Loner (Norseton Wolves #2) Read online

  Damn.

  She knelt to fold her new pajamas into a dresser drawer. She wasn’t much of a pajama wearer, generally, but Mrs. Carbone said sometimes she or Alpha popped over with information or supplies. Stephanie figured she should at the very least have something easy to throw on. “You could always park in the driveway.”

  “That’s the plan. Why the interest in the garage?”

  “Need somewhere to put an easel.”

  “Oh.” He turned back to her, showing her that some color had finally left his ears and returned to his face. “You could use the second bedroom. Lighting would probably be better.”

  She clucked her tongue and reached for the rest of the clothes in the bag. It was mostly jeans. She preferred dresses with fun prints, and had brought plenty, but she figured she should be prepared for any contingency. “I don’t want to get attached to the second bedroom. Once I set up a workspace, moving to another would be disruptive to my creative flow.”

  “Why would you have to move?”

  “I know how it goes, Darius.” She bumped the drawer closed and flattened the shopping bag. “Wolves hook up, and within a year, they have a newborn or two. I think that’s why so many wolf men are your age when they start looking for mates. They knew that the moment they commit, they’re trapped.”

  “I’m not trapped.”

  “Aren’t you? You’re stuck with me. Mated wolves don’t do divorce, or,” she made quote marks in the air, “conscious uncoupling. I’ve got your mark, and I’ve already claimed your home as my den.” She had a lot of work to do in that den, too. If Darius was going to coop himself up into it, it needed to be cozy.

  “Why are you already thinking of divorce?” He furrowed his brow. “Tell me what I did wrong. I mean, a lot, I’m sure, but—”

  She tossed a wadded-up pair of socks at him, and he snatched them from the air before they could bounce off his head. “Simmer down, baby. No reason to get agitated. I’m merely talking about adding kids to the equation. Sometimes, things are peachy keen until a little screamer comes along, and then you realize you’re living with a partner you barely had time to get to know, and you don’t know how to negotiate your interests and hobbies around the new family configuration.”

  “Kids?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” She held his gaze and kept very still to soothe his nervous inner wolf.

  I’m not going anywhere.

  “Oh.” He let out a breath and rubbed his eyes. “Wow. Okay. But I—I don’t really have hobbies, besides shooting things”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t. I work. I watch television until I fall asleep. That’s about it.”

  “I think you try to make yourself out to sound far less interesting than you actually are.” His power alone made him fascinating, but the fact he kept her guessing made him abso-fucking-lutely intriguing. “What were you doing on your computer when I came in?”

  He shook his head and pushed away from the doorframe. “It’s silly.”

  “Silly, meaning what?” Silly was a word kids used when they were ashamed of a particular thing. In her experience, adults used that word when they thought other people would find their interest frivolous. He obviously thought she would.

  “Silly meaning…uh…” Darius shifted his weight and furrowed his brow again. “I dunno. It’s not a big deal.”

  “It has to be, because if you were just checking your email, you would have said that.”

  “It’s a class, okay? I…” He fiddled with the hem of his T-shirt and seemed to be staring through her instead of at her.

  Don’t clam up on me now. She was going to keep pushing, and at some point, he was going to shut her out. She didn’t want that, but getting bits and pieces of information about him at a time was killing her a little. She wanted to know all about him. She’d already decided he was worth loving, but her mother would want more detail than that. Mom would interrogate her and make sure that Stephanie’s wolf was nothing like her father. As far as she could tell, he couldn’t be closer to opposite if he tried.

  “None of us in the pack, besides Mrs. Carbone, graduated from high school. I have a GED.”

  “That’s perfectly respectable.”

  His dark gaze seemed to focus on her, finally, and his hands stilled. “Doesn’t always seem like it. It’s not the same as the challenge of sitting in a classroom with other people. I didn’t have much of that as a kid.”

  “I imagine you didn’t.” She stood and walked to him. Taking his hand, she guided him over to the bed.

  “I don’t need your pity, Stephanie.” His tone may have had a bit of snap to it, but he sat on the edge of the bed, ever so meekly for her.

  “You think I’m pitying you because I ask questions?”

  “That’s usually what questions lead to. Easier to just not say anything.”

  She groaned through clenched teeth. He didn’t trust her. While frustrating, it wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t something she could fix with the snap of her fingers. She was the one who’d gotten them off on the wrong foot by making assumptions about him. Of course he felt like he was dancing along a fine line.

  “I just want to know about your class. That’s all.”

  “It’s a pre—prerequisite I need for pretty much any degree program. Basic writing skills and stuff. I’m not doing so great, though.”

  “I might be able to help.”

  “That’s okay, I—”

  She pressed her hand over his mouth. “Don’t be prideful. I can help. You’re taking it online?”

  After a long stare that was probably meant to be at least a little bit frightening—it wasn’t because she couldn’t see anything but those sexy, bedroom eyes from her dreams—he nodded behind her hand.

  “Some stuff you just need to be in a classroom for. You retain information faster sometimes when someone is teaching it in-person and correcting you on the spot.”

  He wrapped his hand around her wrist and lowered her hand to his lap. “The guys don’t know I’m doing it. They won’t see the point. Don’t need it for our job.”

  “As if my art has a practical purpose.” Sometimes, there wasn’t a point to learning, but that didn’t mean the enrichment didn’t trickle down and improve other aspects of the learner’s life. Art had taught her that things sometimes looked different on second glance—that they weren’t necessarily what she assumed. She’d forgotten that at first when it came to Darius, but she wouldn’t forget it again. “I won’t say anything. What kind of program are you looking at?”

  “I…”

  “Say it. It’s okay. I promise I’ll only poke a little bit of fun at you.”

  His eyes went comically wide.

  She laughed just a little and skimmed her fingertips along his unshaven jaw. Strong, handsome wolf.

  He pressed his hand against hers and swallowed. His dark gaze was full of questions, and she thought she had the answer to at least one. “You can touch me,” she whispered.

  His nod came slowly. He tightened his fingers around hers and closed his eyes. His energy mellowed. Touch seemed to help him, and she’d have to remember that. She kissed the back of his hand.

  “I don’t know what to study yet. Something useful, just in case the whole wolf-for-hire thing stops working out.”

  Maybe talking was easier for him when he wasn’t looking. She didn’t want him looking away, but forcing a wolf to adapt to something before he was ready rarely ended well. It wasn’t her he was adapting to, but the circumstance. She was doing the same. Very little about Darius was predictable, and that was a good thing. If he were predictable, he’d be just like the wolves back in her father’s pack.

  “There’s nothing particularly useful about my degree,” she said.

  “But you made money?”

  She shrugged. “Here and there. Money was never my focus, but if that has to change, I could always get a teaching job.” She leaned back on her forearms and clucked her tongue. “I
probably wouldn’t mind that, actually. Is there a school here?”

  “Yeah. Private K through twelve, though tuition is waived for us. It’s like public school, but they had to have some admission barriers in place in case developments spring up near this one that would put kids in the same public school zone. Folks in Norseton have everything they need in the community.”

  Long sentences. This is easy for him to discuss.

  “Good to know. They probably have an art teacher already, though.”

  “Dunno. Wouldn’t hurt to ask. They have the same staffing problems the community on a whole has. They don’t like hiring outsiders. They’ve got the money to pay the salaries, just not the applicants.”

  “I’ll put that on my to-do list.”

  “You’d really be satisfied with taking a teaching job?”

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I—” He sputtered his lips and twiddled his thumbs.

  Hypotheticals. He doesn’t do well with those. Perhaps he doesn’t have the experience?

  “I guess I just wouldn’t have thought that with you having some money, you wouldn’t want to work with…the…”

  “The what? The hoi polloi?” She nudged him with her elbow and chuckled. “Commoners? Hey, money just makes freedom easier to come by, at least the way I spend it. Why’s that so unusual for you?”

  He shrugged, and the tips of his ears turned red again. “It’s just not what I’d expect.”

  “I’m sure there are a lot of things about me you’ll find to be unexpected.”

  “I think you’re probably right.”

  “So, you’ll let me help you?”

  And she didn’t just mean with his assignments, but that was a good enough place to start. She wanted to insinuate herself into every part of his life, if he’d let her. She’d dreamed of having a mate who’d trust her enough to let her help with the things that mattered most to him. A mate not only in name, but in actions.

  She skimmed a fingertip down his arm and let her hand linger over his.

  “If you think you’ll have time.”

  “I’ve got nothing but time, for you.”

  She lifted his large hand and set it on her naked knee. “But…we might as well be productive.”

  He looked down at it, then into her eyes.

  She leaned back onto her forearms and bobbed her eyebrows. “We’re early, but I don’t think anyone’s going to call us on it.”

  “Early for what?”

  “It’s our wedding day. Wedding days usually lead to wedding nights, and since it’s a full moon, I’ll be otherwise occupied.”

  “I don’t have to shift for the full moon.”

  “Yeah, you told me that last night.” His hand remained in that same spot, so she reached down and slid it up a few inches. If that wasn’t explicit permission that he should touch her, she’d have to resort to words. Before she did, though, she wanted to see just how well the wolf read cues. He didn’t seem to be very good at it, but that was okay. Maybe he wasn’t so observant as a man, but that was just fine, because she wasn’t exactly a gold star wolf. According to Mrs. Carbone, it’d probably be weeks until Stephanie’s wolf fully got her bearings.

  He curled his fingers against her thigh and stared at the gap between her legs.

  She sighed. “Darius?”

  “Yes?”

  “That was an invitation for foreplay.”

  “Oh.” He stood and immediately started peeling off his shirt.

  She grabbed the hem before he could manage. “Are you generally naked for foreplay?”

  He cringed. “I can’t say I’ve had much of it.”

  “What do you do when a woman isn’t ready?”

  He furrowed his brow. “That’s never been a problem.”

  Looking at him, she could imagine how that would be the case, but she didn’t just want a quick fuck. Not that she doubted his endurance at all, but she imagined he probably had one speed when it came to sex, and it was of the highly aerobic sort. She liked for sex to be an experience almost as often as she liked it to just scratch an itch. People learned a lot about their lovers in the bedroom, and until she could get her wolf to loosen his tongue, she’d let his body do the talking.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Darius had never been the kind of man who was easy to humiliate, but he was veering closer and closer to that place with every interaction with Stephanie. He felt as though he couldn’t do anything right—that nothing about him was right for her. He could barely hold a decent conversation, he was undereducated, and obviously not as worldly as he’d thought.

  He stood there, clutching the bottom of his shirt and watching her drum her fingertips atop the comforter.

  She is totally out of my league, and I’m supposed to make her happy somehow? It was obvious who got the short end of the stick in their relationship.

  “Tell me something,” she said. “How do you usually signal to a woman that you want to have sex with her?”

  “I…I don’t have to.”

  “They just throw themselves at you?”

  He shrugged. That probably had more to do with the sorts of places the pack lounged at when they were on the road than with Darius’s flirtation skills. Sometimes, people went to places looking for specific things, and nobody played coy about it. But, those weren’t women looking for relationships, and they certainly weren’t his wife.

  His wife. He had a wife now. He still couldn’t quite digest it.

  “I’ll tell you what I do, then. Sometimes, I’ll do something to draw a potential lover’s attention to certain body parts. My hands…” She dragged them lightly up her ribs and let them rest on her heart. “My lips.” She pushed her lips into a petulant pout that had his nuts tightening. “My chest.” She nudged down a dress strap and let her bodice sag enticingly on one side, thereby exposing the pale lace of her bra and inches of creamy skin. “Perhaps my thighs, when I’m having a good leg day.” She crossed her legs over the edge of the bed and hitched her hem up a few inches in the process. “Once a man’s looking at me, maybe I’ll tease him.”

  “How?” Stupid question. Anyone would eyes could see the effects of her teasing on him.

  “Depends on what I want.” She uncrossed her legs and spread her thighs even farther apart than they had been.

  His gaze fixed on the shadow between them, and his brain projected what he hoped to see there, though it wasn’t actually visible.

  He moved forward only to stop at the sound of her quiet laughter. “See what I mean?”

  “I’m getting the drift.”

  “Do you want to see?” She smirked and hooked an index finger under her hem.

  “Yes.” There was really no suave way to confess that, so he didn’t bother digging around in his head for the words.

  “Then come take a look. You’ve got to pay the admission fee first, though.”

  “What’s the fee?” He’d empty his wallet if it made her happy, though he didn’t think she wanted his money. She had her own.

  She shrugged and made that semi-exposed breast jiggle.

  Gods. He closed his eyes against the sight and ground his teeth. He could probably nut in his pants just from watching those tiny movements. It’d be just like age fourteen all over again, minus the bunking-with-other-young-male-wolves thing. Back then, he could cream in his sleep just from dreaming of a nubile body. He thought he’d matured past that by now, though.

  “I think it’s pretty reasonable,” she said, and leaned back onto her forearms again. “One kiss.”

  “A kiss?”

  “Mm-hmm. Too expensive for you?”

  “No, not at all.” He unstuck his heels from the floor and moved to the bedside.

  She tipped her head back and grinned at him. “I didn’t say what you had to kiss.”

  “I—” Oh. “What do I have to kiss?”

  “I won’t say. When you hit the right spot, I’ll let you know.”

  “That could take a while.”<
br />
  “I’ve got all afternoon.”

  And so did he, if she was willing to indulge him.

  He climbed onto the bed behind her and put his hands tentatively under her arms. Other than to cock up an eyebrow, she didn’t respond, so he pulled her to the center of the bed and laid her on her back.

  He rubbed his hands together as he examined her lounging form and considered the possibilities. She’d given him an invitation to touch her, and he wanted to touch every inch, but he also didn’t want her to get so bored with his fumbling that she sent him away before he’d had enough. He was skin-starved, and there was a void in him that it seemed only she could fill. He didn’t know if that was normal, but maybe she didn’t either. Maybe she wouldn’t be angry for him being so needy.

  Her lips were the obvious place to start, but he needed a little time. He nudged that precariously leaning breast out of her bra cup, bent, and pulled her nipple into her mouth before she could react.

  She gasped and thrust her chest at him. “Th-that’s not technically a kiss.”

  “Sorry.” He puckered his lips and pressed the slightest kiss against her breast. “Not it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay.” He tried the bend of her neck on both sides next, lashing his tongue along the curves and swirling the tip along the hollows where her neck joined her shoulders. He fixed his gaze on her, triumphant at the sight of her pinning her succulent bottom lip between her teeth. “There?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then let’s try—ah.” He lifted her hands and kissed the backs of both wrists and the insides of each elbow.

  She wriggled and let out a sexy little sigh.

  “Damn. Okay. How about…” He tapped his chin as he took in her body in one long gaze. So fucking beautiful. A wolf’s dream come true, right there in the middle of his king-sized bed. “Ah. I know.” He bent and kissed where her thighs touched, rolling his gaze up to her as he drew in her aroused scent. She was wet, he could already tell, and he was aching hard. He just had to see her, though, and lick her dripping slit to taste the honey she made for him. “There?”