by Finn, Emilia
Fuckkkkk.
She extends her hand and lets the crystal dangle. “Help me out?”
“Sure.” Still bare chested, I barely manage to keep my perverted groans to myself when she turns and her silky hair brushes over my skin. With clumsy fingers and shaking hands, I dangle the chain around her neck and work on the catch.
Just lean forward and press a kiss to her shoulder.
It’s bare! It’s right there!
No! You’re not supposed to be the next wolf stepping up to her house!
“Um…” My fingers shake so bad, I have to stop and restart the chain four times. “Did you bring a sweater or something? It might get cold out.”
“No.” She slides a hand along her shoulder, and when she takes her hair to move it aside, her hand jumps when it feathers over mine. “We’re not leaving this hotel, I don’t think. Dinner’s on the second level, then we’ll come straight back here.”
“You don’t think you’ll go for a walk at the beach after?”
She turns when I finish the chain. Again, her eyes drop to my chest, my eyes, my chest.
“Do you wanna go for a walk after? It could be nice to wander for a few minutes.”
Alone? With you? At the beach, at night?
“No. I’m pretty beat, so I’ll come back up and crash.”
Almost like my plans to sleep annoy her, she steps away and moves stiffly toward the bathroom. “I hung your shirt out. The steam helped, then I went over it with the hair dryer.” She reemerges with the hanger and tosses it at my face. “Get dressed. I’m starving.”
I slide the fabric around my back and pull shoes on – not flip-flops, but the only pair of shoes and socks I brought along. After I finish tying them up, I grab my wallet and the room cards, make my way to the door and hold it open for her to pass through.
Grabbing a cute little purse on her way out, she drops her cell and a tube of lipstick in, forcing unwanted images to flash through my mind. The thought that she might need to reapply lipstick pisses me the fuck off.
Why does she need the tube? I won’t be kissing the red off, and as far as I’m concerned, anyone that wants to step up and volunteer won’t have teeth in his mouth to smile with.
“Ang?”
“Yeah.” I let the door close and step into the hall. “I’m coming.”
We pass Jess and Kane’s room, but we don’t stop to knock. Neither of us wants to know what they’re doing in there, and for as long as the walls remain soundproof, we won’t open the door to find out.
At seven on the dot, we step into the elevator and press the button for the restaurant, stepping out seconds later on the mezzanine level. We look around in wonder at the space, full of waiters in suits, and guests in gowns and tuxedos.
“Holy shit.” Forgetting her sour mood, Laine steps closer and slips her arm into mine. “It’s fancy as hell down here.”
“Tomorrow morning, you watch this place turn into a hangout for people in tanks and flip-flops.”
A beautiful tinkling laugh slides up her throat, lodging the breath in mine. “I want to go to the beach tomorrow. It’s our first night here, so I’m pretty beat, too, but tomorrow, I want to sit on the beach, drink a mojito, and read a book.”
“You do?”
“It sounds like heaven, no?”
I flash our room card when we stop at the hostess desk, and after asking for a table for four, we’re led to a wall of windows that overlook the ocean Laine intends to read in front of tomorrow.
I don’t allow the host to hold Laine’s chair. I step in front of him, and lead her there myself. Once she’s seated, I bend forward to push her in, pausing when she turns her face so we’re barely three inches apart.
“Thanks, Ang.”
I wink, because why the fuck not? And when she blushes, I resist the urge to drop a kiss on her forehead before I step around to my seat.
“Can I offer you drinks?”
“I’ll have a beer.” And when Laine says nothing, when she stares at me in challenge, I add, “And she’ll have a mojito.”
“And your guests?”
I shrug. “Can order their own drinks when they get here. They’re fine.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back.”
“A mojito?” Laine snickers. “That was for tomorrow. Tonight, I’ll take a sniff and get drunk, then I’ll pass out and snore all night.”
I pull my chair in closer, but yank my legs back when they accidentally touch hers. “Um…” Could I be more awkward? Probably. If I put effort into it. “Do you snore when you’re drunk?”
She tosses her purse onto the table and begins unfolding the cloth napkin. “I have no clue. Doesn’t everyone? Jess teases that I do.”
“I’ll let you know tomorrow.” After I watch you sleep all night. Because I’m a freak. I pick up the menu for a distraction and blindly scan the words that make no sense to my preoccupied brain. “What do you want for dinner?”
She opens her menu and chews on her pinky finger while she thinks. “It’s probably in the rules that I should pick a salad. Something clean and small, so I don’t look like a slob in this fancy restaurant.”
I narrow my eyes. “Says who? Whose rule is that?”
Her eyes meet mine. “Um… It’s just something that is expected of women sometimes. We’re supposed to be demure creatures. We live on water, lettuce, and sunshine, and with that diet, we never get fat and ugly, ya know?”
“No.” And Graham feeding her that bullshit pisses me the fuck off. “Eat whatever you want, Laine. Because you know what?”
Her wary eyes follow my every move. “What?”
“You think that’s a rule for the women? That you have to look elegant while you pick at your lettuce. Most men hate that, because then we feel like slobs when we order a steak or a burger. Girls sit across the table and eat like a rabbit, so then we feel bad, because we know you’re hungry, and we feel fat and useless, because we just ate a ten-pound burger and maybe spilled ketchup on our jeans.” Her lips quiver with the ghost of a smile. “So how about you eat whatever the fuck you wanna eat, and I’ll order a ten-pound burger, then when we get back to the room, you don’t make a big deal about the ketchup I have to wash out of my jeans in the bathroom sink.”
Closing the menu, she sits back and smirks. “I’ll help you wash your jeans if you want.”
“You can’t help me, because that’s making a big deal.” I sit back with a smile when a different server delivers our drinks. A tall beer in front of me, and a green concoction with leaves in front of Laine. “Is there a reason you have fruit and grass in your drink?”
“Can I take your order?”
I ignore Laine’s laughter and look to the still empty chairs that Kane and Jess should have already filled, then I look back to Laine and fall a little bit more in love with the way her cheeks push her eyes up. “Yeah, can I get a burger?” I know it’s a fancy restaurant, but everyone has a burger, right? “And fries. And gravy.”
Laine snorts, but covers it with her napkin. When the server turns to her, she sits taller. “Can I have a burger, too? Gravy on the side?”
* * *
“No, stop! You’re making it worse!”
Laine fights me at the bathroom sink. In tiny little sleep shorts and the peach tank top, she fights me over who gets to wash their clothes first. My jeans are now decorated with a wet spot right over the crotch like I pissed myself at dinner, and Laine’s pale thigh has a red mark from where she dropped her gravy, and now that she has the dress off, she’s working to clean the gravy out so it doesn’t ruin the fabric.
I don’t give a shit about my jeans, but her silly giggles and body slamming is worth a thousand days of walking around with a wet crotch.
Two mojitos, one burger, and an elevator ride that ended with her biting her lip so hard I was tempted to give it a go myself, ends with us basically in our underwear in the opulent bathroom while we fight over one sink…
When we both know there’s a second
sink just a foot away.
I won’t be a wolf knocking at her door.
I won’t be a wolf knocking at her door.
I won’t be a wolf knocking at her door.
“Angelo! Stop!”
“No, you said you’d help me with my jeans.”
“That was before my dress was ruined.” She slams her elbow against my ribs and jockeys me back. “I only brought one fancy dress, and now it looks like I crapped myself.”
“It’s black fabric! You can’t see anything.” Gentler, much gentler than she is, I push my elbow against her ribs and move her back. “You’re being dramatic. I’ve got brown stains on my jeans, looks like I pissed shit.”
“Pissed shit.” She braces her hands on the edge of the sink and gives a little snort that can only be the result of too much rum. “You got problems if you’ve got crap coming out of your dick, Angelo. You should see a doctor about it.”
“Shush, and move.” And don’t talk about my dick anymore.
I shove my jeans under the warm water and laugh when she tries to push me aside. Two hands on my ribs, her feet planted, she tries to push, but I’m much heavier than her, and I really love this playfulness, so I’m gonna stand my ground and let her push me around some more.
I won’t be a wolf knocking at her door.
But I might let her knock at mine a little.
“Here! Just let me do it.” She snatches the denim from my hands and hip bumps me aside. Pumping soap into her hands, she works the denim in a way that has my dirty, beer-addled brain short circuiting.
She scrubs the crotch. She leans in close to inspect, and poking her tongue between her teeth to help her concentrate, she scrubs some more.
Fuckkkkk me.
My dick thrums with anticipation.
Anticipation of what? Nothing. Because she’s not mine, but maybe I could touch myself and pretend it’s her. Wouldn’t be the first time, and God knows, it won’t be the last.
When she flips the tap off and snaps my jeans out, she turns to me and almost slams against my chest when I don’t move.
I should move, maybe even throw my stupid ass into the ocean and cool off. But I don’t. Instead, I bar her way and pray she doesn’t look down to my cock.
“I wonder why Kane and Jess didn’t come to dinner?” Her lashes flutter, drawing me in like a moth to a flame. “They can’t possibly be that into each other.”
I know why they didn’t come down; because they’re meddlers with ninja skills. “Maybe they fell asleep.” I step back and allow her room to move.
Who the fuck am I to corner her in the bathroom just because she had a drink and got giggly?
I’m the exact kinda guy I’d whale on if I knew what he was doing. Someone standing in her way when she was trying to walk by, someone encouraging her silly, giggly behavior, simply because she’d had a drink.
Fuck me. I deserve a beat down.
I step out of the bathroom and go to work unbuttoning my shirt. I don’t bother hanging it, I just toss it back into my bag and turn away to rearrange my dick. Snagging the TV remote on the way past, I move toward the bed and sigh.
“I’m gonna put a movie on. Is that cool?”
“Yeah.” She walks out of the bathroom just as I lower to the very edge of my side of the bed.
Five whole nights of this.
Five whole nights where I get to watch her parade around in shorts that cover less than some panties cover. In a top that, in the right light, shows off too much breast. With sleepy eyes, that, when I let myself forget I’m supposed to be her protector, and instead become that wolf, I imagine how they would look at me if I slid into her in the night.
Not the scared Laine.
Not the Laine that was abused and broken by Graham, and could never wake to someone sliding inside her in the night.
But the younger version of her. The freer version.
“What’s on?” She tosses her heels across the room, then stops at the mini fridge and bends forward to peruse. She kills me; the bending, the wiggling. The dimples just above the waistband of her shorts. “This room’s in Kane’s name, right? His credit card?”
“I guess. I didn’t hand mine over, so…” I turn to the movie channel and click through the menu. Anything to distract me from Laine, who parades through my sleeping space in clothes any standard wolf could chew through.
“Perfect, these will taste so much better if he’s paying.” She grabs a box of M&Ms and tosses them onto the bed beside my leg, then turns with a bottle of white wine and grabs two glass flutes from the counter before hip-bumping the fridge closed. “Have a drink with me? This is an eight-dollar bottle of wine, but Kane will pay thirty-nine… we can’t pass this up. That’ll teach him for being a smartass all the time.”
“Sure.” I accept a glass and sit back on the bed.
I’m wearing boxer shorts and nothing else, which is technically no less than what we’d swim in at the beach or lake. In fact, her pyjamas cover more than her bikini, so I need to cool my shit and stop acting like an idiot. But then she flops onto the bed and works the cap off the bottle, turning onto her side to lazily pour the liquid into my glass until the bubbles spill over my hand.
“Oops.” She ducks forward and sips at my glass before I can, and in her quest to chase the spilling froth, licks the side of the glass and taps my thumb with her tongue.
She freezes. Warmth rushes to her cheeks as the pulse in her throat pounds hard enough that I can see it, but when I say nothing – nothing, because I’m too busy mentally talking my dick off the ledge – she swallows and preoccupies herself with her own drink.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to spill.”
“S’okay.” I take a sip and pretend I’m not placing my lips exactly where hers were. “You okay to have another? You’re not gonna make yourself sick?”
“Nah. It takes more than three drinks to break my iron gut. I’ve been partying at 188 for years; did you count my drinks?” Yes. I’ve always watched you. “I can hit five or six before shit starts getting fuzzy. Eight is where my gut starts rebelling.”
I laugh, but it’s a nervous chuckle where I wish and pray I could be back home in my bed. Who knew I’d rather be alone and away from her, when I could have the option of being in the same bed as her?
Oh.
Me.
I knew.
Because now she’s tipsy, mixing drinks, and licking my hand.
“Oh! Homeward Bound!” She snatches the remote and turns it back to the channel I just flipped over. “Yes! It just began.”
“Are you serious right now?”
“Uh-huh. Look, they’re still at the wedding. Want some dessert? My burger’s already settling in.”
28
Laine
Group Chat
Hungover, furry mouthed, and with a rumbling stomach, I open my aching eyes and stop at the sight of Ang’s sleeping face inches from mine. He sleeps with his hands pressed together and tucked under his cheek, so his lips pucker and wrinkles mark near his eye as it squishes into his hands.
Holding my breath and praying he remains asleep, I draw my leg back, sliding it from between his and press my lips closed so I don’t audibly react to the feeling of his coarse hairs on my smooth skin.
How is it we’re both so afraid to show our cards during the day, but at night, we continue to twine together the way a grape vine moves around a trellis?
My phone vibrates on the bedside table. A constant buzzing, and the reason I’m now awake instead of cuddled up against Ang’s solid chest. I don’t turn over yet, but instead, I study his face the way I did yesterday while he slept and was unaware of my stare.
He’s an impenetrable wall.
Impervious to my every move.
I walk out of the bathroom and ask him to zip a dress I can easily do on my own.
Nothing.
Ask him to fasten a necklace. Jesus, even toddlers can do those.
Nothing.
Fancy clothes, heels, an
d a fancy dinner.
Nothing!
Two drinks down and a nice dinner seemed to help. At least he was playing back. A little bathroom fun in the smallest pyjamas I own.
But still, nothing!
What the hell is wrong with him?
Oh, I know. I’m broken, unworthy, used… and just to add a cherry on top, I’m his friend’s little sister.
Awesome.
Before I was broken, I was known among my friends for my stubborn nature and willingness to be the first to jump off that cliff. I guess Luc and I are similar in that way; he was the idiot of their pack, so I suppose that makes me the idiot of mine.
I was always the first to jump.
Always the loudest. The drunkest. The silliest.
So when Ang refused to give in to my stupidity last night, I channeled a little of that woman. I bent over the fridge and wiggled my hips, and when that didn’t end with him running at me, I threw all my cards down, spilled his drink, and lapped it up like a common dog.
And still, nothing happened.
Just fucking kiss me already!
I genuinely think he likes me. Jess swears he does, and Kane promises some fun if I simply go for it. They’re so sensitive to my fragile feelings, I doubt they’d lie. They wouldn’t throw me toward certain rejection, so that’s got to be a good thing, right?
Whether they’re telling the truth or not, I’m going with the former. I’m going with the assumption that Ang does like me, so it’s easier to approach him knowing his constant backing away isn’t rejection.
It’s simply a matter of tempting him over to the dark side.
Angelo Alesi’s life is about loyalty and honor, and his loyalty to the guys is the reason he keeps his hands to himself. The alternative – that he thinks I’m gross – just isn’t something my poor heart can consider. So I just… won’t.
My phone vibrates again. A heavy, noisy buzzing that hurts my sensitive ears, so when the sound disturbs Ang and he turns away with a frown, I blindly reach out for the stupid thing and bring it under the sheet that covers us.
