Dirk's Love (3 page)

“
Well, being so big,” Dirk winked at Tyler, “I have a healthy appetite.”

“
I’m glad I’m not responsible for feeding you. You’d eat me out of house and home really quickly.”

“
To make sure that never happens, you’d just have to move in with me. That way, I’d be the one who’d have to feed you instead.”

“
What about me, Dirk?” Tyler chimed in. “Would you let me move in with you too?”

“
Of course I would. I’d make sure you had your own room, and I have a huge backyard you could run around in all day, if you wanted.”

“
Really?” Tyler asked excitedly. “Can my mom and I move in today?”

Ryann felt her face heat. “Tyler, Dirk was only joking. We really can’t move into his house with him. Dirk’s my boss. It’s because of him I don’t have to leave you during the day.”

Tyler’s face fell. “Oh.”

Dirk reached across the table and ruffled Tyler’s hair. “How about you come over for a visit. Would that be okay?” He then looked over at Ryann. “If that would be all right with your mom, that is.”

“
You don’t have to feel as if you have to,” she quickly said.

“
I know. I want to. Besides, there could be times where we might have to work in person. Tyler is welcome to come along.”

“
Are you sure you want a three-year-old running around your place? He can get pretty rambunctious. I’d feel bad if he ended up breaking something.”

Dirk laughed. “You don’t have to worry about that, and you’ll see why when you come for your first visit.”

“
All right, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

After finishing the last of his rolls, Dirk asked, “How does sometime in the afternoon sound, for me to come over tomorrow? I’ll give you a call when I’m on my way.”

“
That’ll be fine. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“
Yes. Don’t worry about the bill. I’ll take care of it on my way out.”

“
Okay.” Ryann slid out of the booth and took hold of Tyler’s hand after he stood beside her. “Thanks for lunch. I’m glad we could finally meet face-to-face.”

“
You’re welcome. And same here.”

Not able to think of something else to add, Ryann turned Tyler toward the restaurant’s entrance and walked away. As she pulled open the glass door, she commended herself for not turning around and looking at Dirk one last time. Even though he’d given her a couple of toe-curling looks, that didn’t mean anything. As gorgeous as he was, Dirk didn’t need a divorced woman who came with a child.

* * *

Dirk waited until Ryann and Tyler walked out of the door before he signaled one of the waitresses to bring him the check. He slightly relaxed the hold he had over himself. He thought he’d done a great job of acting as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening while he’d sat across from Ryann. But on the inside, that had been the furthest thing from the truth.

His mating urge rode his ass, hard. The whole time he’d been with Ryann, her scent had filled his head. But what ramped it up even more was when he’d caught the perfumed smell of her arousal a few times. He was glad they’d been seated with a table between them. He swore he spent the entire meal with a hard-on, one that was just slowly starting to go down. Not that his cock would behave, now that Ryann had left. Until he claimed her as his mate, he had to look forward to walking around with an erection, or at least being semi-hard.

He took a deep breath. He already missed Ryann. When he’d at first thought she was married, he’d felt as if the fates were playing a cruel trick on him. She couldn’t belong to another man and be his. And with a child involved, there was no way in hell Dirk would’ve tried to come between Ryann and her husband. Regardless of how badly it would affect him.

But when she’d said she was divorced, a sense of relief had surged through Dirk. There wouldn’t be any other man standing between Ryann and him. His would-be mate already having a child didn’t bother him in the least. He loved kids. That he’d have an instant family once he became mated to Ryann was fine with him.

After leaving enough money to cover the bill and tip, Dirk left the restaurant. Once in his car, he headed in the direction of Marin County. There wasn’t much point in returning to Roxie and Beowulf’s place. He wasn’t on duty to watch over Roxie today. She’d actually forced him to take a few days off, since he’d spent more time over at her place working on his online dating service than doing anything else.

Arriving at the Protectors’ mansion, Dirk parked his car in the large detached garage before going inside. Standing in the foyer, he heard voices coming from the living room. And from the fresh scents in the air, he knew Leif and Jaden were home, and Jaden’s father, Miles, was around as well.

Dirk stepped into the living room and found all three of them there. Leif and Miles were laughing at something, but quickly stopped when he walked into the room. Jaden sat on the couch next to her mate, taking turns scowling at the men. He had the sneaky suspicion the two males had been laughing about something to do with him.

His thoughts were confirmed when Miles said with a grin, “Jaden and Leif were just telling me about your latest…endeavor. Did you get bored with your online trading before deciding to do something so…so different?”

Dirk stared at the other man and scowled a bit. He still wasn’t used to the idea of Miles being in his home whenever the man felt like it. As Saskia’s true brother, Miles had been a Protector at one time. Then he’d gone to the dark side, wanting to find the foretold one himself, and then use whomever it was as a figurehead so he could rule over the werewolf packs. They’d considered Miles the enemy for a very long time. Now that Miles thought Jaden was that foretold one—knowing nothing about Roxie—he seemed to have turned over a new leaf. He also wanted to take on some of the duties of protecting his daughter. If Miles were to ever find out Jaden was only posing as the one they were to watch over, Dirk had a feeling it would all end very badly.

“
I figured my service would be something a lot of male werewolves would find useful,” Dirk said. He wasn’t about to give more of an explanation than that, especially when Leif and Miles started to laugh again.

“
Enough, the both of you,” Jaden said over their laughter. “You’re acting like two teenage boys, instead of men who’ve lived to see a thousand years. I think Dirk had a great idea when he came up with this. He hopes he’ll be able to find his mate through it.” She looked directly at Miles. “And, Dad, I think you should be signing up to use it as well.”

Miles stopped laughing and gave Jaden a shocked look. “What? You can’t be serious.”

This made Leif laugh even harder. “Miles, you should see your face,” he said between gales of laughter. “It’s priceless.”

Both Miles and Jaden ignored Leif. Jaden sighed and rolled her eyes before she said, “Yes, I’m serious, Dad. We both know Mom was never your mate. You loved her, yes, but you never had the mate bond with her. That means there’s a woman somewhere out there who’s meant for you. I’d like to see my father happily mated as I am. You’ve been alone for too long.”

Miles looked even more shell-shocked. “You want me to go on the internet to find my mate?”

All this mate talk played havoc with Dirk’s nerves. He was already having a hard time being apart from Ryann, knowing what she was to him. Having to wait twenty-four hours to see her again was going to be damn tough to go through. Though he had to admit, Miles’ reaction to Jaden telling him she wanted him to sign up for Mate Connection was humorous. Dirk decided to keep his mouth shut about it, figuring it would only set Leif off again.

“
What’s wrong with that?” Jaden asked. “You’d be surprised how many people meet their future husbands and wives that way.” She looked at Dirk. “You’d have no problem signing my dad up, would you, Dirk? That way, both of you can hopefully find mates.”

“
Sure,” he said. “If he’d be willing to fill out the questionnaire. And I won’t force him to do that.”

“
Then I choose not to,” Miles interjected. “I’d rather do it the old-fashioned way by letting it happen all on its own.”

Jaden shook her head. “So you’d be willing to wait years, maybe hundreds of them, to find her? Well, I think that’s stupid when Dirk’s service could help even the odds in your favor.”

“
Still not interested.”

“
But what if it works?”

“
Then you’d have to prove it to me.” Miles looked at Dirk. “If he finds his mate through his online dating service, I’ll sign up the very next day.”

“
You’re on, Dad,” Jaden quickly said.

Dirk knew he couldn’t
not
say something. “Ah, Jaden, I’d hold off on that, if I were you.”

“
Why? Please don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind about finding your mate that way.”

“
It’s not like that.” He paused. Just thinking about Ryann was ramping him up again, making his mating urge dig its claws harder into him. “Well, you see, I’ve already found her.”

“
What? You did? When? Who is she? Is she from your site?” Jaden barraged him with questions as she got off the couch to stand in front of him, wearing a wide smile.

He chuckled. “Slow down. One question at a time. First of all, she isn’t one of the women who signed up for the service, though she’s connected with it. It’s Ryann, the woman I hired to assist me with running it.”

Jaden scowled. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you’ve walked around this entire time in the throes of the mating urge and no one noticed? You hired Ryann a couple of weeks ago, at least, that’s what you said.”

“
No, it hasn’t been like that. And yes, it was that long ago that I first “met” Ryann.” Dirk made air quotes. “But remember, I didn’t meet her face-to-face until this afternoon when we had lunch together.”

“
I guess I’m off the hook then,” Miles said with a smile.

Jaden sighed. “Darn. It’s too bad Ryann never filled out a questionnaire. Then, we could’ve at least compared it to the one you did, Dirk, to see if the outcome would’ve been the two of you being a good match.”

“
Actually, she did,” Dirk said.

“
She did?”

“
I wanted someone to test the site as if they were someone signing up. Since I hadn’t told any of you about the service, I asked Ryann to do it. Once she did, I only looked it over to make sure everything had worked.”

“
Let’s go look at it then,” Jaden said excitedly.

“
We’d have to go upstairs to my room to use my computer.”

Jaden hooked her arm through his. “That’s fine.” She looked back over her shoulder. “Come on, Dad and Leif. And no backing out now, Dad.”

Leif stood, then came over and tugged Jaden away from Dirk, tucking her under his arm. Miles also gained his feet before he followed them out of the room. Dirk heard him mutter under his breath, asking what he’d gotten himself into.

Upstairs in his room, Dirk walked over to the desk he’d set up in the corner and sat behind it. He moved the mouse to turn off the screensaver, then launched his browser. It only took him a few clicks to get into Mate Connection and his profile. He clicked on the link that would take him to his possible matches. Since he really hadn’t gotten the service out to the public yet, seeing Ryann listed hadn’t made him think anything of it. He thought it was a glitch he’d have to work out, that the program had put her there because she was the only female who’d signed up.

Dirk clicked on Ryann’s name and was instantly brought to her profile. There wasn’t a picture of her, since he’d told her not to worry about it. He’d been more concerned about whether the info she filled out in the questionnaire had worked. He’d also ignored the bottom of the page on both of their profiles, where it gave a percentage of how compatible she’d be with him. He went back to his to look. It read ninety-nine point nine.

He pointed to the number on the screen. “Holy shit, it worked.” Dirk had it programmed so it would, but there’d been a small part of him that’d thought it wouldn’t be that accurate.

“
There you go,” Jaden said behind him as she leaned over his shoulder for a closer look at the screen. Once she straightened, she turned to face her father. “No point in waiting, Dad. Dirk already has the website open, so you might as well take his seat and fill out the form.”

Dirk spun his steno chair around and stood. He gestured for Miles to take his spot. Miles did not look at all happy about being forced into signing up. Even though this man had been an asshole for hundreds of years, Dirk couldn’t help feeling a smidge sorry for him.

“
Look, Miles, if you really don’t want to do this, then don’t. There’s no point, if you aren’t willing to go through the whole process,” he said.

Miles shook his head. “No, it’s fine. If this is what Jaden wants, I’ll do it.” He smiled. “She may be my daughter, but she’s still the foretold one, after all. I have to do what she wants, since she rules and all that.”

Dirk, Leif and Jaden laughed quietly. Dirk knew what was going through the others’ minds, the same as it was through his—that Jaden didn’t rule.

Miles slowly sat on the chair and sighed as he turned to face the computer.

Leif laughed, and said, “It’s not as if you’re a dead man walking, Miles. Who knows, maybe you won’t find anyone this way either.”