Deadly Crush (Deadly Trilogy, Book 1) (28 page)

~ AIDAN ~

I followed the
scent of almonds and fruit punch and mouthwatering power around the large log
house and into the backyard.
 
The air was
brisk, but I didn’t mind it.
 
It was
refreshing, and helped alleviate some of the nervous sweat that beaded along my
forehead.
 
I jammed my hands in my front
pockets and kept my head down, as I made my way across the grass to where she
lay, staring up at the sky.

I hadn’t seen Jade in two days.
 
She needed space, and I’d been determined to
give her that, but two days … it felt more like a year.
 
She wouldn’t even accept my phone calls.
 
Text messages were all I got, and they were
only status updates on the progress of tracking the cougars.

I pulled in another deep breath and my
heart thudded wildly in my chest.
 
I
hadn’t been sure what to expect, but I had figured her scent would have changed
by now.
 
From what Beck had relayed back
to me, Jared had moved in, or maybe not officially moved in, but he hadn’t gone
home since she claimed alpha status.
 
But
her scent was the same, unclaimed and perfect.

I stopped a few feet away, watching her for
a moment.
 
Her dark hair covered the
grass like a fan around her head, and her chest rose and fell rapidly as she
pulled in deep breaths.
 
She knew I was
there, she was breathing me in, and it killed me that she forced herself to
pretend I wasn’t.

You
did this and you deserve it.
 
I knew it was true.
 
I’d
driven her away.
 
I’d caused this, but it
didn’t change how much I still wanted her.
 
She was my mate, or should be.
 
My
perfect match in every way, and I’d ruined it.

Her muscles had toned up.
 
The black yoga pants that clung to her hips
and thighs revealed the firm skin underneath.
 
She had the sleeves of her plum hoodie pushed up to her elbows, showing
the tight and lean muscles of her forearms.
 
She was breathtaking.
 
The most
beautiful creature I had ever laid eyes on.

The wind picked up, bringing her scent
right to me, and my skin heated and tingled.
 
I drank it in, savoring every breath.
 
My inner-wolf scrambled in my stomach, begging me to move closer.
 
It wanted her just as much as I did, and it
was torture staying away.
 
I pulled in
another deep, calming breath and closed the last few feet between us, lying
down beside her in the cool grass.

“That one looks like an ice-cream
cone.”
 
I pointed up to the sky, letting
my finger trail along the sharpened point of the cloudy cone, and the rounded
top.

“Go away,” she said, tensing but not moving
from her place beside me.
 
I probably
should have just gotten up and left her alone, but I decided to take her not
moving as an invitation to stay.

“I used to spend hours watching the
clouds,” I said.
 
“Always found it
calming.”
 
I pointed up to a thick gray
cloud that looked like a ball of dirty fluff more than anything and said,
“Cheeseburger.”

She sighed, a deep-bellied sigh.
 
“What do you want, Aidan?”
 
She sounded … tired.
 
But I figured she probably was.
 
From her short text messages, I knew she’d
been training with Jared a lot, learning how to fight and use her scent as an
advantage.

“That one’s spaghetti and meatballs.
 
And that one there, it looks like a loaf of
bread,” I said, ignoring her question, not because I didn’t want to answer, but
because I didn’t know how to.

“They all look like food?” she asked with a
laugh.
 
It was a musical sound, and it
made my heart leap and my inner-wolf stir in my chest.
 
My breath caught, and I swallowed hard.

“It’s subliminal messaging,” I said.
 
My voice hitched, and I cleared my
throat.
 
“I figure if they all look like
food, you’ll get hungry and won’t be able to say no when I ask you to come with
me for dinner.”

She was quiet for a long moment, and I
tilted my head to look at her.
 
Her
typically soft features were tense, her jaw tight and clenched.
 
“Not happening,” she finally said.

I’d expected the rejection, but even
knowing it would happen, it didn’t hurt any less.
 
“Is Jared really living here?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice was a bit airy
as she let her pent-up breath out with the word.

I rolled onto my side, resting up on my
elbow, and I traced the twitching line of her jaw.
 
She glanced at me, her eyes shimmering with
tears, and she leaned into my hand.
 
“You
deserve better than him, Jade.”

“Aidan, don’t do this,” she whispered, as
she rubbed her cheek against my palm.

Her
inner-wolf was craving me
, I thought, surprised
that she was rubbing against me.
 
It gave
me a small ounce of hope, but there was also a pleading note to her voice that
crushed my heart all at once.

“Hey, little girl, you ready?” Jared said,
and she jumped away from my touch.

Jade flushed bright red.
 
“Just give me a sec,” she said, looking up at
Jared with what could only be guilt.
 
She
sat up, glancing back at the house, and then quickly locked her eyes on
him.
 
She smiled the kind of bright
sunshine smile she used to give me.

“Sure, kitten,” Jared said in a husky
voice.
 
He crouched down in front of
her.
 
His hand snaked out, wrapping
around the back of her neck, and he pulled her into him.
 
And she let him.
 
She even looked … happy about it …
eager.
 
I wanted to look away, but I
couldn’t, and I watched as he crushed his lips against hers.
 
It was a possessive kind of kiss, one that
made my blood boil, and adrenaline rush through my veins.
 
There was nothing sensual about it.
 
But then, I was sure it wasn’t meant to
be.
 
Jared was marking his territory,
attempting to give me a clear sign that she was no longer on the market, and it
took every ounce of willpower I had, to not pull him off her and snap his neck.

He broke the kiss as abruptly as he started
it, and stood back up.
 
His eyes flared
as they settled on her, and then he smirked at me.
 
I fought the urge to growl, and let my scent
loose on him.
 
I wanted to see him
crumble at my feet, and inflict as much pain on him as I could.
 
Jared chuckled and gave me a knowing kind of
look, as if he knew exactly what I wanted to do before he glanced back at
Jade.
 
“Don’t be long,” he said, and then
he turned and walked away.

Jade watched him walk with a soft smile on
her face, and that smile hurt more than watching the kiss.
 
It was … contentment.
 
She looked happy.
 
I should have been okay with that.
 
She deserved happy after what I put her
through, but I figured I wasn’t that good of a person, because the last thing I
felt was okay with it.

“Jade?” I said, pulling her attention away
from Jared’s backside.

She looked at me, and her smile disappeared
almost instantly.
 
“Yeah?”

“Would you have fought?” I asked.
 
I dreaded the answer.
 
I wasn’t really sure if I could handle it,
but I had to know.
 
“Did I ever have a
chance?”
 
Do I still have a chance to make this right?
I wondered, unable to
voice the last question.

She smiled a little.
 
“Yeah, I think I would have.”
 
She rolled up to her feet then and glanced at
Jared leaning against a tree at the edge of the forest.
 
“I’ve got to go.”

“Jade,” I called, a little desperately, as
she started to walk away.
 
This wasn’t
going as I had hoped, although I had to admit, it was better than I
expected.
 
She turned back; her face was
blank — emotionless — as she waited to hear what I had to say.
 
“I know it doesn’t mean much, but I’m really
sorry.”

“I know, Aidan,” she said with a smile that
didn’t even come close to reaching her eyes, and then she turned away from
me.
 
She took a few steps, and then
glanced over her shoulder.
 
“My dad
called this morning.
 
He’ll be home in
two days.”

~ JADE ~

Jared watched me
cross the backyard and it took everything I had not to lash out at him.
 
What the hell did he think he was doing
kissing me like that?
 
Or better yet, kissing
me at all?
 
It was degrading, and overly
wrong.
 
What was it with these stupid
dogs that made them feel the need to treat everything like a possession?
 
I’d be damned if I was going to be part of a
pissing contest between the two of them.

Sure, my mom had been watching from the
window, but a smile or a peck on the cheek would have been more than enough to
keep her thinking we were together.
 
The
fact that he’d been sleeping in my room (on the floor) for the last two days
was more than enough as it was.

I could feel Aidan watching me and his eyes
trailing along my back was the only thing that kept me from attacking
Jared.
 
I desperately wanted to turn back
and tell Aidan that none of this was what it looked like.
 
I wanted to beg him to believe that it was
all an act for my mother’s benefit and tell him it was all part of the plan to
deal with my father.
 
But I
couldn’t.
 
No matter how much I wanted to
fall into his arms, and tell him everything, I couldn’t.
 
Not yet.
 
He had to believe the act as much as everyone else did.
 
It was the only way we’d be able to beat my
dad at his own game.
 
The less people
that knew, the less likely my dad would be to pick up on it.
 
As he said in the video, I was Aidan’s
weakness, and I was beginning to believe it.
 
Right now, Aidan needed to be strong, and when he was near me, he
wasn’t.
 
When he was with me, he was lost
and confused and hopeful, focusing on fixing us instead of dealing with my dad
and the cougars.
 
And right now, I needed
him to be strong.
 
But not just me, the
pack needed him to be strong.

Seeing him again was harder than I thought
it would be.
 
I had trained with Jared
every waking minute for the last two days, just to avoid him.
 
My body ached everywhere, and I was
exhausted, but having Aidan lying beside me for those few minutes, gave me more
energy than I knew what to do with.
 
My
body was alive, my skin sparking, and my inner-wolf did summersaults in my
stomach, begging me to go back to him.

I stopped in front of Jared, and glared at
him fiercely with my hands on my hips.
 
He chuckled, and reached out a hand, caressing my face.
 
“You okay?” he asked, and then dropped his
voice to a whisper, “We still have an audience.”

“Nope, not really,” I said through gritted
teeth, but I forced myself to lean into his touch.
 
The hardest part about letting Jared touch me
was the simple fact that my inner-wolf responded to him just as much as it
responded to Aidan.

It was a different feeling with Jared,
though.
 
Wilder.
 
Reckless.
 
It made my heart thump, and my body come alive in an entirely different
way, and I hated it.
 
I despised how he
made me feel.
 
I loathed the way he spoke
to me.
 
And it made me sick that at times
I wondered what it would be like to just let myself go, and become his
mate.
 
The thing that stopped me, though,
was the lack of birds in my belly.
 
Jared
only spoke to my inner-wolf, but Aidan … Aidan spoke to my human heart as
well.
 
He made me feel … alive.
 
Alive in a complete and utterly perfect kind
of way.

He chuckled.
 
It was infuriating, and I bit back a slew of
nasty words I wanted to spit at him.
 
“Wow, I never thought I’d see the day that a werewolf would make your
heart go thumpaty-thump.”