. “Take this.”
“I don’t want any.”
“You’re going to want this. Take it.”
“Clementine—”
“Fine.” She slapped it back down on the counter. “So I don’t want to freak you out but I’m like ninety five percent sure my squirrel thinks you’re our ‘M’ word.”
Fireworks exploded in his ears, rendering him both mute and incapable of anything more than horrified staring.
“Yeah. Mate. Crazy, right?” She shrugged like it was no big deal and smiled. He could barely hear her over the ringing in his brain. “But the squirrel’s got a point. We like trees, you’re so deliciously built like one. We like nuts. And your eyes are the color of our favorite—pistachio, and,” she gestured south and Bryce belatedly covered himself with his hands. “You’ve got that covered in more than one way. And she—her, not me—keeps fantasizing about, you know. Biting you. And well, I wouldn’t ever rush that, but goodness, she makes a very strong point about how very much attracted we are to you.”
Bryce wordlessly accepted the shot glass she once again extended to him. This time h
e downed it.
Black licorice pooled in the giant hole she’d sucker punched right into his gut. He pressed the empty glass to his forehead and shut his eyes against the sultry picture she and her purple shrouded eyes made leaning up against his counters, dressed in his shirt, and claiming to be his mate.
He wasn’t even entirely sure any of this was real. It was easier to believe he’d died in his sleep and this was hell: Clementine offering herself and Bryce eternally damned with the knowledge that he wasn’t worthy of touching her and he’d never be able to keep her.
“We’ll make a deal. I won’t use the ‘M’ word, and you think it over.”
Forcing his voice back up from where it had dropped to his stomach, he shook his head and said, “How about you won’t use the word ever again, and I’ll pretend I never heard you say that.”
“We’ll meet in the middle. You go on pretending that you don’t feel that spark between us and I’ll wait patiently for you to catch up.”
“I’ve got to go do a security check on the perimeter.” There would be oxygen out there. Something this house was suddenly completely lacking in.
“Of your own house? In the middle of human-ville? Don’t think I don’t know a stall tactic when I see one.” Clementine pried the glass from his fingers and turned back to the Sambuca. “You go do what you got to do. Just be aware that every shot I take while you’re gone is going to directly translate into how many hugs and snuggles I’m going to want very soon.”
Bryce waited patiently for her to pour one. The moment she set the bottle aside, he snatched it up.
“Hey!”
He tucked it firmly under his arm. “I recant my decision to encourage your physical demonstration.”
“You can’t do that—I’m a damsel in distress! I require alcohol!”
“Does beer make you cuddly?”
“No, but—”
“Then knock yourself out. I’ve got an entire shelf of longnecks in the fridge.”
He ducked out with a smile and left her sputtering in the kitchen.
But the smile only lasted until the cold night air hit him and darkness enveloped his shadow. Sheltered by the shallow breadth of his front porch, he bowed his head, measuring each painful breath by the crystalline vapor they dissolved into.
