Confessions of a Werewolf Supermodel (15 page)

I keep hearing Dog Breath's distorted voice in my head. What did he mean when he said he wanted more time, time for me to see what it's like when it all slips away? My career? If he's the trigger for me, and he knows it, I can see where he could easily ruin my modeling career … my whole life. I hope I killed him.

A couple approaching from ahead brings me from my thoughts. They're arm in arm, cuddled together, laughing. I figure they've had a late night of partying somewhere. He kisses her and they both laugh again. It's very sweet and I experience a pang of envy. I wish I were simply out walking with my boyfriend. I wish I even had a boyfriend.

The guy glances up, spots me a few feet ahead, and skids to a halt. The girl stumbles but he quickly pulls her behind him. I stop. His bravery lasts only a second before he takes the girl's hand and they run for the other side of the street.

“Oh, my God, what is that?” I hear the girl say frantically as they race away.

For a moment, I am transported back to Haven High School. I am a dorky sophomore. Sometimes the more popular girls press themselves against the lockers when I pass like I have something catching. They laugh and everyone laughs with them. On days like that, I would walk home from school crying. Even Cindy couldn't cheer me up.

My eyes sting now. I blink back tears. Dog Breath has managed to transport me back to a time when I felt like more of a monster than I do at this moment. It's not even a nice place to visit and I damn sure don't want to live there again. I try to take comfort in the thought that I may have killed Dog Breath and now all this werewolf business with me is going to stop. I try, I don't say I succeed.

Once I reach my apartment building, I have a new problem. How am I going to get past the night doorman without sending him running for his life? I look at my hands. The claws have retracted. I run my tongue over my teeth. The fangs are gone. I touch my face. Uh-oh. I still have a beard. I rub the fur and, surprisingly, it comes off in my hands. What the hell is this? I keep rubbing and it keeps falling off.

I rub until my face feels smooth again. The fur might still be on my body, but having it off my face will at least allow me inside and up to my apartment. Luckily my jogging suit has a hood and I pull it up, walk to the door, and go inside. The night doorman stands with Terry Shay. Both glance up. Terry has a phone stuck in his ear. His face drains of color when he sees me.

“Lou,” he breathes. “Thank God you're okay.” He says into the phone, “I've got her. You can stop looking.”

He hangs up and walks toward me. Now his face flushes with color. I swear I see steam coming out of his ears. “Where have you been? I was going crazy trying to find you. I've got guys out trolling the streets. Searching the park, the surrounding area. Why the hell did you take off after him?”

“I'm okay,” I say.

His face darkens a shade and he sticks a long finger in my face. “What were you thinking, Lou? Chasing him? If you hadn't been in the way I could have dropped him! You're lucky to be alive!”

Behind us, the night doorman's eyes are wide. He hangs on our every word. “Let's go upstairs, Terry,” I suggest. “My feet hurt and I need a shower.”

I walk to the elevator, push the button, and assume Shay is coming along for the ride. The doors open, I step inside, and Terry slides in beside me.

“I'm very pissed at you right now,” he informs me. “I was beginning to think you not only had beauty, you had brains to go along with it, but now I have to reconsider.”

I'm too exhausted at the moment to let his temper spark my own. “I had hairspray. I thought I could take him.” Which reminds me. “Hey, did you find my beauty bag?”

When I look at him, Terry's eyes are as cold as my ass was the day I met him on the roof. “Yes, I found the damn thing. I put it my car. It weighs more than you do.”

“I want it back,” I assure him. “Don't want you borrowing my beauty products.”

This fails to get even a hint of a smile from him. He has no sense of humor. Mine's a little on the weak side tonight, as well. The elevator opens and we step into the hallway leading to my apartment. That's when I remember that my keys are in my beauty bag. I can't recall if in my haste to leave, I even locked my door. I try the knob when we reach my apartment and the door swings open. Cindy's asleep on my couch, the television blaring.
Court TV
. I should have known.

“Don't wake her,” I whisper to Terry. I'll deal with Cindy after I deal with Terry. I motion for him to follow me into the kitchen. He's in my face in a heartbeat, although he keeps his voice low. “This creep who broke out my car window and you chased after with hairspray, did you get a good look at him?”

Should I tell him the truth? Jack Nicholson's voice screams in my head, “You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!” I figure I should listen to Jack. “No, he was wearing the mask. I did manage to set him on fire, though.” I drop that little bomb while fixing us both herbal tea.

“You did what?”

“Shsss,” I warn him, nodding toward the living room where I'd like Sleeping Beauty to remain in a coma. “He came at me in an alley. I had the hairspray and a match and I set his face on fire, or rather, his mask. He ran away.”

Terry's mouth drops open. “You actually confronted this guy? A killer? One I suspect is really after you?”

Popping a mug into the microwave, I shrug. “I think I was in some kind of shock. Normally, I'd have been too scared to do anything like that. Maybe you should have the hospitals checked for anyone coming in with burns to the face or head for the next couple of days.”

Shay is right behind me when I turn around. “Chasing bad guys is my job. I've been trained to take care of myself. You had no business doing what you did tonight. Swear to me you're never going to do anything that stupid again.”

That's a tall order. Instead of swearing anything I take the cup out of the microwave, dunk a teabag in the water, and shove it in Terry's hands. “I need a shower. Enjoy your tea.”

*   *   *

After undressing to find my clothes fur lined, I take a hot shower, hide the hairy clothes in a hamper, brush my teeth, and put on my old terry-cloth robe. I have nicer robes, but this is my comfort wear. I'm surprised to find Terry sitting on my bed, my phone in his ear.

“Yeah, I want all reports from the local hospitals of any men coming in with head or facial burns. That's from tonight for the next month.”

While showering, I thought about Dog Breath and those burns. If I didn't kill him, and if he's like me, he'll heal at a fast rate. He won't need a doctor. Dammit.

“Sorry, your friend woke and I asked if I could borrow a phone. My cell is dead. She told me to use the one in here.”

Cindy sending Shay to my bedroom is probably another unconscious effort on her part to hook me up with some good sex. Terry looks like the kind of guy who can deliver. He's also pissed at me so I'm thinking he might not be in a delivering mood. “Speaking of Cindy, I'd better check on her.”

“She left,” Shay says. “Said three's a crowd and she'd talk to you later. I wanted to make sure you're all right before I go. And to rake you over the coals a little more about putting yourself in danger.”

Surprisingly, I'm not nearly as upset about being pulled from a broken window by a murdering werewolf as I am about the couples' reaction to me on the street. It brought back all my old insecurities about myself. I need to feel pretty.

“What I did tonight was stupid,” I admit.

“You got that right,” he assures me. “You took ten years off my life, Kinipski.” Terry rubs the back of his neck and sighs. “It's not supposed to be personal for me. I don't think straight when it gets too personal.”

I move forward and allow myself the indulgence of running my hands through his hair. It's soft and thick. “You like me,” I tease him.

“I don't like you at the moment,” he says, but his big blues soften on me and I know his anger has cooled. “But okay, yeah, I like you a little. You're different than I thought you'd be when I first saw you. You're a bit of a geek, Kinipski. For some reason, that appeals to me.”

“So my looks don't matter?” I want confirmation of this. If they don't, one way or the other, he's the first man I've ever met who had that opinion.

Terry shrugs. “I'm not saying the package isn't nice. I'm just saying there's more to the package than most people probably realize.”

He's spot-on about that. He's also about to get his bones jumped. I need to feel like a woman tonight. Desirable in every way. I'm glad I didn't promise him earlier that I'd never do anything stupid again, because I'm getting ready to. I untie my robe and let it fall open.

“You wanted to make sure I'm okay before you leave. Do I look okay?”

Terry is probably a hard person to shock. He's a New York detective and I imagine he's seen more in his thirty or so years of living than most people see in a lifetime. His gaze widens, but only slightly. He takes a good long look before his eyes lift to meet mine.

“You look fine, Lou. More than fine.”

This is the validation I need. Terry knows I'm not perfect. He knows I have faults. And he wants me anyway. I see that he does by the way he looks at me. He stands, steps forward, and pulls me into his arms. When he kisses me, I taste the peppermint tea I fixed him earlier.

He slides his hands inside my robe and splays them across my back to pull me closer. Then he groans and steps away. “I don't have anything with me,” he says.

I lift a brow. “What? Terry Shay unprepared for any emergency?” Tsking as I walk past him, I move to my nightstand, switch off the baby monitor, open a drawer, and remove a couple of condom packages. I'm obsessive about birth control. I won't take any chances when it comes to passing my screwed-up DNA along to some poor kid. “Lucky for you, Shay, I'm prepared.”

He gives me that lopsided half-smile that gets my juices flowing. “No. Lucky for you, Kinipski.”

Once the armor has been supplied, the troops get moving. Terry grabs me and pulls me down upon the bed with him. He rolls on top of me, staring down. Then slowly, he bends to kiss me. The kiss starts out soft and heats up in a hurry. I tug at Terry's shirt. I hear it rip. He laughs and pulls the shirt off over his head, tossing it across the bed. I'm afraid to go for his pants. He rolls away, stands up and unbuttons his jeans, slips off his shoes and socks, unzips and shimmies out of his pants. He has a nice package, too. Really nice.

I shrug out of my robe and he's next to me on the bed. He touches me, I touch him. His abs are as hard as I remember. He's hard everywhere. Like I said, very impressive. Together, we get the armor on. I don't know if the werewolf factor plays into my responses, but Terry's touch, his kiss, drive me wild.

He eases me down to the mattress. When he slides on top of me sparks fly from the contact of skin against skin. Something beastly takes over and I switch our positions. He looks surprised I got the drop on him. Sliding down his body, I bend and nip at his nipples. He has very little hair on his chest. Earlier, I had a lot more, but I'm not going to brag.

Terry pushes me up. His hands close over my breasts, kneading gently. That starts a fire deep inside of me. He leans up and teases my nipples with his tongue. My female part presses against his male part and he groans softly. I'm wet and ready. Angling my hips, I bring him inside of me. We both gasp, then I bend and kiss him.

His hips arch upward, deep. I move against him, our kisses shorter, wetter, more breathless as we move with the rhythm of sex. Terry takes my hips between his hands and tries to slow me. I'm not in the mood to be suppressed. I grab his hands and lift them over his head, pinning them there against the pillows. Then I have my way with him. This way, that way, every way.

I'm sweating when the first tremors of climax take me. This is my first one with an actual man. Bob, the battery-operated boyfriend in my panty drawer, knows how to please me in bed, but mortal men have always fallen short. I'm completely blown away. Terry picks up the pace as I spasm around him, driving deeper until I feel him shudder. That shudder pushes me over the edge. I'm not sure, but I might have howled before I collapse on top of him. He grunts, like I've knocked the breath from him.

I lie there like a rag doll, listening to the wild hammering of Terry's heart. Finally, a man who knows his way around the bedroom. But then I realize I have never been so uninhibited with a man before. I guess Cindy is right. It's different with someone I actually have a relationship with … not that I'm sure what exactly my relationship is with Shay.

“That was something,” he says.

“Hmm,” I respond, nestling closer to him. My elbow pokes him in the ribs and he grunts again. He'd better toughen up. We only have about two hours until morning … and I'm going to take advantage of every minute of it.

CONFESSION NO. 13

There's one way that I realize I am perfectly normal. Even beautiful girls sometimes wake up to a note on their pillow.

Somewhere in the far recesses of my exhausted mind I hear the phone ring. I think it has rung more than once. I'm too tired to answer it. Maybe it's because I ran five blocks last night in superspeed mode. Maybe because I was dragged through a broken window, then I chased down a murderer and set him on fire. Maybe it's because then I had to walk my hairy self home afterward. But more probably, it's because of the mind-blowing sex I had with Terry Shay. Three times!

I smile and turn to the other side of the bed, hoping he's awake and ready to go again. He's neither of those things. He's gone. I sit up and listen to see if he's still in the apartment, maybe in the bathroom or in the kitchen making me breakfast. The place is as quiet as a cemetery. My beauty bag sits on the bottom of the bed. There's a note attached. I crawl forward and snatch the note.