Raised by Wolves

by Bridget Essex

  “Do you want your pie a la mode?” the waitress asks me then, and I shake my head, feigning mock shock.

  “Never!” I say, and the waitress nods, taking the menu away, as Loren chuckles at me.

  “Oh, no,” she says with a little shrug. “I don't know if this date is going to work.”

  I glance at her sugary coffee and laugh. “I'm guessing you take your pie a la mode?”

  “If by 'a la mode' you mean that I have a little bit of pie with my ice cream, then yes,” she says.

  The waitress brings out two plates of pie immediately—or, rather, she brings me a plate of pie, and she brings Loren an honest-to-goodness bowl of ice cream...with a piece of pie sitting on top of it.

  Loren and I both raise our forks, and then our gaze meets across the table. I hold up my fork to her, and she grins happily, holding hers to me, too. Then we click our forks together in a salute and begin to dig in.

  I'm warmed by the fact that Loren thought to salute; it's something Rob and I do all the time because we're gigantic dorks, but Loren apparently does it, too. It's such an odd quirk to have that it surprises me—and delights me.

  “So,” I say after a swallow of delicious pie (if diner coffee is the best coffee, I'd have to wager that diner pie is pretty much the best pie there is). I raise a brow. “Is there really a scene in that book,” I indicate the bag on the table with the lesbian werewolf book peeking out of it, “where the werewolf eats some apple pie?”

  Loren's smile is dazzling, slow, sensuous, and it actually makes me set my fork down for a second. I'm so damn undone.

  “I guess you'll just have to read it to find out,” she says, licking her fork neatly with a pink tongue. I shudder a little and bite my lip. She shrugs. “Could be apple. Could be pumpkin. Could be kohlrabi.” She wrinkles her nose at this, and we're both laughing, the tension between us eased just a little.

  “No spoilers?” I ask her with a chuckle.

  She shakes her head, blonde ringlets dancing over her shoulders. “No spoilers.” She takes another bite, and then her eyes widen. “Oh! God, we haven't even exchanged names yet.”

  I swallow quickly, realizing that my knowing her name from Rob has had me at a slight advantage. “I'm Becca,” I tell her, and I extend my hand across the table toward her mostly as a joke, but she takes it, and we shake. I try not to concentrate too hard on the fact that her palm is warm and smooth against mine, or that when our skin touches, a ripple of desire moves through me in such a profound way that I can feel heat blossom between my legs.

  What the hell am I, a Tex Avery cartoon wolf whose eyes bug out of her head as she whistles and stamps her feet at a pretty girl?

  I am not that kind of wolf, thanks so much. I've got to keep all this desire stuff in check. I'm smoother than this.

  “And I bet I can guess your name,” I tell her, just as she opens her mouth to tell it to me.

  “You're going to guess? Really?” she says with a grin, but she doesn't sound convinced. “Okay...” She shrugs, sitting back in the booth and placing her arms along the back of it. “Go for it.”

  I roll my shoulders, crack my knuckles, make a big show. I love the way she's looking at me, one brow up, imperious. She thinks I'm playing. But I really do know her name. I feel pretty damn mischievous as I raise a brow, too, and lean forward in my seat.

  “Is it...Elizabeth?” I ask her, head to the side.

  She snorts. “No.”

  I chew on my lip for a minute, my face drawn into an exaggerated thoughtful expression, forehead all furrowed. “Victoria?”

  “No.”

  I waggle my brows at her now. “Rumpelstiltskin?” I ask, drawing out the name.

  She's laughing as she shakes her head, wrinkling her nose. “Thankfully, no.”

  I spread my hands, shrug. “Then it must be...Loren.”

  Loren is genuinely shocked as she stares across the booth table at me. Her mouth is open a little in astonishment, and I can't help it—I'm grinning like a fool.

  “How did you—” she begins in wonder, but I raise my hand, shake my head, try my best to look contrite.

  Okay, here's the make-it or break-it portion of the evening.

  “I've got a confession to make,” I tell her with a little groan, trying to look as penitent as possible (I'm still grinning like an idiot, and I'm trying to tone it down, turn it into a grin of apology). “My cousin Rob came to your shop recently—”

  “Rob?” she asks, then widens her eyes. “Wait a second—super-ripped guy, really nice guy?”

  I nod to her, and her smile grows.

  “He's the one you bought the romance novel for! I remember him. He was sweet.”

  “He is sweet,” I agree. “The thing is, I've been kind of...stressed lately. And to cheer me up...” I wave my fork in the air in a little circle, trying to think of the most tactful way to put this. “Well, he suggested that I...ask you out.”

  Loren is smiling now, which is a good sign. “So this was your plan all along?” She gestures to the diner, our coffee and pie.

  I breathe out a long sigh. “Kind of. Although...I almost chickened out after I met you.” I bite my lip again, setting my fork on my plate.

  Loren's serious now, the smile gone from her face as if it was never there, those gorgeous, bright red lips downturning into a frown. “You didn't want to ask me out?” she asks in a soft voice.

  “No,” I tell her quickly, “not that. It's just that... I wanted to ask you out too much.” I rake my fingers back through my hair, hold her bright green gaze. “You make me kind of nervous, Loren,” I tell her, my voice a low growl.

  When she gazes at me now, her chin is lowered, so that she's looking at me through her thick, long lashes. She's doing it purposefully; I can tell. Her breathing is coming faster, her body temperature rising. I sense all of that, even though I'm seated across the table from her. I'm not touching her, but I'm close enough that my inner wolf senses that she's flustered.

  That she's, frankly, hot and bothered by what I just told her.

  With her skin temperature rising, the heat emanates from her skin, bringing with it her sweet scent, the floral notes dancing around the beauty of the scent that is Loren. I'm overwhelmed by it, by how her breathing has gotten faster, by how she's paused now, her fork halfway to her mouth...

  But she drops her hand, setting the fork on her plate, the last bite of pie and ice cream on the fork forgotten. She leans her elbows on the table, puts her chin in her hands, her lavender nails glittering in the low light of the diner.

  It's then that I realize I feel something moving along my calf. Loren took off her shoe under the table, and her stockinged toes are trailing up my pants over my right calf...until her foot is on my thigh.

  The diner is relatively dark, and we're at a booth in the back, but it still surprises me.

  Loren seems to be full of surprises.

  “You know,” she tells me slowly, carefully, her voice having dropped about an octave as she murmurs, the suggestive tone hardly masked at all, “this place is pretty crowded.” Her head's to the side as she says it, and I can't remove my gaze from hers any more than I can stop concentrating every atom of my body on the inches of my thigh where she's touching me. But I'm also highly aware that the diner's not crowded. There's only one other customer here, an old guy on the other side of the room who's eating a bowl of mashed potatoes with a big smile on his face as he reads the sports page of his paper.

  “My apartment's two blocks away,” she tells me, leaning forward a little more, tapping her forefinger with its glittering red nail against the side of her cheek. “We'd have more privacy—”

  “Check, please,” I say immediately.

  ---

  Loren's apartment really is two blocks away. I thought she might have been exaggerating, but it's a quick walk to her building. Still, with the heat radiating off of Loren, and all of the need circulating in my body, it's still not close enough.

  She lives in one of
those gorgeous old brick buildings that has some classic Boston architectural charm. I'd probably notice more specific details about it if I wasn't noticing so much about Loren. We don't speak at all on our short walk, but we don't have to. Electricity crackles between us.

  I've been attracted to hundreds of women in my life. I know what that feels like, the zing of pleasure inside of you, the heat, the wanting and needing that draws your eyes to all of the beautiful places on a woman. The curve of her neck and her shoulders, where you already know you're going to pepper a million kisses, tracing that curve with your tongue; the hollow at the base of her throat, the curve of wrist to hand, those long, elegant fingers with those short nails that you want inside of you. The curve of hips to thighs, knees, calves...

  Okay, so everything about a woman that you find attractive is enticing. That's simple. Obvious.

  And, God, yes, I find Loren attractive. She's like a vision that I would have built in my head if you'd asked me to describe the perfect kind of woman I was looking for. I'd have told you about her long, golden hair, because dammit, I have a thing for blondes, and I'm never going to be sorry about that (and it's not like I'm a blonde-exclusive person, but blondes push every button inside of me, and I love it). I'd have told you about the way that gold hair waves over her shoulders, drawing your eyes to her lovely curve of neck, to the curves of her arms. I would have told you that I wanted a woman with a bright, engaging smile. If I knew you really well (or, you know, if you were Rob) and I had a beer or two in me, I'd even have told you that I love a nice ass. And Loren's is very, very nice.

  But now that I'm glancing sidelong at her, I'm kind of embarrassed that I ever really thought of things like that. Yeah, she's got a gorgeous smile, her breasts are beautiful, and her fingers make my knees weak, and she trailed her foot over my lap at the diner—let's be frank, that was pretty damn sexy. Everything about her draws me in so effortlessly, so naturally, that I'm having a hard time keeping my hands off of her, even when we're down here on the sidewalks and streets, right out in public. I'm having a hard time not sweeping her into my arms and kissing her perfect, coy mouth. And when I watch her expression, it looks as if she's having the same problem, too. Her face is bright red, flushed, and her hands are shaking.

  She wants me just as much as I want her.

  But there's something more at stake here than mere physical attraction.

  I...never thought I'd say that. I've never felt much of anything besides physical attraction. I've loved the sense of humor of some of the women I've been with, and I loved how intelligent they were, and they made me smile sometimes with their thoughtfulness. But there was nothing outstanding, because I never gave the hookups any time for anything other than...well, hooking up. I didn't open up my heart to them, and they certainly didn't open up their hearts to me.

  Nor did I want them to.

  But here and now, something is turning inside of me, something brand new and...weird.

  I learned about gravity in school just like everyone else. I learned about Newton and that apple hitting his head, how the apple had to hit his head, because it was bound by the law of gravity.

  I've never been bound by the law of anything beyond family and the pack.

  But suddenly I'm feeling bound to something else. Someone else. And it's not constrictive or painful or bad.

  It feels...good.

  I want to know more about Loren. I want to hear her laughter. I want her to crack more jokes with me; I want to find out the things she loves and the things she hates. I want to take her out to meals and go on adventures, and isn't that a little crazy since I just met her?

  But I'm the apple, and she's the Earth, and, like gravity, she's pulling me toward her, body and heart.

  So when we reach Loren's building, I'm feeling a whole mess of emotions, emotions I might have scoffed at had anyone else confided them to me...but which I secretly always wanted—though I wondered if I was even capable of experiencing them. I wondered if I was capable of feeling that way for someone else.

  Loren opens the front door to her building and holds it for me, an impish smile making her features light up like the streetlamps lining the street. I take the door from her, gripping it above her head.

  “After you,” I tell her, my voice low. She shivers, her eyes rolling up a little, her tongue darting out to lick her lips.

  “No,” she says then, smile deepening as she holds my gaze just as fiercely as she grips the door. “After you,” she tells me, inclining her head toward the entrance.

  We stand that way for a long moment, both of us holding the door, neither of us loosening our grip. It's a silly little game, but there's a lot of power in the moment, electrifying the air between us. I'm a wolf; we don't give in easily, and I'm competitive as all hell... But there's something in the way Loren's green eyes flash. She's smaller than me but not by that much, and I may be a werewolf...

  But she has her own strengths, too.

  And she's apparently pretty stubborn.

  “You know what?” she asks me after a long moment, both of us laughing helplessly, because the situation is ridiculous and, if I'm being honest, pretty sexually charged, with our bodies so close, the heat radiating between us. We're close enough to touch but not quite touching...

  “What?” I ask her, breathless.

  “We could keep doing this,” she says, fluttering her eyelashes, “or we could go up to my place. Because I can think of a few things I'd rather be doing than holding this door open.” Her smile turns up even further at the corners, and she leans a little closer to me. “Like you,” she murmurs. The scent of her rises in my nose, the heat of her skin, the soft, white floral... A spark shifts back and forth between us as if we're conduits for electricity.

  I let go of the door. I'm stepping into the apartment building before I even realize that I've done it, but then it's too late for posturing, and, anyway, it's not too good to let my competitiveness run rampant.

  Loren steps in with a wide smile, her head to the side as she holds up her hands, letting the door fall closed silently behind her.

  Then we're standing in the hallway, and she stares up at me, the florescent lights overhead shining down on her, on both of us, in what should be a garish way. It should be too bright, everything made ugly by the florescence of the bulbs. But nothing can touch her.

  People say that confidence is sexy. I get that when Loren reaches out and curls her fingers around the lapels of my leather jacket, drawing me close to her. Now that the space between us has been breached, everything in my body is standing at attention, every molecule, every atom, turned toward her.

  She rises up on her tiptoes, and she lifts her chin to me. We're close enough to kiss, but I don't lean forward, and she doesn't lean forward. We stay exactly as we are, staring at one another.

  “Are you sure about this?” she asks me then, her voice soft as she holds my gaze. I can hear the want in her tone, and it fills me, but I can also hear the question. She wants to make sure.

  She wants to know that I'm serious.

  Normally that type of question would worry me. I don't want to form attachments. I don't want to hurt anyone.

  No strings attached, right?

  I reach out and place my hands at her hips. The heat of her skin radiates through the skirt and blouse, through her jacket, into my palms. It's a raw heat, the type of heat that makes the blood rush faster through me, desire pouring into every vein.

  “I'm sure,” I tell her, my voice low, gruff, gravelly.

  She nods, and then she breathes out, turning away from me. I let her go, let her slip out of my fingers, and she's walking ahead of me down the hallway, glancing over her shoulder to make sure I'm following her.

  She lives on the first floor, which makes things easy. Just a few doors down on the right, the turn of a key in the lock, and we're inside her apartment. It's pretty, cozy, the walls painted gold (like, actual gold, a gold that looks metallic). It's hard to see the gold paint on the
walls, however, since every available wall space is being taken up with bookshelves. There's an old, high-backed loveseat in the center of the living room, covered in a print of little blue flowers, but other than that and the bookshelves, there's no other furniture in this first room.

  “Nice place,” I tell her, but she only glances at me quickly, nodding at me once with a small smile turning up her mouth at the corners.

  “Thanks,” she murmurs, and she isn't looking at me when she says it. We walk into the room together, and Loren reaches out across the space between us, threading her fingers through mine. She's tugging me now, pulling me deeper into the apartment before she closes the door behind us.

  It's such a fast movement, and I move with her. I have my guard down; my defenses are completely lowered, so it's a surprise then when Loren pushes me back against the door. The door is an old fifties number: big, solid, made of metal, and it's cold against my back, even through my leather jacket, as she pushes me against it—gently but with force, her hands curling over my hips. And then she's standing on her tiptoes again, and Loren is reaching up, her chin tilted.

  And she's kissing me.

  My first reaction is a grin—I love this. I love that she did it, that she took control, that she took what she wanted. And what I wanted, too. But the kiss is too hot for that smile. It's too damn hot for anything else but being in the moment and kissing her back. Fiercely.

  Loren tastes like the bright mint from the gum she'd been chewing on the way to the apartment, so her mouth has this delicious dichotomy of the crisp cold because of the mint, and also the incredible heat from the warmth of her skin, of her tongue. It's delicious, and she's delicious as she curls her fingers, digging them into my hips, pressing me back against the door, pressing her front against my front, her chest against my chest. She's breathing fast as she drinks me in, her heart rate skyrocketing, and with my heightened wolf senses, I can hear the rush of blood moving through her.

  Her kisses mean something. Her mouth is soft and hard all at once, her tongue slipping between my lips, our teeth clashing together as she moves her fingers, dragging them up my sides from my hips, pressing them into my breasts, curling her fingers around my curves and brushing her thumbs over my nipples that are peaking under my shirt.