Derik's Bane

by Davidson, MaryJanice

“Uh-huh.”

  “Well, it was.” He’d thought it would be bad, trying to fool a regular Pack member, but this was Jon. Practically his littermate! Of all the safe houses in all the world, why’d he have to walk into Jon’s? “It’s been kind of a stressful week.”

  “Mmm. You know what your mom always said.”

  “If you chew on my hardwood floors one more time, I’ll break your neck?”

  “The other thing.”

  “Yeah,” he said sourly. “Stick to your own kind.”

  Jon spread his hands, but didn’t say anything.

  21

  “SO!” SARA SAID BRIGHTLY, BOUNCING INTO THE living room, which was floor-to-ceiling windows on the entire west side. She’d thought Kansas was supposed to be flat and boring, but it had a kind of wild beauty about it—like a prairie rose. And the windows in this place! Werewolves must not like being unable to see out. Well, of course she already knew that from Mr. “Can’t we please get a convertible?” “What should we do?”

  Derik, the big dope, nearly fell out of his chair. “What? Now? What are you talking about?”

  “It’s only nine o’clock, calm down,” she said. “Do you guys want to watch a movie? Play a game?”

  “A game?” Jon asked. He was a yummy one, all right, with that build and that hair and those green, green eyes. No Derik, of course, but who was? He was a watcher, though, while Derik was a doer. She could tell . . . Jon didn’t say much, but his eyes were always calculating, judging, weighing. She pitied the house burglar who tried to crack this place. “What kind of game?”

  “I don’t know . . . this is your house. Whatcha got?”

  “The only games we have are Candyland and Chutes and Ladders,” Jon admitted.

  “Oh, you have a little girl, that’s right—I saw the pictures in the hall. She’s adorable.” Adorable, with about six hundred too many teeth. A truly frightening smile for a four-year-old. “Really darling.”

  “Thank you. Shouldn’t you guys—um—aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to go to bed?”

  “No,” Sara said, at the exact moment Derik said, “Yes.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jon said, narrowing his eyes at Sara. “Tell me again why you guys are—”

  “Deck of cards?” she said hurriedly. “You’ve got to have one of those lying around.”

  “Right!” Derik said heartily. “I could really go for a—a game of—um—”

  “Cards!” Sara said brightly.

  Jon sighed and got up. “I think I can find one around here somewhere. Be right back.”

  Once he left, Derik muttered, “Very smooth.”

  “Shh! I thought you said he could hear everything.”

  “He can. When are we going to bed?”

  “When you stop being an asshole.” She glanced at her watch. “Shouldn’t take more than a few years.”

  “Very f—”

  “Here we are,” Jon said with fake heartiness.

  “This isn’t such a great idea,” Derik said.

  “Horny bastard,” Sara muttered.

  “Well, yeah, but besides that.”

  “Don’t be such a spoilsport.” Jon sat down on the end of the couch and pulled the coffee table closer to them. Though the tension was thick enough to swim through, he ignored it and, ever the polite host, handed the cards to Sara. “One or two games, big deal.”

  Sara was blinking in confusion. “What are you guys talking about?”

  “Sare-Bear, we’ve sort of—”

  “Got to stop calling me that.”

  “—got the advantage. I mean, you can’t bluff us. We’ll know it. Your body language gives it away, even your smell changes.”

  “Gross,” she commented.

  “We’ll always know when you have a good hand or a bad hand. It’s not really fair. Now checkers . . . we could play checkers . . .”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “Cards will pass the time. Consider me warned.”

  “Seriously,” Jon said, shifting uncomfortably on his end of the couch. “It’s like playing cards when we can see your cards, but you can’t see ours. Not very sporting.”

  “Oh, hush up and deal. It’ll be fun. What are we playing for? Got any quarters?”

  “OH, BOY,” DERIK SAID HALF AN HOUR LATER.

  Sara, stacking her quarters, didn’t look up.

  “Let me get this straight, no pun intended,” Jon said. “In ten hands, you’ve been dealt a full house, queens over jacks, a straight, a straight flush, four aces, another straight flush, another full house, aces over kings, and another four of a kind. Aces again.”

  “What can I say? Lady luck likes me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Told you it’d be fun.”

  “Uh-huh. Derik, can I talk to you a minute?”

  “No,” Derik said.

  “Now.”

  “That’s what I said, now. You just misheard. Back in a minute, Sara.”

  “You, uh, want me to come with?” she said, nervously watching Jon grab Derik by the shoulder and haul him away.

  “No! Don’t go near him. I mean, I’ll be fine. I mean—”

  Then they were in the hall, and then they were in the office with the door closed.

  “Okay,” Jon said.

  “Now, Jon—”

  “What the hell are you up to?”

  “Shh! Sara will hear.”

  “She couldn’t hear if I left the door open, and you know it. What’s going on?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  Jon glared, and Derik didn’t drop his gaze. Finally, Jon dropped his and said to the floor, “For the record, you’re both full of shit. You’re not engaged, you barely know each other. You’re hiding something huge, and there’s something weird about your lady friend. Really weird. I can’t put my finger on it . . . can’t even get my nose around it . . . but it’s making me really nervous.” He rubbed the back of his neck, frowning.

  “Like I said. You wouldn’t believe it.” Derik could feel his heart rate—which had been trip-hammering at about one-eighty—slow down once Jon quit challenging him. Maybe this wouldn’t be ugly. Maybe—

  Jon dragged his gaze up. “Derik, you’re my friend, we grew up together. So I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, here. And I don’t want to fight, and I don’t want to call Michael.”

  “Well, shit, Jon, I don’t want to fight either.”

  “Uh-huh. But you better get your thumb out and do whatever the fuck it is you’re supposed to do. I have a family.”

  Derik nodded. “I know, Jon. Mike has one, too, and it’s like my own family. You’re like my own family. You think I’d screw around if it meant hurting you, or someone important to you? I’d never do that. I’d kill myself before I’d do that.”

  “Finally,” Jon commented, “a truth.”

  “Look, I’m not sure what’s going to happen myself yet, but I’ve got it covered.” I think.

  “Maybe I can help. Can you tell me about it?”

  “Not really. It’s hard to explain, but Sara and me—we make a good team. She can—you wouldn’t believe it. But we’re gonna do the right thing. She’ll see to it, and I’ll see to it. I swear it on my life, man. Not your family’s, or Mike’s, or Lara’s life . . . my own life.”

  There was a long, tense moment, and then Jon relaxed. “All right, Der. We’ve known each other too long not to trust each other when it gets down to the wire. Do you need help? I can come with you if—”

  “No!” Christ, no. He didn’t want Jon anywhere near Arthur’s Chosen when it went down. Bad enough he and Sara were going to be there. “No, you stay here. Take care of your family. I’ll come back and tell you all about it, when we’re done.”

  “Swear.”

  “Swear.”

  Jon nibbled his lower lip, cut his eyes away for a moment, then finally said, “All right, then.”

  DERIK STAGGERED DOWN THE HALLWAY. HE’D GOTTEN away with it! Jon knew—it had been stupid to even try to
fool him—but the sensible bastard was letting it ride. It wasn’t the first time Derik had thanked God for Jon’s basic levelheadedness. Werewolves really did have it better . . . Jon knew Derik was good for his word, and thus the unpleasantness of a fight to the death was avoided. Good deal!

  Even better, he and Sara didn’t have to have sex, which sucked for him but was nice for her, so that was—

  He tapped on the door and walked into the guest room, just in time to see Sara drop her robe and slip between the covers. He got a tantalizing flash of cream-colored skin and streaming red curls, and then she was snuggled beneath the quilt.

  “There you are,” she whispered. “Close the door.”

  He did.

  “Come over here.”

  He did.

  “Well, come on.”

  “Uh?”

  “Let’s get this over with.” Then she blushed to her hairline. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like that. But let’s do this before your friend gets any more suspicious. I was really worried about you when he whisked you away.”

  He was trying not to rock back on the heels; he couldn’t get the smell of roses out of his nose. Not that he wanted to. Except he better. Yeah. Because if he didn’t—“Uh . . . we . . . uh . . .”

  She threw the quilt back, and he could see her bare leg, bent at the knee, the pale joint inviting kisses, inviting—

  “Come on,” she said impatiently. “Before I lose my nerve, or your friend gets any nutty ideas.”

  “Okay,” he said, and was out of his clothes in about six seconds. He ignored the twinges—okay, the big giant pokes—of conscience. It wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be.

  Her knee . . . that’s what did it. It was as erotic to him as if she’d dropped the sheet and shown him her tits. And her smell. Her wonderful sweet smell. She was like—like dessert.

  You’ll pay for this one later, his inner voice, the one that sounded annoyingly like Michael, informed him. Oh, boy, will you pay.

  He didn’t doubt it. And he couldn’t help it. He was about to dance with possibly the most dangerous woman in the world . . .

  . . . and he couldn’t wait.

  22

  I’M ABOUT TO DO IT WITH A WEREWOLF. A WEREWOLF. Again! Sara kept saying it in her head, and it kept not working. This was weirder than the time she did it with the UPS guy. That had been like a bad porn movie come to life: “Got a package for you, ma’am.” “Oooooh, a package! Bring it over here, stud.” And then, natch, she never heard from him again. It was like he’d changed routes or something. Probably he had. But anyway, this had that beat by a country mile. A werewolf. A werewolf!

  Telling herself this was all part of saving the world didn’t work, either. Truth was, Derik was magically delicious, and she meant to have another piece of him. The fact that they had to do it was icing on the cake. A big, blond, yummy cake. A big, muscle-y, preternaturally strong, sexy, fabulous cake. A—

  Whoa.

  He’d stripped in about half a second, and she barely had a glimpse of his ridiculously perfect body—washboard abs, long, long legs, flat stomach, bulging biceps, and a fairly fabulous dick, which jutted up like some sort of orgasm-seeking divining rod—before he was on her.

  “Oh my God,” he said, and then his mouth was on hers, he was tearing the quilt away, his tongue was in her mouth, and then he was nibbling her throat and breathing deeply, as if he couldn’t get enough of the way she smelled. “Oh, Jesus.”

  “Are you going to talk through this whole thing? Because I’m trying to think of England, here.”

  “Sara, for the love of God, please shut up.”

  “Make me.”

  Then he was trailing kisses down her throat, her collarbone, her breasts. He played with her nipples until they were stiff and hard, and now she was doing a few “oh my Gods” herself. She squirmed beneath him, trying to give him better access, and gripped his shoulders, which were rigid with strain.

  Now he was kissing her stomach, and now her mons, kissing and taking big gulps of air, and, weirdly, he was shuddering like he had a fever. Then he was coming up to her again, grabbing her thighs and slinging her legs over his shoulders. “Sorry,” he panted, and then she could feel his cock between her legs, urgent and heartless, and then he was shoving himself inside her.

  She shrieked in surprise, then yelled again when he nipped the side of her neck. “Sorry,” he groaned again.

  And here was the weird part. The weird, sick part. It hurt, sure. It was tight as hell. It had been a while for her—last night barely counted, that was for damn sure. And she was certainly accustomed to more than forty seconds of foreplay.

  But she loved it, too. She loved that he was taking her, that he was so overcome by her they weren’t playing nice. He needed to fuck her, and so he was.

  And she needed to be fucked, and so she was.

  He buried his face in her hair and gripped her thighs harder. The bed rocked and squeaked. She felt the change in him as his orgasm approached; his muscles, already rigid with strain, seemed to get even harder for a second, and then he was shaking over her, and then he was done, and couldn’t look at her.

  “Well,” she said, after waiting twenty seconds.

  “I swear,” he said, still not looking at her. “I swear I don’t usually suck so much in bed. I’m aware you’ve heard that before.”

  She laughed; she couldn’t help it. “It’s all right. You seemed, um, like you needed to do it.”

  “Oh, I needed to do it. And in about ten minutes, I’m gonna need to do it again.”

  “Gee,” she said dryly, ignoring the bolt of excitement that it brought to her belly, “I can hardly wait.”

  “Nice try,” he said, slipping out of her and kissing her deeply, deeply. He sucked on her tongue for a long minute, then added, “But I can tell you like the idea.”

  “Insufferable bastard,” she muttered into his mouth.

  “God, you smell so good. Anybody ever tell you? I mean, seriously good.” He stretched, and the bed creaked. “They should bottle you.”

  “I can safely say no one has ever suggested bottling me. So, uh, do you think Jon heard?”

  He hesitated. “Well, yeah.”

  “Okay. I mean, creepy, and I’ll be freaking out about this tomorrow, but at least you won’t get in trouble.”

  Another odd hesitation. “Right.”

  “Breakfast should be fun,” she muttered. “But at least that’s done, right? So, good.”

  He didn’t answer, just rolled over and kissed her again, then licked her nipples for what seemed like a delightful eternity. He cupped her left breast and brushed his thumb over her nipple again and again, while licking and kissing the other one, and then he would switch, until she was groaning and writhing beneath him.

  He went lower, nuzzling between her legs, then separating her folds with his tongue, darting and licking, and then his tongue was inside her and she nearly hit the ceiling.

  He settled between her thighs and over her clit and licked steadily for what seemed like an hour, until she was clawing at the bed sheets and whimpering like a maddened animal. Her orgasm hit her like a freight train, and he backed off, then was immediately on her again, spreading her apart with his hands and stroking her with his tongue and even, very very gently, biting her.

  When he came up to her again she was more than ready; she wrapped her legs against his waist and was thrusting up at him before he was even seated all the way within her.

  “Oh, Christ,” he managed, and propped himself up on his hands, and they went at each other for another eternity. She could come again if she tightened her thighs around him as he thrust, and did, and he groaned like he could feel it, feel her coming around him, and after a while she was begging him, begging him to come, and he was nibbling the sweet spot behind her ear and ignoring her, and they were so slick with sweat they were sliding against each other, and finally she bit him on the ear, hard, and that was it, that was what he needed, and then they w
ere done, and it took her about ten minutes to get her breath back.

  When she did, she said, “This doesn’t mean we’re married or anything, right?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  “What?”

  “I said, no.”

  “Oh. Okay. That was—” The best in my life. Probably the best in anybody’s life. Good work, old chap! “That was really great.”

  “I knew it’d be really great,” he said softly, and picked up her hand, and kissed her palm.

  “Mmm. Conceited much?”

  “Sara. Can I ask you something?”

  “Mmm.”

  “What happened to your mom?”

  She squinted at him, trying to see his face in the dark. “Why would you ask me that?”

  “I don’t know . . . something Dr. Cummings said. Actually, the way you reacted to something he said. It got me wondering.”

  “Well, she was killed in a stupid accident. And it was her own fault—she wasn’t watching where she was going. Plus she was jaywalking.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s against the law for a reason, you know.”

  “Yeah, okay. Well, I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “Thanks. What about your folks?”

  “They died helping Michael’s dad take over the Pack.”

  “Oh. Well, um, my mom got run over by a garbage truck.” Pause. “It’s not funny, Derik.”

  “I’m not laughing.”

  “You big liar.”

  “I’m really sorry,” he said, sounding truly sincere. “It was just . . . unexpected.”

  “The really weird thing was, the city paid. I mean, I didn’t sue or anything, they just gave me a big check. Just in time,” she added glumly, “for me to pay for the first couple years of college.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, it was like living in ‘The Monkey’s Paw.’ Gee, I wish I could afford to go to college . . . whoops, my mom’s dead, and the city’s paying for school.”

  There was a long pause. “That’s creepy.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said, and sighed.

  LATER, SARA DOZED OFF, HER SMALL HAND NESTLED on his chest. Derik was wide awake, ignoring the clamoring of his conscience.