by Tarrah Betts
Now, any girl in her right mind would have been flattered by Jude’s obvious interest, because he was a really nice looking guy, but I just didn’t give a crap about him or anyone else right now.
Frankly, I just wished he would look at someone, anyone, rather than me.
The night drug on interminably. It seemed like midnight would never come. Sorcha flirted with her cousins frat brothers all night, while I stood there and played the part of the supportive “wing man”. I wore an unnatural, fake smile plastered on my face the entire night but the frat boys didn’t seem to notice, every single one of them was entranced by the beauty that was Sorcha.
That is, no one noticed, except for Jude.
Jude watched me like a hawk all evening, staring at me boldly with his steely blue eyes. He didn’t even have the courtesy to look away, when I caught his gaze and openly stared back at him. We just stood there staring at one another all night like predator and prey.
I felt irritated.
I just wanted to be left alone to wallow in my misery, so I brazenly walked over to him while shooting him my best snooty, stuck up look. It wasn’t one that I used, well, ever, because I was at the bottom of the social ladder in high school but I hoped it had it’s desired effect this time around.
“Look, Jude, I’m sure you’re used to girls falling at your feet en masse, but I’m not going to be one of those girls. Ever. So quit it with the staring, ok? It's getting on my nerves.” I said sarcastically.
I stood expectantly and waited for his retort. Maybe he would be angry and deny my accusations. Maybe he would just brush it off, like I was imaging things and he wasn’t actually staring at me all night, at all, but at some girl standing right behind me or something.
Either way, I didn’t care.
I just wanted him to stop looking at me, it was starting to tick me off and my mood was black enough as it was.
“Well, just look at you, you’re like a wet kitten, all sputtering and full of fury, aren’t you? “ he said, his voice deep and smooth like honey poured over gravel. It didn’t match his handsome face at the moment, which was wearing a look of deep amusement, like a cat toying with a tiny mouse.
I wasn’t sure what was so comical, but there was something about Jude that made me feel very unsettled and uncomfortable.
“Look, I don’t know what your deal is, buddy, but back off. I’m not interested,” I said as sternly as possible.
“When I see something I want, I can be a very patient man, Aspen,” he said, his eyes boring into mine as he picked up my hand, raised it to his lips and kissed the knuckles gently.
I was stupefied as he shot me a devilish grin and turned away from me, stalking over towards some curvy brunette who’d been trying to get his attention all night.
“What the heck was that? He kissed my hand?? Who even does that anymore?” I thought to myself as I curiously watched the brunette giggle and preen under the watchful gaze of Jude’s devilish eyes.
How much of a womanizer was this brooding, handsome Jude anyway?
“If I could have everyones attention, it’s almost midnight and if I could, I’d like to direct all of you to the back of the house for the big finale!” Sorcha’s father announced into the dj’s microphone at ten minutes to twelve.
Thank god, it was finally time for the big New Years’ Eve countdown, which brought me one step closer to getting the hell out of Spruce Hollow and away from Roan for good!
“Oh my gosh, Aspen, this is so exciting, let’s go get a good spot,” Sorcha squealed as she grabbed me by the arm and towed me along to the backyard.
The area behind the barn quickly filled up with a sea of people, all packing in to see the fireworks show that was rumored to be the most exciting thing part of the evening. Sorcha’s parents had spared no expense and had even flown in a pyrotechnics expert from some big city back East.
Sorcha and I were huddled together against the cold, while partygoers jockeyed for position for the best vantage point with which to view the fireworks. The crowd was blaring and excited as the dj led the countdown with the crowd counting down in earsplitting unison to the beginning to the brand new year.
I had always liked this part, the countdown. It was the moment of rebirth, a time to embrace new possibilities. No matter how bad your year had been, you could always start over on New Years Eve.
But not this year. No, the possibility of starting over didn’t exist for me here in Spruce Hollow. Roan had seen to that.
The fireworks started up just as the countdown came to an end and the crowd gasped in awe as they were treated to a spectacular lightshow. Sorcha’s parents had truly gone all out in planning out the details. From the music accompanying the fireworks to the firework selection itself. It was a show to rival any big city fireworks show brought right to our little slice of the world.
The firework show was beautiful and yet I felt nothing inside. No warmth, no joy. No amazement at the bursts of color and flashes of light in the cold, dark sky above me. I even saw my favorite firework, “Heaven’s staircase”, and it meant nothing to me.
That was another life and another me that loved fireworks. This version of me only cared about getting far, far away from Spruce Hollow and leaving this doleful existence behind me.
Standing near the barn, chatting with Sorcha’s mother, I noticed it was well after midnight and the crowd was finally starting to thin out a little. I’d wished that I’d had a bullhorn so I could yell out “Go the hell home, the party is over people, move along now” but figured Sorcha’s parents probably wouldn’t be too happy with me.
Sorcha had gone off somewhere with one of the frat boys, the English major I think, and had left me to my own devices. I wasn’t upset that she had ditched me, though, because it meant I didn’t have to pretend anymore and could drop my “cheerful Aspen” façade.
I wondered if Sorcha had decided that New Years Eve was the perfect time to give up her virginity to the frat boy hunk? Naw, I was doubtful about that but I was still glad that she had left with him. My duty as Sorcha’s wingman had been fulfilled.
Frankly, it was exhausting pretending to be happy all evening while in reality; I was walking around with a big, black gaping hole where my heart had been. I just wanted to be alone with my misery and my hostile, murderous thoughts of Roan and his whore running through my head.
How I hated them both.
Without Sorcha and the frat boys to distract me, my head resumed pounding over and over again with Roan’s betrayal until I felt crazed and disconnected from reality. I excused myself from the conversation with Sorcha’s mother, feigning a headache and at her suggestion; I stumbled towards the house to go lie down.
I just wanted to be alone.
The closer I got to the house, the quieter and quieter the partygoers in the barn got. Relief flooded through me with each step that I took. I didn’t have to pretend anymore, I could just allow the blackness to envelope me.
Chapter 32
***
New Years Eve had come and gone with a bang but I couldn’t have been more apathetic.
Things were a mess.
Aspen and I had kissed in my room, gotten into an argument with her screaming and then crying when I told her that things between us had gone far enough and then I had bailed on her and left the house before I lost my resolve and gave in to my baser instincts towards her.
She was so close.
So close to stepping over the threshold and making the connection between whom we truly were to one another. I could see it in her eyes when I peered into them. There was an awareness in them that hadn’t been present before. I had even tried to reach out through our mate bond and give her a little push over the edge, but other than her pupils dilating enormously and her heart pounding wildly in her chest, she gave no sign that she could hear me.
This was all happening so much faster than I thought it would. All along, when I pictured it in my head, I envisioned that Aspen would gradually awaken to our mat
ing bond, not explode in a bundle of sexual need and wanton behavior.
Aspen, we have to stop.
She hadn’t liked those words coming from my mouth. Truthfully, neither did I. Her desire was hot and velvety smooth inside my mouth but I had no choice, I had to put a stop to everything before I stepped over that threshold and reached the point where I couldn’t stop myself and my wolf took over.
Aspen was so volatile and uncontrolled sometimes and I frequently had to rein her in now that she was getting older. She was the polar opposite of me in the emotions department and that was part of her immense appeal for me. I was tightly controlled in all aspects, while she was completely uninhibited and free to express any and every emotion that crossed her pretty little head. She was a force of nature, a turbulent storm that wreaked destruction over the entire landscape.
I bet she would be an animal in bed.
Fuck, I had to stop thinking like that; it would only get me deeper in trouble than I already was.
How could I have kissed her? What was the hell wrong with me? I knew it was a bad idea right from the start and yet, I allowed myself to be manipulated by her.
“I want you to kiss me”
“And then you’ll leave and go to the party and stop with this whole thing?”
Ha!
Who was I trying to kid? My heart had been pounding like a drum, my stomach doing flip flops at the thought of her mouth on mine. She hadn’t manipulated me, but thinking it just made the fact that I had my tongue in her mouth so much easier to bear.
Kissing Aspen was wrong on so many levels and I knew it. Yet once her soft, eager body was pressed close to mine, my hands tangled in her curls and our lips finally met…I was utterly and completely lost to her.
Her reaction to me was so open and uninhibited, the way she submitted and exposed herself to me, it called to me on a very primal level and it took everything I had to call it off and put a stop to everything before the situation went too far.
I wanted Aspen.
I wanted her so badly; it made my wolf whine and my dick hard just thinking about her soft, naked body seductively rubbing against mine. I knew how she kissed now and the knowledge was killing me. I no longer had to imagine it in my head late at night.
Because now, I knew.
I knew how she tasted. I knew how soft her pouty little lips really were. And I knew how she sounded when she whimpered against my mouth with sexual need.
But instead of giving in to my wants, I left the house and went to a New Years Eve house party at Griff’s house. And I brought Andie with me. It was a mistake and I knew it as soon as I got into my truck and sped off because I ended drinking way too much in my attempt to drown the pouty mouthed, dreamy eyed image of Aspen out of my head. Then to cloud the situation even more and make matters even worse, Andie and I took a cab back to her place and I had sex with her.
It wasn’t my idea, it was hers but I was drunk and feeling guilty over what I’d done with Aspen so I wasn’t very difficult to convince. Once she’d unzipped my jeans, then slid her panties off and pushed her skirt up, she straddled me on the couch and pushed herself down onto me. I had always been a skilled and generous lover but this time, it was pretty much just Andie having sex…and I just happened to be there.
But there was one big, glaring difference about being with Andie this time though. This time was different and unlike all the other times in the past that I’d had sex with her or any of my other girlfriends that I’d had over the past ten years.
This time, I actually felt bad about it.
Being with other women had become a normal part of waiting for Aspen to grow up; I had never really given it a second thought. But something had changed within me lately, in regards to my mate. And I could feel it churning deep inside the pit of my stomach.
It was guilt.
Being with other women felt like cheating on Aspen now, rather than something I did to stop myself from forcing sex on her.
My head was fuzzy and confused when I finally got home late. Andie had wanted me to spend the night with her, at her place but that was my one hard limit, I never spent the night with my girlfriends.
Ever.
I wanted to be home, under the same roof as my mate and sleeping as close to Aspen as was humanly possible without crossing the boundaries. It would have been absolutely impossible for me to sleep anywhere, even Griff’s or Caver’s house tonight as I would have lain awake the entire night obsessing over Aspen and worrying about whether she had gotten home safely from the New Years Eve party at Sorcha’s.
The house was quiet as I got out of the cab and walked down the driveway. Aspen would have gotten home hours ago and was probably fast asleep. I hoped she’d had a good time tonight, even though we’d been fighting beforehand. I didn't want it to ruin her evening like it had mine. I hated being out of sync and arguing with her, it really set me off kilter.
Unfortunately, it was way too easy to argue with her sometimes, because even though I was more tolerant with Aspen than anyone else on the planet, she still managed to push every single one of my buttons until I thought I would explode.
And truthfully, if anyone could push my buttons with absolute ease, it was her. It was like she knew the exact combination of words, looks and body posture that would send me straight into rage mode. Aspen frequently made me feel unhinged and I had to work even harder when I was around her to stay in control of my emotions.
Being around her always made me feel raw and exposed.
I could smell the body cologne I’d sprayed in my room before I left, as soon as I opened the front door. I guess I went a little overboard in trying to cover up Aspen’s scent in my room.
Normally whenever she was in my room for any length of time, I could smell her for days on end. But now, her pheromones were so strong, it was tortuous and difficult to have her smell in the house without throwing her to the floor and taking what I wanted from her, never mind having that intoxicating smell permeating my entire bedroom.
I didn’t bother turning on the lights and risking waking up Aspen, besides, who needed lights when my wolf eyes could see just fine in the dark. I looked down the hallway towards Aspen’s bedroom and her door was shut tight, which meant she was home, safe and sound and fast asleep.
Walking to the kitchen to get a drink of water, I was lost in my own little world, dreading the uncomfortable conversation that would undoubtedly come between Aspen and I tomorrow, when I casually glanced back down the darkened hallway and could vaguely make out the shape of something on the outside surface of my door.
What the hell?
I flicked the hall light on and marched past Aspen’s door to mine and stood in complete silence as it became clear to me what it was that was stuck to my door.
It was Aspen’s bracelet, the one that I gave her for Christmas, glinting and shiny and taped to the door with silver duct tape.
Someone, Aspen, I assumed, had also written the word “Liar” across the top of the door, in black spray paint.
What the hell was going on?
I shoved the bedroom door open and was unprepared for the disaster that greeted me inside.
My room was totally and completely trashed. It was like something out of a movie crime scene, you know the one where the bad guys go looking for important documents and trash the entire room in the process?
Everything was on the floor in pieces, either dumped out of the dressers or thrown out of the closet. My tv was broken and on the floor with the screen smashed to hell. My dresser mirror was smashed in.
There was glass everywhere.
Why the hell did Aspen do this?? I knew she had been upset with me when I pushed her away and told her that we needed to stop kissing. It killed me to see the look of bewilderment and confusion in her eyes. She looked all Bambi-like with her innocent doe eyes filling with tears.
But still, even though she had initially cried and then yelled at me in hurt anger, I never in a million years thought that she wo
uld have done something like this to get back at me.
Shaking my head, I looked over at the wall above my bed and there it was, spelled out for me as clear as day.
xoRoan’s_Babyxo Go fuck yourself, you lying bastard
Oh god. She knows. She knows about Andie.
Fuck.
I raced off towards her room, my heart pounding wildly in my chest with worry and fear, as I slammed the door open against the wall. Her room was in disarray and her bed was empty.
I knew she wouldn’t be there. I felt it in my bones.
But where the hell was she? She should have been back from Sorcha’s hours ago. Had she even gone to the New Years Eve party at all after I left the house?
Panic crept through me, my thoughts snapping back and forth like a psychotic yoyo. Jesus, is she okay? What if she’s out there alone somewhere? Please don’t let her do anything stupid. I am going to strangle her scrawny little neck when I find her.
My chest pained with guilt and the knowledge that I had wounded Aspen and that she had been so distraught by the betrayal that she had gone off the deep end in a fit of rage and despair. What if I’ve pushed her too far? What if finding out about Andie pushed her into someone else’s arms? What if she won’t forgive me?
“This is all your fault,” snarled my wolf, “our mate does not understand what is going on. You have never bothered to explain the circumstances to her. Perhaps if you had been truthful from the very beginning, like I wanted you to be, then our mate would be here, safe at home and this would not have happened.”
“Would you shut up, you aren’t helping the situation any right now, you know. We can argue about who’s right later. Right now, we have to find Aspen before she does something stupid!”
My head was spinning, jumping from scenario to scenario, each more horrifying and disturbing than the last. What if she was lost? Or hurt? Fuck, where the hell could she be?
