expression was nothing short of grim. “You mean with your father?”
“No, I’m not talking about the crap that happened last year. I’m talking about before!”
For a moment, he simply watched her, the look in his eyes growing darker, deeper, and then he gave a small, nearly imperceptible nod. “Yeah, I know.”
Despite the counseling she’d gone through, shame poured through her, sickening and painfully familiar, and she struggled to breathe her way through it.
“Elise, I meant what I said,” he told her, his grip firming, as if he thought she was going to pull away. It was terrifying, watching the resolve harden his features, his expression cut with stark lines of determination. “All I want right now is a chance for us to get to know each other. I’m not pushing you to do anything you’re not ready for.”
“You’re wasting your time,” she argued, flattening her palms against the solid muscles of his shirt-covered chest as she pushed against his hold. “It’s not going to happen. I...I can’t.”
“Can’t?” he quietly rasped. “Or won’t even try?”
Her anger rose with her panic, and she fought to control her voice as she hissed, “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you don’t know me. You don’t know my life. You don’t know anything but gossip. Don’t you dare judge me!”
His voice became a soft, gentle growl. “I don’t want to judge you. I just want the chance to be friends with you. To deal with this thing we have going.”
She blinked, wondering what on earth he was talking about. “Thing? What thing?”
They’d long since stopped dancing, though he still held her in his arms. Obviously choosing his words with care, he said, “We might not be happy about it, but there’s something between us. I know you don’t give most men the time of day, but I want that to change. I want you to take a chance and get to know me.”
“So that I’ll what? Suddenly decide to sleep with you?” she sneered, breaking away from him.
His mouth went hard, the shuttered look in his eyes narrow and sharp. “So that you can learn to trust me. Be friends with me. If that’s all you want, then I’ll find a way to accept it.”
She lifted her chin, her arms wrapped tight around her middle, too angry to care if she was causing a scene. “You’re crazy!”
He didn’t reach for her again. He just stood there, looking devastatingly handsome in his tux, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal his thick wrists and the corded length of his powerful forearms as he shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his slacks. The snowy-white of his shirt was startlingly bright against the dark russet tone of his skin, attesting to his Native American heritage, and she couldn’t help but think that it should have been a sin creating a man who looked that good. But even more frightening than the gorgeous exterior was the man inside.
“I mean it, Wyatt. You’re wasting your time.”
“I know you’re afraid,” he told her, keeping his voice low, “but there’s something you should know about me, El. I can be a patient man when I need to be.”
“A patient man?” She laughed, but the brittle sound was born too much from terror and pain than actual humor. “There’s no such thing!”
He leaned forward, just close enough that his lips grazed her cheekbone as he spoke. “Have heart,” he murmured as the last notes of the song quietly faded away. He pressed a tender kiss to her temple, moving slowly past her right side, the solid muscles of his chest brushing against her bare arm. “Believe it or not, El, I just might surprise you.”
Then he stepped away, leaving her standing alone on the edge of the dance floor, staring blankly into the dense, impenetrable darkness of the forest...wondering what in God’s name had just happened to her.
Chapter 2
Forty-five minutes later, Wyatt stood with his shoulders propped against the thick trunk of an ancient pine, waiting just inside the dark line of the wooded park that bordered the back of the meticulously kept house before him. Silvery rays of rain-dampened moonlight bathed the small home in an ethereal glow, giving it a spectral appearance, like an apparition rising from the mist. The rain wasn’t heavy, the trees shielding him from the pattering drops, but the rumble of thunder promised that another storm was on its way—which meant he was in for a long, wet night.
Doing his best to ignore the thick weight of sexual hunger keeping him company, Wyatt used his wolf eyes as he kept watch over the silent house, noting the personal touches that he knew were the work of the woman who lived there. The lavender trim had to have been Elise’s doing, as well as the vivid red rose bushes that climbed the white walls. Everywhere he looked, there were little sparks of her personality that set the house apart from its neighbors, much like the woman herself.
Even in a pack full of preternatural werewolves, Elise Drake stood out as something vivid and bright and unique, no matter how hard she tried to hide it.
She was shimmering and white-hot to the touch, and yet, she worked so hard to conceal herself beneath a cold, excessively controlled exterior. Struggled to cut herself off from the world, as if she needed no one to help her along the way.
On the one hand, Wyatt still savored the memory of how she’d felt in his arms, somehow better than any other woman he’d ever held before. Soft and lush, despite her nerves, with the mouthwatering scent of her body filling his head; the sensation had been richer, deeper...and impossibly sweeter than anything he’d ever experienced. Something that he knew would keep him up in the quiet hours of the night, when his body craved the feel of her curves beneath him, cushioning his heavy thrusts, welcoming him into the slick, clutching depths of her body. He loved that she wasn’t a little stick-and-bones wisp of a woman. Loved her shape and her height and the way that she fit against him.
On the other hand, he couldn’t ignore the frustrating fact that she deserved a man who could give her a hell of a lot more than he could. One who wasn’t riddled with the guilt of his sins. Who could hold her through the night after losing himself in her beautiful body. Who could offer her everything, instead of something that would most likely end in a bitter nothing for both of them. But fate was a fickle bastard, and he was done arguing with himself about it. Elise wasn’t someone he could ignore or forget. Staying away from her wasn’t an option, and though he’d promised her patience, he wanted her now.
Ever since the night of Max Doucet’s Novitiate’s ceremony, Wyatt had known she was his. A rogue wolf had bitten Max because of his sister’s association with the Runners, and the purpose of the ceremony had been to determine whether or not the teenager would survive his first change. In a surprising act of loyalty to the Bloodrunners, Elise and her brother had sided with the half-breed hunters that night, standing against their sadistic father and his maniacal plans.
It had been a macabre, hellish scene, and yet, Wyatt hadn’t been able to take his focus off the woman standing no more than a handful of feet away from him. The late-autumn winds had raged, whipping the thick, shimmering strands of her dark red hair against the perfect angles of her face, pulling her shirt tight against the womanly curves of her body. The violent gusts had surrounded him with her warm, intoxicating scent, creating a reaction in his body from which he doubted he would ever recover.
Take. Keep. Mine. Those three guttural words had echoed through his head over and over,
