by Anthology
Samson answered her tentative smile with one of his own, which softened his whole face and made his body feel light and twenty again. “Of course,” he said, his old confidence returning.
A couple of minutes? He could have her laughing and promising to stay with him forever in thirty seconds.
8
It was one of the house’s strange miracles that even after living in it for almost a week – the snows hadn’t let up – there were still hallways Bel had never set foot in. She and Samson were walking down one of them now in awkward silence. The only noise was the floorboards creaking.
Bel made sure there was always at least a foot of distance between them while trying not to lose him in the dim, narrow corridor. All it would take would be another one of those flood-my-panties French kisses, and she would stay in his mansion forever. Her body craved another taste of woodsy, chop-down-a-tree-and-throw-you-over-his-shoulder-to-ravish-you Samson.
This situation couldn’t be healthy.
“Isabella.”
“Hmm?” Bel looked up just in time to swerve and avoid colliding with Samson. Instead, she ran into a wall. Her hands flew out and kept her from breaking her nose.
“We’re here.” Samson opened a small door to the right and ducked through it.
Bel followed instinctively, expecting nothing of consequence. What she found was quite different.
Knick-knacks of every kind and from every possible era lined shelf after shelf. Books were the most numerous, followed by the most stunning wood carvings Bel had ever seen, although there were plenty of other doo-dads. Animal skins covered the floor like wall-to-wall carpeting, and figurines loomed from above like miniature gargoyles. As a vegetarian, Bel was mildly horrified. As an author, she was completely enthralled.
There were so many different types of things, it took Bel a moment to find the common trait they all held. But the moment she did, she couldn’t imagine how she had missed the connection in the first place.
“Werebeasts,” she said. “You’re interested in werebeasts.”
She knew her first reaction should’ve been excitement that someone else shared her passion for long-dead myths. Instead, her discovery made her feel uneasy, like there was something important she was forgetting. Or trying not to remember.
He strolled casually over to a shelf and plucked out a book that was next to a wooden stake used in the pre-industrial era, before the silver bullet had been invented. As he got close enough that even Bel’s poor vision could make out the title, she groaned.
The dark cover showed a giant moon framing the heavily shadowed face of a sultry-looking male teenager. Mates of Darkness was written in a script with so many flourishes it was almost illegible.
God, Bel hated that cover. “Please don’t tell me that you’re keeping my book in here,” she whined.
He smiled and opened it.
Bel’s eyes widened, and then she snatched it from his hands. “Nope.”
He held out his now-empty hand innocently, although the look in his eyes was anything but. “I was going to share my favorite passage.”
Bel blushed, embarrassed that he had read her YA novel, and strangely grateful to be embarrassed about something that didn’t involve vivid daydreams about him slamming her up against a wall and screwing her so hard that his collections flew off their shelves.
Time to change the subject.
Bel plucked an item at random from above. From the feel of it, she guessed it was a wooden carving, and when she opened her hand, she discovered she was right. It was a figurine of a deer mid-jump. She had meant to ask him about it to start a conversation, but instead, she found herself staring at the animal.
“I carve them all by hand,” he said, with no small amount of satisfaction.
“You carved this?” Bel repeated dumbly, turning over the figurine with wonder. There were so many little details, from the grooves etched in the creature’s hooves to its lifelike wide eyes. She hadn’t realized he was so observant, or that he could be so careful. “Your strokes are so long. It’s as if you didn’t whittle them at all, but just scooped them out of a river of liquid pine. Do you sell these? Is that how you and your brother afford million-dollar roses?”
Samson gave a gruff chuckle. “My brother is an investment banker, like my father. And no, I don’t sell them…” He trailed off, and Bel could see the germination of an idea behind his normally unreadable eyes. Or maybe she was just finally becoming Samson-literate.
“But what if I did?” he asked.
“Did what?” Bel asked, still fascinated by the carving.
“Sell the carvings. You could help me.”
“Samson…”
“I’d need a website and descriptions for my products. I’m sure that’s closer to your skill set than dusting.” He stroked his chin with the motion of a man who missed his beard. Why had he shaved, then? He hadn’t done it for her, had he?
“I’d pay you, in addition to dropping the suit against your father immediately.”
Bel closed her mouth, the taste of the dusty storage room lingering on her tongue. “It-it was a million dollars.” Only a day ago, she would’ve done anything to have him drop the charges, but now… somehow, his forgetting about all that money was scary. It meant their dining room adventure had been more than a few sips too many of scotch.
“Honestly, I could give less than a damn about the money,” he said. “I value your…friendship.”
Bel’s stomach lurched. Slowly, she placed the deer in his palm. She waited for his fingers to reach out and stroke her wrist, or for his gaze to meet hers and crackle with lust, but he took the deer with economical speed. Bel didn’t let herself admit how much she wished he had lingered.
Once he had the deer back, he placed it on the highest shelf, far away from prying hands. “And you’ll make the website.”
“I’ll get a room at Henderson’s Bed and Breakfast,” Bel said.
“Henderson’s has closed,” Samson said in such a neutral tone that Bel swore she was imagining the downward slope of the corners of his lips. “But,” he continued, “I’m sure you can stay with your father.”
Bel shifted from foot to foot. Her father thought that she had gone back to New York for a couple of weeks. If she returned so soon, he would know something was up. “My father only has an air mattress,” she lied.
“My house is open to you,” he said carefully.
It was that carefulness that convinced Bel that perhaps staying here wasn’t the worst idea in the world. If Samson could be that professional, then why couldn’t she hold herself to the same standard? After a moment, she nodded and said, “Here, then.”
9
As November melted into December, so did the snow, allowing Samson and Rex to go hunting for Luther more frequently. It was a stretch to call it hunting, though. They hadn’t found so much as a track in weeks. Samson knew Rex was beginning to question the point of it all, but for Samson, even if they never found Luther, the point was very clear.
Avoid Isabella.
Now that he had tasted her, keeping his distance was proving hard – even with his newfound realization that forcing the issue would only drive her farther away.
She would have to come to him.
For her part, Isabella spent most of her time in his collection room, fiddling with her laptop and taking pictures of his carvings. It would be sad to see some of them go, but it was worth it to buy time to impress her. And he could always buy them back at triple the price if need be.
His strategy of winning her over had to be done with stealth. If she got so much as a whiff of his real intentions, she’d run. Since stealth was far from being Samson’s strong suit, he relied, to his annoyance, on Rex’s advice.
Some of Rex’s ideas had been foolish. For example, rescuing a stray puppy and giving it as a gift to Isabella. Isabella didn’t even like dogs, Samson had found out.
Other ideas were extreme, such as sending their family’s personal doctor to do a
“pro bono” checkup on Isabella’s father to ensure that the sick smell Samson had scented on him all those weeks ago was only a mild flu. (It was.)
Samson actually appreciated one or two, such as buying Isabella a new computer and installing a higher-speed Internet connection for the house.
He hated the Internet, but Isabella’s squeal of joy when she discovered that she wouldn’t have to reset the router every five minutes – whatever that meant – made it worthwhile. Not to mention that with the faster connection, she completed her work earlier each day. The few times that Samson allowed himself to talk with her, she was free.
The conversations were torture.
Not because she was boring. Far from it. Every day Bel managed to find some new insight into the house or brought up some interesting trinket she had found in the storage room. A few Samson himself didn’t know he had, like the first edition copy of Beasts, Blood and Bonds, which she read to him, reveling in correcting all of her previous misconceptions about his kind. All the while not knowing she was speaking to a real werebeast.
Samson, too, found himself opening up. He told her about growing up with a rich, often absent father, and about how much his mother had loved to garden. He was always careful never to reveal the truth about their previous meeting or his animal nature. The former would be something she’d have to admit to herself, and the latter he wouldn’t bother telling her about until after they had been officially mated.
And oh, how he wanted to mate her.
It didn’t matter how innocuous their meetings were; their attraction was like an exposed wire. The closer he got to her, the more impossible it became to not touch.
Their last meeting had been particularly unbearable; she was showing him the latest mockup for the site and how he could change the product descriptions himself when he entered the wrong password for the third time. Frustrated, she had bent over him and pecked it out quickly herself.
In that second, her breast had brushed against his chest. Her skin was so soft. Samson had shuddered, his cock instantly erect. When she began to draw back after she had completed her task, he had shot out a hand to bar her way without thinking.
Open desire had glimmered in her dark brown eyes as she leaned toward him, the power of the bond finally overriding her common sense and forcing her body to bend to his needs.
Instantly, Samson had retreated.
They were both worked up after that, their breathing the only sound in the stuffy collection room.
That was when Samson had excused himself to go hunting.
But after four hours and the end of twilight, he knew he had to return. So he stared at the door, ashamed at his reluctance to enter his own home.
I’m a wolf, goddammit, not a mouse.
He stamped off his shoes on the welcome mat – one of Isabella’s additions – and entered.
Immediately, he was assaulted by the scent of roasted vegetables. Zucchini, to be precise. Samson decided he wouldn’t disturb Isabella’s cooking. They hadn’t been in the dining room together at all since that disastrous dinner.
He was just beginning to walk to his room when he heard her footsteps from a few rooms over. He had plenty of time to get up the stairs before their paths collided. Still flushed from tracking Luther, he knew that would be the wisest course.
But being wise was exhausting.
“Oh, there you are. I wasn’t sure when you’d get back!”
Bel was standing in the doorway, smiling at him, a cooking spoon in her hand. She was wearing one of the dresses he had bought for her.
It looked even better than Samson had imagined it would. Tight and yellow, it clung to her chest, her breasts practically threatening to tear it to pieces. Its white lace hem flirted with the tops of her deliciously thick thighs, and although some kind of belt was looped around her middle, Samson knew it would only take him a second to rip it to shreds. A claw threatened to emerge from his finger for just that purpose.
“I made dinner,” she said, waving the spoon enthusiastically, making her chest jiggle. “Wanna join me?”
He swallowed down a mouthful of saliva. “You’re wearing a dress.”
“Oh, yeah,” Bel said, her smile even brighter. “I never said thank you for the clothes. They were for me, right? I hope I didn’t steal your sister’s clothes, or something.” She did a little twirl, giggling.
Gods and demons. What had gotten into her? He thought he could see a flash of her underwear as her hem rose up. It was striped.
She leaned against the wall, a little winded from the motion. “Sorry, I’m a little goofy. I just wanted to say thanks for all you’ve done. The internet, the doctor for my dad –“ She waggled the cooking spoon at him. “I found out about that, by the way!” Her hand slipped on the wall.
Samson sniffed the air, searching for the tang of alcohol. She must’ve drunk some of his scotch. But his investigation backfired, and he got a mouthful of her distinctive perfume instead. It was warm and dry as always, but also had a note of floral sweetness that made him want to lick up her thighs, straight to her center.
She noticed him sniffing and said, “Smells good, right?”
Samson grunted. His brain was having trouble forming words, given that all of his blood was currently in his cock.
“Let’s go eat, then!” And Bel trotted off toward the kitchen.
Samson followed her, trying his best not to give in to the temptation to stalk her down, pin her against the wall, and show her what happened when you teased a werewolf.
10
What am I doing?
It was a question that had entered Bel’s head with more and more frequency over the past couple of weeks.
It didn’t help that Samson was being so nice. Every time she turned around, he seemed to be doing something subtly kind. Some acts seemed staged – such as the rescued puppy. She could tell every time he looked at it that he wasn’t a fan of the dog. To be honest, she wasn’t a pet person either. She always found their obedient domesticity sad. They had both been grateful when the dog’s owner came to claim it.
But the fact that Samson seemed to be trying to be good was heartening enough, and her suspicion that Samson might be putting on a show for her was more intoxicating than any scotch. Her father calling to say it was very nice of her to send over a doctor for a checkup and Rex confirming that Samson had been behind the visit was the final straw.
That was when she decided that maybe it was time to give Samson another chance. If he wanted to take it. And judging by the look on his face across the kitchen table, he very much did.
Bel pushed around some of the roasted zucchini on her plate – her own private joke – and sighed. “Sorry about the lack of protein.”
“You’re a vegetarian,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect it.”
“Actually, my problem is more that I had to cook with the groceries I had left.” She held up her fork like a sword and hoisted it upwards. “Unfortunately, I can’t go out and bag my own deer.”
Samson grunted once, his eyes focused on his plate. He hadn’t eaten a bite.
“Don’t like vegetables, huh?”
He looked over at her, his brow furrowed, like he was in complete agony. There were two explanations for the expression, Bel decided. One, he really, really hated vegetables; or two, he really, really liked her and was trying his best not to do anything about it.
“Come on. Just give them a try.” Bel speared a slice of zucchini and offered it to him. She was glad she had chosen the kitchen table; the formal dining room table would’ve been too big to lean across.
He didn’t seem to notice the zucchini. Instead, his gaze flicked down the top of her dress.
She pressed the zucchini to his lips. “I promise it’s tasty.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “The secret is lots of butter!”
“Isabella.” His eyes darkened, and he gently pushed away the zucchini. “Step away from me.”
Bel scooted back immediately. Oh, God.
&
nbsp; She had taken his kindness as his trying to win his way into her good graces, but the truth was, he was probably just being nice to apologize to her for getting drunk and accidentally molesting her. Despite all of her self-assurances, she still felt a familiar certainty that no man this attractive could actually want her.
Tears welled in her eyes, and she turned and brushed them away before they could actually fall.
I’m an idiot.
When she resurfaced, Samson regarded her curiously. “If you had stayed that close to me, it wouldn’t have been safe.”
Bel fought the temptation to fling her plate of zucchini in his face. “Safe? What are you, a wild animal?”
His eyes glimmered. “That may be a good way to think about it. I have a limited amount of control.”
“You’ve gotten much better at not throwing mugs.” Bel shrugged, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I didn’t know zucchini could piss you off that much.”
“That’s not the kind of control I’m talking about,” he said roughly.
“Oh?” Bel said, suddenly feeling as light as helium and slightly disconnected from her body.
He really does like me.
“Look at me, Isabella.” Even though his voice was no more than a gravelly whisper, it still resonated through the kitchen, through her bones.
Bel met his gaze and was startled by the intensity in his green eyes. Those eyes didn’t just promise a few sweet kisses. Those were fuck-me eyes.
“I’ve tried to respect your personal space. And I’ve succeeded, but if you come near me again tonight, I’m going to take you.” Without glancing down at his plate, he scraped a zucchini onto his fork and popped it into his mouth. He chewed it once and swallowed. Then he dropped his fork. “You’re right, the zucchini is delicious.”
“T-take me,” Bel stammered.
He smiled at her, the first smile she had seen from him in weeks. Keeping his desire for her secret had cost him, she realized. And now that he was finally being honest with her, some part of him had been set free. He seemed lighter, lithe, and ready to strike.
